Achievement!
Endured a night of starvation.
10 XP
You have earned a point towards your endurance! You now have [1] Endurance
“Is my reward food?” I asked, tummy grumbling as I sat up. I was back at camp. “One point in Endurance. What the heck does that mean? I can endure more? More what? Starvation?” I asked, annoyed.
Getting up, I wiped the dust off my pants. My bones ached from sleeping on the ground. I’d need some bedding tonight or my back would be shot come next morning.
“So, what does that mean? Endurance one. Is there some kind of menu?” I asked the empty air.
Menu:
Available information!
Name: Not Assigned
Type: Human
Class: Warrior
Level: 1
Attributes
Endurance : 1
“Huh. I can’t believe that worked. Not a lot of stuff to show me is there?” I scanned over the information.
“Name not assigned? Excuse me. I have a name.” I thought for a second. “Oh, since I’m in this new weird world, maybe I get to choose a new name. That’s cool.” I’d never thought about it before but being able to name yourself was pretty neat. Who could say they’d done that?
“Alright, then. My name will be…” I thought for a long time, thinking back on all of the different fantasy books and movies I’d enjoyed in my lifetime. “I’ll be original and make one up. My name will be… Tremonius.” That sounded fantasy enough. But nothing happened. The menu stayed the same.
“Ahem. Tremonius is my name!” Nothing. “Tremonius, I said!” I tried a different approach. “I assign myself the name Tremonius.” I looked on at the term Not Assigned, my expression flattened.
“Well. I’m glad nobody saw that. I guess I’m ‘Not Assigned’ for now.” I looked over the rest of the list.
“It’s cool I’ve been branded as a warrior. No one has ever thought that about me before. But what does that mean?” My screen vision blipped more information.
Class description: Warrior
The warrior class is simple but efficient. A warrior is a jack of all trades concerning combat and combat related activities. Every skill associated under the warrior class gets an immediate buff (specific buff variable depends on level).
Warriors also get a buff of two to their strength attribute starting at level two.
“Oh, that’s nice. Level two here I come. But what is an attribute? Shouldn’t I already have some?” My screen vision blipped again.
Attribute List
[Not all information is available at this time. Sorry for the inconvenience.]
Personal Attributes
Endurance: 1
Endurance governs physical status, pain tolerance, and stamina. Each point strengthens every trait of the governing attribute at once.
Attribute points are rare, usually only attained after certain milestones or difficult activities. Some activities can be repeated infinitely (as long as the user physically repeats the activity more times than the last requirement).
!Note
Attributes are capped at 10 for humans. This is for safety purposes. Thank you and have a nice day.
“Huh. So I am tougher, then? It’s that easy huh? No learning. No doing the same thing over and over again until I get it right. I think I like that.” I felt the power of the system for the first time. It coursed through my veins. Anything seemed possible, as long as I dreamed it, I could do it.
“My attributes are capped at 10 for safety purposes? What does that even mean? On the other hand, it seems crazy simple to level my attributes up if I can repeat the same thing over again.” At least that’s what I thought until my stomach grumbled. Then the idea of starving myself for ten days straight seemed like a terribly difficult thing to do.
“Well, I’m good with an Endurance of one for now. Let’s eat.”
I spent the morning hunting once again. My fear was that the same bunny would show its face again and I’d go hungry another day. Luckily, I found a possum instead and it was a nasty one. A deep scar ran across its face, its claws were black with age and its fur striped and glossy with hunting camouflage. It touted itself through the tall grass like it was the cock of the walk.
“Yeah, perfect,” I whispered as low as I could. And the little vermin was walking my way. I waited and waited until it was just ahead of me, then with my makeshift spear I struck the creature straight on. I could feel my warrior skills activate, my body fluidly throwing the attack. It wasn’t perfect, I was only level one, but it worked. The little bastard was skewered.
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!Achievement
Hunt your first prey
10 XP
!Achievement
Craft your first makeshift weapon
10 XP
“Nice! A twofer.”
Class attained!
Hunter
(Do you wish to switch classes? Note switching classes has a cool down of twenty four hours for your first time and seventy two for every time after. )
“Ooo. Hunter. What is that?”
Class information: Hunter
Hunters are masters of the outdoors. A hunter can track, stalk, and hunt prey as well as survive in outdoor environments. Survival skills and all skills pertaining to hunting are buffed (size of buff depends on level of user)
“Well that’s cool. Doesn’t look like a hunter has any fighting capabilities, though. I’ll stick with my class for now.” The information page closed.
I was pretty happy with myself after that. With pride in my heart I walked back to camp with the possum speared on my sword and the spear slung over my shoulder.
Unfortunately, that pride died out pretty quick as I tried to make a fire. Two hours went by, me rubbing two sticks together fruitlessly as sweat gathered on my brow. Eventually, I gave up. I couldn’t make a fire on my own.
Thinking back, I headed to the goblin’s camp where I perused the scattered junk for anything that would help me. The goblin’s fire had gone out some time in the night, something I realized I could’ve utilized better.
“Oh well.”
Luckily, hidden beneath all of the junk, there was a tinderbox with a bit of flint and a scratcher inside. This would make a fire in no time.
With a warm flame sputtering in between some rotten logs, the camp finally felt like home.
!Achievement
Fire starter
Make a fire!
20XP
“Yeah, you’re goddamn right twenty XP,” I muttered, feeling the glow of the flame on my face. The smoky aroma soothed my nerves.
Something about a campfire was relaxing. Always had been. Memories of my time camping with my dad came back to me. I swam in the lost times for a while before my belly bid me to come back to reality.
“Right. I have a meal to prep.” With that said, I disconnected the sword from the spear shaft and went to work on the possum… at least that’s what I would have liked to say. Even though it was a big ol ugly possum I still had a hard time cutting into it. And when I finally had the stomach to do so, I didn’t know the first thing about skinning or butchering the thing.
I tried skinning it. That went worse than expected. Instead, I impaled it on the stick and, with a turning stomach, tried to burn the hair off its flesh. The possum instead caught fire, filling the camp with a terrible smell that made my eyes water and my nose dry out.
Sighing, I took a break after that fiasco, letting the smell dissipate before trying to skin the creature again. The second time didn’t go so well either. The disrespect this poor corpse was enduring…
Finally, I skinned the little bastard, and, afraid to do anything else to it, stuck its body on the end of my hunting stick, holding the meat over the flame as I sat beside the fire.
It was burned up pretty good by the end. Once I was sure it was cooked, the outside was black and the meat was tough. My stomach was so upset I couldn’t even eat it.
After all was said and one, the possum was toast. Far away from camp I discarded the black lump along with all of its nasty messy hair and flesh.
“Welp. Sorry about that old boy. Don’t hold it against me.” As I walked back to camp I thought out loud, “I think I’ll just stick with fish.”
No text appeared after the whole ordeal. Turns out you didn’t get anything for failing to use a skill correctly.
The rest of the day was spent fishing. First, I searched for a stream in the woods. When I found one east of camp, I spent an hour or two watching for fish in its deepest waters. Sometime near evening, I speared one.
“Hey! Hell yeah,” I congratulated myself, pulling it out of the water.
Fish slain!
10XP
A message pinged my vision as the fish dangled on my manmade harpoon and a little charm played in my head.
Level up!
Congratulations! You are now Level 2!
You are granted one free class switch at your disposal
And one free wish!
My ears perked up at that. One free wish? That’s all it took?
“I wish to go home,” I said without hesitating.
[Option only available at level 99. Please choose an appropriate level specific wish.]
“Damn. I should’ve known better. But… it’s possible.” My heart swelled with hope… and disappointment. That meant this place was real, whatever it was, and my situation was far stranger than I ever conceived. However, home was attainable, just, not for a long time. For that, I held on hope.
“In the meantime, I guess I’ll try and pick a level two wish, whatever that means,” I muttered. I spent the next few minutes pushing my luck, trying this and trying that.
Sorry that wish is only available at level…
Sorry that wish is unavailable…
Sorry, “a freaking bed” is not understood…
“Fine! I’ll choose something a warrior needs.” Ideas came to me. Armor. Weapons. “Hm. At level two I suspect these items will be just as average as this sword.” I looked down at it. The blade was decent but only just so. Plain but sharp.
“I guess I wish for a shield.” Suddenly, like the blade had, white light synthetized a leather bound shield into the air for me. I caught it before it dropped into the stream.
“Huh. Light.” It was big and round, covering my whole torso but light enough to lift without any trouble at all. “If I’m going in, I guess it’s all in.”
I took the fish back, scaled it and cooked it. It was far easier game to prep, plus I’d been fishing plenty of times before.
!Achievement
Cooked your first meal!
10XP
“Nice.”
Finally with a full belly and my confidence set, I laid back under the treetops, letting the fire die down, watching the stars twinkle in the new night sky.
Considering what had taken place over the past few days, this wasn’t so bad.
“Some people have it worse back home. If this is how it’s going to be, I won’t complain. Just make sure I get home safe,” I said to the stars above. I wasn’t sure who I was talking to. Maybe this weird thing in my head. Maybe the stars. Maybe nobody. I just hoped that if someone was listening, they were watching over me too.
I turned over on my side and watched the fire light die out. Darkness fell over me and I fell to slumber.
