Ryan quietly yawned as he stretched in the early morning sun. The air was still cool, but the warming rays promise of the heat to come later during the day. His wound felt fine, still stiff and slightly sore but the majority of the pain had disappeared over night. The council had decided that they would head towards the area of effect of the Ascension Obelisk during the afternoon and Ryan together with their new members had planned to go hunting during the morning, hoping to level up to Level 10 before they left. They would be accompanied by Miguel, Carmen and Mike who had agreed to come along as a precaution in case more firepower was needed. Carmen and Mike were both carrying AKMs and Mike had decided to fashion a shield of sorts from a steel panel John had lying around, the ugly thing strapped to his back along with the Panga he had been carrying since Ryan met the guy. The three would only intervene if things got dicey and weren’t part of the party.
Ryan had asked Jaco whether he would be the leader of the party, but Jaco had declined, professing that he had no interest in leading the group and that it was actually Celeste who had been making decisions so far. So she got stuck with the position. John, with his near encyclopaedic knowledge of the surrounding area, had suggested that they head down the valley a bit and try to find the cattle herds that should be in the next plot over, the rest of the group would head the same way later as a side valley cut west there and following it should get them within range of the area of effect, depending on where exactly the Obelisk was.
Trotting along the tracks Ryan was lost in his own thoughts, similar to everyone else except his current party members, who definitely needed to improve their power, he had foregone allocating his latest stat gains to see what impact hic classes would have on his priorities and was wondering what options would present themselves. He was also trying to attempt to cultivate, but it was near impossible to do while he also paid attention to his surroundings, scanning for any threats to the group.
They found the cattle easily, the herd of 52 animals milling around the troughs in the camp John had pointed out on the map, the beasts were clearly distressed and Ryan and Miguel, after scouting a bit closer, clearly determined that it was due to a lack of water as the solar pumps had stopped refilling the tanks the moment Earth had been initiated. None of the herd of Mutated Bovine was of a particular high level, ranging between Levels 3 to 7 and clearly weakened from the lack of water. They moved towards a good position and settled down, inspecting the animals for a while. The little knoll they were on was separated from the herd by two fences and the river bed, so they were hopeful that a charge by the beasts would be delayed significantly. After a short discussion Celeste agreed that she would kick Ryan from the party once he had reached Level 10 and that, similarly to their backup, he would then hold fire unless necessity demanded it. She also agreed to Ryan’s riskier plan.
So, all alone, he stealthily made his way downwind from the herd, leaving his rifle on the knoll, slowly crawling closer and closer to the herd through the thick riverine bush. He could smell and hear the animals in the paddock close to him and strafed sideways, trying to find a position that allowed both line of sight to the little knoll and provide opportunity for a shot. It took him longer than expected before he was satisfied with a spot so he rested a moment and prepared himself. Unlimbering his bow, he knocked an arrow from his quiver, drew, sighted and released in a smooth motion. The Level 6 heifer grunted deeply, staggered forward a few steps and collapsed. To his shock, the surrounding animals just looked around in confusion, still unaware of him. So he repeated the manoeuvre, with the same result.
By the time he had taken down three more animals the herd was restless, actively scanning for the threat and moving around more vigorously. He checked his experience and noticed that he would need to kill at least two more animals before he reached Level 10. So once again, he drew, sighted and released. A nearby bull heard the twang of his bowstring, bellowed and charged in his direction. The cracking of braking shrubbery told Ryan that the beast was approaching at speed so he focused on the knoll, focused on his Skill and Shifted through the rift. He appeared before a startled Celeste who nearly shot him and hurried over to his Rifle, informing Celeste to kick him after the first volley. He barely got settled before Celeste’s telepathic “Now!” kicked off the action. He took down one animal and held his fire, observing. The herd was wiped out mercilessly, barely reaching the knoll before their charge was stopped in its tracks, not a single animal left alive.
Throughout it all he idly wondered how far their ammunition would take them as John had informed them that they were running out and they would need to preserve ammunition from here on out, possibly scouting the gun shops in town and see if they had remained untouched, something he didn’t hold much hope for. That said, Carmen had chosen the Gunsmith as profession and would, in future, be able to produce limited amounts of ammunition, but it was clear that they couldn’t rely on the current strategy for levelling much further. So this was, for now, their last rodeo.
Stolen story; please report.
Mike started a fire and Ryan, after informing William via message that they were done, went to collect some choice cuts from the younger animals, collecting enough for everyone, including the for now absent remainder of the group. In the end, they started processing the meat of more animals, just to keep busy while waiting and to increase their stores of food although those were at no risk of running out in the near future, even taken into consideration everyone’s increased rate of metabolising food. William had responded to his message immediately, stating that they would be on their way shortly and would come with near empty backpacks.
They managed to process a couple more animals before everyone showed up and decided to pitch in, just to get most of the best meat hung up in the shady branches of nearby trees, hopefully to be picked up on their triumphant return from getting classes.
The boisterous group hiked along the valley, now heading west, towards town. Ryan kept to himself, mostly observing his compatriots, noting the various levels of tension arising from individual members, specifically John, Alexis, Lizzy and William. They had all agreed beforehand that, before anyone chose a Class, the whole group would gather for a discussion to determine the best way forward, although it was made clear that the choice would be left up to the individual. However, those three, now the leaders of their little group, couldn’t help but be worried for what the future might bring. Eventually, feeling safe and somewhat bored, Ryan focused on attempting to cultivate, successfully this time.
A weird feeling startled Ryan out of his trance, the pinging notifications most definitely not helpful either. Pulling them up he noticed that they had reached their goal and the group quickly got their act together to find a suitable location to settle down in some shade. He ignored the brash Class selection notification for the time being, tamping down on his curiosity until he could get settled. And then opened it nonetheless to take a quick peek, only to be met with a warning.
The System Administration advises the Player to find a safe and comfortable location before proceeding with Class Selection as the process may take up to several hours to complete and the Player will be rendered unconscious once the process has commenced to allow implantation of necessary knowledge and mutation of Player’s physical form where appropriate.
Do you wish to proceed?
Yes
No
Apparently he wasn’t the only one who had decided to take a quick peek as voices were being raised and people started discussing the warning, before William loudly called for everyone to pipe down. In short order they managed to find a suitable location under some trees growing next to the sandy riverbed. After a short conference with John, Alexis and Lizzy, William informed them that the Council had decided how to proceed. The group would be split in two parts, one undergoing selection and the second keeping watch, to be changed on a one by one basis as people from the first group woke up. They had enough food and water to easily last until the next evening and the clear sight lines of the location coupled with the shade and comfortable sand was a prime location notwithstanding their lack of camping gear. So William called for volunteers to start the process. Near everyone raised their hands. Surprisingly beside himself only William, Lizzy, John, Celeste and Miguel considered that the information they could get from people having completed the process might be more valuable than satisfying the urge to dive into their selection immediately.
Before the situation could get more heated William divided everyone into two groups, ensuring an even distribution of the more combat capable members before asking the first group to get started. Ryan had already picked up a suitable watch position and started investigating the shop, while keeping an eye on the surroundings through the semi-transparent interface. The experience was disappointing, the remote trader interface functioned like the auction houses of the various games he used to play, enabling the purchase and listing of items. However, only items within the Player’s Inventory could be listed and only items that could fit into the Inventory could be purchased via the remote interface. Which made the process moot after Ryan confirmed that his Inventory was a measly sphere roughly one centimetre in diameter.
Disgusted, he decided to approach John and query him on the Inventory. It turned out that he had apparently missed John’s explanation on his findings in relation to the Inventory at one of the meetings he missed but John quickly summarised what he had discovered. His Inventory could be “trained” by repeatedly summoning items from and into it at a variable energy cost, according to John, this was roughly related to the mass of the object. The Inventory also cost Energy to maintain, even if empty, as he had discovered once his Inventory had grown as his Energy regeneration speed had slowed as a result, even if only slightly. John hadn’t figured out the ratio yet but assumed that it was directly correlated to the volume of the, what he now assumed it to be, pocket dimension. Ryan just sighed, another training regime urgently requiring his attention. The list was getting increasingly longer. So he settled back into his watch, idly scanning the limited selection available to him in the shop while moving a rock into and out of his Inventory. Waiting patiently for any member of the first group to wake from their coma.