We'd made it further into the forest.
After the fight with the Earth Elemental in the ravine that nearly resulted in my untimely death, we were shaken up. A bit low on health, spell slots, and uses of our class features, I knew we would need to bed down for the night once evening arrived.
This was the dangerous aspect of small parties at lower levels. Not much access to means of safety, and the longer one spent adventuring, the fewer resources were made available.
My hooves squished on chunks of soaked bark and cracked on fallen branches. The terrain had grown progressively more dense- the leaves had become a much darker green, painting the canopy in a shade of darkness I hadn't grown accustomed to. It blotted out the few remaining hours of sunlight from above, as if it were trying to cage me in. My wings remained sore, and while flying would save me some trouble, it would also gather attention from whatever creatures lived in these woods.
On the forest floor, the trunks of trees were as wide as my armspan, covered in thick vines and ivy, brambles, and twisting columns of orange or yellow mushrooms. Ferns, shrubs, and smaller bushes made it feel like a jungle, forcing me to either swat them away with my hand or cut them with my scimitar as I pressed on. My movement through here was already terrible, given my poor strength stat and lack of familiarity, but paired with the sheer thickness of the plants, it was absurd. Hours passed, and my mental pace count told me I had only made it a few miles.
We weren't using roads because of the more pressing threat of bandits. Given where we were headed, Baduadu was a smithing town, and multiple prized goods were shipped in and out by road constantly. Armor, weapons, tools, adventuring gear, even rarer metals like Mythral and Orichalcum, and in rare cases, Adamantium. If we were to go on these roads, we would save time, but the growing pressure of getting ambushed by bandits was arguably larger than whatever we could find in taking the straightest path, cutting through the forest.
Then again... this sucked. The amount of transpiration these plants were producing was steadily becoming more annoying. My fire resistance lets me ignore stupidly hot temperatures, ones I would likely get heat exhaustion in on Earth. What it didn't save me from was humidity, and by God, sweating in this amount of armor, gear, and fucking fur? A new level of discomfort I had never experienced before. Not to mention getting a thorn or a stick lodged in my leg fur, or ducking my massive horns underneath branches? I was playing limbo with dryads.
Of course, Bucket had passed out. Given her display in the fight, she was taking the time to get some sleep before we found a spot to make camp. She'd sprained her ankle, or at least damaged something in her leg, leaping off the platform, getting out of the ravine. She wouldn't be moving at all for a while.
I felt guilty. Weak. I knew clerics and wizards didn't have a lot of hitpoints, but to be this fucked over because of a class selection and a world setting felt terrible. I knew I had made some mistakes, so I just needed to be more careful. More paranoid. Make some plans.
First and foremost, what was the most optimal way to defend myself? The simple answer came to mind: grow stronger than what was around me.
The best way to do this was to gather experience points- I couldn't measure these exactly, as I didn't know yet if I could gather exp while doing other tasks or objectives. So far, it was from combat, so for now, I would assume I could only get it from combat.
Combat, of course, came with its series of risks. I could get permanently injured, get captured, the possibilities were endless. Another simple answer, I would need to pick my fights and be more opportunistic. Not necessarily look for fights, but not avoid them either. Get the most out of them, as best as possible.
How could I better survive fights? What was my battle strategy? I think before I get anything done about that, I would need to learn or estimate more about Bucket's capabilities. I'm not able to maximize her abilities since I can't control her abilities or how she levels up- in this sense, it is next to impossible for me to get an 'ideal' party. Then again, I'm not limited in party size either...
I concluded that the best possible means for me to survive was to surround myself with allies.
The issue was: Where do I get these allies? It was obvious why this would prove to be difficult.
I'd need more strength. People follow the powerful. I needed power. Money. Influence. Reputation. Feats and achievements.
The disappointment and downtrodden attitude I had quickly left- I was filled with grit. I knew what I needed to do- the specifics would come along soon enough.
...
Hours passed, and the sun fell somewhere over the horizon, and darkness flooded the forest.
I conjured an unseen servant, namely, to start gathering wood for a campfire, set up some basic shelter, and clear much of the camp. After gently setting Bucket and her bag off against a tree, letting her continue to rest, I sat against it and set down my bag.
The grass and bushes were thorny and covered in dew, catching on my clothes, gear, and armor before soaking them. I cut a few away with my scimitar before setting that beside me, and pulling out my spellbook. I mulled over what I had, licking my fingertips as I went between the pages.
I commanded the unseen servant to begin setting up my tent, as well as my blanket and bedroll. Given how cold the nights could get and the moisture in the air, I felt it necessary. After it did so, I had it begin layering leaves and branches over it. Any semblance of security, false or not, would ease my worries.
I began to mend our gear. The mending cantrip was one not often used, given that most dungeon masters rarely ever tracked player equipment, but this was very real, and my equipment certainly needed upkeep. In tandem with the smith's tools I had, repairing it occupied the remainder of my few hours of energy, while my mind continued to drift.
As the hammer and file worked in tandem, the magic weaving through my fingers as I fixed leather straps and shattered buckles, popped dents back into place, I thought about ways to gather more strength. The process of clearing the buildup of rust was arduously slow, and only further incited me to get allies, or servants of some kind- this was a huge pain in my moose ass.
Did I need experience to gain levels in classes like Warlock? If I were to make a pact with some sort of god or otherworldly being, would I simply gain the level in the class? Would it replace one of my current classes, like my cleric level? My charisma wasn't good enough for me to even consider that, now that I thought about it. The ceremony spell was the next thought that struck my mind. If I were to wed myself and Bucket together in what is considered a very literal marriage, we would benefit from a boosted armor class so long as we were within thirty feet of each other.
"Then again, I don't think Bucket would go and marry some stranger she met barely a day ago..." I mumbled amongst the grinding of the file.
"Hmm?" Bucket's head rolled over in her bag of holding towards me, her ears perked up amidst her prolonged nap.
"Nothing, keep sleeping. You need to fix that leg of yours."
"Don't change the topic, moose, what did you say?" She asked quizzically, her brow furrowing.
By now, the tent was up, the camo on, and the servant had gotten a small campfire going amidst the mud and stone. The flickering orange light danced on her face.
I sighed, stopping the work with my hands and looking her dead in the eye. Chagrin's body wanted to hiccup and change the subject; I could feel it, but I knew just biologically, these two weren't going to work.
"I was thinking of ways for us to grow stronger, given how we nearly died just a few hours ago. Through the use of a ceremony spell, I could... wed us together, and it would give us a small boon for a few days." I felt Chagrin's, no, my cheeks, go flush, letting the sentence out.
"Oh." She said, her ears twitching and her brow raised.
"Oh~" She said a scarce second later, a wide grin appearing, nearly making me choke.
"I'm sorry?" I asked, a quick look of fear tearing across my face before I shoved it aside.
"No, no, I just find it cute that the big moose man is already finding excuses to make his poor excuse at flirting." Her giggle could've killed me; it was as if she felt she had somehow struck gold.
"I'm not flirting, I am trying to boost our survival rate."
"All creatures, when threatened with death, feel a much higher need to reproduce. I can't blame you if you find me attractive." There was a flush on both our faces now; one was teasing the other, and I was very actively trying to avoid that route.
I found myself flustered. She was a head speaking to me out of a bag; the hilarity of the situation was the only thing keeping me together here.
"Bucket, I believe the consummation of our hypothetical 'marriage' would result in your untimely demise. Not to mention the ruckus we would make would attract dozens, if not hundreds, of nearby monsters."
"I doubt a fiend like you would have such a thing between your furry legs, but you do know we met scarcely a few days ago? I ain't consummating shit with someone whose life I saved back there. You owe me, not you, goof." She said, a suspicious brow raised, her grin still peeking at the corner of her mouth.
It was hard to take her seriously when she was only head-up from the mouth of the bag.
She was right, I had barely met her, let alone gotten to know her. Ceremony was out of the question, and the thought of consummating it, I could only explain, came from pent-up needs that this cursed body had. Clearly, Chagrin had been a rather... needy, individual... before I had taken over his body.
I cleared my throat again, getting my hands busy with my equipment.
"Forget I said anything. I just would rather us not perish any time soon, before we even get the chance to deal with our goal."
"I hear you, but you should relax at least a little. You seem like you haven't slept right in quite some time." She said, her expression relaxing as she lay her head back on the bark of the tree, closing her eyes.
She was pretty spot on- I was still grateful for the inn I had slept in, and the gear I had, but this definitely wasn't the intro to any Isekai you'd see normally. Plenty of other characters I could remember had it worse, and had far less information than I did, sure, but I couldn't discount the fact that I was about as muscular as a small child. I doubt Chagrin ever had to lift a finger, even if he had a rough childhood. How rough can a noble's life be anyway?
"You're right. You rest up, too. I need you in good shape for when we head out later. I'll take watch for now."
Bucket only nodded, and shortly afterwards, fell asleep. I kept working away at scrubbing and oiling my gear.
The hours pass, and finally, my stuff is all set. I go over my inventory again, digging through my bag of holding and taking accountability.
A shield, my explorer's pack, my holy symbol, a mace I'll need to sell, 40 bolts for a crossbow I don't have, a broken hourglass I need to throw away, a set of rusted manacles I should do the same, with, a hunting trap, my smith's tools, my money pouch, a scroll of Caustic Brew and a scroll of Shield of Faith, my traveler's clothes (on my body, duh), an extra waterskin, my 10 days of rations, my tent (set up in front of me), my blanket in the tent, the spyglass I could sell for a stupid amount of money, a shovel, a crowbar, a a sledgehammer, two daggers, two scimitars, a potion of healing, that Wand of Verdant Bloom I picked up, the Earth Elemental's Core, three bags of caltrops, three bags of ball bearings, cobbler's tools, breastplate armor, and my enduring spellbook. Not a bad set of gear.
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I wanted to cast Find Familiar and get a minion, but I hadn't bought the materials from town before I had left. As soon as I found the opportunity, I would most certainly need to. Another set of eyes I could look through, far better than my own? Please, yes.
The Earth Elemental's core intrigued me the most, though. What could I do with this, realistically?
From my experience playing the game, elementals originated in the elemental planes of chaos and came in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Mephits and fully blown elementals, as we saw, were the most common. Xorn were a rare example of a buffed-up earth elemental, and phoenixes or leviathans were other common examples of extremely powerful elementals. For practical uses, it ranged widely. Water elemental cores would often be used for plumbing uses in cities- an endless supply of clean water made it very easy to keep the place clean, even if it tended to create serious issues for the environment in the long term. Fire elemental cores were used in massive steam and mechanical projects- I remember a friend of mine in high school who had used one to recreate something akin to Howl's Moving Castle, which was really cool. Very volatile though. Air elemental cores were similar- great for blimps, planes, or other flying devices. As a whole, they were great for the creation of magical items too- a Decanter of Endless Water, for example, would certainly need a water elemental core or two. But what in the world could I use an earth elemental core for? No items instantly came to mind, nor any wacky machines... maybe items that would give someone a burrow speed? Could it make it difficult for someone to move you against their will? I'd need more research.
Poring over Chagrin's education and expansive intellect, it seemed in this setting, things were relatively the same. The first item that came to mind was a censer that could summon and control earth elementals- a great tool for making minions in combat to fight for you. He'd also read some stories about dwarves using them in their gates and defenses- self-repair of stone walls, bridges, and even allowing for near-infinite ammo in the likes of catapults. The production of stone amazed me, given that it was near infinite matter, but all the other elemental cores did the same thing, so it only seemed fitting.
The possibilities in my head surged for a while. If this could be fashioned similarly to the ways dwarves used it, would it not be possible to rapidly cut down the time it takes to create forts, castles, and other structures, if applied correctly? Legendary items had the ability to carve literal holes in the multiverse, so it seemed only fitting that a rare or very rare one made with an item like this could produce lots of granite or other minerals, no?
I kept it stowed in my bag for now.
From there, I stowed the gear I wouldn't need for the night, including taking off my armor, and hunkered down in the tent with Bucket. Crawling into my bedroll, I was again reminded of the progress I had made so far. I now had some solid adventuring equipment, I had better gear, I had some magic items, my own magical prowess had grown, and I had something I could count as an ally.
I had a quest, something to strive after, and a longer-term goal I could start to define.
What was the end goal here? To get back to Earth? To survive here? To make something of a life here? Just... live the rest of my days here? Did any of it matter? How cynical should I be about it all?
In all those stories I had read, the protagonist would get stupid strong, slowly uncover how they got transferred here, usually due to some wonky system reminiscent of a game, and then either use the system to go home again or fight back against the system and free themselves from it. Sometimes their lives would be better in the world they got shifted into, and they'd stay, leaving their old home behind. Other times, they'd take any opportunity to go home, denying that the world they got forced into was real. Many times, it would be treated like a dream after they'd left. Based on the weird interface I encountered in my dreams, I came to think of this place as some sort of hyper-realistic simulation. One where I had pain, hunger, thirst, I could bleed, I had physical needs, everything. The people here could suffer, grow, change, and were dynamic. The world here felt alive- the way Chagrin's body had been attuned to magic over time was something I could feel in my fingertips even as I lay in my tent, listening to the sounds of the wilderness mingle around.
What did I want? Did I want to go home? I had a career ahead of me and friends and family who would wonder where I was or where I had vanished. I had a nation I was actively trying to be part of, or at least improve in some measly way. Here, well, there were almost infinite possibilities, if it was loyal to anything in the game. I could produce flames from my hands. I could mend wounds. I had witnessed a veritable God. These were things that I had zero chance of getting back on Earth. Was this realm better? If I got stronger, my odds of surviving were higher, but if I could survive, I could do and see things I never deemed possible. Did it matter if it was a dream? If I were to wake up and resume everything when it was all over, wouldn't it be better to see how long I could go here? If I were in a coma back home or something, lying in a hospital bed, would it not be better to relish my life here while I had it? I could cast spells, commune with my goddess, fight monsters, and find treasure. Was this not the ideal? Was this not my opportunity to actually experience the thing that I had been playing the game for the whole time? There wasn't any way to test any of this either. If I died, would I go back? If I were revived or resurrected, would I go back to Earth for a brief time before coming back here? Was there any point in risking it or finding out? Undoubtedly, it would be painful, wouldn't it?
I'd stay in this realm, I told myself. Get stronger, protect myself, and live a life of power and luxury for the rest of my days. Make the most of it all. Find the limits of this realm, and whatever limits the system seemed to have.
I think the next thing I would need to test, at that point, was whether this realm gave experience only for combat, or for other things like exploration, messing with traps, building things, social encounters, etc.
I could do all that later. For now, I sat in the tent and kept a careful watch outside, munching on my rations as I passed the time.
...
Hours passed, and it was getting harder to stay awake.
The hair on the back of my neck, and really everywhere else, stood up. Danger was nearby.
As quickly as I could, I grabbed the bag of holding with Bucket in it, before unfurling my wings and rushing out of the tent and into the air.
*SMASH*
As soon as I did, the tent was crushed as two brown bears trampled atop it, tearing it up as they tried to dig for what I assumed to be me and my rations.
"Fuck!" I shouted, as the rations I had been eating, and a good deal of the ones I had taken out in the process of eating them, were being actively devoured by these bears as I caught my breath in those save few seconds.
I tore out my wand and thrust out Rays of Frost at the bears, hoping to deal with them and at least get some experience out of the encounter. My mind raced- they could climb, so long as I stayed away from the trees, they wouldn't be able to reach me. I was maybe 25ft in the air, so if they fought back, they wouldn't be able to get to me without dashing based on their speed.
The ray I had sent out hardly seemed to chill the bear I had targeted, but it got its attention. Wanting to ensure Bucket could get ample rest, I kept her slung over my back. All of my other gear was down there in that tent, in addition to my armor. It would be difficult to grab any of it, and now it seemed one of the bears was beginning to dig through the bag to find the remainder of our rations...
I hoped bear meat was edible.
The other bear turned, looked up at me, and then rushed over to a tree to begin climbing. It was terribly fast, made my heart pound with how its claws tore through the bark, and its body shoved branches aside with ease.
It had clearly dashed, as I had enough time to ascend higher into the air, another good 15 feet or so, as well as a great distance from the bear's tree, before firing another bolt at the beast.
Chagrin shouted some word in infernal before I even thought of doing so, as my hands made a cup over my mouth, the process instinctual. I could feel a chill run up my stomach and out of my mouth, like the inverse of eating a lot of ice cream. The chill burst out past my hands and into the bear, this time with far more force- running a sheet of ice along the fur of the bear's upper back and head.
It roared out, and LOUD, making me wince as it shouted in pain and anger.
The other bear below had torn into my bag of holding and gotten at the other rations I had prepped for the journey, ripping into them with unbelievable speed. We'd need to hunt for food, which would likely extend our journey a good few days just from the time loss... which meant even more opportunities for danger in the wilderness.
I felt a squirming in the bag behind me. Bucket had gotten her arms out of the bag and, in one hand, held a flask of acid, the other her turret. She flung the acid at the bear below, before firing at it with her turret.
Energy welled up in its barrel before it flew down and managed to punch a hole in our already destroyed tent, missing the bear by a few inches. The acid flask fell, landed flat on the bear's head, then shattered on impact, drenching the fur and skull of the beast in acid.
"What the fuck is going on?!" She shouted, her turret recharging as she dug into the bag for another vial.
"Bears! Must've smelled our food!" I shouted back, knowing the noise from the blast, from our shouting, and the bear's roars would most certainly raise more attention. We were not going to get much sleep.
The bear in the tree swatted in the air, roaring and grumbling as it tried to reach out at me. It clearly wanted to jump for me, but a bear jumping 20 feet from a tree would've been-
It scrambled up to the top of the tree, bending the entire trunk with its weight, before it leaped from above us, down. It crossed more distance from the height, and I was met with the realization that hundreds of pounds of bear would most certainly kill me from this height.
I did my best to angle my body away from the bear as it came towards me, swiping with its claws on the way down- it intended to break its fall with me, but that inch managed to let me avoid being brought down with i-
"AAAGHHH!!" I screamed as the bear's huge claws utterly tore through my front. It scraped down everything from my collar bone, over my breastplate, before gushing huge tears in my stomach and even down my thighs before it fell the remainder of the way, dying on impact as it broke its back on the fall.
Blood was rapidly leaving my body- I suddenly felt incredibly cold. My clothes were drenched red all along my front, my breastplate dripping with the crimson fluid.
"Eldath, please, grant me rest..." I murmured, as I cast a Healing Word on myself. I felt the magic flow through my vocal cords, before floating out and rushing back into the newly wounded on my chest. Scar tissue formed, rips in my flesh sealed back up, and a majority of the bleeding began to stop. I felt my vision sharpen again, and the pounding in my head slowed a bit.
In the same timeframe, I began to murmur the same words in infernal that felt supernaturally habitual. I brought my hand to my mouth again and launched yet another Ray of Frost, this time to the bear below that had just been coated in acid by my backpack buddy.
Perhaps due to the newly made weakness in my chest, or perhaps the focus on the healing prior to the casting, the blast of cold was only somewhat stronger than the initial one I had made as the first bear climbed the tree a few seconds ago.
The bear below, riddled in ice and acid alike, having gotten its meal and seeing its likely mate having just practically killed itself in an attempt for a sulfurous meal, turned and began to run. Bears were fast, but given the chill that was now radiating through its body, it was about as fast as either me or Bucket. The distance it covered was greater due to focusing solely on running, but given the difficulty of the woods, it could only get so far.
Bucket shot yet another blast with her turret, the energy charged and released in short succession. The blast was particularly powerful, perhaps overcharged due to Bucket's previous miss- even if I couldn't see her face as she blasted it from behind me, I knew the grin across it would've been startling.
The energy ripped past me, practically tearing through the air and lighting up the forest for a brief moment before it punched a massive hole through the bear's shoulder, nearly ripping its front leg off in the process. Bucket tossed another flask of acid at the bear, making an incredible throw- it arched, bounced off a branch, and rolled off another, almost landing on top of the beast- before it managed to just scarcely sidestep it and keep running.
I was in serious pain, but I could still fly, and Bucket had no means of movement attached to me. I dashed, flapping my wings hard as I avoided the largest branches and rushed through the cold night air. I'd need a haircut- the strands and curls blowing in my eyes were steadily becoming more annoying. That, or a helmet.
The bear was making some distance now, since it was harder to focus on moving while casting- but Bucket again, recharged her turret, and launched another flask. The flask was unnecessary, as the blast finally finished off the bear, rocking another hole now through its mid-back.
I slowed my flight, came down to the ground at the bear's corpse, and looked at it. I felt the blood still faintly dripping from my front, knowing now even the simplest of camps could be interfered with. Had this been any other form of enemy, orcs, fae, what have you, it could have been more fatal. Had I not been able to fly, surely we would have perished. One gash from the bear was enough to nearly kill me, and these creatures, as far as I knew in the game, could hit multiple on their turn. Climb speed, faster movement speed, and relatively tanky, they weren't something to underestimate.
I groaned a bit with the pain before spending the time to re-ritual cast the unseen servant. I had it start a campfire again, drag the bear corpses over, and begin the simplest of skinning and gutting.
I doubted there wouldn't be another set of creatures headed our way to come and attack us, especially if we made that much noise and sound this late into the night. With the tent torn apart, I spent a good few minutes patching it up with my Mending cantrip before setting it back up myself. At best, we could get a short rest before continuing on, if we wanted to avoid encountering something else. Again, anything with a ranged attack, and we risked getting killed. An orc with a javelin, a fairy with any spell, really anything at all.
I finished setting up the tent, and I tasked the Unseen Servant with laying out the ball bearings and caltrops I had bought as some meager defenses, in the paths that would most easily lead into our campsite. Sure, it left more of a trace, but if I wanted to get any use out of the meat these bears had, I'd need to cook, and that would draw a smell.
As I slaved away at cooking in probably the least efficient way possible, I just hoped that something like Gentle Repose (A cleric spell that could preserve bodies and protect them from becoming undead) could help preserve the meat longer.
The meal smelled terrible, and it took forever. Soon enough, I was just ritual casting Unseen Servant every hour or so to keep the thing cooking the food- I could Gentle Repose it later when I wasn't trying to sleep. With some defenses established, the rancid smell of brown bear meat filled the air. Maybe that would help drive off anything nearby.
I went to sleep in my bedroll, wounds hopefully healing as I quietly murmured prayers to Eldath.
