At the first order of things to do once I finally came to this world, was to immediately put on my winter jacket and go out to see where I was.
I couldn’t waste even a second, I needed to quickly see where I was and ascertain whether or not I was safe here, luckily the first problem was easily solved thanks to a map of the local area which was hung on the wall showing me my position and where everything else was.
Getting outside I also confirmed what the map showed me, getting a quick look I even came to the conclusion that there was nothing life threatening or dangerous around me within a kilometer or at least within my sight.
Now to explain, the wooden shack I was in was located between a swamp, a river and a forest, each respectively on the west, north and east while to the north I could see a high way leading to the next closest town which was 20 km away if the map I was holding was correct.
Immediately the issue regarding a fresh water supply was solved with the proximity of the clean river nearby, the river wasn’t small either with fish inside and down stream I could even see some adorable beavers building their dam, but the moment I looked at them from afar they immediately turned back at me all at once as if sensing my gaze looking at me with their eerie slit and dark eyes giving me goosebumps for a minute there.
Animal Discord seemed to be working fine I see.
Not wanting to be stared down by those beavers any longer and risk provoking them I quickly retreated back to me shack closing the door behind me and locking it.
Pathetic I know, but I wanted to avoid conflict at all costs no point in getting hurt for no reason.
Once I was back inside I checked what I had and what my supplies were like.
Surprisingly it wasn’t bad at all, of course I wasn’t fully stocked or anything but I had enough food and water to last for 2 to 3 days while in regards to tools I possessed a survival knife, a leather backpack, a lighter and then finally some cooking utensils.
I had 2 more sets of clothing plus a trench coat and a hat.
In terms of furniture, there was a bed, a oven, a few racks to store things in, a counter, cupboard, a table with 2 chairs and a small bookshelf with a few books in it.
Outside the shack there were even more things like 2 kilns for making charcoal and 2 smoking racks to dry and smoke foods such as meat and vegetables.
Other then that there was nothing much here, but it was enough for survival, the rest I had to figure out myself.
Of course I didn’t even know where to begin, but seeing that I would run out of food within 2 to 3 days I figured that I should start from there.
-The only problem is…where do I get food ?
I looked out of the window, it was cold outside but not too cold, snowing gently as the swamp and forest on either side was covered in a fine layer of snow, nothing in particular was growing since it was too cold, but staring at the bushes and further concentrating on the cattails that grew within the swamp I could strangely see a window with text floating in front of my eyes making me feel surprised for a second.
[Wild Cattail]
Is what it said, the rpg-esque feeling I got from seeing something like this only briefly permeated me before I quickly calmed down again remembering how I came to be in the first place, the text also disappeared in that window of time to recollect myself, but soon enough I realized that I could make it appear at will by concentrating on a particular item I was looking at, for a test I used the survival knife I had and it worked !
[Survival Knife]
Of course other then the text identifying the item there was nothing else of interest regarding the window, which is why for a moment I wondered about the reason for me to have a ability or rather function like this since it didn’t seem very useful considering that I would in most cases already know what I was looking at even without the ability.
-Maybe there is more use to this ability that I am not yet aware of…
Thinking like this I felt myself wanting to experiment some more which is exactly what I did completely forgetting that I was actually supposed to find a way to gather food as I tried to identify everything I could get my hands on or rather my sight on.
The result of this led me to quite a bit of discovery.
First of all, this ability not only works on single items or inanimate objects it also works on multiple smaller individuals items that make a whole and on living beings as well !
For a example, I went outside and picked up a fistful of earth, using my ability I concentrated on the earth which worked showing me the following.
[Soil (58 Grams)]
To my surprise it identified not only the item which was made out of individual tiny grains that make up the whole, it also was able to give me the exact weight of the soil I was holding, which was strange since it never showed me the weight of other items I looked at, I wanted to know why but unfortunately I had no idea how to figure it out which is why I just continued to experiment.
Soon enough the target I would look for next was a living being, and of course since the next closest living around here were those beavers down the river I obviously used them for my experiment, of course within the safety of my shack first using the window to gaze at the them which worked as well.
[Wild Beaver]
The result wasn’t very exciting but the fact that it worked on living beings told me that I could use this ability on almost anything if I wanted to.
Which is where finally my experiments came to a halt as I ran out of things to identify and also because I got partially bored by it as it quickly became repetitive, in the end though there were a few conclusions I came to that were still very beneficial to me, like the fact that the window didn’t show me everything there was to know about a certain item, demonstrated by the soil which indicated the weight, just by knowing this I knew that there must be even more information I could access, the only thing was I simply didn’t know how to access it, but I had the feeling I would understand in time when my understand of my ability would become better.
-Phew…all this walking around got me thirsty all of a sudden…thinking again I’ve been wasting quite a bit of time on this, I should quickly get a drink and starting worrying about my food situation, dallying around won’t do me any good if I want to continue on living.
And without a second thought I quickly filled a cup of water from a nearby water pitcher that I had, about to drink the ceramic cup I briefly stopped as I stared at it, seeing my reflection within made me think for a second before I once again focused on it, not at the cup of water but rather at my reflection.
And just as I suspected a window popped up, but not like the previous ones, this window was far bigger with far more information on it, and most importantly it was all about me.
[Tommy Malloy]
Stats.
Strength:8 Dexterity:8 Intelligence:8 Perception:8
Skills.
Bartering:0 (0%)
Computer:0 (0%)
Construction:0 (0%)
Cooking:0 (0%)
Driving:0 (0%)
Electronics:0 (0%)
Fabrication:0 (0%)
First Aid:0 (0%)
Mechanics:0 (0%)
Speaking:0 (0%)
Survival:0 (0%)
Swimming:0 (0%)
Tailoring:0 (0%)
Trapping:0 (0%)
Dodge:8 (0%)
Melee:8 (0%)
Bashing:0 (0%)
Cutting:0 (0%)
Piercing:0 (0%)
Unarmed:8 (0%)
Marksmanship:0 (0%)
Archery:0 (0%)
Launching:0 (0%)
Throwing:0 (0%)
Handguns:0 (0%)
Rifles:0 (0%)
Shotguns:0 (0%)
Sub-machine Guns:0 (0%)
Traits.
Addictive Personality
Animal Discord
Black Belt
Disease Resistant
Heavy Sleeper
Indefatigable
Infection Resistant
Robust Genetics
Trigger Happy
Truth Teller
Ugly
Bionics.
None
Effects.
None
Looking through the window I could see everything I had picked so far that makes up my character, the only things new here were the bionics and effects sections, Bionics is self explanatory since I had none on my body, while effects I assume would be the current state my body was, if I was poisoned for example maybe it would be listed on this section, but I can only assume, not that I was going to go out and test it for myself.
I continued to observe my character window, which is what I was going to call it from now on, seeing something interesting as I inspected my skills.
-Hmm…thats curious, the window not only shows my current skill level, it even tells me how far I am until the next level based on the percentage next to the indicated level I was currently at, unfortunately other then my combat skills everything was a big fat zero, just by looking at this screen I get the impression that I am total retard who only knows how to punch and kick things…
I sighed with those words, closing the window as I had enough of my character window already, but upon closing it I thought about something and tried to reopen it again, this time I didn’t look into my reflection in the water and instead just tried to will it through my thought.
Surprisingly it worked just as easily assuring me that I could check my character window whenever I wanted.
And with this finally I drank the cup of water in my hand, feeling my thirst relieved and my body energized, I was about to head out and look for something to eat and stock up on before once again getting distracted as I noticed the few books shelved within my bookshelf that stood out to me.
The reason I was distracted by them was because I was reminded that I had very little information on me at the moment about my situation or about the world in general, even though I was aware of those books before, I hadn’t really checked them out properly and thinking about what I was about to do I started to think that having some information would be better then having none.
Who knows maybe the books will even be able to help me in this situation.
I mused coming forward as I stood in front of the small bookshelf, pulling the first of the 3 books I had with a brown cover, watching as the dust covering the book gently fell off, and for a moment making me wonder as to how long these books were here for them to gather so much dust.
I had memories of course about the shack, but the problem was I only knew that the shack belonged to me and that I lived here, what I did before and from where I came from was all a mystery, even the parents that I was supposed to have were completely left blank, but I wasn’t bothered, after all you can’t miss something you never had to begin with.
-Hou…To think I would hit jackpot right off the bat…[Survival And You] a guide to living and surviving out in the wild, to think I have a book like this, if I didn’t pick this up before going out I would have likely wasted a lot of time without knowing what to do specifically, its good that I stayed…what else do I have ?
Feeling excited I looked at the other 2 books I had who turned out to be also treasures in my situation as they were both practical books that could teach me things one being titled [Crafting For Beginners] and the other [101 Sewing Techniques].
All of these books were godsend and crucial to my current situation, but for now I only needed 1 book and that was [Survival And You] maybe it could solve my current food problem.
And with that I took off my jacket and sat down a chair, the book itself was as thick as 2 fingers, and as soon as I opening the book I could see the directory on the first page together with the author’s name on it which was William Kenneth.
Other then the author’s name there was nothing about the author within the book, instead the book was very direct immediately going into business at the very first chapter.
Of course I didn’t want to waste too much time reading things that may not be immediately useful to me which is why I skipped directly towards the [Wild Edible] section of the book using the directory.
Doing so lead me towards a alphabetic order of wild plants that could be eaten together with the instructions on where to find them and how to prepare them.
I skipped most of these as well since I wanted to quickly find something that I could find easily or that was nearby and soon enough I found exactly what I was looking for.
-Wild Cattails !…I can eat them !?
I quickly looked out of the window, looking out into the swamp as I saw hundreds upon thousands of cattails growing around wildly and with it slowly realizing that my food situation may not be as bad as I thought.
A Place Of Legends 