Note: This chapter has not gone to my editors and events may change before final release. The below is also unedited and in a raw non-polished form.

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“Where should I start?” Tom looked nervous.

“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” Toaby suggested.

Tom let out a sigh. “The beginning… I came to this world over a year ago, and it was even worse than it is now. I was killed over and over by roaming gangs. I traded one prison life for another. I agreed to come here because I was sick of being pushed around in prison. I thought I would be free to live my life, but I was so wrong. For my first month, I spent more time in Helheim than I ever did in Midgard.”

“It was that bad?”

“You have no idea. The system prevents you from attacking anyone near where you spawn in so the gangs would just roam around the forest, killing anyone who entered. It prevented anyone from gaining a leg up. I even thought I might join them. It sounded better than being killed over and over, but that didn’t work. They killed anyone on sight and just laughed about it all. They did worse things to the poor women who were unfortunate enough to spawn near them.” Tom’s eyes went distant, but not because he was looking at something in the system. He was reliving the horrors of the past in his mind.

Toaby clenched a fist, his anger boiling up again. Tom noticed and gave him a weak smile. “Keep going.” Toaby pushed.

“So eventually I gave up. I just sat at spawn and waiting to die from dehydration. That happened a couple of times but who cared at that point. Then things changed.”

“How so?”

“The next time I came back from Helheim, I wasn’t alone. Curtis was there. He had been in the game for a few years, living in the mountains alone, when a roaming raiding party found him. They burned his house to the ground and killed him. Slowly. He was like me. He didn’t care for all this violence and just wanted a peaceful second chance. That’s why Heimdall granted him a crafting class. Curtis refused to take a class involving combat.”

Toaby glanced over at Curtis. He was organizing the few resources he had near the forge. He seemed to be almost out of ore. That’s probably why Nate wants to go mining. Before Toaby could get lost in his own head, Tom continued his story.

“So we waited and eventually more people spawned. Some were fresh to the system like Sam, but others had experienced the same pains Curtis and I had. Almost all of them agreed to help change things, so we grouped up. We figured the local gangs would leave us alone if we had more numbers.”

“And did they?” Toaby was fully engaged by Tom’s story at this point.

“The smaller ones did. We got into a few scuffles with the larger ones, but eventually they left us alone. We made it here, a place rich in resources.” Tom pointed to a nearby mountain. “Theres an ore rich mine over there, we have the river right there and enough trees to build whatever we need.”

“I feel like there's a ‘but’ coming.” Toaby hesitantly added.

“But, that was all a rouse. The local gangs let us go so we could build up resources. Since most of us don’t fight or don’t want to fight, the gangs knew they could just come in and take what they wanted. We fought back at first, back when we had more numbers, but we never saw anyone who was sent back to respawn. That’s been continuing almost weekly for the past four or five months. Eventually we stopped fighting when our numbers got low.”

“That would explain why none of you have armor.”

“Bingo. They just take it. Luckily the system generates basic clothing for us otherwise we would all be naked. Needless to say, morals been really low. Some have abandoned the cause willingly.” Tom paused for a moment before continuing. “It's not all bad, though. We just step aside when we see them coming and none of us die. Plus, they haven’t burnt down any of our homes lately. We tried building up wooden houses once but the raiding parties thought they were too defensible so they burned them down. Now we just stack the wood for fires.”

Toaby whistled. “Sounds like you all have a lot of issues going on.”

Tom chuckled. “Yeah. On top of the raiding groups stealing all our resources, making it near impossible for us to survive, we also have to deal with the local wildlife.”

“Local wildlife? You mean the bunnies and squirrels? I died to some wolves once.”

“They’re all not to bad. The wolves can be tricky, but as long as we keep the main fire lit, they stay away. Its the monsters. The sonic bats, the puppy spiders, the fanged monkeys, the list goes on and on.”

That surprised Toaby. He knew advanced AI ran the game world disguised as Gods but he never imagined they would create mythical creatures to pile on-top of the raiding parties and literal hell people were sent to upon death. Techavant are sadists.

“Any questions, lawman?” Tom smirked.

“Ya, only one. What in the hell is a puppy spider?”

Tom laughed. “A spider the size of a large puppy. Trust me when I say, they’re nasty buggers. They’re venom can paralyze you and then they wrap you in a spider silk cocoon where they slowly feed you to their brood.” Tom shivered. “Happened to me once. Up there in my top five worse deaths ever.”

“You have a top five?”

“Live long enough in this world and you’ll develop a list too. Just a matter of time.” Sebastian came over and placed a large spit over the fire. There were slices of fruit and meat chunks on it. “Looks like lunch will be ready soon. You should try to mingle a bit before the feeding frenzy.”

“Sure. Thanks for the background. I can’t promise anything, but I am here to enforce the law of the land.”

Tom nodded. “Thats all we can really ask, right?”

“The introduction of the Gods’ mark system should help quite a bit.” Toaby suggested.

“How so?”

“Think about it. When the raiders come back and we manage to kill some of them, they’re bound to have marks on them. That means we’ll come back hours before they do. Not only will it buy us time to regroup and rebuild, but maybe staying in Helheim for a few extra hours each time they die will sway some of them to leave us alone.”

Tom slowly nodded. “Yeah. That could work but these guys are pretty persistent.”

Toaby shrugged. “We can talk more later and come up with a plan. You said they just raided you a few days ago?” Tom nodded. “Then we have a four or five days to figure something out.”

Standing and looking around for someone to talk to, Toaby felt a tap at his back. Tom reached out for a handshake and Toaby obliged. “Food should be up in ten.”

Nodding, Toaby looked around. He was never a really outgoing person when it came to interacting with strangers. So when he saw Sam’s familiar face, he approached him.

“Hey, Sam.” Toaby waved.

“Oh, hey.”

The two stood in awkward silence for a moment. Exactly how I thought this would go. Then a question popped into Toaby’s head. “Someone mentioned you could salvage hides from rabbits. Mind sharing how? I didn’t see any hides in the loot table.”

“They can be in the loot table, but its rare. Normally you have to skin them. If you have a skinning knife,” Same produced a small, wide blade from his waistband, “you can try to skin animals. It’s kind of neat. The system brings up this mini-game showing you where to drag your knife. If you try it a couple times, you get a skill that makes it a lot easier.”

“That sounds kinda fun. Can you show me how sometime?”

“Mmmm, I can, but you probably don’t want to learn it.”

Toaby cocked his head. “Why not? Isn’t it a good idea for all of us to pick up as many skills as we can?”

“There in lies the problem. You do know there's a limit to the number of skills you can learn, right?” Toaby shook his head. “Really?”

“I didn’t get the information pamphlets like most of you.”

“Like all of us. That’s strange. They’re supposed to give it out to everyone. I’m pretty sure its a condition of signing up.”

“I had an… unorthodox introduction to the system.”

Sam shrugged. “Oh well. Do you mind sharing your character sheet with me?”

Sam has requested access to your character sheet.

Do you accept?

Yes / No

Toaby mentally selected yes and his character sheet opened in a large window in-front of him. Sam outstretched a finger and read through it.

“Level one? You really are new.” Sam commented.

“Thanks.”

Sam pointed to Toaby’s strength attribute. “See how you have two strength?” Toaby nodded. “Whatever level your individual attribute is at, that how many skills you can have associated to that particular attribute. Right now you have axe mastery, so you can learn one more skill associated to strength until you choose to level that up. Since you didn’t get the pamphlet, I’ll also let you know that your skills can only level up to three times your current character level. Since you’re level one, your skills can’t increase past level three.”

“Wow. That’s a lot of information. How do I increase attributes?”

“You need to level up. Every time you level up you get one point to spend in each of the attribute groups, body, mind and spirit. You get to choose which of the stats to increase with the point. Other than that, you can increase your attributes by using it a ton.”

“Using it a ton?”

Sam nodded. “Ya. Nate gets a point in strength every few weeks from his mining. Same with Curtis and his blacksmithing. Its kinda rare, but it happens.”

“Ok. So, what attribute is the skinning skill under?”

“Agility.” Sam pointed to the stat on Toaby’s sheet. “And it looks like you can’t get any more agility based skills. Not sure you would want to waste a slot with skinning, anyway. Sounds like you’re going to want more combat focused skills.”

“Yeah.” Toaby scratched the back of his neck. “That makes a bit of sense. Anything else I should know?”

“Other than lunch is ready?” Sam chuckled before scratching his chin. Then his expression changed. It looked like a light bulb went off in his head. “Experience points. You need a hundred to level up, but that doesn’t change. You always need a hundred. The only difference is that the experience you gain for certain activities changes. For example, I’m level three and I don’t get any experience for killing a rabbit anymore and it dropped from five to three when I hit level two.”

“Ok. This is all really good information. What about…”

Sam raised a hand to stop the onslaught of questions. “Later. I need some food and, thanks to you, rabbits back on the menu!” He clasp his hands together and rubbed them greedily before darting to the central fire.

Toaby followed shortly after and took a seat on a log. Sebastian brought him a clay plate with a few pieces of rabbit and slices of roasted fruit. It wasn’t a complex meal, but it was clear that it was well seasoned and smelled heavenly. He hadn’t eaten since that morning, so he didn’t hesitate.

Popping a piece of roasted odalon into his mouth and smiled. It tasted similar to roasted pineapple, and he defiantly tasted cinnamon. The meat was next and he couldn’t wait. He never had rabbit before, and if the odalon was any indication of Sebastian’s cooking skills, he was in for a treat.

“Mmmmm.” Toaby moaned in pleasure as he gobbled down the rabbit. Everyone around him chuckled. “Sorry.” He said through a full mouth.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it. I spent a lot of time in the prison kitchen and picked up a few tricks.” Sebastian said with pride.

The people around might have laughed at him, but the system agreed with Toaby.

You are well fed and will receive a 10% bonus to experience gained for the next 1 hour.

“So. Are we what you expected? Think you could fit in here?” Tom whispered to him.

“I think I’ll like it here.”