Hollow Henry

The Scotsmen showed him a few places of interest while they walked through the streets.

The city was called ‘Tah-Baronkir’, and it belonged to the small kingdom of Therveinia. He had no doubt that it was the same city that he'd died in earlier that day. The banners of red and black with Therveinia's crest of what looked like a unicorn bore were hung at every major intersection, and he remembered the strange crest from his run.

While they walked, Henry wondered about the population of the place. The people around him were a lot smaller than he was expecting. Everyone was in proportion, they were just… little. He found himself bumping into a few other pedestrians because he simply just hadn't seen them in time. The buildings still seemed to accommodate for regular sized people, since the doorways were their standard height. He did see a few people at his height and taller, so it stood to reason that it was a mixed population.

He waited outside the guardhouse when the Scotsmen went inside to get the job for a Goblin raid. It hadn't been very long since he insulted one of the guards, and he didn't plan on going inside and getting recognised. Most of the guards walking in and out had the same small stature as the majority of the city. He thought they might be dwarves, since it was a fantasy world after all, but he couldn't help but wonder how effective such a guard could be if even he could tower over them. Thinking about the tiny men triggered a thought in his mind, and he groaned at himself. Calling up his HUD, he thought about his character sheet, paying particular attention to the race section.

The Henry:

Race: Demisis [Demai/Human]

A Demisis is a hybrid of 2 species of humanoid, sharing traits of both parental racial abilities.

Racial Traits:

Demai are automatically granted +2 points to their perception and endurance stats each level, along with a +15% increase to fluid stat growth for both stats between levels.

Demai are automatically granted +20 to their DiHexan pool each level, along with a +10% increase to fluid DiHexan pool growth between levels.

Demai suffer a -20% reduction to fluid stat growth for their creativity stat, along with a -2 to their starting creativity stat. [TRAIT NULLIFIED DUE TO RACE]

Humans are automatically granted +3 points to their creativity stat each level, along with a +20% increase to fluid stat growth.

Humans are automatically granted a +2 increase to their dexterity stat each level, along with a +15% increase to fluid stat growth.

Humans suffer a -60 reduction to their DiHexan pool, along with a -40% reduction to fluid DiHexan pool growth between levels. [TRAIT NULLIFIED DUE TO RACE]

He remembered from the race selection that it mentioned the large stature of the Demai. He wasn't in a town of dwarves, he was just a giant. He looked down at his feet and felt a little dizzy all of a sudden. He'd never been tall. He wasn't a short man in his previous life but he definitely wasn't tall. He felt strange looking down at people. None of the people around him seemed to notice the fact that he was easily a foot taller than them. That was going to take some getting used to.

While he was playing around with his HUD, he thought about his armour. A new menu appeared. This menu showed his whole body and everything he had on him at the time. When he focused on any particular piece of gear, he was given more information. Each of the pieces that made up his armour had the exact same description, so he only bothered reading one of them.

Lion-leather and iron-silk chain shirt:

[Set piece 1 of 3. Enchantment will not work without the complete set.]

Tier: 2

Armour: -5% physical damage reduction.

Feather fall enchantment

Wearer receives a -50% reduction to fall speed when enchantment is active.

Cost: 5 DiH per second.

He applied the title he'd unlocked with his achievement on the same screen. The title was clearly meant to be an insult, but he didn't mind taking the advantage it gave him. At the corner of his gear screen, he was offered a readout of his overall armour and damage rating.

The ‘Fragile’ Henry:

Armour: -18% reduction to damage. [-15% physical, -3% all damage types.]

Damage: +0% damage output.

As much as it stung that he didn't have any bonus to his damage, he was happy enough with the reduction to damage the armour offered. He wasn't sure exactly how the damage output and reduction worked, so he decided to hold off on getting too excited until he asked the other players about it. The enchantment made him sniff. Whatever governed the achievements seemed to have a sense of humour. Maybe next time he dies, it won't be from a fall now. He could feel the armour's enchantment much like his own skill. It felt further away and less permanent, but he felt he could flex it in the same way.

Before testing it, he checked his magic pool.

DiHexan: 57/80 DiH

It seemed as if his rate of regeneration was decent enough for his basic needs. It had been roughly half an hour since he'd used his skill, so he surmised he regenerated 1 point of DiHexan every 4 or 5 minutes. It wasn't ideal, but he was sure the regeneration would increase with his levels. He would have to make sure to hold off on using his armour skill outside of an emergency though.

At that thought, he called up his levelling screen. There was no clear image of him, instead it was an outline of his body, along with a glowing dot of blue light at the heart. The inside of the outline was filled with a softer blue colour. It was obvious thanks to the labels he was reading, that the light was a depiction of his core, and the colour filling it was his essence. By the looks of it, he was practically bursting with essence.

The rest of the menu was straight forward. There were two windows for him to manipulate that governed his tier and his level respectively, and a third window with his stats. The stats window was greyed out, presumably because he had no free points to spend.

With a pat on the back, he was broken away from his reading. Hamish was beaming at him with a wide smile and a sheet of paper clutched in his hand.

“Permits acquired,” he cheered.

“Goblin raid!”

Their next destination was a structure they called the city pyre. It was a rickety tower looming around 15 storeys high, with various shaped docks and catwalks sticking out from and hugging the sides. It was easily the size of a small high rise building at its base. The most mesmerising sights however, were the flying ships that docked all around the thing. He watched as smaller vessels helped ferry the larger ships to and from their docks. From where he stood, the ships looked no different to those you'd find in a 17th century ocean back home.

To get to the dock they were apparently departing from, they took a simple floating platform from the base. Blue light came from beneath the wooden square they stood on, and Henry felt like he was going to fall over the edge. The ride was smooth, but Hamish still held onto him to help ease his worries.

“There she is, my pride and joy,” Andy said proudly as they approached the ship they intended to board.

“That's quite the vessel,” Henry snickered, looking over the wooden dinghy Andy had been calling a ship for the past five minutes.

“I don't see you offering up your boat,” Andy responded, indignant. He pat his boat and leant down to whisper to it. “Don't listen to the mean man, you're beautiful and daddy loves you.” He said, reassuring it.

“Don't insult it too much,” Hamish sighed. “He can hardly drive as it is, let alone when he's sulking.”

“Alright then,” Andy defended. “We can just walk out there if that's what you really want.”

“Nobody said that,” Henry laughed, taking a cautious step into the boat. It didn't move from its place, aside from bobbing down a little before compensating for his weight. It felt more stable than a boat in water, so he had no trouble getting to one of the small seats.

Andy signalled a man at the end of their dock by flashing a red light twice. He used something that looked a lot like a flashlight, the main difference was how the light changed colour. After a flash of two blue lights from the man on the dock, Andy repeated the gesture with a double flash of a green light. Once the communication was done, Andy grabbed the tiller and started to pull the boat away from the pyre. The whole experience was surreal. They ascended slowly, navigating around and between other vessels as they drifted away from the pyre. Andy signalled other pilots through the endeavour to communicate his intentions, and the other pilots responded in kind.

It was a delicate system that had no apparent coherence. Henry thought he would see ships collide on more than one occasion in the chaos of it all, but every pilot seemed to know the steps to the messy dance well enough to avoid incidents.

The city itself began to drift away soon enough as they picked up in speed. Towering walls held the population in at the border, and Henry learned that the city sat at the peak of a mountain. Andy went higher into the clouds to show Henry the boundaries of the city. It was undeniably in the crater of a colossal volcano, with the city walls being built up from the craters edge. The only way into or out of the city was by ship. They started to descend towards the forest at the foot of the mountain, and Andy circled the city in the process. He showed the unbroken walls of Tah-Baronkir, and explained how the only way into or out of the city was by the sky. The walls themselves had to be half a kilometre high on the outside, nearly completely vertical from top to bottom. Henry struggled to wrap his head around the scale of it all, and was shaken further once the boat kissed the canopy of the forest. The trees were wider and taller than any building he'd ever seen back on earth. It took some time to descend into the darkness below. Once they touched down, Henry went from feeling like a giant, to feeling like an insect.

The plants surrounding him were definitely the size he was used to, it was just the rest of them that made up the monstrous forest that caught him off guard. It was as if his world and a world of titans had merged into one. Many of the plants glowed, which at that depth below the tallest trees was the only source of light. It made for an eerie and enchanting atmosphere. He took it all in, taking a breath of the cool clean air. Echoing sounds of various crunches and scrapes bounced between the trees, bringing the sense of untamed life thriving all around.

He felt a stirring in his HUD, and pulled up his notifications.

ALERT:

You are in a tier 2 area. There is a gap of *1 tiers between your core and the common life of the area

ALERT:

You are in an essence rich area. You are absorbing *1 essence per minute.

That was definitely news to him. His new friends hadn't told him the Goblin raid was in an area outside of his level. He was about to say something, but thought better of it. He supposed that just about any area would be out of his level at that moment. He might as well enjoy the extra essence while he could. If he died, he would end up back at the Tavern probably, and then he could start taking it easy from there.

Andy made a gesture with his hand, and an incredible display of runic letters swirled around his palm and wrist in a deep pink light. At the centre of his palm was what looked like a unique letter, surrounded by a glowing orb of a softer pink. He gently raised his hand into the air, and the boat drifted up into the darkness above, leaving them standing on the fungi lit forest floor. Andy dismissed the magic in his hand, and caught Henry staring at him with wide eyes.

“It's really something, isn't it?” He chuckled. “Spells in this world all look like that. The glyph in the middle changes, and the colour too. But unless it's a skill or a power, or if it's been made to hide its letters, that's what we're working with.”

“Where can I get something like that?” Henry asked, excited.

“Pretty much everywhere,” Hamish laughed. He made a gesture with his own hand, and a similar display appeared, this time with white light and a new glyph in the centre. The spell left the big man's hand soon after, and floated to be a few feet above him. It shone brighter once it found its altitude, lighting up the area around them clearly.

“This one is only 1 glyph and 3 letters. It's easy to learn, and I've got a spare bottle of Phosphor Dust we can use for the ink. Soon as we skin something, I'll make up a page for you.”

Henry blinked at him, dumbfounded.

“We have to skin something to do magic?”

“In a way,” Hamish laughed.

“Some paper will do, if it's magically potent. You have to use good old hide to write your runes on if you don't have enough coin to pay for the paper. You definitely don't have enough coin.”

He pulled a book from his own backpack. It had a hard leather cover at the front and back, and was bound together with a sparkling twine. The pages themselves looked like they were made from various skins and papers. As he flipped through, Henry could see countless runes etched in colourful and sometimes glowing inks. They were a little more crude than those he'd seen already, but they followed the same kinds of geometrical patterns.

“It's taken me a while to put together this beauty,” he bragged. “You'll put together your own grimoire soon enough.”

“There is so much to remember,” Henry complained. “I just thought I'd be playing a game.”

“Welcome to your life,” Andy laughed.