Chapter 18 Unyielding

I opened my eyes. I was warm, covered in furs, atop a simple sleeping mattress. I wasn’t in a primitive tent, instead I was in a cave, where a fire was keeping the air nice and toasty.

I didn’t move. I just lay there, happy to be alive. My eyes closed, and I was surprised by what I saw. Not Iris, not Adrian. Not even…my life from before, but the war mechs. Twin gods of metal in the age of stone. So Miggy hadn’t been lying. It really had been a death zone. If anything, Miggy had somewhat undersold it.

Again I didn’t move. I couldn’t remember the last time I was truly safe. I checked as well, and saw that this had been marked as a safe zone. That meant it was free of mobs. It wouldn’t stop other avatars from attacking, but after what had happened the other night, I wasn’t particularly worried about this. A large number of notifications had built up, and I clicked through them.

I had gotten several more achievements from encountering traps, evading them, killing more avatars, and other events from the Adrian camp assault. I clicked through without reading. I’d had enough of that night, but I accepted the two avatar loot boxes and one primitive loot box gratefully.

Within I found three more health potions, a repair kit that would repair bone or below tier weapon or armour to full, or the next tier up to half. I also found another primitive distress beacon, immediately equipping it to my hotbar. Even if I never used it again, the previous one had saved my life. That thing was never leaving my hotbar.

Of the achievements, there were a few that I found interesting.

[Unyielding I – Survive overwhelming odds against ten or more avatars. Increased Stamina by 20.]

[Unyielding II – Survive overwhelming odds against fifty or more avatars. Increased Stamina by 50. Increased Stamina recovery by 1 per second.]

That would be incredibly useful. Stamina was used in everything from swinging a spear to running. This brought my total stamina to 320, which seemed more than formidable given my level.

[Trapper – Evade three traps within two minutes. Gain increased perception against traps. You now have a 10% chance to spot a trap even when not actively triggering perception.]

10% wasn’t much, but the fact that it would trigger even when my head was in the clouds and I wasn’t actively perceiving was good as gold to me. The last achievement filled me with a hollow dread, when I saw what it was called.

[Avatar Slayer – Kill ten or more avatars. Increases damage against avatars by 15%.]

I felt disgust when I saw what it did. I didn’t want this, a constant reminder of what I had been forced to do. It took me a minute to find the option I was searching for and saw that it was possible to reject perks. This one went into the reject pile. Interestingly however, I saw that it wasn’t to be a total loss. Rejecting a perk gave me something called a perk point, which would allow me to upgrade any perk from the Stone Epoch.

I got to my feet. Miggy wasn’t here, but this was obviously his camp. I felt…good. At least physically. Mentally and emotionally? That would lag behind. No amount of poultices would wipe away that night, but it was done now.

There was a little glowing arrow beside my character portrait. He seemed remarkably spry, unaffected by the anguish that was tearing me apart. He raised his eyebrows, gesturing to the quest log.

[Main Quest – Dawn of the Spear – You have awoken in the savage beginnings of humankind, where man first bested beast. It is time before civilisation, where tribes rise and fall across countless generations, lost to time. Find the Gate, and advance.]

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

[Requirements – Level five.]

[You have fought against traitorous avatars, vying for supremacy. Though outnumbered and hunted, you have vanquished your foes in deadly fashion. You have now reached level five. Take your level and proceed. You are becoming the warrior sharpened by the savageness of these lands. Do not look back.]

I almost laughed. I supposed that was one way to look at it. The character portrait gave a wry smile. ‘Thanks,’ I said, and he gave a little shrug as if to say hey, don’t mention it. With that, I clicked on the character portrait, the world disappearing, as I entered the level up screen.

This time the jungle had disappeared, and now I was on the open plains, the very same ones where those mechs had attacked, and where just in the distance I saw the main quest zone.

Once again my avatar stood before me. There were visible scars now, from wounds I’d taken, but they’d healed of course. That was one thing I was glad of. If this was the real world wounds like that would likely have earned me a place in a hospital bed. Here there was apparently nothing that couldn’t be fixed by some poultices and some sleep.

At least, I hoped that was the case.