“Shit,” I breathed. I was already slipping out of my shirt as the scattered droplets began to upgrade to a light rain. A shirt made for poor cover, I realized, as I tried holding it over the fire. One sleeve dangled too low and went up in flames.

I leapt back, dropping the shirt into the fire. Thankful for the meal, the flames billowed and swallowed the fabric, growing bright yellow before retreating against the quickly escalating downpour.

Think, think, think.

There were a number of branches, loose twigs, and scraps of wood lying around for a large pyre. I grabbed it all. Nothing on its own was very effective, but I found that dumping more and more of whatever I could get my hands on was enough fuel.

For a while, at least. Eventually all the wood I gathered was already wet, and tossing more onto my gnarled monstrosity only suffocated the fire further.

Down and down came the rain. It was almost comically cruel in its insistence, as if to say screw your fire in particular, Ben. The more I fought the tide, the harder it tugged. Well, I couldn’t fight anymore, and I was all out of wood.

The flames bent low to the gods of the sky, shrinking and bowing until, with a defiant hiss, it died, its steamy ghost billowing into the air. The darkness swallowed me whole.

“Come on, come on.” I bent over the woodpile and breathed hopelessly into the core of it where scraps of dark orange still held out. Little embers took to the air—brave paratroopers trying to find something to set ablaze—but flickered out within moments.

I breathed and breathed, my deepest exhales not enough to stoke what was left of my fire. The rain was hammering down now, taunting me, soaking the wood until it was soggy. Nothing could burn in this weather.

An idea came to me then. It was absurd and probably wouldn’t work, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. Right?

I plucked a mushroom from the bag, swallowed with a bit of water and waited a few moments for the thing to travel down my throat. The cloud I belched sizzled in the air, landing on the pyre and coating it in a slimy green layer. Nothing happened.

I took out the flint and steel.

“Here goes nothing,” I said, and scraped them together.

All it took was one spark.

Whoosh!

Green tongues of fire lashed out of the charred centre, almost gliding along the noxious film and fanning out to coat the entirety of the wood pile. Within seconds the entire thing towered above me, licking up at the canopy of leaves, demanding to spread further, to climb higher. Giant plumes of smoke billowed like mushroom clouds. It was I that was taunting the rain now. Me and my fire. I looked on, horrified and transfixed, and more than a little proud. I had done it. I had done it.

The rain didn’t stand a chance.

Achievement Unlocked

- Discover an alternate use for an ability -

You’re on fire! Not literally, we hope. Through scrappy experimentation you’ve found creative ways to utilize straightforward abilities.

Reward

- Favour +2 (2) -

There was that favour again, only now it was in the positives. If the number caused a static effect, I would need to pay close attention to see if anything improved for myself.

Gradually the rain decided to move on, leaving only scattered droplets to fall from the treetops. It had its fun, but I was victorious. At least, that’s how I saw it.

I sat in the green bulb of light the new fire had created, my mind churning with new ideas. Javelins weren’t enough. Not for Big Bird. Not even flaming javelins. But green flaming javelins were a different story. The fire had spread quickly over the wood, which was already charred and wet. No doubt the javelins would light just as easily. But there was only one way to find out.

I had a few questions I needed answered, but the first was obvious.

How easily does noxious gas burn?

Incredibly easy, as it turned out.

I breathed a cloud of it on the ground, away from anywhere it might spread to a tree and engulf the entire forest. Readying the flint and steel, I swept them across each other. Once, twice. The sparks landed, igniting instantly. A puddle of fire spread across the ground where the gas had fallen. The fire was swift, but it didn’t spread any further than where the gas reached. That was good to know.

How easily does it stay lit?

Not as easily. I used my rookie javelin as the test subject. I coated the tip of it with noxious gas, ignited it and chucked it into the darkness. The fire snuffed out before it crossed the light’s barrier. A few more attempts confirmed the fire wouldn’t stay lit for more than a few seconds once in the air.

At least it wasn’t hard to figure out why. Each time I tried to reignite the flames, it wouldn’t work. The gassy coating was stripped away with each throw, having been pulled off easily by the wind.

I needed to find a way to protect the noxious gas. Leaves and rope, again? I looked down at the homemade bandages covering my wounds. They weren’t perfect—they weren’t even good, but the blood had stopped pouring out some time ago which, with my scanty anatomical knowledge, I took as a good sign.

So I tried that. After breathing the film over the end of my shitty spear, I covered it with leaves, and se them alight.

It didn’t last much longer. Turned out leaves are really flammable and, who knew, are also quite thin. I’d have to rotate between fumbling for the flint and steel, lighting the javelin and then tossing it within seconds. By then Big Bird would already be chowing down. Fuck.

I tied some rope around the end to cover the gas and then lit that instead. It would take a while for the fire to burn through the rope and actually get to the noxious layer, though. Not to mention the weight of the rope screwed with the aerodynamics, making it so the javelin wouldn’t even fly very far. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Constitution too low

- Constitution 0% -

Don’t put resource management on your resume, because it needs some work. Through using abilities, your primary casting stat has been depleted. Allow it to recover enough to use the ability again.

After the cheeky pop-op disappeared, I tested it out by trying to blow another noxious cloud. Nothing came out.

I huffed and sat by the fire. The pop-ups were beginning to feel like taunts, and the cheekiness only added to that. I still couldn’t see my stats, still couldn’t figure out what the numbers precisely were, or how quickly my constitution would regenerate. The stone. I needed to touch it again.

Where were the powerful abilities? The OP ones? Shit, where were my spells? Forget flaming javelins and clouds of poison—chuck a fireball at Big Bird and it’s hitting the ground in a flaming ball of medium-well deliciousness. All that protein. All its power. All that trouble, averted.

It would be nice if that voice came back. I had many more questions now than when I first arrived on the island. But they wouldn’t—I knew that much. Whoever they were, they were having a grand ol’ time watching me survive, or try to, and by the sound of it, there was some entertainment in those who didn’t survive. I wasn’t going to be one of those; a statistic given to the next unfortunate soul to wash ashore.

I spent some more time carving the rest of the javelins. By number five, I think I was becoming kind of good at it. But it was also around then that my eyelids began to droop. I blinked away the urge to sleep and rubbed my eyes. It’s too dangerous. I can’t sleep tonight.

I had to keep myself awake, and I was still starving. I looked over my shoulder at the darkened wood. “Should we?” I asked my stomach.

Grrnnblrgh…

“Okay then.”

I grabbed a burning stick from the fire and headed out beyond the light, beyond the warmth. Before I got very far I doubled back for a javelin. Just in case.

Trees. Trees. More trees. Keeping the campfire somewhere in sight seemed like a good idea, but eventually it was only a tiny speck behind me.

At one point I stumbled on a graveyard of cracked spiked-fruits, two axehead bears sniffing up the contents like a couple of teenagers hiding from their parents in the backyard. They looked lazily over to me before returning to their midnight toke. They wouldn’t bother me if I didn’t bother them.

Do they always show up when those things fall?

Several minutes later I found a ravine. The sound of trickling water came first, and I followed it to a dip in the ground where a small stream cut through a ditch. Water!

“Cheep! Cheep!”

Scuttling around my ankle was an odd fluffy armless bird. It hopped on two legs, a tiny tail dragging along behind it.

“Hey there, little guy,” I said, letting it sniff around. Slowly, I raised my javelin.

It nipped at my ankle.

“Ah!” I jumped, plunging my javelin into the dirt, but it had already bounced away at my yelp. It leapt behind a rock and peered back at me with two large glassy eyes in the middle of its head.

“Cheep!”

The whole thing was a head, really—just a round ball with eyes and legs. It was…

Oh…

Creature Discovered

- Furbo -

Challenge: 1

One of the littlest and cutest creatures on the island, any resemblance to the Hasbro toy is completely coincidental. Totally. Not intentional at all. Not one bit. Nope.

I took a minute to gawk at the little thing. What the fuck is with this island? I was dying. Starving. Searching desperately for water and shelter, and the island’s main concern was Fair Use law.

Well screw your cheap brand knock-offs. I’m going to eat that thing.

I raised my spear in the air, aiming right between its perfectly round, plastic looking, made-in-China eyes. It blinked innocently at me.

Drawing my arm back, I closed one eye for a better shot, and released.

The spear shattered in the air.

“Cheep! Cheep!” The Furbo dashed down into the ravine and out of sight.

And I stood, watching the faint ripple in the air, and the shredded pieces of wood clattering to the ground.

“What?” I stepped forward cautiously, one hand outstretched. My fingers hit something solid, an almost imperceptible ripple spreading through the air from where I had touched.

You cannot access this area yet as a Newcomer. Once you are no longer a Newcomer this area will be open for exploration.

I pulled my hand back. Tomorrow then. The ravine was strategically placed behind the barrier, so I couldn’t even fill my canteen. Without a furbo in sight, and hearing the ominous roll of distant thunder, I decided to make my way back to camp empty handed.

Boom…

I stopped. No, not thunder. I looked back across the invisible barrier and heard a third distant rumble. The sound was too punctuated to be natural, repeating every three seconds for the next half a minute. It sounded like… cannon fire.

But how?

There were people out there. Real people! I knew there must be, but between running away from giant birds and trying to remember if I was up to date on my tetanus shots, I hadn’t really considered it. Of course there are survivors. But how many? I hadn’t run into anyone so far, but I couldn’t decide whether to think of that as a good omen or a terrible portent. Either way…

Real peeps, yo!

The fire was still going strong when I returned and squatted next to it, palms open to the flames.

How the hell did our ancestors do it? They hunted, they foraged without getting themselves killed. They lived their lives and managed to not render the whole species extinct before we got somewhere. Surely if the Ben of ten thousand BC were here, he’d have dealt with Big Bird already. Its feathers would be a cloak around prehistoric Ben’s back, and its head would be on a pike driven into the ground as a warning to the others to steer clear of Ben’s prehistoric abode.

I mean, they had their advantages, sure. Domesticating wolves probably helped a ton. That must’ve…

I cut off my own thought. My attention turned upward to the trees. I walked to the nearest one and spotted a few of those spiked fruits. Maybe. Just maybe…

My first throw missed. The javelin flew wide, arcing down into the dirt a few meters away. The second fell short, hitting the trunk and clattering by my feet. The third was the money shot, hitting one of the fruits and snapping it off the tree. Both javelin and fruit came down at once.

It didn’t take very long for the bear to show up. The thump of the fruit, or the scent of its ripeness seemed to reel it in from almost anywhere.

“I’m gonna need your help tomorrow,” I told it. The bear blinked happily at me as I displayed the fruit. “So let’s practice.”