The sound of the transport’s blades cutting through the wind was quickly dwarfed by the distressed conversations of the occupants inside of the fortified metal container. Nate’s disappointment was at a level he never experienced before today. His mind was going a mile a minute to figure out what was going on. Desperate to figure out more on the situation, he tried his best to gather information from the discussions around him. After a few minutes of listening to the commotion, he felt like he had a grasp of his upcoming fate. From Nate’s understanding of the conversations around him, he was being brought with the rest of the occupants to a mining outpost to labor away excavating some rare materials.

To Nate’s surprise, he had noticed that some of the guards seemed to be just as upset as the other people by the announcement. Nate must have had a puzzled look on his face as he watched the few guards bicker back and forth.

“They are probably changing shifts too. Some of the guards will be stuck in the mines overseeing our work and they aren’t happy about it,” said the partially bald man sitting next to Nate, “My name’s Kevin. What’s yours, kid?”

“Nate. Why does everyone else seem to know more than me?” the somewhat perplexed sixteen-year-old asked.

“Oh, kid. You just don’t have the experience that the few of us older guys have. We have been hearing rumors of this sort of thing happening for years. I even had a brother disappear to go work in an outpost once when I was young. No point in fighting it for people like us,” Kevin said slumping down dejectedly in his seat.

After a few shouts to quiet down by the guards, the crowd noise started to lessen slightly. As everyone started to get used to the news that just broke, the sounds inside the transport started to calm down but a new tension was present among the passengers.

*********************************

Over the next day, life inside of the transport had developed a routine and everyone seemed to grow accustomed to being confined in the metal machine. Despite the apparent calm in the transport, Nate had to constantly focus on maintaining his composure. He had spent his whole life wishing that he could get the opportunity to see more than just the Grey Sector of Newcomb City. Now, he had found out that he was being sent off to work in the darkness of the mines for the rest of his life. As he watched the wilderness move by outside the window, he couldn’t keep from wishing that he wouldn’t have to go to the mines. He really didn’t want to miss out on the rest of this new world that he had been exposed to over the last couple of days. He had gotten a glimpse of how large the world was outside of the Grey Sector and Newcomb City. He didn’t think that he could handle going to something even worse.

****************************************

The next few days of the journey were rather uneventful. Besides trying endlessly to keep himself calm over the situation, Nate spent the majority of his time staring out of the transport’s window looking over the sights of the wilderness. The sights were spectacular and Nate’s mind ran wild with fantasies of seeing more of the world. He had seen so many things that he had only read about in books. During the first 6 days of nonstop travel, the transport passed over lakes, flew alongside mountains and crossed rivers. The sights outside of the window helped Nate keep himself mentally together.

The constant mental gymnastics and the boring flight hadn’t actually been that bad for Nate. As he was sitting staring out of the window, he pulled up his system interface to check on his progress so far.

—————————————————-

Name: Nathaniel Redsun

Level: 0 (Exp. 12/50)

Health: 100/100

Energy: 1/0

Primary Class: None

Secondary Class: None

Stats:

Speed: 1 Agility: 1

Stamina: 1 Strength: 1

Intelligence: 5 Perception: 1

Wisdom: 2 Will: 3

Stat Points Available: 0

General Skills:

Mental Calm (Passive)(Level 5)

————————————————

Over the last 7 days, Nate had promoted his [Mental Calm] skill up several levels. He found that if he tried to calm himself down every time he got worked up over a potential future in the mines, then he would gain experience in his [Mental Calm] skill. When he had talked to a few of the other passengers about the skill, several people had thought he was full of shit and labeled him a lying fool.

For most people, including the guards, a youngster with a newly awakened system would need to have weeks of practice just to gain a most basic skill. Nate, who only had the system for 7 days, was claiming that he had a skill at Level 5 already. It wasn’t believable to anyone that heard his story. When he mentioned that he gained a few stat points as well, the smack talk from both guards and passengers got even worse.

After Nate was given a real hard time by a few of the guys, he stopped talking to people in the transport about his personal information. If he spoke out loud, then they would just trash talk him. Nate knew that the [Mental Calm] skill was getting close to Level 6 so he continued his focus on remaining calm despite the negative feedback of those around him. Checking in on the skill’s status, he pulled up the skill description in his user interface to check his current experience points.

[Mental Calm (Passive)(Lvl. 5)(Exp. 472/500)]

Looking at the small number of experience points he needed to gain another level, Nate was thrilled. Each level he gained didn’t feel that substantial to him, but he could feel that he calm nature had increased. Wanting to see if he could get another level today, he started to block out the noise in the transport and just stared at the scenery out of the window. Just as he was starting to focus enough to calmly relax, the pilot’s voice came over the transport’s intercom.

“Everyone, we are approaching the most dangerous section of our journey. The Soaring Woods is a very large section of wilderness that is home to some higher level beasts. Due to our destination, our trip must go through this area. Passengers must remain seated unless absolutely necessary for the next two days of travel. Guards must fully man the defense stations at all times.”

With the pilot’s announcement, everyone in the transport seemed to be busy with action and nervousness. Some guards moved about checking equipment and other guards moved into the defense turrets along the side of the transport. Passengers scurried about as the guards yelled for them to be seated and strapped in place.

Nate picked up his backpack from under his seat and strapped it with him under the safety harness. He had developed this little trick during his first day of the flight. If the backpack was between him and the strap, then he could relax and not get bounced around by turbulence as much. It was quite comfortable to ride while snuggled into the seat.

After getting strapped into place, Nate went back to looking out of the window at the scenery. He could see what appeared to be a vertical green and brown wall in the distance. Nate couldn’t quite figure out what was up ahead at first, but as the transport moved closer he got a clear picture of the Soaring Woods. Seeing the wall of massive trees towering over the rest of the wilderness, Nate realized why it was called Soaring Woods. The trees soared above all others around them by at least ten times and reached high up into the sky. The sight of such a large and dense wilderness was quite overwhelming.

Suddenly, loud shouting came from the front of the transport. For the second time on the same day, Nate was startled out of his concentration by a commotion on the transport. Since a fair number of guards were manning all of the transport’s defenses, the number of guards supervising the passengers had decreased to its lowest level since the first day of the flight. Unbeknownst to Nate, some of the more rebellious passengers had decided to use this opportunity to attempt a takeover of the transport.

A fight had broken out between a few of the guards and around 8 or 9 passengers. Nate had a clear view of the scuffle that was taking place near the front of the transport. Two of the passengers had a guard pinned on the ground and were stabbing him with what appeared to be sharpened metal rods. Blood was spraying everywhere as they stabbed the man over and over again. Another guard was on the ground and locked in a wrestling match with one passenger while he was being repeatedly kicked by another. Several other guards and passengers were exchanging blows in an all-out fistfight. The brawl was so chaotic that Nate had a hard time making sense of what was happening. All he could do was stay strapped in his seat and hope the fighting didn’t drift down to his part of the transport.

The violence was so much that a few of the guards that were in the defense turrets had to be called over to support the other guards. Out of nowhere, a large guard came running over to the fight with what appeared to be a short sword in his hand. With a few swings of the sword, he managed to sever the arm of one of the men stabbing the dying guard on the ground. With another swing, he slit the neck of another of the men fighting with the guards. The entire part of the transport was drenched with blood.

Three of the passengers and one of the guards were dead on the floor of the transport. Blood was seeping out of the corpses all over the place. With the creation of the grotesque scene, the fighting seemed to come to an end. Several guards appeared to be injured and few of the passengers were being tied up and beaten by some of the surviving guards. The guard with the large blade in his hand walked quickly down the transport dripping blood all over the floor.

“If any of you shits even move to unlock your safety straps, I will fucking cut you in two. Understand?” the large guard shouted as pointed the bloody blade at everyone that was seated. The man didn’t wait for any response as he began directing the other guards.

“Grey, Stan and Trey, open up the back and dump these bodies before they start stinking. Get this mess cleaned up,” the head guard continued to yell at the other passengers, “Fuck. Our pay for this transport just took a big hit. You better not try something else.”

Nate watched as the three guards started dragging the dead bodies to the rear of the transport. When the guards managed to pile the bodies at the rear of the transport, one of the men bumped a red button to open up the back hatch. All Nate could do was try his hardest to keep himself calm as he watched the door open up and the guards toss the bodies outside. This unexpected incident had left Nate pretty shaken. He had never seen people die before much less get in a bloody fight to the death. Although Grey Sector had been a poverty-stricken area, violence and murder were extremely rare. He had never been around anything like what he had just witnessed.

The whistling of the wind from the open hatch at the back of the transport kept Nate’s attention and he watched as the hatch started to close shut. When the last bit of daylight was showing through the closing hatch, Nate lurched in his seat so hard that it knocked the breath out of him. Gasping for air, Nate was still able to hear the screaming voice of the pilot over the loudspeaker.

“Beast attack! Prepare to crash!”

After hearing the pilot’s panicked words, Nate was jerked around in his seat as the transport spun out of control. All Nate could see were flashes of light as the sun came in through the windows of the transport. No more sounds came over the pilot’s intercom. All Nate heard was the screams of the passengers and the tearing of metal. Then there was nothing but darkness.