To say Tilly had slept would be a vast overstatement. He spent the night wedged between two fat tree limbs with the burnt Jakalope meat wrapped in a bundle of fat leaves he had pulled from a nearby tree. The night had passed fretfully as he shifted from one extremely uncomfortable position to another.
He had managed to doze off a few times but was frequently awoken by pain from his sleeping position, or the sound of different creatures moving through the forest below him.
He finally “awoke” to 100% Health 100% Mana and a Minor Exhaustion debuff.
He mentally pinged the debuff and was surprised at an actual explanation.
- After sleeping in an environment not conducive to rest, you are afflicted with Minor Exhaustion. -10% Endurance, Dexterity, and Intelligence for 10 hours.
Caution! If you are affilicted with Minor Exhaustion debuff three nights in a row it will be upgraded to Exhaustion.
Well, he added better sleeping arrangements to his growing mental to-do list and absently reached for his burnt meat bundle.
After choking down a few mouthfuls of the Jakalope meat, he gingerly climbed down from his perch and looked around warily to make sure the area was clear. Something he hadn't noticed last night in his rush was how easy it was to scale the tree. While the night had passed painfully and slowly, he hardly needed to stretch before he felt the lingering effects of the terrible sleeping surface recede.
'Looks like my Health Regen would take care of small aches and pains as long as I don't have too many debuffs.'
He dropped from the final limb with something that could have been mistaken for cat-like grace. In a fit of inspiration, he decided to draw both his hatchets at the same time with a flourish and they pulled from their loops smoothly. He hadn't had time last night, but his extra points in Dexterity were really showing.
“Well hello future superpowers…” he said as he flipped one of his weapons and caught it deftly. The motion seemed trivial, and he repeated it with both hands, unable to keep a smile from blooming on his face.
He wouldn't have called himself uncoordinated in his past life, but he was now certainly displaying abilities beyond what he could do even in the prime of his youth. He looped both hatchets back into his pants and lifted his leather jacket excitedly to see if the new changes had included abs.
Nope.
The same disappointing dad-bod paunch looked back up at him, exuding a comfortable level of sluggishness, even in the face of Tilly's burgeoning superpowers.
“I guess it's gonna be a few weeks of the carnivore diet before I say goodbye to you old friend.” He said, patting his jiggly abdomen like a favored pet.
He then crossed over the stream to his “camp” which for now was just a ring of rocks and looked around, finding it pretty much undisturbed. He knew he was going to have to level if he was going to stay alive long enough to worry about things like real shelter and finding the actual inhabitants of this plane. He leaned against his big rock and took some time to think through his situation.
Just because he had survived the night didn’t mean he was ready to rush off and go full murder-hobo. He didn't have much to show from his last life, but he sure as hell knew how to manage time and resources when it came to gaming.
First, he needed to know exactly what he was capable of with his weapons. Hopefully, he could unlock one or two other useful skills in the process. He had Basic Hatchet at level 9 and he wondered if that just represented his current skill or if it was augmenting what he could already do like his Forestcraft had last night.
Then he had to find some of these other weird imagination/dream creatures and hope they were edible. That way he could kill two birds with one stone when it came to leveling and building up his food supply. The Jackalope would probably last him two more meals... It had been pretty lean, but on the plus side with the head gone, none of that black stuff had been present in the rest of the meat.
Finally, he had to find some sort of high point and get his bearings. If he could spot some sign of civilization he would happily stop being survivor-man and head toward whatever passed as people in this place.
'Dwarves… I hope its Dwarves.'
Something about the accents, the drinking, and the axes had always spoken to him. But all of that was in the future. First, he had to make sure he lived long enough to get there. He took a deep breath and reached down to draw his weapons and get started.
He was about to start practicing when his blinking icon finally got his attention. It had been flashing away merrily all night and Tilly had just given up looking at it. It was insane how fast that thing had become background noise when it blinked at him all the time, especially when most of the notifications were details he didn't need in the moment. He might have to set up a new method for notifications in the future, but for now, it was too dangerous to leave them to pop up whenever something happened with the System. Which seemed to be all the time.
He mentally opened the notification log and was surprised and annoyed by how the game quantified his attempted night's sleep.
-.02% of health damage taken from a large tree limb.
-.02% of health damage taken from a large tree limb.
-.02% of health damage taken from a large tree limb.…
It went on and on like that and he assumed that he had taken damage all night, but it had not been enough to outpace his passive regeneration. There had to be a way to filter out some of this detail, having this notification show up every time he stubbed a toe or something would be unbelievably annoying, and it would keep him from finding the stuff that actually mattered.
“System, can you remove any damage notifications that don't result in a net loss to my health?”
The log instantly shortened and he was left with a very pleasant surprise.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Congratulations! You have survived your first night in the wilderness!
Forestcraft level up! Level 8.
Congratulations! You have learned the skill; Stealth.
Stealth - Discretion is the better part of valor. Your attempts to avoid detection are more successful than most.
-You have successfully avoided detection by a very dangerous hostile creature.
-You have successfully avoided detection by a dangerous hostile creature.
-You have successfully avoided detection by a hostile creature….
Notifications like the last three had come disconcertingly frequently through the night and Tillys’ only solace was that he had received some great leveling for Stealth out of the crazy dangerous environment.
Stealth level up! Level 1
Stealth level up! Level 2…
Stealth level up! Level 6
It looked like this forest was much more active at night... That did not bode well for his future in these woods. Tilly shrugged off the dread that wanted to encroach on his happy moment. Instead, he decided he was on a roll and drew a hatchet. He wasn't ashamed to admit that the motion had a few needless flourishes, the Dexterity boost was just too fun to ignore.
He stepped forward gracefully and chopped the weapon down diagonally across his body. The motion felt good. Not quite the same as forcing entry on a door, or chopping through walls to find possible fire extensions. But near enough that the motion felt at home in his body. Like sitting in your favorite chair in the living room. He tried a few more moves and found that the hatchet felt exceedingly comfortable in his hand as he moved through imaginary enemies.
The weapon was only slightly smaller than the axe he had carried on his belt for decades, and he had used that thing for all kinds of interior work over the years. Whatever else was true about this Class, the starting weapons were perfect.
Feeling confident, he went ahead and drew his second weapon and started trying to chain attacks. He immediately found the motions awkward, even with his newly improved Dexterity. It felt like all of his Skill assisted grace had drained away, now that he held a second weapon. He disappointedly popped open his merrily blinking notification screen.
Caution! You do not meet the prerequisite skill to wield two small weapons at once. -50% penalty to Dexterity while wielding two weapons at once.
“Of course, Dual-Wielding is a thing here! And it is very much a skill I don't have from my previous life.” He grunted.
Nonetheless, he continued to step forward and hack down at an angle alternating each arm in a motion that felt awkward as hell with a hatchet in each hand. It was extremely frustrating that something that had felt so natural just a moment before could be nerfed down by such an arbitrary change.
He went on like that for 15 min and built up a deep burn in his forearms and wrists from the repetitive motions. Finally, he stopped. He was panting and felt the familiar sensation of being drenched with sweat under thick clothing.
He glanced hopefully at his notification Icon and saw it just sitting there smugly staring back at him with unblinking eyes…or eye. Or whatever.
Looks like he would have to do more than just repetitive swings to learn a new Skill. The others seemed to have been awarded to him after he accomplished some sort of feat with the skill. Unfortunately, that probably meant he was going to have to learn this one in real combat...
Tilly cringed at the thought, but before he let his anxiety begin to spiral, he hardened his expression and tamped down any thoughts of complaint or worry. This was his new life and he was going to try his damndest to make it count. There was no escaping this reality. No video game to go veg out and play, or bar top to stare at over cheap whiskey... This time it was nut up or shut up, and unlike the Fire Department, there was no end of shift.
Before he could find any reasons not to, he took a long drink of water and started moving upstream hoping to stumble across something that he could level against without being outright killed.
He cautiously followed the treeline ready to hightail it across the stream or up some tree if he had to.
Identify still wasn't working for him as he tried to look deeply at different plants and natural features. He sighed, he knew from Forestcraft that the fragrant herb growing around the stream bed was good to burn along with food to hide its scent, but it would be nice to know other information about it… like if it was edible or poisonous.
As he continued to move upstream his stomach grumbled and he grimaced in consternation as the urge to have a bowel movement started building in his lower abdomen.
“Guess these haven’t been magicked away either.” He grumbled to himself looking down at his abdomen in accusation.
One thing he had definitely learned at the fire station was to always go when you have the urge. Nothing was worse than being on scene, fighting fire and all you were thinking about was finding a place to take a dump. Many foolish firefighters have been known to search out a bathroom in a burning building and drop trow right there, consequences be damned.
With that sage wisdom in mind, he moved into the treeline and found some fat tan leaves hanging from a shorter tree. He plucked one from the dwarf tree and rubbed it between his fingers. He was pleased to find the leaf to have a supple feel, yet a soft strong surface that didn't break or tear as he rubbed it against itself.
He sighed and looked around for a place to do the deed. Moving next to some nearby bushes, he dropped his pants and squatted down. Everything came out okay, and nothing jumped out of the forest to attack him in his moment of vulnerability. He used a few of the leaves to clean up, then awkwardly kicked some dirt over the evidence of his humanity.
He grinned up at the short tree that had made what was usually a miserable experience much more bearable.
“I dub you Charmin Leaf Tree,” He said, taking a moment to nod to the sapling.
Then he noticed that his notification icon had started blinking and he opened his log in surprise.
Congratulations! You have discovered a new valid entry into the Herb Lore Codex. Notify any qualified Alchemist or Herbalist to add it to the Codex.
Congratulations! You have learned the skill Herb Lore by discovering a new previously unknown use for a piece of flora on Nephesh.
-Herb Lore - Mana infuses everything on Nephesh, you have become a student of the unique effects this has on its plant life.
Herb Lore Level up! Level 1
Herb Lore Level up! Level 2
Tilly barked out a laugh at finally figuring out how to Identify plants. He couldn’t wait to find some herbalist somewhere and inform them of his discovery. He excitedly reached to pluck some more leaves from the tan tree but froze as several gurgling yips sounded from deeper in the forest, answered by a loud snort and the clickety-clack of hard objects colliding.
Tilly’s hands immediately dropped the leaves and found his hatchets, clutching the handles tightly. This was it... he would have to try himself against the inhabitants of this forest eventually and it sounded like there was already a conflict playing out nearby. He wouldn't get a better chance than this.
Putting any doubts aside, he took a deep breath and drew one of his weapons moving cautiously through the undergrowth towards the sound of combat, leaving the Charmin Tree behind, forgotten and alone.