Dawn was still a pipedream when Lucy woke Alexis, fortunately for her, William had already started the fire and put a kettle of water on. Coffee was not long in coming and the hot brew did wonders for Alexis’ mood, which was miserable due to the early start, bad dreams and the limited amount of sleep. The group huddled around the fire, although it wasn’t cold at this time of year the fire greatly improved morale.

Discussing their plan of action they settled on starting off by eliminating any mutated pets along their stretch of river. Most yards facing the river weren’t walled in, rather fenced, and William suggested that the dogs could be baited towards the fence without a problem as they seemed to be nearly rabid and would attempt to reach them no matter the cost. By now, most would also be ravenous, making any baiting easier by far. Once the dogs were at the fence they should preferably be dealt with in melee.

By now they could see the eastern horizon showing the first indications of a new day. Alexis received a notification that John had invited her to form a party. Everyone was surprised, as they had been unaware of the possibility till then. John explained that parties could share experience. He had also passed leadership to William, explaining that he expected to be a backline supporter and analyst in the future. The party leader would probably develop a Skill as leader, and it was a safe assumption that it would provide some benefits in the future. Alexis remained thankful that John was sticking with the group, with his analytical approach and diligent studies of the Help Menu, they were aware of a lot of information they would have probably missed otherwise.

Once again the group filtered through the back gate. Alexis stayed at the back, unsure of how she would deal with the mutated animals, given her traumatic experience of the day before, nonetheless determined to stick it out. Their first target was the dog next door, a previously unimpressive cocker-spaniel, which, according to William, was annoying at the best of times and if any dog ever deserved death, this one would qualify.

Mike and William approached the fence carefully, covered by Carmen with the dart gun. They approached carefully, though not trying to be sneaky. Everyone was tense, but the tension quickly released in anti-climax when absolutely nothing happened. Focusing, Alexis could hear the dog barking at the front of the property, although its bark sounded very hoarse by now. Deciding to attract its attention she whistled softly. Nothing, the barking at the front didn’t abate for a second, Lucy however looked shocked and was staring at her. Alexis shrugged her shoulder and whistled louder. The whole group had now clued into what she was doing and waited with bated breath. The results of the whistle were not entirely unexpected, the bark rapidly crossed the yard and then they could see the spaniel sprinting at the group.

Everyone braced themselves, the fence between the dog and them not reassuring them in the slightest, worried that the mutated dog would jump the fence or somehow smash through it because it came at them with no indication of stopping. The dog slammed into the fence at full speed, everyone could hear bones breaking. It collapsed at Mike’s feet, whimpering but not moving an inch. Mike immediately slammed the panga onto its head, the only target he could easily reach through the fence. The sharp blade penetrated halfway into the dog’s skull, putting the poor brute out of its misery. Alexis saw an experience notification pop up in her vision, confirming death.

It was John who broke them out of their stupor with a disbelieving “What the fuck was that?’ while questioningly looking at Alexis. Again Alexis shrugged her shoulders, adding “They weren’t that suicidal yesterday, a lot smarter and coordinated too.” Mike, still staring at the dog shouted in excitement. “Guys, you need to focus on the corpse for a bit, it’ll give you a Skill called Analyse. It’s a level two Mutant Cockerspaniel.” In a moment everyone acquired the Skill, resulting in subdued but exited chatter. William called them to order, suggesting they continue.

Before they could however, John asked the group to tell him about their experience gains. Most everyone had gained 4 points, whereas Alexis and William had gained 6 and Mike a whopping 12 points. John quickly determined that the total was 40 points, mostly evenly split between the members of the party, but first indications being that it accounted for contribution to the fight. Also, John added, Alexis level did not appear to affect experience gains, something that supported the Tutorials premise that the experience received was a percentage of the accumulated potential of the kill.

John asked Alexis whether she would be ok with killing the next dog so that he could gather more data and improve his understanding of the experience system. Alexis reluctantly agreed but asked Mike to back her up in case she couldn’t make herself kill the dog. She also forwarded her log entries regarding her experience gains of the previous day to John, after spending several minutes scrolling through her log finding them.

Alexis moved to the next property hesitantly approaching the fence, closely followed by Kira and Mike. Whistling softly again provoked no response. Deciding to get the matter over with, she issued a piercing whistle. The mastiff that appeared charging at her was altogether more intimidating than the cockerspaniel, but history repeated itself. Recklessly smashing into the fence at full throttle it injured itself, broken spine rendering it motionless. Slashing its skull open was a mercy which Alexis could grant the animal without a further twinge of conscience.

The experience received for killing the animal surprised her, at a cool 25 it was a lot higher than expected. She analysed the corpse and told everyone that the mastiff was a level 3 Mutant Bull Mastiff. Once again the group shared their gains, Mike had received 10 points whereas the rest only received 7 each, adding up to 70 experience in total, according to John.

John confirmed to the group that experience in a party did indeed seem to be allocated to each member, but definitively accounting for contribution. “Please let Mike kill the next few so I can see the requirements for reaching Level 2” he insisted. A few properties later, after killing a number of crazed dogs, one particularly vicious Level 1 Chihuahua granting only 20 experience, Mike levelled up. He immediately informed John that he now required a further 110 experience to reach Level 2, at a total of 210 experience.

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“Alexis, you’re Level 5, care to return to base with me so I can conduct further tests?” he asked after Mike’s announcement. “William should lead the rest of the party through the remaining properties, rotating killing blows until they have cleared this area.” John explained “I want to test if there is any range restriction on earning experience in a party and Alexis needs to do some homework in any event”.

Alexis and John slowly walked back to the base, chatting. After having been asked, John informed her that her homework would be investigating the Pet and Achievement menu and sharing the information with him. Back at the Hunter’s place, Alexis sat down on the couch while John grabbed a notepad and pen and started furiously scribbling. Deciding on starting with her pet, Alexis opened her interface and initiated a search in the Help Menu. It didn’t give her much:

Any non-sapient wildlife or creature can be tamed by and bonded to the Player, provided that the prospective Pet trusts the Player in question and has not been tamed by another. Certain Classes and Professions will receive Skills related to the taming, breeding and taking care of creatures. Rarely will Players be granted the opportunity to bond a pet without having a relevant Class or Profession.

Selecting the Pet tab in her Character Sheet also didn’t provide much:

Pets

Name:

Kira

Level:

1

Race:

Malinois/Akita (canine)

Type:

Combat

Experience:

100/210

Gender:

Female

Status:

Loyal

Exp %:

0

Special Skills:

N/A

Playing around with the tab, the tooltips gave her a bit more information. She could determine the Status of the pet, which ranged through hateful, disloyal, neutral, friendly and loyal and reflected the Pets disposition to its owner. Apparently disloyal pets could leave the owner if they were of a high enough level, and hateful pets could even attack and kill their owner. What determined loyalty was not explained, but Alexis surmised it hinged on their treatment by the Player. Alexis could also adjust how much of her experience gains could be allocated to the Pet, apparently Pets did not earn experience independently anymore, it was, by default, all allocated to the Player.

She chose to allocate 50 percent of her gains to Kira for the time being, but decided to talk to John before taking the plunge and choosing Animal Husbandry as her first profession. Alexis nearly stood up to interrupt John, who appeared engrossed in the notes he had made, before remembering that he had also asked her to look into her achievements. Once again, she chose to search for the information first, postponing the choice she would have to make, still being uncomfortable with the implication of her achievements.

Achievements are earned by the Player for actions and events that stand out. This may be world or even system firsts, actions that the system considers noteworthy or, in case of the Games Protocol, achievements relating to the audience a Player has gathered. Take note that the latter will only be relevant once Players have reached the Exodus Worlds, as freshly integrated worlds have insufficient infrastructure in place for streaming purposes. Upon earning an achievement the Player can select one of three boosts. The nature of the achievement as well as its rarity determine the boosts offered. Achievements are classified into 5 categories: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic and Legendary. Boosts can be generally be typed into 4 categories; Stat Boost, Skill Boost, Affinity Boost and Unique.

Alexis again considered interrupting John, decided against it and just forwarded him the information. She quietly wondered when she had become so proficient in using the interface, sharing information without needing to send it in a message, searching for and processing information in the Help Menu and dealing with what would generally be considered administrative tasks in her Interface. It was intuitive and had become partially instinctual she determined, at least for the functions she had investigated. Alexis was well aware that she was procrastinating further and steeled herself, returning to her Character Sheet and selecting the first achievement.

Achievement: Sole Survivor (Common); Achievement earned when a Player is the only survivor of a group of people, whether partied or not. Player can choose to raise one of the following Main Stats by 1 point: Agility/ Constitution/Will. Achievement can be earned repeatedly.

Alexis elected to raise her Constitution by 1 point. She barely felt the system make changes to her body, the process over nearly before it began. Before moving to the next achievement she entered her Character Sheet, confirming her sudden suspicion. All three Sub-stats had indeed been raised by one point. Damnit, if this worked for the Stats that couldn’t be raised by allocating points to, Achievements became significantly more important than she had thought. Shame that she hadn’t elected to raise Will, it would have confirmed it.

Achievement: First Tamer (Epic); Achievement earned by first Player to complete a bond with a pet after world has been initiated into the System. Player not eligible, choice deferred to level 10.

Apparently, this achievement included a choice affecting classes, she would need to remember to review it before selecting classes at Level 10. Forwarding all the information to John with a short message attached Alexis told him that she would go check up on the others. She had noticed that she hadn’t received any experience in a while and wanted to make sure they were ok. Heading up-river, she received a notification for experience a moment later, then another. Assuming that this was a result of the distance between her and the others, she immediately focused on counting her steps, it would be good to know how far they could range from another while still sharing in gains.

After about 400 metres she spotted the group, Lucy baiting a GSD with Panga in hand. The petite girl slashed at the dodging dog through a palisade fence, covered by Carmen with a dart gun. William was talking to a teenager in the next property, his face marred by inflamed scratches. Noticing Alexis, he waved goodbye to the teen and joined her. “We have killed 21 dogs now” he informed her, “all between level 1 and 3. Also, we killed three cats, vicious little fuckers. Roland got attacked by the family cat, he killed it in self-defence. He’s a bit broken up about it but he’ll be packing up and joining us later. We have 3 more people that should be on their way to the base too. The van der Merwe girl also offered that we loot their home, we haven’t talked to any of the others about it yet. Where’s John?” he added a moment later.