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Story preview - Dandelion's previous life - Chapter 1 - Born in Fire
🕑 Added 2025-01-01 08:15:41 +0000 UTCDay 1, 7:30 PM
I gasp for breath, my lungs filling with scalding, acrid fumes.
Smoke.
My head swims, but I have enough presence of mind to scan my body and find my chest hurts, my left arm is numb, and my feet are burning. My new body is bound to a stake, its previous owner had died of a heart attack just as the fire was starting.
Like every time, blue screens flash before my eyes, informing me my body is failing, that my bonuses are applied, and that I once more have a body.
I blink the whirl of information away and yank my arms with all I have. They are bound behind my back, luckily, whoever burned my body’s previous owner used ropes. They did not nail the victim to the thick beam. This time.
I am getting so used to death, my first expectation was I would get cremated alive again, but the ropes prove surprisingly flimsy and snap easily enough.
There is no time for surprise. With teary eyes, I claw into the fire, ripping the burning ropes binding my ankles while the crowd I cannot see, but can hear perfectly well, screams and shouts.
“The witch is free!”
Am I a man or a woman? An inane thought passes through my mind as I jump off a thick pile of wood and for the first time see my surroundings.
A light rain drizzles, making me wonder who in their right mind burned witches in the rain. Was it a form of torture?
The night has fallen, and I am in a meadow, a half-circle of humans or something similar enough staring at me with wide eyes, some fleeing the scene in panic.
At the front stands a chubby man in clean white robes with red hems and an ankh-shaped amulet, flanked by a pair of men armed with thick clubs studded with metal spikes. The bodyguards are holding umbrellas, safeguarding their bald principal from the sprinkling celestial water, rather than a furious madman jumping out of the fire.
An honest mistake, someone already dead rarely jumps out of the fire to slam an inhumanly powerful fist into the throat of the man you are protecting. I exact my revenge, instill panic, and confuse potential pursuers all in one strike.
Chubs Baldie falls, dropping the torch he used to set the pyre ablaze and clawing at his throat. He is going to die in two minutes, and I am running away before the guards even realize what just happened.
My heart still beats oddly, like it is seeking a way out of my ribcage, jumping in all directions. This is the first time I have suffered a heart attack without imminent death looming over me, and I have no idea what is the natural reaction, other than dropping dead. I should probably lie down somewhere safe, change my diet, sleep more, and drink less.
I nearly trip, coughing my lungs out, but I push back off the slick grass with my hands and keep sprinting into the darkness. Thinking of heart attacks naturally made me think of Her. I thought the weeks of constant dying, pain, and misery had helped me move on, but apparently as soon as I have some chance of staying alive, my thoughts drift to her.
Will I find you here, Manuella? Will you be my goddess again? I swear I have learned from my mistakes. I would destroy the world to find you.
Right… That last thought clearly means I have not learned my lesson.
I reach the edge of a forest, the rain grows weaker, then stops entirely, probably obscured by foliage, if the tapering sounds from above are any indication. The darkness is so absolute that not even my night-vision can pierce it, so I slow down, and stumble forth with arms in front of me.
The tree trunk I touch is soft, covered in warts, and I take a moment to realize a layer of ooze is flowing out of them, an ooze which burns my palm. I jump back, flailing my arm and sending a shower of goo into the darkness.
Caustic vine, strangles other plants and melts them for nutrients. It poses little danger unless you ingest it or get some in your eyes.
The thought is alien, implanted into my mind directly through BSD, like all skills. I sigh. The night is dark, this forest has caustic flora, I have no desire to meet its fauna, and I have no idea where I am.
F one, I summon the Blue Screen of Death.
[Name - Fyoor Enchanterson
Class - herbalist level 8
Health 10/15, Strength - 13, Agility - 16, Physique - 15, Wisdom - 25, Intellect - 29, Willpower - 23, Presence - 19, Charisma - 20, Composure - 22
Abilities - Literate, Advanced Calligraphy, Initial Arithmetics, Advanced Herbalism, Advanced Healing, Initial Focus, Initial Appraisal, Initial Woodland Sense, Initial Emergency Treatment, Initial Poison Tolerance, Master Rider
Attribute points remaining - 0
To level up, cure a patient who suffered from prolonged contact with poisonous plants
Statuses - Ill, Tired, Wounded ]
Thank the Lord of Light I am literate this time.
I grope myself between my legs.
Mister Fyoor, you have neglected your body greatly, but your brain is stellar! I think I have never had such high mental stats.
What does Ill do?
[Ill - reduces all your attributes by two]
Huh? I have never been ill before, the condition is tough, twice the penalty from Tired, but that means my stats are even better than expected.
“Fyoor, did you collude with a demon?” A chilling feminine voice comes from the dark to my left, a hint of death sentence in the tone.
I check Redo countdown, it says seven days and three hours. I cannot die now, otherwise who knows how many times I will die before I get another chance.
“I colluded with no demons.” I keep my voice calm, but cannot help the raspiness from swallowing smoke. Meanwhile, I wonder whether demons are something made up by these savages or an actual type of entity that you could collude with.
Hopefully, the former.
“How did you get strong enough to escape your bindings?” she asks, her voice no less tense than it was a moment ago. “Why did you kill the priest?”
Because he killed the guy whose body I got, and I wanted to avenge him at the least? And they tortured me or beat me, if my aching body is any indication of things that had happened. Besides, leaving future pursuers alive is not my thing. It hasn’t been in a long while.
“The ropes caught fire, so it was easier to snap them.”
“You don’t sound like Fyoor.”
“I just jumped out of a fire, woman, give me a break.” I bluff, but she’s not buying it.
“What is my name?”
Well, great question to annihilate my cover in four words. My thoughts jump from a doomed, if honest, ‘I have no idea,’ to threats and violence, but I do not know who the woman is, she might be Fyoor’s wife for all I know.
I break the silence and settle with, “I have no memory of you. I jumped out of a fire, and saw a man who obviously lit it intending to kill me, so I struck him before escaping.”
My charisma is more than decent, I use it, exerting my will and beliefs upon her the way I have learned to do to convince others of my words.
“Well, that’s a load of toadstool.” And sometimes, charisma simply fails, because the task is impossible. “One last time, tell me who or what you are, or I will turn you to ash.”
I could drop down and pretend I fainted. The thought is foolish, and I abandon it immediately, I will never place my life in other’s hands like that. Instead, I wave my hand towards her.
“What are you doing? Don’t move!”
She can see in the dark.
“I do not believe—”
Before I could finish my sentence a ball of fire slams the ground three yards away from me. The brilliant flash blinds me, shocking me for a different reason.
Magic?
Maybe a flamethrower?
“Magic?” Blunt stammers. I thought I had tamed it, but apparently it was waiting for my focus to slip.
“Who Are You?” She emphasized every word. It was the last warning I would get, my last chance, maybe the last words I hear in this life.
“I am not a demon. I am cursed. Fyoor died, and I took his place.” If she has magic, and some magical way of detecting the truth, then every lie could end my life. Better to play it safe. The truth is easy enough to twist into whatever suits me. Besides, the worst thing that could happen is I die another agonizing death, followed by countless others, until I grasp my chance again.
A second passes, then another. I still live, the soggy ground stopped burning, and green and red blots dance in the darkness of my vision.
“Is that what you’re sticking with?” she asks, her tone is dubious, but she is not shooting fire at me, so I guess I am heading in the right direction.
“My curse is to inhabit dying bodies and die their death again. This time I got lucky and escaped the fire.”
“Uh-huh, and who cursed you like that? Was it the wormlords?”
“I do not know who the wormlords are. The one who got me was the god of death or someone similar, I lost my temper and slapped her.”
“Uh-huh?”
AN: Let me know what you think. This was my idea of a present, since I'm lacking Newt's chapters.
