The drop onto Arenia inevitably produced a wild array of reactions from the human experiencing it. Screaming, terror, excitement, laughing, loss of various bodily functions—even cool indifference. As a result, gambling on the drops was a favourite pastime of the Observers, and a great deal of money changed hands with every transfer. One particular reaction paid out the largest odds, and that was because it had only ever paid out a handful of times. Today was one of those days. Because when Mark came to a sudden and abrupt halt on Arenia’s surface, he showed the rarest of reactions: Sadness. Because for Mark, the idea of being smashed into the planet was far preferable to the reality he was facing.

Mark sank to his knees, not even looking at his surroundings. His head bent, and tears flowed, eventually forcing him to brace his hands against the ground to keep from keeling over. He could feel the cool moss and the root-filled dirt beneath his fingers, but those were outside things. Right now, Mark was living inside his own mind.

How long?

That was all he could think.

When Mark was twelve, he had been “normal.” That’s how he thought of it. A lot of doctors tried to tell him not to think in terms of “normal” and “not normal,” but that line of thinking never stuck. There was a clear before and after, and if one of those was going to be called normal, it was “before.” Before a month after his thirteenth birthday when he stood up in front of his class for a presentation, and all that came out was a garbled mess.

How long until it starts again?

He couldn’t stop asking himself that question. Withdrawal could be—would be—harsh. You were supposed to gradually titrate your medication down, not go cold turkey.

How long until it starts again?

No! Mark admonished himself. He had to get past it. What would happen, would happen. All the self-pity in the world wasn’t going to change anything.

Mark chuckled at the irony—he’d just inadvertently quoted his father.

“No,” Mark said, out loud this time. He pushed himself up off the ground and shook himself off. “Screw this. I am not going to die in the dirt on some strange planet.”

He needed a plan.

Step 1: Survive. Long enough to get to Palmyre.

Step 2: That was future Mark’s problem. Right now, he had to deal with the present, and that meant he needed information.

Too bad Angela wasn’t here; his sister was probably kicking ass already. Hell, she probably had a horde of woodland animals carrying her across the forest to the family’s new home in Palmyre.

“Okay,” Mark said. “First things first: Where’s my character sheet?”

As soon as Mark said the words, a black book appeared in the air in front of him. It hovered there. Floating. Mocking.

Mark stared at with distaste. It looked exactly like the journal he’d been given to track his symptoms when he first got diagnosed.

“Goddammit,” Mark muttered. He snatched the book out of midair and flipped it open.

Nothing. He flipped forward a few pages. Still nothing. He quickly leafed through the rest of the book until he got to the very back. Only then did he find something written on the pages:

MARK SULLIVAN

Renown: Level 1 – Unclassed

Species: Human

Age: 20

Experience: 0

Experience to Next Level: 300

Base Attributes

Strength – 19

Constitution – 17

Endurance – 16

Dexterity – 18

Willpower – 16

Intelligence – 16

Charisma – 14

Luck – 8

AVERAGE: 15.5

Mark burst out laughing. He laughed so hard that tears streamed down his face. It went on so long that it flirted with hysteria before finally fading to a chuckle. He looked at the sheet again.

“My Luck is an eight. Eight. Eiiiggghhht. That explains so, so much.”

Mark looked at his statistics again. Without a frame of reference, it was tough to tell what the numbers meant, but on a relative basis, he wasn’t surprised by anything. He had some of his father’s natural strength, albeit with a lanky frame that he inherited from his great-grandfather, and was reasonably coordinated. The lower Constitution made sense given how much his farm chores had been curtailed right when he got into his teen years. You hardly wanted a guy who could keel over at any moment running the thresher.

As for Willpower and Intelligence…

Screw it. They’re just numbers.

Mark looked around his surroundings, unsure of where he should be heading. Palmyre was somewhere to the northwest, but that was a pretty broad scope of direction. His best bet was probably to head in that general direction and hope he found a road to follow the rest of the way.

As for the terrain, it was comprised of some sort of thick Evergreen with a ground cover of fallen logs and ferns—not something that would be easy to move through. Much of the light was also blocked out by the high trees, leaving little hope of navigating by the stars. Which sucked because celestial navigation was something Mark could actually do. Assuming Arenia had the same stars as Earth, which almost certainly wasn’t the case. So maybe that didn’t matter after all. Come to think of it, he couldn’t even trust that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, but at least using that as a compass point would allow him to stay in the same direction and not walk in circles. And hey, there was a 50-50 chance it was correct, right? Besides, even heading in the wrong direction was better than sitting in the forest doing nothing.

As Mark did a quick once-over, he noted that his clothing had been replaced with something more Arenia appropriate, presumably, and he’d also been given a backpack. It was weighed down with supplies, but he couldn’t resist seeing just how gamey this world was.

“Inventory?” Mark said, hoping to see a screen pop up for him to access.

Nothing happened.

With a sigh, Mark took off the pack and poured the contents onto the ground.

There wasn’t much. It was something, though, and he would have to find ways to stretch it out. Plan for the long-term. But how was he going to do that?

A thought occurred to him.

“Tome,” Mark said, using the word that lizard asshole had used. In an instant, the book was in his hand.

“Pen?” he said hesitantly… and one appeared! A simple, skinny ballpoint pen, like the kind you’d find in a hotel room. Yeah, it was a crappy pen, but a hell of a lot better than what he’d expected. He’d been 90% sure he was going to have to use a quill and ink.

Immediately, he jotted down a list of supplies:

Mark’s Stuff

Bedroll x1 Waterproof Cloak x1 Change of Clothes x1 Rations x9 Camp Knife with sheath x1 Fish hook x2 Fishing line (~50 m) x1 Waterskin (full) x1 Flint and Steel x1 Torch x2 Silk Rope (~20 m) x1

All in all, it was kind of—

NEW GENERAL SKILL LEARNED!

Writing – Skill Level 22 (Tier-II)

You’re not as dumb as you look! And with 14 Charisma, you look pretty dumb.

Tier-I Bonus: Decreased chance of writing being misunderstood.

Tier-II Bonus: Unlocks writing prerequisite for occupations that aren’t writing-primary (e.g. Guard Captain, Shift Boss, etc.). Required Skill Level varies by occupation.

*Since this Skill predates your arrival in Arenia, it has been set at a level commensurate with the practical ability you already possess.

2,950 XP Earned (cumulative)

The words caught Mark by surprise, coming as they had on a sheet of paper that appeared out of nowhere directly in front of his face. He watched in awe as the piece of paper shrunk in size and zoomed towards his journal. The journal flipped to the back of the book of its own accord, and the page slipped inside, just in front of his character sheet. It even formed a tab labelled “SKILLS” that poked out for convenience. Then the journal magically flipped back to where he’d been writing his inventory.

Once that bit of oddness was over, Mark was again surprised when the pen in his hand changed from the crappiest of all pens into a thicker plastic kind. Like the ones that sit in your junk drawer for 7 years and inexplicably still work. Did the quality of his pen just improve with his Writing skill?

“Uhh…” Mark said eloquently. He flipped back to the SKILLS tab to review what he’d just seen, then back to his inventory list. Just then, another paper appeared.

RENOWN LEVEL UP!

Level 4 Achieved

XP: 2,950

XP to next Renown: 350

“Whoa, hey now?” Mark said. There was something of note. Looking back at his character sheet, he noted that while he had levelled up, there wasn’t any change to his base attributes, nor did he have any characteristic points to apply.

“Boo…” Mark muttered under his breath. It was hard to stifle his disappointment—it would have been nice to get that Luck stat up.

With no time needing to be spent on his character build, Mark revisited his inventory list.

There wasn’t a lot. The camp knife was pretty small—it would never be passable as a weapon against anything tougher than a drugged-up squirrel—but it would be serviceable for making kindling, cutting rope, etc. The flint and steel were good too, but the usefulness was questionable. He didn’t want to draw in any creatures with a campfire if he could avoid it, especially since he was alone. So long as it didn’t get too cold at night, no fire was probably the best course of action. It helped that there were some rations in there that wouldn’t need cooking. Maybe five days’ worth if he stretched them out? Hopefully, that would get him to civilization, but the presence of a fishing line suggested he may need to do some foraging along the way. On the bright side… silk rope! Adventurers always found a good use for rope, and this was the good stuff. Score!

Some deeply hidden part of Mark’s lizard brain caused him to stop his analysis and look up.

Something was wrong. The forest had gone quiet.

A piece of paper appeared, and Mark snatched it out of the air.

NEW SURVIVAL SKILL LEARNED!

Sense Danger – Skill Level 1 (Tier-0)

You can tell when there’s a threat nearby, giving you time to react before it’s too late. At higher Skill levels, anyway. Right now, you’ll be lucky if you make it to the end of this sentence.

50 XP Earned

Mark tossed the paper aside and frantically jammed everything back into his backpack. He was still trying to make space for the rope when a growling creature emerged from the trees to his right, stealing Mark’s attention.

His jaw dropped. Mark was used to fantasy games starting with the adventurers fighting rats in a sewer to gain early levels, but this wasn’t a sewer, and the rat staring at him was a metre tall at the shoulder, with a build more reminiscent of a wild boar than a rodent. It immediately brought back memories of childhood nightmares he’d endured after watching a movie his parents had assured him was utterly benign. They were wrong.

“Fucking R.O.U.S.’s, are you serious?” Mark said. The sound of his voice triggered the animal to move, and Mark responded like a jackrabbit. Grabbing his backpack in one hand and the rope in the other, Mark leapt to his feet and sprinted as fast as he could, practically leaving a dust cloud in his wake. As his feet pounded into the forest earth, he wasted no time throwing the spool of rope over his head and under his right arm while simultaneously slinging the backpack over his left shoulder. It wasn’t easy to run with the two items held the way they were, but the bulk of the rope prevented him from getting his other backpack strap on, and he wasn’t willing to part with his supplies. What was the point of getting away from the huge rat if the price was dying later of slow starvation?

“Shit shit shit shit,” he swore as he jumped and swerved over the fallen logs and underbrush.

NEW GENERAL SKILL LEARNED!

Jumping – Skill Level 11 (Tier-I)

Hey, we’re not bothering you with these, are we?

Tier-I Bonus: Increased power when jumping while running.

*Since this Skill predates your arrival in Arenia, it has been set at a level commensurate with the practical ability you already possess.

650 XP Earned (cumulative)

RENOWN LEVEL UP!

Level 5 Achieved

XP: 3,650

XP to next Renown: 1,450

Mark batted the paper away and risked a glance over his shoulder. The giant rodent leaping and bounding behind him, perfectly comfortable in the environment. All Mark could think of was his base attributes: Decent strength and dexterity, crappy Constitution. Translation: “Get away fast because there is no way you are surviving a protracted chase.”

NEW SURVIVAL SKILL LEARNED!

Running For Your Life – Skill Level 1 (Tier-0)

Good news! By the time you hit Skill Level 30 and break into the Journeyman Tier, this Skill unlocks some amazing bonuses. The bad news is, nobody has reached Level 10 without dying shortly thereafter.

Tier-0 Bonus: Tier-0 bonuses aren’t really a thing, but if you get out of this alive that’s bonus enough.

50 XP Earned

A series of logs appeared in Mark’s path. They had fallen into a rough pile within a ravine, forming a bottleneck in the process. Normally he would be careful as he worked his way over a jumbled pile like that, but he didn’t have time to be careful. Instead, he leapt across a series of tree stumps and then hurled himself to the top of the pile before scrambling over the other side.

For a moment, Mark congratulated himself on a manoeuvre that he’d been sure would slow his opponent down. After all, rats weren’t overly known for their jumping prowess. Unfortunately, a quick look back showed that the giant rat was just as proficient as its smaller cousin at squeezing through tight gaps, as evidenced by the fact that it was now crawling out of a hole in the pile barely a quarter of its normal body width.

It was hardly an ideal outcome, but it at least gave Mark an idea. An insane, stupid, desperate idea, but the best idea he could come up with.

Doubling down on his own stupidity, Mark continued down the steadily narrowing ravine, ignoring any exits in favour of finding a spot to execute his utterly moronic plan. Sure, if the ravine ended abruptly, he would die messily and painfully, but as the walls of the ravine grew taller, he knew he was committed to his chosen course of action. All that was left was to hope he could beat the odds.

Speaking of odds, Mark spotted another jumble of logs that had fallen from higher up the ravine. It wasn’t as tall as at the last location, so there was no guarantee the rat wouldn’t simply run over this barrier. However, there was a large tree hanging just past the log pile that would be perfect for what Mark had planned.

One way or another, this was going to be the place where Mark had his showdown.