Tony lay still on the ground. His mind slowly waking up and his natural survival instincts honed through surviving for years in his dangerous profession kept him still and silent. He slowly tried to listen and feel his surroundings.

Under his back the lumpy feeling of hard dirt, accompanied with what he assumed was spread out rocks and some large roots. So outside and likely near a tree. That could be a bad sign. Perhaps someone awaited his waking to haul him up said tree and allow him to slowly strangle via his own weight. Not a common way to get rid of someone but not unheard of if he pissed someone off enough to want to make a statement.

No noises though. No breathing unless someone was being careful about being loud or maybe they were to far away. The first would imply that someone understood that he was awake, the second could be good news. Giving him some space to get away from whomever this is.

Third thing he noticed was that his body was unharmed as far as he could tell. Slight twitching of muscles and a sort of mental tally didn’t show any obvious damage. Certainly not what you’d expect if you’d been jumped, beaten and thrown into a trunk. Drugs were an option but his head seemed clear to him. Though that didn’t prove anything as he’d been drunk enough times to know that you don’t always know how drunk you are.

Now came time for action. Two choices this time. Either direct and energetic or subtle. He decided on subtle. Twitching an eye open as carefully as possible so as to hopefully not be seen. Nothing directly above. A slight shift as if he were waking to move his head to the side and again a subtle peek.

Nothing.

He at least knew now that he was in a forest not just near some random tree. That was strange in it’s own way. Being a cityboy that meant that he was dragged a good way out of the city. And living in Las Vegas meant the options weren’t great as to where he was taken unless he was out for a very long time.

Time for action Tony thought to himself a moment before fully opening his eyes and almost springing to his feet.

Still seeing nothing around him as he spun fists raised in a boxer’s guard.

“Well…” He said to himself as he slowly lowered his fists. “Seems that I’m not going to die.” He glanced around again. “Right now at least.”

Greetings Human, and welcome to ‘The Gambit of the Gods’

Tony blinked, rubbed his eyes, and then sighed. “Well then. I’ve gone crazy.” He commented to himself and looked suspiciously at the strange text that seemed to float in midair. He read them for a second time as he moved his eyes and his head in random directions trying to see if he could look away. The text followed his vision no matter how he tried to avoid the image. Then, as the words of the message finally sunk in he thought at the damned text ‘yeah I got it, get outa here’, and poof the the text was gone without any fanfare. To quickly be replaced by yet another string of text.

You have not gone crazy nor have you died. You have been brought to this world as a representative of your people. The Pathfinder who is tasked with finding a safe place of refuge for more of your people to follow along afterwards.

Tony quickly read over this new text and paused slowly leaning against a tree nearby and contemplated the words that he saw. Tony was not the type of person known to freak out or panic. While he could like anyone he had a better handle on himself than most. Probably through years of doing his not legal in anyway job.

So he thought it through carefully. Realizing that if he was insane then it didn’t matter. This was the truth of his life as far as he could tell so he might as well go with it for now. He read over the words again. So he read over the words again and tried to brush off some of the dirt from the back of his black suit’s jacket and the seat of the matching pants. At least he was still well dressed if a bit dusty.

He dismissed the message sure another one would pop up and it did not disappoint him.

As the Pathfinder of your people your patron god has gifted you with the choice to allow it to choose your class.

Your traditional choices without a trainer are:

Warrior: +1% STR per level, +1% CON per level, +1% DEX per level (Simple Warrior gear)

Archer: +1% DEX per level, +1% COR per level, +1% INT per level (Simple Archer gear)

Caster: +1% INT per level, +1% Magic, +1% DEX per level (Simple Caster gear)

Your patron has chosen the following option:

Settler: +.1% All Stats per level (Settler gear)

That was interesting. Tony wasn’t a Gamer but he’d played his share of games, especially when he was younger. Though that was a long time ago now, being 48 and well into middle aged. Well the first three seemed to be more specialized but also only game with simple gear, and the final option increased all stats. Though he didn’t know how many stats he had in total.

‘What the hell.’ he thought and then tried to bring up stats, or status or anything of the like.

STAT

Base

Bonus

Strength

6 of 10

0.00%

Constitution

5 of 10

0.00%

Dexterity

6 of 10

0.00%

Coordination

5 of 10

0.00%

Intelligence

8 of 10

0.00%

Magic

4 of 10

0.00%

No More Stats Known About

That was partially helpful. He now knew that the .1% mentioned went to the bonus every level and that the number of stats may be limitless but he currently did not know them all. What if one included ‘lifespan’ or some such. Increasing his lifespan by .01% per level (Depending on how easily he could level) could mean that his life expectancy could be limitless as well. That settled it for him. Better to take the gamble. No other good choice for a Vegas man anyways. At level 100 he could get 10% increased lifespan, with him knowing that his parents were each still alive so were his grandparents and that 5 of his 8 great grandparents had lived into the 90’s meant he was pretty confident of if that existed it would be worthwhile. Good genes were a good thing to have.

He concentrated on different parts of the chart and got additional information on the different numbers. The ‘of 10’ number indicated that 10 was the highest a human could push their body without any bonuses. It indicated quite literally how strong, or dexterous you were. Then that base was boosted by the bonus as opposed to normal leveling where you increased the stats. So the healthier he was the faster, the stronger, the better his boost worked.

You have chosen Settler. You are now a level 0 Settler with 0xp of 10xp for the next level.

You have been assigned Settler’s Gear.

You have been granted 1 God Point from your Patron for following it’s advice. This point can be spent to give +1% to any stat or you can save up and at 10 other options will be made available to you.

Well that was interesting. He wouldn’t be spending that God Point he got yet. Better to wait he could always spend it later if he found that the other options aren’t any good.

He carefully looked into a small backpack that appeared on the ground next to him. It contained a dagger of some brownish metal, maybe bronze. Two pairs of rough clothing that looked itchy before he even touched it and felt how rough the material actually was. A small black flag with nothing else on it. A large amount of jerky and several bladders of water that may very well be made out of some animal’s bladders.

Most of the items made sense but the flag was strange. He grabbed it out of the bag and it grew in size from a tiny flag like you may have at a fourth of july parade to a real full sized flag with a sharp spike on the bottom. He stabbed the flag into the ground to see what would happen.

Warning: You are about to use the Flag of Settling. If you do this here you will get the following settlement points to spend.

Base: 10

Forest: -1 Cramped with large trees in the way of building

Dry: -2 No water source nearby

Actual: 7

Do you wish to settle here?

“Hell no.” Tony said quickly and the flag shrunk back to its’ previous size. He stowed it back away in his bag and let out a sigh. “Well let’s see what this world has to offer.” He commented as he pulled his glock out of the shoulder holster under his jacket and checked it before placing it back and checking the backup magazines.