《The life of a house》 Chapter 1 (New) Chapter 1 Motes of light lazily swam before his eyes as heslowlywoke up.He blinkedgroggily. He wasn¡¯t a morning person.Rooms bathed in golden lightof the morning sun greetedhimas he went to get up.A doorslid open.He focused on the door and wandered why it opened, but not for long. He noticed he hadn¡¯tactuallymoved,buthe felt himself move, weird.He jumpedoff the bed, tryingto wake himself up. The door swung itself into a wall.Again,he felt himself move, only hehit somethingthis time. His hazy mind,finally clamberedout of its morningmuddiness,started paying attention.He felt likefalling on hisbehind.He felt himself move again as the doorslowly closeditself.The reason for his slight nauseawas,thathe couldstillsee what was behind the closed door anyway.It wasa small living room. Why can I seewhat¡¯s¡­He thought before he realized he couldsee more than just the living room. He saw three roomsin total.A kitchenconnected to the living roomand a bedroom. What¡¯sgoing on? Hetriedto move,he felt himself move, but all that happened was a door swingingitself,again,plus some cabinetsbangingthemselves openin the kitchen. Wait, am I moving those? Hemoved a bitand a cabinet closed itself to a crack.I am.Weird, how I am doing it?He moved a different part and the door to the bedroom closed.Apparently by moving around.Heslowly closedall the cabinets, after several attempts.What¡¯s going on? Did I turn into a house?He added jokingly. Wait, I didn¡¯t, did I?No, no, no, no.This doesn¡¯t make sense, what happened?He tried to remember but all he had was a memory of going to sleep the previous night.Something clickedinside his mind and he had an epiphany.Reincarnation? Aren¡¯t you supposed to turn into, oh I don¡¯t know, something that¡¯sactually alive? Why a house?He was starting to get irritated and panic. And the itch,that was starting to make itself known,wasn¡¯t helping. What is this? How cana house be itchy? Oh my god, don¡¯t tell me I have termites or something!It¡¯s my first day, give me a break.He tried to feel where the itch was coming from, but neither the walls, cabinets,floor, ceiling ortable felt itchy.It felt like it was coming fromdeeper inside, andthenit hit him. It was coming from his mind.He focused on the itch, instead of trying tobear it, and a screen appeared.
Name: Race:Living House Subrace: Wooden Cottage
Level: 1 (0%) Skills: Self-Maintenance, Self-repair, Food Creation
Health: 1000/1000 (5/hour) Mana: 10/10 (1/hour)
Traits: Construct
Titles:
I did turn into a house.Darn. My name is blank, huh.He went through his memory, but he couldn¡¯t recall what it was supposed to be.New life new me, I guess.Let¡¯s see what I got.
Race:?Living House
A structure which absorbed enough magic to turn sentient.
Cool, cool, doesn¡¯t tell me much.
Subrace:?Wooden Cottage
A cosy wooden cottage that gained sentience through magic?If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Still nothing.
Racial skill: Self-maintenance
Allows the user to do house-related tasks
Cost: 1 mana per hour
What is considered a house-related task?He wondered before checking anotherpart.
Racialskill:Self-repair
Damaged parts automatically regenerate
Passive
Would theyregenerate without it, just slower, orwould I be stuck with the damage?That would be worrying.
Racial skill: Food creation
Allows the user to create?rawfood?ingredients.
Cost: Based on items created
Seems useful to have, nobody livesinside me though.Thatfelt really weird to say.Wouldsomebody really live here? Helooked over the rooms.Akitchen with a stove, some cabinets and a wooden table with three chairs. A living room withastone hearth, anarmchairwith small table besides itand awardrobe in the corner. And a bedroom with abed for twowith white linensand aclosetin front of it.There was a door he couldn¡¯t seebehind and he guessed it led outside.After a bit of fiddling around withdoors and cabinets he openedthe correct one. Hisviewpointchanged and he sawa small L-shaped cottagestanding inside a circleof grass.Hesight didn¡¯t reachpast the edge. There wasa half of a tree stickingfrom the outside, which made him laugh as it reminded him of bad graphicsin somegames. Heglanced at the cottage.I really became a house. He looked around some moreand started wondering how to get back inside.He closed themain door and his view switchedback.He remembered what he was doing before and began looking through the menu again.
Trait:?Construct
Holder is immune tomundanenegative effects. Holder is immune tomind afflictions. Holderdoesn¡¯trequire sustenanceor rest.
Really hammers home that I am not a humananymore.Never thought losing my humanity would only make me slightly sad.Well, can¡¯t do anything about it, at least the trait isnice. He dismissed the status window,done with examining it, andthought aboutwhat to do.There really wasn¡¯t muchexcept trying outhisskills. Hespentfew days byexperimenting, he createdmeat and fruit,he looked through thecabinetsand closets,he floated pillows around, he cut stuff,even himself,with knivesfrom the cabinets,he tried cooking,he lit a fire in the hearthand under the stove,caused a small fire, extinguished itand cleanedeverything afterwards. He had funtryingthings out, and exceptthe fire accident, nothing bad cameout ofit. He even gained a level, which gave himmere10 bonus hp and1 point in mana. He was a bit disappointed with the poorgain butconsoled himselfthat he was just level 2.Now, however, hewasout ofideaswhat to do, his level refused torise,andhewas starting to get bored. Pondering what to do, he noticed aweird feeling. It was like something was missing, an unoccupiedspace that wasn¡¯t meant to be empty.And once he noticed,it stuck, andhe couldn¡¯t letitgo. What is it? Whatam I missing?Somethingfrom before I became a house?He asked himself.Games?I went without them for more thana couple months once. Moving around?Moving doors feels like moving.Family? He paused. Howhad he not thought of his family before?Heberatedhimself.Thinking of his family made him feel warm, but when he tried to rememberhow they looked ormoments from their lifehecouldn¡¯t recall anything. He knew they lovedhim,and he loved them back, but hecouldn¡¯t remember them at all.He was sad helost the memory ofthem butwas happy heat least remembered how they made him feel, it pushed the hollow feeling away. Somethingpinged insidehis head and he couldfeel hismindput two and two together.Families live in houses. I am ahouse;nobody lives inside me.Therefore,Ineed somebody to live hereto not feel like this.Easy. Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Days passed and the hollowness kept returning and he kept on fighting it with thoughts of his family. But it came back a tiny bit stronger every time and the warmth of his family lessened each time he made himself think of them. It felt superficial to him, using his family as a barrier to protect himself. Though it made him feel so, it was the better alternative. He had hope somebody would find him and take away his struggles. And he thought of a plan, he kept a fire going inside the hearth to release smoke and he constantly cooked something in the kitchen with a window open to hopefully lure somebody in promise of food. He had little success, only a squirrel had showed up on his windowsill, still it strengthened his waning hope and he summoned some walnuts for it. A week passed. Nobody came. Thinking of his family no longer helped, so he stopped. Instead he started talking to a made-up persona he dubbed Eve. Describing what he was doing and what he was thinking made him focus more and it pushed his empty-house depression away. He felt a little crazy for it, but he told himself it was just talking to himself with extra steps. It worked and he forgot about his emotions for a time. But in a day or two he felt it again and it refused to leave. He kept on describing everything he was doing, though the relief it gave before was gone. He stopped after a day as he felt it was meaningless and just stayed silent. His emotional state took a dip and he didn¡¯t bother with trying to lure people anymore. It was hopeless anyway. A deep night was laying over the land, the wind was howling, and the sky was covered in dark clouds. He felt the rain pour down on his roof, while the wind tried to pry open his windows. The similarity between his mood and the weather made him chuckle dryly. The hollowness was filling him, consuming him and he somehow knew, that once it reached all of him, he would be gone. His emotions had already hit rock bottom and this realization couldn¡¯t move him in his apathy. He wandered what would happen to his body. Would it stay? Would it disappear with him? Turn into a haunted house? He felt the last fragments if himself get slowly eroded and he imagined himself lie down in a comforting embrace. Goodbye Eve. It was nice knowing you, though you never talked. Where are you going? Came the unexpected answer. I am d- He started to answer before he paused. Eve? Yes?Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. While he was questioning his sanity, a window appeared.
Skill: System Companion - Eve
¡°For those who are truly alone, whom life hasn¡¯t chanced with a friend.¡±
Passive
He reread it several times, mainly focusing on the name of the skill, or rather ¡°Eve¡±, the name of his imaginary persona. Eve? Yes? How long have you been there? A day, I think. Why didn¡¯t you talk to me? I thought you didn¡¯t want to; you were silent the whole time. Aah, good point. It doesn¡¯t matter anyway; I¡¯ll be gone in a short moment. Where are you going? I don¡¯t know, I am dying. Why? He laughed. I don¡¯t really know, nobody lives here, and it seems that¡¯s fatal for houses. He answered and lied back into the cool embrace. There is somebody hiding beneath the roof though. They tried to get in, but the door is locked, and the shutters are closed. He mentally sat up and imagined looking at Eve. Wait what? There is somebody outside? He opened the entrance door and rain started pouring in. His view changed and he could see several small figures huddling underneath the roof. Some of them noticed the open door and rushed in, with the rest following. He closed the door after all of them got in. He looked them over. Are those¡­ goblins? There was eight of them. Small, green, dirty, but not entirely as commonly described. They didn¡¯t have crooked or black teeth, no warts or long noses. Just little bald green men with big eyes. Almost too big. They creeped him out. I feel creeped out. I don¡¯t feel depressed anymore! He felt himself over and it was like the hollowness was never there to begin with. It disappeared like mist. Eve, this is awesome! What are we celebrating? I have inhabitants! I won¡¯t feel depressed anymore. Meanwhile, the new tenants made their way into the kitchen and started gobbling up any food they found. Burnt meat, undercooked meat, raw meat, stale fruit, even some flour. After they finished with the feast, they went to investigate the bedroom, where, after finding out the bed was soft, they proceeded to pass out. He only noticed after several minutes and then looked at the state of the kitchen. He had some cleaning to do. Still he was too happy to let it bother him. He had people, goblins, living inside him. He began cleaning the kitchen and even created some food for the gobs and he got an idea. Eve, do you know anything about this world? No. And it got shot down as fast as it appeared. He continued cleaning and the mood started to feel awkward to him. Soo, can you tell me something about yourself Eve? My name is Eve. I am your friend and I would have felt really sad if you had gone away like you were saying, I am happy you stayed. That¡¯s¡­ Thanks, I am happy I stayed too. Chapter 3 Chapter 3 The goblins snored the night away and come morning they started to wake up. One of them sat up, sniffed the air, sniffed again and sneaked into the kitchen. It followed its nose to a piece of meat and started gulping it down. Another goblin made its way to the kitchen and saw it stuffing itself with meat. They locked eyes and the first one paused for a moment and then started again with greater urgency. The other one jumped it and started tearing the food away from it. Soon it turned into a brawl, food forgotten. Meanwhile a third goblin came and started eating the left-over meat while watching the fight. The rest woke up due to the commotion and watched as the last piece of meat disappeared into the mouth of the eating goblin. He watched the situation unfold and had laughing fit watching them. Inspiration struck him and he summoned a slab of meat above the goblin group. It fell on top of a one and the others watched him for a moment and leaped at him, all of them trying to get a piece for themselves. Another brawl broke out as they scraped, clawed and bit each other. Eve, did you see his face when the meat fell on his head? So worth the mana. That was mean. Why did you do that? Ehm, because it was funny. I mean, did you see the look on his face? Priceless. Doesn¡¯t change the fact it was mean. They could get hurt. Eve, they are goblins. Just because someone is a bit dumb doesn¡¯t allow you to hurt them. But they are goblins! They probably hurt somebody before. That doesn¡¯t mean you have the right to hurt them too. Alright, I won¡¯t do it again. Happy? He gave in, seeing she wouldn¡¯t budge. Aren¡¯t you a bit too smart for somebody born the day before yesterday? She giggled in response but said nothing. Meanwhile, part of the goblins left to hunt, probably the ones who were too late to get to the kitchen. The rest just lazed around. He tried to find out which one of them was their boss, but all of them just sat on their asses or bickered with one another. He guessed he was with the hunting party, if there even was one. Hey. Yeah? What¡¯s your name? Oh, I haven¡¯t told you, did I? The name is¡­ I forgot. How can you forget your name? It just¡­ happened. Vanished from my mind. And the window is blank. So, you don¡¯t have a name? Mind if I give one? Suure, just pick a good one, please. She became silent and when he prodded her for an answer few minutes later, she replied: I am thinking. Is she making one from scratch? He thought, getting slightly worried. Nonetheless he left her to it and went to do something, he just needed to figure out what that something was. The goblins were boring to watch, and he promised he wouldn¡¯t be mean to them. Though he thought it was ridiculous, they were goblins. He looked around the house, meaning he kind of felt everything at once. Being a house was weird. He noticed the bed was unmade and felt a slight urge to fix it. Being a house was weird. He cleaned it of dirt and grime from the goblins, folded the blanket and shook the pillows before setting them down. Crack He felt a sting and from the crack he guessed it was the goblins fault. In the kitchen a goblin fell on its bottom after a cabinet door gave out while it was trying to climb it. Why did that hurt? The fire didn¡¯t, and that seemed worse. Before he could continue his thought, the cabinet door lifted of the floor and attached itself back to the cabinet. The goblin stared. He stared. The goblin warily approached the cabinet and started moving the door back and forth, before losing interest after a minute. Well, I am glad the regeneration works. Ohh, I should have checked how much health that was, it could be useful. What was the regen rate again¡­ Five per hour. Okay, that must have been less than one then. It seems I am pretty sturdy, most of the health must be the walls. Does the floor count? Can I survive with just the floor left? Nobody would bother destroying the floor, right? He took a knife and cut the floor until he felt a prick. His health went down by a point. There were lines carved into the floor and a piece of it was gauged out. The piece started floating and set back into the floor before it sealed itself. The carved lines took longer and disappeared after several minutes. That should have taken longer to heal, at least twelve minutes. And why did the lines take longer to heal? He wondered Technically, the only thing that had to heal after the piece was set back was the thin space between and the lines had to grow back whole. So, do I regenerate faster than five per hour if there are parts left? Nice.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Finished with his experiments he noticed the goblins were standing outside the kitchen and were staring at the floating knife. Confusion and fear were visible in their faces and they looked like they were ready to fight. Realizing his mistake, he dropped the knife and saw the goblins jump when it clattered on the floor. They watched it warily, suspicious of the magical floaty knife. One of them approached slowly and once within grabbing distance quickly leaped for the handle and held it tight with both hands. The goblin then walked to the door, holding the knife as far as possible from its body. The goblins made space and got out if its way, still watching the knife. At the door, it opened it by a crack and threw the knife away and immediately shut the door. He couldn¡¯t help himself and laughed for good fifteen minutes, every time he thought he was done he started again. And he didn¡¯t break his promise to Eve, this definitely wasn¡¯t mean, they were just dumb. The heroic knife throwing goblin slumped against the door and sat for a moment. The rest watched the kitchen for any other suspicious activity, seeing none they visibly relaxed, but stayed away from the kitchen. Hours later the goblin hunting party returned with a dead doe. They dumped her onto the ground in front of the cottage and walked inside. The goblins greeted each other as they entered, but when the last one entered, the housekeeper goblins turned stiff. The goblin was holding a knife. The magical floaty knife. The goblin, previously slumped by the door, leaped and grasped the other¡¯s hand and tried to pry the knife away from him, which the goblin obviously didn¡¯t like and started defending itself. The rest joined either side based on whether they stayed home or not, and the Brawl of the Knife started. It ended abruptly when one of the goblins got stabbed in the chest. It fell to the ground, blood flowing from its mouth and wound, it tried to breath, but only inhaled its own blood. It struggled for a minute, while the others stared, unmoving, before it passed out from lack of air and died. Everybody looked at the goblin currently holding the knife. It was one of the home keepers. It quickly dropped it, pointed at it and started screaking. The home keepers started nodding along and screaking in confirmation. The rest switched from looking at the goblin to the knife with growing hostility. Soon, the heroic goblin grabbed it and threw it out the door again. They cheered; the evil magical floaty knife was out of their lives. They carried the dead goblin out and started digging a grave with their hands. Once done, they put the body inside. The heroic goblin stepped up and let out few sorrowful screaks before they buried it. He watched the goblins bury their fellow goblin. His mood turned quite somber after the goblin died. He didn¡¯t blame himself for it, he wasn¡¯t that stupid, but seeing somebody die, even a goblin, isn¡¯t a happy occasion. At least for him. He was surprised when the goblin buried their dead. He thought them to be more barbaric. It made them look more¡­ human? More than just dumb monsters. He looked on as they stood around for a while before they grouped around the doe. They conversed in screaks for a moment and then some ran into the forest and inside the house. He lost sight of the forest goers, but they returned soon after with armful of branches and twigs. Meanwhile the house goers ran into the kitchen and with a hateful look started breaking the furniture. They tore the cabinet doors off, picked up chairs and swung them into the floor, breaking them into pieces. It hurt. When they tore into the cabinets it felt like a beehive decided he was their worst enemy. When they broke the chairs, it was like stubbing his little finger, against a hedgehog, a big and heavy one. He wasn¡¯t sad anymore, he was angry. He felt like he was being beaten up, without retaliating at all. He was about to make knives fly when he felt disgusted at the thought of hurting them. The knives quivered slightly but didn¡¯t go anywhere. It was weird. He felt weird, the disgust having passed right after he dropped the intention to hurt them. Being angry usually supressed everything else, but the sense of disgust completely drowned out his anger. It was weird. He felt he was in the right, why shouldn¡¯t he fight back? He wandered why he would feel like that and the only thing came up with was: Because houses don¡¯t hurt people. In any scenario he imagined he would fight back, and it didn¡¯t make sense to him why he didn¡¯t. While he was pondering his house induced pacifism, the goblins piled up the wood they gathered and tried to light it up. However, some of the wood had other plans as parts of cabinet doors started to rattle and float towards the house. The goblins panicked and froze as they watched the wood flow away. It was almost through the door when the heroic goblin started moving again and leapt for the floating wood. Seeing his bravery, the other goblins slowly started gathering the airborne firewood. They piled it up again and stayed wary of any suspicious movement from the pile. They manged to light it on fire before it started rattling again. Wood floated in the air once again, but this time some pieces burned. Goblins caught and gathered most of the wood, again, but when they reached for the burning pieces, they yelped in pain and let go. Then another goblin would give it a try until all of them burned their hands. He watched as the burning wood flew towards his very flammable body and started panicking. Stop, stop! Turn off you stupid passive! You are going to burn the house down! He couldn¡¯t turn the passive off and almost saw himself go up in flames, when he remembered he actually had telekinesis. He started pushing against the floating wood and directed it back to the fire, where he held it together. The goblins celebrated as the wood returned to the fire. They brought the dead doe closer to the fire and¡­ stared. They seemed clueless as what to do next, until the heroic goblin perked up and brought a knife from the kitchen. A normal, not an evil magical floaty, knife, which he explained to the rest, that seemed alright with it. They cut the doe into pieces, destroying most of its hide in the process, and stuck the meat onto sticks and roasted it on the fire. He was confused when the heroic goblin, who he started calling Hiro, just grabbed the knife from the kitchen. Weren¡¯t they afraid of it a moment before? Was it just the single knife? He decided they were just dumb. On the other hand, he may have found the leader of the group, Hiro, based on his behaviour. He always reacted first and seemed more¡­ less dumb. Still dumb, mind you, but less so. The goblins ate the slightly charred meat and went inside, took a sideways glance at the kitchen and with more haste walked into the bedroom and scrambled onto the bed, where they promptly fell asleep. None stayed awake to keep watch, which seemed pretty dumb to him. Well, they were dumb so it kind of fit. Hey, I finally got the name! Really? Took you quite some time. Do you want the name or not? Yes, yes, sorry. Fal¡¯Lig. ¡­ It sounds kinda alien-ish You don¡¯t like it? No, not really. Do you have anything simpler? Fal? She tried, deflated. No¡­ He winced. Arsi? Devi? Myro? Ren? Byro¡­ She continued hurling names at him. Her voice got lower and lower until it was just a whisper when he didn¡¯t react. I am sorry, Eve. None of them feel right. Here is an idea. Why don¡¯t we come up with a name together?