Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Chapter 8: Moving Up

A new quest was something Alex was not expecting right now. He knew that getting more of them was possible, as Sylvaris had mentioned them when they were talking about experience points. But this almost felt out of the blue, just like that badger ambush had.

But, what if it wasn't out of the blue? He side eyed the badger corpses, wondering if it was the system that sent these things his way. If not directly, it might have influenced them to some degree, nudged them down a line of choices that brought them here to Alex.

If that was the case, then the system could very well be doing that to Alex as well. The quest came up right after he had been thinking about the possibility of a pack, and how or when he'd have to take it down. Either the system could read his thoughts and set up the quest in response, or it was anticipating him and trying to nudge him down the path that it wanted.

"I don't like being controlled, " Alex said out loud into the darkness of the trees, "So this better not be an attempt to push me into some agenda." He waited a few seconds, almost expecting a new screen to pop up in response.

The system didn't seem to hear him, or if it did, it didn't deign to give a reply. Alex waited in silence before he smiled.

"Okay then, keep your secrets."

He decided it was time to finally get moving again and got to the job of skinning and preparing the badger kills. The knife let him make short time of the job, but it was still dirty work. He gathered up the pelts and set them out by the fire to dry, then got to work of portioning out the meat. The rest he threw out into the darkness away from his camp. The smell of blood and death would attract other beasts, so Alex made sure they would find their meal away from his current home and flung the remains of the three beasts as far away as possible.

At last he sat down on his log by the fire, and prepared for the part that he had been anticipating since he finished the fight. It was time to see what kind of experience he earned, and to figure out how to spend it.

He mentally brought up the notifications from his fight earlier, and compiled them all into one screen for easier display.