Day 8 - August 13:22

Faith 2 / 2

Hunger 37 / 100%

One was walking down the road, that wound through the forest of evergreen nature. The curiosity for realism, which had distracted him earlier was now pretty much gone. He grew used to the all too real feeling. Suddenly a quiet alarm signal took his attention away from the road that took a sharp turn a couple hundred meters ahead. His Faith-Stat had filled up completely.

Quickly he used his [Pray] to get rid of them again. Faith 0/4. Still no new skills. But that was to be expected. After all the game was continuously trolling him with this unreasonable rewards. Or should he say, Loki? Ever since he started questing for him and his priests the only thing they rewarded him with was his class. A class that had nothing useful to offer so far other than praying. And that was what he did. It had cost him a good eight days. Over a whole week he ran about fulfilling the whims of the priests, just to become one himself.

Which he knew nothing about. And now he could not even lay that responsibility down, since the god himself would direct his wrath upon him if he ever did. Well maybe at some point something useful could be done with it right? Otherwise he would lay it down, no matter if he had quested a week for it. It was not worth keeping something useless forever, just in hope it might be useful.

After he followed the sharp upwards turn he quickly noticed that the forest started to fade out. The road let him up a grassland hill, not quite high enough to find the sea, or civilisation for that matter. One followed along while watching the vivid forest become a green, brown scenery of grassland. Of course these plains were full of life too. At first he hardly noticed any, but soon he could track mice running about, insects of all sizes fighting for survival and even a herd of deer that relaxed while munching down on the high, grown material.

One played with the idea of hunting them, but his damage was still far too small to actually be successful with that. And a huge stag would surely kill him with its antlers in a heartbeat. So he continued his boring journey across the countryside. Finding civilisation was important, first of all he would be able to prey upon innocent players. There would be countless trusting enough the be slaughtered easily. His last encounter confirmed him in that believe.

On the other hand gaining access to craftsmanship like being a blacksmith or a handicrafter would not come easily by himself. He needed professional guidance. In this case an NPC. Players were not able to teach him, since they would have to be taught themselves first. For now he could only try and gain as much as he could from NPCs. It was a bit of a gamble, since they could just decide to get rid of him if he was impolite or just did not fit in their ambition.

The game was unique that way. After crossing the hill he encountered quite the tough choice. The road split here. The crossing led towards the path he came from and the others either left or right. On the map those choices would have been south and north. There was even a waypost on the side. Three arrows pointed in the direction of the roads.

[Vhalt] 58km.

[Sighaltshaven] 37km.

[Zurnsksted] 42km.

The player he had killed before came from Vhalt. If he had known that it was to longest distance away from civilisation he would have turned around the very instant he heard of that. If he went back now, he would reach Sighaltshaven quickest. But as he already explored the road there it would benefit his map to turn his way towards Zurnsksted now. If he kept pace that was reachable within the hour and it would be unlikely that every village was a lot different from each other. They most likely were pretty much the same.

But One would most likely have to stop. His [Hunger] had reached 36 by now and he really would have to eat something soon. He spotted another hill a little further down the road, after which another huge forest appeared. One decided that he would set up a bonfire on top of it and greet passing strangers friendly. With a little luck they could turn out to be dumb casuals as well and he would be able to end them for benefits. Soon thereafter he was using a firestone to create a bonfire.

[You used [Firestone]. Do you wish to create a fire?]

[Yes] - [No]

A real ingenious question. No, he wanted to go swimming. Damn game.

Annoyed he confirmed.

[Please select the type of wood you want to use in your inventory.]

Again annoyed One clicked the ONLY TYPE of wood he had.

The game took one [Common Wood] out of his inventory when he selected it and a quite small bonfire started to burn right in front of him. He found the fire was far too little for his tastes. A single piece did not add up to much. So he opened his inventory and picked out another two logs. When he threw the first on top of the fire another popup appeared.

[Are you sure you want to add [Common Wood] to the fire?]

One screamed at the game. Of course it was not only the brainless dialogue he had to go through. He cursed a lot, threw his second log and let out all his anger. It had really gotten to him that he had not received something useful from the sacrifice quest. After all the hope he put in it, he was really mad. Not really at the game, rather at himself. He should just have paid more attention to the lore of Loki. The Deceiver. What a fool would let himself be tricked by something as obvious as that?

[You threw away 1 [Common Wood].]

Grumbling he went to get the log, put it also on the fire as well and confirmed that he wanted to add them. Now the fire burnt much brighter and higher. It was about 30x30cm big and burnt just as high. One could feel the warmth on his face and even though it was summer ingame and he really did not feel cold at all, it had something satisfying to it.

[Small Fire. Time until it burned out: 02:58:42. Wood-Type [Common Wood]. To increase to increase it to [Average Fire] you need to add: 2x [Common Wood] or higher.]

Even though One was still quite grumpy, it did really well to scream out his frustration for once. He really enjoyed the game a lot, and it was really important to him to get far here. After all he was lying in a coma unable to ever wake up. This was his life now. And even though he would be able to continue doing it, eight days without rest felt really weird to him.

One quickly realised that he still had to find a stick to put the meat on. If he ever ever wanted to start cooking that was. So he got up and quickly ran towards the woods. It did not took long to find a normal [Wooden Stick]. Soon he was sitting in front of his bonfire grilling himself steaks. After he held the first piece of [Fresh Meat] over the fire with his stick the job mastery triggered quite quickly.

[Cooking: Beginner I learned.]

Depending on your mastery you are able to comprehend more complex cooking recipes. As soon as you found a valid combination the recipe will be saved for later use.

While distractedly reading the information, he completely burned his first steak.

[Recipe [Burned Meat] was added to your cooking book.]

[Burned Meat]: +1 Hunger, -20% Movement Speed for 10 minutes.

Huh. One ate the burnt piece of meat anyway. He was not gonna run anywhere now and practice anyway. While chewing he quickly realised eating burned meat still tasted like burned meat. There was a reason why you did not really eat that in real life. He really wished for some juice or beer to wash down the taste. When he tried again he produced the same results two more times. Then he finally realised that he had to turn the meat once in a while to keep it from turning pitch black.

[Recipe [Bonfire Meat] was added to your cooking book.]

[Bonfire Meat]: +7 Hunger

Now that he knew the trick one continued to work his meat. The process took each piece about three minutes. After he had worked them he used his remaining three logs of [Common Wood] to set up another fire, since his first went out. He needed a little more than 6 hours total, meanwhile he used his Faith stat when it reached 4/4 with [Pray] and ate 15 pieces of meat to fill his Hunger bar up to 100 again. It had dropped to a mere 4/100. One really felt weak when that happened and he would have continued to try and save some food by starving off some HP. Sadly it seemed like you were unable to move properly once that happens.

Day 8 - August 19:49

Faith 2 / 8

Hunger 100 / 100%

One used the remaining two Faith points now. With this his maximum pool reached 10. And just as he thought it unlocked the next row of skills in his skilltree. Sadly only the row, not the skills. A shining purple, green bar was hovering over it.

[0/50 Faith to unlock.]

Of course. More waiting. One was really frustrated how Loki trolled him over and over again. Every time he thought everything could be better and awesome he just threw more stones in his way. Probably the skills would be useless after unlocking them too. One was thinking about how he wanted to continue the game.

As he was caught in his own thoughts he carved around on his [Wooden Stick], now that he did not need it anymore. And just in case he would need some he would pick them up while walking past them in the woods later. While whittling away at the stick he thought of abandoning the priest class. If he started to use daggers he could probably gain more throwing knife skills and build on that once the dungeons and monsters started to pour in. Just in case he would keep the priest class until that happened.

[You created [Wooden Stick-Spear].]

A cooking tool. Increases cooking speed by 10%. Cannot be used in combat.

One smacked himself on the head. This stupid game was trolling him again. How the hell did he not think of that idea?

[You took 1 damage.]

[[Artisan: Beginner I] learned.]

The art of creating weapons and shields from the raw force of nature. Depending on your skill level you can create bows, crossbows, arrows, bolts and different types of spears. And what would be better to avoid them than creating a shield?

One was really happy that he figured that one out himself. Unintentionally but still. How he could level up his new found profession was beyond him though. Maybe a few more [Wooden Stick-Spear]s would help him increase his mastery. Then he spotted something interesting on the edge of the woods. The road he would follow to reach the next village was not empty anymore.

The biggest warrior he had ever seen, was walking towards him. He had shining plate armor mixed with leather on some parts, but nonetheless he was heavily armored. A metal helmet covered his face nearly completely and only let his long dark brown beard grown out in front. The back allowed his long hair to reach his shoulders. He looked like a real bulky viking man. Like he was carved out of a story book. On his left side hung a huge double bladed war axe. Bound to his right arm hung a mighty, round, wooden viking shield. He looked grim, ready for battle.

To his left there was a skinny young male, that led a mule. He was quite tall though. The animal was loaded with sacks, small chests that were bound with rope and some drinking tubes. A lot of loot. One would have considered an assault for sure, if the huge and most likely very dangerous warrior hadn’t walked right next to it. The young man was dressed in a fine silk robe, that seemingly was more expensive than anything One owned. He was clearly a merchant. On top of his head there was a gamer-tag floating. In contrast to his brutal follower he was no NPC.

[Sekomi] had arrived.