Chapter 7. Entering Yonder
I allowed Bell to pull me by my hand for sometime before I stopped in my tracks. She turned back towards me mournfully.
“What’s going on here? Where are you dragging me to? Why are you so aware of everything?” She had once again completely zig-zagged through the monster and player filled forest without us getting stopped a single time, while our pursuers continuously fell into hazardous traps or monster nests.
“We are running to get you to the Soka tree, because I’m an out of place A.I. Please we don’t have much time. I’ll explain everything after we get you an ability you’ll need to bring me with you to Yonder proper. Once Poncho is analyzed fully I will be removed from the servers entirely.” This was either the weirdest and most meta quest experience ever or… ‘What the hell is this?” I jogged alongside her, no longer letting her pull me by the hand but I knew to follow her footsteps.
“Is that how you-”
“Yes I can see everything on the map.”
“You can read my mind too?”
“No it was just pretty obvious you were going to ask, the way you keep staring back at the players.” She had us stop a moment, she squatted down and I followed suit. I peeked over the bushline and saw a robbed old man walking around the base of a tree that’s trunk stretched out like city walls, the smaller trees in the area’s canopy blocking me from seeing where or how far up it actually went. I could see the old man’s name unlike most other NPCs.
Rendon Scuerti - Level 50 - Librarian
“Is he going to attack us?”
“No but he will give us a really long winded explanation of the game and try to talk you out of picking random abilities. Then say some shit about the dangers of climbing the tree, while also walking you around to the stairs to climb the tree. He’s mostly scripted. A step above the Swineling that kept eating his boogers. And he was a step above the ones that just stood there. The one eating his own boogers probably would have gotten a unique script if you talked to him enough.”
“And you and Poncho?”
“Poncho had a Dungeon Creator AI, and I’m an Observer AI, a ‘snitch’ is what the Dungeon Boss AI’s refer to me as.” I looked at her even more bewildered than before “I know, you’d never expect two interpretive learning AIs who were constantly pitted against each other would fall in love. It truly was like Romeo and Juliet.”
“Why are you able to tell me all this?”
“Because we are already on plan D, and this instance's actual Observer AI will find me once Poncho’s AI has been fully analyzed. We are going to get you a shelved unique ability from the tree. That is a ‘only one person can have it’ ability that a Creative AI has already created but no one has done something deserving of it, or in this case, spun it randomly. Don’t worry, we don't need to worry about random abilities. Well at least not for this first ability.”
‘What in the actual fuck.’ The more she spoke the less sense she made.
“Your monster handling skill and infamy cover the minimum to even get this on your table. The nature of the [Monster Sympathizer] ability itself would actually probably lower it but not past the point of no return. Your wisdom went up by two, and int by one, from the forty-eight kills the Swinelings got you. That helps a ton, and the system reads how bad you want a crafting ability. That gets it into a high enough chance that we can sit by this sigil and wait for it to be within parameters to guarantee a pull.” She sat cross legged and stared at the sigil on the base of the tree that would give me a random ability. That’s when I saw it. How nervous she really was. At first she was too nervous to say anything, but now she won’t stop talking. It feels more for the sake of stopping me from asking questions than to actually make things make sense for me. She had me open up the ‘Are you Sure?’ box on rolling a random ability and hold it there. I pressed my hand on the tree but turned my head back to her.
“Why me?”
“We were already in a desperate situation, eventually this tutorial instance would be reset or retired. You fit the parameters we needed to smuggle a Swineling, me, to Yonder. But you also created an event quest to hunt you down that the whole city got from your previous actions. Although I could see what you did, I couldn’t see that the Observer AI and World AI were about to do a manhunt event. By then we were already in bed with you. So now we are doing Plan D. Have you make me into a symbiote, then when we get to Yonder switch me back. Thats- Press it now! Quickly! ” I locked in my answer of ‘Yes’ as she said it. Maybe it was because I visited an AI psychiatrist as an early teen, or because my parents sprung for the really interactive AI teaching modules for me. But I had always trusted AIs. They were always helpful to me in my life. Much more helpful than other humans were at least.
Temporary Ability [Gourmet] has been lost!
Ability [Monster Symbiote Crafter] has been gained!
Lock in [Arsonist’s Flame], roll for new ability, or roll to morph ability?
Once again Bell’s voice raised in a panic “Morph! Morph! Non-Unique Legendary!” I clicked the button to morph.
Temporary ability [Arsonist’s Flame] has become [Fire Sage Magic]
“Alright now use your ability on me. Hurry before you get transferred.” Bell placed both hands face up. I looked into my skill bar that had a few different abilities in them, but found the ‘Create Symbiote 0/1’ and pressed it. My hands automatically moved to hover over the small pig creatures and she turned to paste. It splattered with a wet sound, Then the puddle of pink paste on the ground bubbled.
‘Damn it I’m too late.’ She and Poncho had done so much to try and get themselves to Yonder and it was all for nothing. ‘Oh well at least I got some good ski-’ The pink puddle suddenly pounced at me, filling my mouth and covering my face. It went up my nose and into my ears. I tried to scream but it was muted by the skin like puddy that filled my brain.
You have completed the tutorial! Prepare yourself for adventure in the world of Yonder!
The words appeared in the darkness that was the skin hood over my head. I continued trying to scream, thrashing on the ground trying to get the goo off of me.
‘Sorry had to do it slowly so I wouldn’t get deleted during the transfer’ I could hear Bell inside my head.
‘What the hell is a symbiote?’ The goo started tearing away from my face and I could see I was on the platform from before. The one that me and the other new players stood on when we started the tutorial. There was a giant gilded screen that curved around encompassing almost my entire vision.
‘It’s a class of magic items, a living magic item. Well it is now. There wasn’t symbiotes in this game until me.’ I could sense the pride in that statement. More than being the first symbiote though, I could sense Bell’s pride in her plan working.
Your Character is being generated!
I could see a picture of myself, my in game self at least, I still had a chubby tummy on the screen. I also had a third, sideways eye open on my head. ‘What? What kind of race is that?’
‘Oh that’s me! You don’t have a hotbar now but I can activate my observer skill for you’ I was flooded by numbers and words all around me in three dimensional orb around myself. Equations would appear and disappear, some words seemed like they were moving forward and others away. I wasn’t able to interpret more than this was what my character generation looked like to AIs. Words like ‘Fire Magic’ and ‘Player Killer’ were the biggest and closest. Maybe they were all the same size and those were just what was closest. “Friend of Monsters” was behind me when I turned around. ‘Savage’ overshadowed the word ‘Protector’ making it completely disappear. There were many math equations that made even less sense, like “54% x Love of Food +.3343”. I looked up and saw “Hunted” so large I had to turn my neck in both directions to take it in. These words began to disappear one by one. The last one that disappeared was hard to see, but Bell drew my attention to it.
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‘You’re going to be offered the chance to play a monster race! That’s a first. Usually half monster races are the most players can go. It’s a Swineling! You gotta take it. They are extinct in Yonder because players over-farmed them.
'Swinelings suck from what I can tell, they naturally get Wisdom and Charisma attribute points when they get stronger but their skills and combat options are all either Dex or Strength. It’s no wonder they went extinct.’
‘Yes but you will have wisdom based sage magic and charisma based crafting, it’s actually a perfect build for you. Plus Swinelings are adorable. They are what brought me and Poncho together and what got us disposed of by the World AI.’ I had more questions, but I could ask them later.
You have been given the option to take an extraordinarily unique path, playing as a full monster race. You may choose to decline.
I could see the information behind both choices thanks to Bell. One would make me a full fledged monster, a swineling. And the other would do a coin-toss on whether I was a half-swineling or a human. Either way I was likely going to be stuck as a pig creature. The half-swineling looked like an absolute monstrosity, more so than the short and squat regular swineling.
‘Don’t be a scardy pig, choose the ‘extraordinarily unique path’. That sound’s way more fun. I had followed this AI far enough down the rabbit hole. Why stop now?
You have selected the extraordinarily unique path!
Name: Noah
Race: (Unique) Swineling (Tier 1 Monster Race)
Class: (Unique) (Legendary+) (Nomadic World Boss) Monster Shepherd (Tier 1 Monster Class)
Class Information:
The Monster Shepherd is a Nomadic type World Boss who avoids territorial conflicts with other monsters. Instead the Monster Shepherd prefers to stay on the move to avoid being hunted by humans. Hater of humankind the Monster Shepherd works to bring peace to warring monsters, salvation to desolate monster tribes, and death to the non-monster races of Yonder.
In the long search for perfect unity of Monster Races, the crafty Monster Shepherd has developed the ability to create living artifacts out of his comrades, called symbiotes. By combining ancient fire sage magic and the science of symbiotic crafting, the Monster Shepherd protects his flock with a feverous passion.
+100% Potency to Party Buffs
+200% Longevity to Party Buffs
X4.0 Damage to Humans, Dwarves, and Elves.
X2.0 Damage from all party members to Humans, Dwarves, and Elves.
+500 to the [Fire Magic] Stat
+500 to the [Crafter: Biological] Stat
+500 to the [Monster Diplomacy] Stat
(Tier 1 Boss Monster) (Race Tier + Class Tier / 2 = Boss Monster Tier)
+50 to all base attributes
Proficiencies:
Staves: 25
Daggers: 25
Medium Armor: 25
Sage Magic: Fire: 525
Crafting: Biological: 525
Monster Diplomacy: 525
Skills & Spells:
Craft Symbiote (1/5) (Level 1)
Enhanced Flames (Level 1)
Blessing of Heat (Level 1)
Lava Shield (Level 1)
Life Spark (Level 1)
Attributes:
Strength: 55 Dexterity: 60 Constitution: 52
Wisdom: 75 Intelligence: 55 Charisma: 75
‘Gotta love triple legendaries. Two of them are unique too. I was trying to get you an ability called Flame Commander before we split from the group but I think Sage Magic is going to be much better. And you can evolve like regular monsters. That’s going to open so many windows.’
“Why are my attributes so high?”
‘You are a world boss, something that groups of unorganized players are supposed to pounce on. You are actually the weakest world boss I have ever seen.” Well that wasn’t very comforting. I was way stronger than any starting character should be, even with three legendary aspects to my class. But hearing I was the weakest boss monster she, a so-called Observer AI has ever seen, I might be screwed. ‘You’ll get to spend your proficiency points on upgrading and adding new abilities, so don’t sweat it. You got a ton of those.’
The screen showing my character’s stats disappeared, and a video showcasing my character, riding a frog creature into battle with a bunch of frog men. A wave of fireballs coming from a group of human casters flew towards the jumping frog creatures and the Swineling Monster Shepherd shot sparks from his staff that bent back towards the ground at the tip. Shields made of fire appeared over all the frog creatures that nullified the attack completely. My short pig avatar that still held an uncanny resemblance to myself then turned the frog he was riding into a goo that stuffed itself into his mouth. He then used his goo enhanced tongue to grab the enemy's commander by the neck and fling him into the air. A winged creature turned itself into weirdly goo-y wings that allowed my Swineling to launch after the commander, grabbing him mid air. While dropping to the ground the wings peeled off turning back into what I could now tell was a gargoyle. He then, mid air, turned a baby rock monster in his robe pocket into a pair of stone boxing gloves, and punched the human in fancy armor to the ground creating a massive crater.
“Okay that was badass as hell.” The video faded from the Class demonstration video to the Role demonstration video. The first one was like a cinematic for what you can be, this one apparently was going to end by sucking me in and throwing me into the end of the scene it was showing me. Instead of the battle hardened warrior god I saw on the last screen, it was a Swineling in a loincloth walking through a desert. Desperation and depression were written across his eyes, the ground rumbled and in a flash the Swineling was encircled by a twenty foot long sand worm. He didn’t look scared though, he actually looked like he was communicating with the worm. After a few weird hand gestures the worm pointed the end of its tail in a direction. The Swineling made a sharp turn and continued walking. The scene was as Bell put it, pretty boring. The Swineling continued walking and walking, every so often asking a monster for directions. Eventually it fast forward to the Swineling swimming from a beach to an island, almost not making it. He sank beneath the waves only a half a mile away. The island itself looked like it was dashing to his rescue, dipping the beach beneath the waves and scooping the Swineling onto its shore. Time sped up with the Swineling unconscious for a day then waking up to find himself on the island he had been searching for. He then walked and stood at the beach calling for something in the water. A massive form broke the waves of the water, the island looked like it would tip back and sink into the waters, but the waves moved revealing a gigantic tortoise head that nodded at the Swineling once before dunking back into the ocean water. The Swineling dropped onto his butt after grabbing a few berries from a nearby bush. And sat and munched on them contently.
‘That was actually the most bor-’ Bell was cut off mid sentence.
Role Quest: The Last Swineling! (Mythic)
Survive for one year while being hunted by various groups.
Reward: Mythic Loot Box, Mythic Skill Tome, Mythic Class Item
You are wearing an item you are no longer qualified to use. It will be placed in your inventory.
Symbiote ‘Anabelle The All Seer’ requires level 100 (Or a Tier 4 Boss Monster) character to use.
‘Ah shit.” The screen sucked me into the beach scene I had just been watching.