There is a space, between worlds.

I'm not talking about what would happen if you flew a rocket out of orbit, or what you see in the night sky: it's not that kind of space.

That's emptiness.

Volume, and no mass. Or, at least, very little matter. Spare gases, random rocks, and lumps of iron, all floating around the cosmos.

What I'm referring to now, though: I mean a true void.

I mean, nothing.

Nothing, and everything.

Possibilities, potentials: all of it, all at once. The threshold that cannot ordinarily be crossed by mortals, or flesh, or substance of any kind. Where magic lives, where chaos thrives: this was what took me in, and embraced me.

Whether I tumbled through this for seconds, or for hours, I am unable to say. I suspect time, as we understand it, holds little meaning in such a place.

Faint as ghosts in the noon-sun, I can remember fragments, though.

Should I press myself, those remain. Pieces, of the whole.

Images, shapes, futures and pasts- some of my own, some of others? Ten thousand lines, branching out from ten thousand lines- so on and so forth as I follow their course to find, each thought, each action, leads to ten thousand more- yet far off in the distance, they all meet again, closing the sphere of infinite possibilities...

What I remember from that time is fleeting, but what I remember feeling has stayed with me.

Awe.

Awe, and then tree branches.

There is no intended metaphor, in such a statement.

No, it was simply a very, very, hard landing.

...

Wisdom +1

New Skill: Void Walker - Passive

Once summoned, now lost! You have gone where many will never go. What's more, is unlike most: you've survived. Greatly increased affinity and resistance when utilizing scrolls, portals, and transportation rituals.

...

With that sudden message, I came to my senses alone, in a dark forest. Nestled among thick ferns and soft, damp, soil, it took a long time just to clear the burning spots in my vision- even longer to sit up.

[Identify]

Name: Gnarled Barkrot Tree

Description: A tree famed for its destructive tendencies towards other larger plant species. Bark is also mildly toxic to humans if consumed.

[Identify]

Name: Yuta Fern

Description: Uncommon plant known for their toxins. Dangerous if consumed.

Immediately trying to identify something might have seemed strange months ago, but it had been a habit for long enough that I barely recognized it as anything more than an instinctive motion. Ever since I'd managed to level it up to the fifth rank, it seemed to almost run on auto-pilot.

I didn't much like what I read, though.

[Identify]The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Name: Qila Fern

Description: Uncommon plant known for their stubborn nature of survival in hostile environments. Quoted as the fern "too stubborn to die."

No, these were not good signs.

I suspected, despite my landing leaving my body only bruised, not broken, this was probably a bad place to be. Still, urgency to learn more about the situation was forced to wait.

Pushing myself to my feet took an exhausting amount of time and effort. Slowly, though, I rose to stare out into an endless expanse of dark and shadowed trees, in all directions. Above, the canopy seemed to show only the smallest gaps of light. Eyes now-adjusted, it was as if the forest around me had been formed in a perpetual evening.

Staring out into the forest was much like staring out into an abyss. I could see uniform tree trunks, all straight and narrow, branches lacking until the canopy far overhead. I could see ferns, patches here and there, somehow growing despite the lack of light... but I could see nothing past them. The forest was everything.

It made me nervous.

I remembered once, when I was younger, I went scuba-diving in the open ocean. Sixty feet down: with light above, and nothing but darkness in all directions.

Murky and shadows.

The feeling was like that.

What might be out there, waiting?

Maybe it was good I had risen so slowly, I thought, because compared to the battlefield, this almost seemed worse.

.….

At the time, the most general of theories I could come up with for how I'd gotten to be where I was, seemed to follow on a fleeting understanding (or perhaps, better stated: impression) on the magic's after-glow.

Interference, was at fault.

If there was a culprit, it lay at the feet of that impending fire spell.

The scroll had ready begun its work, but then the fire magic had landed upon it. After which, I reasoned that whatever parameters were set for such an occurance, weren't enough. As such, the spell had activated, but I had clearly landed somewhere I wasn't supposed to. Possibly, far, far away from the original destination. Certainly not with anyone else in the company.

Best assumptions, for someone who didn't know magic.

Yet, there I was.

Away from the Empire. Away from the mercenary company.

I was, by all logic, a free man, though I wasn't sure how I felt about it. Questions of whether or not this was a good or a bad thing, seemed to be evenly matched in their answers.

Either I was free and clear, or soon to be dead.

After a great deal of debate, I summarized as much, and then I spent a good portion of my day trying to identify everything, in a literal sense.

[Identify]

Name: Ember Reeds

Description: While not lethal and actually quite harmless, these have been known for their bright red coloration and extremely painful stings. Technically edible.

Most plant-life was found to be poisonous or toxic to some effect, although thankfully not on physical contact.

[Identify]

Name: Sunder Moss

Description: Known for the pain in which it kills, this is extremely deadly if consumed. Once diluted and used for torture, in recent times other (safer) methods are preferred. In the wise words of Klaza the Brutal: "Dead men aren't much for spilling secrets- just blood."

There were exceptions.

I was very wary of where I stepped, after that.

Just by walking around the tree, I was fairly certain I now had [Boots of Death] instead of whatever they were before. The thought of what might already be soaked into the leather was unsettling. In a way, I thought it was lucky I'd landed on top of the ferns, because what lived on the soil among their roots was far more terrifying.

Exploring was, perhaps understandably, difficult.

While being quiet, I did my best to creep about, to get in range of something new I could [Identify] or find if anything else had landed with me in the ferns. I had tumbled rather badly, on the way down, so I’d felt there was a chance something useful might have come with me.

For my localized searching, there was little to be found. My spear, at least, was recovered. My pack, I was wearing- so, perhaps that shouldn't be counted in the tally. My sword and dagger somehow stayed on my belt. Farther out, though... the truth is, I had extremely little interest in wandering more than twenty feet in any direction from the tree I had landed. No matter how long I tried to work up the courage, the forest remained a shaded and mysterious terror.

Which presented me with an interesting scenario.

I truly had no idea where I was, or what my chances of survival were. While I might be considered armed to the teeth, I only had a few days of terribly stale bread and a tin of lukewarm water, so longterm survival wasn’t a guarantee.

Clearly, going out and hunting to subsidize the meager supplies of food would have been the rational decision. Spear in hand, a human might as well be king of any forest. With a Hero title applied, logically, there was a decent chance of earning some useful skills, as well. Yet, in a place where just the plant-life seemed far more than dangerous enough, I found myself hesitating.

I heard no birds.

I heard no animals.

Irrational or not, starving seemed preferable to wandering. The prickling fear, spreading along the back of my neck, goosebumps down my arms...

"Don't go in the Forest. It's already bad enough."

Thus, the compromise.

For the first night, I opted to climb:

Scouting, mixed with no small degree of cowardice.