"I shouldn't have taken this risk," Kagan muttered bitterly, his voice heavy with regret as his eyes swept over the misty valley below. The scent of blood and damp earth clung to the air, and the distant echoes of beasts seemed to mock him from the darkness. He trudged toward a large rock nearby, his boots crunching over gravel, and looked down at the young man lying motionless upon it.
"Damn it… why in Moradin's name did I bring a rookie on this cursed adventure?" The dwarf's voice cracked as his anger bled into despair. "I'd rather face a dragon barehanded than deal with this mess! How am I supposed to explain this to his mother?"
For a moment, his gruff exterior broke. Kagan's throat tightened as he knelt beside the still body and patted the young man's cheek gently. "Henry, wake up, lad. Please… open your eyes." His tone trembled with a helplessness no warrior ever wished to show. "Great Moradin, Father of the Forge, guide me. What should I do?"
When his prayers brought no answer, Kagan drew a shaky breath and stepped aside. He clasped his hands and bowed his head, murmuring in the dwarven tongue, asking the Great Creator for mercy and strength.
Then—
A faint sound.
The young man's eyelids twitched. His body shuddered once before his mouth opened in a strangled cry. "Ah—!" His back arched violently, foam gathering at his lips as his limbs convulsed. The raw pain rippled through him like lightning before his consciousness shattered once more, dragging him into a heavy, unnatural slumber.
The wilderness around them seemed to grow darker after that. Night pressed in like a living thing. From the forest came the cries of wolves, the haunting hoots of night owls, and the low, guttural growls of unseen predators. The towering trees loomed like silent witnesses to their struggle, their branches whispering under the moonlight. The only comfort lay in the flickering fire before them, its warmth fragile yet defiant against the encroaching cold.
Hours passed.
Kagan sat close to the fire, his axe resting across his lap. His weary eyes never left Henry's face. The young man's breathing had steadied since the violent fit, and though he remained unconscious, the dark clots of blood around his head were slowly receding. For the first time since the ogre's blow, Kagan dared to hope. "The Great Moradin must've heard my plea," he whispered, eyes glistening as the flames danced in his pupils.
As the night deepened, a faint groan broke the quiet. Henry stirred.
His eyes fluttered open—unfocused, glassy at first—then sharpened as they caught the glow of the fire. The orange light painted strange patterns across his face. He looked at the dwarf nearby, whose heavy snores thundered like rolling boulders, and his thoughts began to swirl in confusion.
He blinked. Once. Twice.
Then the realization struck like a cold wave.
This isn't Earth.
His heart began to pound. Disjointed images—city lights, screens, noise—flashed across his mind before dissolving into fragments. A dull ache throbbed in his skull as if someone had split it open and stitched it back wrong.
"Henry…" he murmured softly, testing the name on his tongue. "That's my name now."
He tried to move, only to wince in agony. His left arm screamed in protest, tightly bound between two crudely carved planks. "Damn… bone's broken." The thought was steady, almost calm, but behind it stirred a storm.
Bits of memory tried to surface—his age, his world, his past—but they slipped away like water through his fingers. He remembered being thirty. He remembered Earth. Yet the rest—the details that defined him, the ones that made him, him—were gone. His name, his family, the people he'd loved, the things that had once mattered… all erased.
It was as if something, or someone, had reached into his mind and plucked out everything unnecessary for him—everything that tied him to who he once was.
There were gaps. Places where his humanity should have been. Faces, names, warmth and fear—everything that made a life whole—had been blurred or erased, leaving only raw experience, instincts, and the faint echo of familiarity.
He closed his eyes again, letting the fire's warmth brush against his skin, and for a fleeting moment, he felt hollow—like an empty shell carrying a stranger's heartbeat.
The forest whispered in the distance. The stars above burned indifferent.
And in that lonely silence, the man once called someone else took his first breath as Henry, in a world that was not his own.
Henry slowly closed his eyes, forcing his breathing to steady as he tried to sift through the flood of foreign memories surging through his mind. They came in flashes—fragmented, distorted, bleeding into one another like oil on water.
The memories were not his own, yet they felt painfully familiar, as though his soul had been wrapped around them too tightly to separate.
This body… this life… belonged to a boy named Henry.
He was fourteen years old—a youth barely past childhood—born in a small settlement called Belgost, nestled near the southern ridges of the Sword Mountains. The town thrived on the labor of dwarves and humans alike, its forges echoing with the sound of hammer and steel, its taverns filled with laughter, ale, and the faint scent of molten metal.
Henry had lived there as a simple villager, a neighbor to the gruff dwarf warrior, Kagan. But fate had other plans.
A year ago, a traveling druid from the Emerald Enclave passed through Belgost. The man had seen something in Henry—a spark, a resonance with the whispers of wind and root. For a few weeks, the druid had taught him the ways of nature, the sacred rhythm that pulsed through every leaf and stone. Then, one morning, the man simply vanished, leaving only a small wooden amulet in Henry's hand and a single piece of advice: "When nature calls, answer it."
Earlier this year, that call had come.
Henry had felt it deep in his bones—the heartbeat of the world itself. He became a Level 1 Druid, chosen by nature's will, not by men or gods. He could feel the pulse of every tree, the breath of the earth beneath his feet. That was when his youthful heart, filled with wild dreams and courage he didn't yet understand, had begged Kagan to take him on an adventure.
But reality, he realized now, was far crueler than a dream.
When they had passed through Coastal Avenue, they encountered an ogre—a hulking brute with skin like granite and a stench that could choke a troll. It had emerged from the mists roaring, wielding a tree trunk like a club. Kagan had shouted for Henry to cast something—anything—but the boy had frozen. Fear had turned his legs to stone and his thoughts to dust.
Then came the strike.
Henry—no, the original Henry—had been hit indirectly across the arm and thrown against the rocks. The blow hadn't killed him instantly, but it had shattered his body and scrambled his mind. If that club had landed a few inches higher, his skull would have burst like a ripe tomato. It was a good thing that it was a stupid troll and he wasn't the height of a normal man; thus, he survived and didn't take a direct hit.
And that… was when he arrived.
The man from Earth. The intruder. The soul without a name.
Realization struck like lightning. He wasn't just anywhere. He was in Faerûn.
The Sword Coast, to be exact—the western edge of the world, where kingdoms rose and fell like waves on the sea.
"Faerûn… the Forgotten Realms, The Greater World of Dungeons & Dragons" he whispered under his breath, his voice trembling between awe and dread. "This is the world of Baldur's Gate... the path of the Bhaalspawn."
Memories from his former life rushed through him—the glow of a monitor, the sound of a soundtrack that had once stirred his imagination, the name Baldur's Gate. He remembered the tales of gods and monsters, of mortals ascending to divinity and falling back into madness. The realization made his stomach twist violently.
This was a land where lich kings walked the ruins of forgotten empires, archdemons whispered from the Abyss, and avatars of gods descended upon the mortal plane to play their cosmic games. Even Bhaal, the Lord of Murder himself, had left his bloody mark upon this land.
This was the Sword Coast, the western coast of Faerun. Yes! How could he have forgotten? This was the setting of one of his favorite games, Baldur's Gate. The path to godhood for the descendants of Bhaal, the God of Slaughter! Henry's stomach twisted at the thought. Liches were everywhere, and demigods were everywhere, as many players described the place. Fortunately, he was currently in the first game of Baldur's Gate according to Timeliness, so it wasn't as dangerous as Amn to the south.
Unfortunately, there was no water nearby, so he couldn't see his body.
He clenched his uninjured hand, trying to ground himself. "So this is real… I'm real and really here."
He raised his right hand toward the flickering firelight, and there he saw it—a strange tattoo etched into the back of his skin, faintly glowing beneath the soot and grime. It was an emblem—a circle containing the image of a hooded man, facing both forward and backward.
His breath caught.
"That's… the Baldur's Gate icon…"
Something deep within him stirred, an instinct not born of logic but of fate. Without thinking, he focused his thoughts and whispered the word that every gamer once knew by heart.
"Start."
The tattoo pulsed.
A brilliant flash of light surged from his palm, forming luminous glyphs that hovered in the air like ghostly script.
\\
Name: Henry Angome
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 14
Alignment: Neutral
Occupations
Primary Class: Mage – Level 1
Experience: 0 / 2,500
Secondary Class: Druid – Level 1
Experience: 0 / 2,000
Attributes
Strength: 14 You possess average physical power—neither weak nor particularly strong.
Agility: 18 Naturally dexterous; capable of climbing trees, diving for fish, or picking pockets with ease.
Physical Fitness: 13 Average endurance and stamina for your age and build.
Intelligence: 21 Exceptionally bright—your mind processes and recalls information with photographic precision.
Wisdom: 18 A natural-born druid; you sense and understand the flow of nature effortlessly.
Charm: 16 Handsome and likable—people are naturally drawn to you.
Arcane Abilities (Mage Class)
Known Spells: [Burning Hands] [Magic Missile] [Protection from Petrification] [Sleep]
Spell Slots (Arcane): 1 Slot
Divine Abilities (Druid Class)
Known Divine Spells (Level 1):
[Entangle] [Cure Light Wounds] [Armor of Faith] [Bless] [Disaster] [Divine Stick] [Detect Evil] [Sunscald] [Magic Stone] [Power of Demon Fire]
Spell Slots (Divine): 3 Slots
System Perk
Material-Free Casting:
Through the system's assistance, all spells can be cast without material components.
(Congratulations—you've struck gold, kid.)
\\
Henry stared in awe at the glowing panel before him, his heart pounding. The text shimmered faintly before fading into the air like mist.
This was no dream. This was his reality now.
He exhaled slowly. The attributes matched the character he had once played in Baldur's Gate. The mage class—his own creation—was still there, bound to him as a part of his soul. The druid class, though, belonged to this body's original owner. Somehow, both identities—Earth's player and Faerûn's druid—had merged into one being.
At least now, he had a way to survive.
Magic in Faerûn was not mere energy—it was Weave, the living essence of creation itself, controlled by the goddess Mystra. Every spell, every arcane gesture, was a thread pulled from her tapestry. Wizards studied for years to master its rhythm, preparing rituals, gestures, and incantations. To cast a spell was to sing a verse from the divine language of the world.
But divine magic—like that of druids and clerics—was different. It was faith and connection, not formula. Druids, especially those of the old ways, did not worship gods. They communed with the earth, the wind, and the stars. They listened, and nature listened back.
Henry's druidic gifts were a sign—he had been recognized by the Balance, the eternal rhythm between creation and decay. The divine arts he now possessed were not granted by some celestial being but were gifts of nature itself.
He flexed his fingers and tested a few words, his voice trembling. The world responded faintly, like ripples across a still pond. Power—real, tangible power—flowed through him.
He smiled faintly, though pain lingered in every breath. "So this is how it feels…"
He only had one arcane spell slot for now—barely enough to defend himself—and three divine slots for simple healing. Not much, but enough to survive if used wisely.
As the exhaustion from his injuries caught up with him, Henry whispered a prayer—not to any god, but to the world itself. "Let me live through the dawn."