Waking up dazed and confused, I am alive... again.

All around me are lush shrubberies, ancient trees stretching into the sky hundreds of meters, the fresh floral smell of the forest please my sense of smell.

Observing the air around me I can notice the protective dome is covering me once again. Looking directly in front of me, beyond the protective dome, about 5 meters off the ground there is a deep indentation in the tree trunk, a perfect hiding spot for a Halfling! For a second I consider that perhaps Respawn isn’t a total bastard of a skill.

Weighing my options between a protective dome with a timer in the middle of the forest floor or a sneaky hiding spot meters off the forest floor, I make the logical choice and dash in the direction of the tree.

Squirreling my way up the tree trunk by grabbing onto the rough bark I quickly make my way up to the tree-cave, taking note of the fact that this respawn so far has the most promising environment I swear to myself that I’m going to make it count.

Making myself comfortable on the dry leaves that cover the floor of my new home, which is about 1.5m deep and 1 meter around, the floor sinking a bit deeper than the entrance.

Lying on my back I make the decision to learn as much about the blue screens I’ve seen before doing anything else. I start by opening my status menu...

Status Name: Robert Frost Level: 1 Race: Halfling Class: -   Health: 10/10 Mana: 36/36 Stamina: 100% Stats Strength: 3 Intelligence: 18 Vitality: 5 Wisdom: 15 Agility: 4 Charm: 4 Dexterity: 4 Luck: 7 Distributable Stats: 5 Elemental Affinities - Life Skills - Observe

- Respawn

- Meditation

- Mend

- Life Drain

- Regeneration

Alright... there a couple things to take note of, I don’t have a class, I have 5 ‘distributable stats’, and my race is ‘Halfling’. Everything is more or less self explanatory, I want to try and survive in the forest or at the very least stay alive long enough in order to escape and make it to society, fingers crossed I’m not thousands of miles away from society. 

Survival in a forest is all about stealth, and stealth is all about controlling your body to a very minute degree in order to be able to perfectly control where and how each step is taken, so for now I’ll place all 5 distributable stats into dexterity.

Next I should review all of my skills, gaining a greater understanding of them can only be beneficial...

Skill Name: Skill Rank: Skill Level: Skill Experience: Observe F 1 0% Allows the user to gain information about anything by staring directly at it and activating the skill.

Information given is determined by skill level.

Skill Name: Skill Rank: Skill Level: Skill Experience: Respawn SSS 1 20% Grants the holder the ability to respawn after dying. Holder respawns to random location. Level and stats are reset depending on level of skill.

Skill Name: Skill Rank: Skill Level: Skill Experience: Meditation C 1 74% Skill user enters a trance-like state in which the user gains a greater understanding of the element focused on.

Can spontaneously learn new skills related to element focused on.

Chance of learning a skill increases with the skill level of meditation.

Consumers 3 mana per hour.

Skill Name: Skill Rank: Skill Level: Skill Experience: Mend E 2 0% Basic healing spell of the Life element.

Healer must be contact with target of spell.

Heals health at the cost of mana in a 1:4.9 ratio.

Ratio improves with the level of the skill.

Skill Name: Skill Rank: Skill Level: Skill Experience: Life Drain A 2 15% Drain the life essence from the target.

Must be in contact with target.

If contact with target is lost while performing life drain, the spell will rebound, damaging user for 95% of HP.

Skill Name: Skill Rank: Skill Level: Skill Experience: Regeneration A 1 0% Buffs the target of the spell for 48 hours with 400% health points regeneration.

Must be in contact with target.

Costs 5mana to cast.

Regeneration... I’ll have to keep this spell active on myself at all time from now on, couldn’t hurt. I immediately cast Regeneration on myself, a green light flashes around me and then sinks into me. I feel more energetic and exuberant as well, I literally feel more alive; it seems the regeneration spell has some unmentioned side effects, whether this is related to health regeneration in general or a direct result of the regeneration spell will need further investigation.

Life Drain, my only killing spell, I’m a bit conflicted about, if used in the correct circumstances it can be considered a cheat of all cheats but... those are some very narrow circumstances. First I have to find out if it is possible for the spell to fail, for example by using it on a target whose level is too high; would I receive the 95% damage? Then there is the excess life essence that I can’t absorb which I have to set free into the air which attracts other wild beasts as happened in the swamp, I’ll either find a different destination for the excess life essence or I’ll have to secure an escape route before using the spell which can’t be blocked by the beasts.  Perhaps I could channel the life essence into plants? I’ll have to try this later...

Mend... eh... basic heal, can’t even fix a broken back. It can probably fix scratches and cuts, I’m not sure to what extent it can heal but I’m definitely not going to start inuring myself like some fool to find out the exact limits... eventually ending up with a broken arm that I can’t heal... in the middle of a forest full of unknown dangers. No thank you. At least it can fill up my hp preventing me from dying right?

Meditation has been good to me, it isn’t ideal considering that it makes me enter a trance like state which I can’t exit before my mana is completely drained resulting in a mind rending headache after which I pass out. The positives outweigh the negatives though considering it helped me learn Mend and Regeneration.  If I can find a way to exit the trance like state before I am completely drained from mana it would be ideal.

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Respawn... respawn... respawn... I love and hate this skill. It looks like I get 10% experience per death which means it is capable of leveling up which means that there is a small, minute possibility of me controlling the spawn points in the distant future but... getting the necessary amount of experience in the skill to achieve that doesn’t look like it is going to be a walk in the park.

Observe? I completely overlooked this skill from the start... I look at my tree-cave wall and say ‘observe’ in my mind, immediately the word ‘tree’ appears in my mind, that’s it. “TREE? TREE!?” flabbergasted at the degree of detail provided by the skill I notice that I gained 1% experience in observe for observing the so called ‘tree’, I decide that I should observe everything around me as much as possible from now on; perhaps if the skill level of Observe reaches a high enough level the skill could end up being useful.

Crawling closer to the exit of my humble abode, I peak outside and start using observe on everything. I get no useful information at all. I start thinking of what my future plans should be, should I try and survive in the forest for a while before trying to find society? It seems like the logical choice considering I’m level one, and I’m a healer... but at the same time am I capable of surviving in the forest? Considering this it also seems like the logical choice for me to get the hell out of here as fast as possible.

I decide to make the tree-cave my base camp, and survive here until I am either chased away by something or I believe I am strong enough to get out of the forest.

If I want to survive here I’ll have to hunt for meat, and gather plants for my other needed nutrients, and learn more about the forest in general. Gathering plants will have to wait until my Observe skill gets to a high enough level to tell me whether or not a plant is edible or not, I could also watch what the herbivores are eating and eat what they eat. For hunting I can only use traps... the problem is that I don’t have any fancy hunting knowledge of some crazy traps made out of shoelaces... and I don’t even have shoelaces.

The only real traps I could come up with are pit fall traps, with either sharp sticks at the bottom or I could simply trap the animals in the pit and jump onto them and drain their life essence in the same way I did with the alligator, if I could secure an escape route out of the tunnel after this I could probably attract even more creatures into the pit with the excess life essence. Digging a hole which is large enough for whatever creatures live around here could be a problem though, especially considering that I’m not even a meter tall.

I could also try lifting a large rock high up into a tree and wait for an animal to pass by under me, and then drop the rock onto its head, simple right? Maybe I could make a lift system with some vines and pull a larger rock up, maybe I could make a simple noose out of said vines, connect it to a large rock high up in the tree, throw the noose around the neck of an animal and then kick the rock of, hanging the animal? Wait, no... This is getting overly complicated; first I’ll try the simple plan of dropping rocks onto animals from my comfortable and safe tree-cave. I’ll look around for some vines, maybe making a net or something and set up some more complicated traps in the future. For now I have too little information about the surrounding dangers to spend any prolonged time outside of my tree-cave.

Looking around the on the forest floor I spot a conspicuous rock at the base of the tree trunk my tree-cave is in that is about size that I think I’m capable of carrying with my meager amount of stats in strength. Looking around for any movements, listening for any animals, I hear and see nothing. Squirreling down the tree trunk I slip halfway down and fall flat on my ass, pain shooting up my spine, I fight the urge to scream an unrepeatable string of curses which I manage to fight down to simply muttering a single of whispered curse. The wind carries a whispered ‘fuck’ through the forest.

I pounce in the direction of the rock still mindful of the surroundings. Finally reaching the rock, I have completed half of my adventure; I turn back with the rock under one arm I struggle back up the tree. Finally reaching the safety of my humble little abode I fall on my back into my dried leaf bed and release a breath I didn’t notice I had been holding in. Admiringly I look at my bountiful harvest, a rock roughly the size of my head. Completely oval on one side and completely flat on the other side, even slightly indented.

Before I could use the Observe skill on my prized rock I feel a very slight vibration in my tree-cave floor. Again and again I feel the vibration, getting stronger and stronger with each successive vibration. Then I start hearing snapping and rustling sounds along with the vibrations, almost as if... it is a huge creature getting closer and closer, the vibrations I’ve been hearing are its heavy steps on the forest floor...

I shiver in terror at the thought of a creature big enough to cause vibrations that travel this far from its massive weight, all the while I’m still not even able to see a shadow as I peak in the direction of the sounds from my little tree-cave.  I try and breath as little as possible while staying as still as possible in hope that the monstrosity would simply pass by my little home and leave me be... much to my disappointment it didn’t.

As I shiver while staring at the huge shadow crashing through shrubberies and small trees while narrowly avoiding the ancient trees, the shadow comes into full view. A Mammoth at least 7 meters tall, thick lush fur covering its entire body, tusks at least 3 meters long, a trunk hanging from its face almost reaching the forest floor, eyes larger than my head staring straight at me who is peeking out of my tree-cave. Without think too much about it I use Observe on the creature... ‘Mammoth’... wow thank you observe, you just saved me.

Heading straight in my direction, the monstrosity slows to a stop a couple of meters of my tree, I have been frozen in pure terror since the moment I saw the entirety that is this monstrosity; so I just stare straight at it with a dull look in my eyes. It looks almost as if the creature is amused at my terror as it angles its head to the left while staring at me, almost as if it is pondering what the cure little creature is in front of it. The creature’s trunk that has a girth greater than my entire body slowly lifts up and moves in my direction, it is at this moment that I regain control of my senses and reverse crab-walk back up against the back wall of my tree-cave.  Staring at the monstrous trunk moving closer and closer I start wondering what my next spawn point is going to be like...

The trunk stops centimeters from my face then sniffs... with a wet smack my head is sucked up into one of the nostrils of the trunk. Gagging at the disgusting smell and wet sensation on my face from the insides of the nostril I grab the trunk and tear out my head while furiously thinking of a way to get this creature to leave me alone, then a thought hits me... aren’t mammoth’s herbivores? Elephants are so... shouldn’t mammoths also be?

As I regain some of my previously lost mental faculties in the face of the giant creature; I think of a way I can show it that I am friendly... after all I can’t exactly jump onto it and use life drain on it. That would end up in much the same way the situation ended up with the alligators, and I don’t want to lose my safe little tree-cave, the first relatively safe place outside of the protective shields I’ve had access to since I came to this world. Though I am questioning the degree of safety my tree-cave can provide me with my new found knowledge of the creatures that call this forest home.

After making the decision that I have to make friendly with the creature, which by all indications wasn’t being aggressive towards me. I cast regeneration on it to see what happens. A green light envelops the Mammoth then sinks into it. The Mammoth’s trunk freezes immediately, it stares straight at me eyes wide open. “Don’t eat me... please?” I say while staring at the shocked Mammoth, the creature stares back at me for a second before slowly backing away, all the while keeping its eyes on me. It then turns around and literally sprints away in the direction it came from.

The last thing I see is its tail wagging...

Staring in the direction the Mammoth disappeared into I consider the possibility that the mammoth was maybe... a child? The tusks were a bit short? At this moment my rock decides to start moving.