I learned something yesterday that was completely mind blowing, something that turned my understanding of the world completely upside down. You see, I had assumed that things were mostly just like the old world. People have two eyes, two ears, one mouth; that sort of thing. All of it was just common sense and, even if it wasn’t, I could easily see that it was all still true. We didn’t even have elf ears or the stereotypical ‘alien’ forehead ridges or anything, everything looked completely normal. So when I found out, I couldn’t believe it. Literally, I had to run off into the other room to check for myself. My mother, who was with me at the time, thought it was hilarious; but I just had to see for myself.
Just remember that I’m literally 2 right now, so my interest was actually quite mature for my age. Normally kids don’t start giggling about these types of things till they are 4 or 5. Little boys, if I remember correctly, keep making jokes till they are 7 or 8 or even older. Still, what I learned would shock even an adult to their very core. I would know, I remember being one.
The revelation: I have no butthole.
Seriously! I even checked, despite hearing my mother breakdown in laughter from the other room. It was embarrassing but a man/baby’s got to do what a man/baby’s got to do. Some of the other things that my mother told me about biology seemed weird as well, but this was the easiest thing I could check. Other weirdness included the revelation that my lungs, which are designed completely different than I was familiar with, took double duty for both breathing and digestion. All of digestion, since this body is lacking either a small or large intestine. Thusly, no butthole. Where my stomach used to be is a bunch of specialized organs used for mana processing and such weirdness.
When I asked where the extra mass goes from the byproduct of eating food she said she thinks it leaves through the skin and it is part of what leaves when I exhale. So apparently the phrase ‘sweating off that burger’ is literal. Except I’m not really certain that I can sweat at all at this point. And I don't know if they have burgers. Have I mentioned how weird this place is, because it is really weird.
In other related news I got to tell my Mother a bunch of zombie stories because, get this, I don’t have a brain either. Just saying that makes me paranoid that one of my old siblings will jump out and make fun of me for it. I can see it now ‘Brother says he doesn’t have a brain? We always knew, it explains so much!’ and other such comments. Jokes on them, though, they would be just as brainless as me! Apparently instead of a brain the head is filled with specialized sensory equipment and interconnections between them or something? I’m not completely sure how it works. What I do know is that being stabbed in the head won’t necessarily kill a person, but it will mess up their senses and leave them badly disoriented. I mean, you can still kill people by stabbing them in the head enough times, it just isn’t the ‘boom, headshot; insta-kill’ that it was in my old world.
Also, people here have more than the normal five senses, but that is somewhat less interesting than everything else. I mean, how interesting would you think it would be compared to being a brainless zombie, eating with your lungs, and having a gut full of sea-anemones? Ok, to be fair, the extra senses thing is pretty weird too. Eventually I’ll be able to sense my though my clothes, even when I’m not wearing them. That is honestly kinda creepy, when I really think about it, especially if I loan a friend something to wear. My mother also said it doesn’t work like that, but I’m still a bit paranoid.
Also-also, I can sense magic! That was kind of something that I expected at this point, but it is still a new discovery. I’m still trying to get the feel of it, though, since magic is part of the whole ‘not suddenly being naked’ thing.
“Mooommm! Why is this so harrrrd?” I complained after having the feeling disappear from my grasp for the 14 millionth time (I counted).
“There there, Sweetie. You will get it eventually. There is no need to rush.”
“But I want to rush. There is a whole world out there to explore and I’m stuck in here because I can’t keep my pants on.”
She looked conflicted for only a moment, then went back to her normal stoic demeanor. “What if I had to go to buy some stuff. Would you want to go with me?”
My eyes lit up. An outing! With people other than my parents! “Yes! Yes! Absolutely! Lets go right now!”
She gave me a patient smile as I continued trying to urge her on. “Alright, I’ll take you, but you’ll have to help me pick something.”
“Yes!!!” I jumped in the air in excitement. Ok, it was a tiny hop, but I did it with the feeling of jumping in the air. That counts, right?
Mom took the opportunity to straighten us both up. Her clothes were the same as the first time, and almost every time, I had seen her. Only once had I seen her in something different, and that was when she came in from one of her jobs while father was watching me. Instead of her black leather and high thread-count dress, she had been wearing a brown leather pant-skirt with sturdy boots and a skintight stockings over her legs and arms. It had a very ‘professional TV-ninja’ vibe to it, like that one show about the orange haired kid (who's name will not be mentioned for copywright reasons). No, today she was in her normal clothes, minus the hat. She used some sort of simple magic to straighten herself up before manually turning to me.
I was wearing one of my two sets of clothes, ‘growing clothes’ my parents had called them. They looked like the someone had taken clothes for a pre-teen and then folded them strategically so that they would remain in place on a much smaller frame, except that whomever had designed these things had done it on purpose. The material was just sturdy enough that it didn’t bunch up from the folding of the extra cloth on the inside while still being thin enough that I didn’t feel completely swamped in the folded layers. On someone older it would likely be short sleeved but, due to my shoulders being less broad and my arms more short, on me they nearly covered my hands. On my feet were simple moccasins. The whole outfit could be described as ‘very brown’.
My mother spent an overly long time trying to straighten up my clothes and brush my hair to no discernable effect. She seemed a bit nervous but her ministrations appeared to be calming her down and so, since it did me no harm to wait, I quietly stood there as she straightened my clothes.
Eventually she seemed to deem me properly respectable and started to give me her Motherly warnings. “Now remember, hold onto my hand at all times and don’t let go no matter what. If we do get separated than stay near the center of the street and go toward where you see the most people and absolutely don’t go off with anyone no matter how nice they seem.”
“Yes Mom,” I said as part of me struggled to be as dutiful as possible while another part struggled to not roll my eyes. “Stranger danger, and all that.”
She nodded and then pulled me by the hand out the door. Outside were rows of houses right up next to the path, boxy things where every third house was decorated to look inviting and lived-in. A few, mainly of the decorated ones, were two or three stories tall but the majority of them were almost identical structures of brick and stone. We reached the end of the road, having turned the opposite direction that I normally went with father, and my eyes nearly bugged out in wonder. Up ahead was the place where the road ran into the rest of the city as the sleepy little housing district gave way to a huge crowd of people.
The mass was extremely eclectic, and that only became more clear the closer we approached. The largest discernable group was all in casual clothing, t-shirt and slacks type of stuff, with a slightly smaller group wearing what looked like the medieval peasant’s equivalent. Those two groups made up about half of the people I saw, with the rest wearing some sort of armor. Multiple people were wearing full suits of plate male and yet they seemed outdated next to the high tech gadgetry employed by many of the others. Leather and scales was the most common and I had to take a closer look to realize that some of the fur and scales were in the place of skin. Finally, animal people! No wizard robes, but there were some ninjas.
There were also generic non-copyright protected monsters, mostly following or riding on various people, although a few were lazily riding them. More than a few mobility abilities could be seen, from flight to teleportation to ghosting through people. Like, literally, they were partially see-through and went straight through people as those people yelled in protest. More than a few of the ghosting people teleported away when others got mad. A few people walked along with giant loads hovering just ahead of them, glowing and floating only a few feet above the crowds, and I watched as people gave them a wide berth. The plainclothes people, both groups of them, tended to avoid standing under the load more urgently than anyone else.
Suddenly someone ran by, chased by several others and covered so completely that it would be hard to make out any details. The runner ran into a group of people in their urgency to get away and had to stop to move around them. They were quick, though, and so was making space from the pursuers. The lead girl chasing wasn’t as fast as the others but phased through anyone standing in the way and teleported past groups. She looked a bit exhausted. After that was a guy who kept throwing himself forward in the air and then floating over anyone who got in the way. The rest looked like they were barely standing but were refusing to give up the chase.
My head was on a swivel as we made our way through the masses. People were talking everywhere but I only picked up bits and pieces of what they were saying. A few people off to the sides smiled or waved at me but I was dragged along before I could properly return the gesture. Finally our fastastical otherworldly journey stopped at what looked like a bus stop.
Yes, a bus stop, with a sign saying ‘transportation’. It wasn’t even one of the nice bus stops with a covered awning over a bench. Half a dozen people waited there with all but one being from the t-shirt demographic. Only then did my wonder returned as a man in what appeared to be an aviation uniform, complete with dark glasses and a funny hat, jumped into existence in front of us with a distinctively hollow pop. I wonder if he can fly?
“Mister, can you fly?” I asked, the words flowing out of my mouth before my brain caught up.
He smiled down at me. “I can if I use my magic carpet!”
My eyes widened at his words. Magic carpets were real? “How? Where do I get one? Can I fly?”
The man laughed. “The carpet trick is just the Mages movement-charged. If you are talking about the teleportation, it takes a few tools, but it is a Healer’s…” he cut himself off as my Mother cleared her throat at him.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
She stared him down as he looked back sheepishly. As for me, I was disappointed. It sounded like someone was finally willing to explain things to me and my Mother had just shut him down. Most of the others people at the stop were either pointedly looking away or giving the guy nasty looks. The sole exception was the guy in leather armor who just looked on as though he was watching a show, minus the popcorn. Is popcorn a thing here?
After a few moments of silence the man spoke up awkwardly. “Um. Raising him traditionally, are we?”
“Yes. He is precocious enough as it is, I don’t want him getting any ideas.”
“Eh, sorry about that. Tell you what, I’ll let you cut in line so you can get where you need to go, as an apology.” There were some groans from some of the other people but he waved them off. “So, next town over? I can get as far as Briar Thistle, although too much farther will require more than a day’s travel. I also don’t know the current location of some of the more mobile outposts. Cities should stay put if they don’t want to get lost. You know?” Cities should 'stay put'?
She smiled at him, relaxing her death glare at the same time. “Nothing that grand, I just need to get around town and back. I’m sure you will be fresh enough to take one of these other folks afterward.” The couple people who had been upset at us cutting the line seemed to calm down at that.
“That’s good, though I’m sure you know that my company sets a minimum charge on transportation.” At this the two of them started haggling. I watched, trying to glean what I could, but it wasn’t extremely interesting.
Finally we were ready to go. Mom picked me up, he took her hand, and suddenly the world faded in intensity and I felt a jerk as though we had been shot from a cannon. Everything seemed to white out around us.
----------------------------------------
And then, just as suddenly, everything was normal again.
“This is as close as I can get you, since I’m not familiar enough with the individual buildings. Mind if I come with to be there for the return trip?”
She nodded and we started off.
The area looked to be a sprawling industrial district of some sort. Most of the buildings were fairly small, no more than a good sized room, but some were as large as a small warehouse. The place was otherwise fairly normal looking. The only thing interesting was when a guy ran by with a giant crate hovering in the air. So instead I decided to try to press my Mom for some more information.
“So… Why won’t you tell me more information about different abilities?”
“You’ll learn about it in time.” She answered.
“That isn’t an answer,” I said.
She just shrugged. The teleporter guy just watched quietly.
“I’m going to find out stuff somehow.”
She rolled her eyes at me. The man smiled.
“Really, I’ve already figured out a bunch of stuff. I think I’ve figured out about 5, maybe 6 different groupings of abilities. One uses a lot of status effects and is charisma focused. It gives you a lot of information about people but isn’t super combat focused. The second is called ‘healer’ and can heal and teleport and go all ghosty. It does have some direct attacks mixed in. The third, probably called ‘mage’ can fire different types of lasers and make shields. It can also manipulate the environment like making things fly around and such. The fourth can make themselves invulnerable and recover really quickly. They also fly and can do a weird jump/charge thing. And the last can pick and choose abilities somehow. Also, I’m not sure if those monsters are an ability or just pets, but people seemed to be treating them as more than just pets.”
“How in the h…” my mother started, then calmed down to a more neutral demeanor. “How do you know all that?”
I shrugged. “Observation. I saw those two people fighting before and they obviously didn’t have the same set of abilities, although some of them seemed to overlap. But if everyone had those overlapping abilities than people would have been a lot less worried about those big boxes that were being carried from before, but everyone was so that’s got to be another grouping. Also the runner from before had to go around a group of people instead of jumping over it, so again, not everyone has those abilities. I thought it might be piecemeal but everyone who can go transparent can also teleport forward and everyone who can jump forward can fly.
“From there all I had to do was pull together as much random information that I could. Dad can’t tell what my status is, in terms of being recovered after death, but he could learn if he really wanted. He can also make a shield but can’t make things float. So either he isn’t good with his abilities or he can change them. Meanwhile Charisma is a useful but not required stat for people who know what type of condition others are in and can affect those conditions. Finally, there are the animal creatures that I saw earlier today. I’m not sure if that is an ability grouping or no, but I’m leaning toward is. It would make sense; six stats for six ability groups.”
My mother was so shocked that she stopped walking while the guy stopped to stare back at me. Finally the man spoke up. “They are called Classes, not ‘ability groups’,” he said.
My mom shot him another nasty look but he ignored it. “Look, kid’s right. If he’s figured out that much already than a full information blackout ain’t possible.” He then glanced at me and mumbled something under his breath that I couldn’t hear, ‘kid’s a (something) for sure’.
He glanced at both of us than found something very interesting to look at in the sky overhead. It may have had something to do with the daggered look my Mother was giving him. Meanwhile I tried my best to imitate my mother’s patented exasperated expression, that of a single eyebrow raised to show her disbelief at your stupidity. Unfortunately it didn’t have the desired affect on her as, after seeing it, she immediately had to cover her mouth and look away to hide her smile. Somehow it convinced her to talk, though, so success?!?
She gave a bit of a huff, returning to her normal demeanor, and began. “The reason why we don’t tell you about the different classes is because people have been known to push for themselves to get one over the others. At best it does nothing, but at worst it can set you back in your development by hundreds of seasons. Since nothing good can come of it, only bad, than why risk it?”
“Mooom,” I complained. “I’m mature enough to not do something stupid like that.”
She raised her eyebrow in a manner far more effective than my attempt. “Oh really? Than after this we can go get something else, perhaps cake?”
I felt my face light up in expectation. I hadn’t had anything to eat the whole time I've been here, since I technically didn’t need to eat, but the prospect of fantasy world magic chocolate cake! Or maybe strawberry cake with little strawberry halves in a tres-leches body! Oooh! Coconut-Banana Upside-Down cake with Mint sprinkles! I know it sounds a little weird, but just wait till you taste it!
I then realized what she was doing and scowled at her. “Low blow, Mom. That was a seriously low blow.”
She was looking away again, likely laughing. The transportation guy wasn’t even trying to hide his amusement, the traitor.
Moving on, if only to try to not dwell on how much she had ‘gotten’ me… “Is that why you haven’t let me out around any other kids? Were you afraid they would tell me something?”
Her face was back to her mostly stoic bearing only moments later when she answered. “No, that is because we want to rush you through your first six growth stages. Have you noticed how much more you are acting like a kid than before you first woke up?”
I nodded. It was almost impossible to miss. Sometimes it was so bad that I wasn’t really sure I was myself anymore or if I was a completely different person who happened to remember someone else’s life. It was even weirder because I know myself well enough to tell that I’m still me in a lot of the most important ways. I’m still sarcastic, curious, and technically minded, with a concern for others but the sad understanding that not everyone is willing to change, even if it is for their own good. And yet, I don’t feel like the responsibly minded adult that I had grown to be. It was disconcerting in a way that I didn’t want to think about and, thanks to my childlike mind, I was usually able to succeed.
“The affects of it on a person are more pronounced the younger they are. Since the early growth stages are so quick to get through most people think it best to do so as quickly as possible. In that way your mind is less affected by the changes of your body since it gets more obvious over time.”
That was still a bit confusing to me. “I know you said that I don't have a physical brain, but why should my body have anything to do with the development of my mind if I don’t even have a brain to develop! I can accept a non-centralized brain if it is distributed, but shouldn’t the changes be permanent once the housing changes? I would just be growing up faster rather than not regressing! How can you have a mind without a brain anyway?”
She smiled while the guy with us just looked confused. “Distributed? Spread out throughout the body? So you think that your brain is just spread out instead of stuck in your head? I understand how that could make sense to you. And if your mind is determined by your brain than having a child’s brain means having a child’s mind, even if you have a lot more memories crammed in there.”
She continued. “That is wrong, though, your brain isn’t anywhere in your body. Your body and ‘brain’ restrict your actions and limit what your mind can do, but doesn’t actually change things directly. You just ‘get used’ to a new way of being after a while.”
I frowned again. “That makes no sense! You have to have the 'hardware' of a physical brain somewhere, otherwise where would the 'software' of your mind be running? It violates causation to have a physical thing, like your actions, without a physical cause or a physical cause, like your bodily sensations, that affects something that isn’t a physical thing!” Ug, these people! If it wasn’t for my father I would wonder if they had ever heard of the scientific method at all. “If the physical has an effect on the thing than it is somehow physical. Perhaps it’s an unknown form of physical thing, but it is still physical and affected by all the physical laws of nature in some degree.”
“Why?” she asked.
That pulled me from my thoughts. “Why what?”
“Why can’t a non-physical thing have an effect on the physical as it chooses or choose to be affected by physical stuff only when it wants? Why does it have to be beholden to physical laws?”
“Because… science?” I answered.
“Science? The process of learning about the universe through repeatable, testable phenomenon?” she said, doing that weird thing I had noticed where people figure out the meaning of some word I said by repeating it. “So ‘science’ means that the world must be physical? Is it because you’ve never repeatedly tested and found non-physical things?”
“Yes! Exactly!” Now she was getting it.
“But because of ‘causality’ if you test it and find it than it is, by definition, physical. And if it only sometimes works, and there is no physical reason why, you automatically assume that there is a physical reason. How would science, under those rules, ever recognize the supernatural if it did happen?”
I stopped to think. Perhaps the statistical method of verification, like what psychology used, would work? There were a lot of people who didn’t think of psychology as a ‘real’ science, though, because it often had no reason for why something was and just pointed out that those things were.
In my old world there were plenty of questions that science still hadn’t answered, such as why protein pumps looked like little gears if you looked at them closely enough and how such a complex design came into being. There were some crackpots who said that it was supernatural and designed, but that was worse than the wild guessing that conjecture often ended up being; that was a ‘solution’ that could never be proven. If a ‘something’ outside of ‘everything’ just decided to do a thing than no repeated observation could ever recognize that unique event.
It almost sounded like acceptance of the supernatural completely invalidated science, except that my father was a scientist. How did that work?
I gave a sigh and tried to return to the topic at hand. “So looking like a child makes me act like a child which eventually makes me think like a child?”
She gave a reassuring smile and calmly answered. “That’s it exactly.”
“And does everyone think it is best to skip through the first few stages as quickly as possible, so that your mind doesn’t become too ‘childlike’?”
My Mother hesitated and so the transporter was the one to answer. “Only the people in the big centralized cities. The mobile towns specifically avoid it and out in the country people don’t much care either way.” Wait, ‘mobile towns’? This wasn't the first time someone had mentioned those. Were those towns that moved around? How would that even work? Where they sitting on the back of elephants riding on the back of a giant turtle, or something?
“So I’ll be able to hang out with other kids, what, when I turn seven?”
“Yes,” she answered, “It shouldn’t take more than one more season.” And if I remembered a season was a little under 2 months, 56 days or thereabout?
I smiled. “I look forward to it.”
“You know what else you can look forward to?” she asked, motioning toward the shop we had been standing in front of. “A new toy! Time to get you your first weapon!”