DAY 53 20:18

After a long day on the raft we had arrived in the hills. The trees thinned out quite a bit here as the terrain erupted into rocky hills. I tied off the raft, and then started cutting trees to make a new cart.

The transition between regions was pretty subtle, for a few seconds something appeared up in the corner of my vision and my attention flicked to it. The zone description had ever so helpfully changed to show that we were indeed in a [Hilly Field Region]. I really hoped that was another thing that’d be expanded on, because right now it was a complete waste. At least the other parts like clock and compass had their uses.

Abe was able to lead the way to where he had previously seen a giant. I didn’t have much of a lead to go off, just that Teefies had been around here doing something a decade ago.

The rabbits of the forest had been replaced by rodents of unusual size, that would still be gargantuan by real world standards. Owls soared silently overhead. Shrya, as the only one able to hear them, kept looking around suspiciously. Occasionally one would dive down at one of the many gophers and mice in the fields.

With less trees to detour around, I was able to make better time with the cart. Plus the exercise was paying off, and my stamina pool had grown enough that pulling the cart wouldn’t tire me out. Once we got off the riverbank and onto the rolling hills we found cairns of stacked stones occasionally marking the boundary of the trail and spots on the landscape, except each stood about five meters high, using boulders larger than me. We were in Giant country now.

In the distant hilltops across the fields I could just barely make out structures carved into the hills themselves. As time passed, I started to appreciate the sheer scale of them. They were at least four times the size a human structure would be. I really hoped we weren’t headed to certain doom.

I told the others to stay close, and be on guard. This part of the trail was much more commonly travelled, with a wagon rut. Or rather, a set of ruts from human size wagons, and then on each side of those were ruts from giant size wagons that must be the size of mobile homes. Horse hoofprints, and something unfamiliar but massive marked the road. I could smell the old scent of them, strange and musky.

The land had few trees, most of them being saplings, with the rest being knee high grass hiding rodents. It was a pretty easy walk, deceptively easy. This was the first proper “wilderness” zone we had entered. Maybe instead of having plentiful small threats like coyotes it had a few very dangerous threats. What would be dangerous to a giant? Other giants? Dragons?

A peculiar smell was drifting in on the wind, almost like feta cheese. A pile of something was beside the road at the base of the hill served as a local landmark, I thought it was a cairn that had fallen over, but as we approached it shifted. It was a giant, sitting with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. His skin looked like dried and cracked mud, saplings sprouted from his head in place of hair. Even sitting I figured he was nearly five meters high, and might reach ten meters if he stood. A ten meter long spear laid across the road like a fallen tree, the flinty tip alone larger than my entire body. A perverse part of me wanted to find out how far we could stretch this “one size fits all” nonsense mechanic and see if that spear would shrink down if I touched it.

I slowed, waiting to see what he’d do. One swipe of that spear would flatten us all.

“Ho!” His voice was low, and loud, like the groaning of trees in a sudden wind.

“Hello. We come in peace.”

“What tribe?” He looked us over, none of us having markings anymore.

“No tribe, we are travellers. May we enter?”

“What tribe?”

“Ugh...Redleaf?”

He scratched an ear, causing a pile of gravel to fall out.

“Go in, Redleaf three. Remember that tiny problems have big consequences.” With that, he slid his spear out of the way, which casually knocked into a boulder the size of my cart and sent it tumbling.

Hesitantly, we passed him, and I felt distinctly paranoid until we were out of swinging range. The town itself was carved into the hillside, but it appeared that the giants had only single story buildings. I suppose that made sense, what material would support their weight? A few buildings were sized for people our size and had multiple floors, looking like dollhouses in comparison. The largest of which appeared to be an inn with a weathered sign showing a mug and perhaps a piece of meat on the bone, so we headed that way.

All in all, it was a pretty normal town, just with giant people who had bits of landscape in their ancestry. Giant children ran through the streets, not much larger than the average human. Giant merchants sold giant goods. Abe was delighted by the sight of a stall selling cuts of grilled meat larger than him, and dragged me that way. Most of the non-giants tended to stay to the edges of the streets and paths. I saw a few folk that looked like they might be half-giant, between two and three meters tall.

We stopped in front of the stall with a grill that looked suspiciously like a portcullis laying over a firepit, the giant merchant smiled, showing teeth like slabs of granite.

“Ho.”

“Will you trade for some meat?” I was hoping to hold onto what coin I had.

“What trade?” The merchant leaned down to get a better look at us.

“We have some pine soap.” I held up a block of it, and the merchant carefully picked it up between two fingers and sniffed it, then cracked a smile. It didn’t change size when he touched it. Maybe there were limits to the nonsense.

“Ha! Tiny goblin soap. Good. Eat!” He plucked a piece off the grill and passed it down.

Surprisingly, the cut of meat did not shrink when Abe picked it up, and he wobbled dangerously with the weight until he dropped it on the cart, earning a shrill hiss as it nearly crushed Shrya.

What beast had this come from? It looked like maybe a thigh bone that was taller than me. We all started pulling off chunks of it, and then went the rest of the way to the inn. Everyone else had left their wagons and carts in front of it, so we did as well. A variety of beasts of burden were on display, some donkeys, horses, bison, and what I thought was a hide-covered wagon shifted to reveal it was a mammoth as it looked at us with huge, expressive eyes.

On top of a nearby hilltop sat a guard, holding a crossbow called ballista by any other name. If the range of it scaled up, he could probably shoot out to a few kilometers with the tree-sized bolts. Maybe that was why there were no full grown trees nearby, he probably had at least two dozen piled up beside him.

For a second I snickered at the idea that the system would give them the default 20 meter range with their bows. For them that would be nearly point blank range.

Inside the inn was a motley assortment of humanoids. A few of the rough types of humans you’d expect to see out in the wilds, perhaps bounty hunters or mercenaries, a few goblins with unfamiliar green and yellow markings, another of those weird treelike beings with rootlike legs that were comically short.

The strange goblins all sniffed and turned to stare when we walked in, and then started quietly muttering to each other.

“Leave them alone. We’re not here for trouble.” I whispered to Abe as he bristled. The mane of fur around his neck actually started puffing up.

We made our way to the bar.

“Ho, traveller?” The barkeep was a matronly human woman, with some nonhuman blood based on her greyish skin and two meter height. I really didn’t want to know what shenanigans were involved with relations between Humans and Giants.

“Hi. I’m wondering if you could help me out with some information. I can trade, or I have some human coin if that’s good here.”

“Gold’s good everywhere. What you looking for?”

“A person. Or rather, a god. Teefies.”

“I know her. What’s your business?”

“An old apprentice of hers is looking for her and sent me to look, can you tell me where she is?”

“I can, but it won’t do you much good. Built herself a dungeon to the west. She only comes out a few times a year.”

“West? Great. Thanks. How much for a room for the night?

“Five gold for the night. One bed.”

I looked in my coin pouch, finding less than that amount. The silver coins had bulked it up a bit, and the stressful week had made me lose track. The barkeep must have seen my face.

“How about this, we don’t get many travellers, and you seem like a decent sort, so just give me what you can, don’t cause any problems, and I’ll be happy to not have to barter for chickens.” She was looking right at Abe and his many scars when she mentioned problems.

“Fair enough.” I gave her the pouch, and she handed over a key.

“Up the stairs, last door at the end.”

I thanked her and took another look around the place. There was a job board on the wall. Someone wanted more people for a basilisk hunt to the north. A mammoth named Nonnie had wandered away and needed to be brought home. Neither of them seemed enticing enough to delay our mission.

I was feeling a bit wiped out, so I told the others I was going to grab the most valuable things from the cart and head up. Shrya took the key and vanished, Abe sat in the corner with his massive chunk of meat he was still eating, and then fell asleep while hugging it.

Willing to give it another try before bed, I sat down and tried some more mentalism. I spent about twenty minutes or so trying to figure out how to use [Open Mind] before giving up again and using the skill icon for it.

Once again that strange new awareness came back, giving me a glimpse of the constellation of sparkling minds in the town around us. I spent a while trying to make sense of it.

It seemed that the intensity of the sparkly mindforms might correspond to intelligence, and how fast they shimmered might be related to activity. Abe was quite dim, the sparks shimmering and pulsing slowly, a few similar ones were in the other rooms not too far away. His mindform contained quite a few smaller sparks though, was that related to potential?

I couldn’t see myself using this skill. Maybe that was a good thing, I would probably look like a single flickering bulb and an ‘Out of order’ sign.

One interesting feature was that I couldn’t tell the difference between various species. Human and Goblin and Giant minds all seemed roughly the same, though maybe there were subtle differences between their shapes or patterns. Animals were distinct though, for the most part, being dramatically less bright and complex. There were a few exceptions though, some of them had similarly bright intensity if not quite as complex patterns as people.

I spent some more time playing around with, trying to see if I could reshape my awareness or focus on a specific target. I didn’t have much success, other than making my sphere of awareness wobble a bit. Part of me wanted to try poking at the minds, but the rest of me didn’t want to end up in some psychic showdown with a suspiciously intelligent Yak, or accidentally detach my consciousness from my body and drift away or wake up as yet another creature.

The experience did help me somewhat familiarize myself with the sensation of having an [Open Mind], but it was still as though my brain didn’t have the right words to describe it, or to get more than a few percent additional progress to rank 2. If it was like this at rank 1, what would it be like at the various milestones of 25 and 50, or more? Would it span kilometers, or be able to read minds?

That was most of my mana gone, so I dismissed the skill and meditated for a short while before going to the bed and taking off some of my dirtier clothes.

After a while Shrya came back, smelling of spices and strange herbs, and carrying a hide bag that she left by the rest of our stuff. It surprised me a bit when she climbed onto the bed and curled up with her head on my leg.

“Oh, I guess I forgot to ask if you needed anything. Find anything good at the market?”

“Some alchemy plants. Snake venom to numb and paralyze.”

“That’s good.” We were both quiet for a while, and then I added, “I don’t know what we’re going to find. It’s probably going to be dangerous, but I don’t know if I can go alone. It would be so easy to just keep going, find someplace quiet for the next few months.”

“If not hunter, then prey.”

“I suppose so. It doesn’t seem like there’s anywhere here that’s actually safe. There’s always some new threat. Have you ever met one of these so called gods?”

“Just stories.”

“I’ve only met one, for a few seconds, and he could have crushed me like a bug. He could probably kill everyone in every town we’ve gone through and barely even slow down. The difference in strength is titanic. It’s unfair.”

We were quiet for a while and then I reached down and poked her in the nose.

“Boop.”

She scrunched up her nose and batted my hand away.