The Wanderer's Rebirth: Other Paths

Instead of waiting for her to cry herself out, Joram addressed the [Slumber] power in his mental archive, found it to be amazingly simple, then used it on Myra.

The effects were instantaneous. She slumped onto the bed, snoring ever so gently as she started to slide off. He quickly grabbed the back of her shirt and hauled her up until she was steady.

Next, he manifested [Ectoplasmic Creation], focussing first on a set of clothing, for he couldn’t see where they’d put his old clothes. Once done, he then concentrated again on the same power to create a set of wooden crutches, with ample padding for his armpits.

With that done, he poked at his… stump. It was more tender than he thought, so he then used [Natural Healing], augmented about hallway to his maximum limit. He then poked his stump again and found that it felt… normal. Well, as normal as a stump could feel, anyways.

So, he twisted until his legs… leg was hanging over the edge of the bed, then pulled on a pair of underwear, then his pants. Which needed a bit of an adjustment to get rid of the extra fabric of the right leg. With that done, he pulled the shirt on, a simple dark grey t-shirt.

The next part of the process gave him pause. He needed to stand up, and he very much didn’t look forward to trying his balance just then. Sucking it up, he took hold of his crutches and then used them to help him stand up.

He nearly fell over due to the imbalance, but managed to stay standing. His proprioception was way off, though, as his brain kept trying to tell him that his right leg was still there and working.

Heh, guess that even High Elan brains need a while to adjust to something like this, he thought wryly. The next issue arose from him forgetting to add a grippy surface to the bottom of his crutches, and nearly had him fall over when his right crutch slipped out from under him.

Grumbling, he manifested [Ectoplasmic Creation] once more, this time adding textured rubber ends to the crutches. Given his “manifester level”, he wouldn’t have to worry about his clothes and crutches vanishing on him until tomorrow night, which would hopefully be when he was meditating.

With his balance more or less settled, he made his way around the bed, then shifted Myra fully onto it. He then covered her up with a blanket he found on a shelf nearby, not wanting her to have an uncomfortable rest given how she’d stayed with him out of concern and all.

Now that he was ready, he made his way over to the door and opened it, appreciating the simple lever stile used for the door handle. Once the door was open, he saw that same nurse lady sitting at a desk in what had to have been the lobby/waiting room of the… clinic? It was certainly small enough, given that he only saw two more doors besides the one that looked like the outside door.

Before she could speak, he asked his very important question.

“Where are my shoes?”

She stared at him for almost a minute, the cogs in her head obviously spinning and not getting anywhere.

“You can’t be up yet!” she nearly yelled, her throat seeming not to work well as her tail swished in a clearly, very agitated manner.

“Yes, I can. And I am. So, where are my shoes?” he asked again, not caring for her inability to adapt to new situations.

She took a long look at him again, noting his right leg, and probably the trimmed right leg of his pants, also taking in his crutches at the same time. At length, she pointed at a shelf behind her where the remains of his clothing were placed.

Not saying anything, he made his way over and inspected what was left of his clothing.

His shirt seemed to be in the best condition, only having a few tears in it. His pants, though, were basically a write-off if he hadn’t had access to [Repair]. His socks were there, but a bit crusty, but his shoes, though, weren’t in terrible condition, just dirtier than he would have liked, especially the right one. It looked as though he’d… leaked a bit into it. So, he manifested [Cleanse], keeping the area of effect to the minimum, which still cleaned the entirety of the room he was in along with his personal effects.

He grabbed the now clean stack under one arm, then awkwardly made his way over to a chair and put a sock and a shoe on, making him feel a bit better. The rest, he just put into his inventory, not caring if the dumbfounded nurse lady saw or not.

Then, thinking of the regular fees that would be associated with private healthcare, he retrieved one of the Grade E goblin cores before making his way over to her desk.

“Here, I’m told you can sell these for a good price,” he said as he placed the core on her desk before making his way over to the door.

He then opened it and hobbled outside, squinting a bit in the early morning light.

Hmm, must be facing east, then, he thought as he looked around the strange village he found himself in.

If he had to describe it, he would have said that it would have fit into the Edo period of Japan without too much trouble. The streets, though, seemed to have been paved with more regularly shaped stones than cobblestones, fitting together well enough that he didn’t think that he’d easily trip on them.

The houses and buildings in view certainly had the Edo look to them, but he noticed that the doors were more Western in design, using hinges instead of sliding to the side. Not only that, but the windows had glass in them instead of thin paper, though the glass had a long way to go before it got to what he was used to seeing.

“Now, where to…?” he wondered, looking around.

If he had to guess, he would say that he’d need to head to the south part of town to get to where he wanted to go. Which was home. He still worried about his stuff, after all. Sure, he’d likely need to move into Kirkwall, but he still wanted to get all of his things together first.

Shrugging, he chose to go left, seeing that the block he was on ended sooner in that direction than in the other. As he went, he appreciated the layout of Kirkwall. They’d kept many green spaces as well as trees, earning his respect. For no village, town, or city was a proper bastion of civilization without trees.

But then something else caught his attention, making him wonder. Foxes. Lots, and lots of foxes were wandering about alongside the various citizens going about their business. Both, he noticed, were giving him odd looks as he made his way in a southerly direction.

The foxes he understood, as any stranger in their territory was certainly one to keep an eye on. The people, or foxkin, he wasn’t sure what they’d want to be called, were a bit different.

Sure, they eyed him with obvious confusion, but they also had a wariness to them that both annoyed and saddened him at the same time. Yes, he looked like your average one-legged human. But were humans that bad here? Was he in one of those worlds where humans were racist bastards?

His mood slightly soured, he nevertheless kept his customer service face on as best he could as the people here continued to regard him strangely. Though, he was happy to see, they didn’t stop him or bother him at all, so there was that.

By the time he’d made his way to the edge of Kirkwall, and it was easy to tell given the large gate and tall wall in front of him, he’d managed to gain a bit of an unusual following.

For one, several children had started following him, quietly discussing the “crazy human”, or several derivatives of that. The other, was thrice that number in foxes. From what looked like full-grown adults, which were somewhat larger than the foxes he was used to seeing back on Earth, to what looked like kits. The most unusual thing about the various foxes were their tails, closely followed by their colouring.

The majority of foxes that had followed him were a very dark purple bordering on black. Sure, there were a few normal coloured foxes, but there were also some that looked like artic foxes and even more that were black. Their tails, however, weren’t fewer than two.

Each and every fox that had followed him had at least two tails. The record was held by one of the dark purple foxes with a whopping six tails, mesmerizing him somewhat as he followed their gentle swaying.

“Joram!”

He started when he heard someone called out to him, turning his attention back to his surroundings.

There, coming in running, was Celys, closely followed by Nalun. They quickly closed the distance before slowing to a walk that stopped just over a metre away from him. They, too, seemed to be confused by the presence of the foxes, but quickly reoriented themselves on him.

“What are you doing out of bed so soon?” Celys asked, obvious worry fueling the question.

He noticed that she looked to have not slept very much the night before, much like Nalun himself. Their clothes seemed a bit rumpled, likely from having slept in them. He supposed that having a score or more hobs attack their village would have them working overtime.

“Going for a walk,” he replied casually, though he couldn’t help the sarcasm as he was once again reminded of his missing leg.

“I can see that,” Celys replied with remarkable decorum given the situation. “But, why?”

“I need to go see how bad the damage is at my home,” he said, shrugging.

Which got him a mighty frown of motherly might directed his way which, oddly, managed to touch his heart.

“Can’t you wait a bit more? You know, until you’ve healed enough to make the trip?” she asked gently, obviously worried about his wellbeing.

“I heal fast,” he said, shrugging. “Not only that, but I’m worried about what those hobs have done to everything inside my house. My food stocks included,” he said, worrying about what might be left of what had come over with him. If he didn’t at least have some scraps to use, he wouldn’t be able to use [Grow] to restock things.

Celys and Nalun both seemed to think things over, often looking back to him as they did. Probably gauging just how determined he was to make the trip. While he waited, he decided to check the System notifications that he’d muted yesterday, not wanting to deal with them as he fled, and fought, for his life.

Then, seeing the crazy list, he did some mental adjustments to pare it down further so that he could get a concise read-out.

Congratulations!

You’ve gained the following Skills:

Cooking

Endurance

Lucky

Quick Manifesting

Running

Strafing

You’ve leveled the following Skills:

Concentration 4 -> 7

Cooking 1 -> 3

Dodge 3 -> 7

Endurance 1 -> 6

Lucky 1 -> 5

Meditation 5 -> 8

Pain Resistance 2 -> 5

Privacy Mode 1 -> 3

Quick Manifesting 1 -> 4

Running 1 -> 4

Strafing 1 -> 7

You’ve gained the following attribute points:

+2 Speed

+1 Constitution

+1 Intellect

+3 Spirit

+2 Charisma

+6 ???

You’ve gained the following Achievements:

- Down, but not Out

- Fight & Flight

Looking at the considerable list, he couldn’t help but be impressed. Not only had his Skills improved tremendously, but he’d also gained several new Skills…. Though, he supposed that [Cooking] had come before the fight. Then there were his attribute gains.

Looking at them now, he truly wondered just how OP he was. Then, looking at his CON, he realized that the increase had come from his new Title, [Down, but not Out]. He was very glad for the increase in stats, even the mystery attribute that he now highly suspected to be Luck. Why?

Well, given his new Skill, [Lucky], and its associated attribute of “???”, there was absolutely no way it could have been anything else. Then, as the conclusion dawned on him, he noticed that the mystery attribute updated in his character sheet, finally reading as “Luck”, even updating his [Lucky] Skill and [Stubborn Survivor] Title while it was at it. Though, he still couldn’t see what the attribute’s score was, which annoyed him more than he cared to admit as he stared at those question marks.

“Joram?”

He blinked, taken out of his musings by Celys.

“Are you OK?” she asked, sounding both concerned and slightly uncertain.

He blinked again, then spoke.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, not seeming to convince them.

“OK, then,” she said, then changed the subject. “Are you willing to wait while we gather a few guards for you? I don’t know how many goblins escaped, and I would be remiss if I didn’t at least send some people with you,” she said, keeping eye contact with him as though she were trying to read his mind.

“Sure, that sounds like a good plan,” he said, then looked around for a place to sit. Even with the crutches, his one leg was still doing more work than it was used to.

One of the guards on duty, a woman who looked to be about the same age as Celys, quickly went into the guardhouse attached to the wall beside the gate and came back with a chair. He murmured his thanks, then gratefully sat down as Celys and Nalun went about organizing his outing.

During that time, Celys approached him again, this time asking if he would like any wagons. Thinking about it, he was pretty certain that he’d need help getting things back to Kirkwall. So, he then asked how large the wagons were as well as how much they could carry.

He was briefly stumped by their weight measurements. It seemed as though they used a sort of old British system. A “Stone”, being fourteen pounds, if he recalled correctly, or about 6.35 kilos. Given that the wagons were rated for over one hundred stones, he was sure that just three wagons would suffice.

When they arrived, he was pleased to see that they had been built with high sides to them, while being pretty long compared to their width.

The horses pulling each wagon were quite large, and he’d have called them Clydesdales if he’d been on Earth. Still, the magnificent beasts were large and quite sturdy, each one being a light grey in colour with slightly lighter patches here and there.

Then he noticed the extra guards accompanying the wagons. He recognized Theril, who nodded to him gravely, as well as the ones who’d come along last time. Then, in the back, along with yet more people he didn’t recognize, was Reldan, looking pretty guilty for some reason.

“How long do you think you’ll need to pack up and return?” Celys asked once everyone looked ready and the gates had been opened for them.

He thought about it, then remembered his increased Power Pool- now over a hundred!- and Regen, now eight per minute, and made a few calculations.

“I think probably late this evening,” he said, shrugging. “I’m not entirely sure, though, but we shouldn’t take longer than… later tonight,” he said, unsure of what he’d find, and need to deal with once he returned home.

Celys nodded as though she’d expected as much, then bade him good journey before giving him a hand up onto the first wagon’s front seat.

Then they were underway, the strange skulk of foxes staying behind while the guards walked to either side of the wagons, keeping an eye out for trouble. As they passed the area he’d nuked, he noticed that the bodies had been removed. He idly wondered if they’d left any cores behind, but didn’t bother asking. If a few cores were payment enough to save his life, he’d let them keep them all.

That said, the further they went, the fewer signs of the previous day’s fight could be found. Sure, he could spot marred bark here and there where he’d missed a shot while running, but the forest was remarkably calm. Heck, even the bodies that he remembered leaving behind were gone, making him wonder if Celys had sent people out to clean things up the day before.

Eventually, they arrived at his house, making his stomach anxiously twist a bit. As they approached, he saw that, much to his great astonishment, the place looked relatively unscathed. The moss stone “door” was chipped all over, and cracked at the edges, but otherwise whole.

There was evidence that the hobs had tried burning the place down, but the fire hadn’t caught due to the modern materials that the apartment had been made with. Sure, the scorch marks didn’t look that great, but he wouldn’t have to worry about them shortly.

He carefully slid off the driver’s seat, then used his crutches to make his way to the house, then to the side as he remembered the first hobs he’d felled. Looking over, he couldn’t see any bodies in the distance, making him “tsk” in annoyance. He’d gotten his hopes up that maybe he could have finally tried looting one of them.

“All right,” he said, getting everyone’s attention. “I’ll organize stuff inside, then have you load things into the first wagon,” he said, then briefly covered how he wanted things packed, and how they would have to wait every now and then as he prepared things inside.

For as much as they continued to look at him oddly, even the ones from two days ago, they seemed agreeable and did their own things. Except for Theril and Reldan, who approached him.

Damn, I hope this won’t be a pity conversation, he thought as they stopped in front of him.