I ended up with an A for the project and good feedback from the professors who had both graded the written and witnessed the presentation. I was happy with the results and sent a thank-you note to Dinesh for the hard work he did in getting the project done on time. He responded in kind and offered to hang out again sometime—however I was already home for the summer. I had plans with Grandpa Joe.
“What’s the plan with Grandpa Joe?” Dad asked me the morning after I returned home from college.
“He said he’d have everything ready to go and that he’ll pick me up Monday morning early.”
“Do you know what you’ll be doing?”
I shrugged.
“Well, I know he’s got your back,” Dad said. “Just… be careful. It’s dangerous out there.”
“Thanks, Dad. I will.”
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I got up early on Monday so I could be awake and ready to go before Grandpa Joe arrived. I was earing breakfast just as the sun began to peek over the horizon. As I was putting the spoon in my mouth, the doorbell rang. A bleary-eyed Dad went to open it. Outside—dressed in what looked like surplus army gear—was Grandpa Joe.
“You ready, kid?” he asked.
“Om mmmt!” I called back, my mouth still full.
“What was that?” he asked, walking inside.
I chewed quickly and swallowed.
“One moment. Almost done with breakfast.”
“Take your time,” he laughed.
While I ate, Grandpa Joe and Dad talked quietly. Dad was still half awake so I don’t think there was much of importance said between the two of them—just the pleasantries. When I was done eating, Dad gave me a hug.
“Stay safe,” he said with a yawn.
“Thanks, Dad. I’ll miss you.”
Dad waved when I left the trailer with Grandpa Joe. I climbed into the back of Grandpa Joe’s car. Next to me in the back of the car were two fully-loaded backpacks. The big one—Grandpa Joe’s, I assumed—had a tent attached to it along with many items on the outside. The smaller one looked just as stuffed with items. There were a few things hanging from it but not nearly as many as the bigger backpack.
“So what’ll we be doing?” I asked when we were on the highway.
“There’s a nice trail to hike about an hour from here,” he said. “Figured I could teach you a few things about surviving if you’d like.”
“Definitely! That was on my list.”
Grandpa Joe chuckled.
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The car came to a stop. The parking lot—if it could be called as such—was tiny. It was gravel with enough room for eight vehicles. I saw two others in the lot when I climbed out of the car. Grandpa Joe pulled both packs from the car.
“Let’s get yours on first so I can help you,” he said.
“I got it,” I waved him off.
The backpack was heavy but not too heavy. The stats from leveling made it feel half as heavy as it would have been otherwise. He grunted as he hefted his large backpack and secured it around his waist and over his shoulders. A final buckle across his chest snapped shut before he looked at me.
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Grandpa Joe led the way. The trail was well marked just past the edge of the parking lot. It was thickly wooded on both sides of the trail interspersed with brambles and shrubs. The forest appeared to be somewhat managed, so fallen trees were uncommon and I saw signs that controlled burns were used to clear the excess underbrush.
“When you’re out in the wild,” he said once the sound of the road had faded away, “always use your ears and your eyes. Keep your head on a swivel—keep looking around—and have your ears open to anything that sounds out of place. That includes quiet. If things are too quiet, that is also a sign something may be amiss.”
“Ok,” I said.
I did my best to keep my eyes and ears working, but it was difficult. I didn’t have the experience I needed to know what to look and listen for. The only way to get that experience was to practice and encounter situations to learn from.
We kept walking. The trail went up and down but primarily up away from the parking lot. I noticed subtle changes to the leaves on the ground and the types of trees around the trail. There were muddy sections—a consequence of recent rain—and little streams still running with water that might otherwise be dry. I regretted my choice of footwear as soon as my socks got wet. Grandpa Joe stopped at one of the medium-sized streams for a short break and to teach me something.
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“Getting water is important,” he said. “The problem are all the little creatures in it. You’ll need to boil the water or use water purification tablets before the water is safe to consume. The last thing you want is to get the runs out here. It’ll sap your energy and then you’re toast. Mother Nature is unforgiving.”
I nodded.
“I’ll show you how to filter and collect water safely when one of us needs a refill of their bottle.”
“Ok,” I said.
I followed him up the next hill. The trail became rocky. To one side was a steep drop and on the other a short cliff. The trail wound its way through a narrow flattened strip, climbing ever higher. Around the next corner, the trees were replaced by shorter shrubs. The trail was now solid rock that ran the ridge that marked the top of what we’d been climbing.
There was a shelter—a wooden lean-to with a fire pit—at the summit where we stopped to have lunch. Grandpa Joe had packed both freeze-dried and dense foods to eat for the week. For the first day, though, he packed more perishable items like fresh fruit and sandwiches.
“How’s the hike treating you?” he asked.
“It’s not bad,” I shrugged.
“Oh? And here I thought you’d struggle a little.”
“It’s the stats.”
“Stats? Like math?” he wondered.
“Like gaming numbers,” I explained.
I went over what I’d done and how that made it easier for me to lift the heavy pack.
“You mentioned skills. What did you take?”
“Identify, Stealth, and Tracking,” I said.
“How do they work?”
“Well, Identify shows me what things are. Stealth makes me harder to see—I think—and Tracking should let me follow or find things better.”
“You think? Should? Sounds to me like we need to do some testing!”
Grandpa Joe took two items off of his backpack—a hatchet and a small pouch.
“What does the skill say about these two items?” he asked.
I used Identify.
Object: Hatchet
Tier: 0
Object: Pouch
Tier: 0
I read what Identify told me.
“I see,” he said. “So it’s only giving you really basic information. For the hatchet, it’s not telling you that it’s made of steel or that it was manufactured by a friend of mine. The pouch holds the fire-starter and some tinder. You weren’t able to see that with the skill. Can you try the skill again now that I’ve told you more about them?”
I nodded and Identified both objects again.
Object: Hatchet
Tier: 0
Object: Pouch
Tier: 0
“They’re the same,” I told him.
“So it’s not based on your knowledge. At least not beyond the basics. Let me find something else that I don’t think you’d recognize.”
Grandpa Joe rooted around in his backpack before showing me a small metallic object. He was right, I didn’t know what it was. I Identified it.
Object: Primer
Tier: 0
“It’s a primer?” I said questioningly. “What’s a primer?”
“It’s a part that makes a spark to set off the gunpowder when shooting a gun,” he answered. “I bring them with me just in case. They are useful little buggers.”
I guess he’d seen my confusion as to why he had them while camping.
“Oh?” I wondered aloud.
“It never hurts to be overprepared out here. There’s a reason I brought a gun with me for the trip.”
Grandpa Joe shifted his belt to reveal a holstered pistol on his hip that I hadn’t noticed before—his shirt hang over it loosely. I wasn’t sure how to react to it. There were times long past where I’d shot rifles at a range, but this was the first time I’d really seen a handgun up close.
“Bears,” he said, snapping my attention away from the gun. “I have the gun in case of bears or large cats. Usually, the sound of us walking and talking is enough to dissuade the bears from coming near, but they can be aggressive sometimes. The big cats will stalk you. You’ll feel it, too. You’ll feel like you’re being watched but you don’t know by what. That’s almost always a big cat. I’ve got this gun because both of those animals are more powerful than us. I respect them, but I’ll kill them if they don’t respect me.”
“That sounds scary,” I said with a shiver.
“It is,” he smiled and ruffled my hair, “but I’m here.”
“It’s better to be safe than sorry, right?” I laughed.
Grandpa Joe nodded.
“Let’s not let that distract from what we were doing. Why don’t you walk behind the shelter and sneak up on me using Stealth?”
“Sure,” I shrugged.
When it was behind the shelter, I stopped. I activated Stealth mentally. Then I crept as quietly as I could. Instead of going back the way I’d come or completing my circuit around the shelter, I went away from the shelter. That way, when I circled around, I could come at him from the front—a direction he was least likely to expect me.
As I made my way around, I saw Grandpa Joe looking around for me. He didn’t see me—maybe because I was far away. Once I was in front of the shelter, I walked slowly and quietly towards him. I got about twenty feet from him before his head snapped in my direction and he waved.
“I see you,” he said. “You look a little strange—like a walking shadow that blends in a little with what’s around you.”
“That’s weird,” I said, turning Stealth off. “Was there anything that gave me away?”
“Not in particular. You didn’t make any sound and you looked subtly out of place. It’s hard to describe if you haven’t seen it. Glad to see you looking like you again.”
He laughed.
“There was one more, right?”
“Tracking.”
“Right. Why don’t you try it out and tell me what happens. There have to be some tracks around here.”
I dutifully followed his instructions. Tracking didn’t just show me tracks all color-coded and all the information about what went each way, how long ago, or any of that. No, it basically told me nothing at all. At least, until I looked closely and saw a partial boot-print in the mud. It wasn’t mine or Grandpa Joe’s.
What the skill did was show me a shadowy indication of where the person might have been and where they were heading. It was a short distance. I followed the shadowy representation to both ends. At the forward end, I just saw it stop with no further clues. On the other end, I found a broken twig that added another short distance to the visual representation from the skill.
“That’s interesting,” Grandpa Joe said when I explained what had happened. “Could be useful, but hard to say without more testing.”
“Agreed.”
“Are there any other skills you could get?”
“Tons. Everything from throwing fireballs to flying to sleeping better. Too much to cover without a need. I don’t want to spend the experience on them without reason, you know?”
He nodded.
“Well then, shall we continue?”