Chương 14: Minnehaha Falls

I take off at a fast paced walk away from the park. It's not long before I see the first signs of the night time denizens of the world. I spot a shadow wolf pack running down Hennepin avenue, and manage to sneak my way around a giant on Haiwatha. I don't get credit for the wolves, but the giant does give me five hundred experience for sneaking past it. Also, my sneak goes up to 9, which is worth almost as much to me. I'm going to level up just avoiding enemies on my way to the falls, and that is appealing.

Maybe I'll level up more than just the once without having to fire a shot. As the sun fully sets, my vision adapts to the darkness like I have night vision goggles on. I can see everything with perfect clarity, allowing me to avoid a skeleton warrior trap on my way to the falls that gives me enough XP to level me up. I just get credit for the one warrior, not for however many were hidden and lying in wait for me to attack the first one.

But the hundred points I get is enough for me to level up to a level 7 pathfinder. I put all four points into Agility, in order to help my defense get up to 45 and to help my ranged attacks when I take them. My agility is higher than it's ever been, higher than it was pre death, and I can feel the difference as I make my way through the street, dodging around parked and crashed cars. It really does seem like there was a rapture or something like it.

The cars on the street are, for the most part, just stopped, like they drifted to a stop or like someone stopped them and got out. But none of the doors are left open, which makes me think that people either disappeared from inside the cars or took the time to close the doors once they left the cars. But the insides of the cars are not covered in blood, and there isn't enough blood on the street to make up for all the bodies that must be missing.

Something happened, and not everyone was sucked into this gamified world. Some of them stayed in the real world, or were transported somewhere else. Maybe everyone got their own game, and we just ended up in this one. I don't know. I keep an eye out for tracks as I'm walking, my tracking skill and my alertness both going up to four as I make a careful way to the other park. It's going to take me about three hours to get there, give or take about twenty minutes.

I decide that if I can find a monster off by themselves, truly by themselves, I will try to take them out rather than just sneaking past them. I don't have any new quests for hunting monsters, but if there's a chance, I'd rather get the full experience for killing it than the half experience for avoiding it. Assuming it's one I can take on my own, I mean. I'm not going after a giant by myself, but if I find a shadow wolf wandering around by itself, I might try to take it out with my Sniper Shot.

Around two thirds of the way to the park, I get my wish. Shadow wolf. Basic rare monster, level 6. HP: 300/300. I take careful aim and activate Sniper Shot. I loose the arrow, quickly putting another arrow into my bow and firing it before the first one even lands. The first one hits the wolf just behind the throat, doing a massive 120 damage. The second one does 39, and by the time the wolf starts charging at me, the third one does 37. It takes a few steps towards me, but it's bleeding from the attacks. One second.

Two seconds. On the third second, as it's running towards me, the thing falls over dead. It never even had the time to howl for reinforcements. I move over to the wolf and retrieve my arrows, then start to harvest what I can from the wolf. Its pelt comes away easily, I put it in my bag. I left most of my stuff, including my food supply, back in the park so that I could more more easily and quickly, so it's the only pelt I have with me. I can use it to wrap things in if I come across anything else.

For now, I fold it up around the claws and fangs of the wolf, leaving its meat by the side of the road for whatever smells it first and comes to get it. I'm covered in its blood, but that's okay. I smell just like it now, which means I'll be able to slip past any other shadow wolves I find with relative ease, my camouflage scent ability working for me the same way it did on day one with the lynxiths. Then I move on to the park, barely half an hour wasted on the harvesting of the animal.

Not enough to get me another rank in that skill, but I'm sure I made some progress. When I arrive at Minnehaha falls, there's nothing unusual about the park. It's still a very hilly area, the paths are still paved or at least cleared out, and the waterfall is still flowing over the cave that you can walk through. That cave is where I'm heading. There are shadow wolves all over the park, but they ignore me and continue to run around, hunting for deer or for unwary humans or something. I can't be sure.

For all I know, they're looking for skeleton warriors so they can chew on the bones. I don't much care; they don't come after me, but I get credit for sneaking past ten of them, which gives me enough to level up again. I put four points into vigor and one into strength. This puts my HP up to 160, double my current MP, and puts my strength back up to 14. Still not as good as it was, but getting there. I'm rapidly getting the levels back.

If I knew it would be so easy to get levels just sneaking around, I probably would've done it more. My sneak is already up to 10, and I have a feeling it'll get even higher when I sneak back to the park in the morning. For right now though, I want to go to the cave behind the waterfall. I can't say that I knew it would be there, but something told me it would be. A cave behind a waterfall? There's always a treasure chest there. And this time is no exception.

There's a chest just waiting there, pushed back against the back wall of the cave, where you wouldn't be able to see it until you actually came behind the rushing waterfall. The spray of the water makes a roaring noise that gives the cave a cut off feeling. I'd be worried about being sneaked up on, if not for the fact that the only monsters I've seen in the park so far have been shadow wolves, and they're ignoring me while I'm covered in their blood.

I smell like a combination of giant and shadow wolf, which I think just gives them even more reason to want to leave me alone. Which means that I can deal with this chest without worrying about being interrupted. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. And it's a good thing that I can do that, because it takes me a while to get the chest open. And by a while, I mean three complete sets of lock picks and about an hour and a half of picking the lock.

It's almost midnight be the time I finally get it open. I don't mind the time spent at all; my Pick Locks goes up to 7 and I get the spoils all to myself. You have opened a silver chest! You gain 1000 XP! You find 10 gold, 50 silver. Hunter's Bow (recipe), Bleeding arrow (recipe), Hunter's Bow. Ranger's Blade. Spellbook: lightning. Spellbook: heal. Spellbook: magic dart.

Chain mail gloves, leather breastplate I take a look at the two weapons, not at all surprised to find that they are both better than what I currently have. While I'm at it, I'll see what the gloves and the breastplate do. Hunter's Bow. Uncommon weapon 6/10. Damage: 16-28. +10% firing speed. Ranger's Blade. Rare weapon 3/20. Damage: 21-31. Chainmail gloves. Uncommon gloves 3/10. +2 strength, +3 armor. Leather breastplate. Common chest armor 1/5. +1 armor. I leave my jacket behind.

It's been torn to shreds, and while it provides the same amount of armor as the breastplate at this point, it will immediately become less valuable as soon as I start playing with and improving that leather breastplate. Also, I'm more able to move cleanly with the breastplate, even if it does leave my arms unarmored. I'll find something to help with that. Opening the chest has leveled me up again.

I get five points again, and I decide to put all of them into Presence, so that I'll have more mana for learning those spells that I found. This chest is awesome, so much better than if I'd had to share it with the others. I feel kind of bad for coming and getting it myself. They're going to wonder how I managed to gain so many levels without fighting much of anything. I hope they get a few levels tonight too, so that we're not too far off.

I'm surprised that just going to one other park and getting one chest has been enough to bring me all the way up to level nine. I'm just about two thousand experience points away from being back at level ten. And now I know I'll be in the right place for the end of the tutorial period. I've got nearly two days left before I run out of time, which means several more levels along the way. I'm not sure I want to leave this park just yet. There're a few really steep sets of stairs in this park.

If I can spot some shadow wolves, or even skeleton warriors, at the bottom of one of those sets of stairs, I'll be able to shoot several times as it goes along a predetermined path to get to me. The stairs are so steep, narrow, and long that I could probably get off a dozen shots in the time it takes a shadow wolf to climb all the way up them. And I can get a pretty clear shot of the bottom of the stairs from the top, even though they go back and forth on the way up, slowing them down even more.

I stand at the top and use Sniper Shot on one of the wolves down at the bottom. There are four of them hanging out around the pool of water at the bottom of the waterfall, and I take a shot with my brand new bow. The first hit does 167 damage, then 83, then 41, then 20, letting it bleed out on the way up to me. If I could, I'd just keep doing that, but the wolves immediately start charging up the stairs even as the first one falls.

I keep shooting, picking off the other three wolves long before they reach me, earning another 1200 experience. How have I been having trouble leveling up? Oh, that's right; I've been sharing my experience with everyone else. Fighting with a party of five is all well and good as far as safety and as far as what we can take on without much trouble, but it also means splitting all the experience rewards five ways.

Each shadow wolf is worth three hundred experience, and I've been able to kill four of them without any of them ever getting into melee range. I had to use the environment to help me, but I was able to take out all four of them with my new bow and my remaining hunting arrows that cause bleed. I collect the arrows from the bodies of the wolves on my way down to the pool of water. Every other time I've been here, there have been kids running around and swimming in this part of the park, weather permitting.

It starts about a foot deep and goes as deep as four feet before the rest of the water starts to flow out with the rest of the river. The pool part is man made, I'm pretty sure. It's a nice place to hang out on those rare hot days, and a great place to people watch, but right now it's the perfect place to take a quick bath. I take off the leather breastplate, the gloves, and my boots and then walk out into the water. I've been drenched in blood for the past two days, and I don't really care that the water is cold.

I take a deep breath and plunge myself under the water. I lied. I do care that the water is cold. I care very much. The water is so cold that it shocks me, making my chest feel tight and almost blasting the air out of my lungs. I idly note that this answers questions about water that I was wondering earlier.

I can't breathe, I don't instantly die – probably should've thought about that before I did this; would've really sucked if I died again – but it does slow my movement and I do have to swim if I want to move with any kind of speed. I let my head crest out of the water and gasp for air, shivering in the cold water, letting out a bit of a yelp. I'll get used to the water, though maybe not before I can't control the shivering.

I scrub the blood out of my hair and off my skin, getting cleaner than I've been since before I died. I like saying that. It's weirdly funny to me. I'm cleaner than I've been in days, though it's not going to last very long. I swim around a little bit, letting the water clean me up a bit more and trying to get used to the water. It's too cold, though. Night swimming is rarely a good idea. I do get a level of the swimming skill though, so that's a good thing.

I get out of the water and shake myself as dry as possible, brushing water off myself as I shiver. I put my leather breastplate and socks on over still wet flesh. It doesn't help much with the cold, but I know that I'll warm up as I start moving, and I'm going to start moving back to the statue garden in a minute. I climb up the stairs until I get to the corpses of the shadow wolves.

It hasn't been long enough for them to cool, so the blood is still warm as I rub it over my breastplate and my pants, to make sure that I still have their scent covering me even though I'm otherwise clean. I need to smell like them so that I can sneak past them on my way out of the park. I don't get experience for sneaking my way back out of the park, but I do gain another level of sneak for doing it. That's sixty seven skill points, putting me within striking distance of that other skill.

First, though, I have to get back to the sculpture garden.