It was a very dewy morning today. A slight fog bank was rolling through the forest that paired with the morning sun to create a rainbow of colors scattering through the trees. A gorgeous sight to behold from a higher elevation such as a tree or hill.
Thump.
Grumbling complaints disturbed the scene almost as much as the thrown brick did.
Chef had decided that being in the middle of the poison cloud was a bad idea. He’d also come to the conclusion that not every human would be dumb enough to walk into a trap instead of just killing him.
So he needed a better plan. One that allowed him to not die, ideally. Even better would be one that prevented maiming entirely. That would be great, actually.
His solution was to throw his poison goop jugs and detonate them in air. Brilliant idea, really, but sadly his aim was shit.
Thump.
Another brick sailed through the air only to miss the target by a wide margin. If only he could blame the fog, but sadly his target was only a couple dozen goblin feet away and still perfectly visible. And unmoving. Chef was really bad at this.
He’d been trying to learn a throwing skill by tossing his specially designed, highly ergonomic and aerodynamic super ceramic. Basically, he spent his evening yesterday making some clay that was nice and thick, had a hand print for perfect gripping, and was empty inside.
The initial idea was to bake the poison into the ceramic, but a small explosion in his kiln told him how dumb that was.
Idea the second was for him to see if he could even throw well in the first place and worry about the rest later. So instead of rectangular bricks he made balls. He liked throwing the brick balls. A lot.
Thump.
He’d just like it more if they could fucking hit!
An anger motivated brick ball flew through the air before smashing into one of the bloated corpses on the hillside. The thing which was once a wolf popped, spreading horrible smelling innards over the area as Chef cheered loudly.
He’d been getting really into his cooking lately, and that meant less time than usual for his carving. But since the animals just never slowed down, he figured it’d be a waste to stop killing them. He figured that any non-boar related kills could go to further baiting and town feeding efforts which led to a slight increase in kills if anything. So, he was still eating like a king.
He just so happened to also have a cultivated field of festering corpses. It made him proud to know his cooking was alluring enough to bait the creatures despite this landscape. The apparent mind-altering properties of his cooking went far beyond what it had been just a few weeks ago.
Thump.
And he was back to missing. The goal now was to get a throwing skill and then use that skill to figure out what would and wouldn’t be a good shape for tossing. Then he’d make a little ceramic container in said shape, fill it with his most heinous goop, and carry as much of that with him as he could.
Two jugs of poison were nice to have, but seeing his bad aim made him worry that it couldn’t really be relied upon. Unless he just threw it at his feet, but then he’d get poisoned too. Which would probably get him killed anyway based on how the last fight went.
Unless I have super high poison resistance…
No, that was an awful idea.
Thump.
But it wouldn’t hurt to have a backup. Chef went back to his cave, made some good tasting poison that he was pretty sure wouldn’t kill him despite its potency, and gulped it down. Gathering up his brick ball, he settled back in for a casual morning of throwing practice.
Thump.
“You’ve got shit aim, shit eater!”
His kiln laughed at him, flames licking its lips. Meanwhile the bloated wolf corpse began cackling too.
“Mehahaha! You can’t hit me, you dumb fuck! You’re a disgrace to goblins everywhere!”
Thump.
His next miss was met with even more ridicule, the other corpses laughing at him too as the sun held back a snicker. The wolf didn’t relent.
“You’re such a shit goblin, that even roblins pity you!”
The sound of rupturing flesh filled the clearing as the cackling voices went silent for a moment. A brick ball thrown with his full strength had smashed through the dead animal entirely. After a few moments the cackling resumed as Chef chose his next target.
Anger really was a great motivator.
----------------------------------------
He skipped out on cheese experiments and feeding the townspeople today, instead getting caught up in delusions while practicing his throwing arm. By nighttime he’d reaped his reward.
*Ping*
Congratulations! You have learned Throwing!
“I knew you could do it, buddy,” his knife chimed in from his belt. It grinned up at him from tip to hilt. “You and me, we’re a team. Together we can do anything!”
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A surge of confidence welled up within him as the skinned clothes joining in from inside the cave.
“Yea, what he said! Just keep up the good work, Chef! Get stronger, kill more, make us more friends!”
The animal skins gave him all the encouragement he needed. He made the next batch of poison even stronger, using honey to help mask the taste.
I can’t leave my crowd waiting.
He continued his brain addled training for another two days, pushing his poison and his tolerance to it to further heights while playing a one-sided game of catch under the influence.
*Ping*
Congratulations! Your Throwing has increased!
Congratulations! Your Throwing has increased!
Congratulations! Your Poisoncraft has increased!
Congratulations! Your Poison Resistance has increased!
His crafting skill leveled first since he’d been using it so much, but much like his cooking skills, the advancement came faster when pushing through a high-level resistance while making new and innovative things. In other words, he leveled it when he almost killed himself with a batch. Oops.
Fortunately, the same was true for resistances. His poison resistance leveled shortly before his horrible concoction had almost done him in. Really, it was quite efficient leveling for someone that had shockingly little fear of death.
Meanwhile, throwing had hit level three in as many days since he just never stopped his game of catch. Seemed like his aim improved when he was tripping, so that was neat. Skill levels were also influenced by adversity and success, so the addition of a mind-altering substance that should have inhibited him actually improved his skill growth so long as he hit the targets.
He used the same method to improve Butchering, Knives, and a couple of other high value skills.
By the end of the weak, he was eating smoked cheese he made paired with some caramelized garlic boar. It went very well with his poison pairing this evening, a substance that made the world spin just a little. Finally, he got the skill improvement he was looking for.
*Ping*
Congratulations! Your Butchering has increased!
Congratulations! Your Knife has increased!
Congratulations! Your Poisoncraft has increased!
Congratulations! Your Poison Resistance has increased!
Congratulations! Your Kitchen Magic has increased!
It was the cheese, he knew it. Combining it with different things, discovering different flavors, everything added up to him finally pushing his most important skill to a higher level. And to think, all it took was recklessly trying to poison himself to death repeatedly for a full week while also cooking.
His oven smiled at him, and Chef knew it was just as proud of him.
“Good job, son. I’m proud to be your father.”
“Thanks, oven. I appreciate you not burning me to death.”
Chef pulled his hand out of the oven, smiling almost as warmly as his father was.
“We always knew you had it in you,” the hides in his cave shouted.
Looking down, Chef saw a familiar grin looking up at him from his trusty blade.
“I bet we could do even more,” it spoke softly, guiding him back to the poison pot. It whispered to him different things to try with the poison, forbidden techniques that it had been prohibited from sharing before. The resulting frothy green liquid was the foulest thing he’d tasted in years.
That was all he remembered from that day.
He woke up some period of time later feeling worse than he ever had in his entire life. His head was pounding, his body felt sluggish, and he was painfully hot. Just opening his eyes was agony as flashes of red pain seared his eyes and fried his brain. That’s how it felt at least.
He tried to get up but it was like trying to move while encased in stone. It took a while before he realized that he was.
He fell asleep in the oven. He’d never noticed it before, but the oven mouth was actually goblin sized and could fit him almost perfectly. So much so that he had to wiggle his way out, which didn’t couple well with his throbbing head and nausea.
He threw up, spewing on the inside of his kiln and splattering on himself which caused a chain reaction. Eventually, his retching became so violent that he broke the kiln mouth entirely before continuing to hack out nothing but bile for the better part of an hour.
Days had passed since his last conscious thought, his actions in that blackout period a mystery even to him. All he had to go by were the messages awaiting him.
Congratulations! Your Conniving has increased!
Congratulations! You have killed something!
…
Congratulations! You have killed something!
Congratulations! You have digested an entire Boar[17]! You have gained some of its stats and abilities.
…
Congratulations! You have digested an entire Wolf[21]! You have gained some of its stats and abilities.
Congratulations! Your Knife has increased!
Congratulations! Your Brawling has increased!
Congratulations! You have killed something!
…
Congratulations! You have killed something!
Congratulations! Your Butchering has increased!
Congratulations! You have digested an entire Rabbit[4]! You have gained some of its stats and abilities.
…
Congratulations! You have digested an entire Deer[13]! You have gained some of its stats and abilities.
Congratulations! You have gained health, stamina, alacrity, gusto, sense, and ability!
Congratulations! Your Convincing has increased!
Congratulations! Your Goblin Spreading has increased!
Congratulations! Your Meditation has increased!
Congratulations! Your Poisoncraft has increased!
Congratulations! Your Poisoncraft has evolved into Poison Mastery!
Congratulations! Your Poison Resistance has combined with Poison Mastery!
Congratulations! Your Poison Mastery has increased!
Congratulations! Your Kitchen Heat Resistance has increased!
Trying to read all the text triggered another vomiting session. There must have been over a hundred kill notifications in there with about as many digestion ones, but he just couldn’t read anymore. He couldn’t. Just thinking about reading made him spew up what looked like a whole boar’s leg.
I’m never doing this shit again.
Turned out that actions had consequences even if you didn’t remember them.