You're Not Alone II

The dev heard a slight beep that only she could hear from her inventory, an auditory warning she set up telling her each Shoddy tier piece of equipment she would be using on her person was ready. She now had a Shoddy iron short sword, medium round shield with an iron reinforcing band on the rim and heavy studs on the front with softened leather straps and iron strips reinforcing the back, a new belt with scabbard for the sword, a reinforced recurve bow with iron tipped arrows, an iron tipped spear with reinforced wooden pole, and some Shoddy Leather armor. To her, this was a massive improvement, and while it would still break after some use, it was going to do more damage for the weapons and she would be able to ignore more hits if she ever got into a fight again.

She also checked her character sheet and noticed she had hit level eleven from the day's work. As Selene opened her stats page to look at the numbers, she saw that the "Attribute" points had gone up by ten, now sitting at eighty. Did it do her any good to let any of it sit around? She might need to rapidly upgrade in the future before a fight and find herself too specialized, therefore "pigeonholing" herself into a certain strategy or tactic. At least the Molecular Reformation was useful on numerous things, so she decided to add ten more points to control, power and speed. Thirty points down, fifty left. This would help with the expansion she knew she'd have to do on the fort. Now it was twenty percent on everything except AOE and range. Ten meters was perfectly fine right now, with one hundred meters max range decent as well. It wasn't as if she was getting into some wizard fight that she'd need to sling stalagmites everywhere.

"Maybe I should add some skill points somewhere too." Selene decided from the one hundred five points she had available to add twenty to Melee Weapons and immediately started to feel odd as knowledge of stances and parrying, blocking, reposts and standard strikes entered her mind, not just for swords but for several weapons including polearms. What she saw added under Molecular Reformation were two brand new abilities, Leg Sweep and Shield Bash. From Ranged Weapons she had also received Rapid Fire and Take Aim, she just never looked at the abilities list to notice them.

"Um… would that just be better training? Those are actual abilities?" she whispered to herself. If they were abilities, they might have a cooldown, but they also might have special effects. Being able to knock someone off their feet, especially a goblin, could turn the tide in her favor drastically. Being able to shield strike someone, assuming they don't jump onto it and use it as a platform to ruin her day, would be nice as well. She had tried the Shield Bash before she had the ability, but maybe this augmented it? Maybe she might cause more damage now? Knock them further away? The only way she'd know is to use it on someone. She prayed that didn't happen, at least until she was a bit stronger and better prepared with some practice.

Rapid Fire was probably a temporary increase to arrow reload speed and attack speed, while Take Aim was more than likely a drastic increase in her accuracy for… maybe one shot? A few shots? A time limit? There had to be a test of these abilities on the training dummy. There was enough time as dusk hit to start an experiment with the grass-built target. Once she had her bow ready, she engaged Rapid Fire and Take Aim at the same time. Apparently, there was no Global Cooldown for her. That was handy. The first few shots hit the head, while the remainder struck center mass. She hadn't missed once. Granted, she was trying her best to be careful, but the effects were noticeable. Selene watched from the corner of her eyes towards her stats after shooting. Accuracy, Attack Speed and Reload Speed had all gone up by twenty five percent. Given that Ranged Weapons skill already was at twenty percent, her reload speed for the bow was boosted to forty five percent. It felt as if the arrows were sliding willingly into her hand each time she drew. Her Accuracy was boosted to thirty five percent, which seemed to make sure she didn't miss if she aimed for a few seconds. If she tried to fire faster just because of Rapid Fire, there was a good chance of a miss. Both lasted ten seconds, with cooldowns of ten minutes, which seemed harsh.

Now was the chance to test Shield Bash and then Leg Sweep. The woman equipped her shield and sword and prepared to slam into the target dummy. As she activated the ability and struck, the dummy simply blasted backwards off the hitch. It didn't explode, but it was damaged. It was only made of grass fiber, however. "Damn!" she laughed out in surprise. She'd next use Leg Sweep, which knocked the pole the dummy had for a stable leg up into the air and landed clattering on the ground. Definitely useful.

Once training was over, dinner time and checking on the Lard. It was complete, which made the pot disappear from the second campfire and into her inventory to craft soap in less than a second. She wanted her lemon grass and lavender bars badly. She could swear she was seeing flies gathering around her.

One Week, One Day

The sheep were having a nice time wandering around and grazing on the hill. There was plentiful food for them, they could easily see most predators coming, and for the most part the temperature was just right. Surely their wool coat would keep them nice and warm for the remainder of the –

An odd "FOOMP" was heard, followed by one of the sheep falling over, zonked out. The other three came to investigate, but another FOOMP was heard and the second one went down. The last two ran as fast as their hooves would carry them, but they didn't get far as two wolves started weaving through the tall grass and Flax heading towards them. They decided to flip one hundred eighty degrees and head back the way the sound had come from, and that was when another "FOOMP" was heard. The third one went down hard, rolling a bit. The fourth was alone now, with no idea what was happening. Some unknown creature was killing its family! How could it possibly –

Another FOOMP was heard and it dropped to the ground asleep.

"Sheesh, these are more effective than I thought" Selene said in astonishment as she looked her blowpipe over. She had one more dart she could use, but it wasn't necessarily. All four sheep were loaded into her inventory, allowing the three of the hunters to start heading back to the upgraded fort. As they passed by the lake, Selene checked her brand-new fish traps she had placed, and some held fishing lines tied to a tree with bone hooks at the end. It was better than using up her metal reserves, but those would go away with the tech up soon.

As she finished checking each trap, Blue started to get fidgety. Selene looked up and saw what he was watching. A doe slowly picking her way through the far forest to the East. With that hide she could finish making a large blanket over the bed, or an undercover for the mattress. The meat wasn't really something she needed right now, as there was plenty of boar meat still available. Ash was ready to go as well.

"Ok… the sheep can wait, that could disappear soon. Let's do it." All three headed to a better position to track the deer and get a good spot to strike. Once all three were hidden, they waited carefully for the doe to tentatively walk through the forest towards them. As soon as she caught view of the quadruped, she used Take Aim and fired. The arrow hit it in the neck, but it didn't stop it. The doe took off quick as Blue and Ash tore after it. Selene tried to keep up, but it kept being just barely out of view each time they went around a tree or a bush. The chase was on, and the doe was leading them out of the forest and towards open plains of the rolling hills.

Just as they exited the forest, Blue caught up with the doe and leapt, grabbing onto the back and riding her for a few more feet as extra weight. Ash caught up just behind him and went for the rear legs, knocking the doe down and ending the mad dash. That was it, the hunt was over. Selene caught up and saw how well they both did as they waited for her.

"Great job you two, didn't really have to go… that… far…" she trailed off as she walked towards the doe… and passed them. What she saw in the far distance was something she never expected to see out here. There was light smoke coming from what looked to be the far-off thin forest line, with what looked to be the barest hint of building outlines. It wasn't a mirage, that was really there. She didn't yet know if it was humans or the goblins, but she had to find out. Ash and Blue were confused at why she started to jog away towards the smoke, but they followed her for a bit anyways. After another twenty minutes and once she was closer, she tried to see if there were any figures she could pick out from this range. She noticed one near the forest line cutting down a tree. The fact she could see it at all meant it might be humans, and the fact they were using a woodcutting axe might mean middle ages? The color of the figure looked to be brown and green, which could mean the skin or the clothing. That could potentially mean Linen or Wool if human, but she couldn't be sure.

She was about to start walking some more but stopped and looked down at herself. Hide clothes, hadn't washed, rumpled and tangled hair, two wolves following her. If she headed there now and they were human, they'd think she was some savage coming to raid them. The village seemed to be almost half a day's journey, which would leave only a few hours to do anything there before she'd have to run back home. Given that it was almost lunchtime right now, and the fact she looked like something that crawled out of a cave, it was best to hold off from meeting anyone until she was better equipped. Her Linen underwear were now complete, which would be comfortable after she had a bath. She didn't want to dirty them before she was nice and clean.

"Come on guys, let's head back. That's… interesting. I guess I'm going to have to make a trip somewhere now." It didn't look like much, but that was either a goblin camp or civilization, at least the closest she was going to get to civilization right now. Thatch houses, maybe a farm or two, hopefully a blacksmith. Her mind was swiftly thinking up what the village might have. What was the village name? She'd have to ask, if it was at all friendly. She had to keep in mind, it might not be humans.

Don't act crazy! Do not let them see your character sheet! You need a backpack!

She groaned as she realized not everyone would think her pulling items out of thin air was a good thing. She'd have to probably bring a pack, stop halfway and load it up, then carry the pack into the village to see if she could sell anything. Spare resources would mean money, which could mean buying things she didn't have access to right now.

Don't be stupid and bring plant fiber clothing… Seriously. They won't buy it. Bring resources, your crafted stuff might be horrible compared to what they are used to.

The dev started to build a mental list of what she'd need to bring there. Could she bring her wolves? The trek wasn't exceptionally far, but she had no idea how they'd react. She could say they were a specialty tame from her people. Her people. Who the hell were her people? She couldn't tell them she lived in a fort near the mountains, she'd have to lie. A town hidden up in the mountains to the far North? She could say they were isolationists and just started to trade. That could explain away any issues with how she acted in their presence, and the wolves were her protection during the trading trek.

First thing, unfortunately, was to get cleaned up and make sure she had some wool clothing to at least look like them. She also didn't want to walk in without being a little closer to their tech level. Despite it being a Middle Age village, they may have steel equipment, wheelbarrows, domesticated animals, the list went on. If she walked in with not even pre-Roman equipment, it might make them look at her funny.

That Night

Selene was now in heaven, or at least the closest she could get to it right now. She had a chance to make a bath, as the soap was complete. Her new underwear, and some wool she spun from the sheep into some Shoddy tier clothing, were ready. She'd probably salvage the materials once she tiered up to just before Early Middle Ages, but that wouldn't take long. She just lounged in the hot water with the scent of lavender surrounding her. The bathtub was placed outside so that she could also wash any clothes and not soak the log cabin floor, or burn the house down. The hair from her neck down was completely removed with the new razor she had "used" in her inventory. It worked perfectly, with all of it disappearing before her eyes without any cuts or irritation. She had used up the lemon grass bar she made, which was interesting that it used a whole soap bar as "ammo" for the razor, but it was a small price to pay. She did use it from her inventory after all, not the regular way everyone else shaved. It was interesting that the inventory tended to use whole chunks of resources when she needed to craft or use anything, but then of course she wasn't lifting a finger for the benefits, and it was doing all the work while she sat back and watched.

The night was peaceful, with nothing happening anywhere near the now larger fort. She had made a catwalk to the larger walls, so she could see outside without opening the gate, as well as a crude watchtower. She figured she could somehow make a spyglass telescope later to help scout out the area before she even went past the gate even. She looked through her character sheet and saw the light blinking of her T icon, telling her that she had been ready to tech up since yesterday. She was also level thirteen now, with an extra twenty points available for stats and forty points for skills. She dumped thirty into Melee Weapons to bring it up to fifty, and twenty-five points into Ranged Weapons to equal it. That lowered her available to eighty. Her fighting style would be much improved, but she figured that was the limit she would put in either of those now. While being maxed in each could potentially make her the best swordsman in the world and a better archer than an elf, if they existed, it didn't make her accuracy better or make her hit harder. Melee Weapons also didn't increase attack speed, nor did Ranged Weapons. She would just pull her sword and shield faster, react faster to attacks against her in close range, and notch an arrow and aim at someone very quickly without any fatigue priming the bowstring. To be more effective, she'd need accuracy increased, dodge, block, parry, deflect, counter, attack speed and probably perception increased to see what was coming at her or to study the enemy while she fought them for any new actions so she could change tactics. Having movement speed increased as well might be a good idea too, not just for combat, but to run away or simple travel.

The dev must have gained some new abilities from that addition to the skills, however she'd check later. She still had points she wanted to add into accuracy. What she had now helped a little bit, but she needed to not miss right now. It didn't matter if she hit a vital spot, just wanted to make sure the arrows were always on target. Did she need one hundred percent? That would take all the remaining Attribute points, and she still wouldn't be topped off. She'd have to level two more times to get it to one hundred. She swore she wouldn't use all the points, but if she didn't hit each time, that could spell the end of her in any situation. Gear would fix that soon she hoped.

"Crap… to do or do not…" she sighed while soaking in the tub. Selene bit her lip. There would be plenty more levels ahead of her. Accuracy was suddenly increased to fifty. She now had a damn good chance of hitting if she was careful and aimed well. She didn't have super accuracy, and might miss occasionally, but fifty percent was impressive. It might not be on par with an elf ranger, if they even existed, but she was no slouch now. She'd also be able to strike with a close-range weapon a lot more, with goblins having a lot of difficulty dodging her attacks if she saw them again. She figured after level fifteen she'd start to get some block or parry, maybe some dodge as well. There were so many stats she needed to improve, she was having difficulty wrapping her head around how to get the levels to upgrade them.

Her eyes widened, and her hand shot out of the tub, snapping her fingers. "Alchemy station. Potions." She had made a poison dart that knocked out the sheep before, there was now a way to make healing potions and maybe upgrade potions. They were probably specific to the points she was trying to get, so she'd have to make a lot. What did it take to craft them?

She slowly got out of the tub and dried herself off with a linen towel, then got her new underwear on. After getting ready, the woman checked her inventory and looked at the alchemy station she had created that morning for the poisonous berries. She had crafted an aludel, for condensing vapors, a "Moor's Head" still, a clay vessel, an alembic for distilling, a retort, a bronze mortar and a crucible. All of them increased crafting in the station by seventy percent in total.

A list appeared of what she could make right now and the required ingredients. "This is helpful" she whispered to herself as she checked through what she could make right now. Extremely minor healing potions, Extremely minor mana potions, X minor stamina potions, X minor antidotes. The list continued with low end drinks, even a way to craft the potions into food. There were also primitive versions of the healing and mana potions. Everything was low tier due to her being… low tier right now. She'd get better over time, with better recipes. It was the same sacrifice of the potions to research a better one.

"Wait, what? Primitive? What's the difference?" her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Both would heal the same amount, but the primitive potions took ten times less ingredients than the standard ones. She was now curious as to the effects they would cause. She had enough for a few right now, as the herb garden was slowly getting on its feet still, so she was using what she had gathered on the walk back along the lake. Her first creation would be a primitive healing potion, but first she needed glass vials. Some Balsa wood could be turned into a cork, and the stone she collected from the second cave could be turned into sand. That could be melted into glass, she just needed to make a blowpipe or blow tube, a mandrel, a Marver bench, some tweezers which would have to be replaced eventually due to the spring of the metal failing due to low quality, and some shears.

Once those were created, which only took twenty minutes due to the upgrades she had made to her stats and skills as well as the equipment bench, she made her first vials. They were made of very cloudy glass that was thick, but they'd work at least. She threw them into her inventory and started to craft one primitive healing potion. What came out was not what she was expecting. The color was blue and a little viscous.

"Wait… aren't healing potions supposed to be red, to signify blood and health? What the… did I do something wrong?" she double checked the crafting requirements. It didn't screw up the recipe, this was what would pop out. Her head was in a blanket of confusion as she kept glancing between the filled bottle and her inventory, a slight twitch of her head as she tried to wrap her head around it. Selene popped the cork on top and sniffed it. It smelled awful. She figured no one ever figured that their player was drinking something that might taste like toilet water.

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails… Don't you dare! You don't hurt your kids!

"I'd… rather not drink this… unless I have to…" she replaced the cork and threw the potion into her inventory and noticed something interesting. There was an expiration timer on it, but it wasn't going down due to being in her first inventory. "Wait, it can expire too?! Why would I make this again?!" she looked dumbfounded as she looked at the crafting cost. It was cheap, much cheaper than the normal X minor healing potion. She crafted one of the standard ones to check if all of them had the same issue. The regular one popped up and it had the standard reddish color she was expecting, with no timer.

"So, wha… that's… ok, so if I'm in a jam, make the primitive ones, but normally make the… the standard ones for long term… but my first inventory makes it not expire… huh…" Selene pulled the standard potion out and popped its cork. The smell seemed almost like orange juice. It seemed a lot more palatable than the primitive swill. However, she did realize if things got bad, you took whatever you could get your hands on if it staved off death. Her next experiment was to make a primitive mana potion. She didn't need it yet, as she didn't know any spells, but she wanted to see if it was the same junk in the healing potion.

What came out looked completely unappetizing. The color was a brownish muck, that didn't move much if shook. "Maybe… maybe it tastes better than it looks?" she said to herself, hoping that it wasn't as bad as she thought. As the cork popped off, she gagged almost immediately from the smell. It was like someone dumped dog shit inside and called it a mana potion.

"Nope! I'm not touching that, ever. Damn that is disgusting." The bottle was flung into her first inventory, with the timer again halted on its expiration. That was never going to be swallowed by her. She had wasted valuable resources on making those. As she drank some water to help cleanse the smell out of her nose and tried to breathe the scent of lavender, so she wouldn't empty her stomach, she figured she'd complete the experiment by making a standard mana potion. She didn't have much more supplies for very many more potions, so this would be one of the last ones. As it crafted, it had gotten late into the night. She needed to wrap this up and start teching up tomorrow and hunting again now that the boar meat was almost gone, with the deer meat holding them over until lunchtime tomorrow.

The standard mana potion appeared in the inventory, bright blue, no timer. "Yup, worth the extra effort and resources." The dev pulled the potion out and sniffed the contents. It smelled like nothing, but there was a slight sparkle of mist that puffed out of the top when the cork was pulled. She tried to sniff it again, but again no smell. "It couldn't hurt to drink it right now, I know the mana bar is full." She took a small sip and noticed the flavor was like drinking carbonated water, almost tasteless but fizzy. "Hmm, kind of refreshing, but I doubt I'd drink it just for that effect." She popped the cork back in and put it back in the inventory. Her final potion was to see if she could create either a skill point potion or an Attribute potion.

As she checked through the recipe list, all she found were recipes for exact skills or stats, with horrendous crafting costs. Just one skill point, an X minor potion, would cost the remainder of the supplies she had. "Holy shit" she whispered. It was for Gathering, and it would only increase the skill by one point. She let out a deep breath and looked around expecting something or someone to tell her it wasn't worth it and decided to craft it in silence. The thing was going to take twelve hours to complete. There was also a chance of it breaking a tool on the alchemist station. "How the hell is it gonna do that?! What, does it explode in the crafting process?!" She gawked. A loud groan escaped her lips as she looked up at the night sky and prayed nothing broke when she woke up the next morning.

Some labs did explode when chemists tried to figure out what reacted with what. I hope my inventory doesn't wake me up with one hell of an alarm…

One Week, Two Days

Selene slowly woke up the next morning and looked around. Ash and Blue were lying near her feet on the bed while Luna was sleeping next to her head. The whole set up was a lot more comfortable than her previous bedding on a stone cave floor. She took a deep breath and sat up, trying to wake up a bit more as the others opened their eyes and yawned. Time for another day. She opened her inventory and checked the potion crafting. It was complete, but that was a lot of work for one little skill potion. She knew that was still pretty powerful, but twelve hours in real time was like half a week for a player in a game. She figured she'd have to shorten the crafting time somehow. Considering she had already added seven tools to drop the time by seventy percent, that might be the improvement she was seeing. That meant that it would normally take almost two days to make one without those.

"I've gotta craft more stations" she mumbled out to herself as she rubbed her eyes and slowly slid out of her bed. The day started normally, with breakfast and feeding the sheep now living in their pen, but now she had a way to raise a stat or skill without trying to level. If she felt the need, she could hole up in her fort and just grow stuff to craft more potions. It would take longer than she would live to get anywhere meaningful, but it was an option. As she checked the recipe list for the alchemy station one last time, even though she didn't have enough resources to make anything beyond one antidote, she noticed a new recipe that had appeared at the top in its own section. It was a universal skill potion. Her mouth dropped, as well as the hay she was about to put in the second trough. She knew she had a zero percent chance at a crafting bonus as she had not put any points into it. The stat was like a chance at getting a better tier than the one she was trying for, but the zero percent she had right now meant she had no modifiers to what was normally allowed. It was probably point one percent chance that she would get a better tier as a starting point, just to allow by some miracle for her to get something better.

This, however, might have worked on her recipes, almost like she had done research and development on a new potion. She happened somehow, through perfect luck, to get that recipe. Most players would be screaming at her fortune, annoyed they wouldn't get the same thing in her shoes with a huge bonus to the crafting bonus stat. The problem was the universal skill potion costs fifty times what the regular specific potion costs in resources. It would only go up from there with the larger vials beyond X minor.

The thought occurred to her that the X minor only gave one skill point or a universal skill point for the better recipe, but if she made an Ultra… fifty points? A hundred? She was whirling from that day dream. Being able to one hundred percent a skill with one potion would be fantastic. Or even one of her stats.

Oh, I don't know enough about this thing here. FWOOSH! I know everything! Do all the things!

Sadly, that would have to wait until much, much further down the line. She had just made her first potions, and that was a great achievement.

Once she had gotten everything maintained inside the fort, and had whittled down some of her resources, she prepped Ash and Blue for another hunting trip. The Teosinte and Flax had been planted now, so she would have a source for that, and sheep for wool. The lake could provide fish if she used fishing lines and traps now. There was plenty of wood with the forest, which she was thinking of trimming back a bit as the front gate was almost in front of an oak. That thought made her chuckle, as if the forest was now a hedge bush that had overgrown.

"Oh, right, tier nine… um…" she focused on the upgrade and received… writing. There were a few improvements, but the main gain from the tier was being able to write. It seemed very lackluster to her.

"Almost no new tools, few material changes… this is it? I thought… I thought I would get something a little more… well… meaningful… I guess being able to write the perks should help…" There was a writing desk she could craft, and a decent chair, and oddly a research station. She noticed a new ability was just under Molecular Reformation now. It was the same color, with a golden shine and everything. It was called Magic Revision. Selene looked confused for a moment, but then it hit her. Hard.

She might have access to spells and enchanting now