William was frustrated...amongst other things. It appeared he wasn’t seeing the last of the bandits and it was his fault.
“The system here is fond of karma, apparently,” he said, clenching his fists in annoyance.
He picked up his gear and, after a few minutes, he was geared up and ready to go. He wasn’t sure what his plan was and he had a feeling that the haircut he needed would have to wait. Emerging from the shed, he saw people gathering near the well in concern and confusion. He started to approach and, as he passed one of the huts, William saw Jane leave from it. She spotted him and looked over at the crowd. None of the people gathering had noticed either of them yet. William was about to speak up as Jane put her hand over his mouth and pulled him behind the hut.
William was taken aback at it and, if he wanted, he could have easily resisted, but he figured it was important. He couldn’t remember when Jane had ever been that urgent about...anything.
He didn’t get chance to speak before Jane whispered, “This event. I’m guessing it occurred due to the bandit you...fought?”
Jane looked slightly grim after that and clearly she didn’t want to say killed.
“Yeah,” he replied as quietly.
She figured that out quickly, but he figured that if you put two and two together, you do indeed get four. It also meant that the villagers will have probably figured it out too.
Jane’s face shifted to one of concern as she said, “So what’s the plan?”
William suddenly was lost for words at that. What the fuck was he supposed to say? A couple minutes ago he was relaxing, and not exactly planning for a murderous horde of bandits to come down on them all. He considered the best reply, but in the end gave up and shrugged.
“Not a clue,” he said.
He was truthfully stumped.
Jane’s eyes appeared to assess him for a second.
“Did you just identify me? I feel a little uncomfortable now,” William said with faux affront.
Jane pinched the bridge of her nose and let out another sigh.
William in an act of childish vengeance, identified Jane.
{Ascension_Protocol}
Jane Brooks – Human Level 2 – Medic Level 2
{End}
Two things immediately sprung in his mind. Firstly, how the hell was Jane level two?! Secondly, why did identify show her last name, yet when William saw his own Character sheet, it didn’t list that same name? He decided to deal with the second thing at a later point.
“Jane, how did you reach level two?” he asked, failing to mask the curiosity on his voice.
Jane looked back at him and a small smirk appeared on her face, clearly amused that William had just identified her in return.
She tapped the hilt of the staff on her back, “Healing the Duncans gave me the EXP I needed apparently. I still don’t get all of this stuff honestly.”
"Oh yeah, the Duncans." He had forgotten about them, but, come to think about it, they didn’t appear to be with the crowd when he returned. William peeked his head from around the hut to check the crowd again. This time he saw Allan and Leanne at the edge of the group. Allan looked completely healed. No scaring on his face.
William pulled back and felt the scar on his shoulder before saying, “Your healing doesn’t leave scars?”
Jane looked confused at that but replied anyway, “Um...no?”
She clearly didn’t get what he meant.
“The HP potion I drank left scarring where my injuries were.”
“Oh.”
It seemed she had figured out his point and added, “How is that relevant right now though William?”
He chuckled a little at that and shrugged his shoulders with a slight smile on display, “It isn’t really, but was a nice distraction for a bit.”
Jane crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes a little at him, “This is serious. We need to figure out what to do. Me and you are the highest level people here and, from what you’ve said and how you appear, higher levels are better.”
That was a simple way of wording it, if William said so himself, but she was spot on, “They are, and this whole system thing is similar to a lot of video games I played in the past. Don’t expect me to have much in the way of answers to this place though, as I don’t really know much about this world. If I’m able to help, it will be entirely based off of video game experience. It’s the approach I’m taking with this. So, if you take any advice from me, it could end badly.”
Jane considered his words for a few seconds, but just replied, “Better than not having any clue.”
That was a good point.
“Okay, well, if we are going to figure out what to do, I should at least bring you up to speed with what I know so far," William proceeded to explain what he knew of Stats, Classes, Skills, Resources, and Titles.
The explanation went on for about five minutes and concluded with Jane asking, “So the stat points we can put into attributes...how do you think I should use them?”
William had no immediate answer, but from video game logic, Vitality, Wisdom, and Intelligence seemed the most likely candidates to pick.
“Jane, bring up your character sheet and tell me what your current attribute stats are,” he asked, looking thoughtful.
She took a few seconds to do this but quickly listed them off, “Strength five, Dexterity five, Intelligence seven, Wisdom seven, Vitality five, Charisma five. Ten free points to allocate.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Those stats were interesting. Apparently, Jane’s class gave plus two to Intelligence, which combined with the racial plus two Wisdom bonus, seemed decent for a healing class. William did think that she needed more Vitality and Dexterity to not get one shot if she was ever attacked.
William considered it for a moment before he said, “Okay, put three points into Vitality, three points into Dexterity, and split the last four into Intelligence and Wisdom. You should then have ninety MP and eighty HP.”
William somehow expected some protest at that, but was surprised when Jane just nodded and replied, “Done.”
He then remembered that to a non-gamer, stats didn’t really mean much. It saved him one headache at least.
Jane moved a couple steps forward and backward noticing the shift in her Dexterity stat.
She stopped and regained her focus quickly however as she looked back to William, “So, my goal is to heal injured people right?”
William nodded.
Jane continued, “I don’t need to...fight anyone...do I?”
She wrapped her arms around herself slightly after saying that.
William approached and their eyes locked as he said, “No. I’ll do the fighting. You keep people alive from a safe distance.”
He saw that Jane relaxed a little bit at that. He only felt half certain of his own words, however. If he encounters a group of people the same level as the bandit, he was fucked. If a bandit of a much higher level like twenty or thirty showed up, he had a good feeling that he would be pasted quickly. He had to get levels and quickly. That should be his first goal after they had all figured out next steps.
William tried to come up with a plan and was able to quickly come up with a starting point at least...getting the group’s first steps in order. If he was lucky though, one of the older villagers would come up with a decent plan and it wouldn’t be a "him" problem any more.
He had a bad feeling, though. “Let’s go join the others, Jane. I think I have an idea of where to start at least.”
Jane quietly nodded and followed as William strode out from behind the hut and towards the others. More and more of the group spotted the pair as they drew near to the well. William was worried about what to say, but didn’t have to be the one to initiate.
“What do we do?!” Jeff said to William almost pleadingly.
Bad feeling confirmed. William quickly scanned his eyes over the crowd. All of them had questioning expressions on their faces, except for the Duncans. They just glared. An expected reaction he was not even remotely surprised at.
“First, we should decide if we're going to stay here or pick a direction and search for civilization,” William said trying to convey confidence in his voice.
Several of the others replied to that, “What if we find another settlement and they kill us?” one said.
Another said, “What if we come across these bandits?”
His mother spoke up next, surprising William a little, “How do we know if we can find anywhere else before running out of food and water?”
Apparently, the consensus was that most wanted to stay. It made sense. William remembers reading a late night wiki article on how humans when thrust into chaos would typically latch on to the first signs of comfort they found. He never expected to witness it first hand.
“We’ll stay here then and figure out what to do next,” William said, seeing some of the tense body language of the crowd loosen a little bit.
He really didn’t like being the central focus. He could feel beads of perspiration dotted around his back and was worried that he would start sweating profusely.
William wanted to say his piece and hopefully get nods of agreement, then disappear to calm himself down.
“We should start by sorting out a food supply. One of the huts here had seeds of various types in it when I arrived, and behind me, beyond the huts, are two small soil patches. Getting them sorted, and seeds planted should be our first step. For now, we should group our rations and even though it will be hard, limit ourselves to one ration every two days per person. With thirty of us, and assuming we all have eight rations each currently, we should have two hundred and forty rations.”
William did some mental arithmetic and continued, “Sixteen days, a little over two weeks if we follow that plan.”
His father spoke up quickly, “Sixteen days won’t be enough to grow and harvest any crops Son.”
His expression was grim.
“This appears to be a magical world, so maybe they grow faster here? It seems like our only immediate plan. I’ll try to look around the area for anything edible in the meantime. I’m not a hunter though, so I can’t really promise anything, but for now we should get started on our permanent food solution. The sooner it’s set in motion, the sooner we can move on.”
His father considered his words for a moment then replied, “Okay Son. That makes sense. Can I take charge on getting the planting in order? I have enough experience in it.”
His father quickly glanced over at the Duncans, whose focus and glares never left William. He let out a quiet sigh before looking back at William. William just nodded to him.
William spoke up again, hopefully the last time he did so for now, as he was getting close to cracking. He only hoped that the glaring Duncans didn’t say anything to him, otherwise, he didn’t know if he would stay composed.
“While a few of you help Dad with the crops, can everyone else try to collect scraps of wood from these huts that aren’t needed and gather them by the well. We can potentially use it as fire wood. Any of you who picked the mage class might have a fire spell of some kind. I don’t know, I’m not a mage. But we need some way to light a fire, otherwise rubbing sticks together might be the only way we have,” William said, not waiting for a reply before walking off towards another direction out of the settlement.
He did stop part way to add, “Oh yeah, and there’s what appear to be tool storage over there, so it might be worth checking to see if there’s anything we can use.”
He pointed in that direction, then continued on his way.
William looked up and saw that the sun was at its zenith again. He walked for about ten minutes cresting over the hill he headed towards, then sat down and waited to see which direction the sun moved. He wasn’t certain, but for now he would assume it moved east to west like on Earth. As he waited, the social mask he wore vanished and he started breathing rapidly. He was a way off of being socially functional it seemed. Thinking back as he gazed up at the sky, he hoped that the villagers would do what he suggested and that the Duncans didn’t fuck up the situation more. After an hour, he had regained control of his emotion and noticed that the sun had moved in the direction he was heading.
“So I’m heading west. Cool.”
He got to his feet and descended the hill he was on, and after walking over the next hill, he saw a large cluster of trees, like a small woodland of some kind. He hoped beyond hope that it would provide the food they all needed.
As he reached the Woodland, William started focusing on the bushes and trees in hopes of finding something like berries or other fruits. It didn’t take long thankfully as he found a small bush between a copse of trees to his left. It had small thumb sized berries, bright red in color. He decided to Identify them. He had seventy five MP left, so he had a couple uses of identify still available to him. He was pleasantly surprised at the result:
{Ascension_Protocol}
Food – Red Berries
{Description}
A deliciously succulent fruit that is substantially filling in small numbers. A small handful will satiate the hunger of most people.
{End}
He didn’t wait before he started grabbing. After a couple minutes, the bush was barren and he had a large pile of about two hundred berries. He didn’t want to just toss them into his pack as they would be squashed by his belongings. He decided to take off his shirt and, using a dagger, cut one side of it, then tied it around the berries in a small sack. He decided to head back to the settlement to drop the berries off and hopefully find something he could use to carry more when he found them next. As he turned to leave, he felt like he was being watched. Seconds later, rustling came from one of the thicker bushes behind him. He turned and drew his sword, gently putting the sack of berries atop a fallen log next to him.
His heart beat much faster then, as a wild cat, the size of a smaller man, emerged bearing two horns and sharp fangs. William didn’t hesitate to use identify:
{Ascension_Protocol}
Beast – Horned Lynx – Level 7
{End}