NOVEL NEXT Chapter 2 - Alone
The world tree is a titanic oak with a trunk the size of a city. Its canopy blocks out the sun for leagues around. Entire cultures live in its shadow and its leaves bestow power beyond compare. No kingdoms or tribes seek its bounty however, for it guards its power jealously. Its root system spreads throughout an entire continent and any who approach the tree with avarice are killed swifty. There are those throughout history who have spent time walking its colossal branches, climbing its endless trunk and slipping through its roots to uncover its secrets. Most are never heard from again, but some survive. They return changed, burdened with fresh perspective and purpose, with new power and insight, but always are they changed.
It is a force of nature in the truest sense, for no mind, human or otherwise, can understand or predict its action. It strikes when it wills, and pity those who’s path it intersects. Innumerable cultures have born witness to this natural wonder, and it is certain uncountable more will follow, for when the world tree stirs, empires fall.
Excerpt from ‘a treatise on the wonders of Tsanderos' by Nathlan the Ancient
I caught my breath as I stood there on the ridge, watching the rapidly disappearing silhouettes of my erstwhile companions fade into the distance. I sighed and tried to collect myself. Too much was happening far too quickly for me to process, so I searched for a goal.
I had been given a rough plan, but the longer I thought about it, the more rough and patchy it started to seem. I had a general direction, a couple of landmarks to orient myself by and a few cryptic and ominous warnings of danger that was starting to feel more and more real as I considered things. A journey of ‘a few hundred miles or so’ was a big fucking ask of a person who spent more time in an office chair than out on trails.
I had never hunted my own food, or slept beneath the stars without anything to shield me from the elements. I was going to be spending weeks alone out here, and I was starting to feel the panic clawing at the edges of my mind. I needed an immediate, short-term goal. Jorge had told me to get to the tree-line as soon as I could, so that’s what I would do. Once there I could think more heavily on this whole situation and come up with a proper plan.
Nodding to myself, I trudged down the steep slope, following no path and instead descending directly down towards the col below me. I could see a switch-backing trail leading from the col down towards the valley floor and promising safety of the dense forest, and so I headed towards it as quickly as was practicable, trusting on my experience and sure-footed both to keep me safe on the uneven terrain.
Once I reached the col, I stopped to admire the view. It felt almost sacrilegious to rush through such an amazing vista, and while I still felt tight-chested from the worry of my situation, I couldn’t deny the beauty before me.
Dramatic ridgelines flowed down before me to the edge of my sight, with forests nestled into the valleys and a few intrepid pines peppering the upper slopes above the tree line. Grassy meadows rose around these like a green tide reaching towards the sharp rocky ridges. Snow-capped peaks towered above, declaring their dominion over all below, and the setting sun blessed the land with a slight orange tinge.
I spent a few timeless moments admiring the view, using the serene landscape to settle my inner turmoil. Only once I felt a small measure of that same enduring calmness so embodied by the mountains around me did I turn away and look down at the path before me.
Nodding to myself, I stretched out my back, turning from side to side before bending into a forward fold. I had to admit, despite my predictions during my rather embarrassing stint as a flour bag impersonator, I couldn’t find any obvious sign of injury. My mind felt sharp, my body loose and ready for anything.
Reality showed me the error of that statement in the following moment when a screech cut through the air above and to my left. I jerked around and twinged something in my neck from the unexpected movement. There was a slight delay as I tried to process what my eyes were seeing but my disbelief quickly fell away to be replaced by sheer panic.
Several hundred meters above me a flailing body was streaking through the air. I caught an impression of great wings, of two creatures wheeling about one another aggressively before they disappeared behind the peak.
The flailing body crashed into the peak to my left and bounced against large boulders and grassy verges alike. Within seconds it had cartwheeled down the slope to rest where I had been not moments before in a cacophony of slapping meat and crunching bone.
I staggered back to my feet from where I had thrown myself to the side and stumbled away from the body. It had moved so quickly I hadn’t gotten a good look at it until now and I realised this was the body of a great stag. Some sort of deer/antelope/goat creature that easily out-massed me three times over.
As I stared in shock, the creature let out a snuffling groan, clearly in great pain. I could see the splintered remains of what I could only assume were some of its ribs that had perforated its stomach and I knew the other side of its body had to be in far worse shape based on its landing. Its neck was twisted unnaturally, and red spittle flecked its mouth. The panting, wheezing sound continued as its eyes rolled before settling on myself.
I took a step back in surprise at the intensity that its gaze pinned me with. In the brief moment before that gaze locked on my own, I had seen fear and pain, panic and terror. Now that steady, startling gaze conveyed desire and acceptance. I lurched back and saw desperation replace the calmness, and the creature shifted towards me before a letting loose another pained moan and rocking back on to its side.
I turned to run, to fly back down the exposed trail behind me, towards the safety of the forested valley and cover from the two great monsters in the sky. I had no notion of what could possibly be that size, what strength could remain airborne while carrying the huge stag in its claws like an eagle with a rabbit, although after witnessing first-hand the speed, stamina and strength of Vera and Jorge, I was beginning to have suspicions.
Another desperate squeal forced me back around to face the helpless creature in front of me. It was as good as dead, that was clear. There could be no coming back from injuries like these. And yet it would not die easily here. Despite the brief flash of acceptance I had seen, I knew this animal would not die soon. How the hell I knew what animals were thinking by some brief eye contact I had no idea, but I could not shake the overwhelming feeling that this creature was pleading with me to end its suffering.
I scrabbled around for a rock before finding one large enough to do the job, but light enough to actually lift above my head. I gingerly stepped forward, raising the rock above myself and looking down at the injured creature before me. Briefly, rectangular pupils stared up at me and held my gaze for a moment before looking down and away. It shifted its head slightly, moving one of its great horns out of the way to give my rock a clean path towards its skull. With a grunt, I heaved the rock down and darted backwards.
You have killed a Mountain Oryx (level 23). Experience gained.
You have reached level 2. Attribute points available for allocation.
You have reached level 3. Attribute points available for allocation.
You have reached level 4. Attribute points available for allocation.
I barely noticed the ringing, or the messages that streamed directly into my mind as I looked upon the corpse of the creature before me. My thoughts were racing around my head and I couldn’t seem to pin down a single one long enough to understand it, let alone think in anything approaching a logical sequence.
I stared down in numb incomprehension at the gory mess before me, my own handiwork, before a shadow to my left made me jerk my eyes away. I looked up in horror as I saw wings emerging from behind the peak. I cast about for my trusty rock but couldn’t see it. Without thinking I snatched up a broken piece of horn from the ground and ran.
After a mad dash down the steep track from the col, I was sprinting along the switch backing trail towards the first trees in the valley. Brambles snagged against my legs as I tore down the trail, but I barely felt the pain. Before long, I was heaving for breath as I reached the tree line and dove behind the first large trunk I could find.
It had been a good mile or so that I had covered if I had to guess, and that was enough time and distance for my mind to parse the harrowing experience through which I had just lived. Not enough time to come to terms with it sure, but enough to accept it had happened and focus on more immediate concerns.
I was being stupid. If the creature that owned that frightening pair of wings was actually interested in me, I would have picked off the side of the mountain minutes ago in the middle my mad dash. No, clearly it had other things to concern itself with, like the second sky leviathan it was fighting perhaps.
Which left me here, panting and sweating, small cuts all over my lower legs visible through my shredded trousers and a sharp broken horn clutched in one hand. Now that I wasn’t using most of my concentration to prevent myself twisting an ankle and slipping off the trail I had been sprinting down, the persistent ringing in my head drew my attention.
The mere act of considering the noise and the messages it heralded conjured them into my mind, less of a visual or auditory affect and more of a sudden influx of knowledge. I had killed a creature, gained experience for it and now I was level 4.
What does that imply? Is killing the only way to gain experience? Will something gain experience for killing me now? Oh I’m so fuc….I briefly indulged myself in some unhelpful spiralling before wrenching my mind back to my status.
Status:
Ancestry: Human (unevolved)
Level: 4
Class: None
Titles: God-touched
Attribute allocation:
Strength: 7
Agility: 5
Endurance: 9
Perception: 9
Cognition: 8
Available attributes: 3
Skills:
Sure-footed: Level 1
With no frame of reference, I couldn’t make a judgement on the current distribution of my attributes but I was surprised at them nonetheless. While I was making a big assumption that 10 was a peak human attribute, it seemed to be in line with Jorge’s remark that 9 in endurance was high for level 1, and I did not recall myself being that physically impressive.
Sure, I was fit and most of my hobbies involved and relied upon good physical fitness – climbing, mountain biking and trail running are hard to get into if you’re not at least relatively sprightly, and even harder to enjoy – but still. I tried to think back on my last memories before waking up in this new world, and the system messages I had received. I struggled to pierce the veil of haze around those memories, and caught flashes of experience.
Wind whips the sweat from my face as I plunge headlong down a ridgeline. The singletrack stretches before me as I skirt around grassy gnolls and leap over rocks. My legs are burning, lactic acid building up, and my lungs are working like a bellows to draw in breath to flush that pain away. I’m smiling, nearly whooping for joy as I crest a false summit and the path dips below the ridgeline once more, wind cutting out and my ragged breath now filling my ears, but I don’t stop. With each step I feel simultaneously like I can’t take another and that I’ll be able to keep going forever.
For just a brief moment, the haze retreated and I experienced once again with full clarity the joyous, indescribable feeling of the adrenaline pumping through my veins, sharpening my reactions and blunting the pain as I took part in my favourite activity. I was present in a way I could never quite manage in all other aspects of my life, feeling my mind being totally focused on reading the terrain in front of me and feeding commands down to my body to make minute adjustments in compensation.
What had that message said? Historic data missing….Collecting data from short term memory….Integration of average historic and mental state….permanence assigned. Did that mean the totality of my being was broken down into a few attributes, and calculated based on a review of a few short minutes of my life during which I was filled with adrenaline and pushing myself as hard as I ever had before?
That could explain the surprisingly high allocation I supposed, and also neatly explained how I wasn’t in as much pain as the raw, bleeding cuts in my shins would suggest. Either way, I still had 3 free attributes to allocate. I needed shelter and safety, and I had one hell of a long journey ahead of me if I wanted to survive.
Endurance it is. As soon as the decision had been made, almost before conscious prompting, my status changed.
Ancestry: Human (unevolved)
Level: 4
Class: None
Titles: God-touched
Attribute allocation:
Strength: 7
Agility: 5
Endurance: 12
Perception: 9
Cognition: 8
Available attributes: 0
Skills:
Sure-footed: Level 1
I was not prepared for the rush I felt. A million subtle changes occurred within a single moment, each so slight that I would have missed them on their own, but when combined, I experienced a wave of refreshment that had me feeling like a new man. A still very sweaty, bleeding, and frightened man it had to be said, but new none the less. My breathing instantly became easier, as if I was recovering from a simple jog as opposed to the all-out sprint I had just experienced.
A snapping twig had me whirling around to face behind myself, broken horn clutched in my hand like a baton. I saw nothing out of the ordinary, and briefly wondered what I had been planning to do with the pathetically light horn if I had seen something dangerous. Batter a wolf to death with a stick? Good luck.
Although now that I was looking closely, the horn did seem like it might serve as a weapon in a pinch. Roughly 4 foot long and straight, it twirled around on itself in a staircase pattern before tapering to a jagged, sharp point where the horn had been cracked off the head of that poor stag. I had never seen a horn of its like in my life but then I supposed I had never heard of a massive eagle looking bird thing large enough to lift several hundred kilograms of mammal easily either. Shit, this really is a new world, isn’t it?
I wasn’t too sure why I was really dwelling on this point honestly. Either I had actually been plucked from Earth and transported me to a new magical world governed by some crazy system…or I had lost my mind. But I couldn’t just stand around examining all of my actions for fear I was swinging a stick at some random hiker out for a stroll in the real world while trapped in convincing delusions.
If I had lost my mind, I couldn’t exactly think my way around it. There was no ‘me’ to outsmart myself with. I was my mind, and if my mind was completely divorced from reality, then anything I thought was just as likely to be wrong too. Here comes Descartes reborn - thinking about thinking and still having no clue what to do. I needed direction, a task to perform, a goal to work towards or I would just continue to twist myself into knots.
I did a quick check of my legs again, and saw the shallow lacerations mostly clotted. Not surprising but a welcome sight none the less. I was hardly sheeting blood down my legs to begin with but the more blood staying inside my body, the better.
I took off at a light jog down the narrow track towards the bottom of the valley. At least I wasn’t particularly tired, and if my new endurance attribute was to be believed, I should be able to continue at this pace for many miles.
I looked towards the sky, seeing that the slight orange tint of the setting sun had intensified, and the lengthening shadows of the trees on the ground told me I had only an hour or two of daylight left. I did not want to be wondering this path alone at night, considering the giant creatures in the sky. If there was one thing that I knew for certain, it was that there would be other monsters out there.
This was confirmed when after a few more minutes of jogging I came across a toppled tree, looking to have been ripped right out of the ground by something charging past, or more accurately through.
I stumbled to a halt, finally admitting to myself I had no clue what to do. I had been looking for a place to hole up for the night but while I had camped ‘rough’ in the mountains alone before, I had done so safe in the knowledge that there were no predators that could harm me.
Say one thing for humanity, and this wasn’t a particularly flattering fact, but we had easily cemented our position as top of the food chain back on Earth. I had no idea if the same was true of this world, but I was starting to suspect that things may be a little more contentious here. Either way, the simple fact of the matter was that I did not know where to even start in securing myself from the many unknown threats that no doubt lingered just out of site, waiting for me to stop long enough rip me apart in peace.
I ran on, no longer at a sedate jog but a more frantic gait that perfectly encapsulated the wild fear coursing through my mind. After an indeterminable amount of time, I finally came to my senses enough to realise I was only putting myself in more danger with my actions. The sun had well and truly set by this point, and I was making a lot of noise in my somewhat reckless run.
Another uprooted tree confronted me, and I paused to suck in air past my parched throat and into my equally parched-feeling lungs. Perhaps an hour of running and I could still catch my breath within moments. Sure – I couldn’t keep it up, and I suspected my stopping had less to do with my mind reasserting control over the fear, and more to do with my lungs protesting loudly enough for my mind to finally hear. But I had managed to do it, and felt I still had some more left in the tank despite my heavy breathing.
3 stat points was enough to change things so drastically? I would need to figure out how this whole levelling thing worked.
For now, I clambered over the upturned roots, reasoning that whatever had rushed through this area with such power as to uproot the very trees themselves, wouldn’t have stuck around afterwards and might even have scared away anything in the area. A feeble hope for an equally feeble human.
The tree had been knocked to the side by whatever great beast had lumbered through, and was now leaning against its brothers and sisters, supported by the forest canopy of which it had previously been a member. At a steep enough angle to prevent most four-legged creatures from attempting the climb, or so I fervently hoped, it would at least give me a place to rest for the night off of the ground.
I gingerly clambered my way up the trunk, making liberal use of the various branches to support myself and right my balance when needed. Finding a confluence of three separate large branches just below the canopy, forming a backrest with enough support to prevent me from toppling to the ground if I shifted in my sleep, I stowed my possessions next to me.
Luckily there was space, but unluckily, that was because I had no possessions other than a broken horn, a small knife, and an even smaller pebble. My clothes consisted of a pair of thick, rough-spun socks, hardy leather boots, a pair of loose cloth trousers, now with added slices in the shins, and a rough shirt and thick woollen cloak. For the 40th time that hour, I resisted the urge to lament about how I was for sure, definitely, 100% going to die, and instead rested my back against the surprisingly comfortable branches, my gaze on the 10 or so meters of trunk before me leading to the forest floor.
As sleep beckoned, I decided to call it a day and wrapped myself in my new cloak to ward off the chill night air. In reality I had been in this new world for no more than a few hours, but I had experienced more than a month’s worth of emotions in that short time.
With sleep wrapping its obscuring hands around my mind, I wondered if there was something more significant about that last thought than I realised, but then my consciousness faded, and I awoke to a new dawn.