Chapter 2: New World
Chapter Two
His body stretched, bones snapping and rebinding in the space between seconds, his skin ripping and sewing back together and his eyes dehydrated then rehydrated as his brain boiled. It was pain on a scale Dane couldn’t truly comprehend, so vast that his mind shuddered and then broke.
Then it was gone, as fast as it had come, and he was standing in a pillar of golden light. His eyes ached as he stumbled free of the pillar and across the ground, snow crunching under his boots as the frigid pine scented woods filled his lungs. Dane moved, legs pumping as he got out of the pillar and across the snow. Behind him the pillar winked out of existence, leaving him with only the pale light of a pair of moons hanging on the horizon to illuminate where he was.
Tall trees with green boughs bent with white snow. Each breath sent a cloud of mist exploding outwards as Dane stood there and looked about with calm eyes. The dark shadows were stable, no breeze through the trees, and it was with that stillness he saw the shape moving.
Dane froze as the creature slowly slinked toward him, moving through the still shadows. Long arms hung just inches from the snow, its hunched over shoulders were thick with corded muscle and bone, wide head swinging back and forth as a quiet snuffling emitted from it.
System Online
System Initializing
Welcome to Incursion RZT-4857
You have 7 days to accumulate Deeds that will dictate your Class and improve your beginning Stats and Skill selection.
Good Luck.
Seven days until he received the System’s blessings and was officially recognized as an adult. Forty-eight days till his twentieth birthday. He was old for a cycle, but he would have been too young and undeveloped for the last cycle.
Dane blinked the words out of his vision just as the shape hurled toward him, bent knees pumping its small, thick, body across the distance. Dane crouched low, spreading his arms wide as the beast came rushing free of the shadows and into the moonlight. It had a large jaw with a long tongue that rolled out to its chest as it barked like a dog as it closed the distance. Buggy red eyes shone in the light, ravenous in rage and hunger as it loped toward him.
Dane waited, heart beating slowly as his old training came back, as the creature got close to him. It led with a swiping claw, dirty talons cutting the air as time slowed and he stepped back smoothly, letting the talons pass where he had been.
Years of hard martial training came into play as he stepped forward and kicked with his heel, crushing a kneecap and causing the beast to howl. The bones were brittle, popping under his heel as the creature hit the ground with a loud thump. Dane’s heart began to thunder in his chest as his first truly mortal clash resounded in his heart.
Master Ke’von would be proud. He would also tell me that I should finish this now.
The beast rolled around, sending spires of snow up in the air as it got back to its feet, limping with its broken knee as it came back for him. Dane jumped back as it slashed again, missing him by inches as it tore apart trampled snow and into the hard packed earth. Dane kicked out again, hitting the other knee with the same results.
The monster hit the ground, growling and snapping with its oversized jaws, hot drool splashing across the ground as it tried to get back on its feet. Dane waited, watching, patient as the trees around him. Finally the beast lunged too far, falling flat with its arms overextended. Dane crushed an elbow and the beast’s arm went limp. Killing it took only a few moments; he circled around it, getting behind it to snap its neck as he drove down all his weight through the heel of his boot.
No fabled ding of experience or levels. Dane sighed in disappointment. He had spent his entire life waiting to hear that ding . That he had to wait another seven days was frustrating, but it was something he’d have to live with. Now that the beast was dead, Dane got a better look at it.
Muscular and strong but with fragile bones that are as weak as bird bones. He flipped it over and looked at the teeth, carefully not touching any of the sharp points. No reason to catch an infection before the System’s arrival and the powerful abilities that would arrive with it. Rotting flesh was stuck in the gaps of its teeth and the saliva had a yellow tint to it as its broken neck lolled about.
Carrion eater of some sort, or a sick predator. The three fingered talons looked closer to a digging instrument rather than cutting talons, they were thick and wide with dullish points.
Enough to still harm someone, Dane reminded himself.
Dane left the beast and looked about where he had arrived. By blooding his coin, rather than accepting the Empire’s portal, he was by himself somewhere on the incursion planet. It was better to be away from the Imperial loyalists, their natural patriotism wouldn’t extend to him after all. Not all of them anyways.
He searched for a fallen limb from the trees, hoping to find one that had broken under the weight of the snow. There was one that was close enough to the right size, and he pulled his bag off his shoulder and looked about in it, finding the small hand axe he kept inside near the bottom of the pack.
Should have kept that near the top where I could have gotten it quickly. Another mistake already.
He trimmed off the branches and looked over the staff he had quickly made. It was straight enough, tall as he was, and still heavy with water. Dane used the staff to stab ahead into the snow, feeling for any hollows that would trap him as he searched for somewhere he could rest for the night. His body was telling him it was midday, but from what he had read it was better to adapt to local time as fast as possible.
The cold was beginning to leech through his clothes and he shivered violently as he continued on, trudging through the snow as his eyes swept his surroundings, ears keen to hear the shuffle of feet on snow. He didn’t want to be caught off guard by another of those beasts.
The night deepened, even though the moons rose higher, giving off more light as he worked his way through the forest. With the shadows as dark as they were he struggled to find a place, but he soon came to a fallen tree, propped up with a space beneath it.
Dane knocked the snow down and crawled into the hollow, dry and not quite as cold as the outside was. He set down his bag and went through it, looking for his supplies. There was a small firestarter in it along with water purifying tablets and some dehydrated rations. A thermal blanket was folded up and he quickly unrolled it, wrapping himself in the crinkly mass of silver.
There were dried up leaves and needles in the hollow and Dane quickly managed to catch them on fire, sticking his walking staff away from the small blaze. He pushed a hole through the snow, allowing what little smoke came from the dried leaves to drift out.
A small foldable pot was pulled out, the cleverly built utensil sliding open as he packed snow into it. Letting it melt over the small fire was the work of a moment and he tossed a purifying tablet into it, watching as it dissolved. He stirred it along, looking for any sediment in the water before grabbing a small bottle out of his bag and a fine filter strainer funnel. He poured the warm water into the funnel, letting the bottle fill as the ultra fine filter picked out most of the sediment.
There were a few medicines in his pack that would keep him from getting too sick if the purification tablet didn’t do its job. He only needed to survive until the System arrived and its healing abilities would be able to cure him of any sickness that he'd pick up.
He replaced the ultra-fine filter, noticing the film of dirt and other sediments on it, and put it in a side bag. He had dozens of the small filters that he could use over the days. He poured a liquid sanitizer into the pot and rinsed it out with half the water bottle he had cleaned and then poured the rest of the bottle in to let it start to warm over the fire, having to pull more leaves into the blaze.
He tossed a single dehydration cube in it, the tightly packed oats slowly breaking apart and simmering for a few moments as it turned to the right consistency. Dane looked for a bag of sugar he had secreted in the backpack, pulling it out and extracting a single packet out of the bag. He poured his ration over and ate slowly, his multi-utensil serving its purpose as he looked out past the snow bank.
Dane cleaned his utensils and repeated the water purification process, filling his water bottle twice over and drinking both of them before filling the metal bottle with hot water and tucking it near his core as he curled in on his blanket, forcing himself to try to rest. It was, after all, only the first night of the Apocalypse. At least, for this world.