Ch. 2

Unknown Destination.

Amos woke with a start.

His heart thrummed against his chest like a wild animal in a snare. Forgotten muscle memories and instinct soon drove him to his feet in record time. It was then his mind shook itself out of its stupor, his consciousness needing a moment to settle back into the driver’s seat.

With that settled, he looked around… and around. All he could do was stare, mentally gawking at the primordial scene before him. What had been a move to understand where he was, turned into more than he’d bargained for.

There was a certain expectation for him to be somewhere… normal, not this.

“What the…” His neck swiveled from side to side as he sought to understand where in the world he was. Which world, from what he could tell. There were no memories alluding to how he’d had gotten here, what events took place to warrant this unknown new destination of his. What stood out the most to him were the skies. Once more, he found himself wondering on whether he was actually on Earth, still.

In fact, his gut reaction was to assume he’d died somehow, something he had long since accepted to be a real possibility with his dangerous hobbies.

Amos rubbed his eyes, then looked up once more in awe as the sight before him took his breath away. It was as if the aurora borealis of Earth fused with the swirls of Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting he’d seen online. The aurora was a mixture of blues, greens, and purples; the streams above moved about like individual rivers stretching across the vast horizon, each color flowing forward with unique currents. He felt like a small fish looking up from the riverbed, gazing at the churning waves above and into a world unknown.

It took Ames a whole minute to mentally process that there were actual trees needling through his peripheries. As he looked down, his eyes noticed how he was surrounded by beautiful, ancient trees that swayed overhead like towers of bark and leaves. The massive flora reminded him of the alpine trees he was familiar with, just somehow mutated into becoming much larger than normal.

Continuing to crane his neck back down, he finally became level with the ground once more. It was then, he realized, how alone he was. Amos had not seen an ounce of civilization—marks that announced the presence of another human. With his mind as vulnerable and confused as it was, he couldn’t help but remember something his mother had told him once upon a time. It was one of the few memories he had left of her.

‘Son. You won’t understand this until you’re older, but you have to watch out for beautiful things, you hear?’ she said with a gentle smile, while caressing her lithe hands through his short brown hair. ‘God has made them that way for a reason.’

Amos mentally smacked himself and pushed the uncomfortable memory out of his mind, and back to the rotten chest it had escaped from. Somewhere back in the recesses of his consciousness, a place where the trauma would not impede him.

ROAR.

The man looked around in a panic, his knees crouching low to the ground until his right hand touched the coarse dirt beneath. As the cool wind blew through his hair, it also brought with it distant echoes of wild animals to his ears. His silver earrings radiated under the constant light show above whenever he twisted his head, looking like his own personal gallery of stars.

‘Of course, you moron. This is not a national park on Earth, Ames. I think we’ve established that by now!’ He continued to berate himself under his breath, his brows furrowing as he scanned through the nearby brush at the same time. Animals were near enough for him to hear. Unable to see trouble in his vicinity after some time had passed, he warily stood back up, though intentionally keeping his knees more bent than before.

He needed to find civilization, and fast.

‘I think those survival shows mentioned something about finding water first. Regardless, I don’t think I’ll find some town or camping grounds soon so I be-‘

Before he could so much as finish the thought, Amos felt a sudden burn on the back of his neck. It was as if someone had branded him like cattle, the immense pain running up and down his spine as he groaned.

Amos spun in place, his hands forming into clenched fists near his face. Several moments passed like that, but he didn’t notice anyone there. All he could do was grimace under the continuous pain. The burn itself continued its warpath around his throat. Now, his teeth were clenched too as he bore the pain in full, his fingers unable to feel the source no matter how many times he ran them across his flesh.

Thankfully, he understood it was nearing its end as finally, the two paths around his neck soon met back up in the middle near his Adam’s apple, before disappearing entirely.

[Tongues of Myriad] has been etched.

‘Okay. I know the reaction is late, but what in the world is actually happening to me? And how come there’s this random text in my head?’

Amos was very much, not having a good time. Ever since he woke up five minutes ago, his mind and heart had been forced onto a roller coaster, one they had never signed up for. There was also this strange case of deja vu, but whenever he chased the tail of that thought, the little critter managed to sneak away each time.

For the umpteenth time, Amos tsk to himself under his breath.

Now that the whole affair seemed to have been over, he raised his palm and made another attempt to feel out for potential wounds, scars, or other defects that could explain the pain. It was concerning, to say the least.

‘What was that?’

Almost as if he had pressed a button, certain concepts, images, and context related to the burn appeared in his mind out of nowhere. The origin of the burn flared for several moments on the back of his neck, but Amos could not concern himself with that as his knees buckled out from beneath him, his brain throbbing all over. This kind of pain was worse than what the burn had ever been. There was a ton of new information in his head, both understandable and foreign in more ways than his mind could ever comprehend. The many text, senses, images, and more esoteric sensations swirled around in his brain until finally, it all compiled into a format he was much more familiar with.

[Tongues of Myriad]

Designation: Unique

Bestowed upon those returning to Heaven’s Spire from a Lost Shard. [Tongues of Myriad] allows the carrier of the skill to comprehend and speak all languages encountered.

“An RPG screen, seriously? I must’ve gone insane.” Unfortunately, the ‘skill,’ as he now learned, provided a fair amount of context to accompany this random burst of information that now found rest in his scrambled brain matter. Amos decided then and there to sit down in the dirt and ponder for a moment, his head too much of a mess to focus until he sorted through all the new knowledge. His current state of mind was too much, almost as if he was experiencing a particularly bad hangover after a wild night.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

There were a few main points of interest, but there was no time, and no safety in particular, to sit there and theorize past the initial feelings and impressions he got from them.

If Amos had to sum it all up, however, he would liken the skill to an executable program from what he could tell. He was sure it was not entirely accurate, and understood there were likely missing details, but it was what his mind had naturally drifted toward. The actual burn he experienced could be compared to ‘downloading’ the program. When he desired to understand what the skill, or [Tongues of Myriad] to be more exact, did, it was as if he had double clicked on a desktop icon and opened it, allowing the code to run all at once, bombarding his mind with too much than what he could reasonably shift through at once.

If he had to make another comparison, though, it would be as if someone had shoved the foreign senses of a blind mole into his mind, all while expecting him to read several hundred sentences of a different language all at once. It was ludicrous.

Satisfied now, Amos stood back to his feet for the second time, though not without noticing a strange detail with the world around him. It was… brighter and more washed out, somehow. Ames looked up and almost choked on his saliva as countless shooting stars streaked across the atmosphere. The sheer presence of them all turned the world around him from one of dusk to that of dawn in mere moments.

Watching them, it didn’t take long for him to notice that those celestial hunks of rock were falling down to the ground, and several near him.

“Why can’t I catch a damned break?”

The man ran away from what he assumed was the nearest crash zone, his frantic cerulean eyes falling on a lone hill in the far distance. He couldn’t tell how massive the mound was, but what he did know was that the landmark was in the complete opposite direction. With that, he ran even faster, the thought of sustainability not even occurring in his mind as he went all out.

Amos shoved himself through thorny brush with force as primeval leaves half his size threatened to blind his path. Shoes pounded against earth as his feet struggled to not stumble out from beneath himself. It was even worse when he had to vault over dead wood and benign boulders, his body having to meet the untamed plant life with no protection, as he could do nothing but keep moving forward. The darkness in each nook and cranny underneath the canopies began to retreat more and more, back to the densest of shadows as the stark fire and rock in the skies loomed ever closer.

His bloodied skin soon felt no more resistance as he made haste through the last barrier holding him back. In front of him, there was a decent size clearing with a taller-than-hell mound of grass in the middle to keep the gluttonous flora away. Soon, even the most steadfast of shadows dissipated into nothingness as a golden asteroid seemed intent on crashing on top of him, no matter how far he ran.

Adrenaline coursed through his vein in spades as his heart rattled against his bones in panic. Amos heaved until something in him screamed he had no time left, forcing him to lunge to the ground.

There, he turtled his arms around his head like he had done during tornado drills as a kid. Behind his closed eyelids, he could visually see the darkness turn into stark whiteness, consuming all in its way before slowly vanishing over the next five seconds.

Amos gave it a full minute.

When nothing of note happened, he took a chance and opened his right eye, peeking out from between the fold of his inner elbow to see the world outside. As he looked, however, his pupil shrunk upon noticing something new before him. There before him was a gem, one that hovered there with gentle cadence. It was a round, with some angles here and there pointing outward. It was made of some kind of white crystal and, in fact, reminded him of a Dungeons and Dragons dice as it spun there.

The die exuded some kind of golden luster as it rotated there, almost as waiting for a prompt.

Not sure what he was doing, exactly, Amos held out his right hand. His arm reached out for the otherworldly item, his palm now flat and facing upward. The gemstone flew toward his hand, almost as if attracted there like a bee to flowers, before settling there in full. As he went to close his fist around the stone, however, the crystal soon melted into some sort of thick, viscous liquid. It reminded him of mercury somewhat as it danced between his fingers. Then it darted toward his wrist like a metallic snake, his mind under some kind of trance as he watched the whole affair unfold before him.

It sunk beneath his skin, forming some manner of symbol he’d never seen before around his wrist. It looked like a tattoo of a bracelet, though not one solid band as various symbols and swirls weaved into one another. The gold of the mark blended in his with tanned skin, making it more difficult to see, but he still saw the ornate details he’d typically associate with more gaudy pieces of jewelry. Amos could even feel a familiar burn.

When that spark of inspiration struck, his eyes lit up in realization. Remembering what he had done before, he ran his index finger over the runic designs and desired to understand.

This time, the information package was much more intense than the last. If he continued to compare the process to that of a computer program, then instead of simply opening his notes application and compiling the knowledge there into an understandable format, this time, the burst of information opened several additional programs at once. The clutter was painful as hell, his mind not powerful enough to compute the load in its entirety. His mouth couldn’t help but let loose a groan.

Amos forced his mind to maintain that comparison and with it, attempted to trigger each package as soon as he finished ‘downloading’ them, for lack of a better term. He wanted to remove as much junk as possible before the rest could finish consolidating in his mind.

[Mandate] has been issued.

Recipient: Amos Magellan.

Mission:

1. (0/2) Survive The Convergence for 30 days.

2. (0/2) Achieve Attunement.

Reward: Karma - 100

Reward: Access to Heaven’s Spire.

- Optional Missions are available upon encountering.

Before Ames could ruminate on the so-called mandate, he felt more ‘notifications’ wanting to be released. It was like a constant pressure in his mind, somehow having distinct locations despite the pain all coming from one place. In his mind’s eye, he toggled the next one, unable to foresee what magical shenanigans would come next.

- You have been issued [Initiation: Store Token] (1)

- You have been issued [Initiation: Class Token] (1)

- You have been issued Karma: 25

— General: Seed of Potential consumable has been issued to all humans.

There was one more notification rearing to be released, more eager than the last few combined. It was almost as if there was some blinking exclamation point in his mind, demanding him to open the notification with growing pressure.

Desperate to rid himself of the pain once and for all, Amos imagined himself pressing the notification button with swift movement. Sitting there, he was under the expectation he would experience a third burst of information, but instead, the mark around his wrist burned for a second time. With a quick glance, he noted how the skin around the tattoo began to redden somewhat, the golden bracelet even beginning to spin under his skin. It was unnatural, to the point of his mind dissociating the fact, but that was until his survival instinct kicked in. Amos threw his arm away from his body as soon as the tattoo spun even faster than before, creating small sparks all around his wrist and hand like a sparkler.

Soon, its speed outpaced what his naked eye could track, the details becoming much too blurred until the entire mark looked like a solid band of gold.

With one more unwarranted flash, Amos slammed his eyes shut as he held his arm as far away from the rest of his core as possible, finding himself having to balance on his other arm so as to not fall headfirst into the dirt. The flash was quick this time, allowing him to open his eyes as soon as it finished. Before him, however, was something he didn’t expect to see.

Before him was some kind of alien existence. It reminded him almost of a firefly, but rather than having a dim light, the being before him exuded such a presence that it looked nothing more than a hovering orb of golden luminescence. It circled around him like a small breeze, sentient from what he could decipher, as it would come close in curiosity, before then finding something else that allured its mind in the grass.

‘It’s… kind of cute?’

Unsure of what to think of the newcomer, he opened his palm like he’d done with the initial hovering gem. Without needing further encouragement, the sentient light flew around from behind his back and settled on his hand. Amos could’ve sworn the thing was looking at him, almost like some kind of pup.

“Um. Hi?”

Amos had to admit, he felt a little awkward, but what else could he do? It was like turning to some random corner of your bedroom and talking out loud to some potential would-be ghost, though in his case, the ghost was very much visible. The whole day so far had been nothing but an unsavory acid trip he didn’t think he would wake from soon. Rather than denying the obvious fact in front of him, he might as well embrace the craziness and adapt. He’d seen some rather unfortunate souls slip so far down the pit of denial that they could never recover from the fall. It was better to go with the flow in his more mundane experience.

Who knew how it applied to aliens?

The orb swam around in a small circle, the wallet-sized sphere flashing in… excitement? Amos wasn’t sure, but that was the general gist he got. He knew it was crazy, but flows! It was then the mark around his wrist lit up as well, the tattoo regaining some of its former luster after the spontaneous fireworks.

“Greetings, Master Magellan.”