Name:
Shiri
Level:
2
Age:
3 Months
Health:
30/30
Class:
NA
Race:
Alpaca
Sex:
Male
Gender:
Male
Another day began as we, the mother Alpaca's and their babies, were let out of the barn. The fresh air felt good after the staleness of a night in the barn, even if we were still all packed together in one mass of bodies. We went up our little corridor, herded along under Sampson the Dog's watchful eye. Alpaca's are generally self-herding animals, but extra help making sure everyone went where they were supposed to go was usually a smart idea.
Once we reached the wide-open meadow I trudged away from Gertrude and towards the big rock in the middle of our field. The older, childless Alpacas who'd been in the pasture all night raised their heads to watch me pass. They'd already eaten their fill of grass and now basked lazily in the early Summer sun. I ignored them and avoided stepping on anybody. They clearly thought I was weird for doing this every day, but they didn't have the thought processes to care all that much as long as I didn't bother them.
I looked around carefully. Tam, the older boy who was in charge of giving us our daily hay and grain, was busy, distracted by the horde of hungry camelids eager for him to get to work.
There were three "hands" as Matis called them, shepherds all who worked under Matis in the care and feeding of my herd and the sheep flock. Tam, who was about 17, and his mothers Burza and Mecken. Ashana helped too every now and again, but she was deemed too young for anything but the simplest work and I gathered she spent most of her time in lessons of some kind. They lived in the little white house on the other side of the barn. I'd seen it through the window and through the door that didn't lead to the meadow.
I'd tried, once, to make contact with them. Tell them I wasn't a dumb animal. They obviously couldn't understand my attempts at grunting or whatever the wailing noise Alpaca's make is called, but I'd thought I could write something in the dirt with my hooves. My leg froze the second I put my foot down to try and this popped up.
ERROR: As a Non-Sapient being you may not communicate meaningfully with any Sapient being
Scratching roman numerals on a rock, however, didn't seem to count.
I reached out one hoof and carefully scratched a line across the other four I'd made over the last four days.
That made Ninety.
Ninety days I'd been here.
Once I accepted that I was not, in fact, dreaming and I really had become a Llama I started learning a lot about the world around me.
I learned, for instance, that Alpacas develop rather quickly. Within the first few hours of being born Gertrude, my mother I guessed, was nudging me onto my feet. And they actually kept me (shakily) upright. It took me a few days to practice with them, but these pads Alpaca's have weren't all that difficult to balance on once I got the hang of it.
My "hooves" weren't really much like hooves. More like really long and hard toe-nails over padded nubs that I couldn't think of as real feet. But they did take my weight as long as I didn't try balancing without all 4 of them on the ground.
Learning to walk was...tricky.
Running was worse. It took an entirely different set of leg movements from walking, which seemed very silly to me.
Thankfully my new body didn't have any muscle memory, so I wasn't falling all over myself forgetting I couldn't stand on two legs any more.
Then there was my tail.
Honestly, I still hadn't figured out what our tails were really for other than covering our back ends. It couldn't really swat the buzzing, biting insects or cool me off or really do much of anything. I'd seen other Alpacas use it, lifting and lowering it for seemingly little reason. I figured it must mean something in Alpaca, but I still hadn't really puzzled it out.
I couldn't really see my tail. Despite having this very long neck it wasn't meant to be twisted around like that. But I could feel it and move it and I could see the tails the others had. On the adults it was just as fluffy as the rest of them and on the other babies it tended to have even more fluffy wool on it than on any other part of their bodies. The overall effect was criminally cute, but also led to the conclusion that I must also be just as adorable. That didn't feel right.
I also learned, thanks to a bucket of water, that I had black wool covering me from ears to tail but that the light fur on my face was a white mask courtesy of my mom. What my skin color was under all that I had no idea. My wool was too thick and wrapped too close to my skin.
We lived on a farm which was part of a village called Rolorell. It was built on a series of large, manmade terraces in the upper reaches of the Seriehcnot Mountains in the World of Masukunda. The nation we were nominally a part of was called the Free Duchy of Coeur, which extended down the west side of the mountains and then down to the sea. From the talk I picked up with these twitchy, rabbit ears I got the impression we were too far away from the capital for the reigning Duke or Duchess to pay us much attention. As long as the taxes and tithes kept getting payed on time anyway.
On the eastern side of the mountains from us was the Kingdom of Orazion. Nobody talked about them much.
The meadow we grazed in was huge and hilly. If you went to the far end of it you could lose sight of the near end. I'd only done that once. Gertrude hadn't liked it and it felt rather exposed to be there alone. I was small and those trees were not welcoming.
The meadow was divided into an outer and inner half. The Alpacas got the outer half, closer to the edge of a thick forest called the Cravenwood. The inner half of the meadow was where the sheep flock grazed, the two sides divided by a heavy wood fence.
There were goats too, but they were only herded through the area once every other week or so. Their job was to clear up the Kudzu Vines and the Brickleberry Bushes and all the other creeping forest vegetation that seemed closer to the fence every morning. Thankfully, that amazing growth rate also applied to the grasses that the other Alpacas and the Sheep ate, so there was no need to move us around to new fields every morning. Everything the animals ate grew back in a day or two just as if it'd never been eaten.
We slept in a big wooden barn down at the bottom of the meadows and hills, the newborn alpacas, our mothers and the sick when needed. The males and childless females stayed out in the meadow all night. I'd heard Tam complain about being overly cautious with us, but it could get pretty cold at night and I was sure we didn't have all this wool for no reason.
And those were just the mundane things we had to worry about.
Two months of flicking flies and mosquitoes off myself with my ears got me this.
Level Up: Your [Flick] Skill Has Reached Level 2
Level Up: You Have Reached Level 2. Stat Points Automatically Assigned.
Automatically? was my first thought. Not "what the hell is a level" or "where are these messages coming from" or something sensible like that. I was worried about something automatically assigning something I didn't even know I could have.
That hadn't seemed right somehow though. In fact, the more I'd thought about it the more it seemed absolutely terrible. I couldn't say why, but I just knew it.
I quickly brought up my Stats to check the damage.
EXP: 1/80
SP: 0
STR: 4
AGI: 3
WIS: 51 {ERROR}
INT: 110 {ERROR}
CHA: 20
END: 4
There had been 4 Stat Points (SP), one each had been slotted into my STR and END and two into AGI. After I managed to figure out what those letters actually represented, I sorted out that things weren't actually too bad. Still, if I let stat points sort themselves I had a bad feeling that would spell disaster down the road. Besides, no one in their right minds would let someone else make their decisions for them.
It took some searching, but I found what I was looking for by focusing on SP.
SP (Stat Points): Unites of Value earned each time you level up. They can be used to increase your Stats. You get Four (4) with each level you gain. Warning: Once done cannot be undone. Once assigned points will remain in their assigned place forever. Note: As a Non-Sapient being these points will be automatically assigned to your stats at each level.
Do You Wish To Turn The Auto-Assign Function Off?
Yes
No
Yes, I'd thought firmly and the prompt disappeared. I blinked. Had it worked?
I brought up my status again to check
SP (Stat Points): Unites of Value earned each time you level up. They can be used to increase your Stats. You get Four (4) with each level you gain. Warning: Once done cannot be undone. Once assigned points will remain in their assigned place forever. Note: As a Non-Sapient being these points should be automatically assigned to your stats at each level.
Do You Wish To Turn The Auto-Assign Function On?
Yes
No
No, I thought this time and the prompt vanished again.
I would have to work on gaining more EXP and leveling up again to get more stat points to experiment with. Given that flies and mosquitoes only awarded 1 EXP for swatting them and maybe 2 for squashing them, that was going to take a while.
I'd also discovered I had these things called "skills".
I found them earlier by concentrating on my Level number.
Skills [Stomp] Lv. 1 [Spit] Lv. 1 [Bite] Lv. 1 [Kick] Lv. 1
[Encyclopedia Akeshica] Lv. 999 {ERROR}
[Flick] Lv. 2
They were fairly self-explanatory. I ran through the descriptions quickly, just to make sure though.
Stomp: Strike your foot directly below you. Force depends on the STR stat and Level of this skill.
Bite: Seize an object or creature with your teeth or jaws and attempt to hold or cause damage. Force depends on the STR stat and level of this skill.
Spit: Collect a mass of saliva and mucus in your mouth and forcibly expel it at a target of your choice. Accuracy and Distance depends on the STR and AGI stats and level of this skill.
Kick: Strike an object or creature with your foot. Force depends on the STR stat and level of this skill. Range depends on the AGI stat and level of this skill.
Flick: Lightly strike an object with only the tips of your most mobile appendages (fingers, tail, wings, ect.). Force depends on the STR stat and level of this skill. Note: Very low damage.
They were pretty much as I'd expected, except for that last one. There again was that {ERROR} message. I pulled it up and gave it a read.
Encyclopedia Akashica: View the status screen of any object or creature you encounter by touch or by sight. Note: While you will be able to access this information, this will not allow you to change or influence in any way that object or creatures' abilities or stats. [1st Law - Guaranteed Freedom of Choice]
{ERROR}: No living creature may have access to the status screen of any other creature or object. This skill is in violation.
Violation or not, it worked just fine once I got the hang of it. On the third day of being allowed out into the meadow I was amusing myself watching the cat sitting in the barn window when this came up.
Name:
Snaptrap
Level:
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
10
Age:
4 Years
Health:
65/65
Class:
NA
Race:
Cat (Calico)
Sex:
Male
Gender:
NA
The other skills worked much the same way. I could use them both consciously or unconsciously since none of them required any complicated motions. It took a few tries, but I finally got the hang of using the Encyclopedia skill. I could pull up descriptions of anything or anyone I laid eyes and could get the definition of any word I focused on.
That was also how I ended up meeting my Dad.
Name:
Alphonse
Level:
25
Age:
18 Years
Health:
200/200
Class:
NA
Race:
Alpaca
Sex:
Male
Gender:
Male
He's king of our little heard, its chief protector from whatever predators they're worried about getting to us. I hadn't seen any besides a few green snakes hidden in the grass, but it didn't take a genius to guess there were wolves in those woods and who knew what else in this weird world.
He was tall for an Alpaca, which isn't saying a whole lot. They...We...Whatever...only tend to come up to shoulder height on a human. He had black wool that's not nearly as fluffy as most the others, and he usually spent his time keeping a lookout from on top of the big rock I was scratching out roman numerals on. Except during feeding time, then he's at the front of the line.
Not the most paternal of fathers though. Alpacas, as it turns out, don't mate for life so the fathers aren't so much a part of raising the kids. He's tolerant of me, but no more so than anyone else who doesn't get between him and food.
That was another big adjustment. I couldn't remember the last meal I'd had before my...death? I guessed, but I was sure I'd never had any meal quite like what a Llama expected.
Learning to chew cud was...severally strange. First time it happened I thought I was sick or something and let the gross slop dribble out my mouth. Then I vaguely remembered something about cows and how they had to chew each mouthful twice. I guessed that's what was happening to me too, so next time it happened I was ready.
Then I really did get sick because, as it turns out, I wasn't old enough to start eating solid foods. For that, I'd have to rely on my mother a while longer humiliating though it was to be a baby.
Gertrude was nothing like Alphonse when it came to me. She cared. She didn't like me wondering off from her when I first started going out to the rock. If I didn't come back quick after going too far off she'd follow me. She taught me to dust bathe, the only way to keep clean since it's not like I could change clothes or shower anymore. She warned me away from the first couple of snakes before I learned how to spot them. She even managed to get affection across too, even without arms to hug with. Her snuffling around my face and legs was oddly peasent.
In short, she was a mom. I liked that. I didn't feel like her son, not really, but...
She was probably one of the few things keeping me from running off at the idea of being literally given away.
Which brought me back to the girl. Ashana.
She and her father were good people as far as I could tell. She stuck close to her father and the hands; no doubt having been told to stay well away from the Cravenwood. She was always very interested in petting me and sometimes playing with my ears. That could get a little painful, but she didn't actually come past the fence without someone keeping an eye on her so that sort of thing was kept to a relative minimum.
Since he was level 50, Matis was a [Master] ranked Shepherd, and as the only one in Rolorell it explained why he owned the flocks. Every family in Rolorell specialized to some degree. Some were weavers, some were carpenters, some were hunters and some were smiths. Tam and his mothers were relative newcomers and so only worked for Matis and his family, who had been here as long as anyone could remember. A few generations or so down the road they'd probably own a portion of the flocks and then there'd be two Shepherd families in Rolorell.
For now, though, Matis was the defacto herdsman of all Rolorell and he did a good job. I had never bothered to check, but his skills were probably high level as well. He knew what to do and how to help any of us who was hurt or sick. His hands had checked Gertrude and me over many times since I was born. I'd seen him treat snake bites and illness alike and he was always kind and as gentle as he could be.
So, he owned us, but it could have been worse. If I had been a regular Llama this probably would be the best I could possibly hope for. I just hoped Ashana might turn out just as good when she owned me.
Speaking of which. it turned out I wasn't the only one being given away to her.
Name:
Laurai
Level:
0 (Infant)
Age:
<1 Hour
Health:
9/10
Class:
NA
Race:
Sheep (Merino)
Sex:
Female
Gender:
Female
Around a week after I was let out into the meadow, one of the sheep just lay down and started shaking. Matis and Ashana had come from the house and were sitting by her side, whispering praises to her.
Unlike me, there wasn't a whole lot of drama. Apparently my own birth had been hard on poor Gertrude, which is why I had started out in the barn and not in the field like most of the Alpaca mothers. I'd been rather late as these things were measured.
"Laurai" though, she was early. The first of the spring lambs.
When she went into labor, Matis and Sampson had been out working with the flock. He called out to Ashana to come quick and she came running out of the barn. I'd gone over to the edge of the dividing fence to see what all the fuss was about and I watched the ewe straining on the ground.
Like me, little Laurai was on her feet in a few minutes and she was just as unsteady on her hooves as I'd been. She looked thin too, very skinny next to her extremely woolly mother who had wool so thick there were folds of it down her chest.
"She's so cute Papa!" Ashana cooed. Laurai had missed a step then and fell to her front knees.
"Oh! Papa, should we...?"
"Na little one." Matis said gently. "We can't do the walking for her. She has to learn to get her feet under her."
"Like me." Ashana said excitedly.
Matis let out a chuckle then, smile wide across his face. "I suppose you're right."
He looked down at his kid, then he looked over at me watching from the other side of the fence and then back to his kid and he seemed to come to a decision.
"She'll be yours too when you come of age."
Ashana looked up sharply.
"Really Papa?" she sounded really surprised. "You always said I'd have to buy..."
"I know." said Matis. "And you will. If you can keep up with your lessons as well as you have and do a good job with the animals until your Choosing Day she'll be yours."
The girl flung her arms around her fathers' waist and hugged. I wanted to smile at this, except smiling is also something Llamas don't do and I was too focused on the stumbling little animal that, it seemed, was going to be my...flock sister? I wasn't sure. What was the appropriate term for an animal that was no relation to you at all but you were owned by the same Shepherdess?
I brought up her info, just to be sure there was nothing to worry about. She had one health less than full, but so had I in the beginning. I guess being born is a stressful process.
I decided to check the Encyclopedia's definition of "Sheep". With all this weirdness you couldn't be too sure what might happen.
Sheep: A Semi-Sapient member of the Bovidae family domesticated many centuries ago. This species is typically kept as livestock by Sapient races for their wool and meat.
I'd seen a similar term in the Alpaca description, that term "Sapient". If I was right, it meant something like Wisdom but I wasn't completely sure. I tried concentrating on the term and something new popped up.
Semi-Sapient: A classification of living being. Semi-Sapient beings can, with high enough INT and WIS stats, achieve full Sapience. Some, after achieving this, may evolve into more physically capable forms. They may also, under special circumstances, select a Class or gain Skills typically reserved for Sapient beings.
With a sinking sense of dread, I dug through my own stats until I found the word I remembered.
"Non-Sapient"
Non-Sapient: A classification of living being. Non-Sapient beings have their INT and WIS stats capped at a certain point depending on their species and may not, under any circumstances, achieve full Sapience. These creatures may not evolve, neither may they select a Class nor gain any Skill reserved for Sapient beings.
So, there I was after three months with only a few scratches on a rock and a somewhat fluffier coat of wool to show for it and the prospect of never being any more than a barnyard animal for the rest of my life to look forward to.
However long that would be.
I had the distinct impression that barn animals don't have the longest lifespans, even if they aren't killed and eaten by their farmers.
Do people eat Alpacas? I honestly didn't know.
There was one more thing that seriously worried me though. I knew beyond doubt that I had been human but I could barely remember any of my life before.
I remembered an older woman, I think my mother, and shouting matches across an island counter.
I remembered sitting in front of a wheel with a big "H" on it and feeling nervous and excited at the same time.
I remembered sitting on the edge of a bridge, casting a bated hook into a lake and reeling it back in over and over again simply for the fun of it.
I remembered the day I understood that I was AceAro. And I remembered the immense relief it was to finally wrap my head around why I couldn't feel the way people around me always did.
It all felt so disjointed, the faces of people I'd apparently known and known well now nothing more than a blur of color. It was me in those memories but not me somehow. Like I was remembering a story someone else had told me, but too detailed for it to have been anyone else but me in there.
And now, a lifetime of who knew how many years reduced to a few blurred images. I must have had friends, family, a profession maybe. Just keeping the little I still had felt like trying to hold water in cupped hands, not that I had those anymore.
Just when I was getting really depressed and seriously thinking about running off into the forest, a high, light voice caught my twitching ear.
Ashana was coming up the way, singing a little tune and carrying what looked like a thin book under her arm.
She came up to the edge of the fence, stopped and sat in the grass, resting her back against one of the posts.
Curious, I walked over to the other side of the post. She was wearing a light blue one piece with legs so wide they could have been skirts. Or perhaps they were a skirt that was a little more ruffled. It was hard to tell really with her feet tucked under her. She also had her book open in her lap.
I was taller than when I'd started out, but I could still only just see over the top of the fence. So, I lowered my head to fit underneath the top most rail.
"Oh!" Ashana exclaimed, just noticing me looking over her shoulder. "Hi."
She seemed somewhat cheered to see me, which was nice enough. Her hand was holding down her page though and it was stopping me being able to see past it.
I sat down in the grass, much more of a process than it had been when I was human. I had to tuck my legs under me just right so I didn't poke myself with my hooves. It was surprisingly comfortable though once I managed it. My legs never even fell asleep.
Once I was down I poked my had out from between the fence rails more fully over the girls' lap. Maybe I couldn't get a real message to anybody, but if I made my intent plain enough...
"You wanna see?" she asked confused. But I still cheered to myself as she moved her hand so that I could look at the pages.
I might as well not have bothered though. I looked at the text, but all I could make out was a page full of blurred black smudges before this popped into my field of vision.
ERROR: As a Non-Sapient being you may not learn the skill [Literacy]
Damn! I thought to myself, dismissing the message with a thought and turning my attention to the other, much more colorful, page to stop it popping up again.
What was interesting, though, was that the book seemed to be able to give someone the ability to read. Or someone Sapient anyway. Which meant that a person could learn many different skills if they could find the right books to teach them.
That sounded familiar for some reason. The word "Skill Tome" kept occurring to me.
I wondered for a moment if all books worked like that or just some.
Apparently pictures didn't count as reading though, since I could make out the picture on this page perfectly and no messages jumped out at me. It was of a woman with glowing, golden hair and a robe made of many bright colors. A shepherd's crook in one hand.
"She's Kialandí" said Ashana, pointing at the picture "the Shepherdess, the Goddess of Light. And this,"
She turned to a picture of another person. This one only showed a face half hidden in shadow, the other half revealed by a raised lantern held in pale fingers. The only color was an eye shining gold and long black lashes set in the round face and shading I guessed was to represent inky black hair.
"is Kiran the Guide, Kialandí's sibling. They're God of the Night."
There were others too, Ashana explained while turning the pages. Aegnor the Great, God of Wrath and War, a red scaled giant with jaws like a crocodile. Isan the Scholar, God of Knowledge, a very old man leaning on a crooked walking stick. Vr̃aí the Reaper, Goddess of the Harvest, draped head to foot in a green robe, her face hidden in dark hair and a giant golden scythe in her hands. Baeddan the Wild, God of Life a humongous furry humanoid with a boar's tusks and a bear's snout. And Despereaux the Adventurer, God of Travelers. That last was a bit of an oddity. A normal looking man in what looked like a gymnasium dressed in something I guessed was a fencer's body suit, a rapier in one hand and a dagger in the other.
"Kialandí is the best though." Ashana said. She got up and started pacing in a big circle talking passionately. "She helped the first people get started like three thousand years ago. And she stopped Yanma. Plus her picture is SOOOOOOOOOOOO pretty, don't you think? I mean Kiran's is nice too, and Despereaux is supposed to be even though he likes to play jokes on people. But Aegnor is just scary and..."
Ashana chatted on to me, waxing eloquent about the Gods and all the stories the book. By now, the book was left lying in the grass and the girl was on her feet, pacing back and forth and gesticulating with her hands as she talked, more and more energetic as she kept going. I barely understood half of what she was talking about, heroes and daring do I assumed, but half the words she used barely sounded like English.
"...don't you think?" she'd stopped and seemed to be asking me something. I hadn't really been listening to the question, but seeing as I couldn't talk or communicate with her I seriously doubted she was expecting an answer. I just stared and blinked at her a few times.
"Yeah, you're right." she said after a second. "What would I do in a temple anyway? I can't even pick a Class for five more years. I guess it won't be so bad being a [Master] like Papa. Or would it be [Mistress]...? Anyway, he does alright but I don't know. Is there really not anything else? Tam could be Shepherd and I...I could do something? I don't know."
Ashana put her head down into her hand, running her fingers through long russet locks. When she lifted her head, she had little red marks on her forehead where her fingers had pressed just a bit too hard. I just looked up at her.
"Well, I just don't know. Even if I did want to leave how would I ever explain to Mama and Papa? I just...I wish I had some more choices, y'know? Either I stay and be Papa's heir or I leave and they'll never want to talk to me again. Why does it have to be one or the other Shiri?"
Again, all I could do was look and blink. Even if I could talk, I had no idea what I might say to help. She just sighed and flopped back down in the grass, squirming until she was leaning herself comfortably against the post.
I had no idea what I was doing, but I leaned my head forward and nudged her elbow with my nose. Nothing popped up. Now I'd gotten control of the skill it only happened when I actually wanted it to. But it did get a reaction out of the little girl in front of me.
I did it again and she giggled. Her hand went to the back of my head, scratching the mess of hair on top of my head and gently fondling my ears. We just sat there a while, both of us lost in our own thoughts. I still wasn't sold on the idea of being a pet or livestock or whatever I was, but if I did get something across to this girl once. Maybe I could do it again. And if I could make someone, anyone understand that they were dealing with a thinking being and not an animal...
Well, whatever happened next, Ashana was sweet. Just a little kid who didn't know what to do with her life. I couldn't really remember, but that sounded so familiar. If I could help her a little maybe that was worth it.
Maybe...
I'd see.
Name:
Ashana
Level:
3
Age:
11 Years
Health:
85/85
Class:
NA
Race:
Human
Sex:
Female
Gender:
Female