The king sat on his throne, watching her be removed. The large ornate doors closed behind them as the guards took her down a set of stairs. Her boots thumped off each step, but her limp body refused to move.
Within minutes, they threw her into a dark box and it started moving. She realized too late that the box was likely a wagon. After another ten long minutes, feeling like she had woken up in the middle of the night with a sleep paralysis demon sitting on her chest, the weight lifted and another screen appeared.
Notification: You have left the range of the King's pressure. You may move again. All instances of Word of the King will degenerate faster as you move further away.
Alex felt feeling return to her fingers as she first twitched them and then began slowly moving them inch by inch. Her toes, wrists, and ankles followed as feeling and control slowly came back to her body. She sat up as the wagon continued moving, hearing an occasional thunk of something soft hitting the wall of the wagon along with people screaming.
Alex made out a few things being said. Most called her a monster and a danger, but she stopped listening.
Okay, you have your turnout gear. You're going to be exiled. I assume because fuck you in particular, Alex. She took a deep breath, calming herself down.
Maybe they give me the rest of my gear and I just go find my way outside the city? I mean, they said the wilds. So worst case, I just need to survive in the woods alone. Alex smiled slightly at the thought.
Survival in the woods is like a basic piece of a class I had to take before I could join the SAR group. She started unbuttoning her turnout gear and pulling it off until she was down to her yoga pants and T-shirt. The warm air in the wagon felt almost cool against her sweat-soaked body.
Which actually, where the fuck did the yoga pants come from? Alex wondered, staring at them before shrugging. Okay, we have turnout gear, probably all my firefighter stuff, maybe the sack of garbage, and our wits. We can handle this, Alex. She kept mentally giving herself a pep talk.
Alex rolled up her turnout gear, making a bundle again using the overall straps. She sat back against the wall, deciding to sleep while she could, with no other options presenting themselves.
She woke up as the wagon stopped. The absence of the bumps and creaking rolls caused her to sit up and wipe her face. The inside of the wagon had picked up an even more stuffy feel. She crouched as she heard people moving outside, bracing herself.
She heard a voice outside the door. "I'm going to open the door. How about we be nice and civil like?"
The door opened, and Alex threw her turnout gear bundle at the first guard. It hit him hard enough to cause him to stagger and fall backward. Alex charged forward and stopped as three blades were leveled at her.
"Bitch!" She heard from the ground as the disheveled guard got up, red in the face.
"You know what? Fuck you. I was ordered to feed you. FUCK that!" He continued ranting at her.
"There is your shit. Take it and walk that way." He pointed off into the woods. Alex could see a faint ripple in the air.
"Come on, we have a meal to enjoy while you figure your shit out, bitch."
The man motioned, and one of the guards jabbed her with the point of his sword, drawing a small bead of blood.
"Get a move on!" Alex got out as another sword point threatened to move toward her.
"I don't get why we don't just kill you fuckers in the square, but the king's real merciful like that."
The guards part cleared a path to two large packs. Her gear stuck out of one, and the other looked like the one she took from the healer.
"One good thing is that little healer and everyone else who helped you will get hunted down and punished." The guard kept spitting his irritation. Finally, Alex responded, her voice croaking after the time sleeping.
"Are you trying to compensate for women not liking you or just for your tiny dick?"
A couple of other guards chuckled as the guard's face turned redder, drawing his sword. Then a rasping voice came out from behind them.
"Sheath your weapons. Order of the King is for her to be given a meal and sent across." The voice made Alex feel like snakes were crawling across her skin.
"The prisoner can, of course, refuse for fear of poison and move across on her own. But anyone harming her will face the king's justice."
The man continued with heavy footsteps crunching in the dirt as he moved into view. The figure Alex saw made her want to shudder. He stood in odd segmented plate armor that looked like scales overlapping, the look only increased by the sinuous way in which the man moved. A dark helmet sat on his head as he walked forward and cocked his head to the side.
"Would you like to risk the food?"
Alex swallowed and shook her head. "Just give me my stuff."
She could almost feel the creepy smile from under the helmet. "Good, good." The man gestured toward the bags, and Alex moved forward, picking them up and securing her turnout gear under the backpack.
She looked over the guards who still had swords out and the one she was going to continue calling Tiny Dick. "So, I just walk in the woods, and you let me go?"
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Tiny Dick smirked. "Yep, you walk through the barrier, and we do nothing to you. We also do nothing when your screams lure in some monster to eat you."
Alex rolled her eyes, picked up her stuff, stood, and held up both middle fingers at the group of guards before turning on her heel and walking toward what looked like a soap bubble.
A screen appeared as she got closer.
Warning: Exiting stable system. All progress will be lost.
She just kept walking, holding up both hands over her shoulder and flipping off the guards. She moved through the bubble-like barrier and felt cold run through her. Alex almost dropped to her knees as a flood of weakness ran through her. She gritted her teeth and kept walking, feeling ice settling in the pit of her stomach.
Warning: You have chosen the wilds. Commencing repossession.
Half a second later, as her stomach continued to knot, another notification appeared hovering near the first.
Notice: Commencing integration to the wilds.
Alex gritted her teeth, moving into the woods and out of sight of the guards, unwilling to give them the satisfaction of seeing her collapse or anything else. She almost felt drunk as she stumbled forward. Her vision darkened around the edges, and then the pain started.
Alex gritted her teeth, refusing to cry out but found herself on the ground, the smell of wet earth filling her nostrils. She silently writhed for several long minutes that could have just as easily been hours so far as she could tell. When the pain finally started to clear, she found the light around her dimming and a screen sitting in front of her.
Welcome to the Wild System.
We recognize you may be experiencing some major world shifts. All classes, skills, and levels from the locked system have been removed. In an attempt to help you reconcile yourself to a new setting, we are giving you the following effect.
Status Effect: Calibrating
The wild system is attempting to map skills to your already existing proficiency. Please apply patience as the more skills you have, the longer this can take.
As those two windows faded, another came into her line of sight, her breathing slowing.
Please select would you like minimal interaction with the system or maximum interaction?
Warning: Selecting minimum will result in less windows but more insistent windows
[] Minimum
[] Maximum
Alex rolled her eyes and selected minimum, just wanting to not see the screens anymore. She fished into her bags, pulling things out to make an inventory of her items.
The fuck is with these systems. She wondered, laying out her gear. She found the sack of toys and jewelry, her various tools from her pockets, her turnout gear, halligan, helmet, and SCBA mask and tank. She pulled out the flashlight, put its batteries in, and clipped it on her pack strap so it was easily accessible.
She loaded the rest of the gear up, managing to get everything into or attached to one backpack she pulled onto her back with a grunt of effort before picking up her Halligan bar and starting deeper into the woods.
Okay, Alex. You know what to do. No one is coming to help, so it's time to find somewhere to camp. It's not too warm or too cold, and we should get away from the guards. Assuming monsters here are real, too, we will want defensible shelter. Alex ran down the mental list.
She glanced back at one point, seeing the soap bubble but no guards. She debated doubling back but something told her it would just end with her in a worse situation. For good measure, she flipped the bubble off again and then pushed deeper into the woods.
She debated carrying all the gear multiple times as she walked deeper into the woods, weighing the merits of the weight versus usefulness. Especially a half-full tank of air.
As she walked and debated mentally, she tried to make note of the direction of moss growth, checking once in awhile to see if she could still see the bubble behind her.
The suns set, and the woods became dark. Alex decided to stop and preserve her batteries by not trying to push on in the dark. She used the little remaining light of the setting suns to find something suitable.
She spotted a forked tree as she moved deeper into the woods. Walking over, she looked it over. The fork was about four feet off the ground. Alex checked the area, moving a dense bed of leaves under the fork in the tree and setting her pack and gear up against the tree. She moved slightly away with her Halligan, finding a long branch she could lay as a cross support before rapidly lining smaller branches she found from around the area along the branch and shoveling more leaves onto the makeshift shelter. Crawling in, she spread out her turnout gear to help insulate herself from the ground and, after making sure she could reach her Halligan and flashlight, went to sleep.
Alex woke early the next morning, not warm or comfortable but not cold either. She could see light starting to fill the woods and got up, sliding out of her shelter, repacking her gear, and starting in the same direction she was headed the day before.
She could see the ground starting to rise in this direction and assumed she would end up on higher ground and get a good vantage if she continued. She spent hours watching for food, shelter, and water as she hiked. The woods were filled with the sounds of birds, and she occasionally stopped when hearing a distant roar but continued deeper, knowing her best odds were not to stress about the wildlife and instead work toward the essentials she needed.
She debated throwing away the tank to her SCBA gear dozens of times and each time she almost did, she ended up just continuing to walk.
Throughout the day, she saw several birds, some smaller animals in the underbrush, and even some berries that she couldn't identify and so didn't trust. Eventually, the light incline turned steep, rocks becoming more common, and trees more sparse.
She looked back, finding herself high enough to see over some of the trees behind her and couldn't help but stare. In the city, it felt alien, strange, like she had gone to another country. If she didn't look at the sky, there were times it just felt like she had gone into some weird renaissance faire. Standing on a hill looking out at trees that looked different, with an alien sky and two suns, she felt excitement at this new world to explore.
I wish Mox was here. Fuck, I used to tell her we should just run off into the woods together all the time. I mean, sure there are monsters here, but she would love it. Alex found herself smiling as she imagined hanging out with her horse in this strange world.
Honestly, aside from the likely presumed dead, exiled to die, and monsters thing, I can't think of a better vacation for myself. Alex took a deep breath of the forest air, the smell of decay and soil filling her lungs.
She sat on a rock looking out at everything and decided she needed a break. After staring over the vantage for a bit, Alex started up the hill, pushing herself to the top. She found herself looking over a valley on the other side and a forest on the side she was on.
Looking closer, she noticed what looked like water flowing through part of the little valley. Alex took a deep breath and started toward the water, knowing water would likely also mean food.
Alex descended into the valley quickly and entered a sparse forest with a lot of undergrowth. Prickly bushes and vines were all over the place. She heard the water before she saw it a steady river running from higher up. Looking around, she noticed what looked like a stone building overgrown with vines upstream.
I cannot be this lucky. Alex thought as she looked over the potential shelter. She started up the bank slowly, making sure to look in the muddy soil for tracks or signs of animals, specifically large predators visiting here frequently.
Getting closer to the vine-covered building, she saw no sign of large predators occasional prints from small animals but nothing huge. She peered into the interior of the room and saw what looked like a small stone room. She pulled out her flashlight, using it to look around the space. At first, the only thing she saw was the empty stone room, no markings, no bones, just dust and some moss. Then she noticed the crack in the floor where it looked as though part of the floor could come free.
Deciding she wanted to know, she walked forward and dug her Halligan bar in, prying up. The stone ground for the first inch or two before seeming to fall into a track and smoothly gliding back to reveal stone stairs heading down into the dark.