Dex moved through the forest at a brisk pace, Princess holding onto the front of his poncho in her familiar place. He had no idea where to go to find any of these quest goals, despite his current forward momentum. His sword rattled against his hip and potion belt as he strode through the woods, hoping to find some clue about where to go. Suddenly, something dawned on him.

“Shit,” He started, echoing to Princess. “I never even checked the quest details for the First Expedition.” Almost as suddenly as the first, another thought stuck him, and he pulled up his quest log.

[Current quests:]

[Quest: Survival 1 - Difficulty: 1]

[Quest available: Hunt the Predators - Difficulty: 1]

[Quest available: Buried Treasure - Difficulty: 1]

[Assigned Quest: First Expedition - Difficulty: 2]

“Survival one,” he mumbled to himself. “I completely forgot about that,” Dex brought up the quest details as a reminder, since it had been days since he’d even thought about this one.

[Survive until morning: 1/1]

[Find water source: 0/1]

[Forage for food: 0/1]

[Reward: Survival 1 Skill]

“What does it say?” Princess asked.

Dex mumbled the information to her, almost annoyed that he hadn’t bothered to ever do this quest in the first place. He noted that the quest had a difficulty tag now, just like the other ones. It also seemed to be as difficult as slaying twenty-two voregar. He figured it was likely that ‘difficulty: 1’ was the lowest it would go, and he was a lot stronger than the first time he encountered one of those strangely colored wolves.

“Oh, that’s easy,” she said, hopping down from his poncho. Princess ran to a nearby bush. They had passed dozens just like this in the previous days. “Here, grab one of these.”

Princess poked her nose towards a small berry. It sat almost alone in the bush, not like the berry bushes back on Earth that had hundreds of fruit. This one only had four or five.

Plucking off the berry, Dex received a relieving popup.

[Forage for food: 1/1]

“That was indeed easy,” Dex said, popping the berry into his mouth. He didn’t bother to consider if it was poisonous or anything, figuring Princess wouldn’t lead him to some deadly fruit. “You know,” He said, chomping on the berry. “This tastes pretty good. But what’s interesting is the ‘survive until morning’ requirement is complete, but didn’t give me a popup. At least, I don’t remember one.”

“I’m no expert on this, but sometimes popups don’t happen if you are in a stressful situation. Or, if the requirement is kind of passive like that,” Princess echoed.

“What do you mean passive? Like, not a direct action?” He asked.

“That’s what passive means, dude.” She sneered. “Like, when does it stop being night and start becoming morning, sort of thing? It just happened, instead of you doing something directly.”

“No need to get so philosophical, but I see your point. Now I just need to find some water.” Dex said. He realized that he had indeed found a water source since acquiring this quest, but the faucet in his little house must not count for survival purposes. They must need to find a stream or something for the quest to complete.

Moving back to his original reason for stopping, Dex pulled up the quest details for the First Expedition quest.

[Assigned Quest: First Expedition]

[It’s time to learn to fend for yourself. Take charge of your future, survive the dangers and reap the rewards]

[Complete two quests in one day: 0/2]

[Reward: Compass of Intentions]

“I have no fuckin’ clue what that thing is,” Princess replied, Dex having read her the quest details.

“Whatever it is, I want it.”

Princess hopped back into his poncho and the two started moving again. The more Dex thought about it, he decided that maybe the portal spat him out facing his quest as well, not just nearby, and luckily he had moved forward when he first took off. Well, maybe luckily. He could be wrong, after all.

It was probably another ten minutes later when Princess told him to stop. Her whiskers twitching with her nose as she sniffed at the air.

“Go left, through those trees right there.” She pointed with her tiny rat hand.

Pushing past the trees, Dex saw what she smelled. A small creek, flowing lightly with water. It could easily have been missed, but it was water. He bent down and scooped a handful into his mouth, realizing he was quite thirsty. After a few handfuls, he has happy to see his quest complete.

[Find water source: 1/1]

[Reward: Survival 1 Skill]

[Complete two quests in one day: 1/2]

Feeling a sense of accomplishment having cleared that quest off his list, he checked on his new skill, hoping it would have something to help him find the voregar he was hunting.

[Survival 1: You have a basic understanding of wilderness survival. You can build fires, identify common plants and animal tracks]

“That’s huge!” Dex yelled, noting the animal tracks portion of the skill. “Now I just need to find something to actually track, and we are golden.”

Princess echoed to him as he mumbled, “Dude, stop yelling like that. We don’t know what will hear you out here.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Realizing she was right, he went back to echoing to her as they spoke. “Sorry, I’m still not used to just thinking instead of talking.”

“Must be nice to be able to talk,” she joked.

“Must be nice to sit on the sidelines of every fight we are in,” Dex shot back.

“I literally saved your life when the vrakir assassin had you by the throat. Did you forget about that or are you choosing to purposely ignore that for the sake or your argument?”

“That was pre-class Dex, he was weak. Now Dex is strong!” Dex held his sword above his head in triumph.

“Don’t... Don’t start doing a third-person thing. It’s weird.” She groaned. “Let’s just start looking for some tracks. The sooner you get done, the sooner we can get some lunch. I’m starving.”

Dex agreed and started moving again. As he wandered, so did his mind. Why did the survival skill have a ‘1’ after it? Every other skill that had some sort of tag said, ‘(Tier 1)’ or whatever tier it happened to be. The list of possible reasons was long, and Dex couldn’t pinpoint any exact reason, at least not yet.

Another sniff session from Princess began, forcing him to stop several minutes later. This time, however, he could smell it, too. It smelled like rot, like death. Not strong death, but clearly something nearby was decaying.

Following the smell, it was easy to find. Laying near the base of some trees were three corpses. They looked like boars, as far as he could tell. Brown fur soaked in blood covered all three, and they seemed to have chunks missing.

“Something was eating these,” Dex echoed, kneeling to get a closer look at one of the corpses. “Why did it stop?” He asked, pulling his sword from his waist, just in case.

Luck that he did, as he wouldn’t have to wait long to find the answer. Princess heard something he didn’t, and screamed into his mind to turn around.

Dex held his sword in front of his face, just barely quick enough for his Weapon Shift to save his life. He moved his shifted-shield to block the swipe from a large green voregar. He shot back, making his first priority to get Princess to safety. She still clung to his chest, her red eyes panicking at the sight of one of her natural predators.

The voregar’s fur was a deep, dark green. It had small horns coming out of the top of its head, so close together they were almost touching. He could tell this was a voregar from having fought the red one before, but it was clearly a different breed. Aside from the fur and horns, the only other distinguishing feature was its fangs. They were so long the creature couldn’t even close its mouth properly.

Dex’s sword returned to its base form as he stared the creature down. His nerves were low. Somehow, he had confidence in this fight. He had nearly slain the cragtooth on his own, and even he knew that it was on another level than this simple voregar.

The voregar glared intensely at him, giving a deep growl and stepping forward slowly. It was going to pounce; it was just a matter of how long until it did. Princess found time to hop from Dex’s poncho and scurry into a nearby bush.

“Sidelines again?” Dex prodded at her.

“Shut up and kill it.” She echoed back, clearly annoyed.

Now that it was just him and the voregar, he felt safer engaging with it, not having to put Princess at risk. He took a step forward, closing the gap to only three or four paces between them.

The kill was swift and easy. He took a single step forward, planting his right foot in front of him for momentum. Thrusting his sword forward, his Weapon Shift did exactly as he had hoped, shifting his sword into a long spear. The tip planted itself into the creature’s face, piercing its brain. Well, Dex assumed the brain was in its head, anyway. The voregar fell limp as he pulled the blade back, sheathing the sword on his hip.

[Slay the voregar: 1/22]

“We found them!” Dex echoed in excitement, the popup confirming his suspicions. It definitely appeared that they had indeed found the voregar he was looking for, and not just some random grouping.

“That was much easier than the first time,” Princess pointed out. “But please be careful. We likely won’t have one-on-one fights every time like this.

She was right. There were twenty-one more of these things he had to hunt down, and it was likely that most of them were packed together somewhere nearby.

Taking stock of the area, Dex noticed dozens of tracks. He immediately identified the voregar ones, which was strange to him. He had never looked at these prints before, but he just knew what were the right ones. His survival 1 skill really coming in clutch.

After some light examination of a few of the tracks, he got what he needed.

“Hop up,” He echoed, holding one of his hands out for Princess to climb up and pointing with the other. “It came from this direction.

“Really the expert now, aren’t you?” Princess echoed, never relenting with her nonsense.

“The abilities that this world gives us are insane,” Dex replied. “There’s nothing like this at all back on Earth. I’d have to study for weeks, or longer, to know what I learned in a matter of seconds with this skill.”

“Your world sucks,” Princess laughed.

“You say that, but I wasn’t fighting for my life every damn day over there.”

Deciding to drop the banter for now, Dex moved in the direction the tracks pointed him. Somehow, he knew it was pretty far. They’d have to walk at least thirty minutes before they’d find the nest. The whole way he kept running battle simulations in his head, hoping that he’d be prepared for fighting almost two-dozen voregar at once when the time came.

The forest was calm, almost silent as he got near his destination. There were no animal noises, nothing besides his foot crunching the occasional branch or pile of leaves. His senses told him he was getting close, not to mention the occasional blood-trail he stepped over.

“This must be where they bring their prey to feed the pack,” Dex echoed.

“I bet we interrupted that last one just after it killed those bogboars.” Princess replied.

“Bogboars, that’s what those were called?” He asked, realizing just now that they weren’t normal boars.

Princess confirmed his question as she hopped from his poncho. “They are definitely nearby. Their scent is much stronger than I’ve ever smelled before.” She scurried into a bush, as was her usual plan of attack. “Good luck, buddy!”

His nerves heightened as he silently broke the treeline. Half a dozen voregar were laying in patches of sunlight that broke through the top of the trees. They seemed to be relaxing, sunbathing, just like a house cat would. Just past the sleeping few was a small cave entrance. Dex assumed the rest, or at least the ones that weren’t out hunting, were sleeping in there. A couple of the voregar were dark green, just like the one he had just killed. The others were purple, a deep, deep purple, almost black. He couldn’t make out many details from this distance, but they also seemed to have stripes down the side that were even darker than the rest of their fur.

Deciding to get the first hit by surprise, he drew his sword from his belt. He crept forward, being careful to avoid any branches or leaves to not alert them before he was ready. It worked.

Dex got close enough to land the first blow on one of the sleeping voregar. He leapt into the air, bringing his sword down on one’s head. It shifted into a spiked mace just before impact, smashing and impaling the creature before it had time to wake. The others, however, were very much awake.

He immediately tossed his weapon at one of them that was scrambling to its feet. His aim was good, and his Weapon Shift knew what to do. Shifting into a small dagger, it crammed into the beast’s mouth, killing it instantly. Dex activated his Recall Weapon ability, returning his sword to his hand instantly.

The other four charged at him as Dex held his ground. Luckily, they weren’t all the same distance, and their lack of tactical strategy would be their downfall. The first one leapt forward, its dark green fur waving as it sailed through the air to its death. It opened its mouth, the long fangs barely separating as it went in for a bite. But it only bit blade, Dex’s sword had lengthened as he thrust it into the voregar’s mouth, causing it to fall limp on top of him. He was able to maintain his balance, his heightened strength giving him just enough to leverage to throw it to the side, wrenching his weapon from its mouth.

Three more voregar charged at him and he charged back, feeling true confidence in himself for the first time since he’d been plucked from his home. He plowed through the remaining voregar, his weapon shifting from sword to hammer to spear, as it needed to. The area was soaked with blood, and so was he. He felt damp, gross, but most of all, victorious.

[Slay the voregar: 7/22]

This wouldn’t last for long, as the commotion had clearly alerted the ones in the cave, just as he had been expecting. Within seconds, fifteen more voregar of varying green and purple came rushing out of the cave.

Wiping a small bead of sweat from his forehead, Dex readied himself.