Chapter one

  Arrival

  Glenn was lost. He had woken up in a cave naked, cold and afraid. The only light in the cave passing through long twisting stalagmites and stalactites at the entrance. This gave the appearance of sharp pointed teeth, almost like he was inside the belly of a massive beast. Moss clung to the walls in spots. The air had the smell of damp and mildew. Shakily getting to his feet Glenn looked around. The light from the cave mouth seemed to illuminate the entire cave, far better than he would expect. Some of the nooks and corners that he would expect to be pitch black were visible in more of a greyscale.

  “What the heck is up with this cave?” Glenn said quietly to himself. The sound echoing far easier than he though it should. The cave was empty aside from a trickle of water running down the center.

  “I should go get my bearings outside.” He thought to himself. After walking to the cave entrance and looking outside he saw a lush, verdant forest.

  “I thought it was fall. Shouldn’t the trees be as bare as me right now?” The sun was rising in the East so it had to be early morning.

  “Okay so time to take stock.” Glenn said to himself.

  “I am naked so nothing to use to survive. I have no clue where I am and can’t see through this forest. So it is unlikely I will be able to get help on my own. I saw a bit of water dripping in that cave so I may be able to get water. Food should be doable for a while from berries and what not but I don’t know what is edible so it may be best to hold out on that as long as I can. Survival shows for the win. This is like that show where people were dropped off naked to survive though, I didn’t get to bring anything and I’m alone. That show ended early when one of them would get hurt and the other had to take care of them, I don’t have that safety.” Glenn said thoughtfully.

  “First a look around while I gather stuff I might be able to use.” Glenn said walking into the forest and finding a long stick about a foot taller than himself.

  “Well it’s not a ten foot pole but seven foot is close enough.”

  Walking into the woods Glenn noticed a few things. The first was that there were almost no signs of animals on the ground. No trails, causing the overgrowth that was exceptionally thorny, to be thick, almost impenetrable while naked. The other thing he noticed was that there were far more animals in the trees. He saw that almost every tree had some kind of a nest in it. The nests were large and imposing.

  He dropped to a low crouch as he spotted a huge bird, maybe a Condor based on it’s size, he thought, in one of the nests. The bird was huge. It was hard to get a good gauge on the exact size but he was sure that if it wanted to it could carry away a child or young adult at the very least. Slowly Glenn backed away towards the cave he had come from, keeping an eye on the massive avian the whole time. After a few seconds of focusing on that fowl creature a message appeared in his vision. “Mark Applied.” The blue background with white text threw Glenn off causing him to miss the dry stick that his foot found on the next step.

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  “Shit.” He whispered to himself looking to see if the bird had left. He could not find it, but, a red dot appeared in the corner of his vision. When he turned to look at it he saw a set of massive talons racing for his eyes. Dropping to the ground the bird swooped overhead missing him by inches. He broke into a sprint for the cave. A red dot pointing straight at his attacker the whole time. Thankfully he was only twenty or so feet from the cave. Unfortunately the bird was fast. Turning and swooping in the air it made three more passes. Each time Glenn attempted to dodge but the talons trying to grab him had left several deep cuts on his shoulders and back. When he finally reached the cave mouth, he dove in and the bird did not follow. After a rough landing and a tumble he ended up in a heap. The roll down the slope from the cave entrance carried him several feet into the cave. There was a lot of blood.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” He said loudly. “What the fuck was that”

  “I am in trouble I can’t even see the wounds and have nothing to treat them with.” He thought. The ground was cold which at least helped with the burning on his back.

  “I am losing a lot of blood.” Glenn thought. Panic was setting in. “Why can I still see that red dot? What was that message? Mark applied and a red dot that must be connected. So what does that mean? Magic? Or was I implanted with some kind of weird heads up display. As he thought about a heads up display three colored bars appeared in his vision like a health bar system you might see in a video game. “Well that confirms that it’s something like one of those." He said poking at his eye. It felt normal. He didn’t feel sore and assumed that he would if he had recently had a surgery. Okay so twice when I thought about things they just kind of happened. Looking at the red bar he noticed it was half full and slowly going down. “Is that my health” he thought. “If I have a Health bar will I be okay until it’s empty? If so I probably have two or three minutes to figure something out. Okay if its technology I am probably dead. I don’t think I would have anything to take care of these injuries. So my only chance to live is if it’s magic. “Heal” he said trying the first magic spell he could think of and nothing happened. “Spells” He said to no avail. The same thing happened with Magic, Bandage and Cure. But when he thought “Inventory” a window opened like the message earlier. It was shifting and he couldn’t easily make out what it said. “What is this? Why is it constantly changing?” Glenn could make out some of the words though. After a few precious seconds it stabilized into a list.

  Basic clothing x 1

  Basic survival dagger x1

  Basic camping supplies x1

  Travel rations x20

  Waterskin x1

  Basic bow x1 (arrows conjured)

  10 gold pieces (System embossed)

  In a rush Glenn thought of the basic camping supplies. Causing a large box to appear. The lid was just placed on and came off easily. “Warning HP low 25%” A message appeared in front of him. “I know I know.” Glenn said through gritted teeth quickly pulling everything out of the box. He found basic cookware a tent and tent spikes, some rope, a wide selection of fire starters including a flip lighter and fuel. At the very bottom of the box were three more boxes. Opening them he found each one contained three bottles of different colors red green and blue just like the bars in the lower left of his vision

  “Warning HP critically low 10% Bleeding state will render Soul unconscious in approximately thirty seconds.

  “Well it can’t be much worse than dying he thought grabbing a red potion.

  “Red for red seems intuitive.” He thought taking the stopper out and drinking the potion. “Bleeding state removed.” A message appeared as the red bar filled fully. Glenn fell onto his back enjoying the warmth of the potion and the cold of the stone both. He looked over at the camping supplies and saw what he thought was a sleeping bag. He stretched his arm not wanting to get up while reaching for it. He just grabbed it and pulled it over to him. Unrolled it and climbed in.

  “Magic huh?” He thought as sleep took him.