It wasn't the coldness pressing in on Jocelyn's skin that woke her up. Of all things, it was the incessant crying of a very large bird that began to rouse her from her slumber. “CAW CAW.” The sound kept flitting into her consciousness, preventing her from enjoying what she thought was a very comfortable nap. “CAW CAW.” 

“Wait… why is there a bird in my apartment?”

Struck with an intense panic and a sense of wrongness, Jocelyn bolted upright. A mistake, she soon found out, as a wave of nausea hit her like a truck. She started to dry heave as her stomach tried in vain to empty itself. 

“Oh fuck” she groaned, trying to force the unease and nausea back down.

A minute passed before she was finally able to take in her strange surroundings. All around her was a field of grass that appeared to go on for miles, reminding Jocelyn of a prairie she had visited once on a family vacation in Oklahoma. “CAW CAW.” Jocelyn quickly looked up to see a large black bird circling above her head far in the sky. Shutting her eyes tightly and rubbing her face to ease the anxious thoughts that began to pester her, she focused on retracing the last thing she remembered. 

“I was studying for that biochem exam… then… nothing… shit it's all blank!”

Taking a shaky breath to hold back the anxiety and fear beginning to grip her heart, Jocelyn began to voice her thoughts aloud. 

“Well… it finally happened, I went crazy and blacked out the last day or two. Why else would I be in the middle of absolutely nowhere?" she muttered. "Damn… if only blackout Jocelyn had given me a map.” 

As soon as she finished voicing her desire for a map, a digital screen appeared in front of Jocelyn. Hovering before her was a large digital map displaying the entire world. It looked just like one of those maps she had seen in the RPG games she used to play. Looking even closer, she realized that it resembled an old history map made before all the coastlines of the main continents were plotted accurately. Everything looked close to what she was familiar with, but just dissimilar enough to make the entire thing feel wrong. All the continents were just slightly different. Some were pushed together, broken up entirely, or weirdly warped in shape.

“I’m just going to blatantly put aside the fact that I’m for sure tripping on something right now, but this map is seriously messed up. Like, who thought it would be a good idea to combine Greenland and Canada?”

Looking closer at the map she noticed a blue icon shaped just like a small triangle placed in what should be the equivalent of western North America.  More specifically, if she had to guess, she would say the icon was where she thought Colorado would be. She focused and willed the map to zoom in closer to the icon. Jocelyn realized that the area around the blue triangle was brighter and the name “Underpen Prairie” was displayed. It looked as though anything further than 3 or 4 miles of the icon was greyed out with a light fog obscuring the area from view. Not sure if she should be relieved or overwhelmed that her mental breakdown, drug-induced, or very vivid dream was so intuitive, she rubbed her face again to help soothe and ease her mind “I’d expect nothing less from my anxious mind," she muttered, trying to lighten the situation. "If I’m going to hallucinate, might as well make sure it’s intuitive.” she told herself lightheartedly to make light of the situation. 

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Tearing her eyes away from the digital floating screen Jocelyn took a moment to inspect the area. The wind was blowing lightly across the plain, the swaying grass made it easy to track the light breeze and its movements. As the wind reached where she was standing a horrifying revelation struck Jocelyn. “Where did my clothes go?”

She began to frantically look all around her to see if she had left her clothes just lying around somewhere in the grass nearby, but before she could start a meaningful search, that same digital screen appeared in front of her. However, instead of displaying a map, Jocelyn was greeted with what she assumed to be a quest notification.

New Quest: Fowl Feathered Fury

You have angered a nearby Crazed Crow. Defeat it before it kills you.

* Objective: Defeat Crazed Crow - 0/1

* Reward: Simple shirt, Simple pants

“Wait what? What crow?” Almost immediately after she finished reading the new popup she felt something slam into her back and then tear into her skin. Screaming out in pain and fear she spun around quickly to find the source and immediately saw the same bird that woke her up with its calls earlier. On the ground, looking like a feral and much bigger version of a crow, the creature looked ready to launch itself straight at Jocelyn for another attack. 

“What the fuck!?” she exclaimed as the bird threw itself toward her face.

She threw up her arms to cover her face and received more scratches from the bird's claws and felt its beak tearing bits of her skin off. Instinctually she grabbed the bird and threw it down to the ground as hard as she could. Before the creature could get back up again Jocelyn dived down straight for it and tried to pin it in her arms. The bird didn’t give up or try to get away like Jocelyn thought it would. Instead, as she wrapped it in her arms the creature took the opportunity to ruthlessly tear at any bit of flesh it could reach with its beak and claws. Blood poured from various wounds on her body and Jocelyn let out a cry in pain as she blindly repositioned her grip on the creature to try to avoid the tearing and vicious pecking. Either out of pure luck or sheer determination, she grabbed the neck of the creature and started to squeeze as hard as she could. The creature kept using its talons to scratch and dig deeper into her arms in an effort to escape a looming death. Gritting her teeth at the pain she steeled her will and waited until the creature no longer moved.

* You have defeated Crazed Crow

Quest: Fowl Feathered Fury

* Objective: Defeat Crazed Crow - 1/1

* Simple Shirt has been added to your inventory

* Simple Pants have been added to your inventory

* Would you like to loot Crazed Crow?