An Outcast in Another World 02 - Shared Insanity, page 1
An Outcast In Another World
Book 2 - Shared Insanity
Brett Finnicum a.k.a. KamikazePotato
Copyright © 2021 Brett Finnicum a.k.a. KamikazePotato
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Dedication
I wouldn't have been able to come as far as I have without a ton of help along the way. This book is dedicated to my family, who have given me unwavering support from the very beginning. I'd also like to thank the people of Spacebattles, Royal Road, and the HFY subreddit for making my story a success online. Board 8 helped me hone my writing skills over the years, and author MelasD deserves a big mention for all his advice on how to self-publish – and do it right. Lastly, I'd like to thank all the fans who helped make Book 1 an Amazon success, as well as my Patrons for the incredible financial support that's helped make writing this story sustainable,. Without the help of all these people, there would be no An Outcast In Another World.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Summary of Book 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Character Sheet and Skills At The End of Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Character Sheet and Skills At The End of Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Character Sheet and Skills At The End of Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Character Sheet and Skills At The End of Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Afterword
About The Author
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Summary of Book 1
Author’s Note:
This is a quick summary of the events of Book 1 (Human Insanity) for those who need a refresher. If you’d like to jump straight into the action, feel free to ignore this section and skip straight to Chapter 1.
–
At the start of Book 1, Rob was spending time with his best friend Jason when a portal opened in the middle of their college campus. Chains shot out of the portal and tried to kidnap Jason; instead, Rob took the hit, and ended up being dragged into Elatra, a fantasy world that runs on stats, level ups, and general video game logic. The forest he gets dumped into is full of rabid, horribly mutated wildlife that nearly kills him several times. Eventually, Rob makes contact with the local Elves, and the encounter goes just a little bit poorer than he’d hoped for. The Elves try to kill him on sight, and he barely manages to escape with his life.
Soon after, Rob meets and befriends a gung-ho Warrior Elf named Keira. She brings him back to the local Village, where Rob learns the reason why the Elves tried to kill him: eight years ago, Elatra was devastated by a world war called The Scouring that wiped out roughly 60% of the population. The Humans of the world fought against every other race at the same time, and after a stalemate where massive amounts of blood were shed on both sides, the Humans ended up being pushed back as the Dragon Queen spearheads an effort to exterminate them down to the last person. As a final Fuck You to the world, the Humans sacrifice themselves to unleash the Cataclysm, launching rays of magical light that ravage the lands. The Humans are gone, but Elatra has been broken.
Rob doesn’t buy into the Elven narrative of The Scouring being a just war, but his alternative is to return to a hellhole forest that will assuredly kill him, so he follows Keira into The Village despite its population consisting of people that hate him for existing. After a farce of a tribunal by the Village’s Elders, and with some help from Keira and the local head Ranger named Riardin, Rob is barely able to keep his life and is made an honorary member of The Village.
Around this time, he learns that Humans in Elatra are afflicted with a status called Leveling High that pumps them full of intense amounts of dopamine whenever they level up. This slowly turns them into leveling addicts who begin to revel in slaughter if they can’t control themselves. Rob was afflicted with Leveling High when he came to Elatra, and at present, there is no cure.
During his time in The Village, and despite heavy resistance, Rob slowly ingratiates himself among the locals. Keira is by far his biggest supporter, and they quickly begin to form a close bond. Rob also makes acquaintances with the local Ranger trainees. Among that group, he meets Vul’to, Orn’tol, Alia, Tarric, and Zamira, and spends weeks training with them as they get to know each other. Eventually, the Ranger trainees nearly die in a Dungeon Crawl gone wrong, with Rob leading a rescue attempt that saves their lives. This act of heroism boosts his reputation in The Village by a large margin and further convinces the trainees that he’s someone who would make a good friend. At one point, an Elf named Kenzotul who is wracked with grief over his complicity in the Human race’s extinction asks Rob to kill him, but Rob refuses, stating that Kenzotul should live and work to make the world a better place instead.
While all this has been happening, the number of Infected and mutated animals in the forest surrounding The Village have been skyrocketing. The Village prepares for an imminent siege, and before long, they’re attacked by an unending horse of monstrosities. Rob and the Ranger trainees fight well, but they aren’t without casualties. Alia sacrifices herself to save a family of civilians, while Tarric sacrifices himself to save Vul’to, his best friend. Eventually, a mass of Infected animals make their way to the center of The Village and tear open a hole in reality. They absorb the power within and form into a Blight, a horrifying abomination out of ancient legend. The Blight is nigh-unstoppable, and it nearly kills Rob and Keira, but Riardin manages to mortally wound the creature by detonating a massive amount of explosives, a maneuver that he doesn’t survive. Before the Blight can murder hundreds of civilians in its death throes, Rob taunts the abomination into focusing on him. The Blight annihilates Rob’s body with a laser of distorted energy, simultaneously cracking apart a nearby Class Crystal in the process.
Rob awakens several days later. When the Blight broke the Class Crystal, its latent energies infused with Rob’s soul, reconstituting his body and granting him a mysterious new Sub-Class called ‘Crystal Bearer’. He reunites with Keira, finding that his reputation among The Villager has improved significantly after word of his heroic almost-sacrifice spread. It turns out that 3000 out of the 10,000 residents of The Village ended up dying in the Infected invasion, and due to the Blight absorbing The Village’s Locus of Power, the surrounding land will soon become inhospitable for any and all life. Rob and Keira are heartbroken over the losses they’ve suffered, but they take solace in the fact that they’re alive, and that they have the strength to move forward and strive for a better future.
Back home Earth, Jason reiterates his faith that Rob will return, and waits for the day when his best friend will finally come home.
Chapter 1
On a sunlit day much like any other, as a gentle breeze made its way through town, four Elves and one Human held a funeral.
It wasn’t the first that had taken place over the past few days. The Village was filled to bursting with gravestones both marked and unmarked. So many funerals were being held that Rob and the Ranger trainees ended up picking an out-of-the-way location so they could have a modicum of privacy when saying goodbye. It reminded Rob of trying to find a parking spot in a crowded shopping mall, just with a lot more grief involved. Eventually they settled on the Ranger training grounds, partially because three of the people they were putting to rest were Tarric, Alia, and Riardin. A lot of their time spent together had been on those grounds.
And partially because the other trainee groups wouldn’t be fighting for the space, as all of them were dead.
Rob tried to keep morbid little thoughts like those from creeping into his mind as he waited his turn, but it was difficult when he was the last in line to pay his respects and everyone else had a lot to say. He’d volunteered to go after the rest of the Ranger trainees as he’d known the deceased for less time than anyone else, and while he didn’t regret his decision, it still gave him a mounting sense of performance anxiety as he watched the others give their eulogies. They were far enough away that the words being spoken by each person were inaudible, but he could still see the intensity on their faces, the tears running down their cheeks. Vul’to especially; the guy wore his heart on his sleeve, and right now that heart was breaking. Ea
And then there was Rob, who didn’t know what he was going to say. Not when he was due to go last after Vul’to, Keira, Orn’tol, and Zamira were done baring their souls. They had to know that he couldn’t speak for as long as them, right? Would he come across as callous if he kept it short? He didn’t have the kind of history with the interred that everyone else shared. Just because he wasn’t going to be able to recount years of memories didn’t mean he didn’t care.
Most of all, he hated that Elatra had forced him to think so pragmatically about a fucking funeral, and how his actions might affect his social standing among the few people that accepted him.
Then Vul’to started walking back and Oh shit, it’s my turn. Rob fought back jitters as he approached the six gravestones. Diplomacy offered to help him find the right things to say, but he gently pushed the Skill away. Even if his own words wouldn’t be perfect, he wanted them to come from himself. With a mental nod, Diplomacy backed off and left him to flounder through the eulogies, accepting his decision without criticism.
Rob approached Tarric’s and Alia’s graves first. He’d thought about saving the most ‘important’ people for last, then determined he didn’t want to overthink it and let his gut guide his footsteps. The gravestones were small, dug into hasty holes in the dirt, the owners’ names carved into the stone in careful shorthand. They were very much unlike the smartly-crafted gravestones that The Village’s Stonemasons were working overtime to push out, but perhaps more fitting for a small, personal service. This actually wasn’t the first funeral any of the five had attended; there’d already been a mass funeral for the Rangers, another for the trainees, and another for the Elders, but Rob and the others had agreed that they wanted their own service where they could achieve a greater sense of closure. The Village was being evacuated in several days, and there would never be another chance to come back and hold a funeral. Now was the time.
“Hi, guys,” Rob began, addressing the plots that represented two trainees’ young lives cut short. “Heh. ‘Hi, guys’. I bet Vul’to started with some flowery Elven poetry written after hours of consideration, and I’m hitting you with the ‘Hi, guys’. Maybe I really should have let Diplomacy take the wheel, but eh, I’m already here and the cost has been sunk. That okay with you?”
They didn’t answer.
“I have to admit, I didn’t expect to see you like this,” he continued. “There was some part of me that assumed the Village defense was all-or-nothing. Either all of us would die, or none of us would. Didn’t have any real logic behind that assumption, I just...I don’t know. Didn’t consider I’d be outliving any of you snarky pricks.”
He smirked. “I’m honestly going to miss that snark. We pissed each other off, yeah, but I think we were starting to grow on each other like mutual fungi. Was actually looking forward to getting to know you guys better. Guess I never will.”
Rob waited for the tears to come, but his eyes stayed dry. It just...didn’t seem real. Like Alia and Tarric would burst out of the ground at any second and laugh at him. He’d get mad, and they’d say it was just a prank, bro, and the cycle of ribbing would begin anew.
How was he supposed to cry when a large part of him couldn’t accept that they were gone?
“I don’t know how Elatran afterlife works,” Rob continued. “If it’s real, if any of you can hear me, etc. But if you can, let me say this: both of you gave your lives to save others, and you deserve all the respect in the world for that.”
He inclined his head. “Rest easy, guys. You earned it. I’ll make sure to tell anyone who asks that you were badasses.”
Next in line were the graves for Elder Fareena and Elder Fensandoralpico. Rob had been the one to request that they be included in the service. While the other trainees had been a bit surprised, as they barely knew the Elders, they'd immediately acquiesced once Rob explained his reasoning.
“Both of you voted for me to live,” Rob said. “The more I learn about Elatra, the more I realize how ballsy of a move that was. It’s not easy to do the right, moral thing instead of the easy, socially acceptable thing. Feels weird to be praising you for not killing me, but fuck it. I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t given me the all-clear. That means something.”
He nodded. “I’ll make sure I keep on surviving. You can count on it.”
Next was Men’ta. His funeral had been held long ago, but Keira asked that he be included as well. Technically, he’d been the first victim to the Blight’s encroachment into Ixatan, and either way no one was going to argue against her. Not when she clearly had things left unsaid.
“I don’t know you at all,” Rob admitted. “So there aren’t many words I have to offer. I’ll just say this: thanks for taking care of Keira before I got here. I don’t know what she would’ve done without a single friend all this time. Now she’s got me, and Zamira, and the rest of the trainees are well on their way to accepting her. The torch has been passed, and we’re making sure it doesn’t fade.”
One grave left.
“Where do I even start with you?” Rob said to Riardin. “I think it says something about how much my opinion on you has changed that the hole in my heart left by your passing is almost as big as the literal hole you nearly blew into it when we met. You, uh, didn’t make the best first impression. And then you supported me getting into The Village. And kept supporting me from behind the scenes.”
“...And died for me.”
Rob closed his eyes and sighed.
“I know you went through a lot of shit over the years,” he said. “More than almost any other Elf I’ve met, you always seemed vaguely tired. Like a machine put on automatic and left to run without maintenance for a long time. There were things you could do that no one else could, and that meant you had to keep going. With great power comes great responsibility, and trust me when I say that comparing you to a comic book hero is pretty high fucking praise coming from an Earth native.”
Rob opened his eyes and stared at the unmoving plot of land. “I know you’d rather be here, doing things that need to be done, but if you had to go, you certainly went out with a bang. Riardin the motherfucking Blightkiller.”
A small smile crept up his face. “Rest well, you crazy bastard.”
He walked back to the trainees, relief spreading through him when he didn’t spy any offended or angry looks on their faces. They were too lost in their thoughts for that. After confirming that everyone had said their piece, the group dispersed to go process their emotions and help with the evacuation procedures. Moving a population of 7000 through two weeks’ worth of Infected forest was a hell of an undertaking to prepare for. He didn’t envy those in charge of that mess.
Rob made an attempt to go after Vul’to, willing to ask Diplomacy for any help it could give towards putting a smile back on the trainee’s face, but Vul’to saw him coming and rebuffed him with a small shake of his head. Maybe Jason could have broken through Vul’to’s walls, as he possessed the kind of natural-born charisma that let him treat social boundaries like guidelines while still leaving everyone smiling in the end, but Rob wasn’t Jason. All he could do was watch as Vul’to’s hunched back retreated into the distance.
I’m giving you some homework, Rob said to Diplomacy. Think of a way to cheer him up. Even just a little. It would mean a lot to me.
The Skill nodded seriously, and went to work.
–
Keira wanted to scream.
Not because of the funeral they’d held earlier that day. That had actually been quite cathartic. While she still held a mountain of grief in her heart, after saying what she needed to say to her fallen companions, that grief weighed just a little bit lighter. She felt able to begin the process of moving on and coming to terms with their passing.
No, she wanted to scream because someone was asking for her advice about matters she had no business being in charge of.
Again.
“…but the other side argues that the remaining HP Potions should be rationed in favor of the civilians, as unlike the Rangers, they cannot defend themselves.” The supplicant crossed his arms. “What are your thoughts?”
