Chapter 2: Generic wolves - who wouldve guessed (1/2)

Running at a full sprint for over half an hour, Ilea finally collapsed near a pond of water. Catching her breath for several minutes and trying to not puke, her thoughts were in complete turmoil. Tears came to her eyes as she rolled up into the fetal position. ‘No no no no no no no!’ her training in kickboxing took over as her breathing slows down, her body not able to distinguish this situation from a mock fight she used to have with other people at the center.

Laying there for another two minutes, her mind calmed down.

‘ding’ ‘Reached limit of Endurance – Recalculating value – Endurance +3’

‘Calm your mind Ilea. There’s a beast out there. It just ate but it can find you. You’re lucky nothing else was on your path. The trail is there though and the smell...’ looking down at herself, most of the urine still sticking to her had dried. Starting to move, she put her legs into the small pond and started to scrub.

‘I hope that thing had enough for dinner...’ clean enough she exited the pond. ‘I need to move away from here.’ carefully not treading on anything that would make too much noise, Ilea started to walk in a different direction.

‘I need to focus on my surroundings, I’m obviously somewhere weird. Maybe some island with dinosaurs or some military testing facility...that wouldn’t explain the weird noises in my head though. A magical fantasy place in a different world? I always liked the multiverse theory, not when Drakes want to eat me though...I’m not even sure if it wanted to, maybe it’s friendly? Could be virtual reality too, they did make some improvements lately, nothing to this extent that I ever heard of. I don’t want to try dying though with the off chance of a respawn.’ she walked on for another fifteen minutes before coming to a stop at the edge of a clearing.

Sitting down next to one of the trees she gathered her thoughts. ‘I’m in an unfamiliar place. There are Drakes and I have notifications in my head. Maybe it’s a new social media product, they would definitely do this for money.’

Looking at the sky, now free of any leaves in the clearing, she noticed something different. ‘Two suns, so we can rule out Military facility or island on earth. So either a completely different world or virtual reality. Or some weird drug? Mental illness? There are too many possibilities, what I know though is that I’m here now. In a fucking forest. With fucking Drakes. In my pajamas. With piss all over them.’ taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes “Fuck.”

‘I’m still not thirsty or hungry so those aren’t immediate concerns. I’ve read somewhere on the internet that shelter should be your first concern when found in an unknown place in the wilderness. I’ll walk around and do that first then. No idea what would be considered shelter though. For all I know a cave here might be hiding another one of those monsters.

I did get a skill though didn’t I? What was it? Something related to the Drake I saw. There must be a way to see what I have, like in RPGs.’ She thought of different words that would describe a status table or character sheet in a video game. What did the trick was simply thinking of her own name. ‘Ilea Spears’ A list formed in her mind.

Name: Ilea Spears

Class 1: None

Class 2: None

General Skills:

- Elos Standard language lvl 5

- Identify lvl 1

Status:

Vitality: 5

Endurance: 8

Strength 5

Dexterity 5

Intelligence 5

Wisdom 5

Health: 50/50

Stamina: 36/80

Mana: 50/50

‘Ok so it’s like an RPG, just that everything feels like real life. So basically real life with numbers to show how fucking dead I’d be against a Drake. The question is if I can advance beyond what a normal human can or if progression is like on earth. What about technology? Well those are thoughts for later. First I need to find some form of shelter. 36 Stamina for now, I’ll check it in another minute and see how much it grows.’ A minute passed. Checking her stats again, her stamina was now sitting at 44. ‘So 8 per minute, or at the moment 10% of my maximum. Might be a coincidence. Doesn’t seem too bad though.’

Standing up she started to walk in a random direction ‘I’m not going back to either the pond or wherever that Drake was last.’ ten minutes passed without anything happening, the forest was alive. The hot sunlight was broken by the sea of leaves above. Sweat dripping down Ilea’s brow she soon realized that the ground wasn’t flat. ‘It’s a slope. Going further up might lead to more rocky terrain and maybe shelter.’

The forest itself would mostly shelter her from rain or the suns and the temperature didn’t seem to be an issue either. Yet it felt wrong to Ilea to sleep where something like the Drake would tread. Not that it would simply stop higher up but she knew that feeling even remotely safe would be difficult in the forest.

Walking on for another twenty minutes, the forest didn’t seem to change at all. She was sure though that there was at least some incline. Stopping and holding her breath whenever she’d hear the now familiar roar in the distance. They came from different directions so she was sure there was more than one of them out there. Her only goal was to walk upwards and perhaps out of this forest, without getting eaten first that is.

The Drakes seemed to have a rather large territory though and she saw several seemingly harmless animals that even felt familiar. There was enough for them to hunt, she’d be unlucky to fall prey to one of the Drakes. At least that’s what she hoped. Using her skill on every creature she saw she didn’t really get useful information. [Red stag lvl ??], [Woodpecker lvl ??], [Worm lvl 3] and several other animals were identified by her. ‘Seems to work on any living creature. How important is the level though. I wouldn’t want to fight a level one Drake...’ thinking on the world around her she continued upwards.

Thirst was starting to grow as she climbed the slope but the thought was soon overwritten by the sight before her. ‘Ruins...looks like a temple, damn this place is super fantasy. Well let’s hope it’s not a dungeon or something. I don’t even have a knife or anything.’ Carefully walking around the temple, or what was left of it, she realized that this was the highest point of the slope. Ilea found herself on the top of a hill, standing in front of the broken down entrance to the temple she heard a low growl behind her. Turning around carefully, she checked the intruder. ‘What if I am the intruder...’

[Red Wolf – lvl 4],

Three more of them with similar levels, the highest being 5, emerged from the trees and slowly advanced on her.

‘So the Drakes aren’t the only predators here...figures. I’m lost in the forest, they’ll tire me out and kill me. Only one place to go then...’ Ilea wasn’t surprised by how calm she was. Compared to the Drake these wolves weren’t as frightening. They even had a sort of calming normalcy about them. She had actually seen wolves in zoos before coming here but they held a familiarity that made her less scared. Of course wolves could kill people but on Earth Man was king, and a bit of that feeling now welled up inside her. She knew that in this world, wherever it may be, that might not be the case anymore.

The wolves advanced as she slowly retreated backwards to the entrance of the temple, the growling steadily intensifying as they began to encircle Ilea. To completely close her in was impossible now but she had only one way to go. Ducking under a broken down pillar she entered the temple, the wolves on her heels. Light filled the hall she was in now through many cracks in the ceiling and walls. Stone everywhere, she didn’t look closely at the statues. ‘A way out of here...’