The Forgotten Legacy

Everyone stood in shock, looking on at the scene that was unfolding before them, the last thing anyone expected after their first battle was to have to deal with an argument over who had managed to kill the monster. They should have been focusing on the people that were hurt, or the mage that has lying dead on the ground underneath the spiderling, but no, Shaun was stuck having to deal with a bully who thought it was his right to have gotten the first kill even, though he was barely able to do any damage to the thing in the first place and instead acted as a distraction, annoying the spider by trying to chop at its legs.

Grabbing hold of his shirt Trevor pulled him so close the he could feel his breath on his face and he was then slammed back into the wall. Shaun hadn’t been hurt in the fight, he was tired from riding on the spiders back and holding on for dear life, but compared to the others he was in a much better state. Looking over his status he had lost about 10% of his health and only had a quarter of his stamina left, the warriors looked to be bleeding from various part of their bodies and their armour had scratches from where the spider’s legs had managed to hit them.

“I am going to make you pay for what you took from me, you're nothing but a sneaky little thief. You know what I do to people that steal from me? I –“

“Enough Trevor, let him go.” Walking up to the wall, Michael placed a hand on Trevor’s shoulder, trying to pull him away, “We wouldn’t have won that fight without him and you know it, just let him go.”

With a growl and a final push into the wall Trevor let go of his shirt “This isn’t over.” He said and walked towards the other warrior.

With a nod Michael walked away towards Richard who was still lying unconscious on the ground, kneeling beside him he started looking him over for injuries, “He is bleeding from the back of his head but is still breathing, we need to heal him and the others if we can. Danielle do you think you can….Danielle?” He jerked to a stand looking around frantically, “ Where is Danielle? Has anyone seen her?”

“I saw her run down the tunnel after that thing dropped down from the ceiling” everyone stopped and stared at Jessica who just shrugged.

“The only reason we stayed with you people was because of the healer and at the first sign of trouble she runs. Useless, all of you.” In shocked silence everyone turned to stare at Trevor, after everything that just happened, one of them dead, three still unconscious and he still thought that he was too good for the rest of them.

With a sigh Michael bent back down to Richard, “What are we supposed to do now, I’m not leaving him behind”. The group started splitting up to the others that were on the ground, checking them over and seeing if there was anything they could do. Looking over the group Shaun thought over everything that had occurred since getting transported to the tutorial, it had been less than a day but already it felt like a week had passed. Choosing a class, ending up in a cave system, gaining skills and fighting a real monster. He walked over to the spiderling, even dead and on the ground the thing was huge, he saw his dagger still in its body and with both hands grabbed it by the hilt and pulled it out. It was covered in its blood, he wiped off as much as he could on the spiderlings abdomen and then placed it back in its sheath next to the pouch which contained the potions he received with the rest of his new gear.

“Health potion..” he mumbled, looking over the group. “Use the health potions” he said loud enough for everyone to hear. Walking over he bent down beside Michael and took the green potion out of the pouch on Richard’s belt. “Help me get him to swallow this”.

“We don’t know what that will do to him, or if it’s even real. It could be poison.”

“Identify said it restored health and the skill hasn’t lied to us yet, besides what other choice do we have?” Moving Richard’s head onto his lap he pulled the cork out of the vial, and a little at a time he poured the potion into Richard’s mouth, making sure he didn’t choke. When there was nothing left he put the cork back on and put the now empty vial in his own pouch, not knowing if it might come in handy later he decided to keep it rather than leaving it on the ground like trash.

“Nothing is happening, damn it we have already lost one person, Danielle has run off and we don’t even know if she’s alive or not and now we are going to lose Richard too!” standing up Michael started to pace back and forth, having been putting on a strong façade from the moment we had arrived, the pressure of the situation had finally pushed him to his breaking point. “What is the point of this? What kind of tutorial sets everyone up to fail? We can barely kill one monster and they expect us to kill hundreds more? Thousands? I got 3 TE from helping to kill that thing and we all nearly died in the process of….”

Wait what? He only got 3 TE? Looking back over his notifications he had received 15 TE from the spiderling not 3. Why would he get 5 times the amount that Michael got when they had all contributed to killing the monster? Unless it isn’t split equally between each person. What if the TE is split based on contribution or the amount of damage each person does instead? The whole purpose of this stage of the tutorial was to gain TE and to level up and how do you do that? You kill. Monster, people, it didn’t matter, you had to kill to get stronger, to meet the objectives and to move on to the next stage. Standing in the back of a group doing barely any damage didn’t help you get stronger, so why should it award the same amount of TE and experience? Shaking his head Shaun decided that now wasn’t the time to figure out the small details on how the tutorial worked.

Coughing broke the silence in the tunnel, “You're awake!” Having stopped halfway through what could only be described as a breakdown, not that Shaun was really listening at that point, Michael rushed back over to where Richard was starting to sit up, “You're alive! How are you feeling? Don’t move too much, you were unconscious and have been bleeding from a head wound.”

“I feel fine, everything is a little fuzzy but its getting better by the second. What happened?” Feeling the back of his head, Richard pulled his hand away and saw blood coating his hand. “I don’t remember anything, one second I heard a scream and the next nothing.” Shaking his head he started standing up, at first a little unsteady on his feet but soon looked to be able to hold himself upright just fine.

“Are you really feeling alright?” Still not convinced that he truly was better. With a nod Richard looked around until his eyes fell on the dead spiderling and froze. “Okay I guess that settles whether the potions work. We should give the others their potions and get them back on their feet”

While the group got to work Shaun thought back on the fight with the spiderling and the events leading up to the attack, recounting how everyone had done in the fight and how effective their skills were in causing damage. At the beginning no one was particularly effective at attacking with their skills, they did little to no damage, the warriors swung around their swords with no finesse and the way they used their weapons could have been mistaken for someone trying to take down a tree with an axe, but as the battle continued they started being able to move a little more coordinated, their attacks more precise. He assumed that at some point during the battle they had levelled up their skills, just like when he had when he started using his daggers and stealth on the walk through the tunnel. Curious about how much progress the team made from the battle he started approaching Gabriel who’s accuracy with his bow improved quite a lot during the progress of fighting the monster but he stopped short when a notification popped up.

*Looting attempted on defeated (Cave Spiderling – Lvl 3) by an undesignated party, approve looting?*

What the hell? Looking back at the body Trevor and two of his goons were muttering to each other while standing over the body, looking to be getting increasingly more agitated. The list of notifications in front of Shaun’s eyes kept getting longer as they kept trying to activate their looting skills on the body. It seemed that even though they had all participated in the fight he was the one that got the first opportunity to loot the kill, probably because he was the one to do the most damage or because he was the one to strike the final blow. Staring at the growing list of notifications he kept thinking no at them, not giving them permission to loot the body, but the list didn’t seem to be getting any smaller, there has to be an easier way to do this. Trying to push his intent at all the notifications to not give anyone permission to loot the body they all disappeared. Guess that works, intention seems to mean a lot with this System. Time to get this out of the way, it's not going to go down well.

Walking over to the body, everyone started looking on, trying to figure out why he would be heading towards Trevor and his team, just as he got close enough that if he wanted to he could lay his hands on its massive abdomen, the notification appeared asking him if he wanted to use his looting skill. With a deep breath he agreed and suddenly black smoke started drifting up from all over the body until there was nothing left except the body of the mage that had been trampled to death by the spiderling during the battle.

“What happened? What did you do to it Shaun?” walking up to stand next to him Michael looked down at where the monster had been and then stared right at him, he didn’t look happy, in fact he looked just as annoyed as Trevor did in that moment. “Answer me Shaun!”.

“I got a notification asking if I wanted to loot the body, didn’t see a reason not to.” Scanning over the faces of everybody staring at him, most seemed confused, when his eyes landed on Trevor he looked like he was ready to start fighting him right there and then. When he finally turned to look at Michael he could see him trying to process what Shaun had just announced to the group.

“You didn’t see a reason not to? Did you not think to talk to the rest of us before you did something, not knowing what the consequences of your actions would be? I’m your boss Shaun, you come to me before you do these sorts of things! What has gotten into you?!?!?! Ever since we got into this damn place you have been acting differently, you jumped on top of a monster! It could have killed you! The Shaun I know never would have done something so reckless!” Breathing deeply he looked like he was gearing up to continue on his tirade.

“You are not my boss anymore Michael. Don’t you get it? Our old lives are over, there is no going back to those 9-5 jobs once this tutorial comes to an end, everything has changed! We need to adapt to the new reality, that means fighting for our lives and embracing the System, if we don’t we die.” Taking a breath to try and calm himself everyone looked on like he was a stranger, they had never seen this side of Shaun, so willing to speak up and voice his thoughts, but he had had enough of being silent. “Maybe I should have mentioned the notification I got for looting the monster but the last time I had something important to say you dismissed me, why should I think that this time would be different?”

“I have never dismissed you! I have always listened when you have had something to say, how could you even think that?”

“When we were walking through the tunnel earlier, I stopped and then tried to tell everyone about being able to level up skills but instead of listening you just told me we would talk about it later. If you had agreed to just listen to what I had to say we could have been more prepared for what just happened, but you didn’t. That’s on you….” It was a harsh truth, and he knew that it would hurt, but he couldn’t just stand by and say nothing anymore.

“Wait, you knew we could……You're right.” All of the built up tension in Michael disappeared and he deflated, he probably shouldn’t have said those things in front of the group but it was done and couldn’t be changed. “What do we do now?”

Everyone was looking uncertain at that moment, even Trevor with his usual look of disdain for the rest of them was gone. The group was shaken and losing all of the remaining hope they had that they would make it out of this. He knew that something needed to change, they needed to focus on something, having a task that they could work towards together. Being the cause of everyone’s current feelings, he focused on the one thing he knew would help both distract them and help the group as a whole “We need to know what everyone can do, what everyone’s skills are and even if they levelled up. It will help us create a plan for the next time we face a monster. If we can learn to work together we stand a chance.” He looked around at everyone who now all had far off looks in their eyes, they must all be checking their status. Pulling up the notifications that he hadn’t had a chance to read from his looting he set about doing the same.

*Two fangs from (Cave Spiderling – Lvl 3) added to inventory*

*Venom sac from (Cave Spiderling – Lvl 3) added to inventory*

*Spider leg meat from (Cave Spiderling – Lvl 3) added to inventory*

That must be what I got from looting the body, the fangs could be useful the same for the venom but leg meat? What was I supposed to do with that? Moving on from the notifications he then checked his status to see the gains from killing his first monster.

Status:

Name: Shaun Clermont

Race Human (F)

Level: 0

Class: [Basic] Rogue - Level 1

Profession: N/A

Health Points: 60/70

Stamina: 30/110

Mana: 30/30

Stats: (Available Points: 0)

Strength: 8

Dexterity: 11

Endurance: 11

Vitality: 7

Intelligence: 8

Perception: 10

Willpower: 6

Soul: 3

Affinity: N/A

Titles: New Initiate

Skills:

Class: [Basic] Short Blade (Level 4), [Basic] Stealth (Level 5), [Basic] Detection (Level 1)

Profession: N/A

He now had three of his eight stats over 10 which he thought was pretty good, he had also gained some skill levels which was always nice, he couldn’t wait to try them out when they started moving again. His detection skill was still sitting at level 1, reading over the description he cursed at himself, if he had been training that skill as well he might have known the spiderling was there before it dropped down into the group.

“I will go first.” Michael said with more confidence than he had earlier, “I got one level in my warrior class from the fight, my highest stat is Strength which is now at 12, my lowest is Soul at 5. I have three skills, Swordsmanship, Enhanced Strike and Strength Boost all of them now level 2 and labelled as basic. I gained 3 TE when the monster died.” Both Trevor and the other warrior that was in the battle confirmed the same, although while Trevor had also got 3 TE the other one only got 2, Richard who was unconscious during the battle had no changes.

They went around in a circle with the mages confirming their skills as Mana Bolt, Meditation and Mana Manipulation, both had their Mana Bolt skills go up to level 2 and had received 2 TE each. Gabriel confirmed his skills as Bow Handling, Enhanced Aim and Empowered Arrow, all going up to level 2 and had gotten 3 TE. Doing a quick calculation of everyone’s TE he quickly realised that when he added them up it was 30 TE altogether with him having gotten half of the monster's TE. It was now his turn to share his skills and levels but he knew if he told everyone the TE he had received it would cause friction with everyone present, but he didn’t really have a choice. If he lied and said a smaller number eventually everyone would figure it out once they started killing more monsters.

“I have gained one level in my class, my Rogue skills are Short Blade which is at level 4, Stealth at Level 5 and Detection at Level 1. I think killing the monster makes a difference in how much TE you get, or maybe it is the amount of damage done, but I got 15 TE from killing the spiderling.” There were exclamations of shock from most of the group, with Trevor growling at him like he had just insulted everything he stood for.

Clearing his throat Michael stepped in before things could escalate “Okay now we know what everyone can do. Is everyone okay to keep moving?” Nods from everyone followed “What do we do with the body?” he looked down at the Mage.

Trevor bent down and started taking the potions out of the dead mages pouch and the wand that was still attached to the hip. “We leave him, there is no way we can carry his body. Besides, there's nothing useful left on him anyway.” That had an impact on the team, as realisation dawned on them that if they died, there was going to be no funeral, no family to send them off, they would just be looted and left there for scavengers to find.

“Okay……Then let’s keep moving. We still need to find food and water and somewhere safe to stay. Let’s go.”