Level One God

I survived two more razorclasp attacks in my increasingly desperate search for water. I saw the first attack coming. I had lowered my head like a bull, braced for impact, and it slammed so hard into me that I fell on my ass. Then, I had run around like a headless chicken for a moment, suffering countless scratches as it tried to rip itself off the horns of my helmet. I had only finished it by finding a huge stick and banging myself in the head with it again and again.

I was secretly glad I hadn’t earned an accomplishment right then, because I was fairly sure my secret messenger would’ve given me heaps of shit for that “battle.”

The second attack caught me off guard, but surprisingly, it went about the same way. I got my helmet off in time, swatted it from the air, and finished it with a huge log until my shoulders were sore. Then I trudged on.

The second kill bumped me from level five to six.

I wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad thing that I hardly even felt traumatized. So what if more spiders impaled themselves on my helmet? It was better than those creatures I’d seen kill the two others back in the clearing or the huge thing stomping through the trees a few hours ago.

I had no idea if I was making good progress, but I was making progress. I was also gathering a slightly concerning number of injuries for my trouble. I wondered if my helmet would help prevent all these open cuts and my stab wound from getting infected. Fingers crossed.

I imagined this would all be far less terrifying if I had those “class corestones” my stat sheet mentioned. If I had “active” and “passive” abilities, as it suggested, I could probably blast these things with fireballs and actually go looking for fights. It made me wonder what a world was like where regular people could pick a “class.” Would there be mundane classes, like a dishwasher? Could a high-level dishwasher dry dishes with their bare hands or summon constructs to unload the dishwasher with blinding speed?

Stupid. But I was grinning, anyway.

I heard more creatures moving in the distance as I traveled. Nothing I came across was quite as intimidating as the giant tree walker. That name was a work in progress, of course. If it had a hairy meatball body, then I decided it would be called a meatball on sticks. Or I could just remember to inspect it next time and learn what it’s actually called.

If it was a giant meatball, I might just shimmy up one of those legs and take a bite. My thoughts were full of cheeseburgers, watermelons, and comfortable beds. I knew watermelon was an odd food to crave, but I’d put that one down to my increasingly dry throat.

I was once again lost in thought when I slowed my pace, ears strained. Was that… I rushed toward the sound, nearly slipping on fallen leaves. I charged through a cluster of scratchy bushes to confirm what I thought I was hearing.

And there it was.

I smiled broadly, taking about half a second to relish the sight of a pristine, crystal-clear river flowing over smooth rocks. I used the next half-second to look around for razorclasps or any other nasties waiting in the shadows. And then I yanked my helmet off and slurped up a few handfuls of water, not even caring that my palms were caked in dried ichor, dirt, and blood.

With a contented sigh, I looked up and down the river again, checking for predators. I felt like a goddamn deer—sipping from a forest stream and scared to death of getting ambushed.

If I was stuck in this world, I’d change that. Slowly. Safely. I just had to think of it like playing a game on hardcore mode. The catch was I couldn’t go online and figure out which areas were safe to fight in or what equipment and builds were best for survivability. I couldn’t quicksave every thirty seconds “just to be safe.”

Once I reached a town or city, I’d do what it took to unlock those two classes and gain some real abilities. I’d look back on my caveman days in these woods of bashing spiders with big sticks and my helmet with fond amusement. Maybe. But with a little practice, I could probably come back here and look for fights. I could basically grind, leveling by day and camping with roasted marshmallows by night.

Once again, I found myself oddly excited by the prospect. I wasn’t sure if that made me insane. But what other choice did I have? I could either wallow and feel miserable to be thrust into this situation, or I could view it as an opportunity. No matter how I saw it, I was here. I might as well choose a favorable lens, right?

I alternated between drinking, scrubbing gunk off myself, cleaning my helmet, and more drinking.

With all that handled, I slipped my helmet back on. I could finally do the thing I’d been dying to do.

I summoned my bottle with the pink flower still stuffed inside, and then lowered the lip into the stream. Clear water slowly filled the potion.

After some trial and error, I discovered I had to close the stopper on the bottle to start the reaction. The water vibrated, bubbled, and swirled in a glowing vortex until the flower was gone and my bottle was full of an almost neon pink potion.

I gave it a closer look.

[Alchemist’s Kit. (?) (Gold)?]

If I focused on the liquid instead of the bottle, I got a separate pop up.

[Potion. (Common) ?]

“Great,” I sighed. “Now what?”

It was pink, which could mean it wasn’t poison. It would’ve been reckless to take a sip, though. I risked a sniff.

It smelled safe, if there was such a thing as a “safe” smell. It was a minty scent that made my sinuses feel like they were opening up.

“Hello, fantasy world. I’m here to brew and sell you Flonase. Patent pending.” Stupid jokes aside, I wondered if that was why I left myself this bottle. Maybe the helmet was for survival, and the bottle was for making enough money to deck myself out in top-grade equipment? Hard to say.

There was one last major question to answer.

I plugged the bottle, aimed, and threw it hard at a random tree a little ways off.

And I completely missed.

I lifted my arms, screaming as it shattered into a tree just a few feet away from me. I was peppered with glass and bits of pink potion. It bubbled on my skin, sinking into my pores and vanishing instantly.

I rushed into the ice-cold water and plunged myself up to the neck. Frantically, I checked my skin for signs of damage.

Nothing obvious. I tried to pay attention to my senses, searching for anything that felt off. The only noticeable difference was I felt much less fatigued and worn down from the day’s travel. But I wasn’t sure if that was just from getting clean and the cool water.

If this potion was going to be part of my arsenal, I needed to work on my aim. I was lucky as hell I didn’t burn my skin off or turn myself into a cockroach when that potion landed on me.

Once I was out of the freezing water and I was mostly convinced I wasn’t about to die from being splattered with the potion, I checked my inventory again.

Sure enough, the bottle was back in my inventory grid and grayed out. But this time, it wasn’t an empty bottle. It was filled with pink liquid. I did a celebratory fist pump.

Awesome.

That meant I could brew a potion in the bottle and essentially have an unlimited supply of it—at least if I threw and broke it. There were still some details to work out, like what would happen if I poured out the liquid or threw it when it was half full. Could I brew one drop of a potion, break the bottle, and it would respawn with a full dose?

If potions in this place were worth money, that would theoretically mean I could defy nature and create an endless supply of the most lucrative potion on Eros. That would be incredible, but I wasn’t getting my hopes up. There was still a lot of experimentation to do with this weapon before I had it all figured out.

I focused my attention on the pink liquid inside the Alchemist Kit and tried to examine it again.

[Potion of Refreshment (Common)?]

Interesting. I got what seemed like a full tooltip when it came to creatures and mundane objects I inspected. When it came to equipment or ingredients, I apparently had to learn about them in some way to unlock more descriptive tooltips.

I could think of a few dozen more questions, but I knew I wouldn’t have the answers until I did some more experiments. One thing was certain... I was drinking that potion once it was off cooldown. I’d never heard of somebody dying from excessive refreshment, and I sure as hell could have used some refreshment. I was still tired, cut, stabbed, and sliced up all over.

I’d spent long enough at the stream, though. I couldn’t fit another drop of water in my stomach if I tried. And I was starting to pick up a scent in the air, almost like a campfire.

I hiked up a nearby hill, following the steadily increasing scent of smoke. After a few minutes, I could hear the crackle and pop of burning wood and the blaze of flames.

When I finally crested a ridge and it came into view, I froze, taking in the view of utter destruction.

I coughed and squinted through the smoke that was making my eyes sting and water, even through my helmet.

It looked like someone had taken a flamethrower to the forest, carving a highway of ruin straight toward the horizon. Charred and blackened bodies of creatures, big and small, littered the ground.

Nope.

I slowly backed away from the scene. I may have been hungry, but not hungry enough to run down there and try to steal some blackened meat. No thanks.

I didn’t want to be around if whatever caused that destruction came back. Whatever it was, I felt pretty confident it would be way above my pay grade.

With a refreshed sense of how terrifying this place was, I jogged to the river again, took a moment to wash the recent smoke from my eyes, and started following the current away from the fire trail.

I was tempted to mess with my Alchemist’s Kit more, but the river cut through a rock gulch, meaning I was stuck a few dozen feet above the fast-flowing water. I kept up a pretty good pace, occasionally sipping on my potion of refreshment as I went.

While my muscles felt surprisingly ready to march through the night, I was getting sleepy by the time the sun was sinking on the horizon. I also had no light and wasn’t about to go blindly through this place in the pitch-black darkness.

I spotted a tipped-over, rotted log and decided to call it a night. I had to dig out some leaves and rip up a bit of underbrush, but I managed to hollow out a roughly me-sized opening beneath the log.

I tried not to think about poisonous bugs, snakes, or anything else this world might have dreamt up. I kept the helmet on for good measure as I scooted into place. It was shockingly comfy, anyway—almost like a portable pillow. I could’ve used this helmet on a few long-distance plane rides in my old life, so long as I didn’t mind the risk of accidentally impaling rowdy kids.

My thoughts swirled between my old life and my new life—questions of what was to come and what had become of everything I left behind. Sleep came quickly as I laid curled up, listening to the strange, alien sounds of a forest in a new world.

I dreamed of cheeseburgers, meatballs, and the endless possibilities waiting for me when I found my way to a town and learned to equip my classes. But mostly, I dreamed of meatballs.