Hemirtal, Draft 01, CH 05 (Patreon)

He swung down, and dirt flew.

William attacks Rabbit with Club (0+Roll 19)

Rabbit Dodge (15+Roll 8)

William Misses, Attacks ground

4 Damage to Environment

James cursed and brought the club down on another rabbit, which was already no longer there.

William attacks Rabbit with Club (0+Roll 1)

Rabbit Dodge (15+Roll 12)

William Misses (critical), Attacks ground

Ground counters (Stun Debuff, 2 second)

The dirt flew in his face and he spit it out.

How was this a tutorial? There were no targeting systems, no bar telling him how many hit-points, or ability to aim. He had stamina. He knew that, because all this missing the rabbits and bashing the ground had left him panting. Panting, in a video game. He chuckled. There was a level of realism he’d never thought of.

He watched the rabbits move back together a few meters away and go back to munching grass, digging for roots, and other things rabbits did. Unless he was attacking them, they didn’t even seem to realize he was there.

The yellow bar at the bottom of his vision flashed full and vanished. Time to get back to it, unless he wanted to leave with an incomplete quest? It wasn’t like he had anything to prove. In a few days, he’d be pulled out and this character would be erased. If there was any kind of punishment in-game for not completing it, it couldn’t be so major as to make it unplayable.

But the problem was James.

He never left a job unfinished. Interrupted happened often, but always returned and finished it. If he expected to have as much time as he wanted, maybe he could walk away, to return later with a sword bigger than he was and enough skills to have them die with a look. But he didn’t.

He snuck to the closest rabbit, raised the club over his head and brought it down, and moved to run after it, only to balk at the message that appeared before him

William attacks Rabbit with Club (0+Roll 19)

Rabbit Dodge (15+Roll 1)

William hits Rabbit (4 points of damage)

You have killed Rabbit.

You have gained: 2 Rabbit Meat, raw. 1 scrap of Rabbit Fur

Quest update: It’s only fast food if you have to chase it.

Rabbit killed 1 out of 5

James waved the window away, then looked around for his loot, but didn’t see it; or the dead rabbit. He brought up his inventory and saw that two of his four slots were now occupied. Two rabbit meat, and a scrap of rabbit fur. And no need to worry about leaving loot behind, unless he ran out of inventory space. Four slots weren’t much. The Traveler’s Pouch was what gave that to him.

Traveler’s Pouch

The Traveler’s Pouch is the starting item every Stranger needs when traveling, allowing you to carry four stacks of items. The maximum size of a stack for the Traveler’s Pouch is 10. With the right material and skill, the Traveler’s Pouch can be upgraded. Material needed: 1 leather, 1—

James dismissed the window.

“Focus. There isn’t any time to read everything.”

The rabbits had assembled together again, not caring about their missing pack member. Was a group of rabbits a pack? He should his head to clear it and approached the closest rabbit.

The club swung down, hit the dirt,

William attacks Rabbit with Club (0+Roll 12)

Rabbit Dodge (15+Roll 24)

William Misses, Attacks ground

4 Damage to Environment

and the rabbit was running with James—

Congratulation, you have brought the skill: Club to level 1. Continue practicing and soon you will be an expert at swinging broken pieces of wood about.

James cursed, and he swung at the window, tripping over a root in the process. On the ground, he cursed the game and opened the system commands, looking for the notification setting and set everything to off, then thought better of it and located the setting for quest messages. The options were extensive, from a flashing box, to adjusting the size and location of the messages. He settled for a line at the bottom right with only the name of the quest, and for it to appear only when a quest was completed. Every other message he left off.

He stood and squared his shoulders. “Okay, rabbits, I now have the skill, so I’m going to be done with you in no time at all.”

* * * * *

No time at all turned out to be sometime later and two levels of his clubbing skill. Which he found out after the quest message appeared, letting him know he’d killed his fifth rabbit. Level three in club wasn’t the advantaged James had imagined it was, and now he had five cooked rabbit’s legs in his inventory and a Fame point.

Catching his breath, he brought up the completed quest message.

Quest completed: It’s only fast food if you have to chase it.

Congratulation, you have killed 5 harmless little rabbits, and as a reward, you have received 5 cooked Rabbit meat and 1 Fame point.

The world of Hemirtal doesn’t use experience, as other games do, it uses Fame, which served to both indicate the level of your accomplishments and to purchase modules, skills, and special items. Your character sheet shows both the total of the fame you gained, as well as what you currently have available to spend.

Food in Hemirtal serves more function than to fill your stomach. Even the most basic food will heal your hit-points and stamina, and more advanced preparations will grant you extra buffs. Raw meat only counts as food for animals.

So the quest led to useful information. Without having to learn how to move around in this world, it explained why they were there. James expected he could have learned about it from reading the help files, which meant they could be bypassed, but for anyone who preferred jumping in first, they were a way to get basic information.

He had a new quest too.

Quest: Something wild this way comes.

The poor rabbits don’t have only you to worry about. A wolf has been terrorizing them too. Find and take care of the wolf. It is the least you can do for them after hunting and killing some of their colony.

Reward: Unknown

James looked at the rabbit, peacefully chewing on grass and flowers as if they didn’t have one care in the world. Even his presence didn’t bother them. Someone had work to do with making the animal’s actions match the narrative they wanted to sell. And trying to play on his guilt was borderline too much. The quest had told him to kill the rabbits. Looking around, the green glow that had highlighted the clearing now stretched into the woods.

Was there a tracking skill? And would he gain it by just walking around looking for the wolf? James had no idea how someone went about tracking an animal, or a person for that matter. Avoiding being tracked was his thing.

He headed for the closest edge. The quest would probably get the wolf to come to him. James couldn’t imagine it would let him wander aimlessly for all day.

He crossed into the woods and something jumped him.

* * * * *

The cry died, and he reached for his throat and staggered back, the afterimage of the thing that had closed its giant teeth in his throat fading. He pulled his hand away. No blood. He looked around. The wood was gone. Everything was gone. He stood in the dark, except for a timing counting down from forty-five seconds and a message under it.

You have died, but don’t worry, death in the world of Hemirtal isn’t a permanent thing. When a creature kills you, you only suffer two penalties. 1) you are put in time-out. 2) you lose 20% of your unspent Fame, rounded up. As this is a tutorial death, no Fame penalty had been incurred. The time-out increases by 1 minute each time you die. Please use that time to log out and stretch your legs, see the sun, your family. Remember, Hemirtal is a game. There are more important things you can do.

Player caused deaths are governed by PVP settings and will be covered when you reach that tutorial.

Enjoy Hemirtal.

PVP was a thing in this game. James brought up the settings just as the darkness vanished and he was outside again, in a field of grass, with a wood on one side that glowed in green, a path alongside it, which vanished in the distance. In one direction it was toward the strings of smokes moving up, in the other, it simply vanished with no signs of what might be there, if anything.

He headed to wood.

He had a wolf to kill.

* * * * *

He backed up as fast as he could, only realizing he was in the dark, and not missing his foot, or his hand, or that those giant teeth weren’t coming at him anymore.

He found the timer, counting down from a minute and fifty-five seconds.

That had been too unreal and horrible.

He’d found the wolf stalking the edge of the rabbit clearing. It was large, but skinny, with brindled fur, long claws, and teeth that hadn’t looked that big until they were planted in his ankle and shaking him about into the foot ripped off. He shuddered. It hadn’t been as painful as it should have been.

He looked through the settings and found the ones governing the pain. The highest he could set them was fifteen percent of real pain, and the lowest was three percent. So he’d always feel something, but never so much it would scar him.

Even the visuals, now that he wasn’t terrified anymore, hadn’t been that bad. His foot had come off without blood or gore. It was the addition of the teeth in his leg that had made the experience intense. Then his arm. He shuddered at how he’d felt, but like the foot, there had been nothing gory about it.

He brought the pain to five percent; he wasn’t interested in proving how much he could endure, and stood. The next time, he’d wait until the wolf was busy chasing the rabbits. They could be content knowing that after that, the wolf would never bother them again.

* * * * *

He uncurled in the dark. The timer counted down from two minutes fifty-two seconds.

At least he’d gotten in one good hit, James comforted himself with. He’d hit the wolf in the side with his club as hard as he could as it held one rabbit under a paw. It had been a good hit. It had done ten points of damage. Unfortunately, all that seemed to do was anger the wolf.

James looked down at his chest. The clothing was intact, as was his skin. The hole where the wolf had been biting into, trying to reach his heart, was gone. He rested his head on the ground. It had probably found it and eaten it, hence how he’d died this time. He needed an entirely different strategy if he wanted to succeed.

He just had no idea how to go about it.

He was lying in the grass, looking at a blue sky. Without a clock, he’d lost track of time, but the sun was still high, so he had time. He didn’t want to be in the wood with that wolf when night fell.

He stood and headed for the wood.

He broke another branch, a larger one this time. Hopefully, the extra weight would help him.

He found the wolf crouched in the same spot as before and watched him. It was looking at the rabbits, its blue eyes bright. James figured it was eager to eat them. After all, James had impeded all the other attempts.

Was there something James could use to distract it? Could he make a noose? He had no rope and no idea how to make a noose. What if it lured it with something it wanted?

Use of Insight successful.

Wolf motivation: Hungry

A red box with Hungry in it appeared over the wolf. James focused on it and a window appeared beside it.

Hungry

Wolf is hungry, so hungry. Bunnies too fast for Wolf to catch and Stranger not leave food behind. Hungry, hungry, hungry.

System Note: Motivations evolve in complexity with intellect.

James was taken aback. He hadn’t expected the insight to work on animals. NPCs were normally only people, but he supposed that an animal was also a Non-Player Character. The developers were rather clever with this.

So, he knew what the wolf wanted. What could he do with it? He had meat. He brought up his inventory. Five cooked meat and ten raw.

Raw Rabbit Meat

The raw meat of rabbits. Because of their small size, they don’t give a lot of meat, but if properly prepared, rabbit meat makes for delicious foods. Even just cooked over a fire, it will be enough to heal and refresh you.

That wasn’t what he was looking for. He ran a search for raw meat.

Raw Meat

Ram Meat is the basic ingredient most animals will drop on death. Raw meat can not be eaten directly by any except animals, but something as simple as cooking it over a fire will be enough to render it suited for normal consumption.

That was the confirmation he wanted.

He moved away and dropped seven of the ten pieces of raw meat on the ground in sight of the wolf, but with a large tree James could hide behind.

He threw a piece at the wolf, and hit it, making it jump and growl. It sniffed the meat before eating it. James threw the next one halfway to the pile and the wolf’s ears straightened as it landed. It hurried to it, sniffed, and ate it. James threw the last one closer to the pile, then moved behind the tree, watched the wolf approach. The red hunger flag that accompanied him was slightly orange now. It ate the meat and approached the pile. Eating one after the other.

As silently as he could, James approached from the side. It would have one chance. He’d have to his hard and not stop until it was dead.

The hunger flag turned yellow.

James was close enough to see there were only four pieces left, and that on top of being skinny, the wolf was scarred. The yellow flag faded as it ate another piece. When it was done, would it attack him, or, being sated, runoff and cause him to fail the quest? Could he fail a tutorial quest?

He raised the club, holding it in both hands. The yellow flag was almost gone as it started on the next-to-last piece. Why was he hesitating? It was just a program put there for him to kill. It wasn’t real. Nothing here was real.

When was the last time he’d seen a real dog? Touched one? He’d been five with the canine epidemic struck. No canine had survived it. Wild or domesticated. Now, recordings were all people had left.

He lowered the club.

Fuck the tutorial.

He crouched and carefully reached for the wolf’s back. He probably wouldn’t have long, but hopefully whoever had programmed the fur had touched a dog.

The fur was rougher than James remembered, or imagined he remembered, but thick. The wolf shivered and James stilled. It looked at him. There was no meat left, the flag was gone.

“Hey, buddy,” James said. He’d had to have talked to his dog. At five, kids would talk to a door. “I hope you don’t mind me touching you. How did you like the food? Enough to not eat me right now? I’d give you more, but I’m all out. I mean, I could hunt some of the rabbits for you. I think I’m better at it than you are.”

He was rambling and he couldn’t believe it. Silver Tongue James Johnson, reduced to a rambling idiot by the touch of an extinct animal. It was a good thing no one could—

Manipulation Successful.

Do you wish to set Wolf as a companion?

Yes/no?

James stared at the message, wondering where he’d missed a setting, before the implication sunk in. He could manipulate the wildlife. Of course. Again. He could influence NPCs, and creatures were NPCs.

“Yes,” he said, and his voice almost cracked.

Okay, this was enough. He wasn’t five, and this wasn’t—

Do you wish to rename Wolf?

Yes/no?

Was the damned thing reading his mind?

“Yes.” This time his voice was steady. There. See if some game is going to make me cry.

Please pick the name you wish to assign to Wolf.

“Barkley.”

Wolf has been renamed to Barkley

“Hey, Barkley, how—”

Barkley licked his face.

The quest completion message appeared in the bottom right, and pushing the over-enthusiastic wolf down, he brought it up.

Quest completed: Something wild this way comes.

Congratulation, you have removed Wolf as a threat to the rabbit, and in the process discovered that quests don’t always have one set victory condition. Careful reading of the instructions will sometimes reveal other ways a quest can be resolved.

Reward: companion, Barkley. One extra Module slot.

What had been the original text? He was sure it had said to kill the wolf. But he had to admire a game that made use of language as to how it sought to trick the players. It was possible to kill the wolf, the message implied that, and someone with a fighter’s build might not have any problem. What would their rewards be?

He opened his quest menu and saw he had another one.

Quest: It’s time to get social.

As a Stranger with a charm-based module, you need people around you to excel. Go to Shimmerland, meet the people who live there, find out their stories, help them, and find out how being social can help you get ahead in the world of Hemirtal.

Reward: unknown.

James snorted. How being social could help him get ahead. If there was one person who knew how that game worked, it was James Johnson. His entire career was built on it. He looked down at the wolf.

“How about it, Barkley? Do you want to get to know the locals?”

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