Chapter 11

Frank sat up, suddenly aware of a smoky scent in the air. His first thought was fire, but when he looked around he realized he wasn't in his room anymore. The room around him was an odd mix of Western and Eastern design. Stone walls, stained glass windows, tatami mats lining the floor and the interior walls appeared to be made of paper like an Asian setting.

"Fuck sakes, this is the system again, isn't it? Come on already, what is it this time you annoying little shit?"

Frank rubbed his head, already getting a headache. Though he wasn't sure if it was purely from the system bothering his otherwise peaceful slumber, or because he could actually feel some kind of light pressure in his skull. Probably a combination of both, Frank tended to be a bit cranky when he was woken from a nap.

With no immediate answer, he got up and began walking around the dreamscape. This was a far sight from his last dream given to him by the system. He could walk around on his own, speak out loud instead of just listen to himself like a passenger in his own body, and even badmouth the system.

He walked forward onto the tatami mat in front of him and realized the paper wall before him was actually a door, so he gingerly pulled it to the side. He could smell the earthy, aromatic scent more strongly from here, it was very fragrant and familiar to him. But where had he smelled it before?

Inside the room he just opened was a much larger space. A low central pit covered by a tatami floor and surrounded in a wooden floor polished to perfection and decorated with small, comfortable cushions. On the walls there were displayed various weapons of all sorts. Longswords, arming swords, spears, falchions, messer swords, cutlasses, battle axes, hatchets, knives of various sizes, punch daggers, nunchaku, halberds and billhooks, you name it. The support beams and walls alone displayed an impressive armory, to say nothing of the racks full of weapons standing at attention like soldiers side by side along the floor.

The smell, Frank quickly realized, was coming from a shrine against the far wall. A lone figure sat kneeling in front of the shrine, praying or perhaps meditating. Frank decided to walk closer, stopping to admire a few of the weapons on the wall along the way. This dream figure would have to notice him sooner or later. He took a long hard look at a display rack with a selection of swords on it. It finally clicked in his mind what the smell of the incense being burnt at the shrine was! Frankincense and sandalwood. Why did the smell make his head hurt more?

The pain in his head began to rapidly build from a small stress headache to something more like a caffeine headache. From there it got worse as he began to reach for one of the swords and something like whispering began to come into focus in his mind, though he couldn't make out the words.

When he picked up the sword, the pressure had built so much that Frank began to sweat, and then suddenly there was a loud pop, like someone had just crushed the shell of a nut in the distance. Of course, the sound was actually in Frank's head and the pain finally subsided. With a sigh, he relaxed a little more and the whispering became clearer.

"I know you can hear me now, squire" a rough, authoritative voice rang out. To the side of Frank's vision, the system gave him a small alert notification, he ignored it for a moment to listen to the voice. It sounded so clear, it had to be in his head like the voice the system sometimes used. There was the strange impression of an echo, but he couldn't detect one with his ears. To be fair, he was in a dream. But he couldn't shake the feeling that the voice was in his head.

"Answer me, boy! Have you no respect for your elders?" The voice questioned. The man kneeling at the shrine rose to his feet and turned, in his arm he held a helmet resembling a crusades-era great helm with decorative metal wings spreading from the top and to the sides. His face was that of a weathered master. He wore his brown hair short, though it was long enough that one could see the salt and pepper of age working its way up his head.

When he stepped towards Frank he was in the light of a stained glass window that depicted a sword being thrust through the neck of an overly detailed red dragon. It's blood was swirling in deep crimson against the otherwise forest green background, painting a sinister picture around the impatient figure before him.

The light didn't just reveal the scowl of annoyance on the man's face, it also revealed an image of crossed arrows in front of a large tree on his tabard, and a few large, grisly scars along his cheek. Those certainly came from something with claws large enough to warn off a wiser man. Whether the old master, clearly some kind of knight, had found that wisdom before or after his brush with that monster was his story to tell.

"Answer you? That's you speaking to me, right?" Frank finally blurted out after shaking himself from his thoughts.

"Fool! You hear, yet you do not comprehend. Do not speak from here," The man pointed to his mouth, which was not moving as Frank received his instructions, and his insults, "but here!" the knight pointed to his head, tapping quickly as if to urge Frank to hurry up.

Puzzled, Frank snuck a look at the system notification he got earlier.

[You have been bestowed the skill Limited Telepathy (Rank D, Level 0)

You may use this skill while in the Astral Realm, however further skills and spiritual breakthroughs are required to use this skill in the physical world and begin developing it.]

'No way, there's no way. Telepathy?! Like in the movies?! I can use that when I'm awake?' Frank read the notification over again and sucked air through his teeth 'Ah, maybe not. Still, the skill is there for the future, and I can practice it now!'

He looked back up after dismissing the notification and focused his attention on the knight in front of him, intending to send his thoughts at him. At first it hurt his head again, but with a little more effort he felt a ringing in his ears, the same echo noise he couldn't identify before. And then, 'Hello? Is this working? Can you hear me, Mr. Knight?'

Rolling his eyes and more openly scowling, the knight replied, 'I am a knighted lord, I am not a 'mister', I am Sir Granspier. You're one of the new awakened, eh? You don't look like much. We'll fix that'

From out of nowhere, a large halberd appeared in the old knight's hand, he thumped it against the floor with a loud boom and all the weapons in the hall, including the one in Frank's hand, flew into the air. The whooshing cacophony ended when the weapons all arranged themselves in rows behind Sir Granspier.

'Tell me, awakened. What arms would you trust your life to?'