I opened my eyes, staring up at the dark sky as large snowflakes fell lazily onto my face. Was this the game world, or my memories? Praying that I wasn’t destined to relieve the nightmare a second time, I looked down towards my leg. I was relieved to see not only the dead wolf still latched to my calf but also the boy, who was kneeling next to me, keeping my tourniquet tight. Seeing me move, the boy jumped before settling back down. Not knowing what to say, we just looked at each other for several long seconds, before I broke the ice.

“How long was I out for?” I asked shakily.

“A couple of minutes I guess. Are you going to be ok?” The boy said in a soft, timid voice.

I pushed myself up into a sitting position, fighting against a bout of dizziness as I did so. Looking at my health bar, I could see I had regained about 20% of my total HP since I passed out. Taking a moment, I went and pulled up my combat log to see what had happened after I lost consciousness.

You have successfully applied a makeshift tourniquet. Tourniquet will reduce your bleed status over time until you lose the Bleeding debuff. If you move your appendage while the tourniquet is applied, your Bleeding debuff may reset.

You are Bleeding (moderate). You are losing…

… 3 HP per second for 100 seconds.

… 2 HP per second for 80 seconds.

… 1 HP per second for 60 seconds.

… 4 HP every 5 seconds for 40 seconds.

… 3 HP every 5 seconds for 20 seconds.

… 2 HP every 5 seconds for 10 seconds.

Your HP total has fallen below 0. Orcish Ferocity effect has been activated. You have regained 1% of your HP total (2). You have gained damage immunity for 10 seconds. All debuffs have been suspended for 10 seconds.

Your bleeding has expired.

The effects of Orcish Ferocity have ended.

Oh shit, I almost kind of died there huh? I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised. I didn’t have the time to do the mental math during or after the fight, but my Bleeding debuff could have killed me even if I had been at full health. If I hadn’t applied a tourniquet when I did, I’d be floating around the city of the dead getting ready to log out and roll up a new character.

I looked back towards the kid and gave him a small smile. “Ya, I think I’m gonna be ok. How about you, did you get hurt at all? Scratched, bitten?” I asked, looking him over real quick.

He shook his head. “No, I’m fine. They almost got me when I climbed up into the tree, but I pulled my legs up just in time.” He said timidly.

I nodded my head, taking him at his word. “Hey, I’m Erik by the way. You wouldn’t happen to be a Kathra Baldurk’s kid would you?” I asked.

The boy's eyes went wide. “Y…ya that’s my mom. I’m Taklinn Baldurk, but everyone just calls me Tak. How do you know my mom?” Tak asked, hand moving to grasp the hilt of his knife.

“I went to Jadestone today, or at least I tried to,” I said, keeping an eye on the boy's weapon. “Needless to say I was asked to leave, but I happened to… run into your mom, so to speak. You know she’s worried sick about you right?”

Tak’s eyes narrowed. “Ya I know, but she wouldn’t talk to someone like you about that. Not after your folk killed my Pa!” he said, voice cracking with anger.

I sighed, rubbing at my temple, trying to alleviate the throbbing headache that had appeared ever since I regained consciousness. “Would you believe that she called me a demon spawn while barreling through Caption Vondal? She only brought you up as she was getting kicked out of his office. Vondal was actually the one who filled me in that you were missing.” I said, deciding not to sugarcoat what had happened.

“Ya… Ya, that does sound like Ma,” He said, visibly relaxing. “I was on my way back to town around midday, but I spotted the wolves along the way. The packs in the valley normally don’t bother folk as long as you do your best to steer clear. I turned around thinking they would walk past, but they started to chase me.”

“The wolves were starving. They had probably been kicked from their pack several weeks ago and were struggling to hunt.” I said, knowing their hunger had driven them to seek out abnormal prey.

“Well sir, I need to get going. My Ma’s gonna throttle me when I get home, but I can’t let her keep worrying about me,” he said as he got to his feet.

“Wait Tak, you can’t go back to Jadestone,” I said, as I tried to pry the wolf's jaws from my leg. “Storm’s starting, you won’t make it halfway before the visibility drops to nothing.”

Tak looked up towards the sky, all light having faded away, a light snow being occasionally whipped around by a gust of wind. “It don’t look too bad to me. I’ll be fine,” he said with an air of confidence. For as shy as Tak first appeared, being out in the wild didn’t seem to faze him one bit.

“I’m telling you, this is the start of a big storm. It's gonna start dumping and blowing snow in less than an hour. The wind’s already started to pick up too. The only reason I ran into you was because I was coming up this way hoping to find some shelter,” I said, trying to find a way to convince him before he simply ran off. “I don’t know how long you’ve lived up in this valley, but what have you been taught to do if you're out here during a storm?”

Stopping in his tracks, Tak turned back towards me, looking displeased. “Find shelter, stay warm, and stay put.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Now, help me find my knife so I can get this bastard off my leg.”

“I think I’d rather just go my own way,” Tak said timidly, refusing to look me in the eye.

Digging around in the snow, I finally found my knife, which had fallen off my rope belt when I removed it. Pulling it from its sheath, I slide the blade into the mouth of the dead wolf, severing its jaw muscles on both ends. My wound gave off a sickly wet sound as I pried the jaw apart, ripping the animal's teeth from my skin. Removing the jaw gave me a minor bleeding debuff that instantly went away due to the tourniquet. I waited several seconds for my natural healing to close the wound before I started to unwrap my belt from my thigh.

“Tak do you have any food on you?” I asked from the ground, looking him straight in the eyes.

He looked back up at me for a moment, dark curls poking out from his hood and over his eyes. “No. I ate all the food I brought out with me.”

Reaching over into my pack, I pulled out a few pieces of jerky, sticking one in my mouth while handing the rest over. “Look kid, I have more food than I know what to do with. I’ll make you a deal. You take me to some shelter, I’ll share my food, and we hunker down till it's safe to travel. When the storm passes, I promise to get you back to Jadestone,” I said as I reached out my hand. “What do you say?”

Ignoring my offered hand, his eyes dropped back to the ground. He stood there for several quiet seconds, not saying a word. “Ya fine,” He said softly. “There’s a mine a couple of miles to the northeast. We can stay there.” Eyes still glued to the ground, Tak turned and walked back towards the tree he had sheltered in from the wolves, muttering as he gnawed at a piece of the jerky. As if the game's storyteller AI had been listening in, a quest window popped up in my vision.

Chain Quest: Lost Child

Quest #1: The Starving Beasts

Status: Completed

Reward:

-Reputation with Tak improved by 1000*

-Quest #2 Unlocked

*-50% Reputation gain due to Dwarves and Orcs sharing a negative racial reputation by default. To remove future -50% modifiers, raise your reputation with Tak over 0 (Neutral).

Reputation with Tak has changed from -1900 (Hated) to -900 (Unfriendly).

Chain Quest: Lost Child

Quest #2: Storm Shelter

Status: In Progress

Quest Details:

A serious storm is on its way and you must get Tak to safety. Follow Tak as he leads you towards a local mine and ensure that he reaches it safely.

Quest Objectives

Escort Tak to shelter

Quest Rewards

Improve reputation with Tak by 500 Access to Quest #3

Quest Failure

Lose reputation with citizens of Jadestone if failure is discovered

Watching him walk away, I couldn’t help but wonder how difficult the next few days would be. Even with the reputation bump, Tak still didn’t want to have much to do with me, but if it hadn’t been for him, I’d likely have died. You could argue that he only attacked the wolves in an effort to save himself, if I had died, there was a good chance they would have simply chased him down, or kept him pinned in the tree.

What he didn’t have to do though is stay by my side and keep my tourniquet tight. He could have walked away and let me bleed out. All that I know for sure is that Tak is carrying around a lot of emotional baggage at the moment, and I wasn’t looking forward to walking around eggshells with him over the next couple of days, though I more than most understood the conflicted emotions that must be whirling around his head.

Shaking the thoughts from my mind, knowing that they would have to be future Erik’s concerns, I turned towards the bodies of the wolves. While the bodies wouldn’t offer much in the way of meat, and I wouldn’t say I was excited by the prospect of eating a wolf steak, their pelts would make a good addition to the boar hides I had gathered earlier in the day. Despite the animals' emaciated bodies, they had large frames that carried a sagging hide that hadn’t shrunk to their new physique.

While I wanted the animal's pelts, I didn’t have the time to skin them here. We needed to get a move on towards the shelter. However, what I could do was field dress them, drag them over the snow, and worry about skinning them when we reached our destination. Taking a few minutes, I quickly sliced and gutted the animals, tying their hind legs up to each end of my smaller length of rope. The bodies were each fairly light, especially after they had been field dressed, and they slid across the snow with relative ease, only draining my stamina just beyond what it could regenerate. Even with my stamina pool still recovering from the battle, I should be able to pull the carcasses for several hours without issue.

Pulling the bodies behind me, I walked up behind Tak, who was still working away on one of the strips of meat. Turning around, his eyes went wide as he craned his neck to look up at my face. The entire time we had talked, I had been sitting on the ground, putting us at about an equal height. Being a young dwarf, he was already shorter than the average human boy, his head barely reaching my waist.

I took a moment to double check all my things, making sure my tools were resecured to my belt and that my packs were strapped correctly. Looking down at Tak, I motioned in front of us with my spear.

“I’m ready to go. Lead the way.” I said, giving Tak a warm smile. Nodding his head in understanding, the boy led the way back into the forest. Despite being just a kid and his race having a general walking speed debuff, Tak was able to keep a good pace. While I didn’t know for sure if NPC’s received skills in exactly the same way players did, I’d wager that Tak had several of his own mobility skills unlocked and leveled up to be able to move the way he did.

I also noticed that Tak wasn’t traveling in a straight line. Similar to when I was following his tracks through the forest, he was specifically walking around particular areas and not just to avoid snow drifts or thick underbrush. I decided to follow in his footsteps, only stepping in spots he stepped himself. Almost immediately I could tell he was somehow avoiding the general debris that littered the forest floor and was finding clear spots to step on, even with the snow cover on most of the ground. After following his steps for about a quarter mile, I received a notification.

Advanced Skill Learned - Mobility: Forest/Woods Common LVL 1

You gain improved movement speed and natural stealth when traveling through forests or woods.

+1% to movement speed when traveling in forests per skill level +1% to natural stealth when traveling in forests per skill level

It was just further proof that simply performing an action by itself wasn’t enough to unlock a skill in the game. It shouldn’t be too surprising to me that simply clod stomping through the forest wasn’t enough to unlock the skill by itself, I had to walk with the forest floor itself in mind, trying to make and avoid certain footfalls. While it had allowed me to unlock my snow mobility skill early, focusing on traveling over the snow by itself likely kept me from learning the forest mobility skill earlier in the day.

Considering all my notifications auto minimized and stored themselves in a separate folder to the right of my vision during my battle, I decided I should go through and see if I unlocked any other skills, in case we ran into another fight along the way.

Congratulations! You have unlocked the special attack ‘Choke Hold’

Special Attack - Choke Hold, Common LVL 1

Fighting Style Requirements: Brawling, Martial Arts, Wrestling

Weapon Requirements: None

Stamina Cost: 5 SP per second

Cooldown: None

Attack Description: Choke Hold is scaled off of a players ‘Athletics’ skill power. Wrap your arm around the neck of an enemy creature and apply pressure to their neck to inhibit their ability to breathe and pump blood to their brain. Applies the debuff Suffocation* while the attack is in effect. Creatures can escape from your hold through a competing Athletics Skill check. Increase the strength of hold by 1% per skill level and reduce the length of each stage of ‘Suffocation’ by 1% per skill level.

*Suffocation debuff has no end timer and is in effect while a creature is subjected to a suffocation attack or environmental effect. The amount of time a creature can survive under a suffocation effect is based on the type of suffocation they are suffering from and their Constitution score.

Suffocation Stage 1: Lose 5 SP per second. Lose the ability to speak until suffocation ends.

Suffocation Stage 2: Lose 10 SP and 5 HP per second. You do not regain the ability to speak until 15 seconds after suffocation ends.

Suffocation State 3: Immediately lose consciousness. Consciousness regained 15 seconds after losing Suffocation Debuff. Lose 20 SP and 15 HP per second.

Advanced Skill Learned - Athletics: Grappling, Common LVL 1

Improve your ability to grab and hold onto other creatures.

+1% chance to initially grab a creature with one or more open hands per skill level. +1% chance to maintain a grip on a grabbed creature when it attempts to escape per skill level.

Athletics: Grappling advances to LVL 2

Congratulations! You have unlocked the special attack ‘Power Attack’

Special Attack - Power Attack, Common LVL 1

Fighting Style Requirements: 2 Weapon Fighting, Shield Fighting, One Weapon Fighting, Brawling

Weapon Requirements: Weapon that scales off of Strength

Stamina Cost: 40 SP

Cooldown: 15 seconds

Attack Description: Put all your strength behind an attack. Increase attack power by 20% plus 1% per skill level.

Alright! I finally unlocked the old tried and true Power Attack. Fighting with a spear itself was tough, but having to fight without a scaling special attack was worse. Power Attack was the one special attack that I was certain would be available for me to choose during my tutorial, regardless of what weapon I ended up selecting, and I was glad to have finally learned it.

Not only that, but I also learned another Brawling attack, Choke Hold. Its stamina cost was rough, but that would fix itself after I got several more levels under my belt. The suffocation debuff sounded nasty as well, giving me the ability to remove someone from a fight without killing them, or killing them silently without a weapon. Along with Choke Hold, I also unlocked my Grappling skill and even leveled it all the way up to level 2 right off the bat. Maintaining the hold for so long must have been worth quite a few skill experience points to level me up that quickly.

On top of the skills, I also earned 180XP from the fight, receiving a bonus for the wolves being two levels above my own. I did however share half of the experience from one of the wolves with Tak, which he more than deserved. Without his help, I likely would have died.

As we walked I noticed that the storm was getting progressively worse. The wind had picked up and the snow was starting to fall more heavily, big white flakes starting to form a solid layer of white on Tak’s furs. Thankfully, the weather seemed to have driven every other animal into their dens, allowing us to travel without coming across any aggressive creatures, but by the end of our journey, I began to get quite worried. The visibility was rapidly falling as snow fell heavy and thick, driven by a piercingly cold wind.

Having no feeling left in my hands, with my face and ears full of what felt like ice cold nails, I was about ready to voice my concern with Tak, thinking he had gotten turned around. Fortunately, he had remained calm and confident throughout our whole trip, knowing exactly where he was going. With the visibility dropping to about only 30 feet in any direction, we came upon the rock face of the mountain rather abruptly and quickly came across the opening of the mine.

Looking up to the sky, I let out a sigh of relief. “Liebhel, you are too good to me.”