Chương 3: Gossip Head

Jordan flinched reflexively, then hated himself for it. All that oorah yelling had taken him right back to high school, to his least favorite basketball coach. Except he couldn't simply turn around and stomp out of the gym. There was no escaping this voice, not when it issued from the depths of his own mind. Zhurong:"Coward! Laggard! What use are those arms, legs, and back if you won't put them to use? Now, giddy up!"" Giddy up?" Jordan yelled back into the empty grassland.

Along with his basketball memories, the old anger flared up.

"I'm not your horse, whoever you are! And at least my mother taught me manners!" Wisdom DC 12: success Shennong:"Don't take my friend's insult to heart, young one. They don't mean anything by it, and we gods are a little out of practice talking to mortals. I'm sure cooler heads will prevail in the end." Strength DC 14: failure Zhurong:"I'm not your friend!" Charisma DC 13: failure N üwa: "Ohh, a lover's spat. This I've got to see!"

Constitution DC 12: success Xihe:"Let us dispense with trifling distractions and stay the course. The sun and stars ever guide us toward our destination." Dexterity DC 15: failure Nezha:"You know, human, this would go a lot faster if you could… I don't know, ride the wind or something." Intelligence DC 14: success Fuxi:"As far as I'm concerned, this is all useless drivel. This human clearly lacks the physical means or the magical wherewithal to carry a cauldron of this size. Let us move onto practical solutions.

I for one would like us to reach civilization sometime this century." So many voices (well, six to be exact) shouting over each other inside Jordan's head! Mere minutes into his Vesselia adventure, he already nursed a raging headache. This must be that [Heavenly Gossip] Boon. I didn't know what to expect, but I certainly didn't count on the gods to be so… annoying. Will they ever shut up? Well, it seemed to Jordan that the only way to get the gods to shut up was to start moving.

The first thing to try was to simply pick up the cauldron, with the vague hope that he might have gained superstrength in the fantasy world. The notion was put to rest immediately. 500 pounds of solid bronze was no joke, and Jordan's STR-13 muscles weren't remotely up to the task. Next, he tried to push it. After some huffing and puffing, he felt a tiny give, but only in the upper portion of the cauldron. Friction from the grass ensured that the tripod legs remained firmly rooted to the ground.

Jordan stopped pushing, for fear he might tip the whole thing over. Strength DC 6: success Zhurong:"Pathetic!"

"Shut up!" Jordan let his frustration boil over, uncaring what god he might blaspheme. Breaths ragged, head bent, and hands on knees, he tried desperately to logic through this latest predicament. His new Vessel—purportedly a divine artifact to lead its bearer to heavenly ascension—was really a triple whammy of misfortune. Permanent [Hoarding Mode], an annoying cast of gods living rent-free inside his head, and way too heavy to boot.

At this rate, Jordan would have to abandon the Heavenly Cauldron or risk starving in the middle of nowhere. And yet, something niggled at the back of his mind. A wisp of inspiration had floated up when he'd nearly tipped over the cauldron. What was it? What idea was he grasping for? Intelligence DC 13: success Fuxi:"I'm astounded that I even have to point this out. Pupil, have you given any thought to the Vessel's geometry?"

Where Zhurong had been an abrasive drill sergeant, this Fuxi reminded Jordan of his first-year calculus professor. Their voice was cold and haughty, yet projected with a scholarly sincerity. Jordan thought he knew the type. The type who saw value only in the pursuit and application of knowledge. Yet their hint had been plenty helpful. Jordan connected the dots as soon as he heard 'geometry'. The cauldron was of a roughly fishbowl shape, with its three legs extending straight up and down from the base.

Which, in theory, meant…" Oorah!" Strength DC 10: success Zhurong:"That's it! It's about time you put your back into it!" More huffing and puffing, together with a mighty shoulder barge. The Heavenly Cauldron tipped over on its curved side with a ground-shaking thud. Jordan then pushed on it again, this time with the aim to roll it. It worked! This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Well, if you counted moving inch by inch under enormous effort as 'working'.

A 500-pound fishbowl on its side still weighed 500 pounds. Jordan huffed, puffed, grunted, and groaned his way across the plain. At a snail's pace, yes, but making progress all the same. At some point, the work became routine enough that Jordan could divert some mental bandwidth elsewhere. His thoughts turned once more to the six deities and their [Gossip]. He tried to place them within what he knew of Vesselia lore. Nope, don't recognize any of these names.

If anything, the names read as Chinese, though that was the extent of Jordan's attunement to his own heritage. Maybe I should've paid more attention to those stories Mom read me as a kid. Wisdom DC 10: success Shennong:"It sounds to me, young one, like you had a wise caring mother. And we're not some big mystery; don't be shy to ask us about ourselves. Here, I'll start. I'm Shennong, the God of Wisdom. In my free time, I like to tend to my gardens and brew sweet rice wine."

Shennong was probably the most pleasant (or the least grating) of the bunch. Gentle of voice and demeanor in a way that reminded Jordan of… his mother, funnily enough. Yet a few kindly words weren't enough to smooth over his irritation, and he let the gods know about it too.

"So I guess privacy is completely out the window with you guys around, huh?" he groused in between grunts of effort.

"And I have a wise, caring mother. I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk about her in the past tense." Charisma DC 10: success N üwa: "This one's got a bit of bite to him. Maybe he isn't as boring as he looks." Jordan sighed loudly. He would've been perfectly happy if the gods deemed him a bore. This Nüwa especially—lilting voice permanently tinged with irony—seemed like the type he would try to avoid in real life. Dexterity DC 10: success Nezha:"A bite is well and good, but I wish he wasn't as slow as he is.

Are we sure we can't just swoop down and offer divine intervention?" I'll gladly take some divine intervention right about now, Jordan thought but stopped short of voicing it. He didn't want to give the gods the satisfaction. Too late. Nezha burst out in laughter—snorting, nasal, and more than a little childish. Jordan pictured a neighborhood bully from his childhood.

"If you guys really want to help me," he panted, more to change the subject than anything, "how about you point me in the right direction? I've been rolling this thing for a while now, and I still have no idea where I'm going." Constitution DC 10: success Xihe:"When in doubt, look to nature's steadfastness. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. That has always been, and it always will be." Jordan frowned. Xihe was perhaps the only one of the six deities that actually sounded like a god.

Broad, impersonal, and roundabout in speech to the point of obscurity. Even so, Jordan thought he knew what they might be getting at.

"Pick one direction and keep going, is that it? Bound to come up on something eventually. Sure beats blindly going around in circles." No response. Either the gods were playing coy or they simply didn't care. Fine by Jordan. He'd stick to his instincts honed by three years of daily grinding. Not that his experience applied one to one in this version of Vesselia, he was starting to realize. Unusual mechanics, unfamiliar gods, and an unidentifiable stretch of grass. Were these all part of that new expansion?

Had he unwittingly become a beta tester, in the most immersive manner imaginable? Ludicrous… but so was everything else about the situation. Slowly, laboriously, Jordan rolled his Vessel toward the unknown. He must've been at it for a good hour at this point, yet the landscape changed very little. The sun had begun to set in his direction of travel, which meant he was going west. But where 'west' would lead him, not even the gods seemed to know. Or if they did, they didn't care to share.

The hour of sustained exertion had been hard on a modern human's body. Jordan ached all over, and the pain only got worse with every heave and every push. He'd also become severely dehydrated. Vesselia wasn't a survival game, but in this version of it, dying of thirst or hunger seemed to be a real possibility. Presently, Jordan felt his Vessel 'slip away' from him, as if it'd suddenly become a whole lot lighter.

A moment of confusion, then he realized—only too late—that the cauldron was picking up speed as it rolled downhill.

"Wait, no, no no—" Another resounding crash. Evidently, the grassland wasn't completely flat after all. For here was a natural depression in the ground, one just large enough to accommodate a tripod cauldron. Jordan stared in despair. It really was a snug fit, almost comically so. There was no room for him to slide down and wedge himself against the Vessel. And even if he could, he had no chance of rolling a 500-pound fishbowl up an incline. He'd become Sisyphus, except permanently stuck at the bottom of the hill.

"What happened to the game mechanics?" he yelled at no one in particular.

"I couldn't have rolled a [Perception] check or something? I'm sure I would've noticed a big hole in the ground!" Wisdom DC 14: success Shennong:"Condolences, young one. But perhaps let this be a lesson. You might have better perceived the world around you, were you not so focused on your own misery."

"Great," Jordan spat.

"Awesome lesson, that. I'll be sure to think on it while I sit here and starve to death." Shennong:"Again with the fatalism. Must you always see the worst in every situation?"

"Well, yeah, when there is no good to be found, what else am I supposed to see? I'm done talking about this, M—just… leave me alone, alright?" Jordan sank to the ground and buried his head. He couldn't believe it. He'd almost said'Mom', as if she were the one lecturing him about his shitty attitude. Some reincarnation this was turning out to be. If it really were a bad dream, he was more than ready to wake up. Ironically enough, that was how he fell asleep.

Butt on grass and sneakers resting on solid, immovable bronze. It was no surprise, really, given the fatigue coupled with his biological clock. What was far more alarming was the noise that woke him up. Jordan snapped to attention, scanning the area with wild, bleary eyes. Dusk had since fallen, casting a picturesque orange sheen over the grasslands. Not that Jordan could appreciate it, what with his muscles screaming in agony and his head ringing on high alert.

From somewhere behind him, he heard footsteps—the deliberate trampling of grass. This was accompanied by a rhythmic, mechanical squeaking—like a wheel that needed greasing. Jordan shot to his feet and spun around in the same motion. He winced at the pain, but forced himself to focus. Weapon … I need a weapon! But his Vessel lay in a ditch, empty and useless. The only thing he had on him was his phone. He pulled it out and turned on the flashlight, for all the good it would do him.

Somewhere ahead of him, a horse neighed in indignation. This was followed by the voice of an older man, mild and nonthreatening if a little hesitant. More importantly, the man spoke aloud, out in the open for all to hear.

"Whoa there, stranger. I'd kindly ask you to put away that… torch. You see, Chestnut here is getting a little jumpy in her old age."