Alex gripped his weapons tighter. He was just beyond the first line of trees, and a new world opened up in front of him. Growling, quieking, snarling, hooting. The sounds were overwhelming the teenager. But Alex saw not one of those beasts. A few birds, sitting on the branches overhead, but no rabbit, no fox, no deer.

He promised, he would hunt later. Maybe in the early evening, his shadow powers would probably help him better than during the morning. But first the teenager had to find shelter. Alex wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking for. His fall-back plan of living in a cellar was smashed and he had to be content with whatever else he could find.

‘The rope I’ve brought should hold together for another week or so. Maybe I could climb a tree and bind myself to the trunk, or a big branch?’ But the fear of the rope breaking, and falling kept him from that plan. For the moment, he was looking for small caves or an abandoned hole. Alex crossed hundreds of meters through the forest. Never quite alone, but always too far to get an easy kill and some essence.

He stumbled upon more than one burrow, but they were either too small, or not abandoned. So the teenager continued his search. Finally Alex was lucky and found a pretty spacious cave. He cast [Shadoweyes], as his innate darkvision was to weak. The hole was empty, but ever the cautious one, he levelled his spear, loosened his dagger in its sheath and snuck into the cave.

It was empty, and Alex breathed out in relief. He considered to make camp, but something kept him. He wasn’t quite sure, but something didn’t feel right. Alex turned, took a deep breath and then it hit him. It stank!

Either something had died here recently, or, and Alex took a better look at the floor. Huge droppings were covering the floor. The teenager quickly backed off. He wasn’t sure what made these, but considering it’s size, it was something he didn’t want to meet in the night. Or even by day.

Alex fled from the cave. He hoped, that whatever lived there wouldn’t be able to follow his track. ‘Damned, the only hideout and its contaminated and probably occupied by a giant beast…’ Alex jogged slowly on. The sun had crossed its zenith and was on its way to the horizon. He didn’t know how long he had, until it got dark, but the sooner he found shelter, the better.

After hours of failure, Alex finally gave up and searched for the biggest tree in his vicinity. He looked up, and guessed, that its branches should hold him just fine. Alex marked the tree mentally, put his backpack on a branch, so it wouldn’t get disturbed by any animal, grabbed his weapon and went for a hunt.

The shadows in the forest were deep enough, that Alex judged his [shadowcloak] effective enough to hide him from view. ‘Oh right, I forgot to check it after Jones’ outbreak…what does the second Tier do?’ Alex quickly pulled up the skill information, now just a tiny window, as he knew how to better manipulate the system messages.

Shadowcloak:

Tier 1: Cloaks yourself in shadows, making you harder to detect.

Tier 2: Hides information about the user from a similar Tiered inspection skill.

‘Interesting. So the next time, Jones wants to examine me, I have to use this skill. Maybe I could only use one tier at a time. That would be awesome…’ Alex sneaked across the forest floor, playing with the skill, as he tried to gleam additional uses it might have. In a nearby pond, he compared the outline of his cloaked self to that of his clones. It looked pretty similar. He deactivated the cloak and looked at his haggard face, thinking back to the last two weeks and how massively his life had changed.

Unfortunately, the youth had forgotten where he was.

He was roughly reminded, as claws raked his self-made leather armour. He quickly jumped back from his attacker. Alex nearly broke out laughing, if it wasn’t such a serious situation.

A huge rooster, nearly half a meter tall, was jumping at him, claws outstretched and croaking. Behind it stood at least two more chicken, but they rapidly spread out and surrounded him.

Alex gripped his spear tighter, and jabbed it at the cock, but either his aim was bad, or the damned animal dodged. His spear went wide, and its claws scratched along his arm, only to be caught on his right bracer. The rooster cawed in panic as Alex reflexively pulled back his arm. The animal was heavy, the teenager registered subconsciously. Alex tried to move his spear around, to hit the cock, but it was too unwieldy. Finally he remembered his dagger, pulled it from its sheath and tried to stab the stuck bastard.

His inattention was punished, as two chickens, simultaneously jumped at his back, and brought the teenager out of balance. Alex stumbled and fell. Somehow through sheer dumb luck, he landed on the rooster and it reminded Alex of its plight by ramming its beak on his thigh. The teenager soon had enough, and rammed his dagger through the cocks wing, into its body.

The rooster let out one last, agonising caw and fell still. Meanwhile the two chickens at his back didn’t sit still, while Alex murdered their boyfriend. The first one had been hacking, a bit ineffectively, at his protected back. The other scratched along his arms and legs, trying to bleed him dry. Alex quickly stood up and stabbed at the chicken. Once, a second time and with the third miss, he gave up and used his tried and true technique of squashing his enemies. He jumped at the hen, held it down with one arm, and rammed his dagger at its neck. It slowly stopped moving, and Alex turned to the last one and caught it with one hand. The animal tried to get out of his grasp and would have succeeded, but Alex quickly ended it with a thrust of his weapon.

You have slain: Rooster (Lvl 3)

You have slain: Hen (Lvl 2) 2

You have earned 4 coins.

You have earned 300 unrefined Essence.

‘Finally. Damn poultry…But looks like I’ve caught supper.’ Alex stood up, breathing heavily. This short fight, had robbed him much of his strength. He was still bleeding, but the wounds were visibly scabbing over. [Shadowdrinker] probably hard at work. ‘Does the cloak support the shadowdrinker passive? And how did those damn critters hear me? I should have been muffled. More to ask that greedy Shopkeeper.’ Alex dusted himself off, grabbed his weapons and the three chicken, and went back to his tree.

While his wasn’t that far from his provisional camp, Alex still got lost. He was, after all, a city boy and had no idea how to correctly navigate a forest. ‘I am sure, I’ve seen this huge rock underneath that root before…From here it should be directly to the sun…Oh damn…’ the teenager grimaced and if he had a free hand, it would have palmed his face. ‘It’s probably been an hour or two, since I went to hunt, so the sun moved that far…’ Alex pointed his thumb at the sky and made a rough estimate.

Finally sure of his way, the teenager continued on his way. Soon after, he jumped over a brook, he hadn’t seen before. Alex gulped down a few mouthfuls of water, deep down hoping, that he wouldn’t get ill. Held down his head, to get a quick wash and debated to clean the chicken. ‘No idea how it is done, but no time like the present,’ he thought and began plucking their feathers. If he was asked years later, he would say that his first try was a complete success.

After destroying the rooster, Alex tried again with the chicken. It went better, and he was nearly done, until he remembered that he had to bleed the animals, if he wanted to get good and tasty meat. The teenager sniffed and even thought about licking the hen, but gave up and threw both away. Sighing, he washed his dirty hands, stood up and went back to his tree. ‘At least I found water and earned some essence.’

Soon he was back at camp and grabbed the nut mixture he brought from his former home. Alex ate a few, just to quell his hunger. If he didn’t get better at dressing his kills, he would go hungry sooner rather than later. The second problem his hunt had shown was his experience with wielding his weapons. He was too slow and untrained with the spear and his work with his dagger was only successful because he had pinned down nearly all of his foes so far.

He swore, he would train every morning after waking up. It was the only way to get better and stay safe. If he misjudged a confrontation with a beast and couldn’t hit it, or bury it underneath his body, he wouldn’t get to live long. Alex sighed and climbed the tree. The sun had already gone down and Alex didn’t want to start a fire, fearing it might attract predators.

He sat on a thick branch, a few meters up, got the blanket and rope out of his backpack, bound himself to the tree and closed his eyes. But his closing wounds were aching and itchy and he couldn’t find a comfortable position, so Alex reopened his eyes and made plans for his next engagement. He had wholly forgotten to use [eviscerate] and [shadowcurse] and maybe his [shadowclone] could have held back one of the hens.

Alex tried to envision a training regime and was deep in thoughts, until he remembered he had unrefined essence left. The teenager mumbled angry at himself. ‘What’s up with today. I’m normally not that forgetful…’ He concentrated and soon stood before his first strand of essence. He quickly pulled it back, went back to his right leg to get the other one and suddenly saw thin, but bright streaks of light criss-crossing his thigh. ‘I’ll get back to it later, now I need to refine the essence, before I lose more…’

The teenager stood before the eighth strand and pulled back with all his might. The burning pain had spread from his chest down to his stomach and to his arms. He needed to hurry, or he would lose all gathered strands. Alex strained and dragged with every ounce of strength. With a mighty roar, he finally got it to move a bit and the dam was broken. Relentlessly, the teenager gathered his eighth strand. Quickly Alex pushed it to his status page, hoping the burning agony would end soon.

Name: Alex Braff

Essence: Shadow (M)

Class: Shadowblade

Level: 1

Coins: 12

Refined Essence: 188

‘Still a few more strands to go…but one step at a time.’ Alex grinned at his success. Today wasn’t all bad. He finally had gotten to the eighth strand and knew, that in the future, he could do it again. The teenager remembered the 295 Essence he had already put into [Shadowclone] and added another five, to make it an even 300. Alex was surprised when a new message popped up.

You have levelled Shadowclone Tier 2.

This time Alex didn’t dally and immediately looked at his new skill.

Shadowclone:

Tier 1: Summons a clone of yourself, that can distract but does no damage.

Tier 2: Summons up to two clones of yourself, that do slight damage.

‘I had hoped for more, but let’s test it out tomorrow. Now it’s time for sleep…’ Alex again tried to find a comfortable position, and settled for one with the least amount of pointy bits. The days excitement, clean air and exercise soon did the rest and the teenager was fast asleep.

The forests noises rose around him, but Alex was completely conked out and didn’t hear a thing. It stayed that way until huge drops of rain awoke him. He was nearly completely soaked before he registered that it was raining. Alex pulled his blanket closer and debated to search for a drier place to stay. But the sun wasn’t up yet and the teenager didn’t want to risk, stumbling through the night.

Even with his skill and Skill, he couldn’t see more than a few meters ahead. So he stayed, and braced against the rain. A huge flash lightened the sky and mere moments later, a loud crash reverberated through the forest. A groaning and cracking spread from a spot, just a few tens of meters from Alex’ tree. A light shone through the trees and Alex could make out some flickering. ‘Fire!’ the teenager thought, ‘I have to flee.’

He fiddled with the ropes knot, but his wet and cold fingers couldn’t get a grip. Alex panicked and searched for a way out. Finally he remembered his [shadowweapon] and conjured the dagger. He set it against the rope. Luckily he looked up, as the fires shine dimmed and soon went out. The ice cold rain, had one good thing it seemed. Alex dismissed his weapon, grabbed his blanket again, and nestled against the trunk.

He was wet, cold and hurting. But he found comfort in that he was safe for now. He would look for the tree tomorrow. Alex closed his eyes and against all probability, fell back to sleep.