Path To Radiance; First Ascent

Chapter 3 - Boar Meat: Part 1

I'm laying on my cot thinking about how the last two days have gone. I have re-lived both days multiple times since I laid down to rest the night before. The horror still too fresh in my mind. Another mental play through starts despite my many attempts to stop it.

The rest of the first day had dragged by. So had most of the second. All I did was explore near my camp, so that's no surprise. I never followed any specific path or got too far away from my clearing. I didn't want to venture too far from a water source since I was unsure when I would find a town or city.

I was never able to see the sky either. I would never have known what time it was if it wasn't for the watch map thing. Although, the day did fade completely to a night.

The "clearing" I am in is just an open space between bigger trees. Other than the first path I saw, nothing around looked well-traveled.

While exploring, I kept checking on my camp every thirty minutes or so at first. I didn't see another living thing that whole time. Even so, I didn't feel safe. Paranoia thickened at every little noise and it impeded my search quite a bit.

After finding some edible berries and a stream to fill my water bottle with, I pretty much hiked in an ever-expanding circle around my campsite. I hesitated to be on the path. I didn't want to risk running into another player just yet. What if there is Player vs. Player in this game?

Honestly, I was a little scared. In all of the VR games I've ever played, I had never felt pain before. I've felt stiffness from lying too long in bed, or once, a headache from playing while sitting in a chair then gracefully falling out of it. Never from in-game game activity. Kicking my tent proved to me that pain is very real in this-so-called virtual world.

After the light began to fade on that first day, I headed back to camp with some firewood. When it was fully dark, I reviewed as much of my menus as I could by the campfire. I learned nothing new, unfortunately. I spent a lot of my time on my Stats page trying to mentally click everything. A lot of values and text had no information screens at all which surprised me. Maybe I have to do something specific to access that information?

I did manage to get my health, mana, and stamina bars to display at the top left of my HUD. Health was displayed as a red bar with seven out of seven written inside it. My mana bar is greyed out but is just under the red bar. I have no idea what color it will be, but mana was usually blue from what I remember of other games. I refuse to assume anything about this game, so I'll have to find out later.

The last bar is stamina with six points and it is green.  The next day, notice my stamina bar would drop gradually throughout the day. It declines faster if I exert myself more, like if I run or climb up anything. As it empties, I feel tired. The green bar refills if I rest or eat anything. It never tops off completely though. That requires sleep. With only six points, I can only accomplish so much.

After getting my bars to be displayed, I moved on to my skills list, oh I mean "skill" list as I only have one. The sword skill is pretty generic. When I opened its information tab, it read:

Battle Skills:

Short Blades

Type: Skill
Sub-Skills: None
Category: General
Cost: None
Duration: None
Cool Down: None
Range: Self
Activation Time: None
Effect: Damage done with short blades is increased by 1.
Description: The Player can effectively wield any one-handed blade.

I was less impressed with the skill than I thought I'd be, the window deflated me further. It also raised more questions than it answered. Would a great sword be considered a short blade if I can swing it in one hand? Does the description mean swords "meant" to be used by one hand only like the gladius I grabbed first? I guess I'll have to find out more about that later.