Decades of experience under my belt, about two dozen spells memorized, thousands of monsters or demons slain at my hands, and the blessings of deities infusing my soul. You'd think that something as easily as stepping across the blurry threshold of a gate spell would be like taking a breath.

No. Of course not. Don't be ridiculous.

My first step into a world of the far planes was less caution and examination and more me tripping then falling into the road of what looked to be a quaint little town. I had been assured that the astral coordinates were precise, but apparently they were a little high on the ground height if the six inch misstep that caused my fumble was any sign.

The fresh horse apples laying in the dirty cobble road, inches from my face, was all the indication of how this trip across the planes was going to go. A bunch of buzzing pests, some unpleasant green shit in my face, and it stinks.

I stood up quickly, brushing the dirt of the dusty road off of my robes and patting down my component pouch to make sure none of the material vials inside had shattered… again. Nothing says that those who play the games of gods are feeling vicious like the necessities of spell-casting being stolen from you or misplaced at a critical time.

My first glance at what was to be my intended future home was… Well, it was unexpected to be honest. I had opened the gate originally intending for this to be a jaunt to a mythic land. The Far Planes. A place where trees had tentacles, where the sky was a pus-yellow and water was a rock. A place where my understanding of things was just wrong and what was supposed to be was instead a delusional drug trip made real.

Instead, I was staring down a town made of thick lumber boards and painted walls, with a number of businesses selling wares and people living a day to day life. My vision was blurry from crossing dimensions, so I couldn't be certain. However, if my eyes weren't deceiving me then this could have been a scene from any number of the towns I visited in my birth plane. There were dozens of regular humans for divinity's sake!

Either I have botched a ninth level spell for the first time in what feels like forever, or I'd gone so far past the far planes that I hit a sort of opposite reality on the other side.

… I might have to check if that is possible once I was done here.

I stepped to the side of the road, last thing I needed was to cause a scene. Spellcasters must be plentiful here, if the lack of response to a portal opening and a man falling out was any indication. Judging by the occasional weapon toting person in armor, they probably had mercenaries in the town at the very least. Hopefully there would be guilds for quick coin. Ones that don't ask too many questions, and that I can falsify any registration needed.

I came here to explore, maybe set up a house. Not get dragged into the petty lives of the local nobility and have to live as a glorified djinn and make their lives easier every time they got mildly inconvenienced.

Seriously, that happened once. Once was enough. So, never again.

My biggest problem with this place would just require me to sit and wait. I needed to know what the language was like here. It wasn't just inconvenient to wish the knowledge into my head, that being total a waste of a ninth level casting, but it was always embarrassing to start blabbering in common only for everyone to look at me like I was dropped on my head or cursed. I have a problem with embarrassment, stop poking fun of me.

Trying to make sure I wasn't in any of the passerby's way, I leaned up against a general store and pulled out my 'spellbook' from my satchel. I didn't need it to brush up on my magics, it was more for decoration. Usually law enforcement in the planes drop their guard if they think the wizard can't cast. Easiest way to stop a wizard casting? Take the spellbook.

Thank the divines that Sorcerers are so much rarer. And versatile. And powerful.

Browsing the book was a waste of time more than anything. I mostly used it to record spells I had encountered, and the countermeasures used to bypass a number of arcane annoyances. Not the means to cast a spell, but unless you studied Arcana then there was little chance you'd recognize what you were looking at. My habit of writing my notes in abyssal, celestial and draconian scripts would only make the misconception worse.

Seriously, why does every mage I have ever encountered write it out in common? I get that it is ease of access and all, but then anyone could open the book and blunder across some spell they think is interesting. Then its demon summoning by morons, or undead plagues, or another pink grass panic.

As my anti-irresponsible wizard diatribe finished rambling its way across my thoughts, I heard the beautiful tones and inflections of what I knew to be the common language. I snapped the book closed, and packed it away. My eyes weren't as occluded, and I could start searching for signs. I needed a blacksmith, the location of a guild, and the best inn in town. In that order.

Obtaining a decent amount of currency was my priority. Most of the planes I'd traveled to in the past used the universal coin system, with all values determined by magic. But on an uncomfortable number of occasions I was trying to pay for a meal with gold and the only accepted currency was numbered paper. Thus the blacksmith, I'd have to waste a wish, but I'd walk out with enough coin to live comfortably for a time. It all depended on what he sold.

Navigating this little frontier town was easier than I expected. I just needed to look for the sooty black smoke a few streets away and listen for the sounds of metal on metal. I've never seen an active forge with closed windows. A nice little tidbit of information when you're looking for someone to mend a broken sword.

The first smoke signal I found led me to a trash fire covered by a heavy rug. The second led me to a tavern dealing with a mealtime rush. The third was what I wanted, if the sounds of ringing steel and occasional complaints were correct. Why the powers that be made blacksmiths so grumpy was beyond me, but I loved how easy the stereotype made them to find.

The Blacksmith's Shop exterior wasn't the best. A Humble two story building with heavy beams for the actual shop. Behind it was the forge itself, a stone enclosure made with thick bricks. The sign itself was little more than a wooden banner that simply read 'Blacksmith'.

"Do they have a problem with personalization?" I wondered aloud.

The old wooden door creaked slightly as I entered and some mechanism I couldn't see was triggered, ringing a gentle bell a few times. A quick glance traced over the dozens of items in the room. Swords, Helmets, Shields, and the various styles of armor one would need to survive close combat were all set up on displays. Shelves covered the walls, each with a well maintained stock of equipment and tools that one might need on an adventure.

At the back of the shop, behind a counter and in front of the highest quality weapons was the shopkeeper. The man was stout, he had a fine white beard that showed some signs of grooming and had only a single eye open. One he kept on my every move. If the bulging muscles were any clue to his identity, I would safely bet he was the blacksmith if not the owner.

I walked forward with a friendly hand extended and a smile, intending to play the part of a spellcaster salesman and stumbled into my soon to be biggest problem with the world I was in.

"Hello there good sir!" I said pleasantly enough, "My name is I-ggaahhh" I choked out, my tongue and throat constricting as I tried to give my name. I stopped in place, mildly panicked.

The almost bulging eye of the blacksmith gave me a look of concerned worry. "You alright boy?" he asked, with an eyebrow raised and a hand dipping under the counter.

I waved off his concern, "I'm fine!" I assured him, "Just fine." I rubbed at my throat, "Perhaps I swallowed a bug." I made a show of clearing my throat with some herms and hems. "Let me start again, my name is I-ack!"

The constricting was back and my worry was getting worse.

I could hear the scrap of metal on wood from behind the counter. "Must have been a big bug..." I weakly quipped. Once was weird, twice was a bad sign. I turned away from the smith. Hopefully I could whisper it. "My name is I-aaagh." One bloody syllable.

Apparently this level of the far planes refused the utterances of a true name. Not a good sign.

I spun back to the blacksmith, grateful he hadn't yet drawn a warhammer or axe on me. "Do you have any filled waterskins I could sip from?"

The potential dwarf frowned, but pulled a corked bottle from below the counter and tossed it to me. "Here, I'll add it to your bill."

I grabbed the bottle, popped the cork and took several large pulls from the bottle. A nice apple cider flowed over my tongue. Whatever curse was upon me, uttering my true name was a no go, however I wondered, "What if I used a titled name? Its not a true name so it should pass."

I let the now empty bottle come to rest on the counter as I tried to present myself again. "Sorry about that, I am High Sorcerer I-ack!" The sensation of choking on words intensified and for a few moments all I could do is cough.

The blacksmith's gaze was less suspicious and more pitying. "High Sorcerer, huh? That's a nasty cough you got there. If you came looking for a potion to cure sickness were' out of stock." He rubbed at the back of his neck awkwardly as I recovered, "You might try at the temple. They usually have some stock there."

I grimaced. I usually hated going by titles. It always made you feel distant to others. "No, no. I came here to sell you something." I made of show of shuffling things around in my bag, hopefully the clinking glass and books thumping together were enough to cover up my hasty muttering of "Cupio." under my breath.

A second after it appeared in my hand I pulled the newly conjured item from my bag. Shaped like a curved fang, and made entirely of pure mithral was a dagger. The blacksmith's open eye was gazing at the naked blade like it was a woman coaxing him to her bed. I could see him glance at me nervously. I kept the smile polite, no greedy grin, or naivete on my face.

"How much are you wanting for it?" he asked. Oh, he knew the game well.

"How much are you willing to pay?" I countered. Whomever made the first offer was at a disadvantage and we both knew it.

"I'll give you three hundred gold." he offered. A compromise, and a pitiable offer.

I scoffed, flipping the knife around in my hand. "This is pure. Not alloyed, not plated. Seven-hundred." I returned. An overshoot I know, but if he wasn't going to play nice then I would aim high.

"I'd have to melt it down to see if your lying." The blacksmith pointed out, "Three-fifty. And your drink is free."

I knew I had him if he was making japes, "Five hundred even, and I'll bring you first pick of something much better."

The eye narrowed. "How much better?"

"Enough to buy an outpost without a loan better. Adamantine. A complete full plate suit. Masterwork."

"You lie."

"If I thought you had the gold available, I could bring it tomorrow." I teased.

The chance at the legendary metal was too good an offer to pass up. "Deal. Where can I find you if I get the coin together?"

"Does this town have more than one inn?"

"No."

"Then I'll be staying at the only inn in town."

I walked out of the Blacksmith's shop with four-hundred and ninety-nine coins in my satchel and one in my hand. As I examined the coin I was confronting several upsetting observations. The currency was the same as the universal coins, same weight but decorated differently. The presence of humans and now dwarves meant that the races had been visiting this plane for sometime. Finally, that curse was something new.

"I never heard of a curse keeping someone's name safe." I mused, flipping the free coin around in my hand. The townsfolk passed me by without a second thought, too busy in the own lives to noticed as I watched them and listened for every snippet of conversation that could be useful.

A festival was a few months away, some more reports of monsters had been bothering the adventurer's guild, a few wash-women were even talking about spotting a giant rat peeking out of the sewers in the center of town.

I felt a small sliver of curiosity about the place's history. This place has cattle pulling carts, Thick defensive walls, and all the other signs of a frontier town. Who in the abyss decided that it was a priority to make a sewer system?

Thoughts for another time.

After a candle's lifetime of wandering the town, drawing a little map in the back of my spellbook just in case, I arrived at the second stop of the day. The Adventurer's Guild. It was rather hard to miss, especially since it used the same type of bland sign as the blacksmith. Personalization really is dead in this plane.

Hopefully, I wouldn't end up the same.

Only time would tell.