ScaleGuard: Transported to Another World Full of Busty Babes and Also I Can Summon Crocodiles Read online

  Before I could puzzle out exactly what I was looking at, however, the elf snatched the card out of my hand.

  “Ooh,” she said. “Nice.”

  “Nice?”

  “Yeah, most people start at C ranks all the way down at Level 0,” the elf explained. “If there's a higher stat, like a B or an A, then it usually accompanies a lower stat, like a D or an E, so it all balances out. But you got two B's and only one D. So yeah, nice.”

  Her eyes dropped lower on the card, and then widened in surprise. “I knew it!”

  “What? Knew what?”

  She beamed at me. “The Blessing of Sobek!” She exclaimed. “That you must be how you summoned a crocodile! It is a sacred beast to Sobek!”

  Suddenly, she threw her arms outward and looked up to the heavens. “Oh, Lord Sobek! I knew you were watching over your faithful servant! You have guided me to your chosen champion, sent from the heavens to spread your blessings among this sinful world! And I shall be the one to protect and guide him! Oh, great Crocodile God, I shall not fail you in this divine task!”

  So I had a lot of thoughts about this little outburst.

  The first was that she had clearly never met Sobek; I doubted the lazy bastard had planned any of this.

  The second was that apparently this world had religious nuts too.

  The third thought came to me when my RPG knowledge kicked in. Here was a warrior devoted to a god, who had shouted something about a smite when she killed that giant mossling thing.

  “Oh shit,” I said out loud, “you're a Paladin.”

  “I am a Paladin!” the elf agreed. “I am Lyra Far’near, devotee of the Crocodile God Sobek.” She bowed to me as she handed me back the Stat Card. “It is an honor, chosen one.”

  “Um. Cool. Listen, I’m Gideon. Just call me Gids. I don’t really know what…”

  “Apologies, Lord Gideon,” Lyra interrupted, “but I really must ask: are you going to do anything about your friend?”

  “My…?” Those silver eyes of hers were focused on the space behind, and I slowly turned my head to look at what she was looking at.

  The crocodile was looking back at me, its mouth open, the remains of the mossling hanging in tatters from its teeth. It swayed its tail back and forth, and then it started charging at me.

  Faced with a massive scaly beast charging me with a wide-open toothy maw, I yelped and ran. Lyra soon followed.

  “Why are we running, Lord?” she asked.

  “Crocodile!” I shouted.

  “But you summoned it!”

  I slowed to a stop at the treeline and put a hand on the nearest tree, breathing heavily and struggling to hold my body upright. Turns out you never really realize how out of shape you are until you’re running in terror from a six-foot long predator.

  “I… don’t… think… I can… control it…” I panted.

  “Are you okay?” Lyra asked.

  I shook my head, then craned it to check on the crocodile’s status. It was about halfway to us. Lucky for me those things are built for waterspeed rather than landspeed.

  “It clearly is a blessing from Lord Sobek,” Lyra said matter-of-factly. “You should be able to do something with it.”

  It was worth a shot, I guess. I stretched out a hand in the direction of the crocodile and concentrated, gathering up my energy to summon forth the power within. And, I realized, there was a power within; a wellspring of might deep within me that I could draw on when needed. I tapped into it, and directed it outward…

  There was another *pop* and a second crocodile materialized in the air and fell to the ground next to the first one. They looked at each other in confusion for a second, and then they looked at us and started charging.

  “Oh come on!” I shouted.

  “Huh,” Lyra said. “Looks like all you can do is summon them.”

  I turned my attention to the Paladin. “Can you smite them away?”

  The look of horror on her face was honestly more than enough to answer my question, but she replied verbally anyway. “Of course not! I would never turn my blade upon Sobek’s most holy creatures!”

  I sighed. “Cool.” I made to run into the forest, but Lyra grabbed my forearm.

  “Wait!” she said. “Your Stat Card!”

  “My what?”

  “Your Stat Card!”

  “What about it?”

  “Summon it!”

  She didn’t seem to feel the need to tell me why she wanted me to do this, though to be fair there may not have been enough time to explain with a pair of crocodiles bearing down on us. I flicked my wrist the way I had earlier, and the card appeared in my hand. “Okay?”

  “Your eligible classes!” Lyra said excitedly. “Select either Druid or Beastmaster!”

  I blinked. Assuming the RPG logic of this world was like the RPGs I’d played back home, I thought I saw what she was getting at. “How do I select it?”

  “Press your index finger against the one you want!”

  Well, again assuming the familiar RPG logic held true, my stat layout was probably better suited for a spellcaster like a Druid than a Beastmaster. So I pressed my finger against that.

  The paper flashed, and I felt something… odd… inside me. The top of my Stat Card shifted, and the line “Class: N/A” changed…

  ...to “Class: Beastmaster.”

  “What the fuck?” I looked at where my finger was just as the words beneath it disappeared. It was just enough time for me to see that I’d accidentally pressed the wrong word. “Oh god damn it.”

  “Beastmaster! Great!” Lyra frantically gestured to the approaching crocodiles. “Master the beasts!”

  How the fuck was I supposed to do that? I took a deep breath, stepped forward, raised a hand, and said: “stop.”

  To my surprise, both crocodiles stopped. They looked at me with those crocodile eyes, and I swear they were confused again. Good. I was too.

  “Um...” I said. “Go away?”

  With a *pop*, both crocodiles vanished. I stared at the empty space they’d just occupied. It took me a few seconds to realize that my mouth was hanging open.

  “What the fuck just happened?” I asked.

  “You did it!” Lyra grabbed me and pulled me into a great big hug, which let me tell you was not comfortable with all that plate mail.

  “Now,” the Paladin said, “let’s get you situated, shall we?”

  III

  A Town of Beginnings

  I stared at the Stat Card in my hand.

  Level 1

  Class: Beastmaster

  Experience: 10 / 200

  Strength: C (⬧⬧⬨⬨⬨)

  Agility: C (⬨⬨⬨⬨⬨)

  Endurance: D (⬧⬧⬨)

  Intelligence: B (⬨⬨⬨⬨⬨⬨⬨⬨)

  Wisdom: B (⬧⬧⬨⬨⬨⬨⬨⬨)

  Charisma: C (⬧⬧⬨⬨⬨)

  Luck: C (⬨⬨⬨⬨⬨)

  Special Ability: Blessing of Sobek

  Class Abilities: Animal Empathy, Ax Proficiency, Survivalism

  “Any questions?” Lyra asked.

  I looked up from the Stat Card at the smiling elf woman sitting in a suit of armor across the table from me. We were in a tavern in a town called Locent. Since all the farmers and whatnot were still out working for the day, it was mostly empty, save for the barkeep, a serving wench, a pair of old folks a few tables down, and a mysterious looking man in black robes in the corner. All of them had given me a weird look when we’d entered, on account of I had just walked into a fucking fantasy tavern wearing jeans and t-shirt.

  Jesus. I was in a fantasy. A real honest-to-goodness fantasy world. And it worked on RPG logic. What sense did that make?

  “Lots,” I told Lyra. “But I guess I should start with: what the fuck does all this mean?”

  I put my card on the table between us, which was something of a gamble, because the wooden planks that the table had been constructed from were far from even, and there was a very real danger of the card fa
lling between them.

  “Well…” Lyra said, leaning forward. “You’re a Beastmaster, which is an advanced class. Most people can’t access it at Level 1, but I guess you could choose it because of Sobek’s blessing. Same with Druid, but you chose Beastmaster.”

  “Uh huh,” I said flatly. I had intended to choose Druid, but sometimes shit happens.

  “So, you have seven Attributes,” Lyra said, pointing at the lines from Strength to Luck. These are ranked from E, the lowest, to S, the highest. I think. Those diamonds are your progress in each attribute. Every time to gain a level, you get two Attribute points that you can put into any Attributes you want. Once the diamonds are all filled up, you go to the next rank and it resets.”

  I nodded. I’d expected something like this.

  “You have two diamonds filled in Strength, Endurance, Wisdom, and Charisma. Those are from your class. Usually, advanced classes don’t put any points into any Attributes, but that’s because people move to them from one of the base classes. Those do put in points, but only in two Attributes, not four, so I guess that’s how the card compensates for you jumping straight to an advanced class.”

  There had been five eligible classes on my card. Since Druid and Beastmaster were advanced, I assumed that that meant Fighter, Rogue, and Caster were all base classes.

  “Paladin’s an advanced class, right?”

  Lyra smiled and nodded, then she produced her own Stat Card and set it down next to mine.

  Level 12

  Class: Paladin

  Experience: 123/750

  Strength: B (⬧⬧⬧⬧⬧⬨⬨⬨)

  Agility: C (⬨⬨⬨⬨⬨)

  Endurance: B (⬧⬨⬨⬨⬨⬨⬨⬨)

  Intelligence: C (⬨⬨⬨⬨⬨)

  Wisdom: C (⬧⬧⬧⬨⬨)

  Charisma: B (⬧⬧⬧⬧⬨⬨⬨⬨)

  Luck: C (⬨⬨⬨⬨⬨)

  Class Abilities: Sword Proficiency, Heavy Armor Movement, Power Attack, Holy Smite, Lay on Hands, Prayer, Ritual

  “I spent 10 levels as a Fighter,” Lyra explained. “I could choose an advanced class at Level 10, as long as I had the prerequisite Attributes. Paladin required a B in both Endurance and Charisma, so I made sure I had that. So at Level 10 I switched to Paladin, so that I could more properly serve Lord Sobek.”

  “Okay, got it,” I said. “So, class abilities?”

  “Those are the abilities your class gives you,” Lyra explained. “Sometimes you can choose from a list, but most are just given at certain levels. You also get to keep all your abilities when you switch classes. Fighter gave me Sword Proficiency, Heavy Armor Movement, and Power Attack. Holy Smit, Lay on Hands, Prayer, and Ritual…”

  “...are Paladin abilities,” I finished, nodding. It all made sense. “So what do my abilities do?”

  “If you press your finger against them, your card will tell you.”

  This magic piece of paper was like a goddamn touch screen or something, I swear.

  I pressed my index against Blessing of Sobek, and to my surprise a box with text appeared as if over top the rest of the card. It was a popup. The paper had a popup text box.

  “Blessing of Sobek: This grants the user the ability to summon crocodiles. It also allows for the user to select the Druid or Beastmaster classes without first meeting the prerequisites.”

  “Well, I kind of already figured that one out,” I muttered. I moved on to Animal Empathy.

  “Animal Empathy: This grants the user a greater understanding of animals, as well as the ability to influence low-level animals. Blessing of Sobek: This user may influence crocodiles regardless of their level.”

  “Huh. That’s neat. So some abilities can influence how others work?”

  “Rarely,” Lyra said, leaning over and looking at my card. “Usually special abilities can influence class abilities, though you’ll occasionally find a class ability that can influence another. Those are called ‘ability combos.’”

  “Ability combos. I never would have guessed,” I said flatly. I moved on to Ax Proficiency.

  “Ax Proficiency: This grants the user the skill to fight with axes. It also allows the user to wield axes regardless of their weight, and unlock axes’ weapon skills.”

  “Weapon skills?” I asked. Lyra opened her mouth to explain, but I held up my hand. “No, wait, let me guess: some weapons have special abilities that you can only use when wielding them, right?”

  Lyra’s eyes widened in surprise. “That’s exactly it!” she said. “How did you know? Do they have those where you’re from?”

  “Not really. I’ve just played a lot of video games.”

  “Huh?”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.” I pressed my finger against Survivalism.

  “Survivalism: This grants the user knowledge of surviving in the wilderness. The user will also always find food while foraging in the wilderness.”

  “Oh that’s neat,” I said.

  “It’s a very useful ability,” Lyra agreed. “I wish I had it. It would come in handy during long quests.”

  “Can’t you just like… learn how to survive in the wild, though?”

  “You can,” Lyra admitted. “And I know a few things, yes. But with that ability, you know everything. And you’re guaranteed to always find something edible.”

  I looked down at my card. “Interesting.” My eyes drifted over to the wooden mug that was sitting on the table next to my card. It was full of what the tavern keeper had called mead. I’d never actually drunk mead before, because I had lived in a modern city and not a viking longship, and I hadn’t actually taken a sip of this concoction yet. I wasn’t sure if my digestive system could handle something brewed from otherworldly ingredients.

  Unfortunately, I was getting really thirsty, so I might as well find out now. I mean, I’d seen shows about people transported to other worlds and digestion had never been an issue in those. Maybe it wouldn’t be an issue here.

  I lifted the mug and took a drink. Then I shuddered. It tasted like shit.

  “Do you have any plans, Lord Gideon?” Lyra asked.

  “Not sure.” I put the mug down. “I’m still taking everything in. All Sobek told me when he sent me here was that I had to spread belief in him.”

  Lyra nodded thoughtfully. “Well, you have a class now,” she said, “which means that you can be an adventurer. Join my party and we can spread belief in our god through our deeds and exploits!”

  “Your party?” I asked. “Are there more of you?”

  “Nope.”

  “So the party would just be you and me then.”

  Lyra nodded.

  I thought about it, then I sighed. “Alright, sure,” I said.

  “Excellent!” Lyra leaped to her feet, pumping her gauntleted fist in the air. “Come with me, Lord Gideon! Your first steps into the adventuring life begin today!”

  ***

  “How does such a tiny town have a shop like this?” I asked. “How can their economy support this?”

  Lyra gave me a confused look, and I decided to drop the subject.

  She had dragged me first to the mayor’s house so that she could collect the reward for killing the mosslings that had been terrorizing the village outskirts, and then she had brought me to an equipment shop that this farming village just happened to have for some goddamn reason.

  There was a single, extremely muscular man with a bald head and long black beard standing behind the counter, watching me silently with a suspicious look on his face. Shelves of weapons and armor filled the shop otherwise, the equipment stacked on rickety old wood that looked like it was going to collapse from the weight of all that iron and steel at any moment.

  “You’re going to want light armor,” Lyra told me. “Without Heavy Armor Movement, anything like what I have will just slow you down. And you’ll want axes of course.”

  I nodded. I assumed that Heavy Armor Movement was the class ability that let her be so spry while wearing a coupe dozen pounds of meta
l plate. I also assumed that this meant it was leather or hide armor for me.

  And hide armor I found; for cheap too. That was good. I didn’t have any gold pieces to pay for anything, and even though Lyra had insisted on paying for my equipment, I still didn’t want her to spend too much. I may have been helpless in this new world, but I wasn’t going to let this woman spend all her money on me.

  Next up was axes. There was a truly massive battle ax propped up against the wall. I picked it up and hefted it experimentally. True to what the description of Ax Proficiency had said, the weight of the weapon didn’t bother me in the slightest. Honestly, it was kind of uncanny.

  I didn’t like it. It was hard to break the feeling that the ax should have felt heavier in my hands than it actually did. With a frown, I set it back against the wall.

  Then, casting my gaze over shelves of weapons, I found a pair of handaxes.

  “They’ve got a weapon skill there,” the man behind the counter said in a deep voice as I picked the handaxes up. I looked up at him. These were the first words he’d spoken since we’d walked into the shop, so I assumed it was important. “They go dual-wielding on them, so long as you have both equipped.”

  “Fucking sweet,” I muttered. I raised the axes in each hand and gave them a few experimental swings. Holding both of them felt… natural. It was like rediscovering an old skill that I hadn’t practiced in a while, my body adjusting the memory quickly and naturally.

  “These,” I said. “I want these.”

  “You sure?” Lyra asked me. “That battle ax you just had is waaay bigger.”

  I glanced at the huge broadsword strapped across her back and nodded. “I want these,” I repeated.

  She shrugged. “Alright,” she said. “Hey man, how much for the handaxes and the hide armor?”

  IV

  The First Night

  The sun was beginning to sink below the horizon as we walked the main dirt road of the village, casting golden and scarlet rays over everything in Locent.

  I was wearing the hide armor. It was surprisingly comfortable, even if it lacked sleeves. The gloves were snug on my fingers though, and the armor covered all my vital bits as armor should. It also had a brown fur collar that was not nearly as hot as I had worried it would be. The two handaxes hung from my belt, both ready to be drawn at a moment’s notice.