Chapter 3 Hunter

Who are you?

I heard the words in my head, these spoken by a chorus of voices. Unlike the robotic undertone of Alpha’s voice, however, these were lilting and ethereal, as I opened up my character portrait.

I was transported somewhere that strangely resembled my own home, though it wasn’t the messy apartment in London that I knew. It was like a movie set, the living room unnaturally large and pristine, devoid of the takeout boxes and piles of unwashed laundry that were the usuals of my actual home.

It was lit impossibly well, as though there were several spotlights behind me, flooding the tiny London apartment. It had never looked so good, or well-lit. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d actually opened the curtains in real life.

I was standing in the centre of the living room, wearing the primitive armour and standing very straight. Good posture, better in fact than I’d ever had in real life. I looked down, but I had no body. Seemed I was a floating camera for this bit, as my own avatar stared at me, with a little gesture as though urging me on. I guessed this was the man behind the character portrait.

To the side of my avatar I saw several options, some of which were completely locked, like race, gender, and background. That seemed to imply that some people coming into this could change those things. The background tab was intriguing, and when I hovered the cursor over it, I saw

[Listen to the character’s backstory?]

Okay. Now I was intrigued. I clicked on it, and the spotlights dimmed, my avatar raising his head and staring out with steely eyes, with a smouldering intensity that I had certainly never had in real life. But it wasn’t cringe, it was…magnetic, forceful. It was like watching a one-man play of myself, and when he spoke, it was clean, enunciated.

‘I hail from the city of London,’ said the avatar, ‘in the last epoch before the incursions began.’ He swept his hair back, with exaggerated swagger. ‘I have spent my life simulating war. Learning all I could, honing my senses from Age of Empires to Doom. From Mortal Kombat to Enshrouded. Now I join the trials, that I might turn back the Great Enemy, and save the last of humanity.’

Okay. That was fucking awesome. Not that it made any sense. I hadn’t played video games for any war. I didn’t even watch the news. Still, cool start.

There were a myriad of options, but I remained conscious of the time limit. So many options, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to complete the levelling process, but thankfully as I clicked through I saw that much of it had already been pre-filled and apparently linked to my own natural statistics.

I had two tags. The first was headstrong.

[Headstrong – A head as hard as sky-forged iron and twice as thick. +2 to willpower, -2 to morality.]

I couldn’t tell whether this was a compliment or a backhanded insult. Maybe both. The second was slither.

[Slither – Silent and waiting, the snake strikes when victory is assured. +1 to stealth, -1 to performance checks.]

Okay, that seemed pretty useful. The negative to performance checks did not seem like a big deal at all. Wasn’t like I planned to juggle my way out of combat encounters. I could check the rest of it later, right now I needed to pick a class.

The class screen was enormous. I mean literally, a tower of classes that stretched apparently infinitely, but almost all of it was blacked out and blurred, hidden behind restrictions that I couldn’t even read. Right now, there were three classes that could be selected from.

[Barbarian – You have chosen the path of the first warriors. You are the first into battle, and the first to draw blood. +2 strength, +1 endurance. Proficiency: club, spear. Abilities: Wild rage – you enter a rage mode for ten seconds during which damage is doubled and damage to you is reduced by half. Beast throw – thrown weapons increase damage, scaling to your strength. Chance to hit also increased by 5% per level. Once per long rest, you may bind one weapon to you, which will return upon throwing every ten seconds.]

I guessed that this was the standard tanking, front-lining class. Useful, I thought, selecting the next class.

[Shaman – The wild spirits of the open plains call to you. The ancients live through you, enhancing your connection to the land, and giving you access to ancient magics. +2 intelligence, +1 wisdom. Proficiency: shaman’s staff. Abilities: Ancient force – channel the magics of the land and launch a force-spell that deals ten damage on impact and one damage per second for five seconds (scales with level).]

Okay. That was clearly the wizard or mage class of this era. Also interesting, but I never like magic classes. Too much of a liability, and I wasn’t about to do tiny damage with a staff whilst waiting for my spells to come off cooldown. Finally, I came to the last class.

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[Hunter – You have chosen the life of the predator, specialising in stalking prey and striking from the shadows. You are one with nature, and have detailed knowledge of the land, improving survival. +2 dexterity, +1 strength. Proficiencies: bow, spear. Abilities: Keen eye – you are able to hold your breath, clearing your senses and slowing time for two seconds to make the hunter’s kill. Survival – you are able to survive longer in the wilderness than most. +1 to cooking, +2 to nature.]

I smiled. ‘Hunter,’ I said, and as soon as I did, I felt it. My lungs were inflating with air, a tingle down my spine. I felt as though I was an inch taller. I moved my arms, but…they weren’t mine. Were they? I was hardly out of shape, but it had been months since I’d hit the gym. Now my arms showed what looked like the beginnings of definition. I had muscle.

What’s more I somehow felt lighter, and although the room hadn’t changed from its gloomy state, my eyesight was keener.

‘I can get used to this,’ I muttered, opening up my stats menu.

[Strength – 5] [Charisma – 7] [Dexterity – 8] [Wisdom – 4] [Intelligence – 7] [Constitution – 5]

I could see the stats were out of a total of ten, at least to begin with, presumably I could increase them as I levelled. Without any context, it was hard to judge whether these were good stats or not, but I certainly wasn’t upset with what I was seeing. The added dexterity from my chosen class had been a nice boost. I felt a thrill, wondering just how these stats would translate to real life, or at least whatever this place was.

‘Ten minutes remaining,’ said Alpha, reminding me sharply that there was an ever-present clock.

I hurriedly closed down the UI and glanced back to the room I’d come through, and then quickly to the armour of the Reaver. I noticed it more now, the fine detail of the individual armour pieces, interlocking in their verdant green. They looked nimble, and not of any material I’d ever seen. Wherever it had been crafted, it wasn’t in this time period, or even the modern day I’d come from.

‘Nine minutes remaining.’

I wasn’t about to get vaporised out of existence from indecision. I had to be smart. If I could do only one thing in the tutorial zone, I knew what it would be.

‘Alpha, what are the Doomsday Trials?’

Alpha disappeared. Well, actually it seemed to explode before me, its shimmering blue body sparking like fireworks all across the gloomy, forgotten room until every corner of it was bathed in the aquamarine light.

‘Humanity stretched across the ages,’ said Alpha, though its voice sounded different, more human. Either it was a pre-recording or perhaps an earlier version of Alpha, it sounded far more real. ‘We rose from tribes,’ the blue lights formed, showing a three-dimensional video so real I thought I could reach out and touch it, of a group of prehistoric hunters, stalking what looked like deer, ‘to form the great cities, the first of our civilisation.’ Now I saw ancient cities, built into what looked like swathes of desert, towering from the sand, the camera panning across like it was strapped to a flying eagle. ‘Stretching across time, humanity came to become the dominant force on planet Earth, until finally we stretched far beyond that.’