“Hi everyone and welcome to Panda Vison! The only talk show where your host is a both a Panda and a sage daemon.
“With me tonight is the hardheaded and overly jacked silver-ranked adventurer, Sally!” Panda said as he lounged back on his plush armchair.
The audience clapped vigorously as Panda gestured off to the side of the stage. Sally, a large catonid woman, walked on stage looking rather uncomfortable before taking a tenuous seat opposite Panda.
“So, Sally.” He continued before she had time to say anything. “Fancy helping me recap Kaleb’s journey for our lovely audience here?”
“Not really, and since when did you host a talk show… in fact, what is a talk show?” Sally replied in a confused and agitated manner. “Where the hell am I Furball?”
Sally pulled her oversized black sword from her inventory and glared menacingly at the live studio audience.
“Sorry folks, it looks like we’re having technical difficulties with our guest here.” Panda announced in a jerking tone as he dodged out of the way of a stray catonid fist. “In the meantime, please enjoy this short video recap.”
Two large red curtains closed, blocking a fleeing Panda from view. A projector shone onto the curtain from somewhere and the following clip played, narrated by a familiar and soothing voice.
Previously on The Celestial Map:
Kaleb woke up naked in a palm tree jungle. He wasn’t expecting this, having fallen asleep in the cab of his truck the night before.
A system message explained that he had been isekai’d to another world called Celestia and that he had a new tattoo on his back which was part of cosmic treasure map.
Kaleb adventured through the jungle killing stag monsters, cultists and getting a series of snarky and often passive aggressive system messages along the way.
After being captured by a group of cultists our hero managed to break free but in doing so, he accidentally killed an outworlder named Brad and adsorbed his map piece.
Soon after this he met a strange god named Chrysus who seemed to have a vested interest in getting Kaleb to work for him, but Kaleb is an atheist so he declined much to the god’s dismay.
Kaleb then summoned a demon, which actually turned out to be a daemon, named Panda and the two of them escaped the cultists and found their way to Havar.
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In Havar, Kaleb joined the Adventure Society, met people of difference races, finally got some clothes, and embarked on a series of three quests which he had to complete in order to take the exam to become a fully-fledged adventurer.
The first quest had him team up with a muscle-bound catonid named Sally. The trio ventured to a little-known island and murdered their way into the Goblin King Coronation ceremony.
The self-proclaimed charismatic Panda convinced the goblins that he and his team were foreign goblins who had travelled there to take part in the tournament. Somehow the ruse worked and Sally managed to convince the goblins to allow her to take part in a battle royale.
She nearly won this battle but was defeated until Kaleb ruined the tournament and breached the safe zone rules by killing the other competitor. As you can imagine, this mightily pissed off the enraged crowd who chased Kaleb through the mountain whilst he fled with an unconscious, and very heavy, catonid on his back.
Kaleb fought valiantly at the literal edge of a cliff until Director Lucas swooped in at the last second, saving the trio and taking them back to Havar.
In his next quest Kaleb wandered the local sewers, killing all the slime who lived there including taking on a slime queen and just about surviving. In the process he was stuck with a weird communist torch which made other economic groups dislike him and he once again lost all of his clothes.
His meditation techniques were coming on nicely by this point as well, a little too nicely if you ask the system. Through meditation, Kaleb managed to forcibly increase his stamina and was warned that if he tried this again he would die. He learnt a lesson that even the youngest Celestians know: never piss off the system.
He was also invited to take part in a tournament to decide who would be Chrysus’ next high priest, an offer he promptly declined.
Having raised enough money for his dream armour, by murdering slimes, Kaleb returned to an armourer who he had made a deal with and collected his prize.
Soon after he embarked on the last of his three quests which took him to another island where he met a dryad child in an abandoned village which seemed to have popped up out of nowhere. The dryad led him into a tower where a strange magic activated and he found himself in the middle of The Orcish Inquisition where he was forced to watch the young dryad and her mother be brutally murdered by a callous orc.
Seeing such a tragedy, and with his pregnant wife never far from his mind, Kaleb had a bit of a mental breakdown and unlocked a strange and powerful soul attack which he used to torture and tear apart the orcish aggressor.
In his mind, he couldn’t distinguish between the dryad and his own family who were likely still back on Earth.
Director Lucas and another God named Diako were watching this incident and it seemed like Diako was happy with the development. This odd god has been pulling some kind of strings behind the scenes, probably, it wasn’t always clear… but something was definitely going on there.
Upon returning to the Adventure Society, Kaleb was promptly told that his examination would start immediately and that is where we find ourselves at the beginning of this story. The beginning of the Adventure Society examination.
“There was also some stuff with a samurai in the desert and an assassin named Jack but that’s really all we’ve got time for folks.” Panda said sticking his head between a pair of closed red curtains. “I hope you enjoy the rest of the show!” He wailed before being promptly yanked back behind the curtains. Sally could be heard rampaging as Panda Vision faded out to the sound of vases being broken.