Chapter 10

I was feeling pretty hot by the time that I had awoken. Looking about the sun was now mid-way in the sky. I stretched and felt my skin pull slightly from the burn that I had gotten while sleeping on my side. Looking at the side that had been facing up it was now a lovely lobster red while the other a pasty white… great now I was two-toned.

Groaning I sat up, and gently rubbed my face with my hands. Mmm, I really should get started now, especially if I wanted to try and get somewhere other than in the middle of nowhere in the dark. Turning to my supplies I drank a mouthful of water to quench my thirst and to remove that sticky feeling one gets in their mouth after sleeping. I looked out over the fields to decide the direction that I would take. To the north, I knew that there was the city, but I got the impression that it was further away than it looked. Continuing to look around I saw more hills of grass then off to the east there was a small village, nestled next to a small forest and river, that could not be more than 10 maybe 12 miles away. Other than that small village there was nothing else nearby.

I quickly made the decision that I would go there, hopefully, I would make it there before nighttime. I placed my water container around my shoulder, looking at my knife and pack I frowned, the items were not that great. The basic pack was crap and I did not like that I would have to carry it in hand while I traveled, would much rather have two hands available for anything that I may come across, not that I knew how to defend myself with a weapon, but I remembered that I had taken some self-defense classes. Maybe I could repurpose the pack, taking my knife I was easily able to split the side seams, making the pack one long length of worn leather approximately 42in x 16in size.

Wisps of hair drifted across my face as I thought about how I would best reuse the leather. It would not offer up any advantage to fashion more clothing as it was too small, but I could cut some thin strips out to make some cord ties and still have a fairly decent rectangular-sized piece left. Having planned out all of the cuts that I would need to make I had begun to make my first cord when my hair drifted into my face again this time getting caught in my mouth blocking my view slightly.

Frustrated I pulled my hair out of the way and tucked it under my armpit. Having finished the first leather cord I looked at my work. Not too bad, it had started about 1in across but as I had cut more it began to vary in size from greater than an inch to less than in some spots. Chuckling while I tied my hair back I said to myself “Okay leather cord, the first enemy to defeat is this head of hair.” Once I had finished with my hair, I cut 3 more strips, each progressively better than the last. The remaining larger piece of leather I decided to wrap around my left forearm securing it with two of the strips of leather. The last piece I used to make a loop to hold my knife that I secured to my loincloth at my right hip.

Making my way to the east end of the standing stones, I took one last look around the grassy safe zone. Man, this is going to suck I hate not having Phil here. I remembered when we played games that it was always better to have another player with you, as chances of survival increased. Well not that he can help me now… taking a deep breath I stepped out of the circle. Looking around me so far nothing dangerous, taking another step… still, all is good.

Enough Susan, you're going to be fine. At this rate you will never get to that village, pull up your britches, and get moving I told myself. Breathing out my held breath, I gave my head a shake. Even if I were to die Hyperion said I would come back, it's not like death is permanent here unlike on Earth.

Smiling wide I started walking to the village. My excitement started to grow with each step I took. Death is not final, there is magic here, this is going to be the best adventure ever, and somewhere Phil and Aira are waiting for me. Shouting out in glee I began to run, God this is great! I could feel the burning in my legs and feel the pressure build in my chest as I became short of breath, but still, I continued to run.

Crap! My legs started to seize up and I fell forward scraping my hands and my knees along the way. I was feeling pretty much like shit… what the hell is happening, this never occurred to me before when I had run? I turned slowly onto my back feeling bruised and my legs were on fire. Heaving great gasps of air I noticed in my top right vision three bars, one red for health, blue for eather, and the other a very low green for stamina that was now pulsing.

Shit, shit, shit, I did a rookie move, I am a noob here, how could I have forgotten that. All my past experiences are gone so all my stats are nothing because I had died on Earth. Well guess now is a great time to look and see what I do have while I wait for my stamina bar to refill. I mentally thought Attributes and a semitranslucent window popped up into my view.

Your attributes are as follows.

* Strength 10

* Constitution 10

* Dexterity 10

* Intelligence 50

* Wisdom 50

* Spirit 50

* Charisma 10

* Luck 10

* Strength: Effects physical power and carrying ability.

* Constitution: Effects the amount of health you have and persuasiveness.

* Dexterity: Affects the amount of stamina, coordination, and speed.

* Intelligence: Effects learning, and memory.

* Wisdom: Effects rationality, and control of eather use.

* Spirit: The amount of eather you can use, determined by Intelligence and Wisdom.

* Charisma: Effects your personality, and leadership.

* Luck: Effects everything, “A little luck never hurts”.

Holy shit… Intelligence, Wisdom, and Spirit are all at 50. How is that even possible, typically I should have everything at 10, why are these so high? This was a puzzle, well I guess I'll have to figure it out later for now I need to see what else I have going for me and thought skills.

* Crafting: For working with leather you have gained an apprentice skill.

* Leather Working: From making items out of leather you now have an apprentice skill.

* Navigation: From viewing the landscape surrounding you now have an apprentice skill.

* Acrobatics: From landing on your hands and knees you now have an apprentice skill.

* Running: For the enjoyment of the run, you have an apprentice skill.

* Cosmetology: For dressing up your flowing locks you now have an apprentice skill.

* Problem Solving: For thinking most things through and not rushing head first you now have an apprentice skill.

* Note: All inherent skills at this time are hidden till the end of the current quest. All skill levels gained during the quest shall be hidden until the completion of the current quest.

Okay, I have gained some pretty generic skills. I can't view current skill levels or inherent skills… is that unusual? Alright then that's no big deal, I'll just have to review them once the quest is done. How are skill levels categorized, though? I thought about my stats again…

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* Skills are categorized by the following levels;

Rudimentary: skills that are learned in childhood (birth to 8years);

Basic and Apprentice: skills learned in youth (9-15years);

Journeyman, Adept, Master, and Expert: skills learned once adulthood has been reached (16+ years).

Very explanatory, it is interesting that even children can have levels in skills. I wonder if they are more skilled in those that they have learned in their youth. Hmm, more questions I'll have to ask Hyperion when I'm done with my test. Alright so I have 10 in constitution, so what does that translate to? Is it health, stamina, or mana?

* For the following attributes; each point allocated to Strength, Constitution, and Spirit constitutes as 10 points as either health, stamina, and mana.

That makes sense, though I do wonder what my current experience points are.

* At this time you do not have a level. Any experience that you happen to collect during your test shall be held until the completion of Getting to Know Yourself.

Okay then, at least I'm gaining experience. Well then are there any skill trees or is it all based on actual experiences to gain skills.

* The system is unable to complete the question until the current test: Get to Know Yourself is completed.

Frustrated I swiped my hand in front of my face to dismiss the window. Setting my elbows on my knees I placed my hands under my chin. Well, this is just great, I can't level up anything let alone see if I can select skills or learn by experience. I have got to finish this stupid test… why did I have to die. I could be with Phil and Aira right now and we could all talk about this stuff and figure it out together. My eyes started to sting as tears came unbidden at the thought of doing all of this alone. I rubbed the palms of my hands in my eyes brushing away the tears that had escaped. I stood up, brushing the grass and dirt from my butt, and started making my way again to the village. I missed Phil and Aira but I can not sit in the dirt and cry about it. I need to finish, and once I rejoin them then I can cry all I want. Good thing is that I have 100point of health, stamina, and mana. I could be worse off.

The fields were full of life, everywhere I looked there were bugs and birds of all types, and I was pretty sure a couple of times I saw a rabbit or two. Thankfully I did not cross paths with anything aggressive. After walking in the grassy field for a while I finally came across what looked to be either a shepherd’s path or game trail that had been well worn into the ground. To the right of the path, there was a creek that looked to make its way towards the village. The creek was moving pretty slow here and biting bugs started to swarm me and came in thick clouds that were hard to see through.

Swinging my arms about me as I continued walking, I tried to keep the bugs away. I hated flying bugs. Spitting a few times as some of the vile pests had gotten into my mouth I knew I had better get a move on or I'd get eaten alive. I began to sweat all over my bearskin where the little bastards had started to bite me.

* You have been bitten by a bug swarm: This swarm consists of gnats, biting flies, and mosquitoes. They do little to no damage but if you remain exposed you will have an increased risk of catching a disease.

I started at a slow jog, hoping that it would be fast enough to keep the bugs off. It was not as I kept getting notifications that I was being bitten, and by the 12th notification, I thought this was enough and silenced negligible damage at this time. That promptly ended the annoyance of spam notifications. Thank God, the last thing I needed now was being sidetracked by notifications. I picked my pace up. I needed to keep an eye on my stamina this time, as by now it was creeping downward. I was able to get out of the largest swarms and only a few of the more tenacious ones kept coming. With a slight increase to my jog again, I became bug-free. Looking at my stamina bar it was now falling steadily, I watched my bar a lot closer this time as I did not want to repeat what happened earlier. Hopefully, I should be able to keep this pace up for a little more.

I was breathing heavily and getting close to the end of my endurance when I noticed the dirt path ended. Slowing to a stop I took in some deep breaths and let my stamina recharge. The grassy hills had given way to a sharp downward incline. I inched closer to the edge and looked over to a drop of about 50 or so feet. The stream that I had been jogging next to was now a beautiful cascading waterfall of said edge. Looking to the left and right the cliff face continued in both directions. I could try going in either direction and hope for less of an incline, but then I could also run into the problem of losing sight of the village, which I could now see that the water did indeed continue all the way to the village.

The base of the cliff face was in shadows and turning back to the west the Sun was now a quarter rise above the horizon. Soon it was going to get dark and I know that in the dark more predators come creeping. Groaning, I looked down the cliff face in front of me. I knew that this was the most direct course to the village, but the rocks next to the falls were going to be wet from the spray. So making my way a little to the left I was able to stay clear of wet rocks. Looking down at this location, there were some good-sized boulders that would make for easy climbing. Getting down on my hands and knees I made my way as close as possible to the edge of the cliff before sitting on my bottom and let my feet hang over the edge.

The first boulder was just two feet below my feet and had a nice large flat surface for me to land on. Ok so definitely not going to slide on my bottom just sitting there made the gravel dig into my practically bare bottom making it very uncomfortable. Turning over onto my front I used my arms to help me slide down. Landing on the boulder below me I suffered only a few scrapes to my abdomen. I continued in this fashion for the next hour, sliding and dropping where I could. I was on my 3rd break since starting my climb down. Having calculated it out I figured each break cost me 10min making my recharge rate about 1point/min. Apparently, climbing caused me to expend my stamina quickly. I had about 20 feet to go of course the last of it was a sheer face of rock with every little to hold onto.

Having fully recharged my stamina I crawled to the edge… Just a little more than triple my height to go, hmmm looks like if I hang over the ledge there it looks like there is a diagonal crack that I can slide down for a foot or two, and look there is a bush with a nice thick trunk growing out of the rock that I can use to hold onto so I can look for my next footing. Sweet almost off this cliff, maybe I'll take a dip in the water pool once done. Looking at myself I thought I definitely needed a dip, I was covered in dust from head to toe and the scrapes that I had gotten were smeared causing the dust to stick to me in rusty red patches.

Lowering my lower body over the edge, hopefully, for the last time, I lowered myself till my toes caught the edge of the crack. Not bad, this is going to be easy, I began to slide my toes further down the crack while the rest of my body and then my eyes began to lower past the edge. At this point I was fully stretched out, my toes were on the crack and my fingers were holding on to the ledge that I had just come from. The bush was now within arms reach, with my stamina at a quarter of the way gone, it was now or never. My heart began to beat faster in my chest, and my breathing came quicker knowing that soon I was going to be holding on with only one hand. The entire climb had been like this, I did, however, learn that if I did not keep my breathing and heart rate slow I would burn through stamina faster. I took a couple of deep breaths to calm myself better. Once I felt calm I began to reach out with my right hand.

My hand grasped the rough bark firmly, I gave it a slight tug, yes it is holding firm. Now time to let go of the ledge . . . “just do it. Suan you're almost there”. Slowly I let go, as nothing happened I grabbed the trunk of the bush with both hands. Smiling, I felt like everything was going to be okay. The exhilarating hang made my heart go pitter-patter and was sending an extreme adrenaline rush through my body. Confidently I held tightly to the trunk as I leaned back to get a better look for my next handhold. Looking about I spotted part of a rock that jutted out just a few feet below where I was currently.

Nice, this is awesome, it's like it was placed there just for me. I got another rush of adrenaline, making me feel giddy as I thought about my next leap. I slid my hands towards the topmost part of the branch permitting my body to lean further away from the face of the rock. As I looked down I leaned into a squatting position I started to lower my foot to the next spot when I heard a slight creaking sound. Hurriedly I looked to the branch in my hands, I felt my body shift backward as my branch began to pull itself out of the rock due to my added weight, shit, shit, shit. My heart began to thud loudly in my ears, as fear replaced my giddy high. I slowly tried to raise my body back up, to ease the burden on the branch, but alas it was for naught. Eyes wide and dilated I looked on in horror as my deceiving branch pulled free from the rock. As my body tipped backward I held onto that branch thinking “Crap”, and I began to fall the remaining 15 feet or more towards the unforgiving ground below me.