image [https://i.imgur.com/fIuC5Mm.png]
Ruined Outskirts
The once-great city of Boardenville has fallen into ruin. Scavengers, both beast and man, roam the ruined outskirts, looking for anything left over from the destruction.
The new place Will found himself in did not give him a good feeling. Not at all.
The husks of burnt and collapsed houses surrounded him in every direction, interspersed with the carbonized remnants of trees and bushes. Here and there, a pile of bones announced the final resting place of a former resident, intruder or innocent domestic animal.
Main quest
Slay 10 Scavenger Rats.
Reward:
Space rank-up
50 XP
1 skill shard
Huh. This one is worth half the XP of the wolf quest. Hopefully that means it’ll be easier… Rats sound like they’d be weaker than wolves, right?
Will chose a direction at random, and started walking down the street. Several minutes and a hundred meters later, the only thing that changed were the details of the ruined buildings. A burned-out wooden home here. A ruined stone smithy there. Red bricks on one building versus pebbles and mortar on another.
And at least it looks like they aren’t all after me from the minute I’ve arrived.
Of course, as soon as the thought crossed Will’s mind, a large bundle of fur and teeth decided to jump at him from a broken window.
The rat was a lot bigger than Will expected. As big as he himself, in fact, but thin and scrawny. It had large yellow teeth and large yellow eyes. Its claws were dirty and its grey fur tattered and filthy.
The attack caught Will by surprise, and the rat’s claws sliced his flank deeply before he could respond. Will shoved the rat away from him before the beast’s teeth could snap closed on him, but the rat hissed and charge right back.
Will swiped his own bronze covered claws at the rat, missing it by a couple of centimetres, but causing his enemy to retreat.
I don’t have enough distance to charge at it, and I’ll be damned if I even try to bite that disgusting thing, Will thought. Claws it is, I guess.
The rat seemed a lot less prone to introspection than Will, and charged right back in. This time, however, Will waited until the last possible minute to attack, and managed to strike at his foe. Barely.
The rat scrambled back, with a single streak of blood across its nose, and Will immediately took advantage of the newly opened distance between them to charge. As he approached the rat, Will felt something inexplicable drain from him, and he suddenly sped up, smashing into the rat, bowling it over, and running over it, with his bronzed claws gouging deep wounds in the rat’s flank.
Scavenger rat slain!
Gained 5 XP
Will swiped away the message, and stood panting where he’d stopped. As the adrenaline drained away, Will started to feel a burning sensation where the rat clawed him earlier.
What the hell? Will asked, and the answer popped up in front of him.
You’ve been poisoned!
You are taking damage every minute until the poison is removed.
Severity: least
Duration: 8:54 minutes.
Will spent a few minutes cursing the rat, the ruins, the Board, and whoever was responsible for his presence on it.
How bad is this, really? How did I call up that screen with my health again?
It took a few tries, but Will managed to call up his information screen again.
Name: William Jackson
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Race: Wombat
XP: 15
Health: 91/100
Mana 100/100
Stamina 95/100
Innate abilities
Dice Roll (1)
Skills 2/10
Name
Type
Tier
Level
Unstoppable Force
Cavalry
Basic
1
Hunter
Harvest
Basic
1
Attacks
Claws – lesser (least) piercing damage
Bite – lesser piercing damage
Charge – slight bashing damage
Equipment
Bronze claws (front claws)
Inventory
1 bandage roll
Status effects
Calmness – 1 cycle remaining
Least poison – 4:32 minutes remaining
Will kept the screen up, and after about half a minute, as soon as the poison effect dropped below four minutes, his health ticked down by another point. At the same time, his stamina ticked up one point.
So least damage seems to be different depending on source. I took two damage from my own claws, and it looks like one damage per poison tick. Not fun, but I can survive it. And if I used ten stamina on my skill earlier, it looks like I’m gaining one point of stamina every minute. Which means I can afford to use it a lot, unless I’m in a real big fight. Good to know.
Will waited until the poison ran its course, and his stamina regenerated back to full, before approaching the dead rat.
Let’s see what my Hunter skill can do with this. Don’t think I should get my hopes up too much though.
Using the Hunter skill proved as simple as willing it to activate and then touching the corpse. He could once again feel the strange draining feeling that he figured was his stamina being used up. This time, however, the feeling didn’t seem to go away. A pale-yellow light spread over the rat’s corpse. Will had a feeling that he had to keep touching the corpse for the entire duration of the skill, otherwise it would be interrupted and he’d have to start again.
A long and boring ten minutes later, the light faded away, and the corpse with it. When the last of the light vanished, so did the feeling of stamina draining away, and a message window popped up in front of Will.
Scavenger Rat corpse harvested!
Gained 1 rat pelt (poor)
Well. That’s certainly not much. Might be worth some copper bits from Fili, I hope.
Will waited ten more minutes for his stamina to recover from using the Hunter skill, and then continued on his way, albeit more carefully than before. As he was moving along the street, Will made sure to check inside the wrecked buildings, to prevent another surprise attack.
He’d managed to find and kill three more rats without taking any more hits, adding three more poor quality rat pelts to his collection, before he started hearing thumping noises, and rat screeches, from the direction he was headed towards.
Walking as stealthily as he could, Will moved towards the noises. The sounds led him to what must have been a town square of some kind. He couldn’t tell much about it, given the ruined nature of just about anything, but there seemed to be the remains of a large statue in the middle, made of white marble.
The more interesting sight, however, was the fight between the kangaroo and the rats.
Will could see three of the emaciated rodents surrounding a single large kangaroo, constantly darting in and out to try and attack him. The large marsupial was bleeding from numerous wounds, and Will had no doubt that it was suffering from the same poison he’d been inflicted with earlier.
Nevertheless, the kangaroo was bouncing back and forth like a professional boxer, evading nearly every attack from the rats, and retaliating with quick jabs from its front legs.
Will was about to turn away and go in a different direction when a glint of light drew his eyes to the kangaroo’s front paws, and he suddenly noticed that the beast was wearing a set of brass knuckles.
Could it be someone like me?
With the thought in his mind, Will didn’t think he could just leave the kangaroo to its fate. But he also didn’t want to get hit any more than necessary, so he carefully lined up his approach, before charging straight into battle.
Unstoppable Force worked just as advertised, once again, and Will slammed into one of the rats, knocked it down and trampled it. He then continued his charge and slammed into a second rat and repeated the process.
The kangaroo took advantage of the two rats having been knocked down, and launched a flurry of punches at the third rodent, finishing it off.
With only two of the rats left, Will and the kangaroo each took one, and within a few seconds all of the enemies lay dead around them. Along with several others which the kangaroo must have killed before Will showed up to help.
The kangaroo and Will watched each other warily.
Can you understand me? Will asked the other marsupial.
Of course I can bloody understand you! Came the angry reply. The kangaroo’s “voice” was deep and rough, like that of a chain smoker. What the hell are you doing here? I didn’t need any help!
Yeah, ‘cause you were doing so well on your own, Will couldn’t keep the snark out of his mental voice. You do know these bastards’ claws are poisoned, right?
Whatever! You’re lucky you only killed one of them! I needed the rest of them to finish off my quest, and if I was short one because of your interference, I’d check to see if you count as a rat!
With that said, the kangaroo snorted angrily, and jumped up.
Far higher than any kangaroo had any right to jump.
High enough to vanish completely from Will’s sight.
Rank up!
A main quest has been finished in this space.
Rank 1 enemies and elite rank 0 enemies may now appear.
God damn it!