The Last 100 – Ch.8

I awoke, it had been so ingrained into me at this point that the sound of the alarm played over and over in my wounded mind. It wasn’t what had woken me however, that honour went to Wilhelm. He was lying beside my chest, his fur soaked and covered in sand, his tongue licking its way up my face. I sat up lethargically and stared at the river I had escaped into, its brown mass lapping softly against the lower half of my leg, not yet fully removed from the watery embrace of the creek.

I looked to the top of my vision, looking away again when I saw how far the number of people left alive had fallen. 21/100. I spent longer than I care to admit sitting on that river bank, idling, my progress stagnated. I just couldn’t stop thinking of just how close I had come to meeting the same fate. I looked to the sky, the clouds from the first day had not yet broken into rain, instead darkening ever more and blanketing the entire sky in an oppressive sheet of inky blackness. I sighed, no solace would be found in the natural world.

Next to the depressing number of living humans was the exclamation mark, an illustration that showed I had urgent messages awaiting me. Next to it was a little number 6. I turned my head and half heartedly scanned the bush line that encapsulated me, it wasn’t a part of the river I recognised. Another problem to deal with. I decided to first cater to the notifications, it was simpler, hopefully.

I focused my vision onto the notifications and a drop-down menu fell from them, it told me that both Wilhelm and I had advanced in level and that we both had unspent specialisation points. The next two messages said that I had both unread chat messages and an unread message from the system. I couldn’t talk to anyone right now, not yet at least, so I opened my and Wilhelm’s statuses, it revealed to me both that we had each increased in level to level 3, but that we also had 10 unspent specialisation points each. I opened up the window and felt as my consciousness left my body and I was once more taken to the field of blackness, in which a glowing model of myself stood proud.

The feeling of held breath was greater than before, I felt as if my lungs were about to burst and without thinking I expelled the points into the head of my model, It flared up far brighter than before, nearly blinding my consciousness even with its lack of eyes, when the light had finally burned down to a more manageable form the head of the model burned considerably brighter than the rest, even at resting point.

I left the menu and stared at the river as I waited for my vision to return to its previous ability. I stared at the currents and eddies of the water and in them I saw a brief undercurrent of numbers, vectors and variables. It was if a layer of reality was hiding just under my own and I was on the cusp of unlocking it. The layer of numbers was like a dream, retreating from you twice as fast as you chase after it, the harder you grasp the further away it becomes. I shook my head, thoughts too heavy for my mental state.

I distracted myself by allocating the specialisation points to Wilhelm, breathing the breath of creation into the muscle fibres of his body, watching as they burned bright under the luminous skin of the model. When I exited that menu I stroked his fur, the muscles of his back more defined and taught than before. After the allocation of our specialisation points our statuses had changed, now looking like this.

Name: Jack Casser

Age: 17

Gender: Male

Level: 3

Specialisation: Points Available = 0

Stats:

Strength – How much physical strength you have - 8

Agility – How fast, dextrous and mobile you are - 9

Perception – How astute your senses are - 12

Intelligence – How quick your mind is at processing, interpreting and retaining information - 28

Constitution – How able you are to recover from illness and damage - 8

Charisma – How adept you are in social interactions - 5

Endurance – How tough you are and your ability to take damage - 11

Will – How tough your mind is and its ability to endure strife – 10

Companion: Wilhelm, (select to view status)

Name: Wilhelm

Age: 4

Gender: Male

Level: 1

Specialisation: Points Available = 0

Stats:

Ferocity: How much willpower does your companion have - 34

Power: How physically capable is your companion - 33

Loyalty: How loyal is your companion to you - 100%

The next on my to do list was to deal with the urgent message delivered to me by the system. I focused on it and it expanded into my vision.

Congratulations!

We salute you on your admirable performance in the survival of the first night of hostile entities spawning.

As a reward for this performance you have been allowed to ask one question of the system, please enter your query below.

…

I stared at the message, it was so cheery. A key board was hovering before my face, my hands hovering over it awkwardly. I stared at the ellipses on which I was meant to write and without thinking typed and sent the message. Why?

Could I have used my question for a better purpose? Sure. Did I care? not really. Luckily or un-luckily for me however it seemed the system wasn’t expecting my message and autocorrected it to something that I imagine was a popular question. Because instead of answering the question, why? It instead answered the question. Why do I not have any skills or spells yet?

Its answer was comprehensive and understandable, somehow this annoyed me. It annoyed me that the system was so nonchalant about what it was doing to me, so self-absorbed in its own little charade as a real-life RPG, what annoyed me most of all however was the fact that the answer was actually helpful.

In a watered-down sense the system had informed me that the only way to gain skills and magic was to kill a unique beast and gain the core that dropped form it. This core would alter the status of the player and give them the choice between several abilities. Abilities which could then be upgraded with specialisation points that I just now realised I should have been saving for when I gained a skill. I scowled at the message. Would have been nice to know that earlier.

I flopped back down on the sand, feeling as it gave way under the bulk of my form and I sank partially into it. It was a comforting feeling. I knew soon I would have too get up and find my way back to town. But first I would check theses messages, and see if anyone else was still alive.