Dialysis Book: Chapter 4 - The Overworld of Otherworld

We left the warrens and emerged into a forest that looked like it could be right out of anywhere in America.  We ran downhill until I was about to collapse, and Shadow was panting so heavily that I thought my poor doggo was going to throw up.

Everything around us looked normal, until it didn’t.

"Chum, is that a raccoon?" asked Shadow as we continued down the road.  I glanced over at the creature, it had the same general shape as a racoon except for the four arms and three tails.  It also must have been eight feet tall by the way it was dunking that deer into the water to clean it.  It glanced at us, hissed, then continued to wash it's dinner.

"No," I replied.  "We aren't in Kansas anymore."

"I thought we were in Ohio," said Shadow, my literary minded dog.

Public enemy number four was in my pocket, resting.  She yawned loudly, "Thanks for getting me out of there.  Now I can continue on my quest."

“So explain who the System Lords are to me,” I said as we continued walking.

“It's a fancy title for the rulers of this world,” replied Spivy.  “They have ideas on who should do what, and how they should do it.  I disagree.”

“That makes it sound uncomplicated,” I said.

“Well, as uncomplicated as a dozen or so megalomaniacs who can alter certain aspects of reality get,” said Spivy.  I looked down at her and she sighed.  “My reasons aren’t complicated.  They tell you what to do and how to do it.  I didn’t want to be a system guide all the time anymore.  Note, I said all the time.  I was fine doing it most of the time, but I’m a fairy so we have to be guides.  We can’t be crafters, or artisans, or even mothers.  Just guides.”

“That sounds bad,” I admitted.

“It was, the System Lords used to have meetings about their boring plans and my people crashed it with our demands of: Not working all the time.  We were content to just work most of the time,” said Spivy angrily.  “They said we got uppity, declared us public enemies and then imprisoned or executed most of my people.”

“Genocide,” I asked.

“More like internment with lots of death,” replied Spivy.  “There isn’t another race that can really do system guidance as well as fairies so they weren’t going to kill us off.  Bluntly, we might have just been the excuse to start another war between the system lords.  By then it had been nearly a decade since the last one.  The surviving fairy guides have been altered though.”

“You seem less upset than I think I’d be,” I said.

“Well, there was that whole civil war that started because of us so the System Lord who ordered my death did get her face melted off by a different system lord,” said Spivy ambivalently.  “I’m on the run about half the time now, which is a big improvement over guiding someone through how to tie his shoes.”

“Civil war,” I asked.

“Or just war,” pondered Spivy.  “The system lords hold power inside their own territories, but there is a lot of territory and if you overstep others tend to rise up to punish your hubris.  The System Lords are nearly constantly fighting amongst each other for one reason or another, but all of them fighting each other at once is a bit more rare.”

“Are they still after you,” I asked.

“Possibly, but I doubt it.  Lots of other things to be concerned with given their current problems,” said Spivy as she crawled up to my shoulder and tried to perch there.  She harrumphed uncomfortably and then started flying around my face.  “I’ve been slowly killing off the inquisitors until it was just him, mostly through tricks, and now that the final goblin is dead they’ve lost my trail.  I’m free for the time being.”

“That’s good to know,” I said as Spivy decided she’d flown enough and landed back on my shirt.  She rapidly climbed down into my pocket.

“So what are your plans,” she asked.

I glanced down at Shadow, he shook his head briefly like a dog who just ate something he didn't like.  "I think Shadow and I are going to try to figure out how to get back to Earth, eventually.”

“Eventually?” she asked.

“Yeah, not right away.  This is pretty cool, but eventually I am going to want to go home,” I said.

"Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out," said Spivy happily.  “Of course, as your guide I would mention that it is illegal to open a portal to anywhere offworld.”

“The goblins did it,” I said.

“The goblins don’t care about the laws,” replied Spivy.

“So have another goblin do it,” I asked.

“They open portals at random, if you can talk a goblin into it they are going to send you somewhere, but it won’t be earth,” said Spivy.

“Great, do you know someone,” I asked.

“Of course, you want a wizard who can open interplanetary portals.  Some of them can at any rate.”

“Some? I presume you know someone,” I asked.

“I am a criminal, I interact with criminals,” she replied.

"And I suppose you know such a criminal wizard," I said hotly.

"Of course, the rebellion had many allies, and I would be happy to introduce you to one," said Spivy, "for a price."

"How much," I asked.

"Nothing complicated, I just need you to bring me to the city of Arden," said Spivy.

"Is that all, that does not sound like too much trouble," replied Shadow.

"It is 500 miles to the east of here," she said.

"Thank goodness, I thought this would be difficult," replied Shadow, who then looked at me, "How far is 500?"

I was busy counting to five, "Shadow, you people pleaser.  You don’t know what you are doing.  Let me do the thinking."

Shadow looked confused for a moment, "That is a terrible explanation for how far 500 is."

"It is just a quick trip," said Spivy.

"See, at least she answers me," replied Shadow.

I shrugged, if that was the only option that was what we're going to have to do, but from personal experience a trip of that length was going to suck.  It would be days of walking slowly until we reached the destination.  Still, we didn’t have to go right away.

This adventure gig was fun, I figured 500 miles of doing it would take the shine off though.  By then I’d probably want to go back to Earth, so the more that I thought about it the better the trip sounded.

Walking that far was going to be a chore though.

"Is that a boat," said Shadow looking off into the distance.

"There isn't any water," I said looking into the distance where a boat was flying over the ground at a fair clip.  I glanced down at Spivy, "There are flying boats?"

"What, did you think I was going to have you walk like a primitive," said Spivy as she got comfortable and yawned.  "There is a small town named Darven nearby, there is a mast in town where airships dock.  Something there should be going towards Arden."

Then Spivy fell asleep.  I poked her twice with my finger, the functional equivalent of being smacked in the face by a basketball, and she remained unconscious.

Shadow noticed my predicament instantly, "What should we do?"

“Depends on if we trust her about the wizard, or even want to get home,” I said.

“It would be good to at least know the way,” said Shadow.

"We could leave her," I said, pondering my options.

Shadow's normally benign expression turned markedly more annoyed, "We should, she is a liar, but she is in our pack.  You do not abandon people in your pack."

I wasn't expecting that kind of loyalty from a dog, which was stupid, but still, "She tricked the both of us into helping her."

"She saved you from being a goblin slave," said Shadow.  "Besides, you came here on your own and you like it here."

"I was trying to find you," I said, unsure of how to react to the dog.

"Your tail was wagging extra hard as soon as you saw the flying boat," replied Shadow.  "You were angry the whole time you were on the hill on Earth, and now you are excited."

He was right, I was in a fantasy environment with my best friend and a talking fairy.  This was kind of cool.  Adult me decided that a way out was probably a good idea too.  At minimum traveling 500 miles would let us see the countryside, and that was proving to be interesting on its own.  I reached down and gave my good buddy a proper head scratch.

"Shadow, make sure there aren't any predators nearby and let's go to Darven," I said.  Unfortunately, Final Fantasy had set me up for a lifelong love of airships.  A love that was full of cruel disappointment more often than not.

Since I was already here, and there were airships, I might as well ride one to get to the city of Arden.  If I could buy an airship, I was going to have problems because Earth was nice and all but airships were amazing.

We started through the forest, which didn't look normal under scrutiny.  There were a number of pine trees that were far taller than anything you'd see on earth.  I plucked off a needle, and it was square.  Pine needles on Earth were decidedly triangular in nature.

There were a number of leafed trees nearby, many of which looked normal until I reached a tree that looked like it was covered in green flowers.  Every leaf on the tree was built like a flower, but with standard green leaf colors.

"I'm not sure about this place," I said as I plucked a leaf half expecting the tree to scream.  It didn't.  I didn't do anything, it just 'tree’ed'.

Shadow marked as territory anyway, "Better safe than sorry.  It is my tree now."

"Good idea," I said and joined him before we continued walking towards town.

The trip was relatively safe, and I was happy about that.  I didn't want to imagine what would happen if we were constantly being attacked the entire time we traveled, but the countryside was safe.  There were no herds of rampaging monsters, though I did see evidence of larger creatures from time to time.  In all, this place was just like any other forest I’d hiked through.  Still, the imagery I kept seeing was odd.

We passed a creek that was filled with strange lizards that jumped like frogs.  They were pouncing on the various species of flies rather than shooting their tongues at them.  The insects were somewhat larger than they were on earth, on average, making that meal worth the effort.

Shadow didn’t see any monsters, and the water was shallow but cool.  I took off my boots and stuck my feet in the water, relaxing slightly.  We had 500 miles to go, and I didn’t need to be marching off all of the time.

She would have liked this, and I felt a pang of guilt over that, but I banished it.  I kept worrying about what she wanted, or what she would have done until it ruined my life.  My life wasn’t ruined here, and I was going to enjoy this trip as much as possible.

While I rested, Shadow would go all shadowy and then run off into the woods, but more often than not he walked next to me and we chatted.

"So how do you do the shadowy trick," I asked while he had the power activated.

"I think about being sneaky, and then it happens," said Shadow.  "It takes a bunch of effort though, if I only think about it a little then my fur only gets smoky."

He made truth to words and his form went from an indistinct shadow creature to a dog with black smoking fur.  As he focused less, even the shadowy smoke started to fade.  I brushed my hand through the smoke, except they weren't smoke.

The shadow clung together as my hand batted through it.  The shadow floated to the side and started to burn away at the edges until nothing remained.  The light seemed to burn it away from the edges, burning all the way until there was nothing left.  I looked at my hand and the smoke didn’t leave any evidence of anything existing.

"Is the smoke because of its essence," I asked.

"Yes," said Shadow.  "Until I put enough happy thoughts into my fur it is like that, and to put enough happiness into my fur to make it go all hidden, I don't have enough left over for anything else."

I focused on my mapping skill, pushing more essence into it.  I could keep that and my spear skills active, but I chose to deactivate the striking core.  Doing that didn't have a noticeable effect on my person, but pumping more essence into my map did.  I kept pushing until I hit a point where I could feel my essence flowing back as if to say the skill had enough, thank you very much.

The resolution got better and better until I could count the individual fizards, frog lizards, in the pond, at least while they were visible.  When they dove into the water, I tended to lose track of them but I could at least tell they were there.

As I kept the map at that resolution, I noticed how much more difficult it was getting to keep that much essence in my skill.  After fifteen seconds, the pleasant feedback indicating the skill was 'full' stopped and the amount of essence I was using dropped quickly despite all my efforts to prop it up.

Finally the map skill failed altogether, and I got a terrible headache.

"What just happened," I groaned.

"Felt like you burned too much essence," said Spivy, yawning.

"Did you enjoy your nap," asked Shadow as he looked between us.

"Very much," replied Spivy as she looked at me, "So you've just experienced your first Burn Out.  They are unpleasant, and I suggest you avoid them in the future."

"Noted," I groaned.  "How did I do that, oh System Fairy?"

Spivy sighed and floated up next to my head.  She switched into lecture mode, "Well golly gee, adventurer, you seem to have spent too much essence.  Would you like to know about how essence works?"

"Are you really doing this," I asked.

"Yes or no," replied Spivy, fluttering maliciously.

"Yes," I grunted.

She waved her hands in the air and suddenly my headache vanished.  "You see, all cores require essence to function.  That essence comes from you!  Your body produces it naturally, however there are limits!"

"It's like a tutorial," I said over Spivy who totally ignored me.

"Spending essence is like walking, you can keep up a low burn for a very long time but sometimes you are going to need to spend more essence.  When you do, you will usually move up to a medium burn, that is about as taxing to your essence as jogging is to your legs.   If you are in even more trouble, you can use a high burn and that is equivalent to running."

"I can run for longer than 15 seconds," I said.

"Finally," replied Spivy, still in her lecture voice, "You can burn up all your essence in a very short time.  This is called a bonfire, and it will only take a short period of time to burn out all your essence so you can't power any skills, but while it is active your skills will be at their most effective.  Be careful though, more adept essence users can absorb some of your discharging essence to empower themselves!"

The Spivy smiled at me wickedly, her little speech done.  As she finished, I felt something wash over my body and the ache from the burn out abated.

"So I bonfired," I asked.

"Barely, but yes," replied Spivy, her voice returning to normal.  "Most essence users can spot someone who is bonfiring very easily as it is quite inefficient.  Using your map shouldn't have required you to do that, but you are very new to the world and haven't built up your essence yet."

"How much more can I develop my essence," I asked.

"You can just about double your base amount of essence," said Spivy.  "That would reduce your map skill's effective cost to medium or low essence."

"And how do I train that," I asked.

"Your essence?  By doing what you just did.  Burning essence trains it," replied Spivy as she fluttered down to the water.  The Fizards rapidly jumped under water.  Spivy was more than a mouthful for them, but small enough that I would have figured at least one would make the effort.

I tried to put essence back into my mapping skill, but the map it produced was not very detailed compared to what I'd just seen.  "I'm putting most of my essence into this map and nothing is happening."

"That's because after a burn out, your essence is reduced until it has time to recover.  Some people recover faster than others, but you are the equivalent of a law clerk who just ran for his life until he collapsed," replied Spivy critically.  "You won't be at full power again for hours."

"Can you heal me," I said.

"I did what I could with my system's fairy powers," said Spivy.  "But all I did was take away the burn out condition, that was separate from your essence drawing and would have required days to heal naturally.  Take this time to reflect on your errors."

I plopped down dejectedly and spotted Shadow.  He was chasing a rabbit squirrel creature

“Don’t pout,” said Spivy.  “We could probably find some raw herbs nearby that might be able to restore your essence more quickly.”

“That sounds reasonable, do you have a skill shard for that,” I asked.

“No, but lots of animals do,” replied Spivy leadingly.

I considered that for a moment, “Shadow, did you kill anyone with a skill shard?”

Shadow looked up from the grass and walked over cautiously, “Am I in trouble?”

“No,” I replied.

“Then yes, I have found several cores and a few skill shards,” said Shadow confidently.  He dumped them at my feet and Spivy hopped down to look at them.

“Wait, you have to butcher things to get at the cores, how is Shadow just finding them,” I asked.

“I only find those when I eat whatever I’m playing with,” said Shadow.

Spivy nodded.  “Monster cores are also natural, whereas mortal races have to absorb them.  It is much easier to get monster cores than it is to get normal cores.  The flip side is most monster cores are next to worthless.”

“What do you mean,” I asked.

“Oh, this one is a Rabquirrel core, you can learn to hop and climb trees,” she said, pushing it to the side.  “Then a few generic monster cores including a Fizard core, as well as several skill shards.”

I picked up one of the skill shards to examine it.

“That is a scent skill shard, it will grant you the scent skill, you have a weak compatibility with that shard,” said Spivy in her lecturing voice.

“So you give the system messages now,” I asked.

“I am your guide,” she replied.  “Think of me as your own personal Alexa.”

“Great,” I said, watching her for a moment, “Please explain compatibility.”

“Compatibility is how effective the skill shard will be with you, your nose isn’t built for the scent skill so you would have to spend a ton of essence to get even close to Shadow’s level,” said Spivy.  “And he’d STILL be better at it than you would, without spending any essence at all.”

“Because his nose is built for it, could he use the Shard,” I asked.

“He could use a better version of a scent shard, this one would help him a bit but there are limits on how many skill shards a person can use,” said Spivy.  “Would you rather take someone who’s good at something and make them a tiny bit better, or give them a whole new skill?”

I put the shard down and checked the others.  All of them benefitted animal skills, such as a tree climbing shard.  Nothing here was particularly useful to either of us, though Shadow took the tree climbing shard.

“Is that going to be a problem,” I asked as he absorbed the shard.

“Generally the rule of thumb is a crystal for a core, so he can handle three skill shards without any complications,” said Spivy as Shadow ran up to a tree and started climbing.  He got about half way up before his essence started to fail and he bit down hard on a tree branch.

“HELP,” yelled the dog over the branch.

I moved under Shadow and he dropped, turning all shadowy as he fell.  That made him harder to catch, but when I did he didn’t weigh nearly as much as I expected.  I figured I’d need some bark after catching him, and he must have only weighed twenty pounds.

Then he became solid and licked me on the face.  I promptly fell over as he quadrupled in weight.

“You are very brave,” said Shadow as he hopped back up and started sniffing the ground.

Spivy meanwhile had the rabquirrel core set out carefully while she pulled out a hammer and chisel.  Before I could comment she struck the core, breaking it into chunks.  She tossed several away that shattered into dust before pulling out an intact shard.

“Here we go, a herbalism shard,” she said as she started buffing out one of the sides.

“That lets you find herbs,” I asked.

“Of course,” she replied, “But you only have a medium compatibility with this shard, you have to sniff out the herbs.”

Shadow walked over, “I have a good sniffer, I could use it.”

“Brilliant, I never thought of that,” said Spivy and gave Shadow the skill shard.  He absorbed it and started sniffing around.  “That one smells like essence!”

Shadow ran off and I looked at the destroyed remains of the core.

“Is that how you make skill shards,” I asked.

“In the field,” replied Spivy.  “Monster cores can be broken down into shards, the trick is getting the shards you want from them.  I’m skilled in knapping cores for shards.”

There were two other cores there, I glanced at the fizard core and felt a twinge of pain as I did so.  “So I assume I’m incompatible with monster cores?”

“Raw ones, yes,” said Spivy.  “You can process a monster core to turn it into another kind of core if you have the equipment, but that’s nothing to worry about now.  I was hoping to find an elemental core in this mess.”

“What are those,” I asked.

“To make a class, you need to have a physical and magical core that have high compatibility.  Shadow and Striking cores are compatible, so Shadow is a Ninja,” said Spivy.  “You have a Spear core, but no elemental core to power a class.”

“Will that be a problem,” I asked.

“It won’t help matters any, but it isn’t a deal breaker at the moment,” said Spivy.  “Let's find you an elemental core, we can go from there.”

“Can we buy one in Darven,” I asked.

“Buy, probably not,” said Spivy.  “Finding one is a whole different discussion.”