As she walked steadily down the dirt road, Sarah found her gaze repeatedly getting snagged. It was odd. It felt like she was spotting something familiar or important out of the corner of her eye, but the moment she tried to focus she couldn’t figure out what it was she should be seeing.

It was just forest: trees, bushes, ferns, a bit of lichen, the occasional flower; all of it a little bit alien but nothing so strange as to warrant closer examination, given the present circumstances. Besides, the road seemed safe but Sarah was becoming increasingly convinced that she wasn’t alone in the forest. In addition to that weird feeling, she’d been spotting regular flickers of movement amongst the foliage.

Most of those flickers – if watched long enough – would resolve themselves into the flip of a squirrel-like tail or the flap of a feathered wing. Those were okay. Sarah wasn’t concerned about the local equivalents of song birds or nut-nibbling tree rats; she was, however, disturbed by the possibilities of what else might be moving around out there. Her imagination provided enough frightening mental pictures that it killed any desire she might have had to chase down a weird feeling through the surrounding flora.

She focused instead on maintaining a steady walking pace; not so fast as to cause exhaustion, and not so slow as to waste time. She kept her eyes moving, constantly scanning her surroundings, but aside from the occasional bird flitting past overhead, nothing emerged from amongst the trees.

Still, that odd sense kept pinging every now and then, sometimes on one side of the road, sometimes the other, sometimes stationary, and sometimes mobile. It didn’t feel hostile or dangerous, Sarah decided. It was more like her subconscious had noticed something interesting and was trying to point it out but she was too dense to catch on. Whatever it was, it was starting to feel a little bit creepy, like something was watching her.

It made her shiver in apprehension every now and then but there were no clear indications of danger so Sarah just kept walking, and walking, and walking, until she had been steadily marching down the road for several hours. Well, she thought it was several hours; judging by her level of exhaustion it certainly was, but judging by the change in the sun’s position hardly any time had passed.

If the odd flora of the forest hadn’t been enough to convince her that the tutorial setting was an alien planet, the sun certainly was. At first it had seemed just like good old Sol; it was the same shade of yellow, the same type of warmth, the same apparent size in the sky. Now, however, she had come to the conclusion that this world’s star had some distinct differences from the one under which she’d lived her entire life up to this point. Or maybe it wasn’t the star at all, maybe it was this planet.

If the planet was bigger than Earth, that would mean longer days, right? Or if it…uh…rotated slower? Or if it was farther away from its star? No, that last one didn’t sound right.

Like math, astronomy had never been Sarah’s strong suit. Math and astronomy put together? Pfft. Not happening. The one thing she did remember was that heavier stuff had more gravity. Made more gravity? One of those. Like how the Earth had more gravity than the moon; the Earth was considerably bigger and so had more…more weight?...more mass? Yes, mass, that was it. So, if a planet was bigger than Earth, that would make the days longer but it would also make the gravity stronger. So, if this planet was bigger than Earth, enough to make the days a good bit longer, but didn’t have heavier gravity…

Sarah stopped walking and jumped up and down a few times. Yup, same gravity.

Ok, so, bigger planet, same gravity, that meant this planet was lighter, had less mass. That meant…Sarah stopped again and frowned ferociously as she dug deep into her somewhat vague memories of high school science…um…less…metal…in the ground?

Sarah sighed and shook her head. This was a virtual world. For all she knew, it wasn’t even a complete planet. Besides, mental rabbit holes might be fun, they might even occasionally be productive, but they were also a distraction, which right now meant they were dangerous.

Also, she was tired. And thirsty. There was an old, dead tree nearby that looked like it had originally fallen onto the road and then been shoved into the ditch. Sarah carefully picked her way through the remnants of branches until she found a place to sit on the forest side of the old trunk.

She pulled her water skin from [Storage] and took a long drink, before replacing the stopper with a satisfied sigh. The water tasted just as good as it had before, and surprisingly it was still cold. Did that mean the [Dimensional Storage] preserved its contents? That would be useful.

Sarah shifted sideways a bit, leaning her head against a tangle of old, dead branches and enjoying the shade of the forest’s fringe. For a simulation, this tutorial place did a fantastic job of replicating physical stuff. Like how her feet ached from all the walking, despite her comfy boots. Or how her head pounded from the heat and the skin of her face and ears felt distinctly sun burnt. She could have really used a wide-brimmed hat right about now.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Suddenly Sarah flinched. There was something out there, something other than birds, bugs, and trees. That strange sense was screaming at her again and this time she could tell it was pointing at something specific. With great trepidation, she dropped her water skin into [Storage], hefted her crude wooden weapon, and rose from her seat on the dead tree.

With stealthy steps, Sarah circled around the base of a massive tree, another one of those “oaks” that probably weren’t really oaks, like the one from which she’d cut her spear. She rounded the trunk, spear-point first, and there, on the ground, emerging from the mulch of the forest floor between the roots of the tree, was the source of her strange and eerie sensation.

[Mushroom (Uncommon)]

Oh. Oh!

“It’s [Keen Eye]!” Sarah smacked herself on the forehead.

She had expected the Skill to manifest itself like some kind of video-game-thing, like a bright yellow outline on objects, or a sparkly overlay. In hindsight, that was just stupid. This might be a virtual environment but it was simulating real-world experiences; and the real world didn’t come with glowing outlines or sparkly overlays.

“I can be such an idiot sometimes,” Sarah muttered to herself as she knelt down to examine the large fungus.

It was very odd-looking but she felt like “odd” was probably par-for-the-course when it came to fungi, especially alien fungi. This particular specimen was a rust-orange in colour and appeared at first glance to be one of those shelf-type mushrooms that grew sideways from the trunks of trees, except this one jutted out from the side of an exposed root instead of the alien oak tree’s trunk.

Things got even stranger when she bent down for a closer look and realized the mushroom wasn’t actually connected with the tree root, merely resting snuggly against the living wood. The mushroom instead had its own stem, and when Sarah got low enough to peer beneath its flat, wedge-shaped cap, she saw bright red gills, packed full of yellow spores.

“Huh,” she said quietly as she contemplatively rocked back on her heels. Focusing hard on the orange fungus brought forth its label once again.

[Mushroom (Uncommon)]

“Duh,” Sarah said in disgust. “Thanks, System. I never would have guessed that a brightly coloured fleshy thing growing from the forest floor could be a mushroom!”

She sighed in frustration and scrubbed a fist against the side of her brow. “I need to figure out how to get some kind of inspection Skill.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she added, directing her words to the uncaring fungus at her feet. “Without [Keen Eye] I wouldn’t have known you were here, and you’re Uncommon and that’s what, one rank below Rare? So yeah, you’re probably decently valuable and I would have walked right passed you, just like…” She broke off with a groan. “Just like all the other valuable stuff I’ve been marching past ever since I got here.”

She reached out and pounded her fist against the side of the tree.

“Idiot! I’m such an idiot…Ow…”

She examined her scraped and slightly bloody knuckles with a petulant frown for a long moment. Then her face cleared and she let out a quiet sigh.

“I’m such an idiot,” she mumbled sheepishly.

“But my point stands,” she said with sudden energy, facing the mushroom again as she adopted a lecturing air.

“You’re Uncommon rank and [Keen Eye] pointed you out, so that means you’re an ‘item of value’ but that term is so vague. You could be highly nutritious, you could be an ingredient for a rare and powerful medicine, or a rare and powerful poison. Or maybe you just turn into dye for some pretty paints when dried and crushed.”

Sarah paused and glared at the offending fungus.

“You’re valuable, and finding things like you was the whole point of taking [Keen Eye], but in the absence of anyone more knowledgeable, and without a Skill that will give me more info, I’m not sure if I dare touch you.

“Back on Earth, bright colours in nature usually had a reason. Bright flowers attracted bees and stuff. Bright bugs warned off birds and stuff that they were poisonous and shouldn’t be eaten. But mushrooms aren’t something I really know much about.

“Do bright colours in mushrooms mean dangerous or delicious? Forget Earth mushrooms, what about alien mushrooms? Do the same rules even apply?

“And if you are one of the scary ones, do I have to eat you before I’ll die horribly? Or just touch you?

“You see my problem?”

Sarah finished her rant and glared hard at the mushroom for a long moment until a bird suddenly chirped cheekily from the branches above her head. She snorted and then collapsed backwards onto the ground, laughing uproariously at the ridiculousness of it all. Finally she calmed down and caught her breath.

“I’m such an idiot,” she said again with a soft giggle, before nodding her head as she came to a decision.

Getting up, Sarah bent over the orange mushroom, reached down to grasp the stem, and snapped it off just above where it emerged from the ground. She dropped the mushroom into [Storage], closed the clasp on her belt pouch, then held her hands out in front of her face and stared at them expectantly for a long moment.

Nothing happened. No blisters burst from her skin. No rash rippled along her fingers. Her heart didn’t stutter, her breath shorten, her stomach churn, or her vision dim.

“Ok,” she sighed in relief. “Either it’s not poisonous or, if it is, it’s not something that activates through mere physical contact.” Her brow wrinkled slightly. “Or it’s just super slow-acting.” She pondered that for a moment then shrugged. “Nothing to do but find a town and people who can tell me about stuff.”

She bent down to pick up her spear but froze mid-action as she heard the distinct rustle of foliage parting as something alive stepped through the undergrowth…something much bigger than cheeky little birds and alien squirrels.

Sarah looked up and realized she had perhaps been a little premature to dismiss all those strange feelings as coming from [Keen Eye]. It seemed something really had been watching her.