From Rags to Riches

About 2 seconds after I was brutally disintegrated by that authoritative voice, I opened my eyes to quite the disturbing scene. Five men, clad in light chainmail armour, each holding a wooden club, and a shield with a coat of arms that was unnecessarily complicated, but featuring a dual-headed eagle, were using their clubs to intimidate passersbys on the street, while walking toward a frail woman, sneering at her with more prejudice than I ever encountered in my previous life.

I took in the rest of my surroundings, and realized that I was swaddled, with a bottle full of a vulgar looking green liquid off to my side, all enclosed in an open-top wooden box.

"Seeing as how those men seem to be abusing some sort of institutional power, it would probably not be wise for a defenseless baby to attract their attention." I thought.

Suddenly, from the shadows of an alley behind me, someone picked up the wooden box, and slunk back to where they had emerged from, making no sound, and alerting nobody to the fact that someone was spiriting a baby to who-knows-where. I then felt a cool sensation on my forehead, and promptly blacked out.

I was awoken by a medium group of people who were trying to speak in hushed voices but were not being very successful.

"What in the hell were you thinking? You can't just take a child from the street like that!"

"You know our situation. This was the only way."

"Bullshit! You could have adopted."

"And leave a paper trail that is incredibly telling that the child isn't legitimate? No way. There can be no trace of her problem."

"Fine. Only on the condition that you leave here. I absolutely cannot have your bad decision blowing up in my face."

"If that's what it takes, I'll take Laenette and the kid to Darabash."

I heard footsteps approaching the door to the room I was in and thought it best to pretend like I was asleep, even though they would have thought little of it if a baby had heard their conversation. I must still be exhausted, because the next thing I know, I'm falling asleep, and try as I might, I can't open my eyes.

Given that this is my journal, and people might find it long after my death, I suppose I should exposit a little, just in case my life was lost in the annals of history.

My name is [REDACTED] and I lived to be about 72 in a different world. Judging from the little information I have about this new one, I'd say its foundation worked similarly to the one I used to live on. Considering I used to be one of the chemists that revolutionized many different facets of life in my old life, that knowledge should serve me quite well. I was wandering a lonely road when I died, ironically contemplating what else I could do with my life, and if I should just stop working and relax. It seems as if the universe answered my query. By some standards, I was a failure. I never had any sexual interest in women, and never got married or had children. All these new world shenanigans are bringing out the teenager in me; I had built up an entire imaginary world of my own in my younger years. Maybe this is the time to try to live out that fantasy.

Enough about my old life, these few years of living with my "parents" who stole me away from wherever I was before (I still don't know how to feel about that) have been a-mazing. They are part of a small, yet notable branch of a much larger noble family. They tell me that even though they are technically nobles, they don't have the land or authority that goes with the title, so we are just wealthy. Their names are Donavan, and Laenette, and they have named me James. They are both fair-skinned folk and are super overprotective. They have an elven maid named Joanna, but the elves in Polynia are far from the elves of anime. Instead of the cliche blonde hair, great beauty, long lives, and pointed ears, the defining features of these elves are their blue skin. That's right, blue. Their eye colours are also different, most elves have a dark olive iris, and some have red irises. They also have a special connection with the magic power of the world, especially when it is contained within crystals.

I also discovered that everyone has a videogame-esque menu that displays their stats, skills, job classes, titles, and passive effects. The stats are as follows, Endurance, Strength, Agility, Mana, Fame and Karma. Each main stat has an effect on which skills you get, how strong they are, how high your sub-stats can get, etc. Fame and Karma are the weird outliers, and I can only guess that Fame represents how well know you are among the people, and Karma represents the opinion of the Gods. Mana is pretty self-explanatory if you've ever played an RPG before; it governs how much magic power you can muster to cast a spell. Agility is a numerical representation of a few different physical aspects, such as how fast you can run, and how flexible you are. Strength is also very self-explanatory, how much can ya lift bro? Endurance is a catch all for physicality, it basically represents how long you are able to keep up a training regimen.

I don't have any skills or titles yet but given what I found in the active effects panel; they should come flowing in sooner, rather than later.