No rabbit acts like that, thought Ahava. What psycho animals are these things?
Wanting to get away quickly, before anything else came along, Ahava picked up the bodies of the rabbits, leaving a few heads on the ground. He walked quickly away from the gruesome scene and up the hill toward the campsite. He arrived back at the campsite, where he dropped the rabbits on a rock and flopped down, putting his head in his hands.
Where am I that as such creatures exist? thought Ahava. Well, at least I have something to eat now.
With a heightened concern for the dangers in this world, Ahava started increasing the defenses for entrance to his campsite. He spent the next hour dragging more thorn bushes from the wood, to increase the barrier that was blocking the entrance, all the time keeping an eye out for rabid animals.
After the defensive improvement, he managed to calm down a bit and start thinking about using the rabbits. In the past, he had skinned rabbits a few times for eating. He had no knives or any other tool for any skinning. In his bag, he had his house and other keys. Picking one that was jagged he tried to skin the rabbits. Ahava ended up with five very rough-cut rabbit hides and a pile of meat and bones. All the guts and other bits that he did not want to deal with, he dug a small hole and buried. This, he thought, would help not attract any other animals by the smell if it was buried.
The next issue was cooking the meat for it to be edible. As he had no equipment for cooking, he decided to try and use some stones to cook the food. This was done by placing them in the fire and heating them up. He then used the hot stone to slowly cook the meat. The end result was a pile of slightly burnt cuts of meat with grit from the rocks in it.
Slowly he ate the meat as he thought about the situation he was in. This was the first time he’d had to rest. Memories of his family flooded into his mind. He worried about what they thought of him missing. He wondered how he could get back home. In his mind, he was determined to get home but could think of no way to accomplish this. The next time he got to talk to Thoth he would give him a piece of his mind.
After he ate his meal and drank some of the water he had in his bag, it was starting to get late. Ahava decided that it was time to get prepared for the night. Having collected enough wood to get through the night, he managed with a bit of climbing and some throwing to get most of the wood onto the ledge. He set up a fire on the ledge and then lit it from the fire on the dirt in the ground. He used some of the wood to sit on behind the fire and in the cave. As the evening had progressed the air got a bit cooler.
Thinking about what to do next, Ahava remembered that there was some information about the ‘The History System’ on his phone and tablets. He pulled his laptop bag over to his side and pulled out the tablet. Switching on the screen, he saw his normal unlock screen. He swiped to unlock and looked at the home page. The first things he noticed were there were some more applications and the battery symbol had been replaced by an infinity symbol.
The new applications were H-Mail, H-Shopping-Bay, H-TV, H-Stats, H-Tasks, H-Journal, H-Knowlogy, and H-Maps. Ahava noticed that the one new mail in the H-Mail application. Opening the application, he clicked on the mail and started reading:
--
From: Thoth
To: Ahava
Date: 1st day
Subject: Welcome
Greetings Ahava.
It was a pleasure talking to you today. I would like to welcome you again. I have left you some tasks to complete in H-Tasks. Also, a just quick reminder that there some important differences to the laws of physics and metaphysics. To get some understanding of this please read through the information H-Knowlogy.
That is all for now. I will contact you later. Remember not to get eaten tonight.
Ta-ta for now,
Thoth
--
As Ahava read the letter he was fuming with anger. Yet again so little information from Thoth and as for a reminder to not be eaten, that was a great help.
Ahava thought, Is that Thoth’s sense of humor? If it is then he’s not funny.”
Ahava decided to reply to the email:
--
From: Ahava
To: Thoth
Date: 1st day
Subject: Re-Welcome
Thoth,
No thanks for the welcome. I would rather be at home, than in danger. I demand to be sent back!
Not Happy,
Ahava
P.S.- You are not funny.
--
Ahava decided next to open the H-Stats application. As the application loaded up the following message appeared:
Welcome to H-Stats (Version Beta 1)
Please create a new login
Ahava created a new login with his name and chose a password. The next screen that appeared was a front page with H-Stats (Version Beta 1) with a title and several tabs across the top. The tabs read: Physical Body, Equipment, Metaphysics, and Inventory. There were several additional tabs grayed out.
The first tab he clicked on was Physical Body. It showed a drawing of his body with text below. When he touched the picture, the different comments came up for the respective parts of the body. Ahava noticed that most of them were not positive about his general overall health and some were downright rude about his weight. The stats were the following:
Name: Ahava
Gender: Male
Biological Age: 45
Intelligence: 13, Stamina: 5, Strength: 7, Constitution: 7, Dexterity: 5, Charisma: 11
Points: 25
General comments: You need to get fit!
Again, Ahava touched the stats and got several comments explaining what the different stats meant. Most of them were self-explanatory and what you would expect in any role-playing game system. One of the comments indicated that the average male stats were ten for each category.
Well, Ahava thought, that is what I expected. As an engineer that works in an office all day, my physical condition is not great. But I have above-average intelligence and a bit of charisma.
A comment for the ‘Points’ noted: you get points for completing tasks.
Ahava clicked on the next tab, which was titled ‘Equipment’. This showed a diagram of his body with his current clothing, laptop bag, and computer tablet. The Metaphysics tab was next to this, showing two set off numbers that Ahava read:
Classical Elements Metaphysics System (0.01% complete)
Element Flux rate per second
Earth 10
Water 2
Air 5
Fire 20
Ether 5
Aristotle's Rhetoric Emotions
Emotions Flux rate per second
Anger 5
Calmness 2
Friendship 0
Fear 10
Courage 5
Shame 2
Confidence 4
Kindness 2
Cruelty 5
Pity 1
Envy 1
Love 1
Not really sure what was going on with this tab, he thought that Metaphysics might be some kind of magic system. From his work as an engineer, he knew that a flux rate could be explained by thinking of water flowing from a tap into a bathtub. The higher the flux rate the quicker the water filled the tub. The lower the flux rate the longer it took to fill the tub. He could only guess how the system worked.
In the letter, Thoth said ‘information was in the knowledge application,’ thought Ahava. I will have to check it out when I finished going through the rest of the tabs. Just before, he left the page, the earth flux rate went from 10 to 11. This shocked Ahava and for a while, his eyes were glued to the screen. The next number to go up by 1 was fire.
The final tab was inventory and he clicked on it. This showed a screen listing all the items in his laptop bag. He knew this was correct, as he emptied out the bag to check the items. When the bag was empty no items were in the inventory. It seemed to Ahava the system updated instantly.
After putting all his items back into the laptop bag, just befo
re he could open the H-Knowlogy application, he heard a screeching howl from just beyond the entrance to the area surrounded by the cliffs. Looking over the fire toward the thorn bushes blocking the entrance, he could just about see some movement. Another howl pierced the night and the movement increased. It looked like something was trapped by the thorns in the makeshift barrier. The movement of the branches in the barrier increased as the howling and yelping sounded out. Ahava’s heart was racing. He picked up the club as he stood up. Suddenly the movement of the branches stopped and the yelping noise got slowly quieter. Hoping that the animal was running away, he continued to look into the distance. He could not see anything moving, but the distance he could see was not far. Ahava stood for a few minutes, listening for any sound, but nothing could be heard. Sitting back down, it took a while for his heart rate to slow down as he relaxed.
Finally, after about half an hour of listening and watching for any movement, Ahava picked up the computer tablet again. He opened up the H-Knowlogy application and started to read. The home page had a search bar at the top and a list of topics below. Most of the topics seemed familiar. He clicked on one marked engineering and this loaded a new page, just like a web browser. The page that loaded was just like a ‘Wiki’ page for engineering. Ahava spent some time clicking through different topics. All the material was information that he had learned as part of his degrees or during his career. He then went back to the front page and looked at the topics listed. There were a lot of topics on the different hobbies that he had enjoyed over the years. This list included history, woodwork, metalwork, weapon making, drawing, and painting. Clicking through the topics, he noticed that as with the engineering pages, it was information that he was familiar with.
Back to the home page again, there were a number of topics he did not know anything about. The first one to catch his interest was Metaphysics. Feeling a rising excitement, he clicked on the link. The page loaded quickly and displayed the following:
Metaphysics: An Introduction
Metaphysics is the branch of knowledge that studies the essence of a thing. This includes questions of being, becoming, existence, and reality. The word "metaphysics" comes from the Greek words that literally mean "beyond nature". "Nature" in this sense refers to the nature of a thing, such as its cause and purpose. Metaphysics then studies questions of a thing beyond or above questions of its nature, in particular, its essence or its qualities of being.
Ok, thought Ahava, this reads very much like the scientific papers I used to read.
Ahava read further into the article. The introduction about Metaphysics outlined how it could be used to change the essence of reality. The 'Classical Elements Metaphysics System’ shown in the H-Stats application detailed the classical elements from the understanding of the ancients of earth, water, air, fire, and ether, which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. The following sensible qualities decided the elements, as Fire is both hot and dry; Air is both hot and wet (for air is like vapor); Water is both cold and wet; Earth is both cold and dry; and the concept of ether was used to explain several natural phenomena, such as the traveling of light, gravity, and space-time.
This is really heavy stuff, thought Ahava and carried on reading, while intently gazing at the screen:
Each of the elements has three properties. Fire is sharp, subtle, and mobile while its opposite, earth, is blunt, dense, and immobile; they are joined by the intermediate elements, air and water, in the following fashion.
The article detailed that the elements exist in the world around him in different degrees. The concentration of the elemental energies depended on the surrounding environment. If he was close to seas, lakes or rivers then there was a greater concentration of the water element. When he was around a fire, then the concentration of the fire element would be high. There were other examples detailed as well, but Ahava wanted to move on to how to use the elements.
Going back to the article, it stated the following point that Ahava found useful:
The flux rate value in the H-Stats application described the amount of the element he could channel;
The value would increase with use of the elemental power or interaction with the elements in the form it was found in the environment or living creatures;
The flux rate could be transferred to and from Ahava into materials and other living creatures;
When channeling the elemental powers the power came from the environment. An example the text explained was if he was using the fire element to produce a flame, the surrounding temperature in the environment would drop;
The channel of the elements could be both positive and negative, i.e., for fire you could heat up an item with a flame or use the power to remove heat that would freeze items;
In addition, the elemental powers could be stored in materials that represented the elements that could be drawn upon for a use at a later date;
Aristotle's Rhetoric Emotions was a system that described the emotional and intellectual interaction between creatures. The flux rate worked on the same principle as the elemental powers. The only difference was that power came from creatures, including himself; and
All elements and emotions could be mixed for different properties and effects.
Ahava put the computer tablet down, on the now-cold stone floor of the cave. Jumping up with excitement and pacing around the small cave, he felt the first real happiness since arriving. He had always loved playing the Magician in any game, as the idea intrigued him. This system seemed to have an element of what could be considered magic. With rising excitement, he went back to reading the article on the tablet.
At the bottom of the article was a link to a video clip on how to start using the system. Before Ahava could click on the link an information box popped up on the tablet screen. Ahava read it:
Top Tip
These elements were used by Hippocrates in describing the human body with an association with the four humors: yellow bile (fire), black bile (earth), blood (air), and phlegm (water). Medical care was primarily about helping the patient stay in or return to his/her own personal natural balanced state.
OK, thought Ahava, a combined use of the elements of fire, earth, air, and water can be used for healing. That is useful to know, as I will certainly need healing if things carry on being as dangerous as they have been today.
Ahava finally clicked on the link to the video clip. The application ’H-TV' started up and ran a video of a man in strange robes talking. The style of the video was like the ‘Open University’ program that used to run during the seventies. It was very dry and factual, with bad lighting and backdrops.
What Ahava understood from the 10-minute tutorial was that the control of the powers was all down to his imagination. There were no chants or other magical trickery involved in this system; the power could be used by any part of his body or any inanimate object he infused with the power; the control depended on the sensitivity of feeling he had, i.e., he could get finer control using the tips of his fingers, as they were most sensitive to touch. All the different powers could be mixed for different effect; it was up to him to experiment to gain understanding. The flux values gave the distance from him the powers could reach and the size of the effect, and each decimal was roughly equal to a millimeter.
Putting the computer tablet back in the laptop bag. Ahava got up and rubbed his hands together with excitement. He had always enjoyed experimenting. He had even done three years of research as an engineer.
Right, he thought, time to have a go. I will try out the fire first, as it may have the most direct effect.
Moving to a darker part of the cave and facing the back wall, so he could see the fire as it formed, Ahava pointed his index finger up and away from his body. He imagined a flame coming out of the top of his index finger. What appeared was a small flame, about two centimeters big, coming from the top of his index finger. The flame was yellow in appearance, like a candle flame, but with
no soot coming off the top. The first thing he felt was the excitement of what he had just done. Then a sharp burning pain on the tip of the index finger hit him. Letting the flame disappear, he waved his hand in the air to try and cool it and then sucked his finger. Slowly the pain subsided and he was left with a burn mark on the tip of his finger.
Still ecstatically happy with what he had achieved, he thought about what he had done wrong. Ahava remembered from the tutorial that the flux values also determined the distance the elemental power would reach from his body. With this in mind, he tried again, with his middle finger, imagining a flame about two centimeters from this finger. The time the same flame appeared just two centimeters above the middle finger. He screamed with excitement and waved the flame around in the air.
For a while Ahava just stood there watching the small flame; it seemed like it could go on forever. He now experimented with turning up the power. Nothing happened. He then slowly thought about lowering the power, and the flame size got smaller and dimmer until it went out. The next thing he tried was having a flame come from each of his fingers on a hand. This produced four small flames a small distance from each finger. All the flames were smaller than the one he had created before. Then he tried a flame on the top of his palm, which was a slow, lazy flame over the entire area of his palm.
This is great, thought Ahava, but not very powerful. Maybe that will come in time when the flux value increases. The next thing I should try is mixing another elemental power with fire.
He decided to try air. Again, he imagined a flame out of his middle finger. After he had a steady flame, he imagined adding air to the flame. The flame immediately turned a light shade of blue. This was like when using a Bunsen burner in a chemistry class; when opening the air vent the flame changed from a yellow to blue. This gave a much hotter flame. Ahava moved over to the wood pile and directed the flame onto a piece of wood. This started to burn a two-centimeter hole in the wood. Playing around with the flame, he imagined it as very thin. The flame was still two centimeters long and about as thin as a pencil lead. The flame had a greater intensity. Ahava moved it across the wood and it acted like a small cutting touch.
Dungeon Master Page 18
