Aw, crap. You probably don’t even know what stats changed. Fine, I’ll give you a summary:
Sense Danger Skill Increased to Level 4 (Tier-0)
Constitution +1
Endurance +2
Willpower +3
Luck +4 1
Combat, Opponent Undefined (no XP awarded) 2
100 XP Earned (cumulative)
1 Don’t get too excited about that Luck score. Yes, it went up an insane amount, but there’s something weird about it. Verna made me tell you it’s a bit funky, so don’t get cocky about risk-taking.
2 I have no idea what this line means. I guess you fought something and might have won? Congratulations?
Yeah, and there’s one more surprise you should know about. Hint: It’s not a puppy. Check your stat sheet.
Mark looked up from the piece of paper in shock. The fog had been bad, but if the seemingly all-powerful people who had sent him here were worried? That was trouble.
Opening his Tome, Mark looked up his stat sheet.
MARK SULLIVAN
Renown: Level 6 – மாற்றம்
Species: Human
Age: 20
Experience: 5,400
Experience to Next Level: 2,000
Base Attributes
Strength – 19
Constitution – 19
Endurance – 18
Dexterity – 18
Willpower – 19
Intelligence – 16
Charisma – 14
Luck – 13
AVERAGE: 17.0
The changes represented a huge improvement over when Mark first arrived, but one difference stood out from the rest.
“மாற்றம்?” Mark said. “What the hell kind of class is that?”
A new page appeared in front of Mark’s face.
New Class Alert: மாற்றம்!
Look, half the fun of this job is trash-talking you mortals, but this isn’t the time. You just had a class imposed on you by one of the Primal forces. That is very much not okay. Unfortunately, there is only one Primal force in existence that is immune to punishment from the Eternals, which is exactly why everyone has stayed the hell away from that fog for a thousand years. But not you! No, you decided to run straight for it like the brilliant asshat you are. We have no idea why you ended up with a class instead of a horrible death, but since you did, you’re pretty much stuck with it. Enjoy Arenia.
- You are now capable of gods only know what.
- Special abilities have probably been granted? Seriously, we have no idea. This primal is a real jerk and we never know what it’s going to do. Which makes sense, I guess.
- You’ll be getting some—and I really hate doing this—compensation down the road. You got seriously jobbed here, and if we can’t punish the one who did it, we can at least give you a little something for your troubles. Ugh.
Class Quest: “What the Hell Are You?” Part 1
Here, have a quest. Let us know what you find out.
Quest Completion Criteria: This is one of those “you’ll know it when you see it” kind of situations.
Reward for success: XP, Knowledge of your class.
Penalty for failure: Live an ignominious life and then die in obscurity.
QUEST AUTOMATICALLY ACCEPTED
In all his years playing fantasy games, Mark had never heard of a class called a மாற்றம். Was it a spellcaster? That seemed likely, considering he’d just been pulled backwards into a glowing ball of rainbow energy. Except that his Tome didn’t show mana, or even spells for that matter. How was he supposed to interact with a system when he didn’t know anything about how it worked?
Mark ran a hand over his face and massaged his temples.
What the hell was going on? Was anything going to go right on this god-forsaken planet? And now that this had happened, what could he do about it?
The answer, as had universally been the case since Mark arrived, was nothing. Not a damn thing. Here he was, living the greatest adventure of his life, and he was a passenger. The only choice he had was to walk forward or lay down and die.
Mark burst into a chuckle and shook his head. That was the way of it, wasn’t it? In a way, it made everything easier. Two options. Which made it an easy choice.
Mark accepted the quest, got up, brushed himself off, and headed deeper into the forest.
Unlike when Mark first landed on Arenia, this time he was able to get a feel for the deep green, loamy forest around him. It smelled fresh, full of oxygen, and it occurred to Mark that maybe Arenia wasn’t full of wall-to-wall enemies after all. He had landed with a Luck score of 8—no wonder he had been attacked non-stop. With his Luck nearly doubling to 14, perhaps he would actually be able to hike unmolested for a while.
One more undeniable observation was just how amazing it felt to have two functioning legs. In light of the changes to Mark’s staff and his weird new class, Mark’s mysteriously healed leg seemed almost a footnote. In reality, it had a far more immediate impact. Without that healed leg, Mark would be struggling his way through the forest instead of walking deliberately, analyzing his surroundings for enemies and information with every step.
That led to the observation that this stretch of the forest looked different from where he had spawned. It was younger, with more gaps in the canopy. New growth after logging, perhaps?
Mark stopped and looked around. Of course! He was so used to seeing stumps in forests that it hadn’t even occurred to him that they wouldn’t occur in a natural growth forest. But there were stumps here, ones which were many times the diameter of the current crop of trees. There was no question: This forest had been logged. Not recently, maybe not even in the last hundred years, but it had happened.
That welcome thought wrapped itself around Mark and comforted him as he resumed his trek. Logging meant civilization, and he could use a dose of that right now. If he had to guess—and based on the sun, he felt confident he was right—he’d come out of the fog on the opposite side of where he’d entered. Given how the inhabitants of this world felt about the fog, himself now included, it was likely that the loggers had started somewhere ahead of him and worked their way inward, stopping when they got too close for comfort. Hopefully, that meant a road of some sort was nearby. Or even a logging camp. If he could find either of those, he just might survive after all.
As nice as it was that the younger forest implied nearby civilization, the big downside to smaller trees was that it meant less canopy, and that extra access to light translated into more ground cover for Mark to push through. It was all ferns and mossy old logs, too—nothing like the gnarled California oak and eucalyptus forests he was used to back on Earth, where the groundcover burned away every few years. The going didn’t get any easier when it started raining in a steady beat that drenched everything and turned the ground into thick mud that sucked at Mark’s shoes with every step. Still, even with the mud slowing down his travel, it was nothing compared to when he had his mangled leg. By his reckoning, he was still making good time.
The bigger issue was hunger. All that hard work was creating a knot of pain in Mark’s belly where food was supposed to go. Even worse, it was also making him sweat profusely, causing his thirst to swell to overwhelming proportions—rather annoying considering he was in the middle of a rainstorm.
After another hour of hiking and another point in that Skill, Mark was thinking about how he’d murder a hobo for half a can of Fresca when he noticed a plant whose broad, bowl-shaped leaves were curved in such a way that water collected in small pools at the base of the stem. Mark immediately raced over and planted his face in one of the leaves, sucking every drop of water from the leaf and letting the cool moisture pour over his parched tongue. Then he went to the next leaf and repeated himself, moving from leaf to leaf until they were all drained. He briefly considered the possibility of a toxic element in the plant’s leaves, but he quickly abandoned that train of thought. If the leaf-water was going
to kill him, it had to be more pleasant than dying of thirst.
Mark resumed his trek, keeping his eye out for more of those plants, eventually able to slake his thirst completely. It didn’t do anything for his painful hunger, but after the last few days, he considered himself something of a connoisseur of misery, and it was clear that thirst was way worse than hunger. Still… how long was it since he’d last eaten? Three days? Five? Could hunger even get worse after a couple of days, or did it simply blur into the same gnawing pain every day until you keeled over dead?
If only Mark had taken after his father’s side of the family—he sure wouldn’t mind a few extra pounds on his frame to pull energy from. Instead, Mark took after his mother. As a result, he hadn’t exactly shown up in Arenia with a surplus of fatty energy stores. Now he was stuck wishing he’d plowed back more pie and ice cream when he had the chance.
Mmm… pie and ice cream…
“No, no, no!” Mark said, slapping himself on the side of the face. “Not helping!”
Mark plunked down on a log and rested his head against his staff. He was just so frigging hungry.
For the first time since his arrival on Arenia, Mark wasn’t actively fleeing for his life. It brought on a crushing feeling of loneliness. Here he was, lost in the forest with only the vaguest sense of direction, on a planet he didn’t understand, with a class that even the beings who ran the place hadn’t seen before. And he had no idea where his family was. Were his parents still alive? Grandpa Jack? Angela?
Man, what he wouldn’t give to have Angie with him right now. She had to be loving this. Probably already had that Druid class and was out there casting badass spells or turning into a bird and flying to Palmyre. She might even be able to tell him what the deal was with spells in this place.
For what felt like the ten-thousandth time since his arrival, Mark heard a rustle in the trees. The sound of feet slapping against dirt emanated from the brush, as well as some sort of hiccoughing noise that sounded familiar but which Mark couldn’t quite place.
Screw this, he thought. For the first time since his arrival, Mark was armed, and he wasn’t going to get pushed around anymore.
Gripping his staff, Mark stared down the forest in front of him, prepared to face whatever was coming for him.
For what felt like the ten-thousandth time since his arrival, Mark heard a rustle in the trees. He shot to his feet and gripped his staff, prepared to face down whatever it was. The sound of feet slapping against dirt emanated from the brush, as well as some sort of hiccoughing noise that sounded familiar but which Mark couldn’t quite place.
Then the ferns burst aside to reveal not a creature, but a 10-year-old boy.
Mark stepped back in surprise. The boy was human, brown-haired and light-skinned, wearing the same kind of homespun clothing as Mark. His face was streaming with tears, but whatever had caused them was probably forgotten because as soon as he set eyes on Mark, he looked scared enough to piss himself.
“AAAEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!” the boy screamed, his pitch custom-made to destroy eardrums. The kid turned and sprinted away from Mark, undergrowth crunching in his wake.
“Wait!” Mark called out as he raced to follow. Voices shouted in the distance in response to the child’s scream, both panicked and angry in equal measure.
“Boy! Where are you!” a man shouted in the distance. “Follow my voice, lad! Come here!”
“There’s a monster, da!” the boy shouted from up ahead. The voices of the boy and his father gave Mark a clear indication of their location, but it dawned on Mark that chasing the man’s son out of the bushes was probably not the ideal first impression if Mark wanted these people’s help.
Forcing himself to a stop, Mark took a deep breath. He needed to play this right.
Intelligence +1
See? Resisting the urge to hurl yourself into danger IS the right move sometimes.
A woman’s voice could be heard on the other side of the trees. “Gavin!” she cried.
“I’m sorry, mum. I won’t run away again!”
“You’d better not!” the man roared, although there was more than a little fear in his voice. “You could have been killed! Now, what did you see?”
“It was a wraith!” the boy cried. “Nate said they come outta the fog to eat travellers when they pee!”
“Nate’s never left Palmyre, lad. That’s foolish.”
“But his da—”
“His da’s never left Palmyre neither. Now, what was it, really?”
“Just a man!” Mark shouted before the boy’s imagination could run away with him. “A very lost and hungry man who has had one too many things try to eat him and would give his left nut to see another human again!”
Mark swore he heard a snicker before the man responded.
“Well, come out then; no need to be crass about it,” he shouted.
Mark took a step, then paused. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the bloody scrap of cloth that he’d used to bandage his leg and wrapped it around his hand, making sure he could hold his staff without any of his skin touching the wood.
With the magic of his staff hidden, Mark felt comfortable pushing through the bushes, emerging to find a shockingly well-built road. It was constructed of well-fit cobblestones despite being far from any apparent towns and was wide enough for two carriages with room to spare. The opposite side of the road consisted of a row of trees, perhaps a dozen deep, beyond which could be heard the crashing of surf. From the sound of it, the shore was well below the trees, leading Mark to conclude that they were on a bluff of some sort. To one side of the road a wagon had been pulled over, and it was attached to two of the biggest horses Mark had ever seen. Like, BIG big. They made Clydesdales look like ponies, with withers taller than Mark. And given the wagon they were attached to, it was a good thing they were so large. Not only were they hauling barrels of various sizes but also stacks of metal ingots of various types. The cargo was covered over with a tarp that domed over the entire load, anchored at the back by a curious contraption that caused the tarp to project into an awning that provided a place to sit at the rear of the wagon without getting wet from the rain.
As for the family, the father was a perfect match for the horses. Somewhere in his mid-30’s, he was of average height but wide, and he looked strong as hell—like, “World’s Strongest Man” strong. He carried a two-handed hammer that could probably have vaporized Mark in a single blow, and he was utterly unbothered by the rain despite it falling in sheets that poured off his oilskin poncho. The woman’s size, in contrast… zoinks. If these two were a couple, Mark didn’t even want to think about the mathematics of procreation in their relationship. She stood under the awning behind the wagon, utterly dwarfed by the size of the thing, and had her arm around her son, who was already taller than her despite still being a child. Mark’s best guess placed her at no more than 4-feet tall. Between that, her narrow features, and a set of slightly pointed ears, Mark was left wondering if she was human at all. He hoped so, because she was staring at him with such intense anger that Mark was growing worried that she was about to reduce him to ashes with a thought.
“Gods, lad,” the man said, pulling Mark’s attention to him. “You’re a sight, ain’t you? What are you doing in those woods? Damned close to the fog to be wanderin’ about.”
“It, ah, wasn’t by choice,” Mark said. Realizing that ‘I came from another planet’ probably wasn’t an ideal explanation, he decided to wing it.
“I was on a class quest,” Mark said, hoping the last message he’d received was part of a universal pattern in this world. “I had to go into the forest for something and, well, let’s just say it didn’t end up how I’d hoped.”
That seemed the right thing to say because the woman’s face bloomed with sympathy.
“Oh, you poor dear,” she said. “What kind of sadistic class sends a singl’d into the forests of the fog coast on their own? If the mists had rolled in, you might’a wandered into the
mad fog itself!”
“Now there, Rosie,” the man said. “You know not to be askin’ a man about his class path. Whatever it was, I’m sure he realizes it ain’t worth it and will avoid such foolishness in the future.” He glared at Mark with an expression that left no questions about his own thoughts on the matter.
“Will I have to go into the forest when I’m Level 6, da?” the boy said, his voice fearful.
“Of course not!” The man said. “A Blacksmith does his quests in the forge, not the forest.” He grimaced. “I wouldn’t want any class that forced me into forests like these. They’re a nasty place, infected with wraiths and carrids. Whole packs of them.”
“I thought you said wraiths weren’t real!” the boy exclaimed.
“’Cause I didn’t want you sleepin’ in our bed for the next month!” the man said.
“But—”
“Don’t worry your head, Gavin. You’ll be fine,” the man said. He looked at Mark. “You’ll be wanting a ride then, I’m guessing? If so, I’d like to know your name.”
“Mark,” Mark said immediately, his voice full of gratitude. “Mark Sullivan.”
“Sullivan, eh?” the man said. A hint of suspicion entered his tone. “Not a name I’ve come across, and I’ve come across most of ’em in Palmyre.”
Mark grimaced, his mind racing. “Yeah, that’s not surprising. My family is new to Palmyre. Truth be told, none of us have even been there before. I came this way without them because of the quest, which I think we can all agree was an exercise in stupidity.”
The man grunted in agreement. “You’re refugees then?” the man said.
“No, nothing like that,” Mark said, although it was something to make a note of. Refugees meant bad things happening elsewhere in the world—he’d need to make it a priority to get abreast of local events. “We just found ourselves in a situation where moving on would be better for everyone.”
Arrival: Legends of Arenia Book 1 (A LitRPG Story) Page 20