She remembered there was once a torturous method of execution where the victim was tied to four different horses, which would then be forced to gallop in different directions, tearing the poor soul apart.
What she had just experienced felt a lot like that.
She felt the agony of pieces of her very identity being torn away, precious memories stolen and leaving gaping wounds, until suddenly, the torture was over. The wounds on her very self remained, but no new ones were being formed.
She slowly regained the ability to move, but quickly realised that she was stuck somewhere. As she tried to wriggle her limbs around (at least she still had limbs) she felt dead wood constricting her like a form-fitting coffin.
The feeling made her panic. Did someone tried to kill her, but didn't realise they failed before burying her? Was she going to suffocate?
She did what she always did when someone tried to shackle her: she struggled harder. The brittle coffin creaked as she forced her body to eke out every bit of strength, and eventually, after what felt like hours, she felt a crack. Her left arm felt air on its skin.
Hope! She could break out!
Reinvigorated, she weighed even harder. Crack, crack, crack, she felt the wooden prison break around her.
It was only when she felt her head impact the ground did she realise she wasn't lying in a grave, but rather suspended in a standing position.
As she brushed off all the pieces of wood that still clung to her, she finally saw light, and could check on her surroundings.
The ground she was laying on was grey with hints of brown, dust, stone and dirt forming a rough surface. Behind her was what she had thought of as a coffin, but was in reality a dried out husk of a tree, pieces of the trunk she broke off in her escape littering the ground.
She looked up, and saw a grey sky. There weren't any clouds; it was simply as if the regular blue was siphoned off. Despite the light level being somewhere around an evening, minus the warm orange hue, she could see no sun.
She was far from her home, she realised.
And far from her old self, she was shocked to find. As she spared a glance at her hands, they weren't her usual pale white cultivated from days spent in her apartment, but rather a healthy brown.
Not the brown of a tan, but rather a brown of an oaken's bark. With the texture to match.
She screamed in shock and fear, her voice echoing through the wasteland she found herself in.
She soon ran out of breath, which caused her to pause.
"Okay, new place, probably not even the same planet, new body. I'm naked, lost, but alive. We can deal with this."
As she talked out loud, she continued to examine herself. Her skin was indeed replaced with tree bark, and yet it had the same human sense of touch she was used to. She ran a hand through her hair, and found it present, if a bit different texture, and... why were her hairs so wide? She fiddled with a lock, and then realised: they weren't hairs, but leaves.
"Okay, I'm a fucking tree. But I can still move, breathe, and talk, so it's not all bad."
Her breasts and genitals were in their rightful places, and seemed to be covered with a thinner layer of bark than the rest of her body. Her silhouette was mostly the same, the generous curves of the chest, butt, and stomach still pleasantly jutting out. The only thing she didn't recognize was her feet.
They... weren't really there anymore. The legs just sort of widened out, like uprooted trunks of young trees.
Despite this, standing up proved effortless, and the few steps she took to test her new appendages were as easy as always, if not easier. The trunks seemed to shift and bend to accommodate her steps in a way human feet couldn't.
"Do I count as a dryad or an ent? What else can I do with this body?" She wondered out loud.
To her surprise, her question was answered.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Species: Dryad lvl 1 (clade: Awakened Plants)
Class: -
Health: 200/200
Mana: 110/110
Attributes:
Strength: 13
Toughness: 20
Constitution: 9
Mind: 11
Spirit: 11
Presence: 7
Traits: [Sapient Plant 1-A], [Tree Heritage 1-C]
Skills: [Growth Spurt 1-B]
"Ah. A system. The isekai novels got it right, then. Okay, can I get the down-low on what all of these mean? Starting with the Attributes?"
The system obliged her.
Strength: Increases the amount of force your body can output. Marginally reduces the amount of physical damage received.
Toughness: Increases the amount of maximum health you have.
Constitution: Increases the speed of your body's recovery from damage and fatigue.
Mind: Increases your reaction speed and the ability to process information. Slightly increases your mana control.
Spirit: Increases the amount of maximum mana you can store and the rate of its recovery. Increases your control over mana.
Presence: Increases your ontological weight, helping you inflict and resist reality-altering effects. An object or being with zero presence ceases to exist.
She was familiar with most of the concepts, however Presence gave her pause. Ontological weight? There is a stat for how real things are?
The existence of mana meant magic, but how was magic different from altering reality?
The system provided no response.
"Welp. Maybe later, then. Now, what are those Traits and Skills? What's the difference?
Trait: a passive ability perpetually altering you.
Skill: an active ability you may choose to use, typically costing stamina and/or mana.
Each Trait and each Skill has a level, improved with your understanding of it and increasing the effects of the Trait/Skill, and a tier, which determines the magnitude and/or complexity of the Trait/Skill.
[Sapient Plant]
Level 1, tier A
As a plant that has achieved sapience, you are able to direct the way your body grows.
"Wait, that's it? This is an A tier Trait, you said the tiers make it better!"
Tier is marked from the first letter of the alphabet marking the lowest tier, and later letters marking higher tiers. A is the lowest possible tier.
"That is... counter-intuitive. Alright, continue with the Traits and Skills, then."
[Tree Heritage]
Level 1, tier C
Your body is a biological descendant of a plant with a tree body plan. Your bark skin has a multiplier of 250% to its resilience. Your sap blood causes you to bleed at 60% the typical rate for humanoids, and quickly hardens in exposure to air to seal your wounds. Your body can store 200% as much nutrients as is typical for your weight. You may sprout roots to extract nutrients from the soil.
"Now that's a trait. Seems my body lends itself well to tanking damage. What about the Skill?"
[Growth Spurt]
Level 1, tier B
Pour mana into a part of your body to rapidly accelerate the development of new growths, including replacement of lost body parts. Consumes much more energy than the same growth would naturally.
"That's nice. Especially with my low Constitution."
Satisfied with her understanding of her new capabilities, the dryad was forced to confront the elephant in the room:
She had no earthly idea where she was.
All around her there was utterly nothing. The grey-brown surface stretched on with no landmarks except the tree she climbed out of (or was born from?) And the giant black pillar on the horizon.
Wait, what was that last part?
As she focused her eyes (thank whatever gods may be that she still had eyes) on the horizon, there was something like a dark spire, partially obscured by the curvature of whatever planet she found herself on. The structure seemed to touch the sky itself, conjuring an image of Atlas holding up the firmament. But the most notable feature for her was the little something that moved down from the top of the giant pillar. It moved quite fast, a rectangle held up by... rope? Some kind of line.
It was an elevator.
More broadly, a machine. And machines meant people.
It was even odds if said people were human or tree folk like her, in her mind, and completely unknown if they would shoot her on sight with magic bows or just regular old guns. But that was the only real sign of something other than bare ground or a small boulder every few kilometers.
She knew she would go mad without people. She didn't remember it all that well, thanks to the rending of her soul that brought her to this place, but she knew she had already experienced total isolation in her past, and it did not end well.
She needed people. People meant companionship. People meant answers.
And so, she began the long trek to the black spire on the horizon.