“Do you…need something?” The second girl asked, peering back up at her face with a flummoxed expression.
Taking her hand back like it had been lit on fire, she tried to make it a smooth transition to touching her hair and failed utterly, probably looking more like an awkward baby giraffe as she jerked it around. She laughed nervously, muttering, “Sorry, it’s a greeting where I’m from…”
“Oh!” The first girl looked like a light bulb had just gone off over her head. She was staring at Jade in an intensely creepy way now, and she unconsciously took a step back as girl one lowered her voice and asked with excitement, “Are you…a traveler?” Girl two was giving girl one an incredulous look, as if she had just asked an extremely stupid question.
Jade sighed. She was never going to be able to keep the fact that she was from a different world and totally ignorant about this one under wraps, so she shrugged helplessly and muttered, “If you mean, as far as I know, I’m in a new world as of twenty minutes ago, then yeah?” Some of her excitement about being able to move around for herself was wearing off. She was in a new world, and it was finally sinking in that she had absolutely no idea what she was going to do with her life, or even what the general situation of the world was. She’d been dumped here, albeit with a healthy body, and left to fend for herself. Was this even real, or was it just another dream?
“Ohmyheavens!” The girl one’s compressed squeal brought her back to reality. Now both of them were staring at her like she was an alien…which technically speaking, she supposed if this was real, she probably was? But the girl kept going, so she tried to pay attention. “I’ve never met a real traveler before! What’s it like?” Girl one’s eyes glittered with excitement and girl two still had a skeptical look in her eye, though curiosity was slowly taking over.
Girl one was looking hungrily at her like she was the last cookie on the plate and she was going to grab her before anyone else could. Warily and slightly wearily, Jade ran a hand through her hair as she confessed, “Honestly, it’s a bit confusing. I have no idea where I am or what’s going on.”
The two girls exchanged looks, finally seeming to take in how frail her appearance was for the first time. They glanced down the hall, and then, seeing no one else around, girl two spoke quietly. “Why don’t we come in and sit down for a few minutes? Maybe we can help explain some things for you.” She also looked like she wanted to learn more, but there was a gentleness there too.
Seeing the kind scrutiny on her face, Jade felt her guard dropping. She nodded gratefully and stepped back, allowing the two girls into the room. Seeing the small cart of cleaning supplies they brought in with them, she finally really noticed their matching uniforms of black pants and light beige shirts with a conspicuous coat of arms above their hearts. She closed the door behind them and stumbled back over to the bed to sit down, trying to take in their presence fully.
“Where to start…?” Girl one muttered to herself as she gazed around the room curiously.
“Uhm…maybe I can get your names?” It felt a bit weird in her head to keep calling them girl one and two. Her little interjection seemed to fluster the girls, and they had both turned slightly red.
“Right, sorry about that! I’m Kaylee, and this is Jessica.” Girl one spoke, and Jade mentally tried to replace girl one with Kaylee in her brain. She was a pale, tall, willowy type of girl. Her face was angular, her nose and lips were thin, though her crowning features were her expressive blue eyes and honey blond hair that came down to her elbows, held back in a low ponytail by a black ribbon. She too was lacking the curves Jade wished for, and she felt a kinship with her. Maybe her skinny figure wouldn’t stand out that much?
Jessica, on the other hand, had a fuller figure. She wouldn’t be called fat by any stretch of the imagination, but she still seemed to have some lingering baby fat on her rounded face and a chest Jade was slightly envious of. She had silky dark brown hair that was likewise tied back in a low ponytail, and her dark brown eyes were almond-shaped and matched her olive skin. Neither girl appeared to be much older than 15.
“It’s nice to meet you two.” Jade smiled tiredly at them. It felt like it might be a while before she got any useful information out of them, but she couldn’t really blame them. How did one explain your world to someone when you had no idea what their frame of reference was? She couldn’t help but attempt to prod them along to try and get to the useful stuff. “Can you just...explain the basic situation here? I literally know nothing about this world other than that I saw a blue box that welcomed me and that when I looked out the window people were carrying weapons.” Hopefully, they were still called weapons here... Surprisingly, she thought, she had no issue with the language, though it didn’t quite feel like she was speaking English. Well, whatever. If she could communicate without a problem, that was the important part.
The two girls, Kaylee and Jessica, she reminded herself, exchanged looks again. They seemed to do that a lot. Finally, Jessica spoke. “Well, have you looked at your profile yet?”
“Profile?” And suddenly, she had figured out the magic word, because there in the corner of her vision was a little blinking blue dot, and when she focused on it, the blessed information screen finally appeared!
Name: Jade Winward
Age: 18
Strength: 7.94
Dexterity: 8.23
Constitution: 7.82
Intelligence: 15.56
Magic: 11.22
Charisma: 8.98
Luck: 13.45
Special Abilities: Siphon
Skills: N/A
Chapter Two – Stats
Temporarily ignoring Kaylee and Jessica, Jade stared at the screen in front of her while they smiled knowingly and waited for her to return her attention to them. She frowned a little as she studied her stats, then glanced questioningly at the two of them. “Quick question… Am I right in thinking the average stat for a normal person is around, oh, say…ten?”
Kaylee looked surprised while Jessica smiled approvingly. “That’s right! How’d you know?”
“Oh… It was just a guess…” Well, it was that and years of watching DnD podcasts. An average human had a 10 in all stats, and she…she had four stats that were 1-2 points below that. Out of seven stats, she had three that were considered ‘above average.’ Granted, she was pretty happy with her intelligence stat. However, given that it was one of the few things that seemed unchanged from her old world, well… It was the only thing she’d genuinely had a chance to develop. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of the luck stat though. Was it luck that she’d been bedridden for most of her life? But then again… She was here with a new body, wasn’t she? Maybe her luck had changed.
She didn’t know what to think of her lacking skills section. Maybe every traveler started with a blank slate? She hoped so. It would be embarrassing to have such a low starting point, considering she already felt like she was behind the human race as it was because of her stats. That left just one thing: her special ability. Contemplating it intently, she wondered, just what the heck does Siphon mean? She knew what the word meant, of course. She just had no idea why it would appear on her special abilities list. There was no context support for it.