The sun was just starting to rise as we left Rocky Shore. Our entire time in there had been nothing but a debacle. I hadn't even had a chance to buy some decent traveling clothes. When we had arrived just a day earlier, Kaapo had insisted that we talk to everyone in the inn, asking about any rumors they had heard. That had been pretty much a waste of time. We had gotten a few free drinks (another reason I was glad I had put that point into Charisma), but the only rumor that sounded remotely interesting had been the story about a local witch who masqueraded as a seller of second-hand furniture. Kaapo had been able scrape together a few coins by picking pockets, but all of that had been spent already on food and a night's stay at the inn. The room there had been cramped and sparse, but it had been a private room indoors.
Thanks to that American brute Raymond, we were now banished from town, the only town with in at least a few day's journey. The only road leading out of here led through the forest to the east. I had emerged from the Shrine of Initiation on that road two days prior, and most of the first day had consisted of walking along that road to the west. I had encountered some bandits in the woods, but luckily they had run away when I fired a few lightning bolts into the air. I met Kaapo shortly after that, and we agreed to travel together, at least for the time being. Kaapo had been beaten unconscious by Raymond in Matilda's shop, and I had been forced to turn myself and Kaapo in to the local guardsman. The fact that I had stunned said guardsman with lightning during our break-in did not do us any favors. He had explained that we would need to pay for damages if we wanted to be welcome back in town again. After carrying my unconscious companion out of town, I learned that Raymond had also broken Kaapo's thumb and stolen his dagger. So here we were, unarmed, injured, broke, and now cast out into the cold with winter on the way.
If that all wasn't bad enough, I now had to listen to Kaapo whine about it.
“This is your fault, you realize.” he said, cradling his injured hand. He waited for me to respond, which I didn't. I simply walked a little faster.
“If you had used your lightning on him when I approached him, we could have taken him. We had the advantage!” he continued. I ignored him.
“Talk to me, damn it!” he insisted.
“What do want from me!” I shouted at him. “I did the best I could!”
“No, you didn't. He gave his little patter about the “treating everyone equally” and “computer programs are people too” or whatever, and you ate up that bullshit. We could have killed that big moron and probably leveled up off of it. Now we're even worse off than when we started.”
I rolled my eyes. “You're the one who decided we should rob an old lady because some drunk twit told us she was a witch. She was broke! It was like robbing a dumpster! And you woke up the whole neighborhood with all that noise. You said you were some kind of master thief, and you can't keep quiet for five minutes!”
Kaapo let out a long, dramatic sigh, which made me even angrier. “To address your first point, of course that old hag was a witch. A tavern rumor is basically the most reliable form of information in these games. Neither of us specialized in Awareness, so we just couldn't find the secret place she was keeping all her magic crap in. Secondly, I am an excellent thief, I just prioritized combat ability over Stealth, because taking Stealth at the start of the game would be stupid. All you do is miss out on all the fights you need to level up, and end up getting completely crushed by everything you can't sneak past. We could have easily fought our way out of there if we worked as a team.”
I was losing my cool, but I managed to hold on a little longer. “I didn't have enough energy left. I can't just electrocute every problem we come across. I had maybe enough in me for one more shot, and then I wouldn't even have enough left to run away. That Raymond bastard was a tank.” I paused, really hoping my Charisma would drive my next point through Kaapo's skull. “If I hadn't surrendered, we would probably be dead now. I did...the best...I could!”
Kaapo held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Okay, okay. That's fair. I was down, and you had to make a decision. I shouldn't snap at you. I'm just upset because that bastard broke my fucking thumb and took my dagger, which means I can't work on my throwing skills, so I'll be at a disadvantage for the rest of the fucking game. Not your problem.”
Even Kaapo's apology sounded like an accusation. Of course, what Raymond had said to me had affected me at the time. I was still wasn't totally sure that these computer-generated townsfolk weren't technically self-aware on some level. They sure did seem convincing when you talked to them, and Kaapo's insistence on treating them like simplistic robots had been the main reason we had so much trouble in town. Kaapo had been running around town as though no one could see him as soon as we arrived, even before the break-in. He kept acting as though anyone he wasn't actively talking to wasn't there at all, even when people had started staring at him. Even when we had been asking around for rumours, Kaapo had kept interrupting people and changing the subject. If not for my Charisma, we probably would have been thrown out of town sooner than we had. Kaapo and I had acted like typical player characters, and they had reacted like typical townspeople. I tried, not for the first time, to change the subject to something more productive.
“Well, where do we go from here? There are bandits on the road, but I can probably handle them.”
“We've already seen that area. I say we get off the beaten path and head into the woods. I was hoping to spend more time in town to work on my pickpocket skills, but a little roughing it won't kill us. Do a little hunting, a little gathering. There's probably tons of cool stuff to find in there if we look.”
“Listen to yourself. “A little roughing it won't kill us”. How do you know? Didn't you read the intro? We could die out here, easily!” I knew as soon as I said it that it was a mistake. It would only start another argument.
“That's all a bunch of hype. This game wants so badly to be taken seriously. Oh, its all so scary! What if we get eaten by monsters? Not buying it. Trust me, we'll be running this whole area by next week. If we die, we'll just get a slap on the wrist, lose a few experience points, and have to restart. Mark my words.”
I was not nearly so confident on this point as he was. I had never met anyone as confident as Kaapo. But as long as we agreed that dying would be bad, it didn't really matter too much what he believed. People disagreed about what happens when you die in the real world too, and we got on just fine regardless. Well, most of the time anyway.
Although I hadn't actually agreed to his plan, Kaapo was heading into the forest, heading roughly southward from the town. If I wasn't willing to abandon him, I guessed I would have to follow him. I did feel guilty about his current position. With no weapons and a broken thumb, I knew he had little chance to survive without me. Besides, as much as Kaapo got on my nerves, I didn't want to have to face this world alone.
I had to admit that the forest was lovely. This late in the year, the vegetation was just starting to die off, but the crisp autumn air was still heavy with the scent of pine, and the trees were gorgeous, covered in all shades of blue and green. Within half an hour, I spotted over a dozen species of animal, not even counting all the insects. Birds and crickets chirped constantly in the background.
I soon learned that walking through an actual forest was an entirely different proposition in this game than on television. Real forest floors accumulated tons of fallen branches and rotting logs, as well as patches of brush or thick weeds, at times forming impassable barriers to our progress. Climbing, crawling, and occasionally squeezing were necessary to avoid long detours. It was during one of these irritating delays that we encountered our first hostile forest creature. While scraping and snapping our way through a tangle of dead trees, we disturbed a nest of large beetles. There were over a dozen of them, big as cantaloupes, with blood-red markings that immediately made me suspect they were poisonous. We were too hedged in to run, but a solid kick was enough to crush their hard outer shells. I was tempted to fry them with lightning, but there were too many, and I would just exhaust myself that way. We managed to kill all the insects without suffering a bite, although we ended up with plenty of nasty scrapes from the dry branches that surrounded us. After we had had a chance to calm down, Kaapo immediately started to critique my performance.
“Why the hell didn't you use lightning? Who knows what a bite from one of those things would do!”
“I can only do that a few times a day, and that's with time to rest in between. If I use lightning for every little thing, we won't have it when we really need it!” I should have just ignored him.
“I don't have any weapons, Jamil! I need to know I can count on you to use your fucking magical powers to help me out when I need you!”
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“Give me a break. That barely even qualified as a fight. I'm sure there are worse things out here.”
Silence hung over us for a moment. Now that I had said that, the woods around us looked a lot less friendly.
“We should start working on a shelter. If we wait until it starts to get dark to make camp, it will be too late.” said Kaapo
“We need some food as well. Why don't you start on a shelter while I go and look for something edible around here.” I answered.
“My thumb is still broken. I can't build a shelter alone.” he complained.
I agreed to help with construction. Unfortunately, this meant that it mostly involved more arguing. The first three sites I suggested were rejected. Eventually, we found an area in one of the thicker areas that was already sheltered to a significant degree. Using dead branches and some vine-like weeds, we managed to put together a sort of crude wigwam over the course of a few hours. I say we put it together, but in truth I think I did at least two thirds of the actual work. I also built a campfire with a stone ring to prevent it from spreading. Tired of arguing, I pointed two fingers at the dry kindling and lit up the fire with a bolt of lightning.
“Alright, you tend the fire and see you can't rig up some kind of weapon. I'll scout the area, and hopefully I can find something to eat.”
Kaapo looked concerned. “Are you sure you can find your way back? This place is kinda disorienting.”
That was true. I had no compass, or any of the dozen other things that no sane person would attempt to survive in the wild without. All we had going for us was my magic. Fortunately, this was a problem I felt well equipped to solve.
“Thanks, but I think I can manage.”
I searched the ground until I found a broken chunk of rock with a sharp point that I could use as a simple marking tool. On a tree near our shelter, I carefully scratched a symbol that looked like a teardrop surrounded by six lightning bolts, so that the whole thing resembled a beetle. This was my personal sigil. I had learned it the instant I had opened the Second Gate of Destiny, and gained the Signing skill. Signing was the form of Thaumaturgy that allowed magical power to be infused into words and symbols. This tree now had my personal mark on it, which would allow me to know its exact location relative to myself at any time. Once I had completed the marking and infused it with power, I closed my eyes and found that however I turned around, a slight impression on the edge of my consciousness inevitably pointed the symbol out to me.
“There. If I haven't returned by sundown, just assume I've been eaten by wolves.”
Thus began my new career as a forest scavenger. Because I had been occupied most of the day with traveling and building and arguing, I had only a few hours to search that first day. I tried to maintain a constant distance from the camp, hunting in a widening series of concentric circles. I learned that there was a shallow stream running along the forest floor not too far from camp, and I stopped for while to drink and wash myself as best I could. The water and the air were cold enough that actually bathing was out of the question, but it was nice to fell at least partially clean. I also discovered a few wild mushrooms growing around the base of a rotting tree and a bush with what looked like ripe orange berries. Not being accustomed to wilderness survival (especially not in this world) I had no clue whether these things were safe to eat. Of course, Kaapo was from Finland, so I thought he might be more familiar with this kind of wilderness than me. Not seeing anything else likely before sunset, I filled my pockets with them and headed home for the night (“home” being a fairly fluid concept these days).
I almost screamed when I saw the ashen remains of our entirely unattended fire. Kaapo was nowhere to be seen, but I had no time to consider what may have happened to him. I hastily gathered more wood and kindling (of which there was still plenty within easy reach) and once again cheated with lightning. I had already missed several meals and a night's sleep today, so the second bolt made me so tired I could barely stand. I think it might have required less energy to start the fire by banging rocks together, but there was no time for that.
Just when I was considering going out to look for Kaapo, I heard the loud snapping of branches as he trudged through the underbrush.
“Kaapo! You were supposed to keep an eye on the fire. Where have you been?
“Working on this!” he showed me a long shaft of wood with sharpened point. “ I had to find a boulder to sharpen it against.”
“You can't leave the fire unattended.” I explained to a grown adult who should already know this. “this whole forest could burn down.”
“I'll apologize to Smokey the Bear later. Did you find some food?” he asked, changing the subject.
“Maybe.” I showed showed him the berries and mushrooms. “Any idea if these are safe to eat?”
He looked at them. “Not sure. The mushrooms look like oyster mushrooms, so they're probably good.”
I winced. “Probably” isn't good enough. I'm going to bed. I'll find something tomorrow.”
“We just have to cook them thoroughly. Even if they were poisonous, heat will destroy most of it.”
That didn't sound right, but I was too tired to argue with him. I was really feeling like Kaapo wasn't holding up his end of our partnership. I made myself as comfortable as I could in our shelter, and tried to get to sleep. Sleeping in the shelter was only a little more comfortable than sleeping in the open, but at least it was reasonably well camouflaged. The scent of roasting mushrooms was maddening. Eventually I succumbed to temptation and ate half of one orange berry, reasoning that even if they were poisonous, half of one shouldn't do any serious harm. I slowly drifted off to dreams of food.
The next day, I had a mild stomachache. It was hard to distinguish between an upset stomach and simple gnawing hunger, but I regretfully discarded the berries I had found. I needed to find food today.
Kaapo was groaning in pain when I woke up, next to a small puddle of vomit.
“Mushrooms no good either?” I asked him. He only moaned in response. “There's a creek just a ten minute walk to the southwest. I'd bring you some, but I don't have anything to put it in. I'll find food if I can. If not...I guess we'll eat bugs.” I left him his spear, but I didn't bother building another fire. Why bother? He hadn't taken care of the last two.
The day's hunting was a little better. This time I headed east to explore new territory. I spotted a large ground squirrel of some kind in the underbrush early in the day. I hated to waste a bolt on something that couldn't weigh more than two kilos, but I was getting desperate. The only hard part was following the damn thing around until I had a clear shot. My lightning's maximum range is only about 5 meters (at least for now), so catching the little bastard off-guard was also tricky. It occurred to me that by all rights, Kaapo should be a much better hunter than me. His throwing skill had a much better range, and he actually was much stealthier than me, on the rare occasions when he bothered to sneak.
Soon afterward, I bagged another small burrowing creature in the same way, this one resembled a miniature pangolin. The things were practically already cooked by the powerful charges I had thrown into them. I had discovered another drawback to my lightning; I couldn't turn it down to match the size of the target. A minor stun would have been fine on such small creatures, but I wasted precious energy burning their fur instead. I had no knife, so I couldn't field dress the little things even if I knew how to. I just tied their tails together and carried them over one shoulder. There was meat in there, and there had to be a way to get at it, even if it wouldn't be pretty.
A couple hours later, I hit the jackpot. A beehive sat humming to itself high on a branch above me. A beehive with plenty of stored honey to see them through the long winter months. I considered how I could go about harvesting honey without being viciously stung all over. Lightning would just explode the hive, and it was too high up to try smoking them out. I had almost given up and gone home with my prizes (such as they were) when a strange idea occurred to me.
I was a magician in this world. I hadn't selected the abilities that would allow me to hunt or forage, I had chosen magical powers. I ought to be using them, to level them up if nothing else.
Setting aside my roasted vermin, I found a stick with right general shape, and I sat down to make myself a magic wand. I stripped off the bark, snapped off all the pieces that didn't fit the shape I had in mind, and used my sharp stone to scrape the outer surface smooth. I decorated the shaft with more sigils. I considered simply writing out what I wanted in Arabic and infusing my power into that, but I discarded the idea. I felt that my work writing assembly instructions for model airplanes had stolen the magic from the act of writing in my own language. I needed symbols that would look and feel magical, to me at least. I began developing my own unique symbol. I traced the new symbols in the dirt before adding them to the wand, discarding those that looked too simple, or too elaborate, or just not cool-looking enough. I realized as I worked that I didn't really need a magic book, not really. This was my power after all, and I should treat it as mine. I allowed myself to be guided by intuition. Within an hour, I had the device I needed. It was divided in two at the tip, since I needed it to serve as a distributor for my elemental powers. The series of runes I had created were like a string of computer code: instructions to my power on how it was to behave. I needed to turn my single-target bolt into a wave or a burst, scatter it's effect so that it would target an area instead of a single point. Eager to test out my invention, I pointed it at the beehive, and channeled my power through it.
The tip of my wand immediately burst into flames. The two forks blew off, leaving only a charred, smoking tip. I was disappointed, but it was only my first attempt at wand-making, and overall I still counted it as a success. Dead bees rained down from the hive like little snowflakes.
When I returned that night, I wasn't surprised to find that Kaapo had accomplished nothing all day while I had been out getting much-needed supplies. He claimed to still be sick from eating poisonous mushrooms. I told him he was lucky to be alive at all, considering that some mushroom are poisonous enough to kill with even a tiny bite. He pointed out that I was the one who had brought him the mushrooms in the first place, and implied that this somehow made his condition my fault. I let it go.
With no tools, we had to be content with roasting our prey in their skins and tearing into them like ravenous wolves. The flavor wasn't great, but I would be happy if the meal didn't give me some kind of horrible parasite. There wasn't enough meat to satisfy us, but the honey was there to fill in the gaps. Honey doesn't work great as a staple food, but it was calories, and we at least had it in abundance. We ate the honeycomb in great chunks, swallowing wax, larvae, eggs and even dead bees along with the honey. We were starving, and even having wax in our stomachs was better than nothing. I felt a little ashamed of myself as I licked my hands and face as clean possible.
That night, the wolves showed up. I wasn't too surprised. Our camp-site was an absolute mess, what with the dead beetles and the remains of our dinner scattered around. Kaapo and I sat up in our wigwam and watched the entrance. We were a good distance from the fire-pit and surrounded by dense bushes, so we thought we were probably safe. I was in no mood to expend the necessary energy to zap them away, and Kaapo only had one spear, so we just sat and listened to them finishing off our leftovers. None of them ever tried to invade our shelter. Either they couldn't find us, or more likely, they correctly ascertained that we weren't worth the risk.
Eventually, the wolves wandered off in search of other prey, and we settled down to sleep. Kaapo placed his hand on my arm, and I shook it off, as I would a mosquito. Kaapo had been rather charming when I fist met him, but I had become progressively less attracted to him over the last few days. Besides, I was tired, and neither of us had bathed since we arrived in this world.
That night, I dreamed that it rained. The ground was dry when I wokeup, but all through the night water was pouring down through the roof of the shelter, a peals of thunder were all around me. The sound of the thunder was odd somehow. It reminded me of a voice.