> [You have been healed 5 points]
>
> [You have been cured of poison]
>
> [You are at full health]
“Poison?” I mutter, coming back to consciousness. It feels different from last time. Last time I was at zero hit points unconscious. This time, I think I just passed out from sheer shock of the whole situation.
“What?”
I blink up at Jonas who is crouched over me, one hand still at my cheek. “I was poisoned?”
“Oh. I don’t know. Maybe,” he says, pulling his hand away, and glancing backward, motioning for someone else to approach. “Those things can carry some nasty stuff in their saliva. One of the reasons we have to eradicate them if a nest pops up like this.”
“Makes sense,” I mutter, covering my face with my hands. They’re covered in goblin guck and my own blood. They smell absolutely terrible. “Why didn’t the blood go away this time?”
“I don’t have that spell. Must’ve been Flynt. I think he’s out of juice right now, though. Might need to take the old-fashioned approach.”
“Old fashioned approach?”
Jonas looks down at me like I’m an idiot. “There’s a stream right there, Keira. Rinse.”
“Right.”
I groan and push myself to a seated position as Meg hobbles over. She has a big munch mark in her right thigh, which is oozing blood a little, but she doesn’t look too bothered by it or by the goblin goo all over her and her sword, which she is wiping down with a cloth as she pauses by us.
“You okay?” she asks me as Jonas examines her wound with a frown knit across his features. “You did well. You actually took out as many as I did.” She sounds impressed, which makes my cheeks warm.
I shrug. “I just did what you said. Stopped thinking.”
“Heat of battle can do that for you.”
“And I didn’t do anything alone. How long have you been doing this, anyway?” I ask.
I try— and fail— to ignore the blood that oozes from her wound at Jonas’s probing. His hands start to faintly glow, and she puts a hand on his shoulder to balance as he covers the gashes, but that’s as close as Meg gets to fragility.
“Sometimes it seems like a very long time,” she says, “but probably not a lot longer than you all. I still get benefit from excursions like this.”
I nod, looking past her, down the slight slope and to where the goblin bodies all lay. From the look of things, Flynt and Tyrus have been at work, dragging them all into a pile and removing the requisite left ears. Maybe it’s not especially magnanimous of me to say, but I’m happy to leave them to it. My brain keeps flashing back to my hand jamming the arrow into that one’s throat, and it makes my stomach turn. I don’t think I’m quite ready for up-close-and-personal like that. Not yet. And it still feels pretty barbaric to me.
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“Honestly,” Meg says. “You did a good job. You really carried your weight.”
“Thanks.”
“All done,” Jonas interrupts, sitting back on his heels and wiping his hands on the grass. “Not quite good as new, but I can do another pass once I rest up a little bit. Have to recover some Essence.”
Meg just shrugs it off like a badass. “Not to worry. I’m fine. Nothing broken. Don’t feel poisoned. All good.”
I smile slightly at her before I stand and wander down the slope to the river. I crouch and wash my hands, taking the moment to call up my [Menu].
> [Personal Status]
>
> [Squad Status]
>
> [Inventory]
>
> [Equipment]
>
> [Journal]
>
> [Achievements (3)]
>
> [Map]
>
> [Quest Tracker]
[Quest Tracker]. That wasn’t there before. It comes up with just that thought, a banner ghosted in the middle of my vision with a single piece of information:
> [Quest: Goblin Infestation. Eradicate goblin nest off the Foothills Road. 20/20 goblins killed. Return to Oosal Municipal Building to complete quest.]
Okay then. I look over toward where they’re piling the bodies and yes, I believe it.
Twenty goblins at level one. That feels like edging up on an [Insanity] setting. I shake my head and splash water on my arms, dismissing [Quest Tracker] and pulling up [Achievements], curious about the one that interrupted the fight.
> [My, What Sharp Teeth. You’ve been bitten by something you didn’t believe existed.]
Well. That’s the truth.
Circling back to [Menu], I pull up [Squad Status] and, sure enough, this time a list with each of my party members appears on the left-hand side of my vision. They’re in the order of how we met: name, adventurer type, background, and level.
> [Keira Ogdyn | Ranged | Urban Ranger | 1]
>
> [Flynt Stoutbrooke | Caster | Combat Sorcerer | 2]
>
> [Megha Suri | Melee | Fighter | 3]
>
> [Jonas Tanner | Healer | Necromancer | 2]
>
> [Tyrus Berggren | Melee | Rogue | 1]
Wait. [Necromancer]?
I glance back over my shoulder at smiley Jonas, who is chatting happily with Meg as they walk down the slope toward where the others are sorting through the ears. If I were to have to pick out a necromancer, he would probably be last on my suspect list. And aren’t healing and necromancy polar opposites?
This causes me to remember his withering hands spell at work against that goblin— the way the color just bled from the creature. It sends a chill up my spine as I think about it, and I really don’t want to think about it.
I select my own name from the group, and my [Personal Status] screen pops up. Everything looks more or less the same as before except I notice that instead of 30 / 300 I now have 285 / 300.
“Oh. So close.”
Doing the math, that would be fifteen points per new achievement (the same as the others) and, what, about twelve points per goblin? Assuming we got points as a party, which does make infinitely more sense than the thirty-something points per goblin that I would have gotten for the ones that I personally slayed. Slew? Whatever.
I wonder what happens when I level up. Will I actually hear a ding? Will there be a flash of light? Will it just be another quiet ping in the bottom of my vision like with the achievements? Guess I’ll find out soon enough.
“Keira!” Flynt’s voice calls. “Come over here, we found something!”
I close out [Menu] and stand. “Is it more of those things?”
“Far better.”
I wipe my wet but now generally goblin-goo-free hands on my trousers and push myself to my feet, following the stream toward where my cohorts are peering between large boulders. I worry for a moment that I’m going to slip in the mud, but my footing is surprisingly strong and steady. It’s not that I’m used to being clumsy, I’m just used to having to occasionally give in to physics, which seems to be less of a consideration in this world. At least for me. Is it that [Nimble] score? Or the boots? Both? Or just further It’s All A Dream proof?
Flynt wipes his hands on a cloth as I approach, his shirt sleeves covered in goblin goo, but he gives me a broad smile and nods toward the crevice they’re all fascinated by. I frown at the piles of… stuff crammed into the space.
“Help me out,” I say. “What am I looking at here?”
Tyrus grins at me. “Loot!”