Area Unknown, Novus Ordo, Date Unknown. Local Marker Unknown: Time Unknown
I sit up to get a good look of my surroundings, to my left an endless expanse of sand, to my right an endless expanse of trees. Let’s just say, I would not need a hydroreper* to find which way there was water. As I stood to get up I felt pain all along my skin.
-----Warning-----
You are highly intolerant to sunlight, so much so it does percentage damage, you will receive 10% damage a second till you find cover.
“Shit!” I bolted toward the trees as fast as I could. It turned out to be faster than I thought, in four seconds I covered one hundred yards. The odd part was I felt I was going slow. Nanites made me fast, but more like twice as fast as normal, that run should have taken me ten seconds and I should be dead. I saw the red bar in my upper right periphery, it was down at fifty percent, I probably lost that last ten from running into a tree.
-----Warning-----
Congratulations you have found cover, but light still gets through, you will lose five health a second.
After a watching for a moment, I saw I regained one health a second, this information was provided when I examined my health bar more closely, apparently the system didn't count the loss of health combative because I did not get any real wounds just some sunburn. My normal regeneration was 1 point for every five seconds
I look up to curse the sun but notice how broad the leaves on the trees are, enormous, like grown umbrellas. Just the smaller ones were large enough to be a blanket, that gave me an idea, I’d use the leaves as cover.
I turned my attention from the leaves to the relatively tiny trunk, they were eight inches wide, but hundreds of feet tall. The wood had to be very strong, as there was no ordinary way I can think of that the tree could remain structurally sound. Starting to climb the tree my foot slipped and I kissed the slick bark, losing five health. Frustrated that I was about to die after just starting I futilely try to shake the tree. This triggered a memory for me and I hopelessly mutter a line from an ancient earth tale my mom read to me. “Shake and quiver little tree, throw your leaves down to me.”
*Tring*
-----Codex found (1/???)-----
You have found the Cinderella Codex. When you only have underwear, ask the trees for leaves to share!
Looking down I realized I was still only wearing the bright white underwear. Would that have triggered if I was wearing something else. It did not matter I had discovered the codex, whatever that was, and three leaves fell, two of them wrapped around me. One became wild Crusoe looking pants, and the other a cloak and hood, of a similar style.
-----Steelwood Leaf Pants-----
These pants was a blessing of the Erzebet Forest
Class- Legendary(Codex item)
Level- Scaling
As this Item levels its durability rises, and it gains abilities, in exchange for higher defense.
+1 defense +2 Agility
-Animals and nature will now be neutral, instead of fearful, towards you. Predators will not attack you without provocation.
-when worn with cloak-
+2hp/s +5% camouflage
-----Steelwood Leaf Cloak-----
This cloak was a blessing from the Erzebet Forest
Class-Legendary(Codexx Item)
Level- Scaling
+2 defence +1 Agility
As this Item levels its durability rises, and it gains abilities, in exchange for higher defense.
This cloak can hide your identity, unless the cloak is recognized as yours.
-When worn with pants-
+1% camouflage
I was utterly baffled, two minutes in and I stumbled on two legendary items. Looking at my health bar, I notice it only goes down 2 points every second. Tch. I move to find better cover when my foot tramples on the third leaf. Seeing the solution immediately, I use the third leaf as a blanket.
-----Light covering-----
Your shelter is paper thin and will partially protect you.
Sun damage -3
Now my health was going up one point a second. Then, without intending to, I fell asleep.
Darkspace
He sat gazing into at large Television, he liked the ancient devices. They were much better than mirrors, and holograms took up too much space. Besides a two dimensional format was much better for his observations. He was currently sitting in a Lay-Z-Boy chair, eating popcorn. He loved the human inventions. None of the other races invented a chair like this. He guessed it was what happens when a race evolves as fast as humans. The other beings developed technology at a much more relaxed pace, giving time for restructuring.
Like during the human industrial revolution, technology was invented so fast, work hours were cut in half, because of factories and automobiles. This gave them more time for recreation. Then when the cyber revolution came about everybody started working at home. Other races were and are much more utilitarian. Every little piece of tech was developed at a slow steady pace.
On his screen Jev watched one of his Recipients. It was odd, other races would first look for food, or decent shelter in a new world, but this recipient decided to sleep under a leaf. It seems the boy decided to take my advice. He thought, sure food and shelter come next, but the universe has a way of providing when other beings don't meddle in its affairs. He recalled a human quote, “Behold the fowl of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they?”
The idea of a heavenly Father was debateable, Jev thought, but he knew there was a higher power that created the universe, all universes. The Ancients proved the existence of greater beings, or being, but whether it was a God or simple person behind a pen, was unclear.
Jev observed the boy for hours, or maybe minutes, time was relative in blackspace. A sensation began brewing inside of him. The boy had not done much, but it was more than any other who tried before him. Jev had tried for countless millennia to accomplish his task, but each time ended in failure. This boy, however gave him an emotion he had not had in a long time, so long in fact, he had forgotten this emotion existed.
Area Unknown, Novus Ordo, Date Unknown. Local Marker Unknown: Time Unknown
I woke up to night. I slept through the whole day? How did I even fall asleep? Well, now that the sun is gone I can finally start to move around. Standing the leaf fell off my back. I looked around and found I could see perfectly, in fact better than I could in the day.
The sound came next, and it was unbearable. An unrelenting cacophony of forest din, elevated to a volume that seemed to tear at my eardrums. I took deep breaths and closed my eyes. It seemed like hours, though it was more like a minute, that I spent in unending white noise.
I remembered there was an ancient play that was performed on a two dimensional platform, where a blue and red clad farm boy from another planet had the same problem. To help him his dad told him to pick out his whisper in a choir of loud farm equipment.
Without a hazardous father to whisper to me I took to patting my knee. A steady rhythm over and over again. After five minutes of this I found my pat. I closed my eyes and focused on it, and the forest chorus quieted. I thought I saw a faint green light where my rapping was. I opened my eyes and saw nothing different. Closing my eyes I found it again. I turned my attention to it and then as a breeze came in, a cascade of green rippled across my mind's eye.
I spent an hour marveling at my new perspective. Everything shone with light in my mind. Every insect was a lightning bug. A small bright light floating in this dark world. The wind died down and everything darkened. I panicked and let out a gasp, then things in front of me lit up, but the light was contained, it shone, but it did not spread, the spaces between objects ware obsidian. The glow became faint and vanished.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
I realized I was viewing the world with sound, I opened my eyes and the onyx fled, and was replaced with a dark night. It was becoming more and more clear that whatever I was, was made for the dark. This came as good and bad news for me. Since I prefered it that way, the bad news first. Like in the real world, many people are going to be active during the day, and therefore, for me to excel in this world, I had to be able to operate during the day.
The sunlight seemed to be a toxin to me, and like most toxins I'm sure you can gain resistance to it by minor exposure over time. This is a game after all. I decided to spend all of tomorrow sleeping under the leaf.
The good news is, this development could potentially lower the possibilities of what race I turned out to be. I would have to wait for a town, then ask around as to what types of races operate at night.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that when I took a deep breath, I could smell better than normal, but it was more than that. I could tell that there were seven animals in my vicinity. I could practically pinpoint them by smell alone. Obviously I had heightened senses.
-----Congratulations-----
You have discovered you have heightened senses, they will now be set to slightly above average, you will have to practise to improve them.
--bonus--
Since you discovered Auditory Visualization through echolocation, it shall be added to your skills once your Hearing reaches Excellent.
-----Hearing-----
A trait or ability that gives a quantifiable account of your ability to hear. This is a skill only available to those who focus on improving their ears, or given as a racial trait.
Current Level-Natural 1%
-----Sight-----
A trait or ability that gives a quantifiable account of your ability to see. This is a skill only available to those who focus on improving their eyes, or given as a racial trait.
Current Level-Natural 1%
-----Smell-----
A trait or ability that gives a quantifiable account of your ability to smell. This is a skill only available to those who focus on improving their nose, or given as a racial trait.
Current Level-Natural 1%
-----Taste-----
You have not eaten anything yet, you must establish a diet before taste can be discerned.
-----Touch-----
A trait or ability that gives a quantifiable account of your ability to feel. This is a skill only available to those who focus on improving their sensitivity, or given as a racial trait.
Current Level-Natural 1%
Well that voids. It makes sense though, pun intended, it would be unfair if I started with all of those abilities that high. Though I believe they are traits in my case since I did not try to obtain them I just had them. So all I had to do was practice these traits to master them. I guess I should get started.
It wasn't easy, I began to strain my eyes and guess what each object I saw was, then I would listen. The night foul, the insects, the wind caressing the leaves, it all made sound and I tried to identify each one. When my ears grew tired, I tried to smell, I started logging smells into my brain. Grass, dirt, moss, steelwood, some strange flower, three different kinds of mushrooms. It wasn’t long before I went nose blind and I shut out all my senses. The only one I used was touch, I focused on the wind, the air temperature, even the smallest irregularities in airflow, I knew that sound, movement, and even breathing could change the air around me.
It took the entire night, but I began to find different little hints, to bring a picture of the world around me. The dark night brightened a little, the sounds sharpened, the smells lasted longer, and I could feel the “holes” in the air more crisply. My ability with all my senses had ranked up to Improved.
A slight tingling came on the left side of my body, a soft glow pierced the corner of my vision. The sun was rising. Realization dawned on me, I had spent an entire day in the game. Since I have to be asleep anyway, I guess now is a good time to log out for now.
All Places, All Times
She felt his call, from him who She had not heard from since the Time of the ancients. He was one who one might say She loved. She felt Love but she was not Love, Love is her younger sister. She was the eldest of her siblings, older than Time Himself, in fact Time was created in order to properly evaluate her. Of all her siblings She has had the most struggles. Many times some of her siblings beat her, tortured her, and tried to remove her existence, But she always stayed strong.
She was Hope. An emotion, born into reality from the hearts that feel them. And she loved one of those hearts. This was a first for any emotion. Though they were realized from the minds of sentients, they only had a companionship with them, even Love did not wholly love a single sentient. Hope is the first to love, but she does not know her Love for who She truly is. Fortunately Her sister did, and Love immediately brought it to the attention their Parents. Their Mother, Wisdom, was pleased, for she knew that Love was a powerful force, like gravity, constantly pulling together. But their Father, Truth, who knows all truth, knew the True meaning of this event.
The time had come, and this event has irrevocably altered the future, His only worry was, is it too soon? His wife was right, Love, their second daughter, was like Gravity. Gravity however, He was unmerciful and relentless, Gravity did not pick and chose, he did not play favorites. But his beautiful daughter was gentle, kind, and patient. She also had a task, a task that would give Gravity so much entertainment. His only Hope was in his daughter.
Wisdom and truth created a Glaskairut body for their daughter in the womb of an isolated woman. It was not artificial though, they did not create out of nothing, they just gave life to the dead seed of her husband. And guided the genes for a female body.
Truth knew that this would not be their daughters true form, but he could do nothing. He had to trust his wife, for she was Sapient. The embodiment of True understanding. He had to put his Faith in Her Recipient.
60 mi outside Greenton, Auctus, February 14, 458 UE. The Treehouse: 3200 hrs. A.M.S.T.
The divePod hissed open, I sit up and stretch. I was pleased to find no aches or pains ailed me. A quick look at the clock and it confirmed 3200 hours, about an hour an ten minutes longer than a full day in the pod. I’m a little surprised to see Dreq floating in the air, a shimmering blue sphere around him. He must be applying the metron. I decided to go and take a shower, I felt a little stuffy in the nerveSuit. Twenty minutes later I walked back in the main room, again dressed in the nerve suit, but feeling a whole lot better because of the shower. Dreq was finished, or at least taking a break, since he was no longer floating. Instead he was laying on one of the many couches placed in “strategic” locations around the hangar, and he was glaring at me.
“What?” I ask innocently.
“I believe when Mr. Soto gave you the pod, he intended for you to actually use it.”
“Dreq, I’ve been in there the whole day.” I was a bit confused.
“Look at the clock bub, it’s barely been over an hour.”
“But I lived a whole day in there!” I was extremely surprised to say the least.
“That’s quite impressive, but it doesn’t matter. I got a communique from Mr. Soto. I am supposed to keep you in there for the next two days, as a ‘graduation project’ that will count for 50% of my grade. So in you go, I expect to receive half a year's worth of memories when you get out.”
“Dreq don’t be ridiculous, Lex can’t do that.”
“He can, and he will. I looked it up in the student charter.”
I let out a sigh, when Dreq got like this there was no way to argue with him. It was best to just do what he wanted. To be fair, Dreq never lies, and he practically does everything I ask him to. I would be a terrible Faed if I didn’t do the same for him. It wasn’t even a real question in my mind, if he wanted me to do it, then I would do it. It’s what being Faed, is really all about.
Unquestioning Loyalty
Unwavering Strength
Unending Guidance
That was the creed all Faed lived by, or were supposed to live by. I walked over to the divePod, and again lay down. The dive sequence initiated and I was pulled back into the game.
Darkspace
As Jev sat staring at the television, he felt the air around him constrict, though odd it was not new in Darkspace. Some areas were getting larger while others shrunk. But still, his instincts told him otherwise, another reason he was an outcast. Glaskairut don’t have ‘instincts’, or ‘gut feelings’. But his never failed him, and he had learned to trust them, something momentous just happened, he just didn’t know what.
Bailiel walked through Jev’s bathroom door. “I hope you cleaned your hands brother.” Jev cheerfully said, but he was actually surprised at this visit. Bail was the one of the only ones who came to see him. Actually his brother was one of three. The two Oldest came to see him weekly, or hourly, time was relative.
“Put a knife through feces, brother.” Bailiel sneered. He loved his brother, but he was constantly angered by his jovial nature, not to mention his failures.
“Well now I really hope you washed your hands after doing that!” He knew what his brother meant, that old earth idiom, “cut the shit”
Ignoring his brothers humor, Bailial delivered his news. “The Oldest are with child.”
“What!” Jev exclaimed throwing his popcorn everywhere. With a thought he made all the kernels disappear, such were the benefits of Darkspace. “I felt something, but this, this is fantastic.”
Belial repressed a sneer, though everyone else thought his ‘feelings’ were insignificant, he knew otherwise. It was a powerful ability and Bail was jealous. “They requested only you be present for the birth.” Bail also knew what an honor that was and was again jealous.
“Thank you for this news brother!” Jev gave him a hug, something the humans did, and rushed out his front door and into Arden’s front door. It was only a second, or seven months, time is relative. Arden’s wife Celethia was in labor. “How is this possible.” Jev inquired.
“You know Time passes how we will it in Darkspace.” Arden said calmly.
“Not that and you know it, I thought your were sterile.”
“It seems something intervened to give me a little hope. That’s a good name for the girl, Hope”
“Don't you think, for the Oldest, that is a little on the nose, you should be more enigmatic.”
“Okay then what would you suggest oh wise one.”
“So you know it is a girl?”
Arden looked at him incredulously. “What do you think we have been doing all this time? Just sitting here waiting on you!?”
“Okay, sheesh, don't get grumpy. Since hope is what she brings you, wait why hope?”
Arden scratched his head, “I, am not entirely sure, maybe it is because it might mean, someone is watching out for me, and is trying to make things better for an old being like myself.”
Satisfied, Jev continued, “How about Anya, it's the latter half of how a small group of humans, a long time ago, said hope.”
“I like it,” a female voice spoke, “now if you two don't stop jabbering like old beings, I am going to RIP YOUR TONGUES OUT!”
Both males, decided it would be best not to point out that they were old, or the difficulties in that feat considering they had no tongue but merely used their throat to talk. It was a smart choice, considering Celethia probably knew that, and, with certainty, meant their throat in the first place.