Pike awoke to Kadra poking him the cheek. He blinked, rousing himself for a second before sinking back down. The second time she tried pushing a nice sizzling bit of bacon in front of his nose. That got him up. He nearly bit off her fingers too.

Munching, he rolled onto his feet, he waved a sleepy good morning. She was already on the move, heading down the ladder.

There were big, fluffy creatures in the plains. They looked like enormous birds, long-necked and crimson colored, with sharp blue beaks that curved up into a crested ridge like an axe blade. They walked on enormous clawed feet, scratching the earth and digging down.

Pike shuddered as he saw one’s beak snap down, catching something and hauling it up- a centipede the size of a boa constrictor, its angry red pincers snapping at the air as the bird hauled it out, little legs flailing, segment after segment coming writhing out of the earth.

Goddamn.

He stepped off the ladder hesitantly, half-expecting an enormous bug to burst out of the earth and bite his head off. Space marine. Unfamiliar planet. Giant bugs.

The classics were full of bad news for Kansas boys in his situation.

But he survived putting his boots on the ground, at least. Kadra stared at him like he was the thickest brick she’d ever encountered, and handed him a very sharp object. It was a sword, a little short for him but definitely longer than any knife he’d ever had to deal with, with rough feel like it had been forged by hand. He gave it a practice swing and Kadra shook her head.

Taking it from him, she lifted it to shoulder height, one elbow pointed straight back behind her and one arm supporting it from underneath. Instead of chopping, she twisted the blade in a half-circle flick, returned to form, and stabbed forward.

Nodding, he took the blade, slid himself into a copy of her position, and tried. To his surprise, the awkward-seeming arrangement of his hands gave him an incredible amount of torque on that flick, making it far faster than his earlier clumsy chops. Even his stab was stronger, extending directly from the rear arm. Best of all, the blade naturally angled down to cover his face and chest, which he rather liked not getting a beak through.

He was half-expecting the window to pop, but apparently practice didn’t make perfect. He’d need to do the real thing for the skill to become an option.

Skills.

He knew he had eight slots, that they somehow augmented his knowledge down to the level of muscle memory and reflex. He knew that skills related to his class didn’t count towards the eight.

But really, that was laughably small knowledge. In fact he knew so little he didn’t even know how to ask for more.

Stabbing the sword into the dirt, he looked to Kadra and mimed a square in front of his eyes. She looked at him like he was mental.

Did nobody else get them? Was it part of his weird, his outlander oddities?

Fuck it.

“Inventory. Check inventory. Skills. Menu. Character. Stats. Status. Essence-”

Blip.

Pike Usman

Lv. 4

Vigor / Cosm

40 / 10

Physical / Mental / Aura

C / C - / F-

Titles-

Skyfallen. Wanderer. Pilgrim. Peregrine. Contender.

Talents-

---

Pike grinned. Oh, this he could work with. “Talents.”

Blip.

Talent Points / 3

Earth-Rank Talent Points / 1

Pilot -

(Earth-Rank) Mana Charge - Allows you to fuel powered tech with Cosm. 0/1

(Earth-Rank) Shared Strength - Allows a living mount to draw upon your physical and aura strengths while you ride it. 0/1

Ride -

(Earth-Rank) Animal Bond - Form a telepathic connection with willing creatures you ride, allowing limited mental control over them. 0/3

Kinship - Increase natural magnetism towards animals. 0/5

Balanced Rider - Increases balance and compensates aim while riding. 0/5

Small Arms -

(Earth-Rank) Uncanny Shot - Gain minor precognition with regards to enemy movements while firing a pistol or other one-handed firearm. 0/3

Hipfire - Improve reflexes and instinctive aim while wielding a pistol or other one-handed firearm. 0/5

Infuse Bullet - Invest bullets with Cosm, improving stopping power. 0/5

Aedian Language -

(Earth-Rank) Eidetic Lingua - Perfectly recall any words said in Aedian. 0/1

Silver-Tongued - Become more charming and elegant in Aedian. 0/5

Play By Ear - Become more aware of intonations and implications in Aedian. 0/5

The list kept going. Each of his Titles had an associated talent, with Farlander and Contender even offering Earth-Ranks.

But with one Earth-Rank Talent point to spend between that entire list of options, Pike had to be disciplined. Spending all day getting greedy would just lead him to do something hasty in the future. He quickly narrowed the selection down to three.

Uncanny Shot was an obvious benefit. Getting deadlier meant surviving longer in this strange world. Unfortunately, it was also the least ‘horizontal’ of the Talents, giving him the least expansion to what he could actually do, merely making him vertically stronger at skills he already possessed.

Animal Bond was less clear-cut. If his Pilot skills included Riding, that meant it must synergize well with the additional options that he’d unlock by leveling the class. Following the logic of the classics the option with the most synergy was probably strongest.

But unless those birds were really friendly, he didn’t have a ‘willing creature’ that would let him ride it.

Finally, Mana Charge. All it did was let him sub out Cosm for electricity, and his Cosm pool was pretty damn tiny at the moment.

But-

Even if all it did was let him slowly, painfully put shots back in his plasma pistol, god, that really was worth a talent point. From what he’d seen it could cut down most anything in his path for the foreseeable future. Even assuming that the pistol eventually broke beyond repair, being able to quickly gain Essence by cutting down higher-level foes was a godsend. In a word, powerleveling.

It also, notably, only cost one point to max out.

He selected Mana Charge, and the window collapsed into a dot, piercing through between his eyes. He was ready for it this time. The feeling of strength flowing into him was starting to feel familiar, starting to feel good-

Drawing his pistol, he experimented with Mana Charge, trying to will something to happen. “Mana Charge.” Saying the name didn’t seem to be enough, nor was imagining power flowing out of him into the machinery working.

Finally, he closed his eyes. He breathed deep. He hadn’t had any Cosm the day before he came here. Something had changed in him on a fundamental level. Pike just needed to find that change, to find what was different in him.’

And there it was.

It floated in the space between his eyes. It was a tiny point of light, but the more he focused, the larger it became. The point of light expanded until it was a golden bubble full of turning gears, clanking pistons, electric conduits crackling with energy. The bubble expanded until it was a world.

A world of clockwork and steam and electricity, a world with a nuclear reactor instead of a molten core.

Pike imagined a conduit running down his arm, a circuit-board pattern overlaid across his veins. A spark traveled from the mental space between his eyes, through his fingertips, and into the pistol.

There was a prick of electric pain, like a static shock. He felt the gun glow hot under his hand.

Grinning, Pike left the sword where it was as he marched towards the crimson birds. Kadra shouted but he ignored the goblin for now. Time for some target practice.