Vivid Stars Online

As much as I wanted to deal with my level-up straight away, the significant wounds from my fight demanded my attention first. I lathered my lacerated arm up with wound sealant, rubbed burn cream into my hand, and took another dose of painkillers.

Wounds taken care of, I triggered the level-up. The first thing I encountered was a screen asking me to select my new universal skill. It didn’t look like I could save it for a later either, I guessed that would be too broken.

There were hundreds of skills to choose from, however only one of them called to me right now. My pistol was my only method of fighting right now, picking up the skill for it only made sense. After scrolling through the list to find it, I pulled the skill up to look at the description.

Pistols Skill Level 1

Increases damage with wielded pistols by five percent

It wasn’t an awe-inspiring bonus, but it was also still only a level-one skill. On the other hand, it would become extremely good if it gained five percent at every level. I confirmed the pop-up and moved onwards.

Next, I had two free stat points to spend. I again put them both into Toughness following the same logic as the last level. If anything, I wanted to be tougher even more after that last fight. Bonuses spent, I pulled up my full sheet to have a look.

Jared Hope

Class: Psionic Aspirant

Level: 2

XP: 0/300

Statistics:

Brawn: 0

Toughness: 6

Agility: 0

Perception: 0

Mind: 2

Will: 4

Free points: 0

Skills:

Archeology level 1

Translation level 1

Pistols level 1

Traits:

Database of Alien Languages

Status:

Moderately injured

Ouch, I thought, looking at the new XP requirement. I really hoped that was from some kind of fancy formula and it didn’t just triple every level. I knew leveling would be slow, but that would be crazy.

Now wasn’t the time to think of the future, however, it was time to get back on track. While I’d picked up a couple of fresh injuries, my leg at least seemed mostly healed. That meant I should be able to pick up the pace today.

I’d managed about thirteen miles yesterday, six before my first fight and seven afterward. That left a hundred and twenty-seven miles to the final destination. While I didn’t plan to make it the entire way this time, I wanted to get as far as possible.

The fight with the Great Tiger had shown me how dangerous it could get out here. Even though I’d won, it was a close thing, and I could only imagine it would get harder the further out I went. I would almost certainly need to hire some help to complete the mission.

That said, I didn’t want whoever I hired to be around for too long, not with my finances still very strapped. My new plan was to get as far as I could this trip, hopefully only leaving a couple of days of travel at the end.

Thinking about my finances reminded me that my newest enemy was supposed to have a larger-than-normal core. I quickly pulled up its info and, with that guiding me, slowly cut it out of the Beast’s chest. A search on my watch showed it was worth just over a thousand credits, a significant amount for me.

It almost made everything I’d gone through to get worthwhile, if I could get strong enough to start fighting such Beasts safely, I might even be able to pay my bills like this. Grinning at that thought, I began to slowly pack up my camp, hindered by my injured arm and hand.

A half-hour later, I was done and ready to set out again. I put my watch into the combined map and scanner mode before setting out. I really need to find a nicer way of displaying this on the move, I thought with a sigh as I started walking.

Goggles or something would be ideal. Or even better, an eye implant that did the same thing. It was probably an idle musing given the cost, however, getting into the habit of looking for improvements could only be a good thing.

The day passed relatively uneventfully, with only a single fight against a pair of Dire Ferrets. With my experience so far, I was able to take them both out with only superficial bite marks, though I expected that my six Toughness helped with that. The fight netted me 20 XP and two more cores at the cost of five shots.

I figured the limited combat came from this being the Great Tigers’ territory. It seemed like the kind of peak predator that others would avoid. While that probably meant that things would heat up the next day, it at least gave me time to heal up.

I also took the chance to perfect my schedule. After getting into the game at the local time of 6:30 AM, I would spend six hours traveling while taking brief breaks before stopping for lunch.

At lunchtime, I’d make a small fire and eat my protein bars before logging out with the fire for protection. I’d then spend twenty minutes in the real world taking care of my body before jumping back into the game.

After that came another seven to eight hours of walking for as long as I could before finally making camp. Depending on how long the second session was, that left me one to two hours to set up camp and eat in this world before logging off.

It seemed sound in theory and worked almost flawlessly that day. Only time would tell if I could keep it up long-term. It would likely have to shift on days I wasn’t out on expedition as well, there might be no need to spend so long in-game on those days.

By the end of day two, I’d managed another twenty-three miles of travel. While it might not seem like a massive distance for thirteen hours of travel, the terrain and my need to take breaks slowed me.

In fact, it had amazed me I could even go as long as I did in a single day, I suspected that endurance was part of the Toughness stat, or perhaps the Will stat as well. I definitely still got tired, however, it took longer, and I seemed to recover faster.

That left me with one hundred and three miles of travel left, and four more days to get as far as I could. While I’d brought seven days of supplies, I’d already spent two of them and would need to spend a day at the end surveying a spot that Brian would be happy to pick me up from and return me to later.

I logged off with a smile that day, happy at my progress.

Pouring rain made day three entirely miserable. While it seemed to keep the Beasts away entirely, it was cold and uncomfortable, making the trek through the hilly forest extremely difficult. I only made it fourteen miles before miserably making camp.

Day four was better, with only sporadic showers and a few small fights. Another band of ferrets and two encounters with Forest Boars netted me sixty XP and a handful of cores at the cost of twelve shots.

I was beginning to worry that I’d run out of ammo before the journey ended; I should have listened to Bradford and bought more than I did. Already, I was down to only sixty-two shots. Still, I made pretty good progress, finishing the day at twenty miles traveled.

The fifth day was clear, sunny, and filled with combat. I had four fights against ferret groups, the last forcing me to hide in a tree for hours. While the ferrets could climb, they weren’t willing to after I shot the first one off the trunk.

Eventually, they left. I climbed back down, only to encounter an entirely new foe minutes later.

It was small but blisteringly fast as it bounced between tree branches above me. I had a hard time getting a bead on it; however, my scanner could at least identify the Beast. Apparently, I was fighting a Dire Squirrel, of all things.

It was certainly no joke when it leaped from one tree, landing on my head in a flurry of claws and teeth.

I shrieked and desperately tried to pull it off, scared to fire my gun toward my face. I’d seen what that plasma did to my enemies, and I had no desire to experience it myself.

While I wasn’t particularly strong, I far out-massed the creature and after struggling for a few terrifying seconds, I was able to pull it off and slam it into the ground. It lay stunned for a moment, long enough for me to put it down with a single shot from my pistol. It left my face covered in small wounds; however, my Toughness was sufficient to protect me from significant harm.

The rest of that day saw several more Forest Boar encounters. They, at least, weren’t too bad, being too slow to really be a threat. They took a lot of punishment to put down, however, and I was growing increasingly worried about my ammo consumption.

I finished the fifth day having traveled only fifteen miles because of waiting out the ferrets. I’d gained a sweet hundred forty XP but used thirty-two shots to do so. My ammo was getting dangerously low and I would have to be more careful from here on out.

On the dawn of the sixth day, I knew I had to make a decision. I was down to only thirty shots left, less than I’d used the day before. Worse, things were definitely getting more dangerous the further I moved into the wilderness.

Enemies were becoming more frequent and moved in larger groups while encountering the Dire Squirrel, which showed there were still plenty more types of beasts out there. I wasn’t sure I could push for another full day and still survive long enough to stake an area out for Brian.

Instead, I reluctantly looked for a suitable area today, one as close as possible. That would hopefully leave me with enough ammo that I could spend the day I needed to survey it.

While I could always call for a pickup earlier in the worst case, if I didn’t find a suitable point to return to I would have to trek all the way out here again next time. I really didn’t want to do that.

Luckily, the forest was still only moderately thick at this point. It only took me a couple of hours and a single ferret fight to find a large enough clearing. Unfortunately, a hulking Beast was laid out enjoying the sun.

Gulping, I froze as I pulled its information up on my watch.

Beast Report:

Great Bear

A humongous specimen, the Great Bear, inspires terror in all who see it. Like other Great Beasts, its larger-than-normal core grants it significant mutations from its normal kin. In the bear’s case, it has gained strength beyond even what its size suggests.

Great Bears have been known to fell trees with a single blow, to tear unfortunate humans apart, and even to smash their way into buildings. Caution is advised when facing even a single such foe; only engage if completely necessary.

Nope, I thought as I read the information. No way was I going to fight something like that, it could keep its clearing. Unfortunately, the bear seemed to have other ideas. As I looked up from my watch, I could see it had turned and locked its eyes on me.

It seemed I would have to fight after all.