With a throbbing feeling in front of his face and the back of his head, he struggled to open his eyes. He gingerly touched his face and winced from the pain, causing the pain in the back of his head to flare up. After the pain had subsided he got up slowly and even more carefully touched his face, steeling himself against the pain.

As he examined his face he noticed that his nose wasn’t long and pointy anymore, but bent in a weird angle down. He tried budging it back into its normal position but immediately abandoned that attempt as the pain caused his vision to narrow to a needlepoint. After catching his breath again and the throbbing pain receding to the background, he decided to take a look at his status

Crag

[Level 4] [goblin - minor]

Pools

[HP 41/41]

[MP 0/0]

[ST 20/20]

+[CH 10/10]]

Traits:

[darkvision]

Skills:

[spot] [pick] [minor carry] [minor identify] [track critter]

Quests

Rituals

[Ritual of reactivation]

[Ritual 3 out of 4 in progress: The bounty of death]

[11 hours remaining for completion]

[The bounty of death]

[4/100]

Effects

[Delirious] [Wounded - minor]

He was relieved that his health had recovered, as had his stamina, but he was dismayed that he had been knocked out so that only eleven hours were remaining to finish the gathering of health increasing.

With a curse he clambered up, mindful of the fragile ceiling, lest it would drop more stones on his head.

He invoked his [track critter] skill and was relieved it was still where he had last sensed it, giving him hope that that would be the nest of the rats, and hopefully there would be a lot of rats for him to kill so he could increase his health pool significantly.

Pushing his throbbing pain to the back of his mind he started forward in the direction he had been going before, supporting himself on the wall as the floor would keep moving in his vision, and every step would send a jolt of pain through his head, narrowing his vision.

After a few steps forward he swore and then cursed again as his tongue reminded him he had bitten on it, and still wasn’t agreeing to its normal duties without pain. His health had returned, but until his body had healed up properly he would suffer these negative status effects.

Bringing his focus back to why he had cursed he turned around and tracked his short path back to where he had fallen unconscious, and bent down to pick up his rod. It rested heavily in his hands. He remembered how heavy it had been at the end, and he didn’t wish to burn through his stamina so quickly again, so he pondered how to make it easier for him.

He experimented with several options for transporting his weapon. Carrying it over his shoulder hurt his shoulder as it dug into his flesh with every step, also ruining his balance which wasn’t all too good with this headache. Dragging it behind him was out also as that was a drain on his stamina, keeping a grip on it, dragging it behind him. He tried rolling it with his foot, but it kept rolling sideways banging up against the wall.

Eventually, he settled upon using it as a walking cane. The rod came to his stomach when used as such, and his long arms would have leverage enough to make it swing forward enough without expending too much energy on dragging it forward and to keep a grip on it.

Through methodical experimentation and deliberation, you gained insight into basic mobility.

[Intelligence +1]

[MP +3]

He felt a burning sensation making way through his body as a framework was built through his body, and he could feel a molten stream coursing through it, elemental power breaking through his fingertips and dissipating in the air around him without a trace of it visible to his eyes. The overwhelming power subsided to a drop of a trickle of what it had been. His headache increased in intensity, feeling like an iron band that pulsed tighter and looser regularly, now felt like it had grown spikes.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

If his head wouldn’t hurt so bad at the moment he would have let out a whoop of joy at the sudden notification. He now had mana to spend. He could learn magic or augment his skills by using the mana points. It was rare for goblins to gain a point in intelligence he knew. His fame in the tribe would grow even larger than this!

Thinking caused his head to throb with pain more intensely, so he tried to relax his mind, and to push the thoughts of fame and the perks that would come with that to the back, bringing to focus his drive to make it to the rats' nest, slaughter them and gain a massive health pool.

Step, step - thunk, step, step -thunk, step, step - thunk...

The rhythmic sound of his walking through the tunnels lulled his thoughts in a trance as he followed the guidance of his skill towards the rats' nest, all thoughts and future aspirations fizzling out in the cadence of his progress.

----

Exhausted Merea started loosening the straps of her exercise armor, and pulled it over her head with exhausted arms. She could feel her arms trembling under the strain. The healers had patched up, but healing could only do so much to counteract the negative effects of being injured, it still enacted a toll on the body.

She folded open the plates, laying them on her cot, and then undid the straps for the shin and leg guards, laying them next to her breastplate. Unbuckling her boots she placed them before her bed. With numb fingers she untied her gambeson, folding it neatly before putting it in her chest. It would be a week before she would get a fresh one. The dried-up blood stains covered the shoulders and front of the gambeson.

With resignation, she grabbed her cleaning tools from her chest, then closed it up and sat on it, and started the tedious process of cleaning her boots and armor to a shining polish, before neatly packing them away in her chest.

After that was done she made her way to the privy to relieve herself. After resting herself on the cold wood and letting out a sigh of relief as she could release the tension on her bladder, she could spare a thought about the events of the past day.

She had gained a level, pushing her up to level four. When she would reach level five she would graduate from this training academy and become a proper soldier in the army. But at moment at this, weary and exhausted in every fiber of her being, she wondered if this was worth the price.

She called forth her new skill description and studied it with tired eyes.

[slip-shod]

Dodging unseen lethal dangers is second nature to you. Evading the danger will most likely endanger you in another but less lethal way, depending on the circumstances. But every moment left to fight is a moment gained.

She wasn’t sure if she should be pleased with the skill or annoyed with it. Surviving unseen dangers would be a boon, but landing in other dangers would be less desirable. Why couldn’t she have gotten a skill like [swift feet] or [lethal stab] or something more useful in a battle?

Now she would risk losing a leg instead of her head if she read the description correctly. She would have to test the skill with the battle training tomorrow to see how its effects would pan out, but right now she felt exhausted and mildly pessimistic about her chances with this skill.

With a groan, she got up from the privy and pulled up her undergarments, and exited the privy. She passed a few other bleary-eyed trainees and grunted in greeting, getting acknowledging groans back, before shuffling down to her cot. She collapsed on the thing and barely managed to pull up her blankets, before falling into a deep black pit of sleep.

----

Through residing in a meditative trance for three hours you have gained proficiency in focussing your mind.

[Wisdom +1]

Crag was startled from his trance and stumbled over his own feet as the notification interrupted him from his progress. With dismay, he stared at the notification that informed him another three hours had passed whilst he was walking towards the rats' nest.

With a resigned sigh, he dismissed the notification and checked his [track critter]. To his surprise, he was only one corner away from the nest. If the notification hadn’t happened in time, he would have walked into it blindly!

He noticed that his headache had subsided and the pain in his face had gone away. With a careful touch to his nose, he found that it was still bent downward halfway through, but it didn’t hurt anymore. A glance at his status confirmed that his status effects had gone away on their own, leaving him strong and unhampered for what lay before him.

He checked his stamina and found that he had twelve points remaining in his pool. He was wary to charge in with only half of his stamina. If the rats' nest was big enough he would possibly run out of stamina, whilst rats were still scurrying out, and if he would fall unconscious those rats remaining would not hesitate to kill him off and eat him for breakfast. He did not like that image one bit. Better be careful and prepared than to rush in blindly, he always told himself.

He walked up silently to the corner where he could sense the rat he had tracked all this way to this forsaken and dilapidated piece of the sewer. The water was stagnant and not flowing fast, trash and junk just bumping into each other quietly with a grisly wet sound. Peeking past the corner, holding his breath he took in the scene in the tunnel. The tunnel was blocked about thirty steps in by a big mass of driftwood, human junk, excrement, and huge globs of rancid fat.

Over the big mass that slowly descended towards him, there was a big seething mass of small furry bodies, sleeping, eating, mating, and fighting. Towards the top there was a rat that was bigger than the others, the rat he had tracked this whole time, nibbling from some choice piece of food, whilst others cowered around it. A grin was forming on his face with this large bounty he had discovered here. Not only would the rats be enough to sustain his tribe for days, but the loot possible from this blockade was perfect to enrich his tribe. He would be even more famous!

Crag took in the scene and then tried to find all possible escape routes for the rats to escape him, and not giving him he maximized health boost. He used his [spot] skill to find all possible cracks and pipes the rats could use to escape and was pleasantly surprised that there was only one little pipe exposed over the grimy mass that blocked the sewer that the rats, escape of course the huge tunnel he was currently standing in. If the rats rushed him they could escape as well.

He took in the scene and then pulled back, further into his tunnel as to not give away his presence to the mass of rats to recover his stamina.

He glanced at his status and saw that he had eight hours remaining to complete his goal. Plenty of time to recover stamina and think of a plan for how to defeat the rat army that nested around the corner.