Morning

Sunrise. Demus sits down on the grey wooden dock to fish, tired, hungry, irritated. The flies had pestered him all night. It was a short trot from the village where he'd been born and lived for about ten years. Then, last night while he couldn't sleep, something strange had happened. He daydreamed about a huge, reddish-purple plant, that glowing specks were coming off of. One speck tunnelled through barriers and touched a sitting young man who was looking at a glowing screen. Another got larger and larger until Demus felt it enter him and fade away. Almost immediately, he moved from the burned-out hovel he always slept in.

--- 'Stink attracts flies.' He heard himself think. So he went looking for a better place. He managed to find a shop that was closed for the night, but which had a hollow set of stairs between the boardwalk and the dirt street. He squirmed under and fell asleep. Before dawn there was always a stiff, chill breeze going East.

This woke Demus, and he struggled out before the owner could find him. He had quickly trotted to the tanner's, retreived his 'fishing pole' (heavy stick with unraveled sack-threads for line), and went on to the dock.

Hopefully, he twitched the pole, tired from having applied what little leverage his scrawny muscles could bring to bear.

Nothing.

--- 'Okay,' he heard himself think again, 'like stink attracts flies, feelings of irritation repel fish. Do I really want to catch a fish?' He nodded vigorously. 'Then I should close my eyes and breathe deeply.'

Demus put the fishing pole down, closed his eyes, and inhaled as deeply as he could. After three breaths, he noticed all the places where the flies had 'bitten' or made him itch.

--- 'Forget about the itches.'

...'How?'

--- 'Find a spot that doesn't itch. Cool, your left middle finger. Put all of your attention on your left middle finger.'

After a few breaths,

... 'Is that all? Now what?'

--- 'Calm down, you're going too fast. Just keep breathing and paying attention to your left middle finger.'

Demus huffed but complied. Minutes passed, Demus could vaguely feel how the shadow on him shifted with the movement of the Sun.

--- 'Okay. Turn all of your attention to some thoughts. You are alive. Do you want to be alive? Say it! Say: "I want to be alive!" '

... "I want to be alive!"

--- 'Good! Are you glad you are alive?'

... "I'm glad I am alive!"

--- 'Do you love being alive?'

... "I love being alive!'

--- 'So be grateful that you are alive! Say: "I thank the All that I am alive!"

... 'What "All"? What am I thinking about? I'm hungry and I want to catch a fish!'

Angrily he opened his eyes, took up his pole, and swished it around.

Lunch

>>> "By Buff the Mighty, what's your problem, kid?" Said the old guy to Demus' left.

... "I'm hungry!"

>>> "Well, you're scaring the fish! If I give you some bait, will you go away?"

... "Sure!" The guy, 'Cockerel' Demus remembered, handed him three small fish out of a bucket.

Happily Demus dropped his pole, held two fish in his left hand and started eating the third with his right. He turned and walked toward the village.

--- 'See? Even without gratitude...'

... 'What?'

--- 'I was hungry. I wanted fish. I focused on being happy about being alive, and now I have fish.'

... 'I'm going crazy! I think like an adult talks! And now I think I can make things happen? It wasn't because of me!!!'

***

Tina walked in on Reggie's programming nook.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

¬¬ "Hey, Reg? Reg? You okay?" She asked.

--- "Hmm? Oh, yeah." Reg turned away from the screen.

¬¬ "System tests, right?"

--- "There's still too much NPC resistance."

¬¬ "I thought you were going to pause the mysticism stuff."

--- "Even piloting a child, I can't get one who activates a System Prompt. They resist all acheiving."

¬¬ "Did you use a hero dream?"

--- "No."

¬¬ "Sys-admin fiat the first one, then."

***

   As Demus was walking, a blue outline of a square appeared in the air in front of him, about head-height. Within the box were squiggles of yellow lines. Suddenly Demus understood!

_____________________________

|      Acheivement  Unlocked!     |

| You have eaten protein that  |

| was not a gift from your         |

| parents. You may choose   |

| one out of five prizes:       | 

| · Scintilla Guide                   |

| · Professional Fishing Rod |

| · Multi-Scale Net                  |

| · Blessing of Saint Modnar  |

| · Backpack of Extra-Room   |

____________________________

... 'Wow! I get a prize? Wait a minute! I don't know how to read!'

--- 'I guess I do now.'

... 'Who the Buff is Saint Modnar?'

--- 'Is that what you want?'

... 'Nah. I'll take the fishing rod.'

Then the yellow words changed:

___________________________________

|  Professional Fishing Rod .        |

|   selected! For your next prize,  |

| catch and eat five small fish.     |

________________________________

and with an in-his-head-only "pop!", the blue square disappeared.

... 'That was weird.' Demus looked over the new item with pride. It was only 14 inches long, had cork-lining on the handle, and a round-thing was attatched to the side. From the near end of the handle was a thin loop that went around his neck and left arm. He could drop it and still carry it around. It was as light as a feather. He held it with both hands and flicked it out, like he'd seen other fishermen do with theirs. The tip went shooting out many feet away, and now the rod had these inch-wide, fine rings that held an almost-invisible line that ran from the round thing, along the rod, and hung down from the tip. He flicked it in, and all of that disappeared.

... 'Cool! But, won't people try to take this away from me?'

   Waaay off to the left, a tiny blue square began flashing. Demus turned to look at it, but it moved with his vision! Carefully, he reached out his left hand and pointed at it. It disappeared and the blue square appeared before him again.

_____________________________

| Prizes given as acheivements |

| are non-transferable.               |

______________________________

... 'Hmm.' Demus dropped the rod to dangle at his side, picked up the two fish, dusted them off, and bit into one as he continued toward the village.

Afternoon 

   Soon Demus was walking in the village, past the shop under whose stairs he had slept. The shop-keeper was loudly talking with the Shire Reeve and a carpenter.

.. "This village has too many orphans anyway! Now I have to pay some worker to secure my stoop!" Demus kept on walking, not even looking at them.

  Suddenly Demus fell down. The larger boy who had bumped into him bent over and picked up the last fish.

->- "Well, litil-boy! No beating today!! Better bringing me three of these tomorrow."

== "What's going on here?" Asked the Reeve, who had just walked over.

->- "Nothing!"

... "I fell, and he's helping me get up!"

->- "Right." and he helped Demus stand up. Demus turned and determinedly walked away.

... 'Well, I can't sleep there again!'

--- 'What was all that?'

... 'What?'

--- 'Why didn't I tell the Shire-Reeve the truth?'

... 'Not only crazy! I'm an idiot!! Rat on a bigger, and all the biggers will beat the snot out of me!'

--- 'The shop you chose was not on the main road, so it has that set of stairs up onto the boardwalk.'

... 'Yup!'

--- 'What if I could get under the boardwalk?'

... 'How would I do that?'

--- 'By crawling under a shop that doesn't have a basement.' So Demus spent the afternoon looking at shop backyards, and he found three with no basements. Even better, one was run by a man with no left leg, who rolled around on a wheeled chair. His backyard was nearly filled with a boardwalk-like ramp. Demus resolved to return after nightfall.