I had always liked rain. Something about it was comforting, especially when it was paired with a warm cup of coffee with the windows of my parents condo opened as wide as they could go. It felt… isolating. But not in the bad way. For just a moment, I was the only person in the world as I watched the droplets patter on the empty streets.
Well. That was how I felt until now.
The rain poured relentlessly through the forest. Huddling under the fluffiest branch I could find, my teeth chattered as I watched the onslaught overtake my new camp.
“This sucks,” I said through chattering teeth.
Lucky for me, the cold temperatures weren’t unbearable, but they were just cold enough to make the wind’s bite take my breath away— but I didn’t know how long that would last. The sun had just set, spreading darkness through the world around me. If I looked into it for too long then I could almost hear the creatures moving around in the dark. And I knew that they could see me better than I could see them.
I hope this place doesn’t have wolves.
Wrapping my arms around me knees, I rested my head on top of them. Somehow, despite everything that had happened, my eyes started to feel heavy. I fought it at first— I really did— but the excitement of the day had drained me. With one last look at the darkness around me, I closed my eyes and fell asleep. And as I drifted out of consciousness, I could have sworn I heard a, Ding!
----------------------------------------
I awoke to a strange chittering. It took me a moment to remember where I was, hearing the sound of birdsong and the stream gurgling as it snaked downhill. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a fuzzy face staring back at me.
I blinked.
The fuzzy thing blinked back.
“AH!” I shouted, leaping to my feet and scurrying back. “Shoo! Shoo!”
A gargantuan raccoon had found his way into my camp. He stood on his back two legs and chittered at me again— it was very effective. I stumbled a few steps further back, afraid it was carrying some sort of disease, but then I realized I was essentially forfeiting my camp to… a racoon. Fighting every instinct in my body, I stepped forward and waved it away with my hands.
“Please, little raccoon, please go somewhere else.” I was practically dancing in place out of fear that it was suddenly going to leap at me. “Find somewhere else to hang out.”
It rose to it’s feet again— somewhat hesitantly. Then, after a moment, it decided that whatever was in my camp wasn’t worth it and it scurried back into the forest.
I breathed a sigh of relief and gently slapped my cheeks to try and wake up more. The rain had passed, but everything around me, including me, was still soaked and even the stream was rushing down the hill faster than it had before. It even looked a little dangerous. Walking back into my camp, I also noticed something strange on the ground. Strange and familiar.
A small berry.
I picked up a small blue berry from the ground and turned it over in my hand. Instantly, the floating text hovered above it.
??? - 🍽️ ??? ✅ ???
Well, that’s not very helpful.
Looking around, there were a few of them. It must have been what the raccoon was after. After about five minutes of searching, I found the small berry bush tucked away beside another normal bush. The bush was so hidden that I never would have found it on my own. I plucked one from the tree an observed it for a moment. It was blue— but I wasn’t really sure if it was actually a blueberry. Before I could give it anymore thought, my stomach rumbled and disappeared any reservations I had. I popped the berry into my mouth and bit down. A light sweetness swept over my tongue and my eyes opened wide.
BLUEBERRY - 🍽️ UNCOOKED ✅ SAFE
Grabbing as many berries as I could, I stuffed them into my mouth as fast as I could. Since waking up here, I couldn’t remember how long it had been since I’d eaten and suddenly I was feeling ravenous.
Once I’d eaten most of the berries, I didn’t feel full but I felt a little better than before. I washed my face off in the stream as well as rinsed my arms and legs. The water was chilly from the storm but I didn’t mind; the air had warmed considerably and the cool water actually felt a little nice. I sat on the grass and let the breeze wash over me, satisfied.
Feeling a little better than I did last night, I opened my inventory and gazed over my supplies. Nothing had changed. I closed it and scratched my chin awkwardly.
“Tutorial.”
Nothing happened. I sighed wistfully and said a few more words that sounded like they belonged in a video game: game guide, check stats, my skills, and— my most feeble attempt— change armor. It all felt silly, but any information could be critical to my survival.
“…Menu?”
A menu appeared before me. It happened so suddenly that I nearly fell over, and I had to catch myself with my hands to keep from tumbling into the stream. My heart thudded frantically in anticipation as I scanned the new screen before me.
There were five tabs.
CHARACTER | MAP | QUESTS | SKILLS | SETTINGS
The CHARACTER tab made me shiver. It had my name, JOANNE FOSTER, floating above a 3D model of myself staring out with blank eyes. I cringed, using my hand to spin the model around. Outside of how weird it was, I couldn’t get over just how rough I looked. There were twigs and leaves in my hair, my clothes— a beige shirt and army green shorts with equally beige sneakers— were covered in filth. There was a smudge of blueberry on my eyebrow. I grimaced, wiping it away with the back of my hand, and it disappeared on the model.
“Creepy,” I muttered under my breath.
In the next tab, there was a map. It was a lot more useful than the GPS, but it seemed like it only mapped out the areas that I had already visited, making it almost useless if I hadn’t explored. I clicked SKILLS and paused.
This really is a game… Even with the inventory, I thought there might have been some sort of explanation, but all of this looks like something in a survival game.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
FORAGING - LVL 2 | HARVESTING - LVL 3 | STRENGTH - LVL 2
[LUCKY FIND]
I rubbed the back of my neck thoughtfully. Foraging must have been from gathering all those berries, and as for harvesting— well— I had spent so long clearing my camp of grass and gathering limbs that I was surprised that level wasn’t higher. Out of curiosity, I tapped the words [LUCKY FIND] and leaned towards the new text that appeared.
[LUCKY FIND]
You’re lucky! The possibility of finding quests, loot, and foragables is greatly increased.
I gasped. I ran through the day yesterday, trying to think of what could have given me that park. The only thing I could imagine was finding the berry bush. Either way, even though I didn’t know exactly how the perk worked, I decided to check out the last tab: SETTINGS.
Immediately, I grimaced. There was very little in terms of actual settings. The only thing I could change was the visibility of things in my vision.
SHOW ITEM NAME: ALWAYS| UPON INSPECTION
SHOW HEALTH: ALWAYS | NEVER
SHOW WAYPOINTS: ON | MAP ONLY | WHEN NEARBY
LEVEL NOTIFICATIONS: ON | OFF | SOUND ONLY
Wow. These defaults are really bad.
I clicked through my settings and changed them to my liking. For item names, I really only needed to see what they were when I was holding them. It had been kind of annoying to always see the name of my knife when I was trying to cut the small limbs from the bushes. I figured it was also important to always see my health. As for waypoints, it didn’t look like I had any yet, but I figured I should turn it on just in case. And for level notifications… well, I turned those on. I had a faint memory of a, Ding! in my dreams last night, and even though I wasn’t certain it was what I heard, I would rather know when I reached a new level. It seemed important.
SHOW ITEM NAME: ALWAYS | UPON INSPECTION
SHOW HEALTH: ALWAYS | NEVER
SHOW WAYPOINTS: ON | MAP ONLY | WHEN NEARBY
LEVEL NOTIFICATIONS: ON | OFF | SOUND ONLY
I nodded to myself and checked QUESTS, but since it still only told me to build a shelter, I closed the menu. Out of curiosity, I said, “Levels.” The LEVELS tab immediately popped up. I did the same with MAP and SETTINGS with same result. Earlier, it seemed I had just been saying the wrong words.
Feeling a little more motivated, I pulled out my hunting knife and started going around to different plants and testing their durability. I needed new rope. Twigs from a bush, it seemed, wasn’t that great for holding together. As I was exploring— while remaining in sight of the stream— I noticed that there were more limbs on the ground than before.
I mumbled, “The rain must have knocked them down.”
As I looked around, I noticed there were plenty of new branches to choose from, and that I would no longer need to use the annoying branch I had been trying to work with before. I grabbed one that looked closest to the same size as the others and dragged it back to camp. Perhaps it was just in my head, but something about it felt a little easier than before.
I dropped the limb on top of the pile and wiped my hands on my shirt. My eyes started to wander to the nearby trees.
Wait. I remember in Green Hell I used to gather vines for rope. I wonder if I could do that here?
My feet moved aimlessly, looking around at the trees. My heart leapt in my throat when I saw one of the vines in question. Using my knife, I sliced it from the tree and twisted it around the trunk until a large portion of it was in my hand. Then, I cut as far down as I could and ended up with a decently long piece.
When I reached camp, I tied the sapling and limb together with basic knots. I repeated the X shape, tying the two together, multiple times until it felt sturdy. Even though I still had to lean it against the tree, it was much easier to hold up the smaller limb that I had found and set it at the center of the upside down V.
Stepping back, I looked at my work with pursed lips. I put a hand to my lips and waited for the worst— but it never came. My creation was completely stable.
“YES!” I shouted, pumping a fist into the air.
I searched the area and found plenty of new limbs, which I used to line both sides of shelter, creating the foundation for my little home. Once that was done, I carefully maneuvered the leftover bushes underneath the more recent limbs to stabilize them on top of the shelter— they would be essential for holding water material I used to cover the top of it in place. Carefully, I placed them one by one, and once I ran out, I cut down a few more and repeated the process until the top of my shelter looked like a beautiful, mangled mess.
“Perfect.”
At this point, I was a little winded, but it was nothing compared to yesterday. Even my arms didn’t feel half as sore as before. Perhaps that single level in strength did more than I expected it to.
Now I just need something to cover the top of my shelter… It’s going to be a pain, but since so many limbs fell during the storm, I could strip all the leaves off. Or…
I glanced around the area. When the rain was coming, I had panicked and hadn’t been able to find a proper plant. But now that I was calm, I knew that there had to be some sort of plant with wide leaves that I could use on the shelter. There had to be.
And I was right.
After sweeping the forest, I found a large cluster of plants— so plentiful that they almost looked invasive— covering a large portion of ground on the other side of the stream. It took over ten trips and around two hours, but I finally had enough to start filling in the gaps in the shelter. The work was repetitive. At points, it was monotonous that I found my eyes unfocusing out of boredom, but I didn’t stop— I had experienced a night without a shelter and I refused to do the same thing again— and so I kept moving my hands until they ached terribly.
At one point, when it was about a third of the way done, I stopped to drink water and munch on more berries from the bush. It was strange but already I felt myself getting into a routine. Human resilience was truly an impressive feat.
My tedious work continued for the next three hours.
It seemed simple, but I soon realized that some leaves would just not stay in place, or, if there was a gust of wind, they would tumble out of place. I grinded my teeth as I replaced the fallen leaves, and after what felt like a lifetime, my work was complete.
Ding!
QUEST COMPLETE ✅
BUILD A SHELTER
REWARDS 💰
SURVIVAL GUIDE
A goofy smile spread across my face. My entire body was sore, but I had done it. I had built a shelter and now I would have a place to sleep tonight. Looking inside, I had covered all the gaps so that no sunlight could be seen inside. I could only hope it would be enough.
To be safe, I repeated the process of stacking smaller limbs across both sides of the shelter and then put more leafy bushes on top to keep the leaves secure. It wasn’t necessary, but it would give me a peace of mind.
I crawled inside experimentally.
The ground was hard— there was no helping that— but my head and body were full covered. It was surprisingly dark inside the shelter. And for a moment, I felt… safe.
“Menu.”
I searched the tabs for a survival guide but didn’t see it. Next, I opened my inventory but didn’t see anything inside. A glance at my backpack showed a small book had appeared, tucked away on the outside strap. I unhooked it carefully and, still laying inside the shelter, started flipping through it.
There were blueprints— brief guides that showed you how to build different items and structures. I saw a spear, a larger shelter that required logs, a drying rack, and numerous other items I had never seen before. Listed inside the book was also the shelter I had made myself, albeit the image made it look a lot more simple. As I was turning the pages, feeling good about myself, another Ding! caught my attention.
NEW QUEST!
BUILD A FIRE
Sighing, I crawled out of the shelter and got to work.