My path to Mastery

Jace stood there for a moment pondering his predicament. Here he was on his way to get some junkfood after a particularly tiresome day. He walked through the dark alley shortcut as he always did and turned the corner when snap. Just like that he found himself in the middle of a forest. Not even a regional one, He knew those like the back of his hand. He enjoyed his jogs through nature after all.

No this particular forest was off, the trees larger, the leaves slightly off colour. Even the smell just felt off. That was when he spotted one of the birds, a songbird larger than any he had ever heard of. That's when it hit him, he definitely wasn't in kansas no more. He liked to read books and kept an eye on recent trends, these dropped into a new world fictions were a favourite of his. He had to admit he was a bit disappointed that he didn't get a boosted start or some fancy ability to over-power his way through this new life.

But aah well, that would have made it boring. He started a light jog, making his way through the forest. He could keep a slow jog up for hours, he kept himself fit by running a half marathon every day. twenty kilometers in an hour, sometimes a little faster sometimes a little slower but always the same twenty kilometers.

He heard the sound of a river and headed over, this was something he was familiar with. He'd spent two years of his life in the scout division. Logic told him that following the flow downriver would give him the most chance of encountering civilisation. So that is what he did. He kept up his jog through the forest, occasionally hearing an animal's screech or a howl that sounded unfamiliar.

To his surprise the run was uneventful, in stories the protagonist almost always gets attacked somewhere early on. A wolf maybe, or a few goblins. The ones with sucky luck ran into a dragon or something. Although they always got something fancy from it so maybe they weren't that unlucky after all.

Soon enough He saw a palisade in the distance, judging by the circumference he estimated that it was a small village, couple hundred inhabitants at most. He knocked on a tree, a knock on wood for goodluck. He hoped his starter village wasn't hostile.

As he closed in on the village he was spotted by the guard in the watchtower who shouted something down into the village. He was too far away to clearly hear what was said so he had no idea if he knew the language. Soon enough he saw the gate open and a couple of guards jogged out in light leather armour. They hadn't drawn their weapons and did not seem particularly hostile, he did see a man in robes with a bandolier slung across his chest. He had a satchel on his hip as well, a healer of sorts if he were to guess.

Jace was touched, if he were a betting man he'd say they were worried he was injured. The man in the lead shouted something, Jace couldn't understand him. A shame, he'd learned six languages in his twenty-five years. He liked picking up languages in between things. It kept his brain working and it never hurt to learn new stuff. But what they spoke was neither English nor German. Neither was it Chinese, Japanese, Russian or Arabic. He was also pretty sure it wasn't Spanish since that was the language he had been working on at home.

Well nothing to be done about that, Jace told them he didn't understand them in english. Just to get the foreign words out to them so they knew he had no idea what they were saying. The leading man blinked in surprise but they remained friendly. A lucky thing for him , he pointed to his body and gave the healer a thumbs up to let him know he was fine. They seemed to get the message and slowed down.

Funny how some parts of body language are nearly universal. Although facial expression are probably a big part of that. The lead guard pointed to him and motioned him to follow. They lead him back to the village and he swept his gaze over the buildings. Nearly all of them were made of wood, planks, not full logs. He could see from the equipment of the guards and the build of the houses that they were somewhat decently advanced. Still he would put their technology level at the medieval or the roman era.

Downside of that meant that nearly all of his weapon training was now useless. The knife he wasn't that well versed in although he could still use his expertise in hand to hand combat. He slowed his jog down and that is when he froze.

[Endurance has increased by one due to continued exercise]

Well snap, He was so surprised by the message that he'd stopped jogging for a second. The guards paused and lifted a questioning eyebrow. He shook off his surprise and picked the jog back up. They headed to the biggest building placed unimaginatively in the center of the village.

Jace entered after one of the guards waved him in,He was guided to a table and asked to sit down. On the other end of the table sat an elderly lady, her hair in a long grey braid. She seemed fit for her age, her muscles well defined and a few barely visible scars decorated her tanned arms. She said something, Jace shook his head pointed to her mouth and shrugged. She nodded and scratched at her chin.

She started making various gestures, not all of which he got, he would respond with a few of his own and after some time they could somewhat understand each other. Nowhere near enough to hold a proper conversation of course, but it was a start. She asked him where he came from and he gestured with a wave off into the distance and stretched his arms as far as they would go. It got the point across.

Jace was pretty sure the next question was how he had gotten here, he couldn't really make out most of the gestures for this part but he figured it was a pretty good guess based on her previous question. He made a gesture of himself walking and then did a poof with his hands and pointed to forest. Then made a surprised expression to show her he had no idea how he'd actually gotten in the forest.

This got the woman to frown but she nodded, she motioned to one of the guards and the man left. Only to return later with a middle-aged lady and a meal for both him and the elder. He nodded and smiled to the woman in appreciation, to which she dipped her head.

Jace took a bite of the food and gasped,He stared at the food with wide eyes. This was impossibly delicious. When the middle-aged woman looked at him with her eyebrows raised, He pointed at the dishes and made his feelings for them apparent with a lot of wild flailing and thumbs up. He dove into the dishes ravenously and the food vanished from the table in a flash. The woman had a small pleased smile on her face and gave him a small nod before she left the room.

The elder grinned at him as she calmly ate her food. Jace had already had his fill so he patiently waited for her to finish. The elder ate a steady pace and a couple of minutes later they were back to their sign guessing game, that had a name back home. Was it called charades? He wasn't sure… It didn't matter, more to the point the elder was asking if he needed a place to sleep for the night Jace made it clear that it would be very much appreciated.

She asked him a few more questions, for instance what he did back home. This particular question was a true pain for him to understand, only after she took him for a small walk outside and pointed out various people and their jobs and then gestured to him with a raised eyebrow did he understand what she was asking for. He pointed to one of the guards and made a shake with his hand indicating that he did something kinda like they did.

She must have understood what he meant because next thing he knew he was standing outside a wooden dirt ring, a small combat practice arena. He glanced at her then shrugged and entered the ring. She motioned him back out and brought him to a wooden building, he glanced around and saw that it was an armoury. Not a very big one, there were only a few sets of weapons and armour present. To be honest he was surprised they had an armoury at all for such a small village.

She brought him to a stand for wooden weapons and gestured at him to take one. He picked up various weapons and gave them an awkward swing. He smirked, he had absolutely no experience with a sword, or spear or whatever this thing was. He picked it up and glared at it. What WAS this, he had never even heard of such a thing. It was a glove with the blade attached, not just a glove but an armored monstrosity that covered even the shoulder.

This thing could not be easy to use, He put it down and noticed a dagger on the edge of the stand. He grabbed it and shrugged, at least he was familiar with a knife. He turned around and looked at the elder. She glanced at the dagger and frowned, then shrugged and headed back to the arena.

The elder easily leaped the chest high fence and jumped into the arena. He stared at her with a dropped jaw and clambered into the arena across from her. He grabbed his knife in a reverse grip and held out one open hand towards her, He lowered his stance and waited for her to make a move. She muttered something in an appreciating tone as she eyed his stance. Then she raised her fists and settled into her own stance. He blinked only now noticing that the elder was unarmed.

Regardless, Jace readied himself and then he was on the floor. What in the blazes just happened.