Chapter 1

There was no warning or even a noticeable transition. One moment he was sitting comfortably in a nice leather chair, the next he was lying naked in the dirt. “Really? Naked? You can take my soul out of my body, put it in a new body, and transport me to a new world but clothes are too much for you?” David yelled as he slowly sat up. Looking around the ‘pre-designated area’, it appeared to be a cave. A few torches in iron holders shed light on a compacted dirt floor. Smooth stone walls sloped up to form a dome maybe 40 feet across. David got up and brushed himself off. The dome looked complete with no openings, but the room didn’t fill with smoke from the torches in the slightest. His supplies were in the middle of the room. Twenty-four wooden chests banded with iron, three rows of eight. On the other side of the cave from him, across from the supplies was a wall of tree trunks. One on the left had a door handle attached to it.

The box at the end of the middle row near him had a ring of keys on it. David could see that every chest was secured by a heavy padlock. On top of each one was an engraving to show what was inside. Some marked with a shirt, some with a coin, some with a pill, the rest with a book. A few minutes sorting through keys had all three of the chests on the end closest to him open. The left had clothes tightly folded and neatly sorted inside. He quickly got dressed – jeans, hiking boots, and a grey short sleeved button-down shirt. More clothes went into a small leather backpack just in case. The air in the cave was perfect t-shirt weather but who knew what it was like outside. The next open chest was filled with weapons. A longsword rested on top of the pile. David picked it up and pulled it slowly out of its scabbard. It had a shining three-foot-long leaf shaped steel blade, the cross guard was carved to look like tree branches and inlayed with silver filigree. The handle was wrapped in leather and felt comfortable in his hand. It was lighter than he expected, he could swing it quite easily with one hand, though there was room on the handle to use both. Torchlight gleamed off the blade and the piece of jade in the circular pommel. There were more like it inside the chest, along with some larger two-handers. Some had handles of gold with precious stones set into them. David attached the sword to his belt on his right hip. A six inch knife went on his left hip. The last open chest was full of coins and jewels. He could see pearls, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and other precious stones. Each gold and silver coin was about an inch across and an eighth of an inch thick. There were eagles stamped on one side of all of them. Everything glittered in the torchlight invitingly. This one box held more money than he had ever had in his whole life, and there were 5 more of them.

David pulled a little sack from the open clothes chest and filled it with coins and a few of the gems. This went into the backpack with his spare clothes and another handful of coins went into his pants pocket. He opened the rest of the chests one by one to check their contents. Piles of coins, neatly folded clothes, and stacks of weapons were tightly packed into each one. One chest held unstrung longbows. Some were made of carbon composite while others were a more traditional horn and wood construction. Quivers of arrows lined the bottom of the chest. A few of the swords were real monsters, over four feet long with broad heavy blades.

Two of the chests contained his emergency drugs and medications. David pulled a small kit with bandages and ointments and added it to his clothes bag. The rest of the chests all contained old fashioned leatherbound books. Just on top he could see volumes on geology, math, metallurgy, a few on ship building and early industrial techniques. The runners of this ‘experiment’ had certainly been thorough. There wasn’t really any use for the books yet, so he left them alone. Nothing more to do until he knew where exactly he was and what he was going to do. David closed up everything and made sure they were all locked.

He sat down on the last chest and looked around the cave again. Is this really happening? He thought. Am I really here or is this all in my head? His body looked and felt the same as it always had as far as he could tell. If I am really here, now what?

The rules of the experiment were that he could do whatever he wanted. But if he decided to just sit here forever would that really be allowed? Would the Aliens/Gods/Future People that sent him here really not care what he did after going to all the trouble to get him here?

“Now what?” He said to the ceiling. “Any directions? Any other rules I should know about?”

No response.

So, no more involvement from his mysterious benefactors. Some of the stories he read had a constant flow of new materials and supplies headed to the main character any time they needed them. Apparently, he wouldn’t be so fortunate. He wished he’d been a little more thoughtful with his packing. Using half of his allowed space for books seemed stupid now. “For future reference, asking someone to come up with a good list of survival needs with zero information right after you tell them they should be dead isn’t the best setup for clear thinking!” David flipped off the ceiling. Petty and useless sure, but it was all he could do to show his frustration. He stood up and grabbed his backpack. Nothing left to do in here for now I suppose.

David put the key ring into his bag, which was almost bursting at this point, and headed to the door.

It looked heavy, but the wooden door pushed out smoothly into a brightly sunlit forest. The roof of the cave extended out to overhang the door and hide it from above. Thorn bushes curled around the entrance on either side. David was careful not to touch them as he turned around to close the door. There was a large brass key already in the lock. He made sure the door was secure and put the key in his pocket. He stepped back and looked around. His cave wasn’t part of a natural chain or in the side of a mountain. It was just a big mound in the middle of the forest with a door in it. Sunlight filtered through a loose canopy of oaks and maples, no mistaking those leaf shapes. Being careful of the thorns, he pulled the bushes over to hide the door a little more.

Every direction David looked in seemed the same. Broadleaf trees all around towering over him, here and there a few pine trees. One or two of the giants had fallen in years past, opening up holes in the treetops. Moss and ferns grew over the fallen logs. Bushes, loose branches, and berry brambles crowded around the bases of the trees. The air had that unmistakable green smell of growth. It was definitely cleaner than anything he had breathed back home. Birds chirped and fluttered around the higher branches. He could see squirrels, even a couple rabbits moving around looking for food.

It would have been pleasant to spend the day there, if he hadn’t been so nervous about how he was going to survive. A little path ran from the door of his cave out into the woods. David shifted his backpack and headed down the path at a slow pace, his thoughts wandered as he walked. What was he going to do here? What was his purpose? With the amount of money he brought with him he could probably buy a house and live comfortably for a long time. Somehow, that idea didn’t appeal to him as much as it should have. He’d spent many dead-end jobs dreaming of a life of leisure, but now that it was an option it seemed like a waste. If he didn’t get himself killed right away, he had a chance to do something great here. A chance to be more than just a faceless working stiff. David didn’t have much of a technical background but even he could explain the benefits of an assembly line or sterile medical conditions to 17^th century people.

Plus, I’m technically already dead, David thought. It was freeing somehow. He’d been given a second chance. And not a lame, live your life over again and try not to embarrass yourself in high school, kind of way. He’d miss cars and the internet but other than that he could do whatever he wanted here. And if this was all in his head, why spend his coma just laying around doing nothing? He’d already be doing that in his hospital bed.

The path led more or less straight away from the cave, weaving around trees and shrubs. After ten minutes of walking David noticed it was getting brighter up ahead. The trees thinning out and the ground sloping down at a slight angle. He stepped out of the trees and looked down at a wide dirt road. Ditches on either side were dry at the moment but would fill with runoff when storms came through the area. Shallow ruts showed it was big enough for two wagons to pass each other. The sun shined down through the break in the trees from a clear blue sky. It hung low on the horizon, meaning it was either early morning or late afternoon.

If the sun even moves east to west here, David thought. There was so much about this place that he didn’t know. This world was supposed to be the same as his in the 17^th century. Did that mean that the people were the same? Europe was war after war in that time period. The Americas were being colonized and that ended up horribly for the Native Americans. Would this world be just as violent? Would it be just as affected by racial and religious bigotry? Personally, he didn’t care what color anyone was or who they prayed to, it wasn’t his business. He could only hope that when he did meet people here, they weren’t xenophobic zealots that killed newcomers on sight.

David looked around for some kind of landmark so he could find his way back to the cave path. He saw a stump from a fallen oak tree across the road. He walked over, stopping to lift a large rock out of the gully on the way. He set the rock on top of the stump and stepped back to the road. It was about as noticeable as he could make it. A quick look in both directions revealed ... an unchanging road through a forest. All things being equal, David decided to walk towards the sun.

He walked down the middle of the road at a steady pace. It ran straight more or less. He could hear more birds and even saw a deer cross the road a few dozen feet in front of him. David couldn’t remember the last time he had been in a forest like this. He had lived in a suburb of Dallas all his life. He had always wanted to travel but a constantly empty bank account prevented that. The air was so clean here he could taste it. No ever-present background noise of cars, no highway gridlock, no skyscrapers. No social media influencers taking pictures everywhere and no social media in general. That made him smile, he’d always been a bit of a loner and the constant updates of everyone’s perfectly curated life drove him nuts.

David hoped that this world wasn’t like all the movies he thought of about the 18^th century. Tons of uptight people in tights and wigs, doffing tri-corner hats to each other when they met. That didn’t appeal to him as a way to spend the rest of his life. Neither did out-houses come to think of it. He crossed his fingers that plumbing was more developed here. The sun was slowly rising over the trees in front of him. A cool breeze swept past him while he walked but he was starting to wish he had asked for bottled water in his supplies.

He’d been walking for about an hour when he saw a cloud of dust building ahead of him. After a few minutes he could see a man on a small wagon at the center of the dust cloud. David stepped off to the side of the road to wait. The woods were close enough to make a run for it if that became necessary. The sword was mostly for intimidation. He was more likely to cut off part of his own body than part of someone else’s.

As it got closer he could see it was a farm wagon. The driver was dressed in simple homespun, loose wool shirt and vest with leather pants that had their fair share of patches on them. He was deeply tanned, a bit overweight but strong looking for his age. The top of his head was bald, whisps of white hair stuck out around his ears to match his thick mustache. He reminded David of the old guy from the Walking Dead. The wagon was stacked high with bags of flour on one side and chickens clucking away in their wooden cages on the other. The driver slowed to a halt when he noticed David standing by the side of the road. To his surprise the older man stood up and bowed towards David, who had stepped up to the wagon when it stopped.

“Good day to you, my Lord.” The man’s tone was polite but uncertain.

David was shocked to hear English. The man’s mouth didn’t quite match the words coming out of his mouth, the shapes his lips made wouldn’t sync up properly, but he heard English all the same. He said a silent prayer thanking his Alien overlords for not handicapping him with having to learn a new language to talk to everyone. He’d take anything they were willing to do to help him here, never look a gift horse in the mouth and all that. “Good day to you as well, sir.” David stood relaxed with his right hand on the hilt of his sword. “I’m not a Lord, just a traveler who’s a bit lost. Can you tell me anything about the area?”

“Well, this road here leads to Thaladon of course. If you keep going your way, you’ll run into some farms eventually. Long way to go on foot though, my Lord.” The farmer still hadn’t sat back down on his wagon. He also overlooked David telling him he wasn’t part of the nobility. “Not much but forest between farm and city. And there’s bandits between the two as well. Not meaning to tell you your business sir, but you should be careful walking around alone.”

David smiled to himself. He’d been headed in the wrong direction. If it weren’t for this old man, he would have walked for hours out into the sticks. Off to a great start already. Hope the aliens aren’t regretting their choice for this experiment. “If you don’t mind, could I trouble you for a ride into town?”

The farmer seemed shocked that he should be given such an honor. “Certainly, my Lord, you would be most welcome to ride with me!”

David climbed up onto the seat next to the old man. He offered his hand to his new friend and introduced himself. “I’m David Winston, thanks for the lift. I didn’t know I was heading the wrong way. And I’m not a Lord, just a regular guy.”

If the old man got any more surprised by the day’s events his eyes would fall out of his head. He did reach out and grab David’s hand after a moment. “I’m called Tolm. And I apologize, but no one other than a Lord would have clothes as finely made as yours. Or be walking around carrying a sword like that. Bandits around here usually have old cast-offs or farm axes.”

“Where I’m from we don’t have Lords, every man is responsible for himself.” With the way things had been going with corporate America and all the billionaires David wasn’t sure how true that statement actually was.

Tolm raised his thin eyebrows at that statement, “A strange place indeed then. Though I admit it sounds nice. My own Lord is a just man, doesn’t take more than is necessary and leaves plenty for the rest of us to make a living on. There are others I know who are less fortunate.”

They rode along easily for the next couple hours. Tolm of course asked how David had ended up in the woods not knowing where he was. The best story David could come up with was that he had been drinking and must have wandered off in the night. Saying that he came from a different world, had already died, and had been dropped here by he didn’t know who ... wouldn’t go over well. Tolm accepted this explanation though, allowing David to relax a little. He told Tolm that he was traveling around the world trying to see new things, which was true enough. The old man laughed, “Not much to see wandering around in the woods is there? Ha! Not much to see in this country outside of the forest either. Wellon isn’t a rich country, though not exactly poor either. I like to talk to the sailors when they come in, if you believe their stories there are cities across the sea with towers the size of mountains, men that eat fire, where even the average man eats off of golden plates every night. They’re always a good listen but who believes sailors? I can’t say for sure; I’ve never been farther from home than Thaladon. We don’t eat off golden plates, but we’ve never gone hungry either and that’s enough for me.”