I stopped in my tracks and turned around quickly, my heart racing and femur and bone dagger at the ready... I saw Stalker doing a growling, barking dance towards the pond and back again, it stopped growling and looked at me.
I almost shouted, but stopped myself, after all, silence is golden, and I didn’t need to attract more attention to me “Really? You cannot call dibs on the water!” Stalker just looked at me, silent and waiting.
I took a slow step backwards and Stalker started growling and barking, it even took up the dance of back and forth again! Clearly it wasn’t happy about me getting water, but too much of a coward to attack me. I took another step backwards and Stalker started whining - I stopped, ok either Stalker really really didn’t like to share or something else was going on... Was this a Lassie situation? Was it warning me? Was I being that dense MC every litrpg had from time to time?
So many questions and unfortunately, I did not have time to ponder them, as I felt a sharp sting on my right leg, looking down I saw a thin fleshy vine had grabbed me, it was pulsing slowly and I felt a slight tingly buzzing, as it tried to pull me closer to the flowers.
As I tried to get free, I saw that the vine was but the first of many more – The freaking flowers were flesh eating monsters... Because of course they were! My femur hammer was useless against the thin vine and my bone dagger was not much better.
But still I had to do something, so I frantically tried stabbing it, while doing my best to pull my leg free – I managed to pull back a bit, still gripped by that surprisingly strong vine! It was not looking good the other vines were slowly closing in and so far, my stabbing had done very little damage to the plant – Was I going to end as plant fertilizer?
Suddenly a whining Stalker appeared and savaged the vine with its sharp teeth, to great effect as the vine immediately let go of my leg and wrapped itself around Stalker’s snout instead and started pulsing – Stalker yelped loudly and then spasmed and went stiff with locked muscles…
Fuck did it die? I scrambled towards the stiff fox and grabbed it and started a tug of war with the vine, but now that I was unhampered, I had much better leverage and managed to get Stalker free and pull it back out of range of the vines.
Luckily Stalker was still breathing, and it seemed like the spasm were easing up, so the brave little coward was going to be ok. A quick check of my status screen showed that I had suffered 1 point of damage, so the harm done was negligible. But looking through the combat log, I could see that my Lesser Pain Resistance had kicked in and protected me from the paralyzing effect of the pulse.
Nasty monster, so it worked by paralyzing its victims with pain and then dragging them closer so the flowers could finish the job...
Those flowers had to go, both because they were in the way of me getting water, but also they had attacked me and hurt my personal stalker! That would not go unpunished and even though my trusty bone dagger and femur were useless against them, I had a plan to end them all! This little pyromaniac librarian had read multiple stories featuring plant monsters and fire was the answer 9 out of 10 times...
It took some time, but I got a little campfire going and using a makeshift torch I decided to try out how well fire worked against the monsters! Slowly inching closer to the flowers until I spotted a vine creeping closer to me, I stopped and let it “surprise” attack me.
It hurt a bit and the pulse tickled slightly, but the Lesser Pain Resistance held up as I took hold of the vine with my free hand, and then started roasting it with the flaming torch – Flowers do not scream, but if they could I am sure that what followed would have alerted the whole planet! As I torched every vine send at me, until I could get to the flowers themselves and I did not stop until every last one, root and all, was toast!
You have slain Cluster of Veinblossom (lvl 3)!
You have gained experience!
AHHH that rush of endorphins!
The deed done, I more or less collapsed next to the pond and scooped up some water...
Quest: The bare necessities
Duration:3 days (1 days, 19 hours 43 minutes 34 seconds)
Objective: Obtain source of food, water and secure shelter
Reward: Skill selection
Nice only shelter to go! Then I would get a new skill!
When I returned to my campfire, Stalker was gone and so was my dinner! I couldn’t even be mad at that fox; it had saved my life and also something about letting foxes in henhouses… To be honest I was just glad that it was well enough to scamper of with a whole dropbear.
Having cleared the Veinblossom flowers I decided to check out the outcropping and see if there was indeed a cave hiding in its shadows, my thinking being that occupying a cave would surely constitute shelter and thus complete the quest! Hopefully it would go smoothly, and I would still have ample time to hunt for some more food, maybe even have a skill that could help with that… A guy could dream, couldn’t he?
As I got closer, I could see that there was indeed a cave! The entrance was big enough for me to enter comfortably and as I approached it with my bone dagger and torch at the ready, the first thing that struck me was the stench!
It reeked like something had died in there and if anything was still living there it had to be some nose less creature. Hopefully deaf as well because the stench was so bad that I retched some of the water up, and generally made way too much noise! At this point I might as well just kick open the door and yell “Honey! I’m home!”
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So, I entered the cave, at first glance it was maybe 5 meters deep and a 3 wide at the end, the flickering flame of the torch made the shadows move and dance. So even though it wasn’t that big, it was hard seeing details, but someone had been living here - The signs were all over, a fireplace, some broken clay pots at that wall, a pile of bones in that corner, some tools by that rock that looked like a chair and a decaying body clad in torn leather armor.
At first, I missed the body because it was standing in the far corner with its back towards the entrance, like something straight out of a B grade horror movie. As if my attention had triggered it, the body turned and stumbled towards me – arms flailing and mouth chewing the air, as if it was already tasting my fresh innocent flesh!
Suddenly glad for the flickering light hiding details – You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but that was one ugly motherzombie! - I nimbly stepped forward and sunk my trusty bone dagger into the chest of the zombie, and half my hand went with it! Clumps of rotten flesh fell of as I tried to free my hand.
As I struggled with that, the zombie managed to swing both arms to slap against my head, my Lesser Pain Resistance protected me from feeling it, but I could see the red tint at the edge of my vision, damage was being done! It was going in for the bite and as the head got nearer, I instinctively shoved the burning torch into the face of it, smashing most of the remaining teeth out of its mouth and letting the flames burn.
I let go of the dagger and got my hand out of its chest and pushed the disgusting monster away from me, and as it stumbled a few steps back I grabbed my Femur, it was time to bludgeon this monster to death!
It was hurt, that torch had done some damage. But it was far from out of the fight and as it came at me again I swung wildly! Alternating between the femur and torch, doing everything I could to keep it away from me, but at some point, the torch went dark – turns out using a makeshift torch as a weapon might not be the smartest move – And I panicked a bit!
Let’s be honest this whole fight had a soundtrack of me going EeeeeeeeEEEEEeeeeeeeNoNONOPEeeeeEEEEEE and as I tried to disengage, the zombie grabbed me and managed to munch down on my arm! I was done for!
But I was not going down alone! I pommeled its head again and again with the Femur until it lay totally still, and I saw the flash of:
You have slain a Zombie (lvl 2)!
You have gained experience!
You have leveled up, you are now level 1!
+2 stat points earned.
And the endorphins rushed up and down my spine and exploded in my brain and almost made me forget that I had just been munched on by a freaking zombie!
I stumbled out of the cave into the light, cradling my arm and looked around at the world I would never know… I looked at my arm covered in mushy zombie goo and wiped it off to see that the skin was unbroken! How?
I was pretty sure it was the same arm the dropbear had savaged, so it was not like it was hardened or something… Then I remembered, my torch smashing the mouth and knocking the rotting teeth out… Michael would never believe me, well if I ever had the chance to tell him, nobody would!
Saved by luck… I sat down heavily, drained of energy, and checked my status screen:
Name: Mike Nielsen
Level: 1
Class: -
Profession: -
Race: HUMAN
HEALTH: 2/15
STAMINA: 4/15
MANA: 0
CONDITION:
This had been a close one, I had to get better at this, I had to get stronger! For some reason I was here and had a second chance at life! I could not waste it on a fucking zombie in a cave during the tutorial! And with that thought I opened my stat screen:
Strength: 3
Dexterity: 4
Vitality: 3
Perception: 5
Willpower: 5
Intelligence: 5
You have 2 unassigned points available
It looked like leveling up had increased my HP and stamina with 5 each, which was nice! I needed those extra HP, I quickly put one point into Vitality, and I could feel its effect on my body as some of the stress and tension faded, but it didn’t give more hp directly...
hmm, ok there goes stacking Vitality. Guess I will put the last one into strength! Kill fast, hurt less is also a viable strategy.
That done I went back into the cave – It was time I evicted the deadbeat prior tenant and claimed this shelter as mine!
Quest: The bare necessities
Duration: Completed
Objective: Obtain source of food, water and secure shelter
Reward: Skill selection
As I opened my event tab and looked at the completed quest. I giggled in anticipation, how many choices would I have to select from? Would they be good? Would there be magic? Let’s see!
Select one of the following skills:
Firecraft (Novice) – Become better at creating fire, fueling it more efficient, craft torches.
Survival Instinct (Passive) – Slightly boost reaction time and awareness during danger.
Stealth (Novice) – Become better at moving unseen and unheard.
Huh? I was honestly a bit disappointed with the options here. All of them were useful, just not very exciting. Firecraft would help for sure, but I felt like I was doing ok in that department, as long as I didn’t use the crappy torches I made as weapons.
Stealth would be handy in all kinds of situations, and it still irked me that I had failed that initial quest! Survival Instinct though, looks like a spider sense! Maybe not at first, but from the dropbear to the zombie every second counts and if I could react just a bit faster my chances of survival went up… Yeah, I had to take that one and hope for something more active for the next skill!
I was too tired and hurt to hunt for food. So, I just gathered enough firewood and water to last me through the night and made myself comfortable in the cave, and looked at the stuff I had collected so far: Bone dagger, Femur, two skulls and the prize of today! A rusty dagger in better shape than my bone dagger and assorted pieces of clothes that had not rotted completely – Nasty for sure but might be able to make some sort of bag or net out of it.
As I lay down for the night I wondered if Stalker was doing ok, and if it would visit me here in my cave tonight. As I drifted to sleep to the muted sounds of the forest outside, crackling from the fireplace and for some reason sounds of waves breaking, like an ocean… Man, that zombie really gave my head a pummeling.
Still hurt and exhausted from today’s battles a flash announced the arrival of a new quest!
