1 HP every 30 seconds? He only had 34 HP. That meant he had just 17 minutes before his HP hit 0.
What would happen in that situation? Would that really be the end of his life? Would he respawn somewhere like in a video game? Or would he wake up in his small central London apartment, with this all having been some heat-fuelled fever dream?
He didn’t like the prospect of any of those scenarios. He was enjoying whatever this new existence was far too much.
-1 HP
Fuck. Stop thinking and do something, he told himself, as the red text by his wound disappeared and his health bar changed from 34 to 33.
He needed to find something that could cure the infection, and he needed to find it quickly, but he knew it would have been foolish to leave the gold coins where they were.
Quickly, Max bent down and went to pick up a handful of the coins, and as soon as he made contact with them, the entire pile vanished with a golden sparkle, and a new bit of text appeared in his HUD alongside an icon of one of the coins:
17 Eldercoin
Nice, Max thought. Getting financially rewarded for battling and defeating a monster? He could get used to this.
He just had to survive the infection.
He also thought it best to take at least one of the horns, and the slab of meat. He had no idea how big this forest was and how long it would be before he found civilisation, so he imagined having food would be vital to his survival beyond clearing the infection.
-1 HP
Without another moment of hesitation, Max grabbed one of the horns, skewered the meat onto it, then, leaving the mangled eyes behind, sprinted into the thick of the forest with the raw kebab held firmly in his left hand.
Max searched the mossy ground and the trees for any sign of anything that looked like it could have healing properties. The place was teeming with strange-looking flowers, mushrooms, and other things. One of them surely had to be able to cure the infection.
He bent down and focused on a cluster of little white flowers.
Imanthia x 6
So the system was telling him the name of the flower and how many were in the cluster, but nothing else. Not much use.
He decided to wrap his hand around the stems and pull them out, then rub them on the open wound.
Nothing happened.
-1 HP
It had been worth a shot.
Maybe he needed to mix things together somehow.
Clutching the flowers in his right hand, he looked around for anything else he could try.
He picked up an incandescent mushroom called a silvershroom, two smaller blue toadstools called mooncaps, and a bunch of herbs called tarramon that gave off a pungent aroma that was like a combination of basil and sorrel, but he was running out of fingers to hold it all.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
A line of text appeared in his vision:
Hands full. Opening inventory.
A floating table then appeared in front of him. Above it, there was text that read:
Default Inventory
Before the events of today, Max would have been freaked out by the airborne grid, but after everything that had happened already, he found he wasn’t surprised by it in the slightest.
The grid consisted of 12 empty squares encased in a rustic, wooden border.
Max held the imanthia flowers between his forefinger and thumb and reached out towards the first square.
With a pop, the little white things were sucked from his fingers and appeared as a flat graphic inside the square with a little number 6 in its top right corner.
Max didn’t have time to consider how mental it all was. He quickly filled the other slots with the larger mushroom, both blue toadstools, and the sprig of tarramon, then he placed the skewered meat in the grid’s fifth slot, pleasantly surprised that it didn’t split the two items up automatically.
Good to know, Max thought. Combining items might come in handy if he was ever short on inventory space.
He wondered if he’d have to say something to get the inventory to close, but just as he was about to open his mouth to try the verbal command, “Close inventory,” it disappeared of its own accord. It seemed it had responded merely to his mind.
-1 HP
Shit. Every time that happened, Max’s gut churned a little bit more.
He needed a solution, and rubbing raw flowers on his wound clearly wasn’t it.
He looked around him again. Whoever had left that spear behind in the clearing would have had to have been holding other items as well. If they knew the kind of parasites that inhabited this forest, they would surely have brought some kind of antidote or healing unguent.
Scouting around for any other items the owners of the spear might have dropped cost Max a further 3 HP, but his laser-focus eventually worked. Amidst the colourful foliage, he spotted something man-made; an arrow. It was sticking out of a tree trunk.
He raced to it and pulled it out, knowing that it might come is useful if he were to come across any more beasts, and before he knew it, he was following a trail of fallen arrows.
With five clutched tightly in his palms, he quickly reopened his inventory and placed them into the sixth slot.
He realised he was now deep into the forest, with no idea how to get to the original clearing, and even less of an idea how to get out. It seemed to go on forever in all directions.
-1 HP
Having lost another two before that collecting the arrows, Max now had just 24 HP left. He was running out of time, and hope.
And then he caught a glimpse of something unnatural through a gap between two distant trees. Could it be… a tent?
Max sprinted towards it, and his hopes of possible survival were renewed. It wasn’t just a tent; it was a full campsite.
“Hello!” he called. “I need help! Anybody?”
There was no answer, but in truth he hadn’t been expecting any. Whoever had been camping were probably the ones who had dropped their weapons in the forest, and had very likely met an untimely end at the hands of a hornback, or maybe something even deadlier.
“Antidote, antidote, antidote,” he muttered to himself, scanning the entirety of the campsite as quickly as he could.
There was the charred remains of a campfire, a few discarded canteens, three bedrolls, some makeshift wooden desks housing a range of equipment and objects, and a couple of storage trunks.
-1 HP
Max went straight for the trunks and lifted one of their lids.
Inside was a cloak, a pair of boots, and a knife.
But no antidote.
Inside the second was a jar of what looked like some kind of ground spice, a bow and a couple more arrows, and a piece of flint.
Again, no antidote.
He scrambled through the items on the desk.
Apprentice Alembic
An alembic? He knew from chemistry lessons in school that an alembic was used to distill liquids. Had the campers been brewing potions?
-1 HP
He quickly turned his attention to the bedding and rifled through it. Amidst the bedding he found 4 books:
A Brief History of Willowdale
The Art of Archery
Tales from the Seacrust Shores
And:
Apprentice Alchemical Antidotes
He whipped open the pages of the fourth book and scanned them furiously.
-1 HP
Towards the back of the book, one recipe was circled in red ink:
Parasillin
Common anti-parasite antidote that cures infection from shadow ticks, Willodalian moss mites, and forest stringworm
Ingredients required:
4x Imanthia
1x Chokra root
3x Mooncap
1x Tarramon sprig
1x Water
Equipment required:
1x Mortar and pestle
1x Alembic (minimum grade: Apprentice)
1x Fire
1x Container (preferably a vial or bottle)
Instructions:
1. Combine all the ingredients in the mortar and pestle and grind to a fine paste.
2. Place the mixture and the water in the alembic and heat over the fire.
3. Allow the vapours to rise, and collect the distilled liquid in the chosen container.
Max knew he had enough imanthia and tarramon, but he was 1 mooncap short, and he didn’t have a chokra root, whatever that was.
-1 HP
Max’s heart was pounding away in his chest.
If he wanted to stay alive in this world, he was going to have to locate the remaining ingredients and brew his own antidote.
And he had exactly 10 minutes to do it.