Forever

Camping out on a steep section of the mountain, Salim used the sheer rock wall as a part of his shelter to save time before sundown. Sleep for him was difficult, as he struggled to stay asleep for more than what felt like a few minutes at a time. The wind's howling against the mountainside bothered him, the screaming wind sounding just close enough to people for it to be eerie.

After hours of spotty sleep, the sun rose, the mountainside thankfully blocking heated rays from disturbing his morning. Dredging himself a small area to relieve himself, Salim knew that he was getting close, the skill was a loud clamoring, yelling that he was almost there. Feeling more motivated than the previous brutal climb, Salim cleaned himself up before pushing himself to complete the final stretch.

After just a couple of hours he could feel his goal just beyond a sharp bend in the mountain, Salim slowed, carefully trailed alongside the rocks, making sure to keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. Peering over an outcropping, Salim found what he was looking for: the river streaming down from higher up the mountain, making a small waterfall as it pooled into a small inlet before continuing further down.

Feeling his past life watching him, Salim slowly made his way over to the inlet, eyeing the surrounding trees and rocks for any signs of life. The sounds of the water moving along the river bed were soothing, but he still had reservations about open sources of water. Approaching the flowing water, Salim got the message that he was waiting for.

You have climbed a mountain to reach a stream.

Major Event has been Logged.

You have gained a Level!

You have gained a Level!

Surprised at the double level-up but feeling more than satisfied, he decided to make his time by the water quick to avoid any creatures that might be around. Drinking from the stream, Salim retreated up a rocky part of the mountain, where it had a small outcrop, giving him a vantage point over the inlet. Salim decided that he would try and set up a more permanent structure here, having both water and small river fish to survive off of. Deciding to assign stats before working, Salim wanted to pump up his physical might.

Lvl. 4

Stats

Confirm

Might: 9(15)

-/+

Finesse: 9(10)

-/+

Resilience: 15(16)

-/+

Acuity: 15

-/+

Resolve: 15

-/+

Depth: 2(4)

-/+

The next couple of minutes were spent cursing as he upgraded his stats all at once. Once the initial soreness wore off, he began to gather all the large debris he found around the inlet. Grumbling to himself for choosing a difficult-to-reach spot for his base, Salim eventually had enough to make a hut that he could crouch into instead of crawl. Feeling rather proud of himself, he began to plan out what he wanted to accomplish in the coming days.

Now that he had a source of water that wasn’t reliant on the weather, he needed to occupy his time with something other than kicking rocks along the inlet and feeling sad for himself. Even now he felt the need for social interaction he couldn’t fill, and didn’t want the feeling to get even worse, so he needed tasks to keep him focused and more importantly, sane.

In the past, he had idly watched videos on wilderness survival and had a general idea of what he should do, but the specifics were lost on him. He wanted to eventually build a cabin for himself, but even the general idea of that seemed far off, he didn’t even have tools to split wood. Although increasing my stats might allow me to cheat a little. Salim thought, Splitting wood with my bare hands would mean I don’t need to use tools.

While the idea of cutting down trees with his bare hands had some merit, he would need levels for that, which he didn’t have a straightforward way to get other than risking his life or going on long hikes. So he would try the tool route for now, watching the sunset as he chipped rocks together to try and get one sharp. He had just gotten a stone jagged enough to act as an arrow or spearhead when night fell, stopping his efforts and resigning himself to a surprisingly fruitful sleep.

The next morning, he slept in until the sunlight was warm across his face, he awoke, surprised that his sleep had lasted until midday. Thoughts of anxiety pushed him to get a move on, dragging him out of his hut and down the hill towards the inlet to try and find some vine or plant to act as a rope for the stone. Finding what he was looking for rather quickly, Salim had to attribute the find to [Forage] because he would never have noticed a dead but still sturdy vine sitting below a rock several feet away in the underbrush under normal circumstances.

Bringing his spoils back to the campsite, Salim began trying to tie up the rock, quickly realizing that he should have made notches in the spear tip to tie the vine to. After several failed attempts, he was able to chisel out big enough indents in the sides of the rock to attempt to secure it. That brought another issue; he didn’t know how to tie any knots beside shoelaces.

The whole process took most of his day before he was able to secure the rock with enough tightness that he was semi-confident that he could spear a fish with it. Angrily, picking up the spear after massaging his fingers, Salim walked back down the river to try and catch something.

He quickly learned that being angry was not a good strategy for catching fish with a spear, and while stronger and faster than ever before, the fish would run away at the slightest movement above the water. Strategy evolving, Salim began sitting still at the water's edge, poised to thrust, hoping that, a fish would swim within striking range. Unfortunately, he had no luck that day and had to eat through his rapidly dwindling supply of nuts and berries before swearing vengeance on the fish and making his way back to his camp.

The next day was filled with more fruitless attempts at catching fish. Salim cursed, as a plump brown-scaled fish rapidly swam away from him after his initial lunge had struck the sandy bottom of the inlet. It was hard for him to judge the distance of the fish because of how the light refracted off the pool of water, or at least, that’s what he told himself.

Giving up in frustration, Salim went back to his hut and tried to figure out how to make fire. Grabbing a flat wooden board and a rather straight stick, he piled smaller sticks and leaves around it to hopefully light. He was attempting to light a fire with just two sticks and sheer determination, and with his newly gained strength.

While he may not have a string to make a fire bow, he was far stronger than he had ever been, which he hoped would let him spin the wood fast enough to light something. Placing the stick between his palms and centering it on the makeshift kindling below, he began to spin, and spin, and spin.

Turns out that starting a fire using friction took a long time and was as strenuous as it was boring. Several times, Salim stopped to see if anything was happening, but it seemed like he just delayed the process. While he was able to spin the wood much faster than with his upgraded stats, the wood heated slowly and his hands ached after just a couple of minutes of spinning. Just as he was about to call it quits, he saw smoke coming from the leaves as the wood became hot enough to burn them.

Not stopping the friction, Salim did his best to try and move his pile of fire tinder closer to the black dent he was slowly burning into the log. It took a few minutes but eventually, a small flame was produced, and started to happily eat into the rest of his tinder. Careful not to accidentally blow it out, Salim used his body to block the breeze that was coming down the mountain and started to feed it larger sticks to grow the flames.

Once the fire was large enough to sustain itself for more than a few minutes, Salim got a pop-up.

You have started a fire from scratch.

Event has been Logged.

You have gained a Level!

It was perfect icing on the cake to accentuate his efforts. Staring into the red tongues streaking into the sky, Salim felt a sense of accomplishment at what he had managed to do. While he had help from his enhanced stats along with the heavy usage of his skills, he had been able to hike a mountain in nothing but gym shorts and start a fire from scratch alone, with no outside assistance.

The lack of anyone to celebrate his achievements stung, but in spite of his loneliness, he let out a celebratory cry across the inlet just to let the fish know that they would be cooking over said fire soon. Evening came right as he was finished setting up the fire, preparing it for when he couldn’t attend to it over the night. While the light and smoke it produced was a bit of a beacon, Salim figured that he was probably better off with it than without, since most creatures would be hesitant to approach with the surroundings lit up.

Pulling up his stat menu before trying to fall asleep, Salim pumped most of his points into might.

Lvl. 5

Stats

Confirm

Might: 15(19)

-/+

Finesse: 10

-/+

Resilience: 16

-/+

Acuity: 15

-/+

Resolve: 15

-/+

Depth:4(5)

-/+

While he liked even numbers as much as the next guy, he was still intrigued by what [Depth] did and wouldn’t sacrifice his curiosity for the slight increase of a single stat. After making sure that the fire wouldn’t catch on any trees overnight, Salim slipped back into his hut and fell asleep.

The next day, whatever gods existed in the world made it clear that they hated him. It rained, drenching what little embers still remained of the fire and with it Salim’s accomplishments. He realized a little late that he probably should have invested a bit more into [Resilience] so that he didn’t catch a cold or hypothermia. Huddled under a tree as it provided more cover than the rundown hovel that he had shoddily built, Salim watched the rain thunder down around him.

It seemed as though everything was against him as the rain turned into a raging storm, whipping him with its many hands while he shivered, pressed against the tree. He even attempted to drink some sap to avoid the biting wind, but to no avail; it only made him feel like he needed to move around, which was the last thing he wanted to do during the storm.

Thunder boomed, echoing across the small inlet and causing all the trees to begin shaking, while Salim desperately tried to huddle under one.

And then the trees kept shaking.

Then the ground started shaking.

Salim looked around in confusion and fear, he’d never experienced anything like this while hiking, but he still wasn’t going to come out from under the tree to investigate it. A loud crash startled him, echoing across the mountain before another crunching noise joined it, more and more sounds rang out turning into a cacophony of carnage. Realizing the noises too late, Salim ran for his life, sprinting down to the inlet and jumping off the side into the water when he saw what was coming.

A landslide of rock, silt, and several trees was right behind him, destroying everything in its path, including his previous campsite. In the water, Salim almost got brained, as a small chunk of rock had been flung ahead of the pack and smacked into the water with a heavy thunk.

Swimming rapidly, Salim’s arms ached as he pushed himself to get to shore, hoping to avoid the brunt of the slide. The landslide flew by in an instant, not falling on top of him but pushing a large amount of earth into the inlet and covering him in a muddy heap as it filled the water. It was hard to breathe, let alone move.

Getting himself to calm down was easier said than done, his body wanted to hyperventilate as the mud pulled him down, trapping him in place and forcing him to slowly fall under its surface. Intellectually he knew that flailing would do him no good, so he tried to keep his panic contained to his muscles, arms twitching as he tried to slowly push himself out.

It barely worked, he struggled trying to get himself to the side of the inlet that, while only a few feet away, felt like miles of effort. Salim never had a fear of quicksand, but was beginning to see that the apprehension was reasonable. It was like a nightmare, trying to move forward, but something was stopping him, wanting to claim him in its murky depths.

His muscles burning, skin chafing against the aggregate liquid, sending stinging pain throughout his body. Slowly, inch by inch, he pushed, until the edge of a rock was within reach, taunting him at his inability to grab onto it.

With monumental effort, he slowly squirmed, bringing his arms above the surface and grabbing onto the rock, using it to anchor himself above the mud. Now he could hold himself up without the need to fight against the treacherous grasp of gravity, however he was still very stuck.

Getting his arms free was very different from his entire body, and all he could do was try getting better leverage on the rock. Which was harder than it looked since his hands were slimy with the mud making it hard to get a grip, and trying to scrape the gunk off his hands only did so much. But even then he didn’t give up, far stronger than he had ever been, and the mud wouldn’t be enough to stop him.

What was I thinking earlier? [Might] was a much better stat to invest in. The thoughts piled into his head while he pulled his neck, chest, and finally stomach out of the mud and onto the rock. From there, getting his legs out was easy, as they came out through the hole the rest of his body had made. Laying himself out on the rock, Salim stared at the sky, panting as the adrenaline finally wore off on his muddy but alive body.

You have survived a landslide.

Major Event has been Logged.

You have gained a Level!

You have gained a Level!

You have gained a Skill!

Right on time, the system came to congratulate him on the near-death experience, punctuating his exhaustion as he promptly passed out.