Wednesday, September 9th, 2015

*DING*

A loud sound woke me just before 7am, less than 4 hours after I went to bed. A window was waiting when I opened my eyes.

A quest has been created

Escape Capture

You quest is to avoid capture or death until 12:34pm EST Friday, September 11th, 2015.

Rewards: 1000 EXP, +1 to all Basic Stats

Failure: Possible death or torture.

You can not refuse this quest.

My first thought was 'Now there's quests, and non-skill EXP?'. Then I noticed what it actually said not just the words that jumped out.

I couldn't say I wasn't scared, but the fact that there was a warning and a time limit was somewhat comforting. The time limit was a bit strange though. Was the attacker leaving town or maybe being attacked by someone else then? Even waking up this early to the quest sound was strange when I thought about it. Did the guy who threw the rocks the other day make a final decision just minutes ago? Or do quests update at a certain time? Or is it someone else even? Perhaps another person with a power or the police tracking me down about the other night. For all I knew the city police might have someone with a super detective power.

There were too many questions and no real answers.

I had until 2pm Friday off so the first thing that came to mind was the line "avoid capture or death". To avoid I needed to get away from my house. If it was the super strength guy I really didn't want him tossing the neighbor's eBike or a small car through my front wall.

Staying in a hotel for two nights seemed the best option. If I picked one away from my place I could safely scout around and escape back there.

To do that I needed to do a couple things. One was laundry. I was almost out of clean clothes and the hotel stay was already going to break my bank account. Buying a few full sets of clean clothes wasn't worth it.

The other thing was finding a pet hotel for little miss trouble. Even though some hotels take pets I didn't want her near me and risking something happening.

I started the laundry, took the dog out, and ate breakfast. While eating I started browsing hotels and pet hotels.

A bit after 9:30am I was done the laundry, had booked a room online, and phoned and made a spot for the dog, and packed a backpack with a couple days of clothes and necessities.

The pet hotel wasn't far from the woods I'd trained {Walking} originally and I still had hours before I could check into my hotel so I decided to work on a few skills.

My Mental Stamina was pretty high these days so I decided to work on getting two new skills and raise {Running} through running any trails or open spaces I could find in the woods.

First up though was trying to learn some kind of identify skill.

It felt a bit silly but I walked through the woods saying the names of each type of tree and flower I recognized. When I wasn't sure I didn't try and guess, instead I took a pic of leaves to try and study later in case I didn't gain the skill and had to try again another day.

It was almost two hours of trying before the pain and the window came.

Due to your actions you have gained a Skill.

The skill {Identification} (Novice, Passive) EXP: 2.3%, has been created.

You have gained 1 Intelligence.

You have gained 1 Mental Stamina.

I'd wasted most of the morning gaining it but it was nice to have. Or at least hopefully it was.

"Help Identification"

{Identification}

Novice - Compares things, and people, to users strongest declarative memories.

Beginner - Compares things, and people, to users moderately strong declarative memories.

It seemed to work well with my {Memorization} skill. I suspected if I memorized a lot of things then at higher levels I'd remember them even if I didn't spend a lot of time learning it.

"Stats Window"

Agility13.5/13.5Hand-Eye8/8Intelligence20/21Luck4/4Mental Stamina23/34Physical Stamina19/19Strength16/16Vitality15/15Wisdom15/15[/b]

I mainly wanted to check my Mental Stamina but looking at the window I noticed my lowest stats were Luck and Hand-Eye. I needed to think of some way to raise them, maybe if I picked the right skills to get they would increase. There were limits on what I could do in the short term though even with 2 days off I had a long list of things to do already.

My next skill was a 4th physical one. {Jumping} went well with {Running} and {Climbing}. In theory I could then do some kind of Parkour type movement through the city or bush which would enhance dramatically my ability to escape or chase someone.

I picked a moderately rocky area of exposed bedrock outcroppings. Thank you Canadian Shield for making so many easy training areas.

It went dramatically faster, similar to other physical skills, and in less than 30 minutes I got the upgrade to my headache and the blue window.

Due to your actions you have gained a Skill.

The skill {Jumping} (Novice, Passive) EXP: 0.7%, has been created.

You have gained 0.5 Agility.

You have gained 0.5 Strength.

You have gained 1 Vitality.

You have gained 1 Intelligence.

You have gained 1 Mental Stamina.

You have gained 1 Physical Stamina.

The difference in stat increases when creating a physical skill was nuts. I wasn't sure how the pattern of stat increases worked but decided to try and memorize them with {Memorization} and write in my cell to help planning later.

I was pretty hungry at that point since it was around lunch so I left the woods and hit a corner store about 3 blocks from the edge of the woods. It wasn't very healthy but I still wanted to raise {Running} before heading to the hotel since I could check in and recover Mental Stamina after 1pm.

I'd been paying attention all along looking for any aggression with {Sense Bloodlust}, and for any resonance, with no real luck. Other than a few random hits I'd hadn't noticed anything all morning. I didn't mind whoever it was not tracking me down while I skilled up but it made me wonder if I'd wasted my money on the hotel and pet hotel.

To train up {Running} and {Jumping} at the same time I decided to do a short route around the area I used to gain {Jumping}. I'd leave one side of the exposed bedrock through trails into the woods and come out on the opposite then cross back to the starting point with jumps across the rocks.

An hour and a half later I had shaved off 6 Mental Stamina, maybe some sanity points, and gained a skill up in both skills.

{Running} was now at Advanced, {Jumping} was at Beginners, and I was mentally exhausted. I gained a total of 1 Agility, 1 Strength, 1 Wisdom, 2 Physical Stamina, 2 Vitality, and 2 Mental Stamina.

With only 7 Mental Stamina remaining, a monstrous headache, and it being almost 2pm I decided to head to the hotel with 1 quick stop. A small plus to all this was my {Pain Tolerance} was slowly increasing.

I made a quick 5 minutes trip in and out of the Library to borrow a book on martial art throws and headed to the hotel.

I checked in, set my alarm for 6pm and happily collapsed. I was short on sleep from the quest popup and exhausted from training.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Woke up at 6pm from the cell phone's alarm. Said fuck that, reset it, and went back to sleep for another hour.

When I woke I was mostly pain free and checked my stats first. I was curious about how much my Mental Stamina had recovered.

"Stats Window"

Agility15/15Hand-Eye8/8Intelligence22/22Luck4/4Mental Stamina28/37Physical Stamina22/22Strength17.5/17.5Vitality18/18Wisdom16/16

If I had been gaining so many small stat increases all along it made me a bit afraid to calculate what my base stats might have been 11 days ago.

My Mental Stamina hadn't recovered fully but it was more than enough to try and gain a skill from the book so I stayed lying on the bed, relaxed, and tried focusing on the book.

The skill took a lot longer than the previous two skills from books. It was almost 8pm before the familiar pain made me open my eyes to the skill window.

Due to your actions you have gained a Skill.

The skill {Unarmed Throws} (Novice, Passive) EXP: 0.0%, has been created.

You have gained 0.5 Agility.

You have gained 1 Hand-Eye.

You have gained 1 Intelligence.

You have gained 1 Mental Stamina.

It felt very strange to gain Agility while lying flat on a bed doing nothing. Hand-Eye didn't bother me quite as much since it was heavily related to the skill.

I was pretty hungry again so I left the hotel and hit a sub shop. One steak and cheese sub later I was ready to take on the world. There still wasn't any resonance feeling or unusual hostility. Though the crazy guy in the corner of the sub shop helped raise my {Sense Bloodlust} skill a decent chunk.

I went back to the hotel and decided to try out their small gym. They had a decent pool but I didn't want to drain myself getting another skill today.

A number of sets later I got the first of a kind window along with the same feeling I'd had from other workouts.

You have gained 1 Strength.

I had been pretty sure that's what I was gaining the other times but it was worth the 30 minutes to double check. And extra strength wouldn't hurt, even if I couldn't fight strength to strength against the guy from Monday, I might need it against someone else.

I was still tired and not fully mentally recovered, especially with the new {Unarmed Throws} added, so I decided on one last idea before going to bed very early.

I left the sub shop a bit after 9:30pm and started doing a spiral search around my hotel while practicing {Sneaking} and {Hiding}.

I slowly spiraled out almost a half mile from the hotel with no hits by the time both leveled. I gained 1 Agility, 1 Wisdom, 2 Mental Stamina total.

It was close to midnight as I headed back to the hotel and got a surprise since I hadn't been paying attention.

Through use of the skill {Pain Tolerance} it has reached Beginner level.

{Pain Tolerance} (Beginner, Passive) EXP: 0.2%.

You have gained 0.5 Wisdom.

You have gained 1 Mental Stamina.

You have gained 1 Physical Stamina.

I added another mental and cell note on how I was gaining stats and walked the rest of the way back to my room to sleep.

After reaching my room I collapsed on the bed and checked my stats first, then skills before falling asleep. My stats were slowly powering up it seemed.

"Stats Window"

Agility15/16.5Hand-Eye8/9Intelligence22/23Luck4/4Mental Stamina4/41Physical Stamina22/23Strength17.5/18.5Vitality18/18Wisdom16/17.5

"Skills Window"

{Acting} (Novice, Passive) EXP 1.5%

{Climbing} (Beginner, Passive) EXP: 4.9%.

{Hiding} (Advanced, Active) EXP: 3.7%.

{Identification} (Novice, Active) EXP: 2.3%.

{Jumping} (Beginner, Passive) EXP: 1.8%.

{Knife Fighting} (Novice, Passive) EXP: 0.0%.

{Memorization} (Novice, Passive) EXP: 8.2%.

{Pain Tolerance} (Beginner, Passive) EXP: 1.3%.

{Running} (Advanced, Passive) EXP: 7.9%.

{Russian} (Novice, Passive) EXP: 0.1%.

{Sense Bloodlust} (Advanced, Passive) EXP: 35.4%.

{Sneaking} (Advanced, Active) EXP: 9.9%.

{Unarmed Throws} (Novice, Active) EXP: 0.0%.

{Walking} (Master, Passive) EXP: 10.4%.