“To boldly go where no man has ever gone before”

~Captain James T. Kirk.

POV - Tad

And in a strobe of light I was back.

It was good to be free of the indeterminate wasteland. Even though it was full of Essence it had been beginning to grate on my Soul.

I turned around to see the doorway fade from sight as the door swung closed and reality resealed itself. I had escaped my pursuer. I pulled up the Combat notification to confirm.

COMBAT CONCLUDED

Combat Summary

Interim Report finalised.

81014XP awarded

Ahh. I breathed a sigh of relief I wasn’t aware of holding in. And the air felt different. Well, that was to be expected. I wasn’t in the dry high Essence atmosphere of the dump any more, but it felt different to what it had felt like previously. It was more still. More wet and more, I frowned, more expectant? This was weird. Looking around I took stock of my surroundings. I was in a large clearing. Ringed by the ruins of some absolutely massive stones. Some fallen and leaning on one another. Some reduced to just rubble. If I factored up Stonehenge to the size of a city… this was strangely familiar, if not greener, wetter and way overgrown.

Checking the Essence flows was impossible. There simply wasn’t enough ambient Essence. This would suggest I was back in Level 1. But I hesitated, it was too still. It was like I was the only being here. Where was everyone? There had been thousands bustling about the city, now it was a ghost town and the solid buildings that had housed us all were decrepit ruins. Was there a time differential in play and I now way into the future? Surely millennia must have passed to have degraded the city like this.

And I was getting hungry.

It was time for some exploration. It was like starting out all over again. Food, water, shelter, safety. And then, once those were sorted…

Power. Yes. I rubbed my hands together. Power, freedom, agency. Hmmm. Maybe I was a villain after all. All I needed was an evil chuckle, I chuckled. Oh, there it was.

No, after I had addressed all those concerns I would check out the notifications from my last fight. And there had been a few [dings] going back to where I entered the dump. Then I would boost my Stats and begin my march towards System domination. Muah hahaha!

[Prospect] ‘food’. Hmmmm. Multiple directions. That’s good.

‘Water’. Off to my right, excellent. ‘Shelter’; straight ahead.

‘Safety’; aimless. Not so good. Oh, better not forget, ‘danger’; everywhere. Darn. Okay [Prospect] ’most danger’; to my right as well. Bother, getting water may be more of a challenge.

I needed a base. Somewhere that would provide a bit of security but wouldn’t trap me if I needed to escape. Time for a bit of scouting. Let’s check out the dangers and scrounge up something to eat. Maybe two birds in one stone if I was lucky. If the monsters weren’t some icky overgrown earwigs. Yee-ugck! Though if I was hungry enough, maybe they would be like crab? Yeah, okay so I must be pretty hungry if I was considering chowing down on one of those bugs.

I made my way forward, my senses on high alert, [Observation] dialled right up as I relished the change from the last time I uncertainly set out way back before I met Nige. I now knew the System wasn’t going to try and direct my path or give me quests that would force me to act in a certain way. I was a free agent. Well, I had some agency, if somewhat limited, and my survival and growth was all on me. Of course I could choose to take on quests but, I frowned, there was no one here to grant them. I only had my three System Bank starter quests open and it didn’t look like I would be completing them anytime soon.

On a whim I [Prospected] ‘System Bank’. Oh? There was one here? And still open? Huh. That would be a boring job. If there were no customers. Maybe it was a ruin, one I could plunder. No, the impression I got was this was a fully functional Bank. I remembered what Cassandra had said. No, not Cassandra. It was Cassette. She had said it was a System Guaranteed Institution and that I could access my account from every level, not only this one. The Bank looked to have survived what calamity had befallen everyone else.

I had sudden inspiration. If the Bank was here, then maybe the System Shop was also here. [Prospect] ‘System Shop’. Waahoo! Multiple pings. Okay. That just eased my food, water and sundry supplies issue. That moved security and shelter up my priority list as the next things to address. In the meantime I set my [Prospect] lodestone towards the closest Shop and set out.

The overwhelming feeling of the place was one of immense age. Everything was tired, abandoned and overgrown. What on earth had happened? It seemed I had warped into a very bleak future. Perhaps I was the last human alive. It certainly felt that way. Had some apocalypse occurred inside our System apocalypse and wiped everyone else out? Why else would there be no one here? This was exceedingly perplexing. I had more questions than ever and even less answers.

[Observation] flared. I stepped in close to a fallen monolith and paused in the shadow of a cleft. A small herd of amphibious(?) deer bounded past, wriggling and squirming over and around each other in their haste. I used [Inspect].

CREATURE:

Amphibious

SPECIES:

Wild Riverdeer

LVL:

1-4

HP:

Varies

DESCRIPTION:

A readily domesticated species, these Riverdeer have long reverted to the wild, foraging freely either on land or in water.

In the water a flukelike tail morphs from their powerful rear legs and provides massive speed and grace.

Sharp hooves and a wicked bite deter all but the most determined of hunters. Mature Stags have also been known to utilise Water Magic in proportion to the size of their antlers.

[Improve proficiency to view more and unlock deeper insight]

As I considered what I had learnt, their pursuers eased into view, loping after them unhurriedly. For all the world they looked like overgrown otters, the size of tigers and with steel blue camouflaging stripes breaking up their form. A romp of these would be a serious challenge. As I [Inspected] the lead hunter, it paused and hissed, the pack froze momentarily and then increased their pace.

CREATURE:

River Monster

SPECIES:

Waterprowler;

LVL:

7

HP:

784

DESCRIPTION:

These playful looking monsters are serious business. Intensely focused and clever they tend to congregate in close knit family groups under a dominant female matriarch.

An ambush predator, a romp will work together to bring down its prey and is capable of devious strategy.

WIth massive bite strength, high agility and team tactics this is a monster to be feared and treated with respect.

[Improve proficiency to view more and unlock deeper insight]

They were herding the RiverDeer into a trap, no an ambush. I stayed still in the cleft, waiting till all was silent and still again. There was no need for me to take unnecessary risks now that I knew there was a source of food and water and while I did want to continue to grow I was not going to throw down and go kill happy without a better understanding of where I was.

A loud honking cry broke the silence as scores of greeny-grey geese like creatures suddenly took to the skies. They wheeled in a great confusion before settling down into a series of diving, harrying attacks. The chase must have disturbed their nesting grounds and now they were making their displeasure known. They were too far away to use [Identify] but the theme was coming through. These waterfowl were also river based creatures. And I would need to watch the sky as well for threats.

Continuing on my own careful prowl, I concealed myself three more times as local wildlife went about their business. From a flock of small aquatic sheep under the watchful eyes of a three headed ram, to a knot of unihorned frogs the size of car tyres and a bevy of water foxes that dashed across my path. They were all reasonably low levels topping out at four or five with most in the two to three range. The lead waterprowler at Level 7 was the highest monster I had seen. While that did seem high for Level 1 area it wasn’t absurdly so. Of course there was something much more dangerous down at the river. Perhaps food was just so plentiful down there it could support some boss critter. I would need to be especially vigilant when I ventured down around there.

I made my way carefully to the System Shop Kiosk. Buildings all around it had fallen into ruin. But it looked pristine. It obviously was connected to the System infrastructure in a completely different way. I paused and let [Observe] run through each of the surrounding ruins carefully. No movement. After an hour of complete stillness, while I [Observed] and [Basic Cultivated], I ventured forth.

I laid my hand on the Obelisk. A System message popped up. All in a jumble of hieroglyphics. Say what? It disappeared and after a moment a fresh message appeared.

System update in progress

Please wait while System Hardware is refreshed with your Species patch.

After a few seconds a new screen popped up.

NEW USER SPECIES DETECTED

To use this Kiosk Terminal, Guest Rights must be granted or Ownership or Dominion must be claimed.

Do you wish to proceed?

PRESENT GUEST INVITE. CLAIM OWNERSHIP OF THIS KIOSK? CLAIM DOMINION OF THIS TERRITORY?

I reared back in surprise, I just wanted to buy a pie! Darnit.

Well, there was no one about to grant me guest rights so that option was out. Ownership or Dominion? What was the difference here?

Ownership

Provides full rights in relation to this Kiosk only. Allows Full admin access with security overrides. May set any limits on proscribed use. May impose an excise levy on all goods bought and/or sold through this terminal or on any selected subset(s) of goods and/or Users.

Dominion

As above but includes all Kiosks throughout the whole Domain.

Holy Guacamole! This was massive. I mean there was no question I was going to claim one of these. I was like super hungry now. But this could be my meal ticket for like… ever!

Hang on Tad. There’s probably a catch. It’s not like these would just be sitting here, doing nothing. I’m probably going to have to fight some monster guard or something. To my surprise the System answered my rambling thoughts.

SYSTEM ENDORSEMENT

Local System Assets have lain fallow for 468 Trillion years.

Revitalisation of dormant System Infrastructure is highly recommended.

Well, you couldn’t get much clearer than that. And that was a long time. Longer than I could comprehend. The System was basically encouraging me to claim them for myself.

Hmmm.

Would I be expected to defend it too? That could be more of an issue.

Ahhh well. Worry about that later. I needed a feed.

And something to drink.

Yes, I definitely needed a drink.