Chapter 72: Where the Wild Things Are

  CROWN

  I had failed to consider the effect of cutting off an Incarnate Avatar early. I wasn’t sure how the friends and family had reacted, but I doubted it had been pleasant when my Avatar just fell over and died one day. I’d have to figure out a cleaner way to handle that. I felt bad for everyone my ignorant self had known.

  Yet it had worked. I’d grown up for two short decades in a small tribal community that bordered the more advanced nation I was interested in. It was close enough to trade routes and other communities to give me an idea of what was going on here… at least at a basic level. It also gave me fluency in the language, which was nice. I could understand everything through my nature as Admin, but speaking it like a native would be harder.

  I’d add my own accent when speaking, though. No point in getting that little village in trouble.

  This was my first time in a Proxy Avatar, and it certainly was different. I breathed in the air with a sigh though. This wasn’t memories… this was me, here. I’d given my Sanctuary air and such, so that scents could carry and voices had that slight echo that mental communication missed, but… it wasn’t the same. Here, in the world, tiny hints of small things I’d never bothered to model spiced each breath.

  My existence in Sanctuary was pleasant in many ways, but it couldn’t quite match living. The very fact that I was, in some small way, ‘dying’ every moment gave a body a different feel than being an entity of the mind. Not all of it good – I could feel pain now – but it was an exciting difference.

  Of course, being a Proxy meant that this was a constructed body. It had never gone through childhood, and it was continually rejuvenated. It would not age unless I willed it to, but it was otherwise like a normal body. Now I could operate mostly freely.

  I brought up my interface. Here, my interface was more limited… but I’d arranged for it to show up as a ‘tab’ on my Sheet. Multiple tabs, actually, and one of these I mentally detached and put it into the corner of my vision. I’d never had a chance to use this, and I was curious.

  | CROWN: Everything is looking good so far. ?

  | DUCK: Don’t have too much fun. It’s boring up here at 1:1. ?

  | DUCK: Not much going on at this pace.

  Communication with the Sanctuary wasn’t normally needed, but Duck was a Terminal. She could communicate with me so long as our relative time frames were similar enough. She could do it mentally, but a ‘chat system’ was an easy way to visualize it.

  Even if I hadn’t created her on purpose, Duck was pretty useful now. My interface down here wasn’t as full-featured, and that made it hard to track what was going on over the entire universe. With Duck in the Sanctuary, she could monitor things while I was busy, and tell me what to look at down here if my attention was needed elsewhere.

  That probably wouldn’t happen in the span of a few years, which was all I intended on spending down here, but it never hurt to have insurance.

  Now that I’d lived amongst them, I’d come up with a good name for the species, too. ‘Core-eaters’ was descriptive, but a terrible name – not that I could talk with a name like ‘Crown’ – so I needed something else. Of course they called themselves ‘people’, so didn’t quite have the concept of a name for their own species yet, meaning I had to pick one at last.

  Thus was born the Vaskan, which was a little similar to the word for ‘person’ in their own tongue. I’d also figured out a bit more about this schism that kept bringing each of the tribes into conflict.

  I didn’t actually have a problem with this schism. I should have seen it coming, and it made perfect sense. Did it make things a bit more violent? Yes. I was hoping they’d settle in as civilization spread, but I was also figuring out I couldn’t be too hands-on here.

  I chuffed heavily and started to walk while I reviewed my body. I’d chosen to be an adult male this time, with a core already consumed. I wanted something exotic and powerful enough that I’d get some respect, but nothing so wild or fantastic that it was implausible.

  That’s how I ended up with the core of a Nightsleek. Perhaps a bit more sinister than I’d normally like, but the original monster had been basically a giant ermine with some Umbral camouflage abilities. An ambush predator that was large enough to take down a hunter all by itself, it was dangerous to hunt even with company. Yet a careful, coordinated hunt could take one down more often than not.

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  Besides, its similarity to an ermine from my world made it ideal for my comfort. I’d spent nearly two centuries as an elf, a species that was distantly descended from something akin to a marten. I was used to being basically a bipedal mustelid. I could try out different forms once I’d done my job here.

  Fortunately for me, the process of making a Proxy Avatar included the ability to spend Reality Points to make copies of items in the world. This way I had a nice set of gear, even if it was rather simple. The vaskan technology was more rugged and unrefined than that of the elves, since they didn’t rely on mana to do all their crafting. They certainly could, but magically-crafted gear, even if it had no lingering enchantment, was rarer and harder to get ahold of.

  So a rough leather vest, woven belt, leggings, and a travel cloak were good. A nice belt pouch and a pack slung over one shoulder. Also a walking staff for defense, along with a pair of hidden bone daggers. I’d wanted bronze, but that was still rare outside of the capital, so I settled for the less conspicuous weaponry.

  As for my body, I’d sort of expected the vaskan to shift into anthropomorphic creatures when I designed them, but the actual changes were more subtle. As they leveled, they gained more physical features of their chosen core… but it still looked more subdued even at high level. I had given myself some pretty high-level classes, but even then I didn’t have fur all over my body or anything. I had some – down the back and along the chest and legs especially – but most of the signs of my core were in my eyes, teeth, and pointed ears.

  Not that I actually had ‘eaten’ a core. I built this body from scratch, after all.

  Classes were a little more difficult. Downside classes were different, since a whole different group of Elder Dragons named and described them. I’d needed to look through quite a list to pick some, and debated quite a lot before I realized I could just edit my Avatar anyway. Cheating made it easier.

  The System was also different for vaskan. They had five fingers and toes, so they used a base 10 system like most human civilizations had done on Earth. The System adapted, thanks to my patch a few thousand years back.

  I eventually selected Stalker, Wanderer, and Patternist for classes. None were particularly tough and strength-oriented classes, but three classes made me much stronger than most of the population, and it gave a good spread of combat-oriented, survivalist, and magic-related classes.

  | DUCK: You’re approaching some kind of checkpoint. Sneaking in, boss? ?

  | CROWN: Nah. I’ll try walking in first. See how they treat a Challenger.

  I’d chosen to present myself as a ‘Challenger’ here. The vaskan had splintered into three broad cultures – a simplification, to be sure – and I had chosen the one that was rare in this region.

  My Incarnate Avatar that I’d lived as had been a Totemic vaskan. These were most of the loose tribes around, with each choosing one or more creatures to be the tribe’s Totems. The other types used the term Totem, as well, but with Totemic vaskan, the entire tribe limited themselves to their chosen Totems, and worked together to ensure each had the proper core. If a tribe had more than one Totem, they usually let their people choose, and the Totems were complementary to one another.

  Totemic tribes tended to be egalitarian in this, though there were exceptions. Millions of vaskan were spread across two continents by now, so of course this category was pretty broad.

  From what I had learned in my brief life on Downside, the Chall Domain – which is where I was headed – was populated by Caste vaskan. These types of communities had multiple Totems to choose from… but it wasn’t really a choice. The Totems seen as ‘better’ by each community only went to the families or allies of those in power. Typical classist divide, really. Some had more mobility between castes than others, and I wasn’t actually clear on Chall’s stance on that.

  This was fine, because I wasn’t supposed to be a native to Chall. I was the third type, the Challenger vaskan. These had each member choose and then personally hunt down the core they wanted to use as their Totem, and had a reputation for being ‘might makes right’ barbarians. It wasn’t an entirely unearned reputation, but I knew that there were some with much more complex social dynamics at play.

  Those weren’t important. The important part was that I had a rare – but not too rare – Totem, which was generally only taken by Challengers. Challengers tended to wander much more than the others, so it made for a great cover… provided I didn’t have to deal with persecution or something.

  I could only find out so much, so this would be the real test of what I’d found out.

  | CROWN: Just in case this gets ugly, what am I looking at? ?

  | DUCK: Oh now you ask? Nothing bad. One has a nasty Totem, but neither are above level 22.

  Hmm. Level 22 was surprisingly high for a garrison, I thought, but maybe they just leveled more out here on the frontier. That was still far less than my Stalker level of 47. Levels weren’t everything here – my system was descriptive, not a video game – but that showed a severe difference in attributes.

  Of course, none of my lives had been heavy combat classes before, but Tastka had learned her way around a spear and knives. I wasn’t the helpless human I would have been at the start of all this.

  The rough trail rounded a copse of trees, and I knew what was coming. This region had a lot of open fields, and so the road approaching the border running through the middle of the field made sense. This was a ‘nation’ with immigration laws and everything, but the borders were a bit loose. I could have avoided the checkpoint, but…

  Let’s see what this land was all about.