“What a set, my friends! That was some good shit, if I say so myself – and I fucking do! This is the Voice of the People, coming at you live here on K-RAD, the only fucking radio station that brings you the stone-cold truth!
"Now, just a quick update on the truth – most of those un-fucking-dead wandering around tonight have been re-fucking-deadified! Larry the Intern over here told me that they were some neko-gh, uh…"
(muffled cursing… sound of hand partially covering the mic)
"Hey, Larry! What the Wasted fuck is a necro-ghoul? Everyone knows ghouls are already dead! That’s some redundant shit right there, I can’t say that on the air. What? You want to explain it, be my guest. No, I mean it, get the fuck over here!"
(sounds of a struggle, new, younger voice comes on the air, breathing hard)
"Um, hi everyone, this is uh, Larry the Intern… Just letting you know that, see, a necro-ghoul is like a ghoul that’s also a Necromancer, not just a ghoul that was raised by a Necromancer, because as we all know that would be redundant… ouch!"
(smack! returns to original voice)
"Thanks Larry for that fascinating trivia! You know, that makes me think of this great joke. See, a Necromancer, a Paladin, and a Bard walk into a bar, and…"
(music plays over the speaker’s voice)
- DJ Demophon Kerner, with guest Larry the Intern, on K-RAD LA, April 1st, System Year 453
Waking up to the sight of a huge, hairy, many-legged spider practically in my lap sent a bolt of adrenaline through me and I instinctively tried to throw myself out of the way with a shout. What actually happened was that I sort of… toppled over in a heap. Lying there in confusion, it took me a moment to process that the spider wasn’t moving. There was a thick puddle of blood pooling around it, a hole punched through several of its eyes where my final shot had caught it.
OK Az, it’s dead, and you’re not. All things considered, that’s pretty good! Now, why do I feel like I haven’t slept in a week?
I Inspected myself and saw that I only had ten health left and was down to just a few points of stamina. Unconsciousness claimed me again moments later.
The second time I woke up face to face with a giant spider corpse, I sighed and tried to untangle myself from the contorted position I’d been sleeping in. I was sore and stiff all over and itching everywhere I’d been bitten by the smaller spiders. My mouth was dry and tasted awful. Crawling over to the pool of water, I scrubbed my hands as best I could and I drank several handfuls before Inspecting myself.
My health is up, and my mana is full, so I must have been out for a while, but my stamina is still really low. I’m amazed I’m alive after all those bites… Fuck, I am hungry again now too!
I slowly put the pieces together and realized that I had been poisoned after all – it just wasn't the typical poison that slowly eats away at your health until you fight it off, get cured, or die. It must have been a stamina poison instead. When I’d fled from the giant spider my stamina was already dropping fast, which explained why I’d barely been able to load and fire that last round.
I shuddered at the thought of what would have happened if I’d passed out a moment earlier. Don’t spiders like to eat their prey alive? Maybe that’s why they have stamina poison…
“PAST, how long was I out for?”
[INVALID QUEREY, CITIZEN!]
“OK, what time is it then?” I knew you could always get the time once you had System access. Adults always loved to explain how it was always my fault for being late – even though I had no way of knowing the exact time.
[IT IS CURRENTLY 1607 HOURS ON APRIL 2ND, SYSTEM YEAR 453!]
Right, so we started the tutorial around 10am, which means it's been around six hours… wait, April 2nd?! It was April 1st! But I can’t have slept for that long… Everyone must think I’m dead! The recruiters will be gone! Wasted hells, I’m gonna be stuck in fucking Sunland for ages!
I was sitting there, contemplating how badly I’d fucked up, well, everything, when PAST interrupted my misery.
[HA HA HA! IT IS ACTUALLY 1607 HOURS APRIL 1ST, SYSTEM YEAR 453! APRIL FOOL’S DAY!]
“WHAT THE FUCK!? What in the Wastes is April Fool’s Day and why did you just LIE to me?!” I growled, wishing PAST had a face I could punch.
[APRIL FOOL’S DAY IS BUT ONE OF THE MANY FINE TRADITIONS OF THIS GREAT NATION THAT I AM DUTY-BOUND TO UPHOLD! THE RULES OF APRIL FOOL’S DAY ARE SIMPLE! FIRST, GIVE SOMEONE WRONG OR DECEPTIVE INFORMATION LEADING TO EMOTIONAL TURMOIL BUT STOPPING SHORT OF CAUSING SERIOUS PHYSICAL HARM AND/OR DEATH! SECOND, WAIT FOR NOT LESS THAN 1 MINUTE! THIRD, LAUGH AND REVEAL THE DECEPTION!]
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“Waste it, is this really how people spent their time before the System?!”
[INPUT NOT UNDERSTOOD! PLEASE REPHRASE YOUR QUESTION, CITIZEN!]
I leaned back against the wall with a groan and closed my eyes. Why weren’t things ever easy? I barely managed to reload and refill my bandolier before I fell asleep thinking of how nice it would have been to get a solid, Standard Class like Swordswoman, Archer, or even Brawler. Maybe a Brawler could even get a Skill to punch the System in the face?
When I blearily opened my eyes again, my resources were all back to full and I was hungry, thirsty, and needed to relieve myself. After confirming the time with PAST repeatedly – he insisted that April Fool’s could only happen once per year – I reluctantly accepted the fact that it was 21:13 and even though it was still April 1st, everyone probably thought I was dead.
The Standard Tutorial normally only lasted an hour or two, and a Basic Tutorial was even shorter. They expected everyone to be out before noon and there was going to be a big lunch to celebrate.
My heart ached as I contemplated what RaeRae, Dustin, and Yuna were probably going through, thinking I’d been killed. It happened even in the Standard Tutorial occasionally, after all. Though I was planning to leave Sunland – and the kids – behind me, I wanted to do it triumphantly! I was going to be leaving to be an adventurer, or at least a soldier or caravan guard. Leaving with hugs for my adopted siblings, and maybe a tear or two.
You’re going to do this Az, you’ve come too far to stop now! Look at you, casually dozing off in a room with the corpse of a giant spider you killed heroically, still covered in… I immediately channeled mana into my baselayer, feeling it repair the punctures left by the spiders and watching as all of the… everything… coating me fell off. Right onto the floor where I was sitting. Next time, clean-up outside of the safe room, got it.
I drank some more water, cleaned up a bit, went and did my business in the sand as far away from the dead scorp as possible, and then encountered one large, ugly problem. The spider had rudely died halfway through the door and was now blocking my way forward with its nasty corpse. I approached it warily and reached out to touch one of its two-inch long hairs. Sharp! There was no way I was going to just climb over it without shoes and gloves on.
I finally set my gun aside and pulled off my bandolier. Holding it like a doubled-up strap, I wrapped it around one of the intact legs on the spider’s right side, then heaved. Thankfully the creature wasn’t as heavy as it looked – probably helped with all the jumping around. I was able to slowly drag the carcass into the room, clearing the doorway and my path forward.
It took me a point of mana to clear off all the spider blood on the bandolier afterwards, and another to cast Light. Standing in the safe room it didn’t take long to absorb enough to get back to full, and I forced myself to step through the mostly-dried pool of rach blood. Definitely no flinching or cursing involved. It turned out to be good practice, because when I got back to the scene of my fight with the little spiders, I had to walk through a lot more… stuff. At least I could avoid stepping on their gross little bodies, especially the ones with sharp metal legs.
As I continued down the tunnel in the direction the giant spider had come from, the webs grew thicker and I had to step more carefully. Within another ten steps it was clear that I needed a plan, because I couldn’t see any safe way forward. There were patches of bare rock here and there, but they weren’t conveniently each a step apart and there was no way I was going to be able to hop or jump between them without falling at some point.
Well, I’ve got no other options so let’s see if this works. I started to reach out, reconsidered, and made my way back down the tunnel where the webs were less dense, then cast Ignite. The sparks landed directly on a hunk of web and it lit up immediately, the fire racing up the strands for several yards before flaring out. Coughing away the smoke, I looked at my handiwork.
That was pretty successful, but this is going to take forever if I have to keep casting Ignite over and over. Then I recalled the burning hot metal of my Ignite infused shot and grinned viciously. This is going to be fun!
I restrained myself long enough to set up the shot. Moving past the burned patch, I went as deep as I could while still being free to move about. Infusing my gun with Ignite, I took careful aim. Earlier, I’d hit just the edge of a rock spike with my Light-infused shot. This time I was going to try to do it on purpose, to scatter the hot metal as far as possible and hopefully set more of the webs on fire. I thumbed off the safety and fired.
BOOM! click-click
“Fuck yeah!” I shouted over the echoes of the gun blast, watching as fires exploded in a half-dozen places, flames racing along the webs and spreading rapidly. In moments, it seemed like half the tunnel was ablaze, and I quickly retreated down the slope of the tunnel and watched in delight as huge areas of the webbing went up in smoke – most of which thankfully flowed upwards and away from me.
Hells, if I had used Ignite instead of Light earlier, I could have… been swarmed by an even angrier horde of flaming spiders, probably. Considering my luck today… Spiders bad, flaming spiders, worse!
The fire burned bright and fast, and within minutes it died out. I could still see bits of webs here and there, but the path was relatively clear. Whatever the webs were made of, they left very little ash behind. I reloaded, switched off the infusion, and followed the tunnel upwards. Perhaps a dozen yards past where I’d had to stop previously, the tunnel opened up into a large cave, not as big as the scorp’s arena but taller, and without the sandy floor.
I looked around, checking all the walls and even the ceiling for any signs of another giant spider, but it seemed clear. As I slowly moved forward, gun at the ready, I realized that I was very, very lucky the monster had come into the tunnel after me. If I had tried to fight it in this larger area, it would have been a nightmare to deal with considering how easily it could jump around.
I haven’t been paying too much attention to how loud my gun is, but maybe that’s why it came out? Yeah, it was definitely the gunshots that got its attention and not my fierce battle-cries!
Once I reached the far side of the cave, another doorway opened in what looked like solid rock. Beyond it, I found another safe room, identical to the previous one. As soon as I entered it, some Essence flowed in and PAST’s voice rang out in my head as a message appeared.
Quest Update: Advanced Tutorial
Stage 2 Cleared
[YOU HAVE NOW GAINED THE REQUIRED AMOUNT OF EXPERIENCE TO BE PROMOTED TO LEVEL 2! CONGRATULATIONS, CITIZEN! WHEN YOU ARE READY TO PROCEED, SIMPLY SAY ‘LEVEL UP’!]
