With a spring in his step, Nick began hiking north, heading into a part of the borderlands between the highlands and the forest that he had never seen before.
This close to the mountain, he stood within its shadow. The shade was a welcome companion, as the ascent along the foothills was steep and the effort was draining. But Nick was no longer the person he had been a little over three weeks ago. Thanks to his efforts and the powers granted to him by the System, his body was lean and toned. His stamina had become a deep pool compared to the shallow puddle it had been back in his old life.
He wove his way between a series of increasingly steep hills, and before long, Nick reached an elevation that was higher than the forest’s canopy. He stopped to catch his breath while looking out over the sea of green. He stared up at the great tree while considering how much he had changed since the day he had climbed to the top and taken in his first view of the Searing Isle from on high. How much everything in his life had changed.
As he continued on his way, he saw a variety of plants and animals that were new to him, but nothing that seemed hostile or otherwise dangerous. He soon found himself breathing hard. This was the most intense workout he had given his lungs outside of combat. He could tell that the air was growing thinner, although it didn’t seem to take more out of him than any other strenuous exercise. The experience offered Nick a renewed appreciation for his newly increased attributes as well as his Survivor trait. The reduced need for oxygen must help in more ways than I thought.
He reached the base of one of the tallest hills an hour later, panting and covered in sweat, but still willing and able to carry on. After draining his canteen, he was ready to explore the highlands in earnest. He looked up at the three largest hills, which rose to ring the mountain like children hugging their mother’s knees. Nick planned to climb at least one of them before calling it a day, but he decided to explore the valley running between the closest hillocks first, giving his body a chance to recover before asking more from it.
From up close, Nick was able to catalog a wealth of details that he hadn’t been able to make out while standing in the branches of the great tree. Each provided clues as to what might occur during the final phase of the tutorial. He was glad that the region was free of trees and that the groundcover cut off below his knees. It made it easy to survey his surroundings, and there wasn’t anywhere for a sizable predator to be waiting in ambush. Unless, of course, they could fly, but he was hoping that flying predators were too dangerous to be included in the tutorial.
Keeping one eye on the sky just in case, Nick ran his gaze across a broad valley filled with knee-high grass and wildflowers. It was a jumbled riot of bright colors and sweet fragrances. He felt a surge of fear after smelling the myriad blossoms, as his memories of the ravenous creepers’ deleterious effects were dredged up to the surface of his awareness.
While part of him wanted to run, he took control of his breathing and forced himself to calm down. Relax Nick. They’re just flowers. It’s a good reflex to be on guard against drugs and poisons, but you need to dial it down a notch. Just because a given stimulus reminds you of something scary, you can’t react like you’re in immediate danger.
Sometimes a flower is trying to eat you. But usually, it’s just a flower. Wisdom lies in knowing the difference.
While he talked himself out of developing a brand-new phobia, Nick turned his gaze to take in the most prominent feature of the island. Directly ahead of him loomed the volcanic mountain. The closest face was a sheer sheet of stone, rising from the valley floor to form a series of clifftops hundreds of feet above his head. Although he was hoping to climb at least part of the way up before he called it a day, it was impossible to ascend to the peak from this location.
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On either side of the basin where Nick stood rose a pair of steep hills, topping off perhaps a hundred feet above the valley floor. But the most interesting feature by far was the pair of bridges connecting the top of each hillock to the mountainside, which appeared to grant access to a series of passes leading all the way up to the summit.
After making sure that nothing more menacing than songbirds and butterflies called the valley home, he decided that he would learn nothing more until he climbed one of the hills. Peering up at the peaks, he chose the one on his left, as it was furthest from the spiders’ corner of the woods. Knowing that he would likely find himself up here again before the end of the tutorial, Nick did his best to memorize the features of the terrain, adding them to his mental map of the isle, imagining what it would be like if he had to camp up here, fight, run, or hide amid the elevated hills and valleys.
As he ran various scenarios through his mind, he gradually worked his way up the incline, stopping every few minutes to catch his breath. It soon became apparent that the wind was stronger up here, without any trees to serve as a buffer. The breeze sent his clothing and hair aflutter, helping to keep him cool despite the intense workout.
About halfway up the hillside, Nick took note of a broad area where the ground was mostly level, which his game-trained brain recognized as a natural fortification. A perfect point of deployment for an army holding the hilltop. It’s too bad that the closest thing I have to an army is a tribe of stick-wielding primates. But beggars can’t be choosers.
Twenty grueling minutes later, Nick completed the climb. He sat down on a flat rock while he ate lunch, looking out over the isle while refining his map of the region. He panned his gaze across the forest, surprised at how small the swath of terrain looked when viewed from above. The island where he had spent the last twenty-odd days fighting to survive the dangers of an alien world was less than fifty square miles. Smaller than the city of San Francisco, where Nick had grown up. After pulling the last, bitter bite of lizard meat free from the bone, he turned his head to examine the other hills.
Two nearly identical hillocks were visible from this vantage, forming a triangle between them with the mountain in the middle. Between the hillocks ran a pair of valleys that were the mirror image of one another, and he assumed that there was a third basin that was obscured by the mountain. That was the region that he had identified as the lurk’s likely lair, and not coincidentally, the section of the highlands that he most wanted to avoid. After his recent run-in with the shaggy gray beast, he wanted nothing more than to never see it again.
Nick then turned to consider the mountain itself, lording over the island like a queen atop her throne. From his elevated vantage, two details stood out that were not obvious from below. The first was that, in spite of its immense height, the mountain looked relatively easy to climb, at least when ascending from the slopes adjacent to the hilltops.
Although they weren’t accessible from the valley floors, there were trails and switchbacks leading all the way up, some of which looked wide enough for creatures the size of the lurk to navigate. The second detail was that the summit appeared to be relatively flat. The edge of the plateau formed a crisp curve, as clearly defined as the rim of a bowl.
While it was now only a stone’s throw away, it appeared that Nick wouldn’t be climbing the mountain today after all. Not unless he figured out how to overcome the final barrier lying between his position and the trailhead leading to the summit. Although there was a bridge running from the hilltop to the mountainside, the path was blocked by a massive metal gate. Not ready to give up just yet, he walked closer while taking in the features of the edifice.
He had no idea why the barrier was there, but Nick was certain that it had something to do with the tutorial’s final phase. Now he just had to figure out what in the world was going on.