Dravincia Read online

  “Well, I guess I do need to blend in with the locals once I find them. Can’t show up in a cotton t-shirt and basketball shorts.” He said to no one in particular. I am going to have to stop talking out loud, he thought to himself. Someone was eventually going to come along and hear him talking to himself and think there was something wrong with him.

  He picked up the two small pouches containing the dried venison and salt and tied each of them to the short leather belt holding the waist of his new pants up. He also went ahead and attached the dagger sheath to his belt with the dagger now firmly protected in it. He picked up the bag that the items had been in and dropped the tinderbox back into it. He noticed it had a wide strap attached to it as well. He didn’t know if this was common or if Lianna decided to throw him a bone, but he wouldn’t question good fortune.

  He slung the bag over one shoulder, knowing it would come in handy for hauling stuff through this forest. Since it fit over his shoulder, he was also able to use it as a makeshift quiver and stuff the arrows back into it while keeping the feathered end sticking up for more natural reach. The bag was deep enough that the bolts didn’t quite stick out from the top, but it was better than trying to carry them around with him. He went ahead and made sure to separate a few of the arrows from the bundle to let them sit loosely in the bag if he needed to grab them.

  Finally, he hefted the bow and took off walking. He decided he would be best suited following one of the well-traveled game trails and see if he could find water. It shouldn’t be difficult to run across a small stream here.

  As he traveled along the path, he marveled at the simplicity of nature here. The sounds of the birds in the trees were soothing. Mixed with the rustling of the leaves from the frequent breezes it made for a rather calm trip. He noticed a handful of bushes as he walked, and some of them even had small berries on them, he considered stopping to pick a few but quickly changed his mind. There was no guarantee that the fruit here would be the same ones he was used to on earth, and even if they were, there was also no guarantee they could be trusted on this plane. The last thing he needed was to eat a berry that said it was a blackberry only to find out they are poisonous on this plane. He would have to avoid the fruits until he was able to identify some of the safe ones here.

  He continued for what felt like hours but in all reality was probably only an hour and stumbled across a small stream. The clean water flowed through a small clearing and was an enticing scene. He walked closer and saw the bottom of the stream was layered in fine gravel with larger rocks in the pathway from time to time. Small fish swam throughout that couldn’t have been much more than perch of some kind.

  He decided to check the water in his waterskin, and it was still close to full. He had only taken a few drinks of it, but honestly, the water inside wasn’t the freshest tasting to start with. He decided to dump out the water he had and refill it with clean water from the stream. No sense in drinking older, slightly stale, water when he didn’t need to.

  He looked up from where he crouched down and saw some movement near a small bush across the stream from him. He sealed the water skin and placed it in his bag. He picked up the bow he had laid on the ground near him so he could fill up the water skin and slowly fetched an arrow from the bag over his shoulder.

  He wasn’t sure what was in the brush, but he was determined to attempt to take it down either way.

  He pulled the bow up and knocked the arrow, ensuring that the fletching was arranged correctly to avoid damage. He was passably familiar with the bow from deer hunting a few times, but that had always been a compound bow. This would be slightly more challenging, but he hoped by shooting at full draw he’d be able to compensate for any small issues he might have.

  He pulled the arrow back until the tension felt right and held it. He watched the small bush that continued to dance from time to time but never in any serious manner. His arms started to ache after only a handful of seconds, and the strain was slowly proving a little much. He wasn’t in bad shape but holding an arrow taut for so long used muscles many people didn’t regularly use, and it was wearing on him.

  When he thought he couldn’t hold it any longer, a small brown rabbit hopped out of the bush and slowly started taking short hops toward the stream. He was sure the rabbit hadn’t spotted him because it didn’t appear spooked in any way. He took a quick sight of the animal and let the arrow fly. The arrow flew true, but his aim was not as good as he hoped. The rabbit was twenty yards away, but his inexperience showed, and the arrow took the rabbit in the back leg and pinned it to the dirt. The squealing noises that came from the rabbit hurt him to hear. He did not want the animal to suffer. He took off on in a quick dash closing the distance and pulled the dagger out of his waistband. With a fast motion, he brought the knife down into the neck of the rabbit almost decapitating it with the large blade, and the rabbit fell silent.

  He heard a small chime, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint where it was coming from or what it meant. He decided to ignore it for now, and he could contemplate it later.

  He proceeded to remove his dagger and inspect the damage. He’d ruined a bit of meat from some of the spots due to bruising when it was shot and stabbed, but a decent amount was still in good order. He decided to carefully skin out the entire animal to ensure nothing was wasted. If it were similar to a game, he would be able to use almost everything from it.

  When he made the last cut to separate the skin, he heard that chiming noise again from earlier. He was beginning to think he was going a little crazy, but he still saw nothing around him. He picked up the skin and looked at it. A window popped up next to it.

  Item:

  Uncured Rabbit Hide

  Durability: 5/5

  Rarity: Common

  Quality: Poor

  Weight: 0.1 kg

  Traits: A normal rabbit hide that has not been cured for use

  It appeared that his thoughts were correct. The world would automatically identify items as he gathered them. He wondered if it would have identified the rabbit at all. It had appeared so fast, and his shot had immediately followed. He hadn’t taken the time to look at it for very long. He’d have to try that out next time he saw something.

  He laid out the hide, fur side down, and proceeded to clean off the bits of dirt and leaves he saw. He took a small handful of salt and roughly rubbed it into the raw side of the hide and allowed it to sit in the sunshine through a break in the trees.

  He walked over to the carcass that he had set down on a rock and picked it up. He made a small cut down the center of its stomach and pulled the organs out of it. Arthur took the guts to the edge of the clearing to properly discard them so they wouldn’t bring any scavengers near him. He stooped over the water and thoroughly washed the rabbit. After cleaning the carcass, Arthur looked at it carefully. The window he had come to expect quickly popped into existence.

  Item:

  Raw Rabbit Meat

  Durability: 5/5

  Rarity: Common

  Quality: Poor

  Weight: 0.3 kg

  Portion: Whole

  Traits: Raw rabbit meat that has not been cooked.

  Well, that was a new attribute. Arthur imagined if the body were cut in half, it would be a half portion. He couldn’t be sure, though. It could mean that the rabbit was equal to one full portion meal, but he had a feeling this just referred to its quantity. It would be easier to cook whole on a stick than trying to test his theory by cutting it in half.

  He decided that this little clearing would make a good camp with the steady supply of water that was present. He found a spot near a large tree on the edge of the clearing farthest from the stream and started to stack up small pieces of wood. He’d never started a fire with tinder, but he had burnt plenty of brush piles back home during his earlier years. He knew that the way you stacked the wood was essential for getting the wood to properly light.

  He arranged the wood in the way he thought would be best to light a fire. He placed a sm
all amount of the tinder under the pile and stuck the flint on the fire-steel to spark. After a few strikes, he was able to get the tender to smolder, and after blowing on it for a few seconds, the tinder caught fire. He was so excited that he realized too late that the flame sputtered out less than a minute later.

  He examined the pile and discovered his stacking skills must not have been as good as he thought. That and he was used to cheating by soaking a little gasoline on the wood first to get things going. The tinder had burned well, but as fast as it had burned, it didn’t catch anything else on fire. It was time to try it again.

  He stacked the wood a little different, and this time he made sure to keep a decent pile of small wood scraps and dry leaves to the side. This time, as soon as he got a flame, he carefully added some dried leaves to get the fire burning bigger and then stacked on some of the smaller wood scraps and twigs he had set to the side to build a more stable fire. A few minutes later, after careful tending and stacking, He had a good flame going and was rather proud of himself. It was a lot more difficult doing this than he had imagined it was going to be.

  Yet again he heard that odd chime sound. It just didn’t make any sense to him. Why would he be hearing chiming noises? There is nothing anywhere near me so he couldn’t imagine where it was coming from.

  Putting that in the back of his mind, he decided to go ahead and set up a small cooking rack. He found two forked branches and stuck them into the ground until they were sturdy on either side of the fire. He then found a rather straight and study stick that would cross between them. He took the rabbit carcass and inserted the newly found spit through the center of it and rested it over the fire.

  He sat there, enjoying the beauty of his surroundings. The weather here was rather lovely. He would guess it probably hovered around the seventy-degree mark with a touch of a fresh breeze here and there. The sun was still high in the sky but based on where it currently sat, he doubted the temperature would rise much more than it was now.

  He occasionally reached over and rotated the spit a bit with the rabbit on it. He didn’t want to inadvertently burn it by not paying attention. He knew he had the dried rations in his bag, but there was no point in wasting something he might need in the future. Collecting anything he could to help him survive now would only get him a head start on his progress here.

  He slowly turned the rabbit every few minutes and let it cook for half an hour. He was watching grease from the fatty parts slowly run down the rabbit meat. He would have loved to have a bit of seasoning to toss on it, but he decided to save the salt he had in case he needed to cure any more hides. Typically hides could be sold to local markets as a decent way to make money.

  He removed the spit from over the fire and tenderly poked at some of the thicker portions of meat. As expected it appeared to be cooked perfectly. He looked at the cooked rabbit and willed the window up for it.

  Item:

  Roasted Rabbit Meat

  Durability: 5/5

  Rarity: Common

  Quality: Fair

  Weight: 0.3 kg

  Portion: Whole

  Traits: Rabbit meat that has been roasted over a fire.

  This time he heard that unmistakable chime again, only immediately after, he heard a resounding trumpet blast of duh-dun-a-dun. What the holy hell was that? He thought to himself.

  Chapter 4

  Self Discovery

  A feeling of power rushed through him immediately following the trumpet sounds. That sound itched at the back of his mind, though. He knew instinctively that he was the only one that could hear those sounds when they happened. When you hear the noise around you, it is typically possible to pinpoint a general area of where it came from. These sounds were different. They seemed to originate inside his mind.

  Why did these sounds seem familiar? Arthur thought to himself. He knew this world was based on some RPG mechanics since Lianna had told him as much. She also told him to make sure he leveled up. That was when it hit him. The trumpet blast sounded like a notification for something. It only stood to reason that if he could level up, he should be able to see his statistic display in some way. He focused inward and imagined seeing his own stats.

  Name: Arthur

  Level: 2

  Age: 26

  Race: Human

  HP: 100/100

  MP: 100/100

  Stamina: 100/100

  Strength: 3 (5)

  Agility: 2 (5)

  Intellect: 2 (5)

  Wisdom: 1 (5)

  Endurance: 3 (5)

  Charisma: 2 (5)

  Luck: 4 (5)

  Experience: 25/750 (5 stat points available)

  Skills (25% boost to any skill for level up)

  Combat Skills:

  Archery: 1 (25/500)

  Small Blades: 1 (25/500)

  Professions:

  Cooking: 1 (25/500)

  Firemaking: 1 (25/500)

  Skinning: 1 (25/500)

  Arthur wasn’t sure if the screen was a good or bad thing as he looked over those stats. The thing he noticed that was odd was the age he was listed as since Arthur was thirty-three before coming to this world. That was a mystery for later. The stats were a welcome sight but didn’t answer where the sounds came from. The trumpet sound had to be him leveling up since he was barely into level 2, but he needed to figure out the rest. He decided to approach this a little different and instead focused on seeing a log.

  Rabbit (Level 1) has died.

  You have gained 25 experience for killing Rabbit (Level 1).

  Congratulations, you have learned Small Blades for a 100 experience bonus. Be careful with that, it’s sharp!

  You have gained 25 experience in Small Blades for killing Rabbit (Level 1).

  Congratulations, you have learned Archery for a 100 experience bonus. Stab it in the face, from a distance.

  You have gained 25 experience in Archery for killing Rabbit (Level 1).

  Congratulations, you have learned Skinning for a 100 experience bonus. Eww, it feels slimy.

  You have gained 25 experience in Skinning for skinning Rabbit (Level 1).

  Congratulations, you have learned Firemaking for a 100 experience bonus. Don’t burn yourself on that.

  You have gained 25 experience in Firemaking for making Basic Fire.

  Congratulations, you have learned Cooking for a 100 experience bonus. A little blackened but edible.

  You have gained 25 experience in Cooking for cooking Raw Rabbit Meat.

  Congratulations you have progressed to Level 2. Stay firm on your path!

  Well, it appeared this world highly encouraged you to learn many skills. The critical questions were, did you only receive experience when initially learning them, or did they grant bonus experience as you hit certain levels? It will be interesting to see as he progressed. It was apparent that he had some stat points he needed to sort out. Those would always come in handy.

  He decided to assign 2 to Agility since that should help his Archery skill, 2 to Endurance since that should bump up his HP a bit and for the fun of it, he decided to toss 1 into Charisma. This brought him to 4 Agility, 5 Endurance, and 3 Charisma. The Intellect and Wisdom wouldn’t be useful since he didn’t have magic, at least not yet. While Strength was always excellent, right now, the Agility seemed to serve him better. These adjustments also brought his HP up to 120 and his Stamina up to 120. That was a welcome change. From the looks of it when he put the first point into Endurance not much had happened but the second point pushed both up by 20. He assumed it had something to do with the 5 point mark but couldn’t be sure how. The 25% boost to a skill would best be held onto until later. It was wasting it to spend it on this low of a level skill.

  With the self-reflection completed, he figured it was time to double down on the grind. The question was where to start. It was rather apparent that leveling itself would take a significant amount of time since the kill experience for the animal he finished was rather low, but what else could he do?
r />   He walked over to the skin he had laid out in the sun, and it looked different than he remembered it. As soon as the window popped open, he realized why.

  Item:

  Cured Rabbit Hide

  Durability: 5/5

  Rarity: Common

  Quality: Poor

  Weight: 0.1 kg

  Traits: A normal rabbit hide that has been cured for use

  That seemed to work faster than he was used to. Hopefully, that would give him a bit of an experience boost as well. He pulled open his character status sheet again.

  Name: Arthur

  Level: 2

  Age: 26

  Race: Human

  HP: 120/120

  MP: 100/100

  Stamina: 120/120

  Strength: 3

  Agility: 4

  Intellect: 2

  Wisdom: 1

  Endurance: 5

  Charisma: 3

  Luck: 4

  Experience: 25/750

  Skills (25% boost to any skill for level up)

  Combat Skills:

  Archery: 1 (25/500)

  Small Blades: 1 (25/500)

  Professions:

  Cooking: 1 (25/500)