New World Day 23

  As I continued down the trail, I kept an eye out not just for any wayward beasts but also for any plants that I didn’t recognize. I still felt that mana vision gave me a better chance of seeing danger before it saw me, but I had just received a painful lesson that there were creatures who had adapted to hide from such vision. A nifty trick that I would have to see if I could pick up in the near future. I worked my way down the trail till I hit the point where the trail went down into a valley.

  I stood there transfixed as I stared at the 25 foot wide creek that ran through the bottom of the valley. There was originally a medium sized creek that ran through the base of the valley that was one tenth the size of the one that now sat there. The new creek was still only a couple of feet deep and remained flowing at a sedate pace, but there were large yellow plants that resembled ferns except they had purple veins and nasty saw-toothed edges. These plants glowed like fire through my mana vision. They might just be plants with a significant amount of mana, but I wasn’t going near them after the vine incident. The trees and undergrowth that were a bit further back from the yellow ferns were all Old World species. They possessed no mana, and I recognized many of them from my years spent here.

  I proceeded down the hill with caution as I was worried about both the ferns and anything that might be hiding in the slow moving water of the creek. The creek had a dark brown mud bottom and was filled with numerous large rocks that would make great hiding spots. There wouldn’t be enough room for anything of great height to hide under the rocks in the water, but you didn’t have to be tall to be deadly. I tossed a few sticks at the ferns first thing to see if they tried to defend themselves. The ferns swayed as the sticks bounced off of the large flexible leaves. I waited a few minutes to see if they tried to kill me for throwing something at them, but they didn’t react in any odd way. Of course, that still didn’t mean I was going near them. Even if they didn’t actively try to kill me, those purple veins might mean that they were poisonous to the touch. The area where the trail passed through the creek was clear of them thankfully.

  I stared at the creek for even longer than I did the ferns, but the creek was difficult to see into. Mana flowed through creek in a similar manner to how it would look if you poured food dye into it. One moment I would be able to see everything and the next tendrils of mana would hide large portions of the creek from view. I stopped using mana vision to see if I could pick out anything with my normal vision, but nothing stood out for me. I learned my lesson from the vines. I knew there could be a creature that knew how to hide its mana living in the creek. I picked up a few more sticks and tossed them into the creek to see if I could trick anything into revealing itself. There were some flashes of silver and brown which I recognized as small Old World fish and crayfish, but there was nothing that possessed mana that went after the sticks.

  I was torn over whether it was really safe or not to cross. I knew that I had to cross the creek in order to get to the meadows and crossing here where those ferns hadn’t taken over was better than anywhere else. There were enough large rocks in the creek that I could cross the creek by stepping from rock to rock until I reached the other side. I plotted a path that would allow me to avoid any rocks that looked slick or had moss on them and then started across. I saw a flash of mana from the corner of my right eye on the third rock. Prudence caused me to hop back to the previous rocks and then towards the shore. The practice I underwent for my footwork skills alongside the creation of the agility stat improved my balance, but in my panic, I missed the last jump and landed just short of the shoreline in a foot of water. I was close enough to the shore that I was still able to scramble out of the creek to the shore before whatever it was could catch me. My rare display of caution instead of recklessness saved me from a dangerous situation. The flash could have been just a normal stream of mana like the ones I had observed numerous times since I had come upon the creek, but this time the flash turned out to be from a four foot long solid black salamander that slithered out from beneath a rock to my right.

  The salamander reacted to the splashes when I missed the last jump and shot towards the source of the disturbance. It didn’t leave the water to follow me up on the bank. The salamander opened its mouth to reveal rows of small needle-like teeth. I thought it was warning me about invading its territory until its chest shrank and a blast of water flew out from its mouth and smashed into my chest. The blow sent me reeling backwards, and I retreated halfway up the hill before the salamander could send a more deadly blast my way. I raised up my jacket and shirt to take a look at my chest once I was sure that it wasn’t coming after me and saw that I now had a large bruise on my chest to match the bruise on my arm and ankle. Everywhere I turned there was some new creature causing problems for me. I should have been terrified of the danger, and I did feel a bit of fear. But I felt excitement more than fear. The creatures were new and different and beautiful when they weren’t trying to kill me. If I knew that my family was safe, I would have liked to stay in the area to explore all the new additions to the wildlife.

  I sat on the hill recovering for a bit while I pondered over the best way to cross the creek without getting attacked by the salamander. I didn’t have much time to think about the best solution before I started to hear barks and growls in the distance. The sounds of approaching forest coyotes worried me. Were there goblins riding those forest coyotes or was it just a pack hunting in the wood? I ran down the hill and hid behind a tree near but not too near the ferns to observe what was going on. It didn’t take long before a pack of forest coyotes with goblins riding atop them appeared at the top of the hill. All of them were glowing with a light just as strong as the nearby ferns except for one. The hobgoblin’s glow was twice as strong as anyone else’s. How did they find me here? I peeked out from behind the tree to see if it was just a coincidence. I hoped it was, but I had the feeling that there was more behind it than that.

  The forest coyote that the hobgoblin rode started to sniff and paw at the ground. Is that what why they didn’t come to find me these past eight days? They were teaching the forest coyotes how to track by scent on command? If that was true then how did they get my scent? I was puzzled for a moment before a light went off in my head. When the hobgoblin ran away after our encounter at my neighbor’s house he had closed something in his fist before he shook it at me. I wrote it off as just the standard villainous action, but I should have paid more attention to it. He had clawed off a piece of my shirt with that hand. That scrap of cloth must be what he closed his fist around. Should I praise them for being intelligent enough to find such a sure way of tracking me down or scold them for being stupid enough not to just check every nearby house one by one? It's not like there were many places around here that I could have been using as a hideout. It wouldn’t have taken more than a couple of days to check every nearby house.

  Either way, they had found me now, and I needed to get across the creek before they came down the hill after me. I didn’t have a good plan for getting across the creek, but I had a reckless and mean-spirited plan. If it didn’t kill me it would screw over the goblins and forest coyotes that were going to try and follow me across. I crouched down behind the tree and pulled out a shotgun shell filled with birdshot. I took one of the slugs out of the shotgun and replaced it with the birdshot. I activated my mana enhancement skill, reminded myself to watch my balance, and made a mad dash across the creek. I purposely choose to take an extra long path across the creek as well. The hobgoblin and his horde noticed my movements once I made my move and charged down the hill towards me. The black salamander had retreated back under the rocks, but it slid out after I just two hops. I pointed the shotgun at it with my right hand and pulled the trigger. A significant portion of the birdshot missed the salamander, and what did hit him didn’t cause any injuries. The salamander’s skin flexed in where the birdshot hit and then as the skin flexed back out the birdshot popped out and rolled off of the salamander. I wasn’t worried about that at all. I just wanted to distract it from shooting a blast of water at me and cause as much noise as I could.

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  The horde was almost down the hill when I shot the salamander. I increased my pace after the shot and made an extra effort to land on the rocks as hard as I could. The ripples of my passage combined with the birdshot caused five more salamanders to swim towards me. Blasts of water shot through the air behind me soaking my back with water, but before a second volley could be fired, the horde arrived and gave them a new target. I heard splashes and pain filled whines from forest coyotes combined with the shrieks of goblins. More splashes resounded behind me, and when I made it across the creek, I twisted my neck to see what was going on. The sight that greeted me made me laugh out loud. Two forest coyotes were rolling around riderless in the creek, and five goblins were trying to struggle to their feet after being knocked off of their forest coyotes. The only two goblins still on their mounts besides the hobgoblin were in the middle of the creek jabbing at salamanders with spears as their mounts reared up to avoid the bulldog-like bite of the salamanders. The hobgoblin sat on his mount on the shore screaming at his minions. Over a dozen more salamanders were attracted by the ruckus.

  I gave the hobgoblin a little wave along with a laugh and a smile as I ran up the trail to the top of the next hill. Once I reached the top of the hill, I could follow the path along the top of the hill all the way to the meadows. Of course before I could reach the top of the hill, I would need to pass through the area that my family called the Haunted Highway. In the Old World, the area had been filled with a bunch of tall dead cedar trees along with a few living ones situated around a small natural pond. The dead trees and rattling limbs created a haunting ambiance hence the name. Now that I was running up the hill towards that area, I wondered if this expedition was the best of ideas. If my current experiences in the New World were any indication, the Haunted Highway was going to be filled with dangerous creatures from my worst nightmares. The hobgoblin seemed to agree. When he saw which direction I was heading in, he returned the smile and wave before he and what remained of his horde trotted back up the hill.

Name: Jason Silver

Job Name: N/A

LVL: 8 50%

Job LVL: N/A 0%

Job Points:

N/A

N/A

N/A

Titles:

Survivor (B) LVL 9 88%

Fool © LVL 1 16%

Swarm Killer (B) LVL 9 31%

Beast Killer (B) LVL 9 49%

Risk Taker (B) LVL 8 85%

Repeated Risk Taker © LVL 7 88%

Compassionate Fool © LVL 5 26%

Curious Fool © LVL 5 25%

Stupid Fool © LVL 7 37%

Extremely Stubborn Fool © LVL 5 7%

Greater Mana Wielder ® LVL N/A

Title Points:

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7

Stats:

HP:

MP:

Mana Regen:

Endurance:

Strength:

Speed:

Agility:

Spirit:

Bonus Points:

123/160

41/66

14.5 per min (-2.75)

19

15

17

9

10

28

Status Effects:

Regen, Spirit Regen, Disease Resist, Parasite Resist, Poison Resist

Skills:

Basic Axe Mastery (B) LVL 9 94%

Basic Gun Mastery (B) LVL 5 61%

Lesser Regen (Passive) (UC) LVL 1 10%

Minor Spirit Regen (Passive) © LVL 5 68%

Basic Disease Resist (Passive) (B) LVL 9 89%

Basic Parasite Resist (Passive) (B) LVL 9 95%

Basic Poison Resist (Passive) (B) LVL 9 11%

Minor Mana Control © LVL 9 45%

Greater Mana Vein (Passive) ( R ) LVL 1 0%

Flexible Mana Lake (Passive) (B) LVL 1 0%

Pain Control (B) LVL 4 24%

Fear Control (B) LVL 1 10%

Basic Close Combat Footwork (Active) (B) LVL 8 91%

Basic Ranged Combat Footwork (Active) (B) LVL 8 88%

Minor Barrier Runes (Active) © LVL 1 7%

Basic Mana Enhancement (Active) (B) LVL 6 73%

Basic Mana Vision (Active) (B) LVL 4 97%

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