Davin O'wild

Human Rogue (1)

Patron: Compass

AC: 15

HP: 9/9

Experience

175/300

Condition: Pending

Unarmored AC: 13

Temporary HP: 0

Ranger *training*

Currently: Armored

Bonus: n/a

"Wow, that seems like a lot of XP," Davin said to Hugh as he looked over his status.

"Ex pee?" Hugh asked confusedly.

"Yeah, you know, experience points," Davin stated with pride, thinking about how he was already half a level up.

"What in the name of the patrons are experience points?" Hugh asked

"Uh... oh yeah, the things gained from slaying monsters and such."

"OH, yours are called experience points? I guess that makes sense since you experienced that. Mine are called soul points since they strengthen my soul, but why did you call them ex-pee?"

"It's like an acronym, x for experience and p for points, so yours could be called sp."

"Acronymph?" saying the word with difficulty, the translations seeming to not come cleanly across.

"Acronym, where the parts combined make a word, kind of like an abbreviation... and I can't think of any examples that you'd know."

"Something that will likely come up as we travel?" Hugh shrugged deeply.

"Likely…" Letting out a groan as he looked at the handful of green tokens. "With how much that all hurt, I was really expecting more treasure."

"For a single monster? That’s pretty average sadly, treasure hordes are far better, but usually far more dangerous, more of a dungeon thing than a wilds specifically." Hugh said while he tapped his chin. "Speaking of treasure, how did we want to split it?"

"Split? Was honestly thinking party loot, that way it's shared, just need to make sure that we keep things balanced."

"Party loot? Seems like a good plan to me, so in the trunk it goes?" coming to a halt in their travels.

"As safe a place as any." Davin popped open the trunk and added the tokens to one of the empty containers that was in it. "So when I was in Long Dock I went to the night market, and it's pretty pricy for some of the gear I was looking at." Remembering the sticker shock from when he was looking at the thirteen hundred for the 'pocket' patch that he'd seen. Hopefully, we find some good hauls."

"Some of the better treasure is the monster item drops, some of the monsters will drop things that we can sell for a decent amount, but back to your original point, that was a pretty rough encounter."

Davin scratched at his leg where the strange two-headed dog had bit him, limping slightly as they walked, his injury causing him more discomfort than pain, thinking back on how bad an injury like this would have put him down back home, the simple bandages seeming to be far more effective than they should be.

"Weird question, my status says that my condition is pending… any idea on what that could mean?

"Pending?" Hugh waved his hand in front of him as if he was wiping something from an invisible window, and tapped in front of him as if was all interactive. "Hmm, you make a good point, that was a lot of 'expee' but as to the condition, mine also says that it's pending, that is weird, I don’t think that I've ever heard anyone having that… so we should keep an eye on it."

"Sounds like a plan, kind of have a bad feeling about the whole thing."

"Am I allowed to tell you to not say the thing?"

"Oh, good point… so now it's going to be my fault if anything goes weird." Davin again itched at his leg.

The sounds of the forest slowly made their way back into the forest, breaking the unease that had been building over the last day. Their pace had slowed as a result of their injuries, while seemingly not life-threatening, they weren't in the best condition to keep up the pace they held earlier in the day. Resting at the halfway point was a relief to the two of them, tending to the injuries made them both concerned.

"Damn, that infection spread too fast… I think I know why our condition is pending." Davin flinched as the bandage was peeled away.

"Oh? What did you figure out?" Hugh asked as he tended to Davin's leg.

"Yeah, we have some kind of disease, that bite was gnarly. I'm betting the infection is still festering…"

"So we may have to go further than just to the anomaly," Hugh said as he was looking over Davin's wound.

"Just in case it's more serious than we originally thought?"

"Exactly, But I think we should be finding the rivers soon, based on the time of year and the map that I used when I was doing my stint with the rangers, we should be coming to a part where the river runs along the roadside."

"And then we'll follow the river from there? How long till the next settlement?"

"From where the rivers meet? I think it should be another day, so however long whatever it takes to deal with…"

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"Speaking of, I'll check the log and you can check the numbers?"

Davin pulled the book out of his bag, flipping through the few pages, not finding anything new in them. Hugh pulled out the series of devices that he used to measure the ambient mana in the area, seeing only a slight increase in the baseline power levels, but not outside the acceptable window from the established tracking. A few hours later their path intersected the slow-flowing river, too wide and deep to cross they left to road walking along the shore. Davin was expecting to see a few more critters as they walked, only seeing a few creatures that reminded him of deer, the creatures drinking from the opposite side of the river.

When Davin felt the 'static' his skin crawled, and waves of goosebumps ran down his spine. Letting out a groan of displeasure as he involuntarily shook out his body like he was shaking off excess water.

"Did you feel that? Get out your equipment." Davin said while he rubbed his arms as if he was cold.

"Feel?" Hugh quickly canceled his spell and popped open the trunk. "I didn't feel anything?"

"Shit, I think we're getting close, I can feel it, like hearing nails on a chalkboard, just constantly."

"Hmm, no, but I can see some spikes on the equipment, can you tell where it is?"

"I have a spell for that, I think, I've not tested it to know if it will do what it's supposed to." Davin held out his hands looking at them with uncertainty.

He'd only cast this spell once before, and he interrupted it, casting magic was still weird to him, the spells controlling the body as they worked through the steps…. Thinking about the spell, he took the stance that he could feel was the start of the spell, as soon as his feet were in place the words began spilling out, his body began swaying, his hands making signs reminiscent of American sign language or the ones from anime ninjas. The last words out of his mouth left a ghostly copy of his hand floating ahead of him, glowing dimly it began to rotate, Davin's thoughts on the static feeling that lingered on his spine. The hand swayed and bobbed, moving in a way reminiscent of an Ouija board. The hand floated just out of Davin's reach, moving with him and leading him further down the river, the glowing of the hand seeming to glow brighter as they continued to move down the river.

"What's that noise?" Hugh fingered his ear as if to dislodge something.

"I thought you were supposed to have better hearing than me?"

"I would if I had the skill, You have perception?"

"I do? But I thought you did as one of your bonuses?" Davin asked in confusion. "I do, but I didn't invest much into it, so I don’t have one as good as you."

"Ah, I guess that's true, you've likely got a few skills that I can't do at all." Davin shrugged. "Hopefully our next party member fills out our skills.

"I'm hoping for someone that has some healing, I think that we're both pretty tapped at this point," Hugh stated as he wiggled his fingers in the universal sign for magic.

"That would be pretty handy, like a paladin or a cleric?" Davin asked.

"A druid can heal too, they may be easier to find than a cleric," Hugh stated matter-of-factly.

"Are clerics hard to find?" Davin winced in pain as the static in his head grew more intense.

The floating hand flashed as they rounded a large tree, Davin started to sprint ahead, and the pain climbed as he got closer the pain hitting a peak, seemingly having reached their destination, Davin bucked over in pain, and his spell began to fade to dust. Before them sat what they'd been calling an anomaly, a flat multi-colored static tear in space buzzed, large enough to drive a wagon into.

Davin pulled out the log book that he kept in his bag, checking for any new updates. The pain calming as he lingered near it, the buzzing no longer reaching his bones.

Eighth entry:

You're close! Thanks for the secret to this communication method, handy to know. As to the concerns of a beast on the roads, there were some reports. Alert me when you find the anomaly, I want to get a reference for size. -C

Davin chuckeled as he read, kind of wishing that the entries had time stamps on them, knowing how long ago that entry was sent would be helpful in situations like this.

Ninth entry:

I reached the anomaly, I felt it around a mile away and used guiding hand to get to it, spell worked perfectly, starting to gather information now. Has your sense on it changed in the last hour or so? will send updates shortly. -D

Davin's head slowly stopped aching, Hugh caught up, his instruments buzzing along with the wall of static.

"Davin! Are you okay? You headed off without me, I almost lost you, are you okay?" Panic leaked into Hugh's voice.

"Sorry, I didn’t think I could hold the spell long, the pain grew as we got closer. How were the readings on the way in?" Davin said with a mix of groans.

"They're all over the place! This is the most fluctuations I've seen ever, some of the readings six times higher than the highest recorded since they were first taken." The excitement was clear in Hugh's voice loud and clear.

"Once the waves of nausea wear off, we can start measuring this." Davin held his head and covered his eyes.

"Why am I not affected? Other than the weird cacophonous buzz, I don't feel anything else." Pulling out the water skin that he had on his hip and handing it to Davin.

Hugh started measuring what he referred to as ambient mana fluctuation one side of the paper-thin tear having a much higher output than the other, sketching what he saw as the tear, trying to get as many perspectives of it as he could. It was another twenty minutes before Davin could sit up, let alone stand, Hugh had to help Davin to his feet when that part of the plan came up, he was still unsteady on his feet. One of the things that Hugh appreciated about his time with the rangers was that he had a pretty decent idea of what plants and animals should be in this area, so when he was looking at the edges of the tear, he saw a few things that stood out as unusual, thin strips of a strange semi-transparent flexible leaf, which in its self wasn’t anything outstanding, but the images frozen on the leaves was what stood out. Small paintings that when what little light was left in the day shined through made the image bigger and clearer on whatever it was aimed at. When Davin finally came to join him, Hugh was engrossed deeper than he had been in anything before.

"Is that film?" Davin asked as he leaned in and looked at the strange leaves that surrounded the tear.

"Film?" Hugh asked, eyeing Davin dubiously. "What is this the skin of?"

"Skin?" Davin let out a shiver. "Okay, that is the grossest comparison that I have ever heard."

"It's just called film, since it was thin, like a membrane, and each picture is referred to as a frame. I don't recognize this one, but it looks old…"

"What are you talking about? This is clean and crisp, no fraying, I don’t think I've seen anything natural with this sharp of an edge."

"Oh, sorry, I mean the picture inside looks old." Davin pointed to the small picture on the leaf. "Based on the clothing, I'd say that was made in the nineteen thirties?"

"Nineteen thirties? What on earth is that?" Hugh asked in confusion.

"It's just one of the ways my world tracked time, the thirties were well before my time, so it's interesting to see something that by comparison would be so old."

"What was this 'film' for?" Hugh's curiosity was piqued.

"Movies, like a bard telling a story, but with many more actors, and it was recorded so that it could be replayed over and over and the watchers would get the same show any time they watched it."

"Recorded? To be watched? These movies were a type of performance?"

"Basically."

Tenth entry:

No change in the last hour. Stable as of the last two days. How big is the opening, and what is the affected visible area of influence? Be safe, monsters are not uncommon with tears. Do not enter the tear, DANGEROUS. -C

Eleventh entry:

From my memories, you should know what a movie is, the plant life near the tear has frames from older movies on them, Affected area seems to be within one hundred feet of the tear. Tear size is eight feet by ten feet. -D

Davin looked around to see if there were any different eras for the films that he'd seen, many seeming to be from the nineteen thirties to the nineteen fifties based on some of the outfits he'd seen on the film, none of the pieces of film were large enough to get a good idea of what the movies that they were being pictured were, but from what he could identify, each plant held a different movie.

It was several hours before Compass responded, Davin assumed that the magic had a limit on how many messages could be sent over a fixed time.

Twelfth entry:

Observe for the night, and attempt entry in the morning, tear feels stable, and has been little to no fluctuation since your arrival. Will monitor through the night, and check in the morning for updates. -C

"Up for a step into what seems like a pocket dimension in the morning?"

"Absolutely, let me set up an alarm and we'll call it a night, are you feeling good enough to make dinner?" Hugh's question was quickly punctuated by Davin's stomach letting out a long whining grumble.

"Well, my stomach seems to be." Davin started pulling out his dried provisions and setting up his cooking pot. "I'll go grab some water and some wood, should have everything ready in about an hour.

The night beyond that was uneventful, Hugh spending every waking minute making sketches and presses of the 'film' so that he could take them to the scribes. The low buzz of static was annoying to Davin, but not so much that it stopped him from sleeping.