August very carefully sat up, doing his best not to disturb the dried and dead bamboo leaves below him. The noise echoed down to nothing, and he was left once more in a silence that felt much worse than before. He’d never heard anything like it, but there wasn’t any way it had been made by a human.

He turned to look in the direction of the noise, but it was a fool’s errand; the bamboo overlapped so much that he couldn’t see more than ten feet unobstructed. Layers and layers of the plant stretched away, reducing everything to tall green poles and horizontal lines.

He checked all around him, turning slowly and keeping a mental note of where the noise had originated from. It was the same in every direction; only the pit and a very obvious circle around the pit were clear of the fast-growing plant.

Nothing could grow directly next to the ring, which, while suspicious, wasn’t exactly the information he needed right now. Another bone-chilling noise rang out, further away than before, but just as horrible as the first time he’d heard it. He no longer had the luxury of trying to figure this out the slow way, not while whatever that made that noise was so close by.

August thought back to the inexplicable messages he’d seen so far and the one most likely to help him.

“Menu,” August tried to say, but before he’d even managed to vocalize it, his vision was filled with blue words once more.

Role

Faction

Inventory

Map

Progression

Settings

It was somehow picking up his thought pattern and using it for navigation, which meant whatever was projecting this, was somehow connected to his brain. This was getting worse by the second; what exactly had been done to him?

Ruler

Evader

August recognized both of the ‘Roles’ he’d selected down in the pit. He expanded the [Ruler] option and was greeted with a list of summarized ‘spells.’ He started at the top, reading as quickly as possible.

Analysis – Level 1

Reveals information about the target.

Proficiency – 0/1000

Cast Time – Instant

Cost – 25 MP

Effectiveness – 1

A third creature, slightly closer than the last, let out a shriek, and August quickly moved on to the next listing.

Summon – Level 1

Summons a member of the user’s selected race.

Proficiency – 0/1000

Cast Time – 1 minute

Cost – 100 MP

Cooldown – 24 hours

A member of the user’s selected race? He’d never chosen anything like that. Did it summon other humans? Or some kind of animal? There was no information in the expanded menu to answer his questions.

Tame – Level 1

Initiates the taming process; once the bar is filled, the target will become loyal to the user.

Proficiency – 0/1000

Cast Time – Instant

Cost – 10MP/second

Effectiveness – 1

Type – Touch

[Tame] sounded extremely promising right up until he reached the part about having to touch something for it to work. If he was close enough to tame one of those shrieking creatures, then he was far too close. The last of the [Ruler] skills were different from the others; it had no deeper menu and no list of details, just a simple sentence to reflect what it did.

Peace

All experience gained outside of combat is increased by 10%.

August frowned; if he had chosen [Commander], would he have received a skill called [War], [Combat], or maybe [Battle]? Experience gained inside of combat, maybe? Would [Summon], [Tame], and [Analysis] be missing? Or would they have all remained, with only [Peace] being swapped out?

He didn’t think he’d be getting an answer any time soon. August spun the menu back to the previous menu and then opened up the [Evader] role. This time only a single spell was present, and it only took him a moment to scan it.

Burst – Level 1

Shunts the user, accelerating them in a chosen direction.

Proficiency – 0/1000

Skill Power – 10

Cast Time – Instant

Cost – 100 MP

Cooldown – 30 Seconds

The cooldown was ludicrous, given the nature of the spell. If he were put in a place where he needed to avoid something, he’d only get to use [Burst] exactly once in an engagement. He very much doubted that those shrieking things would wait half a minute for him to be ready again.

Another shriek pierced the silence, twice as loud as before and now with an edge of desperation to it. A sharp crack cut through the forest, and the shriek choked off before falling silent. August turned in the opposite direction of the noise and winced every sound the leaves made beneath his feet.

He eyed the compass above, noting that it was South, and then very slowly started moving forward into the fog.

He winced as tiny sticks and rocks cracked beneath his feet, digging painfully into his skin, before turning sideways so he could shimmy between two clusters of bamboo. He managed to pass through to the other side and take in his surroundings.

The bamboo was only slightly less oppressive outside of the circle but just as present. The gaps were large enough that he could duck through them without much issue, but it felt like he was climbing through an obstacle course—exactly what kind of obstacle course forced you to run away from shrieking monsters while naked, he wasn’t quite sure, but still.

August found his path blocked again, and this time he was forced to climb through one of the clusters, which meant he had to cling to the bamboo itself. He stuck his leg blindly through the other side and stepped down as best he could, and was relieved when his feet touched down on the leaves. He stumbled the rest of the way out and then froze when something crunched down on the leaves to his direct right.

August very slowly turned his head to look in the direction of the noise.

Something massive and covered in rough black fur was standing not ten meters away from him. He stared at it in horror as it shook its head around, and a thick piece of bamboo was torn out of the ground.

August didn’t move, hoping that it wouldn’t turn around and see him.

It abandoned the remaining top half of the shoot behind and moved onto another one, its thick tail dragged behind it, almost touching the ground. It moved forward until it was in front of August, its movements ponderous or perhaps lazy.

The creature stopped with its mouth hovering over the next bamboo trunk, and then it turned its head towards him, noticing August for the first time.

It looked like nothing he’d ever seen before. Its body was four meters long and covered in thick fur, layered in shades of black and grey. It stood on four stumplike legs, topped with bone nails. Its head was bulbous, eyeless, and the lower half comprised of a massive white maw, filled with flat, human-like teeth, each larger than his head.

August couldn’t have brought himself to move if he wanted to.

Things like this didn’t exist on earth—someone would have heard of it or even captured it on video before. Either someone had dropped him off in some kind of experimental zoo, or he was even further away from his home than he first thought.

The thing made a rumbling noise in its throat, and August pressed himself back against the cluster of bamboo because there was nowhere to go. It was too close, but if he could just turn away from it to try and climb through the bamboo—the creature rumbled again, and he flinched, freezing in place.

It leaned its head back down to the bamboo, clamped its maw around another piece before tearing it out of the ground in a shower of dirt. The bamboo caught between its teeth shattered under the pressure of its jaw, fragmenting into splintered pieces as it bit off a large piece of the plant.

August watched it tear out and eat two more before he finally managed to overcome the fear enough to do anything at all. Once he was able to actually think, he reached for the skill that he’d read not minutes before [Analysis].

A bracket of blue lines encompassed the creature before a line lanced off it, and light blue letters began to write themselves out in the air.

Otrogon

Male

Level 26

Tame Progress – 0/260

Tame Resistance – 52

Trait – Danger

It had a level.

August had no idea how he was supposed to interpret that knowledge; Was this Otrogon level twenty-six because it had gained experience somehow and leveled up? Or was it being assigned a level based on its size and weight by [Analysis]?

It had taming information listed, and he had the [Tame] spell—the connection there was obvious enough. But did that mean he was infecting everything he came near with this overlay? Or did this place really work on these kinds of rules?

The Otrogon rumbled again, the noise deep, guttural, and terrifying—all August could think that was it had finally finished its salad and was looking forward to the main course.

They watched each other for a minute that felt like an hour before the Otrogon turned away from him and began eating a slow pathway through the bamboo. August watched it leave and didn’t move until it had vanished completely into the fog.

“Fuck.” August whispered.