Chapter 4: New game.
I couldn’t remember falling asleep but when I awoke, I appeared in the void. Inky blackness surrounded me, and in the distance, floated an orb darker than the surrounding darkness. It felt as though I was paralyzed, there were no sensations to be felt and even my eyes couldn’t move, but I found that I could focus them. Just when I was about to focus my vison on the impossibly black orb, a system notification appeared in huge letters Infront of me.
Congratulations, you have gathered and levelled the requisite skills to unlock an achievement and have gained the following: god’s eye.
As soon as it appeared, it was gone again. The ever-confusing system stayed true to its nature and left me pondering on what the achievement was, what the skills in question were and what in the actual fuck was the god’s eye skill. Was I going to be like Neo and see the world in code, trying to shrug I screamed out obscenities in my mind as the system refused me even that simple action. focusing again on the orb pale blue script floated over it spelling out, Experience. Ok, I thought, that tells me absolutely nothing. Before I fell asleep the last notification said something about a character sheet. As soon as I thought about it more blue text appeared
NAME: OSCAR HOLLOW
RACE: HUMAN
LEVEL: 1
CLASS: NONE
LINKED FAMILIAR: ANANSI
ATTRIBUTES.
STRENGTH: 16
DEXTERITY: 28
CONSTITUTION: 12
INTELLIGENCE: 22
WISDOM: 29
CHARISMA: 10
LUCK: 2
STATUS CONDITIONS: NONE
RESISTANCE: BLADED-WEAPONS 50% BUG-TYPE 50%
WEAKNESS: NONE
It was both a lot to take in and nowhere near enough information. My entire being was laid out on a single page. Next to the level number sat another black orb identical to the one that was still far off in the distance. When I focused on it a warning popped up.
Warning: your experience gauge is empty.
So that answers that question, I thought deciding to pay attention to the other numbers on the screen. Each attribute determined a physical stat, and I assumed these numbers would grow as I levelled. A tutorial would have been nice or at least an explanation as to why my dexterity and wisdom were close to thirty while my charisma and constitution were sitting so low. It couldn’t have had anything to do with my life pre-system abduction as my career as a live streamer literally depended on how charismatic I was while trying to entertain my followers for hours on end. Was it something to do with the Skills I had acquired. Thinking about my skills shooed away my character sheet and replaced it with a list.
SKILLS:
ATHLETICS: (EXPERT) STR2
BLADES: (EXPERT) STR 2
CLIMBING: (EXPERT) STR 2
BUTCHERY: (EXPERT) DEX 2
DROP ATTACK: (EXPERT) DEX 2
DUAL WIELDING:(EXPERT) DEX 2
EVASION: (EXPERT) DEX 2
HARVESTING: (EXPERT) DEX 2
KNIFE THROWING: (EXPERT) DEX 2
POLE-ARMS: (EXPERT) DEX 2
SNEAK: (EXPERT) DEX 2
SNEAK ATTACK: (EXPERT) DEX 2
HERBOLOGY: (EXPERT) CON 2
CHEMISTRY: (EXPERT) INT 2
CARPENTRY: (EXPERT) INT 2
COOKING: (EXPERT) INT 2
FIRST AID: (EXPERT) INT 2
GATHERING (EXPERT) INT 2
TRACKING: (EXPERT) INT 2
GOD’S EYE: (UNIQUE) WIS 10
ARTIFICING: (EXPERT) WIS 2
CORE MECHANICS: (JOURNEYMAN)
HUNTING: (EXPERT) WIS 2
RAINFOREST OASIS AUTHORITY: (UNIQUE) WIS 5
The new page gave me some answers after a minute of speculation but also hit me with a few more questions. Doing the math, I found that the skills I had acquired boosted my attributes, meaning that when I first arrived here everything was at ten. I needed to level up to see how my stats would be effected but that meant gaining experience. Batting away the terrifying thought of fighting monsters, now that I was no longer immortal, I took to working out what everything I read could mean.
The miniscule amount of information given spoke volumes when I allowed myself to read between the lines. The one skill without a number designated to an attribute had Journey man next to it, all the rest either said expert or unique. The other thing the skill had was another one of those blacker than black orbs. So, I had to assign experience points to skills from this sheet and once I gained expert rank, the skill was complete, and I would receive two points for an attribute. This seemed to be the case for all but two of the skill, my authority and the newly gained god’s eye, they both gave a much higher bonus and were labelled unique. I wanted to test out my theory by gaining a new skill but first I had to figure out how to exit the sheet. Just like that, the urge to exit returned me to my body.
Regaining feeling, the first thing I did was shrug. The next thing I did was freak the fuck out as what I could only describe as a semi-transparent heads up display obfuscated my vision. At the top of the Hud lay a bar that moved as my head turned, first revealing the letter S then E, and I smiled as I realized I had a compass in my brain. Down to the left corner of my vision sat three bars, each a different colour, the top bar was red, the middle green and the bottom blue. From what games I had played, I remembered red to be health, blue to be mana or magic and green to indicate stamina, some games did things differently, but this was what I remembered to be the common colour code in video games.
I had to wonder as to why this Hud was designed in such a fashion, or how in god’s name humans managed to get such a particular feature right without prior knowledge. Before I could speculate further, I noticed a little bag icon on my right and when I peered at it a menu opened up displaying a list of items I had on my person, I had removed my clothes, so the list simply read the word, underwear. That was it, I knew what direction I was going in, what I would be carrying and had a few gauges that meant pretty much nothing to me at the time. If this was the unique god’s eye skill it didn’t do much for me.
I laid in my hammock for a while longer, just feeling sorry for myself and wishing I had just another day of immortality. Maybe it was the return of the mild aches from rough sleeping or the fact that Anansi wasn’t attached to my wrist, but I really woke up on the wrong side of the hammock. When my stomach gurgled and I remembered that I had left a perfectly good roasted capybara to eventually go bad in the sun, I figured that I may as well see to feeding myself and storing the rest in a dimensional bag. Rolling out of my hammock and slipping on my silken armour, I yawned and stretched.
“Good morning, Berlioz.”
“Good morning, Oscar.” Replied an unfamiliar voice.
I didn’t so much as leap out of my skin as I leaped into action grabbing for my machetes and scanning the room for an invader, when Berlioz slipped out of his hammock with his hands up.
“Calm down.” He said in a young yet wise voice. “I understand that you’re startled but I couldn’t speak until the silencing wore off.”
I didn’t even bother sheathing my blades, I just dropped them to the ground and ignored the fact that they cut through my flooring as I rushed to lift Berlioz in an excited hug.
Squeezing him I said. “Dude this changes everything.” I let him go but couldn’t drop the grin I was baring. “Oh man, I thought I was gunna be spending my life with a couple of mutes.”
When I stepped back, I noticed a floating eye icon above the cat’s head. Before I could say anything, a page opened up.
NAME: BERLIOZ
MONSTER TYPE: SAPIENT BEAST
SPECIES: PANTHERA
LEVEL: 5
ATTRIBUTES.
STRENGTH: 12
DEXTERITY: 17
CONSTITUTION: 12
INTELLIGENCE: 12
WISDOM: 12
CHARISMA: 12
LUCK: 1
STATUS CONDITIONS: NONE
RESISTANCE: NONE
WEAKNESS: FIRE
CORE QUALITY: POOR
“You’re a monster?” I spat more accusingly than I had meant to.
Berlioz raised his paws in a placating gesture. “You couldn’t tell?” He stopped and thought for a second “Wait, did you just analyse me?”
“I think so.” I said scratching my head. “How did you know?”
“Your eyes glazed over for a moment and then you looked shocked.” He eyed me up and down. “How did you even do that? You’re level one without a class and on your second day of life. You shouldn’t have the analyse ability.”
“It’s not an ability, I think it’s a skill. I picked up a lot of them yesterday.”
“Is it a unique skill?” His jaw dropped as I nodded, and he shook with excitement. “Oscar, do you know how much of an advantage that is? What’s the attribute buff?
“Umm, ten to wisdom.” I answered, awkwardly failing to match his excitement.
“Ten! Ten points straight into wisdom. That would be like having a bunch of skills hit expert rank all at once, and at level one, you lucky kitten.”
“Yeah,” I nervously laughed. “I kind of have that too.”
My words hit Berlioz like a taser to the nuts and he just stood there for a moment, looking like he was calculating the meaning of life.
Before he could sum it up to forty-two, he simply asked. “How many? With a defeated sigh.
I went through what I could remember, which was surprisingly a lot considering my brief skimming of the character sheet. I had to chock my sudden increase in memorization up to the boosted intelligence stat and wondered if getting it higher would give me an eidetic memory. While I listed the expert skills, I had ranked up the previous day and recited my attribute point scores, the cat-boy looked at me like I was the messiah, or Goku revealing yet another overpowered form.
“Tho, those numbers.” He stuttered. “it’s like you’re starting at level twenty. Is this why you’ve been racing around collecting skills?”
I shrugged. “Honestly I was just excited about the knowledge boost as the skill levelled up.”
“Ranked up.” He corrected. “You rank up a skill. I swear on my core, this is more ridiculous than how you killed the area boss. You have more expert rank skills than a master-classer and you’re just laughing it off like it’s nothing, do you know what I could do with that kind of advantage.”
“No, I don’t.” I said sternly. “I was brought here yesterday and have been through fucking hell. So how about we go have some breakfast and you can tell me all about it.”
We found Anansi by the waterfall’s basin amongst the hollowed out remains of the ants we had gathered. The scene was morbid, the segmented exoskeleton parts were spread out in neat piles. As if he were some kid of ocd stricken serial killer, the hungry spider had devoured the juicy biomass and then taken to cleanly dissecting and categorising the individual monster parts. Amongst the horrid array of ant pieces, the mandibles stood out as potential tools and honestly if I wasn’t so damn hungry, I probably would have gotten straight to work. With my thoughts on the succulent spit roasted rodent my eyes scanned to area to find that it was no longer there.
“Anansi.” I spoke allowing my hunger to affect my tone. “Where’s the capybara, buddy?”
The spider looked up at me and I filled with embarrassment of my own will as he dragged over a two pouches each labelled with a perfectly embroidered rendition of the large rodent roasting above a fire. When I reached in the bag, I found that not only had Anansi stored the meat he had also cut it up into strips that delighted my palate as I took a bite.
“Where’s the bones and all the guts you just left out to rot in the sun?” queried Berlioz picking up his snack pouch and slowly backing away from the spider god.
I brushed off the cat’s apparent fear of my spider buddy and answered. “That’s a good question.”
Looking at Anansi for an answer he indicated another pouch with a wave of one of his long legs. This pouch just had a big X on it, and I supposed that for now we would use it for disposing waste. When Anansi climbed back onto my wrist, we sat down amongst the ant remains and enjoyed our breakfast in companionable silence for a while until I did something that bothered Berlioz. I hadn’t thought anything of it, I simply noticed an eye shaped icon floating above the strip of meat I had taken out and focused on the icon.
CAPYBARA MEAT (POOR)
ALCHEMICAL BENEFITS: NONE.
USES: NUTRIENTS
“Oh, neat.” I said taking in the useless information.
Berlioz huffed. “You just used that skill to analyse the meat, didn’t you.”
“Why is it bothering you so much?”
The cats gaze fell to the ground. “It’s not bothering me it’s just…” he sighed. “Never mind.”
“No come on, there’s clearly something up. Earlier you got pissed that you didn’t have my advantages, what do you need them for?”
“We were taken.” He clawed at the ground as he spoke. “Those of us too weak to fight and the rest were slaughtered.” His feline eyes filled with tears. “It was a cooperative dungeon. Our people thrived for thousands of years and just like that a single band of orcs.” His words fell away, replaced by silent sobbing.
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
I drew closer to him. “You escaped but left your people behind.”
“I ran, you would too.” He shot back defending his actions.
In my eyes there were no actions to defend. “You gave yourself the opportunity to save them.”
“How? The orcs are all above level twenty and I’m just a level five Panthera.”
“Well first of all how many are there?”
“Fifteen.” He thought for a second. “Fourteen, the ants got their tamer”
“So, let’s go take care of them.” I stood as I spoke placing my hand upon my empty machete pouch. “We can take care of a bunch of orcs.”
“I don’t have your skills, Oscar.” He rose and his gestated aggressively. “And you’re not immortal anymore.”
“No, you’re right I’m not but we can gain new skills, and we have all of this around us to make weapons and armour, maybe even some traps.” As I looked over to the pile of ant remains, I noticed another icon. “What level were these guys anyway?”
NAME: ACID SPITTER ANT (WORKER)
MONSTER TYPE: BUG
SPECIES: LEGION ANT
LEVEL: 22
ATTRIBUTES.
STRENGTH: 45
DEXTERITY: 37
CONSTITUTION: 25
INTELLIGENCE: 7
WISDOM: 5
CHARISMA: 0
LUCK: 0
STATUS CONDITIONS: DECEASED
RESISTANCE: ACID 100%
WEAKNESS: PIERCING
CORE QUALITY: COMMON
“Hey, look.” I said pointing over to the carapace pile. “Those ants were level twenty-two, and I’ve killed a bunch of them without any help.”
“Excuse me?” Berlioz looked at me expectantly while Anansi made me feel deep seated guilt. “Woah, ok, ok. My point is if we train up and get to crafting, we will have more or less what we need to go save your people.”
“Are you sure you want to risk your life for me, Oscar.” Berlioz looked up at me with glint of hope in his eyes.
I gave him my signature grin. “I’ve got you little bro.”
If this new life were a movie there would have been a fantastic training montage with the three of us growing stronger as the sun rose and fell in the horizon, instead we sat there for a while awkwardly twiddling our thumbs while I tried to work out where to start. After about five minutes of brain fog rolling over the valleys of my mind, I finally came up with an idea. I reached for the dagger at my back and placed it down in front of me.
“When I found you, there was a crossbow bolt in your leg.” I took out a healing pear. “When i crushed some of these up and applied it to the wound I got a few skills. So, how about we start there?”
A few of the basalt rocks at the base of the fire, were small enough to grind the pears into a poultice. It took a few attempts and wasted more of the precious fruit than I cared to see but eventually Berlioz managed to produce what looked like a viable poultice. When I grabbed the blade, the cat boy held out his arm and winced in anticipation, but the sound of my pained grunt made him realize my plan. I had only cut the palm of my hand however the wound was quite deep, and the blood welled up fast enough to make me woozy. I had to hand it to the little Panthera, his reaction was fast and precise. without hesitation Berlioz grabbed me by the wrist and smoothed the slimy red poultice into the rent in my palm.
The numb throbbing ache of the fresh wound was replaced with a fascinating sensation that felt like a well scratched itch and a warm fire on a cold day. The immortality was nice, but the lack of pain had been bothersome. We need pain to indicate what’s bad for the body but on top of that we need it to put pleasure into perspective. The pain of the cut made everything feel real again and the pleasure of the wound instantly healing with the help of just a couple of crushed up pears, made me feel like there was hope for survival. I inspected my red stained hand, and it was as good as new. Before I could wipe it clean, I noticed Berlioz gain a giddy smile.
“I got three skills for that.” He cheered.
I chuckled “Herbology, Chemistry and first aid, right?”
He jumped up. “What’s next?”
“Do you have any weapon skills?”
“Only drop attack and that was at expert rank the day I was born.” He scratched the back of his head. “It’s all a bit of a haze but I vaguely remember you using that skill after the ants killed the orc. It sounds stupid but I thought you were one of the elders come to rescue us.”
I laughed remembering the state of my legs when I dropped down on the ant without the skill. “I didn’t even have drop attack when I did that and I’m pretty sure the drop shattered my tibias.” Looking around the oasis I felt reluctant to voice my next thought. “Ok so, the thing is we can either build a bunch of skills up now by gathering rocks and running around in a circle for a while, or we could go and stab a boar in the eye and gain some XP.”
Berlioz pulled out his spear and said. “I like the sound of XP.”
Before we left, I briefly turned my attention towards the scattering of ant remains. The three pairs of worker ant mandibles looked like they would make pretty useful hammers but would do little to aid us in our boar hunt however the soldier ant’s mandibles seemed to maintain their gelatinous layer of acid and that was too good to pass up. I probably could have taken my time messing around with the corrosive object, but I was anxious enough about leaving the safety of our oasis and if I let myself get carried away, I never would have left, so I quickly whittled down part of a mantis leg and had Anansi secure the two bug parts together forming a club. Being careful not to allow the mandible to touch the edges of a medium sized reed pouch I attached it to my side, and we took off.
We didn’t hurry on our way, instead we took our time to scan the forest around us. The god’s eye skill filled my vision with icons every time I focused on anything for more than a couple of seconds. Trees, leaves even twigs on the ground beneath us and for the most part I ignored them until a small mound of earth caught my eye. The soil was a richer colour than that of undisturbed ground around it, and when I focused on the icon I understood why.
IRON HIDE BOAR DROPPINGS (RARE)
ALCHEMICAL BENEFITS: SLASHING RESISTANCE, PIERCING RESISTANCE.
USES: MANURE, CHEMICAL REAGENT.
I didn’t want to pick up the pig shit, I didn’t even want to get close to it, but it had a use, and I wasn’t about to let it go to waste. Reaching into my machete pouch with the intention of using it as an improvised poop scoop I realised that I had left both of the mantis blades stuck in the flooring of my tree house. With a defeated sigh I lowered myself down from the tree line, with the help of Anansi’s webbing and scooped up the faeces. As if the disgust I naturally felt wasn’t enough, my spider buddy compounded the feeling with his own personal views, and I couldn’t help but wretch as I squished it into a pouch that would forever be designated as the shit bag. The warmth of the excrement as it broke apart between my fingers made my throat fill with vomit, but it also filled my mind with purpose as it told me one thing; A boar was close.
Already having the hunting and tracking skills It would have been easy to find our prey but the whole point in our foray was to push Berlioz’s attributes up, so I let him take the lead. Signalling the cat boy down to me I showed him the small mound of earth and explained what we would be looking for. I don’t know if it was his instinctual nature as a cat or his familiarity with the woodland setting, but he noticed evidence of the boar’s passing almost instantly. Rough warn bark on the trunks of trees, more mounds of soiled earth and what looked to be foraging attempts. After less than an hour of tracking and collecting valuable poop, we spotted a boar in the distance. Berlioz had enjoyed my comical retelling of my first encounter with the last boar and knew not to get close to the thing, so we took to the sturdy branches above us once more.
My heart pounded as we stalked our prey, and I had to request calming thoughts from Anansi. From my limited understanding of the systems rules this kill had to be Berlioz’s for him to gain the skills, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t help with a plan. While the boar scraped its tusks against a nearby tree, we whispered through our options. There was no need for debate as we worked out our plans and contingencies and before long, Berlioz dropped down from the tree line with Anansi following behind him.
I watched on from my vantage point feeling helpless as my little cat bro approached unseen. Berlioz was a predator, and the boar was his prey. Silently stalking the big pig, the cat moved in being sure to take cover between the trees. Completely unaware the boar snuffled at the ground presumably searching for grubs or whatever it was boars ate in the wild. In its foraging attempts the boar drew closer to Berlioz and I whistled in the hopes that I could distract its attention. When the big pig was little more than ten feet away from the Berlioz, the cat acted. Without hesitation he broke the short distance and aiming for the boar’s left eye he thrusted his spear. At the last second the boar twisted its bulky neck and caught the spear head between its tusks. Berlioz had been disarmed but not discouraged.
Leaping back, the cat boy pulled out his impossibly sharp daggers and waited. The boar did not have the capacity for caution, instead it kicked its foot back grunted loudly and charged covering the distance between the two of them in an incomprehensible flash of movement. Berlioz waited for the grunt and leapt up at the sound of it, as the boar appeared beneath him, he positioned himself in the air and dropped onto its back. The boar tried to react but had fallen for our trap. Invisible to the naked eye set between two trees was a thin, sticky and ridiculously durable line of webbing. Even with the incredible speed at which the boar moved it was incapable of breaking the web, instead the line tore the old bark it was attached to and tangled around the boar’s legs.
Berlioz stabbed with delighted ease into both of the bounded pig’s eyes, pushing the blades deeper and deeper as it feebly writhed in agony. There was a quick popping sound from one of the ocular cavities and the boar grew still. While Berlioz’s danced atop his fallen prey I climbed down the tree with effort and hurried over scooping up Anansi along the way. The spider and I filled with unmitigated pride as we looked upon our cheering hero.
“What skills did you get.” I asked interrupting Berlioz’s passionate victory dance.
He looked at me with glee in his eyes. “All of them. Hunting, tracking, sneak, small blades and even sneak attack and pole arms. I think the blade of my spear must have nicked the tusks and that counted as a successful attack, oh and to top it all of the thing gave me a large XP gain.” He looked around for a second. “Hey, did you see where my spear went?”
I ran over and grabbed the fallen spear and stopped suddenly when I thought I saw something creeping through the nearby under growth. “Umm, Anansi did you see that?”
The spider shoed away my concerns about the prior vampiric root incident and I returned to my little cat bro’s side.
“Why are you looking around like something’s going to sneak up on you?” Berlioz asked noticing my distracted gaze.
I didn’t look up at him as I returned his spear. “I swore I saw a root.”
He leapt back onto the boars back. “Oh, shit where?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure of it.” I said, joining him and scanning the area.
We stayed up there for a while until I decided that I must have been mistaken due to the lack of evidence shown by the god’s eye skill.
“I know this is your kill but is it ok if I try something.” I said pulling out my corrosive mandible club.
Berlioz simply shrugged and I brought the thing crashing down onto the boar’s head. The skull cracked like a coconut and the iron hide flesh sizzled, letting of a sour aroma. After a few seconds there was naught, but the fractured bleached skull left connected to the pristine body via the undamaged spinal column.
Prying apart the skull and pulling out the monster core I asked. “Anansi can you’re webs do something similar now that you’ve devoured those ants?”
I jumped with joy at the positive vibes that got sent my way.
“D’ya want this buddy.” I said hovering the core next to the spider on my wrist.
He made the core feel useless in my hands and I almost discarded it before I thought to focus on the icon that floated above it.
MONSTER CORE (RARE)
ORIGIN: IRON HIDE BOAR.
ABILITIES: IRON HIDE, FLASH STEP, LIGHT FOOT.
The core contained the monster’s abilities, and my mind raced with ideas but remembering the possibility of a root being out there somewhere, plotting my demise, I hurried on. The last boar I had killed weighed more than me and there was no way I could have carried it back to our camp but this time we had corrosive webbing. With a fine string of webbing Anansi opened a line down the centre of the boar and I used my dagger to clear the meat beneath the hide and in a matter of moment, thanks in part to my so far unused butchery skill. We had a boar pelt and a bleeding mess of pork on the ground. I couldn’t lift the fat pig so Anansi had to help once again by webbing its legs and hoisting it up but with a pouch and my trusty dagger I cut piece after piece of the boar securing fine cuts of bacon, pork chops and joints that would be perfect to gain Berlioz the cooking skill, I did however decide that the ribs would be saved for when I crafted a barbecue and found a reasonable replacement for barbecue sauce.
With one pig down and the sun barely at its zenith, we stowed the boar pelt in the trees with a vibrant orange web and went out to find more of the little piggies. The deeper we traversed into the forest the more signs of boar activity we found. A few times we had stopped to track one of the pigs, only to lose the trail regardless of my expert rank skill. It wasn’t until an hour after our first encounter that we discovered a nest, it was the Capybara all over again, there was mummy boar, daddy boar and even two boars I decided to name Peppa and George. When I turned to leave them be, Anansi filled me with shame and Berlioz didn’t understand.
“It’s a family there man.” I said gesturing for Anansi to shoot a web. “I can’t do it.”
Berlioz laughed as Anansi crawled off my wrist before making his point. “They’re savage beasts, Oscar. Practically walking bags of meat and experience, they would sooner gore you for fun than show you any sympathy.”
I sat on the branch and began digging at the bark. “Look at them, living peacefully and you want to just go down and ruin that.”
“Come on, you’re joking right. Look at that little one its basically trying to kill its dad.” He pointed at Peppa while she head butted the larger of the two adult pigs. “If you don’t join me; I probably won’t make it.”
My eyes went wide, and I panicked as Berlioz dropped down. “Hey, wait. What the fuck are you doing.”
The moment Berlioz reached the ground he started to jump up and down waving and shouting for the boars’ attention. The big daddy pig lost its shit. While the mother guarded the two little once steaming with impotent rage, the terrifying giant boar charged. Berlioz was at least forty feet away but with successive flash steps the boar reached him in an instant. Luckily my cat bro realised that the potential for impact was coming harder and faster than expected and before the final flash step he leapt to the side, narrowly evading what would have been a fatal blow even with his impervious web armour. From where I was the best I could do was attempt hit the boar in the eye with a thrown dagger and so I let my blade loose, figuring that the worst that would happen was gaining the boars attention, giving Berlioz an advantage.
The blade hit but failed to stick. Blinded in one eye the boar bucked and grunted in pain before searching for me and ignoring Berlioz all together. Ignoring the cat was the last mistake the daddy pig ever made. Berlioz leaped onto the raging boars back and gripping a tusk to steady himself he shunted a dagger deep into the monster’s eye. Before he could celebrate the slaughter, a manic squealing sounded behind him, and we both looked back to see the two baby pigs dangling in web sacs. The mummy pig was irately squealing and grunting at the sight of her helpless piglets, which gave Berlioz the opportunity for a sneak attack.
Proud of himself for creating the distraction, Anansi returned to my wrist and snuggled on tight. Finally free to zip between trees I positioned myself above the mother boar and waited. Just when Berlioz thought he was about to get a critical sneak attack in, I dropped down and forced my spear through the boar’s eye. My aim was impeccable the only problem was that the angle was wrong. instead of piercing the boar’s brain or core, I wasn’t sure, the blade broke through the eye socket and glided out of its mouth affixing the poor thing to the floor.
“What did you just do?” Exclaimed Berlioz. “It’s bad enough you tried to steal my kill but you’re torturing the thing Infront of its children.” He gestured at the piglets in an over dramatic fashion. “What happened to trying not to ruin their little family.”
“Oh man, oh fuck dude. This is bad let me just.” I pulled out my corrosive club and with a heavy heave I brought it slamming down onto the struggling mother’s head. “There, I’m so sorry.”
Congratulations, you have slain iron hide boar and have gained the following: large experience, blunt weapons.
The skill gain felt different from the other times. Before I would gain a skill and the knowledge that I needed to use it, but this time it felt empty. Shrugging it off, scanned our grim surroundings and longed for home.
“Should we butcher the meat, grab the pelts and head home?” I asked yanking my spear free and looking over towards the daddy boar for my dagger.
Berlioz looked up at the two piglets. “What about those two?”
“I still feel bad for them.” I was probably going to regret it, but I said. “We’ll look after them.”
After murdering the piglets’ parents, I wasn’t going to subject them to the utter horror of watching me butcher and harvest their remains, so I had Anansi bundle them up in tight webbing leaving only a hole to breath from and we got to work. After finding my dagger embedded in a tree trunk, I guided Berlioz through the process of skinning and butchering the boars. The first one took ages with his blade constantly failing against the interior skin layer and ricochetting into the meat of the thing, but he still got the butchery skill and made short work of the second one, gaining us enough pork to feed an army.
Carrying the three pelts and two piglets as we zipped and swung across the tree line was exhausting and for the first time, I actually paid attention to the colour coded bars in the corner of my vision. The quickly diminishing green bar worried me but the ghostly glow of the blue bar intrigued me. its mere presence meant that I was capable of using magic, like fire balls and light night strikes out of my fingers and that daydream allowed me to push on through to our home. Each time the bar dropped a bit too low, I focused on the blue bar and thought happy wizardly thoughts. Before I could finish my daydream of becoming the systems strongest spell monger and crafting a tower of stone into my waterfall bearing mountain, I heard the water rushing into the basin and realised I was home.
Congratulations, you have successfully meditated through the pain of bearing a heavy load and have gained the following: meditation.
There was nothing sweeter than an unexpected skill gain. Suffice to say, we were tired. Berlioz dropped the boar hides and the couple of meat pouches he was carrying and hurried his way up to the tree house, while I had to take care of the piglets. Anansi’s webbing was weird to me, it reacted to his will and with a strand connected to his spinneret he reabsorbed the majority of the webbing. I didn’t know what to do with my new pets, but I knew I couldn’t allow them to roam free in my oasis, so carrying them kicking and squealing over to the western edge of the clearing, I secured web collars around their necks and tide each of them to a tree. The web ropes I used were long enough to allow them to reach the basins edge for a drink or wander through a small area of the forest. I wasn’t sure what the boars would eat but figuring it couldn’t hurt I dropped a bunch of healing pears within their reach and returned to my tree house.
It hadn’t taken me long to secure the boars, but by the time I reached the tree house Berlioz was already snoring away in his hammock. If this was earth, I wouldn’t be napping with so much to do, however the system’s night sky was almost as bright as the day, so a short rest really wasn’t going to impede our activities. Laying in my hammock, I listened to the rhythmic snoring of my little cat bro, it was a bassy sound with soft purring vibrations and it soothed my busy mind.
“Don’t let me sleep too long, ok Anansi.” I whispered stroking his back.
Positivity and calm washed over me in reply.
With my eyes closed I pictured using Anansi’s acidic webs to work on the boar hides and wondered what the possibilities were with the monster cores we had collected. It had been an eventful morning with plenty of gains, but we would have to do a lot more if we were going to take on a camp of orcs. Visions of massive green men bearing boar like tusks and heavy axes popped in and out of my exhausted mind and before long, my pig like snores joined Berlioz’s bassy purrs.