esamastation

[esamastation]

Some time after the Calamity Ganon was sealed away again, Link and Zelda discover a Stargate.

[esamastation]

Chapter 16: Hyrule's Stargate Program - BotW x SG

Summary:

Link and Zelda discover a hidden Stargate.

[esamastation]

gosh I miss Stargate

[esamastation]

I was wondering if you had any advice on how to approach worldbuilding? I really love time travel fix it fics and Oh, Where do We Agin I think is one of the most unique I have seen in terms of worldbuilding and approach but it makes for such a vibrant and alive world where everything feels interconnected and I myself really struggle with trying to develop the setting in that way. I think I often find myself blanking and not knowing how to proceed when I try to ask myself questions about the setting and fill in blanks such as what traditions would a character from x have and why. Or why is a piece of the world seen this way and how would it shape characters who grew up in it. Or how would things get done in ages with the same or different technology that we have. How do you personally approach fleshing out a world?

I don't really know how to use tumblr and have never used an ask before so I am sorry if this is a weird question! I really love your works and hope you have a lovely day.

Research, lots and lots of research. I'm sorry, there's no way around it, really, especially if you want to do good time travel - you just need to look up books or videos or whatever, and internalize knowledge to use in your stories.

If you've ever heard of the "Visual Library" of artists, where best painters are the ones who'd spent a lot of time observing and sketching the things they see to get better? Yeah, that applies to writing too.

It's the sad fact of creation. To write about something accurately, you just need to know about it too. You can listen to podcasts or video essays or get summaries on reddit whatever you need. Easiest way to get good view on "how things used to be" is looking up stories from that period or near equivalent. To figure out "why piece of a world is that way" you just need to find the right documentary. There probably is one out there.

Watching movies/tv shows about the Thing You're Looking Into can be the best research, because usually those kinds of productions have done the research for you. Usually.

My trick is writing about stuff I'm already interested in, stuff I've already looked into. I've watched and read and listened to lot of stuff about, for example, the Renaissance period, which I've then integrated into the writing of my various AC2 time travel stories. I'm nowhere near as into the Crusades which is why I've written way less about AC1. I like plants and gardening and hydroponics so I have a lot of fics about plants and gardening and hydroponics. I'm no expert about any of those things, but I'm interested - and writing about them is as much an excuse to do more research as it is to put what I already know into good use.

Ultimately though, this is stuff that comes with practice. I don't know how old you are or how long you've been writing - I've got almost 30 years of writing under my belt now, and it's a lot of time to accumulate knowledge and experience.

TLDR: Wikipedia, Reddit, Youtube and the Local Library.

[esamastation]

... Starts another original story. Plans a original story. Starts a different original story. Starts another original story. Worldbuilds a original story. Starts different original story. Starts another...

Starts an original story. Starts another original story. Starts another original story. Starts another original story. Starts another original story. Starts another original story. Starts another

[esamastation]

There's so many variations of both that there isn't enough options I could put here.

[esamastation]

🤣

fanart for this scene from @esamastation's svsss x ff7 fic SOLDIER General's Self-Saving Shizun !!!!!

[esamastation]

I've been writing some first sentences / prompts as idle writing exercise and here's the first 100. You're welcome to use any of them, if you get inspired.

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Across the deep blue sky streaked a comet, with a purple tail trailing after it like skirts of a dress and several small companions chasing her.

Across the cell the older man farted loudly in his sleep - which was good, since for hours now John had been wondering if he'd gone and died.

Before the grand three story mansion the half a million dollar Porsche burned merrily.

Backstage, half deafened by the deep bass and the beat, Jane threw up all the whiskey she'd been drinking that night. 

"Call me when you get there," was the last words John heard from his mother, before his hometown was engulfed by a blazing inferno. 

Cloud seeding was probably a good idea, once, back when rain was still mostly water and frogs were only a ground level issue.

Dark academia was, in John's honest opinion, an oxymoron - but that didn't mean he didn't look damn good in a waist coat and ascot.

During the end of the world there were a lot of people who wasted their time looting and running - but in the end, it was the people covering under their beds who survived the longest. 

Elephants are unappreciated as hallucinations, in Jane's most expert opinion - with elephants there was rarely any doubt about whether she was hallucinating or not. 

Effervescent, John thought as he bled over his crumpled up crossword puzzle, a gaping hole in his chest, and sighed, who even uses a word like effervescent.

For all the times Jane had driven him mad with her stunts, John loved her crazy ass - he just wished she'd drawn a line before murder.

Fall descended upon the countryside like a knife - with a swift brisk breeze that brought with it a cutting frost and killed all their crops in a single night.

Grave is such an unpleasant place to wake up in. 

Gulls raced the ship to the shore, despite being easily able to outpace her - whether they were like vultures circling a dying beast or doves bringing the message of hope and safety, John welcomed their company nonetheless.

High on the church tower, a little runaway devil was miming the acts of sodomy and making rude gestures at the gathering crowd of shocked and horrified parishioners.

Hot, acrid air blew in through the vents before John shut down the car's air-conditioning - not quickly enough to block out the stench of sulfur.

Inclined to be polite, Jane let the sexy bombshell into her office, even taking a moment to appreciate the figure she made even though she wasn't that kind of detective.

In the last moments of her life before the zombie virus scrambled her brains, Jane thought about John and concluded, there's a man whose brains she'd like to eat.

Just as the bell rang for midnight, the vampire lord took out a notepad and said, "Let's start with your parents, shall we?"

Jackal puppies are kind of cute, thought the mummy, even as they attempted to unravel his binding and probably feast on his desiccated flesh.

Kitchen is a bad place to fight ninjas, John thought, completely tuning out whatever Jane was ranting about; too many knives.

Kicking the door open without looking, John read through the front page again and so completely failed to notice the fact that there were people in his house.

Leading with, "We have only twenty hours to live," might've set an awkward mood for the rest of the meeting - but it was damn effective. 

Lowering the rope feet by feet, Jane cursed her armour; it was pretty and impressive, sure, it got her all the ladies, but it also creaked with every move and the dragon was waking up.

Man's defining flaw is definitely hubris, John decided, but started the jetpack anyway.

Most of the city had already evacuated by the time Jane made it out of the basement, with torn ropes still hanging in her wrist and fury burning like an artificial sun in her chest.

Media tried to give the invaders new names, each more fantastical than the last, but the public had already made its mind - they called the aliens Kaiju right from the start.

"Now that civilisation has fallen, it's the survival of the fittest," declared her former highschool bully, before Jane racked the shotgun.

Night fell upon the office like some kind of hex, wearing on their already frayed nerves; the Deadline approached.

On her deathbed, Jane would announce a game, a treasure hunt to her great fortune - fortune which didn't even exist anymore.

Owned by the worst kinds of people, attracting the worst kind of user base, using the worst tech and implementing the worst kinds of terms and conditions… is it any kind of surprise that virtual reality went on to destroy a whole generation of people?

Parking the spaceship on top of the tallest skyscraper was probably an overkill - but it certainly got the message across.

Power cut off three days after the end - on the exact fucking moment John hooked his electric car to a charger, of course.

Quills aren't great tools for stabbing, maybe - but they hold poison very well.

"Qilin are supposed to mark the king, aren't they?!" he demands while again narrowly avoiding being stabbed by the unicorn deer from hell.

"Questions will be after the presentation," said John firmly to his captive audience, chained to their seats.

Rather than die in ignominy like the rest of her family, Jane made something of herself, digitising her mind at age of thirty and becoming a ship's AI by fifty.

Rest of the tenants were asleep when John broke out through the third floor window - and thanks to a whole lot of sleeping pills, so we're the attendants.

"Verily I say unto thee," slurred the handsome, completely shit-faced elf, "Thou truly art a harlot of the highest degree."

Venting her frustrations by throwing her smart phone across the street was a terrible idea - not only would Jane need a new phone now, but it hit a random passerby smack in the middle of the forehead and now she's going to be sued… again.

Without any damn sense at all, John falls in love on the same day he'd planned to kill his dad.

While busting up some dance moves on the battlefield isn't the best way to win a battle, sometimes it wins out an audience with a king; in unrelated news, Jane thinks she might be about to become the court jester.

"X marks the spot isn't driving directions, John - oh, shit never mind, I see it," Jane says into the phone, and gapes at the house - a true modern masterpiece if she ever saw one.

"X," the alien argues, sounding like a buzzer from a TV show, and lifts a laser gun to emphasise the point.

Yawning as he refilled his coffee cup, John didn't quite register the earthquake until he was two swallows in - moment later, the house begun falling apart

Yesterday everything was fine and Jane's world was normal, ordinary, blessedly boring even; today, she met John again.

Zero effort was spent in writing the actual article; the headline "Aliens Conquer the Moon" by itself was enough to sell the papers.

Zealous isn't how Jane would describe John, exactly; completely batshit crazy is much closer to the mark.

One thing could be said about the whole portal incident; it definitely turned a new leaf in Jane's life.

Two of the bandits had already broken into the back of the wagon - judging by the sound of it, they'd also found the gold.

Three times Jane had thrown John's clothes out of the window and into the street, and he was damn well going to make sure there wouldn't be a fourth time.

Four of Jane's students quit on a monday and another two would follow in the following week; by the end, she'd figured the problem might be her syllabus.

Five new starts lit up the night sky, which by itself was already an astronomically significant event - the fact that they were in a circle made it less significant and more ominous.

Six bullets in John's gun, each with its own target and a plan and chance to change destiny - and he missed each and every fucking time.

Seven is supposed to be the lucky number, but somehow all the worst things in Jane's life happen on the seventh - including this.

Eight coins in his pouch is a pitiful showing for a season's hard labour, except for one thing: they're each and every one of them magic.

Nine years old, John thought grimly looking over the crime scene, the blood, the body, and the unrepentant culprit - nine years old and already with blood on her hands.

"Ten outta ten," Jane breathes, her body limp and her vision full of stars, and sighs happily, "Would fly again."

Already Jane's hands were shaking, and she'd barely begun; cutting up frozen bodies was never going to be her favourite part of the job. 

Before the fire John used to love swimming, but now the scent of chlorine makes him want to cry.

Calling her boss at one in the afternoon to tell him she'd be late, Jane mused whether she should consider moving to an area with fewer reported spatial anomalies.

Deciding he'd had enough of zombie dogs in his lawn, John invested in automated machine guns - big mistake. 

Enemy drone sightings had gotten fewer and fewer in the last two days, as the fires had died down and the base laid in ashes - the plan, it seems, worked.

Figuring out she'd done enough for one day, Jane set aside her saw and hammer and went looking for a dog to play with - it shouldn't be difficult, the estate has about two hundred of them. 

Going with his gut feeling, John got a baseball bat and a trash can lid before investigating the noises coming from his basement - whether it was racoons or demons from the underworld, they wouldn't catch him unawares.

Hiding under her bed was a comfort thing Jane refused to feel ashamed for, not after it had saved her life twice. 

Including the weird kid in the game seemed to be a great idea - up to the point where John started throwing up frogs and Jane started floating during musical chairs.

Joking had been Jane's defence mechanism since she'd been young, and it usually worked, but going "Ey, how you doing?" at a serial killer was probably not the smartest plan. 

Keys rattling like a bunch of chains and his heart pounding in his chest, John peered into the darkened office and lifted his flashlight.

Lifting the well cover, Jane leaned back, fully expecting it to smell awful the way still water not disturbed in decades should - and the fact that it didn't was alarming.

Mowing the lawn on the eve of the asteroid impact might not be the most productive use of his last hours on earth, but John didn't care - even now it brought him peace.

New hires always get the worst jobs, Jane reminded herself while picking everyone's trash around the office - at least she was still being paid.

Oatmeal for breakfast, lunch and dinner got pretty boring after two months, but thank god John had even that much prepared.

Pleased with her progress so far, Jane lifted her hand and wiped John's arm - she isn't sure why he wanted the tattoo of a bunch of random letters all over his arm, but it was coming along nicely.

Quelling his rebellious stomach the best he could, John reached for the baby wipes - changing diapers is a basic fucking task for a dad, and he's going to do it, he's not going to throw up and he's going to do it. 

Rationally speaking, what she was seeing couldn't be what she was seeing - because portals to other worlds weren't real - but in her heart…

Singing as he worked, "Going down to the river,"  John lifted another log over his shoulder - ignoring with long practice the way his coworkers gaped at him.

Trying for several different things was how Jane had gotten where she is now - ballroom dance, coding, waitressing and working at a zoo might look like they had little to do with each other, but each was a useful skill for an assassin.

Under his house there's a basement and under the basement there's dirt, and under that, well, John isn't sure, but whatever it is makes a lot of very concerning noises.

"Vacancies 0," informed the sign of a clearly long abandoned roadside motel - of course they pulled over to check it out., 

Without John at the helm, the ship wouldn't budge, the AI simply refused to respond - which is unfortunate because someone had thrown John out of the airlock about half an hour ago.

Xylitol gum and old cigarettes - there was something very nostalgic about that scent, Jane thought, as she watched the old woman push her shopping cart over the crack in the pavement and right into the ditch.

"You know you're going to have to clean that up, right?" John asked as they watched the blood dye all primary colours of the carpet in hues of red.

"Zoom!" went the kid on her tricycle as she drove right over John's foot that morning, somehow breaking two toes in the process.

The store keeper glared at John and John glared right back - between them the dragon egg rocked gently side to side.

For as long as Jane had known him, she's never seen John read - which isn't really something you notice about a person, not until they have to do the thing… and they clearly can't. 

Finding people was rarely the hardest part of starting a new adventuring party, since there were always some newcomers hanging around the tavern - bringing them all back alive though…

Deciding that he needed some professional help with his problem, John went to consult the wizard, who then pointed him to a witch… who pointed him to a sorcerer… who summoned a demon… who pointed at him and laughed.

Even before everything changed, Jane had had a bad feeling about things, like, the sky shouldn't be that colour and she didn't used to get that many static shocks and the TV didn't use to be that… purple.

John and Jane tossed a coin over who got the first go at the treasure - and of course the coin landed on its side. 

Digging for gold used to be an honourable profession for loners and lunatics - now it's all about grave robbing and tomb raiding.

There was a noise coming from outside like the world was ending, but Jane was almost done with the damn report and not about to let herself be distracted. 

The doctor looked at him sadly, the way they do when there's nothing to do and no time left, and said, "I'm sorry, there's no easy way to put this; sir, you're inflicted with stage two lycanthropy."

When she was a kid, Jane pretended she was capturing fairies and sticking them into her doll house as prisoners - when she turns twenty one, this comes back to bite her in the ass.

Finding out that he got an inheritance from some relative he didn't even know about was one thing, but finding out that he'd inherited what was clearly a haunted mansion?

Before John met Jane, his world was dull and colourless, boring from start of the week to the end - now he can just taste technicolour his world has become… which is probably not a good thing.

There's a monster in Jane's closet, tied up with Christmas lights, hanging from a coat hanger, re-thinking all the choices in his life..

Seven days after his wife left him, John reconnected with his mother and took up the family grimoire again.

For the second time in twenty four hours Jane was sitting down to talk with a dead person - which was, even in her line of work, a bit unusual.

The fact that John went from being a secret agent to a nanny might've amused his brothers - but none of them knew the absolute abominations he was taking care of, and yes, Jane, the sidearm is necessary for his work, thank you very much!

-

Modify them as you see fit, etc etc. If any strike as especially good/horrendous, please let me know!

[esamastation]

I... kinda wanna join/start a small writing group, something where people do writing challenges and exercises, and critique each other's work. Just something that's aimed towards everyone improving their writing.

[esamastation]

Hello! I was wondering if you'd like to share what you'd have done differently with The Lich and the Elf with the plot in mind / what your issues with how it was going are? I'm really curious about your ideas for it! I really like the story, Mia and Mr. Angel are very fun! (Also I appreciate that you've ended/paused it on the note you did it on, that's a very good place for that!)

Hmm.... 🤔

I would've started foreshadowing the Big Tomb right from the get go - Terry and Mia would've woken up in the ruins on top of the Big Tomb and then wandered off from it, which would make their eventual return to it a bit of a "d'oh" moment, plus it would tie their appearance in this particular forest in this particular place better into the plot.

Maybe the Big Tomb would've even stalked them through the forest, giving Terry the erroneous impression that the whole forest is covered in ancient ruins - but no, it's just this one eldritch dungeon that's following him around.

Their wandering in the forest needed to be cut much shorter, too - it was interesting character building, but they weren't really progressing the plot at all. Issue was, while I was writing that, the story didn't have a plot so it just sorta... meandered.

Terry also needed an actual motivation beyond "Keep Mia safe". As much as I like the guy, it's not interesting to write character without a proper drive. He needed to be bit more active, I think.

Overall the story needed to be tightened, the word count cut by half, to speed things along to the Big Tomb faster, etc etc.

All of these are basically "First draft issues" that stem from the fact that the story was written on the fly, haha.

I was planning to give them a skeleton pet early on too, but somehow that never happened.

Also! POV changes, this story definitely would've benefited from outside POV.

[esamastation]

Terry and Mia 💀🚸

[esamastation]

The Lich and the Elf

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: Gen

Fandom: Original Work

Additional Tags: Isekai and Transmigration, Found Family, Accidental Child Acquisition, Necromancy, world building, Wholesome

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In which a random janitor and not so random little girl go on a Isekai adventure.

[esamastation]

Hey, sorry if this has been asked before, but do you have some litrpg recommendations? I really like what you're doing with it so thought I might as well ask. Have a nice day :)

I'm sorry, I've tried a few but i haven't actually finished a single one 😭 I start reading them and then get this overwhelming urge to write, so I haven't gotten far enough in anything to actually dare to recommend them.

Um. Dungeon Crawler Carl is really well recommended? Royal Road has bunch of interesting web novels in the category? Maybe other people can suggest something - my experience is more from anime and manga than actual novels, haha.

Watch Log Horizon 🥹👍

[esamastation]

do you have any particular plans for how explicit you want gamer girl to get? 😳

Yeah. It's pretty much 0%, I'm afraid.

[esamastation]

Gamer girl gets transmigrated into a farm boy Chapter 6 [<<Prologue | <Chapter 5 || Chapter 7>>] Ao3 link

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Tutorial in Age of Tales goes like this:

The main character is woken up by Janelle, who calls him a sleepy head and tells him to get the cart ready, because her daddy wants to go to town. The game teaches the player how to move, climb, jump, and interact with objects there.

The main character drives the cart to Westbrook in a cutscene and gets a chance to explore the town for a moment before Mr. Gylcross concludes his business. It's implied that it's a rare visit for the main character, and he's still new to town. He's given only enough money to buy a few health items maybe, just enough to learn how to interact with shops.

The main character returns to the farm with Mr. Gylcross and there's a time skip to the next day where, after they're done with their various farm-related duties, Josel approaches the main character and says…

"Hey, Van - there's some rabbits in the field again. Do you think you could take care of them?" 

Which then teaches the main character the very basics of combat, specifically long ranged combat, seeing as the beginner weapon for the main character of Age of Tales is a sling. In the game, there's auto aim you can turn on, which helps with long ranged weapons, but they were never a particularly well designed part of the game.

In this sort of real live version of the game…

"How the hell are you supposed to use this damn thing," Van mutters, trying to fit a pebble in the sling and figure out how to spin it in a way that didn't send the rock flying off prematurely.

Unfortunately it's not one of those slingshots with a y-shaped piece of wood and elastic band, no, this is the much older kind with a woven cord and a small pouch in the middle where you put the rock and then spin it around before releasing. Which is, it turns out, pretty tricky to master.

Katie had kind of loved the sling thing, though. It was very historical, she felt. Traditional weapon of commoners. Very cool that they included it in the game. You could even do some real damage with magical ammunition, though it was never as good as just specialising in magic, or even being a ranger. Still, with auto aim it was a cool beginner weapon for ranged combat, and considering that the early fights were all about running away…

It never made much sense for the main character to have it, though, because Van wasn't actually a commoner.

Van tries to spin the sling, and the stone slips out of the nest, landing in front of him with a thud. He grunts, frustrated. "System can't you help me out here? There's the automated chore thing - why isn't this automated? I should know how to do this, right?"

The System opens up his character window, which is not very helpful.

[Farmboy] [Van] [Lvl. 3 Commoner]

[Status:] [Constitution: 10] [Strength: 10] [Dexterity: 1] [Intelligence: 1] [Wisdom: 10] [Charisma: 1] [Luck: 1] [You have 4 unused Stat Points.] [You have 2 unused Skill Point]

"That's not very helpful - wait," Van says and peers at the list of stats. Intelligence is highlighted. "Huh - I need intelligence to figure out how to use a sling? Wait, wait, wait," he pauses, coiling up the sling. "Say I wanted to become a… rogue. I want to sneak around and assassinate my enemies. What would I…?"

The status screen shifts, and it's dexterity that gets highlighted this time. "Huh," Van says again. "Okay, that's actually really good to know." It's nothing he didn't already know - he had played as a rogue before, but still. It's neat that the System is giving him this kind of info. "I didn't need intelligence to use a sling in the game, though. Also, why are chores automated but this isn't? It makes way more sense for me to know how to fight, doesn't it?"

System just highlights intelligence again.

Van really doesn't want to spend any stat points yet, not before he decides what class he's going for - also, who knows what will happen in Westbrook. He might need a sudden burst of charisma to persuade the bad guys not to kill him, or dexterity to avoid being skewered, or any number of things. Intelligence is only good for Wizards, and Katie did not enjoy Wizard build all that much. It was too slow, and the combat didn't quite have the oomph of getting up close and personal with a big sword.

Shaking his head, Van closes the System window and continues working on the sling. He does figure out how to get the stone to stay in the sling, but trying to get it to fly even to the right cardinal direction…

Hm. Maybe he could put one point in intelligence? Just to see what it would do?

… No, he will not be tempted. He'll save the points until he needs them.

At any rate, the rabbits have been dealt with - he might've not hit any of them, but he definitely made enough of a racket to scare them off. Shaking his head, Van puts the sling away, his ammunition pouch five pebbles lighter. Whatever. He's got more important things to figure out right now, anyway.

Like how to make a spear.

-

The tutorial goes on to then try and deepen the main character's relationship with Josel and Janelle - giving the player a chance to eavesdrop on them during a cute moment. Van gets that opportunity too.

While he's doing a little bit of gathering in a copse of trees, figuring out how to get a Wooden Pole as opposed to mere Branches he's been finding, Van happens to spot Josel, picking up flowers out in the meadow just beyond the forest's edge. And then Janelle just so happens to come across Josel, greeting him cheerfully with, "Hey there, Josel - what are you up to?"

"Well, uh, I just, um," Josel stammers, looking between her and the sorry bunch of flowers he's holding. Then he tries to, comically, hide them behind himself, as though they haven't been fully on display already. "It's - it's nothing!"

"Oh?" Janelle asks, instantly mischievous, and skips forward. "It's nothing, is it? What's that behind your back, Josel, what have you got there? Hmm?"

Josel squirms and backs away while she tries to sneak a peek past him and it's very cute until he finally gives up. "It's stupid, I didn't -" he says and then holds the flowers to her. "For you, Miss."

"Oh, for me? Why, thank you, Josel!" Janelle says cheerfully, accepting the flowers with a little bow. "You are most kind, sir. You didn't have to."

"I thought it would - that it would brighten your day," Josel says, flushed bright red all the way down his neck and wringing his hands with embarrassment. "It's nothing, just a bunch of flowers."

"Well, I think it's very sweet," Janelle answers warmly, hugging the flowers and then grinning. "Say, have you ever made a flower crown?"

It's almost unbearably saccharine, the whole thing, but Van can't help but watch, leaning onto a tree trunk and grinning fondly as Janelle gently bullies Josel into learning how to weave flower crowns, before plopping the one she made on Josel's head. The whole thing is so blatantly wholesome that the first time Katie saw the scene, she'd shouted out loud, "Oh, they're definitely going to die!"

Van is half impressed that the developers refrained from including promises about the future and how they'd make flower crowns for each other until the end of their days. Or reminisce about their past as childhood friends, or something. Honestly, Janelle and Josel didn't really have much of a background beyond their roles as cannon fodder for the plot.

Still, it is pretty cute.

Janelle finishes the flower crown Josel can't figure out how to tie properly and puts it on her head, smiling. "There, now we match," she says with satisfaction, making herself comfortable amidst the flowers. "It's been ages since I did something like this."

"You're very good at it," Josel says earnestly.

Janelle laughs, hugging her knees. "Thanks! I used to make wreaths for the Flower Festival, you know - I won the first Prize and everything!" she says and then her smile fades. "We haven't really gone since Momma died. I thought maybe next spring would be different. With you and Van here, Daddy is in much better spirits these days."

"I'm glad we've been able to help," Josel says, adjusting his crown. "If there's anything else I can do to help out, you just let me know."

"Thanks," Janelle says with a chuckle and then looks at him. "Van's not going to stay until the Flower Festival, though, is he? I don't think he's even going to stay over winter."

In the shadows of the trees, Van folds his arms, interested.

"What makes you think that?" Josel asks. "Did he say something?"

"Not really. He's just acting a bit weird, isn't he? Like he's waiting for something," Janelle says and sighs. "I think he's remembering stuff from before."

"He hasn't said anything to me," Josel says, frowning.

"Me neither, but he's all… I don't know," Janelle sighs and looks away. "I just think he's getting ready to leave. It's funny, he's not even been here for that long, but I was kind of hoping he'd stay longer. Daddy's been a lot more active since he appeared, you know? Like with more people around, he has a purpose again."

"Yeah. Mr. Gylcross has seemed more energetic."

"Yeah," Janelle says with a sigh.

Josel looks at her like he's not sure what to do or say. For a moment it looks like he might put an arm around her, before awkwardly refraining. "Well, I'm not going anywhere," the farmhand promises earnestly. "Even if Van leaves, I'll always be here, ready to help you out."

Janelle laughs. "I know I can count on you, Josel," she says and rocks back and forth before rolling up to her feet. "Come on, let's head back - you can help me catch a chicken for dinner."

Van watches them leave, leaning his head against the tree trunk and frowning. He still doesn't feel any particular attachment to these people - it's hard to, really, after Katie had watched them die over and over again in the exact same way. Even the most sympathetic NPCs stop looking like people when you can see their strings being pulled. Even so…

It would be nice if he could save them this time.

Glancing up at the sky, Van tries to gauge how long he has until sundown. Then, shaking his head, he heads back into the forest, to find poles for his spearheads.

He got maybe three hours until the Rift would open and no proper weapon yet.

He really needs to get a move on.

-

And then, the Rift.

In the tutorial, it's not expected of the main character to have a proper weapon when the Rift opens. That's why the farm is littered with low grade farming tools - though they barely had any attack power, they could be used as weapons in a pinch, usually to comedic effect. The whole point of the Rift is to mess up the farm, kill everyone there - except the main character - and send the main character running to town.

Most of that happens in cutscenes, of course. There was no way to stop the Rift from appearing, or close it once it had, and there wasn't meant to be a way to stop the demons coming through, either. You could kill a few of them, maybe, but they kept coming and coming in an endless, steady flood. The whole thing was meant to be a hopeless fight.

Of course, no good set piece survives contact with players, and it took less than a day after Age of Tales launched for people to turn the traumatic Rift event into a mob farm.

For a Gylcross Mob Farm you need at minimum two things, plus a weapon to kill the mobs with. You need one of the carts, parked in a specific location before the Rift opened, and a barrel, set down just a little to the right of it. Because the rift opens right next to the barn, the demons coming through can move only in three directions, and the cart and barrel block two of those, creating a bottleneck. If you do it right, the arrangement cuts down the number of enemies you have to fight to a single one at a time.

And the Rift never stops spewing enemies at you. So, in effect, you can just stand there, for hours, for days, killing imp after imp after imp, just collecting exp. Add to this some better gear and those sweet, sweet Draughts of Memory… and it takes you approximately eight hours and fifty four minutes to boost the player character up to level 100.

Van might not have those potions - but he still intends to take advantage of the Rift's mechanics as much as he can. Without the Draughts it would take literal days to reach the same effect - but right now, he'll settle for ten, twenty levels at least. Just something to get him started properly.

Assuming, of course, that the Rift worked the way it did in the game. If not, well, it still wouldn't hurt to prepare.

"Uh, Van - what are you doing?" Josel asks, watching Van push the cart into place.

"I'm going to clean up the barn. Getting the place set up for the harvest, you know," Van answers, huffing while turning the cart around, aiming to get it just below the window. "Just… getting this… out of the way."

Josel looks at him, at the cart, at the barn, and then scratches at his cheek. "… Okay, you need a hand with that?"

"Sure - grab that barrel in the back, will you?" Van says and then thinks better of it. It wouldn't hurt to over prepare. The game mechanics haven't exactly been on his side so far. "Actually, let's move the other cart first."

In the game once you're done with fighting the Rift, however long you take, the player character escapes in one of the carts that's, mysteriously, ready to go with Bell strapped in and everything. It's very dramatic and convenient, and Katie could even forgive the plothole there - here… here Van doesn't think he can trust the plot holes to be on his side.

Better get the cart in place for easy access.

Josel gives him a weird look at the very precise way Van wants to position the cart once outside, conveniently close to the stables and nowhere near the barricade. The other farmhand says nothing, though, confusedly helping him situate the cart just so that Bell could be easily strapped on in a hurry. Van makes sure all the necessary straps and such go in the cart as well.

The barrels and boxes and other things from inside go to and around the first cart, with Van carefully situating them around to box in the spot where the Rift would be, enclosing the space as much as he can.

By the barn doors, Josel pauses. "Did you make these?" he asks, taking one of the spears Van has lined up against the wall.

The shafts Van had made for them are pretty rough - they're basically just trunks of young oak trees, which had been the only things to register as Wooden Poles to the System. Cleaning them and attaching the spearheads to them had taken some effort, and Van can't say he's particularly confident about his woodcraft skills - but after he'd sharpened the spearheads, the System had approved his craftsmanship by re-designating them as Rough Spear, lvl. 2s, each with 15 Attack power, so Van's satisfied with them. The enemies he's about to face are only lvl. 1, and with his strength stat lvl. 2 weapons would be more than enough to handle them.

"Yeah - just leave them there," Van says, hauling another barrel in place and testing its stability. Yeah, that wouldn't go anywhere. "I'll deal with them."

Josel gives him a rather concerned look but leaves the spear where it is. He goes to pick up the barrel lids sitting in a stack beside the spears instead, but Van tells him to leave them, too.

"I'll need them for something later," Van says, inspecting his Rift barricade, trying to fill in the gaps

"... Okay," Josel says slowly and then shakes his head. "I guess I'll get a broom and start sweeping then…"

Van lets him do it and finishes up his barricade, leaving just the one opening for the imps to get through - the one he'd be covering with a spear. With his mob farm ready, Van brushes his hands together and then heads inside to join Josel in "cleaning".

Another hour or so until sundown, and his preparations are just about ready. Now he just needs to wait.

-

"Van? Van, my boy, are you in here?"

Van, who's sitting on the hayloft just in case he needs to be in a specific position to trigger the Rift, peers down. It's his boss, peeking into the empty barn. "Yes, Mr. Gylcross?"

The farmer looks around the empty barn and then outside at the Rift barricade. "Would you like to explain what's going on here?" he asks, baffled.

Van goes down the ladder. "I just thought of doing a bit of cleaning," he says. "Before the harvest, I mean. I, uh," what would be a good explanation, "I heard some mice or something the other night, and I thought we should close up all the holes before bringing the harvest in. I'll put everything back tomorrow, I promise." Nailed it.

"Mice, hmm? I see," the farmer says, anxiously twiddling with his moustache. "And the - the spears?" he asks worriedly. "What's that about?"

Van looks at the spears and the various barrel and pot lids he'd gathered to serve as shields. "Uh," he says. "A new hobby?"

The farmer looks at him, looking very concerned indeed. "My boy, is everything alright?"

"Yeah, everything's fine," Van assures him. "I'm just trying new things, that's all."

"I know about your visit to the tailor - Ms. Arbury sought me out," Mr. Gylcross says slowly. "As I understand you ordered something quite expensive, and she was a tad concerned. Where did you get all that silver from, Van?"

"Uh," Van says. Well that explains how and why Mr. Gylcross knew about the gambeson. "From the inn?"

"Van, surely you didn't just… take it?" Mr. Gylcross says, anxious.

"No, no, nothing like it - I gambled," Van says quickly. "And taught a gambler a trick about how to play Echo better - she paid fifty silver for it."

Mr. Gylcross doesn't look quite convinced, eyeing him with grave concern before turning to look at the spears again. "And - and then spears?" he asks. "What do you need spears and a gambeson for?"

Having no better explanation to give, Van tells him what he told Janelle. "It just… feels like I need them?" he says awkwardly. Hooray for amnesia as a convenient excuse for weird behaviour. "I can't really explain. It's just a… feeling."

That doesn't seem to quite soothe the farmer's mind, though his look of worry turns into something more serious. "You know you can always come to me if you have concerns, right?" the man says earnestly. "If you remember something, if you have issues. I know waking up here the way you did was quite traumatic."

"Um, yeah," Van says, awkward. "Thank you, Mr, Gylcross. I'm grateful that you, um, took me in," he adds, which feels like something the character would say, had this conversation been in the game.

"You looked quite rough, when Janelle found you - like you'd been in a fight," Mr. Gylcross says sadly, shaking his head. "Have you remembered what happened?"

No, though Van knows about it from the game. The player character had been hit over the head with a hammer while trying to escape assassins. Very creative of the developers. "No, I haven't. Sorry, Mr. Gylcross."

"That's quite alright," the farmer says and looks at the spears. "I didn't really expect you to remember much, not after all this time - though it looks like something's getting through anyway," he mutters, considering the weapons. "I'm not sure I'm comfortable with having weapons on my homestead, Van."

"Oh. Um. I'll put them away tomorrow, then," Van offers. If Mr. Gylcross still objected to their presence by the morning, he'd be pretty surprised. "You won't have to deal with them, I promise."

"… Very well," Mr. Gylcross says and then gives him a look. "You'll still stay for the harvest, though, won't you? I planted a lot more than I would've without you here - we'll need all the hands we can get, to get the fields harvested in time."

"I won't go anywhere just yet, Mr. Gylcross," Van assures the man, and smiles. "I'll see my job here to the end."

"Good, good," Mr. Gylcross says and clears his throat, looking at the makeshift barricade before peering up at the sky.  "Well, at least it doesn't look like it will rain tonight… I suppose it's fine, this once," he then says, moving to leave. "And you'll put the spears away?"

"I will," Van says - as soon as they wouldn't have any more use, he would. "Have a good night, Mr. Gylcross."

"You too, my boy - sleep well."

Van smiles at the sentiment, nods and then watches as the farmer heads back to the house, making sure the man is inside before going to double check the barricade, just in case. Everything is where he put it, nothing has been moved. Good.

There's maybe another half an hour until the Rift opens.

No one would be sleeping in Gylcross Farm that night.

-

Proofread by @nimadge [<<Prologue | <Chapter 5 || Chapter 7>>]

-

Cue suspenseful background music...

Gotta say guys, not really seeing point in posting this on tumblr anymore. Might just post on ao3 after this.

[esamastation]

Gamer girl gets transmigrated into a farm boy Chapter 5 [<<Prologue | <Chapter 4 || Chapter 6>>] Ao3 link

-

The rest of the day goes by much the same way it did in the game. They make their way back to the farm, where Van helps Mr. Gylcross unload his purchases and carry some of them to the barn and the rest into the house. Janelle welcomes them with a warm meal and freshly made batch of apple juice, made from, "Apples I picked myself just this afternoon!" as she says. It's delicious.

"What did you buy in town?" Josel asks as they eat.

"Nothing much," Van answers, and ain't that the truth. "Mostly I just looked around, took in the sights."

Josel hums. "Yeah, you haven't been to the town a lot, have you?"

"I guess not," Van agrees, thinking back to the player character's messy background as a hand on the Gylcross farm, and how it might be revealed here - if it even was.

"How did you like it? Did you see anything interesting in town?" Janelle asks curiously.

"It was fine. It was all pretty interesting," Van admits and takes a bite of bread, wondering if she made it herself.

The System journal had updated while he'd been in town, and going by its writing, it was the most amazing thing ever to happen to Katie. Most of the journal entry was her detailing every event that happened, but there were some interesting titbits in between, which Van had noticed but not really thought about at the time.

… Oh my god, the town looks exactly like it did in the game! Only now I'm seeing it all in first person! It's so wild. There's so much more people here than there were in the game, too - probably since the limits of rendering capacity have been thrown out of the window. Real world isn't held back by RAM. Hah.

Also? Kids. There are children here - and not just one-age-fits-all like in some games, no, there's older teenagers and younger teenagers, and I also saw a toddler in the marketplace - and I think one woman had a baby in a sling? A baby! Definitely didn't have any of those in the base game - not a single kid to be had in all of Age of Tales, except in pre-rendered cutscenes. I wonder if it's just for humans, or will we get to see dwarf or elf babies - I've never seen a dwarf baby, ever, in anything I've ever seen or played. Probably not elf either, unless it was like a half-human-half-elf situation brought forth by an illicit cross-species love story.

I wonder if Van can have babies - like, conceive them? I mean, there's romance in Age of Tales, such as it is. There's sex scenes and stuff. Can those now have, like, consequences? Does this world have contraceptives? Is that something that I have to now think about?

Van with a baby would be pretty cute, though. I wonder if I can somehow get him to hold a baby…

And that's where Van had to stop reading in order to preserve the delicate equilibrium of his mental stability.

"There were a lot of people in town," he concludes with a cough to clear his throat, and takes another sip of the apple juice.

Janelle gives him a sympathetic look. "Yeah, it's a bit different from how it's around here, huh?" she says and pats him on the shoulder. "I'm glad you had fun."

"Yeah," Van agrees.

By now he's kind of starting to feel the limits of Katie's social meter, though. She'd never been a particularly extroverted person, and while it's different inside a videogame… this isn't a game, not really. It's been a whole day of interacting with people and trying to figure things out, and Van is feeling mentally kind of worn down.

Plus, he's got an existential crisis scheduled up, and it's starting to feel kind of urgent.

"You mind if I turn in for the day, sir?" Van asks once he's done eating, turning to Mr. Gylcross. "I'm kind of tired."

"Of course, my boy. Just get Bell settled in for the night and get the cart in the barn," Mr. Gylcross says.

Thankfully, Josel has apparently done all other farm-related duties off screen. All Van has left to do is get the cart inside and Bell brushed up, fed, and settled in a stall, all of which happens by automation. Josel, who's got a more permanent berth in a little hutch next to the farmhouse, bids Van good night, and with some relief Van heads up to the hayloft.

There he lays down in the hay, mentally preparing to Think About Things and Handle Them… only to find his mind full of static. He needs to deal with the Realisation and he needs to come up with a plan for tomorrow, because there's a lot coming his way tomorrow.

And yet, even though he lies there for a while, staring at the ceiling, not a single coherent plan comes to mind.

Finally, Van gets up again and goes back down to get a bucket of water. It's not quite as good as a real mirror, but in a pinch…

His reflection is very faint on the water's surface, but he can just about see himself and make out his features. The caramel ice-cream hair is really not looking its best. It's curly in the game, kind of fabulous in a way that doesn't fit Van's body type at all - here it sticks every which way, unkempt and not exactly flattering.

No permanent magical hairstyling in real life, huh.

Combing his fingers through his hair to push it away from his face, Van turns his head this way and that, taking in his features again. The jaw, the cheekbones, the forehead - he really looks like he was drawn by a comic book artist. Except made real. 

He's really - Katie is really in Van's body. This is Van, made flesh and blood. Well, he doesn't actually know if the body can bleed, but it probably does. It gets hungry and thirsty. And, judging by the feel of things right now, it also needs to relieve itself. Which is… another thing he hadn't been thinking about.

Sitting on his knees for a moment, Van weighs the oncoming mental health crisis against probably mortifying body function weirdness and chooses the latter, standing up. Time for a true fantasy adventure - figuring out how men piss.

Delightful.

Though as a man he should be able to go wherever - so long as he wasn't flashing someone, anyway - seeing as this is the first time and Katie only sort of knows what she's doing… yeah, some privacy is called for. There's a wooden outhouse behind the farmhouse, which Van slinks his way to like he's doing something wrong and illicit. The outhouse is pretty small and forces him to bend over, and it's overall very awkward. It stinks. The seat is tiny and looks kind of uncomfortable to actually sit on.

Katie has a feeling she's going to miss Earth's modern day plumbing before long.

Right now she has other concerns, though.

Van takes a deep breath - and then regrets it, because of the outhouse smell - before looking down. The trousers are easy enough to figure out, they're basically normal trousers except fastened with a string instead of zipper. The underwear, not so much. While Katie has seen it before and actually spent quite a bit of time trying to figure it out, seeing it on Van now…

It's a kind of cloth wrap thing, like the whole thing is one long stretch of fabric wrapped around the waist and down. The final effect is not unlike briefs, and it's actually kind of comfortable and it definitely keeps everything contained… but if Van takes it off, he will definitely not be able to put it back on again.

Hm, maybe he can, sort of… move it aside…?

Touching it is a bit weird. Katie does a little gibbering flailing thing in the back of his mind while Van tugs at the fabric, feeling all the stuff beneath shift - feeling all the stuff feel the movement. It's weird - having sensations in bits Katie never had before. 

Kind of cool though, too. In a sort of unreal way.

Van gets his fingers beneath to pull his penis out and then… there it is, sticking out past the cloth, with its two buddies still nestled in the wrapping.

It would probably be inappropriate to call it a tool. It kind of fits, though. It's very… proportional. 

And Katie is suddenly very aware of her long stint as a single woman, because damn. Like, she's never been that into the look or size of a guy's dick - a penis is a penis, they're all kind of the same in the end - but damn. Van has one hell of a dick. Like, Katie probably wouldn't want to have sex with Van, because ouch… but damn.

"Okay, don't play with it, just do your business," Van mutters, thinking back to Katie's stint in the kindergarten and wincing at the memory of potty training. As extremely unsexy thought as there ever was, he thinks with a grimace and then attempts to… manoeuvre himself into position. "Just point and aim."

It's weird, and very… fleshy. But at least the rest of the operation is roughly the same for a man as it is for a woman - bladder is a bladder, apparently. It's still weird - as is not needing to wipe afterwards. It doesn't feel like it's enough, to just shake it. Not that there's anything to wipe with in the outhouse.

"Weird, weird, this is so weird," Van mutters, shaking himself and then quickly tucking the weapon away.

There's nowhere to wash his hands afterwards.

"Great," he mutters and then slinks back to the barn where he sleeps at night. His mirror water turns into hand washing water, and he still feels a bit dirty afterwards. He's hyperaware of what's going down below the belt, all of a sudden. Also, maybe getting a bit hard? Is it really that damn easy to get riled up as a man? Van's not even thinking of anything sexy, and apparently it's going up on its own. What the hell?

Climbing up to the hayloft, Van lies down and tries to not think about his dick. He's got an existential crisis on his hands. Woman stuck in a man's body here. This is no time for any kind of self-inflicted fun times. He needs to experience the horrors of being not in a body of his own. Her own. Whatever. Body dysmorphia, here we go!

Yeah, no, apparently not. His mind keeps slipping downwards along with the blood pooling there, as though the damn thing has a gravity of its own. He can feel his penis straining his underwear - taking it out, putting his hand around it, it would feel… probably pretty good right now. And it's not like Katie doesn't want to - like she hasn't been curious what it was like, how it would work. Porn and smut painted a pretty vivid image, of course, but nothing beats hands on experience.

Mmm, hands on…

Van stares at the ceiling for a long moment, biting his lip. There's no one in this end of the barn but him. The Gylcrosses are in their house, Josel is off in his little hutch… there's no one here. No one but him.

… Right, okay. Fine.

With a grunt Van gets up to find a rag or something.

It would clear his head too, probably, if all the post nut clarity memes are to be believed. He would have his existential crisis with a clear mind afterwards.

-

Katie wakes up the next morning to the cock crowing somewhere outside and has a moment of flailing confusion at the feel of all the hay around her and sight of the wooden ceiling and beams above her head… before everything comes back.

Right. She's still here. She's transmigrated into Van and to the very start of Age of Tales. And it's now day two.

"Shit," Van murmurs, running a hand down his face. His chin feels bristly - apparently that's a yes on the needing to shave going forward, if he wants to keep Van's chiselled chin in view. Which is probably not all that important, considering that, well…

Tonight, the plot would finally kick off in earnest.

Breathing in and out for a moment, Van lets his arm drop to his side. He hadn't even thought of what he would do, beyond the usual. Even with all the dramatic consequences, the Rift opening was still part of the tutorial, and so all the enemies were pretty low level. The character was meant to run, of course - at this point there was not much they were supposed to be able to do against them.

Emphasis on the supposed. This is, however, Age of Tales.

The whole tutorial section is a bit… Well, overall, Katie gets it - the whole point of the tutorial section is to paint the illusion of peaceful normalcy and introduce the player to the base mechanics and the NPC shops before the plot can kick off and burn the whole idyllic place to the ground for shock value. The first time Katie went through it, it was pretty epic, overall.

But giving the players the chance to shop before the fight was kind of dumb.

Because, while the game didn't get that popular, it had some players, and just about everyone who did play it went about the tutorial the same way. They gambled for cash and kitted themselves out as best they could as soon as they could… and in so doing, turned the whole Rift thing into a bit of a joke by actually standing up against the invasion, something they plot-wise weren't supposed to be able to do. And most of them didn't even realise it, breaking the game completely by accident.

And when you went about it perfectly intentionally, well… the Rift stopped being a threat at all and became the perfect spawn kill camp.

That was what Van had been planning to do - until reality nerfed Katie's money-making tricks.

"System, open inventory," Van calls.

[Inventory] [Simple Knife, lvl. 1] [Shepherd's Slingshot, lvl. 1] [14 x Basic Stone Ammunition ] [3 x Spearhead] [1 x Apple] [Empty Jug] [Dirty Rag]

Yeah, not exactly winning starter gear, especially considering that he still doesn't have a single shred of proper armour. He hasn't been this poorly prepared for the Rift since the very first playthrough - and even then he at least had some armour and a sword! Reality is really kicking his ass this time.

He can't figure out if it's frustrating or exciting. Probably the first one.

"Guess I'm making some spears," Van muses and then sits up with a grunt. Finger-combing the hay out of his hair, Van eyes the dirty rag and then winces. He would need to get rid of it, and maybe he could wash up somewhere before getting started. Unfortunately, he doesn't think there's a washroom or anything around here…

[Farm Chores, Lvl. 1.] [It's a new day on Gylcross farm, and it's time to get to work!]

[Farm Chores 1, Lvl. 1.] [Let the chickens out.] [Let the goats out.] [Let the cows out.] [Let Bell out.] [Quest reward:  10 exp, 3 Apples.] [Farm Chores 2, Lvl. 1.] [Muck the pens and stalls.] [Quest reward:  10 exp, 5 Fresh Eggs.] [Farm Chores 3, Lvl. 1.] [Take a look at the garden and weed Ms. Janelle's vegetable beds.] [Quest reward:  10 exp, 4 x Mixed Herbs] [Farm Chores 4, Lvl. 1.] [Milk the goats and the cows.] [Quest reward:  2 exp, 1 Bottle of Milk.] [Accept?] [Yes.] [No.]

Van winces a little at the sudden bombardment of pop-ups. Looks like he has some work to do. How much it all will matter when this time tomorrow the farm will be in ruins aside… exp is exp. And if he could squeeze in another level up before the Rift, it definitely wouldn't hurt.

Standing up - and bending over to duck below the ceiling beams - Van shuffles to the ladder to start the day with a quick rinse in a bucket of cold water.

By the time he heads out of the barn, Janelle has breakfast ready and set in front of the farmhouse. "Good morning, Van!" she calls, waving. "Come have some eggs and pancakes!"

Josel is already there and already stuffing his face with eggs. "Good morning," Van greets them both and then asks, interestedly, "Pancakes?"

"Yeah - Daddy bought flour and sugar yesterday!" Janelle says excitedly. "We've got some honey too - come here and try it."

Van does, sitting down beside Josel, accepting his share with a, "Thank you, miss." It looks great, and it smells even better.

"It's Janelle," the farmer's daughter says firmly and sits down across from him.

The breakfast is great, as are the pancakes. Mr. Gylcross doesn't make an appearance, but no one comments on it, and so Van doesn't either - maybe the man sleeps in when it's not a market day, or something. After they're done eating, Josel helps Janelle clear out the table, while Van considers his quests.

"Are you going to let the animals out?" Janelle asks, wiping her hands in her apron. "I'll come with you - I'll collect the eggs while I'm at it."

"Sure," Van agrees and offers Josel an apologetic nod before following Janelle towards the chicken coops.

It's a perfectly pleasant day, with only a few fluffy clouds in the sky and just the barest hint of a breeze in the air. The sort of day when nothing bad is supposed to happen, of course. Perfectly normal day.

"Daddy says you visited the tailor yesterday," Janelle comments. "That you ordered some kind of armour."

Van blinks and looks at her. "Uh, I didn't realise he knew about that," he says. The man hadn't mentioned it. How did he find out, anyway? "I did, yeah."

"Why?"

Well, there's going to be a battle in Westbrook the day after tomorrow, and then the place is going to be set on fire, and Valthor's most annoying minion is going to make a grand appearance. Van is really hoping to curbstomp that guy's smug little face to the ground, and armour would make that much, much easier. "Well," he says, because clearly he can't say any of that. "I don't know. Just felt like it, I guess?"

Janelle looks at him carefully, and asks, "Have you… remembered something?" she asks. "About your past?"

Van hesitates, because in the game the player character never remembers time before the farm - but he does learn about it from others. "No, not really," he says finally. "I just… have a feeling I'm going to need something. Actually," he adds and takes a spearhead out of the satchel. "I also got a few of these."

Janelle accepts the dull spearhead, tilting her head with confusion. "Is that a weapon?"

"Head of a spear - I'm going to find some pole to stick it on," Van says and shrugs. "And then I'll have a spear."

Janelle shakes her head, looking a little upset. "But what do you need a spear for?" she asks.

Van shrugs again. "I don't know. It just feels like something I should have."

Janelle hums unhappily, turning the spearhead in her hand. "So, I was right," she murmurs and looks at him sadly. "You are a soldier."

In the game you learn the main character's background in flashbacks and  hints from the designated Mentor character at Ulgor's Camp, but it's a pretty cliché dealio overall. The player character has amnesia - of course - and was left at the Gylcross farm by a Mysterious Hooded Person - of course - while the Mysterious Hooded Person ran away all suspicious-like. Janelle Gylcross eventually found the player character hiding in the barn hayloft, all confused and out of it and bleeding from the head. Through some interrogation and arguing with her father, Janelle got him settled in as a new farm hand.

It's all shown to the player in this grainy sepia cut scene, a collage of moments as the player character learns how to swing a hoe and milk the cows and stuff. It's pretty wholesome. And the fact that it's shown to you only after the farm has been burned down and everyone there was killed, well… Katie has some issues with the arrangement of narrative there, but it was kind of a punch to the gut, the first time she played the game.

Also absolutely hilarious, watching this brick shithouse of a man do these cute farm chores, like carrying baby lambs around, delicately harvesting berries from the bushes and weeding garden beds.

"I'm not a soldier," Van says and accepts the spearhead back. "I just feel like it'll be better to be prepared than not."

"Right," Janelle says and hugs herself, looking uncomfortable. "Are you going to leave the farm? I know Daddy only contracted you until the harvest, but… I thought you liked it here."

"Well… it is nice," Van says. And it really is. He looks at the farmstead around them and hums thoughtfully. It's very peaceful and idyllic and wholesome. In the game it's often implied how much the player character wishes he could've stayed there, wishes none of the terrible things that followed wouldn't have happened, and the world could've stayed as it was.

More than another day of it and Katie would be climbing the walls, bored out of his mind.

"I guess we'll see," Van says and smiles at Janelle. "You never know what will happen."

-

[<<Prologue | <Chapter 4 || Chapter 6>>] Proofread by @nimadge, many thanks

-

I call this the Tool Inspection Chapter. And I hope it made at least one person laugh as much as it made me to write it.