Ash waved goodbye to Hestia and stumbled back through the forest. She was truly alone again. At least for the week. But, this was a game right? She had her objective, and timescale. Survive in the jungle for a week with the withering debuff. Bonuses could probably be earned by finding a way to gather some tradable items and not have to rely on the village for assistance. She steadied her resolve. I can do this.

  Now that she was thinking about her situation more like a game, she felt a little more confident. She set up her little basecamp in the room behind the crawlspace, placing her bandages and bread on the corner table, rolling out the cloth on to the flat stone and sitting on her new makeshift bed.

  What did she have to work with? Food for a day maybe, her spent torch as a weapon. The, unfortunately, rather-dirty clothes on her back.

  She looked back at her status page. She wanted to explore, but needed to be able to defend herself. She had that spare stat point to spend. She quickly realised that by focusing on a section could open up a little more information about it and decided to examine pretty much everything anew. She could bolster her strength to 2, allowed her to swing the torch a bit better, but that felt kind of naff. Her wits were at 10, and she was a magic specialist, so that should be her best bet for doing more damage with her spells.

  Then again, hadn’t the fire spell done nothing to the skeleton earlier? Was it resistant? She decided to examine everything a little further. Putting the points into constitution would bolster her health by 4 points, the formula simply being Constitution x 2 x Level and half as much from strength. Constitution also added to stamina and will a little and increase her health regeneration.

  Reflex would also boost her stamina, speed of actions and stamina regeneration and Wits would boost her Will and Will regeneration as well as her spell power.

  Now it came to her special status effects. ‘Withering (Extreme)’ seemed to be her biggest detractor, reducing her strength and constitution by 4 and her reflex by 3. That’s why her stats were all so low. Removing that should be a priority. So, staying on good terms with the town to get her access to a healer seemed key.

  ‘Educated (Advanced)’ was boosting her wits by 5, which was something. But the third effect was the strangest. ‘Curse: hammer time’ had a simple description with a positive and negative effect.

  Do 2x increased damage with Great-hammers

  Any health damage you inflict through other means will not occur.

  What the fuck is that? She cursed to herself I literally cannot use my spells to kill anything? What’s the point in all that Wits if there’s nothing I can do with it!

  She pulled out her torch and shook it. Even that was kind of difficult with a whole 1 strength in her arms. She sighed and assigned her free point to strength. Immediately it felt twice as easy to move the thing. She gave it a harder shake. Then a swing. Then she examined it.

  Torch (spent) – hammer / Great-hammer (2h) - damage modifier: 1.1x(physical)

  It looked to be even worse than when it was unlit before. Though, she should have a 2x damage modifier on top of that. That was something. If it worked similarly to the last game, her basic strikes should hit for approximately her strength times her modifiers. In this case, 2x1.1x1.5 for just over 4 damage. She could have killed herself at level one in just one hit! Somehow that knowledge didn’t instil her with confidence. It meant the hits she had taken so far hadn’t even been considered actual attacks, or she’d likely already be dead.

  It looked like, as in the last game, to get to the next level she’d need 5x as much experience as the last. So, 495 left to level 3. Killing something solo should net her the exp. of the tier below it, so 500 for the level 4 lizardman, the level 3 skeleton had only been 90 so there were some other modifiers too. She should get 20 for something level 2 and 4 for something level 1.

  Levelling up was going to be difficult. If she fought humanoids, they would all have an extreme stat lead on her. She had -6 points overall, the equivalent of 6 whole levels.

  If something with 6 strength attacked her, she would be dead instantly. Or something with less and a decent weapon. The lizardman probably had at least 6 strength and that obsidian axe surely had a decent modifier.

  So, no hunting lizardmen any time soon. No, she was going to have to fight weaker stuff to level. She remembered there being things like rats and large bugs that could yield small amounts of experience. They would have much lower stats overall, so that could be feasible. But her withering was really leaving her on a knife’s edge. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she actually died. Would she respawn here, or back in the tunnels with no light-source. She had no way of knowing that she wasn’t in some kind of hardcore mode where she wouldn’t respawn at all. Maybe then her next character wouldn’t have such a shitty start. Though, perhaps this was the standard in this game, a real 0 to hero story. She felt like starting at essentially level -5 was a bit much though.

  Okay, do I have any other advantages? She thought. Having a better weapon was useful. The 0.2x(fire) for a lit torch would have meant basically a whole extra point of damage. Ash was aware of some battlemage style spells like imbue weapon that would add an elemental bonus damage modifier to a weapon, those didn’t scale with Wit, but required bit of Will to cast so were good for players with a little Will to spare. Still, that would have been better than nothing. That was something she could ask Hestia, hopefully she knew a way to learn one.

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  Her other spells seemed basically useless now. She guessed she could use flame burst to start a fire as it seemed to work on inanimate objects, but frost touch seemed pointless. Maybe the slowing effect would still work, but if she was close enough to touch something then she might as well be hitting it with the hammer.

  Maybe she was thinking about this the wrong way, and hunting creatures would have to wait. Gathering was definitely still on the cards. She could find some fruit in the jungle maybe and bring it to the village to see if it was edible. The ruins seemed way too dangerous for her right now, taking out a level 4 with ease, so she decided on investigating the surrounding area for now.

  She crawled back through entrance and set to exploring, first covering the stretch of jungle between the ruin she was sheltering in and the one next to the settlement. She noted a few trees with some kind of yellow fruit that was way too high up for her to reach. Then she found a bush with small red berries. She took 5 of these and placed them in her shirt pocket to be checked later. She definitely didn’t trust the random red berries enough to try one just yet. Later she found a tree with orange fruit, these were also out of reach but one had fallen to the floor and hand only half been attacked by insects. It was a little gross, but she scraped the nibbled portion away and pocketed it. Mentally she noted the locations for later should the fruit prove edible. Nothing else really stood out to her, aside from the sheer scale of the two ruined buildings. They really were like ancient temples or something, at least 100 meters long with about that much space between them.

  Exploring even that much jungle took a while, her low stamina and constitution a constant hinderance. She found herself needing to take frequent breaks, often feeling out of breath after just a simple walk. Still, she persevered and decided to do a circuit of the ruin next to the settlement while there was still light in the day. Around the rear side of the seemingly square ruin, she found a few more of the tall yellow fruit trees as well as another orange fruit tree, this one with more reachable branches.

  She was considering using her torch to try and knock one down when something skittered out of the bushes, rushing towards her on far too many legs. Before she knew it, it was on her, latching its jaws to her ankle and biting down. She screamed as her health dropped instantly by a third. Then she swung with her torch, wielding it like a golf club and thwacking the creature in the abdomen with a resounding ‘crunch’.

  The creature splattered into two pieces, the section she had hit exploding into chitinous shards and the pieces flying across the jungle floor.

  You have slain level 1 forager dire ant. You have received 1 exp.

  She looked down at the bite marks in her ankle, but it fortunately wasn’t bleeding. She was also glad the bite wasn’t venomous or anything, else she’d be in serious trouble.

  She checked over her damage log.

  You have been bit by level 1 forager dire ant. You have taken 2 damage.

  You have resisted delirium toxin vs Constitution + Wit.

  You have fatally hit level 1 forager dire ant for 4 damage.

  Shit, it was venomous. She thought, good thing my Wit helped resist it.

  It was small, at maybe a just over a foot in length, but it was also like, super fast. She had no time to react to it coming at her. That must be her low reflex in play. If there had been two of them… Well, best not consider that too hard. She considered, then wrapped her hand in a bandage and picked up the creature’s two halves, holding them at arms length. Where there was one ant, there would likely be more. Perhaps she would take this to the settlement to check.

  She walked back over, noting the sun getting quite low in the sky. As she approached the buildings she noted that the body had been moved and there was now a large plume of smoke coming from the far side of the village. Perhaps the cremation had started.

  “Ash?” Called a voice from her right. Eric perked up from leaning in the shade of a wall, stepping forward but stopping a few paces away. “Any trouble?” He looked at her bloodied shirt sleeves.

  “Nothing serious. I just killed an ant,” she showed him the pieces, “thought I should mention it as it likely means there’s a nest somewhere around. It rushed at me when I was on the far side of that ruin.” She pointed at the stone shape in the jungle.

  “Is that a dire ant? Damn, those can be pests. Yet another thing to worry about.” He sighed. “Shit, I’ll let Stavos know. We’re starting on a defensive ditch and wall around the village. Now we’ll have to try and make it ant-proof as well. Thanks for reporting.” He grinned tiredly at her. “I’m just on a patrol this side, so I can spare a moment to chat.”

  Ash quickly showed him the fruit she had gathered, as well as asking about the yellow ones.

  “The red berries I’d avoid. If you eat a handful you’ll start retching your lunch up something fierce. The high yellow ones aren’t poisonous but aren’t really good eating either. This one with the orange skin is a Bondi fruit, and is pretty nice. Some people don’t like it but I think they’re alright. Skin is a little tough though.” He shrugged and passed it back to her. “Look, I’m sorry about what’s going on. Hestia said you’ve found some place to shelter?” He paused for Ash to nod. “Good. It’s actually possibly better you’re not in the village right now. A lot of people lost folks and are looking for someone to blame. What Livey said has a few of them muttering about you. Just… be careful next time you come to trade, okay?”

  “Speaking of that, would I get anything for the ant carcass?” She asked

  Eric snorted “No, sorry girl. I think I’ve heard of the venom being harvested and used for something, but I don’t think there’s anyone here that would have use for it.” He shrugged apologetically “Besides, that toxin can be pretty nasty. It’s not worth the risk hunting them. I’m glad you can at least defend yourself though!” He chuckled. “Now, bring back a basket of those Bondi fruit and then I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out.” He grinned, though it quickly faded as he looked her over. “Ah, actually, let me grab you a basket or something.” He wandered off for a minute before returning with a rough spun reed bag with a simple handle. “Here, it’s a little worse for wear but it should work just fine. It was one of the only things unclaimed from one of the fallen, so nobody will miss it.” He grimaced apologetically.

  “Thanks.” Ash smiled “I hadn’t thought about it but having no way to carry stuff I gather would be a real pain.”

  Ash thanked him again, and then give her farewells, wanting to get to her shelter before the light faded completely.

  As soon as she wriggled her way in and flopped onto her cloth blanket, the tiredness truly hit her. Within moments, she was fast asleep.