<table width="780" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tbody>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="195">
Name
</td>
<td width="195">
Gwen Baird
</td>
<td width="195">
Armour
</td>
<td width="195">
3
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="195">
Class
</td>
<td width="195">
Hunter
</td>
<td width="195">
Health
</td>
<td width="195">
5
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="195">
Level
</td>
<td width="195">
1
</td>
<td width="195">
Dodge
</td>
<td width="195">
1
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="195">
Species
</td>
<td width="195">
Half-Elf (Wood/Human)
</td>
<td width="195">
Species Skills (Half-Elf)
</td>
<td width="195">
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="195">
Strength
</td>
<td width="195">
5
</td>
<td width="195">
Elf Sight
</td>
<td width="195">
1
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="195">
Agility
</td>
<td width="195">
5
</td>
<td width="195">
Base Skills (Hunter)
</td>
<td width="195">
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="195">
Body
</td>
<td width="195">
5
</td>
<td width="195">
Stealth
</td>
<td width="195">
1
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="195">
Mind
</td>
<td width="195">
5
</td>
<td width="195">
Perception
</td>
<td width="195">
1
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="195">
Sense
</td>
<td width="195">
5
</td>
<td width="195">
Tracking
</td>
<td width="195">
1
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="195">
Charm
</td>
<td width="195">
5
</td>
<td width="195">
Archery
</td>
<td width="195">
1
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
But then, she thought, hanging onto the ?lichen-covered bark of the tree and watching the strange beast tear up the grass beneath her, she hadn''t really known what to expect. Maybe this was how this was supposed to go? The media had been full of wonder and awe when the news came that they weren''t all going to be trapped on Earth as the sun blasted Earth''s atmosphere with radiation. Hearing about it she had been perhaps a little quick to celebrate rather than finding out more about what was going to happen.
I need to put more points into Strength, she thought. Definitely need to fix that at my first level up.
Not helpful anxiety-brain, she thought caustically back at the voice.
Gwen breathed in the air that smelled of pine – and increasingly of ripped up grass and broken earth – and tried to concentrate. ?What do I do? She thought about what she was carrying: I have a sword and I have a bow. There''s no chance I''m going to be able to use the bow and still hold on to this tree, but the sword...
She looked at the monster. It was a little over two metres below her. Close enough that she could hear the tearing of the grass roots, the growling of its breath, and see her reflection in the shine of its carapace. That wasn''t so bad a distance to fall. She grinned.
She let herself fall.
Then she hit the beast, her sword hitting first, skewering into the thick flesh and muscle around its neck. She landed on the slippery carapace, the arm she had been holding the sword with felt like it was on fire, the pain was so intense. The sword hadn''t slid through the creature''s neck, instead, it got stuck into the meat and muscle of it. And all the excess force was reflected back onto Gwen. Her gaze whited out for a second, and by the time that it returned her vision was glowing with numbers warning her about the amount of damage she had taken.
Too many numbers, she realised, too much damage. They were glowing red with a fluorescent and accusing glare.
And, rather than dying from a sword into the back of the neck, the creature just seemed to get angrier. It let out a squeal so loud its echo was alike a ricochet and started to run. Still stunned by the impact, Gwen only had the brainpower to hold onto the sword, scrabbling with her free hand onto the pommel and gripping on for dear life. She laced her fingers around it, making a pained noise as her hands came into contact with one another. The hand which had been gripping the sword as she fell was a mass of so much pain that being made aware of it once more was enough to make her tremble.
In the end, it wasn''t her decision to let go, the game made it for her. The beast disappeared in a shimmer of greasy looking smog and she was dumped in the flattened grass. She dropped the two blades she carried. The blood had not gone with the body and so she was crouched in a muddy pool of it, her hands covered and the sleeves of her shirt soaked. She pushed on her wobbly legs until she was a few feet out of the blood puddle and there she dropped to the ground and tried her best to clean her hands on the grass.
The feeling that came back was soft and cool, yet welcoming, like a glass of water when your throat is dry and the road is dusty, and before her mind could be dragged down that road too far she snatched her hand back in surprise.
"Welcome Adventurer to the world of After!
While the world you have come from is soon to be destroyed by an astronomical disaster, this is your safe harbour from the fear and worries which have no doubt plagued you for the past several years.
You will likely have many questions. Statistically, these are the three answers you are most likely to want to know.
News from outside After is impossible to receive, by the time you are reading this you and the rest of the passengers will be in space and the solar flares may have already begun to hit, preventing any other communication. While it is to be expected that you will be curious about what is going on in the ''Real World'' please do not seek it out. Once the solar flares cease the communications blackout will drop between us and the other ships in the evacuation process, but until then we will be on minimal contact with the rest of the evacuation fleet.
The world was designed using a physics engine that mimics Earth''s, so no need to worry about getting used to a stronger or lighter gravity, you should do just fine.
As an Adventurer your life will be full of wonderful advantages, for example you can no longer die, or to be more exact when you die you pop up again with the next dawn! What a relief that must be! You will also heal in a new and improved fashion: whole limbs can be regrown if lost and healing magic is available to speed up the process if necessary.
During your character creation phase you were given several choices about the kind of role you would take on in the world. To help with that you have been set on a path that includes character type and species.
You have chosen:
Half-Elf (Wood Elf/Human) as your species and Hunter for your class.
The world of After is a vast place, full of mysteries and adventure. It is recommended that you explore as much as you can and experience everything that you are able. Consider taking up new hobbies, or perhaps this is the chance you''ve been waiting for to enjoy a few fantasies?"
"The world of After is filled with Non-Player Characters who will in most cases defer to your judgement. They will seek your approval and hold your words in high regard, so don''t waste them! Of course, there are also lots of NPCs who won''t agree with you so easily, but it will be up to you to figure out how to work with or against them. A good Charm score is likely to smooth things over if you aren''t sure of what to do, but there will always be some fights you can''t talk your way out of, so make sure you practise those fighting skills as well!"
The rest of the letter was a brief summary that seemed to be mostly telling the newcomers to role-play heavy games how the game worked, but she''d played enough of them to skip that part. Gwen looked around at the world she was standing in, well, there was the whole being able to touch things and feel pain, and so on. That was new.
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Gwen blew out a breath, a lock of hair that had escaped her braid whipped back and forth. "What am I going to do, what am I going to do," she muttered. "I''ll level up first, thinks will feel a lot less stressful without all of these notifications flashing at me," she decided.
"Oh, I like that," she said with a smile, "Easier time of getting out of the way when someone comes at me and the opportunity to do extra damage if I want."
Maybe it is a little meta-game-y to boost the stat that helps you learn and level faster, but I don''t want to be dumb! She reasoned. And better to do it now when I have so much to learn than to leave it until I''m all levelled up and finding new skills is harder.
Marina let out a laugh and hugged her back, there was more strength in the arms that embraced Gwen than there had been when they had been in the real world. Someone had obviously taken character creation as an opportunity to improve certain matters. Well, can''t blame her for that, I''ve done the same, Gwen thought. With one last squeeze, she stepped back and took a look at her sister. She frowned, "You gone for the warrior or the priest route?"
"You have completed the Find Family Quest! Congratulations! Here is your reward: 1 Experience Point."
It had not been comfortable to find out that her sister had been so keen on joining up to the club because she had wanted to flirt with the club leader.
"No, because that only works in America, or maybe just in American movies? It sounds like movie nonsense, like people getting electrocuted and you seeing their bones," Gwen said absently, jumping over a downed tree.