Sorry if the writing style is slightly different, it's been about 3 years since I had re-written the first chapter. And I still happen to like it.
As a side note, most of the planning for this story has been complete, I even have a few chapter outlines, that's all to say that this story hasn't been abandoned, I've been working on the idea for a while now.
I hope you enjoy it.
Reality twisted and shifted around Jaune, his very sense of being was broken apart and then everything faded to nothingness as his consciousness fled his mind.
He woke up in the virtual dream as bubbles of air rushed past his body. He was submerged in some kind of fluid, just floating lifelessly. Oddly, he realized he didn't fear drowning, quickly he shook off his confusion, and he extended an arm and a leg to their limits, his foot only explored the depths, but his hand breached the surface of the substance he was in and he felt a cold breeze bite into his bones.
After feeling around, his hand had managed to find something solid, but also soft he learned as his fingers dug into it when he pulled himself up. The closer he got to the surface, the more he could see this world, and he learned that his vision was tainted red.
Breaking through, he instinctively tried to take deep gasps of breaths, however nothing entered his lungs, and no sound escaped his mouth, then he noticed a thick red fluid drip from the top of his head and into a large puddle. Blood, he had been submerged in a pool of blood, but that wasn't what he was paying attention to, no, his focus was entirely on his body.
What had been left of his skin was colored like white ash, major sections of his body hadn't even been lucky enough to have at least that, his entire stomach was missing, exposing the black rotten bones of his rib cage, spine and pelvis, and the left half of his chest was caved in just far enough to expose his unbeating heart.
On both his hands, his fingers were also stripped of flesh nearly to the knuckle, on his left he was even missing the tip of his ring finger, and on his right two thirds of his pinky. He used the rotting corpse of his body to crawl out of the blood pool, and once out he saw that his lower half was fairing no better than the rest. More missing or ash colored skin, rotten flesh and blackened bones, he was at least glad he had both his feet mostly intact.
He didn't find it odd, he noticed. He didn't question or wonder about the pool of blood he had crawled from, or the current state of his body.
After escaping the pool, he looked around, and the first thing that caught his sight was the sky. A sea of pale blue, littered with fluffy white clouds, all framing a radiant ball of light. If he had lungs, he would be breathless. 'It's beautiful.' He thought.
The next thing he noticed was the vibrant green of the leaves on the tree branches swaying in the gentle wind. Trees, he was surrounded by trees, living trees. Right now he could probably see more trees just in front of him, then there were natural trees left on the entirety of the earth's surface.
As he looked around at the forest, he caught sight of a figure draped in a rich dark red standing near him. In front of him actually, he could imagine that they had been peering into the pool of blood and had taken a few steps back to avoid him when he had crawled out.
He wasn't surprised that he had missed seeing them after he had emerged, they were short compared to him, barely reaching the tips of his exposed ribs. Since he was now aware of them, he took in their appearance, they were wearing a red cloak that covered them from their head to their toes, a hood was covering their eyes and it casted shadow that was obscuring their features.
The only other thing he saw was the large pitch black scythe, with a red rimmed silver blade, that they were gripping with a small pale white hand. Then he heard an indecipherable chant come from them, the voice sounded young to him, or at least soft and high pitched.
As his brain tried to make sense of this person, confronted with something in this world that didn't make him feel either nothing about it or blissful wonder, and then it all came back to him. His consciousness finally resynced with his memories.
This was his Master, he realized as he remembered logging in, he was in a game. With that realization, he followed almost dead instincts, and then he needed a moment to recall exactly how to bring up the Menu, and with the twitch of an imaginary muscle. A floating screen dropped down in front of his eyes, it was filled with information about his current self, his Avatar, and notifications that his physical body and his skills had been weakened with decay.
Nostalgia permeated through his brain like nicotine. The faded memories came back to him, when he created this Avatar, one that used to look like a giant buff version of himself, when he had chosen the name of his Avatar, memories of meeting friends and gaining skills, they were blurry but he remembered those moments.
For an instant, he warmly remembered his glory days of playing this game, but then the memories that followed tainted those warm moments. One day, just like any other, he was just having fun and then he was suddenly killed. Death in this game was permanent, each player only had one life to enjoy it to the most, and his was gone.
The months that followed that moment, had seen him at his lowest point.
His life had never been particularly grand, he had been lost, nothing had really meant anything to him, of all the people he knew, he couldn't stand their personalities, and since he was young, he had hated the dying world he found himself in. He despised the planet and the society he was born into, he had cursed them for his birth, for he was given a personality at odds with everyone else.
Everything he thought and did, he had followed his instincts to do so, and everything proved that he was wrong to do so. Every bit of kindness was returned with scorn, every bit of generosity was met with greed, every helping hand extended was smacked away or crushed. He didn't want to think that helping people was wrong, he didn't want to accept that there wasn't anyone he could trust, he didn't want to acknowledge that everything he did was worthless.
Since a child, he knew what would happen to himself, he knew that eventually the world would wear him down. He would turn out a husk of a person, an unthinking cog in a broken machine, just like his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather. He knew that one day, he would give birth to the same sort of mistake as himself, and then he would watch it all happen again, and again, a generational curse had infected his family.
Arc, that was his last name, his family's last name, that was the name passed on with the curse.
From his research, he knew that the origins of the word started in a Proto-Indo-European language, and the original world meant: To begin something, and to lead someone. That meaning carried over to Ancient Greek, and then another Proto-Indo-European word developed in the Latin Language with a close enough pronunciation but that word meant: Bow. For a while the two words were conflated together, but eventually they regained their individual meanings.
Eventually the people of Old French adopted the Latin word, and changed the spelling, but even though the meaning hadn't changed, it did also come to refer to another thing: Curve. And soon enough Arc could also be used to refer to the crescent half moon, and the arching path of the sun from day to night.
The Arc heritage could be traced back to a French knight serving as an archer, and before that there's only the forgotten whispers of his ancestors that were passed down as fairy tales and lullabies.
So, with a life slowly losing meaning and filled with despair of how far his family had fallen, he somehow got his hand in the new game everyone was talking about. He could've been anyone in a new world, he could've no longer been cursed with his last name, but as he was told to enter his new name, he realized that he didn't want to give up. He wanted to show everyone that his efforts would show results, that he could change his fate, that he would break the curse tied to his bloodline.
Ark, the name he chose in the game. He would save the future generation of his family, he vowed. And in the game, he met them, the people he could call friends, people who shared the same mindset as him: It's not wrong to help someone.
And then he died.
And then he broke.
He was trapped in a twisted world, permanently separated from a world where he could save people, one where kindness was respected and warm hands held his own when he extended them. He had no way of contacting them in the real world, so he was left all alone again. Despair overtook everything that he was. Finally, he was fed up with trying, for a few months after that, violence and drugs filled his mind.
After he got messed up by some hardcore criminals, he cut down on his indulgences, and bit by bit, every broken part of his mind and body reformed. He was no longer the hopeful kid he had been, now he had accepted the cold and harsh reality for what it truly was.
Now Ark was here again, surrounded by a lush forest and with a cloaked figure chanting at him.
As they appeared to reach a high in their chant, a pale hand shot out from their cloak, pointed at him, and they finished off their chant by shouting. "Contract!" A dazzling red bolt of arcane energy, that left a crimson trail in the air, shot forth from the extended hand.
The magical projectile struck his corpse, and he felt a creeping shock crawl down his bones, and then a screen opened before his eyes.
[Red] would like to Form a Contract with you!
Familiar Contract Details. From: [Red]. To: [Ark].
This contract, dated on the first day of October in the year 240, is made between [Red] and [Ark] for the position of the Master: [Red] and the Familiar: [Ark]. This contract constitutes a magical agreement between these two parties and is governed by the Authority of Honor.
Whereas the Master desires to retain the services of the Familiar, and the Familiar desires to render such services, these terms and conditions are set forth. The Familiar agrees to faithfully and to the best of their ability to carry out the duties and responsibilities communicated to them by the Master.
In consideration of this mutual understanding, the parties agree to the following terms and conditions:
[Ark] shall work for [Red] for as long as the Contact holds.
[Red] shall provide [Ark] the Status Effect: Living Undead.
[Red] shall provide [Ark] at least 1 Copper Coin.
[Ark] must obey [Red] even if it leads to Death.
[Ark] must answer a summoning by [Red] at least once a day.
[Ark] will be given free reign by [Red] when not commanded otherwise.
[Ark] will never disclose confidential information regarding [Red].
[Ark] will only form a contract with [Red].
[Ark] upon termination of the contract shall be cremated by [Red] within a day.
[Ark] has permission from [Red] to manage their own Equipment.
[Ark] has the permission to terminate the contract with [Red] at will.
[Red] has the permission to terminate the contract with [Ark] at will.
[Ark] has the permission to extend the terminated contact by an hour.
[Red] has the permission to cancel a contract termination.
This contract represents the entire agreement between the two parties and supersedes any previous contact.
This agreement may be modified at any time, provided the consent of both the Master and the Familiar.
Warning: This contract has not been legally approved.
Contract Consent From,
Master: [Red] and Familiar: […].
Do you Consent to be Contracted as a Familiar?
Ark read over the words that appeared, his first thought was of confusion, when he had played this game last, he too had made a Familiar Contract, but not like this. He had just sworn to a magical beast that he wanted an equal partnership. Suddenly his memories of his old Familiar flashed through his mind. More bittersweet memories of a long Quest he had undergone with his best friend, the person who had guided him when he first started playing, to find the beast atop a mountain.
'I wonder, Nemean, did you stay with Styx? Or did you abandon him and return to your cave?'
There was no point thinking of them, over a century had passed within this world, a Native wouldn't bother remembering a Player from that long ago. And even average Players were logged on for nearly half an entire day, so they would only experience half of that century, but Styx was a hardcore gamer, he would play for entire days uninterrupted.
From the rare moments they shared together, when either of them was overwhelmed by the real world, they would confide everything with each other, and then they comforted the other, and they had been so close that even though he was…
Ark shook his skull, he didn't need to remember anything more, he had already moved on from his regrets. He consented to the contract, and he put up no resistance to the invading magic that swam through his corpse, after the red energy settled, he felt lighter and stronger.
The red cloaked person, named Red apparently, sighed and grumbled. "Finally, you better be worth it. Making me go on a five day long quest and spending almost half an hour chanting." Her voice was clearly that of a teenage girl, she continued to further grumble under her breath as she stared at the air in front of her. Reading from a screen only she could see.
'Really? Red? I decided on my name to symbolize… never mind.'
After thinking on it for a second, he internally thought with embarrassment and regret, that if he had probably just played this game for fun, and not to prove his life wasn't a mistake, he might've enjoyed it way more. That's what this world was for, fun. In a thriving world away from the dying one, people were supposed to relax and enjoy themselves.
Ark quietly equipped the gear from his Inventory, his previously stark white armor had rusted over on the edges, and there were gaping holes scattered about the surface. While he was giving his sword a test swing, trying to see if he had any muscle memory left, he suddenly heard Red choke on her breath. Then a red blur rushed up to him, and he saw clear silver, for a moment he didn't understand what he saw in that silver, but eventually he realized that the cracked skull without a bottom jaw reflected in her eyes was him.
Red stared straight into the wide holes that his eyes belonged in. "How the hell do you have 541 Health at Level 6!? I'm Level 7 and I barely have 80!" After shouting she spent a few seconds staring at him.
Ark shrugged with pauldrons covering the exposed bones of his shoulders, he knew why and what Red had really been asking of him, his stats didn't align his level and the most reason that occurred was because some hidden quests would arbitrarily had out stat points. And since he had been summoned as Familiar, she had probably thought he was a Native, therefore Red was trying to trigger his quest flag by asking, but he couldn't offer her anything.
His reason for having an unbalanced status was simply because everything had unevenly degraded and decayed over time. In fact, he counted himself lucky that after a century he wasn't level one, he'd seen some skill levels go down if a Player didn't use it for a day, so it was a happy surprise to him that he still had some levels that survived.
When the moment passed by, with nothing happening, Red sighed again. "Darn it, at least you'll be a good meat shield for me." And she started walking into the forest. "Let's go, I need to test your capabilities."
As he began following after her, he began a secondary review of his status. He was back, he was alive again, and he needed to make sure Red didn't terminate their contract. Ark had to be a great Familiar, he would do everything in his power he needed to do so he could satisfy his Master.
Name: Ark (Lvl: 6). - HP: 541/541. - MP: 205/205.
Classes: Shielder (Lvl: 4), Swordsman (Lvl: 6).
Jobs: Cook (Lvl: 2), Farmer (Lvl: 3), Herbalist (Lvl: 1).
Skills: Battle Magic (Lvl: 1), Cooking (Lvl: 4), Farming (Lvl: 6), Heater Shield Proficiency (Lvl: 2), Herbalism (Lvl: 3), Horse Riding (Lvl: 1), Hunting, (Lvl: 1), Longsword Proficiency (Lvl: 3), Sewing (Lvl: 1).
Spells: Strengthen Body (Lvl: 2), Strengthen Shield (Lvl: 2), Strengthen Sword (Lvl: 3).
Equipment: Amulet (Rank: C), Armor (Rank: D), Heater Shield (Rank: J), Longsword (Rank: J), Ring (Rank: B).
Inventory: Decayed Monster Bits, Decayed Monster Carcasses, Faded Books, Rotted Food, Rusted Armors, Rusted Silverware, Rusted Weapons, Tattered Clothes.
Money: 16,537.
Thank you for reading! Don't forget to leave a review on what you thought about this chapter.
I'm sorry if this chapter felt paced awkwardly, I'm still trying to find the exact flavor of the writing style that this story has.
Please look forward to the next chapter.