After close to 30 minutes, Alex had managed to remove the pelt without damaging it too much aside from the sizable spear wound in its side. Hanging it on a low hanging branch to dry, he tried to shake off the blood from his hands as much as possible, but it had already dried partially.
"Alright, I'm done over here. I wish we had some water or there was a body of water nearby so I could wash off…well, at least I don't have any nails for blood to get under."
Walking over to the tree, G pulled their spear out of the body in swift motion, letting the remains slump onto the ground.
"Hopefully something eats it. Be a waste otherwise. Anyway, have you checked your status since we got the notification? Some of my skills leveled up at some point, maybe yours did too."
'Wow, I almost forgot about that.'
"I'll check now. You get a fire going, just cut some roots first so we don't start a fire. Menu."
As expected, the menu displaying his status appeared. Lo and behold, a few of his skills had leveled up.
Alex Status:
Alias-Alex of Mosshaven
Species-(Batkin)2/20
Primary Profession-(Hunter)2/10
Secondary Profession-(Chef)
Skills: (Archery)2/10, (Dagger)1/10, (Tracking)2/10, (Echolocation)2/20, (Stealth)2/10, (Nightvision)3/10, (Dismantling)2/10, (Cooking)2/10, (Balance)1/10
Titles: (Dreamer), (Realm Bound-Mosshaven)
'I guess skinning a single ward poorly doesn't qualify for a level up…at least (Nightvision) leveled up. Maybe at higher levels I'll be able to see in color at night.'
As Alex checked his status, G cleaved some of the outer roots in between a few of the trees and moved the roots into the center of the cleared area. Employing the same method they used to light torches, they toss sparks onto the pile of roots and leaves until it catches fire.
Once the fire looked to be stable, they took a seat against a tree opposite to the bloody one, and leaned back.
Sitting down next to them, Alex let out a long sigh.
"Yeah, some of my skills leveled up as well. Hopefully we can get new ones too, otherwise I'm afraid every hunt will end with sore knees. I didn't think that a bow was that heavy until about 4 hours in, but it's probably not half as bad as your armor."
"Speaking of soreness, I don't really feel any. A benefit of stone joints I guess, although if I'm not careful my legs might snap in half. Oh, and we can gain new skills. I got (Stealth) at some point, probably the ambush if I had to guess."
Shifting a bit, Alex took off their now bloody cloak, hanging it on a nearby branch.
"Do you still feel fatigue at all? It would feel a bit unfair if you could skirt around the limits built into Dreaming…"
Lightly lagging and letting a small smile remain on their face, they turned to Alex, their light ginger hair taking a deeper hue of orange next to the fire.
"I don't exactly feel my legs or arms burning, but I definitely feel like some extra weight has been put on my back. Like gravity just turned on a little more compared to when we started. Though it's barely noticeable, I'm sure if we hiked for a weak straight I would barely be able to move."
"Huh…still sounds nice to me. Though I guess people always want what they don't have. Welp, I guess when I figure out how to use my wings properly maybe you'll get a taste of that."
"Hey, you're forgetting that I can't see in the dark! I'm practically blind out here!"
Letting the time fly by while they rested by the fire, an hour passed uneventfully, before they felt it time to continue through the forest.
Standing up, Alex put his cloak back on, cracked his back, and let out a groan.
"Alright, it's probably time for us to move. We don't have that much time until daybreak, and ideally we find somewhere to wash off the blood before heading back to Mosshaven."
Getting up as well, G picked up their spear and shoved some dirt in the fire to dim it down.
"You're taking the lead, right? Wouldn't make much sense for it to be me, since I can hardly see anything and all."
"Yeah, I got it. I can't tell which direction is which anymore, so I guess it's time to walk in a direction until we pick up something's trail or sunrise comes and we know which way is which."
Setting off in a random direction away from the makeshift camp, Alex used (Echolocation) and (Nightvision) to navigate between the trees with G taking up the rear.
The eerie silence of the forest was only broken up by their steps through the forests. Despite it being an enormous, wild forest, no sounds of animals and other inhabitants traveled through the habitat. A lack of wind would make sense, as the dense foliage likely blocked most of the wind coming in outside, but the lack of noise compared to the real world or Mosshaven was unnerving.
After an unknown period of time walking through the forest in the dark, Alex eventually spotted something out of the ordinary about 100 meters away.
Appearing to be a few stone brick organized around a statue depicting some sort of humanoid figure, he couldn't quite make out the details from this far away. Erring on the side of caution, Alex stopped and stuck a hand in front of G's path of movement.
"Hey G, I see some ruins I think. It looks to be some sort of shrine from here, but it could be anything."
Nodding slightly to make as little noise as possible, G squatted down, spear in both hands.
Seeing G prepared, Alex prepared their bow and arrow, and used (Echolocation) while they were still fairly far away. Letting the sound echo back to him, Alex analyzed what he heard. The statue still felt indistinct, likely due to age wearing down its finer details, but it had the proportions of a human or less unusual species. Through the bricks making up the base of the statue, he could sense a hollowed space beneath the structure. With something growing in the space between the bricks, likely moss, Alex couldn't get much information about the space. What was fairly clear was that the area seemed as barren of non-plant life as the rest of the forest.
Easing up a bit, Alex but the arrow back in his quiver and turned to G.
"It looks clear from here, but I think there is something under the ruin. We better prepare a torch just in case."
Standing up, a bit relieved at not having to hunt in the dark again so soon, they grabbed a random fallen branch and lit it up.
"Alright, lead the way."
Covering the distance quickly, they walked in front of the ruins. From up close, they could tell that despite looking small from afar with only a statue visible from a horizontal plane, the ground surrounding the statue was covered in a thin layer of moss that looked extremely similar to a field of grass. Their steps kicking away some of the moss revealed that the ground surrounding the clearing was made of bricks that looked similar to the ones making up Mosshaven's ancient wall.
G, bringing their torch closer to the statue, revealed that it was made of the same stone. Squatting, they looked at the grooves beneath the statue.
"It looks like it isn't bolted down by anything other than a simple mortar, so moving it shouldn't be too hard. Is that how we get into the underground part, or is it under some other part of the area?"
Letting out another burst of (Echolocation), Alex confirmed that there was an opening underneath the statue.
"Yeah, I think if we can move the statue, the underground will be accessible."
Setting down their things, G positioned themselves against the statue, ready to push.
"Then I guess we'll see how sturdy this is after standing abandoned here for who knows how many years. Here we go!"
With a shout, G used their shoulder as a point of connection to try and tackle the statue. Letting off a sharp crackling noise, the statue's base seemed to crack a little, moving back. Beneath the stone base of the statue, a dark staircase could barely be seen through the tiny gap made.
Relenting for the time being, G took a moment to catch their breath.
"Ha…ha…I got it to move, but the damn thing is really heavy. I can see why it's lasted so long. The damn thing didn't crumble a bit, just moved…"
'Damn, this might take a while…I wonder what is down there if the statue has stood unmoved for so long?'