This was when I got my first good look at the commander as he removed his helmet. He looked like a grizzled human in his early forties if I had to guess. Sharp jawline and short cut black hair with grey streaks along the sides and piercing green eyes. I took the chance to glance at the other soldiers I could see. They all appeared to be human. The ones with the Commander appeared to be slightly younger than him, perhaps closer to my age, although, with my minor tweaks from the system I looked to be in my mid-twenties now instead of my late thirties. I wonder what my friends would think if they could see me."Good, good. Before you go Frathsar, I wish to discuss something with you. If you could follow me to my office.""Certainly Commander, Paul, I will meet up with you later."I just nodded at the pair as they walked away and I followed the stonily silent Quinton, a man of middling height and dark brown hair that was matted in sweat from his helmet. As we walked he just pointed at cer

I awoke with a start, gripping my staff tight; forgetting where I was for a few seconds. After I managed to calm my beating heart and let the fear drain away, I sat up in the pitch dark room. I recalled there being a candle somewhere in the room but I had my wind up flashlight, so I pulled that out instead. I could tell it was still late at night or early morning, as no light seeped through the door to help illuminate the darkness.At this point I knew I wasn't getting back to sleep so I pulled out my little pocket knife and started carving rough runic figures into a piece of scrap wood, I had carved these symbols since I was a child learning them from my father when I was little. Whenever I needed to relax or let my mind calm down and didn't have access to any other outlets, carving the designs helped. I remember my father saying they were for good luck and I could use some of that right now, even if it was only a placebo effect.I carved the symbol into a chunk of wood that had been

The one that remained a little ways back turned to run and I smashed him in the side of his knee with an Earth Fist. I wasn't about to let these men escape to harm others if I could help it. He went down screaming as his leg snapped at an odd angle."You wait there, I will be right with you," I said with a deadly edge to my voice, not even bothering to inspect the piece of trash."You will regret messing with the Black Dragons, you have no idea who you're messing with," the man with the broken leg managed to yell between cries of pain."Ha Black Dragons, more like Puff the Magic Dragon."The one with the mangled hand tried to pull a knife and stab me. I just hopped back and unloaded my last 9mm magazine. He went down in a heap bleeding but not dead, yet. I needed a better ranged-weapon. I crushed his windpipe and left him to suffer like his other friend while I dealt with the leader who was crawling away."Why does everyone try to crawl away, where do you think you are going to get to

"That is an oddity of the world I came from. Most advanced technologies didn't seem to work well on our planet, that and the fact that most guns like your rifle or pistol do little damage in the grand scheme of things means people were better off utilizing primitive tech and armor for the stat bonuses.""There are certain mana fueled technologies that did work and were starting to appear on the market but they are prohibitively expensive for most people. My mana pistol is one example but you would need to supply these types of items with the mana unless you have a mana battery or generator to power it.""Your world is different. It seems from everything I have seen that technology and magic will coexist just fine here."Have you noticed any working tech?" he asked questioningly.I shrugged and pulled out the wind-up flashlight from my small bag that I carried with me now."I have this," I said winding up the device and turning it on.

I slowly opened my eyes, realizing I must have passed out from the pain. My head still pounded and I still couldn't move. I glanced at my health and saw it had gone up to 23 in the time I had been unconscious. I didn't want to do the math but I had to figure out how long I had been lying here, assuming my health had not dropped below the 12 I had before I lost consciousness. I figured I was out less than an hour.My head was now clear enough now to cast Rejuvenate and I was certainly glad for the ability to cast silently as even those small movements caused me pain, I couldn't imagine the pain a word of power would cause as it affected my entire body. I tried casting Cleanse as well to see if it would clear my head some more but there was no noticeable effect. I repeated casting Rejuvenate when it came off cooldown until my arm snapped back into place.Now that my free arm was healed I could cast Healing Touch.This was the one downside of the spell. It could be cast on anyone within