With spear in hand, Devon crept along the shallow canyon, hearing the sound of chittering and the scraping of stone grow louder. He spotted an opening in the canyon wall on his right and approached it carefully. He had to step over several piles of small stones as he made his way forward.
Suddenly, some kind of large arachnid about as big as a medium-sized dog scuttled out of the alcove and dropped a rock it was carrying out of its huge mandibles when it saw him.
[Rockspider? - Level 7]
[Discovery Bonus]
Figures there'd be giant spiders. Feels like we'd be missing something without them. Well whatever, for as freaky as it looks it's only level 7. It doesn't seem to have much in the way of defenses either, so my spear should be able to make quick work of it.
Then the spider let out an ear-piercing screech, and a small horde of the things came out of the hole in the wall. Devon didn't bother trying to dissect the situation. He turned his ass right around and sprinted back the way he came.
However, the chittering of the creatures only grew louder as he made it back to the intersection. He turned his head and realized in horror that the things were actually faster than him. They climbed along the walls and floor in their frenzied pursuit of him.
In a way it made sense, he'd been working his ass off for the past 9 hours and desperately needed food. No wonder he was slow, he was exhausted.
If he couldn't outrun them then there was no choice but to stop and fight. He turned around and thrust his spear forward, skewering the first in line. He quickly retracted his spear, which slid free of the creature easily.
Some of the creatures he'd fought had been rather annoying to face with the spear as it sometimes got stuck in the hole he punched in the enemy. He was getting better about removing it, but he was eminently grateful these things didn't seem to hold any retention on it at all.
One of the other spiders leaped toward him, and he managed to skewer it in the air. Its body slid right down the spear, resting on top of his hand.
He scowled at the disgusting feeling of spider guts covering his hand, but noticed that the thing didn't seem to weigh all that much. Which was good, because the next one leaped at him before he had time to fling the corpse off his spear.
He skewered the next as well, but couldn't maneuver his spear properly to get third now that two bodies were stuck on his weapon. He had to settle for knocking it aside. It bounced on the ground, flailing its legs to try and find purchase, but Devon didn't give it time to get back up. He stomped down on it with all his strength, and the thing exploded under the weight of his attack.
Another landed on his arm while he was distracted, causing him to drop his spear in panic as the creature latched on with its disgusting legs. Devon screamed in pain as it used its rock-crushing mandibles against his arm.
On instinct, he swung his arm wildly against the wall of the chasm, and the spider burst from the impact. Devon felt even more stinging pain as the spider guts splattered over his open wound.
He didn't have time to give the pain any mind, as the last three all latched onto his body at the same time and started ravaging him with their mandibles. Devon's sense of pain was overpowered by adrenaline as he dealt with each of them sequentially.
The one on his leg exploded as he kicked it against the wall, the second that was attached to his other arm got flung off, its legs failing to get as good a grip as the first that had bit him. The final one was on his back, making a mess of his neck, and for that one he simply reached over his shoulder and grabbed its head before forcibly yanking it off him. He felt pinpricks along his back where the legs all lost their grip. He slammed the creature into the ground and stomped it into oblivion.
Devon took long, ragged breaths as he looked for the one he'd flung off. He saw it struggling to get off the ground so he quickly rushed over to it and splattered its guts all over the canyon, just like the others.
Kill - [Rockspider - Level 7] - 68 Talons
Kill - [Rockspider - Level 7] - 26 Talons
Kill - [Rockspider - Level 7] - 21 Talons
Kill - [Rockspider - Level 7] - 17 Talons
Kill - [Rockspider - Level 7] - 15 Talons
Kill - [Rockspider - Level 7] - 7 Talons
Kill - [Rockspider - Level 7] - 7 Talons
Kill - [Rockspider - Level 7] - 7 Talons
[Level up. Level 9 obtained.]
Stolen novel; please report.
His eyes darted down the ravine, looking for any more of the monsters as he tried to control his breathing. Even after he confirmed there didn't seem to be any others it took more than two minutes to calm the pounding heart in his chest.
Devon slowly looked over himself, covered in blood and spider guts. The creatures had taken entire chunks out of his arms and leg where they had bit him. He gingerly reached his hand up to feel his neck but couldn't bring himself to fully explore the wound by touch.
Eventually, he mustered the willpower to move forward, wincing with every move he made. He picked up his fallen spear, angling it down to let the bodies of the two spiders slide off on their own before shoving it back inside his inventory.
He limped back along the path at the bottom of the ravine towards the hole in the wall. The short distance that should have only taken him a minute to cross instead took several as he tried to keep weight off his injured leg.
When he made it to the mouth of the opening he almost collapsed from sheer joy at the sight of the small, clear, and clean alcove within, exactly what he had been looking for. He stumbled inside and sat against a wall, trying to keep himself out of view of the entrance.
He pulled a healing pill out of his tile. Devon wasn't sure how long the timer on these things was, but some instinct in the back of his mind told him that the two and a half hours that had passed since the last one wasn't enough for the cooldown to reset. But still, he had no choice.
If he left his wounds as they were, not only would he likely bleed out within the hour, but if he didn't abuse the magical nature of the healing pill the excessive amount of spider guts in his wounds would probably get into his blood, poisoning him.
Without any other options, he gulped the pill down and felt the familiar pain deep within his chest before he lost consciousness.
----------------------------------------
When Devon woke up he took a sigh of relief that the burning pains of the craters the rockspiders had gouged out of his body were gone. He noticed that there was still daylight coming into the alcove from the outside and sighed in relief. He wasn't keen on hunting in the canyons of the mountain when he didn't even have the light of day to see by.
He started to move to get up, but almost retched when he noticed the smell that covered the interior of the alcove. For a few moments he looked around, wondering what the source of it was before realizing that he himself was the source of the awful stench.
The healing item may have resolved the issue of his wounds, but it hadn't cleaned the layer of spider guts off him. He hadn't noticed the smell after the fight because he had been so focused on getting to safety and using the pill.
Devon stepped out of the alcove after casting a glance both ways down the ravine to make sure it was clear. He ripped off his shirt and trousers and discarded them in a heap on the path outside the alcove. It felt wrong to be almost nude out in the wilderness, but the clothes weren't helping that much anymore anyway. The shirt and pants looked like they'd been put through every kind of hell imaginable, which Devon supposed they kind of had.
Next, he removed one of the several water flasks in his inventory and washed off all the spider guts he could manage. Some of the crap had solidified over the hours he'd been asleep, so he couldn't remove all of it, but most of it came off. He cleaned off his spear while he was at it. It wouldn't do to have a slippery weapon in the middle of combat.
How dignified I must look, a naked man living in a cave, covered in the innards of his fallen enemies.
He stepped back into the alcove and took a fire kit out of his inventory. Within a few minutes he had a fire going in the middle of the alcove. He was thankful the wood provided by the system didn't seem to produce much visible smoke, if any. A pillar of smoke in the sky would be a dead giveaway to any potential overseers out there.
Next, he removed the corpse of the leafstag that had been sitting in his inventory. It had a slight smell to it, as the basic inventory function didn't help with the preservation of any items within, but it hadn't been exposed to the elements, so Devon figured it should be fine.
Devon had never been hunting before or prepared his own kill, so he wasn't really sure how people normally went about it, but he knew that guts were generally not to be eaten. However, he didn't feel like fully butchering the carcass in his nice safe spot, so he just cut strips of flesh off the legs, removing anything that seemed like a tendon before sticking the strips on his spear and holding them over the fire.
Time for the moment of truth, I suppose.
He'd gained a level in that encounter, and he was deathly curious to check on his base stats.
[Status]
Name: Devon Wells
Race: [E-Grade Human]
Level: 9
Class: [Feature locked until level 10]
Profession: [Cursed Schemer]
Mana: 90/90
Talents: [Spear Proficiency - Level 1], [Sword Proficiency - Level 1]
Skills: None.
Titles: Initiate, Cursed(2), Callous
Strength: 19
Dexterity: 20
Vitality: 17
Endurance: 18
Arcane: 17
Free Points: 40
Talons: 626
Once again he'd gained a mysterious extra point in each of his attributes. That dashed the hypothesis that Cursed was giving him an extra point in every stat every 5 levels, which left Devon completely lost on what the actual cause might be. It once again put the messaging function in his mind. If Devon could ask Trey then he could run the query by a system that actually bothered responding.
He didn't think Cursed Schemer was the reason for the discrepancy either because it seemed weird that the profession would give him a delayed bonus. He'd accepted the class at level 6, but the mysterious extra points had then appeared first on level 8, not 7.
He knew he would get no answers, so he dismissed the status screen and pulled his meat off the fire.
He had tried venison in his previous life, though he hadn't thought much of it. So he was amazed when the leafstag meat was absolutely bursting with flavor. The strips he had cut off the animal's leg tasted almost as good as a top-grade cut of steak. Once he finished everything he had cooked he looked over to the rest of the animal, salivating.
But no, he had things to do before the daylight was out. He shoved the rest of the carcass back into the void whence it came and stood up. The alcove made for an excellent field base, but Devon wanted more.
Now that he was loaded up with money he felt the need to find a terminal with which to spend it. And that's exactly what he was going to do.