[Congratulations! You have reached a survival streak! For five days you have managed to live throughout your adventures! You will be rewarded with a perk fragment!]
[Warning! This fragment is transferable to any other Chosen that may happen to end your streak!]
I received a new perk fragment.
[Perk Fragments: 5]
[Claim Perk? - Y/N]
Okay, I guess I was waiting for nine fragments. The Norse magic number. I sighed a little at the drawn out pay off and we plodded on. Oskar took the lead, and Pest ran down the road, jumping off into the grass at random intervals before skittering like a maniac to catch up to us a short time later.
At least it was a pleasant day. Not too hot, as ambient temperature didn’t exist. Something I would keep in my back pocket if I needed some good boy points for some reason. And since I hated being hot and didn’t feel like freezing to death in the winter with my threadbare clothing, I still wasn’t reporting the missing feature yet.
The road, as I kept calling it, wasn’t anything impressive. No ancient roman stones paved our path for us. It was a simple raised dirt lane through the fields. Sometimes it looked like there was an attempt to place small stone or gravel and some reinforcements with timber along the edges. The only parts that had any real engineering were the ‘bridges’ going across streams or creeks. Sometimes it was a simple culvert of two logs next to each other, on larger waterways a stone pipe was built. Nothing we had crossed yet called for a real bridge, except Harrold’s place where the road spanned the river.
I opened up my map to inspect our progress. Looking at the pace we had managed yesterday, our journey had another two days beyond today. I sighed. Fine. I had something to experiment with. I plucked a random flower from the side of the road and gazed at it. It was a common thing, a bit of a nuisance to my front yard back home. Inspect didn’t reveal anything groundbreaking.
Name: Flora
Species: Dandelion
FLAGS: ANTIOXIDANT
I knew other bits of the plant could be used in other ways, such as the roots for a detoxifying effect and the leaves could help appetite and stomach issues. A diverse little invasive weed. I focused on it and with a static rip a small rift opened to reveal the rune-code for the flower.
Hundreds of blue glowing runes were engraved on a dark stone. I reached inside the little rift and poked a rune. It glowed and pulsed slightly, like a cursor. I was at a little bit of a loss as to what needed to happen now. It was as if I was looking at the most basic of programming languages, ones and zeros. It wasn’t made for the human mind to look at and understand at a glance. Since I didn’t know the language, I couldn’t even guess as to what I was staring at. Furthermore, I didn’t even know what to write even if I wanted to change something. But that never stopped me before. Time to fiddle with it. I decided to start with trial and error, remove a rune and see what happened. I focused on the blinking rune and thought about it not being there. It vanished and the rune-code adjusted, sliding closed around the missing rune.
Suddenly the flower was completely fuchsia, every single bit of it. Welp, I broke it. I thought Ctrl+Z and like a good little IDE, it was undone. Flower back to normal. I tested mental commands that I have used countless amounts of times in my gaming and hobbies. It seemed to respond the way I anticipated a common program should, if that was because the System was sensing my intention or just used common commands, I didn’t know. Didn’t really care either, it just worked.
I scrolled to the beginning of the code and repeated the action of removing a single rune. It pink’ed again. Reminded me of a time when a game had a broken texture, going to a noticeable and ugly color. I repeated and undid this change along the entire series of runes. After a while I was failing to get a response that I could use to my advantage. Just as I was about to undo my last change, I stepped on something, glancing past the rune-code rift I saw I was stepping on Pest. I yelled and stumbled falling down on my side in a uncoordinated lump as I tried to throw my weight out of my step.
“Oh shit, shit, shit,” I cursed as I scrambled to my feet to check on Pest. Had I killed him?! He was so small and didn’t even make a noise! Did I crush his head? I was almost in a full panic as I bent down over him. He was ridged. Actually, he was rock solid. Like a little statue. When I tried to lift him up, he wouldn’t budge.
“You alright there?” A voice asked from behind me.
“Mother fucker!” I screamed and spun around, Loki wasn’t even looking at me, he was staring at a handful of little papers. They looked like old style note papers that a secretary would leave for the boss when he had a phone call message. I gripped a fist full of shirt. “My heart!” I announced loudly, “Are you trying to kill me?!”
“Not so blandly.” He answered as he flipped through his little collection of papers. I noticed that I still held a bright pink dandelion in the hand that gripped my chest. I looked down at it with a frown and presented it to him.
“Here, I found you a flower.” I said.
“Oh… Sorry Viktor, I do not see you in that light. I know you cannot help to see me as anything but the sum of sexual charisma, but I am already married.” He graciously answered with a sad smile. I glared at him.
He was wearing a goth rocker get up, even had black painted nails. A thick black line of eye liner underscored his eyes. One wrist had a leather bracelet with spikes, the other wrist held a half dozen silver and black metal bracelets. He wore tight black leather pants, again with his favorite belt buckle. His black shirt was tight and had ‘My Chemical Romance’ scratched across its front in blood red. He had multiple silver necklaces around with rune stones carved into charms. He finished with a long black jacket that looked like it had been stolen right out of The Matrix.
“No, your emo-ness, it’s pink!” I waved the flower at him.
“Though perfectly comfortable in my sexuality, I am not an admirer of pink,” he replied before finally looking at the flower. He frowned. “Ah… that sort of pink.”
I shoved the little flower at him.
“Interesting,” he said simply as he took it. I noticed when he reached for it, his painted pink nail had a little horse with too many legs drawn on it.
“Where did you find this?” He asked.
“Along the road, thought it looked weird, was just about to report it.” I lied smoothly, thanking a god that wasn’t Loki that he wasn’t paying close attention when he popped in and I tripped over Pest at just the right moment to distract me, therefore closing the code window. Pest!?
I spun around again to check on Pest. He looked okay! Just paused, I let out a big long breath. That’s right, when shit was paused, I couldn’t interact with it, I had learned that with the goblins at the Fat Pig.
I stepped on him after the pause, which I didn’t notice. Loki hadn’t paused me, I guess my request from our last interaction was enough for him to not pause me as well.
“Wow, you are a busy little beaver. Chewing away at my glorious creation and breaking things left and right.” Loki told me, and I swallowed nervously.
“What do you mean by that?!” I asked, not shrilly at all. I swore the ambient temperature suddenly turned on. I felt suddenly hot.
“This…” He said with a little venom as he stretched out the word. He shook the little stack of papers at me. “I have three, now four,” He waved the flower at me, “Little reports from you. Not to mention the fiasco at the crossroads inn the other morning.”
“Oh! Yes, I am quite persistent at my job, sir!” I deflected very smoothly.
“Indeed…” He drew that word out as he gave me a significant look. He clicked his tongue at me. “You also seem to be winning our little wager.” He admitted after a moment. “I rewatched that fight at the inn. It was quite entertaining before you ruined it by taking away the goblins special powers.”
“What? Rewatched?! You record this?” I gestured around at everything.
“But of course, what sort of modern MMO does not possess the ability to stream content?” He answered, and I was a little surprised. I expected him to be all vague or deflect.
“Who the hell watches this?” I asked with true curiosity.
“Why, the gods of course. And let me tell you, some of them are getting to become quite the fanatics. Who knows, maybe we will have sponsored teams or champions or something soon. Oh! Benefactors! They can pay to send prizes to their selected Chosen. Yes, with a significant administration fee, of course.” He smiled to himself, quite pleased with his new method of exploitation.
“Okay, that’s a little mind blowing.” Shit, shit, shit, shit. How am I going to work on my rune-code if there is a chance someone is watching me all the time.
He frowned at me. “Alas, as an Alpha Tester, you are exempt from sponsorship, I think. Cannot be having the fans seeing the magic behind the curtain, as it were.”
“Oh, darn,” I said, faking disappointment. Whew. “Hey! That means I’m at a disadvantage! Who knows what prizes other Chosen will be granted!”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Indeed, that seems to be the case,” he said matter-of-factly with a smile. What a dick.
“And second, I didn’t take away any buggy powers from the goblins! You did!” I accused him.
“Ah, but in the words of the great Todd Howard,” He smiled his wide predator smile at me. “Is it a bug, or a feature?!” He laughed.
Oh, shit. Goblins with the magic ability to phase through walls. That was not going to be fun to deal with on the regular. They had almost killed everyone in the inn with their cheat power only going for half the fight.
“I’d bet money Todd Howard never said that.” I told him flatly.
“Does not matter.” Loki disregarded my comment. “Now, about this list of issues…” He perused his papers again.
“Hiking skill.” He looked at me, and I knew he was inspecting me. “You seem to have it and it is operating.”
“It isn’t leveling.” I complained.
He frowned and walked up to me to tap my shoulder. His bracelets rattled as he gestured around the rune-code of my avatar. I stared at his actions and noticed something that hinted at my pervious failures. He wasn’t highlighting single ruins, but groups of them. Of course! I had a shot of recognition at my mistake. The runes, though each having its own meaning or representing something specific, were single letters. They were not individual words. I needed to work with groupings of them.
I smiled to myself and quickly tried to smother it before he saw. But he did.
“What?” He asked me suspiciously.
“You are inside of me.” I responded quickly, deflecting. He gave me a disgusted look and then stopped paying attention to me. Just like my wife at similar humor. Heh.
“Okay,” he said and closed the rift. “Seems to be a small conflict there, I will have to fix it later. A legitimate notification.” He nodded with satisfaction and tossed the paper to the side. It evaporated in the wind.
“Running skill.” He looked to me again.
“I don’t have it. Haven’t unlocked it, even though I got something called fleeing?”
“You are doing it wrong, and it’s easy to flee like a coward.”
“Doing what wrong?”
“Running.”
“What?” I asked in confusion.
“Yep, you are doing it wrong.” He tossed the paper, it evaporated in the air before getting anywhere near the ground, and he clutched the last one.
“Toxic Hamsters?” He blinked at me.
“Yea, Pest killed one, and lost his mind saying we couldn’t eat it. On inspect it was marked with a toxic flag.” I explained.
“Okay, let us take a look.” He snapped his fingers. A hamster appeared in his hand. He opened its rune-code rift. I paid very close attention as he looked through it. As he was highlighted certain portions, I took mental notes. He first went to a section that had five runes, a half-tree, backwards seven, slanted F, an X, and a spikey E. Add ‘tree, seven, F, X, E’ to my to do list. I told the system in the way of taking notes.
[TODO List Updated]
The System helpfully told me. He moved to his next set of runes. This set was a depressed T, a Jesus fish swimming upwards, a sideways tent, a divorced S, and an angular C. That went onto my to do list as well.
[TODO List Updated]
Show list.
[TODO:]
[1. Tree, seven, F, X, E]
[2. T, Jesus Up, Tent, S, C]
Excellent. I was doing my best Mr. Burns impression as he closed his rift.
“It appears that these adorable little creatures are such concentrated hate and evil that they have manifested their own venomous and toxic abilities.” He said in a baby voice to the hamster. “Yes, you did, did you not?!” He booped it on the snoot before snapping it away.
“I think shall call that a feature.” He smiled at me. The flower was his next victim. He glared at it, and opened up the rune-code for it. He scoffed and it turned back to its normal color.
“Typo,” he said as he looked at me. “It happens.” He tossed the flower, it didn’t disintegrate like the papers had, it just fell sadly to the ground.
“Okay. That is the list of issues. Keep up the good work.” He said with a smile and prepared to snap his fingers.
“Hey!” I shouted to stop him, he frowned at the interruption to his process.
“Since I don’t get a sponsor from the other gods, will you be my benefactor?” I asked him quickly.
“What makes you think I am not already,” he replied and snapped his fingers, vanishing.
“Well shit,” I spat. “No prizes for me today, I guess. And that was like three issues. And what the hell did he mean I didn’t know how to run… I knew how to run…” I complained aloud.
I turned around to check on Oskar and Pest, they were standing stock still staring at a horse that was standing between them. My mouth dropped open. This is a grand prize! This would make our journey faster!
I gave the horse a quick once over. It was female, and an odd color somewhere between brown and gray. I had no idea what a horse snob would call it. Probably some fancy sounding name that totally didn’t fit the actual color, something like bronze copper swirl with a hint of lime. She was a gentle beast, not minding my approach or offer to touch her nose. Horse noses were always so soft. I inspected her.
Name: Unassigned
Race: Horse
Type: Creature
Allegiance: Viktor (domesticated)
FLAGS: COGNITION_0, IS_DOMESTIC (Viktor), WEARILESS
Health: Healthy
Energy: Full
“Okay, little miss, you need a name.” I spoke to her softly as I patted her and rubbed her. She didn’t react much but did seem to lean into my hands. I scratched her neck. Her fur was deeper than the horses I knew from my youth. And she had a mess of puffy mane on the top of her head that made her look like she had belonged in an 80’s hair band. It was the same color, but a darker hue than the rest of her. She shook her head as I scratched and gave a snort. “Oh, you love the scritches, don’t you?” I gave a small laugh.
“How about Smokey?” She snorted at me again. “Yea, I didn’t think so either.” I reassured her. Too common anyway. She was a short horse, nearly a pony, but wide and thick. She held great power in her limbs.
She brought back memories of a horse from my youth. He was a little shit and constantly caused trouble. He enjoyed walking under low limbs to unseat riders and rolling in the leaves. While you were still on him. I was a little nervous around her, when I was a kid, I could run circles around horses and not care. But as an adult I had developed a healthy fear of the power a horse could bring to bear if it so chose. I didn’t need a horse shoe imprint anywhere on my body from its powerful kick.
“Finley?” I asked her, and she didn’t snort in derision this time. “Okay, Finley it is.” I smiled and patted her gently. She was dressed in basic tack and a hackamore bit, the kind that didn’t use a bar of steel through their mouth. I approved. I tied my rucksack to a leather throng attached to the front of the saddle and put Pest onto it. He started to thoroughly investigate Finley with deep inhalations and sniffing at her fur. She gave him a side eye but didn’t freak out like I was half-expecting. She was a really gentle thing.
“Good girl,” I smiled and complimented her with a pat.
“Is client?” He asked me, wondering.
“Uhm… what do you mean by client?” I questioned back.
“Has trade goods?” he asked.
“In that case no, she supplies transportation services. We are her clients. We pay her with food.” I educated him. He considered this for a time and a long stare before nodding acceptance at me. As far as I remembered, he called the rabbits clients. He had some pretty hungry eyes if he wanted to try to eat this monstrous horse.
I was a bit rusty when it came to mounting, but with a few curses and a bit of struggling I managed to get onto her. I held out a hand for Oskar, who swung up, obviously very practiced at this thing.
“Yip yip,” I said and gave her a little heel to her flanks. She started to amble down the lane. I smiled widely. “On the road again!” I sung out. I hummed along to the words I didn’t know.
Finley let out a loud sigh and walked on. Apparently, she didn’t like my rendition of Mr. Nelson’s finest work.
[Congratulations. You have unlocked the Riding skill!]
I had been expecting this one.
[Riding]
Unlock Conditions – Ride an animal.
[lvl 1] – You can ride a tamed animal without immediately falling off. LOOK MA! NO HANDS!
Pest settled down into the rucksack and hanged his head outside, watching the grasslands pass by. I’m pretty sure Oskar fell asleep against me, and I could feel drool running down my back.
I noticed the saddle horn had a letter engraved in it. A stylized L. A benefactor indeed, I smiled again, and we travelled on.
We travelled like this for a few hours, took a break, and continued on again. Our speed wasn’t greatly increased, but it was something new to experience. And her gait was a lot more stable than I remember from my youth. I found myself nodding off. I would start awake and either Finley would be plodding along, or would be taking a break nibbling at grass and flowers at the side of the road. It was like a slow and warm Sunday afternoon, impossible to not nap through.
I took the flower out from where I had tucked it between the saddle and the horse blanket. I had picked it up from where Loki had casually discarded it. It was pressed flat, and a little bit beat up, but it was still whole.
I opened its rune-code rift and searched for the pattern of runes that I had taken down in my to do list. First, I found the collection of runes that I figured indicated flags. I moved the cursor right after it and entered the runes from the second line of my to do list. I closed the rune-code. The flower wasn’t pink, so I already had a small victory. I inspected it.
Name: Flora
Species: Dandelion
FLAGS: TOXIC, ANTIOXIDANT
Boom. World changer. I had just hacked this flower to be toxic. I couldn’t read the language, and I didn’t know the words. Hell, I didn’t even know the letters. But I could find where the flags were in an object, and I could copy the symbols from other things. I could use Inspect to translate words to something I could read, and therefore I could learn and compile a list of workable flags.
And it didn’t end there. I could find out more about the objects themselves and find different places where I could change things. I opened the rune-code again and stared at it. The biggest issue seemed to be that I couldn’t tell where the words began and ended. The runes were structured as a never-ending run on sentence. No obvious word breaks. It might take some time to piece out whole words from partial words. I reopened the flower’s rune-code. I removed the TOXIC flag and started removing runes one at a time. After the first letter was removed, the flower turned bright pink again. What a handy visual representation for corrupt code. I had to give Loki props for making it so. Eventually, after taking a decent number of runes away, the flower went to its normal color. The worst bit seemed to be that I needed to close and open the rift to get the flower to recompile, or whatever you called it for rune-code. Inspect.
Name: Flora
Species: Dandelion
FLAGS: NONE
And like that, I had another flag to add to my collection. I wasn’t sure how helpful antioxidant would be, but each word increased my lexicon and that was beneficial. I considered it a complete success and tucked the flower back into its hiding spot, patting it. My new lucky charm.
I decided to walk for a while, a little chipper about my new progress and a little bit saddle-sore. I scanned the area as we went and collected up anything that looked like it might have a new flag for me. By the time it was time for camp I had a decent collection of plants and junk. Each one had a different flag that I could add to my growing to do list dictionary. Nothing spectacular, since it was mostly herbs and their effects. Sure, I could make a super herb that had all the beneficial qualities, but that wouldn’t help me in the immediate.
Maybe in the long run I could brew some tea or potions to sell with them. Like a snake oil salesman with my miracle cure. We bedded down for the night and I went to sleep dreaming about amazing potential of hacking the System. I would hack the planet!