A beautiful sky with clouds could be found when one looked up, the sun being the cherry on top making the whole scenery greatly endearing. Just like the real-world, it was baby blue, holding a ball of light and many randomly shaped foggy structures in the sky also imitating the real-world's sun and clouds.
As one could clearly tell by the description of the sky Reitolk was angry and was taking it out on how the sky in the game looked.
"To think that we had no hope the second we entered the capsule", Reitolk sighed in frustration and despair.
He stopped focusing on the choices that led up to what happened now and instead focused on what was before him. What he saw was a forest, a forest that is found on an island about the size of 3 Texas states combined; well with such a comparison it's not much more of an island than it is a small country.
He knew this was a place he only had 24 hours to be before he was transported to his actual spawn.
There were people already here when he arrived. Looking around he found a man named Jolan, a charismatic idiot who led him and half of the other players here to their deaths. Losing the only extra life a player started with, and immediately sending them to the real spawn area in Survival's Rise, the myriad of dungeons in this world.
The 24 hours spent on this huge island is meant to be used to gather the necessary equipment and resources needed to survive and break out of the dungeons. The resources one can find in this place would be hard to acquire once one entered into the real start of this game.
Knowing this Reitolk decided to start moving immediately. He looked at his basic stats which were the same for all players.
__________________
Player Status:
Name: Reitolk
Condition: Healthy
****
STATS:
Health: 20 Max: 75
Stamina: 20 Max: 75
Energy: 10 Max: 40
Strength: 3 Max: 10
Agility: 3 Max: 10
****
Equipment: None
__________________
This was a player's Status screen, this allowed players to see their stats, condition and equipment.
Now this game wasn't like other games in the rpg sense, Reitolk remembered something about this game. You can't level up or stage up, or go and train your stats to unbelievable levels either in this game. You can become stronger, but the path to strength is dangerous. The likelihood of you dying is much higher than you succeeding in this game.
But here he was with the knowledge of the future in some way with the perfect opportunity to get stronger in a much more quick process and relatively safer method than most can get.
Although he was in a place he wasn't used to, he knew it would be easier to get stronger here than in the actual game world because this was the place for resource gathering newbie players and in the true game world it's a place where survival is only for the strongest, luckiest, smartest, and best players and npc's.
Knowing this Reitolk started scanning the area, and sure enough this was a place for players to gather resources in a relatively safe manner, he found three uncommon plant type resources around him, these weren't too valuable on their own, but they just happened to be the resources needed for health and agility potions.
One of the plants was called Tense Blade grass, which was quite big with each blade extending 2 feet outwards and 1 feet upwards also having a width of 7-8 inches. This plant was useful in creating health potions. Another plant was called Dripping Vital root tree, its roots covered the ground's surface area and the tree part was underground, its roots were constantly dripping a glowing yellow substance that would energize you, specifically targeting the leg muscles. This plant was useful in speed potions and stamina potions. Last was the Dented Yellow Carrot, unlike the usual carrot plant its stem was yellow and bent up in many spots, making it look like a bunch of kindergardeners woke up on the wrong side of the bed and decided to take it out on the poor plant. This plant was useful for perception speed enhancing potions.
Reitolk simply gathered the grass and the carrot, but the Root tree is too big to carry with him. So he would need a container to take the glowing substance with him. Understanding that he decided to leave for more resources.
"Hey!!"
Before Reitolk could run off someone called for him.
'I almost forgot about the other players, although I'm not planning on shepherding them through these 24 hours I can at least warn them about how dangerous the ruins and dungeons in this game are.'
As he was thinking the person who called for him ran up to him.
Reitolk examined the person before him. Funnily enough it was another notable person who had a great hand in getting half of the players here killed. His name was Danny, he's a red head, has lean build, and is a complete piece of crap.
"I saw you gathering some grass, and was quite surprised when you started pulling out carrots from the ground"
Stifling a laugh Danny remarked, "though those are some of the most f*ed up carrots I've ever seen"
Reitolk turning his gaze to the recently picked carrots in his hands couldn't help but silently agree with a nod.
"You seem to have some knowldege in herbal plants, from what I've gathered from the games details it is a hardcore survival game along with being a fantasy dungeon explorer game. Your skills could make survival for everyone much easier. Say, why don't you join us, we have a group of 7 people including me, we could protect you and you could help out by pointing out different useful plants." Danny quite elegantly suggested.
Although he was a coward, Danny certainly had some talent in speaking, and cunning as well. He subtly flattered Reitolk skills, while at the same time subtly avoiding it's use for just using for myself but promoted it's use for others as a valuable skill that could help a whole group.
But Reitolk wasn't interested, he had his own life to look after. For what reason should he carry 7 other people on his shoulder too?
"I'm afraid I'll have to decline. I've always played solo, but I don't giving you guys a tip. Beware the ruins in this game and any spooky structures, as dungeons in this game are highly dangerous, I advise finding resources to start off
Along the way he found more Tough Blade Grass and dented yellow carrots, as well as a few more of the tree roots. He also found many other useful plants when he finally found a ruin he had been searching for. The same one he died having followed that charismatic idiot Jolan.
As Reitolk was walking around in the forest he noticed the trees start to clear up. The grass that was there before started to fade away into just plain dirt. Before continuing any further Reitolk grabbed 2 thick dead trees. Eventually there was nothing around for him to hide himself around. Looking out he saw a Stony structure about 0.8 miles away.
It was a dilapidated old ruined castle, that had seemed to have long been abandoned. Moss covered many spots of the clearly breached wall that had many holes in it. One could occasionally see rats scurrying around the front of the barely recognizable gates. All the structures on this land were like that, Reitolk guessed that as he listened to many others talk about their time in this startup land.
Reitolk stepped back a bit and found a stone about the size of both of his hands balled up together and tossed it over to the gate, but not before finding a couple of dead trees, and setting them up vertically.
*Crack*
*Swoosh* *Swoosh*
*Clank* *Clank*
*Ching* *Ching* *Chink*
Reitolk had thrown the stone at the gate and triggered an advance trap. The trap shot 2 initial arrows out and then calculated the direction the stones came from, finding that there were only two dead logs where the stone came from it deactivated. If it did find someone in the direction the stone came from, said person or even people would be bombarded with arrows. If it didn't it would deactivate. As one would guess seeing how well he knew this trap he had indeed survived this trap. The method to...he was not proud of.
Walking out from behind the dead trees Reitolk immediately started walking towards the castle's gates. It took him about an hour to reach here, looking up into the sky he sees that the sun has moved a little. Judging the position of the sun Reitolk guessed he had about 2-3 hours before Jolan and his group of people got here so he had to be quick.
Walking through the gates of the dilapidated castle Reitolk immediately after a more stealthy disposition, bending his legs and back until he was in a crouched position. He moved along the wall avoiding the monsters he knew were there, the undead. Eventually he got to the right tower. If he was to walk there normally it would have been a about an 8 minute walk, but dodging the skeletons and zombies around the area made the 8 minute walk a 17 minute walk as there were quite a few of them. Even the small noises had a high chance of attracting the zombies within a 8 yard radius and skeletons could sense anything within a 4 yard radius of them. Making avoiding this castle of brain dead creatures an absolute hassle.