Chapter 3: 3: Slate Surfing

The black receded just as quickly as it had consumed me, and I fell unceremoniously to the ground, where I clattered and slid down some sort of hard slope. I scrambled and cried out for a moment, but then I realised, hey… this was an easy crisis, and not one about my new body.

My scrabbling turned out to be a fruitful endeavor when my hand caught on something, and I managed to halt my fall. Somewhat stable for the moment, I glanced around to get my bearings. It was still pretty dark, the sky overhead choked with roiling angry grey storm clouds that had yet to shed their load of rain, but I could figure out that I’d landed on a slate rooftop.

Realising that it wasn’t actually that steep, I carefully righted myself, then pushed up until I was standing somewhat precariously on the slope. To my surprise, I found that I was able to balance on it exceedingly well. Way better than I should have been able to, given my status as nerdy gamer. Had I gotten more than just a makeover when that chick swapped my body out for the game one?

Testing the theory, I gave walking a go, aiming for the summit of the roof, and sure enough, I found myself deftly padding up to the top without a sound. Damn near almost fell back off it as soon as I got a good look at my more distant surroundings.

I was halfway up a wide hill, or at least as near as I could tell. It was difficult to make out because the whole thing was covered in buildings, tier upon tier of them. As the hill tapered off it merged with a massive plain, where more buildings spread out in a wide area, slowly becoming more and more decrepit as they got further from the center.

The buildings were all stone and wood, medieval italian in style if I had to guess, but I was probably wrong. Every now and then you could make out older buildings made in shining marble and decorated with bright paint and marred with soot stains, they appeared to be a little on the run down side. Firelight flickered within many homes, and street lights in the higher levels marked out the twist and turns of the street. Distantly, I could hear the rushing of water as it sloshed through some sort of canal, but I could barely make it out in the dark.

Beyond the houses it was pitch black, only the occasional pinprick of light to betray the existence of land beyond this gargantuan city. It really was massive too, as large as any sprawling metropolis from Earth, a planet that I assumed I was no longer standing on. Yeah, I’d seen enough media about this sort of shit to at least recognise the deal.

What I didn’t recognise, was that faint line of light that stretched from one end of the horizon to the other. In fact, it circled my position, far out in the distance. I squinted, trying to get a better look at it, but still all I saw was a faint green line.

Frantic footsteps and angry shouting from behind me on the rooftop tore me back to the here and now. I turned quickly, just in time to make out a hooded figure looking over its shoulder as it rushed along the apex of the rooftop I was on. Just in time, that is, to brace myself before they ran into me at high speed.

“Fuck! Where the hell—“ they blurted, a young masculine voice. His angry outburst was interrupted when he overbalanced and fell sideways, sliding headfirst down the slate tiles as I had done not moments earlier.

Unlike him, I hadn’t lost my balance, and I lunged after him without thinking, running with silent steps, then a controlled slide to catch up. My hand closed around his ankle with barely a moment to spare, while my other one whipped out to grab at a chimney to keep us both from going over the edge. Time to test how strong I was, I guess?

With a deep breath, I pulled on the guy’s foot, slowly dragging him back up from the edge until he looked like he was stable. When I let go, I looked down at my arm in wonder. Holy shit, I was pretty strong! Stronger than I had been as a scrawny nerd anyway!

“Damn, thanks for saving me I guess, but where in the sweet goddess’s name did you even come from?” he asked, wheezing and puffing as he righted himself.

I shrugged helplessly. What the hell was I meant to tell him? Certainly not that I’d just come from another world.

“Silent type huh, very mysterious!” he joked, and now that he was looking at me properly I could see a young but handsome face, although there was maybe a little too much stubble. Dude needed to shave, or it was going to turn into an ordeal.

“Not silent, I just didn’t really know what to say. I’m uh… from out of town, so to speak,” I said with a smile of my own. A smile that was again blocked by my mask, but I wasn’t going to take it off.

That seemed to surprise him, and for a moment I saw stray firelight reflected in his eyes. “You’re a wastelander? Damn woman, no wonder you appeared out of nowhere, got to be mighty sneaky to survive out there huh?”

“I’m a man,” I corrected him gruffly, my voice lowering slightly to account for my new default pitch.

“Oh, sorry then,” he coughed, and his eyes did my body a quick once over that told me he wasn’t entirely convinced. I was going to have to start packing a sock into my underwear, wasn’t I? Ugh. He seemed to remember that he’d been running at that moment, pushing himself quickly to his feet and turning frantically to see if he’d been followed.

Sure enough, a bunch of guys in fancy armour hauled themselves up onto the roof by way of a ladder. I saw one with a glowing pendant thingy around his neck, and then he was muttering and waving his hand in the air in vague gestures.

“Shit! Mage!” my new friend exclaimed in alarm, bolting for the opposite end of the building. “Guy, dude… whatever, you gotta run if you want that pretty head of yours to stay where it is! They seen you with me now!”

“Fuckin’ great,” I muttered, pushing to my own feet and following as he rushed headlong down the peak of the roof.

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While my footfalls were completely silent, his were not. Maybe he could be stealthy when he was trying, but right now it was nothing but crashing and thumping as he made his escape. My silent tread was unsettling in the extreme, I’d never learned to run like this, and not hearing your own footsteps was something you didn’t realise was missing until it was.

“Get ready to jump!” he called, right before leaping off the edge of the rooftop.

Oh, fudge! I leapt with only a single moment to figure out which rooftop I was meant to be aiming for. I landed like a spring compressing under a great weight, my legs bending to absorb some of the impact before my new body automatically tucked itself into a roll to lose the rest of my momentum. When I came up from it, I almost collided with my new friend as he stared at me with raised eyebrows.

“Those are some moves there, my man. Where’d you learn to roll like that?” he asked, clearly impressed.

“Less talking, more running,” I told him, frustration edging into my voice. Did this guy want to get caught by the cops?

“Right, good plan,” he laughed, turning on the spot and continuing the getaway.

The escape apparently involved jumping off rooftop after rooftop at breakneck speeds as we sought to get off the hill and out into the slums of the plains. It allowed me to get a good look at the place though, and what surprised me was that this wasn’t a hill at all. Every now and then, I’d catch a glimpse of a structure underneath everything, completely different and alien compared to what lay on the surface. It was as if the entire city had been built on a truly massive pyramid or ziggurat.

“This place is built on another building?” I asked as we stopped for the thief to catch his breath.

He glanced up from where he had his hands on his knees, surprise painted across his face. “You don’t know? How far out in the wastes are you from?”

“Really, really far,” I told him, not entirely lying. Earth was probably at least a really long way away. I should have probably added a third really, just to be safe though.

“No kidding,” he said breathlessly, pushing upright again. “Well, then yeah. Anamoor was built on a bloody great ruined temple thing. Not actually sure, might have been the Goddess’s latrine for all I know. The city’s been here for a thousand years or more, and no one even knows who built the thing under it, or how long it’s been there. Place is full of nasty traps and magic too, as well as extending far into the ground. Folks from the pathfinder’s guild go down there pretty often and then in the hopes of finding treasure.”

“Of course there’s a fucking adventurer’s guild,” I muttered under my breath.

“Uh, what?” he asked, leaning forward.

I shook my head. “Nothing, just interesting is all. I’m a complete newcomer to this whole city.”

“Yeah, no shit,” he laughed, wiping sweat off his forehead with a sleeve. “Right, well… let’s keep going then. I’ll get you to the nearest safe house and we’ll get you introduced.”

“Introduced to who?” I asked, suspicion rising within me.

“Local chapter head for the thieve’s guild, of course,” he said as though that was the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re all dressed for stealin’ after all, and nobody operates in this city unless they’re doing so with the guild’s permission. ‘Least, not for very long. Knife’ll find you faster than any guard if you take that route.”

I sighed, closing my eyes as I weighed my options. My ultimate goal should be to find some of my classmates and figure out what the fuck was going on, but for now I needed a way to survive. Since my new body appeared to be custom built for stealing shit, which… well it had actually, by me. I chuckled to myself, quickly stifling it when it came out as more of a giggle. This new voice, I swear.

“Alright,” I said after a few moments, opening my eyes resignedly. “Lead on, uh… friend?”

Time to join the thieves guild, I guess?

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