I had calmed, and we sat back down. Grandma says, “Before we address those things, let us begin with topics more in line with what a less unique awakened might want to know. I would like to consider the matter of your ‘absences’ in the background for a while.”
Nice wording; I didn’t hear the word “freak” hidden in there.
“Forrest, would you like to know a bit about my first life?”
“Very much, yes. And if you want, later I can tell you about mine.”
“I lived 25 years as a cat beastwoman.”
Interjecting mentally, “Cat girl!” The word is “cat girl”.
“My planet, called Silverstone, was about the size of Heere, but its peoples tended to be much more violent and aggressive. We had many races. Most were beastmen, and there were no humans. At least, not any more. Senseless, short wars were a common occurrence. I had been orphaned, and eventually began working at the orphanage where I spent most of my childhood.”
“I continued working there my entire life. I eventually became a teacher. Orphanages received little money from the government, surviving mostly via charity. So I worked there for room, board, and a small stipend. Most evenings I also worked at a tavern, with most of my salary applied to help the kids. It was a meager existence, but with my primary class being teacher and secondary being barmaid, it all fit satisfactorily together.”
“One evening at the tavern, I overheard a conversation among some local, low grade officials. They were a goatman and two hyenamen. I learned money was being siphoned away from orphanages, hospitals, and public schools to assholes like them. I was too angry to hold myself back. They were discussing this almost openly, in low voices but still loud enough to be heard above the din. No one else seemed to notice. I do not know if anyone did, but that did not matter. The fact was, I noticed it, a 25-year old girl who held two jobs, working two thirds of almost every day to teach and feed and clothe the kids, and put up with drunks into the night.”
“I blew up and called them every name in the book. They laughed and called me a ‘feisty bitch’. I managed to get control of my temper, and finish my shift. I was not sure if I could ever force myself to return to that damn place. It turned out, that was not a concern. The bastards were waiting for me outside, dragged me into an alley, and slit my throat. Later, in the void, I realized surprise they had not raped me. My assumption is that they were all too drunk to get it up.”
“Grandma, you never told me all that!”
“There are some things you did not need to know. I think Forrest will benefit, knowing that he is not the only one to have complications in his life. And, that it can get a lot better.”
“In the void, my interface began to actually speak to me. It wasn’t just the occasional window informing me that I got a new skill or a clanging sound to wake me up in the morning. It was being helpful, telling me what was going on, and that I would have options in my new life. It first let me know that I would be awakened in my next life. Then it asked, ‘Do you want to arrive in the next world normally as an infant or already have matured to a point.’”
“Wait, you can wake me up?”
In my head I hear the clanging sound of an old mechanical alarm clock.
“Why don’t you ever talk to me?”
Professional detachment. Plus it is the example which System has set.
“What else should I know?”
Many things. But start here. What do you think is more useful, a smartphone or me?
“So, camera? Google maps? Flashlight? Internet Porn?”
Yes. Yes. No. Grow up.
“Interface, thank you for being with me. I could not go through this without you.
I know. You are welcome.
I notice grandma stopped speaking and is waiting. She probably saw I was distracted.
“I’m sorry. I did not know about the alarm clock capability and was asking my interface about it. There is a whole lot which should be obvious, but is not.”
“You are not doing too badly, for someone about 5 hours old.” She smiles.
“So, being still angry at being murdered, I told it I would like to be incarnated as an already-born. I asked if I could start out as a young adult, maybe 18. It said something like, ‘Age accepted’ and asked what name I would like to go by.”
“I made up ‘Rhonda Silverstone’ on the spot. I’m not sure where the ‘Rhonda’ came from, but obviously ‘Silverstone’ had been the name of my planet. It is not that I wanted to honor that pile of crap, but I wanted to remember where I had come from, and honor me without shame.”
“It asked what race I would like to be. Most of the wolfmen I had met had a significant pack instinct that extended past their own and on to whoever their friends happened to be. I wanted that. So I told it, ‘something like a wolfman’. Which you can see, it interpreted literally and made me a half-human hybrid. Then it asked if I wanted to remain female, and I said yes.”
I looked over at Arrjee, and see that he is staring at his grandmother, transfixed. I suspect he has never heard her speak in such detail about her time in the void.
“Finally it asked me what two classes I wanted. I did not want a life of action and violence. I was very angry, yes, but I would deal with it through consciously choosing the opposite path. I wanted something useful and interesting, though, that could help people. And something new. After thinking for about a minute, I said that I would like to be an alchemist and a perfumer. It seemed like a good combination. I could not only make potions and salves, but other items, useful outside of battle and adventuring.”
“It showed me my new sets of attribute values and skills. After I was done reviewing them, it stated we would be arriving at Heere shortly. (That seemed like an absurd thing to say, and I had to think for a moment to give the words context.) It was not long before I could see the void sort of dissolving, revealing a well kept road that led to this village. Looking down, I realized I was unclothed, but there was a simple smock just a couple feet away. I put it on, beginning my new life’s journey. It has proved just as fulfilling as I had hoped.”
It was clear that her tale had ended. “Thank you for sharing that, grandma. I too hope to achieve a fulfilling life here, but maybe with more action. Being a martial artist, I think I have to. I’m very curious about the dungeons, but I do not plan to enter any until well prepared and as a member of a party.”
Arrjee did not say anything at first. He just stood up, walked over to his grandmother, stooped slightly down, and gave her a hug. I heard him whisper, “Thank you grandma. Without your choices, there never would have been any of us.”
I think I heard her make a slight hum, “Hmmm”. Then, “Sit down boy. It is Forrest’s turn to tell us about the first him.” A kind of lost expression passed over his face, then he retook his seat.
“Well, young Forrest, what do you want us to know about you?”
“My world’s people consisted entirely of humans. The planet is called Earth. It may not have been as violent as yours, but when we had wars, they were large and sometimes killed millions. We didn’t have any obvious magic, or levels, or interfaces, or personal classes in the way you guys know. Some of us may have had and used ki, but in my society it would have been a very uncommon thing. There were rumors that certain societies which practiced martial arts could train and use ki, but no one I knew knew for sure. It sounded like it might be really cool to train in those arts, hence my primary class.”
“I died in an accident at age 57. I was a fireman at the time, and died due to injuries I received in a fire and subsequent explosion.”
Arrjee asks me, “What is a fireman?”
“That is a job where a town or city pays a group of people to be ready all of the time to put out fires. Smaller towns and villages may not have had standing firehouses full of those ready to rush and extinguish fires. Such communities often had smaller groups of volunteers who could be called together to put out a fire.”
“Yes”, he said, “that is how we do it. We have very few fires.”
“The advantage of dedicated firemen standing ready at a firehouse is that we had a lot of equipment and people kept ready to respond right away. We also had a lot of training in firefighting techniques and various other useful techniques such as first aid.”
She asks, “What is first aid?”
“It is a set of medical skills that may be performed immediately on a scene. They allow us to keep an injured person as stable as possible until professional medical personnel are available. Remember, we had no magic for healing and the like. Instead, we trained doctors and nurses with as much dedicated knowledge to diagnose, treat disease, perform surgery, and provide various medicines. I imagine that last part is very much like alchemy here. We called it ‘pharmacology’, though.”
Grandma says, “I know what pharmacology is. Why use such big words?”
I laughed and said, “Well, if you go to medical school for maybe eight years and don’t come out without knowing the big words, people will think you did not learn anything.”
She smiles back, “Yes, I can see that. But eight years of just medical training? That is a long time before they can start being useful.”
I respond with my own question, “How long does it take a cleric to get five or six healing spells to B rank, or even C? Besides, I think the last two or so are spent in a hospital for on-the-job education.”
“You make a good point. I think the difference is that clerics will be useful from level 1. Yes, they will be continuing their training and advancement, but they begin doing useful work or light adventuring right away. It sounded like your doctors spend years before they can really do anything.”
I reply, “That is an accurate point as well. But, it is what we have.”
She gets me back on topic, “What can you do with first aid?”
“I am not sure at this moment. My interface said the skills from my previous life were nascent, but I could relearn them easily. They will then be considered ‘Learned Skills’. (That is what happened earlier when I learned ‘Running’.) It includes such abilities as setting broken bones, and knowing how to stop external bleeding. It could also allow us to help someone start breathing air again if they had drowned, but are not yet fully dead.”
“Some of the abilities are very easy to learn, like one we called ‘the Heimlich Maneuver’. If a human is choking due to accidentally swallowing food down their windpipe, it is a quick way to dislodge the food and help them breathe again. I assume it would work on Covargh as well; we seem similar enough. Do we ever eat inattentively and swallow down the wrong pipe? Stupid question, I’m sure, but Forrest has never eaten.”
“In a bit, pup. Yes, it can happen, but it is not at all common. This first aid sounds quite useful. Can you teach such things to others?”
“Well, I do not know why not, once I formally relearn them myself. I had been quite proficient, via both occasional use and continued education.”
She rewinds my story a bit. “You said you were a ‘fireman at the time’. Had you also done other things?
“Yes, I had worked for years in two types of construction. The first was for the military, helping build barracks, waterways, temporary bridges, that kind of thing. While I was considered a sailor, I never ended up taking part in actual battle.”
“After leaving the military, I worked for several years for contractors, doing various jobs relating to the construction of houses and buildings. We did not have cottages like I see here. Our buildings were typically larger, made of completely different types of materials, and usually needed specialized tools. Instead of magic, we had more advanced science and technology, which led to an almost entirely different set of techniques. Anyway, construction and firefighting were my two main jobs, with a lot of skill in first aid.”
Arrjee looks a little downcast. “So you were faking how impressed you were by our cottages.”
“No, Arrjee, minor gods, no!”
I need to learn who the minor gods are. And the major ones, if there are any.
“Given the choice between living in one of the cottages here, and a house in my world, I’ll take your cottages hands down. I saw enough to realize the quality of the materials and techniques you use are equal to or better than anything on Earth. Every cottage in the village screams at me, ‘Live here!’ You may not be able to construct buildings 30 stories high, but who needs that, anyway?”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“There may be one feature I will miss, though. Do you guys have indoor plumbing?”
I did not witness how Rina filled that pitcher, and I have not needed to use a restroom. Well, had not needed, now that the thought hit me.
Grandma asks, “What is that?”
So, probably not.
“It is when slightly pressurized water is brought into a cottage via long pipes. Within the cottage, the various pipes are referred to in general as ‘plumbing’. The water is used for drinking and cooking, bathing, and flushing waste into a sewer system. If you need to urinate or defecate, you do it into a special tank, and then the plumbing allows it all to be flushed away.”
Grandma asks, “The plumbing water does all those things? It sounds disgusting.”
“I explained it badly. There are different pipes that go to different rooms and different tanks. So the same water is not used for both bathing and drinking, for example.”
She thinks for a minute. “Okay, I can imagine how that might work.”
“I may not be skilled in building your types of cottages, and I was never a plumber. But I think I might have enough knowledge to enable me to work with various crafts people to achieve indoor plumbing. One day. If your society has not started building the infrastructure, it will take a while to achieve what I was used to.”
“What infrastructure?” Arrjee asks.
“There are two main essentials for everything to work. The first is to have a steady supply of sufficient water brought into town. That could be either from streams or rivers, or it could be a large supply of well water. The second is to build a very large water tower, elevating the bottom to maybe 60 feet into the air. You also need to have a continuous pumping capability to get the water up into the tower. On Heere I hope a lot of that can be done with magic. Then physics takes over. The weight of the water in the tower is felt all through the town, all the time. This is the source of pressure which makes everything flow.”
“Oh, the other end would be a sewer system, a system of larger pipes to take the waste water down and away.”
I see grandma looking at me doubtfully, “So that is the ‘infrastructure’. What is the rest?”
“Two piping networks. One would go from the water tower to all the cottages and other buildings that are configured to use indoor flowing water. The other is the sewer system. I suspect such a system already partially exists, getting rid of water runoff from when it rains.”
She says, “Well, I expect your “one day” will be quite a while from now. But the good news is that you can likely be around long enough to see it happen. For now, though, we have large water barrels kept in people’s kitchens to supply water for drinking, cooking, and basic washing. Villages have bath houses for communal bathing, and you will find out-houses scattered about for relieving yourself. No pissing against outside walls! Males can be so inconsiderate.”
Arrjee asks me, Speaking of pissing, are you ready to do so? ''I am.”
“Yes, I can go.”
“Grandma, we’ll be back in just a few minutes, okay?”
“Yes, I need to be thinking how to proceed with Forrest’s situation anyway. See you soon.”
On the way there to the nearest outhouse, we just talked about general things. Conspicuously avoided was the topic of my missing days. So instead our subjects included village history, the weather, and some of the things we saw on the way. After taking care of our business, we start heading back to the alchemy shop. My mind is full of unspoken thoughts.
Arrjee gets sort of serious, and says, “I have heard something about the plumbing. There are very rich people that have that sort of thing, but not in villages like ours. It will be really great if some day Cottages can get something like that.”
I smile and say, “I’ll add it to my list.”
8) Bring plumbing to Cottages
My smile gets a little bigger. Okay, it is official now. Interface says so.
When we get back to the den, grandma points for me to sit at a little desk where there is a pen, paper, and an inkwell. Arrjee takes his previous seat.
She says to me, “We are going to need some specific information about you. I have a good feel for your previous life, but what of Forrest now? Please query your interface and write down your classes, attributes and skills. It is unusual to share all the details of our various characteristics, and even more so to ask someone for them so directly. But in your situation, I feel that the more we know, the better a solution we can achieve.”
“I do not mind, grandma.” Since the memory of my first session with Interface is eidetic, I don’t need to actually query, but I go through the motions. The pen is not a plume, but a sort of fountain pen. The craftsmen here really are amazing. I use it to write down what I think is most important:
Name: Forrest Rhodes
Age: 16
Primary Class: martial artist
Secondary Class: ki healer
Level: 1
Base Attributes (including level 1 bonuses):
Agility: 14
Charisma: 6.5
Dexterity: 14
Endurance: 13
Intelligence: 13
Luck: 6.5
Perception: 13
Strength: 13
Vitality: 13
Wisdom: 14
Granted Skills
HP Regen, D
SP Regen, D
Ki Regen, D
Ki Punch, E
Dodge, E
Heal Other, E
Learned Skills
Meditation, F
Running, F
It was an extremely precise pen which felt good to write with. It wrote with a fine point, and I think it must have had an enchantment to prevent blotting. There is no way I would be that skilled with an Earth fountain pen.
While I was writing, Arrjee got up to watch, along with grandma. They were pretty much silent. My low charisma caused no immediate response, but when she saw that my luck was 6.5 also, she interrupted, puzzled. “What are the point fives of your charisma and luck?”
I re-explained what I had earlier glossed over with Arrjee. “When my interface asked me the same questions it asked you, it turned out that the specifics that I wanted were, well, unusual. Especially since I had also mentioned that I would like relatively high wisdom, agility, dexterity, along with decent intelligence and strength. A lot of that was based on fictional depictions of what martial artists could do. And since what I thought I knew about those martial arts had a lot to do with ki, I wanted a healing power that involved ki as well.”
Arrjee said, “Most of those are just too good. And then you have the outstandingly sucky ones. Your rank in Running is only F? No wonder you barely made it here.”
Grouchily I replied, “I said I just learned it on our way. What did you expect?”
I had to remind myself to remember my temperament issue.
I took in a deep breath, then said, “I’m sorry.”
He said, “I was just surprised to see it, that's all. By age 13, most kids have reached D or even C in Running. I’m 14 and C.”
I smile, “Of course you are. How were you at 6 hours?”
Grandma just sort of growled “mmm-huh.” Then she asked, “What does all that have with the half points in the two exceedingly low attributes?”
“After it took some time thinking about it, it told me there was a way to have everything I asked for, but it would be at the cost of low charisma and luck. Not just to start, either. My Ki Healer class bonus grants me 1 point for each. But only half of each point counts. So it won’t be until Level 2 that they will reach 7. Well, maybe Arrjee can tell me how he has managed to train his charisma to 12, and I’ll definitely start doing that.”
She looks at him, “Your charisma is 12?! I could tell it was high, but considering you are not even level 1, that is surprising as Forrest’s highest attributes.”
He explains, “I have been working very hard for years to build it.”
She says, “Obviously. I am really impressed that you were able to raise a strident skill to that degree.”
“You, Forrest, are almost as wonderfully weird as my grandson.”
Arrjee sticks his tongue out at me.
I favor his gesture with a short laugh. Surprised note to self: wolfmen stick out their tongues in the same manner as humans.
“Anyway, we probably should head over to his house. They will probably have dinner ready by now.”
I have been wondering to myself if I should reveal the suspicion that has been building for over an hour. If I am going to say it, this is the time. … Sure, do it. They already know I am very strange. So what if I’m wrong?
“There may be one more topic to bring up at this time. It relates to something Arrjee told me earlier. He told me I need not be ashamed or fearful of what other people might think of me as an awakened.”
There is a nervousness in his eyes, and maybe a slight head shake indicating he wants me to stop. I don’t know Covarghian body language, and even if I did, I really believe he meant those words. “Arrjee, do I have anything to be ashamed or fearful about?”
He closes his eyes for a few seconds, and breathes deeply. “No, you do not. And, grandma, neither do I. I am a born awakened.”
Bingo! That would have been extremely awkward if I was wrong, or worse if I was right but he refused to admit it. It could have seriously damaged our friendship.
“How in the names of five minor gods did you figure that out, Forrest? For 12 years I have known I had been someone else. No one around here ever noticed.”
I respond, “I am your opposite. For your whole life you have had people around you, who loved you. They taught you Covargh knowledge and ways just as anyone else. They naturally expected you to be you, not someone else too. You are like the best Covargh ever. Yes, I barely know anyone, but you really are. On an Earth scale, you are top level. That much I do know.”
“I am brand new, and do not know a damn thing. I have felt isolated and scared, having to piece together every little hint to try to form a new piece of knowledge. My constant thought was, ‘No one can know how ignorant I am.’ For example, your uncle at the gate. He referred to you as “young Arrjee” and me as “young Forrest”. I blended in that phrasing with two more scraps of knowledge. I know certain societies on Earth use honorifics when addressing someone, to indicate the relationship between the speaker and the one spoken to. Yet neither my basic Covargh knowledge nor language covered the use of honorifics. My intuited conclusion was that he was indeed using honorifics, but such usage has become old-fashioned and seldom used. Am I right? I have no idea. That is just one example of how I am trying to learn this world. My life these past hours has been at the intersection of ignorance and intuition.”
“Yes, young Forrest, you intuited correctly. But what clues had my grandson given you about his status? I failed to notice any hint of it, and we have spent hours together talking about the very topic of awakeneds.”
“You were probably too close to see. Everything you experienced about him was the grandson you have always known. Plus you probably do not need to feel bad about missing it. He had a whole former lifetime of knowledge and experience informing his actions and allowing him to keep from revealing what he wanted hidden. Combined with his upbringing as a Covargh, you had nothing more to see or know than ‘Arrjee’.”
She says quietly, as if speaking to herself, “There may be many more born awakeneds than we thought.”
I continue, “For me, it has been a stream of little things tingling at my intuition. One of the biggest ‘little things’ occurred when he exhorted me that I had nothing to be ashamed of or fear. That there was nothing wrong with being an awakened. I knew he really meant it. Maybe a little too much, like he was talking to himself as much as me. You even commented that he stated it almost better than you could. That was a proud grandmother speaking, not someone like me, desperately trying to piece together the constant puzzle of a completely fresh life.”
“The second relates to when I healed Rina. She needed more HP regenerated than Arjee had, but it was easier. Healing her was only the second time I had used the power, and my immediate thought had been that Arrjee’s healing was harder because I had never done it before. In fact, I know that to be at least partially true. For Arrjee, I literally did not know what I was supposed to do. Well, I knew it required contact near the injured area, and then to use the power to heal him. But how, exactly? After lightly grabbing his arm, I had to think a few seconds, then guess. I decided to imagine pushing some kind of energy into my hand, and from there, into his arm. Then think about the concept of healing. Fortunately it ended up working, and I felt a warmth around my hand. “
He interrupted, “I felt the warmth too. And it tickled and itched, but not for very long.”
“I think it took about two seconds, almost three for Rina. From my power’s description, that may have been about 8 HP for you, and 10 for her.”
“For Rina’s healing, I was able to simply do it, no longer worried about my ignorance. But in the back of my mind, there was a feeling that the difference in healing ease was more than I had first thought. It is like, well, imagine pushing the ki into her leg as if it were straw being pushed into water. Healing Arrjee was more like pushing straw into honey. It did not fight me, and it was not difficult. There was just, more to him somehow. About 30 minutes ago, I reconsidered the difference, and intuited that there could be more to Arrjee somehow, than Rina.”
“A third event occurred on our way back from the outhouse. Arrjee told me that he had heard about plumbing, that it was something only a few far-away rich people have. However you, Grandma, have much more world experience, yet had clearly never heard of plumbing, and the concept even struck you as repulsive. Why did the 14-year old know, but not the exceptionally intelligent one of 67 years?”
Arjee breaks in again, “Minor gods, I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. It was just that grandma made the idea of indoor plumbing sound like a bad thing. I wanted you to know that not all Covargh’s would feel that way. I have not really heard of any place that has it.”
“See, grandma, he is empathetic to a fault. How could one of his apparent few years be more perfect than, well, me, at my 57 years and a few hours?”
I display an intentionally grandiose smile. He sticks out his tongue again. I respond, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, boy.”
A quick, wide-eyed look of surprise passes across his face. Then a smile. Then, “Grandma! I think the alien is becoming a Covargh!”
“You best keep an eye on that one, grandson. You don’t want him to backslide.”
“Forrest Rhodes, former alien”
I could live with that.
A small lump in my throat would seem to agree.
I could live with that a lot.
She regains a serious tone. “We really do need to be heading over to dinner. We’ll all talk later about your situation. Then we can come back here and learn a bit about the mysterious someone who is part of Arrjee. He can choose the time to tell the rest of his family about being an awakened.”
“Grandma, I had a plan for that. I was going to tell you the day I reached Level 1. Then I would slowly tell everyone else in the following weeks. I’m not ashamed of it, of me. I guess I was afraid of being looked at differently, that you-all would not see ‘Arrjee’ any more. Now I’ll tell them during these next few days while Forrest is away. We need to handle his situation first.”
“I understand, and that will be our plan for the rest of the day. Forrest, before he tells us anything directly, I am curious. Can you intuit anything about who he had been?”
“Well, considering I wasn’t even sure he had been someone else, all I can do is make an educated guess. He has a drive to succeed, and it seems to me he is doing outstandingly well. In addition to my direct observations, your pride in him is obvious, and his father completely trusts his judgment. Perhaps in his previous life, he had not sought more than mediocrity, and achieved it in full measure. Or maybe he had been held down, with no opportunity for improvement. Given a second chance, he has chosen the opposite course, to strive for excellence at almost everything, and maybe become a light for others.”
He sighs and says, “You are not entirely wrong. But let's head out now, before you have further opportunity to expose my soul. It is entirely too weird to be complimented and disparaged at the same moment.”
----------------------------------------
Arrjee and I headed directly over to his house. Grandma took the opportunity to make a pit stop on the way. Before she arrived, I noticed that there was a new guest, the gate guard Sir Rallee. He is also Arrjee’s uncle Ralf, and as it turns out, Rina’s father and Barrie’s brother. He took the opportunity to thank me for healing her ankle. About that time, Grandma arrived.
Arrjee’s mom let us know dinner was delayed because they had been missing certain ingredients for the stew. Carrie and Rina had gone shopping to get them, and they had gotten back some time before Arrjee and I.
Grandma suggested, “Why don’t you two go up to Arrjee’s room and have a catharsis? His parents and I have some matters we can discuss in the kitchen, and later we can all speak together.”
His dad added, “Dinner will be ready in about a half hour.”
We went upstairs to his room.
I certainly need catharsis, and I know what else she implies as well. Most everyone else probably does too. Yet I don’t feel ashamed, embarrassed, or even awkward. I am Covargh now. We do not live and feel as Earth humans do. Nor should we.
…
Coarse fur is coarser than I thought.
Promises kept, check.