I woke up with my head pounding, lying back down on the altar.

  Wanting to vomit, I try to focus, and my head quickly clears.

  ‘What was that… Did I come back to life?’

  I realize the gravity of my situation ‘Does that mean I can’t die? What are the limitations of this death, and why am I suddenly now immortal?’

  I feel my senses coming back to my body, and I quickly get off the altar, still aware of my situation.

  Looking down reveals the same set of clothing I started with, and none of my previous findings.

  ‘None of my items seemed to have come with me. This must be a limitation of my revival.’

  I walk down the stairs, to see the robed men and the knights of the churches of the seven gods.

  ‘Why does it feel like I should know the names of those cultists? I don’t recall ever seeing them before. Well, if I can’t remember it now, it shouldn’t be of extreme importance. I’ll look into it later.’

  I went down the cavern back to where the bolders were, and found myself, sitting in a pool of blood.

  Despite my best attempts, I can no longer hold back from puking.

  *Vomit*

  I try to come back to my senses, and take some deep breaths.

  Finally, I managed to get myself back together.

  I avoid the puddle of vomit I just created, and quickly get the stuff from my now dead self. Although the chest piece, which I was quite happy about, now has a hole in the back center and is drenched in blood, most of my other belongings are relatively fine.

  My blade landed a few feet away, and the coins were still in my legging pocket, which didn’t experience much blood.

  I grab everything, put the coins and ring back in my pocket, and look at the wall again.

  I realize my mistake in scaling, mainly that the path I could take ended where I fell. I quickly find a new path, and attempt to rescale the wall.

  With my newfound immortal bravery, I climb and occasionally use my dagger to get a foothold. After a while, I managed to scale the boulders and get to the crack in the blockage.

  Slowly crawling out of the hole, I find myself grabbing hold of a branch from a bush, nearly slipping back down into the hole.

  I grip hard onto the branch, cutting myself in a few places, and pull myself out of the hole, to find a forest. A forest with extremely tall trees on top of that.

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  The trees are quite sparse but are extremely large in diameter, at least 2 feet, with a dark, nearly black bark.

  "Out of the pan, into the fire." I laugh to myself; as I realize I’m even more lost than when I was in the cave.

  With nothing but trees in sight, I decide to just pick a direction and stick with it.

  Grabbing a branch and cracking it, I stand it up and let it drop, to decide the direction.

  It drops, pointing towards the rising sun, and I proceed to follow it.

  …

  It feels like hours since I have proceeded to walk, and I see the outline of a mountain in front of my path.

  I continue to walk, until I hear the howl of a wolf in the distance.

  "Shit," I curse my bad luck, and quickly draw the dagger that has already aided me in forging numerous times.

  I try to listen to where it is coming from, and quickly catch on to the disturbance in the forest.

  I look to my right, to see a bush shaking.

  Realizing its discovery, the gray haired wolf quickly pounces.

  I attempt to sidestep the pounce.

  *Clang* rang out as his claws scraped against the steel tunic I was wearing, unable to fully avoid the beast.

  I manage to draw some blood by quickly stabbing it mid leap, but this only results in a mild injury to the wolf's side.

  I try to catch my breath, staring the wolf down as it circles me.

  We both realize our standstill, and he attempts to frighten me with growling, but to no avail.

  I remember something I’ve read in the past, and respond with a fiercer, deeper shout, and the wolf looks at me with hesitance.

  After staring it down for a few seconds, the wolf proceeds to lie over and seeming to play dead.

  Sighing, I turn around and start walking, then proceed to quickly turn around.

  Seeing the wolf still trying to play dead, I decide to continue to walk off.

  …

  It starts to get dark, and I quickly grab some branches in an attempt to get a fire going.

  It takes numerous tries, and I failed for quite a while, but I finally managed to get an ember to catch. The kindling of leaves I formed starts to crackle and pop, and I continue to feed it until the log on top slowly burns.

  ‘Looks like that boy scout's training came in handy after all.’ After three years in the boy scouts, I am finally putting some of the training to use, approximately fifteen years later.

  I was enjoying the fire until I realized I had no food, and probably couldn’t get any soon.

  Starting to ponder what I should do next, I hear footsteps and turn around. The wolf that I had fought with was standing behind me, with a small rabbit looking creature in his mouth.

  The rabbit had a horn on his head and clearly didn’t look normal.

  The wolf, walking very slowly, sets the rabbit down a few feet in front of me, and turns to walk off.

  ‘That’s weird, normally wolves wouldn’t do that to anyone besides their pack leader, especially wild ones.’

  I quickly pick up the rabbit-like creature, and start skinning it. I cut myself on the blade of my knife a few times, but they were only minor scrapes.

  I set the pieces of meat I could acquire on a log next to the fire and fed the flames a bit more.

  While the meat is cooking, I take the horn off the rabbit and try to turn the hide into something moderately useful.

  …

  Eventually I settled on a small pouch similar to the one I already had, and started making that for a while, cutting the pieces I didn’t need.

  While I was doing that, the meat finally finished.

  I look over to see the small pieces of meat mostly cooked, and decide to take a few.

  I was about to dig in until I remembered the wolf that brought this here. I took about half the meat and put it on a log outside the camp.

  Then I finally dug in, and let me tell you, it tasted like chicken.

  …

  After finishing the bag and eating my share, I decide the fire should ward off any insects and slowly fall asleep with my back against a tree.