Chương 9: Chapter 8: Max Hayes

Max woke to the familiar creak of the floorboards above his head and the muffled clatter of dishes from the kitchen below. The room he was renting at the Wayfarer's Rest was dim, the shutters leaking a narrow stripe of pale light across the ceiling. He lay on his back for a while, staring at the wood and listening to the inn breathe around him. It'd been two months already. Roughly two months since he had opened his eyes in Edras. He let out a slow breath and said it quietly into the empty room.

"Still real. Still here." The memories came back the way they always did in those mornings when he let his thoughts drift too far. He allowed his mind to wander, back to how he'd come here. The void. He didn't know what else to call it. There had been no sensation of falling, no sense of direction. No ground beneath his feet, no sky overhead. Just Max, suspended in nothing, and waiting. And then there was the Adjudicator. It didn't have a face, just a vague humanoid shape.

It had simply been there, pressing against his awareness with the weight of something vast and unmoving. His first question had come out raw, barely restrained.

"Am I dead?" Yes. The answer had been immediate. Flat and certain, not pulling any punches. His chest had tightened, thoughts scrambling for something to grab onto, and the next question had spilled out before he could stop it.

"Is Gideon here too?" There had been a pause then. Not long, but long enough to matter. Possibly. That single word had lodged itself somewhere behind his ribs and never quite loosened. He had asked where he would be sent. Whether there was any chance at all that he would wake near someone he knew. Whether he would ever see Gideon again. A torrent of questions came out of him beside he could stop himself. The Adjudicator had been frustratingly unhelpful, partially answering some questions, flat-out ignoring others.

About Gideon, he had only been told that it was not for him to know, and then some nonsense about paths diverging. Max would've rather had no answer at all than that. But that had been all he was given. No comfort. No reassurance. Just the truth, delivered without ceremony. Then the void had changed. The light had flared, sharp and sudden, and an interface had appeared in front of him. Clean and structured. Impossible to mistake.

It looked like something out of one of the many RPGs he and Gideon had spent their childhood playing together. The race selection screen. A list of options had scrolled past his vision, each one accompanied by brief descriptors. Humans. Dwarves. Elves. Beastkin. Others he recognized only from games and books. And then he saw the option at the bottom. Randomize Race. It came with extra Stat Points, a Unique Perk, and a whole lot of risk. The outcome was unknown, random.

He remembered staring at it for a long moment, weighing the choice. Then he'd heard Gideon's voice in his head. He had laughed, told Max to stop overthinking and click it, and said he was a coward if he didn't do it. So he had. The confirmation had pulsed once, and then the world had brightened, becoming blindingly white, until suddenly it all vanished. Instead of waking with horns or scales or wings, he had come to, facedown in a field. Grass was pressed against his cheek. Damp cold seeped through his clothes.

The smell of wet earth filled his nose. When he pushed himself up, blinking against the pale dawn light, the first thing he saw was open countryside rolling gently away from him. The second was stone walls in the distance, softened by mist. The city of Brindleford, as he would come to learn. He had checked himself over in a daze. Plain clothes. A small belt knife. Dried meat wrapped in cloth. A handful of unfamiliar copper and silver coins. And his body was still that of a human. Relief had been his first emotion.

He knew how to live in a human body. How to move, how to fight, somewhat, and how to exist without relearning everything from scratch. Then disappointment had crept in.

"Figures," he had muttered at the time.

"I choose to randomize my race and I still end up human." Looking back, it had probably saved his life. Not needing to learn how to use new limbs, or wings, or a tail was a blessing. He had dusted himself off, and, lacking any better ideas, headed for the walls in the distance. That first walk through the streets of Brindleford had felt unreal. Smoke rising from chimneys. Early vendors calling out prices. Wagon wheels clattering over stone. No cars. No wires. No streetlights. And the people.

They were human, mostly. But he had seen a dwarf hauling a barrel on one shoulder, and an elf leaning against a stone wall, watching the crowd with cool, distant eyes, his hair tucked behind pointed ears, prominent and unmistakable. He had almost tripped staring. Here were living and breathing creatures out of a fantasy novel, from video games and movies. That more than anything had hammered home that he wasn't on Earth anymore. The next shock had been how unprepared he truly was.

Money in this world meant nothing to him. The coins in his hand could've been counterfeit for all he knew. He had overpaid for his first meal badly enough that the innkeeper had given him a careful look and returned a handful, muttering something under his breath about out-of-towners. The scribe house had been worse. He had walked in and, with full confidence, had asked the poor old man behind the counter questions that any child should know the answer to.

"What is this continent called?"

"How many kingdoms are there?" The old scribe had stared at him for a long moment, as if deciding whether or not he was being pranked, then sighed and pointed him toward a stack of beginner texts. That was how he learned he was in a world the natives called Edras, on the continent of Aurel. He had woken up in the kingdom of Valdarin, just outside the city of Brindleford. The names had blurred together in Max's head, as he was unable to truly come to grips with his new reality at the time.

Those first few days passed in a haze. Max spent countless hours just wandering the crowded streets, eating cheap food, and trying to act like he belonged. The lack of technology gnawed at him. No internet. No phone. No endless distractions. Just people and stone and noise. So much noise. A lot more than he would have imagined. Vendors shouting out their wares, children laughing and running, dodging around people in the crowd. Church bells, horses and oxen, guards on patrol with their armor clattering.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. He imagined that Gideon would have loved it. New experiences everywhere. Systems to pick apart. A world begging to be understood. It was something he would've taken to with his usual boundless enthusiasm, trying to understand every small detail. The thought of Gideon still tightened his chest.

Max had eventually decided that he didn't care what the Adjudicator said, that Gideon was not only alive, but that he was here in this world with him, safe and surviving, just as he was. He held onto hope deep within himself that they would reunite one day, and go back to their easy friendship like nothing had changed. That gave him a purpose, and kept him moving forward. If he was going to find Gideon, he couldn't just wander aimlessly around Brindleford until he ran out of money.

He needed to take advantage of the game-like System that governed this world. He needed to become stronger, strong enough to go out and explore and search, strong enough to bring his best friend back within reach. The Adventurer's Guild had given him that direction he was seeking. It had structure. Quests, levels, risk, and perhaps most importantly, reward. He had spent the last of the System's starting money on a simple sword and basic armor, then registered himself as an adventurer.

He'd been given probationary status, which meant he could only take on low-risk work with low pay. It was safe, a way for the Guild to test whether he had what it took without needlessly throwing him into a grave. They had a reputation to maintain, after all. If every man with a sword was allowed to run off and get himself killed, nobody would trust them. What it meant for Max was that he spent the first few weeks of his adventuring life doing what amounted to grunt work. Vermin clearing. Sewer runs. Short escorts.

The occasional goblin extermination if he was lucky. That was how he had learned that most adventurers weren't heroes. Far from it. They were closer to mercenaries. Practical, and often indifferent. They protected farms from goblin raids for pay, then mocked the farmers later behind their backs for the small amount of coin they had been given. Some of them abandoned injured allies without hesitation. Honor wasn't something found in abundance. Max tried not to judge them too harshly.

To them it was a job, something to make a decent living with, not something worth dying for. But his disappointment stayed with him nonetheless. He kept working hard, taking every minor quest available, treating each one as if it mattered. That earned him a reputation for being naive, for being too earnest, and easy to manipulate. He didn't care. To him, the adventuring life was everything he'd dreamed of.

He was making a difference in people's lives, and he remembered the grateful faces of the farmers he helped and the merchants he escorted along the road to the next village. And with all of it came levels. Power. When he finally reached Level 5, the System had offered him a few classes. Most of them were nonsensical, related more to manual labor than adventuring, but one stuck out to him. [Fighter] He had chosen it without hesitation. With his class unlocked, Copper rank in the Adventurers Guild followed.

A small badge that came with real recognition. He wore it proudly, proof that he was a proper adventurer. He remembered how happy he had been, to finally be recognized as a full member of the Guild. Borin, Cass, and Elias had all been Copper rank as well when Max met them. He smiled faintly now, staring at the ceiling as he let his mind keep wandering, remembering how he had met his team. Cass came into his life first.

He met her in the markets, right as he was getting thoroughly fleeced over the price of a new dagger. One moment he was nodding uncertainly at the vendor's ridiculous offer, and the next a wiry figure stepped up beside him as if she'd always been there. She muttered something to the vendor, words delivered with the precision of someone who knew every trick in the market, and the price dropped to a third of what had been demanded. The vendor scowled but relented under her gaze.

"You look lost," she'd said afterward, eyeing Max up and down with mild annoyance and unexpected concern.

"Lost will get you robbed in this city." She was a young woman, only a few years older than him, quick and lean, with sharp eyes that missed nothing. She had brown hair, cut short and practical, and a tough, tomboyish kind of beauty. Knives hid along her belt and in her boots, gleaming whenever her coat shifted. Her smile, when it appeared, tended to be half-pleased, half-exasperated, like she couldn't quite decide whether to laugh at him or drag him out of danger by the collar.

A few days after saving him in the market, she took him along on a simple night watch job, moving across rooftops and through narrow alleys with quiet efficiency. During a lull, she tested him in various ways, on signals, silence, footing, and awareness, evaluating him in a way that only she knew. In the early morning light, when the job was done, she gave her verdict.

"You're not terrible, for a meathead." He would learn that from Cass, that was high praise. Elias joined them next. Max first noticed him in the Guild Hall because the mage had somehow managed to nearly set himself on fire. Elias was seated alone at a table, completely absorbed in a tome so massive it looked like it could break someone's toes if dropped, while twirling his hands in strange patterns and muttering to himself.

He was tall and thin, about Max's age, with black hair that always seemed a little mussed, as if he ran his fingers through it more often than he remembered. He didn't even flinch when the edge of his sleeve began to smolder from the error in his Spell.

"Oh, that's interesting," he murmured, as if commenting on something as mundane as the weather. He took a moment to peer at the offending sleeve, then patted the fire out with absentminded calm, scribbled a quick note in the margin of his book, and looked almost more delighted with the mistake than upset by it. It was painfully familiar to Max. He reminded Max very much of Gideon. The same hungry curiosity. The same need to understand how things worked. The same habit of learning more from failure than success.

One sewer job later, where Elias nearly slipped into a toxic runoff pit, or possibly a pool of something even worse, the mage had turned to Max with a grin.

"You're pretty good at keeping things off me. Want to try that more often?" Max had agreed immediately. It felt to him like the most natural alliance in the world. Borin was the last to join. Max had noticed him before. The dwarf often sat alone at the Guild Hall's long tables, polishing the same battered hammer with slow, methodical strokes. He looked to be about forty in human years, though Max had already learned not to rely on appearances in Edras.

There was an older weight in Borin's eyes, something steady and weathered, like stone shaped by years of wind and grit. He first joined their group during a low-paying escort job to a nearby hamlet. The road stretched long and sunbaked ahead of them, lined by fields of half-grown wheat that rustled whenever a breeze swept across the land. Borin walked a few steps ahead of the wagon, boots thudding in a slow and dependable rhythm.

Every so often he muttered a short prayer under his breath, the sound quiet and thoughtful, as if he were checking in with someone only he could hear. By midday they reached the hamlet. Wooden cottages formed a loose ring around a central well. Chickens wandered freely, pecking at the hard dirt. It was a peaceful place, small and worn, but cared for. That peace broke when a child running too fast tripped over a loose stone and scraped her knee harshly on the ground.

She sat where she fell, choking on sobs, blood mixing with dust. Max moved, intending to help, but Borin reached her first. He knelt and spoke to the girl with surprising gentleness. His calloused hand hovered above the injury as he murmured a soft prayer. Warm golden light gathered beneath his palm, brightening until it looked like a piece of afternoon sunlight caught and held. The girl stared with wide-eyed fascination as the torn skin pulled together and healed cleanly, leaving only a faint mark.

Her mother rushed over, breathless with gratitude, and tried to press a few worn copper coins into Borin's hand. Borin just smiled gently and stepped back.

"Spend it on food," he said.

"Or shoes that fit. Not on me." His tone was rough, but the kindness beneath it was unmistakable. That moment told Max everything he needed to know. Borin wasn't just another adventurer. He was not here solely for the coin or praise or the stories people told in taverns. He did the right thing because it was right. Max had met many people since arriving in Edras, but very few like that.

Somewhere in those days, between jobs and meals and shared grumbling about low pay, the four of them started taking quests together more often than not. No one made a grand declaration. They simply stopped leaving each other's sides. The only problem now was the fifth. The Guild's rules were clear. True Parties had to have at least five members, and only True Parties could take on certain reserved contracts and the more lucrative work. It was about survival, the Guild claimed.

A party of five stood a better chance than three or four when the job went sideways. Max understood the logic, but finding a fifth that fit them had somehow been harder than any job they'd taken. They had tried, on multiple occasions. There was the axeman who drank too much and stumbled drunkenly into battle. The archer who would not stop talking in fights and kept giving away their position. The healer who spoke only in prayers and refused to help anyone who swore. None of them lasted more than a single job.

Some left on their own accord, while others were quietly, firmly told not to come back. Max sat up slowly, letting his feet drop to the floor, and rubbed at his face. He was a Fighter now. He had a decent sword and a set of armor with real nicks and scars in it. He was a Copper rank adventurer. And he had three other people at his back who believed in more than just coins. They still took low-paying quests to protect farms even while other adventurers mocked them for it.

Borin grumbled but never once turned his back on a wounded stranger. Cass rolled her eyes when Max made his little speeches about doing the right thing, but still stepped forward when a frightened villager begged for help. Elias stayed up late reading about monsters they might never fight, just in case. It wasn't the party Max would have expected. It was better. He sat on the edge of his bed for a moment longer and stared up at the ceiling, a small, genuine smile tugging at his mouth.

"I found three," he whispered into the silent room.

"Now we just need one more. Then I'll come find you, Gid." One more person to turn their small, stubborn group into a True Party. One more voice to stand with them when the Guild finally allowed them to take on the dangerous quests that made his heart beat faster just thinking about them. He stood up slowly and stretched. Today would be just like the others. Breakfast. Training. A visit to the Guild. Another contract. Routine mattered. He was getting stronger.

Somewhere out there in this world, Gideon was surviving. Here, Max would keep doing the same. He reached for his sword and headed for the door.