image [https://i.imgur.com/mcRRNo1.png]
Grassland
Safe zone
Will was confused.
The last thing he remembered was dinner at his brother’s place, an affair that involved a very decent course of Beef Stroganoff, rather inane conversation, and horsey rides for his niblings.
None of which explained the fact that he was currently standing on all fours in a large grassy field, with a large blue rectangle blocking his vision.
The words written on said blue square weren’t helping either.
I don’t think those were champignons in your Stroganoff, Bob, Will said, half seriously.
Well, tried to say, anyway. The only sounds that left his mouth were strange “wiao” screeches. The closest he could come to describing them were that they were somewhere between a squealing pig and a howling cat.
For some reason, being on all fours was a lot more comfortable that it’d been the previous night. Even disregarding the weight of said niblings. He also seemed to be a lot closer to the ground than he remembered, and couldn’t get his body to stand up. Three facts which might have had something to do with having short, furry forelegs instead of arms.
Wait, what? Will’s head cleared a bit at the shock. Short furry forelegs?
The blue rectangle moved with Will’s head when he looked down, but he had enough clearance to note that he did, in fact, have a pair of short furry forelegs.
Definitely not champignons.
His body seemed rather short and stocky, and no matter how much he twisted and turned, he couldn’t seem to see more of himself than his new forelegs, a pair of fuzzy paws, and dangerously sharp looking claws at the tips of his fingers.
After giving up on seeing the rest of himself, Will tried looking around. The blue rectangle mentioned a “safe zone”, but he had no idea how trustworthy the things was. Unfortunately, the rectangle was blocking most of his field of vision, and looking around its edges was somewhat inconvenient.
Raising one of his short forelegs, Will tried to swipe the blue rectangle away. Which, surprisingly, worked. The blue rectangle was swiped to the right, leaving his field of vision and vanishing.
Only to be immediately replaced with another blue rectangle.
200 copper bits collected
Swiping it away worked just as well as it did for the first rectangle, and it vanished into wherever it came from.
What it left behind, on the other hand, was a whole lot of nothing. And grass. Will looked all around him, but there was nothing to see except for a very flat, and very green, field of grass.
This is a really weird dream. Mushrooms or no mushrooms.
Not that Will had any experience with any type of mushroom other than the kind he could buy in any supermarket. Or maybe an Asian grocery.
I think I’d like to wake up now. This isn’t even a fun dream.
Trying to pinch himself wouldn’t work without opposable thumbs, but his claws were a very effective alternative, and Will yelp of pain after clawing himself on the left foreleg could have been heard by anything in the vicinity.
Not that there was anything to hear it. Something, however, did respond to Will’s mishap, as a new blue rectangle showed up, this one significantly more detailed than the previous two.
New achievement “Stop Hitting Yourself”
You have landed a successful attack.
On yourself.
Really, man. Wombat. Whatever.
There’s no need to be like that!
The sun is shining, the grass is tasty, you’ve got a whole new life ahead of yourself!
And there’s plenty of things here that would very much like to harm you. No need to exert the effort and do it yourself!
Reward:
None. This is not behavior we would like to encourage.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Get a therapist, or something.
Detailed and snarky. Will swiped an annoyed paw to get rid of the mocking message, trying his best to ignore what it said.
OK, assuming this isn’t a dream. Where the hell am I? Will thought to himself, only to jump back in surprise when the blue rectangle showed back up.
Grassland
Safe zone
Having gotten an answer, even if not a very useful one, Will swiped the rectangle away and tried asking other questions.
What’s going on?
How are you?
How did I get here?
Why am I whatever the hell I am now?
What the hell am I, anyway?
Only the last one got an answer, in the form of the blue rectangle’s return. This time, however, it had quite a bit more information on it.
Name: William Jackson
Race: Wombat
XP: 0
Health: 98/100
Mana 100/100
Stamina 100/100
Innate abilities
????
Skills
None
Attacks
Claws – least piercing damage
Bite – lesser piercing damage
Charge – slight bashing damage
Equipment
None
Inventory
200 copper bits
Status effects
Calmness – 1 cycle remaining
…Not that the answer made any sense, of course
The whole thing looked like a message screen from some of the computer games Will played. Which would have reinforced the idea that the whole thing was a weird dream, if he hadn’t already clawed himself to disprove it.
And dealt himself two points of damage in the process, apparently.
That’s my name all right. And I guess I’m a wombat now? Why a wombat, of all creatures?
Shrugging wasn’t really possible for Will’s new wombat body, but he definitely tried his best.
Health seems self-explanatory, and I think I can guess about stamina, mana, and XP. But what’s with the question marks under innate abilities?
No answer seemed to be forthcoming, so Will went over the rest of the screen again.
What the hell does “least” damage mean? Is it more or less than “lesser” and “slight”? I’m definitely not going to test it on myself…
No equipment made sense. He was, after all, a wombat.
Why is there even an option for equipment? And where are those 200 copper bits I’m supposed to have? I think the second screen I swiped told me I collected them, but I haven’t actually seen them.
Not that he had anything to do with two hundred copper bits. Whatever a copper bit even was.
And I guess that last line explains why I’m not panicking.
A swipe to the right dismissed the blue message screen, and Will spent a minute or two ensuring he could call it back up at will. Satisfied that he could get what little information he had back whenever he wanted to, Will set up to explore his surroundings.
***
There was nothing to see.
Will didn’t have his phone, of course, so precise measurements of time weren’t going to happen. But he figured he’d spent at least a couple of hours walking around, and the only thing he could see was grass.
He’d even taken to nibbling on the grass, since he was starting to get hungry. And the grass smelled tasty.
What do wombats even eat? Will wondered as he munched on a blade of grass.
Wombats are herbivores.
Their diets consist mostly of grasses, sedges, herbs, bark, and roots
The message screen came out of nowhere, causing Will to spit out the grass.
This? Out of all of my questions, this is the one you’re answering?
There was, of course, no answer, and Will swiped the message away. Angrily.
He kept moving about and snacking on the grass for a few more hours, finding a vast amount of absolutely nothing, before the urge to dispose of the grass he’d eaten caught up with him.
With the grasslands being absolutely flat, there wasn’t much point in looking for a toilette, not that he could use one as a wombat, so Will just did his business.
Only to be bombarded by a stream of message screens, one after the other.
Innate ability “Dice roll” discovered!
Dice roll level 1: Roll two dice and move the shown number of spaces clockwise.
New achievement “Shooting Crap(s)”
You’ve rolled your first set of movement dice, and can now leave the grasslands.
And you did it in style!
Say what you will about wombats, but they never half-ass their dice rolls.
It’s always a full-ass process with you guys.
Reward:
Reveal the “Dice roll” innate ability.
Wombats leave distinctive cubic faeces.
In your case, those cubes are your movement dice.
Will didn’t want to turn around and look at his… refuse. He most certainly did not. But his curiosity wouldn’t let him go, and he ended up turning around anyway.
Behind him was a pile of brown cubes. Two of which had the familiar dots of playing dice on each of their faces. He had just enough time to notice that one cube landed up with a single dot on the top face, and the second with two dots, before the world seemed to blur around him.
After several very strange minutes, during which Will felt like he was moving faster than he’d ever moved before, while at the same time staying perfectly still, the world returned to focus, and he was somewhere completely new.