2 2 (1/2)
Morgan Mackenzie was falling through the sky in an old fashioned metal bathtub, wearing nothing but soapy bathwater and an expression of total shock and panic. The fact that she was screaming in a state of pure and abject terror should come as no surprise to anyone who might have been present to witness her sudden appearance in mid-air in a strange and alien world. As a matter of fact, her arrival was indeed noticed by several local denizens of her new environs. The first creatures to be alerted to her presence were three [Giant Eagle Hatchlings] who were quite startled when over three hundred pounds of iron bathtub, filled with over a hundred gallons of soapy water and just over a hundred pounds of screeching, naked human appeared less than ten feet above their nest. Gravity immediately remembered its job, and the newborn eagle hatchlings promptly lost any chance of ever becoming proud and mighty [Giant Eagles] like they probably hoped. The unlucky hatchlings did not even have time to squawk a hopeless protest about their unhappy fate as the tub landed on them with a crunch that Morgan did not even notice. The sudden stop of the bathtub and her follow-up splashy impact cut her screams short as she landed not in the center of the tub, but against the side. Only random luck and slippery soap suds saved her from a concussion or worse as she slid down the side, then the bottom of the tub and she was sloshed, bathwater and all, into the nest on top of scattered pieces of egg shells and scraps of rotting carrion.
Morgan pushed herself up to her knees as the sudden shock wore off in the stillness of the moment. Finally able to draw a breath, ribs aching from the impact, she immediately gagged. Her sudden coughing earned her further protests from her already bruised and tender ribs. ”What the fuck!” she exclaimed as the scents of rotting meat in various stages of decay assaulted her senses, lightly seasoned with bird droppings as well as fresh blood and feather-coated viscera. She still held her loofah scrubby in one hand, and raised it to her face in a partially successful attempt to mask the stench of the nest with the familiar smells of her favorite body wash products. She looked around in confusion, battling through the sheer shock and surprise of her situation to try to make some sort of sense about where she was. Her confusion was promptly renewed though, as within moments of her landing she felt rather than heard a chiming DING! inside her head, followed immediately by two more sensations, exactly the same as the first. Just as she opened her mouth to blindly repeat her utterance, her attention was stolen by ethereal silvery text spilling itself across the center of her sight.
You have defeated [Giant Eagle Hatchling(Lvl - 1)]
For earning your victory while [Naked] and [Unequipped], experience gain doubled.
+40 experience gained.
You have defeated [Giant Eagle Hatchling(Lvl - 1)]
For earning your victory while [Naked] and [Unequipped], experience gain doubled.
+40 experience gained.
You have defeated [Giant Eagle Hatchling(Lvl - 2)]
For earning your victory while [Naked] and [Unequipped], experience gain doubled.
+70 experience gained.
As an increasingly confused Morgan gazed slack-jawed at the words superimposed over her vision, they quickly began to fade. As several extremely un-ladylike expletives exploded into the silent trees, an even more intense DING! slammed into her mind like a gold and silver starburst.
You have reached Level 2! Health and Status partially restored!
For reaching this milestone while [Naked] and [Unequipped], rewarded points doubled.
10 distributable Stat Points awarded.
10 Skill Points awarded.
Skill purchases unlocked!(Check available skills through your Status Menu)
As interesting as she found these new messages, Morgan did not have time to properly consider this information. As the last glowing message faded from her vision, the nest she had fallen into swayed sideways with a vicious lurch, spilling her once more into the detritus. Suddenly unbalanced, broken egg shells and jagged branches tore into her hands and knees as she struggled to keep from falling face first onto the muck-covered floor of the nest. A piercing screech rekindled her shortly forgotten terror. The nest shuddered once more with the sound of cracking tree branches. Morgan scrambled backwards towards the trunk of tree that held the nest in it's branches, not even noticing the new scratches and smattering of rotten meat and filth she was crawling through in her panic. Only two important details occupied her attention at that moment. The first, and actually less frightening thing she had on her mind was that the nest was tilting further and further down away from the tree as the branches cracked and shook. The second and, to Morgan's frantic mind, more immediately important detail was the rather gigantic eagle shoving her bathtub off of its rather ruined wing. The colossal bird of prey was easily twice the size of an SUV, and it jerked its head to turn a baleful eye in the direction of the one who had slain its young and so grievously wounded it. The angry bird then drew in a massive breath and gave vent to its rage with a screech far louder than Morgan was capable of comprehending. The sound hit her like a solid wave of force, for indeed that was the effect of the oversized avian's skill, [Thunderous Screech]. Not that Morgan was in any state to realize any of this, or care even if she did have the information. The pressure of the cry slammed her out of the nest and into the trunk of the tree, shattering her eardrums. The bathtub came to rest almost on top of her previous position against the wall of the nest itself. Stunned, deafened, and feeling sharp jagged lances of pain through her whole body, she fell forward onto the tree branch and almost didn't manage to latch onto it in time.
Her vision blurry and ears hearing nothing but a painful silent ringing, Morgan held onto the branch of the tree with the last vestiges of effort left in her broken and exhausted body. A different kind of message pulsed in her awareness with a dull throbbing cadence.
You have taken critical damage!
Status afflicted: [Deafened]! Your eardrums have ruptured!
Status afflicted: [Internal Bleeding]! You are bleeding internally!
She felt her precarious perch shift and crack more than she heard it, and looked on with a sudden blank detachment as the bird that had just killed her flapped its remaining wing and flopped itself right over the side of its own nest and fell out of her sight. The big eagle's last lurching movement was the final bit of stress the tortured branch could handle, and less than a foot from Morgan's face the groaning limb finally gave out. Looking down, she saw the eagle hit the ground in a puff of oversized feathers like the world's largest pillow exploded, followed by the nest and forked tree branch. As the broken bird tried to fight its way free from the debris, Morgan's big metal bathtub landed right on its head with a crunchy GONG! that Morgan might have found rather humorous in better circumstances. And if her eardrums weren't ruptured rendering her deaf. Eardrums or not, she most certainly did hear two back to back notices as more blocks of text appeared in her vision one after the other, and she suddenly felt much better. She felt better than she would have thought someone in her situation should be feeling.
DING! rolled through her mind with a bright silver flair.
You have defeated [Giant Wildlands Eagle(Lvl - 9)]
For earning your victory while [Naked] and [Unequipped], experience gain doubled.
+1800 experience gained.
Which was immediately followed with the golden DING!
You have reached Level 3! Health and Status partially restored!
For reaching this milestone while [Naked] and [Unequipped], rewarded points doubled.
10 distributable Stat Points awarded.
10 Skill Points awarded.
Skill purchases unlocked!(Check available skills through your Status Menu)
DING!
You have reached Level 4! Health and Status partially restored!
For reaching this milestone while [Naked] and [Unequipped], rewarded points doubled.
10 distributable Stat Points awarded.
10 Skill Points awarded.
Skill purchases unlocked!(Check available skills through your Status Menu)
DING!
You have reached Level 5! Health and Status partially restored!
For reaching this milestone while [Naked] and [Unequipped], rewarded points doubled.
10 distributable Stat Points awarded.
10 Skill Points awarded.
Skill purchases unlocked!(Check available skills through your Status Menu)
DING!
You have reached Level 6! Health and Status partially restored!
For reaching this milestone while [Naked] and [Unequipped], rewarded points doubled.
10 distributable Stat Points awarded.
10 Skill Points awarded.
Skill purchases unlocked!(Check available skills through your Status Menu)
”What. The. FUCK!?” Morgan gasped. While the actual time that had passed between her being in her apartment taking a bath and her current situation of being well over a hundred feet up in the top of a tree could be counted in seconds without needing three digits, the sheer amount of new information and experience of the events had left her with such a horrendous case of mental whiplash that all she could do was just hold onto her newfound friend the tree branch and try to process it all.
”That… that happened… Did it? Or not?” she said to nobody in particular as she pushed herself up to a sitting position, straddling the waist-thick stub of tree she currently occupied. Her wounds may have been miraculously healed by the mysterious ”levels” she had reached, but she was still covered in a rather disgusting blend of soap, blood, feathers, and bird droppings. And she was most definitely naked. She was acutely aware of that fact with the rough bark of the tree scraping her tender thighs and bottom. Her skin was beginning to itch all over from the nasty mess. She had for all intents and purposes been rolled in it like a piece of meat being coated in a most fell sort of breading. The other thing she was unable to ignore was the terrible smell.
Realizing she still clutched her scrubby loofah in one hand, she picked out the larger pieces of sticks and feathers out of it and once again held it up to her face to try to smell something nicer than bird droppings and the iron-tangy scent of blood. Carefully, she wiped the worst of the muck off her face and took a slow look around to try to figure out exactly where she was. It only took her a few heartbeats to realize that where? was a question that would have no easy answer.
The first thing she noticed was a confirmation of her first stunned look at her new world. Two moons chased each other across the sky, the larger leading the smaller by a thumbnail wide gap from her point of reference. The next thing she noticed was trees. Lots and lots and lots of trees. Very similar looking trees to the familiar pines, cedars, and juniper trees she had grown up seeing all around her home in Eastern Washington; the difference was one of scale. She could tell she was well over a hundred feet off the ground, and she was in a much smaller tree than the giant timber she could see all around her. The tree she currently occupied was in fact dead, with none of the verdant green needles, leaves, or anything else gracing its gnarled, stunted (compared to the other trees) form. She was still above the actual forest canopy though, thanks to her temporary seat growing out of a rather pronounced hill of raised earth. The sibling moons cast a brighter lunar glow than any full moon she'd ever experienced on earth, and in any other circumstances her view most certainly would have been utterly breathtaking. Even with her sudden and frightening situation she couldn't help but to let out an exclamatory ”Whoa…”
The forest stretched for as far as she could see even in the abnormally bright moonlight, at least in every direction she could see considering she was far too frightened at the moment to try to climb around the main trunk of her new treetop home. In the distance to her left she could see a glimmer through a dip in the landscape that she thought might be a river of some sort, but she had no real way to gauge any semblance of accurate distance just by looking. Off to her right if she turned her head far enough she could just see the edge of the forest in the distance rise in elevation and give way to a stark and jagged mountain range. But the most amazing thing about the forest was, far and away, the trees.
The trees in this forest made the giant redwoods and sequoias she had seen in the american northwest look like quaint little christmas trees. The hilltop that ”her” tree grew out of formed a clearing almost a quarter of a mile across by her best estimate. It was at the very least a hundred and twenty feet or so from where she sat to the gnarled roots that had caught the giant eagle before her bathtub ended its final moments of outrage. The slope then steeply dropped off for several hundred feet further before giving way to smaller trees at the edge of the forest, trees that only grew in size and majesty the farther away from the root-covered knoll upon which she was sitting.
”There must be something different about either this tree or this hill, or both…” she spoke out loud. While her ”level ups” had restored her health and healed her ruptured eardrums and internal injuries, her voice still sounded muffled and far away due to the congealed blood that had built up before her miraculous recovery. After a partially successful attempt to clean her ears out with the careful application of her fingernails, Morgan simply sat for a few minutes to organize her thoughts.
Morgan Mackenzie was not stupid. Far from it in fact. She was a below average college student who only took light class loads because she worked a full time job. Her average to bordering on poor grades through high school and into college were a result of her apathy and lack of motivation, and not from a lack of intelligence or capability. She simply wasn't interested in more than just getting by, as long as getting by was reasonably achievable and left her plenty of free time for things she actually enjoyed. Like the company of a select few friends, her books, and looking at cute things on the internet, with the occasional interlude for sexy times with her now ex-boyfriend. That particular train of thought brought her bad mood crashing back with a vengeance, pulling her out of her reverie so that she noticed the rough bark she was clinging to. Not to mention the increasingly itchy coating of icky she was currently wearing. Carefully, she adjusted herself to hold her more sensitive bits away from the scratchy bark she was clinging to like human shrink-wrap. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she refocused on the messages that had appeared in her vision. As soon as her attention came back to them, the last golden ”level up” message returned to a startlingly vivid clarity. ”What is 'status menu'? She said to herself, jumping slightly as a silvery list of text and numbers replaced the previous level up message.
Status Information for: Morgan Mackenzie
Level - 6
Primary Class: [Locked]
Secondary Class: [Locked]
Health - 74/74
Stamina - 24/24
Mana - 36/36
STR - 3
AGI - 5
CON - 4
VIT - 4
INT - 6
Stat points available to distribute: 50
Current Skills: None
Basic Skills now available for purchase!
Skill Points available: 50
Titles, Mantles, and Aspects
[Worldwalker(Title)] - You have travelled through the void between the many worlds! Every world is different, each with its own gifts and dangers. To help you survive strange new places you gain a slight boost to health and an increased ability to learn new things! (+50 to Health, +50% increased gains to Skill Experience)
[Naked Survivor(Aspect)] - You have defeated foes and increased your own power while [Naked] and [Unequipped]! For gaining five or more levels in this manner without the benefits of a [Class] you have gained this Aspect. Experience gained and points rewarded are doubled while you are [Naked] and [Unequipped]. This Aspect will modify some learned or available skills with appropriate bonuses to offset your incompatibility with equipped items. Equipping clothing or items of any type will disable this Aspect, rendering modified skills and benefits unavailable. Facing further challenges and reaching new milestones of personal growth while [Naked] and [Unequipped] will enhance this Aspect for even greater benefit.
”Huh…” huffed Morgan as she took in the sudden influx of information, this time actually paying attention to the words somehow being projected into her eyes. Even though she had played games like Stardew Valley, Factorio, and Starbound more than anything else, the similarities to MMOs and RPGs was not lost on her. As she focused on her dismally low stats she received not another notification but a vague sense of how they worked. Understanding how her stats worked did not intrinsically lend itself to helping her figure out how to get from her chilly treetop location and to somewhere warmer and safer. Preferably a location with another bath and a change of clothes. A brisk, bone-chilling wind rustled her elevated perch and reminded her just how naked she was.