I exited the temple and breathed in a huge gulp of fresh air. Was this what our world smelled like before the industrial revolution and pollution? Wherever they were, whatever world they were in, the climate was wonderful. It felt like a crisp autumn day yet the leaves on the trees weren't the usual autumn colors. For the most part they were green suggesting that this might be the usual temperature either that or it meant the winters would be really cold. I hoped this was just the usual climate. Opening the map on my magic scroll I took a second to orient himself. Then without much fanfare I proceed down the hill towards the edge of the forest. Clang, clink, clang, clink, clang, clink. I stopped. The noises that were coming from behind me stopped. I turned around to gaze at the figure that was following me.

  A warrior stood behind me. In their right hand was a helmet. I recognized this was the person that killed that wolf. On their left hand was a shield that was painted purple. In the center of the shield a green handprint with black flames served a sigil or maybe a crest. I didn’t know which it was and quite frankly I was a little nervous to ask. This person was clad in rough but sturdy looking armor. It didn't cover the entire body but seemed to be placed so that it covered all the right places. Strapped to their hip was a mace that wasn't intricately designed. The head of the mace featured an orange red stone carved in the shape of a flame.

  We stood there for a moment, neither of us saying anything. Great well this was super awkward. I didn’t know whether this person was male or female.

  “ I'm DJ,” I said, trying to be friendly and introduce myself to the person who was following me for some reason.

  “ Curare, I've been assigned to escort you wherever you go and keep you safe. Timothy seems to think that you are a danger to yourself and you are a priority to keep alive. Honestly I'd rather be out hunting but Timothy seems to think this is a higher priority so here we are. Now that we've gotten that out the way, go do what you need to do. I will follow behind being silent like I hope you'll be,” Curare pontificated with open hostility. I nodded slowly, what had I done to this person to make them dislike me. Beginning to wander towards the forest, I stopped. After a brief pause I turned to look at Curare who had begun to follow me again.

  “Hey do you know where Timothy is at this current moment in time,” I asked.

  “He was in the dining hall,” Curare stated, sounding agitated. Turning around I began to head back toward the top of the hill. I entered the ornate hall and went to the multi purpose space aka the dining hall. Inside Timothy was making notes inside a book. He looked up at me. Curare it seemed had waited outside so Timothy’s gaze was locked on me.

  “This building is absolutely incredible,” Timothy said as he rose to his feet. “Helen already told me to temper my expectations that you used a special item to build this. Can you build such things without special items?”

  “Yes if I had the mana and resources. Sadly I cannot harvest many of the needed resources and I am going to hit a level barrier due to the quest system,” I said.

  “Quest System,” Timothy asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “It seems like it’s a pseudo tutorial system of sorts. The short is I have to do things in order to level past a certain point which as you can imagine is extremely annoying. I have it under control and I still expect to continue to make progress.”

  “I’m going to trust you as you did a great service for us. Being able to bar the doors meant that we didn’t need night guards or day guards to guard the sleeping night guards. That means four more people we can have doing tasks. Since we have extra people you’ll be getting a guard. Before you protest unless you suddenly get combat skill and can fight you need protection. The mimic ambush yesterday was a rude awakening. Thankfully, we didn't lose anyone but no one should be traveling into the woods alone anymore. What you do is too noisy for the hunter teams. The only other team is Helen's which is on very specific missions. So you have a singular body guard either Curare or myself,” Timothy stated. Bags had formed under Timothy’s eyes and exasperation was evident in his words. Striding over to a section of the wall Timothy gestured at it. With a bit of a start I realized it was a map, more importantly it was my map.

  “I’m gonna trust the planning of the area to you. I don’t want the job. My intervention was only from the point of view of safety. I’ll act as leader for as long as necessary but I don’t want this permanently,” Timothy stated and sat down on the bench seat next to the dining table.

  “You wish to put me in charge,” I questioned, startled by this.

  “I’m a soldier, I… I won’t get into my past. I tried leadership once I got people killed. Its,” Timothy paused and swallowed. His eyes had grown distant and glassy as ghosts unknown to me haunted his memories. “It’s not really something I want anymore. Being an adventurer like in a video game might be cool but leading…” He stopped and remained silent for some time.

  I didn’t know what to say in this situation. A sim game was one thing but this was people's lives. I wasn’t confident enough in myself to say something cool like rest brother your watch is done. Maybe not that but something like. I didn’t like it but I needed to step up a bit but a new fear suddenly intruded into my thoughts.

  “I’m honored but where does this stop? When I build a town, a city, a state, a country? I could dedicate the entirety of this second life and still not render a safe place for us. Also I may be a builder but I'm no leader of people. I’m an AV Tech, you know hide in the shadows set things up so others may shine,” I explained. Timothy looked directly into my eyes and gave a tiny smile.

  “Sounds like a perfect city planner to me. Just think on it DJ,” Timothy said in a clear conversation ending dismissal.

  Heading back outside I regained my shadow, Curare, and headed down the hill. Today I was going to construct the blueprint for the main road out of the city. Okay this was more of a deforestation thing than an actual blueprint. I was hoping this was going to become one of four major thoroughfares. It made sense to cut the road first. If you cleared the road first you knew where the road was going to be and wouldn’t end up with buildings in weird places. You could clear and level the ground later as needed for the buildings that needed to be built off the main road.

  Reaching the forest I unhooked my hammer and began to harvest trees, bushes, rocks and pretty much everything in my path creating a five yard wide trail. Summoning my scroll I noticed the map seemed to update, illustrating out areas that I had traveled to or at least had seen. As I harvested my way deeper and deeper into the forest my mind began to wander.

  I had tried multiple times to engage Curare in conversation. It never worked. So I pondered the idea of building a really tall tower. The theory was that if I saw far out into the distance it would cause the map to automatically update showing that entire region. Which would be really cool but resource costs for a tall tower would probably be expensive. To construct a tower of any size would either take a lot of wood or a lot of stone. Fire watchtowers were built entirely out of wood so it was possible to build a tall tower that towered over the tree line out of wood yet I didn't know how much wood it was going to take. I didn't have a blueprint for such a tower so I’d be building it basically from scratch.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  This was so frustrating! I had no gauge for anything. There was no reference guide, tips and tricks video, or even someone else with my class or knowledge of it. I needed a break.

  “We’re gonna stop for a second,” I stated. I got no verbal response but Curare did stop and take a rest under a tree. I had completely zoned and lost track of how far the two of us had traveled. Looking down the road I guesstimated at how far we had come. They had traveled a decent way. It was so far in fact that I couldn't see back to the clearing.

  “Why am I doing this the hard way,” I asked out loud. Summoning up the map, I decided to check just how far we had traveled. After a quick glance and some scale comparisons I realized they must have traveled maybe four miles. During that time Curare had said nothing, absolutely nothing. Like seriously what was wrong, they could have said something like, hey how far are we going or hey do you have any idea where you are going. No, instead all they did was march on silently. They loudly cleared their throat, breaking the silence.

  “We are heading back,” Curare stated, pointing toward the sky. “It’s getting dark”

  “Um Curare, how should I address you?” I asked. “Like Sir or Dame, or like...”

  “Curare, they/them” they stated.

  “Great…” I said. The walk back was quicker than the walk out into the wilderness. Things had gone back to dreadful silence. This was driving me insane, a phrase which probably meant nothing in this world because it most likely didn’t have cars. With nothing better to do and because I wasn’t leading the way back I took the time to take in the appearance of my silent traveling companion.

  They were short, maybe 5 feet tall and more likely shorter. Long pointed ears accented a delicately angular face and dark emerald eyes. Dark black hair fell rather straight in a short spiky pattern on their head. The sides around the ears were shaved smooth making the ears seem more prominent. Curare was built similar to Rinn but even less muscular. I wasn’t trying to be a pervert or anything but I had to admit that Curare had one of the best butts I had ever seen.

  “How’d it go,” A voice called down to them as they began to trudge up toward the giant wooden temple. Timothy and several others were standing on top of the hill in the twilight. The sun glistened of armor as the figures stood like a scene from an epic fantasy. Here I was trudging up the hill wearing overalls and a cotton shirt looking like farmer john. Reflecting on my conversation earlier with Timothy I wondered if I could seriously ever be a leader for a group like this. It would be like Gandalf electing Bob the Builder to take the ring to Mordor.

  “Boring,” Curare supplied as they pushed past Timothy and company to enter Temple Bogus.

  “I think I can build a tower,” I stated stopping in front of the gathered group.

  “You can build a giant intricate temple but not a tower?” Rinn asked, sounding confused.

  “Yeah well the temple used a blueprint and a resource cache. For the tower I have to build it section by section from scratch. I know how I just haven't done something so tall before. I don’t quite understand why I have blueprints for some things but other things I have to build from scratch,” I stated feeling a little self conscious.

  “I’m sure you’ll manage,” Timothy replied encouragingly. “Make sure you grab Curare before you start building. I want her watching over you every time you leave the temple.”

  Timothy had miss gendered Curare. He had called them her. That didn’t mean they identified as a girl, that just meant that they were biologically a girl. I had always struggled with people and pronouns just like I had struggled with names. I wasn’t great at remembering either one and occasionally I made mistakes. The knowledge that some people took their identities and pronouns very seriously made me extra careful. It was just a respectful thing to do. Father always said you don’t have to agree with people, you don’t have to like them, but you always should be respectful, kind, and courteous. The best people in the world are those three things. On reflection I wasn’t always those three things but I tried to be. I walked inside the temple to speak with Curare.

  “Hey Curare Timothy wants you to make sure I don’t lose an arm or something while I’m casting outside,” I said as I approached Curare. At first I thought they hadn’t heard but realized they were just waiting for me to get moving.

  “Why,” I paused trying to figure out how to phrase things. “You didn’t correct him…” Curare raised a hand slightly.

  “Just because we find ourselves in some fantasy world doesn’t change the fact that people back home don’t like me because of who I am. The chance that someone in this group shares that core belief is insanely high. We are not in a fantasy novel. Racism, sexism, and homophobia doesn’t just go away,” Curare said with some venom.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It’s….lets get going.”

  We exited the temple. Once outside I traveled to the back of the temple structure. Lifting the hammer into the air I shouted.

  “Build Magic!”

  Strictly speaking I didn’t have to shout. I figured though it offered a good warning to people around me. This was much easier than shewing everyone off with I’m about to build a giant tall object that I don't know if it will be structurally stable or if it will fall, crushing everyone nearby to death. Objects magically flew out of the pouches at my waist. Long wooden beams assembled the base structure as smaller planks began to fill in the details. To the on looker it all seemed to go so fast, so smooth. In my mind Tactical Speed had slowed the world to an absolute crawl as I envisioned the pieces assembling together. It was utter chaos! This was construction and engineering in a way I struggled to comprehend. Visually I could see structural weak points and deficiencies. I had never known what it was like to have instinctive knowledge like how to swim or ride a bike, so to finely just have something like that was mind blowing. The Tower soared into the air and then things got weird.

  Suddenly I was soaring above my body! I could see myself hammer held aloft magic pouring out of me. The urge to hurl was overwhelming. Curare stood watching as the tower rose into the air, a look of awe on their face. The magic flicked and the structure swayed. Oh no, no, no! I had lost concentration. Focusing back on the building I began to build it higher and stronger by reinforcing the base. It was an amazing feeling until it wasn’t. Suddenly a massive crushing weight pressed in from all sides. In a blink I was back in my own body, the magic growing suddenly dim. Capping off the tower's roof I let go of the magic and swayed back and forth. Congratulations I thought you’ve used too much mana yet again. My eyelids fluttered open and closed. This sensation was getting so old. I needed to ask Helen about mana pools.

  It took me several minutes but eventually my world stopped swaying. Body in grass, check, loss of consciousness, negative. Maybe I was getting better at this! I turned my gaze toward Curare who had rushed up next to me. Curare made a face and I realized I must have said something but I wasn’t sure what I had said. Fumbling Curare helped me to my feet.

  “Upin de ziggedy zag,” they questioned, repeating back what I must have said.

  “Up the thingy way,” I said deliriously but aware as I approached the stairs for the fire lookout style tower. It stood about one hundred feet tall or roughly thirty and a half meters.

  “I know the metric,” I slurred out and began to climb. The Metric system was not how I measured things. As an American, like most Americans, I used Imperial to the point where the metric system was about as foreign as this new world. The knowledge just appeared in my head, like poof it was there.

  The stairs seemed to take forever. Curare followed cautiously behind waiting for the fall that was inevitably coming. The world hadn't stopped moving like the feeling of getting off a Gravitron for the third time in a row. When I finally arrived on the lookout's top landing I collapsed. I’m pretty sure it was not an elegant or graceful collapse it was more just kinda, meh crash.

  Initiating level up procedure

  Dooley Jones level up to Builder level 5

  Builder level 5 accepted

  Health Increased From 25 to 50

  Manna Increased from 1000 to 1200

  Skill Unlocked Stone Turn

  The Tower of Bogus Established.

  The Tower of Bogus Selected as Delineation Landmark.

  Establishing Bogus Territory

  Bogus territory, what a funny way to describe something. The voice in my head spoke in my dreams and I listened. Okay I sorta listened. It wasn't my fault I had distracting thoughts. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get Curare to talk, was one of those errant thoughts. Notifications continued to play through my mind but I was too far gone to process anything after Bogus Territory.