“Minor skill, Flash Step? Wait! A skill, I thought those would be a lot harder to get a hold of. Now the question is, how to use it” Griffin rambled as he stood to pace, “ Do I need to actually say the name out loud, or maybe just think it?”
He began trying to use it, from saying the name of the skill, to thinking about it. In all essence, shouting and dancing around the area. Feeling like a fool he continued to try for several minutes, before he stopped, and started to focus,” Can I sell the cooked fish System?”
“Ok, so I’m going to be able to make money from just fishing, and gathering, if I can find more materials to sell,” Griff muttered as he stood there, absorbed with the train of thought. He decided to replace the makeshift fish trap and return to his tree.
Towards the middle of the trip, He heard a thud behind a tree near his path. Looking at the branches in the tree, he saw a squirrel looking creature, staring at him. The biggest difference, besides its fur being a shade of green, was a large claw attached to its paws.
“Oh, the System automatically tells me creatures I see, not just the ones I kill,” He said as he watched the Talon squirrel climb up the tree and leap away. Maybe I can just use a solid branch as a club, at least until I can think of a better weapon. Yeah, that’s the plan; sell fish, try and hunt, find a way to get a weapon. I just gotta keep my focus. I can conquer the dungeon, nothing is impossible. Look at it this way, it’s a starter dungeon.
As he reached his tree and climbed up he spotted another Talon Squirrel a dozen or so yards away. I hope those things are solitary creatures. He thought while he sat in his treehouse, looking at the branches near it. I can reach a few branches that I could use, but I’ll start breaking them off after I take a nap. I’m crashing. And with that, he leaned against the trunk and slept.
After several hours of shut-eye, Griffin woke up, a small ache in his back from the wood. “Ok, find something to lay on, wood’s a horrible bed by itself,” he said rubbing his back and stretching, “Ah, right, I said I’d try to get a club to use to defend myself, hop to it Grif, no sense in lazing around.”
He climbed up a few feet above his platform, reaching for a solid looking branch that looked like it had a good spot to grip. He grabbed it and started pulling, the branch bent, no sign of breaking. He put more weight on the branch, nearly all of the weight he could.
*SNAP*
The branch fractured and fell, Grif along with it. As he fell he bumped into many branches, and even broke a couple. Twenty feet later, his back slammed into a bough roughly a foot in diameter and flipped face down quickly arriving in the dirt below. “Fuck! Ah, that’s going to hurt for the next few weeks,” He said rolling onto his back, as he felt the bruise forming,” Now I’ll have to be careful not to get hit there if anything attacks me. But it looks like I have my choice of a club at least. Damn, glad no one was here to see that at least, the one perk to being trapped alone in this forsaken place.”
Standing up he looked at the variety of branches that made him suffer and suffered with him, through the fall. The one he originally had his eye on snapped on the way down, the end much like a small spike, however, next to it there was a slightly larger branch, roughly 2 feet long, with a “Y” shape on one end. “Well, I have a small stabby stick and a half-decent beater. Not my first choice, but better than nothing. Actually, If I can find a good rock I can make this into a hammer” He said beginning to look around, scanning for any usable rock, yet finding none.
“Ah, it can’t be that easy, let’s get some water, and some fish, and make a plan. Because If I go off half-cocked, it’ll all end up as shit.” He said reminding himself to keep the future in mind, as he trekked back to his impromptu fishnet.
As he sat by a small fire, a half-dozen fish cooking, he wrote in the ground with a stick, planning,” Ok, so I need to find out the end goal of the dungeon, get strong enough to complete that goal safely, and not go psycho from being alone, so it can’t take forever either. Given that I’ve seen no change in natural lighting since I’ve come here there’s no night or day, so I’ll need to rest when I feel tired, and trust my body. Maybe I can get easy levels by planning everything out like this.” He said as he pulled one of the fish from in front of the fire, and eating it after waving it’s notification away,” System, I’d like to sell the remaining [Green Flash Fish] if possible.”
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<[Green Flash Fish] x 5 will be sold through the System for a total of 5 Nihil Credits>
“Oh, ok, so each green fish is one credit, so then the answering system would require me to sell 45 more, hm.” He said as he finished reading the prompt,” I’ll have to cook and sell extra fish when I can, I wonder if the blue ones hold any value, or if eating more green would affect the skill at all.”
He took several more sips from the brook, having planned to walk back to the shelter, when he saw it, a rock, in a near ax-like shape. Not too thick, but not fragile looking. He snagged it, drenching his arm up to the shoulder, ecstatic that he had found it.
“Yeah, yeah, I see that I found that System, thank you. Now I’ll need to tear up another shirt for something to tie this to my branch, but it’ll work well” He said as he hurriedly hiked back to his base. As soon as he arrived he took a few inches from the bottom of his last shirt to make a cord from them. He split it into three strips of equal length, and carefully braided them together, making a cord roughly 4 feet long. He then spent time, carefully tying the head to the branch, wanting the construction to stay as stable for as long as possible.
“Ok, so I have a weapon and tool, that’s something. Now to get some more space and materials, and some wood tools too” Grif said as he took a few basic swings with his new construction. And with a spring in his step, he started to cut down a few trees in the direction leading to the stream and bringing the logs to the base of his shelter. He trimmed branches, cut the logs into sections averaging 6 feet long, in total cutting 5 trees down.
“Handy as always system, but there’s no way I could keep leveling this easily, I need to be careful with the easy levels, using them wisely, Status”
Name: Griffin Kaylock
Class: -----
Level: 4
Attributes: 7 Unspent points
--Strength: 9
--Dexterity: 8
--Fortitude: 10
--Wisdom: 7
--Intelligence: 7
--Charisma:3
--Luck: 9
Skills: [Flash Step]
Abilities: +50% point gain
“Hmm, So it seems nothing happened when I hit 10 Fortitude. Ah, Forget it. If there is a point when you get a bonus it’ll be fucking hard to get. Something like 100 points, yeah, probably at 100,” He said as he inspected the page, before allocating 1 point to Strength, Luck, and Wisdom, and 2 to Dexterity and Charisma. “Just gotta keep -”
*Snap*
A branch from a tree on the edge of the clearing snapped and landed with a thump. A green furry body, on the branch closest to where the knot from the freshly broken bough, was spotted by Grif when his head swiftly looked toward the sound. Great the squirrel is back, well I have the ax should anything happen. Self-defense and provisional hunting. Don’t go nuts killing.
The Squirrel’s tail flicked twice while they stared at each other. Just as a queasy feeling started to bubble up in his stomach, he felt a claw sink into his shoulder. “Ah, Damn squirrel!” He shouted, trying to grab it. Yet the Squirrel leaped from his hands, landing next to the first. The duo then launched themselves back towards Grif. He grabbed the ax-handle tighter and swung at the squirrel on his left, missing, but the momentum pulled him away from the attack from the 2nd. He steadied himself, turning around, to keep them in his field of view. Noticing the squirrels turning at the same time, He lunged at them. His ax catching the rightmost one in the stomach, then shoving that one into the 2nd. At the end of the swing, the first squirrel had severe bleeding but still standing, the 2nd unaffected besides being shoved. This time as the two parties turned to each other, the injured squirrel in front of its partner.
Ok, that’s odd, they’ve been side by side the 2 times before.
As the squirrels leaped at Grif, one behind and above the other, he swung his ax in an attempt to finish off the first one. An injured enemy is still an enemy, was his thought at that moment. He connected the swing, launching the injured party into a nearby tree, and it was out of the fight. However, the other fuzzball landed a solid hit on Grif’s shoulder.
“Ah, fuck” He raged, holding his left shoulder trying to keep it from bleeding too much. Ok, I got cocky, I'm paying for that. But this damned fluffy shit will pay for that. He thought as he held his ax in his right hand, I’ll wait till right before it hits me for minimum defense. When it’s focused on the attack is when it’s least defended. At least in theory.
As the squirrel approached, eyes near red with rage, Grif focused on its body. As it reached a claw out with a kick, he sidestepped and swung, hard.
And the squirrel’s body landed with a crash, it’s torso split open and spilling out. “Oh, shit! I didn’t know that would happen!” Grif said freaking out over the 2 dead squirrels, laying in the clearing, “Well time to see if they are edible, or if I can salvage anything from them. I mean the claws were sharp, maybe they’d make a decent pocket knife?” He said as he calmed himself down by pacing rapidly.
“Well I’d hope I’d get a level for winning in combat, especially my first one,” He said as he slotted 2 points into Strength, Dexterity, and Fortitude, then the last point into Luck, “Now I’ve got to figure out how to properly take care of my shoulder. I don’t have much left from the shirts.”
He spent an hour trying different methods to apply the proper care to the cut on his shoulder, eventually settling on a wad of shirt under his actual shirt, nothing great but it kept decent pressure on it. And he went to work stripping the bodies of the squirrels setting the mean on spits over a small fire. The skins, after cleaning the flesh off of them, he sold to the system for a total of 8 Nihil credits. Food over the fire and body hurting, he leaned against a tree and rested his eyes for a minute.