As he swung the stone axe, Vex's muscles strained, and sweat dripped from his brow. Each chop was carefully placed around the base of the trunk, carving out a triangular ring. As the axe head dug deeper, strikes nearing the heartwood, the groans of strained wood echoed out into the empty night. Then, with only a few more swings, the tree swayed, slowly tilting until groaning fibers could be heard from the trunk.
Taking several strategic steps away from the tree, Vex did his best to ensure he was out of the fall line. Unfortunately, chopping around the tree, rather than creating cuts on opposite sides, was more hazardous. However, Vex felt the cuts were easier with the stone axes and more aesthetically pleasing. So, regardless of the actual value, the chopping technique persisted when harvesting larger logs.
As the tree hit the ground with a hearty thud, Vex found himself muttering under his breath while tapping in rhythm on his thigh with his free hand, "It's going down…" The phrase tickled something in his memory that he couldn't piece together.
Taking a moment to stretch his sore muscles, Vex rolled his shoulders and then moved to the felled tree, removing its branches one by one. As he worked, he fondly remembered the modern axes from the hardware store, with walnut handles and cobalt blue steel axe heads. He wasn't certain why this memory was vivid but assumed it had something to do with how mockingly convenient a modern axe would have been compared to what he was stuck with.
Once the large log was fully stripped of branches and his stone axe head had become chipped beyond repair, Vex pulled out a small scraper from his guild inventory that he had made for the bark. It was a rough piece of wood that had been tapered in the center to accommodate two of the larger gremlin claws being wedged into a groove. By pulling the tool along the tree's surface, Vex could use it as a razor. It took methodical precision, but the scraper could slowly strip the bark from the tree, revealing the smooth wood beneath.
As the pile of shavings built up, Vex found his mind wandering during the doldrums of repetition. With few memories of life before this world, he mostly focused on his preparations and what he expected to find when leaving his guild domain. He had to admit that despite the constant distraction of the work needed to ensure his survival, he was going stir-crazy without interacting with other people.
While the Shadowlings helped Vex's sanity, he had to admit that they still felt more like pets. He knew they were intelligent and that he should have prioritized learning Shadow Cant, but the fact that they were created through his traits made it feel like they weren't real and lacked full autonomy. In a very twisted way, Vex knew that being able to fully communicate with his guild summons in his present circumstances would only reinforce those feelings.
And so, Vex continued to wait and build up his anxiety over his first meeting with real people in this new world. It was already troubling enough not to know the culture, how advanced their society was, or if people, as he knew them, even existed. The entire world could be made up of sentient puritanical slugs, and Vex was certain that the system would force him to meet them wearing nothing more than a sky-clad smile.
Looking down at himself, Vex realized his errant thought wasn't far from the truth. He was still wearing the same clothing he had entered the world in. However, at this point, they were little more than rags. Fashioning a crude loincloth to preserve his dignity had yet to make it to his list of priorities, but it was getting there.
Once he was done scraping off the bark, Vex placed a hand on the finished log and mentally added it to the guild vault. With the trunk out of the way, he cleaned up the area by grabbing branches, bark, and handfuls of wood chips and storing them. As Vex surveyed the area for anything he missed, he had to admit that the guild inventory system and its ever-growing collection of resources stored within was one of the most convenient and potentially broken traits he could have picked.
The available storage for his trait appeared endless, allowing him to stow objects much larger than himself so long as he touched them. So far, the food hadn't rotted, meaning the trait may also keep the guild and personal inventories fresh or hold them in a stasis-like effect. After the months spent roaming his guild domain, Vex had taken full advantage by collecting every useful-looking rock, stick, soft leaf, and vine he could find.
While there was a necessary utility in having so many raw materials on hand, Vex was also plagued with a sense of wrongness from his present need for hoarding. Storing materials like the tree trunks was one thing, but the random wood scraps, rocks, and other random plant pieces were like collecting rubbish. Those items would no longer be necessary as soon as he could escape his present situation.
As he walked toward the plateau, Vex silently vowed to clean up the guild vaults after he was no longer a hapless survivor. While trudging through the underbrush, his thoughts turned inward. He considered his progress - the makeshift tools he'd crafted, the skills he'd honed, and the knowledge he'd gained. Each step forward had been earned, yet nothing in his new life felt entirely real.
Climbing the steep path along the plateau, Vex scanned the dark gloom below. Sir Sneaks and Strikesies had yet to follow him back on this particular trip, which was becoming more common. The gremlins had been pulling back from the plateau and hadn't attempted climbing the sheer rock walls, forcing the Shadowlings to roam further when hunting for the creatures. While their numbers hadn't seemed to decrease, Vex felt safer because of the plateau's semi-natural protection.
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As he was cresting the top of the plateau, Vex's attention was drawn to the glow of faint embers, calling out to him like a beacon in the eternal night sky. A small campsite had been erected around the guild stone at the central-most point, hidden from the dark forests below. At the heart of the camp, a moderately sized lean-to Vex stood proudly beside the buried fire pit, its faint shadowy silhouette etched against the sky.
Approaching the fire pit, Vex summoned some branches and scraps from the guild inventory. They fell haphazardly into the dimming flames, eager to be consumed by the steady, smokeless blaze.
With the fire crackling and hissing, Vex allowed himself a moment of reprieve as he surveyed the plateau and the primitive structures he had built. His latest attempt was a small hut, now served as his workspace. Its walls were made of interwoven branches and foliage, covered with thick layers of mud and clay. A few crude windows had been planned with the design, which served as shelves for drying clay bowls and pots.
The plateau also held a few teepees, several styles of the lean-to, and a couple of basic A-frame shelters. Evidence was dotted around the plateau of a few dozen other shelters that had been built and scrapped, their innards stripped of important materials.
Glancing at the stubborn guild stone, Vex was reminded that his goal had yet to be met: constructing a proper guild hall. Each time he tried to build and incorporate a new primitive shelter into his guild, the stone refused to acknowledge the structure as a suitable guild hall.
Far from discouraged by these setbacks, Vex had expected them. Thanks to his skills in guild management, he was reasonably certain what the guild stone meant by its definition of suitability. The building would need a dedicated meeting hall, trophy room, and guild office to be considered substantial.
The nudge of intuition that came with his skills was an odd feeling for Vex. Even when maxed, the full breadth of knowledge that he would assume accompanied mastery wasn't available on command. Instead, the skill points felt more like increased potential, which required the information to be teased out through action. Then, as needed, the answers or knowledge would seem apparent.
Investing points didn't impart instantaneous mastery. Instead, they increased the potential to learn, reducing the practice and knowledge required to pursue a skill. So, while Vex had earned a few skill points in Shelter-Building relatively early in this new world, he knew those few points alone weren't enough to construct a guild hall. Each of his recent attempts was instead a means of grinding, the efforts paying off with skill points in shelter building and primitive construction.
A few paces north of the guild stone, Vex inspected the pile of logs neatly assembled into the foundation of a cabin. The structure would be his next building and, with luck, his final attempt at constructing a guild hall. Looking at the logs, Vex could envision the final product – a boxy guild hall that would appease the finicky guild stone and become the heart of the small plateau. The creative vision may have been lacking, but the goal had been set.
The desire to be done with construction made Vex want to cheat on his planned expenditure. So far, he had focused his skill expenditures on survival, the rest being banked for an emergency or critical need. Now, with his present surplus, Vex was debating the virtues of dumping the points into construction in a gamble to unlock a specialized Shadowling that could focus on building his guild hall. Given his luck, he felt disinclined to roll the dice on a possibility he wasn't certain existed.
Despite the direct benefits of a higher construction skill, Vex's paranoia still nagged at him and reinforced his plan for Chaser. The Shadowling had parted with the party at the bogs, where they were tasked with training their trapping skills. With any luck, the hunter was supposed to put together something that could be mass-produced and effectively used against the gremlins to thin their population.
Looking over Chaser's character sheet, Vex was happy to see the hunter's skills were steadily rising. While there were several unexpected gains, the core skills saw most of the growth. However, the hunter's progression had slowed, meaning the skills probably wouldn't be maxed for a couple of months.
So, with some hesitation, Vex willed enough skill points into the hunter to unlock their key traits.
> Chaser's Trap Making skill has reached level 10.
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> Chaser's Trap Setting skill has reached level 10.
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> Chaser's Trapping skill has reached level 10.
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> Chaser's Concealment skill has reached level 10.
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> Chaser's Deception skill has reached level 10.
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> Chaser's Engineering skill has reached level 3.
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> Congratulations!
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> Chaser has unlocked the trait Irresistible Trap.
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> Congratulations!
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> Chaser has unlocked the trait That Will Never Work.
Wincing at the loss of nearly half his skill points, Vex quietly attempted to assure himself that this was a necessary expenditure. The gremlins were an extremely dangerous pest that had nearly killed him once, and he didn't want to risk one of them catching him by surprise or escaping from the guild hall into a world that may not have them. The necessity of the skill expenditure helped to lessen the expensive sting, but Vex knew he needed a distraction.
Feeling motivated enough to cut his break short, Vex pulled the most recent log he had cut down out of the guild inventory. After carefully aligning it to the foundation, he began cutting grooves into the logs using a new stone axe. As he labored into the darkness, Vex focused on preparing the log to be slotted into the growing wall. With each dull strike of stone on wood, determination echoed into the void of eternal night like a promise.
Almost as an affirmation of his path and choices, a notification silently blinked in Vex's vision as he absorbed himself in his work.
> Your One for All trait has allowed Chaser to share his excess skill experience.
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> Your Trap Making skill has reached level 1.