The room he appeared in was similar to the last one. The biggest difference was that he didn’t have a physical body. Instead he had an overview over what at first glance looked like an elf, it reminded him of a character creation screen in a game. On inspection it turned out it really was an elf. This was starting to seem like a light novel. No van involved this time though, and he wasn’t alone either. The most important things that he noticed about the character creation was that he did not have the option to change the starting race. He was a wood-elf and the button he should have been able to use to change that was greyed out. He could alter his appearance however. He looked at the elf and noticed that it resembled him. The features might be a bit more refined than his own, but he could still recognise himself.
He looked at the other starting options, his class was greyed out as well. It said he was a druid, and after some fruitless clicking he discovered he couldn’t change his class either. Not that it really bothered him that much, he was rather pleased to be stuck with druid. The class fit him rather well, he thought about if he should change his appearance, he decided to make a slight change in his hair, growing it out till it reached his waist and then he braided it. Looking rather pleased about his new character he moved on. Surprisingly there was even a moral alignment option.
The options were good,evil and neutral. This in itself wasn't all that spectacular. What was unusual however was that each had 3 separate options as well. You could choose to be lawful good, neutral good or chaotic good. There was a short description behind each of the three. In summary lawful meant you held yourself to a code, either of your own making or the laws of a specific group or culture. Chaotic meant that you did whatever you pleased without holding yourself to any specific rules or laws. Neutral was in between the two. After giving it a thought he decided to go with Chaotic Neutral. He felt the choice fit him the best as he wasn’t a big fan of holding himself to laws, and he didn't have any particular code he held himself to. He was however old fashioned in a sense that honour was important to him, but he decided that he could still act honourable even if he picked chaotic. He was unsure what kind of ramifications it would have on the game but he he would find out eventually.
Next he had to choose his name. He went with a name similar to his own, with a few changes so it fit an elf. He choose the name, Sahjaíl pronounced as Sah-ja-il, with the ja being pronounced like the french would say Je. He was rather happy with the name when he clicked next, surprisingly enough he couldn’t choose a surname. After he chose his name he was sent into an attribute distribution screen where he could alter his attributes. His attributes started with 10 in everything except in Dexterity and Constitution. His Dexterity was at 12 and his Constitution was at 8, the other available attributes were, Strength, Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma. Each had a short description, none of it was anything unexpected. Not that different in explanation from any other game. The exception was that there was an extra note with the wisdom attribute, notifying him that his spells were pulled from the wisdom attribute because he was a Druid and not an Intelligence based spellcaster class.
After thinking it over he put spent his attributes, the result being:
Strength : 10
Dexterity : 17
Constitution :8
Wisdom : 20
Intelligence : 18
Charisma : 14
He clicked next on the stats and saw his body change slightly, the muscles on his body became slightly more defined, the body had taken on a leaner build. Next there was a list of Skills he could put points into, some of them were greyed out, not available to his specific class. Turns out because he had put a good amount of available stats into intelligence he had more skill points to play with. He put his points into Intimidate, Diplomacy, Survival, Tracking, Hiding, Searching, Concentration and Crafting. The system informed him that he would get 1 extra skill point put into each of the skills every time he leveled up. With an additional point if his intelligence got a bump in the raw attribute number.
Next up there was another list with feats that he could chose, there was a huge list of different things he could choose from. Again he was notified that he could now choose two feats and would get a feat every other level. In the end he choose for the feats, Extra Companion, he was glad to hear he would get one so he wouldn’t end up alone. But having an extra one really spoke to him. The second feat he choose was Lightning reflexes, for the obvious reason as to raise his survivability.
Next he could choose from the list of companions. He was surprised to not only find a large list of animals available but also one of each of the four elementals. After a quick read, he saw that the elemental would grow in strength every four levels, and that an animal companion would ‘evolve’ only once at level twelve. But it also told him that there were other possible ways to evolve said animal, both before and after the first evolution.
In the end he decided to pick one of both, he choose the earth elemental. It fit him the best as a druid after all. The earth elemental looked like a mix between a Treant and a Golem. It turned out the elemental was a head smaller than his character was. It was at least half as broad however. It looked badass if he was honest. The animal he picked was the Panther, the golem was more of a frontline soldier, strong at taking blows and dealing them right back, the panther, the description told him, focused on agility and sneak attacks. This way he figured he was pretty balanced, he had a tank, an agility type and he himself was an agility based mage. He named the golem Gorat and the panther Ziri.
Last but not least he could choose an outfit, he choose to go for a lighter armour set, made of leather and different cured hides. The colours were automatically chosen and harmonised with the forest in the back ground. Then he had to pick two weapons. After some thinking he decided to go with a hunting knife and a longbow with a quiver of 24 arrows. He figured he could use the knife to fashion himself a crude spear as well, he would need the knife for skinning creatures. He expected to be ‘spawned’ in a wild setting.
The minute he finished choosing his weapons and armour he found himself in a forest, the trees were humongous at least three to four times larger than the ones back home. Most of the trees he saw were either oak or ash. He also recognised a tree called Arborvitae, his grandma was a botanist and had liked teaching him about trees and plants. The Arborvitae was normally found closer to swamps however. There were no apparent signs that a swamp was close however. He looked back at the tree and remembered his grandma explaining where the name had come from. It had meant Tree of life, and was often used by locals in their fence making because of its reddish/yellow colour and its sturdy wood. He smiled at the memory of his grandmother and looked down at his body.
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He had completely zoned out and forgotten he wasn’t human anymore, he led his hands up the side of his head and felt his ears. Yup they were the traditionally pointed elven ears, he had to admit he felt a bit anxious, times like this he was glad about his mental issues, his lack of these emotions really helped out. He thought about the companions he could summon.
“Summon Companion.” Nothing happened, he thought a moment in confusion and tried it a bit different. He imagined the golem and summoned the image he had seen in his mind. He then thought about the name he had given the golem and tried forming the creature in front of him. To his surprise the earth started moving, the grass in front of him ripped itself apart as the golem rose from the earth, stepping out of it like some kind of lord of the earth. Once the golem stood up and stood in front of him he realised just how large the creature actually was. It somehow seemed bigger than its actual length, roots and moss covering the dark grey rocks with grass-moss like hair shortly cut on its hair, and eyes that were, he had no idea. He couldn't actually see the eyes, shadows covered the spot where the eyes should be. All in all the golem looked rather impressive, he wondered what it would like from behind.
Before he had even finished the thought the golem turned around and showed him its back. Sahjaíl’s eyebrows rose in surprise as he noticed how the creature had reacted to his thought before he had even finished it.
That is going to be usefull, especially if it can anticipate what I want it to do, especially since I wont always have the time to tell it what to do. I might actually survive my first battle.
He did the same thing with Ziri as he had done with Gorat, but the panther didn’t come from the earth the same way the golem had. Instead it walked out from the shadows, almost as if it came stalking through a thick black liquid. The panther was slightly larger than the ones he had seen back home, he could also ‘feel’ its intelligence, he was sure that the creature would be able to understand him if he spoke.
He nodded to the two and decided to figure other things out later. First he opened his spell list, the three spells he had chosen for the first level where, light, cure minor wounds and nature’s energy. One other thing the system had told him is that he had limited amount of spells per day, there was no such thing as mana for him. He could use each of his spells 3 times per day at level one. Light and cure minor wounds kind of explained themselves with their names, nature’s energy was a missile based attack where a forest green kind of football shaped energy exploded from his hand and shot towards the nearest creature he designated as an enemy.
Taking a breath he took the bow from his back and nocked an arrow, Ziri walked in the direction where he wanted to go and scouted the area ahead. Just as he had wanted to tell her to, he blinked in surprise when he realised he had referred to the panther as her. He wasn’t even sure how he knew it but he was sure of it. He followed about twenty meters behind the stealthy animal, the golem took up its position behind him covering from any attacks that would be pointed at his back.
With this formation the three of them slowly and softly made their way through the forest, keeping an eye open for any sign of creatures or monsters that might attack. He wasn't to worried now that it was still day, but when night fell he wondered what kind of things might be creeping around.
Soon enough they came across a small pond, surrounding the pond where one of the weirdest and freakiest monsters he had ever heard of. The body was about the same size and shape as large dog would have been but the head was like alligator jaws, but instead of opening up and down they opened on the left and right, it had eyes on on the side of its head, if you could even call that a head,the thing was scaled along its entire body, and it even had an alligator tail of sorts. He just froze for a second as he stared at the creature, there were two of them.
One of the creatures hissed and darted forward surprisingly quickly on its little legs, Ziri jumped to the side avoiding the weird creature with a hiss of its own. Sahjaíl ordered the golem to charge the creature, it was already running past him using its heavy mass to tackle the strange thing to the ground. They hit the ground with a heavy smack that reverberated throughout the forest, even managing to slightly rustle the leave. The golem started pounding the side of the creature with brutal efficiency. It looked like one of the things was taken care of the other one was now charging towards him however with nothing to stand in its way.
Sahjaíl hurriedly grabbed the bowstring almost dropping the arrow in the process as he fumbled with his fingers. He snatched back the string aimed and shot, the arrow only left a minor scratch on the scales of its side, he had been aiming for its head, he had completely missed his target. The creature pounced towards him and in a frantic gesture he sent a slap towards the creature. Forest green energy bubbling from his hand and intercepting the creature sending it knocked onto its back. Breathing loudly Sahjaíl stared at a creature and a fraction of a second later Ziri pounced on the soft underbelly cutting open its stomach with her claws and at the same time burying her teeth in the what he thought was the creatures neck.
The creature thrashed for a bit but eventually the loss of blood spelled the end for it. Gorat had also finished pummelling the other creature into paste. There wouldn’t be a lot left to scavenge from the creature, it was truly a mess, mostly blood and innards were spread around with a scale here and there. Grimacing he moved towards the creature Ziri had killed and grabbed his hunting knife, he started work on the skinning figuring he could use the scales to pad up his armour some or maybe they had some other use. That was when he discovered he didn’t have an inventory to stuff all the parts in. He cursed, he had to admit he had fully expected to have an inventory.
Thinking he decided to turn the scaled hide into a backpack of sorts, he looked around and grabbed some of the super thin grass he had seen, he used multiple of the long stalks to braid them together into something that resembled thread, next he used one of the bones to make a needle of sorts. He smiled, happy to have spent all those weeks outside with his nature loving family teaching how to make things from the leftovers of hunted creatures, or his grandma who had loved to talk to him about plants. His father that had taught him hunting and crafted his own stuff from the hides and bones of the creatures. His mother who taught him about animal behaviour and patterns.
The smile turned sad as he remembered their fate, he shook his head and got back to work, the golem sat down behind him guarding his back, Ziri stared at him with interest, watching him work. It took about two hours to finish something that resembled a back-pack. The skin was really tough so it had been a pain in the ass to get the needle through so he could sow something properly. He was rather pleased with the result however, it looked better than he thought it would look. Maybe the crafting skill helped a bit in the design, he wasn’t about it however.
He slung his new backpack over his shoulder and followed Ziri further into the forest. They ran into another of the Hyenadiles, as he had started to call them, they reminded him of hyena’s and crocodiles so he had decided to just smash the names together and call them that. Not the most refined name but it would have to do. He made sure to take care of the creatures one at a time however. Gorat knocked them over on their backs and held them down so he and Ziri could quickly finish the creatures. He skinned them just like the others and put their scaly skin into his backpack, he also painstakingly pulled out their larger tooths thinking he could use them later. It wasn’t until they ran into three of them that the real problems started.
It dashed from the forest, one of the Hyenadiles running past him and charging at Gorat, another was in a hissing match with Ziri. The third made a jump further than he had thought possible and tackled him to the ground. He flexed his legs to launch the creature over him but it was to heavy and refused to budge. It snapped at his head, with a quick twist he managed to avoid deaths but the creature got a chunk of his ear. He screamed grabbed the weird snout and did his best to hold the creatures mouth closed. He remembered watching a documentary about crocodiles and how their biting strength was immense but with a bit of strength the mouths could be held closed. He really hoped that the show hadn’t been bullshitting. He struggled with the monstrous creature, being rolled around in the dirt, relief came when Gorat grabbed the thing by its tail and swung it around in an impressive show of strength and smashed it into a tree.
He cursed as he felt the pain in his ear, he focused on the cure minor wounds spell as he put his hand near his ear. He could feel his skin stitching itself back together. He put his hand on his ear and felt the tender skin, still sensitive because of the healing. It hadn’t completely healed however, the skin that had been bitten off was still missing leaving two minor gashes in his left ear near the tip.
So I guess I will still get scars regardless of healing.
He sighed, worried about nightfall. First he had another three Hyenadiles to skin though.