Not Going to Plan

Kris woke up, the sun beaming down on his face through the open window.

Oh shoot! It's...actually, I don't what time it is. Remembering the prior day's events, he quickly grabbed his money and dagger, running out of the inn.

He waved to John at the front desk as he ran out, before heading towards the Guild hall.

Feeling the coins and dagger clinking in his pocket, he stopped. Actually, I should get a couple things first...

He instead wandered down the street farther into town. I haven't actually seen anything besides the front square, have I? Looking at the street vendors, he quickly found a coinpurse, a sheathe, and a belt to put both of them on, setting him back another twenty copper. Counting out his coins, he had thirty seven left. Well, that's fine, I just need to do at least one request today. Maybe two if I can swing it.

Heading back the guild, he walked in, and the guild hall was bustling just as it had been the day before. The guild girl was sitting in the front again, writing as usual. Realizing he was staring, he quickly went to the Wood-Rank request board.

Hm...no, no, there's so many gathering quests. Ah, here we go! 'Goblin sighted, please kill before it attacks our livestock. One silver.' Nice! That's double yesterday for the same amount of work! I guess it depends on how much money the requester has too.

Quickly inserting the request into his status screen, he pulled up the map and started following.

This time the request was a bit farther out, so Kris went deep-diving into the menus of his status screen again. Of particular interest was one labeled 'Doings', which seemed like a list of miscellaneous statistics. Trees chopped? Potions made? Yeah definitely a game world. He kept scrolling until he found some more interesting ones. Crimes committed? Well, its correct in saying zero. I wonder if that was one of the things the guild girl checked. Houses owned...land area owned...normal stuff. Se- He stopped in his tracks at the next one he scrolled too. Sexual partners!? What a weird statistic to keep... He then blushed at the thought of the guild girl possibly having seen that.

Shaking his head, he turned off his status screen and walked quicker to the request point. Maybe I should check out that brothel...

This request was given by another farmer, a middle-aged man with a wife and daughter.

“I saw the goblin over there,” he explained, pointing to a rocky outcrop on the edge of his farm.

“Gotcha, I'll take care of it now,” Kris said, before turning straight for it.

The man gave him a nervous smile and closed the door, a loud clank coming from inside. Can't blame them, I wouldn't wanna fight goblins without magic.

Heading for the rocky outcrop, he carefully sneaked close to it, winding his way through the crevasse. After a couple turns, he saw it. A goblin, looking like it was sleeping under a small lean-to. Easy for me, then. Getting close enough to know he was in Scorch range, he silently cast it, aimed right at the goblins chest. It blew straight through, catching the lean-to on fire.

Standing up, he walked over, but the goblin wasn't trying to escape, it had been killed instantly. Looking around, this goblin had a similar layout to it's camp as the last one. Maybe this one's got some money too. Even a few coppers is worth it with how much I have...

He did some searching, but wasn't finding anything valuable. As he was leaning over to pick up a kettle and see if anything was in it, he felt his whole body jolt in pain.

“Yabba yabba!” he heard screamed behind him. A goblin had just stabbed a knife into his back, and was now licking the blade of the dagger with his blood on it.

Stunned momentarily, Kris's body finally reacted. “Scorch! Scorch!” he yelled. Two Scorches came out in rapid succession, but as he hadn't taken time to aim, they flew harmlessly past the goblin.

The goblin was, however, frightened by the magic, jumping a step back and holding it's knife up, as if waiting for another to come.

Kris smiled, Got him! “Scorch!” he shouted, pointing his palm at the goblin.

Nothing came out.

The goblin, which had ducked when Kris shouted, stood up and started laughing.

Kris took the opportunity to try and run, climbing up the rock next to him. Due to the slope angle, he was only able to get a bit up before struggling to go farther.

Seeing his opponent now fleeing, the goblin gained it's confidence back and charged at Kris. Taking a swipe at his legs.

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Kris was able to scramble up just out of reach, however, the goblin's swing missing, and its knife clinking against the rock. Seeing Kris was now out of range, the goblin secured the knife between its teeth and started climbing up after him.

Getting stuck at a more vertical section of the rock, Kris was unable to go up further. Turning around, he saw the goblin was almost caught up with him. He started kicking at it, landing a couple on its head, and causing the knife to fall out. The goblin was about to fall, when it grabbed onto Kris's leg, dragging him down with him. He slid down the rock with the goblin, both landing in a heap at the bottom.

Taking a second to get his bearings, he realized the goblin was underneath his legs. He started kneeing and then kicking the goblin in the face while it tried to defend itself. Stopping to catch his breath after a few swings, he noticed the goblin was trying to crawl to it's fallen knife. Quickly grabbing it, he stabbed the goblin in the forehead. It started to bleed, but just seemed more annoyed than hurt, and started to push itself up. Kris then plunged the knife into the back of it's neck.

The goblin instantly went limp, lying there in a growing pool of blood.

Kris looked around wide-eyed, trying to catch his breath as the adrenaline was still pumping through his whole body. The whole encounter hadn't even lasted a minute, but it had felt like a lifetime. Grabbing his back, he could see he was still losing blood. Grabbing some cloth that was lying around in the goblin camp, he wrapped it around himself to try and staunch the bleeding.

He then sat down to process what had just happened.

What...what the hell was that!? The request said only 'a' goblin. He shook his head. No, I was stupid for letting my guard down while I was scavenging for coin.

He opened up his status screen. His health bar was halfway down. Only half way!? I feel worse than that. His mana bar was almost completely empty, only slowly going up. So three Scorches is my limit in any quick succession, at least at my current level.

His levels had gone up though. In his Skills, it was showing 'Fire Magic- lv. 2- and 'Dagger – lv. 1'. He had also gained two new skills, 'Sneak' and 'Unarmed' although both were showing as level 0. I'll worry about that when I'm not dying.

Eventually, after making sure his health bar wasn't going down, he got up and started walking back to the farmhouse. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, or at least he didn't seem to be dripping any behind him as he walked.

Knocking on the door, the man smiled at him, “You're back al-” but cut off as he saw him. “Are you alright!?”

“I...uh...there was two goblins...” Kris said, pulling up his status screen to show he had killed them, while still holding his side.

The man quickly looked at it, and then confirmed the request had been completed by pressing Kris's status screen.

He quickly went back inside, and Kris started the slow trek back to Coburn.

Eventually, he struggled all the way back, getting some stares as he walked through the gate.

Entering the Adventurer's Guildhall, he also got a few stares as he made his way to the desk.

As he leaned against it, the guild girl looked up. She quickly took stock of the situation, asking “Do you not have any healing potions? Why didn't you stop at a clinic first?”

Kris felt embarrassed. Oh, I guess I should have thought about that. “Uh, no, I don't have any. And I don't know where the clinic is.”

The guild girl merely shook her head. “Were you able to complete the request at least?”

Kris forced a smile, “Yeah, here,” he said pulling up the request.

The guild girl completed it, and then checked his Monster Log as well. After writing something down, she looked around the room, before stopping when she eyed someone. “Misty? Do you have enough mana for a healing spell? Your Guildmate here could use some help.”

Kris looked over to the person named Misty. She was about his height, with long blonde hair, and a ridiculously over-sized blue witch's hat. “Sure thing, Corinne,” she called back with a smile.

Walking over, she gave Kris a confused look. “Are you new here?”

Kris nodded, still holding his side. “Sorry...”

She shook her head, “It happens. Two silver and I'll heal you.”

“Two...silver? It costs money for healing?” Kris asked, incredulous.

Misty seemed perturbed. “Of course! You expect me to heal for free? If we were in a party it would be one thing, but I can't go around giving free healing spells, or I'll have no mana. I'm even giving you a guildmate discount, usually the clinics charge three or four silver.”

Kris grabbed his throbbing side, before opening his coinpurse and dumping his twenty-odd coppers onto the desk.

“This is all you have!?” she asked, a bit...disappointed.

At that moment, the guild girl (who he now knew was named Corinne) set down one silver and ten coppers.

Misty scooped up all the coins now on the desk, then stuck her hand to his wound.

After a few moments, Kris could feel all the pain fading away, the wound gone and only a hole in his tracksuit remaining. He opened his status screen and confirmed his health bar was full once again.

Dropping the coins into her coinpurse, she waved and said, “I'm in a good mood today so I'll just take this. Next time make sure you have enough!”

Corinne smiled and waved goodbye to Misty. Turning to Kris, she said seriously, “Please make sure you either have enough to pay for healing, or have a healing potion next time. You can also get those at alchemists or clinics, in case you didn't know.”

No, I didn't know.

“You could also try getting into a party with a healer. Although...”

Kris raised an eyebrow.

“...A lot of parties won't accept Wood-rank members. Maybe try doing a few...easier requests to get some money saved up?” she said, trying to put on a convincing voice.

Kris meekly nodded, before turning around and going to the Wood-rank request board. As he looked them over, half out of it, he realized the sun was setting. Well, need to turn in for today, he thought, a bit subdued.

Walking over to the inn from yesterday, he was about to push open the door when he realized an important fact.

I have no money.

He stood there for a few moments, before considering his options. Considering how the healing went, I don't think I can expect any charity at the inn.

Not sure exactly what to do in this situation, he started to walk around the area. Even though it was almost dusk, the town was still fairly lively, with people going every which way.

After wandering for a bit, he came back to his senses when he saw the shop he was in front of.

A brothel.

He didn't need to read the sign, as it was obvious due to the half-naked woman standing in the windows, a couple of which were even beckoning him over.

Blushing and looking down, he quickly picked up the pace and kept walking.

After a while longer, he started to feel the weight of the day bearing down on him. Turning into an empty side alley, he decided he would try to curl up in the corner somewhere and get through the night. As it turned out, this alley actually had a couple crates with a blanket on top.

Well, it's better than the ground... he tried to reassure himself. Looking around, he didn't see anyone else, so shrugged and climbed on top. While it wasn't comfortable, the exhaustion from the day quickly brought him to sleep.