Not long after I walked out of the inn I was out of town. Even calling Comillas a "town" was a bit of a stretch. There was a handful of houses, a few stores, the inn, and a single building which served as a sort of catch-all administration building. It was more of a hamlet than anything else.
It took me perhaps six minutes of walking at a leisurely pace to reach the furthest outskirts of the community. I had walked for perhaps a kilometer and a half when I got to where I was. I was standing at the top of a hill.
When I looked down the hill I saw a vast expanse of grassy land, a plain was spread out before me. Some of it was used for farmland, and at the moment the farmlands were occupied by laborers. They were busy tilling soil, watering crops, and in some cases even harvesting hardy crops like potatoes. And once I had seen them I couldn't look away. Or rather I didn't want to look away.
My eyes were glued to the scene unfolding before me. I was consciously aware that what I was seeing was "agriculture", which was one of the subdomains I had influence over from the moment I came into existence, perhaps minutes ago or perhaps ages ago. I wasn't quite sure at the moment.
It was positively hypnotic to watch people go to work tending to the land. I spent several moments studying what I had just seen and committing it to memory. I studied the men who were at work, the tools they used, and their techniques as they either readied the soil for crop growth or tended to soil currently growing crops.
I found it oddly beautiful. And there was a part of me that wanted to keep watching it. But I couldn't. And I didn't.
What tore me away from the scene unfolding before me was that my first and at the moment only companion, the system began to talk to me once more.
[Oh Althos, you didn't let us down. You choosing to go on a quest like this presents us with a perfect opportunity to teach you about your skills! Now you just hold on and walk down towards the forest. As you get closer to your destination we'll start to talk to you and unlock the powers that are waiting for you.] The voice in my head said to me, sounding quite pleased with my actions.
I have to admit, I was quite pleased too. Which was why I began to smile. I think I'm allowed to celebrate, especially if it's just to that extent.
It was at that moment that I began to trek down the hill, my lips twisted in a content grin.
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I walked in silence for a few minutes, before instinctively deciding to test something. I was still walking down the hill when I tried to send a message to the system. I had a few simple questions for it, all of which were about druids:
1: What is a druid?
2: What does a druid do?
3: When humans learn that I'm a druid, what do they think that means?
The system was quiet for a little bit. Long enough for me to reach the bottom of the hill. It was quiet long enough for me to begin to wonder if maybe it hadn't heard me. That was when it answered my questions.
[We've already told you what a druid is. Druids are magic users whose magic is natural. Their spells and their class features, their abilities, all stem from and revolve around nature. Now the question of what a druid does is trickier...] The system said and then confessed. I chuckled at that response, as I wasn't prepared for the system to admit, even tacitly, that something was a hard question.
I was now walking through the wide expanse of grass and farms that I saw when I was at the top of the hill. I could smell crops on the breeze, which blew by me as I made my way past a few of the barns I had spotted from my vantage point.
I heard farmers chatting with each other, some of them loudly and others of them quite softly. Their voices filled the air around me, and they spoke about a range of topics.
"Hey... do you have any projections for your yield?" One of them asked another. Both men were hard at work next to each other, back to back. They held metal watering cans and used them to pour liquid life on the potato sprouts at their feet. I could see them clearly, even though there was a fair distance between us.
His companion hissed as if just thinking about this year's harvest made him mad. And then he responded to the man with the question.
"Nope. And I don't want to think about it. It's not looking good though and Sarah, being Sarah, only ever brings it up as a point of attack, and it's... well it's tiring to even think about at this point." The man confessed. He had sounded angry when he said the first part of that, but by the end of his response, he just sounded tired.
His friend looked at him sympathetically and told him something to help him calm down. "Hey, it's alright. We'll go down to the inn after this. We'll have a few drinks. On me!" He told Sarah's husband, saying that last part conspiratorially as if they needed to keep this a secret from Sarah.
I wondered why this was, but I didn't dwell on it. I had more personal and introspective things to ponder than the intricacies of Sarah's marriage.
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Another few minutes passed and I had now passed not only the town but at this point also the farms. I could see a seemingly endless ocean of trees off in the horizon. I was walking towards it. And now I was once again alone with my thoughts.
On both sides of me, there was little more than a sea of dazzling green grass. But not directly underneath me, as there was a single, long trail that led from town to the forest. I enjoyed the sound the grass made whenever a soft breeze blew it in one direction or another, something which happened a lot during my walk but the breezes did cause the staff in my hand to get a bit chillier which was annoying.
[Hello Athos! We've spent the last few minutes thinking about what a druid 'does' and we're ready to give you an answer. Druids work to help nature. Now what that means precisely is context-sensitive.] Said the ever-helpful voice that seemed to live in my mind.
[Helping nature in a city is different than helping nature in a forest. Where you are, helping nature could reasonably be said to be pursuing a balance between the needs of humans and other nearby humanoids, and the health of the forest.] The system told me, quietly revealing some deep thoughts on druidic duty.
I considered that while I walked. Eventually, I nodded in agreement and muttered my response to what I had just heard.
"So as a druid... I'd be working to find balance between plant life and non-plantlife? That sounds... interesting." I admitted, suddenly having a greater appreciation for the powers I was hopefully going to get to learn about soon.
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[Yep! Druids are an important force for the natural world and their work not only protects and helps the forests of the world, but also the oceans, the tundras, and it often saves the lives of the people and animals who live in those places.] The voice told me, sharing insights that made me think more fondly of the powers that were within me but as of yet unknown to me.
I reflected on that as I drew nearer and nearer to the forest. Every footstep brought me closer to it, and with each footstep, I gripped my staff a little bit tighter. I didn't know what would come of the trip into the forest, and I was feeling nervous as I got closer and closer to it. But I also felt curious, and a part of me intended to sate that curiosity.
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I took my first steps into the forest a few minutes after I left the inn. As I did so the system still hadn't answered my last question.
I went from walking on a small trail to walking on a soft, almost wet grassy floor. I listened to the sound of the grass crunching underneath my feet. I was still as I looked into the darkened woods and realized that it was an eerie sight. As if the sun's rays were afraid to penetrate the forest's canopy.
And right on cue, as I was about to venture further into the forest the friendly voice in my head began to talk to me.
[You're here! This place will serve as the training ground from which you begin to explore your abilities. We're going to begin to unlock some of those abilities right now, but before we do we wanted to take a second to talk to you about a few things.] The system said, rather cheerfully.
I was quiet and I waited for it to continue. It was starting to catch on to my moments of silence quicker, and quickly continued its explanation.
[A long time ago, the god who designed us gave us the ability to do a few neat things to help young gods and goddesses learn to control their powers. One of the things we can do is lock newborn gods in a tutorial mode. This keeps them from using their full powers right away while giving them and us time to help them learn about their powers bit by bit.] The voice explained.
"I don't like the sound of that..." I muttered, under my breath. I was ignored though and the system just kept talking.
[As of right now the only incredible ability you have at your disposal is your infinite magical energy. That's still a heck of a lot of power though. But we're about to begin the process of revealing your powers to you. And to us. We don't know what powers you possess, especially with your strange wild traits. And we won't until they are unlocked...] The strange people in my mind told me, with an unusual level of concern in its voice as it said so.
[But for now, you're gonna get your features for being a level 1 druid and tremorsense. Tremorsense is a divine power and it's... well it's kind of a lot. You'll see and understand what we mean in a second.] The system said, its voice quiet and far more serious than it had been until this point. And then it unlocked what it told me it was going to unlock.
The effect was immediate, as the system immediately did whatever strange thing it was going to do the instant it stopped speaking. I hadn't been expecting it to be, so it came as a surprise when my mind suddenly expanded in a way I never imagined possible.
I almost fell to my knees as I felt my understanding of the world grow infinitely wider in a fraction of a second. Until now I had been limited to know only what I could see, smell, hear, touch, and taste. But now, for reasons that were only partially understood by me, my awareness was being forcibly expanded by something the system had just unlocked.
It felt like my brain was growing inside my head, expanding outward and beating itself against my skull. It was actually so overwhelming that it was physically painful for a second, but only a single second. Unfortunately during that second, which felt like an eternity, my mind felt like it was on fire.
The pain was so agonizing that it caused tears to form in my eyes. Hot, wet tears, that filled my vision and made it blurry.
It was in the aftermath of that second, presumably the time my mind needed to adjust to the new things the system had released to my control, that I began to be able to understand on an instinctual level what "tremorsense" was.
I didn't know the mechanics of it yet, but whatever the system did to me left me aware of where all of the nearby living creatures were. At least the ones that lived or were on the ground, in the ground, or in or on a tree at the moment. I had an instinctual understanding of my location relative to any of them and could tell if they'd be on the ground, in it, or on or in a tree.
When I closed my eyes to blink away tears and reopened them afterward there was a new thing at the top of my vision.
It was a strange circle with me in the middle of it. I was represented by a triangle. I tested this by moving a bit and watching the triangle move in real-time as I did.
And all over the mini-map, there were all sorts of other symbols on it as well. Countless blinking dots of various shapes, sizes, and colors. I was studying it when the system dropped in to share some information.
[Whoa! We're super sorry that the rollout of that power was so painful Althos. We didn't know how intense it would be. When we unlocked it within you the reaction you suffered had to do with the fact that there were so many living creatures around you. Which is not how that power has revealed itself to deities in the past. It overloaded your mind for a second. And now that we know that we definitely won't do that in a forest again. Yikes.] The voice said to me, apologizing for its mistake.
I looked straight ahead in annoyance, pretending that the system had a face that I could direct my annoyance at.
[Hey, hey... we're apologizing! Anyways this is tremorsense. Tremorsense is an incredibly handy power and your particular version of it is even more potent than the power tends to be for most deities at birth.] The mechanism in my mind explained, starting off defensively and then beginning to tell me a bit about what it had just unlocked.
[The reason for that is that you sprang into being with the power of the earth, vermin, and agriculture subdomains which increase both the range of your tremorsense and the variety of creatures you can sense. Now as for the power itself, tremorsense gives deities access to a minimap that informs them of the locations and species of all sorts of creatures as long as those creatures are on or in the ground or on or in a tree that is on the ground.] The voice told me, explaining the power in sufficient detail for me to understand it consciously.
"So that's what was going on... That's a pretty scary sounding explanation if I'm being honest." I said, happy that I now knew both the nature of my new power, as well as what happened to me. "But before we do anything else..." I told the system, opting to see what happened if I closed my eyes again, since the last time I did so it caused my minimap to appear.
My world went dark as my eyes closed, something which was a little bit frightening. But I steeled myself and kept my eyes shut for a second, which was long enough for the mini-map to appear in my mind's eye and unveil itself fully to me.
"Whoa..." I said, breathlessly. In the darkness of my shut eyes, I could see farther and more accurately than I ever could with my eyes open. I spent several moments statically observing the shapes on my radar. And when I mentally reached out and did my best to gesture with my mind at specific shapes I learned what they were, via a system like bracket text-bubble.
The first time I did this, I selected a random red circle deeper in the forest but not far from me.
[Nearby enemy detected. Preparing proper notification... Scanning enemy...
Enemy status identified.
The selected enemy is a level one warrior. The enemy is a forest goblin. The enemy is currently enraged, losing health, and stuck in a trap. It is also in danger of dying, as it has lost a lot of health already.
The enemy is marked as an enemy because it's emotional state renders it hostile to everyone who may approach it. The enemy's status as an enemy might be convertible, depending on if the selected target is approached in the right manner, especially since it is currently considered helpless.]
I suddenly opened my eyes, surprised at the level of detail that I had just received. I wondered about what to do for a single instant before opting to take decisive action. As I began my trip into the forest for real I spoke to the system. I didn't bother trying to send it a mental message, I opted to use my words.
"Hey system, I know you said druids could heal people but can nature magic be used for self-defense? I may need it where I'm going." I said, ready to pay this injured goblin a visit and see what may come of our interactions.
[Yes it can Althos. While you're heading there we'll teach you how to access your spell-list! That'll teach you all of your spells. And as we do, we'll ready an answer to your question about what humans think being a druid means. Would you like for us to expand that to include goblins?] The system asked me, teasingly.
I grinned and gripped my staff tightly. I was about to begin my life as an adventurer in a very exciting way. And I was both nervous and excited to do so.