Chapter 1

Hi, my name is Alan Hawker. I'm 21 and learning to be a programmer in the local university. All my life I was a geek, but luckily I hadn't had problems with bullies, I just was a bit of a loner. When I got to university I felt I should change my ways, so I went to a few parties. After a few I realized I don't feel I belong, and I really can't hold my alcohol, so the safest for me is abstinence. Unfortunately this realization came to me after I got a tattoo. At least I like it. It's a screeching hawk's head on my upper right arm. I'm 6', 140 pounds and pale as white paste. I like MMORPGs in fantasy settings and I'm a great fan of cmsix's writings on Storiesonline, but sometimes I feel his characters have it way too easy.

When the events I'm writing about started I was reading the latest chapter of John and Argent and thought about that if it would have been me I would have died of a thousand deaths:

- poisoning from an unknown plant

- a stealthy predator could have got close to me before I could realize it's there

- the people there could have killed me because I was an alien in their eyes

- someone could have murdered me in my sleep for my treasure

- could have died from a disease the locals are immune to

- etc...

In the end I decided I send an e-mail to him with my problems with the story hoping he will take it as constructive criticism, and not as hate mail, and maybe it can be a beginning of inspiring talks between us.

A few days later I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw an answer from him in my inbox. We started to talk about what would we do if it really happened to us, what would we take, how many women would be in our harem...

A few weeks have passed when I got a visitor. He was 7' tall, skinny, his face was elongated, his eyes too big and too far apart for human standards, he had pointed ears, his skin had a silvery hue and he didn't use the door to get into my room.

"Probably an alien." I thought.

"Hello. You can call me Argent. Of course it's not my name, but I have the same offer for you as his in the story of our ambassador, who you have been in contact with."

"You mean cmsix?"

"Precisely."

"The offer in the story is you give me a young healthy body and take me to an alternate dimension of earth where civilization is at the Stone Age level, and I can take three thousand pounds of equipment."

"That's right."

"I would really like to accept it, but unfortunately it's not as tempting to me as it was to John. I'm young and relatively healthy in this day and age, but I would be in a serious disadvantage in that society. I'm too weak, my senses are dulled by forty thousand years of civilized lifestyle and I have no skills to speak of that would help me to survive. Only way I know of to light a fire is with matches or a lighter for example, and I would need some lighter fluid too to make a campfire."