Ranma and Shampoo carefully walked down the hallways. For the first couple of minutes they didn’t see anything, just the same repeating hallway design with differing types of torches attached to the brick walls along with the occasional patch of glowing green lichen to break up the monotony. Then, as Ranma was getting ready to complain, the two came across a tunnel that led into one of the walls of the hallway.
“Well,” Ranma stated as the two of them stood in front of the unnaturally dark looking tunnel and stared into it trying to get a sense of what lay inside, “should we go in?”
“We might not have much of a choice,” Shampoo replied. “We haven’t seen anything else except for that door to that restroom.”
“I guess,” Ranma said, rubbing the back of his head. Then he shrugged and the two martial artists walked into the smaller tunnel entrance.
As they walked for about a minute the two began to notice that something was off. Ranma and Shampoo’s eyes teared up and they coughed as a terrible stench came over them, forcing the two to gag and futilely cover their noses with their shirts just to try and tone the smell down. The best comparison they could compare it to was that it was as if all of the stenches of a dirty sewer and a landfill were suddenly combined and shoved directly into their nostrils. The smell was so strong both could just about taste it as well which only made them gag even more.
“What the hell!” Ranma swore.
“Ugh, I’m glad I am not a cat right now!” Shampoo agreed.
The source of the smell soon came into view. A pair of birds walked forward, a chicken and a duck. Though contrary to a normal animal the two birds were dirty and sickly, patches of their feathers coming off in clumps on different areas of their bodies. Some sort of dirty slime covered their feet, making oddly loud squelching sounds that didn’t quite fit with their weight. As they examined the birds a description appeared and the voice of the AI read it aloud to the pair.
Fouled Fowl. Level 1.
A diseased and parasite-ridden bird. This one happens to be a chicken. While the taste might seem a little off at first, feel free to go ahead and cook it then serve it up for lunch! I’m sure nothing bad could possibly happen.
Fouled Fowl. Level 2.
A duck variant, see previous description. Seriously, don’t waste your time inspecting every enemy you see. Where’s the fun in that? What’s life without a little surprise every now and then?
“Ugh-,” Ranma managed to get out another groan due to the smell before the bird screeched and attacked.
The diseased chicken struck first. It began flapping its wings wildly, sending feathers flying everywhere as it did its best to peck at Ranma’s legs. He scrambled back, just barely avoiding its attacks as he was briefly surprised that his body wasn’t responding like it usually did. He remembered the “achievement” he got when he and Shampoo entered this place and internally groaned in despair at how his life’s work so far had been so easily taken away from him.
Ranma hadn’t felt this weak in a long time. It was like his body’s conditioning was sent back to when he was still a novice in martial arts. His speed was significantly lowered and he was certain that his strength was as well. Luckily, it seemed that his fighting experience wasn’t diminished so Ranma was able to eventually collect himself and strike back.
Not wanting to touch the gross chicken with his hands, Ranma snapped a kick into its side. The bird went flying into the wall with an indignant squawk and a loud crunch. Ranma saw what looked like a health bar of some kind appear over its head before it almost immediately went from full and green and dipping down to almost empty and red.
Quickly turning from the beaten bird, Ranma glanced over to see if Shampoo needed any help.
“Hiyah!” Shampoo snapped her own kick at the higher leveled bird as it attempted to fly into her face. It didn’t fare any better as her foot struck its belly and launched it into the ceiling, the bird bounced off it and collapsed back to the floor in a heap. Duck feathers rained down like snow as nearly every feather on its back was ripped off when the duck struck the ceiling.
“Hmph! I’ve hit stupid ducks more than enough times to deal with this!” Shampoo stated as she flicked some of her hair back behind her and glared down at the now prone bird.
Ranma was about to comment before he caught movement in the corner of his eye.
“Woah!” Ranma shouted, leaning back and letting the nearly dead chicken’s claws catch a small section of his sleeve as it passed him by. He thought that the thing was beaten but it apparently still wanted to fight him. “Why you! I liked this shirt!”
He kicked the bird once more, sending it once again back into the tunnel wall where it became splattered against it with a wet thud and its health bar promptly bottomed out. The body slowly and dramatically slid down the wall, leaving a trail of sickly brown and red blood. Once the health bar was gone and the body finally slid off the wall to lay on the floor the chicken’s body suddenly bulged grotesquely in several areas as if it was being stuffed with tennis balls. It was only for a single second before it suddenly exploded into a shower of gore that came in such quantities that it blatantly defied the logical amount that could possibly come from such a small creature. Ranma swore loudly the second it did so as he was knocked back from the unexpected force of it. He looked down at his body in horror as part of the smelly, bloody, slightly pussy mess ruined his shirt even further and drenched his legs in that same sickly chicken blood with random bits of flesh and bone here and there.
Oh, and these guys explode when they die. Forgot to mention that.
He barely acknowledged the notification and the new achievements he got as he was too busy screaming in combined rage and disbelief at the mess he was now covered in.
Not too far away Shampoo killed the second bird but she managed to kick it even further away when she realized what happened when they died. Just in case she dived backward as the duck exploded like a grenade, leaving a large circle of blood and gore on the ground in place of a scorch mark. Even the ceiling wasn’t spared from the mess, making the whole area look like a massacre had just happened despite the fact that only two enemies had died.
“What the hell was that?! This place is crazy!” Ranma exclaimed, a little unnerved at the gory scene in front of them. It wasn’t necessarily the deaths of the animals that bothered him but the way it so suddenly happened.
“This place is very strange,” Shampoo agreed. “We should go carefully from now on.”
“Yeah, no kiddin’.”
The two now moved a little more cautiously down the tunnels. The tunnels in this area were smaller than the larger tunnel they had come from and had intersections that seemed to lead off to other areas. Ranma and Shampoo agreed that they’d check out the other places later.
For now they followed their nose, the smell of the sickly birds made it easy to know which direction they had to go in the tunnels to get to wherever they came from. On the way they each killed a few more of the birds, getting notifications about leveling up though no matter what they couldn’t find what exactly leveling up meant.
Soon they came to a slight bend in the tunnels that fed into a chamber. The smell coming from whatever lay inside was significantly stronger, almost overpowering to their senses even after they had mostly acclimated to it by now.
The chamber they peered into was utterly filthy. The walls were covered in slime, extinguishing the torches that were placed on the walls in equal distances from each other. What gave the place light were the glowing moss that grew in the places that the slime didn’t cover and bright glowing blue mushrooms that were sprouting from places around the chamber. The floor was dirty and crusty with things that neither Ranma nor Shampoo wanted to think about. Piles of bones were scattered around the place and looked to be made of random bones taken from various bird species. A couple of scattered bones laid around the piles, they looked brittle and easily broken.
The two martial artists quickly hid behind one of the piles nearest the entrance. They peeked around the pile, careful not to touch it for several reasons, and peered out at the gathering before them. Birds of all shapes and types congregated in the center of the room, shrieking, cawing, and honking. Ranma counted at least twenty-three of them and the smallest of the bird types looked to be the chicken at level 1, which was consistent with what they had seen so far. Every single one of the birds were facing a door of rotten-looking wood, directing their noise towards it in what, to Ranma and Shampoo, was beginning to sound like reverence.
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“I don’t think we should stay here. I really don’t like the look of this,” Ranma whispered to Shampoo.
Shampoo nodded in agreement, “We should leave, maybe finally find whatever a Tutorial Guild is. We really need to get some answers.”
The two, now in agreement, both slowly stepped back towards the tunnel entrance they arrived in. Never keeping the mass of birds out of their sight they inched back with great care.
Crack!
Shampoo looked at her fiancé in horror while Ranma cringed as the cracking sound seemed to fill the entire room, echoing past screeching of the birds and drowning it all out with the noise of the snap. Of all the things to happen he had stepped on one of those brittle scattered bones like some cliche movie protagonist in a horror movie. Almost instantly, every single one of the birds in the center of the room stopped their screeching at the same time, snapping their necks around to stare at the two humans. It was an eerie sight to them, even after everything they had gone through in their lives.
“Run for it!” Ranma yelled. They wasted no time and turned in their heels to sprint as fast as they could out of the room. Ranma cursed the fact they were now much slower than outside of this place. Right behind them the screeching of birds drowned out all sound and they could hear the flapping of wings and a constant squelch of the birds running on the ground.
Ranma and Shampoo sprinted down the tunnels, trying to trace their previous path. At some point Ranma was certain that they had gotten a few turns out of order as they hadn’t yet reached the larger hallway.
“Ah, damn it all! Of all the times to get lost like Ryoga it had to be now!” Ranma internally complained.
“Ranma, watch out!” Shampoo yelled, it was needed as the sounds of ruffling feathers only grew louder.
Ranma swore as he chided himself for getting distracted and bemoaning his luck at a time like this and ducked just in time to avoid the vicious peck of a duck. Cleanliness now long forgotten, he struck a fist out and buried it into the bird’s chest. The duck gave a wet quack and flew into another in the small horde that was chasing them. Slime now coated his fist as this particular duck was especially dirty.
Shampoo fended off her own attack, grimacing as she had to backhand it into the wall.
“We can’t run from them for much longer! We gotta start pickin’ them off!” Ranma shouted, ducking under the attack of a snarling goose. He grabbed it by its flapping wings and used it as a bludgeon to smack another attacking bird out of the air. When the other monstrous bird was knocked away he tightened his grip and snapped the bones of the wings. The goose cried out in pain and anger, mostly anger, so Ranma jumped and turned around to kick it back into the horde.
“Got it!” Shampoo called back, using her fists and feet to smack every enemy away from them.
They fought together in a fighting retreat, covering each other as they desperately managed to keep themselves just ahead of the horde of diseased birds so that they could chip away at them. The health bars over the birds were helpful and Ranma and Shampoo’s bare hands and feet did a decent amount of damage to them. Plus, every time one of them died they exploded like gore grenades and the force of those explosions were able to disrupt the horde just enough to give the pair some breathing room. Still, the sheer amount of enemies they had to face while being massively weakened took a huge toll on them.
Ranma could feel himself getting tired as the fight dragged on. Off to his side he eyed Shampoo as her chest heaved just a bit more than his own. She had something above her head, a picture of a person slumped over with their hands propping themselves up by their knees. It was just floating there with a timer under it that read 55 minutes. Ranma didn’t play many video games outside of the rare occasion he went to the arcade during his training trip with his pops when they had some downtime but he could guess that Shampoo was under some kind of effect. Or maybe the thing over her head is just a reflection of her current condition.
“Still, suppose it don’t matter right now. If this goes on for much longer Shampoo and I could get into some serious trouble,” Ranma thought as he punched and then killed another duck that tried to bite his nose.
Almost the instant he had the thought, Shampoo missed a strike on what looked like a Dodo bird, one of the stronger birds in the horde and also one of the last remaining. Her fist merely grazed the underside of its wing instead of hitting it full on the side of its breast, sending it spinning slightly yet undaunted in its determined effort to kill her as it quickly righted itself. The things were more agile than the rest of the birds. Its clawed feet struck at her throat and Ranma shot forward that same instant. Luckily, he was faster than it was and was able to slap the clawed feet away from Shampoo in time. Unluckily, he was still getting used to his weakened body and wasn’t able to avoid the slimy and dirty clawed feet from giving his hand a nasty gash.
“Gah!” Ranma yelled as the claws tore his hand open. Blood poured from the open wound and a series of notifications appeared in front of him.
You have been struck with the debuff “Bleed” for 10 minutes!
You have been given the disease “Super Bird Flu” for 1 hour!
You are Woozy!
“Ranma!” Shampoo looked at his ruined hand in horror. Ranma stumbled back, suddenly unable to keep himself standing and having the urge to vomit profusely. He wasn’t able to keep it in and fell to his knees, puking out his lunch all over the gore-covered floor. Shampoo gave a vicious war cry and launched herself at the rest of the birds, doing her utmost to keep their attention on her and not on Ranma.
Ranma tried to push himself back to his feet, not wanting Shampoo to fight them all on her own. He had his pride but his body refused to obey it. Suddenly, hands gripped him and Shampoo was by his side, lifting and gently setting him down on the ground away from his vomit. She tore at the bottom of her shirt and quickly wrapped his still bleeding hand with the cloth in a tight makeshift bandage. Over his head the picture of three drops of blood in various sizes blinked a few times then disappeared, finally letting Shampoo give a sigh of relief. Once the immediate threat to his life was barely taken care of for now Shampoo lifted Ranma up and supported him with one of his arms over her shoulder.
“I have you, my beloved,” Shampoo whispered down to him.
Ranma only groaned, the disease continued to keep him nauseated and unable to properly talk without puking again. He allowed Shampoo to support him, not like he could support himself anyway, and they walked away from the messy battlefield. The horrible feeling of being in this state did not go away as he felt like Ryoga was repeatedly punching him in the kidneys every time he moved.
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Ten minutes later Ranma and Shampoo finally came across one of those Tutorial Guilds that the initial message mentioned. The entrance of the Guild itself was a regular wooden door attached to one side of the tunnel walls. Right above the door was a barely visible sign that seemed to almost blend into the wall above it.
Shampoo got an achievement for reading it and grumbled to herself that its barely visible wording hiding itself from being seen was certainly by design. Still, she supported Ranma towards it and she was simply thankful that they didn’t come across any more crazy diseased birds or any other kind of monster. Ranma hadn’t gotten better yet but he also wasn’t getting any worse. Whatever this “Super Bird Flu” was didn’t seem to be immediately lethal.
Shampo reached the door and grasped the handle, practically throwing the door open in her haste to get rid of what ailed her future husband and stumbled them both inside. The second she and Ranma entered a notification appeared in front of them.
Tutorial Guild Hall
This is a Safe Zone.
Warning: Level timers are still active.
The inside looked like someone’s living space. Off in a corner was a bed while the rest of the space was taken up with bookshelves and various nick nacks haphazardly scattered around the room. A TV stood on top of a dresser, facing a small kitchen area and a table with a few chairs surrounding it. Off to the side of the table facing the wall was a desk with a whiteboard hanging over it. The whole place was messy and chaotic but Shampo cared little while Ranma was still suffering.
In the kitchen a humanoid dragon-like lizard creature stood in front of what looked like three wooden cabinets in his kitchen area. Shampoo paused and stared at the creature, not expecting to ever see an actual dragon before even if it was small and humanoid. The surreal experience only grew as he, Shampoo assumed it was a he, opened the middle cabinet door and pulled out a bowl of steaming hot ramen.
“Give me a sec,” the dragon man said to them, “haven’t had lunch yet.”
Shampoo shook her head clear as the lizard man walked over to the table and set the bowl down, “No time! Ranma is sick! He needs help!”
The dragon glanced down at Ranma and blinked, “Oh, damn. Super Bird Flu, huh? Nasty debuff that, but it’s not lethal and he’ll just feel like shit for a while so don’t worry.” He took a pair of chopsticks from a cylinder container in the middle of the table and snapped them apart.
Shampoo looked at the man incredulously, the fact that he was a dragon man quickly lost its strangeness, “I don’t want him to feel like shit! Help him now!”
Ranma groaned in pain and slapped a hand over his mouth as he stifled the urge to puke once again. The lizard looked at Shampoo, then to Ranma, then back at his food. He sighed as he knew he probably wouldn’t be able to eat yet with Shampoo and Ranma there and if the boy puked he’d likely lose his appetite. He stood up and walked over to the pair, “Alright, I’ll activate your HUD and spells. He isn’t passed out so I know he can hear me so pay attention if you want to feel better. Here’s what you need to do and it’s really simple. You need to bring up your spell list and use the ‘Heal’ spell. This spell only works for you and you alone, nobody else. Luckily for you, this particular disease isn’t that bad and can be cured with just about any kind of healing without needing a specific potion, skill, or spell.”
He proceeded to walk the two through how to use their new crawler system and how to use their skills and spells and how to add things to their hot bar, a small ten slot bar on the bottom of their vision in their HUD where they can add things like items and spells to it to use whenever they need them. Once that was done Ranma used the spell and was feeling significantly better as if he never had the disease in the first place, prompting the lizard man to nod and then go back to his food. Once he sat down he picked up his chopsticks and began eating.
“Oh, and my name is Maxwell,” he said, slightly muffled over a mouthful of noodles, not bothering to stop out of politeness. “You two might as well take a seat, I’ve got a lot of explaining to do before the first announcement comes on. Trust me, you’ll want to take a moment to get used to everything before you go back out there.”