Kya was familiar with a few games. She had never had some crazy high end gaming PC or had the money to afford the newest next gen consoles or whatever, but she'd still grown up with some fun handheld games and had even forced her semi-adequate college laptop to run an old MMO she'd heard about.
This to say, when the annoyingly excited announcer finished narrating the message that sat hovering in front of her eyes, she had a basic understanding of what it implied. However, that implication carried with it way too many add-ons. So many, in fact, that she had to take a minute to comprehend them all.
The timer kept ticking down and down and down as Kya started to pace back and forth on the threshold of the ancient temple courtyard.
"Okay" she said out loud, trying to organize her thoughts. "Possibility number one: this is a dream..." she trailed off weakly, her former security blanket of a mantra crumbling to dust. "Yeah, probably not." she muttered sullenly.
"Okay, then number two: I'm in a coma and this is the ravings of my failing mind." she mused "Hopefully not, as the prompt said, dying would suck. Also, I have no way to verify that, so we'll assume... probably not." Regressing a little further into the courtyard as she continued her contemplations, Kya sat on a stone bench next to the decayed fountain with startlingly clear water still residing within. It reflected the brightening sky and two small points of light from the two suns. One bright and yellow, the other small and blue.
"Which brings me to possibility three." She said "I'm actually sitting on this bench in my sweatpants."
This was... insane. Utterly and unquestionably. But she didn't believe she had gone insane. She couldn't believe that. If she acted foolishly on the assumption of this being fake, the consequences could be dire. So... she would have to act under the assumption this was real. Her actions had consequences and should be taken seriously.
The message with the quest info was still displayed in front of Kya as she had walked and now sat. It wasn't quite opaque, like a weird lens over her vision. Kya had just thought about how she could make it go away when, instantly, the screen popped out of existence as quickly as it had arrived. Thinking about it again, it popped back up, thank god without the accompanying narration.
"Okay, so I have a quest UI... do I have anything else from a game?" she muttered, "Map. World Map. Index. Glossary. Help. Uhhh... Atlas?" But all of it to no avail.
"Well, that's disappointing" she thought "A map would have been pretty useful for getting through an unknown forest. Do I have a character screen? Do I have stats??"
Another round of 'guess the synonym' ensued as Kya tried to make any other screen or message pop up, with rousing success in accomplishing not a damn thing.
Sighing, she stood from her bench and walked back inside the stone temple. The suns had now more or less risen, and a pleasant warmth was starting to dispel the night's chill. Ultimately, Kya knew that no matter what was happening, dream, drug, psychosis, whatever, she would need to get to that settlement in the distance. If only just to contact other people and if only just to get some more information on what the hell was happening. She therefore compartmentalized her confusion, panic, uncertainty, all of that into a box in her mind and promptly put it to the side. Taking on a more pragmatic air, she looked at the tools she currently possessed, and what would help her make at least a dozen mile hike through the woods.
Currently 'equipped' she had on her sweatpants, t-shirt and hoodie, brown fuzzy slippers, and single hair tie on her wrist. Not the first things she would have chosen for... well anything outside her own home, and especially not a maddeningly magical trip through the woods.
However, more importantly in her mind than her wardrobe was the magic walking stick. Taking it back out of the magic bag, and again marveling at the casual use of what was clearly and inexplicably magic, she held the staff in her hand.
"Just in case... Identify?" and with an ecstatic whoop, was met with a small text box that popped up in front of the stick. It was about the size of an index card, and though it didn't give much detail, it was something else she could do!
- - - - -
- Item: Unknown
- Rarity: Unknown
- Description: Unknown
- Enchantments: Basic Attraction, Basic Repulsion, Spatial Affinity
- Requirements: N/A
- - - - -
While she was slightly annoyed at the lack of information from the three 'unknown' lines, Kya was excited to see the other two. Firstly, and most simply, there weren't some arbitrary restrictions to her using the staff. That was fantastic as she had only known about the staff's existence for maybe an hour and would have been rather upset to learn she couldn't even use it.
Secondly, and more importantly, she now had an idea what the staff actually did. Earlier when she had casually waved it towards the sky, it had affected everything around her. She imagined herself as a level one character in a game, trying to use an endgame spell. Obviously not going to go well.
Torn between experimenting with her new staff, and her newfound identity skill, Kya went with the safer option and started trying to identify everything she could.
Running back into the chur- actually, wait. Backing out again, she looked at the structure as a whole and said confidently, "Identify!" before immediately wondering if she had to say it out loud at all.
- - - - -
- Building: Temple of Space - Small
- Status: Unclaimed
- Description: The remains of a temple dedicated to the god of space. It has fallen into disrepair after years of neglect.
- - - - -
Again, chafing at the sparsity of the descriptions, she walked inside as she thought about what that told her. The temple was the small variant??? This thing was several stories tall, had beautiful stained-glass windows, and could have probably housed a thousand people at any one time... and this was small? What the hell were the bigger temples like???
Next, it was unclaimed. That made sense to Kya, as not a lot of gods or priests or whatever would let their temples fall into ruins if it was directly tied to their name after all.
"Can I claim the temple?" she wondered out loud, before her third message window popped up:
- - - - -
- Area {Temple of Space - Small} is unclaimed. You are unable to claim the area at this time.
- - - - -
Well, that was pretty definitive. Although it did make her wonder under what conditions she could claim the temple. Dismissing the window with a thought, she kept walking towards the stone dais and the small black box.
She placed the magic staff and leather bag on either side of the box, before starting the process again. This time with only a thought, she got the messages she hoped for:
- - - - -
- Item: Spatial Bag
- Rarity: 1-Star - Common
- Description: A bag once used widely throughout the world, it utilizes a spatial enchantment to create a storage space on the inside.
- Enchantments: Basic Spatial Expansion
- Requirements: N/A
- - - - -
So pretty much as Kya had assumed, it was her pseudo inventory. "Nice" she thought with a nod of the head. She took off her hoodie and tried placing it inside the pouch. It seemed to shrink the item being stored, so that despite the pouch only opening up to about 4 inches across, it cartoonishly sucked in the larger hoodie.
That left only the black box remaining. With one last mental command, the message popped up once again.
- - - - -
- Item: Unknown
- Rarity: Legendary
- Description: An ornate box made of the highest rarity materials, resulting in a nigh unbreakable and undetectable container. It is impervious to almost all forms of magic, as well as detection and tracking, and cannot be opened by just anyone.
- Enchantments: Unknown
- Requirements: Unknown
- - - - -
Whistling in appreciation, Kya dismissed the notification as a single thought ran through her mind. "There is no way I'm leaving this thing behind."
She quickly discovered... the box was unmovable. It was either immensely heavy, or simply affixed to the stone dais. After several minutes of trying to brute force it, she had an idea.
Taking her magic gravity staff, for which she needed to come up with an actual name as her skill had annoyingly failed to provide one, she was about to try using it on the box when she stopped and thought "practice on a rock or something before using it on the insane and rare box."
Going over to one of the holes in the wall, she found a small stone about the size of an apple. Hefting, she noted it was considerably denser than it should have been. hefting it over to the center of the hall with both hands, she dropped it, and took a few paces back.
Before, she had accidentally used the staff on everything in her vicinity. This, she reasoned, was why it had put so much strain on her and why it had caused such a reaction.
With trepidation, she focused all of her attention on the single stone, and feeling slightly silly, made a jab with the staff.
Instantly, Kya felt a small pulling sensation in her stomach, like she was flexing her abs, and the stone wobbled towards her through the air.
"Yeaheah!!!" Exclaimed Kya thrusting the staff into the air. Instant regret flashed through her mind as the stone that had been meandering towards her now flew like an arrow. A dense, heavy arrow. A dense heavy arrow, that would really hurt.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
"Oh fu-" was all she had time to say before ducking down to the ground, dropping the staff.
The moment the staff left her grip, the feeling in her stomach abated and the stone dropped like... well a stone.
Thudding to the ground mere inches from her head, all Kya could do was stare. Then she started laughing, uncontrollably.
"What the hell am I doing" she said, sitting up and whipping a tear from her eye.
She took another look at the stone and got back to her feet. "Okay" she said "so I can pull. What about push?"
Backing up several feet, she again focused on the stone with the exclusion of all else. She then repeated the gesture with the staff and got the same result as before. It wobbled towards her in a direct path. She noted several things from this. It went towards her, specifically the center of her chest, and not towards the staff. Secondly, it would follow her if she moved, always in a direct path towards her.
As she walked around, towing her rock like a baby duck, the sensation in her stomach began to grow uncomfortable. She released the rock when the edges of her vision started to dim.
"So, there's a limit to how much I can do at one time" Kya thought, that was useful information. However, after only a few seconds of stopping, she felt right as rain once again. So, the downtime wasn't too much, just a short recovery period.
Adamant there had to be a way to repel objects as well, she took up her standard starting position. However, rather than a simple gesture towards the rock, she made a determined two-handed stab while mentally shouting "AWAY".
The feeling in her stomach was like a punch to the gut, but maintaining eye contact through the pain, she saw the rock streak away from her, and collide with the wall. Again, she noted the directly straight line in which the stone had moved. It could have been the speed of it, but there wasn't any sort of arch to its travel.
Repeating her tests a couple more times, Kya felt reasonably good about using her magic staff.
It was significantly more difficult to repel objects than it was to attract them, but she had managed to do it consistently now, albeit with concerted effort. The last test she did was one of scale. She could move the fist sized piece of ruble around, but what about something larger? Could she move boulders with this? Or whole buildings?
So, casting about for the largest stone she could find, Kya settled on a chunk of the wall that had collapsed inwards, roughly the size of a refrigerator. Concentrating and giving a small movement with her staff, she felt an intense pain in her stomach and immediately her vision began to swim. Cutting it off as quickly as she could, and collapsing to the ground in exhaustion, she took stock of the situation.
Can the stone be moved? Probably, yes. Was she able to move it right now? Definitely not. Whether it was a strength or understanding issue, Kya wasn't sure. But either way, this wasn't something she could do at the moment.
Takeaway: stick to reasonably sized objects for now. Got it. Which brought her back to her main goal at the moment: the legendary chest back on the stone table.
Feeling more confident with some practice under her belt, Kya walked back over. Holding her spatial bag at her chest with one hand and using the other motioned for the box to start moving, but instead was herself forcefully pushed backwards, skidding several feet before falling to her butt.
Sitting there dumbstruck, she stared at the box for a moment, before pulling up the description again.
- - - - -
- Item: Unknown
- Rarity: Legendary
- Description: An ornate box made of the highest rarity materials, resulting in a nigh unbreakable and undetectable container. It is impervious to almost all forms of magic, as well as detection and tracking, and cannot be opened by just anyone.
- Enchantments: Unknown
- Requirements: Unknown
- - - - -
"Oh my god" Kya thought, reading it over again. Impervious to almost all magic right well then, that was a fat waste of time.
Finally, she tried something that really should have been her first move. She opened the bag as wide as it would go and touched it to the surface of the box. And just like that, the box was sucked right in, like a milkshake through a straw.
"I guess storing it wasn't one of its immunities." She said with a massive grin. Done and done.
With that, Kya was about to make her way outside again, when she stopped and doubled back. The banner that had fallen when she first used the staff was just sitting there... asking to be taken along.
- - - - -
- Item: Banner of the Spatial Path
- Rarity: 1-Star - Rare
- Description: A banner depicting the symbol of Space. It was crafted using uncommon materials to create a durable fabric greater than the sum of its parts. It is resistant to tearing and weak forms of magic.
- Enchantments: Mana resistance - weak
- Requirements: N/A
- - - - -
Pleased with the description Kya grabbed it, further happy with how soft it was to the touch and placed it in her bag.
As she was about to leave, she again stopped and eyed the dozen or so other banners still hanging from the rafters above...
~~~
Walking to the edge of the courtyard, Kya pulled up her quest timer again, and saw it had been about an hour and a half since she first got the notification. She looked out again at the forest with its lush cherry blossoms and leafy green trees, to the cluster of buildings miles and miles ahead. Then looked down at her feet in her fuzzy brown slippers. This wasn't going to be a pleasant walk.
As soon as Kya took her first step off the cobblestones and on to grassy turf surrounding, she felt a perceptible change in the atmosphere. It was subtle, but definitely there. The wind felt a little harsher as it whipped at her hair. The suns felt a little hotter as they looked down from above. And most importantly, a small animal started running at her with reckless abandon.
Backstepping quickly, the animal slowed as Kya stepped back onto the stone border of the courtyard, and she mentally tried to identify it, mentally groaning as the extraordinarily enthusiastic narrator made his return.
- - - - -
*** NEW CREATURE IDENTIFIED ***
- Forest Dweller Rat - 1 Star - Common
- The forest dweller rat can sometimes come in packs of up to a dozen, but they are usually solitary creatures. They will hunt and eat anything they find in their territory that they get into their tiny brains qualifies as food. For this little guy, that includes you!
- - - - -
The rat was about a foot long, and mottled gray. His fuzzy snout might have almost been cute, if he wasn't baring his little fangs and hissing with drawn back lips. His beady black eyes remained fixed on her as he hunched down in the grass and began slowly stalking towards her, his long pink tail whipping through the air.
Kya was ordinarily a pacifistic person. She ordinarily tried to solve her problems with a calm mind and find peaceful resolutions. Ordinarily. Foot long rats that considered her dinner were not ordinary.
The rat pounced, sailing much further through the air than his small body should have allowed, landing a vicious bite on her arm which erupted in pain.
"AAHHHHHH" yelled Kya as she swung her staff at it. The jewel began to glow intensely as the rat was hurtled away from her, taking a chunk of skin with it, and slamming into a tree fifteen meters away. Laying in a daze, the rat slowly started to stand and hissed defiantly at her, before trying to run at her again.
Sprinting over and swinging her staff like a club, she beat the rat into the ground, then raised her staff and struck down a second, and a third time. Before going for the fourth, she heard that slightly patronizing voice again in her head and saw the message
- - - - -
- Good job! You have defeated a Forest Dweller Rat. Don't get too cocky though, this was after all just a rat.
- NEW QUEST!
Foraging in the Forest: You have had your first kill! And to the victor goes the spoils. Before you're out of the woods, you're going to have to kill again. But at least this way, you get something out of it!
- Objective: Kill 10 Monsters
- Progress: 1/10
- Time Remaining: 23h:59m:56s
- Reward: Boots of the Spatial Mage - 1-Star - Common
- - - - -
Sitting on the ground leaning back and breathing heavily, Kya dismissed the notification with a wave of her hand. She looked over at what she expected to be the gory remains of her roadkill rat, but instead saw it transform. A black void slowly covered its whole shape like food coloring in water, before simply dissolving right there in the grass
"Well, that was..." Kya breathed out "Actually what the hell was that?"
When she saw it dissolving, she thought again of video games making the monsters you've beaten disappear for you and leaving behind the loot. But where was the loot? She couldn't even take the animal as meat, how the hell would she get to the village if she couldn't even hunt for food?
Her next thought struck her, and she opened her eyes wide. Fumbling with the pouch shed fastened to her waist with the cord of her sweatpants, reached inside.
She'd found as she had begun filling it up with more stuff, she got a mental image of what was inside. Like a big empty room, she could see clearly that there were three new additions to her special storage sitting right there amidst several other pillaged goodies from the temple.
Taking them out, she identified them one at a time.
- - - - -
- Item: Crystal Shard
- Rarity: 1-Star - Common
- Description: A condensed form of magic. Useful in rituals and spells of a wide variety.
- Enchantments: N/A
- Requirements: N/A
- - - - -
- Item: Health Potion
- Rarity: 1-Star - Common
- Description: One of the most widely produced creations of any alchemist, causes a weak heal-over-time effect on the one who drinks it.
- Enchantments: Lesser Healing
- Requirements: N/A
- - - - -
- Item: Lesser Monster Token
- Rarity: 1-Star - Common
- Description: The condensed memory of a life-or-death struggle. Can be exchanged or consumed.
- Enchantments: N/A
- Requirements: Possess at least a primary Class.
- - - - -
The token and the crystal were both the size of a quarter, one a dull metallic gray, and the other a vibrant purple respectively. Though she was curious about the coin, without a class of her own, it would have to wait. Putting them away, Kya turned her attention to the far more interesting health potion. It was in a small glass vial about the size of her finger. Inside was a deep red liquid that looked suspiciously like blood to her.
Looking at her own blood still leaking down her arm, she pulled out the stopper with her teeth, and downed it in one shot. With a speed noticeable to the naked eye, her bleeding stopped, and the small bite on her arm scabbed over. It wasn't completely gone, meaning these weren't fix-all's and wouldn't help her with something more serious like a broken bone, but for smaller injuries? They were perfect.
Standing and looking at her slippers, already inadequate for just a walk in the woods let alone for a life and death struggle, Kya walked deeper into the woods determined to get those boots.