Heading upstream away from the mercs, Kael thought about how he was now in the same position he was when he first left. This time though, he was better prepared. I still have no idea what my dad wanted of me. The idea of taking risks seems good to hone your skills, but to make me advance, I am not so sure I’m on his wavelength. Running up the river until night fell, he climbed a tree and wedged himself between two branches before falling asleep.

The next morning he decided to cross the river to be sure he was not bothered by the Rose Mercenaries. However, his hammer was way too heavy to swim it. Sighing, he began to examine the wood around him. After about a half an hour he found a tree called River’s Sequoia, whose statistics were light and buoyant. Hoping it would be enough he chopped down the three-foot thick tree and began to collect vines. Heaping all of the materials near the side of the river, he began to make his raft. With the practice he had from making the doors it went pretty fast. When finished he had an 8 foot wide, 12-foot long raft. Looking it over, he was still worried about the weight of his hammer.

Heading back out into the forest he found another River’s Sequoia and chopped it down. Cutting three 12 foot chunks from it, he fastened them to what would be the bottom of his raft. Going back to the tree he chopped down, he found a thick 20-foot branch and shaved the smaller branches off it. Heading back to his raft, he lifted it up and flipped it over so the extra logs would be against the water. Dragging it about a third of the way into the water, he stopped when he felt the river beginning to tug on it. Loading up all of his gear, he double and triple checked that everything was tightly tied together. Grabbing his big tree branch he walked up to the landside edge of the raft, placed his foot against it, and gave it a good shove.

As the raft slid out into the water, Kael took a few steps and lept onto it. Thrusting his branch into the water he gave a huge shove, sending him out 10 feet towards the middle of the river. Just like he guessed when he first saw the river, the middle was fast. Giving another heave against the river bottom with his branch he shot himself another 10 feet out. Getting to the dead center of the river, he suddenly hit a small snag. His branch wasn’t long enough to reach the river floor anymore.

Riding it out for 10 minutes, he slowly drifted closer to the edge. Getting close enough to hit the bottom of the river with his pole, he rapidly launched himself into the opposite side. When the raft hit the shore, he jumped off, landing on the ground. Dropping his gear on the ground he quickly rushed knee-deep into the river to grab his raft. It’s so nice, it would be a pity not to leave it for some random person to take. He thought as he drug it out and onto the ground. Looking at the raft he felt a little proud. Annoyed that he did not get any experience he checked his character sheet to see what was wrong.

Reviewing his professions, he noted that after two months of making things from wood every day, his rank in carpentry rose to 3. He also had a subcategory under blacksmithing labelled weaponsmithing, of which he was rank 2. No idea why I stopped hearing notifications, but that’s cool, it was starting to give me a headache.

Dragging his raft about 5 feet in from the river, he picked up his pack and dashed off into the woods at full speed. Pondering why his heat raising steps would not increase in skill, he sucked it up and continued to push himself. After about 2 hours the night began to fall again, Just like previously, he climbed high into a tree, found a decent place, and went to sleep.

In the middle of the night, he was awoken by the sound of creaking wood. Sitting up he shifted to face the sound. With his legs now dangling off the side of one branch, he looked up to find himself staring at a monster cat about 10 feet away. Amazingly he heard a familiar voice go off in his head. Apparently thinking it broke made it work overtime.

  Soul has examined another living creature.

  Living creature, Night Devil Panther, has a favourable impression of the Soul. Impression level, Tasty.

  Disallowing examination due to impression level.

  Creatures level of threat to soul, Extreme.

  Make persistent efforts!

Fuck! He thought, just as the panther pounced towards him. Falling backwards to avoid the beast, the weight of his hammer drug him downward quickly. Continuing his backward tumble he flipped over, righting himself as he fell. He watched the Panther shoot past where he had been sitting and land on the side of another tree branch. Using the rebound from the branch it launched itself down at him again. Kicking off the trunk of the tree he launched himself out and away, causing the panther to miss again.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Trying to catch branches on his way down, the extreme weight of his pack ended up making them all break. After the panther's last miss, it caught a branch but had to scramble to stay on it, buying Kael some time. After breaking four or five branches he abruptly stopped as he hit the ground.

Glad those branches broke my fall. Standing up with the branches all around him, he looked up to see the panther jumping from branch to branch on its way down. Watching the cat rationality finally took hold of him. Unlike the bear, all he could sense from this thing was death. Turning around he started running. Activating heat raising steps for the extra speed he crashed through the forest at breakneck speeds.

After about two hours of running, he could still feel the thing behind him. Slowing to a jog, he looked over his shoulder to see the panther slow as well. It is just waiting for me to tire out.

Feeling around the back of his neck he could tell only two of the javelins survived the fall. Fishing one out, he calculated the trajectory of the panther and hurled the javelin. The panther seeing the javelin coming opened its mouth and spat out a black gas. The cloud of gas was so dark that Kael could clearly make it out in the middle of the dark night.

The javelin entered the cloud and what exited about a half second later was corroded bits of wood and about a third of the claw that once was its tip. The tip continued on to strike the panther in the flank but simply bounced off with no effect. What the fuck is this? Since when can panthers spit out toxic gas?

Bursting back into top speed Kael fled the area. After getting a little bit of distance he fell back into a jog. Considering he had never lost the cat yet, he was fairly certain it was faster than him. The only thing he could bet on now was being able to outlast it.

Jogging the entire night through the forest dawn finally broke. Looking over his shoulder the damn cat was still following him. Every once in a while through the night it would let out a growl as if to spur him on. Gritting his teeth he focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

3 hours later he was startled out of his trance as he nearly ran off a ravine. Looking down off the edge of the cliff he was standing on he could see a four to five hundred foot drop into whitewater rapids. Turning around he saw the panther walk into view. Pulling out his hammer, he stared the beast down while considering what he should do.

After about a minute of pacing back and forth in front of him, the panther started walking up to him. That’s a swagger, the goddamn cat is swaggering up to eat me. When the cat got to about 10 feet away he could see its muscle tensing. Not wanting to wait any longer, he simply made small jump backwards, which quickly resulted in him hurtling to the ground at terminal velocity.

In a moment of insanity he wondered, Just how fast does an earthward laden Kael fly.

  Soul is calculating its current speed. Current speed is 22.68 m/s.

  Calculating current weight versus distance to impact. Speed will increase to 47.68 m/s before impact.

  Impact impending in 4.87 seconds. Impact will generate 903,756 joules of energy.

  Converting joules to torque. Soul’s body will be inflicted with 665,797 pounds of torque upon landing.

  Make persistent efforts!

Seriously, this thing is pissed off that I called it broken or what? Fuuuck I will be reduced to less than a meat patty shortly.

Freaking out, Kael decided to impale the hammers spike into the cliff wall to slow him down. Flipping the hammer around he took the tightest grip he could then smashed it forward with all of his strength.

  Soul has taken an action of life perseverance.

  Initiating lucky chance of 15%.

  Luck has failed. Initiating Karma procedure. Karma expenditure under review.

  No other lives will be immediately harmed by this action.

  Action approved.

  Soul has additional free Karma.

  Burning 10 Karma to initiate life-saving measures.

Being too focused on his strike, he did not even register the sounds in his head. His hammers spike smashed into the stone wall of the cliff and was almost yanked out of his hands. Barely keeping his grip, he could feel his shoulders disconnect just before his elbows did. The back end of the hammer stayed in the stone and tore a hole through the stone wall as it ripped downwards. About two seconds later Kael came to a stop. Hanging about 50 feet over the water before losing his grip on his hammer and his consciousness. Drifting off into the comfortable arms of darkness his only regret was losing the handle that Raen had made for him.