They left the familiar room in the hospital and he wasn’t even awake to witness it. One moment he fell asleep in one bed, then when he woke up he was alone in a small enclosure, which he figured was his new bed, the wooden fence around it meant to stop him when he eventually learned to walk. Once more he had to spend time observing the new surroundings. The ceiling above and the parts of the walls he was able to see were made of stone in a color somewhere between yellow and white.
Under his back there was a fabric, soft and pleasant on the part of the skin that was exposed, and he felt no cold, yet whatever was under the fabric had a hardness to it, as if made of the same stone like the walls that surrounded him were. The fence around him was made of wood and probably added on. He saw that the frame of his mother's bed was made of stone, so his earlier guess about what material his cribb was made of was probably true. On the bed he saw some fabrics, with a thinkness to it, that indicated that it was stuffed with something, just like his probably was.
After all, the stone can get really cold.
The realization of how much things could change without him being able to exercise any kind of control brought with itself another can of worms.
He was introduced to two more people, who had a striking resemblance to his mother that they must have been his mothers' parents. Both were older than forty, maybe even fifty. Both had black hair that started going grey in parts. The older lady had the same eyes as his mother.
They took their turn to kiss him and tell him something, the older woman doing this thing with her fingers as she kissed his forehead that he thought was a blessing of some kind.
***
The days marched forward. Weeks went by before he met a new face. The man he assumed was his father. He had dark hair, just like his mother and her parents, so it was a good bet that he was probably going to be the same. A squarish jaw and wider than average eyebrows. Not exactly a bush type but not too far from it.
It was difficult to tell when someone is staring at you from an arm's length away and you are as small as he was, so it might just be the wrong perspective. The man looked happy to meet him and carried him all day long, much to his protest.
Over time he started catching repetitive phrases, just getting some sense of the language and it helped that when they talked to him, they did it slowly. He was already sure he got the word for "mother" and "hungry" figured out. But then the most interesting thing happened. While he was going over some of what he heard and was slowly repeating it to himself, hoping that someday he was going to make some sense of it, this popped out of nowhere.
You have learned the skill Language Acquisition (1)! Obtain Yes/No?
It was just there in front of him. At first, he just stood very still and did nothing, but it didn’t go away. So he carefully tried moving his hand to touch it, yet the hand passed through as if the whole thing was an illusion. The text just hovered there, not moving and his hand was presumably on the other side. It is still attached, I can feel it. he thought. Pulling back the hand he inspected it and there was nothing on it. Hands up, hands down, between fingers... nothing. He closed his eyes and it was still here, only now it was in white letters.
His eyelids were closed and yet the letters were at the same distance they were before. And they were in a language he understood. Something was going on here, but he had so little information to make sense of it. He figured out how to get rid of it in a few tries. Just thinking about it going away did the trick. The same for bringing it back. And when he focused on the words Language Acquisition he got another surprise.
Language Acquisition (1)
Increases the capacity to perceive, process, and comprehend a language, raising the speed at which you learn a language. Every skill level increases the effect by a small degree and lowers the cost of its use by a small degree.
This looks like something I need right now… but what is it? he tried to come up with answers, but he got nothing. Well, at least it asked nicely. he thought as he accepted to learn it. The level it was talking about was probably the number near the name. But how was he to test if this does what it says it does. To learn a language is a slow process, and although he was good at that sort of thing he never timed it. So how to compare? And how large is that small degree? And if there is a skill like this, there must be others. He got this one trying to figure out a new language, so maybe just... but what was he to do, as a baby he was essentially bound to this stone crib, his movement limited. That narrows things down to some of the things I could do by just thinking. Or maybe even not thinking. he thought.
Trying to not think first came to nothing, he could not make the questions floating in his mind go away. There was a time when he could do it at the snap of his fingers, but now the excitement was probably messing with him. So what can I do of the thinking branch? Maybe trying to recall something? he thought.
He made a schedule of remembering paintings and photos he saw, trying to remember their details. Then he watched his mother, grandparents… and tried to remember the details of their faces, their clothes, anything large or small. This went on for seven days. He thought to quit doing it many times, thinking that it was not working, but boredom kept sending him back, and it paid out in the end.
You have learned the skill Visualization (1)! Obtain Yes/No?
Lowers the influence of the surroundings on you and gives focus to details of a visual memory. Every skill level increases the effect by a small degree and lowers the cost of its use by a small degree.
The house was nothing big by his old standards. His sense of distance was a bit woozy but the room he spent most of his days was somewhere around 4x4 meters and largely occupied by the bed of his parents. Then in the corner opposite of the door was his crib and there was just one more wooden chest in the corner across the bed from him.
These messages shattered the bubble that he was in his old world completely. Judging by the clothes and the materials of construction he was in a pre-industrial age. The heat every day indicated he was somewhere around the equator or it was the peak of summer. Too soon to tell. The air was dry but he didn’t know if that was just because of the summer or something else. His parents didn’t take him out yet, and the glimpses he saw were brief in the moments where they walked with him around. That was probably going to change soon.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
***
One night, right after his father got back, he was woken up by his parents. From what he could tell it was completely unintentional, they were trying to keep their voices down, but even not knowing the language, he figured out what they were doing. I guess some things transcend language barriers. At first, he tried thinking about something else, anything, just not to be the biggest voyeur in the history of the world. He even used that skill to lower outside influence, and it worked for a bit. It even got its second level. But they just kept going.
So he did something to get their attention and let them know that someone was listening. The scrambling they did after his baby cry was oh so satisfying. He didn’t mind what they did, it was not his business, but he had no choice but to lay there and be forced to listen. They, on the other hand, could go to some other room. He saw that the house had a few more.
They even went at it for hours, while he only wished for them tire already. To go sleep. To leave him in peace. From that point on he would cry first, should he hear anything near a muffled moan. He counted his victory when they started going to other rooms and was not woken from that point on. Although he did get a sense of a forming grudge from his father, he didn’t care, he was perverted enough without them adding this to the list.
The next skill he got, after countless hours of wondering if it was working, was Meditation. He first tried to empty his mind of all thoughts, but that did not seem to work probably because every few seconds that exact thought kept rearing back into his mind. Then he remembered that there were more ways to meditate, and one of those that he was recommended to try was a sort of observation. You relax, allow your thoughts to flow, and you observe what comes. Just acknowledge their passing. At least that was how he understood it. A way to observe thoughts in peace and quiet and that did the trick finally.
You have learned the skill Meditation (1)! Obtain Yes/No?
While in use increases concentration and awareness and lowers heightened emotions. Allows for an introspective view of one's inner self. Every skill level increases the effect by a small degree and lowers the cost of its use by a small degree.
***
He slept in intervals of a couple of hours at a time, waking up ready to charge, yet the energy rush never lasted long, expended in an hour at most. After what he counted were another two weeks, the only interesting thing in his day was practicing, and in that he was persistent. The results spoke for themselves.
Language Acquisition (7)
Visualization (4)
Meditation (9)
Even though it was the latest skill he acquired, Meditation leveled faster than the two he got before it. He did not want to try to get more skills, because just looking at the time it took to gain these he could see that with each new skill it took more time to get a new one. He was not sure how long he practiced to get Language Acquisition, but his best guess was somewhere a bit over one full day when all is taken into calculation. For Visualization from one and a half-day to two, when you exclude sleeping, eating and such.
For Meditation, it was almost five days of constant work, and that looked more like an exponential than linear equation. Now maybe there was a limited number of these skills you can get, and so far these looked extremely useful, so he refrained from getting new ones and focus on raising the ones he got so far. In the meantime, maybe some questions will hopefully get an answer.
These past few weeks, since he got Language Acquisition, he learned five dozen new words just from extrapolation and some helpful pointing on the part of his new parents. In some situations where his mother and father talked he could almost catch the flow of the conversation, but they were still too fast for him to follow along. He had a flaw that when he did not know a word he caught onto it to memorize it, and when he tried to get back into it, the conversation was long gone from the point where he followed.
But he was trying every day, and every day a new piece revealed itself. There was no hurry to learn, he was pretty sure babies don’t start talking before six months and even then it is probably something like "Mum" or "Dad", both words already firmly in his grasp. The thing that worried him was that sometimes some words changed just a bit and he did not know what that meant. They sounded almost the same, just with something added on, some spin on them that he kept missing. He was gaining sense and intimacy with the language so he was hoping to figure out this puzzle soon.
He did not spend as much time on Visualization as he did on the other two. He got the second level on that night he’d rather not remember, the third and the fourth trying to remember some of the details of his past life and he stopped there. There was a plan to try to remember the scenes from those days in the hospital, filling as much as possible of the details as he could. A small challenge to make it more fun.
Now Meditation was probably his favorite skill so far. The way the world warped when you look outside of yourself, with this skill was just magical. He experimented with this skill much more because of the awareness part of the skill. It heightened the senses, allowing more information to be seen, heard, or felt. With Visualization, he had a powerful tool to process with, but for now, it is still a mystery what. He was trying to see how the skills level while the process of leveling happened, but that was either too quick or somehow obfuscated or something else.
The two things he noticed is that after the leveling he felt tired and could drink much more of his mothers' milk. The second symptom was maybe unrelated to leveling, but it was too early to discount. So he tried to practice skills as soon as possible after sleeping, then soon after eating, sometimes both. So far, from what he could sense, it was easier to level a skill when he did both.
His mother had even complained to his father that he was pulling too hard when he drank, so his father came to reproach his son as if a baby could understand. This one does, though. But after that he was more mindful of the amount of tugging and biting he did, keeping it down to a minimum.
***
Ever since he came to this house his new father was absent the majority of the time, because apparently, his work as a traveling merchant took him on long journeys that sometimes took up to a month, while his mother and grandparents took care of him and the land they resided on. There was a lot of stress running around because of a lot of new things that happened recently, his unexpected birth for one.
From what he could gather from their conversation there were some difficulties in the time just before his conception, then after it was confirmed his mother was pregnant they moved here. They acquired this land and made a home on it, and lathough the times were a bit tough, they were managing. His grandfather worked on construction and grandmother grew herbs for sale, all the while they maintained a small farm right next to the house.
He pieced these things together slowly, listening to these people talk while they ate. It was a lot of change in a small window of time and it took some getting used to, all the members of the family had difficulties with it. He understood all too well, he had trouble adjusting to new environments, new people… There was a lot of pressure there.
There was something that quite surprised him, he learned that the day after would mark exactly two months since his birth. He did try to keep some sort of calendar in his mind, but there were difficulties with that. The number that he learned was pretty close to what he had, but a few days were missing on his.
***
The day started almost the same way as all so far. Washing, feeding… but then she wrapped him in some cloth that was much better than the previous one. That one gave him an itch that made his skin crawl by even thinking of it. The worst part was that he could not scratch it. After leaving her parents behind, his mother slowly walked carrying him in another cloth wrapped over her bosom, under one of her arms, and over her other shoulder. It covered all of him, protecting him from the heat of the day, but it also meant that he could not see anything.
So he wiggled a bit, made some noise, with the hopes of getting a better view. She did not fall for the attempt, he was just tucked a bit and shushed. At times, when the angle was right, he could see the blue sky with small roving clouds of white. Most of the way they walked in the shade of trees he did not see, but he could hear them swaying in the soft wind. The other sound was a bit harder to place at first, but that mystery was solved when they got onto a boat and he was removed from the baby sling. A river, wide and packed with boats going this and that way, in a pattern known only to them.
He saw people dressed from head to toe in colorful clothes, others almost nude in their single rag, wrapped around the crotch. And all combinations in between. Some had only people aboard and he could see by how they talked and waved their hands around utterly involved in the conversation, that this crowd was something they saw regularly. Others only had one or two passengers, but those were stuffed with stones or crates full of fruits and vegetables, leaving a sweet smell in their passing.