With her new sickles on her back, Alice stepped out of Ambar City through the north gate and started walking north through the green open field following a dirt road. Before leaving, Alice was able to track down a picture of how the Gladulus flower looked and had been able to memorize it to be able to identify the flower once she came across it. It was a long flower with blue petals in the shape of a bell that would give a faint glow in the dark. The flowers could only be found in dark or shaded areas since they only thrived when they were deprived of any sort of sunlight. That made things a little easier for Alice since her objective was now clear. She now knew that she was looking for some sort of cave or covered area with no access to sunlight whatsoever.
“The quest said it was a couple of miles north, so I should be getting closer now,” said Alice to herself. She only walked a couple more minutes before she spotted a small cave entrance in the distance along an endless mountain range that ran west to east. Alice continued walking toward the cave before stopping a few hundred yards away from the cave. She hid behind a boulder and spotted what seemed to be one lonesome troll holding a giant club walking near the entrance of the cave as if looking for something or someone. According to the book Alice read at the library, trolls traveled alone and were slow creatures. They hunted small prey and were almost always seen in open fields. Adventurers usually were able to take higher-level Trolls due to how slow they were so they did not stack high on the level threat. They were tall creatures covered in hair from head to toe. They averaged 9 feet in height with some reaching almost 12 feet, and Alice could only describe them as a bigfoot variant from Earth. Filled with confidence and with her new equipment, Alice waited until the troll was distracted and looking away from her. Alice creeped into a close-by tree, shortening the distance between them. As soon as the troll looked the other way, Alice saw her chance and dashed as fast as she could with both sickles on her hands.
Alice did a cross slash with her sickles across the troll’s back as the troll screamed in pain. As soon as the sickles touched the troll’s back two quick notifications appeared on Alice’s vision.
Necrotic wound inflicted on troll.
Bleeding inflicted on troll
The troll turned around and tried to swing at Alice with its giant club, but it was no match for Alice’s acrobatics skills. Alice did a quick side roll to avoid the club, and sliced through the troll’s ankle mid roll with her red sickle. The troll fell onto its knees and Alice got the following notification.
Bleeding x 2 inflicted on troll
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Bleeding inflicted on self
Alice stood up and ran toward the cave while casting transfusion on herself.
Transfusion successful. Bleeding successfully transferred to troll.
Bleeding x3 inflicted on troll.
"Sweet! Worked just as advertised," thought Alice.
Alice entered the cave and turned towards the troll. The troll was wobbling its way towards Alice. It had black lines going across its back where Alice slashed it running into its stomach.
“Seems like the necrotic wound is doing its job,” Alice said as she remembered the definition of necrotic wound she found in one of the books in the library.
Necrotic Wound: A wound that inflicts necrosis in the affected area. Necrosis will spread at a slow rate if not treated in time. Necrosis kills all skin tissue and cells in the affected area.
Alice of course knew from her time as a doctor the implications of necrosis, and she knew that the troll did not have a lot of time left. That, coupled with bleeding, made the troll a walking corpse. A walking corpse that could still swing a giant club apparently. The troll rushed towards Alice inside the cave and swung its giant club over its head and down towards Alice. Alice did a perfectly executed backflip to avoid the club, which she successfully did. The club impacted straight into the ground with all of the troll's remaining strength. As the club hit the floor, the earth beneath the troll and Alice started to crumble. The floor completely crumbled away and Alice and the troll started falling.
Mid-air, Alice got the following notification.
Lvl 5 Troll defeated.
You have reached level 2. +5 Intelligence +3 Dexterity +2 Strength +5 Free points
Alice felt the stat-increase flow through her as she kept screaming for her life. She fell for a solid minute or two, but to Alice it felt like an eternity. Her life flashed before her eyes. She remembered herself when she was young, full of hope and saying how she wanted to become a doctor to save people's lives. She remembered Tim, and all the plans they had together, buying a house, going to Europe, growing old together. She remembered how this morning she was teleported to this world, and how it hadn't even been 8 hours and she was already going to die. “Tim would’ve been disappointed,” Alice thought, resigned. If she was honest with herself, she was disappointed in herself too. She thought she could become this badass adventurer, only to die on her very first herb gathering quest. All these thoughts went through her mind as she suddenly fell into what seemed to be an underground lake. She opened up her eyes from underwater and made her way above the surface. She swam to the shore, and got out the lake.
“I’m alive? How?” she exclaimed. Alice sat on the ground just astounded at the fact that she just survived a ridiculously long fall. When she got over her shock, Alice looked up and found herself surrounded by blue fluorescent flowers that lightly illuminated the cavern. She could barely see the troll floating in the middle of the lake with its black necrotic back pointing to the ceiling. She picked up one of the fluorescent flowers to take a closer look.
“Well there's good news and bad news. Seems like I found the flowers I was looking for,” said Alice to herself as she started walking around picking up as many of the fluorescent flowers as she could. “Now the bad news is that it seems like it’s going to be somewhat difficult getting out of here given that I have no idea of where I am,” said Alice worriedly.