Chapter 8

I popped onto the island in bright sunshine. It was obviously bigger, and there was way less exposed bedrock to be seen. The trees were larger too, and I dropped my pack to immediately climb the best one I could see.

Less than a minute later, the first of the rats showed up. A family of the critters, with a small ‘mom’ and a dozen smaller kits? Mom snuffled around the base of the tree and reared up on her hind legs. For a moment I thought she might climb it. Nope, to my dismay, somehow her kits got the idea and started filing up the tree as a group. I reacted immediately and dropped my Dagger down and into her back before drawing Needle and breaking as many of the smaller branches off near me as fast as I could before grasping the best branch I could with my off-hand and stabbing and smacking away at the 15 or so smaller rats that were scrambling their way towards me. They strongly resembled possums at this size, but with slightly longer limbs.

Like fighting any group, my goal was to avoid getting surrounded. An excellent pair of steel toe, high top work boots would have been perfect. I could have stamped and kicked with near impunity, instead I had to be careful with my feet, and use them only when I got a shot at an unguarded side. Now I was pissed that I’d given Jake my Sword, a long-edged blade would have made things easier. I had to stab and quickly developed a stab-and-pry move that I used to injure, then rip the rats off the tree. If my Needle fell too, I just repositioned and recalled it. The Rat Kits never backed down, even when there was only one left, it still hissed and attacked me, even injured and with no other support. During the fight, I’d dropped both Needle and the Dagger into the bigger Momma rat more than a few times, so when I climbed down and approached, she was on her last legs. I put her down safely (on my part). To my regret, the kits had no silver, but when I called up my Status, I found that they were worth 2 experience each, which I thought high considering the larger rats were only 7 for the regular ones. I’d make the next level with room to spare if this sort of encounter rate was stable. I gathered up my bag (any normal rat would have at least given it a cursory sniff, but not these ones) and searched the rest of the island. It was large enough that I couldn’t see the edge of it from here despite seeing the gaps in the trees and I thought I should carefully explore. A surprise attack when I wasn’t prepared could be deadly even if it was just a bunch of juveniles.

Finding a typical fireplace (and a coloured stone too), I set a fire and gutted and skinned one of the smaller rats, hoping that it’d be more edible than its parents. It was, (a milder, more subtle version of god-awful) but not by much. I wouldn’t be gaining weight any time soon. After another long and almost fruitless search of the island, I gathered water to boil, and thought I’d make an attempt on the next island. It was further away, and for some reason the idea of open water made me really nervous. There could be anything in the water.

Just thinking that way put my mind in a spin. I wasn’t a great swimmer (ok, I was pretty bad) and open water had always made me uneasy. Grabbing a dead juvenile rat by the tail, I flung it out into the 20 or so meter gap between islands. There was only about 5 meters of marsh per side, so it left about half that distance clear and open. I sat down to watch the mostly submerged corpse slowly drifting while eating another of its cooked siblings. It seemed to slowly start to spin in the water after a few minutes, then after maybe ten more minutes a large splash of water happened, and the carcass disappeared for a few moments before bobbing back up to the surface. This happened a few more times and then it seemed to stay below for good.

My nerves were on high alert, sending panicking signals all through my head, but I managed to convince myself that if it couldn’t eat something the size of a small cat in one bite, it couldn’t eat me. More testing was required. I dragged Momma rat out and pushed her into the water with a long stick. The process was repeated at first, with a number of larger splashes, but the big body never really went fully under water. After about an hour those splashy attacks seemed to stop completely, leaving the carcass to drift silently. I’d read somewhere that a fish can eat something up to ‘bout half its size. Since that Momma rat was a good ways smaller than me, I figured I was probably off the menu.

After forcing myself to have some knife throwing practice, I turned in after my water was prepared and roasting another mini-rat. Waking to a dark sky filled with a million unfamiliar stars I thought: ‘If it all ended here ... at least I’ve seen this ... I seriously don’t think any other human ever has... ‘ and eventually fell back asleep.

Rain ... I thought I’d lost rain forever. Yard privileges were suspended in the rain, since the mess it left behind was pretty awful in the prison. I’ll admit to just sitting there and enjoying the first minute of it before setting up a collection system to try to fill my bottles with water I didn’t have to boil first. The next ten hours of it were a real misery, but would have been so much worse if it wasn’t warm. One positive effect was that I was so pissed off by being totally soaked and uncomfortable that I had no problem coaxing myself to swim to the next island. I had to dump (or drink) some of my full water jugs so they’d float me and my stuff easily, but since it was still raining, I had ample opportunity to do that and then refill them ... once I’d secured the second island.

It was harder than I thought it’d be, mostly because the little ‘Ratlings’ could swim. Not well mind you, but they could. Needle was in my right hand and my Dagger was in my left as soon as my feet found purchase on the muddy ground just offshore. Leaving my stuff to drift, I stabbed and slashed away at what resembled a raft of the little buggers. They swam like a dog does with their claws out; and I learned to stab, lift, and fling them away if I wanted to keep from being slashed up from little claws like razors. I flung the last two back towards shore, remembering that they were today’s breakfast as well as being my opponent. Momma rat fell to accurate throws of my dagger from just offshore. At least that part of my plan had worked.

This island had a cairn on it too, and I eagerly took it apart only to find a stone? It was basically like the other stone in the cairn, just with one rounded end and placed in the middle where the goodies typically were. Shrugging inwardly, I tried to store it, and surprisingly, it went! The description said ‘granite stone pestle 1/2’ ... I was not impressed at all, but just moved on with my day. Cooking, setting ‘camp’, eating, practicing throwing my Dagger, swimming and fighting ... I did it over and over and over until I made it to the magical ‘level 1’

2 precious points ... where to put ‘em? Did I have to use them now? It seemed not, so I turned to my Skill book, my wonderful Skill book that I could now read ... and now learn.

‘Fade’ : Passive skill; Stationary and silent, your image gradually dissolves to others.

If this meant what I hoped it did, I was gonna be a freaking ninja ... no ... I was going to be a Shadow Rogue ... a damn good one. Without someone else to try it on, I wasn’t able to determine if it worked though since I could still see myself all the time. I had questions about if it hid my clothes, weapons, pack?

I was thinking about my weapons, holy shit! I forgot to pull the sword back! I felt for it with my mind (which I had been actively trying to avoid doing for days now) and felt it ... it felt ... very afar away and also sort of ... sour? It is hard to explain. I pulled and it arrived, feeling normal ... I guess? I really hope that I hadn’t screwed Jake over.

Thinking back, I’d been here for what? This was day five. And I was on the 7th island. Jake had said come back on the 7th day, but there might be more than 10 islands this time? What happens if there were 20! I couldn’t do it in that amount of time, no way! Pausing my inner panic, I realized that if I cleared another today, and two tomorrow then I’d be on track for a 10 island jump done in 7 days. If there were more, I’d just have to deal with it. Like leaving the Sword for a few extra days, I was trying to stick to a plan but shit happens. Just gotta roll with it. Packing up my stuff for another swim, I got ready to roll.

The last island had two Momma Rats, thirty or more little Ratlets and the biggest damn Pappa rat I’d seen yet. He was honestly the size of a small pony and I was just as glad to throw knives at him from a distance once I’d dealt with the absurd number of his swimming progeny. (Was very glad to get my Sword back for this!). The two Momma rats worked together better than any I’d encountered so far. I got two bites from them alone. I cleaned up as best as I could, drying my stuff in the sunshine, avoiding the smell of campfire smoke by just plain not having one. Amazingly the little sliver of soap had lasted until now, and I hoped feverishly that I was clean enough not to attract undue attention from smells from Outside the prison. I even used the last few dribbles of the bleach water in my hair to strip it of the smell of smoke. I may have been paranoid, but using what you’ve got to the best advantage you can think of is a time-honored tradition in lockup. Searching the island, I found a small cache of silver! 25 would go a long way in the real world, and possibly the Store. I stepped through the portal to the start room with all my things. I’d sort them out later. The start room was the same as always, and the first thing I did was draw out everything I had. There was enough silver for a healing potion, or a scroll of identify, but not both. I’d put it off too long and dragged over my three unidentified items. The lock picks were the obvious choice, but the lighter might give me a magic attack, or control over the light or something. A fishing lure was so random, I decided to ignore it completely. The charm was a complete mystery, I couldn’t even begin to guess what the symbolism of one closed hand inside an open one could be.

In the end, I went with the charm.