Fear shot through James as he watched the crabs scurry towards Bubbles. Normally James would have faith in him, but when he was being attacked by creatures bigger than he was, well at that point James would start to worry. James wasn’t exactly sure what he could do to help, but he was sure he had to try something.
Doing a quick scan of the area around him James found a few interesting details, firstly he was on some sort of beach, that did explain the crabs. Secondly everything felt, for lack of a better term, dim. Things felt murky and just generally gloom; it wasn't that things were darker, it just felt like something about them was less.
The most important thing that Jim had noticed though was a scabbard with some form of sword sheathed in it. James quickly scooped it up and drew the sword, if James was being honest the sword looked kinda bad, like it was little better looking than a toy wooden sword you might make as a child, and beyond that it was really banged up. But it was still a sword and it still had some sort of edge, bad as it was an edge and could probably, maybe, potentially cut something.
As James held the handle he felt knowledge flow into him, he started to understand how to hold a sword and how to set his feet to give him good swings and prevent him from tripping. He also knew how to swing the sword to inflict as much damage as possible. So feeling confident of his abilities James charged in attacking the crab with the darker shaded shell; he took a mighty swing aimed majestically to slice right into the soft part of the leg along the joint; and almost immediately tripped on the sand.
Apparently knowing how to wield a sword academically and actually being able to use it were two very different things, who’d have guessed? luckily he managed to hit the crab as he fell down but with the messed up swing, the dull blade, and the fact that he only managed to hit its carapace the damage he caused would best be described as not even a scratch, but it did get the crabs attention, so yay?
Now instead of continuing to crawl slowly at James it was standing menacingly over his prone body. It was around this moment that James realized that these crabs were slow enough that he probably could have just picked up Bubbles' tank and ran away. Well, no time to think about that now.
The crab stared at James with its large black eyes, to James it looked like they were filled with a swirling darkness. Now the thing about being really close to a large crab is that you really get to see how sharp its pincers are. And if you're lucky the crab might demonstrate it for you, James just so happened to be one of these lucky individuals, fun fact getting clamped down on by giant sharp pincers hurt, like a lot.
James stared at his now profusely bleeding arm, the only silver lining was that at least it wasn’t his neck. James stared into the large, giant, humongous eyes of the crab. It was unfortunate that the entire crab was covered completely in a carapace, otherwise even with his bad sword he could still probably cause some damage. Of course even without the shell James would still want a particularly weak area to stab.
“Something like an eye,” he thought, “if only crabs had those.”
…
WAIT A MINUTE! As the pincer came down again to rip James apart James lifted his sword stabbing it straight in one of its eyes. Luckily for him these crabs didn’t have those long eye stalks, sure it would probably hurt the crab a lot but that would probably only enrage it and cause it to be a lot more vicious. No this crab had ones that barely protruded from its head, similar to a king crab.
With a shriek of pain and a shudder the crab fell to its side. That was interesting James didn’t know crabs could even shriek. Pushing his hands into the sand James groggily noted how wet it was, and then with all his might he began to stand majestically raising his sword aloft into the sky as a ray of sunlight beamed down and illuminated him in all his majesty, or at least that was the plan. Instead James felt a sharp sting of pain and looked down to see that as the crab fell it had pierced his gut with its pincer, James wasn’t stupid, not really at least, he knew that despite what TV shows tend to display gut wounds were really serious and could easily become fatal; on this random beach stabbed by a crab that had been who knows where and with a wound as big as he had he would be lucky to survive even with immediate treatment and there was almost no way he was going to get immediate treatment. Well if he was going to die he was at least going to give Bubbles a fighting chance.
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James was in agony, but say what you will about his soul almost shattering it had at least made him able to handle a lot more pain then he used to be able too. James saw the other crab as it almost reached Bubbles, that kinda shocked him he felt like the fight had taken forever but it had actually only taken a few seconds, he really could have just grabbed Bubbles and run.
“Well nothing to do about that now” James muttered as he threw his sword toward Bubbles.
._.__._.
Bubbles watched James as he fought the crab to save him. Bubbles hadn’t always been this aware but recently something had changed that he had faced a harrowing experience as something about him almost broke, yet throughout it all he also felt James wrapping around him and protecting him, acting like a shield, and Bubbles didn’t even think James was aware that he had done it, it was just something within him that made him help people. At that point Bubbles couldn’t have sat there and done nothing so reached out a small tendril of his own practically nothing yet James still acted like it was the whole world.
Through his connection Bubbles could also feel as James got weaker and weaker before tossing him a sword, after which his eyes fell close and the connection between them became extremely weak, like a tiny stand, a dying river. If the connection were to completely die Bubbles was sure he would go with it, he didn’t know how he knew, but he did.
As the sword flew toward Bubbles he instinctively knew how to hold it. He jumped out of his tank and gripped onto the hilt by wrapping his little fins around it. He had watched James during the entire fight so he knew that the crabs were able to die if you stabbed them into the eye, curiously though the sword looked different up close, when James held it Bubbles could have sworn that it was complete trash, and that was still mostly true but now that he held it he felt it definitely looked different then it did originally. The blade was less dinged up and the edge had less chips.
That was all a minor curiosity though, Bubbles held the sword aloft or at least what could pass for aloft for a fish, he expected the sun to peek through the clouds and illuminate his shiny scales but he had no such luck, strange though just a few days ago he didn’t even know what the sun was and now he could expect it to make him look like something called a “Story book hero“, whatever that was.
With a mighty leap Bubbles stabbed the sword straight into the eye, just like James, this crab seemed slower then his dead but who could say for sure.
*Ding* “You have killed 2 creatures above your level and have leveled up 1 times”
[https://imgur.com/a/57lKBV7][https://imgur.com/a/57lKBV7]
Congratulations you have leveled up!
Racial Bonuses: +5 to all stats, +5 Unallocated stat points
Class Bonuses: N/A
Before he could try and process that another screen demanded his attention.
Physical Stats: Name: James Johnson Mental Stats: Strength: 9 Dexterity: 10 Race: Human LV: 1 Insight: 8 Spirit: 10 Constitution: 12 Restoration: 11 Class: N/A Essence: 10 Rejuvenation: 10 Unallocated Stat points: 5 Legacy: N/A Transcendents Blessing: N/A
James looked at the little placard before him, it faintly reminded him of a character sheet one would see in a video game. And if this screen worked like a video game he could shove those “Unallocated Stat Points” into whatever he wanted, looking down at his giant gut wound James knew he only really had a few options, he was hoping he knew what the names meant because there was no way he had time to try and find out right now.
*Ding* “Stat points Allocated, +2 to Constitution, +3 to Restoration”
Physical Stats: Name: James Johnson Mental Stats: Strength: 9 Dexterity: 10 Race: Human LV: 1 Insight: 8 Spirit: 10 Constitution: 14 Restoration: 14 Class: N/A Essence: 10 Rejuvenation: 10 Unallocated Stat points: 5 Legacy: N/A Transcendents Blessing: N/A
And with that last exert of his will James passed into unconsciousness, darkness swallowing up his mind.