A sharp searing pain quickly began to spread throughout my left shoulder.

“Gyaaah!” I screamed out abruptly, my mind shocked back into wakefulness. My body was struggling to sit up and react to the source of whatever attack I was experiencing.

“There, there now. Calm yourself down, new girl. It's just a little bit of healing potion I’ve poured onto your open wound.” The words that came to me were in a calming and soothing tone. They came from… Bobbie? Yes, that’s right. She was…

“Ouch!” I exclaimed after Bobbie poured yet another sprinkling of healing potion onto my still very tender shoulder wound.

“Hey. I told you to relax.” Bobbie instructed more severely this time. “Your wound is pretty deep here, plus you also got yourself a nice dose of that drake’s poison as well when it bit you.”

“Ughh.” I groaned pitifully as my senses slowly began to return to me. After my sense of touch and hearing, my vision slowly began to return as I struggled to open my reluctant eyelids. “What happened to me? I feel sick.”

“...I literally just told you.” Bobbie scolded remorselessly. “You were poisoned by that forest drake you killed. Luckily, you managed to endure it until after the fight was over. Unluckily, it is still in your system.”

“Am I going to die?” I asked her sincerely, the poison, blood loss, and shock all contributing to making my mental faculties less than stellar at the moment.

“No dummy.” Bobbie scolded, this time in a much softer tone. “Why do you think I’m tending to your injuries right now?”

“Ahh…good.” I told her blearily, feeling the weight of my eyelids grow heavier and heavier as I struggled to stay sitting upright.

“Ah-ah! No. You stay sitting up there young lady.” Bobbie said in what I could only assume was her impression of a doctor or a nurse of some sort. “I’ve already staunched the bleeding with some health potion. Now I’m just cleaning out your open wound of any dirt or other yucky stuff.”

After saying this she poured something else on my still very tender injury.

“Ahh.” I yelped reflexively but the pain wasn’t nearly as bad compared to the healing potion used earlier.

“That was just some water, to clean out the dirt. Like I said.” She told me somewhat patiently. “But, now comes the fun part. How would you like to deal with this very deadly poison that is currently wreaking havoc on your insides? You have a few options.”

“W-what? Just fix it. What is the question you're asking here?” I asked, not understanding where she was going with this.

“Fine, fine sure. Option 1, we do it the old school survivalist way where I suck out the poison from your wound with my mouth.” She said this while looking at me with eyes sparkling with amusement and her mouth set in a playful smirk.

“Y-you can’t be serious?” I replied. “Is that the only option?”

“No, but it might be the most fun one.” She said while giving me an out-of-place wink that I couldn’t take any other way than as flirtatious.

“F-fun! For who?” I demanded irritably.

“Pick it and find out.” She said, adding another silly wink with her statement.

“S-top that! Stop being weird. Not that option.” I concluded, turning my head away from her to avoid seeing any more of her exaggerated winking, and definitely not to hide a growing blush on my cheeks.

“Ha! Fine, but I got you to perk up a bit from it. Didn’t I?” She said cheerfully.

“W-whatever, just hurry up and do something about this poison already, sheesh.” I complained petulantly, in an obvious and immature attempt to hide my own embarrassment.

“Fine. So, the second option is probably the most rewarding, but also the most unpleasant.” Bobbie hinted cryptically.

“If this somehow involves more teasing or flirting, I’m going to shoot a bolt of magic straight into your face.” I warned her, but still failed to make eye contact, likely diminishing the impact of my threat.

“Haha, chill new girl, chill. I was just messing with you. Alright, the second one involves letting the poison stay in your system and letting you tough it out until it works its way through your body” She responded with an eager smile still on her face.

“What?! Frick no. Heck no. Uhuh. No. Not that one.” I responded unhappily, while still taking note of how off I felt. I even went so far as to crane my stiff and sour neck to get a better look down at where that fricking drake had bit me.

The bite marks were still readily apparent, but worse than that were the long black spidery tendrils creeping outwards underneath my skin from that spot. Even just looking at it made me feel uneasy.

“Hey, I get. But you haven’t heard the upside yet. A new skill…” Bobbie said with a pause afterward for dramatic effect. “Poison Resistance.”

Taking no more than half a second to think about it, I said. “Uh-uh. Frick no. Heck no. No, thank you. No. Next option please.”

“Haha, woah okay. Fine then. The next option is, I guess, the easy and boring…” Bobbie didn’t get a chance to finish before I interrupted her.

“That one. I pick that one.” I eagerly interrupted once I heard easy and boring. I had no regrets about picking this over, a possible new skill, or whatever the heck option 1 was.

After letting out an unladylike *Humph*, Bobbie said. “Fine. The boring option it is then. Just give me a sec to go find a bottle of antidote somewhere in my stash.”

With that, she wandered back outside of the clearing, and toward where she had left her motorcycle parked. As I watched, I slowly, painfully scooted my body up into a more upright position, and began to look around the wooded clearing I was currently sitting in.

The large body of the Lesser Forest Drake, wasn’t too far away and its head and body were still. More disturbingly were its eyes. They were such a gory mess that looking at them made me want to vomit.

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Arresting my attention away from the sight, I couldn't help but see the large and still going pool of blue blood surrounding where the drakes collapsed. I could even smell the coppery metallic odor from where I was stuck sitting, helplessly. It was all a fairly nauseating sight.

In an effort to distract myself, I started taking in slow painful breaths of air. As my thoughts started to drift, I tried to recollect what had happened just before I passed out, and remembered briefly seeing the message that I’d completed that monster hunt quest.

Curious, and needing further distraction from my discomfort, I mentally pulled up the other notifications that had been patiently waiting for me.

Level Up!

Class: Magi 5 => 6

Dexterity +1

Mind: +1

Spirit: +1

Level Up!

Class: Magi 6 => 7

Constitution +1

Mind: +2

Skills Updated!

Incantation 6 => 9

Somatic Magic 5 => 7

Eyes of Night 7 => 8

Shadow Affinity 8 => 10

Spellcraft 7 => 8

Mana Manipulation 5 => 9

Dodge 36 => 38

Shield Proficiency 1 => 2

“Wow.” I muttered to myself after looking over the stat and skill improvements I’d received from the fight.

The jump up was substantial, and this was just from one fight. Mind you, it was against a monster of a higher rank than me. And I did almost die… was it worth it?

Before I could form a strong opinion on the matter, I began to hear Bobbie making loud clattering sounds while standing over the lifted-up seat of her motorcycle.

“What a freakin’ mess.” She loudly complained.

“What are you doing?” I tried to yell before thinking better of it from the pain in my throat.

“Huh? Oh, I told you, I’m grabbing an antidote to treat the poison from your drake bite.” She quickly replied before going back to digger into what should be the space where then engine and other mechanical parts of the motorcycle were. Except her hands, arms, and at times even her head were down into the impossible-placed opening she was now rooting around in.

“Do you have one of those weird extra-dimensional storage dohickeys to?” I asked, straining my throat once again to be heard over from across the clearing.

Pulling fully half of her upper torso out of the storage space underneath her motorcycle seat, Bobbie looked over towards me and answered with a smile. “Obviously, these things are great, but stupidly expensive. After Herbert got one for his car, and started preening and gloating about how awesome it was. I couldn’t just not get one for myself also, right?”

“Uh, I guess not.” I replied uncertainly.

“Exactly.” She quickly retorted before examining one of the bottles she had pulled out of her storage.

“Let's see… expired.” She tossed a random glass bottle of a murky liquid off someways into the forest where the audible sound of glass shattering could be heard.

“Hmm, this is… oh, uh… you don’t need to see this one.” Bobbie said her cheeks growing noticeably crimson while giving me a brief side eye before she quickly stuffed whatever that bottle was back hastily into her storage.

Clearing her throat with a light cough, she examined the last bottle she had been holding. “Ah, sweet. It’s even one of the ones I got from Frederico’s too. Nice.”

With that announcement, she made her way back over to me and just stood there patiently standing over me while looking down at me.

“What?” I asked, not sure what she was waiting for.

“Well?” She asked cryptically, making me even more confused.

“Well, what?” I replied a bit more irritable this time.

“Did you get it yet?” She asked small impish smile on her face.”

“Get…” And as if on queue and before I could finish my question, another blue box popped up.

New Skill Unlocked!

Poison Resistance

Reward: 50 Exp

“Oh, you…” I bit back any further angry retorts, and just simply said. “Yes.”

“Nice. Trust me, you’ll be glad you have skills like that in the future when you really need ‘em.” Bobbie said with a satisfied smirk before handing me the bottle filled with a neon green liquid inside. “Drink the whole thing, shouldn’t even taste bad.”

“Ugh, alright.” I said warily, my suspicion being raised by Bobbie's very recent deceptiveness and the alarmingly green color of the liquid inside. But, not wanting to have this god-awful poison inside me any longer, I pushed aside my worries, uncorked the bottle, and quickly started to gulp down the contents.

I finished draining it after a brief moment, and was surprised at the rather pleasant aftertaste it had left in my mouth. “Is that… mint?”

“For you, probably. It’s a neat little quirk of Frederico’s potions. He somehow, makes them taste like whatever the last meal you had tasted like.” Bobbie answered.

“Huh, neat.” I said while examining the now empty bottle.

“Yeah, little touches like that are why Frederico is my guy for potions and other alchemical stuff.” Bobbie said while crouching back down beside me, and pulling out another red potion bottle and uncorking it. “These though, these are the mass-produced ones you can buy in bulk from the IDPA. If you do get them in bulk, the prices are amazing, but the taste is worse than unsweetened cough syrup.”

Instead of handing me this bottle, she began pouring it onto some plain cloth bandages she had brought over with her. After they had been thoroughly soaked, she began wrapping them around my shoulder and arm.

“This is a neat little trick I picked up to help your wound heal faster, and to cut down on how much potion you need to use as well.” She said sagely.

After wrapping a few more loops of cloth around the area, she handed me the half-emptied bottle to drink.

Not needing further instruction, I downed the contents of this bottle as well. My reaction though was markedly different.

“Bleugh!” I said while sticking my tongue and smacking my lips in disgust.

“See, told you.” She said with a knowing grin. “But, that gross mass-produced junk was still the last thing you needed to do for treating your injury.”

“So we're done then? I’m all healed?” I asked skeptically.

“Well, the potions are still busy doing their thing inside your body, but yeah. We are all done with the bandages, the cleaning, and the potions.” She said while standing back up onto her feet.

Once back up, she offered a hand down for me to get up as well. Eager to get back on my feet and off the dirt and blood-soaked ground, I took it.

“So…” Bobbie started to say before her phone began to go off in her pocket. “Uh, hold on. Who’s calling me?”

As she swiped her finger to accept the call a loud voice started shouting from the other end causing Bobbie to pull the device away from her ear.

“Well, what happened? Is she alright? Why haven’t you called me back yet? It’s been over an hour and a half already. You were supposed to keep me updated. You….” The loud demanding voice was Gunderson, who clearly had been on pins and needles from waiting, and had finally run out of patience entirely.