Tasha took a deep breath and held it, straightening her back as her chest expanded. The rough mark next to the arrow rest that she was using to aim was aligned with her target, though she knew that meant little. She’d put the mark there herself, after all, and what did she know about making bows?
Nevertheless, she held steady, closed one eye, then gently released the strap from her right fingers, letting it snap forward. The arrow once again skewed to the right and fell short of the target, so she set out to pick it up with a sigh.
“Fucking waste of time.” She muttered under her breath as she looked around, somehow having lost a clear line of sight on the second arrow.
It felt like she hadn’t improved at all despite several hours of training. At least if the damn bow always deviated in the same way, she could adjust for it, but no pattern had revealed itself. Unless it was the arrows that each skewed a different way? That might be possible - she’d have to do some testing.
After a short search through a bunch of bamboo stalks, she found the arrow, bending down to pick it up and twirl it between her fingers. The added red feathers from the blood-sucking hummingbird certainly made it look prettier, but they didn’t seem to improve its flight. Probably too light, she thought, as she rubbed the coarse wood between her fingertips. Must be the wrong type of wood.
Looking past the arrow, her eye caught on a plant she hadn’t seen before, short leaves with a bluish edge covering thick buds, well hidden between the roots of one of the strange, spindly trees. It had been disappointing to discover how few plants grew in this forest, most of the forest floor consisting of dirt and fallen leaves, not even covered by moss, as if it were all freshly planted.
Shuffling closer, she picked off a piece of the bud, rubbing it between her fingers and giving it a tentative sniff. Floral, not grassy, which was good, but there was a bitter note to it as well. It was worth checking out.
Opening the Guide to Flora she’d purchased for 8 Value, she got to browsing through the overlay, entering a written description of the plant and looking at the options.
“Stupid aliens, never heard of image recognition.” She muttered, shaking her head as she had to scroll through several pages of pictures and descriptions, until she finally got a hit.
Azure Capit Nettle
Common plant which likes to grow between roots of tall trees to avoid exposure to direct sunlight. Consumption is not lethal, but is likely to lead to constipation. Burning the plant yields a thick, acrid smoke that has been reported to cause intense vertigo when breathed in.
Tasha fiddled with her lip as she considered for a moment, then shrugged and took out her lighter, burning one of the buds as she held it out in front of her. It was still too moist to burn easily so she held it next to the flame to dry it out for a moment before lighting it up. It caught aflame, producing a thin line of dark grey smoke. She blew at it softly, then cupped her hands around the smouldering bud, allowing the smoke to build up, before pressing her lips to a thin gap between her fingers and inhaling.
Immediately, she realized this would be a bad one. It tasted bitter and felt like acid in her lungs, enough so that she couldn’t stop herself from bursting out in a coughing fit. The thick smoke felt like it scraped at her throat on the way out, leaving it raw and aching.
Spitting on the ground as she wiped tears from her eyes with her dirty sleeve, then the vertigo hit her. She’d been crouching on the ground but now she fell back, sitting flat on her ass, pushing her palms into the forest floor as if to steady herself. Of course, that didn’t work, and she started to feel sick as her vision swam. This was decidedly not the good kind of vertigo, if there even was such a thing.
Another coughing fit had her on hands and knees as she curled up, fighting to hold in her lunch. The bud was on the ground, still releasing smoke, and she kicked at it angrily until the ember died. Why couldn’t the damn thing at least give a nice buzz?
“Really, Tasha? You’re gone for five minutes and it’s this again?”
She twisted around to face the source of the voice, staying on the ground as the vertigo still hadn’t settled.
“I was just-” It sounded more like nails on a chalkboard than her own voice, and she broke out into another coughing fit, wiping at her mouth with her sleeve before speaking again.
“Just experimenting.” She croaked, blinking up at the image of Kobe leaning against a tree with his arms crossed. It was wobbling too much to make out his expression clearly, but she guessed he was not pleased.
“This forest is dangerous. We’ve got people - children - that need protection. Don’t you think this is a bit irresponsible?”
His voice was stern but it sounded forced to her, like he was putting up an act. Tasha gave a relaxed shrug, remaining seated.
“I’m not on guard duty right now. The children are surrounded by adults. I’ll be fine in a minute or two, anyway. What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”
Kobe thought for a moment, seeming to consider whether to push it further or not, but then he sighed, letting his arms down.
“I don’t know,” He shook his head and wandered over to sit next to her, leaning back against a patch of bamboo stalks which bent back slightly with his weight, “I’m definitely on edge. I guess I’m really feeling the weight of responsibility. That, and I hate this place.”
Tasha nodded, glad to let him vent for a bit while the vertigo receded and she got her bearings.
“I usually prefer going at it alone, you know? Now all these people are looking to me, expecting me to protect them. I know there are no bad intentions behind it, but it still pisses me off. It’s like, I step up to fight a few times, and they immediately turn it into this grand expectation, like I should always be doing it, like they’re fucking entitled to my protection.”
She nodded again.
“You’d be our knight in shining armor, if you weren’t wearing the same ratty clothes as the rest of us.”
“Christ, yeah, that’s really what it is isn’t it?” He scoffed as he shook his head, scratching at his short, curly black hair.
She hummed thoughtfully, bringing her right hand up to her face to pick at her lip.
“That didn’t happen by chance, you know?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that you were always there, stepping up. Taking the vanguard, or doing whatever was needed to help people.”
“I mean, yeah, but how could I not? I’m young and athletic. My Stats are probably the highest of the party by now. How could I just watch or worse, run away, as people get attacked by huge centipedes? It’s not that I want to, just.. The situation demanded it, you know?”
“Yeah. That’s my point. It’s the result of your actions. You would’ve always landed in that role, because it’s just who you are, I guess? Not everyone’s like that. Take Elza, she’s fit enough, but she’s barely even gone out exploring with us. She didn’t step in once. She just panicked and kind of shut down.”
Kobe frowned, looking out at the forest, lost in thought for a moment.
“I think it’s the helplessness that pisses me off. We’re literally facing an apocalypse and still they just shuffle along, following in someone else’s footsteps, yet still arguing and complaining all the way.”
He paused for a moment.
“Well that and how disgusting everything is. I’ve always hated camping from the bottom of my heart, you know? Now, we don’t even have a damn tent.”
Tasha chuckled.
“I wholeheartedly agree that this place sucks,” she said, “That’s why there’s no way I’m going to be rawdogging this experience.”
He turned his head to her with a sly smile, cocking an eyebrow.
“Are you letting street Tasha out now?”
She chuckled, but it turned into another cough. It passed after a moment and she wiped at her eyes, then grinned at him.
“Figured you were done being judgmental.”
He laughed out loud at that.
“You make a good point though. Some damn comfort would go a long way to ease our suffering. What I wouldn’t give for a change of clothes. We should start harassing Dericka about spending some of that Party Value.”
An affirmative grunt, followed by a short silence.
“...That stuff you were smoking really stinks by the way.”
—
After a long discussion, their motley crew had agreed to move through the forest in Dericka’s proposed formation, which had lookouts to each cardinal direction and defenders in the center. Tasha was placed as a scout on the eastern flank, keeping within shouting distance of the central group. Maintaining line of sight would have been preferable, but it wasn’t realistic with this amount of tree trunks and bamboo stalks. The scouts would close in once every ten minutes or so, to make sure everyone was keeping pace and in the right position.
The map made for easy navigation, so their path ahead was clear. It would take them past a small valley of sorts, where they planned to find a place to rest for the night.
After an hour of walking, she came across her first goat. It was pawing at the ground and nibbling on some plants. Its appearance was deceptively normal, the kind of cute little goat you might see at a petting zoo.
Her first reaction was to back away towards the group, knowing that there was safety in numbers, but then she stopped herself. It was just a single goat. Compared to a desperate junkie with a knife, this was barely a threat. Shouldn’t she be able to handle it?
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
On the off chance that anything went wrong, she could still shout for help. Besides, they now had this magical healing device which would heal any wounds the goat could give her in a matter of hours.
Taking a deep breath in, feeling a nervous flutter in her stomach, she pulled out one of the three arrows she’d stuck through some of the belt loops in her jeans. Then she delicately opened the small plastic pouch by her side, which was filled with the venom she’d carefully extracted from the dead pug-snake. It should be potent enough - to their shock, the map had revealed those wheat fields to have been a yellow zone. The lightest shade of yellow, to be precise, but that was still two levels above the forest they were in now.
She dipped the bone-tipped arrow into the milky-yellow venom, slowly pulling it out again before positioning herself right by one of the trees for cover. This was the arrow that skewed to the right, she thought, so she aimed a bit too high and to the left. Right after she let loose with a snap, she pulled out the next arrow and set to dipping it, cursing when her arrow fell short of the target. There would just be a few seconds before-
An angry bleat that could just as well have been a banshee’s shriek sounded through the forest. She looked up from her bag of venom to see the goat pawing at the ground, glaring at her with its lips curled back to reveal its vicious teeth. Despite expecting it, there was still a burst of panic in her chest, her breaths coming faster as her hands started to shake.
The goat charged at her as she knocked the arrow and she desperately wanted to shoot and run, but she forced herself to wait. She took a deep breath but failed to keep it down in her panic - she hadn’t even been running, why the hell was she out of breath.
Given her poor aim, she had no choice but to wait until it was nearly on her. Gripping the bow far too tightly, she traced the goat’s path, which was predictable, it would be right in front of her in- yes. Now.
She loosed, already slipping behind the tree trunk as she saw the arrow strike the goat on the back. Then it was blindly rushing past her, letting out another enraged bleat. There was a shout from the group to her left and she cried back.
“Goat!”
Turning to keep the goat in her vision as it made to turn around, she felt a flash of pride as she noticed the arrow sticking in its back, right besides the spine. But the damned animal didn’t even seem to notice it, looking right at her with those rage filled eyes, before lowering its head for another rush.
Tasha cursed, dropping her bow to scramble around the tree trunk, but she’d been a tad too slow and the goat got her in the back of the right leg, causing her to stumble and fall to the ground. It came at her like a shrieking demon, all teeth and blind fury, and Tasha cried out with panic as she pushed herself away, but then it suddenly stopped. Its legs went stiff and Tasha watched, half covered behind the trunk, as it toppled over and lay there until its breathing finally stopped.
Well done! You killed a higher-tiered threat!
Threat level: Tier 2
Subject level: Tier 0
Total Value awarded: 12 (4 Base * 3 Multiplier)
Value allocated to Party wallet: 3 (20%)
Remaining Value allocated to personal wallet: 9
First Jim and then Kobe came running towards her from different directions as she sat against the tree, feeling nauseous and wanting to let the adrenaline settle. The men complimented her, while still suggesting that next time she should just fall back. Kobe had given her a horrified look when he realized that the goat had died within a minute from the pug-snake’s poison. They’d taken a bigger risk than they realized that day.
Tasha grimaced as they went back, cursing herself for her slowness and stupidity. She should have been capable of dodging a simple goat, but her fear got the better of her. It should also have been obvious that the venom would have taken some time to work. But none of that wouldn’t even have mattered if she’d just managed to hit the damn thing with her first shot.
It was clear that she needed to find a solution for this, the sooner the better.
Tier 0 (Next: 50)
Stats
Strength: 4
Durability: 5
Speed: 6
Senses: 8
Intelligence: 7
PE Capacity: 100 KJ
Abilities
None
Unallocated Value: 24
Value allocated to Stats: 0
Value allocated to Abilities: 0
Value spent on items: 8
Her plan so far had been to save up her Value for an Ability instead of allocating any Value to her Stats. A large number of Abilities looked interesting, to the point where she wished she could try them all out, but after long hours of reading and considering she’d narrowed it down to just a few, each of which cost 120 Value.
[Accelerate Object]
Through a targeting system, this Ability will allow you to select an object within a 20-yard radius. When used on an object already in motion, the object’s momentum will be increased proportionate to the energy input, while maintaining the same direction. When used on a stationary object, the energy will remain in a potential state until the object is moved by another force, at which point the additional energy will increase the object’s momentum in the same direction as that force.
[Infuse Momentum]
Through a targeting system, this Ability will allow you to infuse momentum into an object within a 30-yard radius. You will be able to select the direction and magnitude of the force. Energy usage will be directly proportionate to magnitude of force.
[Redirect Object]
Through a targeting system, this Ability will allow you to select an object in motion within a 100-yard radius and redirect its momentum. Once a new direction of force has been selected and the Ability is triggered, the object will be immediately redirected.
All of these should be able to help with her arrow problem. The first one would make her arrows hit harder, but since she wasn’t actually managing to hit anything yet, one of the other two seemed like a better choice.
[Infuse Momentum] offered more freedom - if she understood it correctly, it should allow her to even shoot arrows straight from her hand, without even needing a bow. That would definitely come in handy. It would probably use up more PE though, and she was worried that the targeting would be complicated, using multiple vectors at the same time. There was also the limited radius - thirty yards would be plenty in this forest, but it might limit her in open fields.
[Redirect Object] was limited to only redirecting objects already in motion, but it seemed a great fit for what she needed. Once an arrow went off course, she could just redirect it towards the intended target. Again, she worried about the targeting system, hoping that it wouldn’t expect her to ‘click’ on an arrow mid-flight.
To afford one of those Abilities, she just needed 96 more Value. That was about ten goats, or perhaps a few less if Dericka could be convinced to lower the Party tax.
It wouldn’t be easy, but it was doable, especially if she could convince some of the others to let her take down a few goats. Dmitriy and her could make a great pair, where he could lure and tank goats on his shield, while she shot them in the flank.
But when they’d finally reached their goal and she joined the main group, it quickly became clear that it wouldn’t be as easy as she thought.
“This is a great opportunity and I will claim vanguard. There has not been a single goat for me to slay while defending the center.”
Dmitriy was also aiming to gather more Value then. Of course he would, she realized, they were all in the same boat after all. Not a single one of them had enough Value to purchase an Ability yet.
The large man sounded frustrated, speaking loudly enough that several people at once told him to keep it down.
“We’re not seriously talking about fighting that herd, right? Our goal is to get to the MAFT safely. We should be avoiding the damn things.”
Millie, the mother of one of the two young girls, sounded equal parts angry and afraid, her voice shaking slightly despite her balled fists. Her dirty blonde hair was tied back in a long ponytail, revealing freckled cheeks. What had once been a white top over bleached jeans now looked more like a camouflage outfit, covered in overlapping stains of different shades of brown and green.
It seemed like Tasha had missed something, so she caught Kobe’s eye and shot him a questioning glance. He walked over and quickly caught her up, speaking in a low voice while the discussion continued.
“I scouted that round depression we saw on the map. Turns out it’s a valley, as we thought, but it’s also a gathering place for the goats. There were at least twenty of them that I saw, one of them a lot bigger than the rest. I’d say about the size of a large deer.”
She nodded her thanks and turned her attention back to the discussion, which was quickly heating up.
“The simple truth remains, if the fighters want to keep protecting other, weaker members of the group, we will need Value to grow stronger. This benefits everyone.”
Dmitriy was nearly looming over the smaller woman, and Tasha thought it might have been the first time she’d seen the large man frown. It was an intimidating sight, but Tasha noted with respect that Millie stood her ground.
“That doesn’t mean we need to take stupid risks like this, it’s much safer to pick them off one by one..”
They were the same arguments they had nearly every day, just in a slightly different jacket. She pulled nervously at her lip as her gaze moved away from the discussion and up to the forest around them. The urge to just wander off and go look for some herbs was strong, but she knew it would be immediately noticed.
The only available distraction right now was the System Interface, so she once again looked at her wish list of items. These were the things she definitely wasn’t supposed to buy. Wasn’t going to buy, she corrected herself. They certainly wouldn’t add any Value to the party. More importantly, they wouldn’t help at all in keeping Tasha alive.
Purified Valerian Pollen - 20 Value per Gram
Within a minute after ingesting this powder, the subject will experience a rush of energy and euphoria, strengthening only positive emotions while suppressing the negative. The effect will last for approximately one hour, after which the subject will feel drained. Suitable for battlefield usage. Cleared for human consumption for a maximum dosage of 0.1g per 12 hours. Repeated use may lead to mild addiction.
Cohosh Root Extract - 15 Value per vial
A drop of this extract will induce an expanded state of awareness and mild hallucinations. Suitable for the purposes of reflective meditation as well as recreational use. Lethal dosage for humans has not yet been established, but the maximum recommended dosage is 5 drops to the skin.
Ferrux Beet Juice - 10 Value per 250ml bottle
Will induce violent vomiting and intense hallucinations lasting 2 to 5 hours. More than one cup is not recommended.
These products wouldn’t be useful at all, probably even counter-productive, a nasty distraction. She couldn’t - wouldn’t - buy them, she told herself again. It would be completely irresponsible, and a waste of Value besides.
But she couldn’t deny her curiosity, nor the urge that she’d known ever since coming of age. Others often described it as hunger, or thirst, but that had never sounded right to her. It wasn’t a yearning for something, so much as a need for change.
The unfiltered reality of everyday life was simply unbearable to her. Not in a crushing way, but slight and subtle, like wearing a rough woolen sweater without any underclothes. It was fine for a while, but it grated at her, ground against her skin, made her itch in a way that only got worse the longer she didn’t scratch it.
She’d been wearing that abrasive woolen sweater for weeks on end now. Hadn’t she deserved the sweet embrace of a smooth, silky undershirt?
No, not yet, she told herself. She needed to get some kills, collect enough Value to finally buy that Ability. Maybe then, a small reward would be justified.
Her attention was brought back to the group by Dericka raising her hands in a placating way, taking a moment to calm everyone down.
“It looks like we’ve heard all the arguments by now, and it’s clear where most people stand. I agree with the majority that it’s too much of a risk. If we could pull them in small groups, it would be doable, but the goats are known to yell as soon as they spot us. Twenty goats charging us at once would lead to chaos.”
She turned to Dmitriy then, whose lips thinned, but he gave a curt nod.
“Having said that, I also acknowledge your grievance. I would propose to address this either by swapping the posts, or using the Party Value to-”
She suddenly stopped talking, blinking and eyes moving at the space in front of her in a way that Tasha had learned to associate with the System Interface. She watched with growing concern as Dericka’s eyes widened and her face paled. For a moment, she thought the woman even glanced around in a haunted way - she’d never seen Dericka so shaken.
Only when people asked her if everything was ok, did Dericka seem to realize she hadn’t spoken in a while.
“Sorry, I, uh.. It’ll be easier if I just share the message. Let me..”
The System Message popped up.
Party Quest - Slay the Caper Alpha
The Caper Alpha has been growing his herd, threatening the inhabitants of the forest. Biodiversity will suffer if nothing is done! Gather your strength to kill this growing threat and help the forest!
Time limit: 48 hours
Reward: 1000 Party Value
Additional reward if completed within 24 hours: One purchase of up to 50 mundane items will be treated as a group purchase (transportation costs will only apply once)
There was a long moment of silence, followed by agitated comments. There was mostly fear and confusion on people’s faces, but there was also something else, which made her think the decision would change quickly now. It was something she recognized all too well - the hunger for a big payoff.
It would be a fight, which was fine by her. She already had some ideas on how to safely and cleverly maximize her Value gains from this battle. If she was careful, she could walk away with more than enough for that Ability, without putting herself too much at risk.
Jim was the first to say what most of them were thinking, cutting through the growing clamor with the blunt yet inoffensive honesty that countryfolk like him often got away with.
“Welp,” He said loudly, letting out a sigh, “Looks like we’ll be killin’ us some goats then.”