Your Brief Exploration of Another World
Version 1.0
By Savestate
—
Intro:
Hello, mere mortal!
I am a mighty planeswalker, grand archmage and traveler of worlds! I have come to you specifically to offer a harrowing challenge and grand opportunity! Should you accept my challenge, your body will be changed. You will become completely feminine, with long hair, short nails, breasts around… this big?
[She stops for a moment, trying to mime the size she’s intending.]
Hold on, I’ve got an image. This is what I’ll be turning you into.
[She gives you a drawing. It’s a commissioned artwork of her being fucked into the ground by an attractive woman.]
Oh god um sorry wrong image.
…But yeah that’s what you’d look like.
*cough* *fidget*
The nature of the challenge is as such! I will transform your body, and send you to another world. While you are in this other world, you will possess a verdant aura that increases your ability to learn and grow by a factor of thirty. This aura will also affect those around you, to the degree you allow it, helping you find allies and support yourself in this world. I will watch your adventures in this other world. In one year’s time, I will bring you back to your original world, and your aura will collapse into one of preservation. You and those around you will be rendered immortal, but if you have not found a way to return to your original body, it will be much harder to do so.
—
The World:
The world I intend to send you to is named Earth by its inhabitants. I’ve decided to call it Earth-Skill. In climate, ecology, and geography, it resembles your own world. It’s less industrialized, but not primitive, and uses powers unknown and inaccessible to your own people. The average person lives in comfort for several hundred years. Most of the world is quite peaceful, and has been for a few centuries now. There was some rebellion or something; I’m not really sure. Their historical texts read more like mythologies to me. Blah blah “cruel lords who drank the life and spirit of their people” this and “Hero of Blood” that. Bottom line is, you can expect to be safe and comfortable, and there is power for you to learn.
—
Living Situation:
However valuable your aura is, the easiest way to take advantage of it involves settling yourself in one place, or with one group. I have some ideas for where you might want to establish yourself.
Choose one.
Isekai Party
Join up with some other people I challenged, on the outskirts of one of this world’s larger cities. There are two of them, siblings, and they’ve been her for about two months. One found out how easy it is to change your body in this world and returned to his original appearance within three days of arrival. The other still hasn’t, which is… promising. Don’t ruin this for me, okay? If you’re around other people taking my challenge, it’ll be easier for us to communicate.
Sex House
I don’t know what else to call this sort of place. A building devoted to certain kinds of fetish activity, with a small number of people who live there full-time and a large number of regular and irregular visitors. The people of this world can’t do anything like actual mind control (but can you imagine, though? God, if only) but they’re good at “training” willing participants. You’d be extra receptive, or extra effective at training other people. I’m willing to do you a small favor if you stay at a place like this. Maybe carry some items back to your world with you?
Academy of the Astral
The foremost place of study for those who seek to master the Astral. The Astral is, as far as I can tell, a vast cloud of microscopically tiny worlds in very close orbit to this world. It’s the backbone behind everything this world’s mages do, leveraged in many ways. Obviously, don’t expect to manage anything close to my own grand magic. Living in a place like this, you can expect to become more powerful in the Astral with the same amount of effort.
City of the Deep
The foremost place for gathering and refining the special materials of the depths. More than a mile below the surface, sustained by an extensive infrastructure and active trade. From vast quantities of ore, their molten forges produce Blackstone, Adamantine, and Deep Gold, and create vast quantities of dross. Working with this stuff is a pain, but it has a degree of weight and permanence unlike most matter. They have something special down here, a form of body modification based on integrating these materials into your flesh. A small patch of Deep Gold scales can make your whole body stronger and tougher, even if you never do anything interesting with them.
—
Activities:
You have one year in this world, or 52 weeks.
In addition to your own accelerated development, the power of Skill allows expertise to be taken beyond its normal limits. As a foreigner to this world without the bloodline in its active state, you cannot achieve this on your own, but you can learn from others, and from their writings. The power of Skill abounds in this world, civilization shaped to preserve and nurture it. Beyond what you choose to actively study, living in a certain way will make you better at living in that way. …I have some suggestions, if you’re interested?
[They are not good suggestions.]
Developing to Level 1 takes 2 weeks.
Developing to Level 2 takes a total of 6 weeks.
Developing to Level 3 takes a total of 12 weeks.
Astralism
The foundational art of grasping and manipulating the Astral to produce effects. You may wield your powers without any buildup, or spend a few minutes amassing and shaping power, holding it in place with your “capacity to grasp the Astral” for hours until it is time to release it. The area in which you can interact with the Astral is limited to the immediate vicinity of your body.
At Level 1, you could keep yourself cool in the hottest desert or warm in an arctic blizzard, rapidly fire sharpened chunks of raw matter faster than arrows, build up fireballs more dangerous than grenades, or carve small objects by banishing portions of their structure.
At Level 2, you could fly somewhat clumsily, rapidly fire shards of raw matter more dangerously than small guns, maintain a spherical defensive barrier that can resist your own attacks, or conjure a one-meter cube denser and more durable than good concrete within fifteen minutes of work.
At Level 3, you could fly precisely at the speed of sound, rapidly fire off lasers with enough energy to blow people apart, maintain small barriers of distorted space that can turn back any conventional attack, or entomb someone in a dense metallic monolith with a prepared spell.
Astralism: Enchanting
The art of creating persistent structures in the Astral. Spells that linger for an extended period, magic items, and spatial computation engines. Spatial computation is ludicrously fast, but expanding the memory of such computers is extremely tedious.
At Level 1, you could cast a spell as potent as your active efforts that persists for several minutes, anchor a spell in a chunk of Blackstone to unleash later, or build calculators into your spells to improve accuracy and precision.
At Level 2, you could cast a spell as potent as your active efforts that persists for half an hour, build permanent magic items with Deep Gold, efficiently sift specific elements from the Astral, or construct fully-functional computers.
At Level 3, you could cast a spell as potent as your active efforts that persists for hours, anchor spells to projectiles, efficiently run atomic synthesis within the Astral, or combine spells in a modular manner.
Astralism: Farcasting
The art of projecting spells and collecting information across greater distances. After all, any point within the Astral is equally distant from any position within the world.
At Level 1, you could sharpen your senses to see microbes or out to the horizon, hear clearly from several times the distance, or cast spells with hundreds of meters of range at the cost of inaccuracy.
At Level 2, you could see down to the atomic level, scry on distant events, teleport small objects, or cast spells with reasonable accuracy to any location you can clearly target.
At Level 3, you could create portals stable enough to walk through, or use scrying to target additional long-distance spellcasting (including additional scrying attempts).
Mentalism
Other practices develop your mental activities in their own ways, but this is a focused and comprehensive elevation of memory, speed of thought, and attention.
At Level 1, this is enough to almost double the relevant faculties.
At Level 2, the relevant faculties are roughly quadrupled.
At Level 3, the relevant faculties are increased by almost an order of magnitude.
Athleticism
Focused development of the body, improving speed, agility, and overall capacity for precise physical action. This is an otherworldly sort of agility, without as much of the “impact” you might expect. The ground won’t break beneath your feet, but you can’t put much extra force into a single punch.
At Level 1, you are as dextrous as an ordinary human can be, and can reach a running speed of 30mph.
At Level 2, you can reach speeds of 100mph, and are proportionately swift in other actions.
At Level 3, you can reach speeds of 400mph, and are proportionately swift in other actions.
Archivalism
An art for the inscription and deciphering of extremely compact textual archives, using specialized languages, very small symbols, and hyper-efficient steganography.
At Level 1, you can create and efficiently read archives 30x the density of normal text, and your active memorization is 4x as effective.
At Level 2, you can create and efficiently read archives 240x the density of normal text, and your active memorization is 16x as effective.
At Level 3, you can create and efficiently read archives 1,720x the density of normal text, and your active memorization is 57x as effective.
Flesh Shaping
A combination of medical and cosmetic practices. Reliant on tools and supplies, but includes the means to create such things, and can do a lot with very little. Of course, my methods are much better.
At Level 1, you could extend the healthy lifespans of hundreds of patients by several decades, alter someone’s physical sex perfectly over the course of a year, or treat injuries as effectively as a team of doctors with modern equipment while using knives and twine.
At Level 2, you could extend healthy lifespans by close to a century, alter physical form comprehensively to the point of grafting new limbs or adjusting metabolism, cure genetic diseases, or replace missing organs with equivalents taken from animals.
At Level 3, you could extend the healthy lifespan to three centuries, create programmed microorganisms, trivially integrate mechanical elements, make someone unrecognizable in the space of a single day, or cure a novel super-plague before it kills you.
Tinkering
An art of craftsmanship with intent. Roughly, the ability to aim the results of your crafting at an arbitrary goal.
At Level 1, items you make are more pleasing and convenient for their intended owner, and complex items are more reliable.
At Level 2, you could calibrate medicines to avoid overdose without knowing your patient, optimize tools for unknown problems, or ensure a prototype will be minimally functional for at least its first use.
At Level 3, you could mix medications while ensuring only those that would be beneficial take effect, repair devices you do not understand, or make items with fixed effects mildly “responsive” to their user.
Combat Arts
The methods developed by those who face battle. A pure weaponization of Skill. The ability to avoid detection, to avoid being hit, and to survive being hit with a reservoir of pure luck that takes a week to replenish. And, of course, the ability to hit, and to cause harm.
At Level 1, you could render yourself silent, dodge with peak human effectiveness, minimize a single serious injury by luck, or intuitively identify an enemy’s points of maximum vulnerability.
At Level 2, you could dampen your presence, begin evasive maneuvers before you notice an imminent attack, minimize a single lethal injury by luck, or significantly increase the severity of any wounds you cause.
At Level 3, you could render yourself essentially invisible, defend yourself effectively against invisible attackers, minimize two lethal injuries by luck, or meagerly bypass special protections.
Mundane Expertise
This world contains equivalents to many skills in your own world. You can obtain the raw technical ability, if not the specific knowledge or familiarity, to match or exceed any of your own people. Fields of study include mechanical engineering, painting, logic, cooking, and statesmanship.
At Level 1, you become as capable as the best of your world.
At Level 2, you are significantly, obviously better than the best, capable of working twice as quickly and still doing a better job.
Inventory
The Astral is commonly used to create storage spaces. So commonly, it’s considered distinct from “real” magery. Most people anchor their inventories to a chunk of Blackstone they carry with them; inventories can actually be swapped between anchors and between people safely. Otherwise, it’s a mild tax on your Astral abilities to maintain it. Time does not pass in an inventory, or rather, their structure does not allow atoms to change their statuses relative to each other, unless they are built to allow that.
At Level 1, you can expand your inventory by several cubic feet per year without expending any real effort on inventory growth.
At Level 2, you can expand your inventory by at least a cubic meter per year.
At Level 3, you can expand your inventory by at least seven cubic meters per year.
Get Flesh Shaped
Free Action
…Yes, the people here offer free flesh shaping as a government-funded service. You’re especially interesting to shapers, for how easy you’ll be to change. But consider the alternative: keep that look through the end of the year, and I’ll let you date me!