They were running, no, not running.

Running brings to mind, jogging through the neighborhood for exercise on a Saturday morning. They were being chased, or more precisely, they were being herded.

As soon as they tried to move to the left, there would be a dog-like creature between the trees, that is if a dog was pitch black and stood two meters in the shoulder, looking like Cujo from hell.

It did not attack, it would just be there blocking their way, as if telling them, 'you can't come this way,' the same to the right, but that one was a different breed.

"They are herding us! We need to break for the river!" the big guy shouted. He was struggling to keep up, his stamina was three times higher than the rest but it was offset by the fact that he was carrying a girl on his back.

Last night, there were sixteen of them, the only plane crash survivors of the scouts that were returning from a jamboree. Now there were just the five left running, and the sixth; who was being carried.

They survived the last couple of weeks living off the land, using their knowledge as Scouts, helping each other while trying to get back to civilization. Luckily one of the survivors was a troop leader, and unlocked a pathfinder class that gave him a minimap and a compass which indicated the general direction to travel towards a known destination.

That was until this morning.

Just before sunup there had been a scream and then all hell broke loose. It looked like a pack of giant feral dogs had found their overnight camp

Now they had been running on and off for nearly 7 hours and were nearly out of mana and stamina.

They had lost the pack a couple of times, thanks to some special skills that they had, but now it's all on cooldown.

He could hear and smell the river to their left and caught a glimpse now and then through the trees of the sunshine reflecting off the water.

"Dan, they will rip us to shreds," a girl with flaming red hair, which looked more like dreadlocks now, panted.

"We got to try, Jenny!"

The big guy stumbled as he tightened his hands around the useless legs of the girl on his back. He opened his mouth as she held a ball to his lips, and bit down tasting the nuts and berries.

Immediately he felt the energy spread through his body.

"Sorry Dan, that was the last one," she whispered in his ear.-He nodded before he shouted.-"I'm breaking to the left in ten, whatever spell you guys got left, use it when I shout."

The girl on his back started shouting the count as they ran, "10 - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3- "

The dogs must have sensed they were up to something because the rest of the pack suddenly appeared from the trees, all around their back.

"Breaking now!" Dan shouted and suddenly changed direction to the left and drove for the river.

There was no way that such a big dog could hide behind the small trees, but one moment there was nothing and then it was suddenly there, blocking their way.

Dan reached deep down and grabbed hold of his rage, the unfairness of it all, the fact that he only got to spend the last week with the girl of his dreams.

All the time as a scout he had hoped to catch her eye. It took a magic apocalypse, a crashed plane and losing 40 kilograms of fat in two weeks for him to gather the courage to talk to the girl in the wheelchair, the girl of his dreams.

He did not want to use this skill, but to save her, he was willing to destroy everything in his path, even losing himself.

His body grew in size and he burned his stamina, increasing his power 3 times.

He screamed as he plowed into the monster dog, breaking its jaw with a smash from his left fist, he spun through the air and slashed his claws across its eyes, blinding it. Then a fireball erupted on the dog's side, crisping its skin and setting its fur on fire. It tripped as vines wrapped around its legs.

Dan struggled to control the rage that wanted to tear the creature apart as he grabbed the side of its head and buried his teeth in its flesh. He wanted to break its bones, rip its throat out with his teeth, and devour its flesh.

Suddenly a voice cried in his ears. "Dan, your name is Dan! Don't give up, remember!"

She kissed him on his cheek and suddenly he was back.

Damn released the whimpering dog, he felt his energy drain as his remaining stamina plummeted while he ran after the others, the cost was high, he and Danny might not make it through the day, but at least they were out of the trap.

They broke through the shrubbery and in front of them they could see the river between the trees. He had seen some old photos of the Molenaars river. This was not that sleepy stream that you could cross with a couple of strokes, this was a monster of a river five times as big as the old photos, and it looked just as deep.

Dan looked over his shoulder at the closing angry pack.

"Right side!" screamed a young boy and as Dan whipped his head in that direction he saw another batch of dogs charging at them from the right just as the boy tripped over a hidden branch and faceplants into the ground.

'Fuckers were laying an ambush while the rest drove us into their jaws.'

He felt the last of his energy burn away as he ran past the boy and grabbed him by the belt dragging him to his feet.

" RUN JACK, GET TO THE RIVER!"

Too late they noticed the traps as they were ripped off their feet and whisked into the air.

Dan found this a good news, bad news situation.

The good news was that the group was now out of reach of the giant dogs, the bad news was the big ass green spider hanging between the two trees in front of them.

The pack started going crazy below them, even going so far as to attack the trees to try and get to their prey.

Dan had only eyes for the spider and tensed up when he heard Danny whimper, he remembered that she doesn't like spiders, even the small Daddy longlegs scared her, and this was no Daddy longlegs.

The Spider hissed at the dogs that were trying to climb the tree and spit a wad of something at one that was actually succeeding.

The dog looked like some kind of alsatian but without the hair and twice as big with what looked like steel claws and teeth. The spit hit the dog in its face and it tried to scream as it fell out of the tree. Only then did Dan see that the spit was webbing and it looked like it was covered with acid that started to dissolve the dog's face as it laid on the ground. It had struck a rock face first breaking its neck and killing it.

Dan shuddered as the space around the trees was suddenly filled with spiders.

"We stumbled on a bloody nest," he whispered as the sun flashed from the spider's shiny carapaces.

Suddenly there were people mixed in with the spiders and the fight was over as the pack was torn apart.

There was a deep growl that shook the trees and even made the spider halt, the people moved back as a giant pitbull shouldered a small tree out of its way.

It was a bit bigger than Cujo, who tried to block their escape, but twice as wide. Its red hate-filled eyes tracked to Dan and his companions, out of reach up in the webs, before focusing on the humans that had killed its pack

Dan saw the foam dripping from its jaws. 'Rabies.'

The Dog snarled and lept at the humans.

Dan heard Jenna shriek and suddenly the pitbull was bowled over by something, it was big, nearly as big as the pitbull. They fought around the trees rolling, spitting, and snarling, blood was flying everywhere but strangely it all seemed to come from the pit bull.

There was a lot of snarling and a strange rattle.

Dan saw the spines. "Is that a giant porcupine?"

Suddenly the fight was over and the pitbull was down, it tried to get up but was struggling as there was a strange distortion around its head and it looked to be struggling to breathe.

Somebody called for BOB and the big creature left the choking pitbull lying on the ground.

Dan's jaw nearly dropped to the ground as there was a flash and something impacted the dog and it disappeared.

Kotche stated in amazement at the object laying on the ground where the giant pitbull was a moment ago.

"What the fuck? Is that a Pokeball? Since when does this shit work?"

Louie shared the BB with him.

Ultra Orb (Trap/Toy) (Rare)

This black, white, and yellow orb are about the size of a baseball. This ball was once a toy and is now a handheld trap that can be used on large size monsters, when struck by the thrown ball they will be sucked into a Chrono-locked prison. Creatures with high agility and perception can evade the effects of the trap, and escape. This trap can only be used to capture one creature at a time, regardless of its size.

Creature's HP must be below 5% of its total HP or rendered unconscious to increase the chance of capture.

If a captured creatures requiring medical care, it should only be released into the care of a skilled beastmaster for treatment before they can be returned to their trap.

Louie looked up at the web with the people in the trees and took a step back as the giant spider lowered itself from the tree.

Everybody was ready to fight as a smaller Ansi landed next to the spider and lifted her front legs to be picked up.

Louie looked between the two spiders and it clicked.

"Sher, that you?"

It bobbed and turned to the tree, reached up, and lowered the net with the teens, as the net touched the ground the spider shimmered and disappeared as well as the net, in its place was Sher who bent down and picked up Ansi.

"Damn that spider is scary,'' Loen walked up to her. "That's your wild form?"

"Yea, I was a bit leery about taking the form before, but it worked out."

They turned to the teens who looked at them with big eyes.

"You guys ok? Do any of you need healing?"

The big guy stood up and the teens all took a step back so that he was between them and the strangers, but suddenly crowded him as they noticed the spiders and big Dog-thing.

"You got a healer?"

Louie walked up to the big guy and Sher noticed him storing the Pokeball.

"Hi, I'm Louie, over there is Leon, Sher and all of us are from the Starter Town Trading Company. Are there more of you? And yes, we have healers, so are there more of you, and do any of you need healing?"

When the girl with the dark dreadlocks helped another girl forward, the big guy blocked their path with his arm.

They gave him an inquiring look, while he looked Louie in the eyes.

"This is all of us that are left and what is the healing going to cost us?"

Louie shook his head, "nothing."

The big guy looked at them suspiciously. "Nothing? You are going to heal us and ask for nothing? Why? What's the catch? I must warn you, the last guy that offered to do healing wanted more than we were willing to give and it didn't end well."

'Damn they are only kids, what did the healer want from them?'

Louie held up his hand, "Kid we only want to help, we want nothing in return. Let us help you and let's get out of here and back to the road."

"I'm no kid, my name is Dan and this is my friends, my family, nobody harms my family."

"Easy Dan, nobody will harm your family," he pointed at Sher and Mainey, "she is a druid and healer, and the other lady is a medic, let them look at your injured so we can get out of here."

He noticed Kotche and some of the spiders coming from the left where the last batch of dogs came from. They were carrying something wrapped in a webbing bag.

"What did you find Kotche?"

"I found the nest, not a system nest, just the nest the dogs made. There was a big bitch that attacked us, we killed it and then we found two pups that couldn't be more than a couple days old."

Everybody crowded around the pups.

"Aww, They are so cute."

They turned to Mainey. "What? They are cute."

Kotche moved the bag away as she tried to reach in to touch one.

"Their parents did just try to kill a bunch of humans. They are system mutated monsters."

Louie shook his head, "let's move out, Kotche. Hold on to them, we can decide what to do with them later, loot the bodies and let us get going, I want to get some Kilos behind us before we make camp tonight."

Sher had healed the teens but when she had neared the one girl with obvious leg problems, Dan had blocked her and picked the girl up and she had moved into a piggyback position.

Kotche indicated that they should move out in the middle of the group while he and a couple of other people would take the rear.

Every now and then Dan would watch the forest and twitch nervously as he spotted a spider or the big Dog thing.

They reached the river and turned to the right and after a short walk reached a section where the river had a lot of rapids breaking through big boulders.

There was a flimsy-looking V rope bridge.

After crossing the bridge they moved up to the road and made sure everybody was present.

Louie turned to the teens and handed them each a stamina potion, telling them that they will talk soon as they set up camp, but for now, they still got a couple of hours to go.

The spiders spread out into the surrounding woods and they set off down the road.

The teens looked at each other and shrugged, but were determined to keep their eyes peeled and be ready to make a run for it if things don't look kosher.

"Hah, so they work?"

Sher turned around, while she was walking, and looked at Deidre as she walked up to Louie.

Everybody was curious and looked at Louie.

He sighed, "Deidre found a bag of toys in one of the BOT's. Among the toys were a couple of balls. The system and Dungeon had turned them into traps and I tested one on the alpha of the pack."

He shared the BB with them, "I only got another nine in the bag, there were only ten, and I would like to experiment with them. I got some ideas that I want to try, as well as some of the other stuff that's in the bag."

He turned back to the road.

"We can talk more tonight."

The road winded through the forested peaks and up through a cleft in the mountain. As they came out in the open they had to stop, whatever they had expected, it wasn't this. The world dropped off ahead of them and if they looked to the right they could see for what felt like hundreds of kilometers.

A whole new alien world was visible down the mountain to their right. The canyon flattened out near the horizon and there was a stretch of green visible. To the left the canyon stretched into the mountains and they could see the river widening into what looked like a lake before it disappeared around a bend. Most importantly, in front of them, the road was just gone.

Louie and Leon waited for the rest to catch up to them.

"Whoo wee. That's a big one!" Francine looked ashamed as her voice echoed back at them, Leon glared at her.

"Sorry."

She looked around trying to see if any monsters had heard her shout.

"She is right, that is a damn big canyon," Leon said softly.

Louie nodded.

He looked at the spot where the road ended, if he concentrated then he could see the place where the road continued on the other side.

It looked like somebody had taken an axe and split the mountain in two, then he remembered Jafta saying that some of his original group had split off to go back to Paarl and only one had returned saying that the road was gone.

"This put a rench in my plans for using the caravans." He shook his head.

'I might just have to modify it a bit.'

"I can use to create a staircase or take a bit longer and make a zig-zag road down to the bottom, create a bridge over the river and then up the other side, but bridging this gorge! That's beyond my ability."

All agreed that it would be for the best, it might take them weeks to find another way around.

"Agreed, we plan to travel this road at least once a month, so it's best to make it as permanent as possible.

Dan and the new bunch listened in amazement as the group discussed building a road through the canyon as if it was something that they did every day.

They took a break while Louie meditated to top up his mana.

When he was done he saw Sher and Ansi standing where the road end, overlooking the canyon to the other side. He got up and went and stood next to them.

"Ansi says that they will be able to bridge the gap with their spilk, the image I'm getting from her is like a giant weaver tunnel spun across the canyon."

Louie's eyes grew big as he envisioned the spilk bridge across the canyon. It was wide, not like the Fishriver or the Grand Canyon but still between 700 meters and a kilometer wide.

The sky was hazy on the other side of the canyon and they could now clearly smell the whiff of smoke in the air, something was burning over there.

The plan was simple, Naomi's small spider Blue would use a sail that the weavers would create. Sean, one of the caravan guards, and the others who had air spells, would use their spells, like to get the sail into the air. And then Blue would try to parasail across the canyon while trailing a silk cord behind her. She would secure the cord and tighten it on the other side before crossing back over the canyon after which the tarantulas would take over.

The tarantulas would spin the cables. They were not known for their weaving ability, but because their silk threads were cruder and stronger they would spin the main cables that would constitute the lines across the canyon. The weavers would then spin the silk around the cables creating a tube-like tunnel through which they could travel.

The whole undertaking would take two maybe three days so they decided Louie would also create a road down the cliffs since they would be using the route frequently and it was always better to have a backup as they don't know how long the spilk bridge would last or how strong it would be.

There were 19 spiders of which Blue was the smallest while Jon, Celia's goliath bird-eating spider was the biggest - at nearly the same size as BOB.

Louie had given all the members of his caravan air affinity golem cores to give their spiders and strangely it had given all the spiders the

skill.

Attention

Your companion has absorbed an air affinity core.

Grant her the skill

Y/N

Alter Self:

This skill grants the means to reduce your size and weight, limited to size at birth. The maxed level will grant the ability to double the weight and size once a day for two hours.

It was decided to start early the next morning as the sun was already going down and it was getting dark inside the canyon.

Louie created a wall across the road blocking the edge off.

He turned to the left side of the cliff and sculpted a resting place inside where they could spend the night.

As they all sat around the firepit Louie had removed four big bowls of stew from the twenty that he had asked Marge back in Starter Town to make for him.

Each bowl had enough stew to feed 8 people and the Cook's Pantry Bracelet had a Crono Lock so it maintained the food the same as when it was placed inside.

Sher started handing out loaves of bread and everybody dug into the food.

Louie stared at the bread before it clicked and he remembered. "Damn Sher, I had forgotten all about that cursed satchel that you have, I couldn't figure out who had brought the bread the night of the braai, I only now remembered about the satchel, Thanks. Fresh bread is much appreciated."

Cursed Satchel of Plenty

Once this legendary satchel, that produced whatever godly fare could be imagined, belonged to a greedy emperor, who used it to host a lavish feast for his friend while his empire starved. He and all his friends were cursed by the Gods with and the satchel was stolen by the God Anansi.

Now, this satchel is cursed and can only produce loaves of bread. Twelve a day.

Everybody agreed by nodding or indicating their thanks with a raised piece of bread while eating.

Slowly the story came out.

The big guy was Dan who was some kind of barbarian, Louie didn't want to them, and he was the leader of their small group together with his girlfriend, Daniella or Danny, who unlocked a class because she was heavy into chemistry.

The girl with the dreadlocks was Jenna and she was a kind of fire mage. Her class was and she nearly fainted from pleasure after touching the Sculpture.

Sculpture of Prestidigitation

If this device is touched, the aura of the target will trigger the stored spell and release a burst that instantaneously cleans all objects in a radius no larger than 20meters. Just like a Mother's touch, it will clean up after you.

Cooldown period 30 seconds

Her hair which looked like dreadlocks turned into flowing locks of fiery red that looked like metallic red with sparkles in, it looked like her hair was on fire.

The small boy was named Jack and he wanted to be a Ranger Rogue, but his status was still locked. Naomi and her gang cornered Jack and they were sitting to one side talking to each other. Mostly Jack was gawking and stroking Blue, Naomi's small Golem jumping Spider.

The last two were brother and sister, Apollo and Artimus, twins who talked using ASL since they were born mute. Their parents were Greek mythology geeks and when it was discovered that their mother was pregnant with twins, boy, and girl, decided to name them after the twin greek gods. They didn't say what their classes were but they could communicate with each other telepathically, since the pulse.

Louie was fascinated by their use of ASL and asked them to teach them all how to use it.

The teens told how they were initially a group of fifty SA Scouts, who together with their parents and scout leaders had been on their way back from Zambia after attending an international jamboree.

There was the message from Gaea, the blue pulse and then everything on the plane stopped working. They crashed in the foothills of the mountain, luckily the fuel did not explode but only 16 of them survived the crash and the earthquakes.

They wanted to stay at the crash site to wait for rescue but the bodies drew some monsters and they had to flee the site.

The only two surviving grownups were one scout leader who unlocked a pathfinder class and the other was a male flight attendant who later unlocked a healer class.

Louie felt that there was more to the story but left it for now as they continued.

They had survived due to their scouting skills and their scout leaders' Pathfinder class together with a compass he had that showed the direction to an envisioned place, which was Cape Town. They had survived several encounters, till their camp was attacked this morning by the pack of dogs and they were the only survivors that escaped.

Caravan members

Lewis (Louie) Poren: Leader: Darkness: pet (BOB) Leon Koen: Metal(2IC) pet (Seera: Black Widow) Sheralee Van de Merve: Life(Healer) pet (Ansi: Queen spider) Mainey Fish: Light(Medic, indentured) pet (Stitch: Orb Weaver spider) Celia Malan: (Merchant) pet (Jon: Goliath birdeater) Naomi Malan: (underage) pet (Blue: small jumping spider) Trish and David: (Orphans) pet (eggs) Diedre Viljoen: (Tailor, indentured) pet (Sisy: Weaver spider) Francine Viljoen: Air(Jeweller, indentured) pet (Bling: fantasy Crystal spider) Micheal Nasser: Nature(Leathersmith)pet (Rover: Huntsman spider) Derek Samuels: Fire(Novice Blacksmith) pet (Ember: fantasy fire spider) Kotche Earth(Soldier) pet (Stomp, brown widow spider) Counsellor: Air(Wedge, spear)pet (wolfie: wolf spider ) Christian Else: Water(Water mage) pet (Rob: blue Tarantula) Shadow: Fire(Scout) pet (Selina: Assassin spider) Jackson Pollok: Air (Warrior) pet (Zephyr: Wolf spider) Debbie Poerstamper: Earth (Warrior) pet (Bar: big Spiny Orb-weaver) Witney: Air (Warrior, guard,) pet (Ula: Tarantula) Sean: Air (Air mage, guard,) pet (Sweep: Tarantula) Barry: Fire(Warrior, guard,) pet (Papi: Tarantula) Garth: Water(Ranger, guard,) pet (Eeak: Weaver) Heuwy (Warrior, guard) deceased

Scouts:

Dan: Barbarian ?

Jenna: Firebrand

Danny: Chemist

Jack: Underage Rouge (system locked)

Apollo:?

Artimus:?

Status

Name:

Lewis (Louie) Poren

Race:

Human (Male) Lvl 11 308 855 – 409 600 = Lvl 12

Class:

Seeker (5) (25%).

Sub-classes:

(exterminator) (2%)

Titles:

Jack Black Brodifacoum, Trailblazer, Liberator. OFS (One Finger Salute) Dungeon pioneer David ?????

Affinity:

Darkness 0.001%

Statistics

Health points (HP):

484

Mana Points (MP):

440

Stamina (SP):

583

Critical Hit Chance:

4%

Attributes

Strength:

22

Agility:

17

Constitution:

21

Perception:

20

Intelligence:

25

Willpower:

15

Charisma:

7

Luck:

5

Free attribute points:

0

Skills

Skill

Level

Progression

Wu shu:

5

95/100

Improvised weaponry:

T1: 1

51/100

Glacial Rage:

6

30/100

Meditation:

5

50/100

Regeneration:

7

93/100

Mana Manipulation:

7

60/100

Survival:

9

25/100

Cooking:

0

10/100

Restoration:

9

75/100

Harvesting:

7

20/100

Herb Lore:

0

00/100

Whittling:

0

00/100

Pain resistance:

9

70/100

Poison resistance:

3

42/100

Cat`s eye:

4

65/100

Senses:

4

55/100

Armourer:

5

95/100

System Minimap:

3

85/100

Cartography:

1

50/100

Public speaking:

5

05/100

Spell Transformation: *

1

30/100

Backstab:

0

00/100

Skewer:

0

00/100

Scholer:

0

00/100

Learning:

#

#

Quick study:

#

#

Know-how:

#

#

Class Skill Proficiencies

Skill

Level

Progression

Investigation:

6

35/100

Tracking:

4

40/100

Intuition:

T1: 1

85/100

Analyze:

T1: 4

75/100

Lore:

1

00/100

Monster Expert:

2

60/100

?????

0

00/100

Spells

Spell

Level

Progression

Activation

Improvise:

T1: 0

0/100

Touch

Mana Construction:

T3: 0

00/100

Cast

Liquefaction:

T1: 0

25/100

Cast

Earth Sense:

4

65/100

Touch

Weapon Schematics:

T1: 1

90/100

Touch

Syphon:

0

45/100

Cast

Transfusion:

0

00/100

Touch

Electrocute:

0

05/100

Cast

Suffocate:

0

15/100

Cast

Waterboard:

1

55/100

Cast

Cauterise:

1

10/100

Touch

Shadow Step:

0

15/100

Cast

Fear:

0

00/100

Cast

Concussion Blast:

0

00/100

Cast

?????:

0

00/100

Cast