part0014

No longer a primitive improvisation knocked together on Badass’s knee, but a fearsome weapon. It had taken almost an hour of time, a ton of nerves and a piece of steel wire to attach the well sharpened and serrated head into a lengthwise cut in a solid branch stripped of bark. What I’d made was a kind of hybrid between a light spear and a harpoon, perfect for a short and not very strong girl.

Why mess around so long, you ask? Sounds like a ten-minute job? I thought so too, at first. Only when I started working did I realize that I was missing a skill: level 1 Weapon Crafting, or at least level 4 Item Crafting, or level 7 Mechanic. Without one of these, the game world wouldn’t let me make anything more complex than a stone axe or sticks scorched on the fire.

I chose Item Crafting, although of course I was tempted to go for the more specialized and easier to obtain Weapon Crafting route. What changed my mind was the thought that I’d need a lot more than just weapons to survive in this new world! Making a primitive fishing rod, as I soon realized, also required the special skills Fishing or Item Crafting. Even building a shelter any more complex than a pile of branches required the Construction, Architect or Item Crafting skills. How could I get that many skill slots?! I was trying to waste as few as possible by choosing a single skill for all of the above. Then I had to work a while ninety minutes to level up my chosen skill. First I made the simplest bow, then a set of primitive arrows for it.

The Item Crafting skill leveled up painfully slowly. Maybe making arrows with stone tips wasn’t the most effective way to learn it, or maybe I was missing something in the game rules. It really did seem like the game hints were too short and vague, didn’t give precise descriptions of skills, items or stats. Maybe my Sergeant’s intellect was too low? Nah, bullshit! Must have been that the game was new. It wasn’t all polished and clear to noobs yet.

Be that as it may, it took an hour and a half just to get to level three in Item Crafting. Not wanting to waste the rest of the day doing onerous and boring work only to meet the darkness ill-prepared for the cold, in the end I gave up. I still had free skill points! Now was the time to use them! I invested just one single point for now, preferring to save the other five for a rainy day. Like with most RPG games, I suspected it got harder and harder to level up as you make progress, and the points you earn come in handy more later.

I had no plans at all to spend my saved-up mutation points yet. The recruiter in the old-fashioned suit spoke of limitless possibilities, breathing underwater, even wings. I’d already checked the game manual and seen that such fundamental changes to my character really were possible in this new world. Although it required preparation, a high enough skill and character level, a bunch of rare ingredients, and most of all, it cost a ridiculous amount of mutation points. I could get just wings on my back for seventy mutation points. Only without the Flight skill, high Strength and Agility, an expanded ribcage, lighter bones and plenty of other changes, the wings would only be decorative.

It wasn’t that I was really planning on growing wings, although I have to admit, I’ve always dreamed of flying like a bird. I just didn’t want to waste the four mutation points I had at the very start of the game on garbage. For example, I turned down Venomous Touch, a modification for my Hand-to-Hand Combat skill, which cost exactly four mutation points.

The work on the light spear turned out tiresome too — polishing wood and sharpening a blade, and especially notching it to make it serrated, cost Stamina points. The game went so far as to suggest I should take the Zeal skill, which would let me save energy while crafting and reduce the crafting time of anything I’d made once. I refused; no need to waste all six skill slots right out of the gate.

The sun rose and even started to roast us a little. It felt as late as ten o’clock in the morning by the time I was done. Yeah, it took a long time to make, but it was worth it! Perfect for hitting little fish in the stream. Though I hadn’t yet seen even so much as a tiny minnow in the ice-cold water here right next to the snowy hills, I really hoped some life would show up in it. I was also only a tiny way away from level four — the progress bar already looked full, but was missing a mere few experience points.

Julie slept while I worked. I didn’t wake the girl up. I could tell the previous day and two sleepless nights had been tough for her. She badly needed that four hours of rest. But now it was time to move on. Julie practiced working her spear a little, puncturing a rotting tree trunk. We drank some hot tea just before we set off, filled up the thermos. I poured water over the fire and buried the coals and unburnt wood with wet sand, hiding the traces of our camp. Couldn’t be too careful in a dangerous, unexplored world.

Funny that the first three classes the game presented to me, Thug, Grunt and Soldier, had already changed to an entirely new set: Tracker, Craftsman and Watchman, although I’d only spent half a day in the new world. What next? What game class would it stop on? I couldn’t know, but for some reason I could tell this wasn’t the end. Me, a Craftsman? Fat chance. I’d die of boredom if I had to sit at home and craft things all day. And being a Watchman or a Tracker seemed strange with my low Perception.

“AAHHHH! Snakes!”

My traveling companion screamed and pointed to something in the water. We’d found our first locals — two yellow snake heads stuck out of the water at once. Although… they were one creature! It was a snake with two heads that converged into a single six-foot body!

☠ Level 35 Two-headed Whipsnake.

The skull symbol next to the creature’s description and the alarming orange color of the nameplate put me on guard, to say the least. Fortunately, the snake paid us no attention. Even my companion’s hysterical scream didn’t bother the reptile. All the same, we gave the creature a wide berth before returning to the water’s edge and continuing along the stream bank.

Further along, we began to see snakes regularly in the stream and its shallow pools; usually ordinary ones, but plenty with two heads. None of them were as high level as the first; they were between level two and six, and the creatures’ descriptions were the most ordinary gray. Soon other streams began to flow into ours, and in little more than an hour, we were ambling along the bank of a broad and torrential mountain stream. Midday approached. The sun burned indiscriminately and without mercy. Heaven for the snakes, sunbathing on the rocks in droves. Dozens of them, if not hundreds.

Julie was almost always the first to notice a snake in the river or on the bank. Nonetheless, in spite of my low Perception, I was the first one to spot a danger of another type. Descending along the stones toward a small blue pool, I saw a beaten path disappearing into the forest. Next to the bank was a rough shelter of sticks and bark. Beneath it, snake skins and the bodies of small fish hung drying on thick threads of wire, already gutted and cleaned. Some smoke rising from behind a neighboring hill also drew my attention.

Tempting to think it a cause for celebration — we’d found humanity! And there was fish in this new world after all. I didn’t bring my fishing tackle in vain! But something put me on edge; in the wet ground, I saw a myriad of tracks from clawed feet. This was the dwelling of some tall, bipedal creature with long claws on its back legs.

I immediately remembered AXE’s words about the village of man-eating werewolves beyond the snowy pass. That treacherous cutthroat wasn’t exactly trustworthy, but still, it made sense to scout out the unknown settlement. I looked around and pointed out a big cliff to Julie. It came right up to the shore of a mountain lake, right next to a small and loud waterfall.

“I’ll climb up and take a look around from up there. You hold the cat and guard my backpack!

The girl nodded silently, picked up our furry friend. I set off for the cliff, unraveling my rope along the way and looking for a way up. If I could throw a loop over that gnarled and dried-up tree about a third of the way up the cliff, then after that there was a convenient crack in the stone as if made specially for me. On the fourth attempt, the loop caught on a branch of the gnarled old tree and I began to ascend. I got to about seven yards above the ground, when suddenly…

The tree branch broke with a disgusting crack and I fell back-first right into the mountain stream! Agony lanced through my left side as it hit a stone jutting out of the water. My vision even dimmed from the pain. I must have chipped or even broken a bone. But far worse, the stream’s rapids were dragging me right to the waterfall! I resisted, tried to swim against the current, although I don’t think I had much chance with my injured left arm. At the same time, I seemed to instantly forget years of training in the school swimming pool. Instead of a confident crawl or breaststroke, all I could do was flounder helplessly. The current got even stronger. Now I was flying downstream, and the waterfall’s roar drowned out my desperate shouts.

Yes, I needed one of those right away! I couldn’t swim without a skill! But I just wasn’t quick enough. The crash against the water was fierce. I was winded. My head went fuzzy. I started sinking. The last thing I noticed was an animal face leaning over me, its fangs bared. Then darkness fell…