chapter 7 The Thief

[Combat log.]

[Sabretooth King – Fall damage 2523. Experience gained 2402.] [Wolf – Critical strike (spear) 13 damage. Experience gained 150 (split with party).] [Apex Wolf – Critical strike (club) 15 damage. Experience gained 300 (split with party).]

I stared at the log, my user interface open before me. I had retreated to one of the abandoned tents, ignoring the offers from the other avatars to join them by the campfire. The log was impressive. It detailed every action I had taken since coming to this place. Every kill, every amount of experience gained.

I saw that it wasn’t just combat that granted it. Some was for crafting, some for achievements, others for discovering new zones. This place rewarded momentum, and punished inertia with a plague of enemies. But there it was, plain as day. Experience was split, and this was only between myself and one or two other people.

What happened when that experience was split between ten? Twenty? What if combat was avoided altogether? Or everything that granted experience? Inertia was death. Apathy was death. These people were slowly marching to their own graves, they just didn’t know it yet.

I closed the user interface. I felt the impacted earth beneath my feet, grounding me. The night air was cooler, and just beyond the confines of the tent I saw the glow of the fire. Laughter. Voices.

‘How?’ I said, addressing my question to my own character portrait, the only person I could speak to. ‘How have they been here for six months and haven’t worked any of this out?’ My character portrait simply looked back haughtily, bordering on disdain.

No answers, not for me. I’d even tried to return to the tutorial zone, but Alpha had been true to its word. Long gone. If I was going to get any answers, I’d have to find them myself.

[You have earned enough experience to level up. You may only level up whilst in a safe area. Your current area is deemed safe, would you like to level up?]

I was transported once more to the world of my character portrait, except this time the movie set of my London apartment was gone, replaced with the savage lands themselves. My digital self, frankly, looked magnificent. I peered at him, seeing the definition of muscle in my arms, the broadness of my shoulders. My hair seemed wilder, growing more than it could possibly have done in the few days I’d been here.

There was jungle in the background, though whether it was one I’d trekked through or simply another generic one, I didn’t know. I stood there, impassively, bow in hand, scanning the horizon, every now and then drawing an arrow.

I liked this place. Quiet. Ordered. This place made sense, and was for me alone. I had three levels to go through, and wondered vaguely if there were any way to undo levels at some point in the future, but something told me decisions were final.

My digital self stared directly at me, as if to say ready to proceed? I mentally nodded, entering.

The classes appeared once more. Hunter, shaman and barbarian. I could see that I could proceed to hunter level two, or multi-class, immediately picking up the others. I hadn’t expected that. So in theory, I could become a hybrid of all three. I frowned, wondering what the downsides were, as I examined the three classes more closely.

I could see they all had a primary statistic. Dexterity for hunter, strength for barbarian and wisdom for shaman. My current stats were

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

There was probably some clever way to multi-class, but all I could think was that by doing so, I’d simply be weakening myself. If I wanted to be a powerful hunter, I would need to focus on dexterity. Splitting and trying to pump my wisdom would simply gimp my build.

I selected the level up for hunter, and felt that bathing golden light once again, as well as that angelic chord. I swear there seemed no sweeter sound I’d ever heard in my life. I did it again, hitting level three, and this time was presented with the choice of two different hunter abilities.

[Venom – launches an arrow infused with serpent venom, slowing your opponent and with a chance to poison.]

It was on a one minute cooldown, but seemed powerful, perhaps an ability you’d use straight from stealth to get an advantage. I hovered over poison,

[Poison – scaled with level. Does six points of damage over five seconds. Stacks.]

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It stacked. Okay. So perhaps there was some kind of poison build out there.

[Shadowstep – Once per long rest if spotted, your opponent will lose track of you immediately for five seconds, unless they pass a successful perception check.]

That seemed immensely useful, like some kind of get out of jail free card if spotted in stealth. I hovered my cursor over perception check,

[Perception – ability to detect the environment around you. Influenced by intelligence. If used by an avatar, will also be heavily influenced by actively attuning to the environment around you.]

Venom. Shadowstep. One to fight. One to run. I thought on the day, of all the fights I’d had since coming here. Who knew what fights lay before me? I remembered the words the system had said when I had first levelled. Who are you?

I selected my ability, and completed my levelling.

[Hit points – 450] [Mana – 50] [Stamina – 250]