Chapter 15: Discussing strategies

The group of five felt the platform underneath them shake slightly, as it slowly began to lower to the forest below. Lumen checked all of his equipment to make sure it fit properly while he collected his thoughts on what was about to happen. He looked around and noticed the slight unease and anxiousness exuded from the other four as they collectively were about to face something that nobody knew the outcome of.

Will seemed to be a natural born leader though as although he was one of the youngest in the group, he was one of the most mature and a forward thinker. He was the person to take the most initiative while the platform slowly descended to come up with a quick plan to make the best use out of the group's newly obtained abilities.

It seemed that he had some sense as a leader and had played his fair share of games, as he knew to keep himself the most protected person of the group as the only healer. Him being both the leader and the healer seemed most convenient for them, as he didn't have to focus on combat like the other four and only had to focus on organising the group and healing any wounds they or he might get.

It seemed that an unspoken rule had formed that he would be the leader of this small rag tag group.

The group mainly discussed their first plan of action while the platform descended, with the main theme being: Survival. They all received their classes and two of them even had super powers which the group had now found out were awakened 'talents' from their status menu. Each person had also been distributed their own portion of potions by the system as well, 3 Health and 3 Mana potions each.

The mana potions only being useful to Will and Lumen for now as nobody but them had access to combat or team based skills that used mana yet. The Health potions would be saved until situations that demanded them, such as when Will's heal wouldn't be enough.

All everyone had was the clothes and armour on their bodies, along with their weapons and the potions in their inventories. Aside from Lumen's secret 1 month supply of water and food, nobody had any access to the necessities for survival and so set that as their main goal from the moment the platform landed on the ground.

They had managed to reach an agreement that although some of them may have just wanted to get through this tutorial and survive, others wanted to actually achieve something in this and so they came to a compromise. historical

They all agreed that hunting beasts was a necessity as they needed a source of food, and they doubted the system would be so kind to give them the opportunity to find fruits or vegetables that were safe to eat as everything seemed to be against them in this tutorial so they wouldn't trust such a thing.

However one thing that everyone, including Lumen, agreed on was that they would not antagonise other survivors and would even do their best to avoid them as they didn't like the look of the part of the tutorial quest that said killing other humans would reward credits.

Very soon, the platform touched through the canopy of the forest and arrived at the ground, leaving the group of five in the middle of a seemingly endless shade of green before the platform carried on going down and phased into the ground, never to be seen again.

A tense atmosphere filled the group as they now discussed their best measures for now.

Will was the first to speak as the unspoken leader of the group.

"Our first priority will be to search for water, then food and shelter will be our second and third priorities. We can only survive without water for three days so we need to be on this as soon as possible. As expected, these flora and fauna look different from that of what we know on Earth, so we can't trust these to give us what we need." Will made many logical points to the group to which almost all of them agreed, until Lumen pointed something out.

"I wouldn't place our bets on the flora and fauna being inedible yet. You are forgetting one very important point about our situation, that being the presence of magic and the system!"

The group didn't understand what he was getting at, at first, until they watched him walk up to a random alien looking plant in the vicinity and chant a word.

"Identify" Lumen chanted as the group looked on with surprise and realisation in their eyes.

They had forgotten they all received the Basic Identify skill!

A system message appeared in front of Lumen's eyes.

[Used skill: Basic Identify]

[Name: Devil's Ivy

Description: A highly poisonous plant that protects against predators using a liquid secretion method from its stem when it is attacked or ingested. Very dangerous if eaten, can cause severe injuries or in the worst case, death.]

Lumen relayed the results of his identify to the others and although the plant was clearly unsafe for eating, they were overjoyed at the fact that one of their biggest hurdles wouldn't be so hard to overcome with the addition of their Basic Identify skill!

However they were still tasked with the burden of finding water, which if worst came to worst Lumen would fake going out to look for water and coincidentally finding a mysterious chest out in the wilderness, which would have in it an abundant amount of water. Of course this would just be his own monthly supply of water he bought from the system, and he would just be taking advantage of the system's words about the tutorial's mysteriousness as an excuse to his group.

The group soon set off in a random direction keeping their eyes and ears out for any signs of a water source.

Along their journey they had managed to spot many weird looking creatures in the distance a few times, being too far to investigate as by the time they had even readied their weapons the beast would be no where to be seen.

After a total of four hours of walking and at a point when the group seemed to be at an impasse of exhaustion and started getting hungry and thirsty, they came across a small pond of water to the entire group's joy.

However before they could finally celebrate, they soon spotted that they weren't the only ones contending for the pond, as the group spotted two overgrown rat like creatures drinking from the pond and staring at them with fury in their yellow and red eyes.