“Time and tide wait for no man”
Sitting shocked on a low rise. Tobias started to address the question of what next. His mind spun, the sheer realism of his experience seemed impossible how did the simple VR system sitting in the closet in the bedsit possibly cause the physical reactions that he was experiencing. A Question for another day. So what next, his mind kept wrapping back to that, looking about he could see a glow in the near distance, this reminded him of the orbs that he used to make the choices while setting up his toon. So somewhere to go towards. He had let life happen to him far too much over the last few years. And that was not going to continue.
Standing he noticed in the corner of his vision a HUD had appeared, To the right 3 pairs of numbers had appeared a green 10/10 and beneath that a blue 13/13 beneath that a purple. glancing to the left the classic smiley face ??as he focused on the face a menu item appeared with the word status and that was all. He had expected the HUD to appear at some point but the limited features made it clear that he would need to earn the access that he needed.
As he approached the glow as expected words appeared To Exit 75 Points are required and the purple number started to Blink. The words were replaced with “New Skill (Basic Heads Up Display)”.
“Quests available” and the ?? started to blink. Focusing on the ?? displayed two menu options Status and Quests. Focusing on Quests displayed in the center of his vision with the background fogged out. Clearly, this would not be something to do in the middle of Combat.
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td colspan="4" rowspan="1">
Quests
Available
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Name
</td>
<td>
Reward
</td>
<td>
Description
</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Burning Bright
</td>
<td>
5
</td>
<td colspan="2" rowspan="1">
Learn how to create a safe fire for cooking and warmth
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Rat Hunt
</td>
<td>
5
</td>
<td colspan="2" rowspan="1">
Hunt for Rat nests.
Kill Rats.
Kill Big Black, the boss rat
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Warm coverings
</td>
<td>
5
</td>
<td colspan="2" rowspan="1">
Create Chest covering
Create Leggings
Create shoes
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Safe Lodging
</td>
<td>
5
</td>
<td colspan="2" rowspan="1">
Create somewhere safe to sleep.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td colspan="2" rowspan="1"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="4" rowspan="1">
Active QuestsReading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Architype Quest
</td>
<td>
25
</td>
<td>
Achieve 25 points
???
</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Leave Tutorial Isles
</td>
<td>
5
</td>
<td>
Complete Architype Quest (arrival location part of Architype quest)
or
Leave Isle once 100 points gained (choice of arrival town)
Or
Be teleported to random town once 100 points achieved.
</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
A great one for list Tobias start with the first list, focusing on the title of the first quest, A green tick, and a Red cross appeared in the center of his vision, looking at the tick the quest moved beneath the Leave Tutorial Isles quest in the Active Quests,
As he continued to focus on the new location a new section opened
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" rowspan="1">
Burning Bright
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Step
</td>
<td>
Description
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
1
</td>
<td>
Collect Tinder 0/5
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
2
</td>
<td>
Collect branches 0/10
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
3
</td>
<td>
Make fire pit 0/1
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
4
</td>
<td>
Start Fire 0/1
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
5
</td>
<td>
Fire is maintained for 1 hour.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Success
</td>
<td>
5 skill points
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Failure
</td>
<td>
Variable
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Tinder, remembering his days camping by the lake with his friends they used leaves and dry grass as tinder, so he started looking under some of the nearby shrubs quite quickly there a was a small ping sound and Minor gathering Skill acquired. And close by one of his hands was a bunch of dry grass already made into a small bundle. Pleased he kept looking only to be shocked as he suffered an attack from 2 Rats.
Starting his flame aura, he attacked the rats with his burning hands. Unfortunately, this failed to damage the rats. The aura succeeded in killing the rats before losing all his Hitpoints.
Feeling very foolish he knew at an intellectual level that Animals seemed to have little or no fear so he should have expected the attack.
The Rats has seemed to have gain initiative and had struck him first in each round, indeed just one more rat surprising him would have likely resulted in his death. This time remembering to cancel the aura, once his hit points reached maximum, the HUD reported the Combat summary.
[Fight Summary]
Damage taken 6, Damage given 8, Mana used 6. Duration 3 ticks
Combat reward
One Character point available to allocate
Loot 2 rat bodies.
Tobias focused on his status, in particular, his hit points. A formula appeared HP = Base + Constitution *5 + ???. Focusing on the question marks did not provide further information but focusing on Constitution displayed New Attribute Cannot exceed Strength. While he was able to Kill some of the local wildlife, he needed to survive so while the Characteristics were interesting, he had to put the point into the Constitution characteristic.
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
Player Tobias
</td>
<td></td>
<td>
Male
</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Characteristics
</td>
<td>
Strength
</td>
<td>
1
</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
Constitution
</td>
<td>
1
</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
Agility
</td>
<td>
2
</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
Intelligence
</td>
<td>
3
</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
Ego
</td>
<td>
5
</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
Hit-points
</td>
<td>
15
</td>
<td>
1 per tick
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
Mana
</td>
<td>
13
</td>
<td>
2 per tick
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Attributes
</td>
<td>
Mental Toughness (Ego)
</td>
<td>
1
</td>
<td>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
Affinity for Fire (Ego)
</td>
<td>
1
</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
Mana Boost (Intellect)
</td>
<td>
1
</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Skills
</td>
<td>
Flame Aura
</td>
<td>
3 damage per tick
</td>
<td>
2 per tick
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
Minor Predator Recognition
</td>
<td>
1
</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
Flaming weapon
</td>
<td>
1
</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
Minor Gathering
</td>
<td>
1
</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
History
</td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Near death Experience
</td>
<td>
Bonus Skill point
</td>
<td>
1 used
</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>