They spent the meal chatting, most of the conversation between the others while Joe fell silent, quiet. The Matriarch also joined him in his silence and while the other four chatted. By the end of the meal, Joe found himself crashing and gave them all a wave goodnight before heading out. The Matriarch rose at the same time, bidding all good night as well before returning back to her home. The other four offered their farewells then they both split apart to chat alone, the girls going to Kilnaira’s room while the boys headed out. Joe, however, was too exhausted to really question or notice and headed back to his room to collapse on the bed after bathing in the bath; a luxury that almost had Joe wanting to really relax into but his exhaustion had him fleeing to his bed rather quickly.
When he collapsed into bed, he did take a moment to bring up his status. He noticed his insane growth in his stats and his exhaustion faded from him as he decided he wanted to figure out what was going on with that.
His first thought was that something had happened with his titles, so quickly opened them up and grinned when he noticed he had four new titles. His grin grew and he eagerly turned to look at what he’d gained. And for the ease of Joe’s perusal, he opened all four at once in a single dialog box with a simple request to the system. Help, show me the boss slime killer title, the Boss monster killer title, the wave breaker title, and the wave stunner title.
Boss Slime Killer (Title):
You have killed a Boss Slime. Slimes now regard you with respect and no small amount of fear. Slimes will ignore you if you will, but will always attack if they are attacked first. Chance to pacify slimes 1% per title to a maximum of 25%.
Synergistic gain: Wave stunner increases the maximum gain from this title to 40%.
Boss Monster Killer (Title):
You have killed a boss monster. You begin your journey into fame. All experience gains doubled.
Additional boss monster killer titles decrease effect of Presence or fear from Boss or greater monsters.
Wave Breaker (Lesser Title):
You have stalled a single side of a wave against you. You brought the enemies low almost single-handedly. A small boost to fame.
Wave Stunner (Title):
You have stunned and wrested control of a massive number of beasts away from a tide master during a tide. Gain significant amounts of fame and increased capabilities to mentally influence monsters and beasts.
Joe grinned, looking over the titles carefully before his grin fell and he sighed. The double experience from boss monster killer was awesome, and that had him happy for a good while, but the further titles proved disappointing. It wasn’t all bad, with slime killer and wave stunner adding utility but he really wasn’t sure how they would actually work out.
As Joe considered them, he soon realized he’d been staring at this listing of titles for a good chunk of time and realized he was passing out and almost semi asleep. He struggled awake, pushing to try to understand his current jump in stat gains, knowing that any extra jobs he added would only make it ever harder to understand what was happening with his stats. But he ended up too exhausted after the long day and decided he really had to focus on what he could do to improve and figuring out where his stats came from could be done later on any day off. He really needed to push his skills like magic healing up. He once again used up all instances of his various job change skills, pushing to get the skill raised high enough that he wouldn’t have to ‘waste’ a job slot on a priest job in the future then turned to magic healing, using it until he simply fell asleep in the middle of doing it.
* * *
It took Stephliquen almost a day to finally enter the atmosphere of the moon and while falling to a planet’s surface is not fast, especially from orbit, the violence of reentry proved to make the event incredibly momentous and startlingly immediate. When she finally splashed down only a half days walk away from her target city, the moment had become a striking event of only moments in her memory, and not the hours of journey.
Despite the terror of it all, her mind quickly turned to escaping. While her people had not been able to get back feedback from any of the specimens, enough had been visible with powerful optics to let her know that those who fled the area lasted much longer. She quickly packed her materials and escaped the pod.
One aspect of all those she’d been able to study that always pricked her scientists curiosity was the odd pause at the base of the ladders. She quickly learned what it was when she landed and a glowing box formed before her, its color a soothing green with an oddly mystical but ultimately worrying message.
The Great Aelthron welcomes you, eccentric, to his Cradle. As in agreement with the Treaty of Beings, you have one year to accord yourself with this Cradle. You will find that this Cradle requires Beings to define their capabilities by status. In accordance to the Treaty, your current capabilities will not be inhibited or modified by the Cradle until one year has passed, at which time you will then be constrained by the Cradle’s demands.
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Please see the local Cradle’s administration for any further details. Please press ‘Accept’ to acknowledge receipt of this notification.
OK… so that’s… ok.. that’s! Her curiosity drove her thoughts before she quickly reined in everything. Right… not the time.
She ignored the message and turned towards the city, walking quickly across the field and bee-lining it directly towards the city. She didn’t know how far she had to go, but she knew it had to be fast. Several of the specimens had been eradicated by a strange, if terrifying, figure that appeared at the location too rapidly for most of their instruments to detect.
In any case, she moved quickly, focusing entirely on her surroundings. She walked for almost a half a day before finally feeling that she’d escaped far enough and she paused for a rest, a deep breath calming her as she settled against a tree and returned her focus to the pop up. She stared at it for another couple of minutes before gritting her teeth and hitting the accept button.
She jumped almost immediately after as the sound of a sonic boom echoed across the tree tops coming from the direction where she’d landed. Almost immediately after some form of pressure came upon her and she found herself more terrified than she’d ever felt in her entire life. She collapsed at the base of the tree she was at and curled into a ball, her mind gibbering in terror as if she’d met the very horrors of the void and her mind was incapable of comprehending what she was experiencing. She didn’t know how long she remained curled up at the bottom of the tree, unable to move at all with terror robbing her mind of any capability to think or act. She simply shivered in terror.
She remained in a fetal position in terror for a time but when her mind finally cleared, she leapt up with a different form of fear, realizing she’d been defenseless against anything as she hadn’t even been aware of her surroundings nor did she have any way to defend herself. She crouched against the tree for a time, eyes darting everywhere before she finally calmed. Despite her renewed calm, the knowledge of her helplessness touched her in a way that left her jittery and searching shadows for all attacks. She finally got herself to push off the tree, pushing herself because she saw the sun had settled deeper in the sky and she still hadn’t seen the city she was seeking refuge at.
She grit her teeth and quickly began moving, shuffling away further into the woods. She remained there fearful for a good long while as she skittered through the trees before realization hit her and she quickly glanced at her backpack full of decidedly not normal medieval items. She glanced around fearfully before finding a tree a couple dozen meters away that seemed easy enough to climb with thick foliage. She scrambled up it and found a high branch that could hold her pack. She struggled to balance herself even as she reached in and pulled out her water filter, a combat knife, a couple of simple tools, elastic cords, and a camouflage waterproof sheet. She wrapped the sheet around her pack and strapped the whole thing to the tree with the cords before shimmying back down and quickly walking away from the whole pack.
She walked swiftly but hunched over despite her efforts to appear natural. It took her a long time to make it to the city and almost as long to finally relax. When she made it, the city walls proved enormous, enough to leave her rather shocked. She stared at them for a moment before she slid back into the shadow of the trees that surrounding the city off in the distance.
Another popup she’d ignored before called for her attention and now that she was calmed once again, she turned to that instead.
In accordance to the Treaty of Beings, your status is currently unchanged, your current status according to the current Cradle will be displayed as the primary status, while your previous status will be displayed immediate afterwards in parenthesis. Your previous abilities will be translated into equivalent values of this Cradle, although you will not retain any of your previous skills or abilities.
Your status can be viewed at any time with your personal details.
Your current job is set to: Level One Commoner
What’s that even…mean? How is that… Stephliquen frowned in frustration before swiping the popup away with some frustration. She played with it for quite some time before doing so, unable to gain any other new information for it. She groaned when another popup appeared before her.
Do you wish to naturalize your stats?
Uh… that… should be a good idea, right? Blend in with the local population… Yes. Naturalize my stats.
It took Stephliquen almost an hour to understand the next popup that appeared before her, dismiss it, and finally make the decision to approach the city gate. Finding dusk almost upon her when she arrived proved shocking to her, as she didn’t understand where the time went.
The guards proved less than helpful, speaking gibberish and completely ignoring her before growing disgusted with her and placing her to the side of the gate as they spoke in a hurried rush with person after person. She struggled to listen and learn from the guards, but couldn’t understand how they were speaking, their words not matching the movement of their lips. Evening came out of the blue, and Stephliquen stared around in shock to see twilight upon them.
* * *
The arrival of the idiot had proved frustrating to the guards but one shifty eyed character stared over at her as they came upon the guards. They passed through rather easily, the papers having been legitimate… enough. He made sure to catch the face of the woman and found his eyebrows rising. Clean skin… straight teeth… WHITE teeth… His eyes glanced down her torso and took in her breasts, hips, and legs. He kept the smile off his face but quickly changed his plans.
He took a left immediately inside the gate and walked quickly around the corner before sprinting towards the nearest slave merchant. His grin was ingratiating when the merchant finally agreed to meet him. Passing information, especially of a low kind, was not exactly the most profitable business, but when it was so easy as this…
The deal was done quickly and the merchant sent one of his best men with a new collar to the gate. A small bribe, with a judicious affected distraction by the nearest guards, had the slave merchant grinning to see his newest acquisition. His initial expectations exploded upward and his smile grew. A few days later, the merchant made a tidy profit, and the local courtesan trade merchant gained a new girl to train. A long journey to the cradle’s capital would see the courtesan merchant well rewarded for the trip.