She was standing before a large building, perhaps an old manor of some kind, delicately tucked in the small valley between an expanse of hills and mountains as far as the eye could see. There was little but jagged rock, green grasses, small trees, and moss for miles under the overlarge picturesque clouds drifting lazily in the sky. At a first glance there was nothing to indicate how wrong, how absurd her presence was in this place. It could almost pass for any location of similar makeup back home, just a creepy old two story building, long abandoned and being steadily reclaimed by nature.
The tall grasses around her stood nearly to her chest, not a single stalk disturbed in her surrounding area, nothing to indicate having been dragged nor having walked under her own power to this location. A small, pale, and delicate hand traced over a few of the stalks directly in front of her, and she relished the sensation of touch as if she had been deprived of it for millennia.
Her thoughts were slow, sluggish, and unconcerned as she pinned her gaze onto the hand. She didn’t recognize it. Wasn’t there some kind of saying about knowing something like the back of one's own hand? Yes, she should recognize the hand. It was attached to the arm, also unfamiliar, that extended from the location from which she perceived the world. What was it called again? A body, yes. This body was unfamiliar.
A breeze rolled through, not particularly strong, but enough to blow fiery red strands forward to obstruct her vision. She jumped in fright before she was reminded of the purpose. Hair. Unfamiliar. Her hair before had been brown, like the bark of an old tree. It had been coarse as well, curled in and crinkled due to a mixed heritage she was never really able to understand. Her hair had never had the silky locks that would blow in the breeze before, and in that same vein, her skin had never been pale, her body never slim, her hands never delicate. The conclusion was simple, but it came along as slow and as gentle as the breeze, this wasn’t her body.
Some part of her knew that this revelation should have been alarming, and yet, her dazed calm continued as she stood among the untouched nature around her. Flashes of something from before, a before she couldn’t quite grasp. There was certainly a before. Before this location, before this body, just before. Simultaneously bright, happy, full of life, and dark, empty, a…void.
She jolted on the spot and the vague impression of memory followed in the wake of the motion. Someone, beautiful and hers had asked her a question. She couldn’t remember the question but she remembered the answer. She remembered how her body, not this one but the one before, ached and ailed and weakened by the moment. “I want it to say that I am in hell, trying to seduce the devil. Etch a nat 20 underneath it to wish me success in my next great adventure.”
Someone had laughed through their tears, their response broken but happy at the same time. “A bard even in the afterlife. Typical.”
Was it typical? Was that what she was, a bard? No, something about that felt right but not quite. “Entix Alderi, Bardlock, the patron is a homebrew. It’s alright though, Ez approved, even if he gave me shit for bringing my own God here. Honestly, at least the God I worship is one I made up myself, instead of some dude a couple thousand years ago.”
Yes. Her God. One she’d crafted herself and followed diligently through life. She’d named it Void – God of mischief, chaos, and the void between worlds. People had found it quirky, just another strange thing about a strange girl. A strange girl who lived in fictional worlds before the one she walked in. One who played her games, and wrote her fanfic, worshiped the full moon, and steadily refused to exist in the world in which she was born. She was an oddity who attracted other oddities and they formed a party. Adventured through life together until her body started to break down, just a continuation of the world rejecting her. It rejected her right into the ground. Right into the embrace of Void.
The new, foreign body shivered despite the bright, warm, spring day. She had died, in the before. Her first body had broken down until it could not continue, and whatever manner of thing that had been trapped in the broken body had become released. A soul? Perhaps. The soul, hers, had left the world that rejected her and found solace in the arms of the God she created and worshiped. Had she created it? Or had her creative, clever mind simply tapped into something long forgotten? Did it matter? For what was a God that no one cared to worship? Old God or New, it had embraced her errant soul and suspended it within its Void. Its? His. His Void. Hers.
She was still calm, even with the realization. For she’d looked into the Void and it had looked back and loved. Her Void loved his follower, his creator, the one who woke it from slumber with devotion. He wanted more, but a dead soul could not worship. Her first world had rejected her, but her Void hadn’t. She would never abandon him, but he wanted to grow.
Everything else was vague. More vague than everything she was experiencing in this moment, stood among the bright of a spring day in a secluded valley of a world that couldn’t be the one she left. Her Void had requested a second life of devotion and how could she reject it? Impressions of the Void and the life before the Void continued to trickle in slow disjointed chunks, slow and quiet, as if they feared hurting her with their resurgence. She continued to stand, as she had forgotten how to have a body within the emptiness of the Void. Her lungs filled with the freshest air she’d ever experienced, and her eyes blinked because they knew they had to. Her heart beat in her chest and with each pulse another memory tumbled in slowly.
She could have continued like this forever, partially empty, staring at a world so familiar and yet so foreign. There had been grass, and trees, and hills, and valleys in the place before. There had been the heat of the sun, the quiet buzz of insects, and the slow reclamation of nature there as well. Time passed and enough memories trickled in for her to eventually notice the differences. The place before did not have faintly pulsing runes etched into old buildings, it did not have the slow melodic hums of nature as it played the notes of life as sweet songs. Her eyes from before could not see the faint pulses of life and magic as it tumbled playfully through the air, suffusing itself into every plant and lifeform as sure as oxygen and water.
The world before did not have the sudden soft pang that played only for her ears, as an oddly familiar box appeared in her sight, directly in front of her eyes. What was that box? She studied it, disregarding the scribbles that panged in her memory as language in favor of straining to remember the box itself. Her head shook slightly as instincts of how to remember overtook her body. The box followed with every movement of her eyes, even as they instead focused inward. Her body jolted a few times, as the unfamiliar pilot attempted to convalesce a sense of self, to remember how to be.
Her attempts, though awkward, did bear fruit as her mind supplied the answer she desperately searched for. Notification. The box was a notification. She’d seen these, many thousands of times throughout her life in the before. Another difference between worlds. In the before, the boxes appeared on screens. In this new world they appeared in her mind. Her head nodded in affirmation. The box was understood. This was good, another step toward becoming a person again. A foreign feeling, pride – her mind supplied – rushed through her. She liked this feeling and desired to feel it often.
Now that the box, the notification, was understood she could remember their purpose. A notification box served the purpose of relaying information. This meant that the language on the box needed to be understood next. Excited to feel the pride once more, she focused on the notification and repeated the steps that had worked previously.
Turn the eyes inward, focus her intent, sift through the errant information, find the correct strand, pull the strand into place, categorize it properly to be understood. There was a word for this process, she remembered, and was instantly distracted. Was it Mind Palace? Meditation? Occlumency? All of these and none. Fiction and reality mixed together until they became interchangeable. She picked her favorite and categorized it as occlumency in an attempt to move on. Occlumency implied magic, magic danced free in the air of this world. Therefore, it was correct. Another burst of pride that this time was not as long lasting.
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She’d become distracted, she realized. What had she been looking for? A new feeling, this time categorized as disappointment, coursed through her. She did not enjoy this feeling as she had enjoyed pride. She determined that avoiding the unpleasantness of this feeling was crucial. To rid herself of the emotion she returned her focus to her mission. Quest? Again fiction and reality danced and she chose to categorize it as a quest, and once again the implication of magic was the deciding factor. With each newly categorized piece of information the process became faster. It was only a matter of seconds before she was able to understand the language on the notification.
ACHIEVEMENT
What are you?
I have no idea what manner of creature you are, nor how you arrived in my realm. Welcome! Your mind is fascinating. Take some starting stats.
Reward:
System Integration
The notification was an achievement, and an odd one at that. Perhaps because of her placement in this, as the achievement called it, realm? Not world? The new information was categorized without much active input, only increasing her pride that the process was becoming more automatic as more memories rolled in and she settled back into personhood. As soon as the notification knew that it was understood it disappeared from her view. Interesting, and more advanced than the notifications she’d seen in the before. Her mind supplied a bit of context, notifications were in games in the world before, they were real in this new realm.
Fantasy and reality danced once more, this time with much more context provided by her returning memories. The very nature of this new magical realm was of a similar structure to the video games she’d played in her last life. Her Void must have picked a world he believed she would enjoy living a new life, and hopefully a world in which it would be easier to attain more followers for him. She would convert new believers and grow the influence of the Void in this new life as thanks for her second chance.
As soon as she had the thought, an unobtrusive chime, similar to the notification sound but not quite, played in her mind. She braced for another notification but nothing came. Curious, she strained mentally to investigate. Yet, for the first time she was unable to find correct context from her errant memories. This situation was new. What did one do in new situations? Blissfully, her mind did find context for this. If one is placed in a new situation, and one desires to understand something they do not, one must investigate. Educate themselves through experimentation, trial and error, exploration, and many other countless methods which shuffled through her mind at a breakneck speed.
A new set of feelings this time; excitement, desire, hunger. She liked these feelings so much they almost overtook her, sending shivers through her body that overwhelmed her senses and had her hands moving in unconscious movement that drew her eye. Ahh, she was finally starting to properly pilot the body. She’d moved a hand, once, but the movement had been without her active thought. Her fingers had twitched in excitement as her mind categorized how. It was but a moment before she was able to move the fingers on her own, then her hand, and in short work her entire body.
Full control of her vessel had her posture relaxing from its frozen and stiff state to something more natural. She took a few moments to simply move and sway her body before she was distracted once more, having noticed something on the ground at her feet, partially obscured by the disturbed foliage surrounding her.
She bent down slowly, still struggling a bit with balance and posture, and lifted up the small bag. It looked like a backpack, though a bit smaller than the ones she remembered from the before, and was made of an odd material that was strikingly similar to leather but for its rippled texture. It was almost black enough to draw in light, looking somehow both aged and pristine, held together with a single silver clasp on the front. The oddest thing about the bag was the way the natural magics that danced in the air around her seemed to draw into it, as if pulled in by an unseen magnetism. The moment her fingers grazed over the clasp, she was rewarded with a notification.
Voidwalkers Satchel (Unique)
This odd bag has traveled through the void between worlds. Because of this, it has gained the ability to store items within its own small void without affecting its carry weight.
Void Space:
200 lbs.
There was a smile on her lips before she gave the action any conscious thought. As with categorizing information, it seemed that the more she piloted her body the more automatic it became. Soon, she hoped, it would be similar to the before, when she could simply be a person without such effort. She was quite sure that it was possible, though the concept felt a bit far off still. Regardless, she refocused her thoughts, this notification implied that the bag came from her Void. A gift from her God. This bag was precious.
The notification disappeared as soon as it was understood once more, leaving her reverently stroking fingers across the clasp. It took a moment before the next obvious step in her chain of actions came forward, she would open the bag. Her long feminine fingers reached once more for the clasp, a sense of anticipation bubbling within. She had no particular fondness for this new feeling, though she didn’t dislike it either. Still, she hurried her movements to bypass the feeling, some part of her knowing that it would dissipate after having completed her task.
The clasp opened without issue, though she noticed that whatever magic the bag held within it had poked and prodded at her skin for a moment before relenting. As if it was testing her in some way. The sensation of its touch was cold, empty, though it left her feeling oddly comforted and warm. It was the magic of her Void. An errant feeling of curiosity niggled for a moment as she pondered if someone untouched by the Void would have been accepted by the bag. It was something that could be tested at a later time, perhaps, so she stored the thought away.
A simple glance into the bag revealed nothing but infinite emptiness. Just a black depth within that seemingly extended straight to the Void itself. The sight was a comfort that surprised her. Some part of her from before was sure that such a sight would cause distress to most. Though she was not, nor would she ever be most. She had lived within a Void timelessly for eons, been kissed by the emptiness and embraced by the darkness. What could bring terror to some brought her only comfort as she reached a hand into the emptiness, curious as to if her God had provided her with more than the bag itself.
Even the empty space within had a weight to it that was both strange and comfortingly familiar. As if the very air within the Void was thick enough to have texture of its own. Small strands of Void magic danced up the length of her arm before releasing itself into the air around her. Tiny specks of empty blackness that drifted into the air and danced with the natural magics of this world. Residual traces of the Void spreading itself into this new realm, pollinating the air with its presence as if declaring that something new had been birthed in this place.
The wild magics of nature seemed to prod at it curiously before either becoming subsumed or tickling along each other as they slowly dissipated into the air. There was something to this that she didn’t quite grasp. Something in the sight of the traces of Void integrating itself into the natural order of this world filled her with that lovely feeling of pride once more. Surely this is what her Void had wanted from her? To slowly infect this world with their presence and magic until they could not be so easily dissipated. It required further investigation, but she categorized her theories accordingly.
Within the Void of the bag her fingers brushed something soft. The moment her fingers made contact a more tangible sense of comfort and warmth coursed through her. On instinct she grasped the soft thing and pulled it from the bag, the moment her eyes laid on the item, she broke down into tears and a notification appeared.
Pudge [Totem, Unique]
Pudge is a stuffed toy of a creature from another world. It is meant to bring its owner comfort and keep focus when overwhelmed. Provides unquantifiable boost to comfort and background mental fortitude.
She pulled the stuffed seal into a tight hug against her chest and wept as memories of the before came into her mind at a breakneck speed and with more clarity than they had previously. She loved Pudge, more than most things in her life before. A little stuffed friend that had traveled the length of her previous life at her side, from childhood and beyond.
She hadn’t even noticed through her distress that she’d collapsed to her knees in the tall grass, clutching him in a tight hug as faint pulses of cold comfort radiated from the totem. Her Void had suffused the creature with its essence, just enough to melt into her own magic in calming waves.
Memories of the before assaulted her in harsh waves as she clung to the totem, more formed than any of the memories she’d received before. They flowed in a constant string, no longer disjointed and requiring individual categorization. Details of who she had been were still vague, small chunks and pieces which never fully amounted to much, but in direct contrast to the vivid memories of her various hobbies and interests. It was as if she could remember every bit of knowledge, every story, every building block of the person she’d been without the actual details.
All the while, Pudge continually pushed his calming waves over her, relaxing her natural magic to keep it from acting on its own. He was an anchor as chunks of her previous life formed into proper narratives, as she forcefully formed a sense of self. She couldn’t remember the exact details of the person she’d been, though it seemed that by the time the assault stopped and the sun had begun setting in the sky, that she’d properly become someone.