Unholy_Student
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[Cafe] 102 – Second Round Mayhem
🕑 Added 2024-10-24 05:36:07 +0000 UTC[A/N: This would be so much easier to research if I still had my old Xbox with the game, as the Wiki fucking sucks, especially when it comes to Engrams, as one of the websites doesn't even have them all, also, should start increasing the length of chapters soon, though do let me know if you'd like a variation of POV's for the Participants or a variation of POV's for the rest of the Second Round of the tournament]
...
[Kyle’s (Tyke) POV]
If there was anything I was used to, it was traveling through deserts and wastelands. With the two or so centuries I have spent traveling the Wastes of Fallout, I was well accustomed to the harsh environments in the Fallout World, yet when I awoke in the Desert of Scorched Earth, I was met with heat unlike any I have ever felt.
The unrelenting heat of the Sun above made me feel as if I was slowly boiling alive, yet despite the terrible heat, I pushed on, rushing to find a speck of water to nourish my body. Much to my luck, I quickly found a Water Bug nearby and drank as much water as possible to hydrate myself.
I wasted no time gathering fiber, flint, thatch, stone, and wood, and I made some simple stone tools and a spear to defend myself against the local dangers of the desert and the other participants. I spent the entire grace period before this round of the tournament exploring the Scorched Earth with my Guild; we were all working together, with myself representing the guild as its Guildmaster in the tournament, though a few other of the Guild members were participating as well.
The first significant roadblock we found is that to unlock the Desert Cloth armor, a necessity to resist the scorching heat of the Desert, we needed to reach level twenty-eight. On top of that, it required the construction of a Smithy as well, though I had already planned on making one to forge myself some metal tools and a better weapon, such as a crossbow or simple firearm.
I didn't have long before night and the cold would arrive, so I hastily worked to make the tools, even if it ended in the creation of something lacking in quality. Then, I got to work on stitching some cloth together to make some pants and foot wraps to protect my feet and cover my lower body.
Looking up to track the sun, I estimated I had at most three hours before it started getting unbearably cold as the sun went down, and already, I had noticed a change while I worked.
[73/100]
Almost a third of the participants had already died, and I believe it. Knowing this desert, its greatest danger did not lie with its scorching heat; it instead lay with the countless aggressive dinosaurs that roamed the dunes and oasis. This desert was far more dangerous than the Island, and those unprepared for the dangers were sure to succumb to the heat or the predator lying in weight to strike while they were not looking.
Unlike with the Island, I doubted I'd be able to hunt down too many of the other participants. It was clearly not that I needed to, as I was willing to bet most would be dead by the third day, leaving only the more skilled of us alive. Those were the people I'd need to prepare for.
With little time left, I searched for a suitable spot to set up camp. While I searched, I killed whatever small dinosaur I could find while taking a few minutes to tame a Jerboa. This tiny creature feasted on berries with acute senses designed to warn of incoming sand storms and other weather phenomena. I was lucky that I tamed the Jerboa when I did, as it began to chirp not long after, warning me of an incoming Sandstorm.
I knew that I wouldn't be able to find a suitable shelter to hide from the incoming Sandstorm, but I still had a few minutes until the storm would hit, so I had to improvise.
I grabbed all the dinosaur hide and fiber I had gathered so far and began to stitch together a thick sheet to cover and protect myself from the storm. My guild and I had learned the hard way that to wander a Sandstorm without protection was suicidal. The sand would cut you up, dehydrate you, blind you, and suffocate you if you didn't wear the proper protection or take shelter from it.
Hastily stitching together the blanket, I noticed the rolling Sandstorm far away approaching and sped up even further.
...
Many had wondered how 'Scorched Earth' would differ from the Island, but within the first few hours, many wondered how Scorched Earth could even be topped in Danger. After all, in all three of the tournaments for round two, more than twenty Participants died within the first day, some due to unlucky encounters or situations, others by sheer stupidity, point in case someone thought it would be bright to stand in fire, which led many to question what was going through that particular participant's head at the time. [#1]
Despite the unfortunate cases for some of the participants, no participant was facing much better, and all were struggling to stay hydrated and alive. By the second day, those who survived the harsh heat of the previous day, the bone-chilling cold of the night, and the predators stalking in the shadows of the night were working to arm and clothe themselves. [#2]
Many of the more experienced players worked on first creating waterskins to stay hydrated and leveling up so that they could quickly get metal tools and the Desert Cloth armor to shield themselves against the heat.
One lucky participant even managed to find one of the many loot drops during the chilly night and obtain a crossbow and some arrows far easier than everyone else, giving that participant quite the advantage as they rapidly leveled up far faster than almost everyone else.
Of the current participants, some were undoubtedly being watched more than others. Figures such as Tyke, who had the highest kill count of the first round; Crazy Steve, who always seemed to try and build a fortress and bunker down; Archer and Lucky, two previous winners of round one who were teaming up against the other participants, and Niko, the seemingly fortunate participant who won her round of the tournament through sheer luck, as her only two kills credited to her were through sheer accident and it appeared that the same luck was following her into the second round of the tournament as well, as she should have died three times throughout the first day but miraculously survived despite that.
While the tournament continued, several suspcious figures meandered around the Cafe, eyes scoping out the Cafe, its customers, and the many Zerrefs working around the Cafe.
...
[#1] 'Sword Art Online Abridged' Reference
[#2] Seriously, playing Scorched Earth was a pain in the early days if you had shit fortitude, you'd always die of heatstroke immediately upon spawning in as a fresh spawn or get run over by the Terrorbirds before your character could even stand, ah, the good old days, where you raged because you were met with the death screen before you even fucking spawned in]
