I slept much better. I didn’t wake up to a snake trying to kill me, and when I needed to pee, I just stood up and went over the edge. The nice thing was I only woke up once by getting my face jabbed by a branch I was sleeping on. While this spot wasn’t great because it was so small, I figured it was better than being in the open.

When I got up, it was time to reevaluate what was going on based on my data. While it was true, I had no idea what happened to me to get me where I was and that things like HUDs could, in theory, be embedded into a person’s eyes. So I needed to think through a few of the other things.

First, there was the squirrel with the horn. Then there was the bird with one giant talon. The giant yellow jackets could have been something that mutated, maybe. While I could work all of those into the theory that I was picked up by Russians and experimented on, I’d have to also assume that all of the horror stories I heard in school about how radiation would mutate nature would be right. Add into seeing a second moon last night that wasn’t a copy of the first, and I’d have to completely reevaluate my current working theory, all the way to the trash.

The second moon was the kicker. If that wasn’t there, I could’ve gone on assuming that I was nabbed for some reason and used in experiments. While this could still be the case, it wouldn’t be the case that I was successfully running from the experiments.

If I was part of an experiment, then it was a VR experiment of some sort, which would mean that I couldn’t outrun it. If this was an experiment, then the data collection was ongoing because I wasn’t in a forest but in a lab, and I wasn’t walking around but strapped to a table. I doubted that there would be a way for me to communicate with the people running the experiment.

The other option that I could see through, for some reason, I felt like it was the right option because I was now in a different world. One where squirrels had horns, people leveled up skills and stats. One where there were two moons and people could survive being bitten on the head by a snake. One where something could read that they couldn’t read. That was the hardest one to get my head around.

If I was right and I wasn’t on Earth anymore, I needed to figure out what was going on with the skills and see if I could improve them. I had no idea where people were, and I needed to find people to survive better. While I personally didn’t like being near people for prolonged amounts of time, I wanted the outcome of other people. I liked not dealing with making everything myself and not having to guard myself against everything. I liked the idea that I could find someone who could teach me to read so that I could read like I already could…

To start with, I wanted to get a bit better at using my spear, and I wanted to see if I could work out some of the game commands that were now part of my life. But then, I had to accept that whatever was going on was reality to some extent and seemed to be helping or changing me. Once I did that, I’d see about moving on from where I was. I had food, water, and someplace secure to sleep until then.

The first thing that I wanted to do was try for some more fish. I wanted to have plenty to eat today since the two yesterday weren’t much. I knew that fish would be low-fat meat, so I would have to get something else to go with it, but I should be good with filling my belly with fish for the next day or so. I just hoped that one person and a spear couldn’t overfish this one part of the river.

I spent the next few hours in the river sans clothes spearing fish. Since I figured out how to fish yesterday, today went much smoother. I was pretty sure that I learned some techniques when I got the level zero skill, and I think some additional knowledge was added for using a spear for fishing when I got a level in spear as well. So by the time I needed to start a fire, I was 10 fish in. I figured that meant that I had lunch and dinner and perhaps some breakfast.

I got a two-part fire going. I somehow knew how to smoke the fish, and once I set up the fire, I was able to put three of the fish on for smoking while I cooked the rest to be eaten today. It took me about an hour for the fire to be set upright and then another thirty minutes to cook the fish for lunch and dinner. I knew that I’d need to keep an eye for the next twenty minutes or so to finish the smoking, and then I’d take it up to my ledge.

As I waited for it to finish, I figured I’d spend some time looking at my stats and seeing if I could get better at using the interface. It only took me thinking “my stats” this time, and then it popped up for me to see. I saw the changes in my skill levels last night after going to bed. So then I thought about just seeing my skills.

Skills

Level

Racial

Spear**

2

Survivalist**

4

Tracking**

1

Primary class

Enchanting

1

Script*

*

Ink making

1

Etching

1

Power imbuing

1

Socketing

1

Secondary Class

Ancient languages*

*

Non class skills

Hiking**

1

Climbing**

2

Primitive tool**

0

Natural Shelter**

1

Snake handling

0

Primitive cooking

0

*due to Wild Human starting restrictions of being illiterate this skill can not advance until literate.

** Racial Bonus for Wild Human, effective levels of all Survivalist class and warrior class skills plus 2

So if I could get skills, could I get just my attributes to pull up? Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out a way to just pull up my attributes. I could pull it with stats, but nothing more would pull up. So I figured that I’d try inventory to see if I’d one of those cool video game holding areas, but all I got was a complete rundown of what I’d on me at the time, which was just Fur Tunic.

I then smelled burning fish and saw that one of my three fish on the smoker had fallen down too far and was now charred. So I saved the other two and took them up to my bed. I wrapped them in some large leaves that I found so that they wouldn’t get my pack too messy, and I put the dry fish away. I then went back down to my little beach fire and kept working on figuring out my new life.

It took me a while of thinking before I remembered that many games would let you click on a skill to see a game description of the skill. Some would even give you some hint of what to use it on or how to be better. So I fumbled through and found that if I’d skill and just skills pulled up, I could use my eyes to focus on a skill to see more about it. I also was able to see what the categories of skills meant.

Racial Skills

These are skills that you got for being a Wild Human. You just know how to do these great things. Racial skills don’t give you the same level bonuses as class skills. To raise your Racial level to level two, you must reach level 5 in all Racial skills.

That was interesting. I can level my race, it looked. I had no idea what would happen when I did since this didn’t bother telling me. I wished that I could see the skill tree to know what was coming next and what I needed to work on.

Primary Class skills:

Skills tied to your chosen class. These skills must all raise a single level for you to move to level 2.

Secondary class skills:

Secondary class skills can function in place of up to 25% of your Primary class skills for level advancement at twice the level requirements. For example, for level two, any replacement skill would need to be leveled to level 4.

When I read that, I sighed heavily. I had to raise skills I couldn’t use because I couldn’t read up to level 2 or a replacement skill I couldn’t use up to level 4. That seemed rough for me, at least. It wouldn’t be much of an issue if I could read then, but I couldn’t; well,, I could just this place thought I couldn’t.

Sub-Skills:

Sub-skills are derived and practiced skills of a primary skill. All sub-skill practice can provide experience for the primary skill until the sub-skill is equal to or passes the primary skill. If the sub-skill passes the primary skill, it will become its own skill and will not become a sub-skill again if the former primary skill passes the skill level of the new skill.

While a sub-skill, the skilled use of the primary skill will provide knowledge and leveling to the sub-skill at a reduced rate of 1 percent skill experience. Sub-skill usage will provide the primary skill a reduced rate of 5 percent skill experience.

Then it was time to see what the skills said they would do. I hoped that I’d learn a bit about where they would grow and what I could do with them. I needed all the help I could get with being out in the middle of nowhere.

Most of the skills descriptions turned out to be oddly useless to me. Giving information that would be common knowledge to anyone who watched movies. Like spear and spearfishing.

Spear Skill Grouping Combat:

This is the ability to know how to effectively use a standard spear and not drop it. A standard spear is considered a single-pointed pole weapon of about 6 feet in length. Anyone can use the pointy end to poke, but you have learned how to stand and move. This skill lets you use any pole weapon of proper length as a spear and so you’re able to poke with them and block with the shaft.

Higher levels of this skill will let you learn how to slash and use the spear to disarm. Other spear-like weapons default to this skill until they are learned to the same level as the main skill.

This is skill doesn’t teach you to throw a spear.

You may use this skill as the base for any sub-skill of spear.

Known sub-skills

Spearfishing

Spearfishing sub-skill Grouping Non-combative:

Spearfishing is a sub-skill of spear. This is for surface spearing of fish. This skill, when developed, will help the user to better aim the spear when jabbed through the water. This skill, when used in conjunction with weapon-making, will provide suggestions to make a better fishing spear.

Then there were the ones that made me ask more questions. Like power imbuing.

Power Imbuing Skill Grouping Magical Craft:

You can imbue your Mana into items. This will grant the item power for the action that you want it to take. Also, you can imbue your Mana into items to hold your Mana for later use.

Take care you don’t over imbue.

Both skills showed the same matter-of-fact information, but the idea of magical craft was still something that I wasn’t sure about but that I would have to deal with. The other part was the warning given. None of the others gave a warning.

The only other skill that gave me pause to even think about was the last one. The one that, when I saw it, made my skin crawl just a little.

Snake Handling Skill Grouping Non-Combative:

This is the skill of having fun with a snake. Snakes move in all sorts of directions and, as such, are more fun to hold. Knowing how to hold one and move around it can help reduce the stress a snake is in and increase the chances of it liking you.

When I looked at all of my skills, I saw that there were things that I knew I wanted to work on leveling. I also knew that I was never going to work on Snake Handling. If I could get my tools higher, then I could get better tools, and it looked like I could work on some of my class skills now, even if I couldn’t read. I was hoping that I could find and imbue things to raise that level, and I should be able to make ink and etch even if I was just doing art at this time. If this was all just VR, then I might even leave knowing how to do some of these things better, at least in my mind. If this wasn’t, then using this world’s magic to learn would be useful.

After I figured out how to get to all my skills and I read through what all of them said, I looked up to see that the sun was going down. I’d spent a whole day fishing and thinking about skills. At least I’d have a better understanding of things now. I felt like I should’ve been taught this stuff, or there should’ve been a readme.txt that I could find. I settled in again for another night on my little ledge. Glad that I wasn’t having to worry so much about animals up here.

That night I had one of the most realistic dreams that I’d ever had.