But for a Slime

The Great Aelthron welcomes you, eccentric, to his Cradle. As in agreement with the Treaty of Beings, you have one year to accord yourself with this Cradle. You will find that this Cradle requires Beings to define their capabilities by status. In accordance to the Treaty, your current capabilities will not be inhibited or modified by the Cradle until one year has passed, at which time you will then be constrained by the Cradle’s demands.

Please see the local Cradle’s administration for any further details. Please press ‘Accept’ to acknowledge receipt of this notification.

“This is a pretty awesome game, guys! Wherever you are! But come on out. It’s not fun playing alone!”

Joe’s loud voice rang out in the atmosphere, but he had little concern for alerting any surrounding wildlife. It was only a game! Shifting the spear to his left hand, he reached up to his head to try to feel for any input interface, but his neck was smooth and unblemished by any foreign interface device. His hands went to his eyes next, eyelids automatically closing in reflex at being ‘touched’ and he chuckled at his automatic response, but then his laughter choked in his throat, strangled quickly by shock. He could see the telltale blue glow deep below down by his belly and reach towards the notification with fingers to draw it back up to the centerline of his eyesight.

“No way! There is no way! There is nothing today that could do this! Nothing can input directly into the brain! It’s impossible!”

Joe shuffled the screen around with nervous shaking fingers, then opened his eyes and found the interface in its new position.

“Impossible! There’s….”

Joe remained stunned for several moments before once again glancing at his hurt finger and thumb, then the blood stained spear head. Quickly leaning the spear and shield against the pod, he rubbed his hand quickly and carefully over the entirety of his scalp before running them firmly down his neck and as much of his spine as he was able to. No undue bumps or strange anomalies presented themselves and Joe stared off into the distance to consider his situation. Remembering the loud call he had made, he surveyed his surroundings once again but still found it devoid of threatening wildlife. His hand swooped up quickly to drag the notification down once more out of his line of sight, just visible deep down his torso.

Considering other tests, Joe took a deep breath and held it as long as possible, quickly feeling the burn from the lack of oxygen building up throughout his body. His slow counting showed that he had held his breath about what he had been able to when he had gone to bed the night before. A quick test of several other physical abilities easily done in his current situation showed that it really seemed he was experiencing his own body. Exhaustion dragged at his muscles as they were overworked, his heart beat thudded in his chest while the throbbing in his head increased.

“It’s… it has to be real! Where the fuck am I!?”

He sat leaning against the pod for a moment as he struggled with the ramifications and worried about what it would mean. Even as he considered his options, he couldn’t shake that everything seemed and felt real. Even if none of it was real, the pain certainly was and he had no desire to experience such. Finally, he came to the conclusion to simply accept this as real. The safest option would be to assume it’s real. I’ll make much more cautious decisions and increase my survivability. If I die and ‘revive’ with a second life, then I can start playing it as a game. But if I’m wrong and play it like a game… well… there is no resurrection! Once again, the thought of survival pressed into his mind. Shelter, water, food!

Picking up spear and shield once more, he left the shadow of his drop pod, flourishing the spear with practiced ease under his hands, he prepared to head towards the broken down cabin. Deciding to check behind the pod first before heading to the cabin, Joe turned around and slid around the pod carefully, checking the immediate surroundings before he stopped in cold shock once more. Rising before him in an overwhelming looming shadow, a massive moon was beginning its rise into the sky. Can you even call it a moon? The thing is massive! Wait! No! I’m ON a freakin’ moon! That’s.. that’s…. a gas giant??!

Swirls and streams of colors whipped across the massive gas giant’s surface in mesmerizing patterns and Joe simply stood and stared. Joe would never know how long he stood there in shocked amazement before he shuddered and shook himself from the sight. When he was finally able to shake himself from the awe-inspiring sight, he took in the landscape behind the pod. The fallow field swept back into the distance, bordered by a slow and calm, but mighty river as it meandered on past the field. The river took a sharp turn away from the field and the rest of field was bordered by the same forest as the other side. Scrutinizing the field for wildlife showed little, and Joe decided to head back around towards the defunct cabin.

Seeing little in the way of threats, he sheathed his spear and shield to his back before taking out his bow and settling an arrow to the string, the feeling natural and easy, although the shape of the bow was slightly strange to his hands. His training had been in more ancient weaponry, and not so much in the modern remakes.

As the bow and arrow settled in his hand, he slid quietly across the field, hoping to find a meal to go with his readily made base which he planned to set up in the old cabin. Despite his caution, he made it across the field without finding anything in the way of a possible meal, and relinquished the bow for the shield and dagger. The door of the cabin still stood strong but unlocked, and he was able to push inside relatively easily. The main entrance proved to be a living room, dining area and kitchen all in one. A door stood off to the left, likely a bedroom and where the tree had destroyed the roof. When he glanced inside, he found his guess proven right, and the sunlight streaming in through the hole revealed a room mostly ransacked and empty save for an old and extremely rotten bed and dresser.

Shutting the door firmly, Joe returned to his exploration of the main room and found the home also bare, with little to offer for any comfort. There was no furniture, and the stove he expected to find in the kitchen had been ripped out, with only a single chimney pipe left in the roof. Looking up through it, he found that it had actually been sealed and he moved on to consider the rest of the home. With no furniture or useable kitchen, Joe almost considered abandoning it before he realized that the opposite wall from the bedroom housed an excellent fireplace. Well, I could cook in there! I’ve got my cooking set back in the pod. This will work for now. The sleeping bag will be fine for a bed.

Joe nodded to himself a few times, the nodding becoming firmer and surer as he realized what he could do with the place. He glanced into the bedroom once again and considered the floorboards under the hole in the roof, before glanced back into the still sealed living space behind him. Noticing the noticeably weakened and rotten floor of the bedroom, he considered the living room floor carefully before finally nodding firmly in satisfaction. Seems like there aren’t too many leaks on this side. No rotting floor boards. And the two rooms are completely sealed from each other, so it’ll do!

Joe stepped back outside, sealing the door behind him, before he looked around the area. Besides the obvious pod and billowing parachute behind it, things looked … average. Returning knife and shield to harness, Joe retrieved his bow and an arrow once again before he stalked back across to the pod. Working quickly, he stripped the pod of everything the designers intended and stored it back in the cabin. He then went back and began stripping it of even more, desperately attempting to take anything useful he could find. Granted, much of it was almost impossible for him to retrieve, having no wrenches or other modern tools to attempt in dismantling the pod. After digging through as much of the pod as possible, Joe gave up on taking anything more, and scoured the outside of the pod for anything useable. The parachute and cords were easily recycled, the knife making short work of the chords and he took the whole contraption back to store it in the cabin, wrapping everything up tightly before also shoving as much of it as possible into the backpack. Returning to the pod, his exploration of the outside continued before he finally decided to give up and stepped back, considering his options. A large drop pod was never a subtle thing, and despite his desire to save as much as possible from it, his desire to remain hidden trumped the value of the pod. He considered his options, including possibly burying it to save it for later. Looking at the ground, and considering the lack of tools for the task, Joe decided to take the next best option; get it as far away as possible.

He looked towards the river and back at the pod before shrugging his shoulders. Is it light enough to roll? It rocked under my weight, so… Climbing up the pod, Joe closed and sealed the door once more. Don’t want the thing to get stuck on the door! Putting his back against the pod, he began to rock it and actually felt it beginning to move. Nice! I might just pull this off!

He continued to rock the craft and soon had it rolling back and forth without too much difficulty. The pod finally rolled over and Joe quickly scrambled forward to add to the momentum. The pod slipped and tumbled back and forth over the various bumps in the field before it came to rest again. Bracing his back against it, Joe began the back and forth rocking motion once again and soon had it rolling forward another few dozen steps. This continued for another half an hour before Joe finally was able to get it resting up near the river. As he stared down into the river, he considered his options. Should I open the hatch and let it flood, bury it here? I can come back for it later, if it hasn’t completely rotted away? But if the river isn’t deep enough…

Joe stepped forward and considered the depth of the river using his spear. It seemed quite deep, but if any riverboat came by, he worried if the draft would be deep enough to not disturb trade. It would only take one hit for it to be found relatively quickly, then lots of odd questions would be asked. If he came back looking for it, that would also raise a lot of strange questions. Joe shook his head and decided to relinquish his prize. He couldn’t come back for it, but he couldn’t let others find it so easily either. It had to disappear. Scrambling around the outside of the pod until he found the door, Joe cracked the door open allowing the seal to be broken. Then his back pressed once again against the pod, he rocked it until it tumbled down the bank and settled into the river. The pod had entered the river with the door beneath the waterline. Air pressure kept the water out, but as the pod continued to roll, the door came up into the air and the river water began to flood the pods interior and it quickly sank into the river. The river proved quite deep and the shimmer of the pod was lost in the depths of the river. He could only hope it was deep enough that river boats would not run into it or that they would simply assume shifting sandbanks and add a warning to the river route.

Looking back over the field, Joe saw the slight indentation in the field where he rolled the pod, but could do little about such a thing and simply headed back towards his new home. Returning bow and arrow to hand, Joe moved to hunt and headed towards the woods bordering the same side of the field as the cabin. Wildlife proved abundant, even at the edge of the forest, and he was able to quickly take down what looked like a large rabbit with practiced ease of his bow and he returned to ‘his’ cabin to clean and prepare his breakfa …. Is it sunrise or sunset? Seeing as how the light seemed to be brightening, he considered it morning and thought little of it for the moment. Time was of little importance compared to preparing his camp, although given the readymade nature of his home, he was doing pretty well as it was. His only concern was safety. A perfectly serviceable cabin and farm abandoned was never a good sign. Something drove the farmer away, but hopefully it was something innocuous and not terrifying.

His meal was prepared quickly and he had the rabbit spit and turning over the flames in less than an hour. The meal turned out a bit more burnt than he would like but it was filling and Joe began to consider his options. Exploration was the next important consideration, but he wasn’t certain if he needed to explore the environment or the strange prompt that still floated in the air down below his view. As he mechanically washed his dishes in the river, his mind raced through possibilities before returning to the cabin to repack all his bags and cooking equipment before finally settling down in the middle of the floor in a relaxed lotus pose before he pulled the notification up with his index finger of his right hand.

The notification floated before him as his hand floated over the accept button before he finally pressed the button with firm resolve. When his finger pressed the button, he felt the firm softness of pressure give way under his finger as the button depressed. The screen flashed away before another appeared in front of him. His eyes slid across the screen beginning to read the display before his attention was ripped away. A thundering rumble ripped through the air followed shortly by a subtle shaking rumbling through the ground. Joe exploded to his feet and ran to peer through the front window. In the middle of the field directly over the spot where the pod landed stood a massive creature of shadow.