(Bowen’s Perspective)

I familiarize myself with my All-Weapon, In its basic form, it comes in the shape of a huge Bowie knife about 14 inches long complete with its own sheath. I think of various weapons and it changes instantly to anything I can think up. Imbuing it is as simple as thinking “Fire Bow” and it becomes one. The bow itself doesn't turn to flame or anything crazy, it simply glows red for fire, blue for water, etc. I strap the sheathe to my side and move on.

I didn't know if Tor was completely right thinking that someone was giving me an advantage out here, but he knew about this System a lot more than I did, so I was going to pay attention to what he said from now on. I was going to need to get moving soon, so I went back inside the ranger station and started to put my gear together. I stripped whatever I could from the station that I thought would be needed for the trek out without overloading myself. I found one of those old leather Bota water bags and filled it and slipped it into my pack as a backup. I also raided the shelves in the kitchenette of three bags of Jack Links beef jerky and nuts and trail mix. I tossed on my backpack with all of my normal gear, closed up the station, and headed out.

The ranger's station on this mountain was a good 25 miles to the little town of Scagway. On a normal day of hiking, I could do a good 15 to 20 miles if I pushed it and stayed out late. This area, however, was very wild and untamed, not to mention I was going to be sneaking and avoiding monsters. I figured that I would be spending a minimum of two nights out in the wild. I had the Earthlodge perk that I could tuck away in some out of the way corner to sleep in, so I wasn't too worried about the night, but thinking about getting past the monsters was making me nervous.

Scagway was southeast of my location, but heading down this mountain would take me in a northerly direction. At the base of this hill was a large clearing and then a small lake which fed into a stream that turned into a small river as the snow melted this time of the year. I was going to have to skirt around the west side of the lake and then head a bit up onto the next mountain to avoid the water.

I knew from experience that the lake and river were going to have all kinds of wildlife around it. I was going to have to be hiking on the sides of mountains to bypass the valley with the water and this was going to cost me a lot of time, but it would definitely be safer. I pulled up a pair of binoculars and scanned the area below me and saw no movement. Realizing I was delaying the inevitable start to this I sighed, put the binoculars away, and started down the hill.

As I took maybe my fifth step a wall of text appeared before my eyes:

Congratulations. You survived an entire day! You humans really are an excellent bunch. Only 60% of you died yesterday. We are impressed. Have a cookie. And some experience. Remember, monster spawning will increase over the next week.

I halt mid-step and have to stop myself from screaming at the top of my lungs. I turn and look back at Tor who is standing still with his head bowed down at the ground. I think he is silently weeping. The sight of it stirs something deep inside of me. 60% of the human race died yesterday and this asshole who is writing out these messages said “Have a cookie... If I ever find out who wrote that...” I force it out of my mind. “Focus on one thing at a time.” I jam the grief way back into the far end of my brain and force myself to start walking. I hedge to the left of the trees and slip into the first path I see. I crouch a bit and slowly start sneaking down the hill, hyper-alert, all of my attention focused on sound and sight.

Skill Acquired

Fox Walk (Level 1)

Moving silently through the woods is second nature for you.

I whisper “Hey Tor, can you get rid of all of the common notices about skills and XP? I only want to be notified by important things OK? I don't need to be distracted.” I look over and he silently nods. Having Tor silently track behind me like a shadow is weird, but I am grateful for his company.

Tor sends to me, “Let's get in the habit of talking mind to mind. You will need this skill to become second nature.”

I reply back to him “Yeah, you're right, I already forgot about that, I do need to burn it into my mind thank you.”

An hour later and I'm nearing the bottom of the mountain. I can see the small lake

about a half-mile to my south. There is a large open meadow with nothing but tall grasses and flowers to my east that I am going to have to cross and it is making me nervous. I start to scan all around me when I see movement coming from the northeast about a half mile out. It looks like a big wolf and it looks like it is headed straight for me!

“Fuck me!” I say to Tor. “There is a wolf thing coming right for us!”

“I can use the rifle and take it down, but it will still make a bit of noise even though it is baffled, do you think I should risk it?”

Tor says “I doubt that non system generated rifle will kill it, think you can take it with the All-weapon as a bow?”

I am decent with a bow but not an expert by any means... I am already pulling the rifle off of my shoulder and taking a knee. The thing is moving fast and panic is starting to set in.

I line up my shot through the iron sights on the big gun. I have fired rifles thousands of times in my lifetime and am considered a marksman. I squeeze the trigger and see the bloom of a hit right in the chest of the wolf. The shot knocks the beast off of its feet and I let out a chestful of air that I had been holding in.

Then the wolf stands up and starts running again! I chamber another round and shoot again. I hit the wolf in almost the exact same spot and it almost flies back a full yard before falling again. I can see some movement as the damn thing is still alive, so I chamber another and put one into the side of its head. The wolf looks to be down, but I notice a paw move again.

I quickly slip behind a nearby tree and reload the gun and force myself into total stillness. Animals don't have a super great vision, and being still is the best thing you can do so they don't detect you.

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Tor says “Use your Gecko skin dummy!” I mentally slap myself upside the head for already forgetting the skill and I use it, blending into the hillside. It's too late though, I can see the movement of what looks to be four more wolves trotting in my direction. Probably my injured friend's pack!

With my camouflage activated I am 100% sure that the wolves can't see me, but this doesn't matter. Wolves have an exceptional sense of smell and even though they can't see me, they know my general direction and can smell me. I bring my gun to bear and fire my first shot at the wolf leading the pack. I hit it in the throat and it barely goes down.

The pack picks up speed and is now running full tilt in my direction. There is one wolf that is noticeably bigger than the other three so I take aim for him. I go for the full chest hit, but the wolf had swerved a bit and my shot hits it right near the top of its front leg at the joint. I hear a pained howl and the big wolf goes down in a tumble.

I notice in the back of my mind that the first wolf is back up but struggling towards me, but I have other worries. The wolves are now running in an erratic bouncing motion side to side. I fire my final shot at the new leader but miss as he jukes to the left and I know I don't have time to reload.

The wolves are about fifty yards away and will be here in seconds. I pull my All-Weapon thinking fire sword and watch as it starts to glow when Tor yells into my mind “Screw the sword boy, use that huge bear!” In a flash, I think of the bear and feel myself transform. I use the bear's Charge skill and take off in a burst of speed. Two things flash through my bear mind at this point. (Bear has skills?) (This is going to fucking hurt!)

Grizzlys can run up to about 35 mph in a charge, but this is no normal Grizzly. After 20 yards I had to have been hitting upwards of 50 miles per hour, and when I hit the first wolf it is like a tank hitting a motorcycle. Before the animal exploded I noticed that it has huge saber teeth sticking out of its mouth.

I crashed full force into the wolf barely feeling a thing (DIE!) the bear screams, but I go down into a roll after crushing it and feel pain in the back of my neck. I get back up onto my paws and find out that the second wolf had already leaped onto my back (Filthy Son of a Bitch!) and sunk its teeth into me! My fur and fat have taken away any serious damage, but it still hurts like hell. I do what any bear would do and stand up on my back paws to a height of about 13 feet. The wolf is still hanging on, teeth sunk deep inside me. I jumped up as high as I can and arch my back backward (SUPLEX!). I surprise myself as I spring about 6 feet into the air and land right onto my back, hearing a satisfying crack as I shatter the wolf's entire backbone.

I rolled and got to my feet, (er paws), and saw the first wolf I had shot running at me in that skittering manner that made me think he was going to try and juke me and get in behind me. I charge at him and trigger maul (Yer fucked wolfy!). I can feel the bear in her fury taking my mind over. She is taking over my speech and making decisions without me.

I leaped at him like a linebacker coming up behind a QB and engulf his body. My mouth was already opened roaring so I grab his entire face in my jaws and started mauling it! (YUM!) The wolf is struggling to rake his back legs down my chest and to do some damage with his claws, but I am enraged and bite down harder (Hmm, good? Tasty?). I crush his head like a melon and get the delightful taste of Sabertooth Wolf brain in my mouth...

I drop the carcass and turned to see that the last wolf was limping away from me trying to make an escape (Get back here!). Instinct kicks in and I can't stop myself from charging after him. I jumped about 3 feet away from him and land on his back flattening him like a pancake (Tiny weak wolf!). The wolf probably died right there and then, but that didn't stop me from savaging him. I tear down into the back of his neck and pick him up to flail him around like a ragdoll. As I drop the corpse instinct once again takes over and I stand to my full 13 feet and roar my victory for the world to hear! (I AM THE TOUGHEST IN THIS VALLEY! I KILL YOU ALL AND EAT YOUR BRAINS!)

I sheepishly looked around embarrassed of my bear self and trot back to where I had dropped my rifle. I was about to change back when the adrenaline starts to wear off and I noticed two things. 1. I am very, very hungry and 2. My stomach and chest are pretty torn up and I am bleeding.

I send a thought to Tor, “My physical regen is +50% in animal form, I'm going to stay like this for a few until I heal. Do you think I can loot those corpses in bear form? Nevermind, don't bother answering I am going to go try.”

I walked back to the corpses as I was starting to hurt a little from my wounds and laid a paw to the body. Sure enough, I was rewarded with some Sabertooth Wolf meat and a pelt. I looted the other corpses and headed back to Tor.

Getting a hold of the wolf steaks is simple, even as a bear. I open my inventory and focus on steak and pow, it's in my claws. I sit back and enjoy my meal as only a bear can... messily.

The meat is huge, it reminds me of the giant Brontosaurus steak Fred Flintstone used to eat in his cartoons. Six steaks later I am still hungry, but my wounds have stopped bleeding and except for feeling sore I am much better. I shift back to human form and almost blackout from the pain. My chest feels like someone has been using it as a heavy punching bag. I lay on my back at stare up at the tree I am lying next to thinking that I will have to remain transformed next time until I am fully healed. “Live and learn” I whisper to myself.

Ready to once again move out, I trigger Gecko skin and slowly make to move across the meadow. I can see some creature at the far end of the lake, but it's pretty far away and I feel comfortable moving on. The grass in the meadow is higher than I thought, about four feet high, so I crouch and slowly start creeping through it. The field is about 100 yards across where I am at. About 50 yards in I can see some of the grass being pushed aside.

I pull the All-Weapon and once again think “fire sword” I get a 19th century Tlingit short sword that reminds me of a glowing red Roman Gladius. I'm about 20 yards from making it out of the field when whatever is in the grass catches up to me.

It's a snake... A Tundra snake! We don't have snakes in Alaska... I am frozen for a second, unsure of what to do. I slash my sword at it, missing of course, and a scorching swath of grass smokes and hisses. The snake swerves back and keeps its beady little eyes on me as it thinks about how it can kill me. I slowly start backing away keeping my sword between myself and the reptile. I almost fall over backward as the damn thing launches itself at me in a burst of unnatural speed. With no time to smack it with my sword, I do the only thing I can and bring my hands up to snatch it, and find myself with both hands wrapped around its body about three inches below its head. I'm falling to the ground before I realize that the snake has gotten its body wrapped around my ankles and I almost lose my grip. It is very quickly starting to coil itself up my legs and I start to lose my shit. I have seen this movie before and it never ends well for the human.

I start squeezing its (neck?) as hard as I can and grasp that I don't have enough body strength to hurt this thing. The coils are nearing my waist when I think of the strongest armed animal in the jungle and a second later I am in the body of a Silverback Gorilla!

(This snake is a joke to me!) I start to apply some real pressure. The snake uncoils from me and starts writhing like crazy trying to get away. I feel a pop and look down to see a mashed pulp of what remains of the top of the snake's body (Pussy!). I start to bring the snake up to my mouth for a big bite when my human side kicks in and I throw the snake down in disgust! “What the fuck!” I almost took a slurp of the smashed snake! I really need to look into this and get some control over my animal forms. Who knows what disgusting crap I might be shoving into my face if I don't get it together!

I change back to human and loot the snake. I look over my shoulder and can see several different sets of grasses swishing and know I have to get out of here fast, and I make a change.

I think of this little bird called the Needletail Swift that can fly over 100 mph, and then I am zooming out of the meadow (I am FREEEE!) and up the hill to the treeline when something clips me sending me into a crash landing. Before I hit the ground I think “LYNX!” My body twists and I land on my feet as all cats can do. I turn and see a snow-white fox the size of a German shepherd running up at me. I need something bigger... “Bengal Tiger!” I switch bodies. (Sorry puny, slow, baby, tasty fox!). I swear I can hear the fox think “Oh hell no!” and it tries to swerve and run around me. I reach out with my huge claws and spear the thing (I'm too fast, Gotcha!), dragging it to my mouth. I quickly crush its throat and there is no stopping the Bengal as he takes a huge mouthful of meat and chews it down…

(Prrrr Mmmm tasty blood Prrr)

Even with a huge bite taken out of the fox I still loot a beautiful pelt. “This will make me an awesome pillowcase,” I think to myself. Then I feel something in the air. Something electrical, something not quite right.

I hear a loud roaring sound from up on the mountain, and then I feel the ground shake from a huge explosion. I change into the bear and start to run straight up the mountainside.