Dylan walked along the beach, hoping to find a stream that fed into the ocean. He'd picked up a few stones along the way, disappointed to note they granted no abilities, but tucked them into his pockets anyway. Thrown, they did 1 damage each- better than nothing. He couldn't carry many though - no magical zero-space inventory here.
He caught a whiff of something unpleasant and slowed down as he climbed the next sand dune. Peeking through the dune grass, he scanned the next area. From where he was at, the sand sloped down and curved inward into a sort of cove. A sea cave was to his west on the inland side, connected to the ocean by a flat sandy area pocked with tidal pools. What drew his attention most was about halfway between him and the cave though.
It appeared to be a camp of some sort- a burned-out driftwood fire and a hand-carved canoe. And bodies. Dylan was pretty sure they weren't sleeping either, as he could see some muddy red smears staining the sand under the closest one. He circled around the outer rim of the cove, keeping the high ground and the dune grass. He got within about 10 yards of the closest one and confirmed a couple things.
First, it was definitely dead. He could see open eyes glazed over and swollen flesh. Second, it was not human - instead some kind of gilled fish person, and it smelled like rotting garbage. Third, there was a slender starfish-thing covering half the back of the things head, snaking arms into both ears and one into its mouth. Creepy AF.
Despite his better judgement, he decided to take a closer look. He had no quests or direction of any kind, so it seemed like the best option. Besides, he could spot a rack of fishing spears up by that canoe - surely that'd be better than his stick.
He knew it was going to happen. He just knew it. More than a decade of watching horror movies still didn't prepare him for when the dead body let loose a horrendous hacking croak-cough and stumbled to its feet. Dylan was rocked back by the sound, dropping his weapon and falling back on his behind. He scrabbled in his pocket for one of those rocks and let fly as the thing started running toward him. Clean miss. He threw another, his free hand scrabbling in the sand for the dropped cudgel. This time the thing was almost too close to miss, and the rock cracked it right on a cheek. Its head snapped back, and a silver 1 flashed before fading out of existence.
The sight of that single numeral cut through the sudden adrenaline surge. Right, still just a game. His hand finally closed on the haft of his weapon right as the fish-man grabbed his shirt and drove him flat to the ground, weight pressing the air from his sternum. The thing was to close to use his beatstick properly, so all he was able to do was bring it up in an awkward pommel strike to the side of its head. CRITICAL DAMAGE: 6 flashed in red. The creature seemed to go into some sort of seizure for a second, and Dylan saw that he'd actually crushed one of the starfish tentacles in its left ear. It fell to the right, half its limbs flailing as Dylan scrambled to get clear and finally stand back up. He circled around to the non-moving side and just went to town, smashing the head until numbers stopped flying out of it and he could hear the wood start to splinter in his weapon.
Another disgusting cough sound came from the camp, way too close for comfort. Dylan turned towards it, his arms shaking from the intense pounding in his heart. Here goes, he thought. He had no idea how to activate the Smash Apart ability, and was about to call out the name when the game seemed to pick up on his intent and launched it.
His whole body surged forward into a deep lunge, right hand fully extended, left back out for balance. The blunt thrust went right through the gilled creature's kneecap, reversing the joint with an awful wet pop. Even as it started falling toward his right side, he whirled around to the opposite side of the creature with a circling sidestep, weapon whipping over his head to grip in both hands, and then completing a full backhand arc from his left shoulder onto the back of its head. Red sparks highlighted the path behind the weapon, and at the moment of impact Dylan felt as though time almost slowed, before the wood exploded in a shower of splinters and radiant VFX. The starfish on the back of the head was flattened into goo, and the force of the blow blasted the creature 10 feet through away, carving a trench in the sand.
Just staring at the carnage left by that left Dylan stunned a moment. Then he pumped his shattered weapon in the air and let out a whoop of triumph. Hot damn! Coolest. Fucking. Game. Ever.
Naturally, that was when the third creature sank teeth into his shoulder, and pain lanced through him like nothing he'd ever felt. Everything went white.