[Headpat] Ability Acquired!

There is no truer way to show affection than giving one of your pets a Headpat. It will increase affection and reduce stress for both of you.

The pop-up came entirely out of left field. Before I could even begin to wonder about it, though, my very own disembodied Voice spoke. “Ah, your very first Ability! As you use your Skills, sometimes these Abilities will manifest. But you have to use the Skills in order to unlock these, since there’s no Player Levels or Classes.”

“I see.”I acknowledged as I stood. “So, any action I take can result in one of these Abilities being created? What’s the point in the Skills then?”

“Hmm…” Eve hummed in thought for a moment. “Well, Skills are actually Skill Trees, as it were. They’re supposed to represent a category of activities that are vaguely related, while the Abilities are more like specific actions in those categories. Any action associated with a Skill will increase its level, but only by repeatedly doing the same thing will the System recognize you as proficient enough to be given an Ability.”

“Does the System automatically perform actions for me if I’m using an Ability or something? Could I just use the [Headpat] Ability and be thinking of something entirely different, and it would keep doing it until I manually halted it?”

“Are you sure that you don’t remember anything? You’re really acing these!” Eve’s enthusiasm was becoming more than a little contagious. “That’s precisely what Abilities are meant for. When the System is sure that you understand a particular action, it’ll let you do it on ‘auto-pilot’, as it were.”

I nodded to show my understanding while surveying the area once again, looking for anything that might be helpful. There was still that lack of a concrete goal that was making me a bit jumpy.

Glancing at the Inventory Screen I still had open, a thought occurred to me. “What about for Skills I don’t know anything about? I’ve got these Conduits and those XP modifiers on my Magic Skills, and no actual idea how to do any Magic.” It was true. While I’d created that gust of wind, I had no idea how it had actually come about.

I could almost hear Eve nodding apologetically. “Yes, that is certainly an issue. It seems that you were able to at least use a bit of low-level magic on instinct before, but you’ll notice that it didn’t give an Ability, right? Combat Abilities won’t actually be granted unless you’ve actually used it successfully against another opponent, you see.”

Something she said didn’t sit right with me, and I wasn’t sure what it was. Then it hit me, she had called that low-level magic. Just what kind of insane place was this? I shuddered at the thought of what high-level magic might look like.

“It might pay off to find something to fight and attempt to get some basic Combat Abilities with your weapons and spells though. This place isn’t exactly meant for newcomers, as you might’ve guessed. I can’t really offer anything concrete, but I’m sure that the System will provide any of its unlimited Abilities with a bit of experimentation! It is a game, after all.”

Right, a game.

The thought struck me suddenly, setting into motion that part of my mind that was on the edge of remembering things. If it was a game, then there’s no way it would’ve put me somewhere with nothing around to help me progress. That’s what that part of my mind told me, anyways.

The word Dungeon crossed my mind, with images of caverns and castles following soon after. Nothing in the area really came close to that image though, so that was a dead end. Even if there was, would I really be prepared to go into a dark cave and fight off whatever was there on my own, as I currently was? No, probably not.

The thought of castles brought about thoughts of guards that would happily skewer an intruder. Shaking those images away, I pondered further, looking at my [Ring of the Watch]. “Hey, Eve? This is a game, but I still have to eat, drink and sleep, right?” The Ring implied as much with its description.

“That you do! The timescale here is a bit different than your original world, but your body is made according to the needs of one of the native Races here. According to these notes here, the Saxe, like most humans, require 10 hours of sleep each night, and can sustain themselves up to 4 days without water, or 20 days without food, though it’s much better to eat and drink on a daily basis, for obvious reasons.”

Does that mean I have 16 days before I die? Or that I need a quarter the normal amount of water every 4 days? The thought was an odd one, but I decided I wanted to get ahold of the vital resources for living before I did anything else anyways.

There was that river with the strange liquid that I could see from here. Even if it wasn’t drinkable, walking over there would give me something to do, so I decided to head off in that direction. As I did, I noted that all four of my monstrous companions followed after me without a word.

“So, Eve. These Abilities of mine, I don’t start with any, do I? I have to manually unlock every single one of them?” There was no sense in remaining silent the whole way. The more knowledge I’ve got, the better chance at surviving I’ll have, after all.

“That’s correct! There are settings that allow you to begin with certain Abilities, but the ones you chose don’t give you anything. Abilities aren’t too difficult to acquire though. At least, the more basic ones. Some of the advanced ones require a bit more time and skill for the System to register.”

Arriving at the foul-looking river, I was surprised that it didn’t stink of pollution. I’d been so certain it was the result of some kind of industrial complex upstream. Magic didn’t, necessarily, rule out the possibility of technology, after all. In fact, that part of my brain more familiar with this place seemed to suggest that certain places had lots of technology. Memories of black fog released into the air from large, towering cylinders passed through his head, though I wasn’t sure where they were from.

The river itself seemed to flow at a decent speed, not enough to sweep me away if I stood in it, but more than enough to keep it from being too dangerous to drink, assuming it wasn’t acidic. That theory was thrown out the window as I saw a fish swimming around inside it.

Even as I watched it, Monty’s feathered head came into view and he took up the fish, without hesitation, into his beak. Before I could look in the Quetzal’s direction, the fish was already gone.

Clearly it wasn’t acidic, if his pet hadn’t shown even the slightest hint of pain at throwing its head under the surface. When Monty and Charlotte bent down to begin drinking what, to me, clearly had the look of either poison or radioactive material, without any issue, I figured it was probably safe enough to at least taste it.

Cupping my hands, I hesitated a moment as they hovered over the stream. Taking a deep breath, I decided to just do it all at once and submerged them up to my wrists. When I did, my eyes closed, and I winced back, mostly out of fear rather than any pain I felt. I reopened them only after I was sure that my skin wasn’t bubbling in pain and let out a relieved sigh.

In fact, the rushing water felt soothing on my dry skin. I couldn’t quite put it into words, but it was… calming? With a soft smile, I pulled my hands from the river and brought them to my lips. The purplish liquid sloshed around in my hands and infinitesimal droplets escaped through the gaps in my fingers as I took a small sip of the liquid.

The taste was odd. It certainly didn’t taste like bad water. I think I know what water with too much pollutant, or heavy metals, tastes like. This was more like… how could I describe it? It was almost sweet, but just barely enough to notice. Yeah, that seems right.

[Observe] Skill acquired!

INT, WIS and Perception combine to give you insight into the world around you! This Skill will conveniently tell you what you may have reasonably been able to figure out with your current stats, in a neat little text box.

Well, I guess that Eve wasn’t lying when she said these Abilities aren’t that difficult to attain.

“Oh! You got another one! So quickly too! That’s usually the one that players get first, but I suppose that most Players don’t start with so many pets. Observe is a good starter Perception Ability, but you’re probably going to want to try and find a more advanced version of it if you want to learn anything really juicy.”

“Wait, like… upgrading the Ability? Or just finding a new, similar Ability?” I wondered as I sat down. I wasn’t particularly tired, but the newfound calm from the river’s water did help me relax a bit. Actually, it made me the most relaxed that I had been since I left the comfort of the Void. It was… nice.

“Both of those are viable options. You can’t really do either one as-is though, so why don’t we wait to explain that until you’re in the position to do so?” I shrugged but agreed. There was no point in Eve explaining a complex way to use the System that I couldn’t even access yet. I might very well forget it by the time I actually could use it.

Looking around, I found that sense of malcontent rising once more. I’d accomplished finding a water source that I could safely drink. I still needed food and shelter, though. So long as I could find somewhere that was close enough to the river to walk to, I should be fine though.

With a sigh, I stood back up. Looking around, I pondered whether I should follow the river up or downstream to look for a suitable location. This was always the worst part of survival sandboxes, finding the place for your first base.

The thought struck me as a tad odd. It wasn’t entirely mine, yet I found myself agreeing with it as scenes of a blocky world passed through my head. It was probably another case of my memories resurfacing. At least they weren’t being blocked off. It seemed like they just required a bit of… reminding to come back. Maybe playing this game really would let me remember exactly who I was, after all?

Congratulations, Perception has reached Level 3!

Have I been gaining Perception XP this whole time? Now, that thought was definitely mine. And it was odd. All I’d been doing was trying to piece the logic of this world together, to figure out exactly what was going on, and how to stay alive. Did I really just get a free level off of that?

Instead of dismissing the menu, I noticed a button on it that read Skill Menu, and decided to focus on that. Immediately, another menu opened up with a bunch of different Skills on it. All but three listed 0 XP though.

Perception was Level 3, with 273/527 XP to the next level. Survival was Level 2 with 216/264 XP to the next level. Lastly was Beast Taming, which I really didn’t remember doing, at Level 1 with 88/99 XP to the next level.

For a moment, I couldn’t help but think that it was a bit ridiculous to gain XP without realizing it. But then I recalled the Ability system and that train of thought disappeared. Sure, I could get all my Skills up to Level 100, assuming they went that high, but what use would it be without earning the Abilities for those Skills?

What’s the relationship though? Do Abilities have minimum levels for their associated Skill? Do higher levels increase their effectiveness? [Observe] mentioned combining INT, WIS and Perception, so was it that those three affected how much information it would give me? When I got more Abilities, I’d have to experiment a little.

Still, even with these new revelations, it brought me no closer to figuring out whether I should travel upstream or downstream. As far as I could see, there weren't even any interesting formations or structures in either direction that might’ve incentivized me towards one direction over the other. All in all, I was left with one thought.

I really wish I had a coin to flip.