I followed close behind Nel as she pushed through the leaves. What waited on the other side was a smaller version of the Brood Mothers nest with a few minor differences. Instead of being at the top of the tree this one was situated in the middle, at the junction between two thick branches. A half veranda made of wood wrapped around the front, and making a conventiant landing pad for Nel and I as we jumped.

I hung back, letting Nel approach first. Instead of a door a curtain of dark red material hung down, fluttering gently in the breeze. I looked around in interest. There was a rope ladder hanging discreetly from the side and my natural cat like curiosity made me want to go climbing down.

“Saza, I’m back!” Nel called out, her voice all sing-song and cheerful as she stuck her head through the curtain.

There was the sound of movement from inside along with an indistinct drone of a voice but I couldn’t hear what was said and honestly, I didn’t really care. I just wanted to meet this Saza and get some answers then go looking for the humans.

“It’s a long story...and uhh...I’m not alone.” I heard Nel reply, her head still stuck through the curtain door. I admired the view as her butt swayed back and forth. “No...it’s a…uh…”

“It’s a human!” I called out loudly. Nel jumped, her head reappearing to glare at me. I shrugged.

“Well come in then.” The voice was thin and reedy and sounded old as dirt, but was still loud enough that I felt impressed. Old bird had a pair of lungs.

I pushed aside the curtain and walked into the circular tree trunk room. Sunlight filtered through a large round window on the back wall, the rays of light illuminating the cluttered interior. Bookshelves lined the walls, their contents almost overflowing to spill onto the floor. Stacks of books and scrolls were stacked in haphazard piles and mixed with odds and ends that made Sandy’s lab look well organised.

I stared in awe at the tapestries that hung between the shelves. One, the closest on my left, hung from the ceiling to the floor and depicted a scene of battle. Figures of black, humanoid in shape but stretched oddly with long arms and legs, swarmed from the top of the piece only to be met by a group rising from the floor. The second group was a mixture of several races. I caught sight of the Brood, their many legged warriors were mixed among creatures that looked like the forgotten and some that I swear were Elves. Standing between the two forces was the figure of a woman, her armour stitched out in silver thread, and she shone with a brilliant radiance.

The scene was so vivid and detailed and I was so absorbed by it, that I didn’t head Saza approach me until she said. “That is the last of my sisters work.”

I spun around and looked down into the dark red eyes of a dried out raisin in a flower dress. Okay, it wasn’t a raisin, it was a spiderwoman. But she was so old and wrinkled she looked like a dried up raisin. Her hair, still thick but shockingly white, was tied in a messy bun, a few strands hung loose about her face.

She smiled up at me, one of her thin arms raising so she could point past me to the tapestry.

“My sister.” she said by way of explanation. “She always did have a flair for the dramatic. Come. Sit.”

I followed her directions and took a seat near the middle of the room. I had to move some sort of dried flower from the cushion before I sat. Nel gave her master a kiss on the cheek before settling down to my right. I noticed she was now between me and the door and wondered if that was intentional.

As Saza shuffled around us to sit opposite me I took one last glance around the room. A rope hammock hung in the corner, anchored to the two walls, and I noticed a pile of folded bedding draped over its side.

Holding onto the corners of her dress, Saza, let out a groan as she settled onto the floor. I noticed a distinct lack of spider legs or any other feature besides the red eyes and wondered at it before setting the question aside for later.

A smile pulled at her lips as the old bat looked me before she turned to Nel, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes (or it was cataracts. I’m not an expert), and said “Apprentice, I must thank you for the present but I would have preferred to remove the wrapping myself.”

Nel smacked a hand over her mouth, a giggle still escaping, as I looked at her in horror. I was totally not cool with getting ogled by some old woman. I mean it was a little flattering...but still!

“Nel said you would give me some clothes.”

“Did you really apprentice?” She said, sounding a little too put out.

“I believe I said, you may wish to dress him. Not that you would, master.”

“Well, perhaps I should, it is rather distracting afterall. What say you human, do you wish to be clothed?”

“Good God yes!”

Nel, under instructions from Saza, opened a trunk hidden under a pile of knick-knacks and retrieved a pair of brown pants made of some thick rough material that were about my size and a loose fitting white shirt. I slid the pants on under my leaf skirt, ignoring the suggestive eye wiggles from the old lady and the blushing Nel. Needless to say the skirt went flying out the window to decompose on the forest floor.

The shirt was surprisingly comfortable. The material seemed to be made from the same fabric as Nel’s chest wrap and Saza’s dress. A slit ran halfway down the back and Nell explained that it allowed for a Denvii with spider legs to have free movement of the limbs.

Fully clothes, sans underwear, I sat back down and faced the smiling Saza. I wasn’t really sure how to act around her, there weren’t a lot of old people in Dockside as you can imagine. I had known one old lady though, she was the mother of a mob boss and I had been hired to guard/mind her. She had been nice; told me a whole bunch of stories that made me laugh. Her son had died shortly after I took the position. Shot through the head in a dark alley. She lost the will to live after that. Just sort of...withered away.

Shaking the morbid thoughts from my head I tuned back in to catch the tail end of Nel’s sentence.

“...so he has to fight him tomorrow.”

“Ahh,” Saza murmured quietly as she shuffled closer to me. “A Champion, chosen but not yet accepted it would seem. These are interesting times apprentice.”

“What are you-”

“Show me your screen.” She interrupted me. Her tone startled me a little. What was once reedy and thin was now as firm and unbending as rebar.

I went through the process of bringing up my status screen and held my palm out to her. She hmmed and hawed over it as her beady eyes stared intently at it. I noticed Nel leaning forward, trying to get a peek.

“What did you mean by chosen but not accepted?” I asked.

“Hmm?” she barely seemed to hear me, she was concentrating so hard and when she did reply it was in a distracted voice. “Oh, just that Aeris has bestowed you with the class of Champion but he is not sure how much assistance and power to grant you. I expect he was pressed for ...oh this is interesting!...sorry, your status screen is very different from ours. As I was saying, he was possibly backed into a corner and had no choice but to pick you.”

I wasn’t sure about how that made me feel. Being Champion made absolutely no real impact on my mission, which was kick earth man butt, but I didn’t like the thought that I was chosen just because…

Saza must have sensed my irritation for she looked up and smiled reassuringly. “It is not as bad as I make it sound. I believe without the Central Life Core, Aeris could not call assistance from one of the branch worlds in the form of a Champion, as he once might have but that does not mean that he had to choose you.”

“And by branch world you mean…”

“Think of Aeris as the trunk of this tree. Large, firm, unyielding. Other worlds, smaller and weaker, sprout off of him like branches. These worlds rely on Aeris for protection, resources, trade, and to hold them all together. In return they offer up a Champion, a great warrior, when he has need.”

“What the fu…” I muttered. My mind blown. Sanderson said this was just like Earth, but in another time and place in space. Well he was wrong! This was nothing like Earth. This was some straight up fantasy shit!

“Judging by your reaction, this is all new to you?” Saza said. Bless the woman, she actually sounded concerned.

“Very, very new.” I said, my voice a little shaky. I wanted to tuck my head down between my knees and maybe do a good bit of rocking, I hear that helps with shock. “All this is new! My world doesn’t even have these status screen things!”

I felt a soothing pair of hands on my back and looked into the warm red eyes (that were starting to look less and less creepy as time went on) of Nel. I managed a smile, controlling my heart beat at the same time.

‘Relax Nel, I’m just a little shook.” I shrugged. “It’s not like anything has really changed. In the big picture I mean. I still made a promise and I still plan on keeping it.”

“A wise move,” Saza said. “It is always best to keep your goal in mind. If you don’t mind, I want you to tell me about this world of yours. Not only does it slack the thirst for knowledge that is my curse but also it will give me an idea of what you do not understand.”

So I told her about Earth and Dockside. She sat next to me, one withered hand cupping her wrinkled cheek, as her eyes remained strong and steady on me throughout the story. I idly noted that Nel didn’t remove her hand from my back but I chose not to comment on it.

The story I told was a bare bones version of my life and a brief overview of the world. To sum it up: I grew up, Earth is fucked. Okay, it was a little more informative than that but not much. I wasn’t about to tell two women I had only just met my whole life story and there's only so many ways to say, dead and barran, to describe a world.

“Now, it’s your turn.” I said after five minutes of silence as they digested my story.

Saza sat up straight and nodded firmly, more strands of white hair came loose from her bun but I don’t think she noticed.

“We will start with the status screen.” She paused, her eyes going distant as she tried to gather her thoughts. “Each sentient species on Aeris and its branch worlds has a little piece of him in them. These pieces, these sparks, are his right to give. We each start in balance. Neither good nor evil, dark nor light. Only as we grow and our decisions affect ourselves and the world around us do we gravitate towards an ideal. Hale, for those of darker thoughts and vicious deeds. Lumia, those of righteous thoughts and prideful actions. Finally, Aeris, for those who sleep in the dark and make merry in the light.”

She stopped to see if I followed along, which I did. Mostly. So I nodded and she continued.

“Now, turning back to your status screen. It keeps track of things such as your name...is it really Haha October? Is that normal for your world?”

I winced, a little self consciously. “Well, I told you how I was homeless and didn’t know my parents? Well I also didn’t have a name and when Mr. O’mally found me and asked what my name was...well, I laughed in his face. I thought he was kidding, you know? Pick on the stupid homeless boy? Turns out I was wrong, but he called me Haha from then on and I kept it. October was just because it was October and I thought it sounded bad ass.” I laughed. “I was, like, ten at the time.”

Rolling her eyes Saza continued. “That is ridiculous. I am sure this man, this Mr. O’mally, did not mean for you to keep that name forever. Is there no other name you prefer?”

I thought about her question. Part of me rebelled at the thought of changing my name from the one Sandy’s dad gave me, another part was fascinated by the thought of remaking myself. New world, new life.

“Well...there is one, though it sounds really old and I haven’t heard anyone from Earth called it in a long time.” Saza and Nel looked at me expectantly. I sighed. “Alexander.”

At their blank looks I felt the need to explain.

“Mr. O’mally had a massive library. Like truly massive, and all of it filled with real books. Made of paper...guess that’s common here,” I looked around at all the stuffed shelves around me, shrugged, and continued. “Anyway, he taught me to read and allowed me to pick books from there. There was one that caught my attention, The life and History of Alexander the Great.”

In all honesty I thought it was a children's book about a superhero called Alexander and kept waiting for the king to shoot lasers out of his eyes. He never did, but I admired the man's brilliance at warfare so I finished the book.

“You wish us to call you Alexander the Great?” Saza said, a peculiar tilt to her mouth that made me think she was making fun of me.

“No! Alexander, or just Alex, but whatever...I’ll stick with Haha. Forget I said anything.”

“What made this Alexander of yours so great?” Nel asked.

Turning a little so I could look at her I told her what I remembered about the dude. King of Macedon. Started young, went to war, kicked ass and took some names for the better part of ten years, had made a massive empire for himself. Undefeated in battle, got all the ladies, threw the best parties. May have drunk too much and got poisoned.

“A great warrior and leader.” Saza nodded her head now and when she looked at me her dark red eyes flashed in the fading light. “For a Champion, I can think of no better name.”

If my blood wasn’t a thick robot soup I may have blushed. Instead I ducked my head in acknowledgement.

“Now, beneath your name, Alexander, is your Class. Think of it as your profession. Mine is Viziera, which is like a royal advisor or wise-woman. Now remember, your Class determines what primary skills you obtain and can change as you grow, though it always stays on the same branch.”

I frowned at her.

“I cannot show you my status screen, want that I could, but ours can only be seen by us. I do not know why you have yours on your palm, perhaps it is an Earth-man quirk? I will give you an example instead. My starting class was apprentice soothseer, then it became seer, then advisor, then Viziera.”

“So my Champion class can change?”

“Yes. If I remember the old records correctly the Champion class will change from Champion to...Champion Juggernaut. Champion Colossal and finally Champion Titan. What that means, only you will know, as it is different for every Champion.”

I tried absorbing all of that and she gave me time.

“Now we get to your race, which is self explanatory and the evolution under it which is...unique.”

“Meaning?” I asked. Even Nel seemed absorbed by the lecture.

“Well, I don’t know. If I had to guess, I would say it is similar to our promotion system. If we meet a certain amount of terms, that can range from mindset to location, Aeris grants us a promotion. I am on my fourth,” she said this with great pride. “Each promotion comes with a promotion skill. An example would be the Brood Mother who has the promotion skill: Mothers Aura. It’s what allows the women in her Brood to bear children, though the children will never be as strong as her own.”

“Okay I think I’m following.”

“Now, instead of health and stamina you have integrity and power levels, I must admit this confuses me.”

“It’s fine. I figured those out myself. It’s based on my race.” I admitted. “What I don’t get is what does health mean to you?”

“It’s the amount of damage a person may take. A blow to the head can still kill even if the health is at one hundred percent but a sword through the gut may take longer as the person bleeds out and they may continue to fight on until that happens.”

Well that was good to know. I may have freaked out a little if I stabbed someone and they kept right on coming, like a zombie.

“But the Forgotten, they healed.” I said, remembered the wolf and his jaw.

“Yes, that is the power of a gift. Each of the ideals, be it Hela or Lumia or even Aeris, each awards their own with gifts whenever their own passes a milestone. One of the most common is the gift of regeneration. They want their followers to stay alive as long as possible, obviously.”

“Huh?” Was my smart reply.

Nel laughed quietly from beside me and Saza’s face folded in on itself as her creases and wrinkles overlapped when she smiled.

“Huh, indeed. To simplify: You do something, Aeris approves, Aeris gives you a personal power in the form of a gift.”

“Thanks.” I said with a soft scowl. The old woman just smiled more. “So gifts can be, like anything?”

“Yes. They can be anything and are for anything. I once knew a Dryd that got the gift of strength because she watered a flower everyday for two months.”

“Is that why Springflower is so strong?” Nel asked her master. Shock making her a little loud.

Saza laughed at the look on Nels face. “Yes. Yes it is! Has she bee-”

“Okay so what’s the purpose of the skills and talent.” I said, pulling the conversation back to me.

“Talent is what you natural have, they provide a basic blueprint for your growth. With fighter and the whole bunch of physical talents, you are the perfect candidate for a Champion. As you promote...or in your case evolve, they will change also.”

“And skills?”

“Skills relate to actions that you will need to do in relation to your class. Let’s take your hand-to-hand combat skill, it’s a warriors skill so also a Champions and with it as one of your primary skills Aeris will help you learn it faster as well as influence you through it. It can be something as simple as making your hands faster or something as complex as seeing through your enemies moves.”

I thought back to the moment that my negotiation skill had activated and how I suddenly understood the Brood Mothers motives. If the little note that came along with the pop up screen was anything to go on, it wasn’t as simple as train and hope Aeris helped out. I needed to do something to activate it.

“Remember, you can only have a certain amount of skills for each stage of growth to your class. The Champion has seven starting slots and gains one with each level of growth. Most other classes only start with three to four. As you pick up more skills Aeris will ask if you wish for them to be added to your primary skill list.”

“So I can only be good at so much? That sucks!”

“If you are smart, and I hope that you are, then you can merge your skills into more advanced skills. Maybe even legendary...those are the levels by the way. Common, rare, legendary those type of things, though there are more.”

“And what does that do?”

Saza looked at me like I was an idiot. “The greater the skill the greater the help Aeris can offer through it.”

I sat back. My mind was full of swirling thoughts and half baked ideas. Saza seemed content to let me think though she did murmur something to Nel about food. I watched my companion disappear outside and turned to see Saza watching me intently.

“She is a good girl.” she said. Her voice incredibly soft. I had to lean forward to hear her.

I hummed agreement. I didn’t know Nel all that well to be honest, other than what I could glean from a days conversation, but what I did know I liked.

Smacking her thigh to pull herself from her mood she asked if I had anymore questions. I asked the first thing that came to mind.

“Why do you look like spiders!”

She laughed at me then. Long and hard, and had to wipe a tear from her eye before she could continue.

“I forget, this must all be so new and strange to you.” She calmed down a little. “There are many races on Aeris, some like the Elves have come from a branch world and settled here, others like us, the Denvii were created by Aeris as a species of balance. There are many clans of Denvii, the Brood is but one, but each clan has a spark of human in them as well as the spark of a creature.”

“So you just happen to be part spider?” When she nodded I continued. “So then why is it that some, like Nel have the spider legs coming out of her lower back but other than that looks completely human but then I saw this kid, he had a spider’s head. A whole spiders head!”

She shrugged. Like it was the most natural answer. Just a shrug.

“Why should they all be the same? That sounds suspiciously like something Lumia encourages. Uniformity. Perfection.” Saza scoffed. “Sounds dull.”

“Well, thanks for an answer that isn’t an answer.”

“Or it is an answer but not the answer that you wanted. Does that make it any less of an answer?” She was smiling again.

“I bet Nel gets some of the worst headaches talking to you.”

“I do! Thank you, someone finally understands my plight!” Nel said, walking backwards into the room so the curtain parted over her back. Once inside she turned around and drew attention to the tray she carried by lifting it up a little. Something smelled good!

“Oh shush girl, you are just as fond of our arguments as I am.”

I watched the two bicker with a familiarity born of repetition and familiarity and smiled. In some ways it reminded me a lot of how Sanderson and I could argue. And just like that I started to miss the smart idiot, which was strange since I had just seen him a couple of hours ago. Damn it had been a long day!

Nel placed the tray on the ground between us all and removed the cloth covering. Beneath lay three bowls, full to the brim with some thick brown stew. I could see pieces of vegetables and meat floating around in there and my mouth started to water. Real vegetables and meat! Holy crap!

On a wooden board was a large loaf of bread. Flecks of some green herb visible on its golden crust.

Passing out the bowls and breaking the bread into three parts Nel settled down to join us for lunch...or was it an early dinner? The sky outside was starting to darken ever so slowly.

I may have inhaled my food a good deal faster than was polite but it was so...real. The flavour substitutes you could sprinkle on anything back on Earth couldn’t compare. The thought of eating another protein cube sprinkled with BBQ flavour nearly made me hurl.

Saza and Nel watched my feeding frenzy with morbid astonishment. The old ladies hand was stuck halfway to her mouth, the bread in her grip dripping stew.

“Ish gooood!” I managed around my last mouthful. Shrugging to myself, I started licking the bowl. I got a little stew on my nose but that was fine.

“Big day tomorrow, you stocking up energy?” Saza asked after she took a delicate bite of bread.

I raised an eyebrow in question while eyeing the little morsel of bread still on the tray. Nel nudged it towards me and I pounced.

“Your duel with Rimatrastorama at Dawn. Unless having that hole in your stomach I saw earlier is natural then I would think you need the food to restore your health, do you not?”

Crap. I forgot about that. I pulled up my stat menu and had a look at stored mass, total mass, and integrity. There was no difference and I gnawed on my lip in thought.

“Food doesn’t really do anything for me, or at least this little amount. It just gets broken down by the nanobots in my stomach.” I waved away the questioning looks from the new terms. “I’ll need metal...about twenty-nine pounds to reach full health and maybe another seventy to eighty for future healing. The extra mass wouldn't hurt in a fight.”

I wondered if there was a limit to how much mass I could store. Could I reach like one ton without looking like a ball with legs? And if I could, what were the side effects? Did my energy levels drop faster? I think they might.

Saza mopped up the last of her stew with her bread and popped the whole thing in her mouth, chewing slowly as she tapped her chin. I noticed her fingers weren’t the sharp talons like Nel’s or the Brood Mothers and wondered again at why she looked so human.

“We can’t have you entering a duel unprepared. Nel, go to the smith later tonight and see if he has scrap metal that can be spared. I take it the type of metal doesn’t matter?”

“No clue. We’ll have to go with trial and error.” I admitted.

“Excellent. An experiment!” Saza actually looked excited with the prospect. “Needless to say, you will remain here until dawn. I doubt the rest of the Brood needs to see a human...I know the Brood Mother has named you Denvii and they will follow her lead, but they will still need time”

I agreed. After that Nel stacked the plates and left with the dirty dishes, promising to find me some metal. Saza moved over to the corner, blowing softly on a rock that blossomed into light. She placed the light on a metal bracket I hadn’t seen hanging from the ceiling and picked up a book before settling down on top of the chest my clothes had come from to read.

With nothing better to do, I went outside and settled onto the deck. My back up against the trunk of the tree...wall of the house?

The forest slowly grew dark around me. The noises changed as the nocturnal animals and insects took their turn to command the vast forest. I looked up, wondering what the stars would look like. I’ve never seen them. Couldn’t through the pollution. Mr. O’mally said they were like crystals floating up there in the dark. Here the sky was blocked out by the thick canopy of leaves. I considered climbing up the tree for a better view but decided against it.

“Alexander” I muttered under my breath, trying it out, and seeing how it felt. It felt a little weird to be honest. I had been Haha October for so long. Perhaps it was time for a change though. Sandy always wanted me to be more responsible.

I fell asleep there. Leaning against the tree and surrounded by a strange forest on a new world, dreaming of war and forging an empire.