I was in a room.
It was familiar.
Comforting.
I was by myself, playing my newest obsession, The Aeons of Fate.
Life was enjoyable.
I'd sleep, eat, play, and repeat.
But the third, or no, fifth, sixth, twentieth time I played The Aeons of Fate, I realized something was desperately wrong.
Not with the game itself, but with the environment I was playing it in.
It was my old room.
The one I hadn't seen since—well, since I stopped being a random guy from Earth.
On;y issue was that there were no doors.
And the window showed nothing but an eternal void of white outside.
The room was the only thing I could experience and feel; I couldn't do that anywhere else.
Time was a concept you bought for three easy payments of 'Never', i.e. there was no such concept here.
The only constant was the screen of my monitor flashing the title of the game.
I'd been playing for what felt like three lifetimes.
Or maybe just three hours, or even thirty minutes.
How could I tell?
There were no clocks and no calendars and just overall no way to tell the time.
Eventually, the hunger for something other than gaming erupted from my stomach.
I got up for what I assumed was breakfast.
A plate of perfectly cooked sunny side up eggs and bacon sat on the table, arranged carefully ass if an artisanal chef had made it.
And by arranged, I mean they were shaped into a smiling face, with the yolk staring at me like eyes.
Okay, that's weird.
I frowned, looking around.
That's when I noticed something strange.
Everything in my room had…googly eyes.
And they were all staring at me.
It didn't feel scary—far from it.
It felt kind of silly.
Like someone was playing a trick on me.
Someone with an eldritch background, perhaps.
Anyway, I didn't quite like the trick, and decided to leap out of the window.
And then I woke up.
…
…
…What a weird dream.
The ambient sounds of early morning filtered in through the real, non-void window—mostly chirping birds, roosters crowing, and the distant sounds of someone cursing at a stubborn beast of burden.
Welp.
Life waits for no one.
I slid out of my bed and walked quietly to the room where the kids were sleeping.
A quick peek through the slight opening in the door showed them completely dead asleep, tired from all the meandering we did yesterday.
A tiny smile found itself forming on my face.
The sheer joy on their faces two days ago, after the introduction to the Fellowship party, was something else.
They were buzzing with anticipation, and the Fellowship, for their part, seemed more than ready to get to work—after I allowed them to rest for a while.
I made breakfast for the three of us, since I was the first one awake.
No bacon and eggs this morning, because…yeah.
Just simple bread and some dried meat for now.
The thing about only having a Saintess deal down the pipeline and a training regiment that hasn't started yet is that you end up with a gaping hole in your schedule that leaves you with nothing to do.
The Fellowship wanted a few days to rest, Silver and Kael were busy doing…whatever it is a highly-placed merchant slash mayor and a guard captain do when they're not babysitting, and the Saintess hadn't called me for my part yet.
I was, effectively, living an unemployed life for the day.
Which felt nice and all, but I had the urge to do something—anything.
A sudden shift from always doing something every second into doing nothing an entire day was a shift I could not bear.
So, I left the house and started roaming the settlement.
I spent some 20 or so minutes helping a nice old granny fix a section of her fence that was broken; turns out, fixing fence posts was incredibly easy and satisfying.
Then I spent another thirty minutes on the shipping area or whatever it was, helping to get stacks of raw materials get sorted into the storehouses.
And then I want and helped some poor guy get all his stuff back because his cart fell (again).
Throughout early morning, I was running around town doing odd jobs for free for the residents.
I felt marginally better after I finished helping people out, but the restlessness still gnawed at me.
It was around mid-morning when I noticed a small group of people kitting up together.
They had gear meant for the forest and scouting, and most important of all: traps.
Trappers, or at least something related to trapping, which usually meant people who were about to become very good at being patient to see if any of their traps catch an animal, and then running away from said animal because the trap only managed to anger it instead of hurting it.
That's just how Quietus animals are built.
I walked over and talked to them.
"You, what do?"
No one gave a response.
All of them were looking at each other like, 'you gonna step up?'
Come on, guys.
I'm not that menacing.
Am I?
Fortunately, two men stepped out, looking somewhat familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place why.
"How is ya been, big guy?"
The one with the walrus moustache spoke with a hard accent for me to understand.
He was a small, chubby guy.
I didn't know how or why exactly he became a trapper, but if the game world logic says so…
"It's nice to see ya in friendlier terms."
The other one, the one with a funny moustache, was tall and slim—completely opposite to the other guy.
"Names. Yours?"
"Tomas!"
"And Roric."
Tomas and Roric—oh…
These guys.
These guys, I know them—well, Silver does, and I hear about them from him.
He had dozens of tales about their wacky mischief.
Anyway, it looked like they had things to do, and I was being a bit of a stickler for helping out right now, so…
"Join. Can?"
At my request, they puffed up a bit, clearly pleased with themselves.
"Ya wanna join? Sure!"
"Heh, we should be the ones asking you that, forest keeper."
They're making nicknames for me again.
Damn them.
Moving past that, once the group had finished their preparations, the two announced the main reason for this entire thing: an exercise for junior scouts and trackers and trappers on how to handle the forest environment.
The Quietus Forest environment, to be specific.
I hung back at the rear once the actual exercise began, not wanting to impose on the group too much.
It was the smartest decision of my life, by a wide margin.
Tomas and Roric spent the entire walk rambling.
They occasionally threw in a legitimate tracking tip or two, but mostly it was just endless, droning tales about their own near-death experiences and how incredibly skilled they were.
It was like listening to a camping tutorial hosted by two narcissistic professionals.
They were at that boundary between 'you're absolutely incompetent and not actually doing your job', and 'you're still kind of doing your job, and I can't find any better replacements'.
Basically, they were teetering on the edge of getting fired.
…Is what Silver told me, which I paraphrased with my own words because his was too lengthy and had a duller way of saying it.
I could tell most of these guys are used to this, because they only perked their heads up towards the two once something actually useful was said.
Eventually, we reached a really peaceful spot—a nice spring flowing gently through a small clearing, a tear through the usual forest shade allowing sunlight to shine a long ways on to the spring.
It's the kind of place where you could actually hear yourself think, which was both nice and deeply irritating given my current inability to relax.
Tomas and Roric, having exhausted their supply of self-aggrandizing anecdotes, told the rest of the guys with us to scatter and scout the area, searching for notable landmarks and whatnot.
I stepped forward, looking to see if I could give any kind of help, but Einstein and Nikola over here just scratched their heads, shrugged, and waved me off.
"Nah, Grul. Stay right here, man. Enjoy the scenery."
Tomas said, elbowing Roric.
"We're certain nothing'll go wrong, since we didn't leave the 'safe-ish' zone of the forest. It's highly unlikely there'll be any issues whatsoever. But, we'll yell if we ever need the forest keeper, aight?"
"Yeah, just stay here and relax. Ol' Roric and Tomas are here to deal with the troubles!"
And so, I was left alone by the quiet spring.
I tried doing as they said: to enjoy the scenery.
The sound of the water was soothing, sure, but I was still shifting around erratically.
To displace that gnawing feeling, I tried to find something to do for myself.
And I did.
I remembered something I hadn't done in what felt like a truly ridiculous amount of time: check my status.
It's been a while sine I've done this, hasn't it?
Well, no time like now.
+====================================+
// Some Skills have been merged! //
|- Unarmed Combat
|- Grappling
|- Brawler
+====================================+
+====================================+
// Some Skills have been merged! //
|- Trap Making
|- Makeshift Fortress
|- Maintenance
+====================================+
+====================================+
// STATUS SCREEN //
+====================================+
|NAME: Grul
|RACE: Orc
|CLASS: Orc Warrior (Common) (Progressive)
|CLASS ABILITIES: Cleave, Guard, Charge, War-Stomp
|MARTIAL ART: Divine Style of the Great Star (LOCKED)
|LEVEL: 27
|XP: 567/1000
+------------------------------------+
|HEALTH: [█████████] 100% |
|STAMINA: [██████████] 100% |
|MANA: [----------] -10/0 |
+------------------------------------+
|ATTRIBUTES:
|STRENGTH: 80 (+28 Racial)|
|DEXTERITY: 65|
|VITALITY: 77 (+28 Racial)|
|INTELLIGENCE: 40|
|WISDOM: 40 |
+------------------------------------+
|SKILLS:
|- Sprinting (B+)
| ↳ Drastically increases movement speed at the cost of stamina.
|- Orcish Blood (A+) (Passive)
| ↳ "All I see is green, green, green!" … Bestows a formidable constitution and innate combat prowess. Provides a significant bonus to physical attributes and combat effectiveness. Also changes your diction when talking to others. For each battle you survive, increase physical attributes comparative to the difficulty of the battle fought.
|- Throwing (B+) (Passive)
| ↳ Increases the accuracy and force of thrown objects.
|- Iron Stomach (B) (Passive)
| ↳ A growing tolerance for poorly prepared, rough, or unappetizing food. Reduces the negative effects of consuming spoiled or low-quality ingredients. Also provides moderate immunity against status ailments like poison, venom, and paralysis.
|- Axe Mastery (B+)
| ↳ "You know, this desert used to be a forest…'till it wasn't." … Considerably increases efficiency of axes you are using.
|- Heavyweight (C) (Passive)
| ↳ "This weighs almost as much as your mom!" … Causes all things with a weight greater or equal to 10 lbs. to have their weight value reduced by 35% when you carry, hold, or drag them.
|- Survivalist's Instinct (A+) (Passive)
| ↳ Provides a complete, intuitive mastery of fundamental wilderness survival techniques. Also grants a heightened awareness of the environment, allowing for the automatic detection of food, water, resources, and hidden dangers. Gives a huge boost to stamina regeneration and overall perception.
|- Shadow Hunter (A) (Active/Passive)
| ↳ "The predator's silence is the prey's oblivion." ... Seamlessly blends movement with the environment to achieve near-total concealment. Drastically reduces visibility and sound while moving. The longer you maintain concealment and focus on a target, the higher behavioral information you gather, or crit rate, should you choose to strike at the poor victim.
|- Comprehension (E) (Passive)
| ↳ "Do you…UNDERSTANDDDD?!" … Slightly reduces threshold required to understand something.
|- Negotiation (E)
| ↳ "What's yours is mine, what's mine is also mine." … Slightly reduces the price of goods or provides a small bonus when persuading someone.
|- Mercy of the Strong (A) (Passive)
| ↳ When deciding to be merciful to a defeated target, adds a stack of 'leverage' on to that target and applies a psychological effect onto the target which makes them more agreeable to you. When the stack reaches five, automatically converts into a 'wisdom' stat.
|- Brutal Intuition (B+) (Passive)
| ↳ "The head is for thinking, the gut is for knowing." ... Grants an automatic, instinctive reading of an opponent's weakness. Provides a moderate bonus to critical strike chance and large bonus to perception.
|- Environmental Weaponry (C+) (Passive)
| ↳ "Every tool is a weapon, if you hold it right." … Drastically increases the effectiveness and durability of improvised weapons, such as rocks, tree branches, and salvaged junk. Improvised weapons can also be sacrificed to stun or temporarily disable armored opponents.
|- Trailblazer (C+) (Active/Passive)
| ↳ Reduces the stamina cost of travel through dense wilderness. Actively allows the creation of temporary marked trails for easier retracing of steps.
|- Juggernaut (A) (Active/Passive)
| ↳ "No pain, no gain." … Considerably improves stamina and health and their respective regeneration. Grants severe immunity against physical status ailments. Physical effort will continue so long as mental will has not ceased. When activated, gain 50% damage reduction at the cost of severe aftereffects.
|- Battle Trance (A) (Active/Passive)
| ↳ When in actual combat, acquire battle trance stacks. As more stacks are gained, strength and attack speed continually increase. At ten stacks, ignore one hit for every ten hits.
|- Gambler's Luck (D+) (Passive)
| ↳ "GAMBA GAMBA GAMBA! / Let's go gambling! Aw, dang it! Aw, dang it! Aw, dang it!" … In stressful situations, increases your luck by +3 as you continue to endure. If you voluntarily make it even more stressful for yourself, luck increases by +6.
|- Cockroach (D) (Passive)
| ↳ Possess an infuriating ability to survive fatal damage. Once per month, if HP reaches 0, will instead stop at 1 and are granted immunity to any damage for 12 seconds. Does not cure already afflicted status ailments.
|- Marksman (B+)
| ↳ Upon hitting an enemy's weak spot, cause a critical strike to occur alongside weak spot damage. Increases critical damage.
|- Logical Deduction (B) (Passive)
| ↳ Significantly reduces the mental drain when learning advanced or logical concepts. Increases insights gained from failure. Improve puzzle-solving abilities and critical thinking.
|- Tenacious Spirit (C) (Passive)
| ↳ Gain a significant bonus to Willpower and Resolve. General mental fatigue gain is decreased.
|- Advanced Combat Technique (B+) (Passive)
| ↳ "TECHNIQUE! TECHNIQUE!" - Child-friendly Multicellular Aquatic Animal Mascot … Significant increase to prowess. Movement has become fluid and precise, using only minimal stamina to do the most possible.
|- Imperial Form (A)
| ↳ "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!" - Muhammad Ali … A mastery of Imperial-based combat that emphasizes fluid, calculated precision. This technique emphasizes minimal force, efficient footwork, and tactical feints to disrupt the enemy and create openings.
|- Written Language (C) (Passive)
| ↳ Ability to write and understand written texts from certain languages.
|- Linguistics (D) (Passive)
| ↳ Improves study of languages.
|- Bookworm (E) (Passive)
| ↳ Acquire a natural, albeit fledgling, affinity for the writing world. Your mind retains memories with greater ease than most. Grants a basic competence in speed-reading texts.
|- Taunt (E)
| ↳ Chance to aggro all enemies around you.
|- Distraction (D)
| ↳ "Hey, look over there!" … Increased probability that target/s fall for the deception. Increase duration of deception and adds chance of confusion.
|- Bloodlust (C) (Passive)
| ↳ After three successful hits in a row, next attack deals 200% damage. Crit and other effects still applicable.
|- Berserk (A)
| ↳ "URAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" … Enter a state of frenzy that drastically increases Strength, Dexterity, Speed, Agility, Tenacity, Vitality, and Health Regen, but drastically decrease Evasion, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Mental Resistance while active as well as five minutes after.
|- Lightbringer (A) (Passive)
| ↳ "Glory! Honor! Justice!" … Gain resistance against darkness attributes, increase damage against creatures with darkness attributes. Creatures with darkness attributes have a slight fear and hatred towards you. Increases proportionally to level difference.
|- Presence of the Apex (A) (Active/Passive)
| ↳ "You will heed my words, or you will break." … Projects an invisible pressure that affects the minds of nearby beings. The passive aura makes others highly more inclined to agree or submit. Activating this skill releases a concussive Roar that can potentially terrify, confuse, stun, or even cause targets to flee, with the probability proportional to the level difference. Beings, once affected by this skill, are more likely to be respectful and polite to the user.
|- ??? (???)
| ↳ ???
|- Charisma (C) (New!)
| ↳ "How charming!" … You emit a faint pleasantness that most find appealing.
|- Mentorship (D) (New!)
| ↳ "Believe in me that believes in you." … Decreases time it takes to teach others. Increases effectivity of your teachings. Slim chance to pass down one of your skills to those you teach.
|- Master Brawling (A) (New!)
| ↳ Consolidates and strengthens all aspects of hand-to-hand fighting, unarmed power, close-quarters fighting, and takedown/grappling maneuvers into one. Passively improves senses, movement, endurance, and prowess.
|- Field Engineer (A) (New!)
| ↳ "An engineer solves practical problems." … Precisely know the least amount required to create a structure, so long as you have knowledge of at least some of its blueprints. Can fashion a structure your own way, even if you do not have the full knowledge of its blueprints. Create structures in record-breaking time with little preparation needed. Chance to randomly upgrade one aspect of a structure every time it is repaired or maintained.
+====================================+
It was…actually a bit disappointing.
How long's it been?
Didn't I—actually…
Hm…
…
…Maybe…
…
…
…Okay, maybe this is fair.
For most of the time, all I've been doing is supervising others to grind to get their levels and skills up, instead of grinding myself.
I've just been chilling and slacking off compared to the past.
Well, it's alright.
I still got some upgrades here and there.
The moment I finished reviewing the status screen, I heard it.
A shout.
It was one of the rookies.
I launched myself toward the sound, keen to prove that following these guys was the correct choice.
This is definitely what life's all about: going from one problem to another and solving them.