No one ever thinks that their life is going to change forever when they wake up in the morning. For 22 year old Christopher of Montana, that is exactly what exactly happened.
It seemed like every other day. Christopher, or Chris as his friends call him, was your average 22 male. He was studying Computer Engineering at MSU in Bozeman, mt. Chris had just finished his first semester of his sophomore year, enjoying his time off now that classes were done for the semester. Staying up way too late playing video games while watching youtube. It was December 7th.
Chris started his daily routine, browsing facebook while laying in bed. Finally decided it was time to get up and actually be productive for once. After making his morning shake Chris decided it was time to hit the gym.
“Great it snowed again.” he thought as he walked outside. Getting in his 2005 pontiac bonneville he starts to warm it up, as he wipes the new 3 inches of snowfall off of his car. “I’m getting tired of this shit, only two and a half more years of this and I can move somewhere warmer.”
For the record, sure it gets cold in Montana, Chris Lowkey loved living in bozeman. It was a beautiful place to live, the people were nice, and all the modern conveniences were amazing. He had grown up in a back country town in montana. A little place called conrad. It was awesome to only have to drive 5-10 minutes to get to anything he wanted/needed. Instead of the 1 hour drive it took to get to great falls, from conrad.
“Fuck it’s icey” Chris thought as he was driving to the gym. He looked down at this phone to check the temperature. -20 degrees. As he is sitting at a stop light he sees 2 different people start to fishtail as they are driving through the intersection. “amatures “ Chris muses to himself as he watches everyone struggling to drive in the icy conditions.
The light turns green, Chris starts accelerating through the intersection. He looks to his left and sees a semi truck that isn't slowing down. The semi rams into the back of the car in front of it. Chris has time to think “OH SHIT!” before the semi pushes the car into the driver side of his car and his world goes black.
White.That is all that Chris’s world is upon waking up. “Im dead” is the first thought that crosses his mind. He tries to open his eyes. wait. He doesnt have eyes. He looks down, no body. “Well this is weird.” He thinks. “Why don't i have a body? Where am i? Is this heaven? Is this hell?” It very well could have been hell in his mind. Being conscious for all eternity in what looks like unending whiteness. Thinking about it even more, there was no way he was in heaven or in hell. Sure he was raised to be a good little Luthern boy, but who believes in that nowadays?
After what seemed like an eternity, or what could have been easily 5 minutes. A door opens. Or at least that's what Chris thought it was, how else to describe a section of white disappearing in this vast nothingness he has been stuck in for the last forever. Through the doorway there was a creature he had never seen before.
“It's not nice calling me a creature.” the thing says to Crhis. “Or a thing.” it says to Chris. Standing before him, if that is what he truly was anymore, was something that looked like a mix between the cloners from star wars episode 2, and the Na’vi from Avatar. It was tall, thin, insanely long neck, blue skin, and vibrant gold eyes.
“What are you?” asks Chris. His voice sounded weird, distorted, almost as if it wasn't coming from him. He began to wonder about the physics behind trying to produce words without lips, or even vocal cords. “How can I talk? Or better yet, where am i? No, I definitely want the first one answered, ``What are you?”
The being chuckles, “I am what your people might call the boat man, I help lost souls get to where they need to go.” The concept was not strange to Chris, after all he did know enough about greek mythology, his favorite Disney movie growing up was Hercules.
The beast walks closer to Chris, and waves it’s hand. As it does a table and a chair materializes. It proceeds to take a seat and point across from it. Understanding the meaning Chris travels over across from the enigma.
Stunned by what he is hearing Chris asks, “So your name is Charon?” “No.” replied the entity, “But if it helps your mind understand that you are no longer on earth, then you are welcome to think that. As to your other questions, you are in something akin to purgatory. You are inbetween worlds, you are no longer a creature of earth, but you are not of any world anymore. You are a blank slate.” ‘Charon’ summons a mirror and shows Chris himself.
Staring back at Chris is a floating ball of light. “So you're saying I am nothing?” “Again, no, you are still Chris, but you are no longer a human, you are no longer on earth, and you no longer are restrained on what you can become. In your last life you couldn't chance yourself, at least not fundamentally. It was possible for you to try to improve yourself, but you couldn't become better than a human. As to how you can talk, when you are here, physics don't really apply exactly how they do on earth.”
“You no longer have to push air out of your lungs, past your vocal cords, to make them vibrate and create words. In your current state your thoughts are broadcast as sound, and as such you can create words.”
‘Charon’ as Chris has started to refer to it, gets a far away look in it’s eye, almost as if it was zoning out. “What are you doing?” asks Chris. “It's getting close to time, follow me” replies Charon. It stands and walks through the opening in the endless space they are sharing. Chris is hesitant at first, he doesn't know what Charon meant by “it’s getting close to time” but he didn't like the sound of it, but alas his curiosity got the better of him, and followed Charon.
As he enters the doorway his world takes on the solid shape of a hallway. Looking back he sees nothing but white behind him through the doorway. Charon is already far ahead of Chris. How does it walk so fast? He thinks to himself as he rushes to try to catch up.
After a good distance of travel, or so he thinks he catches up to Charon as they round a corner. Before them is an expansive room. Ornate columns and arched alcoves line the exterior of the room. Inside each alcove there is a large brazier in the middle of it, burning a white flame producing a white light, with two columns with pulsing orbs of light floating above them. Above every alcove there are fancy stained glass windows that depict scenes ranging anywhere from egyption hyroglifics, to fancy medieval tapestries. Each scene was of happy events, families eating dinner, a woman feeding a calf, a meadow of flowers. What stood out the most about the scenes on the stained glass were moving.
“Well,” says Charon, “time to find out who you will become.”
“What do you mean, ‘Who I will become’?”
“I thought that was pretty self explanatory” says Charon “You are a blank slate, we need to find out what you are going to be in your next life. Think of this as ‘character creation’ as you humans like to call it. The only difference is you won't be waking up in the back of a wagon with other captured prisoners rolling into town to get your head chopped off.”
Wait a second, did Chiron just make a skyrim reference?
“Although i wouldn't count that out. I might know a bit about where you are headed but i don’t know for certain that Alduin won't try to kill you within the first ten minutes of your next life.”
Yep, definitely just made a skyrim reference.
“Alright Chris, i'm going to need you to not freak out, i'm going to activate your system.” Items appeared around the periphery of Chris’s vision.
“Oh I get it, it's exactly like playing a rpg, but in real life.” Chris pulled up his Character sheet.
Name:???
Race:???
age:???
Hp:???
Stamina:???
Mana:???
Strength:???
Constitution:???
Dexterity:???
Agility:???
Endurance:???
Intelligence:???
Wisdom:???
Charisma:???
Skills: N/A
Abilities: N/A
“I finally understand what you mean by a blank slate,I am nothing, how can I see what each of these basic stats do?” asked Chris, “Just focus on them.” Replied Charon.
Chris nods, it makes sense to him, basically it told him to look up the tool tips, which makes sense for someone who spent the better part of his spare time playing video games.
Strength: How strong your body is. Each point will increase the force your body can produce. Will increase your carry weight without major stamina drain by 15 lbs.
Constitution: How well your body can handle changes to its norm. Each point will add 10 hp to your Maximum life, and increase how well your body can process poisons.
Dexterity: How well your body can perform more complex tasks. Each point will increase your dodge, as well as more complex tasks with your hands.
Agility: How fast you are able to move your body: Each point will increase your attack speed, it will also add .2 mph to your running speed without major stamina drain.
Endurance: How long your body can keep up strenuous activities. Each point will add 10 points to your stamina, as well as decrease the rate at which your stamina drains.
Intelligence: How well you can acquire and apply knowledge. Each point increases your mana by 10, it will also make your spells more powerful.
Wisdom: The quality of having knowledge, and good judgment. Each point will increase your mana regeneration.
Charisma: How other people will view you. Each point will make others around you more likely to like and listen to you.
Honestly, Chris wasn't too surprised by what he saw. After all, it was fairly standard definitions for the stats in any rpg game you play. “Alright.” Chris says as he turns back to Charon. “So how do we determine what I will be starting in my next life?”
“You are taking all this information better than most people I help.”
Increased reputation with Charon.
“As to your question, you have to pick two positive abilities, one negative ability, and a race to start from. Inside this first room will be your first positive ability, after you pick we will move on to a different room to pick your second positive ability. Etc. etc. In each of these alcoves there are 2 abilities to choose from.” Chris looks over the room doing some quick guesstimation. “There has to be over 1,000 alcoves I can choose from, i'll be here all damn day!”
“You should see all the choices I didn't pick for you based on your last life.”
“Well how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Chris turns to the first alcove to see what he had to choose from. Looking into the first recess there are two orbs floating on top of pedestals.
Extreme Strength: adds 20% to your strength score.
Initial Spell Casting: adds 5 levels to each school of spells that you are able to learn.
Holy shit! If the rest of these abilities are similar to these first two, they all would be a video game player’s wet dream. Alright let's see what's next. Chris floats over to the next alcove to see what else they got.
Thick Skinned: 20% physical damage reduction.
Bound Creature: Upon entering the world you are randomly assigned a creature that will follow your commands and will be loyal to you till you die.
A thought starts to worm its way into Chris’s head. “Hey Charon, I'm not going back to earth am i?”
“No, you're not. You are headed to a world where sentient life has just recently started to be seeded.” “what do you mean seeded?” “You will be dropped into a world where sentient creatures have not existed for long.”
“Alright, I think I understand what you mean.” Chris turns back and starts searching the alcoves, after looking at about half of the choices he found one he wanted.
Skilling Prodigy: Gain skill levels twice as fast.
Chris was about to call out asking how he claims an ability when a prompt popped up in his vision.
Would you like to gain the ability “Skilling Prodigy?” Yes/No
“Um, Yeah.” Chris thinks as he selects yes. Who wouldn't want that? One of his favorite games he played growing up was runescape. There were many many years he wished he could have gotten double experience to level up faster.
The orb that contained Skilling Prodigy started to glow. It started to pulsate. Worrying Chris started to back away from the orb. The pulsations started slow, as they accelerated, it started to glow brighter and brighter. There was a slight hum in the air. As Chris thought it was time to run, the orb shot off his pedestal and came right at him. The orb shot into Chris, once he calmed himself a little bit, he didn't feel any different. Pulling up his character sheet he sees that Skilling Prodigy is now in his Abilities tab.
“Well that took you long enough, if I wasn't immortal I could have sworn I would have died of old age before you’d actually pick an ability.” Charon gave a little snort. “Whatever, come this way.” and walks back out the way that they came in.
Once Chris crossed the threshold of the door the hallway that was before him disappears, and another smaller room is before him. The room is fairly ornate, with the same floor plan as the one they just left. Looking back there is another long hallway that looks eerily similar to the first hallway that they traveled down. “Why is this room smaller than the first?”
“Ah, it is because this second room has abilities that synergize with your first choice.”
After looking for nearly 20 minutes Chris comes across an ability that doesn't quite fit. “How does pet pal synergize with Skilling Prodigy?”
Pet pal: You gain the ability to talk to animals, animals also are more likely to like, and trust you.
Would you like to gain the ability “Pet Pal” Yes/No
“The world works in mysterious ways.” Replies Charon, “Well what the heck.” thought Chris, and selected yes. Checking his Character Sheet
Name:???
Race:???
age:???
Hp:???
Stamina:???
Mana:???
Strength:???
Constitution:???
Dexterity:???
Agility:???
Endurance:???
Intelligence:???
Wisdom:???
Charisma:???
Skills: N/A
Abilities: Skilling prodigy
Pet pal
“That was a lot faster than i expected” said Charon “At the rate you picked the first ability i thought we would be here till the heat death of the universe. I digress, come with me, little orb.”
This time instead of leaving through a hallway there is a weird distortion and they are standing in a new room. The same type of filigree is decorating the walls around them, but instead of different shades of white there is different shades of black. This new room has the same layout as the last two rooms. This time there were only about 100 alcoves to choose from. The main stark differences in the room was the brazier and the stained glass windows. The brazier was burning a black flame, only instead of producing light it seemed to be absorbing light, but the flame is still very visible. The stained glass was very jarring to look at, they depicted scenes of murder, people being flayed alive, and people being eaten by demonic looking creatures. It was hard to look at because these windows were also moving.
“This isn't ominous at all, I think you need to get yourself a new interior decorator.” said Chris to charon. “Eh, it looks worse than it actually is, go on, go pick your negative ability.”
As Chris approached the first alcove with dread in his heart he couldn't stop looking at the stained glass above it which depicted a furry humanoid creature being burned alive.
Clumsy: the effectiveness of your dexterity skill is reduced by 20%
Awkward: the effectiveness of your charisma is reduced by 20%
“What the hell!” exclaimed Chris, “you're telling me i need to pick something that will limit my life in such a negative way? That hardly seems fair to me.”
Charon chuckled “who said that life is fair? Was your death fair? You are about to go into a world that is full of unjust beings, a world of death and strife, and you want to talk about fairness? You are going to have to toughen up, it's time to put on your big girl panties. Besides I told you it was going to be a negative ability, did you think it was going to be a cake walk in your new life?”
“I guess that makes sense,” Chris grumbled, “that doesn't mean I am going to like it.” After searching around for a bit Chris settles down on one negative ability
Magically inept(air): lose all chase to learn any spell from the school of air magic.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Would you like to absorb ability magically inept(air) yes/no?
Clicking yes once again the orb shot off the pedestal and straight into Chris's floating “body” as a sense of intense trepidation overcomes him.
“Alright the last thing you need to do is now pick your race, come along ball,” as a mouth opens up from the ground beneath the two of them and swallows both.
When Chris regains his sentience he and Charon are in a room of lush grass. There are rolling hills all around them, with what looks like potholes all over. Around the outside of the hills there was a storm cloud almost in a perfect circle around the center where he and Charon Arived. Floating over to one of the holes he looks into it and sees a creature inside of it that looks likes a cross between a lizard and a lion.
Race: Lyzard: A quadruped creature with basic control over grip, more monster than sentient creature, medium level intelligence, and mostly solitary in its living. +2 to strength, +1 to constitution, +1 to dexterity, and 2 free points to distribute per level.
Hell to the no, there is no way I would give up my opposable thumbs. “Hey Charon, what's outside of the storm wall?” “Out there are the races that your soul isn't strong enough to inhabit.”
“What do you mean my soul isn't strong enough to inhabit? Why wouldn't I be able to be one of them?”
“Well you see Chris, even though you are a blank slate in a base sense of the word, you are still you, and unfortunately on earth you didn't really suffer anything that strengthened or grew your soul. It's one the down sides of living in a world where your biggest trial growing up is getting spanked by your parents.”
“Fair enough” Chris thinks to himself, floating around he finds all sorts of strange races, eventually he comes across a small hillock which contains something he is more familiar with.
Race: Elf: Often considered the fairer races, long lived, and have a pre disposed nature towards being magic casters. Elves gain +2 to dexterity, +1 to charisma, and 2 free points to distribute per level.
“That's more like it, now that is something im familiar with, but being a frilly posing smelling elf just seems lame. Moving on.” thought Chris, floating around he finds that most of the holes near the elves are races he has heard about before. He finds humans, gnomes, draconics, dwarves, and centaurs to name a few. There is one that just sounds right to him though.
Race: Orc: Orcs are a tribal species, very warlike in nature, they are natural born fighters, and grow to maturity fairly quickly. Orcs gain +1 to strength, +1 to constitution, +1 to endurance, and 2 free points to distribute per level.
Chris always liked playing the bad guys, the fighters, and honestly orcs in all of his video games. Besides who wouldn't want to worship Gork and Mork.
Making his final decision he clicked yes and his body began to morph, first elongating, and extremities began to grow out of his blob, ending in an orc body. Looking at his new body something didn't quite seem right, something just felt off. Looking down he realized what it was, he had breasts.
“CHARON!” exclaimed Chris, “what the hell man? Do I sound like a woman to you? How do I change it so I am a guy?”
Chucking Charon just shook his head at Chris, “it wouldn't be the end of the world if you were a girl.” Snapping his fingers Chris’s body began to change again, growing taller, and putting on more muscle.
A Prompt opened up in front of Chris.
Name: ???
Thinking about it for a second Chris decided on a new name, after all who was going to fear the all mighty and powerful orc, Chris?
Would you like to change your name to: Gulnar? Yes/No
Once Chris chose yes, Charon said “Well Gulnar, that is all I really have time for you, a few words of caution for you before you go. This new world you are going to is nothing like the one you came from, you will not have an easy life, you will struggle, if you do not adapt you will die, and there is no guarantee you'll get another chance past this one. You will need to gain power if you wish to not be tortured, taken advantage of, or rightout killed. I wish you luck in your next life, make it one worth living.”
Once he stopped speaking Charon raised his hand and it began to glow a soft purple color, as Gulnar’s world faded to black.
The first sensation Gulnar feels is pain. Upon opening his eyes he is able to see for a brief moment before the liquid in his eyes boils. He is inside of an active volcano. As he takes in an involuntary gasp to scream at the searing agony of his eyes melting in his head he finds out he cant breath. He can't tell what hurts more, feeling his lungs get 3rd degree burns, or feeling the toxic vapors start to eat away at the structure of his lungs.
Gulnar immediately starts coughing only to start to cough up pieces of his lungs that are being eaten away and sloughing off from the vapers. At this point he has lost feeling in his skin as it started on fire as the skin dried out and became flammable in the hot environment. His insides start to boil from the water being separated out of his blood and boiling. Once his blood began to separate into the water and the other components he could feel his cells start to vaporize before his consciousness fled his body. The body of Gulnar never hit the ground, it had turned into ash as it began to fall.
You have died.
For the second time in what feels like a day, Chris’s world is nothing but white. “What in Zeus's left testical was that? I spawned in a volcano! How in the hell is that fair at all?” Once again there was a section of nothing that just disappeared and in walks a familiar face.
“Well well, what do we have here? I thought you just left for the eld.” said Charon with a slight frown on its face. “This cant do, I have a schedule to keep and you’ve already wasted enough of my time.”
“Do you know what that is like? I felt my eyes melting, i felt my blood boil, i felt my skin go up in fla-...”
“Last time while you took forever and a day to pick your life last time, and i don't appreciate being talked over” as charon says that, chris who was in the middle of a tirade about what he felt as he burnt alive, finds himself cut short, unable to speak. “Now that's better, some quiet. I told you that you would have a hard life, I just didn't foresee that it would be that short.”
“You’re in luck because of your first death your essence had just enough energy left in it to send you here. I want to make sure you know, this won't be happening again, when you die next you will not be coming back here, you will be dead for real. As i was saying before you tried talking over me, i already used up too much of my time on you last time you were here and i dont have the patience to let you go through that whole creation again so i'm going to help you out here, best of luck to you in your new life.”
With that final statement Chris’s body began to fly through the void as his awareness faded to white.
Soft. That was the only word that could be used to describe what Chris was laying on. Blessed relief flooded through Chris's body, he had no way of knowing, but when he was dead in that other realm, he had little to no sensory input. Which led to whatever he felt before his death to be frozen in his mind, not feeling the pain, but also not going away.
Upon opening his eyes and looking around what lies before him, he appears to be on a mountain, underneath a massive pine tree. Its proportions are nowhere near understandable, it looks to be larger than the california redwoods, with a diameter of at least 30 ft, and a height well over 500 feet. What blew his mind was each of the trees on this mountain were comparable in size to the one he was under, looking around there were hundreds of trees, no, thousands, and this didn't look to be the only mountain around him. From where he stood he could see a vast mountain range, with what looked to be a river running through it.
The next thing taken in was his body, his view looked a little shorter than he did in his last life, his skin was the same tanned skin he remembered, 10 fingers, that's good. Coming to the conclusion that he was in fact a human again, "wait", he thought as he checked his ears, which were round, "yeah definitely a human."
On the edge of his vision there were 3 different colored bars in the upper left hand corner, one was red, one was green, and the last was blue. Concentrating on each of them in turn, he learned that red was for health, green was for stamina, and blue was for mana. With a thought the bars started to display a number, each one read 90. About what was to be expected. On the right side of his view there were a bunch of different icons. "That's going to get in the way if I end up in a fight, or in my day to day life." With a thought he was able to get them to disappear, then they came back, and away again, finally stopping with it up.
His next action was to pull up his character sheet.
Name:Bjorn Ward
Race:Human
age:18
Hp:90
Stamina:90
Mana:90
Strength:9
Constitution:9
Dexterity:9
Agility:9
Endurance:9
Intelligence:9
Wisdom:9
Charisma:9
Skills: N/A
Abilities: Increased growth
Skilling Prodigy
Demerit: Weak
Synergy: Latent potential
"Alright, let's see what we are working with here", focusing on his perks a half translucent window popped up.
Increased growth: Increase all xp gained by 25%.
"score, increasing all xp gained, i can see that leading to a great advantage."
Skilling prodigy: Gain skill levels twice as fast.
"Well, it's exactly what I would have wanted anyways, seeing how it's what I picked for my last life." thought Bjorn "now time for the negative"
Weak: gain 1 less skill point per level.
"Horse shit!" Exclaimed Bjorn, "I'm going to be 25% weaker than all humans in this world. even more so than other races." "I'm not one to sherk away from a challenge, but damn, I think that one might be a bit much." Thought Bjorn "And on top of all of that you picked the name Bjorn Ward for me? What do you think i am? A viking that stumbled into a fairy tale? Charon you're a dick!", as he finished saying that a fist size rock appeared 100 feet or so above his head and began to drop. Yelping and diving to the side, narrowly missing the falling rock as it slammed into the ground with way too much force for how far it fell, the rock embedded itself into the ground about 5 inches. "Nobody likes a whiner." Charon's voice echoed in his head.
Still grumbling to himself, he checks the last new thing in his Character sheet.
Latent Potential: ???, you have not met the requirements to know what this does for you.
"that isn't ominous at all." Nothing ever gets done complaining about things. Moving on to his equipment screen.
On the equipment screen it was pretty stock standard for most video games, 2 ring slots, 1 neck, body, legs, boots, gloves, head, back, belt. Nothing really stood out as unusual there. He appeared to have basic clothes on, they didn't appear to have any bonuses.
Next to where he woke up there was a short sword that looked like it was made out of iron, and a bow and quiver with 12 arrows in it. "pretty standard, nothing unexpected here." Picking up the short sword he belted it on and strapped the quiver to his back, not really seeing how he could attach the bow to himself as well he decided to carry it.
Not really seeing anything to do around, he took a look at the sun, correction, suns, and at least 2 moons that he can see currently.
Seeing no better option Bjorn started to slowly pick his way down the mountain. After a particularly close call where he almost slid off of a 25 foot cliff, he decided to take a little break. Looking up, not really able to tell time, he thought a few hours had passed.
This was as good a time as any to start looking at the small circles around the periphery of his vision. Not quite understanding how daunting of a task that would be, there were hundreds of tabs, and sub tabs.
Pretty soon there is a light rustling behind him. Turning around slowly there is a rabbit digging around and eating the grass. Looking at the rabbit his stomach rumbled. Standing up and knocking an arrow, drawing the bow, slighting on the rabbit. Bjorn took a slow breath in, held it for a second, and released. And missed, the arrow going high and right of the rabbit. It stood up and looked around at what the noise of the arrow shooting over its head was, but ultimately not moving.
Cursing under his breath, drawing another arrow, taking aim again, releasing. This time the arrow flew true, taking the rabbit in the body pinning it to the ground. Giving a whoop, he ran over to the rabbit. It was struggling against the arrow in its side, watching it kick furiously in a fight to try and escape the pain. When he got up to the rabbit, it just gave up and stared at him. Bjorn was disgusted with himself. He was a little hungry, but he just caused this suffering just because, feeling bad, he drew his sword and put the rabbit out of its misery.
Taking a knee before the rabbit, Bjorn bowed his head and cried. "I'm sorry."
Spending a good 10 minutes crying over this rabbit that he wantonly killed. He stood up and tried to find his arrow that he lost, after searching for a bit he was able to find, and successfully retrieved both his arrows, leaving the body of the rabbit behind, and took off again down the mountain.
As Bjorn was stumbling down the mountain he noticed a blinking circle on the side of his vision. Mentally thinking about it a screen appeared in front of his face. "Gah!" Bjorn exclaimed.
For slaying level 4 jack rabbit you are awarded: 60 experience points (base 48)
"it's nice to know that you get experience from killing creatures, i wonder if there is any way to get quests to gain xp as well.'' Unfortunately the universe doesn't seem to have any sense of irony, because a quest prompt didn't appear in his vision.
As time passed, it seemed like Bjorn was making progress. Both of the suns were starting to get to the horizons. "you know it would be nice to be able to tell time." Bjorn thought, digging through his menus he eventually came across a tab labeled "User Interface.", "Huh, it's almost exactly like a video game." With a mental thought he started to scroll though, eventually coming to a clock option which was set to off. Another mental thought was all it took to turn the setting on.
A clock appeared in the corner of his vision and it read 9:43 pm. "Easy peasy, at least there is a standard time scale here as well."
Things were starting to get a bit chilly up on the mountain. Searching around Bjorn was able to find a small outcropping in the wall of the mountain. Climbing inside, which was a light squeeze getting through, the light traveled 10 feet inside and he couldn't see any further. Climbing back out he started to try and find some firewood to burn. Finding some wood that didn't look too rotten, and too damp, he took it back to his cave.
Carrying his wood back inside of the cave Bjorn took a longer round piece of wood and started to rub it between his hands with some down pressure like he learned in school, on a field trip. Eventually he was able to get a fire going.
Upon starting a fire another blinking notification appears, opening it up it read.
You have gained the skill: Survival. Some people balk at the thought of spending expending periods of time out in nature, not you, you welcome it. Nature is your element, you can find a way to thrive and grow away from civilization.
"It's about time I gained a skill." thought Bjorn "Although i seriously doubt there is a skill for walking or running, And it seems to be one that will make me more likely to Survive" He gave a light chuckle. "out here."
Looking around the cave there wasn't much to look at, it was about 7 feet wide at its widest and 15 feet long at the longest. Moving the fire to the rough center of his cave, he settled down for a restless sleep.
Waking with a pinch of pain on his foot, opening his eyes Bjorn looked down. There was a large slug type creature attached to his foot where he took his boots off the night before to sleep. With a startled yell he picked up a rock that was by his hand and slammed it into the creature repeatedly.
For Slaying a level 3 acidic slug you are awarded: 31 (base 25) xp.
Pulling up his character sheet he was down 6 Hp, putting him at 84 out of 90. "How long was that slug on my foot for?" There was another strange thing on his character sheet, instead of having 93 xp like he thought he should, he had 94 xp. 91 of it was accounted for between the two things he killed, the other 3 he had no idea where it came from. The only thing he could come up with was he got 1 xp per day. More testing is needed to say for sure.
Taking a closer look at his foot. There was a large blister running from the toes of his foot to the ankle. Swearing under his breath Bjorn tugged his boot, feeling the leather rub over his fresh wound made him want to scream out.
Fairly early in the day Bjorn found a stream, and decided to follow it, around what he guessed to be mid day, he took a break. Being quite parched, he knelt to take a drink out of it. Remembering stories of people getting giardia from drinking out of unfiltered water Bjorn gave it a second thought. Looking up the mountain he wasn't really able to see where the water came from. "What was it again? Drinking moving water is safe because it is less likely for you to get a disease? Or did you want to drink from stagnant water because it would let the sediment settle out?" Stuck in the mental quandary trying to figure that one out he started to get a headache. "Ah what the hell." He said before he decided to roll the dice and drink anyways.
Cool and refreshing. "And now we wait." Bjorn thought. Looking at his clock it read 14:33 A.M. "That can't be right." Bjorn thought there was only 24 hours in the day last time he checked. So he sat there and watched, the clock slowly ticked up to 16:59 Am before it clicked over to 1:00 PM. "32 hour days," Bjorn thought. "I wonder how else time will be different here, does that mean that the years are shorter? Or could they be longer? Am I still going to live a normal 80ish year life, or will I live till I'm 200?" Bjorn mused, having no way to test anything or find out the answer to his questions, Bjorn remembered his earlier concerns about water borne illnesses, seeing how there didn't seem to be any negative consequences for drinking out of this stream Bjorn knelt once again and drank his fill of the water.
As he moved downwards along the stream he started to notice berries in bushes. Bjorn's stomach rumbled, having not eaten in most likely an entire day, he started to regret not eating that rabbit. Realizing how wasteful, and stupid that was, Bjorn shook his head. Regretting what happened or didn't happen won't get him anywhere. Deciding it wouldn't be the best idea to eat the berries yet he kept trudging on.
The day mostly passed in a haze, plodding along following the stream, as it slowly joined with other streams. The going was slow, but it was faster than pushing through low ground cover as he moved downhill. The stream didn't always go the fastest route downhill either.
As he was nearing night he came across another small animal that looked like a cross between a badger and a rabbit, it had the upper body and size of a badger and the lower half of a rabbit. The animal had not seemed to notice Bjorn yet. Slowly drawing an arrow, he knocked the arrow, drew, sighted on the animal, and released. The arrow was a bit off and took the animal in the rear, right above its leg.
With a snarl the creature leaps at Bjorn. Yelping he dropped his bow and fumbled to draw his sword, just barely being able to draw it before the creature slammed into him. Bjorn hit the ground and was able to get a hand on it and flip it over his head. As it landed it got back to its feet and came back at Bjorn. Luckily he wasn't idle, he was able to right himself and get his sword in between himself and the animal, Impaling it on his sword as it lunged at him again.
For slaying a level 3 Baddit you are awarded: 60 (base 48) xp.
"Baddit? Is that the first part of badger and the last half of rabbit mixed together? What kind of lazy naming convention is that?" Bjorn mused. Noticing he had some new notifications he checked them.
You have gained the skill: Archery. Some people have mastered the skill of killing up close. Not you, death can come from anywhere. Many fear the arrows of an archer, with good reason.
You have gained the skill: Swordsmanship. Too many Swords are the embodiment of death that is all. You have gained the understanding that it's not just a weapon of death, it is a way of life. Swords and the study of them lead to better understanding the world.
Looking down at his handy work he briefly looked at the baddit and reflected on not feeling bad at killing this creature. It probably had to do with the fact that the creature had tried to hurt/kill him. Bjorn looked down at the baddit having no idea where to start preparing it for dinner. Taking his sword to it he removed all 4 of its legs and began to cut into its back, he cut the skin along the spine and started to cut it away from the meat underneath. Once he had the skin removed from the meat far enough, he started to cut the meat on its back into strips, setting them aside on a flattish rock. Feeling a bit ill the entire time.
Next he began to gather dry firewood and started another fire in the same manner as yesterday. Once it got going he set the rock next to the fire and kept the fire going well enough to cook the meat on the rock. As he was getting the fire going Bjorn found a few sticks that had forks in the end and made 2 straight long branch sticks. Sticking the fork sticks in the ground, and sticking the straight sticks over the two of them. Bjorn stuck the 4 leg pieces precariously over the Fire on top of the sticks.
Letting that cook for 20 minutes he took the legs off the fire, digging into it. It was bland but palatable. Letting the meat on the stone keep cooking, trying to dry it out to make a basic jerky. It worked surprisingly well, setting it aside for later, there was another new notification.
You have gained the skill: Cooking. From now on as long as you have something edible, you'll never go hungry again. True master's of this craft can change minds, the world, and themselves.
After eating Bjorn settled in for the night. spending more time digging through his interfaces, one thing he decided to change, was the xp notifications. It would be very unfortunate if the notification distracted him in a fight.
The next morning he checked his character sheet, gaining another xp putting him at 155 xp. Something caught his eye, he was at 85 out of 90 hp. "Looks like I might regen my hp at a rate of 1 per day as well."
The rest of the next 2 days passed much of the same way. Walk, drink, eat, repeat, kill, repeat. There wasn't a chance until the third day, as Bjorn rounded a bend there was a large bear rooting around in the grass. Freezing in place, Bjorn dropped into a crouch and slowly started to back away from the bear. A sharp snap brought the bear lumbering around.
They made eye contact for a few seconds, Bjorn nodded, and started to back away slowly again all while knocking an arrow. The bear stood on its rear legs, let out a bellow and started walking towards Bjorn. Starting to panic he brought the bow up, drawing it and losing on the bear, hitting it. In his rush he didn't get the bow to full draw, making the arrow barely break skin.
The bear dropped onto its 4 legs and broke into a sprint, barrelling down on Bjorn. With a yelp at the bear's speed he dropped his bow and drew his sword as the bear rapidly closed the distance between them. Raising his sword for a strike the bear slammed into him before he could complete his attack.
As the bear put a paw on Bjorn's body pinning him to the ground, it went in to bite his throat. Pushing his arm upwards to try and hold the bear back it bit down on his arm. There was a sickening crunch as its teeth punctured his skin and the force of the bite broke at least one of the bones in his right forearm.
Bjorn's red bar dropped by about a third as he cried out in pain. That's when the bear's claws dug into his side scraping along his ribcage as it tried to get purchase and tear his arm off.
With his health dropping another portion, all he could think about was how he was going to die 3 times within a week.
Then the pressure on his arm and side was gone, as a stone spike shot out from the ground impaling the bear, piercing it through the shoulder and holding it in the air.
Not knowing what was going on, Bjorn looked around frantically. That's when he noticed a woman standing in the trees not too far off. She was short, had shoulder length hair, which was brown with streaks of white, she was old. The last thing that he noticed was that her hands were wreathed in a green glow.
She started to chant something in a low voice. As the bear was thrashing around trying to free itself from the stone spike a second one came out from the ground and stabbed the bear in the head, going limp.
As Bjorn turned back to look at the woman, he got light headed. Right before he passed out he saw her slowly walking towards him.