Wizardly Dude
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6. Someone Get These People A Thesaurus
🕑 Added 2024-12-14 21:00:04 +0000 UTCThe faint sound of someone chiseling rock somewhere within the village was all that could be heard as Vin stared at the elder, trying to wrap his head around her words.
“I’m sorry… when you say, ‘the world ended’… what do you mean by that exactly?”
“It is as it sounds,” she said solemnly, a single tear rolling down her face as her eyes clouded. “A powerful madness slowly crept up out of nowhere and infested the world. People turned on loved ones overnight. Monsters became more plentiful than gravel. The sky itself grew dark as hope faded away.”
“That does sound pretty bad,” Vin muttered, waiting for her to continue as she took a shuddering breath and reined in her emotion.
“Villages fell like wheat before the scythe. Even our great cities of stone that had stood for thousands of years collapsed one after another. All seemed lost, and our small village could do no more than isolate ourselves from the spreading madness and pray to the Great System to keep us safe.”
“As the last of our neighboring villages fell, the Great System finally answered our prayers, plucking us from our world like a berry from a bush and transporting us somewhere safe. Edregon.”
Vin could do little more than stare at the elder in wonder, his mind churning as he took all this in. “So this area we’re in. The rocky, hilly zone that stretches for at least a few miles. This is a piece of your world?”
“Indeed. As far as we know, our lone village and the surrounding area were all that the Great System was able to salvage from our world. Our Great Migration and the following Great Reset occurred about three months ago. Since then we’ve sent out a few scouting parties, and thanks to those that returned, we now know that there are six different edges to what is left of our world, each leading somewhere entirely new to us.”
These people sure like putting ‘Great’ in front of their important things, Vin thought, briefly wondering if it was just his new translation passive simplifying things for him. “Wait. Great Reset? That was something different from you guys getting yanked from your world and put here?”
The elder nodded, a small frown causing her wrinkles to stand out. “Yes. Far from us to question the decisions of the Great System, especially after saving us from the end of our world. But the Great Reset came as quite the shock to my people. Before they were lost to us, our records spanned back nearly ten thousand years, and never had we heard of such a thing.”
“Immediately after placing us on this new world, the Great System stripped us of its many gifts. Classes, skills, spells; everything that the Great System had rewarded us with over our lifetimes removed in an instant. Without warning, all were returned to infancy, and all had to start over from the beginning. With our warriors weakened and mages hamstrung, we shouldn’t have lasted a day against the monsters known to roam around the wilderness surrounding our village. Thankfully, the Great System saw fit to give us a fighting chance, somehow weakening the monsters and reducing their number to allow us to regain some of our former glory. We are far from where we once stood, but in time, we will grow stronger than we ever were before.”
Throughout the elder’s speech, Vin watched as her troubled face slowly shifted to one of determination and strength. By the time she finished there was a powerful fire burning within her eyes that made her seem decades younger. She clearly believed every word she said, and Vin didn’t doubt that the village would one day be a fantastic ally if they could be persuaded to form some sort of alliance with his camp. Spur would probably throw him a party if he came back with word of new allies along with all this information.
“I’m sorry your people had to go through all that,” Vin said, struggling to imagine how hard that must have been. To go from the end of the world, to being transported without warning somewhere entirely new, and then having the power you’d spent your entire life building forcibly stripped from you?
Honestly, he wasn’t sure if he would have been able to keep going after all that.
“Your words are appreciated,” the elder said, nodding in thanks. “Fortunately, my people are as resilient as the rocks we carve upon. Even a broken rock can be transformed into something greater with enough skill and mortar.”
“Your buildings truly are magnificent,” Vin said, hoping to lighten the conversation a bit. Though he absolutely meant what he said; the skill required to carve the images into the different structures had blown him away when he first laid eyes on the village. “What do all the different pictures and shapes mean?”
“It is custom for our people to carve important memories into their walls when they receive their first dwelling,” she explained, smiling at his genuine interest in their culture. “All our people purchase the Stone Carving skill from the Great System the moment they are able, regardless of their class choice. Stone is crucial to our way of life after all, regardless of what path our people choose for themselves.”
“Based on what I’ve seen of your village, I imagine it levels quickly,” he said, laughing. “I can’t begin to thank you for all you’ve told me. My people were moved to this new world rather suddenly as well, but the Great System is brand new to us and we have much to learn.”
“Truly?” The elder looked surprised for the first time since they’d begun talking, her gaze growing distant. “A world without the Great System… I struggle to even imagine what that would look like.”
“It’s definitely taking some getting used to.” Taking a deep breath, Vin went for it. “Do you think your people would be willing to work with mine? We just arrived in the southern fragment bordering this one earlier today, and it feels like a good idea to make friends with our new neighbors. Maybe we could trade information or resources going forward, or something along those lines? To be entirely honest, I’m not a diplomat. Just a guy who enjoys wandering around and discovering new things. I’m a bit out of my league here.”
His honesty earned him another chuckle from the elder, and he felt hopeful seeing her genuine smile.
“Spoken like one of my own,” she said, tapping her cane on the ground. “My people believe that knowledge and therefore honesty should be shared by all, so I appreciate your candor. In these unforeseen times, I also believe a partnership between our people would be a wise course of action. Despite the loss of our Great Stone, we still have the knowledge that rests within our minds. We would be happy to share it with your people in exchange for good relations moving forward.”
HELL YEAH! He cheered in his mind, doing his best to keep his expression far less excited despite his building desire to jump up and dance a little jig right then and there. “That would be amazing, thank you! When I return to my people, I will let them know and we’ll probably send a few people over to have a more thorough discussion. All that will be up to our leader though, so I can’t say for certain what that will look like.”
“Then we shall look forward to our next meeting,” the elder said, giving him a slight nod of the head. “Before you return to your people however… would you perhaps be willing to aid us with something?”
“Uh, sure?” Vin said, trying to push all the images of Spur carrying him around on his shoulders to the back of his mind and focus on the elder once more. “What do you need? You should probably know I’m not exactly a high level or anything.”
“One of the first things you will learn about the Great System is that levels are not everything.” The elder shook her head, clearly speaking from experience. “What good will a level 50 spearman do when you need a potion brewed correctly, or a newborn delivered safely? No, you must find the right class for the right job.”
“So you need an Explorer for something?” Vin surmised.
“Exactly,” she nodded. “When the Great Migration happened and we had our gifts stripped from us, we first focused on building back up our combat prowess and securing our immediate perimeter. It was only recently that we allowed our scouts to venture out further than a few miles and begin searching for others that may have been rescued by the Great System as well. That is how we learned of the many world fragments that make up this new world.”
“With the reduced monster count our Scouts were able to explore this strange new world fairly easily, and we decided to send them deeper into one of the adjacent fragments that looked lush with life and potential. The trip should have taken no more than a day, two at the most. However, it’s been four days since they departed, and I am beginning to grow worried.”
“Why not send some of your warriors?” Vin asked, thinking back to how easily the group of six dispatched the monster than had been chasing him. “The ones I ran into seemed pretty competent.”
“The right class for the right job,” the elder repeated, shaking her head. “I called them scouts, but they were not Scouts. Their classes were a myriad of combat focused ones. Assuming they still draw breath, whatever problem they encountered that has delayed them must not be one that can be solved by martial might.”
“I suppose that makes sense… but what if they did run into a monster that was too much for them to handle? It would be like sending me into a meat grinder,” Vin pointed out.
The elder frowned, raising an eyebrow. “Meat… grinder?”
I guess the translation passive doesn’t work when the other culture has no close approximation for something. “Sorry, just a phrase my people use. I mean it would be sending me to my death.”
“Ah, I see,” she nodded. “It is unlikely they ran into a powerful monster. We have been carefully monitoring the monsters as they’ve slowly increased in strength and number ever since the Great Migration, and unless each fragment follows drastically different rules, there shouldn’t have been any monsters able to wipe out our scouts so handily. Even if they did encounter something too strong for them to fight, at least one or two should have been able to escape and return home to warn us.”
Sighing, Vin ran his hands through his hair and looked up at the ceiling, debating what he should do. On the one hand, if something had waylaid a trained group of fighters, he really didn’t want to go running headfirst toward it. Getting chased for mile after mile by a giant scorpion had been enough for him, thank you very much. But on the other hand, establishing good relations with the village was clearly a top priority. Even without their Great Stone, they obviously had a ton of useful information that he had no doubt would be worth its weight in gold for his people. It would be the difference between figuring out everything from scratch and starting this crazy journey with some sort of manual. Not to mention they might be able to help out if their group was attacked by something they couldn’t handle before they got their System legs under them.
Spur better thank me for this. Taking a deep breath, he nodded, returning his gaze to the hopeful elder. “Alright, I’ll do my best to figure out what happened to them.”
“Thank you,” the elder said, getting to her feet and taking his hand. “Follow me. I will show you the direction they were headed when they left the village.”
Following the elder out of the stone building, Vin tried to squash the sinking feeling in his gut. Karma was supposed to reward people for doing the right thing after all.
…Right?
