The Wanderer's Rebirth: Other Paths

‘He appears to like it, at least,’ Avi piped in from the side.

Joram nodded at that, still trying not to laugh at the foxkin’s expression as he finished his second sip of ginger ale.

The kid had really seemed to enjoy the mac’n’cheese with hot dogs, so that was a relief. He idly wondered if he could replicate the food in his cupboard and fridge. They were now a very limited commodity, after all. Not that he needed to eat anymore, given his new physiology. But given that he might get some guests from time-to-time, he supposed that it would be good to have more food on hand. Or, rather, having a steady supply of food.

He quickly took mental stock of his food reserves and determined that he had a decent amount of food available, enough for him to eat for two months…. If he still needed to eat that is.

And given that Altaea had somehow managed to keep his water running, and his electricity going, he wouldn’t have to worry about that sort of thing in the future. Heck, he even had some food from the apartments around him. Which reminded him that he’d have to somehow find a way to preserve the perishables until they were needed.

Joram looked back at his “guest” and nearly sighed. He wasn’t sure how long it would take to get a handle on the local language, but hoped that it wouldn’t take too long. But wouldn’t hold his breath. It didn’t sound like anything he had heard before, so that would make it a challenge.

‘Altaea did leave you with the Linguistics “skill”, which should make things easier for you,’ Avi said as she observed the foxkin as he took another sip of the ginger ale.

Joram just about said something about her reading his mind, but chose not to. Given that “she” was a part of him, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to have her reading his mind. Though, that thought was uncomfortably close to schizophrenia, or perhaps dissociative identity disorder, or some such. Was this all some sort of dream?

He’d had very vivid dreams in the past where they played out like movies. Even injuries he’d had in those dreams had been so real that he’d still felt the pain of them upon waking. Had he somehow had a mental break and was now living in his own dream world? Was he in a hospital, attached to machines to keep him alive while he lay there in a coma?

Joram shook his head to rid himself of those unpleasant and disturbing thoughts, then proceeded to placate his guest when it seemed that he’d misunderstood Joram’s head shake.

‘This is going to be a pain,’ he sent to Avi, thinking of just how much he’d need to learn to even start communicating effectively with this guy, let alone anyone else.

‘Again, you have the Linguistics skill left by Altaea which should help things along,’ she sent, trying to reassure him.

He got back to his guest, who was now pantomiming his need to go. Joram hoped that the guy wasn’t involved with anyone dangerous, or that someone else would come by and make trouble. Even though the kid looked young, he very much looked like he knew how to use his weapons. How much trouble would he be in if someone older, and more experienced came by to make trouble?

After yet another pantomiming session, the young man took off after bowing quickly to Joram. For his part, he just waved as the kid left, then frowned.

“I had been hoping that I’d, I don’t know, get a language pack after getting integrated with this System,” he said, then shook his head again.

‘That would have been inordinately convenient,’ Avi agreed while also pointing out how unlikely that was.

Joram just nodded, then grabbed the broom. Several minutes later, he had the glass swept up and piled into an old deliver box that he hadn’t quite gotten around to recycling yet. He put that into a corner before heading off to his storage room and retrieving the small bin that contained his various tools.

Once back in the living room/kitchen area, he stepped over to the door and inspected the hinges. Given his limited collection of tools, he was glad that the pins were easy enough to remove. Another couple of minutes found the old door leaning against the opposite wall. He then brought the “new” door over and lined it up, once again noting how it was a bit taller than the old one.

Fortunately, the hinges seemed to line up well enough. Yay for mass-production!

Well, the door was both a bit long on the top, as well as the bottom. So, he just took some quick measurements, a pencil, and marked it where it needed to be adjusted, drawing a line from one end to the other.

“So, do you think that [Modify Matter] will work for this?” he asked Avi.

‘Yes, but maybe you should practice for a bit first?’

Joram nodded to that, acknowledging the point. No need to break something by accident or something.

As he sat down at the table to start experimenting with the box of glass, it occurred to him that the foxkin kid might not be from a friendly place. Sure, the kid had been friendly enough, but what if those in charge were less than friendly? What if they tended towards “kill first, ask questions later”? Would he be able to do anything if they came with the intent of violence?

Probably, but also probably not anywhere near enough to survive, or even escape. If what he’d learned about Paths and Classes, then anyone above level five would likely be able to take him out. And after having identified the kid, “Reldan”, he was sure that anyone who came would be well above level ten given that Reldan had been level seven.

Joram sighed, then turned back to the box of glass in front of him. Much like anything else that had been broken, it took up more room than he’d initially thought it would. It was a large box, one that had contained his microwave when he’d bought it last year for his new place. Why had he kept it? Warranty, of course. Much easier to deal with if you had the original packaging, especially if they wanted the item shipped somewhere.

Anyways.

Given how long he’d been with Reldan, his PPs were up to full, so he mentally pulled up [Modify Matter] and reviewed the Power. It was… complicated. But also simple, in a way. So long as he had a grasp of a substance, like wood, or glass, then manipulating its structure wound up being relatively simple. For a definition of “relative”, anyway.

Without going into the nitty-gritty of it, it basically boiled down to manipulating molecular structures. If you knew what belonged where, and to what, then it got a bit easier to deal with. At the same time, he was thoroughly impressed by the knowledge that Altaea had given him. Or, rather, at the knowledge that had come from her world, her own kingdom. Queendom? Shrug.

The didn’t have all the names for things, but the knowledge of molecules was certainly there, as well as the knowledge of atoms. Sure, it was fuzzy at best, but so was Earth’s knowledge of such things merely one hundred years ago.

Then, given the fact that Altaea had also included [Delve], a Power created by his Prime Self. Well, he was sure that if Altaea hadn’t gotten the memories from her other selves yet, that that Power alone would have shot her understanding of the fundamental principles of the universe through the proverbial roof.

So, after having spent a good while going over [Modify Matter], Joram turned back to [Delve] and began trying to understand that one… again.

… Which turned out to be a literal headache.

The Power was still rather… much. He felt that he’d gotten a bit further with it than the first time, but had still come out with a splitting migraine.

‘Are you, perhaps, a bit masochistic?’ Avi inquired; a perfect eyebrow raised in obvious curiosity.

“No,” he said, rubbing his temples until he remembered [Natural Healing] and, eventually, managed to manifest that Power to help ease the pain.

It helped… marginally.

‘Maybe practice more with the mediation techniques first? That should help to give you a better foundation with which to work.’

Joram grunted his response, not quite sure if it was agreement or not. Either way, he’d still be working on the meditation techniques given how little he really knew about his new body.

Congratulations!

Through hard work and perseverance, you’ve gained the following Skill:

- [Concentration]

Joram blinked at that, then smiled. He supposed that he’d indeed been rather focussed over the past… several hours? He looked over at the stove and found that it was already “05:21”. Which meant that he’d been… at it for over six hours now. Well, his initial training with Avi, the attack, then Reldan’s visit, and now his latest attempts. Though, curiously, he really didn’t feel all that tired.

Sure, his brain was complaining about the stress he was putting it under, and stress given the level five Power he was trying to “learn” at such a “low level”.

He sighed.

Sure, he was a cheat… character? Character. He was a cheat character, given untold amounts of information just because “he” knew someone. Or they knew him.

Then that got him thinking about the many stories of Altaea that he’d written over the years. Of how she’d been banished from her home by Asmodeus, and had “shattered” in the process. He was pretty sure that there had been a good fifteen versions of herself scattered across the multiverse. Each one eventually growing in power sufficiently that their memories started to bleed through to each other, and even their individual Realms started connecting until they started finding each other and… merging. Becoming one again.

Had the same thing truly happened to him? If so, he really hoped that Altaea found the over versions of him before they all died. He was under no illusions that he was anything but an average forty-year-old man. Sure, he was slightly larger of stature than most… but that was it. He’d never done sports, instead preferring the occasional casual game that came up.

He’d been no great intellect, though, numerically, he was well above average in intelligence. But he’d also… lacked ambition. He was just too laid back. Especially after….

Joram shook his head, ridding himself of those thoughts.

He was, literally, a different man now. Even though he’s suspected that he had more than a few psychological conditions, like ADD and OCD, he didn’t quite feel the same as before. Before Altaea’s arrival, that is. Sure, his brain was moving a mile a minute, as it were. But. It wasn’t too hard to focus.

OK, that was a lie.

Given his new circumstances, though, he felt that he got a pass for not being able to concentrate on any one thing for very long. Heck, he was more than impressed with himself for keeping on task as long as he already had!

He shook his head again, then decided to give [Delve] another shot. But this time, a bit slower. No trying to cram a whole book in at once. Introduction first. Then maybe the first chapter if that hadn’t already done him in.

*2 hours later*

OK, maybe taking things slowly had its merits. Sure, he already knew all that, but having that fact shining in his face really helped to bring the point home.

And no, he hadn’t gotten through even a quarter of [Delve] yet, but he was more than happy with how much he’d gotten through in his short time trying to “learn” the Power. Possibly because it had been him that had created it, but he felt that it just… flowed. Made sense? Clicked just right?

He shrugged and looked to the box of glass in front of him, on the floor. [Modify Matter] was definitely the easier Power to learn. Sure, he wasn’t a pro yet, but he felt, given his time with [Delve], that it made much more sense to him now.

So, he pulled the box a bit closer with a foot, then pulled up [Modify Matter]. Instead of recreating a large pane of glass, he instead chose to create bricks. Just plain, simple, bricks. Not only would they be harder to accidentally break, but they’d also be easier to stack and store away.

Manifesting the Power, Joram’s mind was pulled to the glass shards. Everything seemed to narrow to jus the glass as he began to feel the glass in a way that was hard to describe. But one that also allowed him to… manipulate it. So, he just went with the flow, as it were. In this case, a bit literally.

He watched with both his eyes and his… perception, as the glass in the box began to flow together into one solid blob. Not wanting to have to deal with such a large brick, Joram nudged the blob and again watched as it subdivided into smaller blobs that resolved into bricks of glass. Then the Power ended, and his vision returned to “normal”.

He smiled then. At least that had gone right. Well, the few other Powers he’d tried had also gone right, but his day certainly hadn’t.

He knew that he was a bit… special when it came to unexpected things and situations. Instead of freaking out, he’d almost always just looked at the situation and tried to figure it out. What was the best way to deal with it? How would he go about that? What other factors would tie into what just happened? How would he deal with those? So on, and so forth. His mind would come up with a myriad of scenarios and possibilities, then the “fixes” for each one.

Now?

Now, he sat in his chair, looking down at the box of glass bricks and had absolutely no idea what he was going to do. This was so far out of his purview that decision paralysis hit hard. Little things, like fixing the door? Easy. Not only did he not want more uninvited guests, but he suspected that keeping out things like mosquitos- were there mosquitos here?!- would be important.

But beyond that? No idea.

Sure, his gamer’s instincts were screaming hard at him to try to get every conceivable Skill he could before selecting a Path… but. What would he do then? Would he just be a hermit in the woods? Someone that the local foxkin would stop by to visit from time to time? Or someone to avoid? That crazy person in the woods, as it were?

Would more goblins show up? Break more windows? Or maybe something even worse? How would he deal with all that? Would he just wind up being a murder-hobo? Well, not “hobo”. But that guy in the woods. The hermit who always seemed to be “just fine”, even though everything else in the woods would happily murder you.

But if he didn’t wind up being the recluse in the woods, what would he do? Would he even fit into the foxkin village? Would he be a welcome member of the community? Or a barely-tolerated “guest”? Even if they accepted him into their fold, as it were, what would he do? What skills, or Skills, did he have that could be remotely useful to them?

If magic existed here, what use was anything he had in his little apartment… cabin? Now that it was its own structure, maybe he should think of it was a… small house? Anyways! Maybe he could help teach people? Math? What good would that do them?

Massage therapy? Was their anatomy even similar enough for that to translate well?

Cooking? Sure, Reldan seemed to enjoy the mac’n’cheese with hotdogs, but unless he got [Delve] under his belt, as it were, then he didn’t think that he stood a chance of feeding another few people given his limited stock of food in the… house.

Which got him thinking of how he would manage to preserve his perishable food…. Possibly [Quintessence], but that was a fourth level Power, and might just be as complicated as [Delve] would be to learn. Collapsing a bit of time into a physical form didn’t strike him as something easy to pull off….

‘The door?’ Avi piped in from the side, pulling him out of his thoughts and back to where he needed to be.

“Right, yeah, on it,” he mumbled as he got up, stepped over to the replacement door, and frowned.

He didn’t know how easy it would be, but at least he was up to the challenge, as it were.

Joram manifested [Modify Matter] and his mind was once again pulled to his focus, which happened to be the spare door this time around. From there, he got a “feel” for the structure of the door, the metal plated wood, then got to work.

Instead of just lopping off a bit of the door at the top and bottom, he separated the wood portion of those areas, leaving the metal behind. The wood fell, leaving the space he needed to fit the door into its new frame… once he pulled the metal over that is. It overlapped on itself, leaving an OK seam…. So, he then took that metal and… joined it together, creating a flawlessly smooth top and bottom for the door. Which, if he thought about it, would be good to keep out any moisture that might start to rot the door out from the inside, out.

Once done with that, he nudged away the chunks of wood and picked up the door. After a slightly frustrating time of first lining up the hinges, then getting the pins in one-handed, the door was ready to go.

As he observed his handiwork, he noticed that dawn had come, and then early morning as well. It appeared to be a nice day outside, full of insect noises and the sounds of nature in general. It also came with a few yellow eyes staring at him balefully.

“Well, crap on a cracker,” he said before slamming the door closed.