Chapter 002
Bento
After another 45 minutes and lots of out-of-breath gasping later I was surprised to see another notification pop up.
[STAT GAIN: +1 CONSTITUTION]
Stat gain?! The worlds this opens up.. if I can figure out how to gain stats from hard work then I can make myself super strong and fast! I got plus one CON but all I’ve been doing is trouncing through the woods. Could it be because I have been at 0 Stamina and I’ve continued to push myself? Item number 47 to put on the list of things to test and learn about! Looking at my status I notice the extra CON made my Stamina go up, from 20 max to 22. I also had 2 unallocated points! I put one CON because I need more stamina STAT! That brings my max to 24. I put one in STR for a health boost, from max 18 to 20.
I keep moving south and immediately I notice that the CON change has made a difference. I’m not as out of breath even though I’m back to 0 stamina. I can concentrate better on moving forward better even if it’s tiring. Nothing to make you appreciate levels more than the feeling of instant gains! Looking around I notice that the trees aren’t as tightly packed as they have been so I try to move forward speedily. 20 minutes later when the sun is getting awfully low and light is starting to become an issue I notice through the trees some light up ahead so I begin walking that way. 10 minutes later I come through a copse of trees and in front of me is a sea of gentle flowing grass. It’s like an oasis of grass in the middle of the forest, wide enough that the trees off in the distance are quite a ways away. But aside from that the best sight in the world is slightly off to my right, a town!
Looking at the town longingly I notice most of the houses are made of wood and stone, windows are few and far between and the ones that are there are small and have no glass. The town is quite small, at least from my perspective. I can see some people out and about moving around so I put my sword in my sheath and nervously approach what looks to be the main road in, which is really just a dirt area about 15 feet wide in between the houses. Walking into the town I notice I’m getting a lot of looks from people, anyone who notices me stops to stare, which really starts to wig me out. I keep walking the main road looking for an inn or a shop and trying to ignore the townsfolk who all really seem to mind me being here. Still, it’s a small town and despite the looks I’m getting I’m really enjoying the aesthetic.
“Hello dear, can I help you?”
I look to my left at the older woman who was leaning on a split rail fence at one of the homes. If there was a “Quintessential Grandmas” magazine she would be on the cover. She looked to be about 60, skinny with a slightly pudgy round face full of wrinkles, tanned skin and white curly hair. She was also like 4 and a half feet tall and a little hunched.
“Yes please, I’m not from around here and I was traveling through the woods, could you possibly point me to the inn and also tell me the name of this fine town?” I say.
She looks at me with curiosity before replying. “Well aren’t you a little adventurer! This here is Bento Village and I’m sorry to be the one to tell you but we don’t have an inn on account of we never really get travelers.”
I’m, for the 10th time today, at a loss. No inn? What the actual hell. “Oh. That is unfortunate for me. My name is Nyla by the way, nice to meet you! Could you possibly point me to your general store then? Maybe I could at least buy a tent for tonight”
“Hi there Nyla what a beautiful name for a beautiful young woman. I’m Gertrude but everyone just calls me Gerty or Gert so you can pick and choose, and again I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but we haven’t got a store here, aint no real reason for us to as we all just chip in and do our parts to share and share alike.” She looks at me with compassion as my face falls and I assume I look like I’m in shock. I certainly feel in shock. “Now look here dear in this village we look for each other, and that usually just means ourselves since we aint had a visitor in about 30 odd years but I won’t let you just sleep in the woods, if it pleases you there’s a loft in my barn that has space for a person to rest and its enclosed just fine. No lock on the doors so aint got to worry about that and it’ll keep you safe from the monsters and the animals for the night.”
This fantastic woman just threw me a lifeline and I was going to grab ahold of it immediately! “Thank you so much Gerty that is especially kind of you, I can pay you some money for the use of the barn if that helps! I really didn’t want to camp out tonight!”
“Nonsense, you keep your money dear. Besides money’s got no use here since we only trade with each other!” She lets off a belly laugh that leaves me chagrined. Yeah why would she need money if there’s nothing to buy, duh! Good one Nyla.
“Alright, perhaps I could just trade for some things as well, I have some wolf pelt and some wolf meat! I would certainly share just for the kindness you’re showing me, I really do appreciate it!”
“Sure dear, the suns almost down why don’t you come inside my house and have a seat, you can have some of my stew as it’s almost dinnertime and that means time to relax!”
I give a huge smile and walk through the gate in the fence and follow Gerty to her house. “Thank you again, so much!”
“Don’t even think on it, what’s the world coming to if we all can’t help each other out when needs arise?”
She gives me a motherly smile and ushers me into her house. It looks to have two rooms, the one we walk into from the front door is a combination kitchen slash living room, big enough that it works and small enough to still be cozy. There’s a fireplace in the kitchen area with a large cast iron pot on top of some simmering red hot coals. That is what seems to be the “oven” here, which blows my mind. I’m going to miss microwave ovens really quickly in this world. There’s an open door to the right and I can see the edge of a bed so I assume that is Gerty’s bedroom. I take a seat at the kitchen table on a very well-crafted wooden chair that has carvings of flowers and birds on the back rest.
“So what brings a young woman like yourself out into the Luminary woods? Are you an explorer? It really isn’t very safe for lower level people traveling on their own in the woods, too many wolves, goblins, and more’n a few bears!”
I look at her and wonder what it is I could tell her. I didn’t think to come up with a backstory to explain why I was in the woods in the first place. Separated from my group during a bandit attack? Lone wanderer trying to make a name for herself? Can’t go with the truth even the system warned me not to tell people about that. “Well.. I was traveling with a group and we got attacked and they told me to run so I ran into the woods and by the time I stopped I had no idea how to get back. So I kept walking hoping to get to the road and instead found myself here.”
She squints at me for just a second. “Oh my, you must have been wandering the woods for many days then, the closest road is perhaps a week straight march to the south!” I swallow realizing that she probably knows I couldn’t have made it all the way here so my story is most likely bunk. “Well at least you’re safe now, and we can start work on getting you equipped to get back to your people tomorrow after you’ve rested. Now, how about some stew!”
I let out a breath of relief that she didn’t call me on my bull. “Stew sounds miraculous Gerty than you so very much!” Gerty got two spoons from a drawer and handed me one. Instead of going to the pot as I thought she would she just put her empty hand down in front of me and a bowl of stew appeared. I was shocked! Gerty must have seen the look on my face.
“Now I know inventory space being precious as it is makes it strange to keep bowls of stew in there but I aint got much for it in any other way so why not! The Inventory keeps ‘em in stasis so they’re hot and fresh when you take ‘em out so it’s my favorite thing to do! Besides if I store as much as I can in my inventory then if something bad happens at least I know I’ll have some food hot and ready!”
Inventory space is precious? Hold up is my infinite inventory another cheat? Wow I came to this world stacked with tricks. “Oh, that makes sense Gerty! Just how much stew can you carry in your inventory?” I ask curiously.
“Trying to find out my strength stat are you?” She belly laughs again “I’m kiddin’ dear, everyone knows that your inventory can hold 10 pounds per point of strength! My strength is not as it was in my heyday but that’s still plenty of soup!” She laughs again with a big smile on her face which is just really endearing and makes me smile too.
“True Gerty, I wasn’t trying to get a peek at your strength stat I was just wondering! Say, I’m from a small town myself and no one really talked about their stats, honestly I don’t really know anything about them because on one ever explained to me about it before..”
Gerty gives me a look like I’m an abused puppy as she sits down with her own bowl of stew. “Goodness dear what kind of town is that? Sure there are plenty of people who don’t want to just hand you their status screen but to not tell you about it is criminal! Sorry, don’t mean to hate on whoever raised you I’m sure they had their reasons but it’s pure negligence! Would you like me to describe everything to you?”
“That would be great, I’d really appreciate that! Just assume I know nothing and start from the beginning that way I don’t miss out on anything I don’t yet know!”
She pats my hand gently. “Of course. Well as it’s told, something happened thousands of years ago which opened us all up to be able to see our status screens. I dunno what did it, if it were a God or or what but after that day everyone had access to their very own status screen. It helped because it showed us what we are capable of as it changed through our lives. Those who had high strength could do jobs such as blacksmith or warrior or townsguard. High dexterity lead people to being good scouts and so forth. Working hard boosts those stats a bit as well! A strong person lifting heavy objects every day for work might get a strength point every 6 months to a year, it really helps if your career follows what you’re good at. And knowing your level always helps to keep you on track because the only way to raise a stat besides grueling work is to level and hope the points raise in something you are using. Like when I was a young woman and I hit level five helping the Anders’ family clear out a group of Goblins who attacked his pasture, I was ecstatic because I got a point in constitution and was able to help run the farm a bit better as I tired less often!” She smiled while she reminisced.
Stolen story; please report.
“I see Gerty, so how many points in stats do you normally get every time you level? And if it’s not a secret what level are you? I’m not sure what levels are common for people!”
“Dear I don’t mean to be rude but you are on the short end of knowing a single damn thing!” She bellowed out a laugh again. Boy is she a jolly woman! Or is she just laughing at me? Oh well. “I myself am level 9 which for someone working a farm her whole life is really good! The men who get us meats and skins and other goods through use of the local dungeon all make it up to level 16 or so by the time they retire. Getting levels doesn’t just happen every day! It’s hard work! As to your ideas about points per level that is outrageous! You’re lucky to get a point on a level! In my 9 levels I only ever got 3 extra stat points. And that was actually lucky, old Benjamin that supplies the eggs from his farm is level 13 and only ever got one point from a level. Not even unlucky, that’s closer to normal than my 3 points!”
I sat contemplating the 2 points I got from my level. Also a skill point. I’m getting so many benefits I’m actually starting to feel bad haha. Wonder if I’ll still get 2 stat points next level or if that was a rare or legendary upgrade somehow. “I see Gerty, that’s a lot to think on! What about points for skills?”
“What’s that? Skills? There’s no skills on your status screen! Never heard of anyone being able to see skills before, not in my lifetime nor even in a story! Imagine that! Hah!”
“You never tried thinking ‘skills’ the way you status?” I asked.
“Never needed to but wouldn’t that be a doggone hoot! I’ll try now just to placate you but if you’re able to be seeing skills then I am wondering about your mental health young one. No one has that ability, we just learn as we go.” She screwed her face up like she was trying to think really hard about something. “Nope, thought ‘skills’, ‘skill screen’, and even ’skill status’ and nothing popped up! Well that’s a bit of a lie, when I thought ‘skills status’ my normal status screen popped up! Wouldn’t that have been something? Are you saying you have the ability to see skills?”
I didn’t want to lie to her any more than I already had but I wasn’t going to go giving my secrets away on the first day, even if she is a nice old motherly woman. “Nope I just heard about it in a story once! Maybe I should pay attention to what’s fact and what’s fiction!” Damn I really need to learn what the norm is so I don’t accidentally say something about my extra menus. I’m not even going to ask about the visual displays of stat and skill gains, best to just keep it to myself for now. Besides, if what she says is true it sounds like leveling is very hard! But.. I somehow don’t think that applies to me. “Gerty what was that about a local dungeon?”
“Oh yes dear, I was going to bring it up to you tomorrow to see if you wanted to try to get a level and maybe some supplies for your trip by going in for a bit! Our local dungeon is low level so you should be fine on the first floor.”
Dungeons? That is both scary and awesome! Level grind city! “Could you tell me about dungeons? I’m starting to think I was actually neglected since I don’t know anything about them either!” Gerty looked at me like she was about to cry and I felt bad for stating it like that, since I had never had a day of neglect in my life. But something had to account for my ignorance so it might as well have been a false story of childhood neglect.
“Sure honey I’ll describe ‘em for you, I’d really love to help you fill in those gaps in knowledge so your future isn’t stunted on account of your upbringing! Poor girl. To start off, dungeons are portals to an alternate space in reality. You walk through and it sends you to a new place. They can range from the size of a small cave all up on to possibly continent size though that would only be epic of legendary dungeons and as far as I know no one can get far enough in them to tell how big they are. Each one is different though, some based off of the land they are found in, like ours, some are completely randomized. Ours is low level on the starter floors but it’s at least 5 floors deep and I’m not sure anyone here has ever gotten to the last floor so it could be much deeper. When you enter a portal you will be alone, no one knows how to enter a portal together but they have tried everything, up to and including holding hands while walking through the portal. After entering time is for all intents and purposes stopped. You can spend a year in a dungeon and when you come out it’ll have only been about an hour that has truly passed. You don’t age while in a dungeon so it’s perfect for training, though we don’t exactly know why that is, it’s just a part of the magic. If you die in the portal your body is gone, it’s grim but that’s the truth. So if you go in and after a while you don’t come out we know what happened. That being said, dungeons provide items, gear, meats from the monsters to cook and pelts to make clothing and leather for armor and so much more. When my pa was a boy one of the farmers went in to get some meat and came out hollerin’ up a storm. Turns out he killed a regular old Goblin and it dropped a ring of stamina which gave him plus 10 to stamina which basically made him the town hero with how much he was able to do in a day with all that extra stamina! I’m sure I’ve missed some details but that’s all I can think of for now.”
So much to think on but I definitely wanted to get into that dungeon tomorrow. “Thank you so much Gerty you’re saving my life more than once here, first room in your barn loft, then stew, now you’re educating me, I was truly lucky that you talked to me!” I got up and gave her a short awkward hug and then sat back in my seat. She seemed flustered.
“Now now, all in a day’s work! Just remember to pay it forward some day when you can! Now its well past dark, lemme show you to the loft so you can get comfortable and get a good night’s rest as I’m sure you’re plum tuckered out.” Gerty got up, grabbed a lantern, lit it, and waited for me to follow her so I obediently did just that.
Outside was warm with a pleasant breeze, I was worried it would be cold in the barn but now I doubted it. Gerty showed me into the barn and walked me over to the loft.
“Now I aint been up there in years but I have the Miller boy clean it out every month or so to make sure nothing starts livin’ up there so it should be just fine. Scoot on up there and make sure everything is hunky dory would you?” She said while handing me the lantern. I took it and headed up the ladder slowly, peeking over the edge with the lantern held up. Looked fine to me. I set the lantern down as I lifted myself up to the loft and picked it back up to check the recesses. Nothing, perfectly clean.
“Looks good Gerty, I don’t know who the Miller boy is but seems like he’s been doing a good job!”
“wonderful! Then I’ll leave you to it for now, feel; free to keep the lantern but please shut it off before you go to sleep so there aint no accidents, there might not be a use for the barn right now but I still don’t want it burnt down! Do you need anything else?”
“No, I’m good I already have a sleeping bag! Thank you very much again Gerty! I think tomorrow I might have a go at the dungeon, it’s as you said I need supplies for when I take my leave!” I smile over the edge of the loft while waving to Gerty.
“Very well dear sleep tight, the dungeon awaits in the morn!” She smiles and waves and walks out of the side door to the barn and closes the door.
I set my sleeping bag up away from the ladder area so I don’t roll off and break something, then I crawled into it. So much to think about, and this is the first time all day I have felt safe enough to just be still and focus. I closed my eyes and thought of my status screen and I was happy to see that with my conscious effort I was able to see the screen even with my eyes closed. I thought of my skills screen and focused on that one unallocated skill point. Next to each skill I had was a + mark. I really think magic is the way to go at least to start out. Well I guess everything is the way to go to start out but I doubt most people have magic at my level so I had best make the best use of it that I can! I mentally nudged the + next to (Weak) Fireball: LVL 2, and it dutifully ticked over to LVL 3.
Okay, time to go through the settings and see what that’s all about. Maybe I can set the world to EZ Mode HAH! Thinking of settings brought me to a screen.
SETTINGS >
MUSIC >
HUD >
AFTER ACTION REPORT [OFF]
Okay let’s start with the one that don’t have deeper menus, what is After Action Report? Focusing on it a little info screen popped up.
[AFTER ACTION REPORT IS A TOGGLEABLE SETTING THAT WILL AUTOMATICALLY TURN OFF CERTAIN HUD NOTIFICATIONS WHILE YOU ARE IN A FIGHT WITH THE ENEMY OR OTHERWISE ENGAGED IN SOMETHING THAT REQUIRES FOCUS. YOU WILL STILL RECEIVE VITAL KNOWLEDGE SUCH AS NOTIFICATIONS THAT YOU HAVE BEEN POISONED BUT SKILL OR STAT RAISES AND SUCH WILL BE HELD OFF UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO SEE THEM. WHEN THIS IS TOGGLED ON YOU JUST HAVE TO THINK “REPORT” AFTER ANY SUCH SITUATIONS TO SEE A LIST OF EVERYTHING YOU MISSED.]
Ah, that would’ve helped against the wolf, not having everything pop up at once. I immediately toggled it [ON]. Next, I looked at music. Another window with selections.
PEACEFUL MODE MUSIC [OFF]
ATMOSPHERIC MODE MUSIC [OFF]
ENEMY ENGAGEMENT MUSIC [OFF]
Huh.. that is hilarious. I looked closer at Enemy Engagement Music
[ENEMY ENGAGEMENT MUSIC WILL AUTOMATICALLY TURN ON A SEMI-INTENSE BUT LOW VOLUME SOUNDTRACK WHEN YOU BECOME ENGAGED WITH AN ENEMY GO ON A KILLING SPREE WITH AN EPIC SCORE IN THE BACKGROUND!]
Uh, quite comical but totally not my thing! I’m not going to even bother with the other music selections, I like quiet contemplation over background music any day of the week. I went back to the settings menu and mentally selected the last option, [HUD]. Instead of a new window I got a mental list of what I would call standard RPG Heads Up Display elements. I understood intrinsically that I would be able to rearrange everything to exactly how I wanted it. I chose MP to appear as a bar in blue in the middle at the very bottom of my vision, offset to the left. Then I chose Stamina and had it show up in yellow in the same area but offset to the right. I chose HP so show up in red just above both bars stretched to fit with them. I toggled the numeric values on so that those would show over their corresponding color coded bars. I was able to toggle on a map overlay so I put that in the top left corner of my vision and set it to rotate with me so it always faced the direction I was facing. I slotted a Quest list to the top right of my vision. There were options for “quick slots” available so I wouldn’t have to go into inventory for whatever I needed so I made a row of them on either side next to the MP and Stamina bars and put my sword into one of them, and torches into another. Would be a good place to put potions once I get them, if those are a thing here. I put rations, my canteen, rope, and bandages all in quick slots. I also put rowanwood coins and copper coins on the quick slots and left 2 slots empty. I then set everything to be almost completely transparent unless my eye focus was on that specific area on my screen.
With all that set I backed out and opened my eyes to see how it looked. To be honest, freaky! Like I’m living in a game world! Which I guess I kinda am? I used the quick slot to pull out a rowanwood coin and looked at it. Looked like a normal coin but made out of wood, the wood giving off a slight shine like it was semi magical. It had an eagle with is wings spread on one side and a crown of thorns on the other. I put it back in my inventory and pulled out a copper coin. Same size as the rowanwood. Same style too only obviously copper, but had the same symbols on it. I took the time to check out the silver and gold as well and they were all identical with the exception of what they were made of.
The last thing I did was look over the new skills, Sneak was obvious and just gave me an increased chance to not be noticed while sneaking. Loot was kind of interesting.
[LOOT: USED TO LOOT MONSTERS AND ENEMY CORPSES OF THEIR GOODS, AND TO AUTOMATICALLY SKIN AND SEPARATE ANY PERTINANT PARTS. ANYTHING MAGICAL WILL FALL TO THE GROUND. AT HIGHER LEVELS YOU MAY GET BETTER OR MORE VARIED GOODS. HIGH LEVEL LOOT ABILITY CAN RETRIEVE ITEMS FROM MONSTERS THAT CANNOT BE GOTTEN ANY OTHER WAY. THESE ITEMS ARE EXTREMELY RARE AND MAY BE WORTH A LOT.]
Seems like I’m going to have to level that as well! Despite my nerves to be in fights I’m really looking forward to going into the dungeon tomorrow! I decide to get some rest since my walk through the woods was quite exerting. Closing my eyes it takes barely any time before I drift off.