...
I woke up with the Status screen in my face but ignored it. My everything was uncomfortable... and didn't hurt. Sleeping on the ground, with my limbs twisted all over, did not hurt. Glory to young bodies.. damn, you don't notice your body doesn't function properly until you get a better one.
Right, I have all of my limbs, there are no animals, at least that I can see. Let's read this "Status".
Name: Madeline Victoria Francesca .... yeah, whatever, I'm Mads now. Age: 3 -16 to the difficulty of increasing mental stats. +6 to the difficulty of increasing physical stats. Strength: 2(4) Ones ability to exert their strength. Endurance: 4(6) Ones ability to endure physical activity or close contact with non-magical objects. Mind: 10(12) One's minds complexity. Soul: 12 A souls ability to behave like flesh. Well: 14(14) Ones ability to exert their magic. Shell: 10(10) Ones ability to endure magical activity or close contact with magical objects.
Alright... so... where is the tab for levels or buying skills? "Skills!!" and nothing.
Where was I? Ah, I was walking to wherever I can get to. How did the saying go? A thousand step journey begins from the first step? Let's begin this four thousand step journey then. Serve me well, mini legs.
"Abra Kadabra! Fireball!! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh C'thulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!! Ultima!! By my call, answer me elements and bring rain!!" I guess no spells without understanding what magic does, or is. I continued to call out whatever magic words came to mind, "Good morning, thank you, please. Sorry?" as I trudged onward.
When I finally got tired of yelling out random phrases it was getting dark, and when I looked back I didn't see my soul-birth-place. Should I learn where this place is, and come back every year to celebrate being brought into this world?
My legs weren't killing me yet and I didn't see how staying in one place, would be any safer than walking, so I continued. Maybe I'd stop once it did get dark. When I was a kid, on a summer camp, they had us walk a course in the night without lights... I could see exactly nothing. Only managed to keep to the road, because the grass on both sides was tall, so I just steered back whenever I touched the grass. At the very end, we had to identify objects by touch, one was the skull of a cow.
I wonder if I will run into any skulls tonight. As I wondered such things, I began seeing lights in the forest. Being a very wise adult-child, I figured they might be strangers and children don't talk to strangers, so I stayed on the road.
After humming ten rotations of lullabies, so probably about twenty minutes, I walked past what could have been will-o-wisps and began studying the forest. Are there monsters, that you can't see, that could lead you astray? Dunno... I will avoid looking back at night, just in case.
Now that I thought, the trees... weren't just large from a child's perspective. They were fucking huge. Like... if I'm half or third the size of an adult, the trees didn't appear three times as large as normal, they were about nine times bigger. Yeah, ninety meters tall trees aren't exactly a common thing... I think. Doesn't Canada have those? Well, these look like oaks, not Christmas trees.
Maybe I will get a better perspective if I will reach civilisation. I need to figure out, how much bigger things I'm used to are.
I continued to hum lullabies "Oh lake, oh lake... over it peoples lots...". How do I remember the lullabies my parents sang, but can never memorise a single song I listen to regularly?
If I were to manage to get back to Earth, would they be happy to see me again, or claim I'm some sort of memories snatching demon I wonder? If getting back to Earth is possible, would I even get back before they die from old age?
Before I could fall deeper into these thoughts, my path was blocked a child-like figure. It somewhat resembled someone with dwarfism, but... its features were too bland, eyes too large and it was neither young nor old. I stopped, shut my mouth and looked anywhere but its face.
"Hello child, would you like something to eat?" the creature asked, and I almost jumped to reply. It felt like there were two voices layered, one warm and kind, the other... like rocks grating each other.
"I have a girl just your age, you could play together." Now its voice was singular, just the unpleasant whisper.
I decided to speak to the air and myself, "Ah, if my parents were still living, how nice that would be!".
The creature scoffed, kicked the ground and left into the forest. Did.. did I just encounter a Bogin? Damn... it's an oak forest. If this place resembles Slavic myths, I'm fucked... if it resembles any goddamn myths I'm fucked. But if fairy tale creatures are near the road, maybe beasts avoid it.
Also.. bogins shouldn't be strong, so.. maybe there aren't any forest gods or bigger monsters nearby. If it was a bogin and not just some crazy old person with a thing for enchanting children.
I kept walking. I munched some cheese and pulled a dagger out of my pouch. No humming, for now, I'd rather be able to hear when something sneaks out of the trees.
After about a dozen breathes I couldn't stand the silence anymore and began humming again.
When night finally came in full, nothing bothered me. As I didn't know any constellations on Earth, the sky looked to me, a lot like over the mountain cottage I visited a couple of times as a teenager. A bag of sugar, spilt over an electric oven, absolutely, fucking breathtaking. Still, there was no moon, so it was dark as hell.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Isn't the air at night, just so much better? I swear, if I will ever get to drink Nektar, it will taste like the soft wind at night.
"Illuminate!! Lumos!! Odins Golden Balls!! Let there be light!! Flashlight!!" It was worth a try. "Maybe I just don't have any talent for magic..."
Talents Gift for the transported As one out of place, you are granted a small boon from the gods. A manual, only you can see that will teach you how to reach into your Well. Merely touch the talent to receive your boon. #&*$# )!%#$ You do not know yourself and thus cannot reach into your racial roots. Minor psychic resistance You resisted a malevolent spirit and your soul learned to better keep others out.
". . ." I slapped the blue screen and a small blue book dropped at my feet. I picked it up and began leafing through the pages. They shone a little, but when I moved the booklet around, it didn't illuminate anything, except itself.
I read as I walked. It was rather confusing, the book was in English, but I could both understand it and not. While I knew the letters, my mind registered them as random squiggles. I guess, my brain didn't have this knowledge stored in it? Curious. I.. understood that creature earlier. The language it spoke was none of the ones I learned. Who cares.
The first page of the manual had an intricate circle on it, just labelled Touch Me. The rest of the book described how to awaken the connection to the Well in others if they belonged to a race with innate Well stat below twenty. It also described the range of the Well stat with which the various races, could be born with. The norm was five to eleven. It seemed twenty, was the achievable maximum for most humanoids and to go higher, one would either need to push with their soul or ascend their racial boundary through something the book refused to explain. "It's not like you need to know mortal."
At the end, of the couple dozen pages long booklet, was scribbled "Non-magical races need someone to awaken their connection, so touch the magic circle."
The process described to awaken someone simply required you to cast any spell at someone, of some minimal concentrated amount of mana, but not more than they could handle. If you pushed too much into someone, you'd just burn their connection and it would need a couple of hours to recover and a new attempt at awakening. Thus, I decided to just get my awakening from whatever would cast a spell at me. Circles are meant to contain and bind stuff. What if touching one, would bind me to whoever made it? I threw the book into the woods.
Also, isn't it exciting when a hero, awakens to their awesome power at the critical moment during a fierce battle? Humming a cheerful tune, I began skipping, tripped and gave the ground a high five with my face. My dagger was so happy for my incredible athletic show, it almost hugged my right eye.
If I could see colours, I bet my dress would have been pretty brown by now. If I have nanny somewhere, I bet she woke up to cry, dreaming of my poor state of dress. Did I pun?
I continued to walk, imagining various mighty magical creatures, which could jump out of the woods and how I'd blast them back with a great torrent of fire when they attacked me. You get a fireball and you get a fireball and you get a fireball!!
At some point, I got too tired to think. Still, I didn't want to fall asleep during the night. I'd want to at least see, whatever might eat me. So barely cognizant of anything, I waddled on. When I was hungry I munched cheese and meat, washing it down with water, every few hours I took breaks by the road to avoid straining my bladder and just waddled on.
Finally, the dark turned to grey. The sky was kind of reddish on the left. With the light waking me up a little, I noticed just how cold I was and began to shiver. I took some jerky out my pouch and just chewed on it slowly.
Predators are supposed to go out at night, so they should be going to sleep. I thought to look for some spot on the ground that would look more comfortable when I heard a growl from behind me.
Before I could turn, I was flying through the air, a strong tingling going through my entire body. When I landed and stopped rolling I twisted around to see what happened.
A wolf thing was staring me down. It looked starved, small wisps of something, rolling around its grey fur. It charged at me and I sneezed. I flew back further and the wolf stumbled.
I pulled a new dagger from my pouch and curled up, holding it before my head, the handle braced against the ground. Something yelped above me and ripped the blade from my hands.
Adrenaline waking me up, I got up and tried to yell "Fuck off!!", but sneezed again. Again I flew back and the wolf fell over, the dagger ripping out of its throat.
The beast growled again, making me fly off. When I looked up, the wolf was falling over. It snarled a bunch, but it seems it was too exhausted to get to me. Idiot saved me from itself.
I cried I laughed, I fell asleep.
When I woke up, I was close to the treeline on the left of the road, the sun high enough to shine in my face. Battered, but alive and whole. The wolf was in the middle of the road, laying in a large pool of blood.
I thought to go up to the creature, put a foot on it. "Tis I, the Wolf Slayer!!", but the animal smelled nasty. I collected my daggers and put the cleaner one in the pouch. The bloodied one, I cleaned on some grass.
The hunt complete, I waddled on.
It was sundown when I reached the end of the forest. After a span of grass, there were wheat fields. Civilisation must have been close.
Waddle on my legs.
I fell asleep once I reached the fields. Literally fell. My everything hurt, head extra. Don't forget to give your child a hat, when it's playing outside.
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When I reached the location of the distress signal from mistress Madeline's bracelet, the girl was gone. Her parents must have not taught her to wait for rescue. We instructed them on the functionality of the bracelet, what were they thinking?
I left the cleaning up of the site to Anastasia and followed the tracks mistress left.
When I felt a lair of a Boglin I grew worried, but mistresses tracks continued past it. How shocked she must have been to walk so far.
I found a corpse of a pup of a Wind Wolf ten kilometres away from the carriage. Did mistress awaken a martial path?
Finally, another ten kilometres further, I found mistress curled up by the fields feeding the Academy. She slept clutching a bloodied dagger to herself. She was covered in road dust and could pass for a Woodling if it wasn't for her bright hair.
As I picked her up, I noticed the colour of her soul changed. "Provide Status"
Name: Mads Age: 3 Race: Lesser Devil / High-human Physical: Low Soul: Fledgeling Magical: Fledgeling Titles Reborn Adventurous Toddler Brat Self-Awakened
"Send message: Anastasia, once you finished, inform the Academy to remove Mistress Madeline from the roster and sign up Mads, a reborn, for evaluation."
It's been decades since the last outworlder graduated from our Grand Institution. Northerners keep stealing them away. To have one we can raise... a blessing always hides in a disaster.