Groaning in pain, I slowly stumble to a sitting position on the grass, rubbing on my forehead to waive the headache off.

Urrk… mother of all headaches! So much memories from the body's previous life as Gaemon Waters, it appears that he was trained by master of arms at Dragonstone and learned his letters and numbers by a maester with permission from Lord Aerion Dragonstone. So far what I was able to depict from my new 'memories', seems that my skills as a knight are average, it will allow me to survive in direct combat without fuss, provided if I do not face against any more skilled swordsman.

More importantly, it looks like that Gaemon was more interested in general information than being knight, he devoted little more to general education provided by maesters in Dragonstone. Hmm, that would be useful, it will help me with my journey in the long term, I can utilize my new knowledge to navigate the world efficiently.

However, it shows that my education has some gaps, such as ability to ruling or administration or advanced knowledge where maesters usually learn at the Citadel. Ah, I see! Seems that my step mother did not want me to 'learn' advanced stuff to 'remind' my place as a bastard, as she really disliked how her husband wasn't faithful to her at all.
Man, she sounds like a discount version of Catelyn, damn. I guess I will have to learn those advanced stuff the hard way.

Looking around, all I can see is trees and more trees. Oh, do I spy a nice stream at a fair distance away? Good, it will be useful to have drinking water, best to make a filter then boil the water in case, I'd prefer to not die from dysentery or cholera, thank you very much. At least game should be plenty in this forest, provided there are no pissed nobles because they really don't like anyone 'poaching' their game animals.

Looking up, I can see a very nice mountainous valley covered by spruce & soldier pine-based forests. What a beautiful sight to see, it reminds me of an old forest in High Cascades Arc in Oregon from my old life. I was very familiar with this area for some reason… oh yeah! I remember this scene from the Game of Thrones TV show where Robb Stark and his horseman ambushed Jaime Lannister and his men during the Battle of Whispering Woods. So it looks like I'm in Whispering Woods, so two towns like Oldstones and Fairmarket shouldn't be very far from me.

Looking down on my pipboy bracelet, I pressed the node again as it emitted the holographic model, mimicking the pipboy itself. I pressed the inventory section, revealing the entire inventory space, it looks like it's empty. Damn! Seems those assholes raided everything that I have on my body. At least they didn't strip clothes, whew, it would be no fun to wake up naked especially I can feel slight chill in the air.

Now first things to do, I need to set my SPECIAL Attributes, set starting three skills and review other things. I clicked on the Stats page.

Well, time to allocate those points, as I know that I will need a balanced sheet with two to three important attributes to put extra points first. There, done!

Now, time to check the Skills section to see what I get from the mix-mash style of Fallout System then pick three skills to start with to get 10 bonus like Fallout 3/New Vegas, so I clicked on the Skills section to check it out.

So basically like Fallout 3/New Vegas mix for Skills, not too bad. Let's see… I think that starting off with repair, medicine and guns because I'll be maintaining my equipment frequently followed by having basic medicine knowledge would save my life in case and guns as I figure that i will be using guns fairly soon, it's better to have knowledge on how to handle guns safely, how to shoot them right way and whatnot.

There, those mentioned skills now have 10 added to, marking it at 15, leveling it to 'basic level' as new knowledge rushed to my head. Owwie, didn't expect new knowledge being forcibly added in my head would cause another bout of headache again.

Now, time to live in this grim world!

I'll have to do a few quests immediately to make money to buy a few things I need from the shop to survive in this area. I swiped on the interface to 'back out' from the inventory and pressed on the 'quest' interface, listing a few beginning quests.

Survival 101: Start your own Campfire, the most basic survival kit to start with.

Find Sticks, Rocks and Flint []
Create your Campfire []
Ignite Campfire []

Completion Reward: 50 bottle caps & progress to Survival Skill.
Failure: n/a. You'd be cold and miserable. Possibly get eaten by predators.

*snorts* Snarky comment!

Survival 102: Find edible things so you don't go hungry! You already can hear your stomach growling, demanding for food.

Find Mushrooms and Berries []
Bonus Objective: Find Eggs via bird nests []

Completion Reward: 50 bottle caps & progress to Survival Skill.
Bonus Reward: 5x MREs from US Army (it will 'fill' your belly for one day. Warning, it may taste bland and it may cause constipation.)
Failure: Starvation. You may incur additional side effects such as dehydration and malnutrition, depending on the severity of starvation.

Not too bad, berries and mushrooms should be easy to find, as they're quite common in the forested lands. The trick is to find the right ones that are safe to eat, as there can be types of berries and mushrooms that can be poisonous to eat. And for a bonus objective, that is slightly harder because most bird nests would have a 50/50 chance of having an egg or more plus it's usually located in high places, usually on branches in trees. That will be a bit tricky to get as MREs would be pretty useful to have to keep myself fed when I travel. Well, time to get to work, I need to gather food and resources first. Let's hope that there are no raiders or predators nearby, it'd be troublesome to face them with my fists and die like an idiot.

I briefly jogged a bit deeper into the forest, looking for bushes and trees as I know that mushrooms usually grow in the sides or near bottom of trees, sometimes on fallen logs or in dark & moist places. If I remember correctly from my field trips in high school, the guide described how to find edible mushrooms and avoid poisonous ones, like edible ones would be hens-of-the-woods, oysters or sulphur shelf would be relatively safe to eat.
Berries bushes are more easier to identify, as I already can see few bushes sporting nice blueberries & raspberries which i ran to those bushes, picked good amount of them, pooling up in my one hand as I waved my pipboy over it, making cluster of berries to vanish in smattering amount of lights as I heard 'ding-ding' sounds like old school cashiers.

I repeated a few times with nearby bushes to make sure that I have enough berries to sustain myself for a few days as I can see a few pounds worth of berries sitting in my inventory. Good, it should be enough for now.

Now, to mushrooms! I know that there are three edible mushroom types that are easy to find since I already know that ASOIAF world has Earth-like foodstuffs, for example, books has mentioned many food types that came from 'Old World' or 'New World' groups like turkeys, corn, grain, wheat, rye, pecan, peppers, squash, cranberries, blueberries, grapes, etc. It shouldn't be too problematic to find similar food types in this area as GRRM is a bit 'lazy' on world building, so he used existing food types from Earth to 'import' to the setting. Although, there are few specific food types that don't 'exist' in this setting like potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco or cocoa which I probably can get via the shop and introduce it to the world to make a quick buck or something.

Ah, I spotted a few good clusters of yellow-orange colored mushrooms on the trees, it looks like it's shelf-type which should be safe to eat, so time to pick them up as I carefully harvested them then stored in my inventory storage, knowing that any thing I put in, will never rot or decay, making it valuable for long term journey.

Now to eggs! I sighed, time to look upwards to find nests then climb up to grab eggs if I am lucky enough. I walked around for some time until I spotted a few bird bests, so I went to the nearest tree and carefully climbed the tree, as I do not want to fall down to break bones, it'd be bad news for me. As soon as I arrived, I was able to see the nest itself, it appears that it is empty, damn! Ugh, next tree to climb again as I climbed down again. Two hours later, I managed to find three eggs in total from multiple trees. My hands are a bit sore from climbing over trees repeatedly. It wasn't a good run so far as I can already see the sun being midday, I will have to set the campfire very soon before night hits. At the ground, I can hear my quest being completed through ring notification as I saw 50 bottle caps being added followed by five MREs in my inventory while noticing my Survival Skill leveled by one level.

Hmmm, now to the campfire quest, looks like I'll need maybe few flints, two dozen small stones or more followed by a half face-cord of long sticks or dry barks, time to get to the work then as I searched for rocks that's big as my entire hand and sticks at different sizes laying near the bushes or base of trees.
I wiped my forehead from glistening sweat. It took an hour of work to gather enough resources to start my campfire, let's find a good spot to set the camp up, so I looked around to spot any good location until I found a perfect spot, there is small hill with small mouth of the cave that looked like it's not deep near the river stream. Good spot and easy shelter in case there is rain.

Keeping an eye on the surroundings, it didn't take too long to arrive at the spot as it wasn't very far away as I checked the area around the cave, seeing no signs of animal living there as I'd prefer to not be eaten by a bear or mountain lion, not until I'm properly armored and armed in case. I used my bracelet's inventory to 'dump' all wood, stone and flint on the ground in neat order based on my inventory's filter system. Good, makes it easier to work, as I picked sizable stones up to put the foundation up near the mouth of the cave in neat circular formation then walked back to the wood sticks in half face cord to pick up.

Placing sticks in upward direction like a tent then placed dry barks at the base of tent-like sticks. Good, it is ready for ignition, time to use flints as I took two flints to scrape together repeatedly to make sparks on the dry bark & sticks from my old knowledge in camping stuff during my wee days as it took while to make sparks.
It finally caught on fire as I spotted small smoke coming off it, I gently blew on it, adding more air to increase burn rate. It didn't take much time for a good amount of blaze to pop on the campfire as I heard the quest to ring in completion as I checked my pipboy, seeing another 50 bottlecaps added in my balance, bringing it up to 100 caps plus my survival skill leveled up by one again.

Time to see what MREs I got from my inventory, I pulled them all out. Huh, so it appears that all MRE has different food combinations, so I picked one that has spaghetti, my favorite!

Honestly, it's a bit weird to see MRE pockets that look similar from the late 80's version of the Fallout verse, as I figured that they'd be using 1950s style ration since Sci Fi-1950s is the main theme for the Fallout setting.

Huh, not bad. Flavor seems to be bland, typical for freeze dried crap, at least it will keep my stomach full for a long while. Satisfied, what do I do with discarded MRE packets? Maybe sell it to the store to get extra money? I'll find out later.

Now, I need to head out again to find sticks and moss to make the crude bed at the mouth of the cave with a campfire to get ready for sleeping. I stood up then walked to the bushes to search for sticks then added it to my inventory. Now, for moss, if I remember right, they're common on low hanging branches and on some rocks so I grabbed a sizable amount of moss up and threw it away to my storage, walking back to the campfire already.

I kneeled at the campfire, using my hands to clear the rubble on the ground away to set the sticks then add moss on top of the sticks to act as crude soft material to lay on as I don't want to wake up with sore neck or back as the ground can be pretty unforgiving while campfire would keep my body warm when I'm asleep. Should add more sticks and barks in case, to keep it burning for a long time later.

Knowing that I have 100 bottle caps plus few discarded MRE junk to sell, time to check the Shop. I clicked on the shop interface, seeing the interface listed with Fallout and ASOIAF items in two different categories with different prices. Now, time to sell leftover MRE junk and done! Looks like I got 15 bottle caps from it, bringing it to 115 bottlecaps to spend.

Maybe I should sell one or two MRE since they're very valuable if I remember right from the games to get more money as I reckon that I'll need to spend a sizable amount to get armor, armaments and a few other things? Checking MRE's selling price, oh wow, they're valuable. 250 bottlecaps for each MRE, so I decided to sell two in case, leaving me with two MRE for two days worth of food plus extra food from wild harvesting in the forest, so it puts my balance to 515 bottlecaps.

Hmm, so I went ahead to purchase a good castle forged steel sword, combat knife and a 10mm pistol with 8 12-round magazines, costing me around 180 bottlecaps in total. Good, I'm sufficiently armed, now let's look at clothes as I will need to replace my clothes as it's useless due to dried blood on my tunic.

Ah, I decided to grab a set of road leather outfit, as it's made out of leather which should be easy to repair if I have a few leathers and sewing kit with me plus it's very cheap, it only cost me five bottlecaps for it. I quickly took my former clothes out, threw it to the fire to burn it since it'd be worthless and put the road leather on. Oh my god, it feels so good and comfortable! At least it comes with a belt, making it easier to put the holster holding a 10mm pistol on the right side of the belt and put a combat knife in my left boot as an emergency weapon while putting my sword in the inventory.

Also I purchased a leather pouch to carry a few coins if I decide to stop by the market to buy stuff over there too, costing me five bottle caps again. I don't plan to add anything in the pouch as I'll be using my inventory, the pouch is there to 'hide' my inventory actions as people would get suspicious if I conjure money from nowhere and I'd prefer to not be burnt at the stake for witchcraft.

And took 100 bottlecaps to convert to 100 silver stags, I figured that it should be more than enough to spend some time in inn's, market shopping or bribes, leaving me 225 bottlecaps left to spend. Yeah, I think I'll save it for now in case I need something from the shop ASAP.

Looking at my watch, damn! It won't be long til it gets dark, time to haul ass to get more sticks and barks to keep the campfire burning for a long while.