Dens had been walking for a while now. This field of grass stretched forever in all directions, her legs weren’t tired, and she wasn’t getting hungry or thirsty.
“Nine hundred Ninety-Nine… One thousand,” she announced.
She flopped onto the ground and scratched another notch in her notepad. She looked back down at the prompt that rested in the bottom center of her field of view. It always took up about a tenth of her vision, displaying the same message as it had for the past however many runs of her walks.
KONTRAKTO
INTERKONSENTO NECESAS POR PROCERI
1. Pacaj kondiĉoj post fino de testo
FINO DE KONTRAKTO
ĈU VI AKCEPTAS?
She wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. It looked somewhat familiar, probably something she had seen at an international event, although in what country, she couldn’t say. She had a few guesses as to what it meant, but there was a question on the bottom, and she wasn’t ready to commit based on a guess.
She glanced at her surroundings again. No mountain to work towards in the distance, no trees to break up the monotony. Even the grass patches kind of looked the same. They seemed to repeat on a grid, like someone had put together a square of grass and decided to make a quilt out of them. No bugs marked the leaves, nor dehydration or new growths.
Everything was decidedly stagnant. She kind of hated it. So, so much.
The box followed her gaze. She shook her head, and then spun around. It never left its position in her vision. She sighed.
She could guess what a "kontrakto" was. She could even get that she had to accept it to proceed. Honestly, that level of understanding probably scared her more than if she couldn’t read a word of it. What if it had some weird requirements?
Well, one weird requirement. Something about the end of a test-o. Was this a test? Would the test just be accepting a contract you don’t understand. There was some stuff going on with brain doctors nowadays, sure, but-
ERARO
MULTOBLAJ ERAROJ
KALKULI PRIORITATON
...
1. Vi devas akcepti la kontrakton por ebligi la progressistemon
ĈU CI ŜATUS AKCEPTI LA KONTRAKTON NUN?
She perked up. It looked like this one stacked on top of the other one, with a couple inches of space between the two. Her face fell again when she gave it a closer inspection.
Another question she didn’t know.
“Why can’t you just be in English!” she cried. She looked around again, face flushing.
Her options in front of her were clear.
The first, and essentially the default was to keep sitting here and see what happened. As long as she continued to not tire, the only harm in this plan seemed to be a rapid careening towards uncouth behavior in the face of boredom and frustration.
The second was to keep walking. She figured she was outdoors, although probably not in England. Wherever she was, there had to be some sort of central location. She had been to America before: she knew how big places could be, but even the biggest plain usually had a rail piercing it.
The third was to respond. At her best guess, it was a yes or no question. This meant that a response was, in itself, at least two outcomes.
Outcome 3A: She said no. This would produce one or two likely results. If she was to not “akcepti la kontrakton,” she would be on disagreeable terms with whoever wrote it. Given that the entity that wrote this was using an unfamiliar but omnipresent medium, she didn’t want that. Even if they didn’t take it as disagreeable, she might lose the chance to learn something. Equally heartbreaking.
Outcome 3B: She said yes.
She sucked in air through her teeth.
Outcome 3B: She said yes. Anything could happen. It was a contract of some kind. That was the working theory, anyway. That meant something that was both an agreement and binding. That kind of excited her, honestly. An agreement she didn’t know about? How would she know if she was following through? How would they know? What would a person want? Did they also transport her to this place, or was that a separate entity from the rest of this puzzle?
She nodded thoughtfully. It would be silly to say yes, exciting as it was. That settles it. It would have to be a n-
PRILABORADO DE ENIGO: “She said yes."
...
...
ERARO: Lingva Miskongruo
Provas korekti ĉi tion
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Interpretado: Interkonsento
DANKON!
“No, no I didn’t-” Dens started, and then all was white.
----------------------------------------
o|-<
?
웃___𐩺𐩺𐩺_
_𐩺__웃__𐩺𐩺
_𐩺___𐩺𐩺𐩺_______𐤂𐤂𐤂𐤂___𐩺𐩺____𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺____𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺__웃____𐩺_𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺_𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺_
_𐩺___𐩺𐩺𐩺_______𐤂𐤂𐤂𐤂___𐩺𐩺____𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺____𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺__߶____𐩺_𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺_𐩺𐩺𐩺𐩺__
----------------------------------------
Dens was kneeling in a clearing, attempting to cry.
What a stupid situation. What a stupid, stupid way for things to work.
She looked up. At least she wasn’t in an endless field, but to say that was an improvement would be making some assumptions: the kind that had already gotten her into this mess.
She wasn’t even sure if the blue square with text on it mattered here. She wanted this place to be England really badly, but there was no proof it was. The grass looked right, but the trees were all wrong. Some even looked similar. Too similar. Not completely the same, but close enough in shape to be unusual to look at. The place was quiet, too. There was a slight wind, seemingly constant in speed and in one direction. No water was running either, which was unusual. It was partly cloudy, far removed from the gray clouds that were heaping snow onto Arnsfeld.
God, Arnsfeld. Was it still Thanksgiving? She would give anything for a turkey leg right now.
Finally, she heard a thump. She didn’t jump at it, just picked up what was dropped on the ground. It was a leather-bound notebook, not entirely dissimilar from the one she used to keep notes. It was even bound from the top, not the side. Perfect for making lists. Not that that mattered. She didn’t have her pen on her. She was certainly grateful she got to keep her clothes, as suit vests tailored for women were both a pain to get and absurdly expensive, but she would’ve liked keeping what was in her pockets.
She flipped through the notebook for thoroughness’ sake. Still nothing. Blank page after blank page. She threw it towards a tree in frustration. It fell to the ground with the same thump.
The sun was at a nice angle. She’d been walking for a while now, and it stayed in the same place, a couple degrees above the horizon. Some time between noon and dawn, seemingly forever. It honestly would’ve been nice to know it would be night at some point. Then she would have something to work towards, but with the same stakes as the field, there wasn’t much point in worrying about it. That’s why she kept walking, after all. That slim chance she was back in England, with a notebook that liked to follow her around as a souvenir.
She moved from kneeling and trying to cry to sitting down.
The way she “progressed” from the box to wherever she was now was by thinking at it. Well, thinking in general, really. Thinking in context of it? Something like that. There was something there about willing it to be. Maybe a specific phrase? But she was pretty general with her thought before. She wasn’t even saying yes in the context of whatever question she was being asked.
Hey, there’s a thought. She didn’t have to have a specific direction or understanding to interact with it, so there was a good chance she could still luck into it.
PRILABORADO DE ENIGO: “Luck into it.”
...
...
ERARO: Lingva Miskongruo
Provas korekti ĉi tion
Interpretado: Parolu al mi pri mia sorto
...
...
ERARO: Stato Ekrano ne Estis Malŝlosita KOMPLETIGU LA LERNILON UNUE!
She stood up at the return of the blue screen. There were keywords. She took a few deep breaths. Kompletigu la lernilon unue. Think. The first word sounded like complete, a little bit. She didn’t know what “tigu” meant, but maybe that was okay. La probably meant something like “the,” like how it is in French. She had passing knowledge of French, enough to do business. Really she relied on other p- No, stay on track. Lernilon. Lernilon. God, it sounded like some sort of animal, really. Lion. Lernil Lion. Larry Lion. Learny Lion? Learn. Complete the learning unue? Unue… probably something like one or first. Hopefully it wasn’t important. Complete the learning. There was a teacher here, somewhere. Maybe a per-
Ow, god. She had started to pace without thinking about it, and crashed right into a tree, fell over, and scraped her hand. She shook it, then grabbed it with her other one. Just a little cut, really.
Back to her train of thought, which she had decided to park at the base of this tree.
She grabbed a stick and started to scratch in the dirt. Her pockets ached where her pen used to be.
Steps to getting back home:
She scratched that down, then shook her head and stamped dirt over it.
Steps to understanding more:
She thought for a moment.
* Understand the language
* Change the language?
* Get an interpreter?
* Find the teacher
* Other people here?
She looked at the list, then shook her head again
* Understand the language
* Change the language?
* Get an interpreter?
* Find the teacher
* Other entities here?
There. Actionable list. The language barrier was what got her in this mess, if she could solve that, well, that seemed like a really good first step.
And then there was the thump. The notebook fell at her feet. She scrambled for it. The most solid piece of evidence that might be related to everything else and she had been tossing it. She flipped it open again, carefully looking at each page. Holding it up to the sun. Swapping it back to the shade. She tried to mark it with the dirt-covered stick, but any crumbles of dirt just fell off, like water on a ducks back.
She held her breath for a second. She looked at her hand, still just slightly oozing blood. Carefully, she pressed her thumb into her cut, and then to the page.
Nothing.
She sighed and fell over onto her side. She wasn’t sleepy, but honestly, if she could make a nap happen, now would be a good time for it. She turned so she was laying on her back. She could just see the sun through the trees.
And in the bottom of her vision, a blue box.
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