Nick walked along the bog for miles, occasionally following fragmented strips of cobblestone that had once been proper footpaths, but mostly traversing endless stretches of multicolored grass.
On several occasions, he caught glimpses of blackmist in the distance. Fortunately, they were only small patches that weren’t headed his way and nothing on the scale of the massive bank that had engulfed him earlier in the day. They looked like roving banks of creeping midnight, like holes torn into the fabric of the world. He hoped to learn more about the magical weather before he was caught by it again.
From time to time, he practiced drawing his dagger and wand, sliding them free from their sheaths to point at imaginary targets coming at him from various angles, preparing himself to fend off beasts rushing low for his knees or diving from the air above his head. He could tell that his training was paying off. He was getting better at bringing the weapons to bear without looking away or breaking his stride.
Sometimes, Nick substituted his armaments with various items from his belt pouches or quaffing his flask, stopping the motion before breaking the seal and popping the top off the artifact. It was comforting to have the curious concoction ready to go for a true emergency down the road.
Once he was satisfied with his progress, he added throwing into the mix, chucking rocks at various targets to simulate using them in battle and training his skill in the process.
From time to time, he came across bones and other remains, a grim reminder that the bog was home to countless predators, many of whom would consider him to be nothing more than a tasty treat. With any luck his new spells and the training he had undergone would be sufficient to teach them the error of their ways.
When the sun was high overhead, which was smaller, brighter, and more copper colored than Earth’s own, Nick decided to break for lunch, estimating that the days on this world were a bit longer than twenty-four hours. After wiping the sweat from his brow, he plopped down on top of a large grey boulder that offered an unobstructed view for miles in every direction.
Thus far, he had managed to avoid the myriad predators that called the bog home, but he had a hunch that his run of good luck wouldn’t last much longer. This was a treacherous land at the best of times, and it would be doubly so with the quest adding its challenges into the mix.
Behind Nick ran the rim of the crater, which looked a bit like a series of foothills from this distance. Ahead of him loomed Darkstone Tower, his ultimate destination and the place where the fate of his people would be determined. On both sides, the mirrored pools and wetlands stretched out for as far as his eyes could see, a wild land that promised adventure and danger in equal measures.
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A cool breeze blew through his hair, carrying away the heat of an alien sun upon his skin. It was a powerful, private moment. A few final hours of calm before all hell broke loose.
A time for reflecting on how far he’d come to reach this place, and the long road ahead before he would touch the soil of his home world once again. He sat there, taking it all in, then slipped off his backpack while deciding what he wanted to eat for lunch.
He took a banana out of his pack and began to peel the fruit, which he had found inside the safe room’s refrigerator before entering the portal. Staring down at the banana in his hand, a wave of nostalgia broke over him.
The food from home evoked a wave of memories, reminding Nick of the people he loved, the planet of his birth, and a life that he would never know again. But he didn’t have time to get lost in the past, the clock was ticking.
He would have to live off the land when his supplies ran out sometime over the next two days. But Nick wasn’t worried. He trusted his foraging skill to carry him through, at least for now. It would let him know what was safe to eat and what wasn’t, as well as the best way to harvest and consume the various plants and animals within the bog.
Although he wasn’t in danger of running out of provisions just yet, he would keep an eye out for anything that he could eat as he hiked, along with anything that thought it could eat him.
At least water wasn’t going to be a problem. While Nick would have to watch out for predators hiding below the waterline, his skill informed him that most of the water he saw was safe to drink. He decided that it would still be a good idea to boil it before consumption whenever possible, since it never hurt to be too careful. He could use the steel helmet he had taken from the ratman foreman as a crude pot, since it wasn’t the right size for his head anyway.
A few stagnant pools where vivid red ferns grew thick did seem to be mildly toxic, and he resolved to avoid both the plants and the surrounding waters. Nick would never have been able to navigate this uncharted terrain so easily if it wasn’t for the skills he’d developed back on the Searing Isle.
Although he had already fallen in love with his new class, he was hoping to find an opportunity to boost foraging and size up in the future. Both skills had saved his life a dozen times over, and surviving on an alien world was hard enough with them at his disposal.
They were still incredibly useful right now, since Nick had trained them diligently during the tutorial. But he was afraid that they would grow less helpful as he ventured into more dangerous places, at least at their current level. The skills that had come with his basic class had been capped at ten, but uncommon classes could raise their skills to twenty-five. While he was eager to find out what his new combat skills could do, he had to admit that his survival-based skills were worth their weight in gold.
In addition to their raw utility, he had grown accustomed to the feedback that his skills provided. Sensations that had come to feel like natural extensions of his own senses rather than information provided by an external source. He could only imagine what it would be like to have dozens of high-level skills guiding his hand and watching his back. Something to look forward to in the future.