The return trip to the clearing took about an hour. Lance would stop frequently and look and listen back up the trail worrying that someone would be coming to check things out. He managed to avoid any encounters with aggressive wildlife or monsters. In fact, the only signs of life he saw on the way back was what ‘Identify’ informed him was a squillo and some other tracks. It looked like a squirrel, wearing an armadillo shell. When they startled each other, as it was running across the trail, it tucked itself into an armored ball and rolled away like a video game hedgehog. When it realized Lance wasn’t going to chase it, it stood back up and scrambled up the nearest tree and leapt from branch to branch with all the grace and agility he would expect from a squirrel. At least it didn’t feel like attacking him. Identifying it had gained him a level in ‘Identify’. He arrived back at the clearing and made another circuit of his perimeter. Everything looked unchanged with all his perimeter warning devices, and there were no new tracks. “DING”
Tracking has increased by 1 level.
Quests completed - ‘Conduct RECON’ & ‘Locate Civilization’
Energy Gained - 40
Looking at his status, he saw that ‘Tracking’ was now level 10 and it had an unnatural draw on his attention. Focusing ‘Analyze’ on the skill he saw:
Tracking- This skill increases the ease with which evidence of a creature’s passage can be perceived, improves the identification of tracks to what made them, which direction they are going, and when they were made. Higher skill level increases the likelihood off successfully identifying tracks and following them. – Level 10 upgrade – Identified tracks currently being followed are harder to lose, and limned with a minor glow.
A little over 3 hours had passed since his last class skill usage, so Lance headed over to the truck to duplicate another box of pyro. He was going to have to sit down at some point and figure out a schedule of logistics. Being able to duplicate up to 15 pounds now would allow him to do about 2 gallons of fuel at a time. He would just have to see if he could duplicate just the fuel in a half empty jerry can, or if he was going to have to duplicate one of his cookpots or a bucket to use for that task. A piling up of a bunch of fuel contaminated buckets would take up too much space in the camper, and wouldn’t feel right burning or burying here in the clearing. After making another box of flares, he headed to the side of the camper and opened up one of the compartments to check on his solar system. The batteries were showing good charge, and the charge controller looked to be working at max efficiency. So, it appeared that the light waves from the blue sun were maybe a bit more efficient even than the sun back on Earth.
Having finished with that chore, he went in the camper and pulled out a pad of what he called map paper (11”x17” with ?” grid lines). He fairly quickly, and accurately drew a depiction of the clearing with his truck, marked the location of all his trip wires with devices, sketched in the trail up to the roadway, marking the appropriate location of the harpy and spider attack, and extended the roadway off in a Tee marking an arrow, in the direction the caravan was headed, with the label “Civilization ??” above it. He knew he could see most of this with the MAP option his system now had, but he had learned over the years that sometimes he could grasp the elements of a situation more properly when he could literally put his hands on it. “DING”
Skill ‘CARTOGRAPHY’ has been obtained.
Proficiency Displayed. Skill advanced to Level 7.
Lance gave himself a mental high-five and a whispered thank you to the system. Studying his map and seeing visually how close he was to the roadway, he wondered whether he should rethink his aerial flare approach to his warning system. Lighting up the night sky with a floating miniature sun might attract attention he wasn’t ready to address just yet. He didn’t know how much traffic there was on the road at any time, and didn’t know how close he was to any population centers or outposts. As he finished studying his map for now, he received another notification. “DING”
MAP updated.
Opening up his mental map, he noticed that it now contained all of the labels and markings that he had placed on his hand drawn map. This could be very useful if he ever came across a regional or world map in the future. Other than that animal attack on his first night here (and even that resulted in him accruing the necessary energy to activate his integration into the system), he could say that his time here in this location had been super productive. He had many of the tools available to him that were standard in his fantasy novels and games. He didn’t know if the system was responsible for his appearance here. But, since his introduction to it, it had been very beneficial to his development, and some of the time almost appearing to go out of its way to benefit him and even seem to personally communicate with him. He was quite content with his Faith Attribute being assigned to Systema and looked forward to what the system had in store for him. “DING”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Title obtained: ‘System Missionary’ – While most of the populace
of the universe is aware of the system, the vast majority are
adherents of one of the myriad deities across the cosmos. The
role of the ‘System Missionary’ is to “preach” the benefits of
Faith in Systema. – Title gives +5 to Charisma
Attunement increased by 5. ;D
Systema Boon attunement level 15 awarded: OMNIGLOT - Grants a functional understanding of all languages and the ability to also speak and read them, or in the case of nonverbal languages communicate in the appropriate manner.
So, there was now not even a sliver of doubt that the system was not only sentient, but sapient, and directly communicating with and rewarding Lance. When he finally encountered civilization, he was definitely going to have to look up a library or its equivalent and see what more he could learn about the system, and spend some time “preaching” its advantages.
Having milked all his “starting quests” for energy gains except for the Aurora of light in the sky, and no longer having an excuse of not being able to communicate with the locals, Lance made the decision to pack up camp and head out first thing in the morning to find out where the caravan had gone. The only thing left to do here in the clearing would be to spend a bit of time studying the stone ring in the center of the clearing, and collect up all of his perimeter alarms. Exiting the camper, he headed over to the stone ring to try and get a handle on what it was and/or how it was involved in bringing him here. Although hidden by the tall grass, the ring appeared to be perfectly circular with no seams and repeating runes carved at intervals around it.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
His Omniglot trait gave him an understanding of the runes. They equated to Travel, then Transportation and Movement, next was Growth and Change, then finally Awakening. The only thing he could suppose from what he was seeing was that this was some kind of ritual or array that transported someone here and kick-started their awakening. How it was activated, and how it even connected to his location on Earth, he had no idea.
Finished with his examination of the stone circle, Lance walked back over to the camper and unhooked the jerry can with his diesel fuel. Emptying about half the can into his truck’s fuel tank, he then focused intently on the concept of 2 gallons of diesel fuel and activated ‘Duplicate’. Luckily he had set the can on the ground before starting, because he would have spilled at least some of it when he dropped the can due to the sudden increase in weight. It had worked spectacularly. If he eventually got up to a 50 pound weight limit on his skill, he would duplicate an entire can full of fuel and figure out somewhere to store it, then he wouldn’t have to be cautious about keeping the can around half full, and could just empty a full one and attempt to use the empty in trade. More than anything now, he hoped to get more reductions in his cooldown. That could make him somewhat overpowered. Since he had filled the truck up just before he headed down the highway early that morning, he nearly refilled the tank by adding the newly duplicated fuel. He strapped the half-full jerry can back to the back of his camper, opened the door and climbed in to fix himself some supper. Ready to eat and get some rest, Lance passed on fixing a home-cooked meal, and fixed a container of ramen. Undressing and cleaning up with some wet wipes, he set an alarm for 3 hours and climbed into bed. He woke up to his alarm around 2300 hours (if time still ran similar to Earth, he hadn’t been tracking it) and all was quiet. He opened the camper door and reached out to touch the jerry can and duplicated another 2 gallons of fuel, nearly filling the can. Resetting the alarm he crawled back into bed and quickly fell asleep.
Waking up in the predawn to his alarm, he duplicated a 500 round box of his 5.56mm hollow points, shaved, fixed a couple of eggs, and geared up in uniform and shoulder holster with 9mm. He secured everything in its place in the camper, grabbed his 5.56mm AR and secured it along with a Mossberg 590 12 gauge in the roof rack in the cab of the truck. He popped the hood on the truck and checked the oil and coolant, started it up and let it idle while he checked the lights and tires. Finished with his PMCS (preventive maintenance checks and service), he closed the hood, climbed in and turned on the headlights, and made a slow circuit around the clearing. Every time he came to one of his booby traps, he got out, disabled it and packed it back in the truck. Once he had collected up all his stray ordinance, he circled back around to the trail through the woods, shifted the transfer case into low range and the transmission into first gear and started slowly creeping up the trail, keeping his eyes open for any issues.
By the time he made the 2 click drive to the roadway, the sun had cleared the horizon and he could see without the headlights. Stopping at the end of the clear trail behind the wall of bushes, he got out to examine the actual approach to the road. After the bushes, there was about an 18 inch deep ditch that spanned about 10 or 12 feet across the top while sloping down to a narrow flat bottom. The roadway itself looked like the adjacent soil from the ditches had been pulled into the roadway and compacted along with the existing roadway dirt into a seamless stone surface. Deciding he wanted to keep the clearing and its dimensional circle as secret as possible, he went to the back of the camper and opened one of the storage compartments and grabbed his pioneer kit. Attaching the mattox head, he began digging around the back side of the bushes until he had loosened the roots enough to ease them out of the ground and set them aside. Pulling out of the trail, across the ditch, and up onto the roadway, he hoped no one would be coming down the road while he replaced the bushes back where they came from. Once he had replaced the bushes, he grabbed one of his cases of water and duplicated it, then opened a few of them and poured some water over the base of the plants.
With his impromptu landscaping complete, Lance climbed back into the truck, shifted the transfer case back into 2 wheel high, and turned toward the rising sun and started accelerating.
