Moments later.
Three Hours after arrival.
After I passed the gate and was about half a mile out of town, I slowed my travel speed considerably and let myself take in my surroundings. It was not because of caution or wisdom, but instinctively slowing down as my body shook with a feeling of relief over my success getting past the gate and out onto this grassland. At least, I was pretty sure this was a grassland, but the so-called Tidewarren as the map called it, was confusing to me.
Wide stretches of scrub grass dominated the landscape, near the village itself and into the so-called Tidewarren. Trees of two varieties dominate stretches of the skyline of the space, as tall palm trees and two-story tall, five meter thick trees which I had never seen before and which I could best describe as a cross between a mangrove and a weeping willow. They stood in small groves and colonies, but they were oddly far from each other.
Perhaps their seeds were carried well by the wind?
In between the trees were hills that terminated in shallow indentations filled with puddles that were wide enough and vibrant with life enough that I instantly likened them to tidepools. While tall clumps of mundane grass like you’d see anywhere on Earth stood atop the hills in places, most of this prairie was dominated by short grasses or scrubland foliage.
More dominant than any other plant apparent was a long sea green colored grass. It was thick and from appearance and the way it moved in the breeze alone it instantly reminded me of uncut nori sheets such as the one you used to make sushi, kimbap, or rice balls.
The strange additions to mundane flora were enough to slow and distract me. Especially when I saw what appeared to be everyday ordinary-looking highland cattle and sheep. Many of them were grazing on the seaweed sheet-like vegetation.
Interspaced with the livestock were herders of varying ages, with the youngest being close to nine or ten years old. Every herder had a staff or spear and what I presumed to be a sling at their belt, along with a few dogs circling near them. The tense alertness of the herdsmen guarding the livestock was surprising. Surely the monsters weren’t that much different from running off a fox or coyote.
This was really like being in another world. I was reminded of it each and every step. Despite my worries for my family, natural excitement at seeing such things mixed with the hormones and lessened emotional control of my younger body and I was enwrapped with the sights and sounds of the whole tapestry of this grassland.
I soon found myself scaling one of those alien trees until I was far enough in the air to perch in a branch with height enough to provide safety from anything nearby. When I was comfortable in my seat, I took the time to begin my perusal of the compendium and my observation of the herders down below me. I could do both, and with my escape from town I would surely have enough time to do it and really make an informed judgment.
Sure I was far from interruptions, I prepared to read the information that had been offered up to me by the system back when I obtained the map. Pretty sure that thoughts operated the same as a command prompt might, I focused on the words “Data Compendium”. Once again, I found the familiar classic LCD green pop-up window of the system appeared. I was right then, at least about that.
The previously appeared list of unread subjects all showed themselves clearly. Within a window, which was like a projection onto a sheet in front of him, he could see some new ones appear within the list as well.
“Church of the Octahedron.”
“Region of Tidewarren”
“Region of Highwater”
“Map of Greater Regions of the Tidewarren and Highwater Isles.”
“Map of Region of the Tidewarren.”
“Map of Region of Highwater Isles.”
“Lordship of Tidewarren.”
“Towns of Tidewarren.”
“Monster Bible.”
I assumed there was no way to cycle through the list without simply thinking of the words of the prompt, so I willed the information box closed and adjusted myself in my perch.
“Time to test something else,” I said to myself because if I was able to open such a window simply with a thought, it felt better to talk to myself verbally rather than by thinking hard.
I focused my mind and thought about the words ‘Church of the Octahedron’ as hard as I could.
Immediately the test proved its results, summoning up another window with an entry on the Church of the Octahedron.
“Church of the Octahedron - The presumptive most powerful and dominant religion in much of Hekatondrona. It was the Octahedron Church that first discovered and codified what is known as the “Eight Elements System”, which identified the monsters throughout the land by their elemental types. The Octahedron Church has a different order for each of the eight elements and is one of the organizations that are the administrators of the Outworlder Draft. Its patrons are the eight saints.”
I re-read it three times for comprehension and to pick out things to ask later. As I did, I felt my emotions rise as I did. Administrators of the Outworlder Draft? Did that mean that the grandmotherly old woman, Marlie, or at least the church she was a member of were to blame for my situation? The thought loomed over my conscious thoughts and wanted to linger. I soon noticed, it was beginning to dominate my body as well. With breath rapidly increasing in cadence, fingers balling into fists and a feeling of heat coming through my stomach and moving to my extremities I couldn’t deny, I fought the urge to shake with the mixture of emotions, and the movement almost bowled me out of the tree and into falling to the ground.
“Wade Duncan Calhoun, you have to get over this and this shitty situation if you don’t want your anger to end up killing you!” I reprimanded myself with the words and used them to duel with the emotions for control. If fear was the mind killer, then anger was the mind assailant. I had to master this world and its rules if I was to find and save my family. If I did something stupid and died, I would be dooming them to this world.
I didn’t have time to waste on things like getting angry over this, I had read all of one entry so far. So I pushed it out of my mind by taking deep breaths and hammering against my feelings with my will. In a minute or two I had control of my emotional situation again.
I needed more information, and I had a well of it right in front of me. I needed to know everything I could from the system, because it would help me understand any traps that might be in front of me or at least I hoped it would.
It was time to dig through more of the data compendium.
I thought of the words “Monster Bible.” Instantly a prompt window appeared. With it, a tinny, metallic, almost voice came alongside. Was this nostalgia, or was I hallucinating from dehydration?
“Monster Bible! This system option provides you with knowledge of monsters which you have successfully analyzed and added to your monster bible! You have currently analyzed zero monster species out of ten monster species. You currently have a monster bible analysis rate of zero percent! That’s excellent! You should get a gold star, but work hard to get more information!”
With the knowledge that simply thinking the name of the data compendium entry would pull it up, I cycled through and viewed the maps before dipping my toe into the most important entry remaining.
“Lordship of Tidewarren.”
This entry didn’t come with an awesome and energizing narrating voice, just as the maps hadn’t.
“Lordship of Tidewarren! This is a governing title and a region. The Tidewarren Region is collectively known as the Lordship of Tidewarren. It is one of the one hundred and eight realms currently found within Hekatondrona, and is currently the seat of the Baron of Tidewarren, Lord Charles Darville. Lord Darville gained his title some fifteen years in the traditional way.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Traditional way? What did that mean? I tried to think up prompts, such as ‘Hekatondronan nobility’, ‘Traditional Path to Nobility’, and more but was given nothing. The Data Compendium apparently did not update just for clever thoughts.
So there was one more thing to try. I thought hard to myself, “Character.”
Instantly, it popped up with an information window and an information window above that. “Welcome to the character sheet interface.” The top information window flashed at the words. “You can point a finger up to make the cursor go up, point a finger down to make the cursor go down, right to go a page back, and left to go to the next page. Clap twice along with your thoughts or think the same word twice to make a confirmation of your selections. To make an experience point donation to a person or monster, pinch the air and focus on the number you wish to donate. Then, with the fingers still pinched, touch the person.
I blinked at this instant information dump and soon willed it shut. Underneath this window, I saw what seemed to be my character information window.
[[ Name: Wade Calhoun
Age: Fourteen Years (14)
Class: Non-Applicable (Class Unassigned)
Level: 001
Experience: 0000
Traits:
Inquisitive - You have a keen curiosity and the braveness to feed that curiosity with knowledge. You receive a permanent boost of ten percent to XP and one point to your Knack, Mind, and Charisma Stats.
Outworlder – You receive a permanent boost of three points to your mind and charisma stats. You receive a bonus of two points to your body, and knack stats.
Stats:
Default Unassigned Class Fourteen-Year-Old Stats
Body – 009
Mind – 009
Knack – 009
Charisma – 009
Actual Current Stats
Body – 010
Mind – 012
Knack – 010
Charisma – 012
Temporary Current Stats
Body – 012
Mind – 014
Knack – 012
Charisma – 014
]]
Then I went through the various thats, thinking hard on them each.
[[ “The Four Stat Ratings”-
Body - Determines physical strength, endurance, and physical health. May or may not be displayed at a glance by looking at a person’s form. This is passive physical strength, endurance, and health. Traits and skills may increase one’s capabilities. Depending on the technique used, influences techniques. Your earth, water, artifice, and primal magical capabilities are determined in part by your body stat rating.
Knack - Determines agility, dexterity, and speed of perception. May or may not be displayed at a glance by looking at a person’s form. Traits and skills may increase one’s capabilities. Depending on the technique used, influences techniques. Your wind, fae, nature, and fire magical capabilities are determined in part by your knack stat rating.
Mind - Your memory, perception, and uptake. This has to do with your internal analysis and your external passive intake of knowledge, not active analysis of it. Traits and skills may increase one’s capabilities. Depending on the technique used, influences techniques. Your wind, water, nature, and artifice magical capabilities are determined in part by your mind stat rating.
Will - Your charisma, your force of personality, and your sheer willpower and refusal to give up. When things get hard, you can rely on your will. Will influences health, taming chances, and an interaction with some others. Traits and skills may increase one’s capabilities. Depending on the technique, influences techniques. Your fae, primal, fire, and earth magical capabilities are determined in part by your will stat rating.
]]
It was so much new information. I began to take this new information and make the obvious next step. Which, to me, with my background as a tabletop gamer and video gamer, was quite simple. It was time to begin attempting to pull up more information about capabilities and the like. It was part of understanding the stats and how they worked, but soon found myself distracted.
There was a high-pitched whistle – something which sounded like the beginning of a bagpipe recital and I couldn’t focus on the data dive I was planning before. I was brought out of my mental fortress and was keenly aware of the scene of the great alien prairie below me. The dogs and what I had thought were dogs that had accompanied the number of herders out on the field below were now running in a pattern which generic cultural knowledge from being from the middle regions of the United States of America told me was a roundup. The herders were not active in this, oddly – and their accompanying dogs simply did the work of moving the cattle and sheep into groups and then holding them there – with some circling the herds to keep them in check and others facing outwards.
Each of the herdsmen did not even look at the herds, but their gaze was firmly upon the horizon as another series of notes was played off what I had to assume now was a bagpipe. The men and youths who were the masters of these herds subtly moved, holding the walking staffs or cudgels they carried with tightened grips and moving to their belts with a gunslinger’s stance.
Then throughout the grass and hills what I could only describe as a great menacing horde came rushing forward. A horde of cyan-blue and turquoise-colored giant hares with ears that were far too big, small horns, fangs, and paws that held cat-like claws.
The gunslinger’s stance wasn’t an accident, I quickly realized. It was not some sort of imagination on my part. That was clear because where they might have held a pistol if they were cowboys battling it out with opponents at high noon, they instead had carved wooden diamond polygonal shapes which I quickly recognized.
“Is that an oversized D8?” I muttered to myself as they threw them. It had to be, or something similar.
Out of each of the herder’s thrown dice-like relics, a blast of light appeared and it was followed by a creature released. The herder nearest the tree had launched what had to be a crab with horns upon the part of its carapace which would be the top of its head, and looped through the horns bungie-like cords which I recognized as something similar to a sling or more aptly, a slingshot.
The herder shouted an order to his monster.
“Craytipult, prepare a volley. I’ll keep the Jackanacks off of you.”
I was about to see my first monster battle, and not even my curmudgeon’s mood when it came to the situation could prevent my deepest feelings from creating excitement and cheer for a sight that I had dreamed about from my real childhood.
What I found is that perhaps I was going to have to rethink the safety and absolute success of my ideas about striking it out on my own. These great sea green hares rushed forward with ferocity and ear-piercing screams, some leaping at the herders and their monster allies, and some trying their hardest to get to the herds of livestock, but with most actually heading for what I confused for some simple seaweed like grass. They would stop at each bush-like growth and prepare to burrow at the roots of the plant until pulling out a deep purple, polka-dotted root vegetable that resembled a carrot in length and a radish in base shape. Each plant that was pulled this way caused the herders to sling stones at the beasts to deter them, and while some of the carrot-radishes were devoured in their entirety, the volleys caused many of the non-active combatant Jackanacks to flee in a rout to the edge of the grassland and the deep waters that flanked it before running across the water as if it was a paved stone.
More important to my situation, Craytipult and its teenage master, three Jackanacks charged, and the walking staff which the youth carried proved to be closer to a giant bubble wand than what I first assumed. Craytipult prepared a big slobbery bubble from its mouth and the tool of the herder caught and hardened the liquid orb before the teenager flung it at the nearest Jackanack, splashing it and sending it to skittering to the left. The one behind it was hit by a sauce-pan rock that had been grabbed by Craytipult’s claws and tossed towards the slingshot device then launched as if by a ballista. There were only Jackanacks active after that, and then things got too fast for me to notice. The Jackanacks went into a frenzy and the movement from the wild monsters and their opponents became quicker than my eyes could process. There was a thud against the tree I was in and I fell to the ground with something I swore for a moment was a beehive flying past me and landing atop me as I landed with a grunt on my back.
A Jackanack launched at me and almost landed one of its pro-athlete-sized rabbit feet right into my torso in the seconds after I hit the ground but it never happened – the object that had landed on my stomach instead shielded me and seemed to absorb the damage. Not that it saved me, because pain washed over me as my body processed the fall and I saw a cursor swipe by faster than I could view.
“You have lost twenty-six (26) HP out of twenty-six (26) HP. You have fallen unconscious.”
I suppose I should have been happy I didn’t have any money or items to lose half of. My sight and consciousness faded to black.