Chapter 1:

1) A Hard Pill To Swallow

Illustrating the Pixel Art Bestiary


It was the first day of spring.


Knock-Knock-Knock-Knock!

‘Sorry, just a moment!’ Liam yells grogily as he’d just been woken from a dead sleep. The impatient knocking continues as he struggles to get his shirt on like a fish caught in a net.

After fluffing his shirt from the hem one last time to get rid of any wrinkles, Liam opens the door mid rap, catching the man on the other side off guard. The other man recomposes himself and is about to open his mouth, but Liam gets the first word in;

‘Hey, Tyler! Just the guy I wanted to see! I’ve got rent for ya’ right here.’ Liam reaches to the shelf behind the open door and grabs a stack of loose bills. ‘Here you go. I’ve had it ready since last night.’

‘Thank you.’ Tyler says as he takes the money and begins counting. As he does; he occasionally speaks to Liam to get a read on him. Pale complexion, tired smile, disheveled brown hair, diminished health over all since he moved in, but at least his shirt doesn’t have any wrinkles.

He finishes counting. ‘Good. Thank you. Do you think you can pay April’s rent on time?’

‘I’ll see what I can do, but it MAAAY be a little late.’ Liam says jokingly.

After a moment of unimpressed silence, Tyler lets out a big sigh and speaks up; ‘Not funny. If you need a little extra time, that’s ok, but if you push it off another month; I’ll be giving you your notice.’

‘Sorry, I understand. I appreciate your patience. I’ll do my best to get it to you within a reasonable time frame.’ Liam responds dispiritedly.

After a moment of hesitation Tyler asks; ‘Are you doing alright? You seem a little tired.’

‘Oh, yeah I’m fine, you just caught me in my morning routine of… waking up at 3pm.’’ Liam answers, starting cheerily before realizing the time.

Tyler rolls his eyes and starts walking away. ‘Ok, have a good day.’

‘Yeah, you too! And thanks again!’ Liam calls from the door

Liam closes the door and lets out a long exaggerated sigh. ‘I guess it was about time to get up anyway…’

He presses the button on his computer tower, emitting a shrill beep followed by the whir of fans. He goes about his routine while his computer boots.

While prepping the coffee maker he notices that there’s probably not enough coffee grounds left for tomorrow. He opens the freezer and finds a single chicken thigh in a freezer bag. He briefly considered saving it for another day, but took it out to thaw for dinner anyway. Empty cereal box in the cupboard. A single wrinkled apple in the crisper. Two pickles in a jumbo sized jar- or make that one and a half since he just took a bite out of one and put the rest back in the jar... He lives alone, don’t judge. Low on everything, but he still has a half bag of rice, so that should do for a bit.

‘Man, I really need to go shopping. Coffee for sure, but anything else…’

After rent he was left with about 40 dollars. And on top of that… How was he going to pay April’s rent? Feeling emotions well up, he pushes them back down. It’ll be fine.

He pours his coffee, and sits at his computer.

Opening his email to a few new messages. Bills, bills, social media updates and… there it is; A rejection email from one of the studios he applied to.

We regret to inform you that blah, blah, blah. Well at least he had his answer. He doesn’t usually get rejection letters, he typically never hears back. He’s always said he wanted to at least hear back because he’d thought knowing the actual answer would be best, but template responses always hurt more.

Holding back tears, he closes his email and opens a stream. There’s an anime girl with a shrill voice playing some obscure horror game.

‘Maybe I could be a V-tuber?’ he thought. He remembered that he had started making V-tuber software a few weeks back. He opened the project, noodled around with it for a minute, but got discouraged after re-realising that he’d tried streaming a while ago and didn’t like it. Maybe he could finish the software and sell it for money? No, that’d take too long. Making a program that does a specific function like displaying a V-tuber model is fun, but making it so it can be used by anyone with an internet connection and at least one brain cell is time consuming and probably a pointless endeavour anyway since the program more than likely already exists in an open source capacity 100 times over.

He opens the game he’s been working on, a little shmup he started a few days ago. He put it together pretty fast, but once he got the initial mechanics put together he got stuck on some details that just weren't all that important for a game this early in development and started feeling a little bored with it. He liked the pixel art he did for it, but that’s about it. He closes the project.

He scrolls through the folder of dozens, possibly hundreds of abandoned projects to find something to occupy his time, lest he start a new one. And this isn’t even all of them. This is just what he’s made since he got this computer a little over a year ago. A computer he bought when he still had a job.

The game he’d worked on there got canceled not long after he was let go. So outside of a few game jam games he made that were played by a small handful of people and the few school projects he worked on; he has no credit to his name. He’s staked his life on this and now chances are slim he’ll ever get back in. The only chance he feels he has now is making games on his own, which has been his goal from the beginning. But…

‘Am I ever going to commit?’ he asks out loud, voice breaking, tears welling up in his eyes.

‘Why can’t I do this? Why can’t I just stick with one project? Why can’t I just focus?’

These are questions that have been torturing him for years. He loves making games, he’s done it almost every day since the start of high school, but he can’t seem to bring himself to finish them. Is he lazy? Is he stupid? Is he just… not made for this?

‘Maybe I should go back to construction for a bit while I wait for the job market to calm down…’ he thought, wiping tears from his eyes.


‘Nothing a few drinks can’t solve! I’ll get back to figuring out what to do tomorrow!’ he says out loud, trying to hype himself up as he cracks open a can of beer on his way back from the liquor store. He spent the last of his money on beer, pizza and coffee.

It’s almost twilight. The sky is beautiful, but honestly, sunset is his least favorite time of day. Everything ends. Everything goes away. And as the last light of the sun subsides he hears a noise and notices a blinding light approaching him on the road… they’re on the wrong side and they’re headed straight for him.

‘Are they doing this on purpose? Are they driving drunk? Did they fall asleep? I can’t die yet. I still have so many games I want to make. So much I want to do.’ These are the last fleeting thoughts that Liam had.

Or so he thought.


---


He came to. Flat on his back. Not only with the wind knocked out of him, but the uneven stone surface below him of what he would soon find to be a cobblestone road made his discomfort even less bearable, and the gorgeous, cerulean, mid-day sky above him did little to ease his pain.

‘Sir! Oh, I’m so sorry!’, a man yells as he approaches Liam in distress.

‘He hit that man with his wagon!’ whispered an onlooker.

‘But where did the man he hit even come from?’ responded another.

The man looks around, very embarrassed by the onlookers. ‘Sir, you’re alright, yes?’

Liam’s vision finally comes to focus. The man in front of him is wide and squat, he’s wearing some very old looking, but fancy attire. Liam felt underdressed in comparison in his t-shirt and sweat-shorts.

‘Ah, you’re alright!’ the man said impatiently, clearly nervous from all the eyes on him. He gets in close and whispers to Liam hurriedly; ‘I’ll give you one gold piece to get up and walk along… quickly now, before the guards come along and I get my buggy licence revoked!’

‘Everything’s alright everyone! He wasn’t looking where he was going and got startled by my horses, no collision here! Move along with your wondrous days!’ the man announces loudly, projecting his voice to the people around.

‘One gold piece…?’ Liam asked, puzzled, still taking in the situation.

‘Yes, it’s probably worth your entire month’s salary-’ the man pauses, making some kind of realization; ‘Wait just a moment… you’re…’ the man takes a closer look at Liam, gearing to yell in anger, ’an Earth---’ but is cut off by a woman grabbing hold of both his cheeks with one hand, forcing his lips into a pucker, her other index finger to his mouth.

‘Not another word.’ the woman snaps in a hushed tone. ‘I think it’d be better if YOU moved along. Here’s one gold piece.’ she says as she pushes what is presumably a gold piece into the small man’s hand, closing his fist around it before pushing the closed fist to his chest.

The woman turns her attention to Liam. Her grey-blue eyes pierced through him. ‘You. Get up! Quick!’ she demands as she takes him by the wrist urging him to his feet. She begins to hurriedly walk down the side of the street. He notices she’s wearing old fashion clothes as well. A long flowy grey and black dress and a black cloak with its hood pulled over her head.

And it’s not just her. Everyone they pass is dressed in old garb.

Suddenly one of Liam’s ankles buckles from rushing on the uneven cobble road. As he starts to fall he realizes everything here looks old, people in rags, stone buildings topped with dried brush, horses pulling carriages, people carrying weapons like swords and maces, but also some strange creatures he’s never seen before and floating brooms…

The woman gets him up, but he begins to buckle again, his ankle clearly sprained. She curses under her breath, realizing she needs to change her plan.

She helps him to the closest alley where she eases him down to sit against one of the walls.

‘You ok?’ she asks, making direct eye contact.

He finally got a good look at her; she’s an adult, probably around his age. Pale skin, jet black shoulder length hair, cheeks speckled with light freckles, but otherwise flushed red from the exertion of getting him this far. Genuine concern in her icy-blue eyes. He got lost in her pretty face for a brief moment, but he nodded; ‘My ankle’s been better, but otherwise I think I’m fine.’

‘Alright, so I’m sure you’ve gathered what situation you’re in here.’ she says as she starts to rummage in her cloak.

‘We’re at the ren-fair...?’ he says hoping that's the answer.

‘No, smart-ass. You died and now you’re in another world.’ She says half rolling her eyes.

Liam was stunned, but he remembered the headlights. ‘Oh...’

She pulls a small bottle from her cloak and shakes out a white oblong pill into her palm.

‘Ok, listen. I’m sure that moron with the buggy has already pointed guards in our direction, so I have to explain fast; I’m also from your world. I’m an ambassador for our people here and I can help you, but since you can’t move on your own now; we’re going to have to change plans. Trust me, this is going to sound weird, but you need to turn yourself in to the guards and I can’t be around you when you do otherwise they’ll suspect me of something nefarious.”

“Turn myself in? But I didn’t do anything!” Liam protested.

“It isn’t about what you did or didn’t do, it’s about what they think you’ll do.” she says in a knowing tone.

”Please just trust me. I’ll be there at your hearing and we’ll have a chance to meet to talk things over beforehand.’ She reassured him. ‘And here, take this’ she holds the pill up.

‘Is this… a mercy kill?’ Liam said jokingly with his voice wavering as he held out his hand.

‘No, idiot. It’s just a pain-killer.’ she says with a calm, reassuring voice. ‘It should keep the swelling down on your ankle ‘till we can get it taken care of.’

The rapid footfall of guards approaches.

‘Ok, I gotta bounce. I’ll see you at the castle.’ She says with a coy smile as she disappears down the alley.

‘Castle?’ Liam says in slight disbelief. But he resigns that disbelief as he dry-swallows the pill.

Kowa-sensei
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Mesklar
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