---James---
James hiked towards the badlands for the rest of the day.
He ignored the voices – the ones of doubt and worry. Those voices whispered that he should give in, work for a bit. Buy some equipment, get more information, leave more prepared.
Those voices were a trap. Listening to them left you listless on the bed after forgoing food for a week.
James knew the way forward was to listen to his body not his brain. His body wanted freedom. It wanted to run, to fight again – against harder and harder opponents.
His mind was the enemy. A smart sounding voice that had never known how to make him happy.
Clouds passed over his head and he breathed deeply. James had never much been one for the outdoors…had never understood or subscribed to the idea that ‘going out and touching grass’ would make you feel better.
It never had before after all.
Now? Now with bright purple stalks swaying in the yellowish grass and mushroom-like trees in the distance waving blue tentacles towards the sky? Turns out all James had needed was a fantasy world to get the appeal.
Getting closer to the trees James stared carefully.
Are they safe?
He didn’t quite know how one would check.
Mushrooms are poisonous a lot of the time right?
And these are purple…bright colours usually mean poison – right?
Those tentacle-like branches waved about high above – almost like a blow up ‘greeter’ waving in the wind.
Hmmmm.
James decided not to risk it.
Continuing on he found the vegetation shift in spurts and clumps, grass disappeared leaving pockmarked dusty ground. Purple stalks randomly changed colours to red or blue and changed heights and shapes as he got further in.
Up ahead on top of a hill James spotted a…well he wasn’t quite sure what it was.
Definitely a monster of some sort. There was nothing animalistic about it however – the creature was comprised of several fuzzy cubes stuck on one another. It had six legs, each an extruded blocky set of boxes. It had a face reminiscent of a squished-in elephant or maybe a rhino – like some cartoonish frying pan had flattened a grey smooth but wrinkly face into its current form.
Oh! It's like a rhino was voxelated, then covered in hair. Done. Monster appraised. Minecraft cow on realism shaders let's go.
Snorting, the blocky creature turned and shuffled off the top of its hill out of sight.
…it had probably seen him – right?
James decided to loop around and try and come at it from the side.
Hunching over a bit, James sprinted around the edge of the hill – looping around and finding it empty. Turning suddenly to make sure it hadn’t ambushed him James stared suspiciously at the path behind him.
…nothing.
Continuing around, James made a full loop of the hill and then stared upwards toward the top.
It's better to have a good vantage point right?
Slowly walking up the hill James tried to keep himself low – his body tensed and ready.
He crested the top and…nothing once again.
“Huh” James spoke. He slowly stood up and stared about. For a kilometer in every direction, there seemed to be nothing but patches of dust and grassy knolls.
No sign of life – no sign of anything really.
Suddenly the ground beneath him shifted.
At first, he struggled to maintain his footing – he jumped sideways half expecting something to be digging up towards him. Instead – when glancing around – the whole hill was rumbling and bending upwards like a flower. Grass and dirt cracked and broke apart as the ground rose like the fingers of some earthen god.
There isn’t a monster in the hill.
The hill is the monster!
James glanced at a shrinking crack between two sections of 'hill' and started running. He activated [haste] and sped up aiming forwards. James flew across the patch of hill and then jumped, twisting his body slightly to slide sideways through the closing trap. He just barely squeezed through then fell down several meters to the ground below.
Landing heavily James righted himself on the dirt.
There was no time to think – from this side he could see the face of the hill below him – it looked like a beetle covered in dirt and raising everything above it with a dozen flat arms.
The shell looked thick and sturdy and it was holding a massive amount of dirt above it…
James retreated as quickly as he could, then watched the hill settle down once more – as the monster realized it hadn’t caught anything.
At first, the ground moving down did not do so neatly – there were obvious signs of it having been disturbed and broken apart…
Over the course of a few seconds however, all that damage looked like it was wiped away.
A shimmering slowly hid the cracks, and the disguise was complete once more.
What…did it fix itself with magic? Is it an illusion? It just looks like its fixed – is that possible? The rhino thing also disappeared – was it an illusion as well? Did it get eaten really quickly somehow? Jump in a hole?
🐢 Achievement get: Survived a hill. (rare)
Description: Many unaware find themselves on a grasping hills back. Few make it out alive.
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Stat: +4 leg speed.
Stat: +3 reaction speed.
James felt the pump of stat liquid infuse his leg muscles and spread throughout his nervous system. He found he could clench slightly – mentally looking into himself and directing where he wanted it to go.
Should I try hunting the hill? Trigger it to snap its trap up and expose its…armoured underbelly?
I’ll continue on. This is fun!
James started up his hike once again. This time he stayed away from each of the hills – some were obviously normal shallow bumps in the ground, but others he couldn’t tell.
The further into this biome he walked, the less it made sense and the more life appeared.
It really looked like dozens of different biomes had been cut up into little patchwork chunks and then sewn back together – grass immediately cut off into rocky soil, that suddenly jumped to a patch of several trees…and then immediately jumped to a dark blue sand.
Some patches were much bigger than others, some were long and some short – James found himself walking down a path of sorts. A rocky biome stretched out in a longish spike below and almost sort of formed a road if you squinted.
Convenient.
Life was one of the first major changes – bugs had been occasionally placed everywhere but here they thrived – groups of ants and ant-like creatures. Floating flies and fly-like creatures. The sound of nature grew and became a more steady constant.
Next the occasional small animal appeared – and immediately the food chain expanded as creatures bigger than them wandered about.
For a ‘no man’s land’ the ‘badlands’ were surprisingly full of life.
Most of the creatures ignored or ran away from James, but a few stared challengingly up at his face as he passed.
Soon creatures were large enough they started to consider James more than an interloper or a threat.
Some considered him food.
One creature completely covered in sharp feathers that hid all of its main features began to stalk him. It looked like a giant fur ball of quills each containing glistening razor sharp points.
James looked around for a weapon and dived for the nearest rock.
Rocks were surprisingly hard to find despite the mess of biomes. The tutorial zone had given him some idea there were conveniently placed rocks every few meters he could grab… but out here in the wild that didn’t seem to be the case.
It was almost luck that there was one nearby…but this rock was smaller than he would have liked.
It fit nicely in his hand, but it hardly had any heft. Waving the stone about in front of the spiky bush did nothing to stop its continued circling of James… and so he decided to disarm himself and find another bigger version.
Taking aim, James activated haste for a half second as he threw the stone – hoping its increased mobility and reaction speed would help him aim true.
The stone flung out perfectly and smashed into the bush.
It made an incredibly loud crack as it hit and the bush jumped back a bit…but James was shocked to see the bush seemed mostly unharmed. The thrown rock fell – covered in puncture wounds. Covered in holes where razor feathers had sliced into the solid stone.
I cannot touch that. It's like a porcupine? But with strong quills?
The bush bristled a hissing noise skittering out as it…well James couldn’t see a face – or even eyes – but he assumed it was staring him down. He had a flash of his first encounter with a boar and his face hardened.
I’m not going over that again. Let’s find a bigger rock.
Turning James began to jog – a jog that quickly became a sprint as the bush gave chase behind him. James had had several incremental increases to his speed at this point – he was noticeably faster than when he had got here…but the bush remained constant behind him.
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In fact, from the quick glances James was throwing over his shoulder, the bush might very well be gaining on him.
He activated [haste] for a second – bursting forward and then deactivated it running ever so slightly faster. Continuing to run after [haste] had turned off felt a bit like running down a hill.
He didn’t have as much control over his legs as he would have hoped.
Trying to dodge didn’t seem to be an option – the bush was agile – running without charging.
James found all of his focus was on the ground in front of him. It was insanely hard not to trip with how uneven the ground was at times.
Spying a rock he was pretty sure was perfect to the side, James activated [haste] – turned quicker than was perhaps natural – and barrelled towards his goal.
James slid around the rock and glanced over towards where the bush was – two dozen meters back and gaining. His chest was heaving from the dash even as he bent to pick up the rock and strained to lift it.
His fingers dug down beneath the soil as he panted and tried to pull it up.
[Haste] was still on cooldown from the last time he had activated it for just over a second.
The bush was a dozen meters back.
[Haste]’s cooldown ended and James activated it once more – trying to add its speed to his own.
With a ripping sound, the rock came up out of the ground and James hurled it forwards. His posture was bad, he had very little time to aim but it still flung out just as the bush came into range.
He felt strange and hot – a blinking box shifted by him, but he ignored it for now.
James watched as the boulder seemed to fly in slow motion – its incredibly shallow arc bringing it towards the ground quickly.
It impacted – the bush had started to dodge as it came close but didn’t have enough time to clear it.
A series of cracks rang out as the boulder hit and scraped the bushes side. The boulder snapped off hundreds of sharp feathers as it passed.
Score.
Crashing to the side the creature wiggled about before regaining its feet once more.
The creature seemed wary of James before its reason seemed to catch up with it. It knew he didn’t have a second boulder and it made to charge once more.
James was there first.
He jumped forward – running the few steps towards the creature instead of away – then bent and punched with all his might on pink exposed flesh.
A high pitched squeal rang out – one closer to a pig than anything else – and James found his arm breaking through the flesh like paper. His arm sunk down into a coil of innards up to his elbow and James waved it about.
He grabbed hold of something lumpy and pulled – the creature had shifted and punctured him several times as it thrashed, but whatever he had done inside of it was enough.
The creature was suddenly dead and leaking copious amounts of dark red blood.
James screamed up in the sky – partly in pain but for the most part in excitement the rush of having won overwhelming his reason.
A wordless guttural cry of victory James laughed and fell back staring up at the lumpy organ in his hands and the boxes he had been ignoring.
[Haste] skill breaking due to circumstances. Do you want to break your skill? [yes/no]
🦊 Achievement get: Fletching-fox killed bare handed. (unique)
Description: A creature prized for its fletching but notoriously hard to kill with close ranged weapons, you managed to kill it bare-handed. Challenging yourself? Or perhaps you simply did not know the proper hunting tool – a spear.
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Stat: +10 Arm power
Stat: +5 Skin piercing defense
“What? No! Sure I pushed you a bit hard there but don’t you dare break on me.” James hit ‘no’ on the skill break.
As he calmed down the hot feeling began to dissipate. He felt the rush of defense and power stats rolling throughout him – a huge ‘rush’ that felt better than anything he could think of.
He had earned this.
…had he been mistreating his skill? Abusing it somehow?
James loved his only skill – he thought nothing the system had given him could be taken away…or taken away without his consent. That’s why there was a box right? The system had to patch up anything it gave him? Even if he was the one to break it?
🛑 Achievement get: Refused a skill break. (rare)
Description: Perhaps you wanted better circumstances – perhaps the break pushed you in a direction you didn’t want. No matter your reasons or circumstance, you have refused a break content with your gifted skill for now.
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Stat: +1 mental power
That’s…strange. I’m rewarded for it so…I did good? Why would anyone not refuse the break? I’ll try and figure that out when the quest board is back.
James lay there slightly wet from blood, a dull throb from his side becoming more and more evident.
Sitting up he looked down and reviewed himself. Dozens of puncture wounds lined his body but…they were not nearly as problematic as he would have thought.
Most seemed to have closed up – he wasn’t bleeding anymore – and nothing had hit anything vital.
…vital huh, the only vital spot he had now was his kidneys. Those were still safe and sound.
James didn’t even need to figure out how to stop the bleeding himself. Pretty solid deal all around.
The forgotten fox organ beside him lay glistening in the light. It looked like some cross between a lung and a brain – deflated but full of tendrils that went off everywhere.
The body itself was supposedly valuable as well – people liked using the sharp feathers to make arrows…
Could he drag it somewhere and sell it?
Collect feathers to sell?
Use that money to buy some supplies?
That wouldn’t be relying on anyone right? James would have been using his own power under his own terms to get those.
James bent down and picked up a few of the feathers that had been knocked off from the boulder toss.
“These are pretty good knives?”
He tested a feather out on the corpse James slowly tried to skin the creature – cut its valuable pelt away.
It was much much harder than it sounded. James found himself pulling large meaty chunks off of it instead of a smooth skinned pelt like he had been imagining.
Everything was slippery and his fingers kept getting sliced and stabbed – once down to the bone despite his supposed skin piercing defense and light hands.
The sun was starting to set its position falling and James found himself wondering if he could eat his kill.
How do you make a fire?
Rub sticks together right?
Figure out if any flint is around?
…I don’t know what flint looks like do I…and you need steel to strike it for maximum effect. Maybe a feather could work instead?
Is this meat safe to eat? …can I eat it raw? …I have a safety so what’s the worst that can happen?
James stared at the lung brain for a bit before bringing it to his mouth and having a slight nibble.
It tasted…not awful but incredibly raw and incredibly strong because it was raw. Not something he wanted to eat or anything he would recommend.
James went back to the fire idea. He could hear that voice in the back of his head screaming he was stupid. He wouldn’t be having this problem if he had just prepared better. Gotten some supplies.
He ignored that voice. The voice was a downer. James could figure this out.
Standing up James walked past some bushy patches – gathering small sticks and leaves as he looked about. Finding a long but strong feeling reed he tried to set up something he had seen once. Once on a show or something? He couldn’t remember where, but they had wrapped some thread around a stick and pulled it about to spin the stick…
James got to work spinning his stick in an attempt at creating fire.
He grabbed stones and smashed them together hoping for one that made a spark. He tried several methods of fire starting before a weird sound began floating through the air towards him.
A high-pitched shrill sound that made him think of something low-pitched and bass boosted.
It was a contradiction, a strange unnatural sound that made his ears hurt.
Standing up James looked around warily. The smell of blood must have attracted something, I’m not giving up my kill! Its mine! I caught it.
Suddenly the sound was louder. James’s ears did more than hurt – they burned. He felt like they were suddenly stuck under a candle flame – there was heat and stinging pain and pressure.
Suddenly everything went silent. His eardrums burst – or burned – and the awful sound was gone.
All sound was gone.
A sharp pungent and slightly spicy smell drifted past his nose and suddenly he felt like sneezing.
The hairs in his nose burned up and all scent was quickly gone. Not as big of a deal as sound – not something he would notice – but now his nose hurt.
James’s rational voice told him to run – abandon his prize – but he couldn’t even tell where he was being attacked from. Where should he run? Directly into whatever had deafened him?
Spinning slowly James’s eyes darted about constantly – there! No…that was just a ball of grass. There! No…that was a squirrel thing and it was running away.
James felt more and more paranoia tensing his muscles. He couldn’t see anything coming.
Suddenly a burning claw found itself inside his stomach.
He couldn’t see it – it was burning and he could see the result of it but…
Whatever was attacking him was invisible.
James was panicking. His mind was shocked, and his body was confused and he didn’t know what to do.
He punched out – his fist swinging wildly through the air and hitting nothing.
Something raked down his back.
Spinning around he attacked again – kicking and flailing his arms. James couldn’t hit anything; he couldn’t see anything.
He might have been able to hear it, but his ears were dead. Humans couldn’t tell the direction of things well just by scent, but, even if they could, his nose was dead as well.
James saw out of the corner of his eye his kill being ripped apart and pulled away. Something stabbed down through his legs. A sharp burning spike twisted through the side of his head.
James was still alive. He had so many wounds but none of them were fatal…somehow. They all hurt.
He turned on [haste] and tried to run away – aiming for a tree in the distance – but three steps forward and he had run straight into a new claw.
He was lifted up and shook…he felt a tear…
And then it was over.
…
James found himself passing through a rough static – around him random dots of light and dark swirled and flashed in fast patterns.
…
And then he was whole again. Standing in the town he had left ages before.
☠️ Achievement get: Killed by evisceration.
Description: Ripped apart by something you couldn’t see…then saved. You have survived a horror few have dealt with yet.
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Stat: +10 Ear fire defense.
Stat +5 Nose fire defense.
Stat: +5 Skin slashing defense.
James stumbled then stared about. No one seemed to be paying him any attention. The light was dim – it was either evening or dawn, he couldn’t tell.
He had failed…
He felt weak, mentally but also physically. The death penalty that was mentioned was definitely in effect. It felt like all of his stats – all of the progress he had been making was suddenly gone. It felt worse than that – like his body was emaciated – like he hadn’t walked or moved in weeks.
Looking around James slowly made his way out of the town once more.
His rational mind screamed at him again. Told him nothing would change – that he needed to stay somewhere safe till the penalty wore off.
But now his rational mind was joined by a second voice. I’ve already been killed in a town by some PK’er once. Its not safe – at least not any safer than the outdoors was.
James left civilization for the second time – a rising sun welcoming his path once more.
He traveled mostly in silence – walking for close to an hour before slowing in the midst of a plane.
Looking about he confirmed he was alone then bent and began to do pushups.
“One.
Two.
Three…” James counted aloud as he worked.
His weakened body struggled with each pushup – his arms struggled his core bent and shook.
This wasn’t a punishment however. James pushed himself again and again for a different reason. He wanted to get stronger.
There was a burn but it was a good burn. The burn of progress.
Finally, after what felt like a thousand reps – but what was probably closer to a dozen or two – a single popup appeared.
🏋️ Achievement get: Outdoor workout. (uncommon)
Description: Pump that iron – or…in this case pump that stone? Workout to exhaustion in the outdoors.
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Stat: +1 arm strength.
James collapsed breathing heavily. His weakened body ached, and he gave it time to rest. Standing up after a few minutes, he began to perform jumping jacks next – over and over pushing his weakened body until he collapsed once more.
As if waiting for him to finish a second popup appeared.
🏋️ Achievement get: Outdoor workout 2. (uncommon)
Description: Pump that iron – or…in this case pump that stone? Workout to exhaustion in the outdoors.
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Stat: +1 leg speed.
Sitting down carefully James considered his results.
“Power stats…power is equal to strength. Any strength training should give power stats…the equivalent of building muscles?” James spoke aloud as he walked through his thought practice.
“Speed stats…that’s equivalent to cardio. Any cardiovascular exercises should give speed stats…the equivalent of toning?” James continued voice picking up speed as the epiphany hit him.
“…defense is…” James trailed off as he thought. “Obviously I don’t just get stats from working out. All my other stats have been for the most part for doing ‘stuff’…So any time I avoid danger or do ‘something’ quickly I get speed. Every time I act more aggressive and face something head on, I get power. Every time I fail and get hurt, I get defense…” James trailed off for a moment clutching his hand together and studying his arm.
“So defense is…useful but I still died to those monsters easily enough. Defensive stats are failure stats. If I work out wrong and break something or tear something, I’ll get defense. It’s the sign of pushing too hard. It’s the sign of weakness.” James thought through those options and nodded.
It might not be a perfect analogy, but it would do.
Rolling over once again James began to do sit-ups. He would spend his weakness getting stronger.
One.
Two
Three…