Wyatt woke with a start. He looked around frantically, trying to separate reality from the nightmare he had just woken from. When his eyes settled on the crouched form of Chuck, he realized there wasn’t much difference between the two. Somehow, he was hoping this whole ordeal wasn’t real and sleeping was all he needed for everything to go back to normal.
Nothing was normal anymore.
The mage stood, rubbing his tired eyes. He ached from sleeping on the hard ground, though he knew his sleep would be just as fitful if he had slept on a comfortable bed.
“Are you ok?” Chuck whispered to him.
“No,” Wyatt answered, trying, and failing, to sound lighthearted.
“That’s understandable,” said the archer. Brad walked over with an equally tired Angela, and Chuck continued, “Everything was quiet, so far. We heard some noise in the distance, that way,” he motioned further up the trail, towards where they were heading. “Sounded like rocks falling. We put out the fire to avoid detection, but decided being quiet was our best hope, so we didn’t wake anyone.”
Wyatt hadn’t noticed the fire was out until Chuck had mentioned it. “Probably a good call,” he concurred, “There’s nowhere else to go, and we don’t want to go back the way we came. Find out anything useful in your stat pages?”
“Not really, just distributed points and read the same prompts you got. Oh, we leveled our analyze skill, so I suggest you analyze all of the items we have on hand.”
“What about you, Brad?” Wyatt asked, turning to the barbarian, “Anything new in your stats?”
“I put everything into Toughness,” the large man answered, “I figure I’ll need to be the tank now that…” he trailed off, and Wyatt knew what he meant.
Now that Richard was dead.
“We can take it from here,” Angela said sleepily, “go lie down.” The two men nodded and left to find open spots on the ground.
Wyatt and Angela went to a larger rock a short distance away from the others. From the looks of it, this is where the previous two had stood watch, as well.
They sat in silence for some time, Wyatt digesting everything that had happened and trying to think of what they should do next. It was Angela that broke the silence.
“I’m sorry for how I treated you,” she said meekly.
“Treated me?” responded the mage.
“You know, before. At the gas station. You smiled at me, and I thought you were just another guy trying to hit on me. I shouldn’t have given you that look.”
“It’s fine,” Wyatt chuckled, “You had no idea something like this was going to happen. And you weren’t entirely wrong, either. I wasn’t planning on hitting on you, but I did think you were pretty.” Angela scoffed at this, but it seemed to Wyatt like there wasn’t any anger behind the action. “I was just in a good mood and wanted to smile.”
“Why?”
“Why was I in a good mood?” Angela nodded. “Well, I had just gotten my master’s degree in Physics.”
“Oh wow,” the skirmisher gasped, louder than she intended. She brought her voice back to a whisper before continuing, “That’s impressive. I mean, you seem smart, so that’s understandable, but I just assumed you put your stats into intelligence and that was why.”
“That does seem like an easy way of getting smarter. I’m not particularly intelligent, though. The System gave me a base score of six in intelligence actually, which is average, I think. If it weren’t for my willpower, I never would have graduated.” Wyatt smiled at the thought of applying game stats to life before the integration.
“Yeah, that is pretty low. Mine is eight.”
“Why have you been putting points into intelligence?”
Angela looked at Wyatt angrily, “I haven’t put anything into intelligence.”
Wyatt was glad for the night, as he could feel his face getting red. He realized he had written her off as dumb, but his only experience with her was inside of a game, technically. The only thing he knew about her was that she clearly never played games before, but that was not a good indicator of intelligence.
“Sorry,” he sighed finally, “I shouldn’t have assumed anything about you.”
“That’s fine, we haven’t really had time to talk. I have a bachelor’s degree in marine biology. I actually just got mine, too.”
“Well then there is good news to all of this.”
“What good could possibly come from what is happening to us?” Angela asked incredulously.
“New world, new sea creatures to discover.”
Angela was silent for a long while. So long, that Wyatt started getting self-conscious about his joke. Then finally, she giggled. The sound was like music to the mage’s ears, a small ray of sunshine in this otherwise dark world.
“That is very true,” she laughed.
The two talked for some time, learning about each other’s lives before The System. Angela was apparently on her way to her grandparents’ house when all of this happened. They were her only family, having lost her parents at a young age. Wyatt told her about his family, about his parents and sister.
Then they talked about her skills, and how to distribute her attribute points. He taught her about game logic, and how to apply it to this situation. Apparently, she had a skill called Critical Thrust which allowed her to lunge forward and stab her sword at an opponent for a large boost in damage.
Before long, the two could see light on the horizon, and others in their party began to wake. The morning air was cool, but the sky was blue with few clouds. Wyatt found he could almost convince himself he was back home during a nice fall morning.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I’m hungry, mom.” Wyatt turned to see the youngest kid, Isaac, had woken up as well. Almost in response, the mage’s stomach began to rumble.
“We need to find food,” he said, turning back to Angela, “Any suggestions?”
“There isn’t much in the way of food,” she answered, looking around as she thought, “Chuck said he’s pretty good with plants, so we could probably find one of those to eat. Not sure it would be much, even if we could find something.”
“Not many animals either. It looks like we will need to continue on, and hope we stumble across something.”
“Hey Wyatt.” He turned to see that Chuck was standing near the cliff face by a stack of rocks leaning against it. He motioned at the rocks, “What do you think of this?” he asked.
Wyatt walked over to join the archer. After a few minutes of inspection, they both came to the same conclusion. This had once been a cave opening that had collapsed in. Looking back down the face, they saw more just like it, similar to the cliff their own dungeon had been in.
“Are these all starter dungeons?” Wyatt asked out loud.
“Could be. If everyone on Earth was teleported here at the same time, it makes sense there would be a lot of them.”
“We have to help get them out,” said Brad, joining them.
“Maybe, but there might be more monsters in there. We have to be careful.”
The three climbed to the top of the pile and began slowly moving rocks. Wyatt found that he could use his Rock Spike ability to launch the individual rocks in their entirety, if they were small enough. He sent them flying across the canyon where they landed with a small thud.
Your skill has leveled up:
Earth Magic – Level 3
Eventually, they were able to see through a small hole into the cave. Inside the opening, they could see two people on the ground.
They weren’t moving.
“Why am I not surprised,” whispered Chuck.
They tried a few more caves further up the cliff, moving just enough of the caved-in stones to see into the opening. The light never reached far into the cave, but it was enough to see a few feet beyond the pile. Each time the same thing greeted them, dead humans.
Your skill has leveled up:
Earth Magic – Level 4
Wyatt, having only 38 of his total 120 mana, suggested they take a break soon. The party hadn’t traveled far, each member rotating between keeping watch and digging.
Then they came across a cave with an opening, roughly the same size as the one in their own tutorial cave. Outside of it, there were human footprints, similar to the footprints they had seen all around the openings and up the path they had been following.
“Maybe some people survived?” said Angela, voice tinged with hope.
“Maybe,” responded Chuck. He motioned at a line in the dirt, moving up the trail. “Looks like someone was dragged out of here.”
Brad led the party into the opening of the cave, axe at the ready. Wyatt and chuck followed close behind, and Angela followed up the rear, torch raised for light.
“Oh my god,” she whispered, hope gone from her words.
Bodies. All slumped or laying on the ground. Some seemed to have been crushed, others with large punctures in them. Purple lines extended from the holes, looking like some kind of poison had killed them quickly.
“Snake, maybe,” Wyatt whispered to the others, “is it still here?”
“Doubtful,” answered chuck, putting his bow away, “no one left this cave. No one was dragged.”
“Are you saying the snake left?” squeaked the skirmisher.
“I believe so.”
They examined the bodies, Wyatt putting his analyze skill to work. The equipment on the bodies was similar to their own; starter equipment generated by The System to match their classes. Wyatt grabbed a staff from one of the bodies. Maybe Jesse was onto something.
Name:
Staff [Basic]
Durability:
20/20
Requirements:
None
Description:
A simple but sturdy staff made of a strong wood.
Your skill has leveled up:
Analyze – Level 2
Clearly, ‘basic’ denotes the level of the items. I wonder what comes after basic. Wyatt looked over at the far wall and found what looked like backpacks lined up. A quick count showed more backpacks than bodies. It was clear to the mage the discrepancy was in how many people made it this far, and not in the system’s ability to count.
“Backpacks,” he said, calling to the others, “Everyone should grab one.
Inside each they found food in the form of bread and jerky, a skin filled with water, a coil of rope, and flint and steel for starting fires. Strapped to the bottom was a bedroll. This could have been useful before now Wyatt thought. He thought back to the day before, to the mad flight from the cave. He remembered the room they had fought the troll in and realized, with more clarity than he should have, that there were backpacks there, too. They had been in too much of a hurry to notice.
“Where were these before?” asked Brad, thoughts echoing his own.
“They were in our cave, too” Wyatt responded.
“How can you be sure?” Brad asked angrily.
“I’ve invested points into my intelligence, doubling it since we started. Maybe that has more effect than just increasing my mana pool. I can remember the fight we had, and the backpacks against one wall.”
Brad, realizing he had been harsher than he intended, only nodded in response, his face softening.
“Very useful,” said Angela, giving the mage a reassuring smile.
There were thirty backpacks against the wall here. Thirty more people, now dead. They grabbed one backpack for each person in their party and filled them with the extra food from the other bags they weren’t taking. Chuck filled his arrows from another body.
As they turned to leave, Wyatt noticed something in the corner. There, slumped against the wall, was another body, eyes wide. It wasn’t the body that had captured his attention, however, but the cloak draped across its back.
Your skill has leveled up:
Perception – Level 2
He lifted the cape from the corpse and analyzed it.
Name:
Cloak of Mana Storage [Basic]
Durability:
20/20
Description:
An enchanted cloak.
Enchantment:
Mana can be channeled into the cloak, to a maximum of 50 points. Mana stored this way can be used later.
Not bad. The cloak was blue and had a large hood that could easily cover his head. The fabric wrapped around the front of his neck and was held in place by a plain metal brooch, pinned just above the left side of his chest.
Putting it on, Wyatt felt a little ridiculous. Back home, something like this would make him both the envy of nerds and the target of bullies everywhere. Here, he couldn’t help but feel like this kind of clothing was commonplace.
He spared a moment for the body he had taken this from. It was a younger girl, early teens at most. Her face looked familiar to Wyatt, and he realized that the woman he had taken his staff from must have been her mother. He thanked her and her family for the items, knowing they wouldn’t hear him.