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Gimeurcookie · 03-21-2018, 06:32 AM

You make plans as to what you're doing tomorrow. You think it over and over in your head as you lay down. You can barely sleep but you force yourself to. You can't risk not getting any sleep on your first day in the woods.

That night you have a horrible nightmare of Midnight suddenly attacking you. Of him ripping into you.

But this time you didn't have a friend to save you.

And you didn't die.

=

The caretakers went door to door, gathering up all the 10 year olds and helping some of them pack. Some kids had to basically be torn away from their rooms. The fear of being tossed into the woods too great. You'd hate to say it but the fact that some kids were seemingly less prepared than you made you feel a little better.

Once all the children were gathered up they were all marched to an area just outside the woods for the speech.

"This is the first day you'll truly be living. Every day before this has just been incubation. Just making sure the eggs are turned at the right time to make sure we get the perfect chick. Many of you have hatched into a wonderful and perfect chick today.

Some of you are failures. Utter disgusting failures.

We now need to sort the perfect chicks from the failures, and that's what we'll be doing today, and for many days to come. This isn't even the start of real life children! This is just the sorting room. Once you get out the woods, that's when real life starts, and I'm not going to lie to you it's.......quite bad out that. 0v0"

Another M-class caretaker chimes in.
"Yes, this truly was not a good time to be born but alas, that's what real life is, you don't get pick many of the events that happen to you, or control your situations, many times lady life is the only one who has a say in the matter. Don't worry, when we find lady life we are going to strangle her. 8)"

"Hopefully the hardships that you endure in the woods will prepare you for what you have to deal with out there.....I won't lie to you children. Nearly all the children villages are like mini tests that they compare to each other, to see what's the best situation for a child to grow up in. We're the pampered village. We get a good stock of supplies and material, there's no shortages and we even have some freakish creature who flies down from the skies and smite all that come to harm us.

In Crow's Reach they're purposefully overpopulated so that kids would have to fight for their meals among themselves. Think if anytime you went on the ration line a little late they would say "Sorry, but we ran out of food for today, try again tomorrow"? Think about if when you went to the capture creature labs they ran out of creatures before the sun even rose. That's what Crow's Reach is like. 0v0"

"Oh, and I believe this year of children had a chance of going to Albatross town? Ha! The kids in Albatross town have had real life marching in and out of their town since they got there. They already know what horrors await them and have been preparing! 8)"

The second M-class says this with a hoot and the two laugh as if upcoming horrors was a joke.

"Does pampering a child mean they get the better start for a life where they have to fight for survival? Does not telling them what's past all those thick trees make them more motivated to live cause they have tasted what a life of not complete suffering is like? We're still waiting on the results, and you're some of the numbers that's going to solve this question for us.

What I'm saying is, always remember how great this village was. Strive to bring the calmness of this village to the world out there. Make more places like Crane's Toll. 0v0"

"Also watch out for the kids of Crow's Reach, they're like animals! 8)"

"Tell me about it, I had to work as a shopkeeper in the woods two years ago due to shortages, Crane kids were little angels, Albatross kids were just dead inside, but Crow kids? Ugh. Monsters. They really should cut the Crow's Reach testing early I don't think anything good is going to come out of it. 0v0"

"Look if they're not going to stop what's going on in Hawk's Nest I don't think they're going to cut Crow's Reach out anytime soon, we should just be glad they stopped what was going on at Parrot Beach. 8)"

The other M-class hisses like she was in physical pain just hearing that. She puts a hand on her head.

"Our head M-class here came from Parrot Beach after the thing got shut down and he STILL has nightmares about what he saw I don't want to even think about how the children turned out. 0v0"

"Well, O-5 is from Parrot Beach and we all know-"

One of the kids cuts in.
"Um, when do we start? *u*"

"Oh you're all still here! We really got off track there. Yes every kid will come forward and take one of these boxes. These boxes hold supplies. Some of you will get objects you'll be using for your whole trip in the woods, some of you will be getting absolutely nothing. Just like being born you don't get to decide. Once you get your boxes you are free to head into the woods. If you're not in there by tonight you'll be forced to go in. Trust me, you don't want to get forced. 0v0"

"One last thing, if you want to check which village a notail is, just scan them! 8)"

The M-classes tell everyone that their first year they will be in the easy zone of the woods, the place where there's lots of food to gather and safe creatures to hunt. Just to get everyone used to it. After that though they'll be forced to head into the true woods for the rest of their stay and that "stragglers will be dealt with, swiftly."

You grab your box from the pile and walk away from the area, opening your box you find....

Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die. A 15 is rolled.

An unfilled map that outlines the woods and shows you where you are in it, a compass, one emergency ration, and one whistle. As you look around to see what others got in their boxes you say you got a fairly good haul. A map will be extremely useful. While most E-classes could make their own maps by hand by now you never learned that.

It's kind of a running theme at this point.

You look at your year of E-classes led by E-4. They look ready to take on the woods, some of them have been saving supplies and building tools in advance for this moment. The thought of doing so didn't cross your mind once.

Z-3894 and 8 other notails, 2 of them V-classes but the rest being Z-classes, come up to you. Z-3894 holds out a rope that was tied to a lease that Slither's wore.

"We were worried for a moment there that we wouldn't be able to find you. Here's your capture creature, and I suppose this is goodbye. Hopefully we're able to see each other again in the woods. XwX"

You look at the E-classes and E-4 peers over at you. For a second you and them just stare. E-4 already knows what you're going to do and does a little playful goodbye wave to you.

You felt very [intimidated] by this, like there was a darker meaning to it.

You turn to Z-3894 and the others.
"I'm coming with you guys. =3"

"Really? Well that's perfect! We'll help you keep your legendary under control and in return I'm sure Slithers will keep us safe for the whole trip. This is going to be great! XwX"

You all make plans and head out. You all feel ready for the challenges ahead.

Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die. A 5 is rolled.

If this is what the first year, the easy year is supposed to be like, you have deep fears for what's coming ahead. To say it was bad would be a bit of an understatement.

First off the two V-classes are doing wonderfully. Z-3894 says they're not apart of the group so much as they are "waiting for our creatures to get hurt." The V-classes seem so natural in this environment, chasing down prey with their innotail like speed. Climbing up trees like cats and snapping up prey with just their mouths sometimes. This is the life they were made for.

The rest of you suffer in the meantime while the V-classes gawk. Many attempts at foraging fail, one of the Z-classes accidentally eats the wrong plant and has to rest for weeks, and you have injured your arm for maybe the 4th time in your short life. You guys stay alive though, your health is a little shaky, hopefully the skills you used in this area will make your next year better. You can't afford too many bad years or else your health can deteriorate.

Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die. A 3 is rolled.

One rather bad event was when one of the Z-classes misfired a bow and head shotted one of the faces. It now wibble and wobbles as it floats around you. At first you were sadden over your face creature getting hit, but then you realized that considering that your face creatures float around you, that could have been you who got the headshot.

Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die. A 12 is rolled.

Midnight prances around all causally like, this is his home turf after all. When he sees that you guys are horrible hunters and cannot feed him he goes out and feeds himself.

One of the Z-classes casually slides in the fact the gweches can be used as reusable rations. Admittedly it's female gweches who do this but it should work with Midnight, he just will be extremely angry about it.

You hope it never gets to the point that you have to eat parts of Midnight.

Fortuna rolls a 20 sided die. A 19 is rolled.

The Z-classes and you have been working intensely with Slithers. Slithers can 100% feed themselves with no outside intervention so food is no problem as long as there isn't a famine. What is an issue is that Slithers won't share.

It takes months of work, but finally not only is Slithers more agreeable with everyone but Slithers now will sometimes kill something they grab and drop it to the floor when one of you goes under it. You can't totally rely on Slither's for food, as Slithers first needs to catch enough to feed himself before he feeds anyone else, but when you guys are short 1 or 2 meals Slithers can provide. This makes your whole group less likely to have to miss meals.

It's only a month before you all have to move on to the true woods. You guys are talking about it around a camp fire (one that took 2 hours to start because all of you are poor at fire creation) and everyone seems to be in agreement that they should either find a landlord settlement to protect the group, which would also allow the group to be apart of a bigger system, thus when failure from one person happens it's not a huge deal.

If that fails they need to locate a good spot to start up a camp and settle down. As Z-classes they're hoping to basically start a farm they can use to trade animals for goods.

You take this moment to wonder if aliens children need to worry about setting up and managing a business in the middle of the woods at the age of 11.

When you snap out of your thoughts the Z-classes are asking you to take all the extra food supplies and forage ahead. You have a map and you are the E-class, so you going ahead of the group, and plotting out some locations will make the coming year easier.

You don't want to tell them you've basically haven't done any E-class quests for the past 3 or so years so you're not totally down on the exploration business cause you can see they're kind of depending on you at this moment. You don't want to fail them. You do bring up a "Why don't we all travel together" but they tell you that everyone moving at once wastes a lot of supplies, and if something bad were to happen a single person can get away better than a group.

With that you take your supplies and get ready to trek by yourself for one whole month. Not even midnight will be able to come with you so you can cover as much ground as possible. Well, you can't remove the floating faces from you so they'll technically be coming with you but you don't count them as "people" or "Alive." You've never been alone for that long.

While you are strong you are in no way shape or form, fast. You estimate that you can move a total of 7 spaces on the map in one month. The issue is that if you run into any major problems you'll lose time. Your team can't wait for you and after the month will move on, so if you want to play it safe you'll want to only go 6 spaces on the map.

It was now time to plot your course.

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