NOVEL WEB CHAPTER 20: NAKED AND ALONE
SARAH AVERY VASILIAS, GREAT HOUSE SCION, REBORN LVL 1
CATACLYSM MOUNTAINS, KILDARI FEDERATION, IR 20192
Planetary System Analysis: Welcome to Nolm!
Planetary System Analysis: New user found
Planetary System Analysis: … |
Planetary System Analysis: … \
Planetary System Analysis: … -
Planetary System Analysis: … |
System: Wait. Another human from the Sol planetary system? And another Void Apocalypse Survivor I see. Better give this one the Achievement too. Calculating probability...
System: The probability of two humans from Sol planetary system arriving on the same day is 2267,709 : 1 against. Checking for more anomalous dimensional portal activity. . . .
Interdimensional Activity Report: Parameters – Portal must originate outside of Nolm planetary system; within last 38 hours; open filters for species or object. Calculating.
Interdimensional Activity Report: Calculating. . . . . . . .
Interdimensional Activity Report: Report complete.
Interdimensional Activity Report Summary:
Total Portals Opened in 4.8 Second Window: 15,000+
Total Mass Transported:
Soil, Rock, Insects, and Plants: 89.667 tons
Lunar Regolith: 4089 tons
Water: 981 tons
Animals (Various Types): 3,733 individuals
Microorganisms (Different Species): 892,338,001,227
Humans (Age Range: 2 weeks to 93 years): 581 individuals
Garbage: 166 tons
Vehicles:
Air Vehicles: 1.2
Submarines: 2.73
Space Station: 1
Land Vehicles: 35.57
System Analysis: Assessing ecological and environmental impact on Nolm. Initiating containment and integration protocols for foreign entities and materials. Assigning appropriate Quests.
Probability of Extranolmic Life Survival: 1.97777430116%
System: Assessing possible damage if Earth life survives past 30 days . . . Probability of Cataclysm-level event within acceptable norms.
System: This human is another House Vasilias Scion. House Vasilias’ ascendance to Great House status is a destabilizing force in the Eternal Empire. If she survives, there will be consequences that are more impactful on current Imperial culture than if the other Scion survives, considering the variables.
System: Great House Seal accepted. Enhanced System Access accepted. Providing Enhanced System Reborn package. Translation routines, Monster Database, Item Database, News, Entertainment, System Message, Tutorial Offer.
System: Excellent. Let’s see what she does.
Sarah came to abruptly, feeling a violent tugging on her right bicep. She grimaced, her eyes still closed and reached over with her left hand to smack whatever it was away. Her hand slapped at her arm and her eyes opened when she felt hot blood on her arm and the sudden pain of a deep, tearing cut. She choked back a scream, her eyes opening wide as she took in her surroundings in an instant.
The last thing she remembered, she was on an operating table, falling asleep as August Vasilias said something about being sorry the world was ending. He’d said he was sending her somewhere else. Somewhere… fuck. She couldn’t remember. And there was that terrible pain in her arm. Then her surroundings registered.
She was somewhere high up—extremely high up on a sun-baked cliff. The sky was pale blue and expansive, and a frigid wind blew constantly. She was surrounded by rocky, brown mountains and she was somehow stranded on a narrow outcrop of rock on the wall of this sheer cliff. The tug happened again, but this time, it hurt. She yelled and lashed out with her uninjured arm, searching for whatever was tugging at her arm. A bright blue child-sized bird standing about two feet away from her clacked its blood-slicked beak as it dodged away from her wild punch. It glared at her with predatory yellow eyes, examining her for any more unexpected movements.
The bird was one of the most stunning creatures Sarah had ever seen. Despite the pain from its beak, her breath caught at the beauty of it. It looked like a cross between a secretary bird and a peacock with an elegant and long S-shaped neck and spindly, bright orange legs with wickedly sharp claws. Its plumage was a brilliant ultramarine that flashed iridescent green with flashes of yellow and orange. Bone-white spots peppered the ends of its wings and long, fanning tail.
She was staring at the beautifully savage bird that had taken a big bite out of her arm, trying to figure out what she could do next, when a floating purple box appeared in front of her about a meter away from her face making her scream and flinch violently, but the shimmering purple text box didn’t go away. It contained a few lines of odd-looking text that she couldn’t read but a moment later the text blurred, then shifted and she could suddenly read it.
STARLIGHT CRANE
ENHANCED SYSTEM MONSTER ENTRY
Description
The Starlight Crane is one of the rarest birds known to live in the Cataclysm Mountains. Renowned for its glorious blue and white plumage, savage nature, and incredible Loot Drop rate, the Starlight Crane is a much sought-after monster.
Rarity
Rare
Level
1
Type
Arcane Beast
Size
Small (1.5 meters)
Defenses
Unarmored; Flying; Agile Defense
Attacks
Piercing Strike – A vicious strike capable of punching through the heaviest armor. Imbued with cold starlight, a cosmic damage type.
Talon Stomp – The Starlight Crane’s long legs deliver a powerful stomping kick capable of disemboweling its prey or breaking bones with a single blow. Imbued with cold starlight, a cosmic damage type.
She swiped her hand at the floating text box, and it passed through it without even blurring it. The bird—a Starlight Crane?—took a tentative step forward, its neck snaking out slowly. Sarah stopped reading the text box as it moved. She was still bleeding, but obviously, there were no bandages nearby, so she clamped her left hand over the gash to try to slow her bleeding. She whipped her head around, looking for anything she could use as a weapon or a place to hide from the Starlight Crane.
The ledge she was on was only about three meters long and two meters across with no real hiding places or convenient caves she could slip into. A large nest made of grass, feathers, and dried twigs had been built at the far end but she’d awakened in a mostly clear patch of gravel-strewn rock. There were several fist-sized stones scattered nearby so she grabbed one with her left hand and hurled it at the bird with a shout of anger and pain.
The rock sailed by its head, nowhere even near the damn bird. It opened its beak gave a single loud, melodic cry, and flapped its wings as it hopped back. It raised one of its long, bright orange legs ending in five-centimeter-long curved talons that looked as sharp as knives. Sarah suddenly got a sick feeling as she felt sure that she was about to experience what a Talon Stomp was like.
Another purple text box suddenly replaced the one describing the Starlight Crane. It had a bright red warning label.
!!! WARNING !!!
You are attempting to engage in combat with a Level 1 monster while unarmed and without an unarmed combat graft! Your Great House Seal has granted you Enhanced System Access. Enable Enhanced System Access?
YES / NO
“Get back, asshole bird!” she screamed at it, throwing another rock before it could unload that kick at her.
The Starlight Crane folded its wings, hopping to one side and cocking its head again. It took another step forward—nearly in kicking range. The text box was still floating in the air in front of her, waiting for a response. It was like an immersive Heads-Up Display in a VR game.
With pain and adrenaline coursing through her veins, she fell back on her gaming instincts. She tried to press the “YES” and then the “NO” option with her finger. It didn’t do anything—she couldn’t touch it or reach the floating text box. She tried thinking at it, Yes. The text box dissolved in a shower of disintegrating pixels as she saw the YES option light up briefly.
Sarah got up to her knees and crouched on the balls of her bare feet, keeping her eyes on the Starlight Crane. She had her right hand braced on the ground, but it was weak due to the injury in her arm. It throbbed fiercely and was bleeding a lot. She grabbed another rock, feigning a toss at its body. This time though, she aimed at the knobby knees on the creature’s long legs.
The rock she threw clattered against the ground, missing the Starlight Crane entirely. Again. But this throw at least provoked more of a reaction from the bird. It flapped its wings again leaping into the air with a blast of gravel and wind. She squinted into the bright sky, trying to follow where the bird went, and saw, way high up, it circled once, then folded its wings close to its body and began a dive right at her. Another purple text box suddenly appeared in front of her face.
House Vasilias Enhanced System Access
Tutorial Offer Notification
You have a racial ability—Never Unarmed—which allows you to arm yourself with a weapon made of your anima. This is the first time you have accessed this power or any other tensa-reliant ability. Do you wish to engage in a Tutorial?
ENHANCED ACCESS SYSTEM NOTE: Tutorials are rare opportunities for training. They exist in a realm outside this reality and allow Reborn to learn new grafts before using them in combat.
YES / NO
Sarah squinted up at the bird as it bore down on her, thinking acidly, Oh perfect timing for a fucking tutorial, that’s just what I need right now! The text box suddenly disintegrated just like the first one, the YES option lighting up briefly. Wait, what?! No, that bird is going to impale me!
The world abruptly froze around her. She could feel the wind die and a curious silence descend over everything as time
stopped.
Everything froze around her like someone had hit “pause” on the universe. The Starlight Crane was still in midair, its wings folded for its murderous dive. Sarah looked out over the barren landscape and it seemed like everything had been stilled. A new purple-outlined text box appeared in front of her:
House Vasilias Enhanced System Access
You have not yet cycled your tensa pool and do not appear to have a valid tensa gathering technique. Your Enhanced System Access and House Vasilias Great Seal have granted you access to the Unique tensa gathering technique: Ten-Star Vortex. Cloud download of Unique rarity gathering matrix SynthSkill available. Download now?
YES / NO
Sarah’s heart beat against her ribs like a caged animal and she stared in shock at the floating text. Her arm continued to bleed and hurt, and she was still naked. She tried to crawl over to the ledge and peek over, but the text box blocked her view. She closed her eyes, but it seemed to be in her mind, not floating in front of her face because she still saw it behind tightly shut eyelids. She shook her head, trying to keep her mind clear. The last time she’d been incautious with her thoughts, a decision of some kind had been made whose consequences she hadn’t been prepared for. Wherever she was, her thoughts had far more immediate impact than she was used to.
There was another text box, this one outlined in a frayed-looking outline of black and gold, one that she hadn’t noticed immediately but it had been there when she woke up, immediately minimizing itself to a little corner of her vision. Now it popped back up.
Achieve—ERROR
Apocalyptic Spirit Taxi
Description: ERROR unknown DESCRIPTION. Unkn—Acheivement Gained. Apocalyptic Spirit Taxi. Transit a spirit of at least Jade rank between worlds. You survived the end of your homeworld. Congratulations.
ERROR UNKNOWN: New Classes unlocked at Stone Rank
As soon as she read this text box, it disappeared. It was more confusing than the last one and didn’t make a whole lot of sense to her.
“What in the fuck is going on here!?” She screamed into the dead air. No one answered. “Why is everything frozen? Hello!?” Still, there was no one there. She felt panic rise up in her but held it off with a breathing exercise. She was holding it back only barely though. Think, Sarah! What do you have? The only thing she could even see was the text box, so she re-read it.
“Ten-Star Vortex Gathering technique?” She muttered, “What’s tensa and why do I need to cycle it? And…SynthSkill? This all sounds like a video game!” Her words seemed to die in the air as she spoke, barely making it to her ears. It was like being in a soundproof room. The text box still floated in front of her face. “Well, I don’t know what any of this is, but a cloud download implies that I’ll be getting some information at least. Which has got to be better than sitting here in this frozen world wondering. Sure, why no—”
As soon as she made up her mind to accept the “cloud download”, the box disintegrated, and she felt a strange buzzing begin behind her eyes. It quickly became intolerable: her vision swam and her eyes itched like they were vibrating in their sockets as something happened in her head. It felt like her head was a balloon and she’d just hooked it up to a wind tunnel. The information being shoved into her took up more and more space in her head until she felt like everything that was her would be shoved out of the way and still more came with no let-up in pressure.
She screamed, her voice getting lost in the timeless, dead air. The pressure in her head was unbearable and she began to feel her vision close into narrow tunnels as spots exploded in front of her face. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. And suddenly, she found that there was knowledge in her head that she hadn’t had before. The knowledge felt like one of those effervescing antacid tablets, fizzing new ideas into her brain.
Magic is real, and…I somehow have it! She had a well of it inside herself and… and it was called tensa. The name came swimming up out of the new information she’d absorbed. The revelation of the name didn’t include any reason why it was called tensa, but she knew that it was there inside her. Was this the SynthSkill, she wondered as she explored her new knowledge. She knew that the Ten Star Vortex gathering technique was a tensa intake exercise that she would use to…She had no idea. The alien knowledge only revealed what to do and how to do it, not why.
As she puzzled over these things for what felt like hours with nothing changing—it was impossible to judge time in this frozen world—she had to come to terms with something she’d been shoving to the back of her mind since she’d awakened. The Earth. Was it gone as August Vasilias had said? Had it been destroyed? She remembered the way August had told them that the Earth would be destroyed: he’d been matter-of-fact and maybe even a little apologetic. He hadn’t cared whether they believed him or not.
She remembered their chaotic drive down the mountain and later flight over a land that was coming apart before their eyes. August had not been lying, even if it was impossible. It was impossible that she was here, but here she was. Hot tears burned at the corners of her eyes as she thought about her parents, about her friends. About all the work she’d done and the dreams she had; were they gone now? What did that mean for her? What was there for her now that her whole planet was…gone?