Fantastopia: The New Life (Part 1)

I knew it wasn't safe at night

When I got back to my college, it had gotten dark and the ring had placed me behind one of the college buildings, probably to make sure no one would see appear out of thin air. Does this ring have a mind of its own too like Defender? I bet it does. But now that I was back, I really needed to get back to my dorm to get back to my studies, not to mention that I needed to rest my body after my first day of actual training.

But right before I could start heading back to my dorm, I suddenly got a call on my phone, I pulled it out to see that Evan was calling. Now, what does he want?

“Yes?” I answered the call.

“Hey, where have you been?” he asked, “I’ve been trying to call you since 4 and you haven’t answered any of my messages?”

Oh, crap. I checked my phone, and yep, I did have some missed calls and text messages from Evan that I never got cause I was in a place with no service.

“I’m sorry, man” I apologized “I was in a place with no service, it’s a long story.”

“Well, now that I finally have your attention, I’ve been trying to find your Economic textbook, I need it for tomorrow.”

“Did you search everywhere on my side of the room?”

“Why would I call you if I hadn’t had searched for it?”

I snickered “Okay if it’s not in my room, then maybe it’s in my backpack. I’ll have a look.”

Seriously, Evan needs to get his own Economic textbook, I don’t mind sharing mine, but it does get tiring. But I got to do what I got to do. I placed my backpack down on the ground and unzipped it, and sure enough, my textbook was in there. Which is odd cause I don’t remember putting it there.

Oh well.

Since it was dark, I had to walk down the sidewalk that was lit up by the street lamps. I never really liked walking out in the dark, it always gave me the creeps. I still had my ring on so I knew that it would glow when danger was nearby, but that didn’t make me feel better cause even if it did glow, I was weaponless. Though there’s barely any crime in this town, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine. And if not, I just hope I can run fast.

The way to my dorm was quite a walk, a little over 5 minutes, nothing I can’t handle. Well, except for the dark, so I was trying to walk fast. Everything was dead quiet, I tried not to think of the dark as I kept my focus on finding my way back, which didn’t last long when I suddenly got this feeling that something was behind me. Like how it always is in the movies, when I turned around, there was nothing there, but I still didn’t feel better.

I continued to walk, hoping that I’d soon be in my dorm when I suddenly looked down and spotted something that made me stop as the hairs on my arms stood up: my ring was glowing. I was frozen in shock when I suddenly heard something running behind me as I snapped my head around and quickly spotted a small figure hiding behind a tree.

At that point, I wasn’t gonna stand there and wait to see what it was, I had to run. I was about to do so when I turned the other direction and froze at the horrifying sight in front of me. I thought I was imagining things at first, but I realized that I wasn’t. There in front of me was a little and terrifying ugly creature with rough brown skin, pointed ears, a hunched over body, sharp nails and teeth that growled at me.

I didn’t even have to think of what the creature was, remembering from what I read in my grandfather’s book, I knew that it was a goblin. But what the hell was a goblin doing in this world?! I knew that elves sometimes came up here, and so do other creatures like Lindel and Oswind, but now a goblin?!

Oh wait a minute, I should really say goblins.

Turns out this one didn’t come alone because more were starting to appear. They practically had me surrounded as they slowly crawled towards me. My heart was racing like crazy, not only were these goblins who were a dangerous version of hobgoblins, but I was weaponless. The only things I had on me was my glowing ring, my keys, and my textbook. But I knew that none of them would be able to go up against a group of goblins.

“Ring...” I suddenly heard one of them snarl as they continued to crawl towards me.

My ring was still glowing, and since I was told that some evil forces will try to take my ring away, I knew that’s what these goblins were trying to do. And I wasn’t going to let that happen. I had to get out of here somehow, and just when one of the goblins jumped out at me, I didn’t even hesitate as I swung my textbook at it with a hard force as it slammed into a tree.

Huh, I guess this will work against these guys. But probably not for long. I gotta run!

I was able to make it past them as I dashed towards a building as much as my legs could take me. But to my luck, the door was locked.

Why?! Why always at the worst times?!

The goblins were getting close to me as I ran the opposite direction. I had to find a building that wasn’t locked, I had stupidly decided to run away from the dorms which were always opened, so I had to find another place. But unfortunately, that appeared to be out of luck when I felt a goblin wrap itself around my leg which caused me to topple forward.

Damn, who knew that one goblin weighed so much?

So um, I’ve just toppled forward and fell straight on my stomach. And yeah, it hurt. Thankfully I landed on the grass instead of the concrete, now that would’ve been more painful. But I knew that I was powerless at this point cause the goblins had me pinned down as I tried with all my might to fight them off.

Although, if they’re here for my ring, don’t they know that they can’t take off my ring? Oh, wait a minute, I just remembered that no one can take off my ring as long as I’m alive. Oh s**t, they’re gonna kill me, aren’t they?!

All of a sudden, just when I thought that I would get killed by a bunch of mini-monsters, something happened so abruptly that it took me a moment to adjust my eyesight to see what was happening as I felt the goblins scatter off of me. And that’s when I saw what had caused them to jump off.

There standing to the sight in the moonlight was the enchantress, Wren. She even looked creepier at night. But she had her palm out towards the goblins when I saw some light shooting out of her hand at the creatures as they began to hurry off while grunting and snarling as they disappeared into the night.

“You okay?” she asked me while walking over to me.

“Y- Yeah” I breathed out in shock as she helped me up.

I noticed that she wasn’t wearing her witch gown, she was still wearing a long dress, but this one looked more like a simple sundress that was a plum color as she also wore a black shawl over her shoulders. I gotta say, they not be from this world, but they sure know about style.

But that’s when I looked down at my body, and boy did those goblins did a number on me. I wasn’t seriously injured, but I sure was covered in cuts and abrasions.

“Don’t worry,” she said to me “I can fix those for you.”

Before I could say anything, she waved her hand over me, and just like that, I could feel my injuries healing. All of my cuts and bruises were all gone, just like that.

“Whoa,” I remarked while checking my body to see that every small wound was, in fact, healed “That was some mystical shit.”

“Oh please,” she snickered “I can do a lot more than that.”

“I bet. So um, what are you doing here? Not that I’m complaining because if it wasn’t for you, those little monsters would have killed me.”

“I was just checking to see if the tracking on your ring works.”

She held her hand to show me what looked like an old compass.

“And it works” she smirked while showing me the object.

Just like a compass, it had an arrow that showed where to go. But the arrow was pointing to a little white dot that was flashing, that must be me. I looked down at my ring, and since the goblins were gone, it had stopped glowing and was back to blue.

Thank goodness.

“I also had a feeling something like this would happen” she added while putting the compass away “Now that you’re the chosen one, threats will try to come to you, whether in our world or this one, so you must be prepared.”

“Oh, great” I grunted, “Does this mean I have to sleep with one eye opened from now on?”

“Don’t worry, Jesse. That’s the other reason why I’m here. Lead me to your dorm.”

I raised an eyebrow, why does she need to see my dorm? But I allowed her to follow me into the dorm building. Since it was already late, there was no one in the lounge to see us. Which was probably a good thing since they’d most likely stop to stare at this goth chic who was with me. My dorm was on the first floor so all we had to do was turn down a hall and go down until we stopped at my dorm.

“Here we are” I announced.

Wren didn’t say anything when she suddenly waved her hand over the door as I watched her magic flow over the door.

“What are you doing?” I asked surprised “What was that?”

“I cast a protection spell on your dorm” she explained, “No danger can enter, you should be able to sleep with both eyes closed.”

“Oh,” I remarked astonished “Um, thank you.”

“By the way, never go out in the dark, that’s when they strike most.”

I bit my lip “I’ll try to remember that.”

“You won’t try, you will.”

“Right...” I nodded with a scared smile.

“Very well, I bid you a good night. See you tomorrow.”

“Um, you too.”

As she walked off, I entered my dorm and spotted Evan asleep on his bed with his books around him. I’m not surprised, we’re both technically nerds so it’s usual for us to fall asleep while studying. I placed my textbook on his nightstand as I took a seat on my bed. Tomorrow was another day of training, and I still can’t believe that this was going to be my life now.

I took the ring off my finger and placed it in my backpack. That reminds me, I need to find a safer place to store my ring. Wren may have cast a protection spell on my dorm, but who knows what could happen if that spell would one day break.