System Survivalist
Book 1: Discovery
Prologue: Upload.
Earth spun innocently within its orbit as it hurtled through the immense vastness of space. Unbeknown to the inhabitants of the sol system’s oasis, the planet had come under review by a tendril of pure invisible energy.
“Seed world discovered. Analysing… Error: unexpected evolutionary development. Calculating projected population values… System harvesting overdue by over two thousand cycles. Uploading collective conscience… Error: Planetary unity not achieved. Recalculating… Resolving… Error… System administrator required for judgment… Resolving… Judgment resolved. System harvest imminent.”
With its Analysis complete the Entity departed, reaching for the next portion of the milky way.
Suddenly I shuddered and my vision was drawn to the night’s sky. I snapped out of it, remembering that I was still live.
Looking back to the camera lens, I said with a smile. “Alright Wilders, I think I’m getting tired, and I don’t have to explain how dangerous it is to be tired in this unforgiving rainforest. This is Oscar Hollow signing off. Let’s hope we get to survive together again tomorrow. Thank you all so much for keeping me company. Remember to sign up to the Patreon without your support surviving these glorious hellscapes would be impossible.”
I pressed the button to end the live stream and, rubbing my eyes, I peered back through the canopy to see a strange dark spot in the sky. With the almost complete lack of light pollution above the amazonian forest-scape, the night’s sky was one of the darkest and most star-spangled sights available to mankind. If it wasn’t for density of the canopy’s foliage, id have been able to clearly see the voids twinkling brilliance in its entirety, unfortunately from my position, on what I liked to call the balcony of my ramshackle tree house, all I could see was the edge of this strange black spot that seemed to absorb the light given from the night’s crescent moon.
Deciding that further investigation was needed, I grabbed my phone from the tripod, strapped on my head torch and spent about five minutes rummaging around to find my climbing spikes. I had only made the climb to the top of the trees once before, to set up the Starlink receiver when I finally found a liveable area within the rainforest. I don’t know why this dark spot drew my attention as much as it did; maybe it was for the subscribers or just my own insatiable curiosity, but I strapped my phone to the rig on my vest, hit recorded and followed the internet cables up the tree trunk.
On my way up, I had to hammer in extra foot holds just so I could stop every few minutes to explain to the camera what I was doing and hopefully gain a few more followers, if what I found was actually some postable content. Once I had gotten close to two thirds of the way up, I could see the spot much more clearly, it was kind of terrifying. In movies and games, you see singularities that suck in all matter around them and that’s what my eyes told me I could see. It had to be a black hole, nothing else made sense. The star light around the thing disappeared into its small circumference and at its tiny centre was a blackness I could hardly describe.
I climbed higher. My panicked thoughts where on the complete and utter destruction of the planet, no, the solar system. Black holes ate stars right, was this the end of everything. When I finally reached the top, my anxious attention was torn to a tiny critter that I’m sure didn’t belong above the canopy.
“Hey there, little fella.” I said to the oddly shaped mantis that sat atop the tree I was on. “Did you come up here to witness the end of all things, too?”
I could have sworn that the little Scyther nodded at me, but end of the world or not, it wasn’t the time to be distracted. I detached my phone from its harness and held it up to the sight of what I believed to be a black hole for a few minutes then opened up my streaming account. Turning the camera on myself, I fixed my hair and wiped away the sweat that made my face shine like a beacon in the night.
I said. “Hey there Wilders. I know I said I was signing of but I.” I looked at my new little green friend and changed my mind. Picking him up and holding him to my face I started again. “Ok Wilders me and little Scyther here just climbed to the top of the Amazon Fucking Rain Forest.” I quickly angled the camera to show the proof of my ascent and continued. “To show you what we found, and man am I baffled.” I pointed the camara to the sky and through my screen it looked like the spot had grown. “What in the name of all things Sci-fi, or I guess Sci-Fact, is that? Join my live now and help convince me it’s not a black hole.”
Posting the video, I placed Scyther back where I found him and promised him a cut from the stream if he stuck around. Again, it seemed like he nodded, but honestly, I was probably on the edge of mania from what I was witnessing. Pressing the button to start my live stream I looked into the camera with my long-practiced signature grin, and that’s when the world turned black.
Chapter 1: Integration.
It felt like I had drifted off to sleep as I watched the dark spot grow into all-encompassing blackness. I lost control of my hands first, dropping my phone and losing grip of the climbing spike. Next, I fell. My limp body hung in the air for a moment before I felt a pull that whipped me upwards. I was in a void, nothing beneath, aside or above me and then the lights in my mind went out.
Congratulations, you have been selected to join the System.
I awoke to a feeling of numbness and the sight of white script floating in the inky void. I would have guessed it to be a dream, but I had learned from an episode of Batman that writing is illegible in a dream and if Batman is dream illiterate then so am I. when I focused on the words they changed.
As you are new to the System, you have gained the following benefit during the integration period.
Immunity: you are immune to all damage and status effects for twenty-four hours.
This benefit comes at the loss of level gains and all experience will be automatically allocated to the skills you use to navigate the System in the effected time period.
I let it simmer for a minute. Experience and level gains, like a game. “Hello?” I let the greeting out awkwardly. “Can you hear me?” There was no response, instead the script changed.
Welcome Oscar Hollow. You are one of over five billion humans chosen to join the System. With the harvesting of the seed planet known as earth, biomes have been formed based on the planet’s diverse ecology. Your starting location will be based on your last known location on earth. Please prepare yourself and use the integration immunity period to learn how to navigate the system. Your faculties will return to you in five, four, three, two.
All of a sudden, the eternal darkness was replaced with, well, slightly brighter darkness. It was like opening your eyes in a dark room. My vision went from peering into an unceasing black void to looking around what seemed to be some kind of dark cavity. The strangest thing was that I wasn’t breathing or at least I couldn’t breathe but I wasn’t suffocating. My surroundings were moist like I was inside an egg. Was I about to hatch into the system. I could move but it wasn’t easy, whatever substance I was encased in wasn’t supposed to be manipulated and as I did move the world moved with me. From outside the shell of my egg chamber came an erratic clicking with a high pitch crackling frequency, the funky noise sounded like an old dial up modem was arguing with a dolphin.
To be honest my imagination was getting away with me and I struggled to focus on my situation. I had to close my eyes to centre myself. The first thing I did after beating away the thoughts of dolphins fighting androids over a giant Oscar egg, was pat myself down. I was clearly wet and slimy but luckily, I was also still very much wearing my clothes. My belt was there along with my belt knife and utility pockets, my vest was still on and when my hands explored my forehead, I remembered that my torch was strapped to my head. I’d have exhaled in elation if I had air in my lungs, instead I twisted the torch on and felt like a god as I brought light to my surroundings.
The light only brought more confusion. Analysing my surrounding I discovered that the slimy viscous liquid that surrounded me was pale green blood and the reason for the cacophony and thrashing that came with my movements was that I was causing some creature agony as I damaged its internal system. I’m no biologist, so I had no idea what the ropey organs that surrounded me were but if I was going to get out of this thing, I knew I wanted it dead first. I decided to search for its heart and once I found it, I would give the creature a quick death and crawl my way out of it. Not fancying a trip through its digestive track, I chose to travel upwards. On my way up I used my belt knife to clear my way through. I hacked at what I guessed were the soft tissues found inside an insect. It took a good few disgusting and traumatising minutes, but I finally found the heart. It beat with a glow that lit up the few inches of biomass that surrounded it and was almost the size of my head. Focusing in on my target, I crawled closer and pressed my hand against it. My surroundings grew quiet, and the hearts beat doubled. The creature knew what was about to happen and seemed to have accepted its fate. Wanting to end the cruelty I was inflicting the thing as quickly as possible; I took to butchering the thick green veins attached to the heart. With each cut more and more blood filled the cavity and before I knew it the heart had grown still. With the stilling of my insectoid host a strange fanfare sounded in my mind.
Congratulations you have defeated the area boss: Blade-mantis. you have gained the following: area authority, immense experience gains.
Integration period note: due to your integration still ongoing all experience will be allocated to the following skills. Analyse, Butchery.
Achievement earned: you are the first in system history to analyse the still beating heart of an area boss and thus have gained the following: unique skill: Deep Analysis.
The voice that sounded in my head was oddly polite and as non-threatening as a mind invader could be. What it said was clearly interesting, but I was in no position to contemplate the meaning of area authority, or the lack of a quantifiable number attached to the amount of experience I had gained. What I did realise was that as I studied my surroundings, I was able make sense of my position within the Blade mantis. The heart was located in the abdomen, so my escape was a short tear upwards, with my belt knife in hand I hacked and crawled. Ravaging my way through the mantis’s throat I saw my way out. With a final push I expelled myself through the mouth of the area boss and attempted to take my first breath in this system, as I tried to inhale, I began to vomit. Pale green blood gushed from my stomach, and I was thankful for the numbness my body felt as my body rejected everything it had been forced to consumed. Sure, my gut was empty, I gave breathing another go, I failed. The coughing that ensued was accompanied with more green blood pouring out of my mouth and nose. By the time I was done I just sat myself down and that’s when I saw it.
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The Blade-mantis was gargantuan. Apart from the blood that flowed from its mandible baring maw the creature’s body was in pristine condition. I approached the thing and took in its details. It had all the familiar properties of a praying mantis however where a typical mantis had spikes used for gripping on its forelegs this thing had hundreds of jagged blades that looked more like savage spear heads. Being the curious idiot that I am, I reached out and touched one of the blades, it damn near sliced the tip of my finger off upon contact. I probably should have been surprised at the fact that I couldn’t feel a thing but what shocked me more was that as soon as the cut was made the wound knitted itself back together. It was apparent that for the next twenty-four hours I was Deadpool, but without the psychosis.
I spent about thirty minutes inspecting the Mantis’s corpse and other than discovering all the sharp bits that were designed to shred prey like me, I also found that the things carapace was impenetrable. I had complete blunted my blade trying to make a scratch on the things armour and had absolutely no luck. I did however find a soft spot above its mandibles that allowed be to detach the things and had managed to acquire two hiltless machetes sharper than a keyboard warrior’s Witt.
With my inspection done it was time to figure out where in the hell I was. One gaze up told me I wasn’t in my rainforest anymore, with the three planets that hung in the nights sky sharing the sun’s light like green and blue mega moons It was obvious I wasn’t even on my planet. Looking at the stars that struggled to twinkle in what space the sky had left I was also sure that I wasn’t in the same galaxy anymore. Looking up there made my eyes so tired I gave up trying to make sense of it all and I set my gaze on my surroundings.
I was in a clearing with grass underfoot, trees littered the edges of the clearing in a semicircle and behind me was a mountain. Off the edge of the mountain flowed a waterfall with a large reed filled basin that capped off the clearing with a picturesque view. Clean flowing water was both a blessing and a curse, on one hand I wouldn’t have to fashion any water catchers anytime soon on the other whatever animals lived in this forest would definitely be attracted to the watering hole. Eyeing up the giant insect my mind wondered to thoughts of dinosaur sized tigers and prehistoric boa constrictors. Before I let my nightmarish thoughts make me wet myself, I wondered over to the waterfall’s basin.
From the size of the waterfall, I had expected an impossibly deep well at its bottom however what I found baffled me beyond belief. The water was of the clearest I had seen outside of a plastic bottle and because of the clarity I could see the bottom of the basin. I didn’t have to guess the waters depth I somehow knew upon inspection that it was exactly five feet and two inches deep. It worried me that the deep analysis skill must have been affecting my brain at a cerebral level but what concerned me more was the fact a mountains worth of water was falling into a shallow basin and not overflowing. I searched the basin for drainage holes that could possibly filter into a subterranean tributary and found an answer that could only be present on an alien world. The water flowed into the reeds that populated the clear watered basin.
The roots of the reeds didn’t dig into the soil instead they spread out and spiralled keeping themselves three feet below the surface. Shrugging I grabbed for one of the closest reeds and pulled the plant out of the water and even though the reed’s top hadn’t been submerged it was wet to the touch. It felt more like a sodden towel than any plant life I had ever come across and for the sake of science a took my blunted knife to it. Slicing the reed was an interesting experience. It turned out that the long green demon was actually a pressurised water pump and naturally my face was as close as possible as I cut the damn thing. After receiving a hydro cannon to the face and falling flat on my ass I noticed that the reed was still expelling water, although with a much less violent flow. What could only be a thought brought on by deep analysis popped into my head whispering, ‘dimensional storage’ but out of resentment for the magical reed I walked away leaving the leaking thing for future Oscar to deal with.
Making my way back over to the mega sized mantis I noticed something dangling over it. I may have been invulnerable at the time, but I was still in the middle of an alien rainforest and had just had my ass handed to me by a pond plant, with that in mind I slowed my approach keeping the dangler in sight. When I got closer, I saw that it was a spider. I thanked whatever god that reigned over the strange planet I was on that the spiders here weren’t as big as the monstrous mantis. even though the odd arachnid was tiny in comparison to the mantis it was still pretty huge for a spider. It had a long and thick abdomen but a short stubby cephalothorax with large red eyes that glowed in the dimly lit surrounding. Although thin and wiry its legs gave it a menacing appearance, they spanned twice as wide as my hand and ended in sharp looking points.
The closer I got to the spider there more detail I took in. it’s blue and gold pattern glowed a little less than its piercing sanguine eyes and although it hung on a thin web strand it was moved by the breeze. My heart raced as it paid me attention and nervously, I took a step back.
“Hey buddy.” I said more to calm myself. “I’m just gunna grab those mandibles there, ok?”
The spider dropped down onto the mantis and began to scratch at the monster’s carapace.
“Yeah, it’s tough ain’t it.” I said hoping it wouldn’t realise my flesh was softer and much easier to access as I approached the mandibles I had dropped. “I tell you what give me some space and I’ll try and open it up for you.”
To my surprise the spider climbed back up its web. Refusing to believe it understood me I rushed over to the mandibles and grabbed them by the blunt sides and hurriedly prepared myself for it to attack. It stayed immobile, either it understood me, or it wrongly thought it was more scared of me than I was of it.
“Ok, I’m doing this.” I said pushing the blade of one of the mandibles into the mantis with visible effort. “This is disgusting pal; you better be grateful.”
Suddenly I was overcome with a feeling of intense hunger in my gut and weirdly a sense of joy and excitement. Those feelings seemed to coincide with the spider diving down into the rent I had made in the mantis’ carapace. I assumed that it was the deep analysis skill kicking into action and I watched on. I exhaled in ecstasy as the spider nommed on the internal fluids of the monster and even though the sight was abhorrent, I kinda got it.
“Is that nice buddy?” I asked stupidly stepping closer.
Another wave of pleasure hit me when the gold and blue arachnid looked up at me. That pleasurable feeling changed to a strong desire to be subservient. Rethinking my previous thought of my skill bringing on these feelings I realised it was the spider affecting my mind this time. I darted back. As if a mind-altering, human abducting system wasn’t bad enough, there was also mind-bending spiders.
“Hey man,” I huffed out in terror. “I thought we were buddies.”
It dropped to the ground and slowly marched its eight spindly glowing legs towards me.
“Remember that time I helped you eat a mega mantis?” I quickened my pace, and the spider doubled its speed in return. “I know it wasn’t long ago pal, but I feel like we could be great friends you know.”
I actually did feel that way for some reason. Like deep down somewhere I knew it didn’t want to hurt me. Taking a leap of faith. stopped in my tracks.
“You don’t want to hurt me do you.”
The spider filled me with a sense of companionship.
“OK, yeah, ok.” I said reaching out my hand. “Comrades.”
I knelt down, letting the arachnid place a foot on my hand. It filled me with a grateful glee and wrapped itself around my wrist. The way its legs wove around the base of my forearm they looked more like a set of glowing bangles. It was a thing of beauty, the body sat snuggly under my palm and its eyes looked like gleaming ruby.
“Do you have a name?” I asked, admiring my new friend
It shot back a painful feeling of loneliness.
“Oh, buddy.” I tried to hold back tears. “You’ve got me now.” I said letting a few drops wet my cheeks.
it replied with a feeling of security.
“I know dude, I’ve been there. I won’t leave you.” The interaction revived long dead emotions in me, and I changed subject. “Ok how about a name?”
It hit me with a positive feeling, and I thought about it for a minute. The spider was too beautiful for a basic name like Spinner or Legs and way to intimidating for a cutesy Pokémon reference.
Hoping my assumption wasn’t taken in bad taste I asked. “You’re a boy, right?”
Positivity tingled my senses.
“How about, Anansi?” I asked giving the spider a soft stroke on its abdomen. “He was a spider god on my planet, and you look like a god of spiders to me.”
With his name uttered my heart filled with unbridled pride. The way Anansi transmitted emotions felt like a welcomed invasion, he kicked down a barred door and made me feel again, if just for a moment.
“We better see what’s out their buddy.” I said, my eyes scanning the crescent rim of towering trees. “we’ve only got a day before I’m mortal again.”
This time the invasion wasn’t so much as welcomed as it was needed. At the thought of leaving the forest clearing, my heart sank, and my every nerve trembled. I had to beat my chest with a fist to remind my lungs to release my last breath.
“Is it really that bad out there Anansi?” I shot the question between forced panicky breaths.
My friendly wrist hugging spider buddy shot me a vision of my location covered in webbing. Each web held silhouettes of indescribable creatures, big and small. With the vision came a calming concept of safety. It took a few seconds for my heart to slow its pace and my lungs chest to regulate their rhythm. I was grateful for warning it gave me a semblance of reality. The mantis may have been a peculiarity for the forest, being that it was dubbed an area boss but before me lay a treeline of endless possible dangers.
“You’re right bud.” I proclaimed stroking Anansi. “If we’re going out there, we’re gunna need a safe place to come back to.”
There was no way in hell, or whatever system inspired derivative existed on this planet, that I was going to let Anansi turn this place into a Jackson pollock web-scape just to feel a bit safer. The pristine clearing was too open to just set up a hovel and be spared from whatever creepy crawlies might encroach on my sleeping form, so, I decided to treat the place like the forest I had been taken from and build in the trees.
The last time I was setting up a tree house I had cheated. I was already a sponsored survivalist streamer with the best gear afforded to me by more providers than I cared to list and on top of that I had the help of a near by town to source the processed materials to construct my tree fixed dwelling. Here I had next to nothing. Anansi made me frown with that thought and showed me an image of his webs forming a watertight shelter. The frown turned into a thoughtful pout, and I pondered on what else his webs would be good for.
Inspiration struck and I approached the tasty looking mantis. the closer I got the more my mouth watered, and I had to really focus on separating my own mind from Anansi’s projected desires. Ensuring him that he was about to get a treat quickly calmed his intrusive pleads. When I picked up one of the mandible-blades my mouth instantly salivated and cutting the desired portion of the bland mantis’ hind leg only made it worse. When the juices dripped out of the exoskeleton, I dribbled in anticipation.
“Go on Anansi, have your fill.”
The spider untangled himself from my wrist and attached to the opening in the severed mantis leg. The sounds were horrendous, the scraping of his legs on its exterior and scratching of his mandibles against the walls of its slowly hollowing interior were outdone only by the sickening slurping and gulping of the juicy green biomass filling. I was overcome with the projected ecstasy of the spider and my own personal disgust. In the movement I honestly didn’t know if I wanted to vomit or cut another piece for myself. Luckily by the time my disgust wavered Anansi was done, and I could get to work. The piece of leg I had cut was just thin enough to hold comfortably in my palm and with luck I figured I would be able to fashion a sword hilt from it, all I needed was adhesive. Before I wasted my time I decided to try and show Anansi what I was planning. I closed my eyes and did my best to picture a step by step of crafting the mandibles into functioning machetes. My best spider buddy did not disappoint, he instantly got what I was projecting and sent back a few options on how he could use his webbing. One of the options he hit me with came with a vision of him devouring the entirety of the mantis’ internal fluids and even though it wasn’t necessary for making my weapons it would definitely be needed for my future survival.
It took more than thirty minutes. Cutting and shaping the massive mandible was an intricate and delicate practice of will and patients. I must have sliced the same index finger off at least ten times while trying to whittle down the first mandible enough to fit inside the piece of leg I had prepared. When it was ready, Anansi filled the hilt length leg piece with a gooey web that acted like expanding foam and allowed the two prepared pieces to fit together perfectly. I left the first machete aside to allow the webbing to dry and harden while I inspected my freshly attached finger. It was weird, I hadn’t completely severed the finger, however I had caused it to dangle by strip of flesh at a different point on the appendage each time and each time it was cut all I had to do was push the finger back in place and it would instantly heal. There was no pain, no panic, only a sense of detachment from what had happened and the reality of consequences. All I could think was that in less than a day any damage was going to be fatal out here, but before the very personal and ever-present feeling of existential dread could set in, a familiar tone sounded in my head.
Congratulations you have crafted a system first original armament. With this achievement comes the following gains: superior skill Artificing, bug type damage resistance, bladed weapons damage resistance.
When the voice faded, I called over to Anansi, who was feasting on the open wound in the mantis’ abdomen. “Hey, did you hear that?”
Understanding flowed through me.
“What does it mean?”
My mind was drawn to the remaining mandible and the spider made me want to work on replicating the machete. It took me all of five minutes to create the second one, not including the time it would take for my buddies webbing to dry. I hadn’t even nicked a finger this time around and my understanding of how to cut, shape and fit the parts together was somehow deeper. The skill I had acquired had affected me in the same way analyse had and gave me the ability to work efficiently without years of practice. With my two machetes ready to go and Anansi hopping back onto my wrist with a full belly, I looked to my surroundings.
“It’s time to build ourselves a camp, buddy.”