Jebidiahs Change Bk 01 Ch 01

Author's note:

This book is my first attempt at something like this and I both look forward to and dread feedback. Reader be warned, if you are looking for lots of bump and grind you will be disappointed. I only intend to use sex to further things along or where it makes sense. Like this first chapter, there will end up being a few without much erotica and I myself am not much for the wham bam thank you ma'am stories. This is intended to be more of a longer fantasy epic and with my lack of experience it may take a few chapters to get into it. David Weber I am not. Give it a chance if you would.

Just a general note, a year where this story takes place is close to 2 Earth years so double everyone's age. Everyone engaging in activity will always be an adult.

Update: If you are returning to brush up on book one before starting on the latest, there's been a massive restructuring of these early chapters. As a first attempt at writing I left them in horrid shape and it kept bugging me, so I rewrote some before starting on book two. I think this chapter was losing me readers before they could get to the better stuff.

If you are a new reader, I hope the reworking helps you stay involved.

-- Somewhen, Somewhere --

Comlain had a headache--which should be an amusing contradiction, considering he was incapable of feeling pain. Nevertheless, dealing with the constantly morphing figure walking beside him had given him a massive migraine--the memory of one, at least. It had been several hundred years since he left his humanity and all its frailties behind.

His 'companion', now in the form of a giraffe, laughed and skipped about the area around Comlain. "Found him, I did. This is who we want!"

"But why? You have never cared before. Why this one now?"

The galloping giraffe suddenly leapt into the air--an impossible leap for such an ungainly animal--and, mid-leap, transformed into a hawk. It soared away, its cry echoing as it dwindled into the distance. "I win! We win! She wins! We all winnnnnnnnn!"

Comlain's headache worsened as he began to pace.

-- Chapter 1: Tonstar Changing Station --

-- Second Tenday of Antaen 813 AGR --

Who says life is fair, where is that written?

- Goldman

Jebidiah Overton slowly opened his eyes, naked except for the thin cotton sheet that mostly covered him, shaking off the lingering effects of sleep. It was a difficult task--not physically, no, it was mentally monumental. He dreaded seeing the results that awaited him and promptly shut his eyes again.

It was the morning of his tenth nameday, the 2nd 5th of the month of Antaen, a few tendays after the spring planting season had begun. It was also the day Jebidiah would find out which way Lady Udite would decide his fate with the Change--if he would only open his eyes to look. Instead, he engaged in his favorite relaxing exercise: compartmentalizing what was stressing him, reviewing what brought him here, and adding some mental arithmetic for fun. For the umpteenth time, he began calculating the odds he was still a human, while his human life flashed through his mind.

Humans of Tresolmar lived under very strict biological rules. The "why" of these rules was a greatly debated topic among ranking Artificers, with no universally accepted theory, though most agreed it predated the Divine--absolving them of responsibility in the eyes of most worshipers. Tresolmar was home to many races, hundreds, possibly thousands, according to some experts, but humans were unique. The other races followed expected biological norms and could only reproduce within their species--elves begot elves, dwarves begot dwarves, and so on. Certain hybrids were possible, such as a dwarf-elf offspring or the more common halfling-gnome pairings. Humans, however, proved to be the exception; they could mate with anyone it was physically possible to do so.

The caveat--'physically possible'--had given rise to a rather questionable genre of books, stories, and songs belted out by the seedier bards and troubadours in the less reputable taverns and inns.

The result of this anomaly was that every child with at least one human parent was born fully human, showing no characteristics of their non-human lineage. In theory, this would grant the human race a significant majority of the world population given their broader mating pool. However, nature, in all its capriciousness, had countered with another peculiar rule.

Nature was meticulous in its planning with humans and showed an affinity with the number ten. On any given day, the total number of human births across Tresolmar totaled a multiple of ten. Several hundred years ago, the surviving human kingdoms had set up the Registry, a record administered by the Archivist Guild, meticulously tracking every human birth, death, and other vital statistics. Occasionally, a day's recorded births would deviate from the pattern, but eventually, the missing numbers were found, and the statistics corrected themselves. Jebidiah was one such rogue human--his birth was unrecorded until he was found as a toddler in the remains of a burned-out farm.

That day still haunted Jebidiah.

Barely more than two years of age at the time, his only memories of the attack were fragments--sensory echoes of sounds and smells. The first sounds had been the high-pitched, piercing cries of his sisters, wrenching him from his nap. It had been a warm day, and he had made himself a pocket inside a hay bale in the barn, carefully hidden from view. He had curled up and fallen asleep, hoping this time nobody would find him. But their screams had jolted him awake.

Then came the grunts of their attackers.

The story unfolded for him through sound alone, his ears his only guide. The squeals of dying pigs, the clash of metal on metal, and then--the wet

thunk

. A noise he would come to know too well. It had the same sickening finality as when Father butchered a cow. This time, it was followed by his father's cry, then his mothers' screams. One by one, they fell silent, each scream cut off by another wet, meaty

thunk

.

And then only the low laughter of the intruders remained.

The smells never left him either. Some were so mundane, so ubiquitous, that even stepping into a stable years later would send him into a spiral of terror. There was the smell of the horses, the sharp, acrid stench of horse shit--overpowering in its intensity. It took him years to realize the horses had soiled themselves in fear. He had eventually overcome his fear of stables, but it had been a hard struggle.

Then the iron-tinged smell of blood.

So much blood.

Slaughtered livestock were left to rot where they fell, their bodies motionless in pools of congealed blood.

The smoke came next--the smell of a wood fire nearly masked the rest, but not entirely. It had woven itself into the mix, accentuating the pungent aroma rather than overpowering it.

And finally, the hay.

The hay had surrounded him, his only refuge. He had pressed his face into it, burying himself to shut out the sounds, but the world had become nothing but hay--its scent filling every breath, embedding itself into this very being. He had eventually overcome the fear of fire, as he had the stables, but hay? The scent of hay still sent a jolt of panic through him, even now.

It wasn't until the evening, when the attackers had long fled and darkness claimed the sky, that young Jebidiah had pulled himself from his hiding spot. He had picked his way through the ruined farm, stepping over the animals, through the sticky, dried pools of blood, until he stood over the broken remains of his family, their bodies crumpled in small, lifeless heaps, illuminated by the blaze of what had once been his home.

He couldn't remember if he had cried.

He didn't remember standing there all night.

Nor did he remember being found in the morning--still standing, motionless--when the neighbors had come to investigate the smoke.

Jebidiah shook off the bitter memories, wrenching his mind back to his original contemplations.

Humans--his humanity.

Was he still a human?

Ah, yes. That's where he had been before his tangent--nature's rules for humans.

For every ten humans born, three would be male, seven would be female. Always. This ratio was an absolute rule across the entire population, even if individual pods deviated slightly. It was universally accepted that the Divine were not responsible. This rule, like the others, had existed before the Divine Ascendance, when, spread over a tenday, twenty mortals rose to the ranks of the Divine. Attempts to break these biological laws--including magical manipulation--had all failed.

Then came the Draw.

On every child's fourth nameday, without exception, they were assigned up to three Talents in what became known as the Draw Ceremony. Diviners performed the ritual, declaring a child's Talent--or lack thereof. Talents determined an individual's place in society, whether in a Guild, a Company, or possibly in servitude. There was no discernable pattern to Talent distribution; one could easily become one of the more numerous--a Warrior, Rogue, Mage, or Priest. Some Talents had specialized subcategories--Warriors could become Rangers, Rogues Assassins, Mages Wizards--and occasionally individuals gravitated towards different Talents altogether, a phenomena mostly seen in mages.

Life on Tresolmar was no picnic; there were so many ways to die that when the Archivists attempted to create a classification system for the manner of deaths, it was quickly discarded. Instead, they marked deaths by common, broad categories: peaceful, violent, disease, war, etc. Violent deaths accounted for the majority of recorded fatalities by a fair margin. Those deaths tended to create a lot of orphans, and in response, a network of orphanages was established in the major cities to help preserve as much of the human population as possible. Being an orphan wasn't exactly a social black mark, but orphans were excluded from many events in greater society simply due to a lack of adult supervision. Holiday festivals were held within the orphanage, which meant the orphans never participated in larger, public celebrations. This exclusion gave the children the stigma of being outcasts.

Jebidiah had been at the orphanage for well over a year by then but was still treated as an outcast among other outcasts because he was 'strange.' He was a loner, often lost in his thoughts, and due to the trauma of the attack still fresh in his memory, he rarely spoke. When he was found the morning following the attack, standing over the remains of his family, he could not bring himself to answer any of the multitude of questions that bombarded him. It was four months before he would begin speaking, so the Artificer in charge of the orphanage had taken to calling him Jebidiah--his father's name--since it was the only male name recorded from his farm. The name suited him; it was like people were talking at him instead of to him, so he kept it.

The Draw Ceremony was the moment the orphan's lives changed dramatically. The ceremony was attended by a large number of outsiders--adults seeking to adopt children. When the children were delved and their Talents revealed, a bidding war would ensue for the right to adopt based on the Talent exposed. These funds were what kept the orphanages running. Rogues were often the least valued, and there were cases where a rogue Talent might actually be passed over, but Mages and Priests were sought after, and the bidding war could drive prices up to substantial amounts. Multi-Talents were rare, and those bidding wars had at times resulted in violence. If an orphan were declared a Multi, their future was set--often finding themselves adopted into nobility.

Jebidiah's Draw Ceremony had been yet another humiliating blot on his already sorrowful childhood.

Jebidiah's delving was delayed by one such bidding war after a Mage-Priest was declared, which finally ended after thirty minutes with House Plusk securing the child for twenty-five gold. When it was finally his turn, he tried to tamp down his growing excitement but found himself failing, especially after the bidding war he had just witnessed. The divination process was normally brief: a simple spell was cast, the diviner would squint at the child in question, and the Talent--or lack thereof--was announced. If not for the bidding wars, the entire ceremony would last mere minutes instead of dragging on for hours.

The diviner cast her spell over Jebidiah, did the usual squinting, then made a face. More squinting followed, with a deeper frown. Objectively, it lasted only a minute, but for Jebidiah, it stretched into an eternity as the pause captured everyone's attention. Finally, the diviner finally gave a small shrug and announced, "Talentless," before moving on to the next child.

It was probably the most embarrassing moment of his life, leaving him emotionally devastated. The other children became insufferable, even amidst those his age and older who were also Untalented, equally discarded as unwanted. This lasted for the next two tendays until the first truly positive thing happened in his sorrowful life--though it took him several months to realize it. That was when he was entered into the Thadius Primary School.

After the Draw Ceremony was completed and the results were tabulated by the Archivists, the assignments to pods were arranged. Other human kingdoms handled adolescence differently, and the pod system was unique to the kingdom of Tonstar, eventually becoming the foundation for Tonstar society. The pod assignments were balanced--mixing available Talents and social statuses together to form self-sufficient groups, then rounding them out to ten members with Untalented children. Another key factor was that all children in a pod were also born within the same tenday. There were minor exceptions due to accidental death and disease, but the numbers generally held true.

It was with immense trepidation that Jebidiah entered the small room he was directed to upon arriving at the school. Already inside the room were an artificer and eight other children, all girls--meaning they were waiting for just one more. The girls all nodded and smiled at him, seeming friendly enough, but Jebidiah just wanted to shrink away and disappear. The smallest of the group--a cute blonde--stepped up to him and looked up at his face, which was several inches above hers.

"I'm Crystal, I hope we can be friends."

"I'm, um, Jebidiah."

She continued to just smile at him, staring. It was one of the strangest things he had experienced--not unpleasant or uncomfortable, just strange. He was formulating and discarding responses as quickly as they emerged from his brain when the door opened again and another boy entered. Jebidiah was large for his size, but the new boy wasn't far off. The artificer present made introductions all around and gave them a few minutes to exchange pleasantries before ushering them out to their first class.

Crystal never stayed far away from Jebidiah since that first meeting, and for the first time in his life, he found he had friends. They spent the rest of their childhood together, nearly every hour of every day, developing deeply rooted bonds with each other until the next major ceremony in their lives--three years later--when everything would change again.

On every child's seventh nameday, again without fail, puberty hit. Every child would be cursed (also commonly called a

draw

, like with the Talents. Nobody liked being called

cursed

) with a Change. Diviners would hold yet another one of their ceremonies, called The Cursing Day, and declare the child's Change. Once the Change was determined, unlike a Talent, nothing could be done to alter the draw short of divine intervention. At least that was the working theory, as no intervention had ever been recorded since record-keeping had begun.

The real joke nature played here was that the Change was seemingly completely random. If a child had a human and elf parent, they were as likely to draw Dwarf or Fae as they were to draw Elf.

Puberty brought many things with it. The most obvious was the change in everyone's bodies that took place over the next few months. There were the normal human things: extra body and facial hair, menstruating, moodiness from the new hormones flooding their systems. On top of these, though, the influence of the Change became prominent.

Crystal had drawn Goblin, and her blonde hair began to darken; she shed a few more inches off her already short height and just became all the more diminutive. Dana had drawn Elf, and she gained Crystal's lost inches, adding a few more for fun, becoming taller than even Jebidiah. Stern, the other boy, drew Ogre and became a small mountain, surpassing even Dana's height while gaining huge cords of muscles. Henna drew Dwarf, and Joy drew Halfling, both becoming hairier and shorter. The rest were lucky enough in their draws that there were no physical changes of note.

For his part, Jebidiah drew Orc--the irony of which ran deep, as it had been determined that a local orc tribe was what had made him an orphan. He gained a few more inches, drawing even further away from Crystal's smiling face, and a lot more mass, though not nearly as much as Stern. Until then, Jebidiah had always been the largest of the group, the one everyone turned to as their 'muscle' when they ran afoul of another pod or faced some daunting physical tasks. It gave him peace of mind knowing he had a role within the pod, but now that balance of power and security was now gone, leaving Jebidiah once again uncertain of things.

Puberty also kicked in everyone's sexual drives. In the confines of the dormitories where the children lived, the ever-increasing sexual encounters would have sown chaos if not for the multitude of new policies that were automatically put into place based on centuries of experience dealing with the problem. Even so, sex happened, and there was a lot of it.

Jebidiah lost his virginity within the first tenday to Crystal, with him also being her first. Stern had matched up with Henna and Polly--until his size increase made physical intimacy too painful and, in most cases, downright impossible. The new level of intimacy this added to their pod helped to soothe some of Jebidiah's new uncertainties, but even the joy of sex only went so far.

Because of the Change.

On the eve of a child's tenth nameday, they all fell into a deep slumber that could not be broken, even with magical means. During that slumber, the Divine Udite would roll their dice and determine if the Change would take place or not. For every ten humans that fell asleep that day, roughly one human male and five human females would awake. The other four would Change into their new forms.

Which brought Jebidiah back to his current predicament--his own awakening on this, his tenth nameday.

If he could just stop himself from being such a little boy and force his eyes to stop staring at the low ceiling of the Changing room, he could easily determine if he had Changed or Awakened. Instead, he deflected and let his thoughts wander to the others.

There were ten days in a tenday and ten children in a pod, and so, somewhere along the line, someone came up with a plan where every child in a pod had successive name days in their tenday. For Jebidiah's pod, Dana was born on the first day, Crystal the second, Tenner the third, Selene the fourth, Jebidiah the fifth, continuing on till they reached the tenth. This allowed the pod to experience only one Change each day of the tenday and spread the stress out, allowing for mutual support.

In the records, there were times they had put all the Changed for any given day together in the Changing Station. The resulting stories often included bloodshed and mass casualties.