Chapter 2: The Beachhead
"Well shit. At least I've got this"
Trudging over to the tool box he dumped its contents on to the ground to take stock, most of the nails and screws were corroded into one clump while his screwdriver had been fully melted down. A hacksaw, a hammer and a chisel were his only real options weapon wise so he picked up the hammer and separated out the salvageable materials.
Looking at his phone next he checked it still worked as a torch and tried its other functions. Obviously there was no network or GPS but he at least wanted to use the camera function.
"If I'm going to persuade anyone to join me here this will help"
Soon after taking a couple of shots however it became clear they weren't saving, with incomprehensible jargon for file names he soon discovered none of his data had survived the transfer.
"Maybe it will work when I get back to Earth, do I even have any of my numbers backed up?"
The shiver of panic at the prospect of losing his contact list made him laugh out with the ridiculousness of the reality he was now living.
"My god, I'm about to go hunting Slimes in my underwear and I'm worried about this"
With this he looked around the periphery of the dome and found a couple of Slimes close by to what he assumed was the west, looking up at the sun to try to gauge his position the slight outline of his HUD from earlier lit up at the top of his vision, the string of dots and a capital N depicted helpfully just out of the way.
"Huh, thoughtful"
Heading over and reminding himself of how weak these creatures were he pressed the hammers head against the flowing transparent shield, the faint colours flowed around the hammer as it passed through giving an oil on water effect, he felt no resistance or even change in temperature or texture as he pushed himself through after it.
"Oh wait"
Immediately he jumped back through to check he hadn't locked himself out of his one safe haven; once satisfied and after a little more indecision he headed towards the now much closer Slimes.
"Sorry guys"
A single blow from the hammer smashed the first Slime with practically no resistance and he immediately moved on to the next. He could see more starting to move slowly over from all directions and wondered how long such slow creatures would take to swarm him.
After the eighth was taken care of he picked up its shiny gem to add to the small bunch in his hand; as light as they were it was already difficult to carry them along with his phone.
"I can't believe I didn't even get to come clothed"
His mood was not improved by the slight burns and corrosion on his hand where he'd been holding the hammer as he smashed the Slimes, the hammer itself already looking mottled and tarnished.
"This is not sustainable"
He looked back at the dome and suddenly realised how stupid he'd been.
"The Store! God said there was a store, the dome already ate up those other gems, maybe I can get something from there instead of just coming right out here, I haven't even looked at those panels"
As he stepped through the shield wall he had expected the gems in his hand to be sucked up in to light again but instead was left holding them and not sure how to proceed.
"The panels, let's find the converter slot"
As he walked up to the central column and focused on one of the panels its colour changed to blue and words appeared hovering just above it: COLONY CONSTRUCTION
"Colony construction? What colony?"
Tapping on the panel he was able to see a sliding touch screen style list of holographic blue prints, scrolling slightly he found all sorts of structures jumbled together and clearly in no order.
"Why would sauna be the first item on the list?"
As soon as he said this the list shifted to include nothing but saunas of varying type and value.
"Oh okay, at least I know how to search now – price ascending"
The list immediately changed showing what seemed to be a body only box sauna with the tagged price of 52 silver
"Ok, now I know what my money is going to get, and I guess it's the classic copper, silver, gold convention. He really did make it user friendly"
Moving on Daniel skimmed over some of the other panels to get a sense of what he was working with.
CRAFTING
EXPANSION CONTROL
STORAGE
CONVERTER
STORE
"Alright, let's find some weapons!"
As he focused on it the Store panel lit up and again gave a wonderful jumble of items on first inspection.
- Silver spoon
- Lucky cat
- Fence post
- Innsmouth crown
- Rope
- Gravelor tusk
"Long swords price ascending"
Wooden sword – 50 copper
Fine wooden sword – 70 copper
Wooden sword of wind – 1 silver
Wooden sword of night – 1 silver
Blessed wooden Sword – 2 silver
Single slot wooden sword – 2 silver
".... I guess I set the bar a bit too low there. Ok what's my balance?"
Unsurprisingly a zero appeared above the list and pulsed slightly.
"Ok how about this"
Lifting his hand to the panel to reveal the shiny gems he'd gathered Daniel was hoping for some kind of response but even focusing on the gems didn't seem to produce any.
"Ok, kind of expected that"
Heading over to the STORAGE panel he opened it for the first time and found nothing but empty slots, again as expected. Lifting his hand and focusing on the gems he watched as each of them immediately disappeared without being broken down into light and appeared as small pictures with titles within the STORAGE list
Pathetic White Gem x 3
Pathetic Red Gem x 1
Pathetic Green Gem x 3
Pathetic Brown Gem x 1
Pathetic Blue Gem x 2
Focusing on blue gem gave a description but no real options
[Crafting ingredient – can be used to imbue items and resources with the water attribute]
"I hadn't even realised the Slimes these came from had any elemental affinity; I can't imagine the magic these produce is very strong"
The moniker "Pathetic" was not exactly a reassurance either.
"I guess keep one of each and figure out how to sell the others?"
Removing all but one of each variant he continued through the panels. CONVERTER was the only choice left which made any sense to him, focusing on the gems once more he finally got to see them turn to light and flow through the panel into the column. As the words changed on the panel he was unable to see them as the robotic voice of the System he had semi forgotten about sounded in his mind and tore his focus away.
[Congratulations User on your first energy conversion; new functionality unlocked]
"Money?"
"Oh right, Interface"
The System interface appeared in front of him and he was able to see a menu of options rather than the small and hurtful breakdown of his abilities from previous.
"Why didn't I check this first? What unlocked?"
From the options in front of him he saw some of them start to pulse slightly with an insistent air.
{Status}
{Inventory}
{Equipment}
{Chat}
{Information}
"Wow, ok so are these my full options now?
As soon as he asked this the information tab expanded and began to fill itself in along with the Systems voice.
[Other functions may be unlocked upon the completion of certain prerequisites]
"So you can answer me? What should I do now?"
After having returned to blank the information tab stubbornly remained that way and Daniel began to have doubts about the Systems capabilities.
"Are you sentient?"
Nothing.
"How do I transfer between worlds?"
[By focusing on the skill name a skill is activated.]
[Dimensional Transfer can be activated with no cost of energy to you from Eden to Earth but is limited to only you]
[Dimensional Transfer will use your innate energy to transfer anything, yourself and others included from Earth to Eden. This energy builds over time and has no upper limit but the rate at which it accumulates is based on your current level and the level of the skill itself]
[At your current level it would take 63 days to build up enough energy to transfer yourself with no other activities from Earth to Eden]
"How much would that change if I levelled up?"
[No precedent, information unavailable]
"Okay, I think that's enough, I need to check out that chat function"
The relevant tab selected itself and opened to show more nested options.
{Direct}
{Group}
{Global}
Checking each one in turn he found them each empty and could not see any way to use them.
"I guess I really am alone, that is going to be wild when everyone else gets here though. Pity God didn't leave a contact"
As he was about to check his Status he realised something he'd been hearing over and over and hadn't really registered.
"Wait, I can bring people here myself? It's called a colony! This is a colony survival game not an RPG!"
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone