Meta Gamer in Equestria: Odyssey

by reflective vagrant

Chapter 6. I gasped. (Wilderness, Part 6)

I awoke to the nudging of my new found ally, whom had led me to shelter. I had fallen asleep while leaning up against her front door. As cool as it was to come out of a life and death situation through cooperating with a stranger, I wasn't the kind of person to give out the title "friend" to anybody easily. She and I had reason to look out for each other, and were getting along a little better, but she wasn't a friend. I saw us as tentative allies and nothing more.

That said, the action of having anybody around again was still enough to bring a smile to my face.

I looked up at her and saw that she had a good amount of the life back in her face. I looked back at the wound on her flank to find that it had scabbed over rather well and her leg wasn't gimping anymore. Instead she seemed to be shifting side to side with her weight.

I pondered on this for just a moment before she gave me a pretty big clue. She gave a strong huff and nudged my shoulder hard, trying to push me out of the way.

It donned on me that she needed to get outside quick for... unmentionable morning business. I quickly got up and out of the way.

With the bushes relieving my own business that came to my attention shortly after, I was about to leave but I found her pulling me back inside. Once inside, she led me to the bed she laid on the night before, pushed me to urge me to sit down and started unwrapping my arms.

She stared at the wounds and then up at me with a deadpan face that could only mean one thing: She wasn't impressed with my makeshift treatment of myself. I had a feeling that right then and there she knew I was an idiot about medicine and first aid.

She gave me another downward nudge to make sure I understood I needed to stay seated. She walked around her hut, gathering supplies and depositing them beside me on the bed.

Some I recognized as what could be a gourd filled with a topical medicine. Others, I was clueless on.

When she came back with a sponge, she doused it with something from a gourd and got to work. She pinned my hand to the bed with her hoof and then started scrubbing my forearm vigorously. I gave a grunt in pain from both the sting and the scrubbing, but I didn't struggle. I knew she was cleaning up the wound before addressing it with other medicines.

Spitting the sponge out of her mouth after she was done scrubbing both arms, she went to another shelf and fetched a small bottle. Directing me to stick my arms out further, she carefully poured it over my wounds.

My eyes just about popped out of my head as I saw the wounds close up and seal with little more than a scar to show for it. She then went about lancing my blisters and treating both of my hands with the items she had gathered before. I guess the bruises and blisters on my hands there weren't the right kinds of wounds for her potion to fix. Still, my hands felt far better after she had treated them.

I was about to leave after I saw her put away her supplies, but I found her tugging at my firs again. She pulled me around the cauldron that was in the middle of the hut and to a small table. She didn't force me to sit but when I saw her get out a plate, I realized she wanted to feed me as well.

"You saved my life. The least I owe you is three meals and a cot," another—probably also butchered—line from another Clint Eastwood movie rang through my mind.

After she had brought out a basket of much nicer looking bread and some raspberries, she sat down in one of the chairs. She also grabbed a bun of bread, put it on her plate, and nudged the basket towards me.

I was amazed at how human like this zebra's actions where proving to be. With her cue to partake, I sat on the floor cross legged to be about at her level. I reached for the basket and did likewise with the other bun.

It was an interesting breakfast. The meal included a conversation we had with gestures and charade like explanations, which proved to be entertaining for both of us. I was completely stumped by some of what she tried to explain, but from what I could tell, she seemed to be a hermit and a healer. I also seemed to get the impression that she was knowledgeable. I felt that if she lived with others of her kind, she'd be a wise woman of sorts. Well... A wise mare of sorts.

She also managed to confirm my suspicions of the four potions I had in my pack being healing potions. With a quick look over, a swirl, a sniff and the slightest sip, she understood its properties and promptly pointed towards my now healed arm. I had a feeling that the recipe was foreign to her, but otherwise she knew the end result was pretty much the same potion.

When she pushed the bottles back to me, I tried to insist that she keep one by pushing one back. I fetched the empty bottle on the bed to explain I wanted to replace her wares but she still shook her head zealously as if she were insulted. In response, she took the bottle, went over to her counter and pretended to fill it from an empty container.

Once it donned on me that she made her own potions, I felt ashamed. I had accidentally insulted her medicine making skills. I just took up the bottles, put them back into my pack and turned to ask for permission to leave.

She may have misunderstood that I wanted to leave in shame and not just leave, because she tugged lightly at my sleeve but otherwise didn't pull me anywhere, then started to get to work at her medicine while largely ignoring me.

I was welcome to stay, but otherwise she had work to do was the conclusion I came to. I stood there long enough to acknowledge I could stay and not be completely rude.

During that time I did a double-take at something on the counter. She was making more of the paste she had used on herself the night before. I could tell because she was putting the finished product into the same container she had drawn it from previously. It was the same medicine. That wasn't what surprised me, though. Replenishing medicine after using it was just good practice. What surprised me was the fragmented pearl she broke another chunk off of and added to the mortar she was mixing things in. It was the pearl I had given her the other day. She did have a use for it.

She stopped grinding it for a moment and looked at me. With a smile and a wink, she quickly went back to her work. I couldn't tell if it was the only thing she could have used, but I couldn't deny it was at least a small part of the medicine she had used to treat her poisoned wound with. I couldn't help but swell with a little pride with that bit of information.

With that bit of tension broken from the insult, I managed to leave the hut on a good note. I wasn't sure if I should just leave outright or wait a little bit. Ultimately, I decided to test out my power again while I was there. Finding it pretty easy to call upon now that I had felt it once and knew where to ask, I easily shifted back into what I now recognized as a pretty decent copy of Ash. I spent the next half hour sitting in front of her hut, trying to figure out how to undo it manually. Finally I figured it out, and decided to not test the third method of killing my animal form off to see if I reverted. While it sounded OK with the D&D stuff becoming more real with my new body, I didn't really want to initiate any kind of "death" upon myself, temporary form or not.

So instead I walked around the immediate area around her hut, finding an axe and a lot of unchopped firewood. I had another brief head scratching moment over this as I saw the zebra come outside and sit down to meditate. Ultimately I shook my head at this and just dismissed it as another one of those weird things that worked here.

Trying to be a nice guest to my host, I gestured towards the firewood and axe, seeing if she would mind if I chopped some of the wood. She only looked around enough to understand what I was asking, gave a shrug and went back to focusing on the sky.

---

Back to the present, in the nexus of the dreamscape, on a tiny island that our protagonist had secluded himself to, save for the occasional visit from the Princess of the Night.

"I'm sorry, I really am, but I won't describe what happened after that. I am too ashamed, and it really isn't relevant, Princess Luna," I apologized, "Well I suppose none of this is, really."

Princess Luna simply sat there at that same distance that would let me be comforted if I wished or let me turn away. "It is quite alright, Moss—or whatever your true name is that you find you are unable to share through the spells. Do you-"

"I don't mind you using 'Moss,'" I interrupted. "It's the closest thing I have. Even when I wasn't in this form, he was just paper and a figurine for me to pretend to be in that game. He was always nothing more than an extension of me."

"Indeed," Princess Luna continued, "but I find just having a chance to think things out and explain to somepony what they have been through helps them understand the root of the matter eventually. I don't mind listening for an hour or so each night. You will get to the root of your struggle in good time."

With this, Princess Luna's horn lit up and shot out a wave of energy into the nexus that was surrounding my little island in the dreamscape.

"Sadly I must attend to something building but I will try to visit you a little more this night if I can. Please, try to wake up and take care of your physical body."

With this, she gracefully dove into that nexus and I did my best to wake.

I reset my alarm spells to make sure nothing would sneak up on me in the cave, created some food and water, and did some basic exercises to keep atrophy from setting in as I wallowed about in my misery. If it weren't for Princess Luna, taking a little time to visit me during my sleeping hours, I probably wouldn't even have my alarm spells up and would be wasting away. It was only because of her calm requests that I bothered. You might be thinking this was me being nice with her caring about me, but it was just a deal we made. I did it so that I wouldn't have her or some other princess come into my cave and drag me out. I did it to get her to keep her end of the bargain and leave me alone beyond her nightly visits. I wanted my privacy while I figured this out and as much of that privacy as I could get.

Sadly, my ability to resist sleep failed me and I found myself back at that nexus, with Princess Luna jumping back out and onto my Island as she promised.

"alright then... I guess it's story time again."

---

Back in the past,

The next few days were interesting, with my combat ability suddenly increased and a healer nearby I was a bit more daring at what I was and wasn't willing to do. I finished my second den, managed to skin the wolf that had died on my spear and eat on it for a while. Sadly, most of the fir still went bad despite my best attempts to preserve it. Beyond the meat, and the innards I ended up feeding to the crows and other scavengers I felt I needed to share with, the only other thing I had to work with was bones.

I wasn't able to salvage the sinew and the zebra seemed a little weary about my skills at using animal parts. At first I thought she was disgusted that I was doing it at all, but when she showed me how to salvage what little of the hide was left, it was apparent that she only cared about making sure the animal didn't go to waste.

I made a note to bring any further kills I had to her to show me how to preserve and use it. But I also felt it was a good idea to not rush my next kill and let it come naturally. Something about how the zebra held herself said I needed to respect the forest and the life within if I wanted to respect her. That meant not killing needlessly. Although I could kill quite easily now, now that I had Ash's form at my disposal, I still needed to not kill without good cause.

We had trouble communicating as usual during my next visit, but we managed to confirm a few things together. My bear form wasn't the only form I could take. I had taken the form of a squirrel and a wolf similar to the ones that had attacked us. I also confirmed a lot of what I knew from D&D in its function and restrictions.

While I could have experimented with this stuff on my own, I still felt good having a medic on hand to heal me up if I was wrong while I confirmed it. One thing I still didn't want to test was the whole reverting back to normal unharmed if I die as an animal thing. The only thing I did test that I had been surprised on was the fact that I couldn't turn into a zebra even though I had seen one.

'I guess she's not exactly an animal,' was all I could think of.

Author's Note:

"Pale Rider" 1985, is the other Clint Eastwood movie I (probably mis-)quoted in this chapter. I don't intend to quote them perfect because the protagonist wouldn't know either.

The sister story, Children of Equis, does happen to have the tiny scene missing from this story in its chapter 4. Shameless cross story promotion? Yes. Yes it is.

Comments

[ShortestFuse]

Uh, did you put the Luna bit in this one by accident? Cause to me it feels really out of place.

[reflective vagrant]

8694470
nope. This is him telling the story to Luna, and a break happens. I've adjusted it to where it might be a bit easier to read. You can read the footnote in chapter 6 to see the correction in narration. I hope that makes it a bit clearer.

[ShortestFuse]

8694516
That's much better.

[reflective vagrant]

8695364
Thank you for the feedback.

[Exaxxion]

I wish there were more dnd based stories, their so rare

[reflective vagrant]

8703285
They're hard to make into MLP stories, MLP not being adventure based. I'm trying to blend the elements of it to have a story that is an effective hybrid, kinda like how Sepheroth's theme song in Advent Children is a hybrid of classical Music and modern Rock Music, but not truly able to be classified clearly into either. Like sweet and sour, you can make something truly wonderful if you do it right, but it is a recipe that is but a single slip up away from ruin.

If this ever features after I get the formula right, I might petition FimFiction to allow both tags in this story, though I doubt they'd let me.