--------- Greg ---------
"Ok, so how do I talk to the people inside?" I ask the supposedly all mighty system. 'If I'm the only human in this universe, then what are they? Little green men with big heads?' I think to myself. I am both excited and a little scared to talk to the alien species. This will be the first time, at least to my knowledge, that humanity has spoken to actual aliens.
"You just need to wait. I'm sure they'll have someone come out and get you."
"Well alright then. I think I'll look for something door like while they get ready." I walk along the surface of the ship and find something that looks like a door. There's only so many ways to make one after all.
'Maybe I can test out the Dimensional Gate skill...' I ponder, and decide to cast it. My blood turns to ice in my veins and the hair stands on end as I immediately cancel the skill.
"System that was a blackhole." I say sweat already forming down my back, my hands shaking slightly.
"That is how you arrived, so the system has designed it to operate the same way."
"I am not using that! Fuck that!" I yell some more obscenities at the system. Being sucked into the blackhole was the most terrifying thing I have ever experienced.
"Can it look like something else? Like a doorway or something?" I plead with the system. My legs give out from under me but I remain standing from the zero gravity.
"No."
That was it. No explanation to why I couldn't. 'It doesn't make any sense, I had options with the other skills... But those were for the type of effect they had on my body. Not what they did in the end.'
"Damn it..." I mutter, trying to get the shaking to stop. 'Why did it have to be a blackhole? How am I supposed to just calmly walk into a gaping maw of death?' I stare off into space as I think about it. 'No... If I want to get home I'll have to get over the fear. The first one didn't really kill me, and I didn't feel any pull from the split second I had it open...'
My internal struggle with my not so irrational fear is interrupted when the door I'm standing next to opens. There's no bright light or fog coming out of the opening. The door way just leads to a blank room and a singular... thing standing still in the middle.
It's not very tall, a little more than 3 feet? It has 4 legs and 2 arms, so 6 limbs. I can't see what it is all that well since it's wearing it's own space suit. The joints on the suit and the shape of the helmet make me think of something spider like? It seems to be just staring at me so I give it a small wave.
A few awkward seconds later it tentatively returns the gesture. Taking that as my que to enter the air lock, I step inside. It's always a bit jarring to go from sideways to up right in one step but it's also pretty fun. The room is smaller than I thought. The ceiling only gives my helmet about a foot of clearance, which makes sense. They do seem to be quite small, whatever they are.
The spider thing scurried back away from me as I stepped in and then remained at the back wall. Or the door leading inside. Looks more like a door. I feel a little bad for the creature so I just stand there. Waiting for something else to happen.
After a very long and awkward silence, the outer door closed and the room had some blue light flashing. Then the room returned to normal. Deciding that this would be a good time to take off my helmet, I did so.
I slowly reached my hands up and twisted the giant fish bowl like helmet and with a click it came off. 'Usually there's a hiss to go with it, but I guess I ran out of oxygen a long time ago...' I had forgotten about that fact. Good to know I won't need to worry about breathing the same air as them.
I hold my helmet in both hands as I stare at the alien in front of me. I give it a smile, hopefully putting it at ease. Though I think I made it worse because I swear I saw it shiver. Despite it's fear it also reached up with it's 4 fingered hands and started to remove it's helmet. Except, it undid some zipper on the back of it's head and it came off like a reverse hood.
'Wow... it looks like a dog.' I can't help but think as what is clearly a golden retriever with 4 blue eyes and a particularly angular skull stares back at me.
It tried to speak to me, I think, in some kind of clicking and yelping. It sounded like a question and so I tried to answer.
"Sorry, I uh don't know what language that is." I rub the back of my head awkwardly as my smile falters slightly. 'Man this is awkward. I just need them to interact with another for a bit and I could pick it up.' I make a gesture to the door leading inside and it looks between me and the door for a bit.
It 'speaks' softly to itself and then there was another quieter sound. I don't know what it was but it seems like they were talking to some radio or ear piece. The back and forth it has goes on for a bit before the door slowly opens, revealing 5 more of the creatures.
'They all look like different dog breeds... That one is closer to a wolf, the other has a pug nose. The paws... definitely seem more spider like.' I take note of their appearance as they begin to chatter amongst themselves. A few of them begin to remove the space suit from the golden retriever lookin thing before my skill kicks in.
"-esn't understand us. I have no idea what language or what that sound it made means, but it doesn't seem dangerous." The golden retriever, I'll just call him Goldy, says to the wolf thing. The voices oddly sound British. Not strongly but a soft accent. Like from someone who was from the UK but then grew up in the US.
"It's creepy." The pug says, shrinking back as I turn to it. I decide to remain quiet for now. To see what else they say.
"Captain, what are even supposed to do? I know the quest said to help it but how? I simply don't think 2,000 XP is worth the risk of helping an unknown lifeform." The wolf speaks to Goldy, who turns out to be the captain.
"Relax, You can see it too can't you? The thing is level 1. We could easily take it down. Even the weakest amongst us could." Captain Goldy says, sounding more confident then I think they feel.
"Do I need to remind you of the debuff we would get for trying to fight an infant? With that debuff it might very well be able to kill us! We don't know what it can do. It was floating in the VOID captain!"
'So they would get a debuff for trying to fight me... interesting.' I put that tidbit of info away for later.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
"It's fi-" I try to speak but I get cut off as another dog thing speaks over me.
"2,000 XP might not be a whole lot for you, but for the rest of us who aren't level 56 it's quite nice." Something that looks like a chihuahua speaks up.
"You're just young, newbie. You'll have plenty of time to do safer quests. All I'm saying is that we don't need to do this for something that can travel through space. What kind of infant has a space suit?" The wolf chastises the new guy.
"Hey." I say a little louder but they keep talking to each other. One of the other dog things noticed me though and seemed to pale as it stared at me. Which is weird because it definitely has fur.
"Guys. It just spoke." That got them all to shut up.
"What? No it didn't." The chihuahua says giving the other a weird look.
"Yeah, I did." I say, enjoying the look of shock on their weird alien faces.
"Hello?" I say after a surprisingly long time of them just staring at me.
"If you could speak our language why didn't you say anything earlier?" Goldy asks, looking at me like some new threat. He probably just joined the wolfs side about me.
"I uhh didn't know it earlier. I needed to see you interact with another for a bit to learn it." I tell him a half truth. I actually have no idea what the sounds are but they sound like perfect english to me.
"You learned it... in a few minutes of me and my crew talking to each other?"
"Yeah? Anyway, I need your help. Could you take me to Gahlora? Should be in this system." I helpfully tell them what I need but they just stare at me.
"Okay... Just stay in here." Goldy says as he, I think it's a he, walks out of the room with his crew.
"Wait! Could I get something to eat? I'm starving." I call out, a little desperate for some food.
"We'll have something delivered, just stay in here. What do you eat? Meat or plants?" Goldy stopped walking but everyone else kept going. It almost seemed like they were speed walking.
"Both. I'm an omnivore." That seems to give him pause.
"Really? Uh, okay then. We'll send something... soon." He quickly scurried off and the door closed after them.
"Well... That could've gone better. So much for first contact." I mutter as I stand around in the room.
It took 30 minutes for the food to arrive, and it was delivered by someone I hadn't seen before. I wasn't able to talk to them though as they immediately left, completely ignoring me.
'Rude... what the hell is this?' I muse as I stare at the strange meat in front of me. It's color is an odd shade of red and I don't think it's been cooked. There's also no fork or knife. 'What am I? Some animal? How do I... maybe...' Rubbing my chin I get an idea. Using my telekinesis on the meat, I lift it into the air.
"Haha! Who needs a fork?" I chuckle and bring it to my mouth. Biting into it, it's pretty tender and rips easily. Definitely raw though. I'm not sure if it's some animal that has flesh this easily ripped but maybe it's synthetic? It reminds me of sushi kind of. It's not that different in taste and texture.
I finish my meal quickly and then continue standing around. As the boredom mounts I decide to mess with my helmet. I wince as I get a look at my reflection in the visor. My hair is a mess, my face is caked in gunk from the crying and it's just an awful mess.
"Fuck that's gross..." I mutter as I try to fix my hair but the snot in it makes it impossible. With a sigh I start looking around for a rag or a towel. Only to find nothing as this is an airlock, not some closet or bathroom.
"System, are we moving toward Gahlora?" I ask, not entirely sure what is even happening anymore.
"Yes."
"Good. How long?"
"4 hours and 23 minutes." The synthetic mockery of english tells me. 'When am I going to actually hear real english again?' I wonder a bit sadly. It will take months, maybe even years before I find my way home. Thankfully, I have a full 4 hours and some change to think about home. 'Great. Just great.'
--------- Captain "Goldy" ---------
"Captain are you sure this is a good idea? Gahlora is out of the way of our mission! Can't we just dump them on some planet and leave?" Maelicik continues to bother me about the thing in our air lock.
"Yes I'm sure, besides if it has a quest to go there it will likely know if the planet is not the right one. Let's just get it there and out of our ship." I tell them for what seems like the 50th time already.
"But-"
"Enough! Juoull, what is it doing now?" I ask the crew member in charge of the creature. It's a temporary position given to one of the chefs. Juoull just happened to be unlucky enough to be the one to make and deliver it's food.
"It uh... It ate it. Without touching it." Juoull mutters while staring blankly at the monitor with a live feed to the airlock.
"What? What do you mean?" Maelicik asks in my stead.
"The meat just... floated up to it's mouth and he easily tore it apart. I did make it pretty tender since it's supposed to be an infant but I thought there would be at least SOME struggle..."
"The thing has telekinesis?" I ask, pulling up the recording for myself. I watch in awe as the food just floats up into the air.
"Shouldn't our systems have picked up any magic cast in the air lock? How did it do that?" I ask as I replay the video again.
"I don't know. Maybe it's not magic?" Juoull offers but Maelicik scoffs at the idea.
"That's not possible. I don't even know of any species capable of that."
"But it's not a species we even know? Don't forget that we already checked the entire database for 'Human'. For all we know it could be some eldritch monster." Juoull countered.
'I really hope it's not something like that... Let's just get this thing out of my damn fur.' I already feel exhausted. I don't know what the thing even is or what it can do, but as long as it remains in the airlock and it doesn't cause any problems, it'll be gone soon enough.
--------- Greg ---------
It was a very boring flight. Not quite as bad as the void flight since I had some food partway through but it was pretty bad. 'And uncomfortable.' I stretch, trying to get the kink out of my spine. I had been laying and sitting on the floor.
One of the dog things, the same one that delivered my food had told me that we were entering the atmosphere soon.
"Thank God this is almost over... Then I can actually do isekai stuff!" I talk to myself, as I had been doing for the past 3 hours. Soon the ship began to shake with the entry into the atmosphere. Deciding that I had enough sitting and laying, I stood still. Letting my magnetic shoes keep me standing. It felt pretty damn cool.
A few minutes after that we stopped moving all together and the outer door opened. With a smile I jumped out and flung my arms up into the air. Which just so happened to toss my helmet up too. It came crashing down soon after and hit me in the head. I had expected it to go up higher despite accidently throwing it. Then once my excitement calmed down I realized that gravity was much heavier here than on earth or the station.
It wasn't to the point that I was on my knees but it did take more effort to walk. Before it could become a problem, my skill kicked in and suddenly it felt lighter. 'Man that skill is so convenient!' I thought as I was now able to run and jump easily. Well, as easily as I could on earth with the space suit. It was still awkward.
Then a gust of wind knocked me over and I turned to see the ship already taking off and zipping away. 'No sound from the engine? Freaky.' I muse as I feel a bit bad that no one wanted to say goodbye, but oh well. I'll have new friends on this planet.
"Alright! Now, where am I and where's town?" I ask the system while rubbing my hands together.
"The middle of nowhere. The closest settlement is an hour walk south."
"An hour? Shit." I say with a sigh. It might not be as bad as I first thought though. 'Could I use telekinesis on world?' I wonder to myself and then try to do just that. Rather unsurprisingly, I raise up off the ground slightly.
"Oh?" I mutter as I put more power into it, raising a little higher.
"Slick~." I try putting more power and get sent flying forward. Which promptly sends me toward a tree.
"FU-" I'm cut off as I bounce off the bark. I groan as I get off the ground.
"ow... Alright maybe flying needs some more practice. Safety first." I put my helmet back on this time and take off once more.
"Alright, slow and steady at first. System, could you give me a compass or something?" I ask while flailing my arms, trying to keep balance as some invisible force lifts me off the ground.
"No. That will require another skill. The system will just tell you the direction of your objective. Just keep going straight." I had started to forgive the annoying voice but now it's back on my shit list.
'Well whatever. As long as I can find the damn town.' I put more power into the skill and I build more speed as I technically fling myself with a large mental hand. Or like one of those mii's you bully on the wii.
The landscape is actually pretty similar to earth. The trees look identical, the shrubbery is a little off but at a distance it might as well be the same. Even the grass is green. 'Hard to believe this is an alien planet. Let alone in another universe entirely. Maybe those shitty Hollywood movies weren't so wrong after all?' I chuckle as I think about a particularly awful sci-fi movie from my college days.
Should I stop doing the different pov's? Just want to get a feel for what you guys think
