Making a base – part 1 (Fire)
Checking his inventory Tobias found he had 6 Rat Bodies, 1 bunch of tinder. So, moving slowly he approached the next bush focusing his minor Predator recognition skill and unsurprisingly found a small nest of rats. This time he was able to start the Aura skill before rats attacked, and he gained the initiative in the fight so the fight quickly concluded with the two rats' dead and Tobias taking 4 points damage, he was then able to collect a bunch of tinder, and a bunch of kindling. And two more rat bodies.
Tobias decided he could take a bit of pain and as long as he was careful it would be possible to collect, the materials required. So, he slowly snuck up on the next bush and draw a blank, over what seemed the next hour he visited 5 more bushes for a further 6 rat bodies, 2 bunches of tinder, and 3 bunches of kindling. At this point all the easy bushes that were isolated had been checked, what was left was small and large clumps of shrubs or trees with significant underground surrounded them. He was surprised that he had not some system message indicating an upgrade or a new skill. But at this point, it was clear that the rules of this MMO were different and felt rather arbitrary.
Looking at the at the remaining shrubs he decided to approach the smallest clump, Using MPR he was able to detect 2 small groups of rats, the only plan was to attack the first pair and hoping that the next two would arrive after or at the same time as the first ones died.
The plan starts out perfectly the first 2 rats are crispy critters as the next two rats arrive, but with the skill did not indicate was that the last rat was at least 50% bigger and while an arriving as the third became flash fried it bit noticeably harder. It was still able to gain the initiative and draw blood for a second time before succumbing to the flames. As that last bite struck Tobias' leg collapsed and a red message flashed across the HUD Poison Bite and a small skull and crossbones icon appeared beside the HP bar in the HUD.
Holding his leg in pain, Tobias looks about and with a relief determines that there are not more rats, so he focuses on the ☠ icon, a panel is displayed
De-buffs
Poison Bite
8 hours
-1 to Strength
8 hours Less Constitution
That seemed odd surely it should 7 hours, so Tobias checked his status His strength was now 0 and for some reason so was his Constitution, then he realised when he gained the Constitution the message was that it had to be less or equal to his strength. So, 0 strength meant 0 Constitution, and that meant that his points had reduced back to 10 as well. That being the case his plan of checking shrub clump at a time was not going to work.
[Fight Summary]
Damage taken 12, Damage given 18, Mana used 8. Duration 4 ticks
Combat reward
One Attribute available to allocate
De-buff Weakness –1 str 8 hours
Loot 2 rat bodies, 1 bunch of Tinder, 1 bunch of Kindling, 1 Branch (wooden club).
Tobias recognized the branch as the item he used as a club in the first conflict. New Skill Minor Item recognition. Remember the first Attribute that he had selected Tobias the free attribute point to increase Mental Toughness. A Trumpet sounded as 5 different aspects of his status increased. A new recognition appeared “Fast growth” which had the reward of 1 characteristic point which promptly was placed in Ego. For no reason except it felt right
Looking at the branch Tobias thought about how to improve so that became the club. The more he looked and puzzled at the branch he got the impression that he could wrap pelts around the narrow end to make a handle with better grip, and by shaving the bark and some of the wood he could shape the branch end into a club head. The only problem was where to the pelts and what would be able to shape the wood.
The rat bodies flashed into mind, so he examined them, after a while of focused thought a series of window appeared in the HUD
Rat body level 0
12
Rat Body level 1
2
Bunch of tinder
4
Bunch of Kindling
4
Branch
1
Rat body level 0
Rat Skin 50%
Deconstruct
Rat Tail 75%
Yes / No
Rat Teeth 1%
Rat body level 1
Rat Skin 75%
Deconstruct
Rat Tail 100%
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Yes / No
Rat Teeth 50%
Tobias rapidly deconstructed the Rat bodies, while processing the level 0 rat bodies, he had not been able to obtain any teeth but the first level 1 result in a set of Fangs level 0, the inside edge of these were razor sharp. Unfortunately, the next level 1 rat body result in no further Fangs. But the fangs could be split into individual Fang. Since the fang was sitting in his hand Tobias realized that he could use a skin to create a safe grip on the fang and would make a Fang knife, limited trade-skill 50%. If he was able to get 5 leather strips then it would make a Farmers Dagger limit Weapon (Damage 1-4) 20%. the two recipes were still very fuzzy in his mind, He suspected that make an item would help, and there was a sense that if the source of the materials would have a major impact on the final product.
So trade-skill knife it was. Focusing his will into the recipe had his hands enter a blurred sphere of space and a fang and a pelt disappeared from the inventory and the Fang knife appeared, an option of Repeat Yes or No appeared in the HUD so Tobias tried again.
As he completed the second attempt, he was struck by a wave of utter fatigue and collapsed into a state of unconsciousness. Over ten minutes his health slowly recovered but he still failed to wake. After an hour finally, he recovered somewhat but the sun moved across the sky for nine more hours until he was able to move. As Tobias was able to make sense of how awful he felt, the Hud was flooded with messages
First use of a basic recipe success, 100% chance of success, Endurance cost = 0
Second Use of a basic recipe failed, 40% chance of success, Failure cost 10 Stamina
Stamina = 0 Hit points used.
Health = 0,
State Unconscious,
De-buff 10 hours Collapse (unable to initiate any action)
New Characteristic Endurance
Stamina Gained 10 points
New Skill Basic Trade-skill
De-Buff Weakness expired
It was approaching dusk, so if Tobias was going to get a fire going, he recognized that had to get a move on. First, let’s get the club working as a weapon focusing on the branch the recipe basic club appeared.
Basic Wooden Club
Rat Skin 5
Make
Rat Tail 1
Yes / No
Tool required; Trade-skill Knife
Selecting Yes
First use of a basic recipe success, 100% chance of success, Endurance cost = 0
Basic trade-skill knife Durability 99%
Wooden club (basic) 2-8 damage (2d4)
5 skins and 1 rat tail disappear from the inventory and a basic wooden club appears.
Grabbing the club in his right-hand Tobias careful approach's the clump of bushes activating his aura and then quickly focus the predator recognition on to the bushes, he was able to see the 2 red highlights of the small rat nests, one nest had what appeared to be a large rat, moving to that end h attacked clubbing the large rat, the other rat of the pair flamed out as it bit him, the next two rats arrived and as before gained initiative and were able to bite and get toasted before he was able to swing the club. The leather grips seemed to have prevented the club from catching fire. Which was fortunate as this time there was no branch in the loot
[Fight Summary]
Damage taken 6, Damage given 13, Mana used 6. Duration 3 ticks
Loot 3 rat bodies, 1 bunch of Tinder, 2 bunch of Kindling.
Quest step complete 5/5 tinder.
So that was enough Tinder, but he was still short Kindling and something to start the fire.
So rather than attacking the smaller clumps of shrubs, Tobias approached a clump surrounding a tree. This looked rather promising as there was only 1 rat nest but it was of the large size. 2 large rats and in this case 5 small rats, as if a rat that was the height of your knee could every really be called small.
[Fight Summary]
Damage taken 8, Damage given 15, Mana used 8. Duration 4 ticks
Loot 5 rat bodies, 1 bunch of Tinder, 2 bunch of Kindling, 2 fire stones.
The next combat went just as well.
[Fight Summary]
Damage taken 8, Damage given 15, Mana used 8. Duration 4 ticks
Loot 5 rat bodies, 1 bunch of Tinder, 2 bunch of Kindling, 2 fire stones.
Quest step complete 10/10 Kindling
New Recipe simple fire.
Tobias searched around in the clearing and found what had a one time been a fire pit, cleaning it and placing first the Tinder and then ½ the Kindling only took a few minutes. taking the two fire stones and using the recipe that had appeared after the previous combat resulted in a small but nice fire and a series of quest notifications
Quest step complete 1/1 Firepit.
Quest step complete 1/1 Start Fire
And after an hour where more kindling was slowly added
Quest step complete Maintain Fire
Quest Complete Burning Bright
5 skill points available.
Tired Tobias took this as the right time to log out.
Player Tobias
Male
Characteristics
Strength
1
Constitution
1
Endurance
1
Agility
2
Intelligence
3
Ego
6
Hit-points
15
1 per Round
Mana
15
3 per Round
Stamina
10
.1 per Round
Attributes
Mental Toughness (Ego)
2
Affinity for Fire (Ego)
1
Mana Boost (Intellect)
1
Skills
Flame Aura
3 damage per tick
2 per tick
Minor Predator Recognition
1
Flaming weapon
1
Minor Gathering
1
Minor Item recognition
1
Basic Trade-skill
1
Unallocated skill points
5
History
Near-death Experience
Bonus Skill point
1 used
Fast Growth
Bonus Characteristic
1 Used