Vina quickly walked down the hall of the prison, eager to get outside. She turned a corner and found herself in an open circular area. A large wooden desk dominated the room and around her were more hallways heading in various directions. She appeared to be at a guard station. Behind the desk was a stairwell leading upward. She paused for a minute, her instincts telling her to search the desk. She quickly pulled the drawers open and found something inside.
Item: Knife Common Damage: 2-4 Durability 19/20 This is a knife. More of a tool than a weapon, a knife has countless uses.
She grabbed the knife and held it in her hand.
Item Acquired: Knife
It was small and definitely not intended to defend oneself with. But her other knife had been confiscated when she arrived. Vina was relieved to have a replacement.
She looked around once more, contemplating which direction to go, before walking up the stairs. At the top of the stairs she arrived only at what she could call a lobby. Wooden chairs, mostly broken, were strewn about the stone floor. What grabbed her attention though was the damage done to a wall. A massive hole was broken through the side and Vina could see sunshine streaming through. She shuddered to think what could cause this. She approached the rubble and climbed out into the sunshine. She was met with new popup windows.
New World Quest: Return the stolen Aspects 0/127 New World Quest: Destroy the fake Aspects. Fake Aspects remaining 320,256,458
Vina waved her hand to dismiss the windows. She wanted to get a good look at where she was. As she took a few steps outside, her eyes were met with a vast forest. The trees, if they could be called that, seemed ancient. They were massive and stretched far into the sky. Their trunks were perfectly smooth and purple. They had leaves like she had never seen before. They were a moderate blue and had the consistency of pine needles. Strangely they were rounded like cheese puffs. They lacked any of the flat smooth lines of the leaves on earth. This was undeniable confirmation she was in a different world. She examined the tree.
Plant: Pile Wood Tree Common The Pile wood tree is a well known and long lived tree. Its wood is considered harder than average. It is primarily used for furniture and framing.
Finally the Examine skill rendered useful information. She walked to the trees and rubbed her hand on the wood. It had no bark to speak of and the tree was slightly warm to the touch. She looked around and saw nothing but these trees surrounding her, and the strange cheese puff leaves covering the ground. The blueish landscape they created was strange to her. She looked back at the building she came from and tried to use her Examine skill again.
Building: The Six Eyed Prison (Abandoned) Rare No further information. Map Marker Added: The Six Eyed Prison
A map marker was added? She voiced out loud “View map.” A large window opened again, but it was completely black. She tried using her hands to rotate, zoom, or otherwise interact with it, but nothing happened. She closed the window. It was time to make a plan.
Vina emptied out her backpack and went through everything she had.
Item Acquired: Backpack Item Acquired: Blanket (Worn) Item Acquired: Spare Clothing (Worn) Item Acquired: Canteen (Empty)
“Okay… that is annoying.” Vina muttered to herself as she swiped away all of the windows. “Turn off item notifications.” she said to herself. But nothing seemed to happen. She hesitated and picked up a nearby rock. To her delight nothing popped up in her vision, but when she looked through her backpack more, she grew irritated. Many things were missing. A second later she furrowed her eyebrows. “Chocolate is not technology!” she shouted to the sky. To her surprise a window popped up.
Importing food or animals to another world risks damage to the ecosystem. All food and animals have been confiscated.
“Wait. Are you a person? What is your name?”, asked Vina, excited to have someone to speak with, but there was no response. She threw the stone away as hard as she could in frustration. To her surprise, the stone traveled about three feet away in a weak throw. She knew she put some force behind that, but it barely went anywhere. She picked it up and tried again to throw it as far as she could. Once again, it traveled about three feet and casually fell to the ground. “What the hell!” she exclaimed.
New Skill Learned: Throwing. Progress to next skill level 5%. Your current throwing distance is three feet. You can throw with 100% of your strength. Quest updated: Learn skills 3/5
Vina stared dumbfounded at the notification window. Realization dawned on her. She couldn’t throw a rock because she didn’t have the skill. Is this how the world worked? Would she have to relearn how to do everything? She swiped the window away and spoke aloud, “View status”. She scanned the incredibly detailed screen until she saw what she was looking for. She spoke again, “Open default skills”. A long list of skills appeared. She saw breathing, walking, speaking, swallowing, lifting your arms and many others. She couldn’t believe what she saw as she scrolled through the list. Everything a basic human being could do was listed here. Slowly she began to see gaps though.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
A quick search showed running was not in the list. Vina cautiously took a step forward. "I've ran since I arrived, right?" she said. She thought back and couldn’t recall a moment she did anything beyond a brisk walk. She shook her head in disbelief. This world couldn’t possibly have taken away her ability to run. She looked at a tree in the distance and tried to run toward it. She promptly tangled her feet and fell down.
You have taken 1 point in falling damage.
She repeated this attempt twice more and each time she fell down. She continued her efforts until finally a window appeared.
New Skill Learned: Running. Progress to next skill level 16%. Running currently burns twelve times more stamina than walking. You can run at 6 miles per hour. Quest updated: Learn skills 4/5
Vina was out of breath but felt victorious. She sent a middle finger to the sky and sat down by her backpack. She had taken several points of health damage from her falls, and she could see a minor portion of her health bar had emptied.”I guess I need a stamina bar now as well.” Just as she finished saying it, a green bar appeared just below the red one. This one read 15 out of 25, but every minute or so, it would gain another point. As her stamina refilled, her breathing calmed down. “Okay enough of that. I need a plan to survive out here.” she thought to herself. Without a map and no idea where she was, she accepted that she must follow the quest marker. “View quest marker”, she said aloud and the yellow dot appeared once more in her vision.
The yellow dot had a number above it now reading 67 miles. She tried to do some mental math. She knew the average person walked at around 3 miles per hour. She was going through a forest though and knew that would likely slow her down. Assuming she could average 2 miles per hour for eight hours, she could walk 16 miles per day. That placed the quest marker at about four days away. She knew she couldn’t just head straight there without stopping. She didn’t have any food or water and she didn’t know much about the climate of this world.
Standing around wasn’t solving any problems though. She tossed her backpack onto her back and started walking. Vina kept picking up stones and throwing them. While her world was new, amazing, and constantly trying to distract her, it was an uncomfortable feeling to have lost a skill you once had. Although she rarely needed to throw things in her world, such a basic ability felt necessary to her. She tossed stone after stone, watching her skill grow. Soon she leveled her throwing skill up twice.
Skill Level Up: Throwing has reached level 3. Your current throwing distance is nine feet. You can with 102% of your strength. You have gained 70 experience from leveling a skill.
Vina Level Up: You reached level 2 and have 5 more attribute points to allocate. You have gained 10 health and 5 stamina Progress to next level: 5/400 experience points
She had walked for what felt like an hour and her stamina bar slowly emptied the entire time. When she got down to 10 points, she started to breathe hard. When she got to 5 points, she started to feel dizzy. She was forced to stop and let her stamina recover. This made her pause to think for a while. Would her stamina even go up in this world from exercise? She was certain she could walk longer than this back in Seattle. She felt very out of shape suddenly. She eyed her attribute page again. She had 9 unallocated attribute points and she was tempted to drop a few into Endurance to see what would happen. She placed two points into endurance and examined the attribute.
Endurance: 12 Your stamina is increased by 10, and your stamina recovery is increased to 1.1 per minute. You have 7 attribute points remaining.
Vina gasped in surprise as she felt her body change. She suddenly felt a rush of energy enter her body. She felt a refreshment she couldn't describe. She looked down at herself but couldn't see any outward changes. However, her lungs felt light and fresh, her heart was strong, her mind was wide awake, and her muscles were full of energy. She could get used to this! She hesitated though before adding in more points.
She tried to do the mental math in her head. If her stamina was 25 and she could walk about an hour before resting, with 35 stamina, she could go almost 90 minutes now without resting. Her stamina would also recover faster, reducing her idle time.
She examined her stats again. If she increased agility, she could move faster. She had no idea by how much, but a point or two could answer that. She put two points into agility.
Agility: 12 Your movement is 6% faster, you are 8% more elusive, you can react 4% sooner. You have 5 attribute points remaining.
Again she felt a change. This one was less noticeable but somehow more impactful. Her body responded quicker. She tried walking and felt a spring to her step that wasn't there before. She turned suddenly and her body responded with less hesitation. She tried to jump and fell flat on her butt. Groaning, she consulted her Default Skills again. Sure enough, jumping wasn't on the list. She recovered her stamina and repeatedly jumped until she got a notification window.
New Skill Learned: Jumping. Progress to next skill level 32%. You can jump 14 inches off of the ground. Quest updated: Learn skills 5/5 Quest Completed: Learn Skills New Personal Quest: Learn Skills 2: 5/25
She completed a quest! Vina was unsure if she should be excited or not when a leather bag suddenly appeared out of the air and dropped to the ground. She picked it up and looked inside. She saw it was filled with brass colored coins. She didn't even examine them before storing them into her backpack. "I can't keep getting distracted", she thought to herself.
Part of her wanted to grind out to the next level of jumping, but she forced herself to focus. In the last hour she made only two miles. The quest marker now displayed 65 miles away. She still had no food or water, and she knew she needed to fix that soon or there would be severe consequences.
Through the last two miles, she had traveled up and down what felt like foothills. Although she had never been hiking in her life, she had read about these situations at school. She currently stood on a slightly curved part on the side of a hill. “Maybe there is water at the bottom.” she thought to herself. She turned to the side and headed downhill, the quest marker remained to the left of her vision.
It didn’t take long before she noticed a change in the scenery. The Pile Wood Trees began to thin and before long they grew less tall. More diverse bushes began to appear with vibrant, almost fluorescent coloring. Vina felt this was good news and her feeling was soon confirmed when she heard the rush of water.