Llewel Enydark stalked through the trees, slowly tracking his quarry. He almost felt bad, as many of these creatures were quite intelligent, but the survival of his family was the most important thing. The large cat lept from tree to tree, its long claws slicing deep gashes into the trunks and branches with each movement. Llewel was highly confident in his ability to take this creature down, but checked his interface nonetheless. “Status,” he whispered, his stealth skill being high enough that his words were muffled for the majority of the creatures in the region.
Basic Identifying Information
Name
Llewel Enydark
Race
Elf - Shadow
Ranger - Tier 3
Statistics
Health Points (HP) 200/200
Ability Points (AP)
210/400
Stamina Points (SP)
150/600
Concern spread across his face when considering his stamina and ability point pools. This hunt had gone on longer than average, and a single attack had yet to even be made. Llewel was worried if it went on much longer, or gods forbid the creature was of higher power than he originally thought, he may not come out the victor. Closing his status, Llewel dropped his stealth skill and activated wind walker. The increase of speed from activating wind walker came at a heavy cost of 50 AP, but the distance between himself and the powerful creature closed quickly, and he nocked an arrow before taking aim and releasing.
The arrow tore through the air before slamming into the flank of the creature, slightly in front of the rear leg joint. The creature stumbled and fell to the ground letting out a howl of pain before a thud. Llewel listened closely, and could hear the creature moving and growling deeply. “Shit,” he mumbled under his breath, realizing that he had almost completely depleted his reserves in the hope of taking it down in a single shot. A second arrow was nocked just as the creature came from the underbrush that masked a majority of the forest floor.
The great beast lunged, its powerful muscles flexing as it left the ground, and Llewel saw his opening. Due to the wound created during the sneak attack, the creature was going to catch his left side. Llewel lept to the right, tucking into a roll as he hit the ground, and coming up to a knee. In a move practice many times over the years he brought his bow up and drew as he came out of the roll, feeling intense pain in his left shoulder. The arrow buried itself in the belly of the creature, eliciting a yelp as it rolled in the air trying to get away from the threat.
Ignoring the increasing pain radiating from his wound, Llewel pressed his advantage and drew a long dagger as he moved in for the kill. As he went to stroke, the beast lashed out. Llewel felt a monstrous paw catch him in the chest, sending him flying through the underbrush before slamming into a tree and falling to the ground, knocking the wind out of him. He struggled to regain his footing and stand, inhaling deeply trying to catch his breath. Uncontrollable coughing took him over as he looked around, seeing the air full of what looked like dust particles. Looking around, he saw what looked like white webbing spread across the forest floor with small mushrooms crushed where his body had landed.
The beast stalked toward it’s new prey, sensing the weakened state and hungry for revenge. Llewel saw the creature leap from the foliage, and panicking, slashed with the dagger that he was still miraculously grasping. The dagger was embedded deep into the side of the beast’s skull, killing it instantly while the momentum threw them both to the ground, the creature landing on top of him in a pile of crushed mushrooms and mycelium.
Llewel layed on the ground, resting for a moment before rolling the dead beast off of him. He was both surprised and ecstatic to be alive, and immediately started to harvest his kill. Judging by the relative location of the sun in the sky, he had about an hour before nightfall, and would have to hurry if he hoped to make it home before darkness descended on the forest. He would never be able to carry the entire body home, so resigned himself to the fact that he would have to collect as much meat as possible, and come back for the pelt and any other usable materials in the morning.
Careful to not damage the valuable pelt, Llewel slowly sliced into the underbelly of the creature and severing the fascia binding the skin to the muscle below. As he carved away steaks of meat, filling his game bag he considered the mushrooms that littered the forest floor, remnants of the battle that he emerged victorious from. He collected handfuls of the fruiting bodies and put them in his game bag with the meat before tying the bag off and hanging it over his shoulder.
As he made his way home from the site of the battle he inspected the wound on his left arm. The skin around the wound was blackened and smelled rancid, and a black ichor seeped from the wound, the skin it touched becoming red and irritated. Llewel had never experienced nor heard of a wound such as this being sustained in this forest, and knew he had to warn the rest of the village, especially the hunting parties, of the threat that he encountered. Now more than ever it was truly sinking into his mind how lucky he was to have survived this encounter, and swore in the future he would be far more cautious when encountering newly discovered creatures.
Darkness began overtaking the forest, and it became harder to see. As a shadow elf, Llewel had fairly good dark vision, but at a certain point the lack of light still made it impossible to see. He saw the break in the trees coming, making the end of the forest. His small village, little more than a permanent camp site, lay a few hundred yards from the forest, and he could not wait to reach his humble home and get his arm cleaned up while his wife prepared dinner with the fresh food in the bag currently bumping against his back with each step taken.
“Status.”
Basic Identifying Information
Name
Llewel Enydark
Race
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Elf - Shadow
Ranger - Tier 3+
Statistics
Health Points (HP) 47/200
Ability Points (AP)
25/400
Stamina Points (SP)
23/600
Status Effects
Poisoned
(-1 HP/minute)
Exhausted
(50% SP and AP regen speed)
Infected
(???)
Llewel’s status brought new concern forward, and verified the need to speak to the village elder as soon as possible. Not only had he never been this close to death before, nobody to his knowledge had ever been in this area. The forest he hunted in was considered safe, and though there is always the risk of some tragic accident causing death, there hadn’t been a death in the forest for years. This village was populated by elves that wanted to live a modest and comfortable life as a part of a tight-knit community. Hell, even adventurers didn’t bother coming here because there was little to no profit to be made.
As he entered the boundary of the village, he hollered, “Elidyr, I need to get home to treat a wound. Please send Elder Melandrach to my home, and spread the word to not go into the western woods until he gives the go ahead.” As Llewel entered his home, Elidyr did as he was requested.
----------------------------------------
The creature had status information pop into its mind. It didn’t understand what the information meant, but what could be expected, it was barely a minute old. This new sense of its surroundings showed that there was a large thing dripping red stuff onto white stuff on the ground. It didn’t know what this thing was, what the red stuff was, or even what it itself was, but this was where it had its first rudimentary thought...it wanted more.
Congratulations, you have achieved sentience!
New information, statistics and skills available
New skill learned from a special action: Blood Knowledge
New skill learned from a special action: Blood Harvest
It slowly considered each of these words, trying to find some meaning in them. Genetic knowledge told it that the white stuff that was covering the ground was its own mycelium, and it now understood that the red stuff dripping from the large thing was blood. It watched as the mycelia network slowly grew, overtaking the large thing laying in it. It knew that its network of mycelia was how it would grow and spread, and take in nutrients.
New attribute gained: Intelligence
It naturally knew that its network of mycelia fibers needed to spread for it to grow in power, so it mentally pushed, willing it to cover the large thing. It saw the white fibers start moving up the thing, slowly covering it until finally nothing of the body was visible. Then it mentally pulled, and a new flood of information poured in.
New skill learned from a special action: Body Harvest
New skill learned from a special action: Control Growth
New attribute gained: Strength
New attribute gained: Agility
New base creature gained: Nekorak
New evolution choice gained: Dark Vision
New skill gained: Stealth
New status information to review
The flood of information was overwhelming, and much of it was still beyond comprehension for the newly sentient being. Slowly it considered each word for meaning, realizing that the word “new” was in almost every box so far. It gleaned from this epiphany that the word “new” must mean when it got something that it didn’t have before.
New attribute gained: Wisdom
It also realized that these floods of information must mean good things are happening. It continued thinking about each word until it finally came upon “status.” This gave a new flood of unintelligible information that confused the creature even more, but now it knew that it too was new.
Basic Identifying Information
Name
*NONE*
Type
Fungus
Species
New/Unique
Statistics
Health Points (HP) 50/50
Ability Points (AP)
10/50
Stamina Points (SP)
10/10
Attributes
Strength
Intelligence
Wisdom
Skills
Blood Knowledge
Blood Harvest
Body Harvest
Control Growth
Creatures
Nekorak
Evolution
Dark Vision