Mountain Wendigo Chain, Part 1 (Taro, Peredolia, Sephidrac, Fathoms, Arthur, Yaofan)

Another morning in the World. Nobody’s quite sure what the world is called, and there hasn’t been a village consensus on the name yet. Taro stretches and pulls himself out of his sleeping bag, a lumpy cloth affair stuffed with sheep’s wool for insulation. It’s uneven and it can be scratchy where the wool wears through the cloth, but it beats sleeping on the bare dirt.

Pulling on his clothes, Taro exits his tent. Much of the village still consists of basic cloth and leather tents. The translucent blue structural outlines of his and other players’ Structure Building programs dot the riverside plains in which they’ve made their home, marking plans for future houses.

Getting to the quarry where the good stone for building is located means crossing the river. Taro forges into the chill morning water, shivering as he goes. As a dwarf, even the shallowest part of the water eventually goes over his head, forcing him to tread water for a moment before touching down on the silty river bottom again. This morning, as he fords the river on his new morning commute, Taro hears a telltale sound as a small notification pop-up appears in the air beside him, followed shortly after by another.

The image of Taro's advisor hovers inside of the window, and his growling, electronic voice reverberates in Taro’s ears.

“Oh.” Taro notices that it actually feels marginally easier to move through the water, now. Easing his way back to the spot where he needs to tread water, Taro lingers, practicing swimming with his stocky dwarven proportions. It certainly isn’t easy. After a short period of time his Stamina gets low, and he moves back onto the section where he can touch. Though, now that the status window is open, he can see there are still minute increases to the ability experience even if he just moves his arms through the water while standing. “Awesome. We can grind this,” he says, though there’s no one in particular to be the we. Peredolia’s there, he supposes.

Taro remains in the water for a while, farming experience for his Beginner Athletics and Swimming skills. Other players with Early Mining Practices proficiency pass him by, giving him sideways glances where he floats in the water like an afk.

Peredolia's synthetic laughter echoes inside Taro's skull. “Just a little more, it’ll make the trips faster so it’s worth it,” he argues, teeth clenched against the chill. The program just rolls his eyes and terminates his own dialogue window.

After Taro grinds out another level of Swimming, he notices the resistance of the water is just a little bit easier to push against.

A few more minutes later, Peri’s dialogue window pops back up. His cycloptic eye narrows judgingly at Taro. In the background behind the advisor's image, Taro can see other colorful mascots moving around within their self-contained virtual space. The advisors’ ability to communicate with one another while connected to their users through the status windows makes them vital for coordinating the village efforts.

Urged on by the intelligence's scathing tone, Taro trudges out the other side of the river. “Fine. I guess I should get back to stonecarving.” Ever since Yaofan got back from scouting the zone tile and started getting her butt in gear on hunting and trapping, the food situation has improved enough that Taro and other suitable players have been working on better shelters now.

Strolling up the steep hill to the quarry is a little easier for his sturdy dwarven legs than the swimming.

“Alright, got it. I wasn’t gonna,” Taro complies. The program is a bit unsettling, but his advice is rarely wrong, and his energy level is far more manageable. Honestly, Taro would go insane if he had that fox yipping in his ear all day like some of the others. Besides, Taro is... reasonably sure that all of Peri's threats are just hollow theater.

There’s a wooden box near the dig site where Taro crouches down and grabs one of the stone pickaxes. The stone blades are shorter than he’d picture for a pickaxe, but then, longer blades would probably just snap. A wooden rod has had a notch cut into it for the double-sided pickaxe blade to be slotted in, then the thing was wrapped in place with some vine ropes. Their durability as a tool sucks, but they’re easy to make in the basic Crafting Bench Menu with just a branch and some stone scrap.

Taro joins the other dwarves and vagrants working on gathering stone blocks. First they need to break a chunk of stone out of the cliff faces and the big rocks sticking out of the ground here, then use the Crafting Tab to cut them into bricks. The yield is one whole Large Stone Brick for use in most stone structures, or a few Small Stone Bricks that can be used for stone ovens and stuff. And, of course, some stone scrap that’s good for making more tools to start all over again. What a grind…

By the end of his work shift, Taro is feeling exhausted. He’s not looking forward to the walk back. Using the Inventory makes it easy to carry a few stone blocks at a time, even if they each take up like, 6 Inventory tiles. But having a full inventory makes it feel like your body weighs a ton. As his Stamina bar dwindles down once more, Taro slumps into a seated position on one of the new bricks.

Constitution Check: 20 (Con) + 25 (Dwarf) = 45%
Check Failed!

“Well that’s ominous,” Taro scratches his head. An uncomfortable feeling has settled into his stomach.

“Hey!” a huffing and puffing voice comes from behind them. Taro turns to see Necrolord Sephidrac, the village’s Demon Necromancer. The blond boy’s bangs are plastered to his face with sweat, and his white clothes are soaked by the river ford and caked in dirt from… well, being white. Behind him, four sheep skeletons pull along a Basic Resource Sled made out of branches. Their smoothly filed down bottoms make them glide easily over the ground, and allow for easy transport of things like logs and other branches. “I came to ha…. Huh… help move the… stone blocks back!” Sephidrac puffs out, leaning forward on his knees.

Taro looks upon the boy, like an uncle staring at his nephew’s pencil scribble and trying to parse what it was supposed to be. “Sephi-kun,” he says, gently, “Basic sleds can’t hold Large Stone Bricks. They fall apart.” He looks into the guy’s eyes, the dead-eyed stare of a man who desperately needs a win. “… But, we could use some Small Stone Bricks too, for later. We can pack up a load of those.”

Brightening at once, Sephi nods and looks around. “What should… I do?”

“Use your Crafting menu to start breaking down some of these boulders we have into Small Stone Bricks. Store the stone scrap in that chest over there,” Taro points to one of their storage areas, each box labeled with a carving on the top. “I’ll head back down with you once the sled is loaded. It’ll suck pushing it across the river ford solo.”

One hour later…

Standing beside the sled as Sephidrac struggles to push it through the water, Taro uses his dwarvish body weight to keep the load of bricks from toppling over to the side in the running water. It’s not exactly a fast-running river, but physics or something? Taro almost failed that class, don’t ask him. When they reach the final dip in the middle of the river… the sled gets stuck.

“Uh, it’s caught on the terrain,” Sephidrac complains, trying to jostle the sled free.

“Stop, stop, you’ll knock it over,” taking a deep breath, Taro slides under the water. He braces himself against the ground and grips his fingers under the sled, trying to lift it up. No use, it’s just too heavy to do with one person- and there’s no way Sephi’s wimpy arms will help.

Then, a dark shadow moves through the water beside Taro. A pair of bright yellow eyes glow in the early-evening aquatic gloom. Fathoms, the Fishing Tutorial character, squats on the side opposite Taro and grabs the sled with him. Together they heave, bubbles flowing out the sides of Taro’s mouth as he exhales the effort. Finally, the wagon lifts back onto the worn ford-track, and Taro is able to lunge back to the surface, gasping for air. “Ah… whew, thanks Fifi.”

“Fifi likes to help!” the fishfolk cheerily says, taking the handles of the sled from Sephi’s trembling arms. “Both of you will get chill! Silly land-dwellers! Come, come, aguagu!” With her pushing and the sheep skeletons pulling, the sled finally surfaces on the other side of the river. Taro and Sephi trudge up behind her, shaking in their sodden, wet clothes.

Drag…? Taro looks to the side, where the unconscious body of the Necromancer has slumped to the ground, face smushed into the dirt and drenched ass sticking up in the air. Taro shakes his head and sighs, looking back at the river. “I think it might have been easier just hauling them in an Inventory,” Taro laments. “We’ll need to build a bridge before we can use the sleds for this.”

Walking to the waterside, Taro opens up his Structure Building menu and sifts through the stone templates to find a nice stone bridge. He layers the blue preview outline onto the river, checking how many resources they’ll need. A good number of Wooden Poles for support, and a lot of Large Stone Bricks too.

“Agu!” grabbing her pudgy Omega-3 fatty cheeks, Fathoms pushes them up as she looks at the outline with glee. “This will be great, agu! People can be sitting on the bridge and fishing, and Fathoms can give them tips and tricks! Aguagu!” Her eyes sparkle. Right, she used to hang out on the docks back in the original server town. The town itself hadn’t survived the arrival into the World, but some of the rubble had been found elsewhere in the starting tile, which gave them some much-needed early resources.

It'll probably feel nostalgic for her. “I’ll get it done as soon as possible,” Taro offers, with a nod.

“And me, too,” a flat, slightly lilted voice approaches them. The uncertain tone of Arthur Wode’s amateur voice-actor, now attached to everything he says. Taro can’t quite remember if he ever did Arthur’s sidequest. Probably not, he never went into the Logging profession tree. Walking over to them, the young man holds up a fist in the air, imitating one of the game’s basic emotes. “I will help you gather wood for the bridge.”

“Sounds good,” returning the fistbump, Taro sees Arthur’s face light up with a slightly-too-exaggerated smile. “I’ll get the stone, you get the wood, and Fifi’ll help us place them down?” Taro hasn’t unlocked the Underwater Building ability yet, but aquatic races get it be default, so she’d be the only one able to fill in the underwater stone and wood slots in the template.

Joining the bump with her own fist, Fathoms grins, revealing the rows of razor-sharp teeth in her mouth. “It will be a teamwork for the ages!” she declares. Evening light passes behind the mountains, and they find themselves in the twilight gloom that follows.

Their feel-good moment is shattered when a scream echoes from across the water. Taro turns to see several of the other stone-gatherers who were out later. They scramble down the slope of the mountain foothills, two of them losing balance and tumbling through the rocks, dirt and hardy grass until they splash into the riverwater. They’re some of the lucky ones.

Chasing them is a tall, emaciated figure. It has blue fur, a skull head, and a pair of large stag antlers. Ribs can be seen poking through the flesh of its chest. More than the appearance, which would be pretty stock-standard for an in-game monster, something about this one feels unsettling. Shadows sit oddly on each piece of fur, as if it were cell-shaded. Even the way it moves looks wrong. Janky, jittery, skipping frames like a stop motion animation. In the mostly realistic surroundings, it looks like it was pulled from an entirely different game. An entirely different genre.

The thing moves with inhuman speed, grabbing one of the dwarves from behind and impaling him on long, jagged claws. Its bone jaws snap the dwarf’s head off in one clean motion. Throwing back its skull, it swallows the head, the bulge working its way down the creature’s throat as blood sprays up its chest. Opening its jaws after swallowing, it lets loose a chilling deer-howl.

Taro, Arthur and Fathoms stare, feet frozen to the ground. Everyone else fleeing the mountain has made it to the river, fording through the water. The monster steps to the edge of the water behind them, blue fire gleaming deep inside its polished bone eye sockets. Something stops it.

“Are you telling me this thing is from the game?!” Taro asks, incredulous. Peri pauses. His limbs flex, as if nervous.

Finally breaking out of her trance, Fathoms rushes to the water to help the panicked miners out onto dry land. Across from them, the Wendigo turns away and grabs the body of its victim, dragging his corpse up the hill and away. Legs trembling, Taro reaches down and grabs Sephidrac, heaving the Necromancer over his shoulder. “It’s a good thing this guy was out already, or he’d be fainted and probably have pissed himself,” Taro mumbles, hauling his fallen neighbor back towards the tents.

The Village of Weresheep. They didn’t all come from Weresheep server, but the name came about as a joke due to the number of already-domesticated sheep they found wandering the area when they settled here. Right now it’s little more than a sprawling campground, full of tents and fire pits. But it’s home.

One morning later…

Outside the tent, a laundry line has been strung up. Simple wooden clips hold Taro and Sephidrac’s clothes, allowing them to dry in the open air. Both of them have been sequestered in a single tent, on account of-

“Ah- ah… ahCHOO!” Taro jerks forward in his sleeping bag with the force of his sneeze. His body feels chilled and hot at the same time. Damn Peri and his always being right, Taro may never live this down… after they got back, he and Sephidrac had both ended up sick from spending too much time in the water and their soaked clothing. Nobody’s sure if their cold is contagious or some sort of game mechanic from their personal statuses, but it’s better not to risk spreading the sickness among the other villagers.

Coming up to the flap of the tent, Yaofan leans down into the opening. “Hey,” Yaofan holds out a wooden bowl to each of them, with simple carved wooden spoons lolling from side to side within. Taro sits up and accepts one bowl. Beside him, Sephidrac struggles up to a sitting position and takes the second. It’s a bowl of watery soup broth, with lamb bones soaking in the bottom and some bits of mutton floating in it, as well as two orange slices each. Double the usual anti-scurvy rations. After they figured out some of their druids had a spell to refresh Resource Nodes, their orange crop yield went from probably one crop a year to a fresh crop every couple of days. It’s been a real blessing, and everyone’s been able to have at least one orange slice each morning. “I thought you could use the extra Vitamin C,” Yaofan explains.

"T'anks," Taro says, with Sephi echoing him soon after.

“Recover quickly. We’re going to need all our ranged fighters for dealing with this Wendigo situation,” resting her hands on her hips, Yaofan glances into the distance. “And sheep zombies to act as bait. Guess it's your turn to be useful, Seph-kun.”

“Y-you,” Taro starts, before his eyes tear up and he’s forced to hold back another sneeze.

Blinking sleepily, Sephi asks in a stuffed-up, nasally voice, “Wendigo?”

“AhCHOO!” it finally finds its way out. Taro wipes his face on his arm, lamenting once again the lack of basic comforts like tissues and toilet paper. If it weren’t for some of the Player Home NPCs having their unique cleaning cantrips, the entire camp would probably reek. Taro sniffles before picking up what he was saying before, “You ‘ave a plan?”

“I have a plan,” Yaofan is one of their most veteran players. The Vagrant’s scarf is pulled up around her face to protect her from any flying flecks of snot and spit accompanying their coughs and sneezes. She stands up straight and folds her arms. “We can’t fight that thing directly. Too many people would die, and then it’d level up and be even strong.”

“Uh, a-and da peoble woul’ d-die… righd?” Sephi mumbles out.

Yaofan ignores him and continues, “But we have trap crafters, and a Wendigo will be attracted to the smell of meat. So my strategy is, we use some of Sephidrac’s zombies as bait to lure it into traps and then hit it with all the spells and ranged attacks we’ve got. It’s simple, but simple is good. Less moving parts to screw up.”

Coughing into his elbow and sucking a trail of mucus back into his nose, Taro nods. “God it. So…”

“Rest up. And don’t get sick again,” Yaofan stretches her back. “Ugh. It sucks having to pick up the slack from you slackers…”

To be Continued…