As I awaken, I slowly open my eyes praying to see the roof and lights of a hospital room, but fail to see anything like that. I saw the back of a woman’s neck as the first thing. It’s Winter who is in my embrace and as the fear of our situation once again crept up on me I tightened my embrace and wiggled a bit closer to her, burying my face into her shoulder.
We laid naked on the stone floor of an office room, our clothing serving as cloth under our bodies. We didn’t have sex, who could get in the mood for such an act in our situation after all? We used our body heat to keep each other warm, though it wasn’t that cold, and I had embraced her during the night while we slept. Feeling Winter’s hands wrap around mine, I knew she had woken up and linking my hands with hers, we remained like this for some time.
A knock resounded from the closed door as a voice sounded out. “Daylight, no Husks in sight.” I heard Ghost’s voice ring out before his footsteps left. Appreciating the privacy, I squeezed Winter’s hands once more before slowly getting up. As we got dressed, Winter wrapped her arms around my neck as I put my hands around her waist.
For some reason, it didn’t bother us that we were in different bodies, perhaps due to beta-testing this game and seeing each other for a few weeks as another person. While we were testing this game in the past, we would spend days and weeks in full dive, seeing each other in different appearances as we swapped accounts frequently, and because of how long we spent in the game we had gotten used to not seeing our real life counterparts, as we would only stop full diving to eat, sleep and then jump back in. Or perhaps it’s because we’re quick to adapt, after knowing our situation and that we were indeed ourselves, we simply didn’t care, I wasn’t sure.
Our lips met as I deeply kissed her for a moment. Pulling away as I rest my forehead against hers, we stare at each other's eyes, her teal blue eyes misty as they look at mine.
“I’ll be with you, no matter what.” Winter says those words as I close my eyes. “You’re strong, Ruby. I believe in you.”
“Thanks, Rebecca.” Hugging her tightly, I cleared my mind of the fear that had been gripping it. If I were to die, I hope that she’d live on. “I love you.”
“Mm, I love you, Ruby. Now, let’s do what we do best and kick some arse.” Opening my eyes, I smile at her as she smiles at me, love bubbling within me as I see those eyes that looked at me the same way she always did in the real world. Letting each other go, regretfully, we breathed out as we returned to how we normally would act in front of the others.
Winter didn’t enjoy public affection, mainly because of how public we were as an org. Fans were creeps, and we had been stalked before, causing us to act professional in public and not be intimate with each other, even in front of our friends and team. We even avoided holding hands, as pictures would be posted on Twatter very quickly and the creeps would come out in droves.
We both arrived at a small meeting room, a tired Sheep, Ghost and a well rested Lemon sat in the few working chairs we could find. The place was dark, but the sunlight coming through helped us. Winter sat down as I leaned against the wall, looking at everyone.
“Alright, we have a lot to discuss and figure out. We’re missing a lot of information, ranging from this world to our enemies. Firstly, I’ll fill you all in on what Winter and I witnessed last night.”
Telling them about seeing the Husks emerge from all sorts of locations, I saw Lemon pale while Sheep and Ghost simply accepted it. They had taken over for us after we woke them up and had seen the sight of the Husks moving down the street. As I finish, I turn to Sheep and Ghost. “What did you two witness at daybreak?”
“Most wandered out of our line of sight, behind buildings and cars, while some stumbled into households or under cars. We counted 23 exactly from our line of sight, as for the other side of the building, we do not know.”
So they’re active during night and seemingly disappear during the day? Putting a hand to my chin while thinking, the question that came to my mind is why were there Husks walking around in daylight? Would those large numbers be drawn out if too much noise occurred? Were they sleeping or simply inactive during the day? What about those that came from the ground? Asking Ghost, he told me none burrowed back into the ground, making me frown.
“Well, at the very least, noise and movement at night is forbidden. We were right to impose the silence ruling last night. Our next problem is food and water, we need a solution, and fast.” I could tell that we were starting to weaken and needed to find a solution before it snowballed out of control.
“We should loot houses. There is a house across the road that had no Husks enter it.” Nodding to Ghost’s comment, I turned to Sheep as he spoke.
“Cars. The ones we passed seemed to be crammed with belongings. There may even be gasoline in their tanks. I just need a hose and container of some kind.”
Seeing Lemon raise his hand nervously, I sighed and looked at him. “Lemon, just speak. This isn’t a classroom, and I’m not your teacher.”
“R-right. I-I think we s-should do the quest?”
Tapping my chin lightly, I considered his words as I looked at Winter. She shrugged and spoke. “We need to be careful of other people.”
I knew what she meant, random people were not to be trusted in these situations. Desperation is one hell of an emotion that could cause trouble. Deciding to discuss this problem later I turned to Lemon.
“Why the quest?”
“W-we could get rewards, m-maybe we get s-supplies?”
True, quests in an MMO would reward one with experience, gear and items. Right now, we needed to make a bet that could either lead us down the path of self sustainment or death. Do we follow the quest and System, or do we loot houses and cars? The house I had woken up in had nothing, the canned food we found here had seemingly gone rotten and the bottled water, while it looked fine, couldn't be used until we boiled it since we had no idea if it was contaminated or not.
Tapping my elbow, I knew this decision would have lasting effects if it wasn’t the correct one. Sure, we could go another day without food or water, but tomorrow we would be further weakened, we needed a resolution tonight. Looking at the group, I made a decision.
“Let’s collect the stone and wood within an hour, we’ll see what the next task is and if it’s too difficult or not within our compatibility to do, we’ll forget about it and switch to clearing out houses and cars.”
The others nod with confidence. I’ve been captain of the team for four years at this point, and had been looking at stepping down after another two to three to focus on a degree in Computer Science, an interest I have had for a long time. Ghost, Sheep and Winter all trusted me explicitly, while Lemon had still been getting to know me and trust my judgement calls. Seeing him looking a bit doubtful at my call made me feel a bit frustrated, but I understood the root of it is because he hadn’t been in high pressure situations with us.
“Sheep, that wood you brought back, how much do we have?”
“Thirty two pieces. Out of those thirty two, twenty six do not register as ‘wood’ and are an assortment of small branches and sticks. The remaining six do count and are larger pieces, like planks and small logs.”
“We’ll focus our attention on collecting wood of that size. For stones, I picked up a fist size one yesterday and that updated the quest, so focus on rocks and stones of that size. Once we have collected nineteen wood and twenty five stones, we will come back here. We will stay as a group and avoid cars, houses and any dark areas. Any questions?”
“Shall we scout for possible cars to search through along the way?” Turning to Sheep, I thought about it for a moment before nodding.
“Yes, let’s go with that. We’ll find isolated cars, clear them and note the details and location from here down. We will focus on collecting wood first, return here and place it in this room, then gather the stones and rocks then return. We’ll attempt to do this within the hour, but our maximum time will be two hours. It’s early morning now so we’ll move fast but carefully.
“Gun carries will be myself with the Deagle, Winter with the Colt and Ghost with the Glock. Ghost will lead, your job is to point out wood or stones of appropriate size, Lemon and Sheep will be responsible for carrying it all. Discussion is to be kept to a minimum until we return here, our main job is to avoid combat, we don’t have much ammo and we have no other weapons. Any questions?”
No one spoke up now and giving them a nod, we started to move. With Ghost leading the way once again, we walked along the sidepath, avoiding any blind spots, opting to switch to walking along the road and clearing fences, trees or cars that caused those blind spots. Along the way, we collected wood slowly while also finding isolated cars and clearing them. We thankfully did not run into any husks, and after returning once, we set out in another direction and collected stones.
In total, we found thirteen cars that were isolated and had collected everything required of the quest. We had spotted Husks while gathering wood and had avoided them each time. They walked in groups of two to three, with one group being up to five, which raised the question of why they wandered around in packs like this, is it a survival instinct of theirs to stick together, or are they simply attracted to one another?
Distributing the wood and stone between each other so we had five of each, I saw the quest finally update.
Quest Updated.
Prime World Survival Basics: I
Open the System: Done.
Find Wood: 5/5
Find Stone: 5/5
3/8 Tasks Completed.
New Task:
Craft an item with the Crafting System.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Raising an eyebrow, I saw the others have a similar reaction as me. A Crafting System implied that we could craft with the assistance of this System. We didn’t know enough of the System yet, our priorities had prevented us from exploring it completely.
“System Call: Crafting.” Speaking out loud to see if this command would work, I saw that it did as a list came up, giving me a flicker of hope.
Crafting System, Select the Item to Craft:
Wooden Pike
Wooden Sword
Stone Hammer
Firestarter
Arrow Shaft
Wooden Club
…
Finding that I could interact with the System and scroll through the items, my surprise shot through the roof. It was an interactable System, much like that one from Apocalyptic World, but a lot smoother with no lag. Some of the items, like Wooden Spikes, were greyed out, causing me to think that perhaps we couldn’t craft it yet. All of the items listed here were wood or stone based, with nothing higher so no guns or armour.
Seeing the others also sliding their fingers in the air, I knew they too were interacting with their System but I couldn’t see their screens. Deciding on what to do, I spoke up.
“I’m going to craft a Firestarter, don’t do anything until we see the results.” I wanted to avoid wasting anything we had collected in case the System was not the answer. Breathing out, I scrolled up and selected Firestarter.
Firestarter
2x Stones
Creates a flint to use to create fire.
Craft?
Yes No
Clicking Yes, two stones disappeared and a counter appeared in the middle of my HUD, showing ten seconds. Upon reaching zero, the counter disappeared as two smooth rocks appeared, black in colour. Picking them up, I wondered how to use them. Ghost held out a hand and passing it to him he looked it over.
“So it just smoothed the stones over? They do look like the flints I saw in those MePipe Shorts, if I did as they had done, it should provide a spark.”
I felt a bit excited before remembering that we didn’t have pots or pans, so we couldn’t make or boil anything with fire just yet. Excitement filled the air though as we realised that we could craft items, though it did seem to require time. While I felt excited as well, I also realised how little we know of this System, we needed to know more and figure it out.
“Alright, let’s cool the engines a bit. I’m excited as well, but we still need to figure out what to craft and the next steps on the quest, we have a lot more to do.” Speaking while smiling at the sight of everyone looking a bit happier, we discussed what we wanted to craft and after making a Wooden Sword, we found that the weapons, while slightly sharp, were not durable. For now though, they served as fantastic backup weapons. They cost five wood to craft, so we made two to give to those that didn’t have any weapons.
As for the remaining wood and stone, we had Ghost craft a Stone Axe and Lemon a Stone Hammer. Both came out as expected, and like the weapons wouldn’t last all that long but were sufficient. Both used five stones and wood, meaning we would get a good turnover before they broke. Looking at the quest, I saw it update several times, causing me to feel a bit happy.
Quest Updated.
Prime World Survival Basics: I
Open the System: Done.
Find Wood: Done
Find Stone: Done
Craft an item: Done
Meet up with an ally: Done
Kill a Husk: Done
Loot a House: Done
7/8 Tasks Completed.
New Task: Select a Job.
Looking at Winter and Lemon, I knew these two had yet to kill a Husk. Sheep had killed one when the three had met up before meeting with us. Ghost and I then had killed the two following them.
“Seems we’ll need to get you two your first Husk kill. For the time being, we’ll avoid doing this step for you both until we can get this quest done and see the rewards. Then we’ll decide on where to go from there.” Lemon and Winter nod as I turn my attention to Sheep and Ghost.
“System Call: Job”
Select a Job
Alchemist
Armorsmith
Blacksmith
Carpenter
Chef
Culinarian
Enchanter
Engineer
Fisherman
Herbalist
…
Seeing the very extensive list that had appeared, I started to scroll through while feeling a thrill that every gamer would feel at such a sight, that thrill and excitement of seeing a game start to open up, though this wasn’t a game I still felt that giddiness building up as I excitedly scrolled. There were some choices that seemed to be based on Magic, like Magic Tooler, Magic Enchanter, Mana Refiner and so on. Discarding any choices related to magic, mana or ones I didn’t understand like Germinater, I found one that made me want to pick it right away.
Machinist. Clicking on it revealed that it had to do with building and developing machines!
Machinist
Gain knowledge on creating machines of various usefulness. Upon selecting this Job, you will receive 2x Starting Blueprints, 2x Job Points and 1x Toolkit.
Warning: You can not change Jobs, once selected you can not go back.
Select Machinist?
Yes No
Looking at Sheep and Ghost, I saw a look of wonder in their eyes as well with Sheep telling Lemon and Winter of the Jobs we saw. Leaning forward while looking at this list, I once again fell into deep thought.
These Jobs were exactly what we needed right now, with two that I had seen being incredibly useful, Farmer and Dismantler. Farmer is rather self-explanatory, it can plant seeds and grow them into crops, with the tools being provided and a pouch of seeds being given once the Job is selected. It wasn’t a short-term solution for this exact moment, but a long-term solution that we very much needed.
Dismantler is the other Job, it focuses on dismantling anything and getting the materials from it all. Weapons, furniture, cars, engines and so on. Another long term solution, and paired with Machinist it would allow us to create better machinery faster.
In terms of Jobs that could give us a solution right now…there were none. Most of these Jobs were for the long term, needing time to come to fruition, and with our needs now there isn’t anything that would feed us or provide water. Tapping my finger while I continued to think, I knew the best choices right now were Dismantler, Farmer and either Machinist or Chef. None of us here knew how to cook and Chef would give us recipes that we could use, the only problem being actually having the ingredients to cook with.
Another consideration is the words that each Job stated. ‘Gain knowledge’ is a vague term. Would the System give us a guide? Or would we receive a book on how to do the Job? Tapping my fingers on the table, I decided on the best path for us, and I hoped this would secure our long-term needs. Looking up, I saw everyone looking at me with expectations. According to Sheep, I had a habit of scrunching up my face while planning and it became a tell of mine that I would soon instruct them. I’ve had this habit according to him for my entire career.
“These Jobs, while amazing, are for the long-term so they will not resolve our current situation with food and water. I’ve determined that the best three Jobs right now are Farmer, Dismantler and Machinist. Farmer is due to getting knowledge on how to best manage crops and getting seeds upon selecting it. Dismantler is because we need parts of all kinds, including weapons, engines and so on. Finally, Machinist is the best choice because as we all know, machinery can be quite life saving, and if my theory is correct it may combine well with Dismantler and Weaponsmithing, which I’ll have Lemon or Winter pick.”
“I’ll take Farmer. My Grandpa had a farm out in the sticks that I would help with during school holidays, it’s how I bought my first PC.” Ghost gave me a thumbs up while Sheep tapped the table in thought before nodding.
“I’ll go with Dismantler, I’m more used to hands on mechanic work and pulling things apart, this will suit me a lot more.”
“Leaving me with Machinist. Alright, let’s select those Jobs now and then check the quest rewards.”
Selecting Machinist once again, I selected Yes and prepared to look through the guide or books that would appear. Instead…
A flood of information entered my mind, I could hear Winter calling out to us but I engrossed myself in this information as my nose bled slightly. T-this, isn’t this knowledge about the basics of machinery, the tools needed, the basic parts and how to use them? Mechanical springs, crankshafts, wiring, fuel lines, and so many more basic parts, it’s like I had been studying machinery for a long time. As my mind slowed down and I digested most of the information, which had been rather quick, I looked at Winter who had crouched next to me, her arm around my waist looking with worry.
“Ruby?”
“I’m okay, Winter. I failed to consider what ‘gain knowledge’ would imply. To think that the System would just give us information like that, and it’s like I had studied in the past…” Looking at Sheep and Ghost, I saw they also had bloody noses and feeling cloth pass under mine, I saw Winter wipe my nose, worry still on it. Closing my eyes, I ran through the information and found myself amazed. It's like I could pick up a toolkit and build…oh, I didn’t know how to build anything, I just knew the basics.
Opening my eyes, I explained what had happened to Lemon and Winter and they listened in with awe, they too couldn’t believe we would get an infodump, let alone like we had always had the information, like this. I started to realise how correct it was for us to follow the quest. Feeling excited, I opened my System and saw a few windows, smiling at the results as my heart beat in excitement but my mind turned to fear again as a thought ran through my mind, if it’s this powerful, how powerful are our supposed enemies?