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The forest was certainly different from the one he called home in life. It felt... sadder... if he had to describe it. There was a sense that something was wrong with it, but he couldn't tell you why. It must have had something to do with the taint described to him by the creature from the second world.

The butterfly creature went on. It wasn't lost on him that this place might have felt more sad because sadness was what was being expressed around him and indeed it was practically the first and only thing he had witnessed since entering this world. It didn't quite set the best mood.

But the mood was made slightly more neutral when it did stop crying.

"Everyone wanted to welcome you properly first." it told him. There was that "everyone" again. It seemed to ignore him when he questioned who "everyone" was a second ago. There didn't seem to be any interest in sharing it now, but apparently he would be meeting them all soon anyway, so it was a moot point.

"L-let me show you! I'm supposed to explain everything while you partake in what everyone prepared for you."

An explanation! That was what he was hoping to hear. All that had been explained thus far was that the summoning magic worked, which he had figured was the case since... you know, he had already been summoned and all. This butterfly hadn't honestly been much help at this point, but if there was more to elucidate him elsewhere, he felt he should go on.

He followed the butterfly the short distance to whatever it was that had been prepared for him. For a moment, it all felt a little sketchy to him, with the lack of information and the mysterious destination, but he slowly went on. He had already chosen the best escape route in case something was waiting for him wherever he was being led. It was only a short trek, however, and so far he hadn't spotted anything he should need to run from.

The offering was generous, he thought. It had seemed odd, but he found it much easier to put aside the idea that the fruits and seeds had been alive than he had when he was in the garden with the large creature. Perhaps it was that this felt more like home than the garden had, or perhaps it was that the garden had a feeling of perfection that he thought might somehow be blemished by his consumption of the "living" seeds. Whatever the case, he had no reservations in indulging in what he was now being offered.

Carefully, he moved in and grabbed what he already knew he liked the most. It was a hazelnut. A favorite of his and one he enjoyed sharing with his children.

"This forest is dying..."

Right to the point. He slowed his eating a tad, glancing around the forest again. This was definitely not the butterfly-sized problem he had hoped for. This was much bigger. The entire forest was in danger. An entire ecosystem could be on the brink of destruction. He shuddered on the inside, coming to terms with what this really was. This was a moth-sized problem.

"But we went around gathering as much as we can for your arrival."

He looked at the food. Was it becoming harder to find? If the forest was dying, how much of what was left was sitting in front of him right then? He reckoned they must have had a lot of faith that he could fix this before they ran out. He hadn't the slightest idea where to begin for something like this.

"The whole forest?" he gulped, "What do you say I can do that could help the whole forest?"

[blockquote]Perception: 1d20+1 : 2 + 1, total 3[/blockquote]

["GO CARL! I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT!"]

A bead of sweat began to break on my forehead. With every breath, it ever-so-slowly began to trail downward. I couldn't watch it with my eyes, but I could feel it. Its growing wetness pooled among all the sweat gathering on my face. The heat of the sun beated on me like a furnace, everything getting hotter and hotter as I once again lifted the dumbbell with my left arm. A vein popped in my wrist. I didn't know if I could take it. The sweat on my brow dripped a bit further. Why had I chosen to take this outside on a day like today? I would never know, but with the audience that had gathered to watch, I couldn't up and just go inside now. Their entertainment now depended on me.

More sweat. I was panting now. For the second time, I began to lift the dumbbell closer to my chin. A man in the crowd was really invested in my efforts. I watched as he clenched his fist, crushing the bottle of water he was holding.

"GO CARL! I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT!" he exasperated. He actually seemed just as sweaty as I was even without doing any lifting.

That was it. If this guy thought I could do it, then I knew it was possible. The drop of sweat on my forehead was suddenly accompanied by another. I felt another vein pop. My heart was pounding. For a third time, I brought the dumbbell to my chin. My muscles were growing wobbly. I didn't know how much more of this I could take. The sheer weight of this monstrous weightlifting device was excruciating.

The immortal words of my mentor echoed in my head. 'Remember Carl, consume your electrolytes. CONSUME THEM OR THEY WILL CONSUME YOU.' I took those words to heart. They drove my being. They were the force that allowed me to get to where I was now. Without them, it was hard to know where I might be. I would be nothing, and nothing would be me. The electrolytes would have consumed me.

I let out a yell of passion as I lifted the weight to my chin a fourth time, and images of my training days began to flash in my mind.

The immense weight. The long runs. The complicated wrestling matches. The convoluted obstacle courses. The week-long staring contests. They, like this exercise, were the training from hell that would take me to the heights I needed to reach to attain my goal. I embraced the flashes and let them play back to me in my head. They helped me a lot.

~~Flashback~~

"Carl, you mustn't let up," my mentor told me. Pants was his name. Mai Pants. A king among men. I held him in high esteem, for not only had he already achieved all I had hope to achieve in my life, but he was gracious enough to give up his time in teaching me. "Remember your training exercise."

Pants had been right. I remembered myself closing my eyes as I reached for my toes that day. There, I could remember an even more previous training session. It was the one with the rope.

~~Nested Flashback~~

"Pull!" Pants would yell out. "The barn shall RISE!" We would work so hard to bring up the frame of the wall of the barn. Every day it was the same wall, and every day we raised it in the same place. Back then, we were four being trained by Pants. Myself, Harold from down the street, Lord Thrax XIV of Holyak, and the cosmic gas monster whose name escapes me. The rest had since moved on to other masters, finding that they had different learning styles than myself. I remained because I found Pants' mystic ways so enthralling and strangely effective.

That day, raising that barn, I learned something important about myself. If I just persevered and believed in my training, I could achieve anything. I lifted that barnside with one finger and the help of three friends. I never felt so powerful before that day.

~~End Nested Flashback~~

It was that training, I had known, that had prepared me for the day I would touch my toes. I reached further, screaming as the pain surged through my veins and into my very soul. I felt as though I had burst into flames and would turn into dust if I kept trying, but keep trying I did.

And I found it all in vain. My feet were too far away and I was not flexible enough to go that far down.

"You are growing, Carl," Pants told me, "That pain you feel? It is weakness leaving your body. You have trained for this day. Do not let your body tell you you will hurt yourself if you keep going! Hurting yourself is how you grow!"

He was right! The pain had grown nearly unbearable, but I ignored with every fiber of my being. My screams, which had up to that point not been an altogether ineffective way of releasing the pain, were now losing their effectiveness. Everything that followed had been unadulterated agony. My tendons stretched. My muscles pulled. I think I even heard a bone crack. I reached further still. The world began to fade. My body was growing numb. My feet seemed to grow ever further away. But I persisted.

I thought I had been hallucinating when I felt something hard against my fingertips. I opened my eyes and the sight before began to come into focus. It was my toe. I was barely touching, but I had done it. The session was over. A rush of joy overtook me. I couldn't see Pants' face, but I knew he had to be as proud of me as I was. All of my training up to that point had finally culminated. The world was going to be a better place now. I smiled as a tear fell from my eye.

And then I passed out.

~~End Flashback~~

I had come so far since then. And today I would go a little further. As I had the day before. I hadn't noticed that the first bead of sweat had dripped down to my nose, nor had I realized that I had lifted the dumbbell a fifth, sixth, and seventh time while I was having my flashbacks. I felt a power surge through my veins that I had never felt before. My strength was growing with every movement. The crowd was going wild. I was so close.

I let out another scream. My veins were popping out all over my body now. My muscles were burning. The puddle at my feet grew as the sweat dripped off of me in the gallons. This was a feeling unlike what my previous training milestones could have prepared me for. It was both awesome and awful at the same time. I couldn't feel my legs.

"Eight," I exhaled as the dumbbell touched my chin again. The sweaty guy from before in the crowd was crying now. I had made him so proud. He kept me going in this moment.

"Nine..." I said it much louder, trying to control my breathing. The bar was a bit slippery now from all my sweat. My clothes were soaked. This was it.

I lowered the dumbbell to my knee slowly, and with a hulking power and a guttural scream, I summoned forth all the strength I could muster. The crowd as hanging on my every movement, cheering and clenching as I slowly lifted the dumbbell for the final time.

It was excruciating. I could feel myself beginning to fade. A scene from the toe-touching flashback etched in my mind. That was the most endurance I had put into any training before, but today it was about to be topped.

I threw my head back, a death growl escaping from my lungs, and then...

"TEEEEEEENNNNNNNN!!!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. As I dropped the dumbbell to the ground, my vision returned. My muscles thanked me. I thought I wouldn't be able to stand, but I did. The crowd celebrated like it was 1999.

That was it. I had done it. Eighteen months of coming to the gym had paid off. I noticed Mai Pants in the crowd for the first time. He nodded approvingly at me. It was time graduate.

I sat down again, picked up the dumbbell from the floor and placed it next to me on the bench. Today was the day I graduated. Today was the day I could finally put a weight on the dumbbell.

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The interaction felt rather awkward. The butterfly was visibly anguished, a position he himself had been in on multiple occasions, but with such a drastically new setting, it was difficult to extend his sympathy. He was was still trying to gain his bearings.

He took a step back as he attempted to take it all in. He had been summoned - or had he been sent? - from the garden. That connected to the 'Summoned Hero' bit from the words covering his vision a few seconds ago, he figured. The 'summoned' part now made sense, though he never thought of himself as a hero. It was hard to understand, but he suspected he was in a world that wasn't his own and wasn't the garden, or at least not anywhere near the garden. This was a third world. A new world. And whether the creature had sent him here or this butterfly had brought him here, this was the world he was directed to help.

He hadn't gotten the chance to continue taking things in as the butterfly started to introduce itself. It had a thing called a name and it was a whole sentence-worth of meaningless sounds. It seemed to be some way this creature's species used to identify themselves. But why? Couldn't they just smell each other instead? He flicked his tail. It was starting to get difficult just deciding which part of all the things that happened to him after he died was the strangest. He was certain he wouldn't be able to remember what the butterfly's name was, but it had a distinct scent he reckoned he wouldn't forget in a hurry.

As the butterfly broke down in tears for a second time, he moved in closer again to perhaps get a better understanding. It needed his help. And judging by its size, it was help he might be able to give. A squirrel should have an easy time solving a butterfly-sized problem, right? Even a really big butterfly.

"Save your tears, butterfly. What sort of help do you need?" he asked squirrellily. He couldn't see or otherwise sense any danger nearby. Nothing that he thought he should be worried about, anyway. If this was the sort of help the larger creature expected him to offer this world, then it would be as easy as cracking open a walnut.

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There was an uncanny tone of reassurance in the creature's response. Small though he knew he was, it's description led him to imagine this grandiose cascade of events begun by such inconsequential actions and culminating in the quelling of suffering everywhere. It sounded impossible, but for some reason it seemed to make sense here and now, coming from this creature who had the answers he needed.

And then everything went bright. Real bright. He felt as though he were looking at the sun as it peaked over the horizon, except the brightness grew much faster and came from every direction at once. He put his paws up to block some of it out, then closed his eyes when he found that wasn't doing the trick. And suddenly...

Forest. He opened his eyes to find the large creature had disappeared, replaced by another, much smaller, creature. Smaller than him, in fact. And it looked as though it had a butterfly on its back that was carrying it around.

A second later he realized some strange markings were blocking his vision. He tried to wipe it away, thinking something had fallen into his eye, but it didn't move. He looked at the markings closer and found that he could read them. More concepts that should be unintelligible to him but he was somehow able to understand. And it was just like the language the other creature spoke in before.

'Summoned Hero'? 'Mana Sensitivity'? He could understand the words, but none of what he was reading made sense to him. 'Greater Mana Sensitivity'? So it was better than the regular one? Helpful indeed. 'Translate All'? Actually, that one did make some sense. It at least explained why he could understand the creature from before and indeed these writings appearing before him.

He read on, still unsure what much of it meant, but noting that Shock Absorber sounded kind of cool. He also leveled up. A lot. And it didn't mean a thing to him. 'Level 15,' he read. That was what he was now, if these words were to be trusted. They started to fade away once he read them. He would need to find out what this was all about. It was kind of distracting.

The forest around him, now that he was finished being distracted from it, was much more like home than the more open grassland he was in just moments ago. Much more dense, but most of it was still familiar. Except for floating balls circling around him like flies. Along with more writings like the ones from a second ago, but these ones he could not read. They were taller and looked as if they were squeezed from the sides so all the little lines were closer together. And there were a lot of them until they disappeared into the air around him.

"I-It worked... T-thank you everyone."

As it spoke, he finally returned his focus to the little butterfly before him. It was a lot less serene than the larger creature from before. It looked much more as if it was in need of help.

"'Everyone'?" he squeaked, looking around to see what other creatures were around. "What worked? Where am I?"

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He was somewhat unsure of how to take the creature's response. The future was uncertain; unknowable even to a creature such as this that seemed to carry all the answers. He may not see his family again, and even if he did it would not be in the world he knew. That world was gone to him, just as he was to it.

Closure.

That meant that he would only ever be able to reunite with them in this world. Not what he expected or hoped for, to be sure, but a reunion with his loved ones was not entirely ruled out. Thus hope was not gone. His path was his own, and any future where he would see them again was in his paws. That mere possibility would drive his every action.

If that was the case, then his goal and the goal of the great creature before him were suddenly aligned. He had to play his part in ensuring that this world did not become a world he wouldn't want his family to be a part of. The idea that he somehow could have any influence over something so grand felt empowering.

Where would he begin, he wondered? In fact, that was perhaps getting ahead of things. How would he begin? He was such a small creature compared to most. He had already been killed by something that, by this creature's standards, probably wasn't that great of a threat at all. What influence had he that would not be better handled by something much larger than him, such as the creature whose shoulder he was perched upon? What did this creature see in his stature that he couldn't? It apparently could move the earth and the threes. The most he was capable of was burying nuts a few inches beneath the ground.

"Yes, I will try," he affirmed, unsure at this point if he could possibly handle what he was getting himself into, "But what impact could a creature so small as I have on this world's future?"

It was the only path he believed was even available at this point. He wondered what would happen if he rejected the offer. Would he just stay here? Would he simply go to the nothingness that he expected he would find at the end of his life? Or would he be pushed to take this path regardless?

He would never know now, even if he wanted to. In any case, it would be the coward's way to refuse such a call to ensure a bright future for his family. No, he had chosen wisely, he thought. Whatever he could do, he would do it. No matter the cost. His family depended on it.

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He watched the shimmering scenes appear in the waving of the creature's arm. Those nuts and berries almost seemed real enough to reach out and touch, and they looked delicious, despite the revelation that they might be alive. What seemed more strange to him, though, was that he was looking at himself from without. He hadn't actually seen or imagined what he looked like from an outside perspective before. He rather liked the way he appeared - a nice, healthy, bushy tail; black, smokey fur with patches of hints of brown here and there; a fine symmetry of his facial features down to his shiny black eyes, long whiskers, and well-groomed ears - everything he thought a mate would look for in a squirrel. He was proud of the effort he had put into his appearance. He was happy most of all to see that the wounds the red beast had left were no longer there. It would be awfully difficult to keep his coat so smooth with gashes in his skin and patches of his fur missing. He flicked his tail at the thought.

The image changed. This time, he was seeing as normal, jumping from one tree to another. He had always loved the feeling of flying through the air like that, however short it always was. Many other kinds of animals weren't able to clear the distance his kind found so easy. It was useful to escape from monsters or merely to get to food without having to go to the ground first. Or even just for the fun of it. He took great joy in teaching the skill to his young.

The final image of him running alongside other animals felt too good to be true. And even better if he could communicate with them in the way he was talking to this creature now. The were chipmunks, shrews, beavers, wild rats, and other small creatures as well as larger animals like deer and elk, of which he would ordinarily be frankly a bit nervous running so carelessly next to. Even some of the creatures that ordinarily hunted his kind were there, yet he sensed no fear. For his family to live in a world like that... He would give anything.

The images faded and he listened to the bits of details the creature went on to tell him. New friends. New family. New life. Those stuck out to him the most. He wouldn't leave his family. Not even in death. Not yet, anyway. He had to make sure they were safe. This world and this quest this creature spoke of was so inviting, so desirable, so perfect, yet if his family and his friends from back home would not be there, what was it to him? No new family and no new friends could possibly fill the hole left by the ones he had spent his entire life with.

He looked up at the creature as it extended its hand to him.

"Will you take it?"

The question seemed meant to offer closure to his past, but he wasn't so sure closure was what he wanted. The well-being of his family was just too important to him and he was willing to sacrifice any great future there was for him if his family would not share it with him.

Then again, what choice was there here? He had died, hadn't he? He looked back to the patch of grass he had woken to this place in. Could he ever return to his past and see his family one last time? Or was this future really the only direction he had left to go? There was so much he had left unfulfilled in his life. He could still teach so much to his children. He could still offer so much protection given another chance. Even if he could just show his family all the caches he had left around the forest, it was at least something more he could do for them.

But he was dead in that world. Every time he played the memory back in his head, the painful truth seemed to grow. There was no way he could have escaped or have been saved from the jaws of death that morning. And the creature certainly wasn't going to let him get away. And he knew that with all the pain and bleeding he had suffered, even if he was left there by the beast, he wouldn't have made it long enough to be found by his family. Could it be that drawing away the monster's attention was really the last thing he would do for them?

He looked forward again. It was a long and hard process, but he tried to begin to come to terms with moving forward. To convince himself that his old life had ended. To believe that it was right to make it his goal to help this world in whatever way he could. And to accept that maybe keeping his family's memory alive was enough. This was a pain that he hadn't felt so genuinely since his mother and father were taken from him by the brown beasts so long ago. Letting go was so difficult for him, and it still felt so wrong to go on knowing that he was leading a path so far away from the family he had grown.

Yet every train of thought he tried to take led him back to the same conclusion: his past was in the past. There was a threshold he crossed when he died which didn't believe he could ever cross back over. He began to move toward the creature's paw, inch by inch. He kept reassuring himself that this was what he must do. And with every assurance he mustered, it became ever so slightly easier, though he continued to hold on to the slightest hope that, one day, his path would once again join with that of the rest of his family, and they would be united. That hope would drive him, but it would also make it easier to keep moving forward.

As he reached the creature's extended hand and began to climb up, now moving with a hint of confidence, he began to accept his fate. He perhaps wouldn't ever return to his home. He wouldn't see his offspring grow into the independent squirrels he had raised them to become. He may never know where the second red-furred beast had gone that day. It may even be, as much as he hated to think about it, that he wouldn't see anyone he cared about in his life again. And that hurt him the most.

But he climbed on. He reached the top of the creature's arm and grasped a spot on its shoulder next to its head. In his mind he seemed to have gone through all the motions of moving forward; of getting through it even if he may never quite get over it. The future ahead of him could offer more to him than he knew. Maybe this new family, these new friends, and this new life was something he could settle into. Maybe he could reach fulfillment he was never capable of reaching before by furthering the cause of this creature that had treated him so nicely. Maybe this future was something he really did want to be a part of, as mysterious and unfamiliar as it may be.

Still, he had to know...

"But what of my family?" he asked somberly. "Will I ever see them again?"

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He slowed his nibbling considerably when he realized the creature could understand what he was saying, despite not speaking anything close to its language. He hadn't quite expected that, though it now seemed consistent with the way he could understand its speech despite never having heard it before.

The response it gave intrigued him. It seemed like this past she spoke was a paradise he would like for his family to have been a part of. It all had changed now, though, even if what he saw around him didn't reflect that.

He stopped eating entirely when his home was brought up, however. Could these tainted beings really be moving into his family's territory? The more he heard about things that would change, the more he felt terrified for his family's well-being. He may not have to see it now, being dead, but it was not the world he wanted his fellows to have to see. Darkness, death, storms, and unnatural structures... it was awful to think of.

The squirrel looked at the hazelnut in his tiny paws. The creature spoke of it as if it were alive. As if it was its own being. But it couldn't be. It was just food. It would come out of the trees ever so often so his kind would be able to survive. A gift from the earth. It didn't have feelings, aspirations, or a mind of its own... did it?

It sort of rang a bell in his mind when the creature then mentioned the monster that had chased him. He imagined that the nut in his paws was himself, and that he was the red monster that had ended his life. It was such a strange thing to think of. He had never imagined himself as another being before. He wasn't so sure he liked it, especially if it meant to say that he was no different from the monster that had destroyed his life. It couldn't be the same! The nuts weren't alive! They were just food.

He looked at it again, this time not so sure he should go on eating it. The thought that he was ending its life by eating it was now pulling strings in his mind that he wasn't so sure he wanted pulled. Like the feeling that his entire life he was no different to the hazelnuts than the spotted brown creatures were to his parents, or the red-furred monster were to himself and his family.

But then, why was this creature here offering them to him as food. 'They are yours for the taking.' it had told him. It seemed concerned for the well-being of every living thing. If these really were alive, wouldn't it not be okay to eat? Or was it a necessity? If he had never eaten these nuts or those fruits, which he expected would be as alive as the nuts, how would he have survived? It was all he had ever eaten. He wouldn't have survived very long without them.

There, as he stared at the hazelnut he held, he came to a realization he had never considered before. Maybe some things had to die in order for others to survive. The monster that had eaten him was only just surviving, just as he had eaten nuts and berries all his life only just to survive. He wasn't so sure he liked that, whether it was right or wrong, but it explained so much of what he didn't quite understand about the world back home. Did it really make it the right thing to do? That he couldn't answer.

The creature before him went on, its hand still extended, but after all that philosophical debating, he had lost his appetite. He stepped closer to listen, now having forgotten about any danger he thought might be present. This moment - this conversation - had changed his world. He wasn't ready to decide yet if that was good or bad, but he was willing to go on. He wasn't sure he had much of a choice in the matter either way.

"...Your destiny however, is special."

This piqued his interest. Special? He didn't think he was any more special than his family or friends. He was now beginning to think he wasn't even so different from the other, less-friendly, creatures of his homeworld. What made him special? Was it this sudden ability to understand and communicate with a creature so vastly different than him? Or the similarly sudden ability to imagine such complex ideas like he just had? Or was he chosen without prejudice like a nut from a cache among many that he buried throughout the forest? Was it because of something he had done? Or something he was meant to do? Was he to stop the tainted beings from taking over the land he had left for his family? Or maybe he was to stop the bad that was changing the world here. What if it was both? Was he going to make this place better so his family could have a place to go when the tainted creatures invaded?

Well, this creature seemed to have the answer. All he had to do was ask. "Special?" he squeaked.

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He watched, thinking he should come up with an escape route in case he had to make a run for it. The creature crouched lower, beckoning to him, and then held out a great paw full of nuts for him to see. It wanted to give him food. All he had to do was approach. He was a bit hungry, come to think of it.

He was unsure. Was it a trap? This creature was crafty, but could it really be as benevolent as it tried to appear? The food was enticing. Familiar, even. In fact, he wondered if he was really far from home at all based on the nuts alone. But of course, he didn't know if they grew beyond the lands he explored either. He let pass a moment of contemplating getting away while he still could and he inched out of the shrubbery, pushing thoughts of danger to the sidelines just for a chance to taste those delicious hazelnuts.

Hazelnuts? He called them hazelnuts. He'd never thought to name them before. It was just another kind of food he could find back home. A kind of food he preferred over others, but in the wild, you usually took what you could find. He looked at the creature's paw again, inching out further and further. The shells had all been taken off and everything. How could he resist?

It was as if the creature could read his mind, which was a startling thought, come to think of it. If this creature didn't turn out to be so nice and friendly as it seemed and could read minds... He might have a hard time escaping.

He nevertheless kept moving forward, sniffing and anticipating the hazelnuts' flavor and letting the idea into his mind that this creature maybe - just maybe - wasn't out to hurt him after all. It seemed tranquil and peaceful, as if it were a member of his family. He wasn't sure what exactly to think of that, but for the moment, if it really was true, he wasn't averse to accepting it.

Steadily he reached the creature's offering and took a hazelnut from its paw before quickly retreating several feet away, facing the creature, in order to eat the nut.

They were his for the taking, the creature had said. He still didn't know how or why he could understand its words. It was frustrating that he couldn't communicate back. That offer to tell him what he wanted to know would have felt a lot better if he had a way of saying exactly everything he wanted to know. There was certainly a lot he wanted to ask in this situation.

He finished the hazelnut and went on in for another, watching the creature as it watched him back, and yet feeling less and less like he needed be worrying about this great creature. It was giving him free food, after all. He retreated less far away this time around and, before starting to eat this nut, decided to try to speak again.

"Where am I?" he tried to ask. It seemed like a good place to start.

But again, what actually came out was nothing more than squeaks and chucks like he was signalling to his family. He flicked his tail back once and began to munch on the second hazelnut, feeling rather awkward and unsure of what else to do.

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The black fox squirrel slowly started to awaken. Everything was just colors for a moment, but his eyes soon began to focus. The greens melted into rolling hills around him, with the occasional bush or tree to spot the landscape. Every inch of it was covered in grass as green as it could get. The blues grew great white spots and found their form as the sky above. A perfect sunny day with just enough clouds to keep the place from getting too hot. He'd spent his life in thickets and grasslands, but what he saw here was a rare sight. He soaked in the moment of peace that he often wasn't able to enjoy. As long as it lasted, at least.

His memories were still a bit tangled and things felt out of order. There were great red monsters that chased him. He didn't know where his family went and he could never forget the moment one of the monsters caught him. He should have died, right? So where was he now? Nothing but grass and trees surrounded him; not a single living creature - friendly or dangerous - to be seen. Everything was quiet except for the sound of leaves and blades of grass brushing against each other in the wind. And further: where were his wounds? He would never forget the pain of the bite of the red-furred creature when it caught him. It used its teeth to pierce his coat all across his stomach and back, not to mention his tail, and crush him in its maw. He winced at just the thought of the pain, but nevertheless wondered... How much of it had actually happened? Was it all a dream?

He was taken off-guard by a sudden voice behind him and, startled, he ran for the nearest cover in a small rose bush nearby. He was small and nimble enough that the thorns were easy to avoid, but anything chasing him would have to fight its own pain if it wanted to catch him. He peered through an opening between some leaves at the figure that had spotted him. It really was unlike any creature he had ever seen. The long golden fur sprouting from its head, the distinct lack of fur anywhere else on its body, baring a pale peach-colored skin that he assumed was similarly hairless under whatever covering it had all over it.

Having found himself sufficiently safe and able to act more with mindfulness rather than instinct, he found that the sound the creature had made strangely actually made sense to him.

"Why, hello there young one. What brings you to my garden?"

A question. A question? He had to respond to those, right? What was a garden? That was where he was, apparently. But this looked no different from anywhere else he had been. Some things were in rows, yes, but that happened a lot, right? Did this creature put these things where they were? The trees? The bushes? The grass? The actually quite pretty flowers? What sort of things could this creature do if it could move all these things? It certainly had a taste for beauty.

He collected his thoughts again and found the creature still watching him. It didn't advance on where he was taking cover, but it didn't seem to be ready to leave, either. He had to respond! It had asked a question and was waiting for him to answer. But what could he answer? Was it unhappy that he had come into its territory? In that case, it was an accident and he would leave as soon as possible. He didn't want any trouble.

Actually, what had brought him here? The last thing he remembered was the teeth of a monster tearing him apart. Then he woke up in this strange and beautiful place with no explanation. If anything, this creature would know more than he did. Heck, it brought him here for all he knew. He didn't think that was the case if it was asking the same thing, but it wasn't out of the question.

He inched forward for a better view, finally thinking he was ready to answer the question he had been asked, and spoke. "I don't know how I got here."

But what came out was nothing but a series of simple squeaks and clucking sounds not unlike what he would have used to communicate with any other of his species. Nothing like the complex ideas conveyed by this creature's language.

This was crazy! Why could he understand this creature? It had no basis in anything he had done in his life! It didn't make sense that this creature's sounds made sense. Nothing made sense here. This was entirely unlike anything he had experienced before. For all he knew, he could fly, the sky was made of water, and this creature was actually afraid of him. Not that he would risk that last one. He retreated back to his original position behind the leaves of the bush and once again waited for the creature to move on.

[Name:]

Name: Pili
Gender: Male
Age: Adult
Occupation: Unemployed
Country of Origin: Canada, in modern day Alberta
Time of Origin: 1480s?
Quirk: Aside from a few small woodland animals like chipmunks and mice, Pili has never met anything outside of his family that didn't want to eat them. Therefore, in addition to not having a clue how to interact with creatures bigger than a skunk, does not know what their mannerisms and capabilities are. Anything beyond his family's territory (though that territory often moves) is completely alien to him.
Hobbies: Collecting seeds and other food, exploring, learning about the forest - particularly about the seeds and nuts
Personality: Pili is selfless to a fault in that he will help those in his circle no matter what it costs him, and it often costs him much more than most people would be willing to give. He will skip meals for days in order to make sure those he cares about are taken care of and similarly will go to great dangers to make sure they are safe.
Intellectual capabilities: Pili has slightly above-average intelligence for his type. He was usually relied on by his family to lure danger away or to outsmart them to get everyone out of danger. He also has a very good spatial memory for because of his history of scouting out the landscapes for danger as well as finding food that he has left in caches throughout the territory. He knows dang well everything that's worth knowing about most kinds of nuts.
Physical capabilities: He is very fast and agile on the ground and can climb trees just as fast, but he's certainly not built to fight anything bigger than he is (though he wouldn't hesitate to do so if his circle was in danger).
Likes: Fruits, nuts, and seeds; climbing trees; exploring
Dislikes: Fire, carnivores, and any place without a clear and reliable escape path
Strengths: Running, climbing, sneaking, collecting, escaping, scouting, memory, jumping
Weaknesses: Physically strong enemies, smooth vertical surfaces
Biography: Pili was an only offspring ushered into his adulthood by the untimely death of his parents just as he was starting to get into the swing of the world around him. He watched as they were killed and eaten by bobcats, knowing there was nothing he could do to save them, before making a run for it before they found him, too. The whole event instilled in him a fierce protection of the ones he held dear.
Years later, he met a girl and they had three beautiful children, who themselves were close to adulthood when they and some friends wound up cornered by a pair of red foxes. Unwilling to let anyone else close to him fall to the wild, he lured them all around in an attempt to distract them and lose them, playing slow and playing stupid by getting uncomfortably close so they would focus on him instead. When they would chase, he would run up trees and around tight corners to try and lose them.
He lead what he thought was both of the foxes on the chase of his life, but really began to panic and feared for his fellows' lives when he realized the second fox wasn't there. His focus on the path ahead of him waned as he frantically scanned the treeline for any trace of his family in safety, but he never would learn their fate. He tripped up and the fox on his tail caught him. He was carried around in the fox's jaws, only semi-conscious, for a short while, before he was finally killed and eaten.
Misc: He's a melanistic fox squirrel. Some kind of power that helps him communicate with everyone else (maybe through telepathy, mental urging / planting ideas in people's heads, animating things to talk for him, whatever) easily would be preferable. I imagine the idea-planting thing would make the most sense since he realistically wouldn't know any human language.
He has memories of his past life, particularly the moments leading up to his death, and his driving goal is to find out whether or not his family and friends survived that ambush.
Abilities
STR: 6
DEX: 17
CON: 6
INT: 10
WIS: 10
CHA: 15

[Isaák Amantes]

Isaák Amantes

The grip in the rexborn's handshake was telling. Confident. Not too firm, but not too weak; just enough to get the greeting through. "Gandin is, ehh... unique, I suppose," Isaák replied, "He has a decent amount of cooking expertise while on his own. He wanted some help this time, but while I think Eric is the best cook among the three of us, he's certainly not a good match for a short temper."

The cleric stepped around the grill and began clearing a space off for the rexborn's kill. "This spot here should be fine. You may have a hard time finding an open spot anywhere else. Besides..." he set the bottle he was carrying with him in front of the res of the bottles, "This spot has lamb sauce!" Isaák let out a bit of a chuckle. Then, after a short, awkward pause, he cleared his throat again. "So what's your story? What brought you here... aside from the festival?"

["It's bloiting raw! You rotten puke-stocking!"]

The cooking pits were numerous, but so were those eager to get their food made. With lunch fast approaching, this shouldn't have been a surprise. Normally this area was a city park, evident by the play area for young ones, multiple benches scattered around, and the statue of a muscular man and his bear companion in a heroic pose placed right in the middle. Today, however, it was the designated cooking area for those who didn't have their own kitchen to cook in. The city's provisions for cooking stations were numerous, even each pit having it's own area carved out of the grass to prevent fires from breaking out, but at this time it appeared all the spots had been taken.

Without warning, a pair of children ran right in front of Kiel, one chasing the other and both perhaps not yet aware of the concept of personal space. Anyone watching from the side might say that about summed up the chaos of the section the dinosaurian had entered. There was a lot of yelling - most of it being cooks trying to stay organized with their crew over the noise of all the other cooks trying to do the same. And over the sound of the children playing. All in good company, though. Most of the yells were friendly toward one another. Most.

"It's bloiting raw! You rotten puke-stocking!" Only a few meters away, a particularly angry dwarf smacked his gnome assistant with a slab of meat that had a single bite taken out of it. "I can't serve this! The rats wouldn't touch it! The whole plate is ruined!" He kicked a pan that had found its way to his feet and slammed his hand on the wooden table set up with all their foodstuffs. "And where's the lamb sauce!?" With one final scream of rage, he stormed off, resigned to not getting to taste the great meal he had endeavored for. Apparently he had had enough of his cooking partner.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Isaák Amantes

The commotion wasn't lost on Isaák's ears. He had been sent to get a bottle of said lamb sauce from a nearby vendor, stopped just shy of his return when the dwarf flipped his lid.  To his left, he noticed he had halted just next to a kind he hadn't seen in Ternadan for some time. A rexborn if memory served. And it looked like he had just landed quite a kill.

Isaák quietly cleared his throat. He hadn't see the rexborn's face, but given the situation, he didn't think it would take too many tries to guess what he was thinking about what he just saw. "Don't worry much about that Gandin. His temper is about as short as a... he trailed off as he tried for a moment to think of a good way to finish the metaphor, but under his own pressure he drew a blank and finished the sentence about as underwhelmingly as could be imagined. "...guy. Whose temper is... short."

He stopped only for a second, but continued in the hope of leaving that metaphor in the past. "You must be new here! I'm Isaák," he held out his hand to shake and went on. "The drama queen over there is Gandin and our little gnome friend is Eric." Isaák glanced at their cooking table for a moment to see Eric snickering quietly and pulling out a much better-cooked slice of lamb. "You look like you need a place to cook that."

[info]Guild introduction story for Kiel/TrenchKnight. Wait for him to post before joining.[/info]

The city of Ternadan was bustling with the enthusiasm of food-lovers from all over Korinthia. And for good reason, too - the annual Spring Culinary Festival had finally arrived! For a whole week, the best chefs, judges, culinary artists, and competitive eaters from around the world would gather and show off what they had to offer, be it professional cuisines, speed-eating, choreographed cooking, and more. Restaurants, food stalls, and everything in between joined in the festival, hoping to take advantage of the festival while it lasting and offering some delicious meals themselves. For some, it was the perfect excuse to overeat and feel slightly less guilty about it. For others, it was a once-a-year opportunity to make it big in the food business. The rest were just along for the fun and adventure of trying new things.

It was here, perhaps, where you might find a good place to fill yourself up.

[Kathos Sigon]

Kathos Sigon

"Bother all these people..."

The streets were much busier than Sigon liked at this time of day, but he was preparing a meal for himself and his Pokémon and just needed some milk and eggs to get it all started. Had he remembered how busy these streets were this time of day, he would have taken a different route or made this meal some other day. But he was already nearly to the store; there was no sense in turning back now. Togepi would never forgive him if he did.

It was tedious trying to weave his way through the people idling or walking against his direction, but he chose not to make a fuss of it. Though, by the sound of it, someone had chosen to make a fuss of it. He heard voices yelling as if a fight had broken out. It was a scene he wished he could avoid, but both his route and his curiosity would lead him directly toward said sounds. Then he heard what sounded like the clashing of swords. He was close enough now that he was beginning to see people with torn and cut clothing trying to escape the ruckus.

And then he saw the source. It was an angry Pawniard out to make people hurt. He had heard of this Pokémon from his parents a few years back. It's unique dual typing gave it an interesting type interaction with Fairy types. Sigon saw this as an opportunity to see it in action.

He ran in, shoving a hand into his pocket to retrieve a Poké Ball, then threw it out at the bladed Pokémon. "Parfait!" he shouted as the Togepi materialized, "Don't let it get it's edge! Hit it with a Charm!"

Parfait uses Charm on Meditite 1.[blockquote]Rolled 1d20 : 9, total 9[/blockquote]

[Vinny Drechsler]

Vinny Drechsler

Vinny wasn't sure he liked the sound of this proposal. It had taken a whole Poké Ball, some very lucky aim, and about 12 hours of time lost in this cave to capture whatever this creature was. Letting it go was hardly his idea of a fair outcome, even if it did win in a duel. The drill-fisted creature had a new life now, and Vinny still had to teach it the manners it needed to subsist in modern society. Continually stealing berries would be an atrocity both to its honor and to the world. It was time to set the record straight.

"Uh, Herr Daniel," he began, sure that he could handle this in a way everyone would be happy with, "I have a better idea." Without waiting for approval or any reaction, he looked at the battle-ready rodent before him, but went on despite it's apparent unwillingness to compromise. "New friends! a whole vorld of greatness avaits you! Von of you to be graced vith Kimmel's greatness for years to come! Years! And ze other von... vell, zis man is very good at uhh... making you stronger! Ja, ze training vill ensure this vill never happen again! And best of all: berries! Ze both of us will give you many berries!"

Vinny reached into his pocket and retrieved a random berry. Wepear Berry. That would do. He grabbed another Wepear Berry and offered it to the Drilburs, somehow sure that they would take his berries even after just denying Daniel's. "Behold! The vunderful taste!" He smiled warmly, sure that this made up for everything they had just done.

[blockquote]Vinny's Charm: 2d6+1 : 5, 6 + 1, total 12[/blockquote]