“Alright girl, easy there,” Jack said to the coyote as it stalked towards him. “I get that you’re not doing so well, but I ain’t such easy pickings, and I’d rather not start killing things. I will if I have to, but only as a last resort.”
The coyote ignored Jack’s words, continuing to stalk him in a circle that elicited a sigh from Jack. “Have it your way.”
Grabbing the backpack, Jack held it in one hand and moved in a circle, mirroring the coyote’s movements. He scanned the area for a makeshift weapon and saw a large stick that he could hold in one hand. It was gnarled and a bit bent, but it had a lump at the end that would make it into a serviceable club. Not ideal, but it would have to do.
The Coyote lunged toward Jack in a feint, but he wasn’t fooled and instead used the opportunity to shift himself over to where the stick was, scooping it off the ground and standing firm against the coyote, stick and backpack wielded like sword and shield.
“Last chance, girl,” Jack said. “I mean it. Hell, if all you want is a meal, you should just make your way to the bottom of that there cliff. Should be a nice juicy turkey waiting for you.”
The coyote’s response was to leap at Jack, but the old soldier wasn’t about to be caught by surprise. Tossing the backpack into the animal’s face, Jack took advantage of the animal’s momentary confusion and smashed the club down on her head, causing the coyote to whimper and retreat. It wasn’t enough to outright kill the animal, but it was sufficient to take the fight right out of her.
The coyote stumbled in a circle, then dropped to the ground and put her head under her paws.
“I told you, girl, I didn’t want to do that,” Jack said. He put his hands on his hips and scowled at the coyote. Little slips of paper kept appearing in the air, and it was annoying the hell out of him, so he just kept waving them aside. Once that stopped, Jack retrieved his backpack and finally looked inside. It wasn’t much, but there were more than enough rations, especially considering that he was in a forest that seemed like it might have some decent forage. Glancing at the coyote again, Jack pulled out two of the packages of rations and dumped the contents on the ground in front of the coyote.
“You eat those and get lost, hear me?” he muttered.
The coyote looked at him distrustfully, then nudged the food with her mouth. Gingerly taking a bite of the hard, beige substance, the animal quickly switched to gobbling it up. Jack shook his head at his own behaviour and sat down on a log. The coyote was still there, but they were both well aware of who was the alpha. She would leave him alone.
Putting the coyote out of his mind, Jack focused on the task of survival. The first thing he did was clear an area of dirt in a sunny patch of ground, then stick his camp knife in the dirt, point down. Taking a pebble, he placed it on the ground at the tip of the knife’s shadow. Once that was done, Jack set about seeing what supplies had been included in his pack.
There was rope, which was good, as well as some fishing line. The spool was small, but the low gauge suggested okay length, probably 50 metres. By his guess, it was maybe 10 lbs test, good enough to grab a trout or bass if he found some decent water. Hopefully, he wouldn’t hook anything bigger than that, or it could snap the line and make off with it. And if that did happen, well, maybe he’d live long enough to come back and do some proper fishing.
The rest of the bag was simple survival gear, nothing too special, so he sealed up the backpack and settled it onto his shoulders. Now he just had to head roughly northwest to get to Palmyre. Which meant finding out which direction was northwest.
Enough time had elapsed for the shadow of Jack’s knife to move, so he took another pebble and placed it where the shadow’s tip now rested. Pulling the knife out of the ground, Jack used it to draw a line in the dirt through the two pebbles, which created a line that he now knew was running roughly east-west based on the direction of the shadow’s movement. He then bisected that line with a perpendicular one and designated its points as north and south.
Another one of those damn papers appeared in the air, and Jack decided he should probably read at least one of them to find out what they were all about.
NEW GENERAL SKILL LEARNED!
Orienteering – Level 24 (Tier-II)
Hey, you need to read these things! I’ve been writing all kinds of witty stuff; you’re not supposed to just ignore it.
Tier-I Bonus: Inherent sense of north and south when outdoors.
Tier-II Bonus: Inherent understanding of your location relative to a target location.
3,950 XP Earned (cumulative)
Really? These things were just notices telling him what he already knew?
Jack batted the paper aside and resolved not to bother with them anymore. He had more important things to deal with.
Now that his compass points had been established, Jack set about defining some landmarks. There was a mountain range far off to the north and another one to the east, as well as another solitary mountain south by southeast that he could probably rely on for some directional sense. So long as the tree cover didn’t get too dense. The land itself seemed to slope towards the northwest as well, at least at this point. He couldn’t rely on that, though, so he used his makeshift compass to point himself northwest, then identified three trees off in the distance that were growing roughly in a line. Walking to the closest one, he stopped and once again sighted three trees in a line, using the latter two from the first set and adding a third, farther one. It was a boring as hell way to walk through a forest, but it would at least keep him from walking in circles. And if he hit some sort of natural barrier, well, he’d just have to go around, take a new reading, and do it all again. Lather, rinse, repeat until he hit Palmyre.
It was time to go home.
The turkey clucked throatily as she flailed her legs, wedged upside down in a small pine that jutted precariously out of the cliff face. Ten metres below her stood a cougar who had noticed the commotion and now paced back and forth in anticipation of her forthcoming snack. The turkey, however, remained oblivious, thanks to the dirty newsprint that hovered directly in front of her face.
TURKALETTA MILSOM-SULLIVAN
Renown: Level 1 – Poultry
Species: Turkey
Age: 15 weeks
Experience: 50
Experience to Next Level: 250
Base Attributes
Strength – 2
Constitution – 2
Endurance – 1
Dexterity – 1
Willpower – 1
Intelligence – 1
Charisma – 1
Luck – 3
AVERAGE: 1.5
The turkey repeatedly pecked at the paper, but it kept appearing and disappearing with every movement of her head. Finally, her upside-down position became more annoying than the paper, and she sought to right herself, but the tree kept bouncing with every movement. Eventually, the chaotic flapping of the turkey’s wings brought her feet into contact with the base of the tree, and she clawed frantically at the cliff face, inadvertently knocking free the clumps of dirt and rock that secured the tree’s roots. The loose soil fell onto the face of the cougar below, but she didn’t care. A bit of dirt was a small price to pay for a full belly. Hopping up on her hind legs, the cougar put her paws on the cliff and strained towards the turkey as though that tiny bit of proximity would cause her meal to arrive quicker.
Eventually, the turkey’s incessant digging became too much for the precariously situated pine. Roots began tearing out of the cliff face one-by-one, and with each loss of support, the process accelerated until finally, the tree broke loose and plummeted downwards, bearing the turkey with it. Unfortunately for the cougar, this happened at precisely the moment when some dirt had fallen in its eyes, so it didn’t see the tree plummeting towards it at an alarming rate.
You have slain a Level 8 Cougar Matriarch
Unmonitored Legend. No kudos necessary.
4,000 XP Earned
RENOWN LEVEL UP!
Level 2 Achieved
RENOWN LEVEL UP!
Level 3 Achieved
RENOWN LEVEL UP!
Level 4 Achieved
RENOWN LEVEL UP!
Level 5 Achieved
XP: 4,050
XP to next Renown: 1,050
Strength +1
Endurance +1
Dexterity +1
Willpower +1
Luck +2
Non-Sentient species. Base attribute change not allowed.
Strength -1
Endurance -1
Dexterity -1
Willpower -1
Luck -2
Animal growth process… not permitted. Tome present. Conflict requires Celestial intervention to prevent possible edge-case scenario.
Contacting Celestial representative: Carl.
No Celestial response. Edge-case scenario unresolved.
The turkey spasmed wildly, her feathers puffing out as some outside force ran through her. When the moment passed, she got to her feet and deliberately pushed the paper aside. After determining that no other threats were present, she extricated herself from the tree and bounded off into the forest.
Chapter 8
Peter
The moment Peter’s broken form appeared on the ground, Beth darted over to his side.
“Peter!” she shouted. She couldn’t see an obvious wound, but the pool of blood on the ground was growing larger. Reaching a tentative hand underneath her husband’s back, she was shocked to discover a mass of torn flesh beneath his torn shirt. “Oh honey, come on. You’ve got to wake up.”
Peter’s eyes flicked open and looked over to her, but they were milky and lacking focus.
“Can’t… can’t feel,” he wheezed, his voice barely more than a breath. There was blood on his lips that bubbled out as he spoke.
“It’s going to be okay. I’ve got something that will help.” Or so she hoped. She looked at the potion Vera had given her. Was she supposed to pour it on him? Make him drink it? Considering the size of the wound, there was no way she could cover it with the tiny amount of liquid in the bottle.
“I’m going to give you something to drink, okay?” she said. “It’ll help, I think. I’m pretty sure it’s magical.”
Despite how much pain he was in, Peter’s mouth still managed to turn up in a brief smile. He looked at her and very deliberately blinked once—Beth assumed that meant he was ready to drink the potion.
There was no way Peter would be able to drink while lying flat on the ground, so Beth heaved him up into a semi-sitting position, ignoring his wince of pain as she positioned him on her lap. She gave him an apologetic smile as she pulled the cork on the vial. “Sorry. I think this might hurt.”
Beth poured the liquid into her husband’s mouth. She was worried he might not be able to swallow it, but he gulped it down without hesitation. Now she just had to wait.
The effects were almost instantaneous. No sooner had his head tilted back than he jerked sharply and rolled over, falling out of Beth’s lap. There was a grinding sound as a disturbingly large dent in his back reformed into a proper position, followed by the open wound pushing out the dirt that had gotten into it, then sealing shut. As soon as the visible damage was healed, Peter erupted into a fit of coughing that left the ground in front of him covered in blood. It was so bad that Beth grew concerned he might have punctured a lung that the potion couldn’t heal, but soon his coughing faded, leaving him on his hands and knees, panting furiously.
Eventually he managed to turn to her and give a weak smile. “What was that you gave me? I thought I was dead.”
“It was in my backpack,” she said, showing him the vial, “along with a note saying that something had happened to you during your trip to the planet. What did happen?”
Peter’s eyes darted around as he visibly struggled for a coherent answer. “I don’t know. I was falling, and I was looking at something, then there was a flash of pain and the next thing I knew…” he shrugged. “Maybe I hit something?”
She sat back on her heels and looked at him with concern. “If you were falling anywhere as near as fast as I was, you would have landed as a red mist, not a bleeding man.”
“I don’t know what to say. It’s a mystery to me.”
Beth’s brow furrowed. “Me too. Whatever happened, though, you’re alive and thank god for that. I wouldn’t want to be doing this alone.” She did her best not to think about how so far as she knew, the rest of the family was doing this alone. Hopefully, they had somehow gotten paired up as well, but something told her that wasn’t the case.
She shook her head, trying to move on from the terrible thought. “We should get going. I got a message earlier saying there were dangerous creatures around here, and it seems to me that a blood-covered clearing isn’t a good place to hang around.”
Peter’s brow pulled together. “What do you mean, ‘you got a message?”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, realizing that Peter hadn’t experienced any of the Arenian oddities yet. “They come from your Tome of Knowledge. You know, like Carl mentioned?”
“Carl?”
“Yes, the lizard man from our living room.”
“His name is Carl?”
“Yes. Do try to keep up,” Beth said, giving him a wink to let him know she was kidding. “All you need to do is will your Tome to appear and poof, it’s there. Like this.” Beth held out her hand, and her Tome appeared. She grabbed it and waved it at him. Peter opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything, a second book materialized, this time in front of him—no doubt the product of him thinking about it.
Peter hesitated, then took hold of the book. Or maybe ledger was a better term—Beth recognized it as the kind of accounting ledger her husband used when he did the books for the farm. They always ended up getting beaten-up from him walking around with them—Beth kept bugging him to stick to digital—but he refused, insisting on a physical copy as well. Not because he was sentimental, mind you. It was because he was paranoid about getting audited by the government. A lot harder to refute a physical book than a computer file.
“Perfect,” Beth said. “If you look inside, there should be a page that shows your ‘Attributes.’ I believe that’s what they’re called.”
“Oookay…” Peter said. He opened it and leafed through the pages once, then returning to the beginning. “This is what you’re talking about, right?” He turned his book around to show her. For a moment it was blank, then words appeared.
PETER SULLIVAN
Renown: Level 1 – Unclassed
Species: Human
Age: 44
Experience: 0
Experience to Next Level: 300
Base Attributes
Strength – 20
Constitution – 18
Endurance – 14
Dexterity – 19
Willpower – 15
Intelligence – 19
Charisma – 14
Luck – 19
AVERAGE: 17.3
“Any idea what this stuff means?” he asked.
“Not really,” she said. Maybe by comparing them it would shed some light on the topic. “Your Strength and Constitution are much better than mine, not that I’m terribly surprised.” She gave him a sly grin and a nudge, causing him to roll his eyes. “Your Charisma is a bit lacking, though. Maybe we need to get you some etiquette classes?”
“Why? What’s yours?” Peter said.
“Mine’s 23.”
“23!” Peter said. “Christ on a bike! Thank god the Milsom women don’t pick their men for their charming personalities.”
“I was 19 years old. I started dating you because of your muscles, not because of your personality,” she teased. “I certainly wasn’t planning on keeping you around.”
“Good thing I knocked you up,” Peter said, shaking his head. “Thank you, Jose Cuervo.”
“You’re a doofus,” Beth said. She punched him in the shoulder, then stood and got her
bag. When she turned back around, she saw Peter staring at a mountain off in the distance with a dark look on his face. “Is something wrong?”
Peter looked back at her and smiled, dropping the melancholy expression. “You mean aside from the whole family being transported to a bizarre game planet? Nope, other than that, I’m fine.” He pointed to the mountain. “I saw that mountain when I was falling; it was somewhere to the southeast of here. I’m thinking that if we keep it behind us and just off to the right, that would have us travelling roughly north…”
“…and since this Palmyre place seems to be a fairly large city, there should be roads leading to it,” Beth said, finishing his thought. “Even if we miss the city, maybe we’ll hit a road and can follow that the rest of the way. Sounds like a plan.”
They did a quick inventory and discovered that while Peter’s backpack had not been damaged—it must have materialized after his injury—it unsurprisingly lacked the potion that had been in Beth’s. It did include an extra shirt that Peter could change into, though. Which was good, considering his current one was a shredded mess.
Once settled, they began their journey through the woods. Beth left everything in her backpack, but Peter looped the camp knife onto his belt “just in case.” They both knew it was more for comfort than anything else. The tool was one of the worst camp knives Beth had ever seen and was probably useless in a fight with anything tougher than a potato. Even then, she’d put even money on the potato.
Arrival: Legends of Arenia Book 1 (A LitRPG Story) Page 9
