Accidental Merlin

Part2

I woke up face down on the ground. I could smell the damp earth underneath, the wet brown leaves slowly turning to mulch. It was cold, not frozen winter cold; but the early winter cold that happens after the first snow of the winter has melted. I rolled over and stared up at the sky. I was in the middle of a forest. It was either early dawn or dusk; I couldn't see the sun through the trees. I could see the grey sky tinged with the dark orange of the winter sun. I checked my self over to check if everything worked. I wiggled my toes and rubbed my hands together. I sat up slowly and looked down at myself. I was wearing what could be called period clothes, a rough spun tunic, a pair of worn but tough trousers, tied at the waist with string and an old fur lined cloak. I also had on some worn leather boots. I had with me a leather satchel. I looked inside and found a couple of sets of clothes and a small bag containing a few small silver coins and 2 slightly larger coins. I had discovered that there was a small hidden pocket inside my cloak so I stored most of the coins in my void space and stored the pouch in that pocket.

While I was storing the coins I looked inside my void space to see what John had left for me inside. And WOW, I guess immortals like to collect: I saw a libraries worth of books, knick-knacks, chests full of coins, jewels, gold and weapons. There were a lot of weapons: swords, sabers, spears of various sizes, halberds, axes, maces, Chinese straight swords, broadswords, Sais, katanas, nodachis, wakasashis, weird pointy bendy African throwing knives and so much else. It was pretty much a large warehouse full of pointy sharp things.

I grabbed my kukri from my own survival kit and a water skin from some of John's (I guess now my) stuff. I could hear a stream burbling nearby; I walked down to the stream. I reached my hand down to the water. It was a mistake. It was bone chillingly cold and my hand felt instantly frozen and numb. It took me another 5 minutes to build up my courage and dip the water skin into the stream to fill up the water skin. I put the wooden stopper into the hole and then slowly bent down and took some sips of water.

There was a small path next to the brook, I followed the stream downstream hoping to find civilisation. while I was walking I started to go through some of the information passed on to me by John, most of the information seemed locked behind a wall and I assumed I wasn't ready to process the information yet, but I had access to the stuff I needed. I knew languages, all of them. I didn't actually know them, since there is a difference between learning and acquiring, but I knew I would have no trouble understanding or speaking any language. I also knew how to handle all the weapons, not well, since that requires actual training and building muscle memories until the body learns to bypass the brain and react on an instinctual level. But I knew enough to not slice my own arms of when handling a sword. I also looked at the method of training he left for me, but I couldn't really meditate and walk at the same time so I left that for later. I also looked at myself checking my reflection in the stream, I noticed I wasn't as chubby as I had been, I was also slightly taller (I was barely 20 when I entered the walk and hadn't finished growing yet), I was now about 6'1", I had my thick black hair which was long and messy and a patchy uneven beard which looked terrible.

I stopped took out some soap and a small mirror from the void space, and using a knife cut off most of that scraggly beard, I then finished shaving using an actual shaving razor. I then combed my hair until it was somewhat presentable. I didn't do this out of vanity, I had no vanity after the walk, I did that because at some point I was going to meet people and looking like a Wildman wasn't going to help if I needed ... well, help.

Eventually after about 3hrs of walking I saw some human activity, I saw a small hamlet (there was no church in the village) surrounded by the forest on one side and farmland on the other. I followed the path to the hamlet and was greeted at the gate by a middle aged man carrying a cart full of wooden logs that needed to be chopped. "Hello stranger, what brings ye by this small village?" he asked curiously