So… Mom was mad. Apocalyptically mad. She tried to ground me for a month. After my surprise that ‘months’ were a thing, I pointed out that I wasn’t even two months old. Then she tried two weeks to which I pointed out how harsh she was being considering that I hadn’t done anything wrong, someone had attacked me. She then tried to ground me for a week, to which I pointed out that it would be no different than normal. I was already locked in the house all day with no friends to talk with and nothing to do but practice. She said that the difference would be that I wouldn’t be able to go on the outing with my Father if I was grounded.
That was when my Dad stepped in and explained that I was never in any real danger since he had been there the entire time. They had a few back-and-forth interactions but eventually he succeeded by pointing out that maybe I needed a little more freedom and a few more activities to focus on since I was starting to climb the walls.
Now, I wish I could say that my attempt to use a chair to climb on top of a bookcase next to the wall was intentionally meant to make his point, but really I just had too much energy and their argument seemed boring, even if it did affect me directly. Also, I wanted to see if there was dust in such an out of the way place as the top of tall furniture. It was a legitimate question. This world is weird and I haven’t seen a broom closet anywhere, so could dust be something else that just isn’t a thing? The top of the bookcase seemed the perfect place to check. They stopped me before I could answer my question.
She calmed down not long after that but got overly protective and concerned ever since.
“Now remember that if anything goes too wrong or you get too tired then you can always reset back here.” She said.
“Mom, I’m not going to stab myself to death because I want a nap.”
“But if something does happen then I won’t blame you, or even ask what happened. I’ll be right here waiting.”
“Mom…” I called out in a whiny voice that I hoped would convey my annoyance appropriately, “you are embarrassing me…” I looked over at Dad who was silently watching on like the traitor he was. Standing in the doorway was one of his friends. We hadn’t even been introduced, Mom just saw him there and decided to start smothering me in assurances that I didn’t have to leave if I didn’t want to and trying to make me come back as quickly as possible.
She looked up at the embarrassed looking guy in the doorway and stopped talking.
The man finally spoke. “If this is a bad time I can always come back later?” he offered.
I jumped forward before my mother could speak. “Nope, this time is great! Wonderful! We couldn’t be happier to have you here! Who are you?” My father continued looking on in silent amusement.
The unknown man looked between us silently then rolled his eyes at my Father’s silent smirk. “Hello again Thea. It is a pleasure to see you. I wasn’t expecting such a, er, ‘colorful’ greeting.” She nodded and they both gave my father a look. My Mother was glaring daggers and the new guy gave a look of exasperation. He then turned back to me. “My name is Roman Greentree. It is good to meet you.”
He raised his hand in a short wave but didn’t shake. Was shaking hands not a thing here? I copied his gesture and answered back. “Hi! I’m William Townsen. Are you going to help me chase down a slime?” I asked excitedly.
“A ‘slime’?” he asked. “I guess it does look like a ball of slime, now that you mention it. You know about basic elementals, right?” He asked.
I nodded, “Yes, but can we talk about it while we walk? Mom said that they are likely a ways away and so… can we just go?” I wasn’t actually going to say that I wanted to get out before Mom found another way to embarrass me.
My Mother immediately proved my unspoken point. “Now remember, Sweetie, if things hurt too much it is ok to back off for a while. Daddy can fix you up if you get a little hurt so don’t forget to ask. I know you aren’t used to fighting so if it hurts enough that you start to cry then we will all understand. Just remember that…
“Honey…” My father interrupted her.
I had my face buried in my hands. I’m sure my ears were a bright red the same as the rest of my face.
I looked up to see her with a mischievous smile on her face. “I’m sure you’ll be fine son. Just do your best.”
I nodded and pushed my way out the door as quickly as possible. I didn’t want to be there for my parent’s make out session. I was mature enough that it didn’t gross me out, but it still was uncomfortable when they got into it. Sometimes their hands would start roaming.
“So,” I said, desperately trying to distract myself by speaking to the new guy. “Your name was Roman something? Greentree?”
He nodded in a strange way that involved tilting a single shoulder. “You can call me Row. Most everyone does.”
“So, Row. You were going to talk about elementals?” I spoke while heading off toward the main road. He glanced back at the door then moved to catch up.
“A little impatient there, aren’t you?” he asked, then spoke under his breath. “I’m sure he’ll catch up.” I’m sure there was a story there but I’m also sure that my Father would love to tell it so I could hear it later. He continued in a more normal tone. “So what do you know about elementals?”
“They are big balls of elemental energy. Well, big compared to me, I guess. The smallest ones don’t really have a shape.”
“That’s right. For the basic ones at least.” He answered, nodding at my Father as he caught up, sporting a goofy grin. “Some of the others, not the basic elementals, have more clearly defined shapes most of the time. We won’t be going after any of them, they will all be too strong for you.”
“Do you remember the basic elemental types?” My father asked.
“Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire.” I answered. He cleared his throat reprovingly. I rolled my eyes. “Also known by their more ‘sciency’ names of ‘Solid, Liquid, Gas, and Plasma’.”
He nodded. “Base form classifications are important. You’ll grow to appreciate it later.”
I gave Row a questioning look and he just shrugged. “I’ve never had to worry about it but then your Father knows ‘people’ so who am I to say?”
“Moving on…” My Dad said, clearing his throat. “You shouldn’t have much to worry about. They will have limited options to attack and no way to defend. Try not to take a direct hit from the stuff they fire at you and don’t let them sit on you and you will be fine.”
“You mentioned this all before.” I said in a bored tone, but then got more excited. “Still, I like the fact that these aren’t just normal slimes that will ooze all over you; these are magic slimes that will fire magic! …And probably ooze all over you.”
Row spoke up. “You know about slimes, kid? I thought your Da said you have no fighting experience and come from a world without magic?”
I nodded in as sage a manner as my three year old body could manage. “Video games teach you lessons that are applicable to real life. This is proof that my old life was not wasted!”
He gave me a look. “So you were some ‘video’-game hot-shot before?”
I tried not to cringe. “Well, no. But I did a lot of reviews and helped with some design teams. That’s got to count for something? Right? It has done me pretty good so far!”
“Aren’t you like, three?” he asked. I tried glaring at him. He gave me a confused look. My glare was not very effective. He sent a questioning gaze toward my father.
“Ask William about these ‘video games’ he keeps talking about.” My father said with a grin. “They are absolutely one of the most odd things I have ever heard of.”
Row decided not to take the bait. “Just remember that even if you get knocked out we can still revive you if we get there pretty quick. You’ll have to recover some but it is better than a full death. Just don’t take a full on hit and you should be fine.”
“Honestly, taking a direct shot would not be a bad thing. The point of this trip, along with letting you see the world, is letting you get used to your Stability,” I gave my Father a look for using pretentious words, “or ‘Constitution’ as the less educated may call it. So the more you learn to take a hit and apply the strength of your body, the better.”
I looked at both of them in turn as we walked. “So are you expecting me to just get beat up a lot and then head home?”
“Of course!”
“Well… yeah?”
I looked up at both of them again with a scowl. “You guys both suck.”
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Blue slime! I get to fight an honest to goodness magic blue slime!
My father yelled from behind me. “Have fun! And don’t worry, if you start taking too much damage I’ll notice and come save you.”
Right, I should probably ignore the peanut gallery. This is how my great epic journey begins! First a slime, tomorrow I slay the Kraken!!! Actually, I wonder if those creatures exists? Probably. This world is weird enough for it.
I snuck forward to look at my prey. It looked like a blue blob about as tall as my knees but twice as big around. If I curled into a ball on the ground than it would be just as tall as myself and a similar length, but significantly wider. I guess it ‘technically’ out-massed me, but it still seemed small and pathetic. We were in the middle of an open forest, with trees enough to cut down on the sunlight but not enough tall plant life to serve as either cover or obstacles.
It may seem derpy but it is still a monster. Actually, no; ‘monster’ was apparently a classification for something else. Either way, it wouldn’t do to get stupid now. I peaked around a tree and threw a small stone at it. My second attempt went even farther to the side than did my first. The third hit, though. I doubt it did any damage, the improvised missile was smaller than a ping-pong ball. Still, it should…
There was a ‘squarching’ sound that interrupted my thoughts and I jumped back behind the tree. There was a ‘hiss’ and then silence. I waited a few seconds and then glanced back around as fluidly as I could. That is to say, I almost fell on my butt from the shock of what I saw. The center of the tree at neck height was a section of wood that looked like it had melted away and resolidified down the trunk, like dripping candlewax. I was glad I had dodged behind the tree, that could have been me. Wait, no; I was standing beside the tree, not in front of it. It completely missed me and hit the tree that I just happened to dodge behind.
I waited for a few seconds to see if it would do anything. Nothing. So I threw another rock. A wide miss. I was preparing to throw a second rock when I noticed it doing something. Watching closely, I watched it pull back and in on part of its surface and then ‘spit’ at me with that some odd ‘squarching’ sound. I was next to my tree, ready to hide, but there was no point. Its aim was just as bad as mine. The projectile was about as large as my fist which, considering my age, meant that it was only a little larger than a golf ball. It burned whatever it touched as though it were acid, or the metaphysical equivalent of the physical manifestation of ‘liquid’. Yeah, I’ve spent a lot of time around my Dad, and it shows.
Just a guess, here, but I think having a chunk of my skin liquefied would hurt. So let’s not do that, ok? Instead I threw a few more rocks, most of them coming up woefully short and confirming my bad aim. It periodically fired back. I think it must have to wait a certain amount of time between each projectile, at least that was the sense I was getting as we both took potshots at one another. I was down to using pebbles but it seemed to show no sign of stopping.
“Hey, aren’t you going to do anything? You can’t even hurt it from all the way over there.” My dad called out.
“Don’t worry about us,” Row called back immediately after. “You just do you. We’ll be fine.”
I looked back at them. My Dad had found a bent tree to half sit/half lean on. Row stood and looked on in a more readied stance. I quickly put it out of my mind. I had other things to occupy myself with.
It took me several more of its shots before I had the timing down. Strangely the missiles flew mostly straight rather than lobbing like my pebbles were. They also moved really slowly. Slow enough that I could follow the movement with my eyes. The water elemental also made the attacks really obvious by how it scrunched up just before it attacked. There seemed to be no real surprise so I moved forward to test its other ‘attack’, if you could even call it that. The thing could apparently jump. From what I had been told, this was the attack to really watch out for.
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Moving in I got behind the tree nearest to in in my direction, a tall conifer that was ten feet away, and waited. As soon as I heard the sound of it firing and the slight hiss of it hitting something that was not me, I made my move. Approaching five feet from it I started throwing rocks, trying to goad it into jumping at me. At first it started inching closer, finally leaving its wet spot but I backed off to keep the space. It tried firing at me again and I ran back toward my tree. Or tried to run back toward the tree I had used for cover. What I actually did was fall flat on my face, no thanks to my abysmal Dexterity. It didn’t matter, the water ball flew unerringly straight at where I had been standing before. I could have walked to the side in a leisurely manner to avoid it.
I looked back at my Dad and his friend. It didn’t seem they had seen me fall, being too engrossed in their own conversation. Secure in the knowledge that my mistake would not be known, I stood back up and approached again.
It took me a bit of letting it inch closer and moving in and out myself before I realized that it would refuse to jump unless I got within four feet of it. Considering that the thing is two and a half feet in diameter, that means it thinks it can jump almost twice its body length. When it jumps the thing pulls back its center, like it is trying to slingshot its mass in my direction. The first time it tried to jump it was so glaringly obvious that I had plenty of time to move back and out of the way. A couple more attempts and I learned that it could no more change its direction in its jump, once it had started, than it could change direction when ‘spitting’ at me.
I smiled and tried to laugh maniacally. That laugh… was something I would need to work on in the future. My evil laugh should sound evil, not giddy. Still, I was quite happy. I had figured out its attack pattern. It had no way to hurt me, so long as I paid attention and didn’t trip and fall over all on my own. Phase one is now complete!!!
“Kid, you seem to be doing fine on your own.” Row called out. “We are going to take a walk over here and take care of something else in the area. Just yell if you need anything.”
I glanced back as they walked away. Meh, I should be fine. I’m not sure why they were so certain that I wouldn’t be able to beat the thing. All of its patterns were so simple that even a child could avoid them. I myself was demonstrating this very fact.
Still, defense wouldn’t be enough by itself. My knife may not be intended to attack, but I was sure that it could cut and bleed out the slime just as well as any other weapon. I moved around it, baited out its jump, and then moved forward to attack while it was recovering. Taking the knife in both hands I stabbed forward, deep into its side.
And then immediately threw my dagger away as I tried to wipe my hands off on my clothes. It helped some, but my clothes were now a mess of acid burned holes and the back of my hands were red and painful. Apparently the water elemental, a creature borne of congealed acidic ‘water’ essence, bleeds watery acid when you stab it. In hindsight it should have been obvious, but I just hadn’t thought of it. It probably didn’t help that my dagger was literally designed to make things bleed.
I easily walked out of the way of another jump and went to pick up my knife, using my clothes to make sure it was safe to handle. The weapon didn’t look harmed from the experience at all. The ‘water’ had also evaporated by the time I picked it up.
This would take some experimentation. I would have to find a way to reliably stab or cut the thing in such a way where I wouldn’t get hit with the elemental’s energy. I already had a few ideas and there was no better time than the present to get working on it.
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Thirty minutes later, or likely a lot more, I stumbled over to where Father and friend had set up a little camp. I was beyond tired, lightly wounded, and there were little more than scraps left of my clothing. The adults had apparently hunted some sort of rabbit like creature and were roasting it over a fire. I considered asking for some, but then I considered how soft the ground looked. Sleepy bed of dirt, or first food of my life? I was tired enough to die, maybe even literally if this world’s weirdness applied, so taking a dirt nap won out. I dropped to the ground, spread eagle.
“Finally decided to give up your game?” My dad asked. “You don’t look too hurt. What happened to your clothes? Were you careful to not lead it back to camp?”
“Nugh,” I attempted. “Killed it. Sleep now.”
“Ha ha.” He spoke flatly. “No really, those things can be a real pain if they sneak up on you and start dissolving everything in the camp. How far away did you leave it?”
“Ugh,” I grunted, then took a deep breath and tried again with halting half sentences. “Couldn’t find the crystal. Too small. Too much melted stuff where it dissolved. It’s back that way if you want to look.” I lifted my arm to gesture in the right direction and then decided to just let it fall vaguely in the right direction.
There were a few seconds of blessed silence before it was broken by Row speaking low. “Holy shit. I mean it took him long enough, but it shouldn’t be possible.”
“They only drop crystals when you kill them or you take off a big enough chunk. That one was only big enough to drop a single one, so there wouldn’t be anything for running it off. The water and wind elementals can squeeze through tiny holes so it might have only seemed like you got it.” My father was apparently a bit slow on the uptake. Normally he is smarter than that.
I was considering making a scathing retort, but that seemed like too much work. Sleep now. Talk Later. Fortunately Row came to my rescue. “Eddie. Do you feel that? I don’t sense the water elemental at all.”
My father turned slightly and scrunched his brow, then got a look of concentration on his face for a good ten or twenty seconds as he turned in the direction I had come from. Finally he turned to me. “How?” he asked in a voice filled with confusion.
I waited, catching my breath. “I stabbed it. A lot.”
He frowned, then began picking up steam as he plowed forward. “That... doesn’t make any sense. The thing was filled with enough water essence to drown you in! Even if you did stab it the damage from the splash would be death by a thousand cuts!” His eyes were now aglow with the gleam of interest. “That’s marvelous! Tell me! How did you do it!”
I lay there still gasping for breath as he spoke. “It took me a while to figure out how to stab it in a way that wouldn’t splatter all over me. I had to do this ‘stab/fling’ thing while standing off to the side so that it wouldn’t hit me. Also, why am I so tired?”
“Oh, you probably just went through your stamina a several times over. You’ll recover.” He said, waving me off before returning to something he found more interesting. “How did you figure out how to do it? It should have taken only a few good splashes for your hands to be completely unusable! Surely not enough to figure out how to stab it in what must be quite an unusual way!”
“I used bits of my clothes to stop the splashes till I figured something out.” They could see how my clothes, which had once been long sleeved and full panted with folds for when I grew, were now a single layer of cloth forming what could be called shorts and a patchy vest if you were to be generous. Also, that reminded me of something my Father had said. “Didn’t you say something before about how healing would fix my clothes? Right? Can you do that?”
In answer Row pointed his hand at me and a ball of golden light flew at me, soothing the remaining acid burns on my skin. Even weirder, my clothes seemed to actually be growing back to its original shape right before my eyes. The ends where they had been burned off seemed to be unburning and the individual threads were reorienting themselves as new threads filled in the gaps. It was weird to watch. The new threads seemed to be soaking up the light from his ability as the material of my new clothes. Mostly they added on at the end of the existing material, but more than once I noticed a stray piece of cloth form by itself and then grow to connect with the previously existing material. In no time at all the sleeves and legs were no longer cut off and were instead returned to their full length on my body. And then I was swamped as they kept growing to a size that completely swamped my small frame. Right, these clothes had been folded over on the inside so they would fit my small size and still have enough material for when I grew.
How exactly did that work? Where did the light come from that he used to heal me? Could I do something similar? What happened to the scraps of cloth and such that had been left behind near where I had been fighting? If I took off my shirt and regrew it, would that give me a second shirt?
These were real questions and they would need to be answered eventually. Although, if I was being honest, it was unlikely I would get most of them answered just yet. It did distract me from something my father was saying to Row. Whatever my father said, apparently it warranted an eye roll and a placating gesture from him. This was followed by a constant beam of golden light from his hand that seemed to ease my fatigue but was far less interesting a spectacle than his last ability. Why golden yellow, though? I don’t recall most other people’s abilities having that sort of color. Was it individualized or something? Most people’s abilities seemed to be white. Another day, another dozen questions.
I sat up, feeling much better. “Dad, can you help me fix my clothes please?”
He nodded and came over, lifting me to my feet like an adult manhandling a child, and got to work. His eyes were unfocused and distracted. Suddenly, still working on getting everything in order, he spoke. “Great! I managed to find another weak one! We need to see you do this again! Row and I can keep you healed up so perhaps you could be a bit faster about it this time? We left after 30 minutes the last time and you hadn’t even touched the thing. This one should be about the same in power and so you can get to it more directly! Now up you go! Time to get at it!”
“Wait, what?” I glanced from him to Row and the food, back to row and back at him. “I just got back!”
“Right? Right!” He seemed to figure something out, acting as though he understood what I was thinking and immediately reached into the fire to grab at the meat that was cooking there on its stick. I noticed a bit of light but it seemed off somehow but nothing else to show how he hadn’t been burned. Were his stats so high that he could just ignore normal fire? Was this another ability? He grabbed a leg and touched the base and it disconnected as though it had been cut, though I had no idea how. “Here, eat this! We have to go!” He handed me the leg and I was surprised to note that, while warm to the touch, it was not the burning hot that I would have expected from something that had been immediately removed from the fire.
Row spoke up. “Eddie, calm down. There is no reason to rush. It isn’t like anyone else is going to try to poach your target.”
“Nope! Time is a wasting!” He drew his finger across the center of the meat he had been roasting and it split in half. Dropping the stick he grabbed both halves of the food and handed the piece with the intact leg to his companion. The end of the stick, the part that had been shoved up the skinned creature’s nether regions, seemed to be split in two as well. He then started marching off, urging us both to follow quickly.
Row sighed and started putting out the fire. I turned to him. “Is he always like this when he gets interested in something?”
He glanced up at me and smiled while continuing his job. Unlike the casual way that my father seemed to break the laws of physics, Row put out the fire in a more mundane way involving dirt and a canteen. The only weird thing was that the water container seemed to have entirely too much in it for the size. “This isn’t bad. You should see him when he is interested in something and annoyed. Or upset. Or horny. Or, really, any other strong word you could attach to his interest. This? This is tame.”
I smiled, and then grimaced as certain memories popped into my head. I know they are consenting adults and married and everything, but they were still my parents and seeing them get affectionate just felt weird. “I know. I live with him and he is quite ‘interested’ in my mom, and she him, if you get my drift.”
He snorted, still pouring water on the smoking embers. “She would have to be, she married him after all.” The word ‘married’ carried a weird impression to it; something like ‘religious bonded’. I wasn’t sure of the implication but it seemed different from my own way of using the same word. “Still, he is a good guy and honest too. I wouldn’t be out here alone with the guy otherwise.” Apparently I didn’t count for that whole ‘alone’ thing. Then again, at my current level, whatever might have worried him about being isolated with other people was honestly beyond my ability to affect; so it was probably a fair assessment.
“And who are you? Oh esteemed Master Greentree?” I asked with a smile. He looked like a normal person but you never know.
He answered with an eye roll. “I am the honorable scion of the Greentree clan. Not to be confused with the Brown-trees, Empty-trees, or the, uh, Autumn-Colored-Trees?” He started floundering at the end but nodded the joke away and continued. “Me, I’m common as dirt but reliable. I spend some time in the Temple with your father but I’m not nearly as driven as some of them. Slow and steady will get you anything you want in this world, don’t forget that. I grew up down below but managed to make my way up top, so I guess you could say I’m better than most. Just remember: It isn’t always the good people who rise to the surface, it’s the people who are good at it. That is probably the best wisdom I could give you, so don’t forget it.”
I nodded. “I met someone a couple days ago who jumped out and attacked me in an alleyway. They had set a trap, something that would be unlikely to attract someone more warry or observant, and I fell for it. It was actually kind of clever, though I only realized it when I thought about it later. Like I said, someone better prepared wouldn’t have looked twice or would have been more on guard when they walked in and the guy could have just left them alone without it even looking like a real trap; but if someone like me showed up he was ready. I don’t know what would have happened if my Father wasn’t there but it wouldn’t have been good.”
He gave me a look. “Is that why Thea was so up in arms earlier? I thought she was overreacting, but if that happened just a few days ago… Well damn.” He spoke with a tone of appreciation.
“Yeah,” I answered. “It was a dumb thing of me to do, sneaking out like I did, but I was just so tired of being cooped up all the time. I wanted to see things and explore. They are so overprotective sometimes, I’m pretty it is just them being new parents without the calm that comes from having raised kids before.”
“Not true, if you would believe it.” He answered. Having finished with the fire we both started in the direction that my Father had disappeared. “I don’t doubt what you said when it comes to Thea, but Eddie was married with kids. Back before.” There was some awkwardness as he said it. People here seemed a bit weird talking about their old lives. “It actually was something of an issue earlier in their relationship. How could he say ‘forever’ in a relationship with her when he had already said it to someone else in his last life?” He nodded sadly at that. “I’m not sure how that argument worked out but apparently it did if you are here. But, yeah, this isn’t his first time raising kids. As in, more than one kid. I don’t know the details any more than that.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I had always imagined my father as some sort of ninja/explorer/scholar person in his last life; like Indiana Jones but in space. My mother seemed like she had been a soldier of some vast faceless empire; albeit she acted like one of the ones who was just good enough to survive but not quite talented enough to draw undue attention. And maybe they were; but they were also normal people living normal lives where one of them had gotten married and had kids before he died. That just seemed wrong. Indiana Jones didn’t have kids. But then Indiana Jones wasn’t a real person and, with all the girls he got to know in each movie, he probably should have had at least a few. That seems like it would be true of most action heroes, if they are good enough to get the girl when things are bad then why would they lose her when things got good? But, despite this, very few of those characters actually ended up in healthy long term relationships.
Instead of thinking more about that as we walked to catch up with Dad, I decided to change the subject. “So, how did you originally meet my Father?”
“We ended up working together during a Zombie outbreak.”
I nearly tripped over my feet. “Zombies, like, ‘undead corpses that move and eat people’ Zombies?”
“That’s right.”
I tried figuring out how that worked. “But don’t people come back when they die?”
“That’s right and that’s exactly the problem. All it takes is a single Zombie in someone’s bedroom. They die, come back, die, come back, but because of the infection the bodies stay behind. Suddenly you have a dozen zombies from that one person and the number keeps growing as they spawn kill the unfortunate bloke. And zombies, they don’t like being around people unless the living are significantly outnumbered and overpowered. They also attack relentlessly when they do have the upper hand. They can't hide forever, eventually people notice after the masses will no longer physically fit in the area where they spawned, but by that point an entire district may have fallen.”
I listened intently. “That sounds like a story.”
He looked at me and then looked at my parent in the distance. My Father was standing near where I had killed the water elemental and was urging us to hurry up despite the unknown distance to the next target. He wanted us to rush but we were both more laid back than that. Row smiled. “I’d say it is a pretty good story.”