Chương 2: Chapter 1: Survive! Thrive! And be free!

Thrive! And be free!

The rain cleared up relatively quickly, and the dim grayness of early dawn began to become streaked with vibrant golds and pinks as the world around me started to wake up. My stats refilled to 100 relatively quickly, but Mana took the longest and seemed to have the least effect on me when it was full. I did feel something, but the vanishing of my aches from recovering health was much more drastic, and when my Stamina was full, I felt... energized!

I could hear birds in the trees, and as I picked my way across the forest floor, feeling long grasses brushing at my bare legs and deposit fresh dew on my skin, my nakedness didn't seem to bother me much. I was just coming to terms with existence. There was no danger exactly, just a sense of time passing.

"So... What do I do now?" I asked the wind and the trees. I hadn't meant it as an actual question and didn't expect a response, but I got one just the same: [QUEST: Survive. Thrive. Be free.] That... was not exactly helpful. Whatever had brought me here, I got the impression it wasn't the kind of thing that would hold my hand much at all. So... what were my priorities in this 24 hour grace period I had been given? I was naked - that probably wasn't good, right?

I also had no food, and the only water I could find was from the morning dew. I felt neither hungry nor sleepy, so maybe that was alright for now. And... I was in the middle of a forest, alone. Sure I was... apparently a werewolf, but I needed shelter, didn't I? Clothing, food, water, those could wait - I didn't need them right now, but shelter was something I'd need sooner rather than later, if I was to do anything about the other things. Maybe there was shelter somewhere nearby? Maybe I could find... people?

I'd want to get higher up if I wanted to see further than a handful of yards in the forest. Fortunately for me, there was a hill only a short walk away, breaking from the forest floor as roots stuck into it. As it turned out, the hill was actually the base of a HUGE tree! The roots made it easy to climb, to pull myself up the steep slope, muscles on my back flexing and moving against one another as I scrabbled my way upward. When I'd gotten enough height, I turned.

Standing atop a root, I looked out and around at the world around me. A sea of trees stretched out from edge to edge on the horizon, some still taller than my vantage point where the roots met the base of the tree, but most were a few feet below my perception. I could see a break in the trees and hear water - a river! That at least was a solution to the water problem.

I circled the tree a bit, picking my way carefully around the base of it on my hilly vantage point to get a look at the horizon on the other side and saw... what looked like the ruined steeple or bell tower of a church in the distance? Peering at that horizon, I saw that the church was surrounded by... structures! The state of them didn't give me much hope that there were people there though. Everything looked... ruined, like stone and wood that had been left to decay for years, but...

I couldn't see well from where I was, so who knows? I picked my way down again after that, my direction clear. It was better than nothing! And even if it was a ruin, I was sure to find SOMETHING over there, right? The ruins of the town were not all that far. I had no way to figure out distances, but by the time I got there, morning was in full swing. Birds sang, and things fled from me in the morning light.

My feet came upon an overgrown and rough cobblestone road, and I could see the wreckage of a gate in a smashed or fallen wall. The town was definitely former - things were decrepit, left to ruin, and it became clear that nobody lived here. I tried anyhow.

"Hello?" I called out, cupping my hands to my face as I did. Apart from an animal taking fright and birds taking off nearby, there was silence.

"Hello? Is anyone there? I don't mean you any harm I swear, I'm just looking for some help?" and again, my call was met with silence. I didn't think there were people but... well, I'd have felt weird just raiding houses and stuff if people lived here. Right beside the busted gate was a kind of stone guard house with a smashed-in roof. There wasn't much in there - a kind of rack clearly was intended to hold spears and things, but it was empty. Not much help there!

The next closest building looked pretty big, and it turned out to be a kind of ruined inn. Inside, I could see that the roof had caved in here as well - I could see the sky from the center of the room, and the wooden floor under my feet broke to reveal darkness below where the roof tiles had come through at some force.

Ruined, rotten furniture from what had probably been an inn room was strewn amongst the wreckage, and from where I stood, I could see there were rooms in that basement where rubble had rolled, light reflecting off of water that was standing stagnant below. Floor boards creaked a little as I walked, but they took my weight as I circled the huge pit in the center of the room, stepping over roof tiles as I made my way deeper into the building carefully. You could be reading stolen content.

Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Some parts of the inn were not made of wood - most of it, the outer walls, were made of stone and mortar, carefully fit together to form something relatively sturdy that had withstood the test of time. The wood nearest that part of the building felt more sturdy, less rotten and eaten by termites and stuff, but as I walked across that floor, boards creaked and cracked and protested at my weight in a way that worried me a little.

Staying close to the walls, soon I was on more solid ground with a flagstone floor in what had to have been a kitchen at some point. The stone hearth was still in good shape, and the metal cookware found there was still more or less intact, if rusty, hanging on racks on the wall. Boxes and barrels had things in them - but most of what they had was rotten and not much good.

Making my way out of that room, I climbed a creaking stairwell that did seem to bear my weight well enough and I found myself in a mostly intact part of the inn, a sort of loft that had escaped... whatever had come through the ceiling to cave it in on the portion of the building that held what had to be the main dining area. There was a hallway leading to a grimy window, and a break in the wall to my left revealed another hallway to another filthy window and two rooms on both sides of the hall.

None of them were locked, and they were mostly empty except...

"Pay dirt!" I cheered, finding clothing! It was old, smelled musty, and didn't fit me well, but it was clothing! A skirt that reached the ground when draped around my hips, a blouse that let one shoulder escape if I moved wrong, and undergarnments that were so big and worn that they were simply useless - what kind of person were these made for? I wasn't tall by any means, but I was like a little girl trying on her mom's clothing compared to whoever had owned this stuff! Well, it would have to do.

A few strategic knots to take up fabric, and I was more or less... good to go! I probably looked goofy, but so what? Who was here to see? This was a ghost town! The bedsheet made a servicable knapsack, and there was a couple other skirts and blouses. I took one of each, bundled them up, and set off out of the inn carefully once more. In the cheerful morning light, the town was actually very pretty.

Green vines grew over every wall I could see as moss and grass made the cobblestones underfoot seem a lot softer than they otherwise might under my bare feet. Everything was so... alive! I couldn't remember much about my time before coming here, not... concrete things about the world I had come from - it felt like waking from a dream, how you lose things as your mind throws out what couldn't have been real. Or in this case, a nightmare - the place... had not been as alive as this.

Concrete and steel, a cityscape reaching to the sky. Oh there had been parks, but that was nature under the control of mankind, shaped by will and effort into something managable, continually beaten down into a managable, safe form. This was what you get when that control fails - when everything returned to its roots. Down that central street, the town branched out like a star.

I had come down one of the five legs of it, and in the center, there was a kind of fountain that still produced water in a gurgling rush from the mouth of a lovingly crafted and well-tarnished bronze sheep on each of the five faces. Walking calmly up the road, I approached it and a prompt appeared to me. Village of Lambstock Level: 2 Population: 0 Status: Destroyed Owned by: N/A Well that was sad. I felt a little bad for this place - what had happened to it that Nobody lived here anymore?

I almost turned away from the fountain, but a glint of metal caught my eye! The water was pure and clean, and glittered with... money! Copper coins looked almost polished at the bottom of the liquid, and I blinked, reaching in and retrieving one to get a better look. As I did, another prompt appeared. [It is bad luck to take coins from a Blessing Well. The Powers disapprove of such action.] I put it back again hurriedly, and the prompt vanished as I said "Oh - I'm sorry, I didn't know!" and got no response.

I had to hope that my apology and putting the money back was enough to not get bad luck - that would be all I needed at a time like this. Even so, I left the money alone. Where would I even spend it anyhow? The water looked good though, and I cupped a little into my hands, tipping it to my lips. It was ice cold and delicious, and I scooped out another mouthful before just sticking my head under the faucet! It was cold and felt incredible - and I thanked the sheepies for giving me such clean water.

Scooping up the satchel again, I resumed my exploration of Lambstock.