()}--==\O/^\O/==--==(OIO)==--==\O/^\O/==--{()
“Get some firewood, he said…”
The snowy hellscape around Zaran’s hut transitioned into a dim daylight. There was no sun, since there actually wasn’t even a sky. There was only a rocky ceiling with huge stalactites wide enough to crush a football stadium, but so distant that it could barely be seen. However, there were also gigantic wooden pillars connecting the ceiling to the ground, which shone brightly more or less half of every day, looking as if besieged by fireflies.
“It’ll be good for your body, he said…”
Both Jai and Zaran were somehow trapped in an expansive root system that spanned, as Zaran put it, the whole world. Whatever that meant precisely. The already massive trees that made up the forest were in fact the very ends of an even more massive root system underground, draining energy from around them, and funneling it towards the unfathomably massive trunks in the distance that provided daylight as they processed the gathered energy before passing it upwards and starting the cycle of absorption yet again.
“It’ll be fun…”
Jai’s eyes rested atop the shriveled tree/root, leafless and obviously dead for some time by now. He ran out of stalling tactics and finally had to face the realization that he had no idea how to take down a piece of wood at least twenty times his height. He swung the hatchet in his hand, embedding it into the dry trunk so that he could run both hands over his face and relieve some frustration at his own stupidity.
He was so anxious around Zaran that he fell into his old habit of accepting all requests other people made. He knew it was just a fear of not being liked, but when the other person had Jai’s survival at his mercy, it made some sense to try and please him, right?
“How the hell am I supposed to do this before the night falls, though?”
He looked at the tree with pleading eyes, mentally begging it to fall over. It didn’t cooperate. He could also just turn around and admit defeat, but that felt even worse.
After a minute of deliberation, he simply took the hatchet and went to work. Documentaries and random videos that fueled his procrastination in the past were finally put to use, as he hacked at the wood with some basic idea about how to do so. In theory.
Jai could never have imagined how much he could sweat under the heavy furs that were preventing him from freezing to death. His extremities were numb with cold while his torso was nearly boiling in it’s own juices as he tried to pry open the impossibly hard bark. However, he didn’t really notice. There were two ways to deal with repetitive tasks that he knew of - either entering into a mindless trance or using the time to think about other stuff. Jai was still adjusting, so a certain part of him welcomed the opportunity to clear his own mind and relax, in a way. That was, before he came back his senses.
“Oh… Ooh damn, fuck…” he gasped as he realized just how battered his practical workout left him. His abdominal muscles refused to relax and his back screamed at him in protest, but the worst were his arms. Both were hanging limp at his sides, and shooting spikes of pain up his spine whenever he tried to move them.
He looked at the tree in exasperation, and a pitiful dent in it’s bark stared right back. Moist clouds of water vapor were rising from his mouth with each heavy breath.
“How the fuck was he expecting me to do this?”
Suddenly there was the peculiar sound again, and with it a prompt materialized before his eyes.
-Chore skill formed - {Labor}. You have far exceeded the limits of your stamina, and depleted your very body to continue your toil. While in a meditative state, decreases the consumption of health during physical excercise by 20%.-
“No! Bad seedling! Go to a corner and think about what you did!” He screamed with frustration. “I don’t want to go through this again!”
The glowing egg loosely attached to his soul shrunk and dimmed, enough so that Jai sensed the change without focusing on his inner space. He sighed, slowly and carefully as to not aggravate his tensed up musculature anymore. He already paid the price for his previous outburst, afterall.
“Look… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to yell. I know you just want to help.”
He didn’t need to speak outloud to communicate, but it made him feel less lonely. Conversation with Zaran was always too… utilitarian to feel good. It was like talking to a teacher while the whole world was a classroom.
Jai secured the hatchet under his belt and entered a steady jog back to the cabin. The most repeated advice he received was that physical strain was very good for adjusting his body and skills, but the main reason for his hurry was the timing.
The collosal natural pillars that provided the day and night cycle were slowly re-absorbing the small shining motes, funneling them to the ceiling and whatever else they were constantly feeding up there. The bits if light were visible from under the bark as they traveled, making the scene both serene and horrifying. Only the upper parts of the pillars were always visible between the treetops, so when the lights got to that point, the night was soon to follow.
And during night, bad things happened.
()}--==\O/^\O/==--==\O/^\O/==--{()
When Jai entered the hut, he found his de-facto mentor to be in a stereotypical meditative position, sitting with his legs folded, back straight and eyes closed. A cup of tea was steaming right in front of him, untouched.
“How did it go?”
Jai pouted a little, irritated by how innocent Zaran sounded. Yet, his own tone was apologetic. “Not too well. Maybe after a few more days and I’ll get it to fall over, but… uhm, how did you expect me to carry it back, precisely?”
Zaran simply opened his eyes and raised an eyebrow.
Jai’s pout returned with force. “Hey, couldn’t you just straight up tell me to work my ass off? Yeah I got a skill! But I was worried when I didn’t manage to do it!”
Zaran calmly took the cup from the ground and sipped. “You are an acquaintance, not a student. I do not teach, I nudge in the right direction. Was it not you who got anxious about an issue not worth of worrying over?”
Jai could only huff to himself in response. His host was entirely unflappable no matter the situation, and there was no use in getting annoyed beyond soothing his nerves. Besides, what he said was true.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“Well, what about everything else you told me? Weren’t you teaching me?”
“I was not. That was basic information, one that would be shared with any well-intentioned traveler. I was simply informing you of the realies of our world, or of this plane in particular.”
Jai set down the borrowed hatchet against a wall and went to his sleeping spot on the floor. After several days sleeping on the bed, his good manners took over and he refused to occupy it anymore, no matter how redundant it was for the owner. The hut was not too spacious, but neither did his host need much space, so setting down some furs in the least-used corner was acceptable. Those were also on Jai’s list of things that he needed to pay back somehow, even when he was told many times how common and useless they were.
Zaran himself had some technique that kept him from freezing or just straight up wasn’t bothered by it, so he had no need for them. Jai simply added it under the list of Zaran’s superpowers, which by now was getting rather long.
“How is your seedling faring?”
Jai looked at his status, the action now feeling far less alien than the first time.
Name: Jaine Meriann
Race: Human Revenant
Class: n/a
Attributes:
* Physical Strength - 9
* Endurance - 9
* Vitality - 8
* Dexterity - 8
* Mental Strength - 12
* Wisdom - 8
* Intelligence - 13
* Perception - 15
Titles: Revenant, Soul Manipulator
Chore Skills: Ice Resistance (1), Soul Perception (2), Soul Manipulation(2), Comprehension (1), Labor (1)
Effects: Physical Exhaustion (moderate), Seedling Dispersion <8:04:12:58>
“I’ve been practicing the… communion. I think I got the hang of it yesterday night, and the timer is going much slower now. Maybe like half the original pace?”
Zaran nodded, sipping his tea once more. “That is good.”
Jai kept looking expectantly for several seconds, before he realized that there was nothing more coming. “Hey, do you… maybe know how I can keep it from dispersing? Maybe something related to the communion thing you taught me?”
“I do not-”
“-teach, I nudge in the right direction, yea, yea…” cut in a defeated response.
Silence stretched for a minute.
“I understand that this might be difficult, but if you do not find out how to do this yourself, then you were not the fated recipient of this seedling. If it is any consolation, this issue might be rare, but known. Sometimes, people receive a seedling for which they lack a proper affinity, uncommon as it may be, and if it disperses, they simply get another.”
“But I have no affinity at all! It told me it’s dispersing because of my lack of affinity, not because of a lack of the proper affinity!”
“Then you might be fated to live a mortal life. Many are content to do so, and many others become content when reality forces them to see their place in the world. Why should that not be your case?”
While Jai’s casual frustration from before was tempered by his gratefulness to Zaran, this time his voice carried a tinge of genuine annoyance and bitterness. “Must be real easy to say while having superhuman abilities and growing up with magic all around you.”
Another moment of silence took place, just as it often between the overly calm and the overly anxious duo, neither of them wanting to speak up for their own reasons.
“I will let this slip in the context of your unique situation. But I would be glad if you did not presume things that you have no knowledge of.”
Jai cringed at himself, fully conscious of how easy to read his facial expressions were. It was just too hard to stop himself from conveying what he felt after he was finally able to do so again. “I’m sorry… I’m afraid and I lash out because admitting weakness is scary. I swear I’m usually not rude at all, except when, you know, I die and get sent to hell. And now Dave is dying too, except he’s already here.”
That earned him another raised eyebrow. “Dave?”
“The seedling. He’s really expressive, you know? And affectionate. Kind of like a kitten kneading on your belly as you scratch behind it’s ears.”
“What is a kitten?”
It was Jai’s turn to raise his brows in surprise. “You don’t have cats here? It’s a really cute kind of pet, while kittens are it’s young,” he shook his head. “At least you have dogs, I guess.”
Zaran considered for a moment. “So, you are attached to your seedling emotionally?”
Jai simply nodded in response, slightly embarrassed all of a sudden.
“Hmm…”
Silence stretched.
“Look, can you at least… inform me about some stuff? Like, why did my Wisdom jump to eight by itself? I get why Physical Strength and Endurance went up, but I did nothing to like… get wise?”
“Eight is the human average. Any healthy man will naturally converge on the score of eight for all his attributes as a baseline, unless mentally or physically impaired. The scarring of your soul was one such impairment, however it was not permanent. Fortunately. What was permanent is your memory loss, if your description of events was accurate.”
“Oh… that makes sense. But then why are my other mental stats so high in comparison? I’m pretty sure I didn’t do anything to get more intelligent for example, no solving math problems or anything while I was here.”
“Mental attributes are linked to your soul. Your… special experience might have counted as training for some aspects of your mind. Mental Strength is your… emotional potential, while Intelligence can be compared to the elasticity of your thoughts and your control over it. Both could have been enhanced by practice in one way or another. Wisdom can be loosely described as your mental capacity. Losing memories by forceful means would obviously detract from it, until the soul heals. Perception is a secondary attribute, like dexterity. And much like it’s cousin, it enhances the information passed between your body and soul. That could have only been trained while in a working body, which… I must commend. Raising it by at least seven points in less than two hours after gaining conscience hints at the possibility of a viable training regimen.”
Jai just stared back, speechless and digesting the biggest dump of useful information he had received yet.
“Your body itself was greatly damaged and subsequently healed without a modified soul imprint carrying over, so I restored it to it’s basic state of being. Hence the perfect score of eight on all physical attributes.”
“Uhm… what’s a modified soul imprint?”
“Something which would be considered teaching, if I told you.”
“Of course it would…”
Jai gave up on prying more information out. It might have seemed like he needed to ask for it, but Zaran only really told him things he wanted to tell at that precise point in time. If Jai didn’t ask, he would have found a way to make him ask. To nudge him in the right direction. Jai cringed again, the phrase annoying him to no end.
He settled into a meditative position similar to Zaran’s, and entered the communion. Or more precisely, attempted to do so. He only managed it three times out of dozens of tries, and all of that only after he found out the trick to it.
It was supposed to be a purely spiritual communion with his class, or in Jai’s case, his seedling. Original instruction was to discover it’s affinities and alignments before attempting to enter a state of harmony with them. That was all well and good, except Jai had no idea what affinities or alignments Dave had, while it was common thing to be listed in a stat sheet for most others.
Thankfully, his Soul Perception skill came into play, and after some practice, he could vaguely sense his inner space in far more concrete terms. Furthermore, with Soul Manipulation, he could better affect his own emotions, and in turn change the shape of his soul. It was a peculiar and most of the time clumsy experience, akin to controlling a car through singing and juggling.
However, the payoff was to pet Dave with an ‘arm’ made out of a happy memory attached to a string. His seedling was slowly floating away form him like his memories used to when he was trapped in the void, but while he could not stop it from happening entirely in this case, he could slow it down considerably.
He recalled the warm, reassuring glow of the egg-like entity just before he was rescued from that awful place, and sent the memory in another gentle caress.
“Just hold on for now, and don’t worry. I’ll find some way out of this.”
()}--==\O/^\O/==--==(OIO)==--==\O/^\O/==--{()