《Stones of the Gods》 Chapter one Travelling It had been a long week. I not long lived in the area, hardly knew anybody and I was a long way away from where I used to live. A very long way. I came from the UK and had gotten a job on a ship as a sailor. We went to various ports around the world until I had run afoul of some honest to god smugglers. I had helped busted up their operation but it had left a target on my back. Deciding to drop out of sight, the problem was I was in a part of the world that was nowhere near home and to be honest, if I had turned up at home, it might have gone badly for me. While the operation was busted up, the people behind it were never caught and I imagine they would have loved to have a chat and do some really nasty things to me. So I decided to head inland from where I was and headed into some country that was big, empty and full of forest. I called in a favour from another friend and ironically ended up in a job that my family had done for generations, which was basically a groundskeeper for an estate. It was a strange old place, out in the middle of nowhere with nobody there. But Ferse, who got me the job, told me that the family had disappeared ages ago and nobody seemed to want to live in the area. Since I could speak his language and read it albeit rather badly, but good enough to get by, Ferse had managed to get me the job and a year¡¯s visa to his country with an option to extend. How I don¡¯t know but well, I saved his life once and he was more than willing to help me out. I had been here a couple of months and it was a mostly peaceful place. However it had been neglected and I had been charged with righting it as best as I could. Which I had been doing but honestly, it was too much for one guy on his own. I had done the best I could but if they wanted more done I would need help. It was a sunday and I was enjoying myself in the garden. In the centre of the garden was a strange stone layout and I intend today to have a look at it. See what I could uncover. There was nothing about it from what I could see of the paperwork, although some paperwork I found had mentioned there was some work ongoing in the garden, that the family had found some strange stone objects and decided to erect it in their garden. There was nothing after that, but I thought I would have a look. So I wandered out to the garden. There was what looked to be a stone platform, and in the middle of the platform was a plinth. On the plinth was some writing. I tried looking at it and realised to my surprise that it looked like some sort of Norse style writing.I started to touch it when all of a sudden, a flash hit me. I woke up. It was apparent that I was no longer where I had been. For one, I seemed to be in a valley meadow. Another was the fact that a sort of village was to the side of me. The nearest village to the place I was staying, was over 70 miles from me. Another fact that clued me in, was the people who seemed to be surrounding me, did not look like natives of the country I had been in. They watched me as I got up. One of them then spoke to me. I did not comprehend a single word he said. Watching me, he understood that. He looked at one of the other men there and spoke to him. That man raised his hand, spoke and then, suddenly I understood what was being said around me. ¡°Hopefully that gets this man to understand what we are saying til we can get him to the Speaking Rock. Yeah, he looks like he understands me now, don¡¯ t you?¡± I nodded and then replied. ¡°Indeed I do sir, although I have no idea who you are and where I am. The last thing I know, I was touching this stone plinth and then suddenly, I woke up here.¡± The old man digested this. He then asked me the most oddest question. ¡°I don¡¯t suppose the stone spoke to you?¡± He looked at me expectantly and I shocked my head back at him. ¡°Oh dear. It looks like you may be a traveller. Well, they are always welcome here, it''s just most of you never want to be here.¡± As I digested this statement, He gestured to me to follow him. ¡°Well, There no easy way to break this to you. You are no longer on your world. This is the world Fersigens. This village is on the continent of Skiel and is part of a federation of the city state of Goeserf. The village itself is called Farlglen. As to how you got here, I¡¯m guessing you touched a stone that had writing on it?¡± I nodded mutely at this. ¡°Yes, this is how this village got its start, the founders were a bunch of travellers.¡± I roused a bit at this, and asked a question. ¡°I don¡¯t suppose you know how many years ago that was?¡± The man leading me looked at me and I could see he was debating on how much to tell me. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. ¡°Look, The full history will be taught to you and the answer is centuries, but the answer you are probably wondering is, yes. Our ancestors came from your world. Apparently the Speaking Stone here used to be paired with another but something happened and now you can¡¯t go there using our stone. But for some reason, every so often, that stone sends people to us. We have no idea why.¡± Soon we came upon a stone circle and in the centre of that circle sat a stone plinth. It really did look like the one I had touched. ¡°Ok, you probably don¡¯t want to do this, but apparently from other travellers, you touch that Speaking Stone and you receive our language. At the moment, the spell we have on you will only last another 10 minutes or so. But the Speaking Stone will make that permanent. It apparently will also tell you more about how you got here. Oh, it speaks in your mind. Apparently that is not a common thing from your world. It will also do a bunch of other stuff that will take me too long to explain, but the Speaking Stone will provide.¡± It sounded absolutely nuts to me. Yet here I was. To hell with it. I would touch the stone. As I moved towards it, I heard the headman. ¡°Damn. Normally they kick up a fuss first, according to the histories. Looks like we got lucky and got one with a level head.¡± As he said this, I touched the stone. I immediately seemed to find myself floating in a void. All of a sudden a voice spoke to me. ¡°Long ago, the gods were plentiful and everywhere. They had colonised plenty of worlds and created or spread life to many of them. However, it turned out the gods were not true Gods. An illness rose among them and many of them died. Some of them Ascended to become Gods and some converted to spirits tied to their lands, along with their children. On the planets where the gods totally died out including their lines, The worlds stopped producing Mana and eventually the magic was no more on those worlds, save for some artefacts that were still imbued with Mana. You were transported by one of those. There is no way to send you back. This world you are on now, is now your homeworld.¡± All of a sudden, a world filled my view. ¡°This is your world. You can learn more from the histories that your village keeps, It will tell you of the history of your world the god who ruled over it. Suffice to say, it is a rural world, dedicated to hunting and woodland crafting. If this is not to your liking, you can travel to other worlds through the network. However we at least recommend you stay where you are and learn all you can first, before you travel.¡± I couldn¡¯t help but smile at this. Sure, I would miss my family, but from what I could see I was going to get what I set out on a ship to do. Explore. Not only did I have a new world, apparently I could reach others. This was fantastic. I refocused my attention as the voice continued on speaking. ¡°Anyone can learn skills. The more suited you are to them, the quicker they level up. Skills can also grant advantages, but those advantages depend on you and what you learn. Sometimes you can upgrade those skills. Get so far and you could be offered professions, which can unify some skills and then learning more in one, will level them all. There are many professions out there and some of those professions can even upgrade or unify with others to create other professions. For more information, again consult your village library. There are also drops that you can get throughout the world or if you meet criteria called ¡®god drops¡¯ These are normally awards for completing difficult tasks or achieving particular milestones. Again, learn from your village library.¡± This sounded like some of the computer games I had played in my youth. Well, looks like I had a lot of research to do and no mistake. ¡°There are skills/professions/god drops you qualify for. You will be given those, along with a reset, so that once you have read the information given from the village library, if you wish to make a change you can. The first two you can see once we are finished by saying or thinking ¡®status¡¯. If you speak to the Headman, he will give you the god drops. We do not recommend you getting or applying them until you have read through the village library.¡± It really wanted me to do my research and learning. Fair enough. New world, new way of living, Things I never even heard of before. Be good not to muck it up for myself. ¡°You have for now been marked a citizen of Farglen and the headman has been notified of this. A home will be allocated to you, and three months of living resources will be allocated to you. We encourage you to peruse the village library and learn all you can. After three months, you will be responsible for your own life. Good luck.¡± Suddenly I found myself in my own body again, with the headman standing next to me. ¡°So how are you feeling? Gah! I really wish it would warn me when it does that!¡± I looked at him confused and he noticed. ¡°It is the Speaking Stone. If it thinks there is something I need to know, it just drops it in my head. No notice or anything, just a sudden knowledge as it were. Creepy shit. You would think I''ve gotten used to it by now, but no, this is not the case.¡± ¡°Apparently I now live here and am being given 3 months to learn stuff.¡± I felt foolish saying so but the headman just nodded back at me. ¡°Pretty much the standard procedure. I never had to do this, but well the village library provides. I shall take you there now and show you where it is and then take you to your new home. Oh, while I take you over there, have a look at your status. See what it tells you.¡± Chapter 2 Strange new land
Steven Ranger Skills Language Translator - Max Axe - Level 4 Cooking - Level 7 Professions Ranger - Level 3 Sailor - Level 2 Talents Traveller
Well, First off was my name. Second was my skills, sparse as it was. I had two professions however and I figured that was where most of my skills were, which was good as any of the skills involved in that could level the profession according to what I learned. I had no idea what Talent was about. I shared my status with the headman. ¡°So your name Steven Ranger. Mine happens to be Frank Wells.¡± I looked at him a little thrown by how English the name sounded. He noticed, stopped and faced me. ¡°Look, let me explain something quickly about the translator skill you got. It will translate anything said to you in familiar terms. However, what I said might not be what you heard, and vice versa. But the language translator, well it translates to what you know. Sometimes, it can be real weird. But get pass that and it will be fine.¡± He then started moving again. ¡°As for having a couple of professions, that''s wonderful! However, only the Ranger one is going to be useful to you around here for the most part. We are far from the sea. Judging by your surname I am thinking you come from a long line of Rangers. That will be good, lands round here need a bit of being kept and that. The talent, no idea you are going to have to look it up in the village library.¡± So saying he led me into a building and I had to blink. It reminded me of my IT classroom as a kid. It was basically a bunch of desks with what looked like a computer on them. ¡°This is the village library. All the information you need are on those terminals. Huh, it looks like you know roughly how to use one already.¡± I sat down and was thrown by how like a normal PC it was. Everything I had seen so far was basically mediaeval. Yet, here I sat in front of a PC, with familiar enough features that I had no problem navigating the menu. ¡°All you need to do is enter the program called information, it will detect who you are and then you can access it to your heart¡¯s content. Normally you have to book, but since you are getting the Traveller¡¯s Allotment. Meaning, this will be available only to you for the next three months. It is all part of the procedures for your situation.¡± I sat there feeling bewildered. Apparently this sort of thing happened often enough that there were procedures. I logged in and tapped in Talent, Traveller to see what would come up. I wasn¡¯t disappointed. Apparently, this could manifest in a variety of different ways. The basics were always true however. I could access Speaking Stones and Travelling Stones, even if there were restrictions on them. Ok, I need to figure out what Travelling Stones were, although if they were what I thought they were, this could be a godsend. Portal Stones I could use with a reduced fee. Hmm. Not sure on that one, more research to be done for sure. Here was the strange bit however, If I became a merchant, a whole bunch of options could open up to me. That was a bit weird I thought. But hey, any advantage, I take. I need to figure out how to become one however. But I imagine that will come up over the course of my training session with this thing. ¡°Anyway, Now I showed you this, time to take you to your new home. Do you have any preferences?¡± This threw me. Any preferences? I asked him what he meant. ¡°Oh you won¡¯t know this, my mistake. The Speaking Stone will create your home for you, since you are a traveller. So, what kind of home do you want?¡± I thought about it and concluded that the best way to move in would be as if I intended to stay here, even if I didn¡¯t plan to stay for too long. ¡°I would like a gamekeeper¡¯s cottage, situated where you would normally put it.¡± He nodded and led me over to the other side of the village. Here, it was nearer the forest. Here I also spotted a few cottages that were like my grandfathers. ¡°I put you in this one here, luckily we got it spare. Old Derren died last spring and well, we got no rangers or the like that wanted to move into here. If after your learning you want to be closer to the forest or something else, sure we can accommodate you.¡± So saying, he gave me a key. ¡°Here is the key to your cottage. If you need me, ask around and someone will bring you to me. Study for the next three months, we have a meeting every month and at the third meeting, we can determine what your best path forward is. Someone will bring you supplies for your first week, after that I will give you chits you can use to get the basic supplies to live on. Incidentally, you will get these chits for up to six months to help you settle in. After that, you are responsible for yourself. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. End of Month 1 It had been a busy month of learning. I found out a lot more than I bargained for. The highlights were these from what I could gather. Powerful beings had ruled what had essentially been an empire. They had massive power, but each generation they birthed, the power halved in those successive generations. They had factions among themselves and had competitions between them to determine what faction was in charge overall, and where. Some reigned for centuries, some not so long. In the outskirts worlds, which was where I was, the gods were pretty peaceful. Seemed they had come here to get away from what they termed ¡®inner world nonsense.¡¯ Then suddenly, a Virus had came. Chaos. Death, Destruction. That kind of thing. The only way to escape it was to either evolve, or devolve as it were. Not a whole lot was said about that, other than it could be a quest you could follow. Which then led to an overview of how the system the gods had left behind for the ¡®little races¡¯ to use. It was this that meant we could use to grow stronger and gain skills. Quests were apparently a part of that. I met quite a few kids. Apparently they use the village library to mostly learn the same sort of stuff I did but the consensus from the system as it were, was that what took them three years to learn, I could do in three months, or at least learn enough not to cause problems. I also spoke to a few other people in town. They seemed nice. I also learned some new skills and added experience to my Ranger profession. This was kind of exciting to see, even if it only budged up a little. End of Month 2 It finally sunk in that I am never going to see my family again. To be honest, the chances were not great before with a criminal organisation hunting for me, but I suppose the possibility was always there. This month I really threw myself into the learning part. I learned pretty much the history of the world I am now living in, the god that ruled it and so forth. I also delved a lot more into skill progressions, professions and a lot else. I also learned more about god drops. They were basically like loot drops although infrequent for the most part, unless you took care of problems that were a big detriment to the area. A few wolves, no. A few wolves led by an enhanced alpha, yes. I also figured that I probably would travel this world. Apparently a caravan would pull through here every few months. It always needed extra guards and I could get a job on that, no problem. There was even a profession for it as there was with most things. It was known as a next level job, meaning if I could level ranger to level 5 and add some skills necessary to the job, I could come to the stone and get it added to the professions I had. There was no cap to the number of skills or professions you could get, but if you say chopped firewood for a caravan as a caravan guard, even if you had tree cutter in your list of professions, it would be the caravan profession that would get the increase. I decided to go to the village headman and discuss my future plans with him. Maybe he could give a few pointers, or point me to somebody who could. End of Month 3 I had spoken to Frank and he had congratulated me on adjusting well into society and figuring out what I wanted to do. When I had expressed puzzlement, he had shown me a book he had. Apparently previous Travellers had not taken well to just popping up as it were. Here and other places. Frank was grateful that I had given him no problems. He directed me to a guy named Sean Donn. Sean had been an ex caravan guard. When I told him of my plan to travel as a guard he had asked me if I intended to become a merchant in time. I confessed to him that I did. He asked about my skills and professions. When I showed him what I had, he told me to come back to him in a couple of hours as he had to research something, but he thought it would be beneficial to me. So I decided to explore the centre of the village a bit. There was a general store as it were, and a notice board. When I took a closer look at the notice board, I found out something. It was something that my mind could interact with! There were all sorts of requests and offers by villagers and a small section that was a quest board. Apparently this was the norm for villages, but there were normally a building dedicated to this kind of thing in towns and normally those would also show the information from the villages. I navigated it for a couple of hours before going back to Sean. I spoke to Sean and he had what looked like a diagram with a list under it. The diagram looked like this.
Ranger lvl 5 Guard lvl 5 Merchant Guard lvl 1 Sailor lvl 5 Merchant Guard lvl 5 Merchant Guard Elite lvl 1 Tinker lvl 5 Merchant Guard Elite lvl 5 Merchant lvl1
This was apparently a progression that he recommended to become a merchant. It was not as easy as just learning a few skills. Apparently I would have to merge a few professions to get there. This diagram, plus the list he gave me skills I would need for each stage, would help me immeasurably. I was a bit anxious about earning the Guard job, but he assured me that Frank would be able to help me out there and hopefully by the time the convoy rolled around, I would have the necessary skills. He also recommended me getting cook as a profession, as that was always a popular one if you had the skills and since I had cooking to lvl 8 already, he thought it worth adding. I thanked him for his advice and took him to the tavern for a few drinks where I met quite a few more villagers. I brought a few rounds and was welcomed most warmly by those there. I may have woken up with a bit of a hangover. I spoke to Frank and showed him what Sean has given me. He said as it happens, my god drops that he was holding onto me might be able to help out there. He recommended that I study more up to the end of the month and then at the start of the new month, we would go through the god drops, with him and Sean on hand to give me advice if I wanted. I told him that it sounded for the best and I resumed my studies, this time focusing more on the laws and customs, plus the merchant rulebook.