Chapter 5
Westerveldt
Rance reached the tree and struggled to pull himself up into the branches.The rabbit had gotten in one more bite and Rance was bleeding from several small wounds. He managed to hang onto his staff as he arranged himself sitting on a branch, his feet just out reach of the leaping rabbit.
“Well this is fun,” he said aloud “I bet your mother smelled of elderberries.” he said to the rabbit as he jabbed his staff down at the rabbit and missed.
“You have taken one hit point bleeding damage” his notification told him again.
Getting frustrated Rance jabbed at the rabbit again. The rabbit, not able to attack the man in the tree, turned its attention to the stick trying to hit it, and latched on to it with a hard bite. It then started shaking its head and pulling, apparently trying to dislodge Rance from his perch.
With some difficulty Rance lifted his staff with the rabbit firmly attached and swung it against the trunk of the tree he was sitting in. There was a loud crack as rabbit bones broke and Rance received a notification as the rabbit fell to the ground twitching.
“You have defeated the Veldt Hare. You have gained 5 XP minus a 10% penalty for a total of 4.5 XP. You have gained one strength minus a 10% penalty for a net of .9. You have gained one constitution minus a 10% penalty for a net of .9.”
“System?” Rance said
“Yes?”
“Can you please dispense with telling me about my penalty and just give me the hard numbers.? He asked.
“Yes of course.” the system answered.
“One more thing, can you just round things to the closest number?” He said “I am pretty sure the decimals won’t make a difference in the long run.”
Rance climbed down from the tree and examined his seeping wounds. “Not too bad,” he thought and looked at the evergreen branches around him. He reached up and pulled off a wad of Old Man's Beard and held it tightly against his worst wound until the bleeding stopped.
A notification “You have identified the lichen Usnea or Old Man’s Beard. You may now use this lichen.” popped up in his vision.
“System, do I need to specifically use every plant I recognize before I get credit for knowing them? For example I see blue spruce, douglas fir, and birch trees. I also see milkweed, chicory, stinging nettles, and I am pretty sure that is an elderberry bush I passed while stalking the hare.”
Several chimes sounded and then a notification popped up “You have identified the plants blue spruce, douglas fir, birch, milkweed, chicory, stinging nettles, and elderberry. You may now use these plants.”
“The first use of each plant demonstrates knowledge. However in order to harvest a plant to sell or trade to others you will need to show knowledge of said plant.” The system said aloud.
“ I can sell plants?” Rance asked.
“Yes you may.”
“Can you tell me which ones I should collect to sell?” Rance pressed.
“That will be up to you to determine.”
After he had stopped the bleeding on his wounds Rance walked over to the dead Hare and nudged it with his toe. “And your father was a hamster.” He said with a chuckle while he fumbled trying to get his knife out of the sheath.
A notification popped up. “Loot hare Y/N?”
Surprised he mentally clicked “Y” and the hare disappeared and he got a notification.
“You have received one rabbit skin. You have received one rabbit meat.”
“System,” he said, “what happened to the rabbit?”
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“The valuable parts were looted and placed into your inventory.” The system answered.
Rance figured now was as good a time as any to check how he was doing and pulled up his character sheet.
Name: Rance Just Rance
Human
Class: None
Hit Points: 19
Mana: 10
Level: 0
XP: 4.5 of 100
Note: Stats and Skills will reflect a debuff of 10%
Stats:
Strength: 1.8
Intelligence: .9
Wisdom: .9
Dexterity: 1.8
Constitution: 1.8
Luck: .9
Stat points to spend: 0
Skills:
None
Skill Points to spend: 0
Inventory: Noob Starter Kit
Project Gutenberg Book
Rabbit Hide
Rabbit Meat
“Okay,” Rance said slowly “What if I wanted…I don’t know, like the heart and liver…or the brain to tan the hide with?” he asked.
There was an unusually long pause before the system answered. “I have determined that you do indeed possess the knowledge to find those parts useful. I have written a new procedure that will take effect immediately. From this point on when looting you must announce ahead of time any special instructions that will be required to meet your requirements for that specific subject of looting. Do you understand this new procedure?”
“I believe I do.” Rance said.
Rance sighed “Complicateder and complicateder.” He grumbled as he retrieved his pack and continued following the creek down the small valley.
He smelled the smoke first. “First sign of people is always smoke or noise.” He thought. The sound of someone using an axe came soon after. The trail started branching, several times in fact it became noticeably more well used. It soon joined a two track cart path and within a short distance that cart path joined a full fledged dirt road.
The small creek emptied into a small river and the road split and ran both directions along it. This is where Rance saw the first people of his new existence. A young man leading an ox pulling a small cart was following the road down stream.
“Excuse me,” Rance said when the man got closer.
He was 20ish, short brown hair, unremarkable wide face with narrow set brown eyes. “Wadya need?” He said
“Is there a town nearby?” Rance asked, a pleasant smile on his face.
Without stopping, the young man looked Rance up and down. The look made Rance feel like he was a piece of meat at the butcher.
“One a dem I see” He said, and with a toss of his head over his shoulder, “town’s up dat way.” With that he continued on his way without another look at Rance.
“Friendly sort in these parts.” Rance muttered to himself as he took the right fork and followed the road up the river. He hadn’t been walking even 10 minutes since he met the oxen driver when he rounded a bend and saw a low stockade wall extending away from the road ahead.
The road ran between the wall and the river and as he got closer he saw more carts coming and going through a gate set in the center of the wall facing the river. He couldn’t judge the size of the town since the view of the wall was blocked by the trees, but he was sure it wasn’t overly large.
Rance wandered in through the gate. He took in the condition of the gate as he passed through. It seemed pretty solid with several cross pieces supporting the vertical logs. There were large strap hinges connecting the gate to a huge gate post set into the ground. All in all it looked as if someone took their job seriously in gate maintenance.
There was a main thoroughfare leading away from the gate with cross streets leading off of it at regular intervals. There was a livery right near the gate with several corrals taking up one side of the street, and what looked like some sort of agricultural warehouse or business right across the street. The small number of wagons loading and off loading various things convinced him that he was correct.
A couple more blocks and the main street dumped into a square that looked to be surrounded by various businesses. A chandlery, a Tavern, a Cooper and in the far corner a blacksmith. Rance wondered at that since he would have expected a blacksmith to be closer to the livery.
He received the same look the ox man had given him from everyone who took the time to look at him. But no one had approached him. Rance looked at the block stone fountain tinkling in the center of the square and sighed. “Can you get any more cliche’” he thought.
Rance hadn’t thought to ask the system the time of day when he appeared, and while it seemed he had been about for days he realized it had only been a few hours. Since everyone was still about their own business. He decided to chance the Tavern.
“The Tavern is where everything happens in these games right?” he said to himself and strode toward the entrance.
The low ceiling room was framed in great beams and a stair in the back corner told him there were possibly rooms upstairs. There was a large open fireplace set in one wall, and a wooden bar along the back. There were several long tables with chairs around them.
There was a small raised platform on one corner…probably for the bard…or maybe the stand-up comic on amateur night he chuckled to himself.
There was a man dressed in grey sitting at a table by the bar and a rather large woman who had just walked through a door behind the bar carrying a bowl of something she put on the table in front of the man.
She looked Rance up and down and said in a loud gritty voice “Welcome to Westerveldt Convict.”