CHAPTER NINE

Three days later found Tam Struggling through thick undergrowth, following the path of a stream he had come across the day before. While this had provided him with an ample water supply to slake his thirst, his stomach was aching with hunger. Over the past couple of days, the only thing he had managed to eat was some berries from a bush. He knew the berries must be safe to eat, as he had observed various creatures eating them. Unfortunately, the bushes didn’t produce many berries and only grew rarely.

He had managed to kill a rabbit he had come across, but his dagger had broken during the kill leaving him unarmed. The rabbit was just an ordinary rabbit, no fight in it at all. He had gained no experience at all, but had received a piece of rabbit meat and the pelt, though, but didn’t have the skill to start a fire to cook it. It resided in his inventory, awaiting either sale or cooking.

As he ambled along, looking for any threat or food possibility, he took a peek at his health. It sat uncomfortably at fifty five out of one hundred and ten. While he had been travelling he had also had the time to mess around with the settings of his account, which made him laugh as the account really didn’t exist at all. He had altered many of the settings, as the default was rather poor. His health bar now floated permanently in the upper left of his vision, small, but easily observable if needed, and he could also see the health bars of others if he concentrated. System messages that obscured his vision had been disabled and now only seen when he had time to. A little light to the right of his vision flashed when a message was awaiting his attention, he had set different colours to different message types. In fact, the red blinking light of a system message had been there for quite a while now, but he knew it was only warnings of his hunger state.

Passing another berry bush, he stripped it of its ripe berries and continued on his way, occasionally popping a berry into his mouth. So far, he realised, he had been extremely lucky not to have come across any encounters, for he knew that he would be destroyed and returned to his respawn point, the ratpit. Until he acquired a new weapon he hoped it remained that way. Also, his clothes, still the rather poor quality cloth items, had started to deteriorate even more and were at the point of falling off him. I am one poor excuse for an adventurer, he humorously considered, nearly bare arsed and unarmed, even a tame bunny could take me down at this point.

Looking ahead, he could see something among the trees, rising up and blocking the light in that direction. Whatever it was, it wasn’t natural, for it had straight lines in its shape, indicating it may be a man made structure of some type. Listen to me, man made, hah, It could be goblin made or elf made for all I know. Whatever it is, I better be careful from now on and approach it without being detected. Tam chuckled at his automatic assumptions, but only a quiet chuckle

As he crept forward through the trees, keeping as many tree trunks as possible between him and the structure, he listened intently, trying to detect any unusual sounds. All he could hear was the rustling of the leaves and the sounds of birds calling out to each other, as well as the sound of dried twigs cracking loudly underfoot. I definitely need to find a skillmaster for this kind of stuff. if there is anyone at all over there awake, they must know by now that someone’s trying to sneak up on them.

The closer he came to the structure, the more confidant he was that the place must be abandoned. The trees grew right up to the stone walls, which he saw possesses the marks of fire upon them. Old blackened stones rose upwards, and he could see, far above, the remains of a tile and timber roof. He needed to find an entrance into the place, so he walked around the outside, looking for any breaks in the stonework. By the time he had travelled what he calculated was halfway around the building, he realised it was, or used to be, a tall stone tower.

Finally, he located the entrance to the tower, and realised it was almost at the same point he had originally approached the tower from. The doorway gaped empty and dark, for he had passed no windows in the tower to illuminate the interior. Approaching the entry he stopped just before entering and listened. He heard nothing from the interior, but the soot and scorch marks above the door showed the fire that had occurred here, had happened a long time ago.

Leaning forward, he stuck his head into the doorway and had a look about, but could barely make out anything in the interiors gloom except shadowy outlines of what he thought could be timbers leaning precariously about. The aroma of burnt and scorched wood was not present, another sign that this had happened a long time ago. He wished again he knew how to light a fire, for he could make a torch then, and this place may provide him with some protection from the rain he was expecting later, The sky had been overcast all morning, and the clouds looked heavy with moisture.

His fear of dark places stopped him from entering, and he stepped back from the entrance to consider his next move. As he did so, his heel caught on something and he stumbles backwards, trying to retain his footing, arms windmilling about. Succeeding in avoiding a tumble to the ground, he looked down to see what he had almost tripped over, but couldn’t see anything because of the build up of dirt and dried leaves that had accumulated over time. Sticking the toe of one of his boots into this composted material, he stirred it about in an attempt to clear it away.

Underneath the thick pile of detritus, was a skeletal arm that was so decomposed it was almost powdery. Out of interest, Tam started to clear away all the rubbish around it to see how much of the skeleton remained. It proved to be almost a whole skeleton by the time he had finished. The skull and ribcage had been crushed into fragments and one leg was missing, Tam suspected some forest creature had made away with that. If it had been wearing any clothes, these had either been taken, or just rotted away, for no other items remained with the bones, other than a small decaying leather pouch. Tam eyes this interestedly, but was loath to touch it for the leather was covered with a greenish grey mould.

Tam searched about until he found a sturdy stick and returned to the bones. Prodding one end of the bag with the stick he was surprised when the leather parted under the touch of the stick, and he managed to scrape away most of the mould affected material.

Left behind was a number of items, some of which he had seen before, skillstones. Rolling them out of the depression they lay in with the stick, he picked each one of them up and examined them. The results were quite useful. He had obtained Skillstones that gave the skills of Campfire, Cooking and Fishing. All useful skills that he knew he would use so he screwed up his courage and, hoping that no mould remained, swallowed each one of them.

You have just gained the Skill of Campfire.

You have just gained the Skill of Cooking

You have just gained the Skill of Fishing

After waiting a few seconds to see if there would be any nasty effects from swallowing three of these at once, and experiencing nothing, he opened his eyes with a sigh of relief, and exaltation at finding such useful skills. Looking down again at the place the pouch had lay, he noticed some other items he had not seen before. They must have been beneath the stones and therefore unnoticed. One was a verdigris stained brass key. Picking it up, he polished it against his tattered short and examined it

Melchants Brass Chest Key

Use to open Melchants Chest

“Duh, you don’t say.” Tam stated, its use being so obvious, before thunder rumbles across the sky as he placed the key into his inventory slot. The remaining two items were a flint and steel, which he also took. Looking up the horizon, he saw that it had that misty greyness to indicate that rain was falling there. It wouldn’t be long before the wind blew it overhead so he knew he had better prepare for its arrival straight away. A flash of lightning dazzled his sight momentarily, punctuating the importance of speed.

Now thankful he had a skill to start fires, Tam quickly explored underneath the surrounding trees, looking for dried wood that he could use. Each time his arms were full he returned to drop the wood inside the door of the tower. By the time the rain started to fall on him five minutes later, he had managed to pile five armfuls inside the tower. Taking one last look behind him, he entered the tower.

Inside, it was dark, but not the pitch blackness of night, so he managed to avoid walking into anything. He stood looking away from the door until his eyes adjusted enough that he could start work on making a fire. Gathering together a small pile of dried twigs and dried grass, he made a small pyramid of them. Taking the flint and steel, he struck them together a few times producing sparks that flew into the dried grass.

It took about ten attempts before there appeared a small glow as the grass finally caught the sparks and a small wisp of smoke rose upwards. Blowing gently on it, Tam managed to coax the small glow into flame. He kept placing new twigs on the fire as the older ones were consumed until he had a small bed of glowing ashes. Onto this he gently placed larger branches, waiting each time for the fire to catch them, finally ending up with a nicely roaring fire. He was exultant at this, for this was the first time in four days he had managed to be warm, so he held his hands out towards the flames, his primeval urge satiated.

Finally now free to examine the tower, he looked around from his position near the fire. The room he was in occupied the whole of the towers base completely gutted by the conflagration that had occurred here. Nothing remained except charred timbers and piles of old ash. The walls were obviously bare, for anything that had been on them had disappeared in the fire, and no traces remained. Tam could see the hole in the roof where stairs would have gone to reach the second floor, but there was no way up there now, and he couldn’t be bothered trying to scale the walls at this time. He would have a look in the morning.

His stomach rumbled in synch with the thunder outside, reminding Tam that he better get something to eat. He withdrew some rat meat and skewered them onto a branch, then held them over the fire to cook. He could do this now without destroying them as he had the cooking skill. If he had tried this without the skill it would have just failed. While the aroma rising from the cooking meat wasn’t the most pleasant, his mouth still watered, and he turned them occasionally until he was satisfied they were fully cooked.

He plucked one of the pieces of meat off his improvised skewer, and flipped it from hand to hand until it was cool enough to hold. He gave it a sniff, his nose wrinkling at the rank odor, and took a tentative nibble.

“Euggh.” It was terrible and he spat it out onto the ground. Well, he thought, the stories of everything tasting like milk and honey in virtual worlds are definitely not true, that tasted like shit. Looking at the greyish lump of cooked flesh, he knew he would have to eat it, as he desperately needed something to improve his ailing health bar. He could see that it was hovering at the twenty point mark and it seemed to be contemplating falling further. Gathering his courage, he took another bite and chewed stoically while his stomach pointedly showed its displeasure with an acidic burning pain, then swallowed the half masticated lump. It was not pleasant and tasted oily as it went down.

It took Tam ten minutes to finish the meat he had cooked, and he regretted each and every mouthful. His stomach had rebelled and was making some rather unpleasant gurgling noises. He wished he had cooked that rabbit meat he got yesterday morning, but decided to leave that for breakfast. He didn’t even have any water to wash the aftertaste out of his mouth I had better get some rest before this lot makes a reappearance. From now on rat meat is only going to be used as fishing bait. Tam put another load of wood on the fire and tried to find the most comfortable position to sleep in. He did his best, but couldn’t find it.

The last thing Tam thought before he finally fell asleep, a protesting stomach still acting up, was I hope someone has invented toilet paper in this world.

The next morning Tam awoke, an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was a familiar feeling, unexpected, but still familiar. He groaned, realizing this was going to be an awkward experience indeed. Pushing himself up to his feet, he quickly stepped outside, scanning around for an suitable spot. Spotting a broad leaved plant that looked perfect, he urgently rushed over to it, dropped his pants and squatted. His next five minutes were spent with bouts of mild discomfort and much muttering about the stupidity of an unknown coder and what he would like to do with the same. Tam did find the broad leaved plant to be fairly useful, though.

It’s a digital world, so I should have expected data dumps, he reasoned to himself. I was only joking last night, but there better damn well better be some toilet paper ingame. Pulling up his pants, he returned to the tower. Overnight, the fire had settled into a small pile of glowing embers. Acting quickly, he placed a few branches on top of the ashes to get the fire back into action. He sat there, waiting for the flames to catch, then removed the rabbit meat and roasted that over the freshly jumping flames. He only had the one piece so, after he had consumed it, only the edge had been removed from his hunger, he was in no hurry to try the rat meat again….. ever.

Tam took a glance towards the second floor entrance and decided he should attempt to reach it, it wasn’t as if he had anything else urgent to do, after all. First, he wandered about the room checking all the piles of trash, just to make sure there wasn’t anything concealed within any of them, and found exactly what he expected he would find, absolutely nothing. This task complete, he collected all the loose timber beams and positioned them against the wall below the hole, creating a rough ramp upwards. On completion, he gave the structure a quick shake to test its stability. Other than a couple of minor trembles, it seemed secure, so he grasped the largest beam and started his ascent.

Around the middle part of the climb, his weight caused beams around him to slide apart, the outer ones falling to the floor with a clatter, sometimes occasionally against other timbers. It was like standing on a landslide, as the beams quickly fell away dropping Tam roughly onto the floor. In his sight Tam could see his health bar suddenly plunge down as his health points fell to ninety

Damn, twenty points lost and I had only just managed to get that back up to max. I need to find more bunnies to eat. Only slightly deterred by his point loss, and the family of splinters he found lodged beneath the skin of both palms, he regathered the beams and created another ramp, but with more care. This time his ascent was more successful, as he managed to get a firm grip on the protruding beams of the second floor before his makeshift ramp collapsed, again, beneath him. Left there, dangling, a surge of energy, fueled by his fear, helped Tam drag his body up and onto the floor above, the jagged edges of the boards scratching deep cuts across his chest. The pain he received was indescribable, and almost made him lose his grip. With one final surge, he managed to swing his legs up and onto the floor, then rolled away from the hole, dust and dirt liberally smearing him as it mixed freely with the blood that oozed from his cuts.

Tam wasn’t happy as he lay on his back, his chest stinging from the cuts. Here he was again, in darkness, which was something he was definitely not fond of at all. He was sure he could hear the sounds of something scratching about in in this gloom filled room, but then he noticed the room wasn’t quite in total darkness, for he could see a slim line of light on what he originally thought could a wall a couple of feet away from his supine position.

Rolling over, he raised himself to his hands and knees, then crawled in the direction of the light, one hand sweeping carefully ahead of himself to make sure he didn’t crawl into anything. His hand touched many small objects that lay scattered about, but all were unidentifiable in the darkness. Reaching the area beneath the crack of light, he found it was indeed located on a wall. Reaching up, he felt about, and from the feel of it, it was a shuttered window with the sunlight peeking through the join where two shutters met.

Using his forearms, Tam supported himself against the wall as he rose to his feet. He placed both hands against the shutters and pushed. They didn’t budge a bit, so he leant against them with all of his weight and pushed as hard as he could. The shutters burst open beneath this force, and Tam almost followed them outwards through the window, but managed to catch himself in the nick of time on the window frame. The sunlight that streamed in was wonderful and he visibly relaxed in its warmth. This lasted only until the noise behind him suddenly became much louder, it was a nasty high pitched squeaking sound that sent spikes of pain into his brain.

Suddenly, the air around him was filled with fast, shadowy creatures as they swirled and streamed past him, out through the window and into the bright sunshine. He instinctively recoiled in fear, but suddenly recognized them for what they were. They were bats, hundreds and hundreds of bats, streaming out of the window around him. He dropped to the ground to get away from them, and sat, waiting, until the very last one flew out a couple of minutes later.

Tam sat there while his heart raced inside his chest, a cold sweat appearing across much of his skin, Tam was forced to stay there until his panic attack eased. Bats, I fucking hate bats. Stinking flying rats. He gave the room about him another look to make sure none remained, as it was now only in light shadow with a window open. Tam noticed another shuttered window on the opposite wall, so quickly went and threw that windows shutters wide open as well.

The first thing he noticed in the now well lit room, was the absence of any fire damage, which he thought peculiar, as the room below had obvious played host to a major conflagration. While clean of any fire damage, the rest of the room was still quite messy, but easily identifiable as a workroom of some type, mainly due to the variety of tools that lay scattered about. Benches lined two of the walls of this room, and a third wall, the one behind Tam, occupied by a long bookshelf. It was fairly obvious that someone, or something, has searched here, for everything was scattered on the floor, rather than on the benches and bookshelf, and small footprints of dried mud lay everywhere. Even Tam, with his limited knowledge, could see the prints were definitely bestial, not humanoid at all.

The place was a dump, and Tam didn’t expect to find anything here that would be of use to him, but he still performed a perfunctory search. By the end of the search everything had been piled up in the center of the room, all of it garbage. Bat guano and urine had destroyed any usefulness that the items may have once possessed, and by disturbing things Tam had only stirred up the foul smell of the bat droppings.

As Tam looked dismally at the rubbish, and thought of the time he had wasted here, he heard a noise outside of the foliage of the forest floor being disturbed. Being careful, he peeked downwards. At first he was unable to detect anything that may have cause the disturbance, but then a bush shook chaotically and a group of small, furry creatures emerged. They stood about two and a half foot in height, and were definitely canine in appearance, but unlike all the dogs Tam had seen before, these stood upright on hind legs and had dirty rags tied about their bodies. Rather than walking, they seemed to lope along, occasionally with small skipping steps. Their elongated snouts displayed a good crop of sharp, long teeth, and were presently sniffing the air with aforementioned snouts. It didn’t look like they were armed, which was perfectly agreeable to Tam, but their forepaws looked dexterous enough to manipulate tools, and, no doubt, weapons.

Their appearance worried Tam. Were they trailing him, had they come across his scent ? None of this really mattered, Tam knew, for they were here, now, and there was nothing he could do about them. Slowly and as quiet as possible Tam lowered himself out of sight, and tried to work out what he could do. He didn’t even know what the creatures were.