Chapter 9

“Short Bus, I think I can negotiate with those things,” Ben said, his voice quiet, but still sure the shark would be able to hear him.

“Oh, ok. Good idea,” Short Bus said, sounding like he was nodding his head.

Ben, in a few short words, had no idea what he was doing. What he had were a bundle of instincts giving him unhelpful suggestions, and a bunch of civilized impulses giving him absurdly bad advice.

He risked his advantage of surprise by rising out of the ocean and standing on his feet for the first time in many hours. Then, he utterly compromised his advantage.

“Ow!” Ben shouted, his feet hurting quite badly from standing on the hard rocks. If Ben had been anything close to paying attention to his own body, he would have realized he was wrinklier than a naked mole rat, and his feet were soft.

Immediately, five pairs of eyes turned to face him, four sets of them bulging red, one set pure black. One of the creatures, which Ben did not know were called gremlins, pointed at him, opened its mouth, and started screaming in just an awful way.

They dropped the woman and started running at Ben while holding their spears in a competent way, while he tried his best not to slip on his own feet and fall on his ass.

Ben felt his eyebrows go up and he started smiling, his brain completely unprepared to go from swimming around with his pal, the great white shark, to short furry little monsters charging him with spears. He started laughing nervously and turned around, diving into the water without hesitation and running away from the fight.

“Holy shit!” Ben said once he'd gotten far enough away to surface and look at the beach again. A spear was flying directly towards him, a fatal hit, but Ben blasted some water and was able to dodge off to the side, then dove back down and ran even farther away. He surfaced just in time to see the brown little assholes raising bows into the air and firing in his direction.

“Why are you so accurate with that shit!” Ben said, seeing death flying towards him once again, and running even farther still, way out of range of anything reasonable. When he finally surfaced, he saw the monsters standing on the edge of the water screaming in his general direction.

One of them was still doing the arm pointing and creepy scream; the second was dancing and then turned around and squatted down to shit, staring at Ben with a mean, absurd smile; the third scooped up a handful of sand and ate it, chewing with angry, rapid force, also making eye contact; the fourth was wiggling around in a disturbing way while making freaky chirping and clicking noises. If Ben had been more illuminated to the history of recently spawned monsters, he would have recognized that the fourth gremlin was attempting to taunt him as though he still had tentacles.

“Oh shit! Ben, you suck at fighting! Those guys would have eaten you alive! Literally!” Short Bus said, swimming up slowly and circling him, his voice extremely positive and upbeat.

“That-” Ben said, still with that shocked smile on his face, “what? What the fuck just happened! What's going on?” Ben asked, feeling like he'd just been woken up from a deep sleep, his memory-complex still hadn't loaded up, and he was in a complete amnesic fog.

“You were going to talk with those guys on the beach! Oh man, I don't trust your judgment at all anymore! That was not a good idea. You ok, buddy? Come on, come on, swim it off,” Short Bus said, catching the edge of some of the rags Ben was still insisting on wearing and starting to pull him along.

Ben, for his part, went along with it, and Short Bus let go when Ben put on a utility pocket over his face and dove below the surface.

“Yeah, gotta swim it off,” Short Bus said, chatting to fill the silence in Ben's mind before Ben's brain could. “I remember when I was a young shark I picked a fight with a dolphin and I totally would have won if all its asshole friends hadn't shown up. Barely got out of that one alive. Ate a couple of dolphins after that when I was bigger, I'm pretty sure they were either old or sick, but it's the principle of the thing. Once, I went way too far south and got chased around by a killer whale, barely got out of there with my caudal intact. Came back later and got a young whale, separated him from the pod and dashed off with him. Ha! Those whales were pissed!”

“You stole a whale baby?” Ben said, suddenly looking over at his friend.

“One, ocean's a tough neighborhood; two, that little jerk was going to grow up and eat me; three, his dad already tried to eat me; four, I'm a winner and I pushed past it.”

“Oh, well, I'm still friends with you, but killing babies,”

“And eating them,” Short Bus added.

“Ok, not helping, but that's rude. Don't do it,” Ben said, somehow glad to be engaging his mind in the completely brainless task of saying 'don't eat babies', rather than thinking too hard about what had just happened.

“Ah, you'll learn. We'll encounter a nest of dragons or something, and then we'll reevaluate your policy... Oh look, something's happening! It's more of the weirdos! Ben, go check it out, I'm curious again!”

Ben poked his head up from the water and saw that yes, more of the weirdos with gray skin had shown up. Each one of them had a staff that looked fancy, and Ben did the logical thing and assumed they were spell-casters of some kind.

The monsters on the beach had been so distracted taunting Ben, they completely failed to notice the grays getting into formation behind them. Ben saw a flash of light from each staff, and bolts of green energy shot out with deadly force. The monsters froze up as they were hit, and a second volley finished them.

Their bodies fell and were quickly retrieved by the killers, who started to strip them of their equipment and tie the bodies together, presumably to drag them behind.

One of the grays scanned the water and spotted Ben, then raised his staff. He was stopped by one of his companions, who then raised a hand in Ben's direction.

“Greetings?” the creature spoke directly into Ben's mind, but his voice echoed a little. Ben got the weird feeling the shark had better telepathic control than the gray.

“Can you hear me?” Ben asked, thinking hard in the gray's direction. The alien winced and took a couple of steps back, shielding his face.

“Sorry,” Ben mentally whispered, and the alien still had an expression of discomfort on his face.

“Your communication is very intense. Am I to understand you are a human being?”

“Yes,” Ben quietly thought, “Do you mind if I come ashore?”

“I was about to suggest it myself, it may be less painful to vocalize this conversation.”

Ben swam to the shore, then gingerly removed himself from the water, his body feeling heavy and weird.

“You are very strange looking,” the gray said, eyeing Ben up and down.

“You're telling me,” Ben replied, looking at the aliens. Son of a bitch if they didn't look just like how people had imagined them. We got the faces wrong, they didn't look nearly as frightening as we thought they would, but those were 'The Grays!' When Ben had been in his early twenties, he'd gotten all into the alien conspiracy theories, and consequently felt a little star struck. Pardon the pun.

The alien had a big head, big eyes that were solid black, and a skinny little body. He couldn't have been more than three and a half feet tall, and was dressed in well made brown leather clothing that could possibly qualify as armor. The other grays looked like clones, which considering the conspiracy theory lore, was very likely.

“You are covered in wrinkles,” the gray observed, “are you injured? I am willing to trade for healing,” he said, sounding practical.

“No, I'll get better. I've just been in the ocean for too long,” Ben replied, “Do you mind if I sit down somewhere and get my legs under me?”

“Please,” the gray said, gesturing Ben towards the forest. Two of the other aliens were helping the female get loose of her bindings, and they were speaking quietly to one another.

Ben took wobbly steps towards the forest, found a suitable piece of driftwood, and sat down, then began to stretch his body and get used to gravity.

“How long have you been in the ocean?” the gray asked, standing a polite distance away from him.

“Oh, six, seven hours?” Ben said, rolling his neck and completely missing the expression of shock on the alien's face.

“Are you an aquatic creature then? I could not swim in that water for more than thirty minutes before it killed me.”

“Uh, not, not aquatic,” Ben paused and gave the gray a funny look, then shook his head, “no, not aquatic,” he repeated.

“I see. Tell me, you have not had access to a town crystal yet, have you?”

“No, how can you tell?”

“It is obvious,” the alien said with a smile, “would you like to come to our town and use our crystal? It is a coastal town, populated by several thousand of my people. It is a safe place.” His voice was nice to listen to, very calm and straight-forward.

“I really appreciate that, thank you. I have a friend out in the water, he's. . . well, he is an aquatic creature. Would he be able to use the crystal as well?”

“It is not mobile, but I will see what can be done. Please, when you are ready, we will return.”

Ben took a few minutes and let his skin start to return to normal, basking in the sunlight. The grays had finished getting the monster corpses ready for transport, and seemed content to wait for Ben. When he stood up and his body didn't shake, he nodded to the group, and they began walking.

Off in the distance, a sharp fin kept pace with the group.

They walked in silence, the grays because they were naturally quiet, and Ben, because he was focused on putting one foot in front of another.

The beach was uncomfortable on his feet, but he didn't feel like getting back into the ocean, in fact, he dreaded the thought of getting back in the water. It was like the second he realized he didn't have to be in the ocean was the exact second he realized how uncomfortable and horrible it had been. His skin felt terrible and soft and it hurt all over.

But, Ben kept walking, despite the fact that he was basically naked and surrounded by alien spellcasters. The female was also naked, and Ben was glad he was too tired to get excited about that fact. She didn't seem to mind, and neither did the male aliens. Weird culture, but OK. She walked up beside Ben, and he did his best not to catch a glimpse of her.

“You are not a fighter,” she said, examining him without regard for his modesty.

“I was just surprised, that's all,” Ben said, eyes straight forward.

“I see,” she said, then went to walk next to the alien who Ben figured was the leader. They were walking for about fifteen minutes before Ben heard a familiar scream.

“Gremlins!” one of the aliens shouted, and they formed a defensive square. Around Ben.

Ben frowned, taken aback by how fiercely they were defending him. Three gremlins charged out of the forest and were quickly dispatched. They too were stripped and strung up to be dragged. Ben offered to help, but they didn't let him.

Hmm.

The walk continued, the grays completely silent, and it occurred to Ben that they may be communicating with one another telepathically and leaving him out of the loop.

“Are you guys talking telepathically?” Ben asked, and the gray leader, who had yet to name himself, vocalized his response.

“Yes, our apologies. We are not used to others outside of our species and have failed to include you in our conversation. I admit some hesitation, as I am still experiencing discomfort from your previous sending. Further, we consider verbal communication to be. . .” he struggled to find an appropriate word.

“Got it,” Ben said, then sighed.

The walk continued, still in silence. Ben chose to try and send his own private telepathic message, thinking very hard of Short Bus as he 'spoke'.

“Hey, can you hear me?” Ben looked around without making it obvious, and saw that none of the grays seemed to have noticed.

“Yeah,” Short Bus responded, “so what are those things?”

“They're aliens. Grays. They've got big heads and solid black eyes and gray skin and-”

“Oh, they sound like sharks,” Short Bus commented, “you can trust them. Sharks are very honest creatures.”

Ben felt less sure about his new companions after Short Bus vouched for them.

“We are nearly there,” the gray leader said, sounding noticeably more relaxed, “I do not expect any other monsters to attack us so close to Grayport 3. We would appreciate patience on your part while we send someone ahead to let our leadership know you will be arriving with us. Our people are not used to humans, and we would like to avoid any sub-optimal outcomes.”

“Sure,” Ben said, glancing over to the ocean and mentally planning an escape route. Not that he needed it, he just felt more comfortable having a plan.

The nope sense hadn't been triggered, but it was starting to itch, like the prelude to a sneeze.

Say whatever you want about the grays, but they were efficient communicators, because it hadn't even been ten minutes before a welcoming party arrived.

All of the grays were holding staves, which made sense, because the thought of any of them engaging in a physical fight was a bit of dark humor. There were five of them, four dressed in shiny blue robes that looked like something out of the space age and positioned in a square around the fifth. Up until now, every gray Ben had seen looked nearly identical, except the female. He had the feeling all the females were identical as well.

Not so with the fifth gray in the welcoming party. He was clearly male, and taller, his face having more distinguishing features. They weren't distinguishing in any way a human would find useful, it was still an alien face, but still different than the others. His skin was light gray, as opposed to dark, and he seemed to move with more confidence than the others.

“A human,” the tall gray said, “I have seen the system updates and announcements, yes, you are human?” Ben nodded, “I see. You have just arrived in The World, and I can see you have not yet utilized a town crystal and activated the class and level system. Without those systems, you will find your time in this world to be very difficult. I will allow you entry into our town, and I will allow you to utilize our crystal. Is that acceptable?”

“Yes, please,” Ben said, feeling a little put out by the culture shock of the gray's pushy, blunt culture, “and is there anywhere I can rest? Like a hotel or an inn?”

The tall gray hesitated.

“Not for your size, but by the end of the day I'm sure we will be able to arrange something for you. Come, let us not waste time outside the safety of our walls. The forest is dangerous.”

'This feels like a setup', Ben thought to himself, 'but if they wanted me dead, they could have taken me out like three or four times already.' He felt uneasy around these people, but his civilized instincts told him it was prejudice, that they were setting him on edge because of how different they were.

Grayport 3 completely lived up to the kind of expectation the name produced. The wall was a solid slab of what looked like concrete, with alien words written on it in black paint. Ben would have bet good money the translation was 'Grayport 3'.

The gate, which opened outward, let them into a depressingly uniform town. Everything was set out as if it had been planned on a grid. The buildings were like apartments, completely without ornamentation or beauty, and the town had a heavy smell of disinfectant that assaulted his nose the second he entered.

“We apologize for your sense of smell, which we can now see is more developed than ours. The World is host to various forms of nano-biological weaponry which require constant vigilance to survive. We will soon be passing by the processing vats, which I can anticipate will further irritate your senses. We apologize,” he said, and sure enough, they passed another apartment sized building and came on a grid of tall, steaming metal vats.

Ben gagged, it smelled like the worst parts of a chemistry class, the cleaning aisle in a grocery store, and rotten food. Several of the grays in their party broke away from the group, dragged the gremlin corpses over to a vat, lifted and then pushed them over the edge without ceremony. It was really disturbing. The bodies slid over the lip and the arm was last to go. For some reason, his mind had chosen to devote serious resources to seeing the whole event in vivid detail.

“We are proud to boast,” the tall gray said, “that our processing facility allows us to convert many different types of biological material into a usable food source. This technology, though common throughout the wider universe, was none the less difficult to replicate in The World. We are fortunate previous gray civilizations had laid the groundwork when we were abducted, else we would have had to resort to cannibalism.”

Ben grimaced, tried to smile, and nodded his head, his eyes watering. They quickly passed the vats and got upwind, giving Ben some relief.

In what looked like the direct center of town was the first, and probably only, bit of visually interesting stimuli. Set into the ground was an ice blue crystal that radiated a sense of refreshing cold. It was narrow, like an obelisk, and must have been at least ten feet tall. A cool fog wafted down from it, but didn't get far before vanishing.

“Our town crystal was a gift from Graycapital 1. We are honored to have it and the benefits it provides. All town crystals are different, some are weak, some are powerful, and some are mysterious; but all provide the same basic benefits. Please, approach it and make physical contact. Then once you are finished we can begin to make arrangements for lodging.”

Ben approached the obelisk, his heart beating hard. This was it, this was where it all started. He'd be able to get stronger now, to be a part of The World; he'd be able to have a real damn adventure.

Ben was a mere foot away from the crystal, and the cold it radiated suffused his body and refreshed his mind. A mana buff? That was useful.

He took a deep breath and put his hand on the crystal, immediately feeling a connection form between him and The World. Words formed in his mind, the same way all previous messages had when he had fallen asleep.

[Welcome to The World]

[You have successfully survived the wilds and found a town crystal. Be proud, many have failed to achieve even this much. By accepting the power and privilege provided by The Level System, and all its associated sub-systems, you will be given the tools needed to survive in The World.]

[TUTORIAL UNAVALIABLE TO PLUS PLAYERS]

“That's not helpful,” Ben muttered to himself.

[Would you like to activate The Level System?]

“Yes?” Ben said, noticing all at once that there were way more grays around him than there had been a moment ago.

[Initiating Level System]

[You have gained the skill Lesser Endurance]

[You have gained the skill Lesser Mana Manipulation]

[You have gained the Racial Trait: Winged Flight]

Oh, fuck yes!

[You have gained the Racial Trait: Magical]

Ben felt his mana reserves significantly deepen, and felt his mana regeneration increase proportionally.

[Your soul quality has increased to: Quasar]

Quasar! Those are the brightest objects in the known universe!

[You have gained the Racial Trait: Evolution. Every ten levels you may evolve your race to the next stage!]

That sounds way overpowered, yes!

[You have gained the Racial Trait: Extremely Tiny]

What.

Ben felt the world start to get larger, and larger, and larger, and larger. Wings burst from his back, and he saw they looked like fairy wings.

[You are currently a stage 1 human. This concludes the initiation of The Level System. You will gain classes based upon your actions. Go forth and grow in levels and power!]

Ben stood on the ground, looking way, way up at the Town Crystal. He turned around and saw the utterly gigantic gray aliens congregating around him. The tall gray pointed a staff at him, and his vision was obscured by a holographic, orange light.

Ben pushed against it with his tiny little hands, and found it completely solid. He turned his head from left to right, and saw he was trapped in an orange sphere of energy.

“Prepare the soul gem,” the tall gray ordered, “he is a Quasar class, just like the last one. We are going to be rich.”

Oh. Fuck.