Chapter 2

The walk alongside the stream was actually quite pleasant. The tree’s made a canopy above me blocking enough sunlight so it wasn’t too hot but not enough that I was cold. The birds chirping and the thick oak tree give me a sense of nature that I never had in my old urban life. It was truly quite peaceful. I walked for a few hours until something finally came in front of my path. A coyote had it head down slurping water, blocking my path.

Rushing behind a tree I fumbled with my dagger until I could get it out in my cold sweaty hands. My steady beating hard started to quicken and I could feel it trying to beat out of my chest. Taking a few steadying breaths I ever so slowly turned my head to look over the tree. The coyote was still drinking water but I could see a newly clogged gash in its hind left leg. Thinking through my options I really only had two. I could either circle around the coyote or I could try and kill. It was probably quite easy to just avoid the coyote, however, it was getting dark and I’m getting hungry. I don’t know when I will next get an opportunity to find some meat. Also if I’m right, I could get some juicy experience. Plan decided, I readied my dagger and courage and sneakily moved from behind my tree.

I slowly made my way over to the coyote trying to be silent as possible. I was almost their as well when my coin pouch made a *clink sound*. The Coyotes head shot up. Well SHIIIIITTTTT! Without thinking any longer, I pounced. I slammed into the coyote full body, with my dagger held out in front, I felt the coyote right bite into my arm, the one holding the daggers, its teeth grinding against the bone. With a ragged scream, my momentum plunged the dagger into the animal's meaty chest where it hit the animals ribs and deflected away. Then my body slammed into the coyote forcing the animal to loosen his bone grinding grip on my forearm. My dagger also came loose of my hands, still embedded in the coyote's side. When we finished rolling I ended on top of the coyote, and before he could recover I slammed my fist into its face with my uninjured arm. I punched him again and again and again. Until his face was a pancake and my fist was bleeding. Only when I could punch no longer did I realise I was screaming the entire time. Then before the pain could hit me, I passed out.

I woke up and groaned remembering the strangest dream. I was transported to another world and I was fighting a coyote? I opened my eyes and was filled with the scent of blood. I looked down and noticed a bleeding coyote under me. Groaning anew when I realized it wasn’t a dream. Moving my forearm and expecting to feel a burst of pain I was pleasantly surprised when there was none. Looking to my forearm it was completely healed. I guess that's what enhanced regeneration meant. I moved off the coyote and saw a blinking square at the bottom left of my vision. When I focused in on it a notification filed my vision. Unlike like the other it was blood-red.

You have taken 38 points of damage from a level 4 coyote.

You are bleeding. You will take 6 hit points of damage every 5 seconds until the wound is closed.

There were a bunch more damage from bleeding notification that slowly decreased the amount of HP they took. I’m assuming it was my regeneration that slowed my health decline. In total, I took 51 points of damage. Looking back at my hit points they were back to full. After digesting the first notification another two appeared.

You have gained the skill stealth.

Description: Sneak passed enemy and friends alike, unseen and unheard

Level 1 novice

-2% less noise made and 2% harder for others to see you when stealth is active.

-30% more stamina consumed and 40% slower movement speed when stealth is active.

You have gained the skill daggers.

Description: Stab and slash your enemy’s up close, this skill applies to all small blade under 25cm in length

Level 1 novice

- +2% more damage when wielding daggers

While thinking about how to open my status screen the screen magically appeared. I guess that handy. Confirming my guess the skills I had just obtained appeared under the skills subtitle. Skills in this world, universe, Multiverse? From the looks of things, it seems that skills are pretty easy to obtain. By easy to obtain I mean I didn’t have to try much to get them, and not as in almost getting mauled by an oversized chihuahua. There was one more notification waiting for me, and it was what I was waiting for.

You have killed a level 3 coyote and have gained 50 experience

Yes, EXPERIENCE! Finally what I've been waiting for. I mean It wasn’t a lot of experience, but it was something. Actually, that was barely anything, I would have to kill another 20 coyotes to reach level 2. But if I was being honest killing them wouldn’t be that hard, if I wasn’t a dumbass. And that’s a big IF. Sighing I got ready to leave. The sun was heading down and would be reaching the horizon soon enough.

I plucked my dagger from the coyote's corpse and put it back on my belt. Next, I washed my hands and the coyote to avoid attracting predators from the smell of the blood. Now came the gruesome part. I lifted the coyote and quickly put it over one shoulder. Even though my best efforts I still felt its blood seep into my clothes and gagged at the smell. I probably should have taken my shirt off, but you live and you learn.

Walking another half a kilometre to get away from the where our bloody fight had taken place, I plopped the coyote down and almost vomited again. My shirt was covered in blood and I had no idea if I would ever get the stink out. Pulling my shirt with a sigh of relief, I bent down and started to rinse it out. My hands were slightly shaky from the whole ordeal but I managed to wash my shirt. Doing the same with my pants.

While I was shakily washing my clothes my stomach decided to growl. Right, I'm still hungry. Taking out my dagger I looked down to the wet and somewhat bloody coyote. Its face looked slightly flattened and it had a large gash in its side from where I stabbed it. Not really knowing where to start, I just started from the hole already cut in its side. Almost instantly my hands were covered in blood and my breath was coming in raggedly. My hands were shaking so bad I could barely hold the dagger. Only when I was almost done did I remember that I have no idea how to make a fire, so my skinning was kind of pointless. Deciding that was a problem for later, I kept my eyes focused and continued to cut to the other end. At this point, my arms were drenched in blood up to my forearm, and my hands were barely holding onto my knife, my cut no longer straight, instead, making a shaky zig-zag pattern in the skin.

I finished skinning the coyote and blurrily grabbed my clothes and the coyotes skin before walking another 500m. Dropping everything and lying on the floor, I hazily reached out and grabbed the still bloody coyote skin and wrapped it tight around me before slowly falling into a deep restless sleep.

Waking up in a cold sweat I reached out for my dagger. My hand closed around the dagger, and my breath came in raggedly. Right, it was only a dream. I loosened my grip on the dagger and let it drop. My hands were shaking a little and were still covered in blood from the night before. That really didn't help my panic, but my heart slowly claimed.

So that's what a psychotic breakdown feels like. I guess being transported from everything you know and love and then fighting for dear life isn't good for your mental. You would have thought it?

After a short wash I removed all the blood I was covered in and took a few minutes to analyse what happened yesterday. From what I can tell I was just WAY to stressed for what was good for me. I could still feel some of what I felt yesterday but in a much more diluted and rational way. I dunked my head back into the water to remove the last bit of panic and read the notification waiting for me.

You have learned the skill skinning.

Description: Take the skin, bones and organs of dead animals without leaving a mark.

Level 1 novice

- 5% increase in speed when skinning animals or monsters.

For your excursions, you have gained stat points!

+1 to vitality

+1 to endurance

Lying on the grass while waiting to dry off, I took a look at my stats. Sure enough, my health increased by 7.5 and my stamina by 10. So it looks like levelling isn’t the only way to increase stats.

Dried off, I tentatively took my tattered shirt and held it far away from my body, like it was a viper ready to bite me any second. The shirt was nothing but torture through the entirety of the walk, and I could see and feel an angry red rash on my chest and back. Doing the wise choice of action I put my pants and my shirt under my arm, I was not going to wair than ‘thing’ unless I absolutely had to.

My stomach rumbled once more, reminding me that I hadn't eaten all of yesterday. The hunger was gnawing at my mind, even if I knew I could probably last 3 weeks without eating, but that’s assuming I didn’t do any energy-consuming task and considering yesterday that was unlikely.

I really have no idea how to make a fire. I knew you could do it with two sticks, but that seemed deceptively easy. I guess I’ll need to just survive until I find some people, or if I don’t find anyone I guess ill just have to try my like with some raw meat, or maybe find some edible berries. A course of action decided I walked through the forest collecting any berries I saw and put them in my coin pouch just in case I needed them. It was my third bush of berries that I plucked when I got the notification.

You have gained the skill herbalism

Description: Understand how to cultivate, the use and rarity of plants

Level 1 novice

-When activated you can see the name and rarity of plants, levelled uncommon or bellow.

-+5% chance to spot rare plants

The plants I had picked up all showed as common. Which didn’t really surprise me seeing as they were everywhere in the forest?

I spent another two hours of walking, and picking up any berries I saw until my coin purse was full. I thankfully saw nothing eventful until I came across a cave embedded in a small hill.

It had an archway of rock that looked just large enough to let me pass through. Which I was a bit wary of doing. The rock looked old and crumbled, cracks ran through the stone and it seemed it would collapse any second. Not to mention the cave probably had monsters inside it. From every game, I had ever played if you found a random cave it was probably invested with monsters. I don't think the monsters would be too strong seeing as the strongest thing I had to fight was a coyote, buuuuuut it had almost killed.

I was debating going in or not when my stomach started to rumble. I swear it did that on purpose every time there was a decision to be made. The cave probably didn’t have any food but it may have a flint and steel from someone who had entered and died long ago. I was pretty sure I could figure out how to use one, just strike the rock with the other rock, simple. Also if I cleared the cave I could sleep inside it without worrying about being eaten in my sleep. Without further thought, I entered.

Peering into the cave I could feel my pulse quicken. I couldn’t see much inside the cave, however, something was glowing inside the cave. When I picked it up the description said it was Schistostega and in brackets glowing moss. I assume the brackets translated it into something I could understand. It was also labelled as uncommon. As I continued to walk down the cave I could feel my pulse quicken and hand tighten on my dagger. Waiting for any sign of trouble. So when I heard a noise around a corner, I lunged at it with my dagger forward.

I felt my dagger pierce into something that let out a wailing scream. Its claws bit into me and I joined in screaming. Pulling my dagger out I started stabbing with all my strength. There was no precision to it. I just wanted it dead. I could feel it pierce my skin of all the way to the bone. It’s shrieking deafening in earlier quite. With one more plunge of my dagger, the monster fell limply to the floor. I flopped on the ground, not a second later, my injuries making it hard to think. My health was at 35 and was dropping. Looking at my damage notification I saw that I was losing 1 hit points every 2 seconds.

Grabbing my shirt I tore a piece of it off to tightly bandage a large gash or my left arm. Checking my notification again I saw my bleeding status had decreased to 1 hitpoint every 4 seconds. However, I wasn’t done.

I could already hear some more of these things wailing there way towards me. I pushed through the pain and planted myself right up against the wall. The dead body was just around the bend, so went to the other side and hid. My wounds started to close but it wasn’t fast enough. A new enemy appeared out of the shadows sniffing the air. I could only see the outline of the beast but it was close. Bending down on all fours with it’s back to me it started sniffing the dead body. I slowly lifted a leg and started to silently shift my way towards the beast. When I was only a few metres away from it, it started to quickly stand and turn, a growl releasing from its throat. I darted in and stabbed my dagger right into its neck. Blood started to erupt from the wound and the creature made gurgling cry before it fell lifelessly to the floor.

After the next monster fell to the floor, I moved around the bend again, this time a little closer to the dead body’s. I hoped the next monster that came would do the same thing as the last one did. It didn’t take long for me to test my theory, however, there was another problem. Two monsters came out of the shadows, slowing just like the last it bent down and sniffed the air. I knew it was only a matter of time before they found and killed me, so I slowly and silently made my way towards the one standing.

When I had taken only 2 steps the beast let out a cry and ran at me. I jumped back startled and hit my back against the wall, causing my head to whiplash against it. Everything started to spin but I dodged its first attack. Managing to sidestep its next attack I slammed my dagger into its side. The monster let out another shriek and backhanded me away, forcing me to lose my dagger inside the monster. But I must’ve stabbed it somewhere sensitive because it was clutching the wound and doubling over with pain.

I didn’t see the next one coming until it was almost on top of me. Luckily I saw the claw coming at me in the last second and managed to pull my hand up in time to block. The claws left trails of blood running across my uninjured arm. The blood started to run down my hand and I let out a low growl to match the creatures. I tossed my own punch at its face which was shortly followed up by a low kick to its knee. I could hear and feel the bone snapping under my kick. With only one leg supporting it, the creature fell to the floor screeching.

Before I could deliver Coup dagra searing pain bloomed on my back. I stumbled a step forward I made a quick turn to face the forgotten opponent. It was already taking another swipe at me and I put my hand up to block again, this time avoiding its claws.

I punched the monster with my free arm and was about to kick when something grabbed my leg. With only one leg connecting me to the floor I fell.

My hands came up in time to stop me from hitting my head but I felt a sharp pain in my wrists. I turned my head up just in time to see a clawed foot coming down towards my face. Hastily twisting out of the way, avoiding the foot coming down and releasing my leg from the prone monster’s grip. From this angle I could that my dagger was still embedded in the standing monster's side and reaching for it I yanked out the dagger with all my strength. While the abomination was stunned from the pain, I made my way to my feet. My body felt sluggish, and everything started to turn into a haze from my blow to my head. Quickly glancing to my stamina bar I saw that it was almost empty. My health bar wasn’t doing much better either. I couldn’t waste any more time.

I ran in, stabbing the standing monster in the side of the head. I aimed for its neck, and even with my hands shaking from the exertion, the blow was a killing one. The monster made a feeble attempt at one more slash at me before crumpling. The last monster was standing back up, hobbling on one leg. I, however, wasn’t in much better shape. I could barely hold onto the dagger, and the world’s starting to go blurry. So when the monster slashed at me I didn’t have the energy to block or really even see it coming. Its claws scraped me from my hairline to my jaw leaving a burning sensation in its wake. The pain giving me one last point of focus. I put all my energy into one last attack. Raming my dagger into its jaw, I could feel the bone snap and my dagger coming through its jaw and into the roof of its mouth, killing it near instantly.

We both fell to the floor. My body no longer able to take the strain of holding me upright. My stamina bar sitting at its very ends. My breath was coming out in gasps and darkness was slowly crawling in on the edges of my sight. Staving off unconsciousness with force of will alone.

I could hear more footsteps coming. My stamina was refilling but not quickly enough and so when the next monsters arrived I still had only a sliver of it left.

Lying on the floor and waiting for certain death was the only thing I could do. Hearing the monster sniffing I waited with bated breath. I could hear one of the monsters grunt and start walking towards me. I still didn’t move, I waited. Only when the monster was on top of me did I strike. Grasping my dagger with a white hard grip I shot it upward, right towards the sniffing ugly monster. With the monsters head being only inches in front of me, it was a foregone conclusion of what would happen. A smile spread across my face, that soon turned into a frown as my hand dropped with the bottoming of my stamina. The other monsters took a step towards me, and with the accepting of my fate, I closed my eyes and waited, AND WAITED! Like seriously could the monster not give me the courtesy of killing me off quickly. Cracking my eyes open I could see the frozen image of claws a bare inch from my face.