Tutorial quest n.2 completed:

Your location has been updated.

Checking the map, a red dot inside the flat square of the building pinpointed his location. In front of him there was the straight line of the road, blocked by a red cross. The radius of the map was enough to cover the whole block, while the rest was covered by static white noise.

Map tutorial: you can place up to ten markers on places you can see directly or know the coordinates. The System will triangulate the distance, but you need the (Explorer) perk to receive indications on how to reach it

The once full skyline of Downtown was now barren, so that he could see the distant hills and the mountains. There were any mountains near though, only hills, or was his memory wrong? Only two skyscrapers were still standing near each other, and only that part of the city fifteen miles from him was covered by a circle of dark clouds, illuminated by the red flashes of the thunderbolts inside.

The city he had been living in had been completely destroyed, and he didn’t have an idea how it happened. It was something that left him aghast, be it real or not.

An eerie silence had taken place of the noises of the car engines being idle at the red light, and the fat hot dog seller at the corner was gone, together with flow on the sidewalk and on the road crossing of the businessmen who worked at the bank and the tourists with their large backpacks, snapping photos at every useless thing.

He called if there were some signs of life, waving his arms, but only growling sounds came out from his mouth.

Check failed. Your Speech stat is too low. You need: 20; You have: 0. 

He tried again but only the sounds of a beast came out from his mouth. His vocal cords and tongue were unable to articulate speech even if he perfectly knew what he wanted to say. Now even if he met somebody, he won’t even be able to talk with him, but before he had to find somebody to talk to.

He progressed along the edge and entered inside the bathroom, as the door was gone. Inside, he pulled up the rusty faucet, but, as he expected, nothing but cockroaches came out. Some pieces of the mirror on the sides were still at their place, and Richard neared his face to the one of the lower left.

He pried open the eyelids of his round and bulging left eye, with a yellow iris and a vertical pupil, covered by a prominent brow ridge. Two fingers could fit inside the nostrils of his wide snout, and the lips of his gaping mouth stretched near the angle of his jaw. His upper canines were so long that their tips were visible even when he kept his mouth shut. There was no denying that he was ugly, not that he could have been considered handsome before, but this was on a whole another level of hideousness.

It was hard to believe that he was trapped inside this monstrous body, but if he waved his hand at the mirror the monster from the other side would wave back to him. There should be a way to get back to how he was before.

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After the bathroom, he moved towards John’s room, which was locked, something that didn’t surprise him, but if he rammed his shoulder against the door it wouldn’t open. When he made a hole in the door and ripped away the wood, a concrete slab blocked his way, which was much newer than the rest of the walls. He had no idea where this thing came from, John had always been shy about his room, but this was nuts.

Trying to push the wall was useless, as it was much thicker than the others. There wasn’t anything else to look inside his home and the fact that half of his flat had crumbled meant that he had no way out because the front door was on the other side. In fact, he doubted that John or anybody else could reach him at all as the rubble of the Golden bank building blocked the main entrance and the fire stairs were on the part of the building that had collapsed.

Quest n.3:

Your race has flying abilities. Use your wings to reach the ground.

Reward: +3 Glide stat.

Richard looked below the drop. There was no way he would have the courage to do it. He made a step forward but a whooshing sound came from his back. He gasped when a gust of wind raised his body from the ground as if he was made of paper. Two open wings were at his sides, made of a translucent red membrane that stretched on a main bone arm and other perpendicular five ones.

Your Glide stat is too low to sustain the weight of your body. Required: 150; You have: 25.

The wind’s direction changed and, as he couldn’t move the wings, the air pushed them backwards until he faced the sun. He screamed and kicked his legs and arms as his body plunged towards the ground. It made a thumping sound as he rolled down the rubble.

He groaned and opened his eyes. A piece of a scale was stuck deep inside the hard skin of the palm of his hand. When he removed it, gritting his teeth, a drop of a bright green liquid poured out.

Fall damage: 1% of your Health points.

Richard rose from the ground and cleaned the scales of his torso from the dirt, but with little result, as it got stuck deep inside the many crevices. One percent of his health was nothing to worry about, was it? He was still glad that he made it without dying. A fall from this height would have killed a human for sure.

Tutorial quest n.3 failed:

Although you reached the ground, you have still to learn the correct gliding ability.

Rewards: none.

There were a lot of theories in his mind on how things could have happened, but none of them was enough to satisfy him without recurring to things that were considered impossible: a nuclear war, or a deadly virus that only left

The only thing he was sure of was that John must know something about it, and he should wait for him or for anybody else. Having his body covered in scales had the benefit that he was comfortable everywhere he sat.

It was crucial to be optimistic, but it was difficult to shrug off his mind that maybe everybody that lived around him may be dead and that world had ended for real, but he had to, or else he would fall into despair. Things will get better, and he will get his life back, he had just to keep faith. Thinking about how everybody was dead wasn’t going to help him sort the problem.

Well, if John didn’t come, then Richard would come to him. His workplace was far from here, and his memory about its location was faint. In fact, he couldn’t even recall his face, and neither everybody else’s he had known.

Quest n.4:

You’re Hungry! Your race has a fast metabolism rate, and as such, you need to find sources of food to survive and rocks to sustain your internal flame chamber.

Reward: Survival +3