Chapter 3
Sebastian stared into the crackling fire that he had set up while toasting some marshmallows. It was a little weird doing normal camping activities when there were people out in the forest probably trying to kill him. Sebastian got distracted and the marshmallow burned, he groaned in annoyance and set to removing the blackened and gooey piece of marshmallow off of his roasting stick. Sebastian decided to forego the marshmallows tonight and get to what he had been wanting to do. Think about killing someone.
He didn’t actually have anyone in mind and wasn’t planning on going out with the intent to kill someone, but the sad fact was that someone would inevitably come for him. Now he had to digest the fact that he had to kill someone, the odds were just too high that someone was going to come for him. He of course had heard about people killing each other in the Shattered Islands, especially in situations like this when people wanted to join a faction, but he had never actually thought about it, which is what he was doing now.
He wasn’t worried about hesitating when the time came, Sebastian knew he could force himself to do things without thinking about the consequences. He was much more worried about how he would feel about it after it happened. Would he even feel anything, or would the event be more traumatic than he expected? And what about when he killed again, because it was bound to happen again if he managed to survive, which he was planning on. Would his reasoning become more twisted as time went on? Would he learn to come up with more excuses for killing again?
There was no other choice.
It was the best way.
But they had hurt people.
Crack
Sebastian’s thoughts were interrupted by what sounded like a stick being broken. He tried to focus on where he heard the noise and was surprised by what he noticed. Not that he saw anything suspicious, he was just surprised by how much he had noticed. The small little insects buzzing around. The details of the bark on the trees. Some spiders on webs that he never would have been able to see before. Sebastian guessed that he still wasn’t used to how much his senses had been enhanced, but thankfully the additional details didn’t give him a headache, an idle thought he had as he had set up his camp.
Sebastian grabbed a hunting rifle, a very well-maintained weapon that he may have… borrowed, from someone. Thankfully he at least knew how to use it, and even though he grabbed his gun to be safe, he wasn’t too worried about being found even with his blazing campfire. The forest around him seemed to always be dark, no sunlight got through the thick canopy of pine trees and snow, and the tree trunks were about as thick as sequoias. He would be surprised if anyone who didn’t put their Points into Perception died soon.
Sebastian decided that he had enough of his uncharacteristically grim thoughts and chose to turn in for the night. He climbed into his tent, getting one more mental chuckle out of him as he thought again how strange it seemed to camp in a dark, foreboding forest that’s in the most dangerous place on Earth.
———————
Samuel was excited, he had finally found someone who had excellent potential, now he had to find out more about her personality. Lady Wixx wanted someone who could dedicate their life to keeping Lady Emelia safe, but that was a more intense position to take if you’re a classer. Since every classer had at least the Constitution and Vitality of ten, their maximum life expectancy was rather high. And young lady Emelia was definitely not going to stay at |Level 10| for long if he knew her well. Samuel refocused on his potential candidate.
Samuel had frozen himself in space with his Spatial Lock Ability above the young girl he had found. Samuel had only noticed the girl by chance with his Allsight and Spatial Sense skill alongside his high Perception. He was rather interested in how this person was finding so many monsters to kill. This island made it difficult to find anything but she had already killed three monsters. Samuel used his Insight Skill.
Name: Miya Harlow
Age: 17
Level: 3
Class: Locked
Experience: 86 / 300
Unused AP: 0
Health
30 / 30
Stamina
30 / 30
Mana
30 / 30
Constitution
3
Vitality
3
Resilience
3
Intellect
3
Endurance
3
Spirit
3
Strength
7
Focus
3
Agility
7
Wit
3
Perception
8
Insight
3
Dexterity
10
Control
3
Skills
Abilities
Treasures
Heat Sense |2|
Scarlet Eyes
None
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Class: Locked
“A treasure, hmmm.” Samuel thought.
Treasures took time for the soul to acclimate to, even if someone was lucky enough to find an unguarded treasure - something that doesn’t really exist - there’s still no way they could’ve gained the benefits of it until at least a few days later. Which means her last name is no coincidence. The Harlow Family is a faction famous for its combat strength. The Wixx family wouldn’t have had the power to even talk to them before their current problems had arisen. Samuel stuffed down his disappointment, He wouldn’t be able to recruit her even if she was a perfect candidate, she was already part of another faction.
Still, that wasn’t enough for him to stop watching her, Samuel had never heard of the Harlows sending out their young towards the edge of the Isles. Why was she here?
———————
Sebastian tried his best not to shift around too much, he had finally found a monster to kill and he didn’t want to screw it up. His Perception was the only reason he had ever found anything and even then it took him a couple hours. The creature was called a Silver Stag and was |Level 4|. Its coat was mostly silver, but it also had a mane of white hair on its neck. Sebastian was pretty sure stags didn’t have manes, but that didn’t really matter in the Shattered Isles. Sebastian had heard that the animals got weirder and more unnatural as you go further into the islands, though he had no clue if that was true.
Sebastian steadied his aim, a much easier task with his improved Dexterity, took in a deep breath, and fired.
Boom!
Sebastian’s ears started ringing, but he didn’t take his eyes off his target. He had aimed for the neck because he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to hit something vital in the stomach and the head was too small a target for him. A small chunk of flesh blew off the front of the Silver Stags neck and blood spurted out, it reared up and tried to look around for its attacker but that caused even more blood to come out and it quickly collapsed. Sebastian waited a little while and then checked his Experience.
97 / 100
Sabastian let out a long and frustrated groan. Sure the experience was good but leveling up in one go would have been much better. He began to get up but froze when he heard a noise. A loud bellow rang out from behind Sebastian, he looked back and saw another Silver Stag, this one |Level 5|.
“Oh great, I was just thinking about hunting another stag.” Sebastian thought sarcastically.
Then he ran, and the stag chased. Sebastian did his best to weave through the trees, a manageable task with his Dexterity, his real problem was that his only method of killing such a monster was with his gun, but his Attributes definitely weren’t good enough for him to run backwards and take aim at the stag, so he went with a different option. Sebastian ran up to one of the thick tree trunks and turned around, the stag wasn’t far behind him. Sebastian barely took any time to aim and fired
Boom!
Another shot rang out and Sebastian was already getting tired of how loud this thing was. He was beginning to understand why people always wore earplugs at a shooting gallery.
But Sebastian’s newfound understanding of how loud guns are was quickly kicked to the back of his mind so he could focus on the situation at hand. He had missed the stag, and it continued its charge towards Sebastian. Sebastian began to run around the tree, he was hoping that the Stag wouldn’t be able to turn quickly enough and he could get another head start.
Sebastian wasn’t sure if stags were normally this agile, but his plan failed spectacularly and the stag stayed right on his tail, inching closer and closer. Sebastian was screwed. He knew that he could die here, but he never thought it would actually happen. He thought he had been prepared for this, and technically he had been. He’d just never considered that a stroke of bad luck would be his downfall.
Sebastian then came to a stop, not because he had finally accepted his death, he was too stubborn for that. He came to a stop because he had heard something, something that sounded suspiciously like the death throes of the stag he had killed earlier. He looked behind him and saw the stag on the ground, twitching, and then going still. Next to the stag was a girl that looked to be his age with raven black hair, a pale complexion, and gleaming red eyes. Sebastion rarely noticed the eye color of other people, it was a trait that he usually missed when he met someone, but her eyes were so unusual that his eyes were drawn to them.
“Well, that was unexpected.” Sebastian calmly said.
He wasn’t actually calm, he was afraid, but Sebastian tried his best to push down his emotions, there was a chance that this girl, despite her age, was going to kill him. Which was why he was so surprised when she just started running away.
Sebastian wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth and began to get up himself, but then he fell down in surprise when his Attributes grew. It wasn’t like any other time like before, it wasn’t as intense but the changes seemed to happen everywhere. Every part of him became more. Sebastian quickly checked his status.
Name: Sebastian Hart
Age: 18
Level: 2
Class: Locked
Experience: 6 / 200
Unused AP: 5
Health
20 / 20
Stamina
20 / 20
Mana
20 / 20
Constitution
2
Vitality
2
Resilience
2
Intellect
2
Endurance
2
Spirit
2
Strength
2
Focus
2
Agility
2
Wit
2
Perception
5
Insight
2
Dexterity
4
Control
2
Skills
Abilities
Treasures
None
None
None
Class: Locked
Sebastian was confused, he seemed to have gained 9 Experience, but he didn’t know why. He hadn’t killed the Silver Stag, the girl had, but he seemed to have gained Experience anyways. Perhaps it was because he contributed to its kill, but that didn’t seem right because he hadn’t actually injured it in any way. Sebastian didn’t know much about this status thing and it was really bugging him. It wasn’t like he had anyone who could tell him what was happening either, everyone on the island was as new to this as he was, well maybe except that girl he had seen, but he wasn’t too excited about seeing her again. Sure he might say thank you if he happened to meet her again, but he didn’t know what her goals were and what she was willing to do to get to them. And if he didn’t know, then she was dangerous. Sebastian looked at the dead stag once more.
“Very dangerous.” he thought again.
Sebastian got closer to the stag to see what she had done to it. There were stab wounds all over its sides between its ribs, and some across its neck too. Sebastian counted seven that he could see.
“She had already finished killing before I looked back. And I had heard the stag die only a few seconds before that. That’d give her about three or four seconds to do this.”
Sebastian shivered at the thought of that, but it also made him even more excited for his own future. Could he get that strong as well? But then he realized that she was probably not a classer, there would be no way she could have achieved that so soon. Which meant that he definitely could do that since his first goal was still to become a classer.
Then Sebastian got to the fun part, increasing his Attributes. He began to think back to his close call with death, and immediately started pushing down his fear and focused on his other more useful emotions like frustration and anger. Frustration at his bad luck and anger at his weakness, then he tried to calm down. If he had been faster, he could have gotten enough distance between him and that stag to shoot it a few more times, and if his Perception had been better, he might have noticed another stag was coming and prepare himself to shoot that one down too. Sebastian didn’t want to make his tactic for hunting the Silver Stag running away, but if that situation ever happened again he wouldn’t have another savior to pull him out of danger. So Sebastian decided on one point into Agility, and his other four into Perception.
Sebastian was begging to love the feeling of having a higher Perception, the world just felt more alive. He knew what was happening around him and he liked it, it felt as if he was now able to see any problems he might face long before they could reach him. Sebastian was beginning to go home when he heard movement from far away.
“Another stag.” he thought, Sebastian grinned, if he was lucky, he would be over half way to |Level 3| when he went back to the camp.