I gingerly raise my right hand and touch the side of my face… Oh, gods… I start at my lower jaw, and it’s dry, cold and cracked. (is this even skin?) I slowly bring my hand up toward my cheek but it’s not there… I feel the ridges of my teeth where my cheek should be and realize that all the skin from my right canine tooth to my ear is gone. (How the fuck am I still alive...WHY am I still alive?) I spread my hand out in its entirety and realize that the scar is from my right temple to my lower jaw bone.

….Just what happened to me?

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New title: A Little Dead

A gift received from arch necromancer Mortimer. The blessed area is immune to any and all forms of damage, magical or otherwise. If shown, the blessed area will allow you to ally yourself with the undead as they will recognize you as their own.

Demerit: most sentient races will mistake you for a member of the undead if they spot the blessed area.

Affects:

Skill: commune with the dead

Skill: Terror Gaze

Skill: Phantom Eye

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New skill: Commune with the dead

A passive skill that allows you to talk to, hear and interact with the dead/undead.

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New Skill: Terror Gaze

The haunting look of your fully exposed face can make even the most hardened of soldiers shake in their boots. This effect will wear off after 3 roughly seconds, depending on the viewer's mental fortitude. The higher your skill level the worse their fear gets.

Demerit: instead of fleeing some weaker observers may fly into a fear-driven frenzy and attack you and yours randomly

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New Skill: Phantom Eye

Your right eye is now part of the spirit world; channel magic through it to see beyond the physical plain.

Currently, you can see someone's aura when the eye is activated. The lighter an aura the purer their emotional/mental state. The higher your skill level the more you can see.

Demerit: when this skill is not activated you are blind in this eye

10 mana/second

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You know If it weren't for the whole, fucking up my handsome face thing, I’d be able to appreciate these skills

“Hey, Jon? I’m sorry about your face but maybe we can fix it.” Renise gives me a reassuring look and walks closer to me.

“It’s alright Renise, I’ll be okay...let's just loot some bodies already and get out of her.” I turn my head so that she only sees my good side.

“Just remember that you don’t need depth perception to punch someone into oblivion with your crazy demon strength…” She looks up into my eye and smiles kindly,(man she is like a whole head shorter than me, and I don’t think I ever noticed until now) as she puts her hand on my shoulder, “After all you owe me an escort home.” Renise pats my shoulder twice and walks away. (I wish I had more friends like her when I was this age)

I watch as she walks away I’m speechless. (I wish my female friends were more like her when we were her age.) Looking away from her glorious backside that is still observable even when covered by a cloak, I scan the battlefield for someone to loot.

I start walking in the opposite direction of where Renise went and start checking random bodies.

After about an hour I have searched several dozen bodies for loot and found several dozen coin pouches in a currency I assume is the same as D&D.I’ve also found some more clothes, some rope, a crossbow and 15 bolts, a lone grappling hook(why is this here if there are no nearby cliffs… how odd) and now I’m shuffling through the things of a large, heavily armored brute, that must weigh half a ton.

{Hey Jon?}

(*grunt*MOVE YOU BASTARD!….Yeah Krowola?)

{What was your life like in your original world?}

(I thought you saw my memories?)

{Not exactly, I only saw the most recent ones from as far back as your death.}

(Is that so? Well okay then since I’m not doing much other than looting bodies and trying to ignore the creeping anxiety concerning my disfigurement.)

(You see, back in my old life I was a forty-six-year-old man that examined the bodies of the recently deceased in order to determine their cause of death. In doing so I sometimes helped the authorities catch the criminals that made the bodies dead, to begin with.)

{Do you remember what you looked like?}

I stop trying to relieve the oaf of his battle ax and close my eyes. I visualize the last time I looked in the mirror and I really wish I took a closer look at my reflection because the image is very blurred and inaccurate.

(I was about 5foot 9 and 210lb, about the same weight I was back when I was twenty like I am now. Throughout my entire life I had a crewcut, and by the time I was in my mid-forties, my brown hair had grown some silver sideburns. I had some wrinkles but I think was handsome enough for my age. Unfortunately, I died single and a virgin, but I genuinely believe that it was because my life was simply not meant to play out that way.)

{So you never fell in love?}

(I’m not really sure. Now please don’t misunderstand, I did occasionally develop a crush on a classmate or someone similar but most of the time they either had boyfriends already or were simply not that into me. So because my lack of relationship experience I can’t really say if any of what I have ever felt was actually love.)

{Do you think you could find love here?}

(With my face as it is now? I somehow doubt it, and besides what’s the point of finding someone to care about when my job is to kill arguably the strongest guy on this planet. However, if I were to survive this whole ordeal I don’t see the problem with starting a romantic relationship with some woman.)

{Some woman like Renise perhaps?}

(Maybe but why do you care.)

{I care because I pledged eternal servitude to you and from what you told me I think it is safe to say you don’t understand women at all.}

(Well you're not wrong but regardless there’s no point to any of this romantic conjecture until after I kill Rei.)

{So you’ve made your final decision about what you’re going to do with him then?}

(Unfortunately, I have, if negotiations fail I’m taking this sword and turning him into a popsicle.)

{Wait for a second sir, you’re still going to negotiate with even after what happened to your face?!}

(Of course! I may be in another world but my Hippocratic oath states that I must “tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.” And if I can help it, I’m not going to break that oath again… we saw what arrogance got me with the necromancer.)

{But you got your order to kill him from, not one, but two gods. Shouldn’t that nullify “playing god”?}

(Well I did tell him I would stop the war but I never said how...and besides if he does say no, then I guess I’m getting revenge for my face after all)

{Leave it to a human to be so sly}

(Leave it to a dragon to be so arrogant. But tell me Krowola, what else are humans supposed to do when we don’t have wings to fly with, or claws to scratch with, or teeth to bite with?)

{.....You may have a point there, I’m sorry sir.)

I breathe deeply and open my eyes which were still shut from trying to remember my face.

(It’s fine, I’m just on edge is all so I apologize. Anyway I don’t think I’m going to get any more stuff from this guy so we might as well get back to Renise.)

{Yes sir...um if you don’t mind sir I could always cover your face with my armour.}

(no thanks, we’re less likely to be ambushed by bandits on the way there if I look too intimidating)

{As you wish, but you should look at the ground first before we leave}

(Huh, why? )

I look down and discover a small smoking hole had started to form in the ground beneath me. (The hell?) I touch my right cheek and look at my fingers. “Ah fucking hell, I’m drooling acid!” (wait what the hell is wrong with my voice, and how did I not notice this earlier with Renise?) Without my cheek and part of the right half of my lips, my voice can’t pronounce anything that requires lips so the last thing I said sounded like “Ah, shucking hell, I’ng druhlling ashid.”

(Toggle acid breath off)

{So have you changed your mind about getting a mask?}

(*sigh* I would prefer not to but I guess there’s not much of a choice now is there?)

{No but I can still help you.}

At that, the armor slithers up my neck and starts to fill in the hole in my face. Fuck this feels so weird with the warm edges of my skin meeting the cold armor where a numb gap used to be. But is this it? The armor has only covered half my face where I was “blessed” and to be honest this probably won’t make me look better.

{Okay I’ve finished, now try speaking again}

(Um okay...) “Alright, how does this sound?” Oh man, that is weird.

(Hey can we do something about the double voice sound effect? Because it sounds kind of like there are two of me talking at the same time.)

{Sorry but I have to keep your cheek semi-liquid in order to move with the rest of your face. Also as a side note, I did decide to cover your eye socket as well so that you’re not mistaken for a zombie}

*deep sigh*(Whatever let's just get back to Renise and get moving)