Chapter 2: Chapter 2 – I’m Making a Ladder Tomorrow!

It would have been comical if filmed in a movie. Instead, it was a completely terrifying experience for Aila. She fell through a rotten trap door, and landed on her back twenty feet below the surface.

"Ow ow ow!" She complained, however, she then blinked. She stood up, and moved around. "Just a little jolt? How is that possible?" She looked beneath her feet, but it was solid stone. She looked up the wall she slid down, and saw a ladder with missing rungs.

"Maybe the ladder slowed me down?" Her mind couldn't accept the idea of how she didn't hurt herself even though she fell twenty feet onto solid stone. She sighed and looked around.

"Oh, crates! It's a protected storage room!" Aila still didn't understand that the room was pitch black, and the only source of light was the trap door. Her eyes still saw things as though it was full daylight.

"Hm? Is every crate empty?" she pushed one and it moved with ease. "It's nailed shut though. Why would anyone nail an empty crate shut?" Aila looked at the lid, and with a little pull, the crate lid separated from the crate, and she could see the square body nails.

"Old fashioned square nails? I thought they stopped using those a century or so ago. Is this a period storage thing?" She pulled again and the lid came off easily. However, the crate wasn't empty.

"Eh?" She said stupidly. She pulled out a hammer. "Is it made of foam?" She swung the hammer at the wall and heard the obvious sound of metal hitting stone, but also saw something that made her eyes open wider in surprise.

She gouged the wall.

* * *

"New wolf breeds. Threw a stone and killed a wolf instantly. Fell a large distance and didn't get hurt. Healed from my disease. Gouged a stone wall with a hammer. Moved a crate filled with tools, all made with tough iron, and all would be really heavy." She started to panic a little. "I'm strong. Really strong."

She tried, and lifted, the crate like it was nothing. Her bones didn't hurt, she didn't huff or puff, and she didn't strain at all.

Her mind was quite good, but she spent a lot of her teenage life in a hospital. She couldn't walk. She couldn't read books as her eyesight was blurry. She had no work experience.

"Did I get transported to a new world?" If her mind had been capable of cognitive thought at the time, she might have seen the shadow coalesce under her body. Near the moment of death, a mutated portion of her brain became active. It could only be accessed due to the pathways to other portions being damaged, or bridged by cancer cells.

Her residual mental energy opened a hole in their material form based reality, and accessed the elemental form. This allowed the corporeal material form to slide through the commonly observed only 'real' universe, and into an elemental energy based universe.

The mutated organ within her brain was what caused her cancer. It acted against the material form of her former universe, and sought to drill a hole to the one place she wouldn't die.

She wasn't just on a different world. She was in a different universe.

* * *

"The backup supplies of a merchant. The owner must have been devastated when he had to leave these behind." Aila said softly. She gathered the tools she thought she would need, an ax for firewood, a hammer, a knife, a pot, a pan, sword, a dagger, as well as some leather, and a few preserved furs that somehow didn't dry out.

"There is waxed thread, several thick needles, an awl, and a mallet. This is bundled in the leather, so are these leather working tools?" Aila pursed her lips. "It was protected from the air, so it didn't rust, dry out, or rot away. Now that it's exposed to the air, these materials will begin to deteriorate, but hopefully not in fast forward."

When Aila was younger, she had watched a few movies where things exposed to air after a long period without would often have accelerated degradation periods. It was movie 'knowledge', so she didn't take it seriously, as many people had a habit of believing really dumb stuff they saw in movies.

Aila looked at the hole above her head, pursed her lips, and decided to do something smart. She threw each tool up through the hole so that it would end up in the storage room. At first, she had to do it carefully, as she realized that her strength was a lot more then she was used to.

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The hammer rattled horrendously as she tossed it up. It sounded like it bounced off the ceiling the floor, and the walls like a ball.

She threw the rest up a little more delicately, and they all made it. She searched the first crate again, found a second hammer, and threw it up.

"He he he. I guess I don't know my own strength." She grinned a little awkwardly. "How to get the needles, and nails up there? I'll need them to repair this place, or at least make some of this place more usable. I don't really need the entire manor, but the kitchen, this storage room, and another room would be good enough for me."

"Maybe wrap them up in the leather, and wrap the leather in a fur? That should work, right?"

 

* * *

 

"Oh!  It didn't act like a pinball!"  That was one of the memories she did have, when she was a kid, her parents took her to see a movie, and play some arcade games.  The pinball machine made her dizzy, and she passed out, which was the beginning of her life as a patient.

It had worked better then she hoped it would. Aila had no experience to draw upon. She couldn't play after she turned eight. Before that, she was always weaker then others. She ended up at home, alone for most of the time, while her parents worked hard to provide the medicine she needed to live.

She wrapped the fur covering with a length of leather lacing she found in one of the crates, and threw it gently out of the hole. She did the same for the ax, sword, dagger, and knife. The pot and the pan had the same treatment, but used the leather for a cushion.

It was only when she unpacked the crate of leather did she find a dozen different pairs of short leather boots at the bottom.

"Oh!" She eagerly took the brown leather boots out of the crate. "These long boots must be for riders, but the short ones must be for every day folk!" The long boots would be up to her knee, while the short ones were only half way up.

"Two are way too big, two are far too small...running out of ones to try." she said sadly. "Oh. It fits!" The last pair fit her above average sized female foot. If she were male, she would fit a size nine, which was large for a woman. "Women and men on this world are either really small or really big. I guess it's like Earth, only different." She grinned.

She loved that old joke. It's the same, only different. It was cute, and weird at the same time. Just like her personality.

"Now, how do I get up out of here? The ladder is rotten, just like the trap door." She rubbed her butt. "I already figured that part out. Can I jump out?" Aila looked up at the hole, and before she jumped, she stopped herself.

"Don't forget the hammer!" She groaned and rolled her eyes. If she jumped too hard, she would go right up through the hole, or hurt herself on the edge. She firmed up her resolve, and jumped for the hole.

"Oh." She watched the lip of the hole approach far too fast. She put her arms up to cushion her head, hit the outer lip of the hole, but before she could fall, she reached up and grabbed the edge. As she hung there, in mid air, she growled.

"I am making a new ladder tomorrow!"

 

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