A few more days passed as Ryan used his new knowledge of medium traps and tanning to gain XP. He unlocked Tanning LVL 2 in a hurry thanks to his already placed trap line and the abundance of rabbits in the area. He then built a medium trap, a tree-noose trap, and baited it with a whole rabbit. 14 days into living in Aurora, by his tree log calendar, he checked his medium trap for the first time.
He'd placed the trap along a game trail that lead to the river. He assumed that the creature, or creatures, who made the path visited at night to drink water. He'd hoped it was a carnivore, since he had little way of enticing a herbivore surrounded by all this greenery. The tree noose was sprung in the night; he'd heard the sapling straighten and the muffled cries of whatever he'd caught as it flailed and broke its neck. Walking to the site now, he felt the fluttering of excitement in his chest. He felt like a kid on Christmas morning!
What greeted him was a welcome, but puzzling sight. The creature that he brought out of the trap was unrecognizable. And it looked awfully mean.
The creature had the general appearance of a wild boar, but instead of two tusks jutting up and two jutting down, it had three top and three bottom pairs. Its fur was stiff and wiry, and forest green. It grew in such a way to give the scare-pig (that's what Ryan decided to call it) the appearance of a buffalo hump. It was five or six feet long. Its hooves dangled mere inches off the ground. Its eyes glowed red, though they had the glassy and unfocused look of a strangled creature. It's tongue and the inside of its mouth were a strange shade of pale purple. The oddest thing about the creature though, was its tongue. It hung out of its mouth below those vicious tusks, and forked like a snake's. Ryan inspected it with a long stick to see if it still bit after death. It did.
He loosed the trap and lowered the creature from the snare. As he laid his hands on it to pick it up and carry it back to his camp for butchering, a message appeared:
Congratulations!
You've slain Demonic Boar LVL 5! XP + 50.
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Feat!
You've trapped a magic animal using a nonmagical trap! INT +1.
Not every trapper dares dabble in the eldritch beasts. Those who do may regret it!
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Skill Earned!
Enchant Trap LVL 1! XP + 30. Capture 1 magical creature in a normal trap (1/1)
Magic traps often backfire. A good trapper only needs three fingers anyway!
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Skill Earned!
Trapping LVL 2! XP +31. Build 5 traps (5/5), Trap 15 small animals (15/15), build 1 medium trap (1/1), trap 2 medium animals (1/2) **Special Action: Capture a monster!**
Even the blind hog finds a nut!
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Level Up!
You are now a Level 2 Human! All Attributes +1. Skill Points +1!
"Well, " mused Ryan, "that was odd." He'd jumped back upon being overwhelmed by so many status updates, but no more seemed to come. He tied the Demonic Boar's ankles together and began to drag it back through the woods towards his camp. The thump it made when he cut it loose seemed to indicate that it would be too heavy for him to carry on his shoulders.
When he finally got to camp, he'd skinned the animal's rear limbs. Luckily, Demonic Boars and regular animals had similar bone structures, so he strung a sturdy limb in the gap made by its knee ligaments, and brought out his skinning knife.
The knives he had were some of the most difficult things he'd made on Aurora so far. He'd luckily stumbled across a flint deposit in the nearby river, and managed to knap them into sharp pieces. He had lots of liitle flakes that would do for arrowheads, a project he'd delayed to focues on gaining trapping experience. Now that he'd seen the boar...well, project bow and arrow was definitely the next priority. Anyhow, he'd lucky ended up with a pair of good flint knives. One was sharp and thin, like a filet knife almost. He used this as his fleshing knife. The other had a sturdier tip, almost like a rock drop point, so that was his skinning knife.
As he worked the animal's hide of of its body, he comtemplated his updated status. Leveling up as a human was great, and his attributes had gone up. The +1 INT for performing a feat was an unexpected perk. But none of this is what he'd expected. Ryan thought that leveling up would feel different; that there'd be some kind of physical feeling associated with it. Maybe a rush of power? But it seemed the leveling process was incremental, almost like how you never realized how much better you were on Earth until you reflected on how bad you were at first. At a stopping point, he pulled up his status.
Ryan Callahan Champion of Luris Class N/A Title Champion of Luris Race Human HP/MP 190(+.2) / 35(+.1) XP 202 SP 1 Level 2 STR 15 AGI 18 END 19 CHAR 13 WIS 7 INT 9 Skills Trapping (Lvl. 2), Enchant Trap (Lvl. 1), Tanning (Lvl 2) Items Stone Hand Axe (Fair), Stone Skinning Knives (Fair), Bow Drill (Fair), Woven Pack (Poor)
Well, it didn't really tell him much. What he was curious about was the newest stat "SP", or Skill Point. He'd got it for leveling up, which told him it was valuable, so he selected it. After being prompted to access the Skill Point menu, he saw the entire skill tree again. Certain portions of the skill tree were highlighted.
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Skill Point Allocation
You may allocate a skill point in any of the following fields to unlock that field for further research. You may spend skill points in unlocked fields to earn new skills. Be warned! Skill point allocation is permanent. Available fields:
Combat (1 SP)
Magic (1 SP)
Stealth (1 SP)
Manipulation (1 SP)
Already unlocked skill field(s):
Survival
Crafting
So a field could be unlocked if he learned a skill in it, or it could be unlocked through the allocation of a skill point. Which meant that inside unlocked fields, he could probably allocate skill points to gain new skills, or perhaps to add levels to a skill. Interesting. He pulled up the survival skill menu:
Survival
Survival skills are essential to live in the wilds of Aurora. Survival is influenced by the END stat. Available subfields:
Trapping (unlocked)
Skills unlocked: Trapping (Lvl 2), Enchant Trap (Lvl 1)
Hunting
Fishing
Farming
Physique
Ryan skimmed over the other menus. It looked like each field was related to a particular stat. Survival was END focused, Crafting was INT focused, Combat was STR focused, Magic used WIS, Stealth used AGI, and manipulation - the most interesting sounding stat - was based on CHAR. So it made sense so far that Luris gave Ryan such a large END stat and placed him in an unpopulated wilderness. She wanted him to level up by surviving, which he'd been doing. But then, that boar showed up and put him on edge. His next highest stat was AGI, which was the focus of the stealth skill field. He supposed he could invest in stealth and potentially avoid any monsters or trouble that came his way, but he didn't know what subfields lay within stealth. Since he had not unlocked a skill in the field, he couldn't see more than a brief description of it. Alternatively, he could invest in the combat skill field and feel more prepared if more monsters came his way.
He always found it helpful to keep his hands busy as he thought, so he finished skinning the boar and began fleshing the hide. He'd cut the gut pile out by his old trap and used some of it for bait there, but drug the rest off. He was worried about running into this world's bear equivalents at one of his gut piles if he left them too close to camp. Which made him think more about his skill selection. If he invested in the combat skill, would he be able to stand up to a bear or a big cat? Probably not. He had no good weapons, he had no formal training. The only thing he truly excelled out was being an outdoorsman. He had some basic survial skills from the Boy Scouts and a family tradition of giving him survival books for Christmas, but beyond that...not much.
That decided his mind. He stretched the boar hide over the tanning rack, and pulled up the skill menu:
Are you certain you wish to allocate 1 Skill Point to Stealth? All allocations are permanent. Y / N
Ryan hoped he knew what he was doing, and selected Y.
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Loki sniggers behind the Game Master's partition. Bevgile plays his skill boost card so that his champion will complete their skill this turn. He's a rush deck player, and his obvious strategy is to slam his champion through to level 5 and have him class up. Makkedon is following the same strategy, which makes sense since the two dimwits plan together. But Loki is sniggering because he's checking Luris's champion. Her deck is far more interesting, balancing small blessings that have low faith cost with monster encounters that will grow her champion. She spent her total accumulated faith points to summon that demonic boar, and only got a level 5 creature. But the boar served its purpose. He's about to enjoy this update.
Bevgile completes his turn and speaks to Luris, "See, that's how it's done nature freak! I'll give a tip: boon cards are the best cards." Makkedon nodded his carplike head in agreement, "Boon them to level 5 and crush the competition! My guy is gonna get yours Bevgile!"
Loki sighs, "Luris, it is your third turn. Since you have no faith points, you cannot make a move this turn...That said, your champion has slain the Demonic Boar! Your champion completes a feat, so +1 Faith Point for you!"
"What feat?!" Makkedon interrupts, "What feat could he have gotten from slaying a LEVEL 5 creature?!"
Loki smiles, "He trapped a magical animal in his nonmagical traps +1 INT, +1 Faith Point, Makkedon. Now, I wasn't done. He has gained 142 XP and is now a level 2 human. He's also gone ahead and spent his skill point on Stealth."
Bevgile and Makkedon gape at Loki, doing a solid impression of flopping goldfish. Luris smiles politely, thankful. "I elect not to spend my faith point this turn, Game Master." She's secretly relieved. Not only did Ryan avoid being slaughtered by the Demonic Boar she played last turn, he trapped it, performing a feat. She'd played the card in desperation, hoping a low enough level monster encounter would allow him to gain the level, but she'd underestimated his traps! A pleasant surprise, and that extra faith point would come in handy for her next move, especially since she had to spend an extra one earlier to downgrade that monster to something Ryan could handle.
Loki turned to Makkedon to begin his turn, but Luris wasn't really paying attention. She was more focused on Ryan. Spending a point in Stealth, eh? She'd rolled him with strong END and AGI, hoping he'd take the message, and apparently he did. Looks like her Champion might just make it out of those woods, all things constant.
Beside her, Makkedon rolls the dice to determine an encounter between his Champion and a smaller sea monster that'd randomly generated. Across from her, Bevgille eyes his champion, plotting his next move. A move that will slowly, and surely, take him to meet the Champion of Luris. After all, he needs to wipe out the most promising competition while it's still weak if he's going to win this game and finally get out of the loser's bracket.
Yes, moving on Luris seems to be the best idea.