The only question left was where I should go inside the valley. Jadestone was obviously out of the question. Even if I could sneak inside the gates, a big order for an Orc standing over 7 feet tall, there was little chance that I would be able to remain hidden and then escape without notice once the storm ended. My best bet would likely be to find a cave or mine entrance along the edges of the surrounding mountains.

Based on what I could see when I was spawning in, the valley was well over ten miles long west to east, with Jadestone located next to the western entrance to the Iron Road. North to south, the valley stretched about 6 odd miles, with the path of the Iron road sitting just off center in the middle. I had only walked about a mile out of town before the boars jumped out and attacked me, meaning that I had plenty of distance to put between me and Jadestone, or risk being found and arrested, but this also worked in my favor.

Based on what Vondal had said, all the mines had been abandoned for over a month due to the Orc attack. He also let slip that the mine the workers had been coming from was on the northern edge of the valley. If I walked straight north until I reached the edge of the forest and the northern mountains, I would increase my chances of finding the mine he was talking about, or at least one of the other abandoned mines in the area.

Knowing that I needed to get a move on, I opened up my character sheet. I had to apply my stat points and select another skill tree to train in before leaving so I could ensure all my focus would be on avoiding another ambush by other wild creatures. Unfortunately, at level 2 I didn’t gain anything other than the standard 10 stat points and the ability to train in another skill. It wouldn’t be until I reached level 3 that I would unlock some stronger class feats.

I knew that I wanted to keep investing heavily into both strength and constitution, arguably my main two stats as a martial character focused on delivering and receiving heavy melee damage, but focusing on only those two stats would eventually have negative consequences towards my build. One thing to consider was the importance of investing into dexterity long term. Since I used strength based weapons instead of finesse weapons, I didn’t gain any accuracy or damage benefits from the stat, but accuracy and damage wasn’t the only thing that dexterity offered.

Dexterity was the stat that affected my ability to dodge attacks, improved my chance to critically hit, and also improved my stamina regeneration. Being a strength based character, I had a high stamina pool, but my stamina regeneration was currently lower than my mana regeneration due to mana regeneration being based on two separate stats. It was obvious to me that I would have to at least partially invest into dexterity as a secondary stat.

The issue was, I believed that charisma was also at least somewhat important. While I currently didn’t have a use for the increased mana pool or regeneration, I could really see the benefit of using intimidate while in combat. While my strength was taken into account as much as my charisma was when using intimidation skills due to my level 1 racial trait ‘Physically Intimidating’, putting at least one point per level up into charisma would have the additional benefit of slightly improving my persuasion and deception skills. Based on my first few hours playing, I could see the benefit of improving my persuasion, especially with the negative reputation modifiers I had with a lot of the core races in Hazelsong.

Since I only had 10 stat points to work with, I decided to split the points four ways. 4 points went into strength, 3 into constitution, 2 into dexterity, and 1 into charisma. I think moving forward, I would use this same 4,3,2,1 split, in order to make sure I kept a more balanced stat distribution.

Moving onto my skill screen, I had to make a decision on what basic skill tree to become trained in. Luckily, I gained training in the survival skill tree from the Boon of the Land Liebhel gave me, otherwise I would have used my level up in survival just based on my current circumstances. What I really needed to figure out was which skill was most important to me in the day to come.

If I was going to find shelter, and rough it through this snowstorm, I likely won’t be in a position where I would be trying to convince the mayor to spare my life and to allow me to bind my spawn point to the town. What I might have to do is clear out a particularly dangerous cave or mine in order to have a secure camp during the next few days. Stealth could give me the edge I needed in order to make it through the next couple of days without dying. Feeling confident in my decision, I selected stealth as my new trained skill and confirmed all my choices.

You have confirmed your level advancement options. You are now Level 2.

Erik Uloth, Level 2 Mountain Orc

Experience Points: 60/300

Class: Power Martial

Strength: +4 -> (29)

Dexterity: +2 -> (17)

Constitution: +3 -> (23)

Intelligence: 10

Wisdom: 10

Charisma: +1 -> (16)

You gained training in: Basic Stealth (Untrained to Trained)

Would you like to review your full character sheet?

Yes/No

Feeling good about the decisions I made, I selected no and closed out of the screen in front of me. Getting ready to start my trek up to the northern edge of the forest, mentally called out to Pat.

“Yes Erik, is there anything I could assist you with?” Pat said in response to my summons.

“Ya, would you be able to curate some information from the wiki for me while I start my hike and have it ready for me to review?” I asked

“That should be possible for me to do, Erik. What information would you like me to look for?”

“Look through my trained skill trees and see if you can find any common rarity advanced skills that could be immediately helpful to me, specifically the common rarity stealth skills. Also, look through the crafting recipes I have unlocked from my General Crafting and Survival Crafting skills and see what items I can craft with what I have immediately available.”

“I will look through the wiki and prepare that information for you. Please be patient with me, I am not yet familiar with this system's programs and interfaces.”

“Not to worry Pat, I know you’ll work on it as fast as you can. I’ll get it when I get it.” I said, confident in Pat's work ethic and judgment. Pat didn’t bother with a reply, immediately going silent and getting right to work. With no other distraction in front of me, quickly got my bearings and began to head due north, a navigation bar appearing at the top of my vision once I determined the direction. Before I took a single step, a new notification popped up.

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Congratulations! Your Unranked Survival Skill, Directional Sense, has leveled up!

Survival: Directional Sense, Unranked LVL 2

Your ability to identify true North based on the given environmental information.

* +1% chance to find true North based on environmental information.

* Every 10th level, receive additional cardinal direction information in your navigation bar.

Huh, I hadn’t really taken the time to read through any of the unranked skills for survival yet. The skill was pretty straightforward. Using the environment around me, I could determine which direction was north, which had been simple to do during the day by looking at the position of the sun. What was interesting about the skill was that every 10th level, my navigation bar would gain more information. At the moment, the only direction it pointed out to me was North. I assumed that when I reached level 10, it would point out other cardinal directions, making navigation a bit easier.

Closing out of the notification window, I set out towards the northern edge of the forest, in the hopes of finding shelter before the storm hit. I estimated that it would likely take me about an hour and a half to travel the three odd miles to my destination, based on my walk earlier in the day through the forest.

While traveling wasn’t overly taxing, it was slower going than when I traveled along the path of the Iron Road. Even though there was just under a foot of snow on the ground, it wasn’t much of an impediment, except in areas where it had been blown into larger drifts. What really slowed me down was the uneven ground underneath the snow compared to the flat packed ground of the trail. I also had to contend with the forest itself. While most of the firs in the forest were large and spaced out, giving me plenty of room to walk underneath or between the trees, thick stands of smaller firs, similar to pine trees, were commonplace. The tightly packed trees would stretch for well over a hundred feet in length, forcing me to have to walk around to find my way forward.

Over half an hour into my hike, I came across the shore of a frozen lake. Luckily, I stumbled across the western shore while traveling around a thicket of smaller trees. It was small as far as lakes were concerned, stretching about a quarter of a mile off to the east, while only half that long north to south. While I didn’t mind the risk of walking a couple of feet out onto the ice to get around the trees, I wouldn’t risk walking across the whole length of the lake with the temperature being just below freezing and not knowing how low the temperatures had been the week prior.

In most cases, having a close source of freshwater would be an enticing draw when looking to set up a camp. But with a ready supply of snow offering me fresh water and there being no visible natural shelter in the form of a rock face, I knew staying wouldn’t be a very good bet. However, considering this was a valley, I’d wager that there was at least one stream that fed into this lake.

Deciding it would be worth checking out, I started to walk north around the frozen shore, figuring I would follow the shoreline until I reached its northeastern edge of the lake. While any stream would likely be dry or frozen by this point in the year, it might offer me easier traveling.

Walking along the edge of the lake, something caught my attention. It was faint, but I noticed a slightly sour smell, like rotting meat. Spear out in front, I walked forward, trying to pinpoint the smell. Eventually, due more to luck than anything else, I came across the stenches' source. A deer carcass, in an advanced state of decay, was laying out on top of the snow. It looked as if it had been left at the base of the tree, recently dug up, and drug several feet into the open. With the sun out and shining on the body the whole day, it had thawed some of the rotting carcasses, allowing the smell of decay to escape.

It was hard to tell how old the rotting corpse was, but based on how advanced the decay was, it must have been killed well before the first snowfall in the valley. Whatever had dug out the animal to feed on it must have been desperate for food. Short of a buzzard, I’d never seen anything eat from a corpse in such bad shape.

Most of the carcass was also useless to me. I might be able to cut off a few stips of stringy spoiled meat, but short of purposefully giving myself food poisoning, I didn’t see much purpose in carrying around such an item. The only part of the animal that might be of use was its antlers. The deer was a smaller buck, with a short 6 point rack. Looking over the animal, I saw lines of light appear on the base of each antler. Pulling out my hatchet, I chopped at each until I had two antlers, each with 3 rounded points.

Sliding each antler into the top of my large pack, I took a moment to look around at the snow in the surrounding area, noticing that it had been completely packed down in the location around the deer. Hoping to figure out what had eaten from the corpse and see where it headed off to, I circled around the carcass, hoping to find tracks that lead away from the area. The snow made it easy to spot all the tracks that approached and left the deer carcass.

The tracks that lead away from the corpse moved east along the shore of the lake, the same direction I was going. While the tracks were easy to spot, it was impossible for me to tell how fresh they were, my tracking skills not being advanced enough to give me a good feeling of their age. All I could really make out was that they were made by two to three canine animals, either wolves, or stray dogs from Jadestone. Whether dog or wolf, a predator desperate enough to eat from a corpse like that would likely be aggressive.

I followed the tracks along the shore of the lake until I came across the stream bed I had been looking for. The stream sat a few feet lower into the ground than the surrounding area, but was otherwise dry, with any thin layer of ice and stone sitting under the snow. Seeming to have the same idea as me, the tracks continued on the edge of the stream.

“Excuse me, Erik,” Pat said, startling me as I focused on my surroundings. “I have finished curating a list of skills and a list of crafting recipes for you. I have posted each list inside your notes tab. Do you require anything else, Erik?”

I took a moment to calm myself before responding. “No Pat, that will be fine. I will let you know if I need you again.”

Taking a final moment to survey my surrounding area, I pulled up the notes tab and opened the list of skills that Pat had identified for me. While I was mostly interested in the Stealth skills, there were a few listed from skill trees that I had been trained in since I spawned, a few of which I was surprised I hadn’t already unlocked. There was ‘Cardio’, a Mobility skill, that reduced the stamina cost of running while reducing the physical effects of having low stamina, whatever that meant. Another mobility skill was listed, this one covering traveling through forests and woods. There was also ‘Grappling’ an Athletics skill, which made it easier for me to hold onto creatures. During my fight, I had run around and grabbed one of the boars, but neither skill unlocked.

More confusing were three of the listed perception skills. Each focused on sensing something through sound, sight, and smell. Prior to the start of my fight with the boars, I had been tipped off to the location of two of the animals by the sound of their movement while hiding under a tree. More confusing than that was that I just found the deer carcass through smell. My only guess as to why I hadn’t learned any of these skills while performing their actions was that each skill must have some sort of experience threshold that needs to be reached before it unlocks at level 1. That would explain why I had to walk across about a half-mile of snow before my skill ‘Mobility: Snow/Ice’ unlocked earlier in the day.

Whatever the case was, I was sure to unlock these skills sooner rather than later. What I was most interested in were the stealth skills Pat had found. I was mostly underwhelmed. Pat had only listed three skills, all of which were pretty straightforward. ‘Muffled’ helped me improve my ability to walk silently, a natural addition to the unranked ‘Sneak’ skill. ‘Hidden Scent’ helped me better position myself while sneaking to avoid being detected by smell. The final skill was called ‘Controlled Breathing’, which helped me avoid detection even in situations where I might be out of breath. All skills were useful, but it was clear that I wouldn’t be teleporting through shadows like any kind of ninja, at least not right away.

Noticing that the surrounding area was getting darker, I took a moment to look over at the western horizon. Dark clouds were now making their way over the closest set of mountain peaks. The sun was now entirely behind the approaching storm clouds, and looking like it would soon start to fall behind the mountains as well. Night would be here sooner than later, and with it would come wind driven snow.

While the game clock didn’t give me an exact time, only saying it was ‘Approaching Dusk’, the interface still showed me the real time outside of the game. Since I spawned in at midday, I could tell it was about 5 PM in the game world. I would need to find shelter soon, knowing that I could only make it so far if I was stuck traveling in heavy snow. While I would prefer to practice unlocking my stealth skills while I traveled, it would likely slow me down too much. I had only made halfway through the forest, if that, and the storm was fast approaching.