Борис Беленький
The Church of Isekai
I was floating above my body while it was still trying to get any energy it could from the surroundings. I wondered why are my guest souls not running away and then saw them all suspended totally de-energized next to me. Then I looked at the 9 of my mates laying in the grass under me. In addition to the Paladin my texts identified a Healer, a Holy Maiden, an Alchemist, a Tree Mage, an Artifactor – all girls – and a Guard and an Assassin – boys. The last one was a small creature wrapped in some cocoon identified as a "Pixie". I have also noticed that the bodies of the Healer and the Holy Maiden are naturally producing the energy while my threads are taking it all in. Meanwhile I saw a large group of people marching together from the forest carrying shovels and other instruments. There seem to be guards around them urging them forward with whips and sticks while my threads were depleting their inner reserves. The guards were identified as Level-5 and consisted of different creatures – a small hyperactive male Goblin next to a large female Troll, human guards, a human with the head of a wolf and a female Mage. The twenty laborers where all level-1 and also varied from humans to demi-humans to strange fantasy creatures. The Mage guard ordered the group to stop and the Demi-Wolf wondered "Wow – no corpses this time?" A sigh of relief went out from the laborers. The Mage yelled – "Don't relax, lazy bums. You'll be carrying these weaklings back to the camp!" The Goblin hopped over to the Pixie, unwrapped the cocoon which turned out to be a pair of large beautiful wings, ripped them off and threw the small body of a boy away. "Look I got a pair too!!!" he hopped in joy to the Troll. At that time the Pixie convulsed in the bushes and a small ball of Necro energy appeared over him – the energy I've consumed immediately. The remaining eight were distributed among the crew. The Mage walked up to them one by one taking notes and when she approached the Healer held her palm over the unconscious girl’s chest and said: "this one has no Mana reserves – throw her out". The Goblin hopped over, picked up the Healer and screamed – "I'll keep her, I'll have fun with her," and the Troll took the Healer from him and saying, "You'll have fun with me and only me, dear," broke the neck of the poor girl with one hand and threw the body into the nearby bushes. Everyone, including the guards, shuddered at this, lined up and marched off. Meanwhile I did what I've done before – captured the souls of the Pixie and the Healer, de-energized them and when the Cloud appeared, latched onto it and sucked the energy out until the Cloud shrunk and ran and I heard the long and desperately awaited "CLICK" – "Level 7".
To be or Zom (to) bie Part 4
I looked down at myself still wearing the cloak and saw the dreaded designation of a "corpse". That sounds kind of final. One can't just perform the CPR and restore the breathing and heartbeat to enable the soul to come back and let the survivor tell "near-death experience" tales. How did Dr Frankenstein reanimate his monster? Was is a mega-electric shock? Well I don't have anything to build a generator with or a lightning rod. So, short of having a Necromancer.... WAIT A MINUTE! So… The Ambulance is already here! Now let me see if I can graduate from a Medical School? Necro School? Necrical School? in a matter of a second. Stare into my body… Thinking about "Soul Insertion"? "Ghost Possession"? "Body Animation"? "Intelligent Zombie"? The text appears "Take over this body?" – "YES!" and I feel something obstructing my view. I instinctively move the hood away from my face with my arm and actually jump with joy – I'm back in my body!
I've managed to stand up and the first I see is the body of our Healer. I am sorry I became an unwilling cause of her death – it was my massive energy grab that emptied her reserves and caused that Mage to mistake her for a "dud". Of cause, that Troll is a monster in more ways than one and the whole setup seems more like a labor camp than a Fantasy Guild one reads about. Aren't the early arrivals, being the seasoned veterans, supposed to meet the new ones, train them and then share the adventures battling monsters by day and dancing by the fire at night? Seems like an elite group keeps the rest at Level 1 and lives off their labor. I bet there's someone who got to some high level, now coercing or praising his peers into recognizing him as a King among the Dukes who in turn boss around the medium Levels tasked with controlling the Level-1s making sure they don't advance. I wonder what do they do to those who suddenly gets to Level-3? Do they get killed? Do they have an "approved" religious leader telling the laborers that their situation is a part of the Great Balance and everyone is in a Proper Place and any attempt to rebel would void the Great Future Reward?
I'll look into this later. For now – can I do anything to restore the Healer even if I have to make her a Zombie? Looking intensely at her and wishing for a "Body Takeover" I'm getting a notice "Takeover not possible – the body is broken". Well then can we "repair" it? "Heal" it? Getting no feedback. I'm sorry, Kate.... Yes, that was her name… The transformation changed her a lot but for some reason I just realized whom I'm dealing with – a friendly smart girl always willing to lend and eraser or a book. I wonder where is her soul? Oh, they are all inside me "de-energized" but for some reason she's shining just a bit. I wonder if Healer's Souls are supposed to produce energy and she is restoring herself now. What else can this soul do – let me look… I see texts appearing next to her – including "Level-1 Heal", "Level-2 Heal"… What if I cause her to heal her own body? Choosing "Level-2 heal", aiming it at the motionless body on the ground – nothing. Suddenly I actually hear Kate's voice, "You can't heal the dead. Sorry. I think you'd need a Necro-Nurse to do a DEAD-fibrillation." Apparently she had already restored herself enough to be able to speak. I wonder.... How would I turn a "Nurse" into a "Necro"… Let me try something… I empty her soul (yes that's rude) and while it's just a floating outline I look into her and through her eyes I look at the body – now I see "Necro-Heal": "Level-1" up to "Level-7". Casting the 7th with all the strength I got, I see Kate's neck snap back into the proper alignment. I separate myself from Kate's soul and look at her body again. The "takeover" is now available and I chose it. I see her entering her body and I start to gently fill her with my energy. She opens her eyes. The text I see above her now reads "NecroHealer". I go to fetch body of our Pixie mutilated by the vicious Goblin. I see two tiny flying girls arranging flowers on it. They are titled as "Fairies", they look at me, giggle and fly off. I pick up the doll-sized boy and bring him back to Kate. She had already managed to sit up. I tell her to please postpone the questions and see if she can repair him with a "Necro-Heal". She looks at me, then at… Constantine… that's the boy's name. I just recalled it even though he is totally unrecognizable. I see her actually attempting to cast something and then she says, "Level-2 doesn't work…" Interesting – I was able to cast Level-7… That's probably because I AM Level-7. I don't want to get Kate out of her body again so I put my palms on her head and look into her. I see her looking at our poor Pixie. I focus on it through her eyes and see what I had before – "Necro-Heal": "Level-1" up to "Level-7". I choose 7 and my energy stores get emptied and I already start fearing I'd have to re-inhabit my body like before, but Kate supplies her own reserves and the Pixie's body suddenly re-grows the wings. I break the contact with Kate, look at our "patient" directly, see the "takeover" option and direct Constantine own soul I kept de-energized into its proper place. I supply whatever little energy I have regained and his eyes open. Both I and Kate sigh with relief.
Now there's three of us. I start by telling them about the bus ride and there being only 10 of us – the transformed survivors. I describe the locals having organized a raid party instead of a welcome party with cakes. Constantine asked me, "How did you hide from them?" Actually I didn't. I was sitting motionless in the driver seat wearing the hooded robe – I think they've mistaken me for the illusion of the driver. They must have seen these bus drivers before and probably they have a built-in defense mechanism or the likes of the Goblin would've smashed them just for fun. I've finished my tale with "So we all are technically zombies now. I don't know if we even need to breathe or eat. I guess we probably should continue eating… Once we figure out what to do about food. Also we need to learn more about the locals. A lot more"
Suddenly we heard a voice from a small patch of flowers: "Perhaps I can be of help for you" and a small winged creature appeared before us with a text pop-up identifying it as a "Sprite"
The Wise Cricket Part 5
Kate and Constantine are shifting their gaze between me and the Newcomer. I take the lead, "Hello, Mr Friendly Sprite. We your local neighborhood Necromancer, Necro-Healer and The Night Squadron of the Air-force." For some reason I've decided to refrain from giving out our names. It also resolved a dilemma I've had about making a joke along the lines of "Constan-TINY". I think the joke is good enough to risk making our Pixie upset even though anyone who ever had to deal with the pigeons knows, you don't want something that can fly to be angry at you. The Sprite smiled, landed next to us and started his tale:
– Well I guess I have to welcome you to this place. I've heard your conversations and I have to congratulate you – your conclusions are very logical and mostly true. I got here the same way you did – by bus. I woke up before anyone, saw most of the other passengers laying dead and I guess got scared, so I ran off into the bushes. In a while I saw some of them started moving, looking around, trying to talk and then the same "Meeting Committee" showed up. Those who could move, were tied, the rest of the live ones set up to be carried. Meanwhile the laborers with shovels dug up one shallow ditch while others took anything of value from my fellow passengers' bodies and dragged them to that ditch one by one. The diggers just covered it with dirt and waited a few seconds – then the dirt would fall in and the body apparently disappear. Seems like someone who got turned into a Fairy managed to fly off. Nobody cared. After all the dead were taken care of, the raid party started back. I flew behind them and they either didn't notice or weren't interested. I saw the newcomers lined up and a tough-looking dude barked instructions at them. They must drink an "adaptation" potion and put on a "clan ring" that they must always wear for their own safety. They will be punished if they don't. Everyone did as they were told. After that they got assigned to their teams. Some cook the potions, some have to go into the forest gathering ingredients, some go off to plow the fields. The last is pretty useless as there are plenty of edible things in the forest and there's even a Gourmet Flower. That's an amazing thing – one seed basically feeds you for a day and tastes as anything you want.
Talking about the Gifts of the Forest – not only you get the food but also every so often there are big black boxes that pop up at random places. If you open them, you get random things from there – anything from tools to clothes to potions. However I've overheard the people at the Base Camp saying that some of these boxes come with poison inside and whoever opens the box would die. I was never able to open them – I think you need to be one of the Full-Sized to do that.
So I went back and found the Fairy from my bus. Started talking to her and noticed how she would suddenly fly up and dance in the air giggling. Then she told me that I'm boring her and just flew off to play with flowers. Then she came back demanding I tell her that she is cute and her dress is pretty. When I did so, she flew off again. She came back twice more and then run into some other Fairies and started dancing and laughing with them.
Another thing I've seen over my time here are the Monsters that come from behind the Edge. You see, we live basically in a rather large fenced corral here, like cattle. This meadow and the forest are basically in the middle, there's also a river and a Mountainous Ridge and that's basically it. You can walk or… fly… to the end of the meadow and run into a thin border of shimmering light. We don't know what's beyond it – I've heard the people at the base telling the newcomers that if they touch the border they'll die. Also sometimes we have very strange large creatures get through this veil – they are basically like monsters in video games. They only want to find us, changed humans, and eat us. They usually start with the small fliers and then march to the base camp. When that happens, about 20 of Level-1s are mobilized with a couple of higher Levels. They have special potions on their clothes that’s supposed to make them invisible to the monster but I don't think it works. I've seen these hunts twice and the monster always managed to eat someone before getting hunted down.
I think this place does something to the small fliers like me. Before I met you, I've noticed that I've forgotten everything about the life before the Bus and even could not recall things I've learned here or even what I did yesterday. Once I've seen you arrive earlier, I feel everything I've lived through here started to come back. I figured you guys were on a school trip – I'm fairly sure we were on a regular city bus. So you are good for my health, at least the mental one. Maybe this environment wants us, the small fry not to fly off the handle by being grounded to someone full-size. So I'd like to hang around with your group. I'll show you around. There are several places you can set up camp in this forest – caves and such. So can I stay with you?
Oh yes, one more thing. About us, small fliers. So you've seen Fairies, I'm a Sprite, your friend – a Pixie. There's many more of us. Two things in common. One – we very quickly forget our humanity and let the nature take over. So for example when you see an Imp – run or get ready for a fight; they'll attack you in groups scratching and biting. Then they take off laughing and screaming. Don't try to reason with them. Fairies are harmless but silly – dancing on flowers, always happy. Don't bother asking them anything. Pixies, as you see, are larger and usually more organized. They even build some kind of housing in the trees and can detect and fight off strangers. Sprites should be able to do some kind of Nature magic – wind in my case – but probably it opens up on higher Levels. Another thing common to us all is a rather small lifespan. At the end of each day most Fairies come together to one tree and settle in its large blossoms that close for the night. When they open in the morning, several of them don't wake up but rather fall to the ground. Other Fairies cover them with petals and fly off giggling. The dead ones just dissolve shortly after. The same happened to a group of imps terrorizing everyone for several days – they just didn't awaken one morning. The people from the Base Camp send out scouts to looking for the dead Fliers to rip off the wings – apparently they need it for Alchemy. So that's the other reason I want to be in your group – I feel it will let me stay alive longer.
"So you want to be our Wise Cricket, like in the Pinocchio story?" I asked. He nodded eagerly. "Oh yes I'd like you do join. Welcome aboard! You know what's funny – the Cricket does all the singing and dancing only in the Disney cartoon. The original Italian 1883 book 'The Adventures of Pinocchio', by Carlo Collodi has the poor insect killed by Pinocchio before it returns as a ghost. Luckily I think I could arrange that too and you'd still be able to hang out with us." Kate and Constantine gave me a long disbelieving stare. Yes, even as a zombie Necromancer I still carry my flag of NERDINESS high. No, I'm not trying to impress or annoy anyone, I just can't help myself.
Our new Sprite teammate smiles and then asks our Healer, "Is he always like that?" Before she has a chance to reply, our Pixie – the captain of night-time Air-force – almost screams out, "ALL… THE… TIME!". As the team laughs, I sit there wondering – he just said he remembers nothing from before the Bus times – yet the Pinocchio cartoon seems to resonate with him. What else was there in his past that we should be aware of? Suspicious.... We didn't tell him our names and he didn't offer his. Let's keep it that way. In some stories, names had magical powers – who knows how it is here.
The First Nibbles Part 6
How do I let my classmates know about my name-revealing concerns? I wonder.... I've focused on their faces and looked inside them. I saw their souls connected to me with thin shadowy threads. I remembered reading about paper cup telephony – where kids connected the bottoms of two paper cups with a thread and if it was stretched tight enough, anything said into one cup would be heard in the other. I have imagined holding a cup like that and spoke into it, "Please don't reveal your names to anyone. I have a feeling about it. Let's call Kate – Nectar – She's a Necro Doctor -> NecTor ->Nectar." I've seen both Kate and Constantine first perk up in surprise and then Kate nodded. "What about me?" I suddenly heard our Pixie's voice in my head. I replied, "I can't think of anything good. Maybe first name – Hop, last name – Terr for Copter?" ConstanPix spoke up, "By the way let's introduce ourselves. I am Terry," our Healer continued, "I'm Nectar," "That's sweet!" smiled the Sprite, and as they all looked at me, I have introduced myself as Mrak – that's an anagram of the name Mark which is not what I was called before The Busing. If the real name turns out to be so important, let me lead whoever would try to guess it on a wild goose chase. Besides I happen to know that Mrak means Darkness in several Eastern European languages – appropriate for my new role. Now we're looking at ourSprite with curiosity. His face tenses for an instant and then he says "I don't think I remember my name and I can't think of a nice nickname so anything you'd suggest I'll take. Just Sprite is fine – I've never seen another one here." I responded, "We sure could, but in case we do have another one, how about Fizz? Would that be OK? Because there is a carbonated drink named Sprite where we came from and it fizzes when you open it and you are the Master of Air." Sprite smiled, "Not much of a Master but I do like the name. Fizz.... I like the sound of that! So… What do we do now?"
Now.... Let me think… We do have a Maslow's hierarchy of needs – Food, Water, Shelter usually come first. Surely these days we need to add Internet Connectivity to that but for now we could stick to the classics. I asked our newly-named Fizz, "You said you can help us with shelter. What do you suggest – some kind of a cave or maybe those black mystery boxes you've mentioned can produce tents? Can we go look for them a little? Also if you know of many caves, let's go to the one closest to the River you've mentioned." Our Sprite smiled, "Yes, can do! The only problem is – we'll have to go there through a rather dense forest and I can't fly there. I'd have to go over the trees and you might not see me through them. I can't walk through them either so… ", "Not to worry, you don't have to fly though them – you can ride through them. On my shoulder or in the hood of my robe," I replied, "Same for you, Terry." And OFF WE WENT…
Fizz was a great guide. Talked about the meadow plants pointing out the edible ones, at least for him. Turned out when I focused on the local flora, I did get popups before my eyes labeling some and when focused on specific weeds, I got information about their Medicinal and Alchemic properties. Terry, the Pixie tried eating a few flowers that Fizz pointed out but said nothing. I was wondering – now as we are technically Zombies, do we still have the sense of taste? Can a poisonous plant harm us? I guess there's only one way to find out… I knelt next to one bush with berriesthat Fizz described as sweet, picked a few and put them in my mouth. Then a few more… And a few more… No text popped up as I was doing this, but I think I've only felt a slight tingle on my tongue after the tenth tasting. Kate-Nectar was looking at me intensively. I said, "I am starting to feel the grass on my palm. The taste seems to be coming slowly too. I think I am beginning to feel it. Do you see any text when you're looking into this bush?" Kate and Terry shook their heads and decided totry a few berries. I was thinking – maybe we are the first Zombies in this World and it's not sure about the framework of interactions between us and most of the surroundings? Or maybe Zombies always take a while to re-awaken their bodies fully? I do wonder if regular humans get their energy from food, do Zombies just get powered up by Necro Energy? And if so, where does it come from? I get it in from the surroundings, probably, as I see my Energy Indicator slowly going up even without me actively collecting it. I wonder if Kate and Constantine or Nectar and Terry… yeah, let me think of their new names as their Zombie Instances… so I wonder – do they get some of my energy or I should specifically feed it to them? I've noticed Terry suddenly picking up the pace picking those berries. I've looked through our connection and into him – I see his Energy Indicator actually edging up. The same seems true with our Healer. So… Maybe.... Maybe.... because they have taken over their own bodies and came in with my Necro-Energy in them… Maybe they are able to consume food to sustain themselves? Interesting… What would happen later? Would they somehow get de-zombified? I guess there is no "Advanced Zombie Studies" book I can read… Well, as we, Nerds know, if the book wasn't written yet – then it's your duty to do so.