I regret following the river, there was no end in sight and I had just found tougher and tougher creatures the farther out I got. I had gained stats for my trouble, so there was a silver lining to this miserable trek. Even through the misery and pain I pressed foward, never letting any trials or pain get in the way of achieving my goals.

Strength

18 +1

Perception

15 +1

Dexterity

7

Intelligence

11

Agility

16 + 1

Wisdom

9

Constitution

20 + 3

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Luck

10

Effects:

Hunted by The Virsilva Drake

∞

 Some of the stats confused me, but for the most part they made sense, I got so much constitution because of how many injuries I had taken, and how little sleep I got compared to how much I ran each day. Agility I assume I got for how much I ran over muddy areas and some rocky areas. Strength I’m not so sure on, maybe how much fighting I was doing, not sure. I was approaching what looked to be a waterfall due to the mist coming up from it.

As I approached the waterfall, I began to see something I never thought in all my human years I would be so happy to see, smoke. Smoke almost always means civilization. I began sprinting towards it and I was just beginning to see what I thought were houses when…

BONK a blue flash and a notification.

You have not completed your starter quest, therefore you cannot exit the starter zone, in return the starter zone will not allow any direct enemies within your personal starter zone.

 The blue flash continued spreading up and up, out and out, until it was out of sight. I quickly climbed up on top of a nearby ridge to get a good look at the surrounding land and the blue border. I looked upon the blue border and realized how absolutely, utterly f**cked I was. The border did indeed do what it said it did. It had surrounded the entire forest, and the only way out was to kill the drake, which seemed like an impossible task at the moment. After a brief period of being depressed I decided that I wasn't gonna get anything done by being sad, so being up on the ridge as I was I decided to take a look around the starting area. Seeing as I was going to be spending a lot of time there it made sense for me to know where everything was. I was surprised to see that it wasn't all forest like I had initially assumed. In addition to the river that ran straight through the center of the zone, there was part of a larger mountain in the zone. I wasn’t going to let a stupid drake stop me from getting free from this acursed zone and exploring the wider world. Determination filling me once more, I traveled back to the river in order to do some good old fashioned grinding.