Doctor Who: Test Runner

I set up camp quickly, well… I set up the tent quickly. I don't have much to set up to call my hill a camp yet. All in good time though. All in good time. I will have a proper house to call my own here one day, and maybe a good spaceship if I get particularly lucky with a quest. Who knows… the future is up to me now and whatever logic or laws that applied back on my Earth would be closer to a suggestion here.

I set out everything that I didn't really need with me all the time, which in this case was just my sleeping bad so I put it inside my tent and I stepped out, thinking of looking around to see if there was anything useful around, maybe edible berries or something, when I heard a ping and a black system screen appeared in the air in front of me.

Quest ‘Set up a defensible camp.’ has been completed.

Rewards obtained: A defensible camp. A small supply of wood logs in your inventory.

“Huh, I guess that setting up what I had was all that I needed?” I commented with a bit of surprise. I had expected the quest to be more difficult.

Then I felt a shift in the odd mental space that was my inventory. I could feel that my inventory was empty before, like you knew that you were wearing light clothes. But now it was as if there was a weight that was added inside my inventory. It didn't feel heavy or anything, it was just there. I concentrated on the weird section of my mind like I had when I first arrived, and I could sense that my inventory was not empty any more. I couldn't feel much about the interior or my inventory, but I could use my mind to almost sift through what was inside and I could try to figure out what it meant.

In this case it was pretty obvious that they were the logs for my quest reward. I now had ten logs about as long as I was tall and about two times as thick as my arm. And these were whole logs too, not split ones like I thought I would get. On top of those ten however, there were two really thick ones that were close to my kneecap in terms of height and a little thicker than my body.

Alongside this mental scan of my new logs however, I got the distinct feeling that I could open up my inventory in the real world to take them out. It was truly strange, as I have never felt anything that I could even compare to how my inventory felt in that moment, so even if I described it nobody would understand truly.

The strangeness of that feeling aside however, I did what any normal person would do and I gave the mental instruction to my inventory to open up in the real world. I got the feeling that to open it I had to choose a spot to place the thing I wanted to take out. I chose directly in front of me, and I watched as one of the two larger logs appeared in the air in front of my legs and slammed into the ground with a thud.

It was rather simple to use, and I appreciated the mental instructions that my bonus came with. I would probably be a bit lost about everything without it, but it was also extremely simple once I understood it.

Besides understanding my inventory better, I now knew I had access to a pretty big supply of firewood and a wooden stool for my camp. All I need is some decently sized rocks and I can make a decent fire when I need to.

But with that sorted out and the afternoon/early evening sun beaming down on me I started to walk down my hill to the lake to collect some stones for my fire pit.

I spent the rest of the evening setting up my fire and by the time that I had it going the sky was already turning dark, letting me see the stars in the sky. There was no light pollution on this planet, so the sight before me was outstanding and left me awed at the beauty of this world. Though two phrases that I learned from a friend stood out in my mind at that moment. ‘You can only see the best in something once you have seen the worst in everything else.’ was one saying, while the other is ‘Behind every pretty face could be the teeth of a predior’. Never mind that she was talking about girls at the time.

While on the surface, this world was beautiful and untouched, but under that surface and in the wild untamed world that I suspected it to be… things were as ugly as the worst part of any city. But with so much beauty surrounding me, even now… that is a hell of a lot of teeth.

With that oh so comforting thought I went into my tent to sleep for the night, bringing my hatchet in with me. My set of teeth were a bit small for a world like this.

I woke up quickly, refreshed and alert. Being out in nature tends to bring out the best sleep for me for some reason, but this was definitely not the norm back when I lived in the city on Earth. There was a cool breeze that was playing across my face as I opened my eyes and I blinked as the cool air stung against my watery eyes. I wiped off my slightly wet face quickly before sitting up and maneuvering out of my sleeping bag, putting my boots and my jacket on before I grabbed my hatchet just in case and stepped out of my small tent and out into the open air with a sigh.

There was nothing different in sight, and my surroundings seems particularly devoid of life so I allowed myself to relax as I looked out around the landscape, thinking of my next moves.

“Honestly… while I have food for most of the next four days in MRE’s I need to check out the area for a solid supply of food. Fishing, trapping wild animals, hunting, tracking. But I need to do a bit of a search of the area for any of that.” I thought out loud to myself with a nod, letting my rather hands on survival experience take over.

What followed immediately after I made my decision was a good meal of army standard meal packets. Good for military standards that is. If I had not long ago gotten used to this stuff, I would have had a more negative perspective on my meal quality. It was enough to keep me going, and I guess that's all I need for now.

Then I spent some time burying the paper wrapping in the ground nearby, digging into the soft grassy dirt with my hands enough to make a small hole, knowing that it is biodegradable. I went over to my new stool and proceeded to check myself over to make sure that I was ready to search the area with a more in depth examination.

“Clothes are good, knife good, hatchet is checked off, baseball cap on… I think that's all I need?” I listed, before stopping to check through my stuff in my mind to make sure that I didn't need anything else. “I guess I should use my compass when I go out farther, but I am good for now.” I affirmed to myself before standing up from my log and starting to walk to the lake to see if spearfishing or equivalent was viable.

The lake seemed to have a rather steep drop off around the area that I had set up camp, with it looking to be around waist height a few feet into the lake, and while logic might suggest that was probably a good thing for my fishing prospects… reality disagreed. There was nothing swimming around near the lake's more shallow area where I wouldn't have to swim to keep my head above water. I was pretty sure that fish were normally swimming around freely during the early morning, and it was still quite early with the sun just barely above the horizon. So… There goes thoughts of the easy fishing that the lake could be.

With that apparent bust, I started examining the land for signs of any animals that might live close enough to use this as a drinking spot. Experience and nature itself states that any animals would stay near a source of freshwater, and this was a pretty big one out in the open. There should be herds of animals that came around this lake to get a drink.

With that knowledge in mind, I was not surprised by seeing several animal prints in the muddy ground about ten feet away on the banks of the lake. I took a closer look at them, thinking of what kind of animals left the tracks. They looked rather like hare or rabbit tracks, but they were really big so that left me a little confused. One of the larger paw prints was even about the size of my fist. Well… the goddess did mention magic having an effect on the world and changing the natural animals, so maybe there are giant rabbits around? Sounds like a good source of food if I have ever heard of one. One of the first animals I ever hunted and cooked up was wild hare.

I did take the time to check the rest of the edge of the lake for other tracks and things as well, and I did find several other interesting things. There was a large area by the lake that had hoof prints in the hardened mud, about enough for a small herd if I was guessing right. There were also smaller tracks about a dozen or so feet away from those prints that seemed like they probably belong to a group of larger buffaloes, or something similar at least.

Something more interesting happened while I was out tracking that drew my attention from the ground to the sky with the squawk of apparently very loud birds as they flew overhead. They looked like mildly oversized seagulls from where I was standing by the lake as they swooped down to the water in one huge group. What do you even call a hoard of seagulls? Whatever.

“CAW!!!” I heard sounded out and I flinched instinctively as I turned towards the source of a loud and angry caw. T-that was a… a fucking massive raven. It was the size of a car! A REALLY ANGRY CAR!

The seagulls gave squawks of panic as the unit of a bird dived towards the hoard of seagulls, catching a good five in its beak as it went through the group before pulling up and flapping away into the sky once more to look down on the seagulls that had flown away in a panic to the other end of lake. The raven seemed almost disdainful of the group as they flew away in disarray, and I could hear it letting out another insanely loud caw as it flew away to my right and eventually disappearing on a line of cliffs in the distance.

That whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth as I stood on the edge of the lake after watching the fight. That was the kind of thing that called this place home?! I don't even know what to say. That was a huge bird, huge enough it could probably eat me whole, and the overgrown seagulls didn't even put up a fight. I was pretty sure that I couldn't take even a couple of those gulls, and there was that monster out there?!

I gave a sigh. Honestly this was pretty much what I expected when I saw that crazy look the goddess had when she looked at this world and by extension this island. Well… nothing I can really do about it I guess. Just keep minding my business and hopefully I don't end up running across a monster like that thing up close and personal anytime soon.

I shook my head, shaking off my shocked state with quick decisive action. Back to the hunt. I have an idea of the kind of land animals that come around here, and so I think I can try my hand at tracking them to their home territory, burrows in the case of the giant rabbits.

I walked around the edge of the lake for a few seconds to find the rabbit tracks once more, and I found them after a few seconds. Now came the difficult part of tracking.

I crouched on the crest of one of the many hills that were around this part of the island and I looked across to a different sight then I was used to after inspecting the landscape. It was a rather large cave-like earthen entrance in the side of a hill. I had traced the large rabbit tracks through the grasslands that was this corner of the island until I eventually found the end of the tracks, where they all converged and headed inside the large burrow. Overgrown rabbit burrow found.

But there was a very concerning fact that I realized as soon as I saw the entrance to the rabbits home. The thing was big enough that I could walk inside without my head brushing the top of the entrance. There is a fact that you need to know to realize the significance of this fact. Rabbits build their homes by digging with their paws, and they end up with burrows barely bigger than their body’s when on all fours. Rabbits that made a burrow that I could stand in and walk around in comfortably, were as big as I was.

That was some massive rabbits. Adding on to the fact that they were nearly four times as long as they were tall, they would be even more massive. What was with this world and huge animals?! It was a good thing that rabbits were prey animals and not- Ah. That's really not much better. If the normal prey animals were this big, then what the fuck was eating them and just how big are they?

I gave a shiver as I had that thought. I did not want to come across a fox two times the size of these rabbits and therefore, me. I guess I could worry about that when I found out if my thoughts had anything behind them…

For now however, I was the hunter in this situation… I think. I mean, I have a hatchet which can serve as a decent weapon, my knife and I was stalking one of the entrances to a rabbit's burrow. The fact that I could be stalking literal magic monsters notwithstanding.

I stayed crouched for a good few minutes, watching the entrance to get a good look at my prey before I tried to do something potentially stupid, like going inside the burrow. Strangely, nothing came out of the burrow while I was there. While I was crouched there I gave a shiver as a weird chill crept in. ‘That's odd, why is it so cold now? What happened to the sun that was trying to cook me?’ I thought to myself, not really concerned but a bit relieved. But it was at that moment that I looked down at myself and I realized that there was a patch of darkness around my body that stretched along the crest of the hill. A shadow.

Now that sight put me on edge and I tensed my body instinctively as I turned my head to look quietly behind me. On the top of the next hill over, a little ways away, there was a dark form blocking out the sun and casting its shadow on the landscape as it stood up straight on its hind legs. It was a rabbit alright.

Horrifyingly, my estimates of its height seemed spot on with it looking about four times my height from here. But while I was getting a good look at the monstrosity, there were several odd things about it. The most obvious thing was that this rabbit had horns. Two curved spiraling horns, like you would see on an antelope, were situated on their foreheads, pointing into the air as it was on its hind legs looking around carefully. Then next I noticed the more subtle differences from a normal rabbit from Earth. Its eyes were forward facing, being situated like a human below a forehead and above the nose, and its eyes were bright red. If that was not enough to suggest that this type of rabbit was not normal then the teeth would prove it… they were pointed and filled its entire mouth with two sets of literal fangs in its open maw.

This was not, in fact, the normal prey species that I was used to back on Earth. This was an evil bunny. And it was really not funny when it was three times as tall as me.

Then it looked directly at me. I stared at it. It stared at me. I rose to my feet. It let its body fall forwards on its four legs again. Then it started sprinting in my direction.

“DAMN IT THAT THING IS FAST!” I shouted out in a state of panic as I saw it start moving, clearly running way faster than I could. I started sprinting away anyway. Would you stay still when a killer rabbit was charging you down?!

I was off that hill in a blast of speed, the adrenaline really pushing my body as I started focusing on my breathing to get away faster. Down the hill to the lake. I have no idea what I would do when I got there, but I needed to get away from the monster rabbit that was chasing me down so I ran there anyway.

I gripped my hatchet in my arms as I ran, though I wasn't sure what it could do against something like that, especially in my extremely inexperienced hands. I looked back as I ran down a hill, and my eyes widened as I caught a flash of white fur before I instinctively ducked and rolled to the side, barely dodging the leap of the rabbit as it rushed past me in the air. It landed at the bottom of the hill with barely a pause from the landing as it spun around to face me again, teeth bared as it hissed out a bone chilling shriek.

I stood my ground this time and gave the beast a hard look with a almost bestial growl of my own. I couldn't run like that for long, and honestly I think that this thing would catch up really quickly if I tried. It took ten seconds for it to catch up last time, and that was when it started a good hundred feet away at minimum. Now it was just about halfway down the hill I was on, a dozen feet max.

I raised my hatchet in my hands in a defensive way and stared down the beast, my heart in my mouth but my hands steady. This was not the first time I had been in a bad situation, but this was definitely different with me facing off with something this big.

“Trial by fire, huh?” I muttered to myself, cursing my two patrons as I did. This was all their fault. Why couldn't I just be sent to somewhere normal? This universe has some version of planet Earth, why not plop me there in the twenty-first century? Sure I would have to go through some stuff, but why did they put me on or even make Fera!? I thought that they needed me to survive, not get killed by a mad overgrown rabbit that wants to eat me!

The rabbit hissed out another shriek, then it started running up the hill with its head pointed down and horns facing me, ready to spear me. I quickly moved to the side to dodge the incoming car sized rabbit and I swung down with my hatchet as it passed by me, sliding a bit on the grassy ground. All that I have seen of the rabbit's attack pattern seemed to be two specific attacks. Charging like a bull with its horns and leaping into the air to almost pounce on me, probably to get its fangs in me.

But as several notable people pointed out, bulls have quite a hard time changing gears once they are charging, and so I placed my bets that this atack had the same drawback. Though it was almost fixed by the rabbits natural flexibility and dexterity, nothing could break the law of physics as was proven when my hatchet bit deep into the rabbits neck as it charged past me, leaving it embedded deep. The rabbit stumbled at the pain of my attack, before tumbling over itself and turning back to me.

I was ready to curse and was reaching for my knife, which I knew wouldn't be much help, but then its legs gave out as it gave a shaky step forward and it lay still, blood coming from the deep wound I somehow managed to make and my hatchet sticking out of its body. It was dead.

I laughed out loud as I realized this and sank to my knees as the adrenaline wore off slowly.