A slow pulsing pain echoed through limp limbs, slowly but surely rousing the young man they connected back to. The tremendous pain was immediately recognisable but even so the man felt joy when he woke up, truly happy that he had somehow survived his perilous fall. Lewis could have briefly ignored the agony coursing through every cell in his body to celebrate but sadly the feeling of broken bones and internal bleeding got him past the point of doing a happy dance rather quickly.
He also couldn't dance because he couldn't move. At first Lewis chocked it up to being paralyzed but the pain in his limbs told him otherwise, it turned out that he was instead stuck upside down in some sort of tube made of flesh, lots of his own blood and something pale and goopy that he didn't want to look too closely at... Nope Lewis was just going to ignore the viscous white sludge... Plenty of other things to look at like the back of his eyelids! Okay fine, anything to distract him from the pain.
Cloud Whale Snot - Ingredient
'Great' he thought failing to hold back tears from physical and now mental pain.
New Skill - 'Indentify' Learned
Oh good, a "New Skill" that meant something else to focus on other than whale mucus, claustrophobia and of course the feeling of his damaged bones shifting. Needless to say Lewis focosed on the new box hoping for anything to help him out of his currently sticky situation.
Identify - Level 1
Scan objects and entities for further information.
Amount of information based on skill level.
A sigh escaped him before he could hold back and new pain shocked his body like a fish tank full of toasters. When he was able to Lewis thought about it briefly and decided to make the most of it, not his ravaged body that is, but his new 'skill'. Now he could at least entertain his mind to keep the fear of his new slow death at bay.
Fear Resistance Level Up!
Lewis immediately hated whatever entity unleashed this plague of boxes on his life but at least he was finally making 'progress' if it could even be called that. This at least meant his skills could get stronger, so he ran with it and started identifying the whale snot again because there wasn't much else going on to keep him sane.
Cloud Whale Snot - Ingredient
Okay, 'Cloud Whale' was a new one, and what did it mean by 'ingredient'? Like you could cook this stuff? Lewis felt like putting fire to whale snot could only end badly plus in his position he felt like an expert on the substance. Thinking of food though Lewis realised he hadn't eaten anything but a cookie for at least 16 hours at this point and he had lost even that baked treat to the evil businessmans clothes.
Lewis had to take a time out then because his dumb human brain thought 'Oh, looks like you'll have to eat whale snot then.' but of course that wouldn't be necessary, he was probably going to die of blood loss soon anyway. Then again he had pocketed the other cookie he'd pinched from his nemesis because he was snoring as the attendant was handing them out. If only his fingers, wrists, elbows or shoulders did anything right now the combination could manage to wriggle the cookie free.
Lewis could move his neck and jaw, but that would only result in whale snot and that just wasn't a possiblity.
So he identified again, and again, and again, and again, without result until finally a spark of genius crossed his addled brain and he used identify on himself.
Lewis Clarke Level 1 Human
'Hmm that was a bit disappointing' Lewis admitted, he was hoping for a character sheet or status screen if he was being honest. Then one suddenly appeared as he thought the word 'status'. Ask and you shall recieve apparently.
Lewis Clarke - Level 1 Human Titles
Dungeon Denizen, 10 Mile High Club
Stats
free points - 5
Strength 3 Endurance 8 Vitality 5 Dexterity 4 Intelligence 4 Wisdom 3 Luck 4
Health 8/50 Mana 40/40
Skills
Camp Site Level 1 Fear Resisitance level 2 Identify Level 1
That can't be right, a couple things already seemed wrong here. Had Lewis already managed to break this thing? He didn't remember getting this 'Dungeon Denizen' title or the 'Camp Site' skill. It was good thing then when some more convenient boxes popped up while he focused on the words.
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Dungeon Denizen
Spawn in a dungeon after world randomization +5 free stat points, unlocks 'Camp Site' Skill
Camp Site - Level 1
You can set a camp site in a safe zone clear of enemies where your health will slowly recover.
Recovery rate based on skill level.
There we go, now things were starting to fall into place! With these things he might have a chance. First he needed to figure out how to get this skill to work so he could hopefully recover from his life threatening injuries.
Video game logic is great, all hail the god of the boxes, transparent and shiny may they be.
After some mental commands Lewis forced himself to speak aloud, "Camp Site," and "Safe Zone," he said to no effect other than getting a bit of whale phlegm in his mouth and pushing his body through additional pain that he noticed alarmingly caused his health to drop down another point to 7.
Oh god the taste.
Something was wrong though, other than literally everything that was happening of course, the skill should be pretty intuitive Lewis thought but perhaps there was something missing, the whale might count as an enemy he thought, or maybe he wasn't supposed to be squashed inside a pleghm tube upside down? Yeah thinking for a moment, that might not be counted as safe enough to let the thing work.
If the whale was an enemy he was doomed so there was no point dwelling on that idea, he had to work with what he had and pray to the boxes that getting out of this slime hole would be his best bet.
What he had to work with he realised were his new skill points from his status screen. He wasn't sure how they worked exactly but they might be the key to getting himself out of this mess.
Strength seemed pretty straightforward just making him stronger. Dexterity might improve either speed of movement or fine motor skills. endurance then could be how many hits you could take or how long you could run around for without getting tired he supposed, If Lewis had to guess though it made sense for this one to be the former as a way to explain his survival so far. the vitality and intelligence stats both fit neatly with his health and mana respectively just because the numbers matched up, and sometimes the simple answer is the best one. Leaving wisdom and luck but both were a total mystery, in most games luck didn't make much sense as a stat but it did lot's of stuff all the same and wisdom was usually tied to magic either to replenish mana or make spells stronger.
He didn't know how much his stats reflected his real body either, which to be honest wasn't that great at the best of times but with a starting point of 3 in strength, did that mean he could suddenly become almost three times as strong if he put all his points in? While Lewis really, really wanted an easy six pack it was clear that probably wouldn't help him right now.
Lewis thought quite hard about how he could get out of his current problem and quickly decided that Luck could be anything or nothing so that was out. Intelligence and Wisdom were definitey not the answers, he didn't need to ponder the Universe.
What he really needed right now was firstly not to die, which meant Vitality or Endurance would need to get a point or 2 as his health was apparently dropping slowly but surely due to his injuries, and secondly he needed to get out of this weird 'whale tube' thing.
... 'OH GOD!' It finally hit he was inside a whale, probably the blowhole. Actually fingers crossed it was the blowhole.
Depending on his exact whale positioning he might need to reorganise his list of priorities but for now at least he wanted to not die, and get out of the 'blowhole' so he went ahead and put a point into vitality since that was based on his health, it raised his maximum health by ten points, comfirming his suspicions about the stat but sadly it didn't give him any current health on top of his now 6 points, it seemed he had to recover using his 'Camp Site' skill but the only thing he could think of to let him use it was to get to solid ground free of 'enemies' which he hoped once more the whale wouldn't count as.
He couldn't pull the point back out of vitality he realised even though it did absolutely nothing right now! So he was stuck with his boost and left with 4 measly points and too many useless options, with strength and endurance he might be able to pry himself free without killing himself but he doubted he could push back against the whales orifice with his broken body.
The only option left to Lewis lay in Dexterity, perhaps if it enhanced his bodily control he could finally wiggle his dying body to freedom before he ran out of health and his second chance at life expired.
Lewis closed his eyes briefly to remember the man that kicked him off the tree the size of a dozen skyscrapers before mentally jamming 3 points into dexterity and another into endurance to hopefully give his body a better chance at successfully moving withought killing himself.
Lewis Clarke - Level 1 Human Titles
Dungeon Denizen, 10 Mile High Club
Stats
free points - 0
Strength 3 Endurance 9 Vitality 6 Dexterity 7 Intelligence 4 Wisdom 3 Luck 4
Health /50 Mana 40/40
Skills
Camp Site Level 1 Fear Resisitance level 2 Identify Level 1
After checking his status one more time he was ready. He could immediately feel the effects of his new dexterity working as planned, instinctually letting him feel and maneuver his body more intuitively, the pain even lessened slightly while he moved with the new point of endurance toughening him up a bit more.
His long arduous crawl had begun.
Lewis couldn't tell how long it had been before he lost another point of health, longer than between losing the others despite the steady pace he set he knew that much. He figured out he could keep the numbers for his health and mana in the corner of his vision after that.
A long time later Lewis came back to himself as another point of health dropped away, he couldn't open his eyes any more, glued shut essentially by Cloud Whale snot but his health and mana could still be seen if he wanted.
Finally Lewis felt his forehead miss the wall of the blowhole, instead pushing the bridge of his nose onto an edge, 'THE edge', he celebrated mentally.
After a few more moments of wiggling Lewis checked his health to find it still on 4.
His shoulders were now out of the orifice and he was getting close to dropping into this new wide open area but Lewis couldn't help but hesitiate still, what if he fell too far and hit the ground with a splat instead of his moment of victory? What if he'd only been a few inches shy of the top of the blowhole at the start of all this and now he'd doomed himself once again?
Lewis took a steadying breath, stopped doubting himself and took a leap of faith out of a whales blowhole into an airsack covered head to toe in bloody snot like a real man!
Lewis hit the ground with a sickening squelch instead of a splat like he'd feared but he didn't die, the man managed to use his campsite skill successfully with a thought before blacking out after the blood stopped flooding into his brain.