Back against what was left of the crumbling stone wall, Nick envisioned exactly what he would do: a kick to the knees, force the creature to kneel and then swing the club like a baseball bat at the creature’s skull. Simple, sweet and to the point.
Nick’s thoughts drifted to his mother, and he briefly wondered if he would see her again. She had forced him to do visioning exercises from an early age. Despite his resistance to it when he was younger, it had come in clutch several times in his adult life. He quickly pushed those thoughts aside. Of course, he would see her again, along with his wife and kids.
Nick’s eyes widened when he realized the creature was already halfway up the stairs. He walked as quickly as he could while doing his best to be silent and avoid sharp rocks. As soon as he was close enough, he kicked the back of the knees. The creature fell just like he imagined. A swing to the skull with his club and the creature fell face first on the stairs. He felt the impact through the handle of the club. He then noticed an odd sickly red hue surrounding his club. The same glow was coming from the creature laying on the ground before slowly fading and showing up on its health bar.
Suddenly, that white light swirled up and flew towards his chest. This time, he didn’t swing at it as he was certain it was it was essence. Nick kicked the creature just to make sure it was truly dead. The red hue was no longer surrounding the club. The only thing Nick could think of was the rot ability triggered. He could only hope it didn’t affect him since he was holding the club.
Now that he wasn’t in combat, he turned his attention to the green bar hovering in his vision. It was nearly half empty but rapidly filling. Hearing a click, Nick quickly looked up to see another robbed figure standing further up the stairs, holding a crossbow at the same time an arrow slammed into his chest. Nick gasped in pain. Ignoring the red bar that dipped to half. He yelled in outrage as he ripped the arrow out and regretting that decision immediately.
Nick winced in pain as the red bar dipped to nearly a quarter. The next click didn’t register till the arrow was buzzing right by his head. His eyes widened as he saw another robbed figure jump down from out of nowhere and began dashing at him. He barely registered that it had red eyes before it crashed into him. He felt the blade slide into his gut several times as darkness filled his vision.
YOU DIED ||
The words slowly faded, and Nick found himself floating in this strange nothingness again. It seemed he had died yet again. He had all the same memories, though he felt disconnected from them, as if everything that happened was just something he was watching. It didn’t even feel like it was him. Everything felt muted somehow. It was as if his whole life was a tv series, one that wasn’t even all that great. Now, nothingness surrounded him, but he didn’t mind. It was fine; it wasn’t nice per se, but it also didn’t matter, at least there was no pain. That’s the one thing he had in common with his physical form. Pain was best avoided. Although, when he felt pain, he at least felt something. But did he want to feel something? No. He wanted nothing. He didn’t really care about anything… But that wasn’t necessarily true, was it? As distant as the feeling was, he did still care about something. He just couldn’t place his finger on it… it was important, he was sure of it. He pondered on this for some time, before it hit him. Family…
Before Nick had a chance to even think about his wife and kids, his eyes flashed open and he gasped. His breaths were uneasy and his trembling hands reflexively moved over his now unblemished skin. Moments ago, he had been shot and stabbed to death.
Looking around, he realized he was in the same damn spot. The club was also laying there. Reaching down, he grabbed it.
Tainted Celestial Club
Rarity
Unknown
Damage type:
Physical
43
Life
50
Celestial Rot
50
Requirements:
Strength
10
Dexterity
3
Wisdom
10
Special Effect
Instantly restore 50 HP
Special Effect
Inflict Celestial Rot
~This Club was forged from a fallen branch of the Celestial Life tree. After being bathed in the Soul Blood of a Celestial Wisp as its first act, its alignment has become corrupted.~
“For fuck’s sake!”
He sighed and shook his head. If he wouldn’t have had that damn screen covering half his vision, maybe he would have seen the creature with a crossbow. Though he had to admit, he wasn’t really looking out for more threats. He had been to caught up in looking at the green bar.
Nick tried his best to distract himself. If he thought about dying, he knew it wouldn’t lead anywhere good. Instead, he just absently read over the stat page while steading his breathing. He wasn’t sure how long he had sat there while trying to focus on his breathing. It was difficult as anger boiled in his chest. A burning desire to charge at the creature that killed him was almost overwhelming. Nick did his best to focus on anything other than the fact he died. After all, he was still alive, therefore he couldn’t have died.
He had to be more careful. That Shrine Keeper lady had mentioned something about becoming an unthinking fallen, and the Wisp mentioned something about madness. Meaning he probably had a fixed number of lives. Deciding it best to go look over his stat page for any clues, he headed back to the campfire.
Nick couldn’t help but take a glance at the stairs first. He hadn’t expected to see a creature. But there was one simply walking up the stairs. He thought he had killed that one. He saw something else a little ways up the stairs right where he died…
“Focus.” He took a few calming breaths. He would find his family!
On the stairs in the spot he had died, there was some sort of dim glowing light. It was too far away to tell, but it looked like the same stuff that shot towards his chest when he had killed the creatures. Pushing that thought to the side for now, he walked towards the campfire. Stepping on a particularly sharp stone, he let out a slew of curses, then paused and closed his eyes while taking a few calming breaths.
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“I really need to find some shoes.”
Maybe he could get some from off those creatures. Crouching down to the campfire, he reached out.
Nicklaus Bamford
Level
1
Essence
0
Essence required
473
Endurance
10
Vitality
10
Strength
10
Dexterity
10
Arcane
10
Intelligence
10
Wisdom
10
Attunement
1
For the most part, it made sense. However, the attunement and arcane were odd. He wasn’t exactly sure what they were. And his attunement was extremely low. Just as he was fixing to get up, he noticed a symbol of a little bag at the top of the scroll. Soon as he thought about it, a new page appeared. It was some sort of inventory list. There were two items. The first had a little symbol of a blade labeled Rusted Dagger. Focusing on it, a new page appeared.
Rusted Dagger
Rarity
Common
Damage type:
Physical
12
Requirements:
Strength
3
Dexterity
5
~An old rusted dagger.~
Well, that dagger sucks. A simple thought and that page closed. The other item had a symbol of what looked like a glowing swirl of light labeled Celestial Soul. Focusing on it, a prompt appeared.
Would you like to absorb Celestial Soul Yess/No?
He was hoping for some sort of description. Focusing on the No, the screen vanished. He made a mental note to ask the campfire lady about it when he saw her again. Nick reopened his stat page to take one more look. That’s when he realized he didn’t have any essence. His eyes widened in realization. The light he saw must be the essence. Could he retrieve it? Would one of the creatures take it? Could he take it back if they did?
Pulling his hand back, the stat page vanished. He tried to calm his racing mind and figure out his next steps. At least his family was safe from this place. At least he hoped that was true. He was now an enemy of the Church of Light, whatever that consisted of, and that camp fire lady would be at the next campfire, or shrine, as it was called. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t know where the next campfire actually was. He had just been assuming it was up the stairs. Nick looked towards the ruins. Maybe he should explore that area. But not yet. He needed to see if he could retrieve the essence, and he had a score to settle with red eyes. That mother fucker had killed him twice now. This time he would be ready, though he wasn’t sure what to do about the archer. Or did he…
Nick was crouched waiting for the robbed figure to start back up the stairs. He held what he assumed was an old window shutter in his left hand and his club in the right. Luckily, the wooden plank didn’t bring up a stat page. He wished he had some rope or something to make a better handle, but he couldn’t find any. Even so, Nick was confident he could use it to block the arrow. It would, however, cause him to swing his club with one hand. But the thought of the arrow slamming into him was enough reason to convince him that one hand was good enough.
As soon as the creature turned up the stairs, Nick took off. He had to hurry before the others noticed. Kicking the robbed figure in the back of its knees, the creature fell and Nick slammed his club into its skull. Ignoring the red hue, he continued slamming his club down several more times even as the light shot up towards his chest. He then looked around wide eyed for the next one. His breaths were coming hard. He had seen the green bar pop up again while he was bashing the creature’s skull. It had rapidly dipped. He had mostly ignored it before, but he thought it best he started paying more attention to this world strangeness. The bar was now at half and rising at a steady pace it would likely be full again in less than a minute. He threw his plank on top of the creature, then grabbed it by its ankles and took off, dragging it behind the wall. As he did, the green bar started to dip again. He assumed it was a stamina bar, but he didn’t need a bar to tell him how tired he was.
He needed to go further up the stairs to see if he could retrieve the essence, but it would probably be best to kill the next creature, as it was patrolling. But first he wanted the creature’s shoes and robe. Peaking around the wall, he didn’t see any others so turned his attention to the figure. He started to undress the figure, but as he started, the creature began to fade along with all the clothing and shoes.
“Yep, this place is utter bullshit.” He waited a few seconds after the creature vanished, but there was no dagger in its place.
“Of course, I can’t take the shoes off the creature! That makes perfect fucking sense!” Calming his breathes he looked back at the stairs but didn’t see anything, so he waited.
After waiting for a good while, he decided there wasn’t any more coming, so he grabbed his plank and club.
Tainted Celestial Club
Rarity
Unknown
Damage type:
Physical
43
Life
50
Celestial Rot
50
Requirements:
Strength
10
Dexterity
3
Wisdom
10
Special Effect
Instantly restore 50 HP
Special Effect
Inflict Celestial Rot
~This Club was forged from a fallen branch of the Celestial Life tree. After being bathed in the Soul Blood of a Celestial Wisp as its first act, its alignment has become corrupted.~
Nick held the club up to his face. “Please, could you just turn off? For heaven’s sake, I’m literally dying here!”
Unfortunately, the stat page stayed right where it was and the club didn’t respond. Nick sighed. He wasn’t sure what he had expected. It was just so irritating having something constantly taking up half his vision. Not only that, he couldn’t even take the clothes off the creatures. At least it wasn’t cold. Nick glanced up, afraid an icy breeze would hit him at any moment and snow would start falling. Maybe this was hell. Forcefully pushing those thoughts aside, he made his way back to the stairs.
He crept towards the light. He was getting close to it now. Though he knew the archer and red eyes were up here somewhere around the bend. He was about teen feet away when the light shot towards his chest. At least he now had the answer to that. With his back up against the cliff, he peeked around the bend, he immediately seen a robbed figure with the cross bow walking up the stairs.
The stairs lead to a bridge. From what he could tell, and the bridge lead up onto the cliff. Though Nick’s attention was on the figure with the crossbow and trying to locate red-eyes.
Then he saw it, there was red eyes walking off the bridge to come down the stairs. He quickly moved back behind the bend. There was no mistaking those red eyes. Nick gripped his club till his knuckles turned white. He didn’t think the creature had seen him. Barely restraining himself from looking around the bend, he stood there, back against the cliff and mind racing. There was no way he couldn’t deal with both red-eyes and the cross bolt at the same time. He leaned his make shift shield against the cliff wall and gripped his club with both hands. He needed to get a good first hit. Maybe he could stun lock it like he did the other creature, or fallen as the Shrine lady called them.
His breaths came faster and faster. The bridge was a ways up there and would at least take the creature a couple of minutes to make it all the way down here. Waiting was nerve-racking. He didn’t know if the archer was coming down behind red-eyes or if it was continuing up.
Nick brought his attention to his next actions. He did his best to visualize what to do that always helped him calm down. At first he thought about tripping the creature as it walked around the bend, then smashing its skull in. But that didn’t seem likely. Red-eyes would likely see him before he could do anything. It seemed much more plausible to swing the club at the creature’s head, then depending on how far the health bar dropped, he would kick it off the stairs or continually swing his club at it. The where bouts of the crossbow would also make a difference as to what he did. He didn’t like his position. A direct plan of action was more his style. Glancing at the plank shield against the cliff face, he was unsure if he should hold it or just try to deal with red-eyes as quickly as possible, then deal with the crossbow. That’s exactly when red eyes walked around the bend.