by R K Billiau
Parkour – 2
Throwing Mastery – 3
Diving – 4
Toughness - 5
I had leveled up and was given 100 points to divide up among my expendable pools. I didn’t know what I would end up using more of so I divided the points equally. It was kind of painful not being able to theorycraft a character build with the power of the internet. I didn’t know if I would ever get used to it.
I made my way down the gentle slope, excited and nervous at the prospect of meeting people. One thing that fascinated me was the sheer amount of life there was! Birds flew overhead, wild rabbits and other small mammals ran around all over the place. Insects were everywhere, deer bounded about. The huge herd of bison moved like an ocean across the grassy plain.
It was amazing. Besides videos, I had never seen this much wildlife. In the ruins of the cities I used to work in you would run across packs of feral dogs, and there were cats everywhere, the product of domestication gone bad when the people all went away. This was different though. I felt like I couldn’t walk 10 feet without running into something alive.
The other thing that caught my attention was the tiny flashing exclamation point on my HUD. I opened it and read the message.
Welcome to PrimeVerse! To help acclimate you to this new and exciting world, we have chosen a carryover skill for you from your previous life. You will have this skill at level 50! We hope this helps you in your new life! The skill that has been chosen for you is: Scavenging.
Oh. Great. Just what I wanted. Not. Well at least there were other more interesting abilities from my class. I hoped there was some crossover though, so I figured I should at least look.
Scavenging: A cumulative bonus of .5% per level of skill to the chance of increased rewards from all lootable objects. Level 50 milestone ability; Doublecheck - May reopen lootable objects that have already been looted to receive a reward from the object’s base loot table.
That was really nifty! I didn’t know what a base loot table was, or if it stacked with Lucky Find, giving me even better loot rewards, or if it was a separate loot roll. Either way, more loot was good! That milestone skill would come in handy as well. Before I closed my HUD, I wanted to check out some of my other skills. Sucker Punch caught my eye, so I clicked on it.
Sucker Punch - A surprise attack granting an increased chance to hit and damage. +100% accuracy, +100% damage, increases by 2% damage per level of skill.
I closed my screen and looked around for a target to try this combat skill on. There! A small group of rabbits. I figured it was a good time to practice my throwing and maybe even get something to bring as a welcome present to whoever was down there. I picked up a rock, took aim and threw it at the closest grazing rabbit.
Sucker Punch! Your attack catches the opponent off guard!
You inflict 22 damage!
Rabbit has died!
Congratulations! You have increased your Sucker Punch skill!
That was a great shot! The bonuses to hit and damage from Sucker Punch were nice! The other rabbits in the group stopped chewing, their heads poking up and looking at me sideways. I grabbed another rock and threw it at the closest one.
Your attack misses!
Huh, Sucker Punch didn’t activate that time, and my throwing attacks were still low level. I would have to work on that. I was just reaching down for another rock when I noticed all the rabbits in the group were staring directly at me. And if I had to guess, they looked angry. I got a little nervous and straightened up just in time for them to come charging at me. Four rabbits leapt, scaring me more than damaging me, but their little bites hurt!
A rabbit bites you but misses!
A rabbit Bites you!
2 piercing damage
A rabbit bites you
2 piercing damage!
A rabbit bites you!
2 piercing damage
I smacked at the rabbits, trying to get them off me, panicking just a little. I had no idea rabbits were so ferocious! My pitiful attacks dislodged one, stunning it and sending it to the ground, but the others kept tearing into me.
A rabbit bites you!
2 piercing damage
A rabbit bites you
2 piercing damage!
A rabbit bites you!
2 piercing damage
They bit again as the one on the ground got back up and charged. That wonderful sad face of the Pain debuff appeared as they chewed on me.
A rabbit bites you!
2 piercing damage
A rabbit bites you
2 piercing damage!
A rabbit bites you!
2 piercing damage
A rabbit bites you!
2 piercing damage
A rabbit bites you
2 piercing damage!
A rabbit bites you!
2 piercing damage
Congratulations! You have increased your Toughness skill!
These damn things might actually take me down if I didn’t defend myself better. Focusing on just one, I slapped it off me, then ran over and stomped at it to end its threat. I got a satisfied grin on my face as I lifted my leg, but the damn thing scrambled out of the way at the last second, leaping back onto me! What the hell!?
A rabbit bites you!
2 piercing damage
A rabbit bites you
2 piercing damage!
A rabbit bites you!
2 piercing damage
A rabbit bites you!
2 piercing damage
A rabbit bites you
2 piercing damage!
A rabbit bites you!
2 piercing damage
Congratulations! You have increased your Toughness skill!
Holy crap. These rabbits might not be killing me, but the combat text sure is. I have to figure that out. First things first, though. I grabbed a rock, swatted another rabbit off me, and while it was dazed threw the rock at it.
Sucker Punch! Your attack catches the opponent off guard!
You inflict 22 damage!
Rabbit has died!
Congratulations! You have increased your Sucker Punch skill!
Congratulations! You have increased your Throwing Mastery skill!
All right! I needed to play to my strengths to do this. Sucker Punch seemed to work whenever my target was distracted, kind of like a sneak attack, I guess. It was odd it worked for throwing things, but I wasn’t about to complain.
A rabbit bites you!
2 piercing damage
A rabbit bites you
2 piercing damage!
A rabbit bites you!
2 piercing damage
I did it again, getting bitten the whole time I grabbed the last critter and punched its lights out. This was so annoying! A bunch of stupid rabbits got me down to lower than half health. Plus it really fricken hurt! The face in the Pain debuff Icon had gone from green to yellow, and from a frown to a grimace. I dropped to the ground to catch my breath.
Congratulations! You have increased your Throwing Mastery skill!
Congratulations! You have defeated a nest of Hearty Wild Rabbits!
Exp 10
Whoa! My first experience points! As soon as the message faded an empty bar appeared on the top right of my vision, segmented into 10 pieces. I watched as the left most segment filled up with a golden color. 10 XP filled it that much? I opened the primer back to the experience section.
To advance your class to the next level you will need 100 experience points. This counter resets every level. Experience points are earned through completing challenges that require effort. You will not gain experience points for actions that are too easy for you, however you may still increase your skills in this way.
It was a different system than in the games I was used to. Instead of an ever-increasing number of XP needed, you needed 100 every level. Once things got easy, class XP dropped off. Since I was only level 1, I figured everything should give me experience. I waited patiently for my health to refill a
nd noticed with some dread that my health bar only filled to 90% of its total and wouldn’t go any higher. Worried, I looked in the primer again.
Injuries;
When a character’s health drops below 50% they take a wound. Wounds prevent a character from healing to full through passive regeneration and need magic or expert help to heal. Each wound reduces your maximum health by 10% until healed. Each wound after the 5th also reduces your attributes by 10% until healed. A character can only sustain 10 wounds before death occurs. Some attacks cause wounds. After death, all wounds are healed.
That sucked. I thought back to my time on the island. I didn’t think I had ever sustained any wounds, so either the tutorial disabled them or I just died all the time. Probably the latter. At least since I was out of the tutorial zone I could finally take care of one annoying thing. I opened my settings and turned down notifications. Having my screen clog up with all that battle spam was annoying. I was able to fine-tune it so it only showed the battle log when I thought about it, but let most other messages through.
Well, time to check for loot. I got up and moved to the first rabbit corpse. I was happy to see it wasn’t a gruesome affair. Some games had touted their realism when it came to skinning animals after combat, the grind-fest monster hunting games in particular, but that was never my cup of tea. I touched the corpse, and it opened a loot window containing a pelt and some meat. Awesome!
I repeated this process for each of the corpses but on the last one, an additional loot window opened containing a small shiny rock. The window had a glowing yellow outline around it that read: Lucky Find!
Congratulations! You have increased your Lucky Find skill!
Beast Core: Hearty Wild Rabbit
Requires skill: Core Manipulation to activate
Charm slot: Earth attunement
Awesome! A beast core! What the heck was it used for? This was the second core I had gotten, and I still didn’t know what they were for. I looked in the primer but it had nothing on the subject. Must be one of those things we had to learn on our own. At least my Lucky Find skill seemed to be working.
I pulled out the two cores I had received so far. The rabbit core was a dull brown, while the dungeon core was green and pulsed with a slight glow. That was neat. With a shrug I equipped the dungeon core and was startled as a thin stylish leather band appeared on my wrist with the gem inside it. Great, now all I needed was the beard and a beanie to complete my retro hipster look. I slotted the rabbit core in and watched it appear next to the glowing green gem, its turd-brown a lovely contrast.
I continued towards my destination of the cave. If the sun was any indication, I guessed I was nearing the middle of the day. While I was walking, I opened my skills page and looked at Illugraphy wondering how to use it. I tried pressing on the skill, dragging the name of the skill to where a hot button bar would normally be, and experimenting with it, but nothing seemed to work.
Remembering back to how I had put gear on, I imagined a map, and then thought hard about turning Illugraphy on. A floating circle in the bottom right of my vision appeared with what looked like a top-down view of myself from about ten feet above my head. A mini-map! I spun around and the view on the map changed, spinning with me. This was great!
Congratulations! You have increased your Illugraphy skill!
I played around with the mini-map for a while, trying to zoom in and out. It zoomed out to about twice what it had started with, affording me a decent view of the area from another perspective. I spotted another rabbit nest on the mini-map I had missed with my eyes. When I zoomed in too far, it closed the mini-map.
Congratulations! You have increased your Illugraphy skill!
I gave it more thought trying to see if I could add a compass. I felt like something wasn’t quite clicking and nothing happened. Curious, I looked around the area and tried to judge what direction I was going by my surroundings. I had a feeling that one direction was north, and focused on it, giving it intentional contemplation.
Congratulations! You have increased your Subconscious attribute!
Congratulations! You have increased your Survival skill!
I could tell what direction I was headed using my Survival skill! Once again I considered my mini-map and tried to picture a basic compass on it, while focusing on my Survival induced sense of direction. It worked! I did a little jump in the air as a basic N S E W showed up on my mini-map in a navigation ring. This was so AWESOME! I loved being able to combine my skills like this!
Congratulations! You have increased your Survival skill!
Congratulations! You have increased your Illugraphy skill!
Congratulations! You have increased your Conscious attribute!
I hoped the rest of this world was as intuitive as this experience had been. I was almost starting to like being here. Almost. There was one thing I really needed to take care of though. The system messages were getting really annoying. I opened up the settings and saw they grayed out area for system messages was now accessible. When I selected it another menu opened up filled with sliders for all the different styles of messages. I turned the combat slider WAY down, so it would only give notifications on critical hits, skill successes and misses. I could still watch my health bar to see how hard I was being hit and this would take the stress of reading all that away during combat.
I contemplated turning off the skill increases as well, but in the end decided to keep them. It was kind of exciting seeing them pop up.
I headed towards the rabbit nest my mini-map showed, wanting to play with another one of my new toys. I got out my Infinite Notebook and wrote what I’d learned so far about the rabbits I had fought before, their attacks, my tactics to defeat them, and everything I remembered.
Congratulations! You have increased your Archive skill!
Making a small pile of rocks, I prepared myself and targeted a rabbit. I zoomed out on my mini-map until I could just make out the details of the rabbits and walked far enough away that they were at the edge of my map’s screen. The rabbits seemed oblivious as I wound up and threw at the closest one.
Sucker Punch! Your attack catches the opponent off guard!
Rabbit has died!
I paused as I watched the other rabbits in the nest raise their heads to look in my direction. I stood there doing nothing, and after a while the rabbits ignored me, going back to their eating. Stupid creatures. I crept closer and repeated the throw.
Congratulations! You have increased your Throwing Mastery skill!
Sucker Punch! Your attack catches the opponent off guard!
Rabbit has died!
This time the rabbits attacked. I had enough time to throw a few more rocks as they charged at me, missing with each throw. Boy I liked the accuracy bonus of Sucker Punch. The three remaining rabbits did their biting and climbing thing, but I knew how to handle them now. I still sustained another wound from this nest before I dispatched the remaining rabbits. Damn, I would have to work on my toughness. That Pain debuff really sucked. At least I got the pleasure of watching another segment in my XP bar fill up.
I archived what I thought might be the threat range of the rabbits into my notebook and put it away.
Congratulations! You have increased your Archive skill!
I didn’t want to spend any more time out here now that my maximum health was reduced by 20%. Walking towards the cave again I kept an eye on my mini-map. When I spied another nest of rabbits, I approached, concentrating on what I had archived about these beasts. To my delight I saw a red circle appear around the closest one on my mini-map. I backed up and watched as the circle turned yellow then disappeared.
Congratulations! You have increased your Illugraphy skill!
Congratulations! You have increased your Archive skill!
Congratulations! You have increased your Conscious attribute!
Another way I could combine my skills! By archiving what I thought was the threat range of the rabbits I could incorporate that data onto my m
ini-map. If I had this ability back on Earth, I would have been the richest delver there was! I wanted to find more people to share this with. I had to admit; I was perhaps a little lonely, and I wanted to be a part of the zeitgeist. Vowing no more distractions to myself I headed out once more.
A few minutes later I had an idea. Sure, maybe I couldn’t work on all of my skills, but there were a few I could work on while traveling. I hoped nobody was watching as I ran and jumped everywhere. I jumped and hopped and skipped and jumped some more, grinning each time the Jumping skill leveled up. I had gotten it to 9 when I saw another person. I swear he wasn’t there just a moment ago. There was someone only a hundred or so feet away from me, wearing the same Hunter class gear I had seen in the class selection room.
“Hey! HEY!” I ran over to him as fast as I could, I was so excited to see another person. When I got closer he looked at me, but his face brought me to an immediate halt. His whole face was covered in bites that looked like the rabbit bites I had gotten, but somehow much worse. “Dude, are you okay? Do you have some wounds? I can help you get back to your camp, I have this awesome map that...” I trailed off as he walked closer to me, his eyes vacant. I had a bad feeling about this.
“Whoa, uh, look, I don’t want any trouble... are you okay?” His eyes suddenly focused with a deep intense hatred and he charged me! I tried to dodge but was caught so off guard that I stumbled and he wasted no time, pouncing on me and biting me!
A zombie bites you!
Great. Zombies. Why does the first person I meet have to be a zombie?! I shoved against it trying to get it off me and screamed as it bit into my hand chomping right through a finger! The Pain debuff appeared, deep red, followed by the Panic debuff. I freaked out thrashing around trying to buck the undead thing off me. When I finally succeeded, I scrambled up, cradling my mangled hand. I noticed I had sustained another two wounds already and spun to get away from the thing. As I spun around I came face to face with another zombie that had snuck up on me! I jumped backwards in startled surprise, right into the arms of the first zombie.
Congratulations! You have increased your Jumping skill!
You have achieved a milestone in your Jumping skill!