Alith crouched at the border of the jungle, observing the vegetation.
“No magical plants in sight so far… This all looks like common stuff. My mana is locked at zero I think? Can’t access any system window except the notifications log. Island objectives completion and return on the ark…”
Well I don’t see the ark, gotta climb up that volcano first. Question is… Do I focus on basic survival, or do I rush for time?
Hmmm… Well, I need water either way.
I don’t feel that weak, though. I guess I’m still at peak human condition even without magic.
Pacing herself, Alith walked in the shade along the edge of the jungle, foraging a few small purple berries on the way. After a few turns following the edge, she found a small bay with a sunken sloop, its bow and mast sticking out of the water.
“And here I was hoping I wouldn’t have to swim.”
Hanging her sundress on a tree branch, Alith quickly ran over the hot sand and plunged into the cold salty waters of the bay. She did not really believe this shipwreck would contain anything useful, but she could not afford to ignore anything that stood out when there was a completion score on the line.
She discovered the cargo of the sloop was still present, secured by an algae-covered fishing net to the sloop’s rear, about two meters under water. Her eyes stinging from the salt, Alith struggled for a moment to find a good grip, before managing to rip out the old cordage and drag it back to the shore.
The old waterlogged chest was mostly full of broken bottles, but two remained intact, as well as a tiny silver locket.
“Ohoh some booze?”
Alith popped open one of the two intact bottles, “Hmm. Not sure what it is exactly, but smells fine. And the locket… Eww, a tooth? Why? Human molar, looks like? What a weird-ass keepsake.”
Closing the locket and the bottle back up, Alith grabbed her sundress and walked in the sunlight for a bit waiting to dry before putting it back on. With some of the broken glass she got from the shipwreck, she cut off some vines, large leaves and fresh twigs from the jungle trees. She made herself a shabby glass knife as well as a bandolier and small pouch, much like the ones she had made for her zombie in the previous event. She carried around the alcohol bottles without drinking any, as she continued walking along the outer edge of the island.
After an hour, she had yet to find anything else of note, besides strange sounds coming from the jungle every so often.
I’ve still got time before noon. But this island is so big. I’ve barely made it to the foot of the volcano… No way they expect us to explore the entire thing, right? Is this event supposed to last several months or what? Haven’t even seen an animal bigger than a rabbit yet.
Even without her blessing, Alith was fine with heat, but she was losing water fast nonetheless, which the beach seemed to have no solutions for.
Not even a single damn cloud on the horizon so rain’s not an option, even the berries I found were like dried fruits. The volcano is big, but not that big, might be hard to find any streams there…
Time for the jungle then.
Visibility in the island jungle was near zero, the dense foliage of the shrubs and exotic plants hindered the view, even more critically for someone that short, and the canopy barely let any sunlight through.
On the bright side, there were astonishingly few flying insects, and so far no dangerous animals to be seen. Alith did not recognise most of the plants around, but she could still tell a lot just by looking. It only took her a few minutes to find a plant with thick leaves that was sure to contain a lot of water.
She grabbed a leaf and tore it in half, observing the thick white sap that almost dripped out as she pressed it.
Not the most reassuring color but that’s an impressive quantity.
After giving the sap a good smell, Alith rubbed some on her left wrist, and a tiny bit on the corner of her lips.
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Hah, that’s some weak shit. Might be decent to treat a mild fever?
Alith stuffed her pouch with as many of the leaves as she could fit, and continued forward, not eating any yet.
After about ten minutes she checked her wrist.
Still looks fine. Guessed as much but it doesn’t hurt to be safe… Folding a leaf in half because it was too big, she placed it in her mouth, and left it there as she kept trudging through the forest. It tasted just about how she expected from the smell. When after some time, her mouth still felt fine, she spat the saliva-covered leaf out.
And now I wait.
Although she was almost certain that eating the leaves was mostly safe now, bad side effects were still a risk. Waiting a few hours to see if she was still fine before consuming more was a lot better than going in blind and ending up with a severe diarrhea or something similar.
Through her jungle exploration, she found more plants she recognised, but while they could be useful for alchemy, there wasn’t much she could do right now with no tools, no fire, no magic and no water, so she left them all behind, advancing on a slight upward slope toward the general direction of ‘up the volcano’.
Having returned from watching Astelia’s side, Sofia was joined by Love in following Alith through the jungle.
“Isn’t this event a bit too calm?” Sofia asked, having flown up above the canopy and failing to see anything even remotely dangerous anywhere.
“Nooo, don’t misunderstand. This is the grace period, the fun starts from noon the first day.”
“To let people watch the other event first?”
“To let people watch the other event first,” Love confirmed, “and also to give the people here a chance to adapt to their current level of power before things get dangerous. Their stats get scaled down to about that of a level twenty, still respecting their current distribution.”
“Interesting. Are those ruins she’s heading toward safe?”
Love tilted her head and smiled, the bells on her garish pointy hat ringing softly. “NooOot for long.”
It wasn’t a coincidence that Alith found ruins despite the low visibility, she had found a trail of disturbed bushes and had been following it for the past half hour, eventually discovering the crumbling ruins.
Good find. Now the question, can I get some meat?
Having repurposed her glass knife into a spear, Alith circled around the ruin. It was a single building made of dark blocks of volcanic stone. Though it structurally looked almost intact, it was greatly overrun by the jungle’s vegetation.
She found some four-toed footprints of the animal she had been tracking all around the ruin, but the trail seemed to stop there.
Probably inside, then. Looks like some kind of a chapel maybe? Wait, no the cross shape isn’t even a religious thing here.
Just thinking about a religious cross made Alith involuntarily shiver, although she would choose to get burned at the stake again to get to her current life if she were given the choice to change the past, it was not exactly a good memory.
The windows were beyond dirty and covered in vegetation, so Alith walked up to a wall with a missing stone block on ground level, and crouched down to peer inside.
Too dark. Can’t see shit.
Doesn’t smell like there’s an animal in there, strangely… Is that pollen?
Alith stepped back, observing the hand she had put on the stone closer to the inside, finding her fingertips covered in fine dark blue dust. Now I’ve really got to get in there.
The front door was too thickly covered in vines to get through quickly. Leaving her bandolier hanging on a branch outside, Alith crawled in through the hole with her spear in head. She paused midway through, not fully coming out on the other side, giving her eyes a few seconds to adapt to the darkness.
A plant nursery?!
Every wall of the small ruin was stacked with pot-shelves, all overrun by the same large blue flowers that had completely taken over the interior of the building, growing past the pots and on the floor, the walls and the support beams.
In the middle of a damned jungle?
Suddenly a beastly cry echoed from outside, accompanied by increasingly loud footsteps.
Alith hurriedly finished crawling inside, turning around to look through the gap. The footsteps became louder and louder, until a large four-toed bird-like foot stomped down just a meter away from the hole.
Alith held her breath. That thing was way too big to enter through the hole, but it was without a doubt big enough to smash through the entire wall. Thankfully it did not notice her or stop there, instead it moved in the direction of the bandolier Alith had left outside to avoid having to crawl with the alcohol bottles. She heard the sound of broken glass, and strange cries from the beast followed, then it left, just as abruptly as it had arrived.
That foot looked like the prints I’ve found… BUT IT’S WAY TOO BIG, the hell?! That thing must be ten times the size! Was I tracking its fucking newborn baby?
As Alith took a moment to listen and make sure the creature was really gone, she realized something. Even muted by the thick stone walls, the jungle had just become a lot noisier than it had been all morning, like it had suddenly become a different place entirely.
Holy… I’m lucky I found this ruin now, huh.
