“It say’s I unlocked a skill tree,” I said as I started navigating the menu as I was prompted.

*Skill Tree Unlocked*

*Please assign skill points to chosen skill tree*

Navigating the menu there were three skill trees that I could navigate through each with their own set of stat boosts and perks. I took my time to look over the first skill tree.

*Swordzerker*

*The Swordzerker Frenzy skill tree enhances the berserker's mastery over swords, emphasizing both devastating techniques and stat boosts to embody the chaotic spirit of the sword-wielding berserker.*

The skill tree itself was in the shape of a sword pointing downwards, it was outlined by various points giving it the look of a constellation of stars. The hilt of the greatsword looked gilded, including the pommel and guard, leading to the large blade. There were various slots around the shape of the sword, starting with the pommel, then the handle before three slots sat across the cross guard. Another seven slots were available down the main part of the sword, giving a total of twelve. I looked at the first slot on this skill tree to try and get an understanding of how it could benefit me.

*Description: Increase damage by 5%. Stacks.*

“Seems simple enough,” I said, as I scrolled to the next tree.

*Axecraze Torrent*

*The Axecraze Torrent skill tree turns the berserker into a whirlwind of destruction with a battle axe, focusing on powerful strikes and bolstering the berserker's resilience and ferocity in battle. This tree balances between enhancing axe attacks and providing the berserker with stat boosts to embody the chaotic and unstoppable force of an axe-wielding warrior.*

This one was in the shape of a great axe, this time though the axe head sat at the top of the wooden pole-arm. Just like the first skill tree it had a total of twelve skill slots making the shape of the weapon. The first sat at the bottom of the axe pole-arm.

*Description: Increases resistance to damage received by 5%. Stacks. *

I couldn’t see what the next slots were until skill points had been assigned, from what I could see, these initial skill slots could be stacked unto five times. Did that mean I needed to stack all five before the next part of the skill tree unlocked? I scrolled for a final time to see what the final skill tree was.

*Hammerheart Guard*

*The Hammerheart Guard skill tree enhances the berserker's resilience and endurance, focusing on using the warhammer to fortify their vitality. This tree prioritizes constitution, health, and endurance enhancements, making the berserker a formidable tank in the heat of battle.*

*Each successful critical hits will trigger health to replenish for 5 seconds. Stacks.*

This one was in the shape of a Warhammer, the main head of the hammer sitting at the bottom with the handle reaching out of it, given the legnth this was to be wielded with two hands. Now I had to think about how to use my skill points, from what I could see I had three of them, meaning I had gained one for every level that I had gained since I arrived in this place. I studied the three, when I picked one would I be locked in to that skill tree? We were about to attack a terror camp so that said, I felt out of the three at this time the Swordzerker tree made the most sense.

I assigned a skill point the the first tree, as soon as I attached the skill point, it lit up blue. It was a picture of a sword with an upwards arrow with five empty notches, as I placed the first skill slot there, the first notch of the arrow lit up.

I scrolled to the other trees and could see I could still attach skill points meaning I wasn’t committed to a singular skill tree.

I re-read all the trees before deciding to place another skill point on the swordzerker skill tree and one on the hammer heart tree. If I was going to be fighting. Lot of terrors I wanted to be able to do plenty of damage but I liked the idea of healing myself with critical hits, even if it was only for five seconds.

As I assigned the third and final skill point to the hammer heart tree it turned purple, the skill slot turned into an image of a little heart with the same five arrow with five empty notches at the side. The first notch had lit up.

Closing the menu I realised I had been completely consumed by all the information, the partial corpse of the Spore Spitter still sitting by my feet. Raven simply stood gawping at me her head tilted to one side as if she was studying me.

“Can you see my skill tree too?” I asked, it seemed a sensible question to ask but Raven shaking her head, quickly dispelled this. “Any you have your own version of this as a rogue?”

She waved her hand in a so/so motion again.

“Is this going to be enough?” Even with the bonus’ from the skill tree I still didn’t feel I would be strong enough to charge straight into the terror camp like Raven wanted me to. “I mean look what this thing did to me and there was only one of them, how am I meant to take on aa whole camp of terror’s who I haven’t even fought yet?”

Raven started signing fast and hard once again and I coouldn’t help but feel that she was scolding me, it was either that or she was giving me a pep talk but given the frown her face my money was on that she was giving me a bolocking of some kind.

“Ok, Ok,” I said, as if I had understood what she was saying but I hadn’t got a clue.

According to my skill tree and stats, I was stronger, but I didn’t feel it and I still felt more of a hindrance to Raven than a help.

Raven finished ticking me off before grabbing my hand and pulling me to follow her further into the forrest, she had a steeliness about her as she looked around as if she was looking for something again. When she stopped, she pointed ahead of her, before moving behind me and pushing me forward.

“Quite that,” I said, a flash of frustration showing in my voice. When I looked forward however I saw another Spore Spitter standing in the middle of a clearing, it was minding its own business and equally as grotesque as the last one I faced. The flowers on this one were yellow and blue however, it was oblivious to us at the point and I turned to look at Raven once agin. She gestured a stabbing motion again and it twigged what she wanted me to do. This time I wasn’t going to let the thing explode its pores all over me so this time I thought about my approach.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Taking out my cleaver, I charged forward and fast as I could and as I reached the spore spitter I drove the cleaver right down into the monsters skull. I was like stabbing a balloon, this time I continued my run forwards, getting as much distance as I could before turning around.

The Spore Spitter had exploded just like the other one, this time though a shroud of blue pores sat in the air around it, looking like a flare had been dropped on it. I didn’t plan on going anywhere near it, I didn’t need to, a tiny flash at the bottom of my menu told me I had gained a small amount of experience from killing it.

Through the haze of blue spores I could see Raven sarcastically clapping in the distance.

“Right, I get it, you want me to kill a few of these and level up, make myself stronger for attacking the terror camp.”

She smiled and nodded, raising her hand by her head and exploding it outwards. I didn’t fully understand what she meant but I couldn’t help but think it was another insult.

We spent what felt like a few hours stalking the forest, looking for more of the Spore Spitters for me to farm. Raven was apparently adept at finding them, knowing where about they were, stopping sporadically and looking around before pointing me in the right direction. I had wondered what it was that was drawing her to them, whether it was the smell, a noise they were making, perhaps she had some way of sensing them when they were nearby.

What I did realise was they liked to hide in thick shrubs, often behind trees with a thick trunk. Whatever their habitat preferences it didn’t take a genius to release that they were not a predatory creature, despite their appearances. It made killing them all the more difficult, they were not harmless but they kept themselves a way and hidden. From me at least, I wondered if they stayed in these positions for their own safety or to trap unsuspecting smaller creatures for them to feed on.

We came across all manner of Spore spitters, varying in different shapes and sizes, turns out the first one we came across was much larger than the others, with its flowers are established. The ones we had seen since them had been thinner, not skinny by any stretch but not as bulbous as the original, what was interesting was how they all had different shaped flowers growing from them and the glowing blisters that covered their bodies varied in colours too, usually matching the flowers on their heads an, necks and arm pits where the petals sprouted out from.

Each time I tried different approached to killing them, doing my best to stay away from the spore cloud they would emit when they exploded. At this time I couldn’t help but think that this would be so much easier if I had a long ranged weapon, rather than a cleaver. Having a weapon that required you to be up close and personal made the task of killing them that little bit harder. The tactic I had used on the second Spore Spitter seemed to work best, a speed approach, stabbing down as I ran past and keeping running while they exploded, leaving plumes of colourful spores in my wake. I was drawn to a paint festival I had seen a video about once, where people throw powder paint at each other while running through the streets, leaving a multicoloured medley of patterns on their white shirts. As much as I had done my best to avoid breathing the pores in, it didn’t mean that they had not clung to my white shirt, which now had splashes of red, pink, green, blue and orange on it.

Raven’s plan worked however and slowly and surely my experience bar slowly climbed, albeit a lot slower than what I would have liked. We continued the process over and over, finding the Spore Spitters and taking them out, Raven watching in the background, arms foldinglike a stern teacher despite being a good fifteen years younger than me. One thing I did notice was that the light of. Day did not seem the same as in our world, it seemed to move slower. I felt like I had been in this place for so long already yet the sun was still just a high and as bright in the sky as it was when I first got here.

After a while we stopped for a rest, Raven was sitting on a brabnch watching on, she looked bored, resting her elbows on her knees and resting her head on her hands. I was sat on a nearby stump, my arms and legs were burning from all the running around and slashing at the Spore Spitters. It was all new to me but I felt like a was slowly getting the hang of it. I did however fee; fatigued, not needing a rest fatigued which I found odd given that we had been farming the monsters for quite the period of time now. It was only when I realised I hadn’t eaten since I got here that that was what was causing me to feel weary.

Just as I thought about it my stomach gave a rumble of discontent and I rested my hands over it.

“Do you eat?” I asked, it felt like a stupid question but nothing surprised me with this place. Even for me this was an abnormally long time for me to go without feeling hungry and needing to eat. I had a well controlled diet, in fact I didn’t really get hungry usually. For some reason I felt ravenous, like I was literally starving and could eat the bark of the tree if I needed to.

Raven gave me another sign that I didn’t understand before bring a spoon like motion to her mouth and nodding.

“Great,” I said perking up. “I don’t know about you but I am starving.”

I looked around at the dense forest around us, not really knowing what we could in fact eat.

“I don’t suppose you know what we can eat around here.”

Raven swung from the branch she was sat on like she was some sort of gymnast on the poles, she spun in the air and landed on her feet with the agility of a cat before giving me a cocky smile. She raised a hand in the air before I noticed that she summoned a circular shadow in front of her.

“What is that? How did you do that?” I asked, it was a perfect circle that summoned in front of her, it looked like a whole in the ground except all it led to was darkness, I had seen Raven diving in and out of shadows but this was the first time that I had seen her summon a shadow. “Is that a skill?” I asked “Like part of your skill tree?”

Raven sighed and signed again but as usual I had no clue what she was talking about. I got a little excited when I wondered if I would eventually unlock skills like this with my skill tree, I wouldn’t know until I maximised my skill slot on one of the skill trees to unlock the next slot. In my mind I had set up my first mini mission for myself, wanting to know what waited for me as I levelled up.

“What does it do?” I asked as I approached, peering into the black spot on the ground. Raven knelt down and reached in, her arm disappearing unto her shoulder as soon as she touched the blackness. I could see her arm at all, it was as if it was vanished. She concentrated for a moment as she moved her arm around and again I wondered what it was that she was doing. When she pulled her arm out my eyes lit up, she was holding what looked like a piece of bread. She tossed it to me and then reached in again, rummaging around. This time she pulled out some cooked meat on a bone, it looked like a chicken leg, but I didn’t want to an assume what that was. I also recoiled wondering how hygenic it was to eat something that had just been pulled out of a blackened void.

“How did you?” I asked, bemused at what I had just seen. I needed a new mindset here, one that would simply just allow me to accept the things that I was seeing, but my brain just couldn’t move on. “Where was this stuff?” I asked.

Raven looked at me like a was an idiot, staring into me through lowered eyebrows and pointed at the shadow portal she had summoned.

“I can see that,” I said, “I mean, what is it.” I thought for a moment as Raven continued to sign at me, she made a gesture for a bag over her shoulder and I thought that I understood what she was saying.

“Oh it’s like storage.” I said.

Raven used the same hand explosion from her head gesture and I think that meant that I was right. “Wait you store things in there?”

Raven stepped towards me with the leg of meat and offered it to me, “It looked ok, it diodnt look rancid, in fact it had a nice crisp to the skin and smelt fresh. But something about eating a leg of meat pulled from a show portal didn’t fill me with confidence and the last thing I wanted was to end up in a tricky situation with food poisoning, especially here. I literally didn’t want to be caught with my pants down.

“I am ok thanks,” I said. “Can I just eat the bread?”

Raven nodded and shrugged before devouring the leg. I broke of some of the bread to offer her it but she shook her head, choosing to eat the leg of meat. The juices spilled down her shin and the non nomming sound she was making told me that she was enjoying her meal. Sniffing the bread, it smelt like regular bread, it was a little hard, no doubt stale to certain point but it was better than nothing and it meant we didn’t have to hunt for anything. I ate the bread like it was the first meal I had had in years, it only taking a few moments for me to jest, a lump of it sticking in my throat for a moment as I was eating too quickly.

“I don’t suppose you have any water?” I asked, laughing a little.

Raven reached into the shadow portal and pulled out a flask, it was made of dark green fabric with a hardened lid that I didn’t know what material was used for, it was a darkened cream colour and something told me given its shape that the nose was made of some. Form of bone. I only hope it wasn’t human. She passed it to me and I took a drink, the water was cold, like ice cold, as if it had been pulled straight from a freezer and it was refreshing as it trickled down my throat and my chin. When I was done I passed the flask back to Raven who took a drink before pouring some of the water on her hands to clean them. She then put the flask back in the shadow portal and snapped her fingers, and the portal vanished.

“So that is like a backpack?” I said, staring at the ground where the portal was, I rubbed my foot over the spot as if still not believing what I had just seen.

Raven looked at me like I was an alien speaking a language that she did not understand.

“Like a bag?” I corrected myself and she nodded.

“Got any other stuff in there?” I asked.

Raven nodded, but set of walking again. Not that she could tell me but I was curious as to what else she had stored in the shadow portal and if there was anything that we could find useful for infiltrating this terror camp.