1.19

The dawn was a beautiful sight, but not to Harold.

He had spent the time immediately after their fight cleaning his equipment of the Orangutan… substance from his shield. Using his shirt as a mask to keep any fumes from reaching him, scrubbing away the residue in the slow moving stream they had found in the clearing.

He silently thanked whatever deity that ruled this System that it was a stream, rather than a pond or lake. ‘Makes it easier for me to clean things.’ The last thing he wanted to do was pollute their only clean water supply.

The small stream was lined with a variety of grasses and reeds. Cattails, algae, and berry bushes, all manner of water-dependent life lived in close proximity to the only water source in view.

Yet, the area was strange. The Orangutans had avoided it like the plague, and now Harold was wondering if they didn’t just walk straight into some kind of death trap.

The large variety of plants around the stream should have drawn a huge number of animals. All manner of insects, fish, and small animals could have drawn water at this patch of peace. Yet, it was shockingly clear of all manners of life.

The group took up refuge in the middle of the clearing, sleeping in their armor while the golems, the non-sleep needing members of their little party, kept watch. Silence dominated the area, interrupted only by Amber’s light snoring and the sound of a spiderling, softly hissing away in his sleep.

‘All in all,’ Harold mused. ‘It’s a pretty comfy group.’

#####

They were relatively comfortable for the first time in days, and the non-stop fighting and discomfort of the claustrophobic environs underground had not allowed them true rest. So when dawn broke, Amber was the first to suggest a more lax day.

Harold tentatively agreed, “though we should go through all our notifications before we do anything else.”

The group agreed, and each set about managing their own gains. Harold turned to his own page, muttering “status” quietly. For the first time, there was a drop down menu, and he willed for it to open, curious as to what it might include. He shook his head. ‘Notifications first, can’t do anything if I don’t know what anything does.’

[Congratulations, Level Up! Level 19 Gem Soldier]

...

[Congratulations, Level Up! Level 23 Gem Soldier]

[Skill Learned: Break the Line - When fighting a numerically superior foe, empower one strike to break through]

[Achievement Acquired: Arachnae Slayer - Be a part of the first group from your planet to kill an Arachnae Queen]

[Title Granted: Monarch’s Bane - Increases true damage against leader variant monsters]

[LEVEL 20 POTENTIAL UNLOCKED]

[Calculating...]

[Calculating...]

[Calculating...]

[Domain of Mithril, Bloodline of Lightning]

The visual deluge stunned Harold for a good minute before he turned to his status, too overwhelmed to consider any one thing in detail.

#####

[Harold Sturm]

Age: 24

Race: Human

Class: [Gem Soldier, Level 23]

Constitution: Abhuman

Skills: [Gem Manifestation], [Analyze Mineral], [Call of Stone], [Armor Assimilation], [Break the Line]

Domain of Mithril [Domain Development: 0.0%]

Bloodline of Lightning [Bloodline Attunement: 0.0%]

Achievements: [Arachnae Slayer]

Titles: [Monarch’s Bane]

#####

“Okay. Much more manageable this time.” Though he said so, Harold was already grimacing at his rapidly filling status page and notifications, the visual cluster was becoming more and more unruly to manage. Willing his notifications away, he shared his page with Amber and Rocky.

“The [Break the Line] skill will be useful,” Amber began. “We fight a lot of large groups, so it’s likely the skill developed as a result of that.”

Harold looked questioning at her, prompting her to keep going.

“So my theory is that skills manifest based on who you are and what you need. You’re a frontliner, so you get all the physical bashing abilities, but I’m the back, so I get stuff like my fire affinity and mana sense.” Her eyes glinted as she shared her status, ready to keep on explaining.

#####

[Amber Liddle]

Age: 24

Race: Human

Class: [Elemental Mage, Level 20]

Constitution: Human

Skills: [Mana Bolt], [Sense Mana], [First Element: Fire, Subskills: [Spark], [Fireball], [Flame Lance], [Wall of Ember]], [Concurrent Minds], [Mana Manipulation]]

Achievements: [The First Spellcrafter] [Arachnae Slayer]

Titles: [Pyromancer] [Monarch’s Bane]

#####

Curiously absent was the domain and bloodline dropdown that was present on his own status. He opened his mouth to comment, but Amber beat him to the punch. “The only real difference between us right now is our class rarity. Mine was rare, but yours was unique, right? So maybe it has something to do with that.”

He nodded. “What’s up with the [Mana Manipulation] by the way? You already have [Sense Mana], so it seems weird for the system to give you something like that for a level 15 skill.”

She shook her head this time, fiddling with her pack and pulling out two sandwiches, holdovers from their time in the tunnel’s loot room. “It’s one thing to see the mana, it’s another to control it.”

Biting into the ham and cheese sandwich, Harold shrugged. “Fair enough. How about you, Rocky? What does your status look like?”

The rock looked a little dejected, and by dejected, Harold meant the light he usually gave off was a bit dimmer than usual.

#####

[Rock Hard]

Age: ???

Race: Rock

Class: [Count of Cold Iron, Level 18]

Constitution: Rock

Achievements: [First Light] [Arachnae Slayer]

Titles: [Progenitor] [Monarch’s Bane]

#####

Rocky made an odd whining sound, “Why don’t I have a domain, bloodline, or skill list?”

It looked as if… ‘Holy crap do I have a sulking rock kid?’ Harold almost laughed out loud, the absurdity of the situation catching up with him.

Amber, seemingly holding in her own laughter, bent down to speak face to face with the rock. “It’s alright. Your status page isn’t everything, and you might get them once you hit level 20, right?”

Rocky nodded, still dejected, but the glow of his eye brightening just a shade.

“Well, back to testing our skills then, yeah?”

Amber’s face brightened considerably

#####

Robert ‘Robb’ Curthose was under the impression that this entire tutorial was bullshit. They had spawned in a forest. A forest. A. Forest. Without any inkling of why they had been dropped there. Like what is that?

When the notifications rang out, pandemonium broke.

‘This was a joke, right?’ A joke. He had been placed here with a group of individuals who he had never met, and he felt… scared.

[Welcome to the Tutorial!]

It took him about fifteen minutes to recover from the shock that the floating screen brought. Of course, he had skimmed LitRPGs before, but he was never a religious reader of the genre. Now modern fiction, that was where it was at.

It seemed his new companions did not agree, because several of them had taken to jumping for joy at the sight of their own floating notification pages. One was running around in circles, occasionally letting out hoots of joy. And one pumped his fist into the sky. Robb tentatively named the idiots Jumper one through three, Runner, and Fister. Two ‘normal’ people stood off to the side, either confused or put off by the extreme reactions. These he named Normal one and two.

It took another ten minutes for the group to calm down, and for the Normals to rejoin them, looking warily on at the majority of their little club. Robb was the happy, or unhappy medium, caught in the middle of knowing what was happening, and not being thrilled about it.

Their first order of business was building a shelter and gathering supplies. Scout’s Honor. He had never been happy that his parents forced him into the Boy Scouts when he was eight, but he was glad for the experience now. Making a fire without a lighter, building a shelter in the woods. These things would be handy now.

The surrounding pine trees were dry, and without a cloud in the sky, it didn’t look as if rain was coming anytime soon. That, in and of itself, was a blessing and a curse. ‘We need fresh water first’ Robb thought to himself, and the lack of rain might deny that from them.

Jumper Three was particularly abrasive however, calling for the group to pick up sticks and go hunting. Fister and Jumper One agreed with him, the light in their eyes conveying just how serious, and excited, they were about this.

It suddenly dawned on him that he would be responsible for keeping the idiots in line if they decided to stay. ‘Honestly, I’d rather take my chances with the people who have no idea about what’s going on.’ To that end, he nodded along with their decision. “Okay, so you guys want to be in charge of securing food?” They nodded in the affirmative.

Robb was a jokester at heart, but there were some situations where he recognized the need for firm leadership. This was not one of those times, he decided.

Imposing his will would only make them leave. At least this way, they might show up later with some food. Rather than frowning at their overeagerness, he cracked a smile instead. “You guys got this. Just stab whatever you find in the ass and bring it back.” Laughing, they agreed to bring the spoils to whatever camp Robb would be able to build.

With that, the three stooges went running off into the woods, closely followed by the remaining Jumper and Runner. Hopefully they would be useful. Then again, probably not.

Robb uttered the word “status” once they were gone, hoping to God that his knowledge of LitRPG tropes wouldn’t fail him now.

#####

[Robb Curthose]

Age: 24

Race: Human

Class: N/A

Constitution: Human

Achievements: N/A

Titles: N/A

#####

The two remaining members of his group followed suit, though he noted the lack of stat points and a class that would normally mark a status page in one of those fictions.

Looking around, he asked his first tentative question since landing in this pine forest. “So what are your names?”

The two ‘Normals’, as he had named them, introduced themselves as Jess and Donny, who worked as a government administrator and an assistant coach respectively.

Robb looked them both up and down, trying to evaluate what sort of help the system had saddled him with. Jess was a relatively petite young woman. Straight out of college, if he had to guess. Blonde hair tied up neatly in a bun. Maybe she had been heading back home from work.

Donny was much more built, a ‘dorito’ shape. He would help greatly with any of the physical labor Robb needed done. He seemed to be in his early, maybe mid thirties, not old by any means.

“Hey, I’m Robb! It’s nice to meet you both.” His confidence grew juuuust a smidge. Their group wasn’t an all star team, but it certainly wasn’t bad. Maybe they would survive this yet.

#####

Without tools, Robb found himself picking up a variety of felled branches for the walls of their impromptu shelter. He would crosshatch the longest branches, the cover the gaps with leaves, he decided. The smaller branches he found could be used for a fire, he decided.

To his credit, Donny had immediately set himself to helping, picking up far more of the branches than Robb could hope to manage, and stacking them just outside the cluster of trees where they had decided to construct the shelter.

Jess, on the other hand, was less of a help physically, so Robb set her on sharpening the more sturdy sticks they had found. The fact that they might need them later was a grim thought.

Every so often he felt the need to crack a joke, no matter how bad it might be. Keep the morale up, ya know? “Hey, it’s a good thing these branches aren’t… STICKY! Eeeh? Oh you know that was good. Self five!” He gave himself a pat on the back and a high five.

Donny groaned and Jess looked ready to throw the sharpened stick in his direction, but both seemed to be nursing quiet smiles of their own. Well, Donny was. Jess might be a bit more no nonsense than he had initially assumed.

They set themselves to work, Jess sharpening a wide assortment of spears, while Robb and Donny were at last able to put up the walls of their little shelter. The wind blew lightly against the walls of their encampment, but nothing fell over. A good sign at least.

That was shelter squared away, sorta maybe. Now was food and water, which meant exploring. “Hey, we need to look around, see if there’s any food or water close to us.”

The two of them nodded to one another, and they elected Jess to stay behind, making sure they could find their way back.

Robb picked out three of the sharpened stakes. Hopefully the wildlife here was a bit more accommodating.