The light shines across my face, providing an energizing sense of relief. I inhale deeply, and then proceed to cough out my lungs. Guess there was still plenty of leftover fluid. Now that I have escaped my incarceration, I take the time to look myself over. Everything looks the same, this is so trippy. Green fingernails, green fingers, green toes, and feet. I guess it kind of sinks in properly when I can see it with my own eyes. Looking down I see my naked body, maybe I should find something to cover myself up with.
My ruminations are interrupted by a snort. I look to my right and see the deer from earlier. It is staring at me, stomping its front left hoof into the ground and snorting. As I look at it the notification from earlier pops into my head again.
Spike Antler Deer (Level:23)
I take a wobbly step forward out of the center of my flower the deer snorts once again and takes a step back. I reach a hand out towards it.
“Here, little deer. I don’t want to hurt you”
It lets out a loud grunt, turns on its back heels and bolts back into the forest. Well, I guess that could have been worse. It could have charged me and tried to run me through with those antlers. But what was with that level thing? Level 23, what level am I? So many questions, not enough answers. Speaking of questions, why am I not more panicked.
I am in a foreign land, a body that’s not my own, and I don’t know what the hell is going on. I should be losing my marbles right now, but instead I just feel at ease. I mean, I am a little anxious. Who wouldn’t be in this situation? Maybe it has something to do with this body, or that flower thing I woke up in. Speaking of flower thing, I look to my back to see the tail thing I still connecting me to the flower. Well great, out of the cage but still chained to the floor.
I reach down and pick up the tail. It looks like a vine but has texture like smooth skin. Rubbing my hand on it lightly produces a tingling sensation. I leave it at that, knowing better than to mess with this thing from experience. It looks like its connected to my tail bone, I think it’s what is connecting me to the ground, so I can see everything in my little area. I can still see in that weird 3rd person perspective view from before, but I’ve managed to mostly block it out. It's weird how I just know how to do these things, almost like they are instincts. Wait, I don’t know anything about this body. They’re probably some sort of instincts and I’m just learning to access them.
Can I get anything else to pop up while I’m at it? I sit for a moment, seeing if anything else will pop up. Nothing does, of course it can’t be that easy. I’ll probably only realize I can do something when it comes time to do it. I guess I’m doing this trial by fire style. I take a deep breath and take another step forward. Not too bad I think to myself. Then I go to take another step and falter. I lose my balance and fall forward. Flailing my arms and screaming all the way to the ground, landing with a loud splat. So apparently, I failed to account for my inability to walk properly. My new body has a different balance that I am not used to. I push myself up, spitting out mud and trying to wipe it off my front. A fruitless endeavor, as I just end up redistributing the mud across the uncovered parts of my front. Great, now I’m completely covered in mud, I’ve knocked myself out twice, and I don’t know where I am or what happened to me!
I finish trying to knock off the largest chunks then look around and take in my surroundings for the first time since escaping. I’m standing in a glade, surrounded by trees on all sides. Verdant grass grows from the edges of the forest throughout most of the glade, coming to about knee height. Small patches of brown grass a few inches shorter than the rest dot the glade. Patches like the spot I fell in, mud patches, eh? At least I know where not to walk. Near the mud patches are several varieties of plants, ranging in colors and shape. Some have fruit, others just leaves and flowers.
I pick a plant I like the color of and prepare myself to walk towards it. My second attempt goes better than my first. I only fell on my face five steps in, and I didn’t even land in the mud. My third attempt goes much better than the other two. I wobble for the first six steps then finally get the balance and weight distribution right. After that I found my rhythm, I merrily stride around the glade. It feels good to walk on my own two feet again, well not mine but close enough. I decided after a lap around the place to investigate some of the plants growing by the mud patches.
I approach the patch second closest to my pod, opposite side of the patch I fell face first into. I can see two bushes here. A green stemmed plan with purple leaves, it has three purple flowers with six petals each that fades into a blue center. They look a lot like a lily but just seem a little off. Further up the plant at the very top hangs a blue fruit. I close in to get a better look at it, it looks like a squash, but miniaturized so that it could fit into the palm of my hand. I get another notification while inspecting the fruit.
Witchi Fruit: This strange fruit is often found in glades within temperate forests. It has a high mana concentration that may be dangerous to low mana creatures if consumed.
Mana? Like casting spells and throwing fireballs kind of mana? What kind of world did I end up in? Do I have mana? I don’t know, it’s probably better to stay away from the fruit until I can figure out more answers. Looking to the other side of the mud pit I see the other plant. This one has green leaves and a blue stem. No flowers but a bunch of orange berries growing on it. Upon closer inspecting of the berries, I get the expected notification.
Corso Berry: These berries are often found near moist areas in warmer climates. The berries increase healing factors when consumed but over consumption can lead to a paralysis special effect.
Paralysis effect, like a status effect in a video game? The moment I think the word status, I’m hit by a wave of nausea. Information floods my mind, sending me collapsing to the floor.
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Name: Petal
Race: Willow Dryad (Rare)
EXP: 0
Nutrition: 58/100
Race Traits:
1. Child of Nature
2. Flora Control
3. Blessed life
4. Magical conduit
5. Flora Network
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Age: 0
Skill points: 0
Elements: Light, Life, Spatial.
******************************************************************************
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Health: 200/200
Mana: 1400/1400
Stamina: 400/400
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Strength: 50
Agility: 20
Endurance: 40
Magic: 70
Fortitude: 30
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General skills:
1. Universal understanding
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Titles: World Walker, Perfect Child
After laying on the floor for a good minute processing the new information that was just jammed into my head, I get enough of my sensibilities back to start thinking again. Ouch, ouch, ouch! Why does everything I do result in pain! And what the hell is all this crap? health, mana, stamina, and skills? Wait, don’t tell me this is one of those system things you see in video games. I really managed to get myself stuffed good huh? I did something at that party that got me done in, and now I’m living in a fantasy world. I take a moment to reflect on everything that has happened, I don’t think this world is fake. The tail yanking incident hurt way to much for this to be fake. Maybe this is what happens to people when they die, they end up in a different world.
Well, enough philosophical self-debate. I turn my attention back to this status thing and start to read over it.
Name: Petal
I’m assuming this is my name. Why can’t I pick it myself, who gave me a crappy name?
Race: Willow Dryad (Rare)
EXP: 0
Race, so I’m some kind of dryad now. Aren’t those nature spirits of some kind in popular culture? I focus on the word willow and get nothing, switching my attention to the word dryad, I get new information.
Dryad: Something between a person and a plant. Arguable whether a part spirit or full physical monster. Dryads tend to seed in place and consume the world around them to empower themselves. Their special brand of corruption often leads to entire eco systems being twisted to their will and objective: self-empowerment. They have an extreme degree of control over plants, capable of manipulating them to change function and form as necessary. They are vicious creatures that have very little fear and tend to consume all they can get their roots into.
Nature spirit my ass, more like consumer of all with that kind of description. Wait that’s me! With a description like that I’m liable to get people trying to kill me. Please let there be some sort of saving grace somewhere else within this thing.
Nutrition: 58/100
Nutrition, like as in food? Maybe it has something to do with the whole consuming all existing life thing.
Race Traits:
1. Child of Nature
2. Flora Control
3. Blessed life
4. Magical conduit
5. Flora Network
Ok, maybe something I can work with here? I switch my focus between the listed traits and each one gives me a description.
Child of Nature: Dryads can receive nurture through regular consumption of foods by mouth, or by connecting to their flora networks and drawing it from the world around them.
This is just telling me how I can eat, useful but not what I’m looking for. But drawing through the flora network, is that my senses thing I was using to see with earlier?
Flora Control: Dryads are capable of flora manipulation, changing and transforming the plants around them to suit their needs, the ease and extent of this control is increased for plants on the flora network. This level of control is capable of giving dryads intrinsic knowledge about plants connected to their flora network.
Not unexpected for a dryad but being able to just know what they are and what they do will be nice. I’ll be able to tell what’s edible, so I won’t starve.
Blessed life: Dryads due to their nature are more naturally inclined to the element of life, and always have it as part of their elemental aspects.
Maybe for working with the plants? Might have other useful applications. Ow wait I just had a thought, what about healing magic. This is a fantasy world so maybe magic exists, healing magic would be cool.
Magical conduit: Dryads are natural magical conduits, enhancing the effects and lowering the cast time of spells. This effect is further increased when connected to their flora network.
I like where this is going, I used enough punching bags in my last life that I’m tired of physical work. Bring on the magic!
Flora Network: A dryad can create a living network between themselves and flora within an area, this network gives dryads increased control, perception, and resilience within their domain.
This is that flora network I keep seeing, makes sense that it’s a racial thing. An explanation on how it works would be nice. Guess I’ll have to figure it out myself, I’ll do that after I’m done with the status thing.
Age: 0
Pretty self-explanatory, seems like I was just born. That’s probably why I woke up in my pod thing, I was literally just born.
Skill points: 0
Skill points, so this world is like a video game. I wonder how I get skills. Leveling up, common usage, or buying them maybe? Again, too many questions not enough answers.
Elements: Light, Life, Spatial.
I guess these are the types of magic I can use. These don’t have descriptions, so I’m on my own figuring them out. Life is self-explanatory, probably also involves healing. Wait light magic might be the healing one, but what would that make life magic then? Spatial magic probably involves space-time manipulation. Cool things like teleporting and making attacks just fly around you. But what is the difference between Light and Life? I’ll have to figure it out later, I still got a whole list to get through.
Health: 200/200
Mana: 1400/1400
Stamina: 400/400
So I have health, mana, and stamina amounts. I’m guessing that if health reaches 0 I die, mana lets me cast spells, and stamina is for physical exertion. Jesus, I have a lot of mana. I also don’t know how much mana is commonly used. This much might be a drop in the bucket compared to a spell or something.
Strength: 50
Agility: 20
Endurance: 40
Magic: 70
Fortitude: 30
OK strength, agility, and magic all seem easy enough to understand. I’ve played enough games to know what those are used for but what is the difference between endurance and fortitude. Aren’t those synonyms, there must be difference otherwise they would not be listed separate, right?
General skills:
1. Universal Understanding
So I guess I got a skill to start off with, lucky me. There being general skills indicates that there are probably other types of skills. Maybe class skills or something. Could also be broken up into attack, defense, support etc...
Universal Understanding: You can comprehend the speech of most entities provided it is comprehensible in some way, shape, or form. This applies only to verbal communication. You are unable to communicate yourself, only understand what is being communicated to you.
And where did this skill come from? It doesn’t seem to be anything related to my race. I can’t think of anything that might even partially involve an activity that would give me a skill. Well, at least I will know what smack people are talking about me in front of my face. Jokes aside, this could be really useful in the future. Moving onto the final section, we got titles.
Titles: World Walker, Perfect Child
World Walker: A soul not of this world, a foreign entity but not of the void. Not even the gods know what secrets it holds. (+2 skill points per level)
Perfect Child: Sunflower spent decades in hiding, trying to create the perfect seedling to succeed her. You are the culmination of years of perfection work, her greatest creation, meant to evolve your race to the next stage of power. (+1 skill point per level)
Well, if I needed definitive proof that I kicked the bucket it just got thrown in my face. Still, it’s a lot to take in, being born again in another world. The only thing keeping me from loosing my sanity is the thought that if there was a way here, there must be a way back. Even if they aren’t the same path hopefully, I can find a way home. And that second one, perfect child. Who the hell is Sunflower, my mother? If she is my mother, where is she? Arg! I can’t do this right now, I need a nap, at least all this gives me extra skill points.
I walk back over to my pod and lay down. I will the inner petals closed and make myself comfortable. There is no liquid this time, that seems to only be for extended periods of rest or healing. It’s all so much to take in, so I don’t stay awake long. I quickly drift into a nightmare.