🙡 Chapter 1.2 🙣

The gift of status

[GENERAL] Name: <> Race: ??? Age: 0 Titles: Hidden seed [hidden] [STATS] Intelligence: 776 Strength: 152 Dexterity: 145 Body: 100 Mind: 152 [SKILLS] ??? ??? [Covenant]

Covenant: Fate’s Pathfinder

Great! Simply amazing. Status! Numbers! Everything is clear now!

…

…

Not.

What the hell do they mean? How strong is it relative to other things? Am I a promised world-ending behemoth, or am I a fly whose only power is spreading disease when it dies? 'Oh, I am stronger than 145 Strength being!' Does that mean I can whack them into space, old cartoon style? Stats 101, please!

And, to add insult to injury, all skills were hidden from me...

... I wonder if this window also appears when people are having more philosophical thoughts about the meaning of life… Actually, I’m curious how there being such a thing as status affects people's perception of self and local philosophy. Am I my status, or is there something more? If I ever interact with the culture of this world I will be curious to find it out!

Close status. Open. Close. Open.

… Yeah, this problem is not going away by itself. A standard strategy of “if it's important, they will send an email again” doesn’t seem to be working with status, as the ominous sounding, red lettered “Covenant” field is still there.. As well as the “The Seed” title. What do they even mea—

Covenant: Fate's Pathfinder

Gods watch. Gods see. But the rules of the game are set. They cannot intervene… unless in a certain place… unless at a certain time… unless, through certain people.

And a game is more interesting when things go off the beaten path, isn’t it?

You can see the fate of some objects and beings (depends on your skill level), and you can take some of that fate for yourself.

Title: Hidden seed

This seed will grow. Earth vainly attempted to hide it, yet it emerged; The Sun tried to scorch it, yet it hid in a shade; Only the wind futilely screams its coming.

Okay, so, I don’t know what I am, I don’t know where I am, the question is what do I do now…

No, I’m not ignoring those popups. I would never procrastinate about my job, I’m just strategically scheduling them for later!

It seems I’m some kind of... Octopus? Plant? I do have those... I don't know, Tentacles? Vines, maybe? Their texture doesn’t look “fishy”, or even “meaty”, but they are shaped like small tentacles... And those look like some kind of suction cups!

Wiggle wiggle—and I can move them! Seemingly independently at that! I started wiggling my tentacles in front of my eyes, like a baby discovering it can move its feet at will. Hopefully looking as cute as that as well. Yeah, right, have you ever seen a cute octopus or squid? Not that I’m that either... I have far too many appendages.

I used them to feel up my body

"Arr!"

… cold! I need to warm my appendages up! Or maybe I’m just cold blooded...

"Aruu..."

But nice.. Smooth… Maybe I could work as a masseur...? My body is quite sore, it seems being a fetus does a number on your body.

I looked around, as I was massaging myself. If we compare my size to the plants around me, pebbles, and generally feel, it seems I’m a ball, around 20cm (8 inches) in height, covered in tentacles, with a big mouth, and two eyes. I can hear stuff, even though I can’t find ears... It's as if each of my tentacles could sense sound! It’s amazing, I don’t feel disoriented!

Ouch! I cut one of my many pseudo-arms on my tooth. Yeah, putting tentacles in my mouth might not be the most hygienic, but like a baby I felt this urge to... sense EVERYTHING! And it helped me learn more about... About the “situation”. Now I know, my mouth is equipped with a few rows of surprisingly sharp triangular teeth. If I close my mouth, each layer seems to form a full circle.

Yes! Ohh! The sounds! The chirping! The leaves are rustling! And the sun, and color! I don’t remember if I ever did drugs, but that's what it must feel like! And what is this.. Tingling in my lower half! It’s so different then everything else, do I have something even more full of nerve endings in there?!

Oh. I’m still half stuck in the ground. Yeah, the high from all those new experiences distracted me from that somehow. What else did you think I would find? I think I have enough tentacles as is!

Around me, on the ground, are remnants of what I presume to be the shell of the egg that I just broke out from, or the top part of it at least. Quick scouting of surroundings shows I’m in the middle of relatively fresh mud, next to a stream… It appears that my egg somehow got buried underground, and with the erosion of the stream bed, I got slowly revealed. Or maybe I got washed down from somewhere upstream? Who knows. Whatever my origins might be, I can’t move!

This problem left me stumped. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life stuck… not that it would be a long one in such a situation.

As I was fighting against myself in my head, busy dying in my own imagination due to dehydration, I didn’t notice that one of the sources of sound was getting closer. And closer. And closer.

THUMP!

A memory came to my mind—or soul, I guess? Since this is not the same mind I had before—I remembered watching a documentary on turtles. I liked nature documentaries. Seeing other people work hard while you are lying down in front of a TV with a cold drink is strangely pleasurable—and in that particular series, they were showing small turtles trying to get to the sea, just after being born, so young and yet already having to struggle to survive! Only A dozen meters, yet a failure to get there would result in death in the beaks of carnivorous birds!

I again shuddered as cold sweat covered my body. The ground trembled under the creature's mighty hooves. The sound of its mighty beep filled me with dread… not to mention the feeling of its breath on my head. What the hell was that?!