Chapter 2: 2- First Contact

I made sure I was safe in the truck with the doors locked before I peeled off my ragged jeans and inspected the wound. The pants had acted like armor, at least a little, but I still had some nasty wounds that needed taping up. The first aid kit had some gauze, so I packed it all in there and taped over it. If I couldn’t stay off my feet (and I couldn’t) I’d end up with some nasty scarring, but probably really cool looking scarring.

“Infection,” I muttered, considering that this land didn’t have a single building I could see, let alone a hospital. I tore the bandages off before dousing the whole thing with hydrogen peroxide. After that it was time to clean the whole situation up carefully, dry it off, and reapply the bandage I’d just made.

I hadn’t touched any of the exclamation points. I didn’t want that thing’s mate to come after me. That involved sticking close to the gigantic floating boulder, checking everything out closely, and

The exclamation points were messages, similar to those of tutorials in video games I’d played as a kid, then as a teenager, then sometimes as an adult. Technically an adult. I wasn’t yet thirty and wasn’t looking forward to turning thirty, ever. Twenty-three was just fine for now, thank you.

All I had to do was survive the night.

 

You have slain a striped jiddara! the message burbled. You’ve gained a tier in the Hunt skill. Although you cheated with your kill stick, you learned a valuable lesson about hunting, and being hunted. You’ve also gained experience toward your Quick attribute, which remains at two stars.

 

I tapped the confirm button and made the message disappear, then tapped at the second one.

 

You have discovered system messages! the second prompt read. There are many menus, windows, and settings for both. You should become acquainted with these in order to better understand the world around you and your capabilities in it. Tap here if you would like a full tutorial.

 

Shaking as my hands were, I accidentally tapped elsewhere, and the message disappeared. I swore. Now that I was thinking about it, I noted the interlocked gears icon, which read Settings when I concentrated on it. There were a couple of other icons, but the life or death situation had really rattled me. I was shaking enough to make navigating all this stuff practically impossible.

“Come on, Evan. Matter of life and death, okay? Get it together.”

I tapped at the third message.

 

You’ve discovered your first skill! the third message explained. There are a myriad number of skills, though each one will be tied to a specific attribute. You may practice a skill to level it up. Skills can be one tier above your current tier, but can’t advance farther.

 

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but the Settings menu would help me after this fourth message.

 

You have successfully sneaked back to your home base. The fourth message read. You’ve gained a tier in the Stealth skill. Information is a weapon, and you deny your enemies that information when you skulk around. You’ve also gained experience toward your Sly attribute, which remains at one star.

 

There. Now I could have a little panic attack about being in the open with giant cat predators all around me. I knew I needed to get there, mentally. I needed to suck it up, man up, get over the idea that I was here. There was no changing that.

Knowing it and accepting it were two different things.

Some time and some breathing exercises helped calm my nerves. The world could be good. It had magic. I could get behind that. So what if I never went home, I reasoned. No more bills, no more bullshit expectations from a girl who’d betrayed me almost an entire year ago. My only family was my parents and my older brother, who’d ramped up the bullying from age eighteen to figure my shit out, stop driving a truck, get settled, marry a girl, produce children for my parents to dote on. I was nothing more than a cautionary tale to them by now.

“Cut that shit out,” I told myself quietly. “Figure out what needs to be done, do it, feel sorry for yourself later.”

Below my attributes it read Relationships: and in a painfully tiny font below that, it read none. Harsh. And below Relationships, it read Intrinsic Abilities. Here I had Auto-translate, Map Function, Evolving UI and Male. Under this, Special Abilities. The only word there was Drifter.

That was a lot, especially the Male part. I wasn’t sure how being a male was an ability, but it was definitely intrinsic.

Okay, it was time to start at the top. The first two seemed self-explanatory, and I was proven right.

 

Auto-translate (intrinsic ability)

All spoken and written languages are automatically translated for you. In addition, your spoken words are automatically comprehended by those you meet in their first language. Others may not automatically understand your written language, however. Training in those languages and written symbol systems will be required for you to write in a legible way.

 

This first proved that there were other people on this world, which was a relief. I hadn’t met anyone yet, and was beginning to wonder if I was the only person in the whole place. It was a comfort to find out that not only would I be meeting folks, I wouldn’t have to spend months or years signing, grunting, or speaking extra slowly before I adapted. It would be extremely convenient, until it was time to, I don’t know, write orders for the left flank to follow at the correct signal, to help my marauding army secure victory.

“People? Check. Understanding? Also check. Nice.”

I moved onto Map Function, which was exactly what I expected out of a video game map, plus a little extra.

 

Map Function (intrinsic ability)

The world around you is largely unknown, but exploration and instruction will fill in this visual map. The map takes up no space in your inventory and may be accessed at any time. Clouded places are are too far for you to view and are obscured by the fog of war. Known place names will be added when you learn them.

This map may be annotated with pins and notes.

 

The map only really displayed a big field of green, with an icon of a floating rock, and off in one direction, a range of sharp, stabby purplish mountains where more floating rocks hovered. The mountains were obscured by this fog of war, while the space around me was a brighter green.

I played with the pins for a while, and found them in nine different colors: black, a brownish color, white, yellow, and a more metallic silvery color in simple circles. This was followed by an actual diamond, followed by a purple gem, an orange gem, and a white halo looking thing.

Notes looked exactly like my phone notepad had, a small square with several lines. I tapped at it, and added the note: landed here. Big ass floating rock. Killed the jiddara. Wounded by jiddara. Hopefully not infected. Need to close out this note

I chuckled to myself and moved on to the third ability.

It was still pretty much what I expected, but it was kind of a lot.

 

Evolving UI (intrinsic ability)

The functionality of magic and your growing abilities will be displayed in a series of menus, pop up notifications, and windows akin to a video game. This is a magical construct that responds to your will; messages and notifications can be accessed and dismissed with a thought. This can be adjusted to fit your specific needs, and will do so as time goes on. Use the settings icon to set your preferences.

 

When I dismissed the window, a woman was standing before me.

“Well, shit,” I muttered. I’d gotten caught out twice now for not paying close enough attention.

She was willowy and strong, dressed in translucent linen pants and a loose shirt. The shirt was also white and half see-through, but was almost entirely sleeves. It was tied in between her breasts, but cut high enough that I could see her entire midriff. She had red brown skin, reminding me of terracotta. That wasn’t exactly right, but it was close. The contrast between the translucent clothes and the color of her skin made it very clear she was going commando.

It was laundry day, maybe.

She had white face paint smudged on there in a cool pattern, and stark white hair ending in rainbow shimmers. It’s difficult to describe, but the last two inches of her hair was a soft rainbow color.

And of course she had a bear crossed with a porcupine, with six legs and a snout like an anteater. A big beast, with spines like literal spears sticking off four or five feet, and a long flat tail with even more spines. Each of the six legs was short and powerful, ending in claws that looked like knife blades.

She stared at me for a long time. I stared back, since she had the spear, the glowing necklace, and the giant friggin companion animal.

Her hair blew a bit in the breeze, and when she cocked her head, I noticed her eyes were startling green. Like no one on earth green, but of course we weren’t on earth.

I’d accepted that I wasn’t in Michigan anymore, Toto, and in a hurry.

Eventually, after more moments of regarding me with serious, wide, very green eyes, she slowly walked toward me. Her creature followed right along, always two steps behind and to her right. She did a complete circle around me, and I kept her in sight the whole time.

If I had to, I’d blast the porcupine thing first. It wouldn’t endear me with her, but it looked like it had several ways to murder me, while she only had the spear and the odd glowing necklace.

And the full body of a young woman in her prime. Jeez, it was distracting, with the curves and the hips and the cleavage and the nipples and the patch of white hair not covered by her pants.

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Finally, she completed her circuit and jammed her spear into the dirt. The beast returned to its haunches, which gave it the appearance of sitting on a chair.

“You’re a Drifter,” she said, with definite emphasis on that capital D. And half a question.

“I think so, yes.”

“You killed the jiddara.”

“Definitely yes.”

“You just arrived?”

“In your world?” I asked. “Yes. A day and a half ago.”

“Have you met any other people?”

“No. Just some big shaggy grass eating things that the jiddara was hoping to eat before it saw me.”

This gave her serious pause as well. I tried to look her in the eyes, not because I wanted to steer clear of offending her, but because I wanted a hint as to her intentions.

“You are magical,” she said, and didn’t explain.

“Uh… thank you. I’m actually Evan.”

“What?”

“Evan, my name. My name is Evan.”

She stared at me, blank faced. She’d tensed a bit, which added to the confusion, as if I was going to lash out at her.

“Could I ask a favor of you? I assume I don’t have much in the way of money, but I guess we could crack open the trailer and see what I could give you as a gift for your help.”

Her hand drifted to the spear.

“I’m definitely not wanting to hurt you, trust me. I just need to know more about this world, so I don’t die tomorrow.”

“Ah,” she responded.

“What… did you think I was going to ask?”

“It’s not important.”

“Oh… kay. In that case, would you like to follow me? I’ll just show you what we’ve got back here.”

She clucked her tongue and the beast made a chuffing sound, then followed along after her.

“Aren’t you worried, about getting attacked?”

“Why would I?” she responded.

“You’re not wearing much in the way of armor.” Nothing was left to my imagination. It was worse than distracting, honestly. It was getting uncomfortable, like high school me finding porn on the internet for the first time.

“Neither are you,” she returned.

I laughed. “I just landed here from another world somehow. Of course I’m not prepared to fight off attackers.”

“This armor is adequate for the task,” she explained, by not explaining anything.

“Okay,” I had no choice but to accept. Maybe her clothes were magical, and the more they revealed the more she was protected. Or maybe the magic necklace did all the work.

She once again looked me up and down, from hiking boots, up my dungarees to my t-shirt to the Detroit Tigers baseball cap. I felt myself reacting to her gaze just as it was doing with her outfit. “Is this clothing… how everyone from your world dresses?” she asked.

“Yes, I’d say most of the people. There are more formal suits and…” I hissed with pain.

“What’s happened?”

“Nothing. The jiddara got me, but I’ll survive.”

 “I will inspect the wound,” she said.

“Nah, no thanks.”

“What?” She demanded, affronted.

“Don’t take this the wrong way but… I don’t even know your name. I might take off my pants for someone I was on a first name basis with, but… yeah.” I shrugged, as half an apology. “We don’t know each other.”

She hadn’t given me the impression that she wanted anything from me, and was only satisfying curiosity about my being a Drifter.

She stopped walking, and the beast again got up on its haunches, taller than the girl, about my height.

“Auralla,” she said.

“That’s your name?”

She nodded.

An exclamation point appeared in my periphery, but I ignored it for now.

“Well it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Auralla, and if you know anything about healing, I’d be grateful. I still don’t know if I have the means to repay you, but—“

“Think nothing of it,” she said. “Now, I will inspect the wound.”

I laughed, but she was deadly serious, so I let it go. “Okay, pants are coming off. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea though.”

This finally earned a hint of a smile. “As you say, Evan. I will not get the wrong idea.”

God, but she smelled nice too, some soft scent I couldn’t place. I couldn’t get my body to obey me. I was getting turned on, and she was going to be within striking distance of my erection.

I slipped off my jeans, and received yet another odd look from Auralla. She peeled off the bandage and poked at the wound, then squeezed at a bead on her bracelet. A moment later, some goo appeared in a small jar, and she applied some. It hurt, but I held off the hissing and bore through it. Another exclamation point joined the first.

“And this is normal too, where you’re from?” she asked, and poked my boxers directly. I almost groaned, but stopped myself. She had a killing machine looming over me right now, but I was hard nonetheless.

“This is normal,” I said. “Would you say it’s abnormal where you’re from?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “Covering the body is extremely odd in my village.”

I met her eyes and thanked her, and the moment became intense, charged.

“Would you feel more comfortable if I removed this?” I indicated my boxers.

That seemed to sober her up, or flip a switch, or something. She continued to melt me with her twin emerald eyes and the rainbow accents of her hair, for just a moment, before that guarded expression came over her face. Still, she didn’t move away.

“You’re a Drifter,” she said.

“We’ve been over this.”

“I am your first contact.” I nodded. She continued, needlessly. “You have yet to meet any other in this place. I am your first.”

She got within kissing distance, and flecks of gold began to appear in her eyes while she appraised me in some way. I could smell her breath, but also more of that indiscernible nice smell her body gave off.

“If you agree not to dominate me, I should like to give you the use of my body and share in my power.”

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