Aldr spent a day with Stone Monkey. Doing utterly nothing except overlooking the fog and talking. But Stone Monkey didn't really have much to say, and spent most of his time either cracking an unfunny joke, or overlooking the horizon somberly.
Aldr walked up to him, the sun was setting behind the fog. Barely peeking through.
"What are you looking at?"
Stone Monkey let out a sigh.
"Do you hear it?"
Aldr steadied his gaze and stopped for a moment. Feeling the wind brush past him. It was eerily quiet, but somewhere, beyond the horizon, there rang a slight hum.
Stone Monkey looked at him and smiled.
"You do hear it then."
Aldr nodded.
"What is it?"
"Damn if I know. But it's dangerous. I'm sure you feel it too. The pull."
Aldr did feel it too. A slight but dangerous feeling of curiosity blooming within him. One he didn't feel, but still felt it, in a way that did not make sense.
"Yeah..."
'Is this an attack on my mind...?'
Using sound to manipulate someone's senses and feelings was not out of the ordinary. He had felt it many times before. But it wasn't exactly strong enough to be a threat. A weak predator trying to attract prey. That was what must lay beyond the fog.
Aldr let out a sigh and walked back to the nest. Examining the charred corpse of the raven, which the two had taken bits and pieces out of it for their meals. He lifted the wing and sighed. The night before. He had sworn he saw it twitch before he slept.
'I was just seeing things...maybe all those sleepless nights finally caught up to me.'
He shrugged and laid himself out on the neat nest made of large sticks and straw. Not the best place he'd slept, but certainly not the worst. He was at peace for a few moments. Until sparks condensed into words before his eyes.
[What a terrible predicament you are in...]
"What do you want?|
[A gift. Since I see you got a slow start. Your partner had much better luck. But these mountains? Ooh, and that treacherous monkey! You will have many tales to tell once you can leave your duties, Aldr...]
The sparks faded and then reappeared.
[You have received a great boon from the world tree.]
'A great boon...'
Not once in what must've been hundreds of years of him doing his duty, had the world tree once granted him anything. But he wouldn't complain.
[Would you like to use it?]
Aldr took a deep breath.
"Yes."
[Attribute received: Craftsman]
[Skill received: Forge]
Aldr's gaze remained steady as he stared at the two strings of words.
'Craftsman, huh. I guess he wasn't exactly keen on helping me too much.'
What use would a craftsman be in the middle of nowhere, perched like a sitting duck on top of a mountain?
An attribute, the defining character of one's power. Of course, Aldr had received hundreds of these already. Though he remembered quite clearly that the one he received the first time he came to this world, was one of the most interesting ones he received. But the memory evaded him. It must have been a few hundred years ago at that point.
And of course skills, most of them stemmed from attributes, but sometimes they just don't, as power is sometimes gained by one's self. And now, Aldr had received the only craftsman attribute he had ever received in his life.
[Attribute Name: Craftsman
Description: War once taught even the gods that a forge must not be underestimated. A blade comes naturally to you. Yet they do not recgonize you as their master.]
Aldr frowned.
'Cryptic. But I think I get it. Craftsmen can always make blades, arrows, clothes, armor, yet they never use them for themselves.'
He looked upon the odd statement about the gods.
'Pleasant.'
He swiped at the words, causing them to fade. Before manifesting the description of his skill.
[Skill Name: Forge
Skill description: The basic form of all. Gather an abundance of material and will them into the shape you desire. Though this form is quite shabby...]
Aldr's eyes widened slightly. It made sense for his attribute. But an instant forging ability would be rather useful when he had limited resources. And he knew the black dagger wouldn't be enough for him forever.
He smiled slightly.
'Promising. This time, it'll be promising.'
His peace didn't last very long. As he drifted to sleep. He dreamt of nothing. His mind full of nothingness. But his sleep was broken by a caw.
He wrestled out of his own sleep and looked to his side. The fried corpse of the raven was gone, and a trail of green blood was leaking from where it once was.
'Goddamnit, I knew I saw it twitch! How is it alive?'
He scurried onto his feet and sighed, the trail lead out of the nest and into...
'That...hole.'
Aldr walked towards the hole in the mountain, green blood leaking into it and stopping as he stared into the seemingly bottomless pit. Another choked caw echoed out of it.
For a moment. He almost wanted to dive in. But stopped himself.
'The ring...'
He could hear it again. Not on the edge of the mountain, nowhere even near the fog. Rather, the ring was echoing from the pit.
He stared at the green blood for a few moments. He felt he was missing something, a piece in his head, everything, all the answers were right there in his memory. But they evaded him when he called upon them.
He grit his teeth. Walking away from the pit.
'If I succumb to that damn ringing, I might as well be dead.'
He walked back to the nest and sighed. His eyes were heavy, and he didn't have enough will to stand anymore.
'I'll worry tomorrow...'
He slumped back into the nest and rested peacefully throughout the night. Uninterrupted by the ominous ringing. Which had stopped by morning.