Daryl laid on the ground breathing hard as he stamina recovered from the sudden and difficult fight. Thankfully his hit points were good now that Cindy had healed him but his stamina was taking its time ticking up. Remembering that eating helped stamina recovery Daryl closed his eyes, surrendered to the game logic of the world and thought of the giant slab of cooked meat on a bone.
Appearing in his hand as he sat up was the giant meat on the bone, still steaming as if he had just cooked it minutes ago. Feeling absolutely ravenous he gave into instinct and tore into the meat. What felt like seconds passed and suddenly he was chewing straight through the bone that was left behind. It shattered under his teeth like it was skittles and with one big suck all the marrow came out of the bone and went right down Daryl’s throat.
“Stamina Recovery 30%.” Came the little pop up window that told him of things that were happening in the game’s logic.
Soon enough it looked like he was totally topped off with stamina as Cindy continued to channel her healing magic to refill his hit points. Daryl watched in fascination as the golden cracks of light slowly closed as her golden green magic wrapped around his body and seemed to push more energy into him than before.
Cindy looked absolutely exhausted so he scooped her up and held her to his chest as he walked from the clearing that the boroclopsi spawned in. Watching with fascination Daryl leaned against a tree as they recovered together. No doubt Cindy had mana to recover while Daryl had been nearly topped off completely. His eyes though locked on as the bushes near the side of the clearing began to wave about and a new boroclops entered into the clearing. It snuffled around and started to move around slowly and methodically sniffing the ground.
With focus Daryl watched as it moved, dug up mushrooms, scarfed them down and then the world would magically heal the dirt that had been moved as the creature wandered off to do more things. “How does the world just return back to normal so easily?” Daryl wondered out loud.
“You ask too many questions dad. Back home we don’t ask, ‘Why is water wet?’ we just accept that it is. You kinda have to let go of our way of thinking and embrace this new world if you’re going to help me get this demon king out of the way.” Cindy leaned against his chest and felt his heartbeat thudding along slowly.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Maybe you’re right, but there has to be someone out there that questions everything. Even the greatest scientists on earth always wondered about who gravity was a thing and how we could manipulate the world so that we can do wonderful things. Like flying in planes.” Daryl let his hands rest in his lap as he waited for Cindy to tell him she was good to go. They had three more monsters to slay before they could turn in the quest. “What are the quest rewards?”
Cindy looked up at him, her hat flattening strangely, “Well we get the Mega Mushroom, which I can use to make a weapon so you might be able to use it as well. I also will have some mushrooms to cook that boost my magic point recovery rate during battle. I ran out of them before I summoned you. It is a lot easier to do all this when you are prepared. Then you can plan to use things like the trap I had. Those are hard to craft though. The ingredients cost a lot of tennies.”
Daryl thought about all this and wished he had some sort of sheet he could keep in front of himself so that he could look at all the options for equipment when they were recovering between fights. “You wouldn’t be able to have a spell or something that we could use to peruse what gear we can have would you?”
“Nope, only craftsmen have access to those lists. Even then it seemed like he was surprised at what he could make you. I think you’re the only giant around here but maybe there is a giant village we can find later. Man I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lay on a giant bed. I would have to be careful you wouldn’t roll over and squish me.” Cindy giggled lightly as she stood up, “You know, you don’t snore here. So, that is just one reason we should be happy we are here.”
Daryl set down his daughter and they both looked at the two boroclops that were in the clearing now. “So this time, we pull one far away from the other and do our best not to make both aggressive at the same time? Is there anything else we should be wary about? Will they keep coming if we kill these two?”
Cindy stretched her arms and snatched up a staff from thin air. “I don’t know the respawn timer in this clearing. Usually you can find only three per day but it seems that it can do four sometimes.”
“How do you know it can only do four a day?” Daryl asked calmly.
“I haven’t just been sitting around while I waited to bring you here with me. I’ve been busy, I just need one more Mega Mushroom so that I can make the ‘Staff of the Swamp Witch’. That will give me the haste, poison, and cyclone runes. I’ll have so many more ways to mix runes and spells. There is just an endless amount of things I can do with spell runes that I need to make sure to get as many different equipment sets as possible.” Cindy started walking forward and working up a spell in her mind.
“So, what if I need several Mega Mushrooms for my own item? You think we both will get some sort of swamp based item?” He walked forward and tried to step ahead of his daughter to make sure that he was the biggest threat to a monster as soon as it was drawn to fight them.
“I don’t know, I am only familiar with the spellcasting stuff. It seems there are three types of styles here in the world, Melee, Ranged, Magic. I think each kind has their own equipment sets. For example I was offered a great boomerang as an equipment option but it required a higher strength stat than I had. Maybe we can look into getting you a ranged weapon so that we can get some early hits in.” Cindy waved her hands as she chanted a spell.
Daryl cracked his knuckles and it sounded like trees snapping. “Let’s do this!”