Flower climbed carefully onto Vine’s back piggyback style. She couldn’t help but worry because the two of them were literally the same size, and while she wasn’t fat, she certainly wasn’t athletic. She could feel her own little shoulders under her arms, her own sides between her knees, her own springy hair under her chin. It felt a bit gritty, sniffing it smelled a bit bad too, how long had it been since she’d bathed? Days, and with this humidity, she couldn’t help but blush in embarrassment. It was probably their last problem at the moment. She was jerked out of her thoughts suddenly as Vine stood up, swaying side to side a bit before steadying herself. Then she jumped up and down twice.

“Ow, my chin!” Flower exclaimed.

“Sorry, sorry, but no talking or touching okay?”

“Okay!” Flower replied cheerily, and with that she was off! It felt almost like riding a bike, Vine’s little body lithely coiling and springing as she bounded across the landscape on the balls of her feet. After watching for a while Flower was sure of it, she had no idea how Vine knew where to step. It seemed like she would suddenly turn at odd times or try not to step on something, but from her vantage point flower had no idea what. Soon it began to turn from the excitement of a bike ride to the bored wishing it was over of some other kind of ride as time stretched on and her legs grew stiff in Vine’s arms.

Flower was trying not to think when suddenly the serpentine voice spoke again causing her to jump in fright! “You have one sacrifice credit; please choose from the following options. Strengthen soul connection zero of two thousand two hundred and fifty, Learn beginner ritual zero of five hundred, lesser conceal ritual evidence zero of seven hundred and fifty.” Then it was silent again.

Vine had stopped and looked up sharply at her, a look of worry or concern mixed with curiosity. It was weird to be seeing her own face looking back up at her, but Flower was getting used to it. She shook her head with a smile. Jumping in fright had brought her legs from numbness to a fire of tingling, but there was nothing they could do about it while trying to avoid being eaten by a giant monster tree. No, if it was more than one tree would it be better to call it a giant monster forest? Flower tried to follow that train of thought to distract her, but that seemed to be it, what more was there to classifying giant monsters? It’s not like the trees even looked the same.

She was amazed by Vine’s endless energy and strength; she wondered if this was what childish exuberance was meant to be like. When Vine was a lizard person she looked maybe sixteen, but now she just looked eight like Flower. She wondered how old Vein really was, she usually seemed so young and friendly, but sometimes when she talked about things it felt like talking to an old person who regretted more than Flower had even seen.

With nothing else to do Flower decided to look at that system notification rune again. Silently she thought the word status, hoping she could access it without speaking. “Congratulations, you have undergone a class change! Your class is now High Priest of Xalkkudal! The system is excited to see more friendly gods considering joining the world to help it grow, please send our warmest welcomes! Administrator notes: ‘Please do not invite your deity anywhere near this world’”

The system was the weird contract magic that allowed her to speak Vine’s language, but now it was calling her a priest? She’d seen television shows where priests shot guns, banished demons, and healed people with light from their hands, would it be like that? Maybe she should have brought a computer or phone, maybe she could have gotten signal out here. Infrastructure was getting better and better every day after all and magic was good enough to send a signal to her mind right?

That notification had come when she stabbed the rabbit right? So if that made her a priest did that mean that old man was a priest of this Xalkkudal? Maybe he was tired of it and wanted to retire? Did that mean that knife was secretly super important or something? No, she was letting her fantasies get away from her. The dagger had taken her rabbit but it said she’d gotten one credit, credit like credit card? Wasn’t that what mommy used to buy what others called “magical garbage” online? Than she really needed an internet connection, or wait, it had options too right? But it came as words, did that mean she had to speak words to pick one? She silently resolved to try next time it came up as long as they were out of the forest monster’s belly by then.

Vine looked like she was breathing a little hard, but Flower knew better than to ask if she was okay. Flower was a good girl after all. With nothing else to do she began reading through the long status screen.

Level: 1 Class: High Priest of Xalkkudal Name: Flower

Strength: 2

Dexterity: 3

Toughness: 2

Vitality: 8

Speed: 4

Intelligence: 8

Wisdom: 7

Charisma: 12

Aura: 200

Luck passive: 10

Luck active: 0

Skills Free points: 0

Life skills

Physical

Language

Mental

Magical

Combat

Crafting

Social

Survival

Esoteric

Class

Special

Misc

Flower slowly went through the menu options, finding them more and more frustrating as she went. The first frustration of course was the runes that danced and swam through her vision like fish in a pool. The second frustrating was that everything was a collapsible sub-menu. When she focused on strength she got a breakdown by limb, when she checked one she got a breakdown by muscle on that limb, not that the numbers assigned had much meaning to her, for all she knew it could be arbitrary, though she suspected weighted averages of components made the category score?

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

Skills were even worse. For the fun of it she tried going deeper. Life skills> cooking> pan frying> Sauté> Vegetable based> Cabbage based> the next twenty subcategories were so detail oriented she swore were trying to have her pen in the recipe she wanted to learn manually. She silently decided not to do that again.

With a cursory glance she saw life skills had things like cooking, cleaning, and organizing, things for day to day tasks. Physical had things like arm wrestling, grip strength, running, voice projection, she even found one called hugging strength. Language still only held the same three entries, though judging by the number on the end, it may add every dialect and regional dialect that she encounters. Mental was arithmetic, memory, and structured thinking themed, including an option to better remember where you left your keys. Magical was empty, combat had some options like dagger throw dagger stab. Crafting looked more extensive, as if it meant for her to be able to recreate everything she’s carrying. Social ranged from hygiene and manners to sophism. Survival had navigation, shelter construction, fishing, and many other seemingly useful skills that may well expand as deep as her experiment with cooking. Esoteric sounded like her parents hobby list. Class was an odd one. There was only one skill for now, intimidation, which didn’t seem too useful for the moment, but oddly enough it didn’t seem to have an option to expand or add points, it was just a word. Special held things like identify, vault, and minimap, though she wasn’t sure why she’d want a map to be smaller when there was a cartography option. Misc meanwhile held everything else, from antisocial games to traits that weren’t physical mental or magical in nature. The designations seemed arbitrary and haphazard with no simplicity in meaning or function. On the one hand this implied a system was good for more than just translation, on the other hand she didn’t know how to get more free skill points nor what else to use it for.

She was about to look at what some of those traits might be when suddenly the world spun and she dropped down onto her butt. Quickly she grabbed Vine’s shoulders, but all that did was pull them both down together into the soft moss and ferns below. “We’re out.” Vine said between labored panting as she worked to catch her breath. The sky wasn’t darkening yet, but the sun had notably moved and was already edging back down through the trees. All the more reason to dislike this system thing, it took way too long to navigate, and even then she still hadn’t navigated a vague outline of it. She began to move her legs, suffering the pains they gave her in protest as she tried to get them moving again.

“Sorry Vine, are you okay?” Flower asked, a bit guiltily. She’d never be the elder sister at this rate, she needed to find a way to help out too, but she wasn’t sure what she could do.

Vine lay on her back, but raised a hand to wave off Flower’s concern. After more ragged breaths she added “Just give me a bit to rest and I’ll be fine.” As if to prove her point she pulled herself into a sitting position and cast a slow glance at their surroundings, but to Flower it just looked like more forest.

Flower silently thanked this part of the forest for the moss and ferns that made it comfier, but then wondered if that was a good thing given how much easier it would make it for any shorter animal to sneak up on them.

While Vine breathed Flower hesitated. There was so much she wanted to ask, so much she wanted to know, who was vine really? What was a system, how could she find this so called power of hers? Her thoughts were interrupted. “You have one sacrifice credit; please choose from the following options. Strengthen soul connection zero of two thousand two hundred and fifty, Learn beginner ritual zero of five hundred, lesser conceal ritual evidence zero of seven hundred and fifty.”

This time she listened carefully. Soul bond sounded, well it sounded dangerous, who was she binding her soul to? What would it do? Learn ritual? Conceal ritual? Ominous, but less ominous, was the latter going to conceal the former option, preventing her from learning? Was this a choice of blind compliance and knowing involvement? She was tired of not knowing things, but she knew it wasn’t the time or place to investigate. With resignation she said “Learn beginner ritual.” Vine sent her a questioning look but Flower shook her head “When we’re safe.” She felt a sort of petty satisfaction that now they both had to wait, but then immediately felt bad about it. Vine was her friend, if anything she should feel worse after causing her trouble, but at the same time she felt like it would not be a mystery quickly solved.

She saw vine getting up and quickly followed. “Pick a direction.”

Flower’s brow scrunched up in confusion. How was she supposed to know where to go? Uncertainly she pointed in a direction at random, and was surprised when Vine just nodded and began walking. She quickly hastened to catch up. It was a bit nostalgic, familiar, only; she looked down at her hand, at Vine’s hand, at the forest around them. Something had changed. They were no longer walking through the darkness afraid of getting lost, now they were walking through a forest, afraid of being attacked. When you could lose track of someone you’re holding after just turning your head, it was no wonder that it was so easy to run away from monsters there, but here Vine could hunt rabbits and still find her. Flower shivered faintly at the thought.

Thinking of her hands she noticed they hadn’t gotten stiff in the darkness, but here her fingers were getting tired holding this stupid turtle. With a preemptive sigh of futility she began searching for pockets, only to be shocked when she actually found them. She had pockets! It probably shouldn’t have been such a revelation, but she hadn’t thought to check, she was too accustomed to modern dressing standards where women and girls almost never had pockets. In hindsight she doubted that summer dress had pockets either, maybe it was because this outfit seemed designed for utility. Excitedly she began fumbling through them. She quickly put the turtle in the most secure looking one, a closing leather case with three straps and a heavy buckle, but when she opened it; it surprisingly wasn’t empty!

Inside was some kind of cloth. Pulling out a length of it she asked curiously “bandages?” There seemed to be some thick wooden discs beneath, but she didn’t think she wanted to pull everything out right now. Instead she shoved the turtle in with the bandages and sealed the closing leather case before poking around to see what else she could find. She decided she wanted to start with the heaviest thing. After some prodding she found it, a rounded woolen sack which was half tucked behind the base of her coat, blending into the outfit. Untying the knotted drawstring she found it to be filled with tiny rounded metal and stone discs. Were these… coins? She pulled a few out and noticed they had symbols and pictures on them. Were they magic? Were they useful? Someone had done allot of work gathering them all here and they did look rather pretty. Carefully she retied the bag, almost tripping over a root as she did so. She knew she was slowing Vine down even more by checking her pockets, but this was important right? There could be something useful right?

The next heaviest was a triangular, almost pyramidal leather case. Unlike the last one, this one was tied to a cord that went higher up on her shirt. This one however didn’t have an obvious clasp or band. Instead there was a gap near the corner that tied to her cloths. She tried pulling hard on it, but instead of opening the container she felt herself slipping on the moss. She fell heavily onto her bum, but when she did she noticed a faint sloshing sound from the container she was still holding up. Liquid? Water, oil? So it could be a cork, or, she tried twisting and found the cap came off easily. She got ready to pour some on her finger to look at it, than noticed she was wearing gloves. Instead she poured a bit on the ground before smiling. “Water! Vine, we have water! Are you thirsty?”

Vine returned a knowing smile that looked a little too mature on Flower’s face. “It’s alright, I just drank, why don’t you have some? Try to save some for later though. It’s not hard to find water in a forest like this, but it’s good to have some if there’s not some nearby.”

Taking a big drink Flower felt the cool refreshing drink moisten her parched throat. She hadn’t really noticed she was thirsty until she started drinking, but at the same time it didn’t take much for her to feel a little bloated. Carefully re-screwing the cap and making sure it wasn’t going to spill, Flower began rummaging through her pockets again. She found three knives, a flat black stone, a few large rolls of twine, soap, two candles, five tightly wrapped bells, and a small mirror a piece of chalk. She was already getting to the end when she found something she hadn’t expected. “Food!”

Vine stopped and turned to watch her as Flower pulled a few handfuls of dried meats and dried fruits from her pockets, but reached out a hand to stop her when she looked ready to take a bite. “The merchant promised cloths and money, but not edible food. Perhaps she acted in good faith, or perhaps it was in the cloths and she knew its value would make her more profits if left there. That is to say, it may not be edible.

“Oh, OK.” Flower replied glumly as she put the food away.