[Coal Torch] = Wood (Any, 0.6-0.7m) + Coal (0.2-0.25kg) + Leaves (Dry, 0.05-0.1kg) + 2 Flint (0.5-1kg)
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The sun rose high, ushering in a new day.
Jay yawned and rolled out of bed, feeling refreshed.
…Until he stretched his back, anyway. His shoulder still throbbed from the wound he’d sustained the night before, and his legs ached after an hour of non-stop fighting. The heavy armor he’d worn became shattered halfway through the fight, and it took everything out of him to get through the final stretch unscathed.
And it had cost him another bullet from his 9mm pistol, leaving a mere four rounds left. Only four trump cards remained before he’d be out…
The Rule 5 violation had been more harsh than he’d first thought. Naomi managed to save him for a night while he suffered in a low-sanity state, but the aftermath alone almost killed them both.
It could have been worse, but not by much. Though he’d gained [Forbidden Knowledge] from that cairn run, it had almost cost him everything else.
Jay cracked the joints in his shoulders and went outside. After days of preparing to make this step, he would finally see this craft finished, once and for all.
He went to his copper mine. Though his crude furnace line remained where he’d left it, much of his setup had been altered to account for research. Based on his needs, the liquid copper could either drop into the first cast and whatever the open-faced granite had been carved into, or routed through a longer channel where it split into a cluster of clay casts. The stone casts worked for simpler crafts that did not need to be perfect the first time, and could instead be hammered into the final result.
However, now that he was looking to delve into more complex recipes that required smaller and thinner parts, clay casts became his go-to, even if they could only survive a few molds before cracking and breaking. Mass production slowed to a trickle when trying to produce hundreds of rivets and thin bars, along with the associated sprues that held them in place. Thus, his cave had expanded into an entire chamber of furnaces, casts, and piles of slag rocks, stacked on wooden pallets to keep from despawning.
Can’t wait to find a use for all that slag… Until then, Jay knew better than to toss seemingly useless mats.
With a sigh, he delved deeper into the cave and mined the last bits of copper. The nearest veins were practically empty, leaving most of what came out as granite. He looked back to his copper setup and frowned.
Still so much research left to move forward, and so little ore remaining. There was no choice here.
He had to go deeper.
* * *
This cavern went far lower than Jay first thought…
The spot below his waterfall was only the tip of the iceberg. Though he had carved out an acre of territory where his torches could reach, the moment he stepped in further, it just kept going and going.
His coal torch flickered, revealing another vein of iron ore. He beamed and redirected. His copper pickaxe stood ready for use.
Whack. Whack. Whack.
After discovering that different metals could be mined further into the mountain, he’d tried to identify them all. What had once started as a quick copper trip had since turned into one where he’d pick up any easy iron or copper he could come across. The Bag ‘a Mats gobbled up everything with ease.
The hemp pickaxe binding frayed as more iron ore broke free.
Repair time. He closed his eyes and pictured wood, then tugged into his Bag ‘a Mats. An armful of logs came out.
Jay grinned. Just as the Guide explained, so long as he pictured the mats first, they would come out when he reached in. He yanked out the remaining needed for a workbench and threw it together.
With the last bit of hemp+1 from his toolbelt, he repaired the copper pickaxe, disassembled and stored the workbench, and returned to work. Thankfully, repairs could still be done outside a building, even if infusions and recipes were needed indoors at Copper Age.
Whack. Whack. Whack.
His coal torch began to dim down. He yanked another from his toolbelt and lit it up. Incandescent heat flared out, revealing another three-way split in the tunnel.
Again? Jay took some more coal from his pocket and scraped an arrow against the wall, pointing back the way he came, and kept marching onward.
Now, this was Jay in his element. After so much time playing around with the Crafting tree and seeing how his research could be performed, he’d gotten a whole mess of tools to see this through. Coal torches had a burn time more than twice his improvised ones, marking the walls let him know the way back, and with the added supplies for repairs, he could travel for days in this network without ever needing to go back home, so long as nothing hostile crossed his path.
Light flickered against the cave walls ahead. A groan rolled out, barely audible.
Jay swapped to his copper sword, holding the torch tight to get a better look. His toes curled inside his fur boots, ready to take flight at the slightest provocation. He’d swapped back to light armor for this reason.
But as Jay drew near, he didn’t see some monster in the shadows, or reason to turn and run.
Another guy stood in the center of the tunnel, flanked by a ring of tiki torches and crude furnaces. A wooden cart rested nearby, with a wheel popped off.
This stranger was heavier than the other Expats, with a beer belly that protruded out from lizardscale armor, and a tattoo in the shape of an anchor glistening from an exposed arm. Greasy strands of sun-kissed blonde cascaded from his scalp where it wasn’t bursting from his cheeks. He heaved deep, veins bulging from his sweating arms, with a copper spear beside.
Part of Jay wanted to turn and hide, and yet, the more he looked at this man, the more he felt compelled to step forth. There was something about him. Something familiar.
The guy rubbed his cheeks, and Jay gasped.
“Kevin?” Jay called out before thinking it through. “Kevin Smith?”
At once, the other man scrambled for his spear. “Huh? Who’s there!?”
It can’t be… Jay pulled his Guide out, only to remember that he was still shrouded in shadows, and therefore couldn’t check his sanity. There was just no way he could be seeing him again.
“How do you know my name?” he shouted, gripping his spear tight.
“Are you real?” Jay asked, stepping forth, just at the edge of sight.
He squinted into the dark. “Son of a… Jay? Jay Reis!?” He started to walk up, now with a torch instead of a spear. “Now, I know I’ve got to be tripping.”
Jay closed in as well, his legs moving of his own accord. This day was truly surreal to be seeing him again.
But then the two were in arm’s reach and shook each other’s hand, and Jay stared into the eyes of a friend long lost.
“How can you be here?” Jay asked.
“I was gonna say the same to you,” Kevin said with a grin. “How many years has it been?”
Jay chuckled. “How many since high school? Five? Maybe six?”
“Sounds about right. Still, though. Of all the hard motherfuckers I knew before, I thought I’d never see someone like you in a place like this.”
Jay shrugged. “We all got our reasons, I guess.”
“Well, you’re the first friendly face I’ve seen since I got to this hellhole, so I’d love to hear everything about what a nerd like you has been up to.”
The two caught up from there, with Jay going first. He had met Kevin Smith back in middle school, running Track on the same relay team. Though they had grown up in different worlds and had barely anything in common, somehow, they stuck it out as friends, all the way until late in high school, when Kevin dropped out.
He hadn’t seen the bastard since.
Though it shouldn’t have been surprising that he’d get the Grand Bargain. He’d grown up in a rough neighborhood and always had a short temper, jumping into a fight at the slightest provocation, usually over money. Jay had no shortage of close calls dealing with him, but in the end, Kevin defended him before anyone else.
“You have no idea what I’ve been through this past week,” Kevin said with a frown.
“I’ve got some idea.” Jay smiled. “But first, let’s get this cart fixed.”
“You sure? You know what happens when we help each other, right?”
“I’m ready to take the hit if you are.”
His cheeks flushed. “I’ll be damned… Never expected that from you.” He scooted to the side. “Let’s go.”
The two went at it from there. Jay held up the cart filled with metallic bars while Kevin fixed the wheel in place, using more hemp to tie it back together. Their Guides both buzzed in response, but both were too busy chatting to notice.
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This was the first time Jay had met an Expat around his level, much less one he’d known from Earth. As it turned out, many other people had landed on the island's north end after their tutorial, perhaps a half-day hike further than Jay had traveled. Of course, after the zeppelin attack and the damage that got wreaked, everyone migrated inland, if they hadn’t disappeared altogether…
“I figured it’d be easier to set up near the big group like Naomi’s,” Kevin continued. “These F-Rank islands are only a step above the shit they had us start with, so it’s nice to have people that are a higher level around to keep watch, especially since they’ve been good to us.”
“I didn’t even know there was an us,” Jay heaved. “Thought it was just me and them around here.”
“That’s because Sayid thinks it’s better this way. You never know how people could react.”
Jay nodded. That made sense. Sayid had given him enough of a warning before to know what’d happen if he tried to hurt someone else. Jay would be a liar if he said the thought never crossed his mind, but after Naomi saved him a second time, he couldn’t imagine going after anyone.
His humanity still mattered.
The two continued to chat, even after the cart was finished. Kevin had shown up perhaps a week and a half after Jay, but had already caught up to copper gear by tuning his Expat Core to spears and heavy armor. The advantage was so extreme that he could get by with a simple cart to haul the finished copper back to his base, and not rely on the elaborate system that Jay built himself.
“Never thought of keeping the research table nearby,” Kevin said. “Smart. You always were better at this stuff than me.”
Jay shrugged. “What can I say? Things just make more sense to me here.”
“And here I am, thinking I’d cracked the code by melting the bars right after I mine them. It’s funny, the things we don’t know until we see another one of us in action.” He loaded another clump of ore onto his cart and gave it a tug.
“Yeah,” Jay agreed. “I didn’t even know carts could be crafted until I saw yours. I mean, I shouldn’t be surprised, but I must have missed it.”
He tapped his head. “I may not have much for book smarts, but I make sure to spend an hour going through the Guide every night. The Updates only tell you so much. The real meat is in the Lexicon and Inventory page.”
“Think I might start doing that as well.”
Kevin began to drag his cart back home as Jay followed along, plucking up some cave mushrooms and stuffing them into his Bag ‘a Mats. He hadn’t planned to take these initially, but he wouldn’t mind experimenting with Cooking and Alchemy, now that he had more time.
Plus, the extra company was great. Kevin might have been more of a sports guy back on Earth, hadn’t played a video game in his life, and never stayed sober more than a day, but here, in this dimly lit cave on an alien world, they were back to being those childhood friends.
Just a pair of foreigners trying to find their footing in this harsh reality.
Jay learned all about the time he lost soon after. Kevin dropped out after getting his girlfriend pregnant, and after moving to find a job and take care of her and his new daughter, he’d spent the time working in a steel mill. If it hadn’t been for a drunk driving accident that led to his own Expatriation, he reckoned he’d still be there now. The Grand Bargain gave him the chance to go back.
And Jay found himself talking too, opening up more than he’d done in years. About dropping out of college and quitting his day job to become a streamer. His mouth moved of its own accord as he dumped all the time they’d lost.
And for a moment, Jay forgot all about the dangers of this world.
Screeches echoed down the cave.
Kevin sighed. “Not again.”
Jay instinctively raised his sword. “What the hell is that?”
“You dealt with any megabat swarms yet?”
He paled. “Mega-whats!?”
“Well, you’re about to.” Kevin yanked a spear from his cart and grinned. “Come on, let’s make a game of it. Whoever kills the most keeps the cores. Sound like a fair trade?”
Jay gripped his weapon with a gulp. He only had light armor equipped and wasn’t ready for a fight, but if Kevin wasn’t worried and they had similar gear, then how hard would it be?
“Sure.” They shook on it.
And not a moment too soon.
Out from the darkness of the cave, shadows approached. Blood-red eyes flickered in the light of torches, and tiny fangs hissed out in rage. The dull cave air clapped as these monsters flapped their wings, long and wide, like eagles swooping in for their kills. Jay tried to track their movements, but there were so many. Too many!
As they hit the light of the fire, he watched as a bat the size of dogs careened into the open, coming right for them!
Only to shriek as a javelin tore through its gut.
“That’s one for me!” Kevin shouted, reaching back into his cart for another javelin. He threw again, to the same effect.
Jay gulped and [Dashed] forth, his copper sword ready. As a megabat closed in, he [Slashed]. Its head continued to hiss, even as its lifeless body dropped to the cavern floor.
Another javelin roared past, impaling the nearest megabat on sight.
Kevin clenched his fist. “Three-to-one! Come on, Jay. You’re making this too easy, man.” One bit down against his armor, but Jay recognized [Brace] anywhere, and the teeth bounced off. With a sucker punch to its head, Kevin continued.
Jay [Slashed], this time wounding two at once. A second unskilled blow finished them off completely. Looks like it’s game on.
The fight dragged out from there. Though Jay had never seen these creatures before, he estimated that they were somewhere between level 3-7 by how easily they went down, and if he had any hope, most would be set to +2 infusions rather than just a wave of +1s.
But that assumed he’d win, and Kevin proved as worthwhile an adversary as ever. It seemed that his opponent had invested time into javelin research, and that let him destroy these lower-tier enemies in a single hit. At range, too.
And even when they got too close, Kevin simply [Pushed] them back with his heavy armor and used a [Thrust] from his spear to finish them off.
Jay had his own skills though, and with his current light armor set, he could zip around the cave floor, slashing everything in sight, or using a [Power Attack] to silence anything that got too close.
Five-to-six, Jay realized as he slayed his next enemy. Only one left, and still down one. The megabat zipped to the side, dodging Kevin’s latest javelin.
Time to go bold. Jay puffed up air and rushed forth, expending his body’s energy pool in a single set of [Dashes]. The megabat’s eyes widened as he got within arm’s reach. His copper blade fell down with a [Power Attack].
The bat monster exploded in a cloud of blood and viscera.
Jay gasped for air, his body extinguished. He laughed aloud. “Looks like we’re tied.”
But when he turned back around, Kevin’s lips had curled into a devious grin, his cheeks distorted in the shifting light of the torches. His blue eyes narrowed into his own, a madness forming as he raised his copper spear.
Ready to kill.
Jay gaped without words. By burning through his energy, he couldn’t evade again, and by saving his spear until the end, Kevin still had his most powerful weapon ready, along with whatever skill he planned to use it with.
Had Jay just wandered into a trap?
His opponent stared on, no longer his forgotten friend, but just another killer in a world filled with killers, ready to do whatever he needed to get ahead…
Kevin threw the spear. It soared through the cave, its deadly copper tip glinting in the firelight, hungry to claim another life. Jay could only stand and stare as an inevitable death came for him.
But then the spear zipped past his shoulder. Another megabat got launched back into the darkness behind, impaled through the chest.
“Fuck yes!” Kevin cheered. “That’s seven for me and six for you. Looks like I win.”
Jay blinked through the shock. He’d been spared?
No, you were never at risk. As he looked at Kevin’s ecstatic face now that he’d won, Jay couldn’t help but laugh aloud, once again feeling like the biggest jackass for thinking the worst of him.
Kevin raised an eyebrow. “You alright?”
“I’m fine.” Though he couldn’t stop laughing.
What a day. Jay had been in attack mode for so long that he’d come to view everything as a threat, and this was the first time there’d been no need. This wasn’t some bandit on the road but a guy who’d been through thick and thin back home.
“Alright,” Jay said, still chuckling. “Let’s get this wrapped up.”
His friend had earned this win.
Name: Jay Reis (Copper Age)
Vitality – 37/42
Hunger – 52/72
Thirst – 20/24
Fatigue – 40/48
Sanity – 81/100
Main Crafts: Alchemy 1, Armor Crafting 2, Base Building 2, Cooking 1, Medicine 1, Tailoring 1, Tool Crafting 2, Weapon Crafting 2.
Weapon Crafts: Axes 3, Bows 4, Clubs 3, Daggers 3, Spears 5, Swords 5.
Armor Crafts: Heavy Armor 5, Light Armor 2, Medium Armor 0, Shields 5.
Character Skills:
[Forbidden Knowledge]
Armor Skills:
Heavy Armor: [Push], [Stampede]
Light Armor: [Dash]
Shield: [Brace], [Track]
Weapon Skills:
Axes: [Chop]
Bows: [Sharpshooter], [Longshot]
Clubs: [Bash]
Daggers: [Slice]
Spears: [Thrust], [Sweep]
Swords: [Power Attack], [Slash]
Cursed Items:
[Bag ‘a Mats]
Armor:
[Fur Helmet+2] (Hardened+3), (Reinforced+2)
[Fur Chestpiece+2] (Hardened+3), (Reinforced)
[Fur Leggings+1] (Hardened+3), (Reinforced+2)
[Fur Boots+1] (Hardened+3), (Reinforced)
[Fur Gloves+1] (Hardened+3), (Reinforced)
[Scaled Roundshield+4] (Hardened+1), (Reinforced+2)
Weapons:
[Copper Sword] (Hardened), (Reinforced+1), (Stable)
[Wooden Bow+3] (Reinforced+2)
[Basic Leather Quiver]: Contains 20 [Flinthead Arrows]
[9mm Semi-Automatic Pistol] (Accurate+2), (Quick): Contains 4 [9mm Cartridge] (JHP)
Tools:
[Bag ‘a Mats] (Cursed)
[Copper Knife]
[Copper Axe]
[Copper Hammer]
[Copper Pickaxe]