So I learned a lot from accepting Daves, the guy who first stuck his head into the house, offer of food and an experience swap.

He introduced me to the other members of his little group. First and the one that stuck out to me the most was Clair, she was the one that tracked me to the house and while not conventionally pretty personality-wise the blond was exceptional.

The other two members of his group were Roger and Samantha, from what I could gather witnessing their interaction they were a couple.

The group had a pretty interesting backstory. Apparently they have been friends for years and were on a camping trip when the apocalypse hit. They had ventured to the nearest town and learned of the situation by talking to locals fleeing the town after the blue boxes appeared for them.

I shared most of my adventure leaving out some points such as my Otherworld Workshop and Astral Empowerment abilities as they had shared none of their capabilities save for Clair who told me how she tracked me.

Breaking me from my reverie dave asked the one question I had been dreading.

“So Jake, do you have any plans from here?”

The group had told me they had managed to get in contact with their parents before the technology had crapped out and agreed that they would stay put until the situation calmed down to an extent.

“I don’t know” I replied. “I have no real plans, but I was considering settling down somewhere nearby to test out magic more.”

This time Clair responded, “speaking about magic, what did you do to that fox? Its entire upper body was like meat paste.”

Figuring that there was no harm in them knowing some of what I could do with magic I replied “that was a magic missile.”

Dave butted into the conversation again, “if you want you could come with us back to our base. We have a watch set up so you wouldn't have to worry about animals attacking you in your sleep”

Roger immediately interrupted the conversation, “Dave, are you sure that’s the best idea, we just met this guy.”

Dave responded cryptically, “My skill thinks he’s being honest, that’s enough for me.”

Noticing my confused face dave clarified for me, “I have a skill that will alert me if a person in the area is being untruthful or poses a danger to me or my friends. It doesn’t react to you so that’s enough for me, we’ve been able to test it to make sure it works” his face darkened as he said the last sentence.

Noticing that he didn’t want to talk about it I didn’t press for any more details and I contemplated his offer. Contrary to what they believed I didn’t actually need a watch because I could just sleep in the workshop, at the same time they had not been openly hostile to me at all and this would likely be one of the only chances I would have to pair up with a group. Sighing I made up my mind.

“I’ll come with you if you guys don’t mind” I said looking specifically at Roger for the last part.

Dave briefly glanced at all of them and then nodded to me. “Welcome to the crew!” he said slapping me heavily on the back, I stumbled a bit and he laughed when I gave him the stink eye.

We made our way back to their camp and they told me some of what they had been doing recently more specifically.

Dave started, “Ever since these beasts were reintroduced we have been going around killing them for their crystals. When we killed our first one a tooltip appeared about their uses but judging from the fact that you took the crystal from that fox you have probably already seen that. We discovered that the crystals award 1-2 lifeforce when broken.” He was suddenly interrupted by Clair who chimed in with, “not that lifeforce has been any use to us yet. Have you found any uses for Lifeforce Jake?”

Despite my mental battle over revealing information, knowing that Dave has a skill that detects dishonesty I replied truthfully. “Yes, I have found one use for it.”

Clair excited now, “Really!!! What were you able to use it for?!?!”

I replied back, “one of my abilities uses it.”

Understanding that abilities were sort of a taboo conversation I pulled them into the equation and luckily Clair took the hint and just sighed disappointedly.

in the awkward silence that followed I decided to take a glance at my status,

Status: Name: Jake Voidle

Life-force: 80

Ambient Life-force: 2500

Titles:

Rare, sub:Variant: Tutorial, Going Against the Odds - Expand

Rare, Hidden: Lone Wolf - Expand

Affinity: Star Magic, Space Magic

Abilities:

Common: Mental Resistance Lvl.1 - Expand

Rare, sub:Unique: Discoverers Mind Lvl.2 - Expand

Legendary, Unique, Blessing: Astral Empowerment - Expand

Epic, Unique: Otherworld Workshop - Expand

Stats: Strength: 12 Intelligence: 13 (13.65) Endurance: 12 Wisdom: 16 Dexterity: 16 Charisma: 8 Hidden Stats: (must be discovered to add points) Willpower: 19 (21.85)

Noticing that Astral Empowerment was ready again I figured I would have to plan a few minutes to myself at some point to claim that.

Suddenly I had a worrying thought, “Hey Dave! Can you see other people’s status screens?”

He replied back with a relieving answer, “Not that we can tell, but an ability might make it possible.”

Internally sighing in relief I heard dave call out to me again. “Were almost there, only a few more minutes now.”

A couple of minutes later the forest opened up to a small encampment, everything was rather neat and orderly.

Samantha spoke to us, “Me and Roger are gonna go cook that bird we put in the freezer earlier” and then walked away with Roger.”

A little confused because I had never heard of a freezer that didn’t need electricity or an outside cold source I went to ask Dave about it but he answered before I could ask.

“We found this rock that’s really cold all the time for some reason so we made a makeshift freezer with it”

Mildly impressed I vowed to inspect it with seeking later to see if it was considered a crafting material.

Looking to dave, “Dave, do you mind if I take a little walk around the campsite to get myself familiar with the area?”

I wanted to redeem my Astral Empowerment as soon as possible.

Looking at me head-on Dave eventually nodded, “be careful though, while monsters don’t seem to spawn within a few meters of a person making the camp pretty safe the area around here is pretty dangerous.”

Nodding back I started walking in a random direction for about 3 minutes before sitting with my back up to a tree. Activating Seeking I saw no crystals in the area so I figured that I was clear of monsters for the moment. Opening my status screen I braced myself and activated Astral Empowerment.

At that moment I heard the thing I least wanted to hear, “Dave???”

It was Clair, I fell sideways due to the pain of my skill and Clair saw me and came running over.

“DAVE?!!? Are you OK?”

Fuck.