Tabitha wanted nothing more than to start chopping down trees, mining rocks, and picking up everything she saw so that she would have more materials to craft with, but she couldn’t do that. She only had one pocket now to use as storage and it was full of slime and a crystal. Also, she didn’t have any tools to go resource harvesting with.

“Gonna have to make a pickaxe and axe soon,” she said to herself. “Those’re some of the first things ya gotta do in a game like this. Though, knowin’ that I ain’t the only human around, I should probably try to find some civilization. Not sure how long I’ll be able to last out here with nothin’ but a spear. Plus I might be able to get some equipment from them. Tools and the like. Either that, or I end up captured and sold into slavery or somethin’. That don’t sound too pleasant.”

She wasn’t sure what to do. Trying to set up a little base of operations out in the middle of nowhere sounded fun. She could craft to her heart’s desire in peace and quiet, but she would have to make everything from scratch. And what would happen if she got sick and couldn’t take care of herself? Or if she got seriously hurt? Remembering that, she looked down at her leg where the slime cut her.

“Crap. I should probably do somethin’ about that,” Tabitha said, looking at the injury. “It’s an open wound and I’m out here walkin’ around in the forest. Can’t have it gettin’ infected.”

Considering that the pant leg was already torn from the attack, she went ahead with the first jagged rock she could find and cut the pant leg off at the point where it was torn. She then cut it vertically to turn it into a strip of fabric, placed it over her wound, and tied it around her leg. That would hopefully keep anything from getting into the wound and infecting it.

“Ya know, thinkin’ about it, I probably shouldn’t have slurped down all that slime. So help me if I get food poisonin’ from it. I’ll hunt them down until they’re extinct if it does that to me.”

It didn’t matter whether or not it was the slime’s fault that she consumed its remains. All that mattered was whether or not it got her sick.

“Much as I’d like to stay out here on my own, findin’ people is probably in my best interest.” Looking around, Tabitha noticed what looked like massive scratches across one of the nearby trees. Whatever made those scratches had to have some seriously impressive claws. “Yeah. Probably shouldn’t spend too much time out here on my own. At least not until I’ve got some better gear. Oi, Menu. Do you have a map ya can show me or somethin’?”

System Menu

No.

“Figured it wouldn’t be that easy. Well, guess I’ll just have to walk around until I find civilization and not die before then. Preferably not die after then, too.”

And so, Tabitha walked, using the blunt end of her spear as a walking stick as she traversed the forest.

A couple of hours later and Tabitha looked absolutely miserable.

“I ain’t cut out for this,” she groaned. “Shoulda went on walks some more back on Earth. And these darn bugs that keep buzzin’ by my ear… I’m creatin’ a bug zapper as soon as I can.”

Not only was she no closer to civilization, but she didn’t find any other animals, monsters, nor anything else of interest. She could already feel herself going through crafting withdrawal.

And she was getting hungry.

“So help me if I starve to death out here. Well, worst case scenario, I could always eat every plant and bush I see. Maybe chew on some bark to deal with the hunger if I really get desperate. Or I could—wait. That noise…”

Tabitha held her free hand up to her and turned her head in the direction of the noise she thought she heard. Surely enough, when she stayed quiet and listened for a few seconds, she could hear it again.

She heard water.

A river.

“A river means I won’t die from dehydration. Also means there should be some food around or in it. And if I follow it, I might eventually come across a town or somethin’.” All of Tabitha’s concerns disappeared in a second with the discovery of a nearby river. With a smile on her face, she left in the direction of the river while keeping her spear ready for anything. She knew that wild animals liked to visit rivers for water and hunting. In fact, one of the first things she imagined when she thought of a river was a group of giant bears hunting for fish in it. That, coupled with seeing those scratch marks on the tree, was enough to make her approach the river with caution.

Reaching the river took only a short walk past some more trees and bushes. It ended up being closer than she thought it would be. If it weren’t for all the vegetation in the way, she would have been able to see it from where she first heard it. The river itself wasn’t a very wide one, and it looked shallow enough for her to walk from one side to the other without the water ever reaching up over her waist, but that was alright. All that mattered was that she found a source of water to drink from. And that she found a source of food as she could see fish swimming around beneath the clear surface.

The reason she was able to hear the river at all despite its relatively calm flow was due to there being several, small drops along the riverbed that created the constant sound of cascading water. It was a sound that Tabitha loved, and she was no stranger to those videos from the internet named things like “10 Hours of Relaxing River Noises to Put You to Sleep (ASMR, Sleepy, Spa, Peaceful).” She felt like she was at the site for one of those videos that she always loved listening to after especially stressful days at work.

Not only that, but the opening provided by the rivers allowed her to actually get a good look up at the sky, and that allowed her to see what looked like tall, snow-capped mountains in the distance when looking upstream. Downstream, all she could see were more trees and an empty skyline.

“Alright, Tabitha. Now, if this is some sort of fantasy world, ya might find dwarves or somethin’ if ya go to the mountains. Dwarves love minin’ and craftin’. I might also find a dragon or a pack of wolves that want to eat me alive. Alternatively, I could head downstream, eventually run into the ocean if I survive for that long, and follow the coast until I find a city… assumin’ I don’t find some town or road before then.”

Following the river downstream also meant going downhill. That would be more energy efficient, and thus safer, than following it upstream. All those survival guides and videos always talked about following rivers downstream, too. It was pretty much agreed to be objectively better.

But she was in a world with an RPG-like system and monsters.

That meant there might be dwarves.

Dwarves loved to craft and lived in mountains.

Therefore, as far as Tabitha was concerned, heading toward the mountains was the obvious decision to make. Even if there weren’t any dwarves, mountains were where things like rare stones and metals could be found in games! Sure, she had no way of collecting them, but she could always figure that out along the way. Her decision might have also been influenced by imagining building a log cabin next to the river right at the base of the mountains.

A log cabin with a mountain behind it, a flowing river next to it, surrounded by nature with a vast forest in front of it, spending all of her days exploiting the land and crafting to her heart’s extent… that sounded like the life.

“Wait, if I do that… I won’t get to explore the whole world over for new materials and craftin’ styles.”

And just like that, the dream of a log cabin to spend the rest of her days in was scratched off her list of options. Maybe she could revisit it sometime when she was old enough to retire… but probably not. She wanted to craft until she was in the grave and then even more! There was no time for retirement!

Log cabin or not, she still wanted to head toward the mountains in hope of meeting some short-and-grumpy race of dwarves renown for crafting. There was absolutely no reason to believe there would be any dwarves aside from the fact that she seemed to be in a fantasy world, but that was alright.

But first! She needed to fill her stomach up. She needed energy, and that meant she needed food.

So, first things first, she collected wood for a fire. She picked the driest sticks she could found lying around the forest. She brought all of them back to the river where she created a circular pit with a wall of rocks stacked atop each other surrounding it, and she filled said pit with all of the sticks she gathered.

Now, if there was one thing that Tabitha excelled at, it was starting fires. Whether she meant to start a fire or not, she never had an issue with getting them going. Even the traditional way of starting a fire that so many people struggled with doing was easy to her. After all, she practiced it as a child in her grandfather’s back yard all the time.

She really loved playing with fire.

Using a tinder nest made of dry plants, tiny sticks, grass, and leaves, she used the hand drill method with a couple of sticks until she got an ember that she could wrap up in it. All it took after that was some gentle blowing to get a fire started. As soon as she could see the first flames inside the interior of the tinder nest, she transferred it to the fire pit and watched until it caught the first of the sticks on fire.

She wasn’t expecting a new item window to pop up.

Building Created

Name

Rock Fire Pit

A Rock Fire Pit for safely containing fires used for warmth, light, and cooking food.

Rarity

D

Quality

26

Element

Fire

“Huh,” Tabitha said. “Yeah… I guess that making a fire pit is technically craftin’. I wonder if the wood used as fuel makes a difference at all. I’ll have to experiment with that sometime, or ask Menu to explain it. For now, I’m hungry. Should I use my spear for fishin’? Hmm. Probably not. Not sure how that slime is goin’ to interact with water, plus I’d rather keep the spear for emergencies. Don’t want to risk breakin’ it. Well! Guess that just means I’ll have to make a new spear just for fishin’!”

That wasn’t something Tabitha was going to complain about, either. After all, crafting was crafting even if it was just sharpening another stick into a spear! She was getting faster at it, too. It only took her a few minutes to find a worthwhile stick, a sharpening stone, and to carve a pointed tip at the end of the stick. This newest spear wasn’t special in any way as nothing it was made out of had any tags, but it would be good enough to impale a fish.

Stepping into the river, being careful not to go so deep that the water would reach the wound on her leg, she forced herself to remain as still as she possibly could while holding the spear pointed down at the water. There were plenty of smaller fish swimming all around her, but none of them would be easy to spear nor filling to eat. She wanted to wait for a nice, big, juicy fish to come close. More meat, easier to hit, and more satisfying to spear.

She waited… and waited… and waited.

The fire behind her was crackling away, the sound of it helping to relax her as she stood in the water. In fact, between the cascading water and the crackling fire, she almost felt like she was about to fall asleep while standing just from how relaxed she was.

But all of her tiredness vanished the instant she saw the biggest fish yet swim right in front of her legs.

Tabitha thrust the spear toward the fish and penetrated its body with ease, and she followed through with it until the spear’s tip was embedded in the riverbed. She didn’t want to risk the fish getting away by sliding off the spear.

“Just like the old days!” Tabitha shouted, before reaching down to grab the fish by its tail. As soon as she had a firm grip on it, she withdrew her spear and lifted the bleeding fish out of the water.

She had no intention of letting it suffer. Even though a window popped up congratulating her on some new achievement, she was more concerned about the fish and ignored the window. At least, she ignored it until she smacked the fish headfirst against a rock.

It was only when the fish was dead that she wiped her arm across her forehead and sighed. “Whew. Now, what’d’ya want, Menu?”

System Menu

Level 4 Yellowjaw Caught

Congratulations, you have acquired a new Achievement!

Rookie Fisher

Awarded for catching your first Fish.

Reward: Fishing Log

“I’ll have to look through all these logs I’ve been unlockin’ while travelin’. Anyways.” Tabitha held the fish in her hands and looked it over. It was roughly the size of her forearm in length and nice and thick, and the side of its body was a greyish yellow with black spots covering it. The most striking thing about its appearance was the underside of its jaw which was bright yellow.

Item Information

Name

Yellowjaw

A large species of fish that is known for the yellow coloration of its jaw.

Rarity

D

Quality

39

Element

Water

Bonus Tag

[Fatty II]

“Do the thing, Menu,” Tabitha said.

System Menu

Fatty II

Moderately increases fat content when used as a Material.

“So, there’re tags for both sweetness and fat. Huh. Cookin’ must get seriously in-depth with all the different ingredients that can go into a dish. I like it.”

She also liked the idea of eating the fish she just caught. That was why she used the same rock used to sharpen the stick into a spear to roughly cut along the underside of the fish until she could get all of its guts out. Now, she was going to just toss the guts aside to let nature do its thing with them, but she was curious and held them in her hand for a moment first.

Item Information

Name

Fish Organs

The organs of a fish.

Rarity

E

Quality

17

Element

Water

“Huh. Well, I’d rather not keep fish organs sittin’ in my pocket until I can find a use for ‘em, so off ya go.” With that, Tabitha went back to her original plan and tossed the organs aside. The important thing was that she learned basically anything and everything counted as an item that could be analyzed.

Even more important than that was finding a pronged stick for the fish. Once she found one, she slid one prong through the fish’s head from behind it, letting the stick point out of its mouth, and got comfy next to the fire while holding the fish over it.

She made sure to let the fire pit’s flames kiss the fish every now and then, spinning the stick around to try and get it evenly cooked. The last thing she wanted to do was catch some sort of parasite while in the middle of the wilderness on her own. It was only after the scales had a chance to blacken that she pulled the fish away from the fire and wiggled it off the stick.

Inside of the fish was delicious, white meat ready for consumption. She picked at it with her hand, taking entire chunks of meat off before checking for bones and popping them into her mouth once they were clear. She did find one particularly long bone that would be saved for picking her teeth afterward. Then, while in the middle of sighing from how nice the fish tasted, she thought of analyzing the fish now that it was cooked.

Tabitha picked the fish back up and looked it over until the window popped up.

Item Information

Name

Roasted Yellowjaw

A Yellowjaw that has been roasted over a fire.

Rarity

D

Quality

32

Element

Fire

Bonus Tag

[Fatty II]

“Huh, so it keeps the tag even after bein’ cooked. And goin’ by how juicy this guy is… I’m assumin’ it applies to the current fish, too. Don’t gotta be used as a material to get the effect,” Tabitha said before popping another chunk of fish meat into her mouth. “Ah… this is the life. Now, if only I could—”

A low grunt from behind reached Tabitha’s ears.

A bestial grunt.

Tabitha, ever so slowly, turned her head to look at what exactly made that grunt… and saw none other than a large, brown bear several times her size looking at her fish. It looked like a grizzly bear for the most part except for the fact that it had long whiskers and what looked like gills on the side of its neck.

Now, while running away from a slime might have been an option, Tabitha knew better than to try and run away from something that looked like a grizzly. So, instead, she slowly set the fish down, rolled over onto her side, brought her knees up to her stomach and wrapped her arms around her neck… and stared at the river while hoping with all of her heart that the bear would be content with stealing her fish.

There was only one other thought on Tabitha’s mind aside from not wanting to get devoured by a bear.

Just know, bear, that if ya eat my fish… I’m turnin’ ya into a rug someday.