“Behind you again,” Ali calls out, bored now.
I spin, getting my arm up in time to let it chew on my forearm rather than my face and then proceed to stab it to death.
“Well, that’s one way of killing monsters. Maybe try not to let them snack on you as much when fighting next time,” Ali points out helpfully and I snarl at him, looting the balls of fluff. Really, fluff? That’s my loot? Fluff? Then again, what was I expecting from balls of fluff. I dump it in my inventory, grimacing and get moving to the stream I recall being around here, limping my way to it.
I wash my clothing as best as I can in the stream, Ali keeping watch above me. I work fast, getting rid of as much blood as I can without dampening my clothing too much. Wool or not, wet is wet and early April in Kluane means temperatures are only around 6 Celsius in the shade. As I clean myself, I ask Ali something that’s been troubling me. “Ali, how come the monsters never attack you?”
“They can’t see me,” Ali answers.
I frown, “But that first time…”
“I can become visible with effort, but I can’t sustain it long, not yet at least,” Ali pauses, turning to the East before he speaks. “Time to go pretty boy. Company’s coming.”
I get up hastily, shaking the water off my hands as I take off at a low jog South West, doing my best to keep as quiet as possible.
The sun has nearly set when I finally arrive at the car-park. What should have been a half-day hike has turned into a two day ordeal. I’m not surprised to see the burnt remnants of my vehicle, though the hissed word ‘Salamander’ gives me an idea of what could have caused the problem. Or would if I knew what a Salamander was.
“Giant lizard with a Greater Affinity to Fire magic. Breathes fire actually, some think it’s a lesser variant of a Dragon,” Ali explains. “Good news and bad news too.”
“Explain,” I murmur softly, eyeing the clearing for monsters.
“Bad news – it’s headed to your Haines Junction,” Ali motions to the rather obvious tracks. When I don’t bite at his silence, he sighs and explains the good news, “Its presence is likely to drive away most of the monsters from its path. Makes it safer to follow after. If it doesn’t double back.”
Great. Just great. I’m going to be following a giant, fire breathing lizard on its way to the closest source of civilization that I know of and hope it doesn’t notice me. At least it ain’t called Godzilla.
I’m not much of a gamer, but my ex was and I’d picked up enough of the lingo to know the term ‘kill stealing’. I would almost feel guilty, ending the life of these Lightning Elk and gaining some minuscule amount of experience from it, but considering they are either mangled or suffering from significant burns, I’ll call it a humanitarian act. Beyond those acts of mercy, I resolutely ignore the roasted, half-eaten corpses that make up the majority of the herd and the Salamander’s most recent meal.
Level Up!
You have reached Level 3 as an Erethran Honor Guard. Stat Points automatically distributed. You have 3 Free Attributes to distribute. Class Skills Locked
The locked skill draws a grimace from me but considering the ridiculous Stat increases, I can live with it. Since I have a brief moment, I pull up my Status Screen to review it.
Status Screen
Name
John Lee
Class
Erethran Honor Guard
Race
Human (Male)
Level
3
Titles
None
Health
190
Stamina
190
Mana
220
Status
Normal
Attributes
Strength
15 (50)
Agility
18 (70)
Constitution
19 (75)
Perception
12
Intelligence
22 (60)
Willpower
24 (60)
Charisma
8 (16)
Luck
10
Skills
Stealth
6
Wilderness Survival
3
Unarmed Combat
2
Knife Proficiency
5
Athletics
3
Observe
4
Cooking
1
Sense Danger
2
Class Skills
None (2 Locked)
Spells
None
Perks
Spirit Companion
Level 3
Prodigy (Subterfuge)
N/A
Unassigned Attributes:
Would you like to assign these attributes?
3 Stat Points
(Y/N)
“Whoa! Where did all those skills come from?” Seeing my Status Screen for the first time in days makes an eyebrow go up.
“You’ve been gaining them all along, I’ve just been hiding the notifications for now,” Ali shrugs, doing an aerial handstand as he waits for me.
“What! Why?” I growl at the little man, eyes narrowing.
“It’d be a distraction. It’s not as if you’d have done anything differently, would you? The skill gains from the System get added straight to your muscle memory and mind, so it’s not as if you haven’t been gaining from it as it stands. The rest is just numbers,” Ali sniffs. “Numbers mean jack shit if you aren’t doing anything. Best not to obsess.”
What he says reminds me of a conversation I had with a school counselor once. IQ means nothing if you don’t study he would always say. Hearing Ali mention something so similar, I can’t help but glare at him, “Next time, give me a summary every night will you? I’d at least like to know what’s happening.”
Ali sighs, acting all put upon as I get moving, adjusting the screen so that’s it’s mostly transparent as I get walking. I continue studying it, trusting in the little man to keep me informed. As annoying as he is, he’s a good lookout.
“Ali, the maths doesn’t make sense.”
“You got a few points from all that running and hiding you’ve been doing. And once you got a class, your Stats back paid into your Hit Points,” Ali states as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. To him perhaps, but it’d have been nice to know that could happen. The Help Guide he’d provided had given some understanding of things, but there obviously was still a lot that I didn’t understand. “Don’t expect any more though, you’ve leveled up to a point that unless you became a professional athlete, you’re better off spending your time leveling.”
I nod at his words and then try to decide on what to do with my free points but realise I have no clue, all of the minimums are so far away they might as well be on the moon. At a quick calculation, I’d need at least 18 Levels to get just my Strength up to my class level if I didn’t put any points into it. Instead, I leave the points unallocated for now. Maybe I’ll figure out what exactly I need later.
“Ali, question about messages. They seem to change in tone, from businesslike to well, kinda dickish.”
“Ah, well the base System messages are what you see mostly, the businesslike ones you mention. However, the GC has control of the messages too, so occasionally they take a hand especially if it’s something that interests one of their observers,” Ali explains.
“Observers?” I grunt, eyeing him and then the surroundings.
“Yeah, but you’d have to do something really big to get their notice. Don’t worry about it, not as if you can do anything,” Ali points out and I nod. I still find myself hunching my shoulders in a bit - Big Brother is watching.
A couple of hours later, I pause and pull out my compass. A quick reckoning of the path ahead and I look to Ali who nods confirmation to what I’ve guessed. The Salamander has changed course, moving away from the Junction.
Scarily enough, the Salamander is going to be one of the least powerful regular monsters that will inhabit the park from now on, using the overgrown and leveled up native fauna for its food source. Thankfully, the Salamander is dumb, a creature of pure instinct that roams the park and its surroundings.
Readjusting my backpack, I pick up the pace. Hopefully, there’s a car or some other vehicle I can borrow that’ll get me to Whitehorse. At the very least, there will be survivors who I can join.