The sun was glaring though the window again the next morning when I’d finally awoke again. It’s odd to say, but after just one night’s rest, I was feeling fit as a fiddle once more. Hungry and thirsty as if I hadn’t eaten or drunk anything for a week, but otherwise I felt fine.
“Stats. Skills.”
Name: Bloody HellTitles: The WitnessAge: 17Level: 2CP: 0STR: 9SYI: 8WIL: 7DEX: 8MYS: 8PRE: 7CON: 10SPR: 4LUC: 11HP: 42MP: 24SP: 12PD: 0DR: 0MR: 0SE: 8
Witness Protection -- ????
- Witness Liquidation -- ???
- Witness Reconstitution -- ??? (Current death today: 0)Spiritual Manipulation – Allows the user to manipulate the energy of the spirit realm when the conditions are right to do so. (12)Club Use – Proficiency (6)
Looking over my windows, I could see a few differences from yesterday already. My HP was back up to full, so I was now 100% certain that it represented my Health Points. My SE had increased overall from a 1 to an 8, and from what I remember reading with the windows that popped up for Cloudme, that figure had to represent my Spiritual Endurance. And my Spiritual Manipulation was now up in the double digits with a skill of 12. I’ve got to admit, moving around as Cloudme was definitely a lot easier than it had been starting out. I’ve got to find some way to try and improve that skill without dying so that if I ever end up in a death chamber like yesterday, I’ll be able to float away before I’m reborn. Another thing I learned yesterday; I tend to get reborn wherever Cloudme is and not wherever Realme’s corpse happens to be – which is why I came back to life on the rooftop when the minotaur kicked my corpse off to the ground.
And, of course, I was naked once again.
Letting out a deep sigh, I decided that trying to make me another poncho and finding another pair of shoes was just a waste of time at the moment. I was going to get revenge on those rats, but if they swarmed me again I’d just end up dying once more – and then I’d go up in smoke and those items would burn away with me. For now, I’ll just be the Streaking Rat Swatter and make them pay for yesterday!
Apparently, if I could lure the rats out into the hallway, I could fight them in smaller numbers and get myself some much needed experience and grow stronger. Getting the whole swarm however was just asking to die.
Looking around the room, I found myself a slightly twist piece of metal that looked sturdy enough to use as a club; I think it used to be one of the metal poles that had one of the flags of the countries on it. Each classroom here had a different flag which it displayed to symbolize the different cultures the school embraced, and this looked a lot like one of those poles to me.
Tapping the pole in my hands, I eased back out of the igloo room and started down towards the room that the rats had built their nest in. I wasn’t certain how I was going to coax them out to me one at a time, so I didn’t even bother to try and dig out any food or drinks from any of the other classrooms. I could curb my hunger once I’d smashed a few rats in and gotten at least a little payback.
I only went about halfway down the hall, and then I tapped on the left wall lightly. The rats were in a room on the right side of the hall, but I figured I’d see if I could rouse out a few without stirring them all up again. I thought beating on the opposite wall might be a safer bet – and I was right as two of the ugly suckers scurried out into the hall and starting sniffing with their ears twitching back and forth. Apparently their eyes aren’t the greatest as they didn’t seem to see me standing where I was, so I gently tapped the left wall twice more to get their attention.
Their ears twitched, one stood up to sniff the air, and the other one came scurrying down towards me. It closed about half the distance between us and then squeaked loudly and charged. When it squeaked, the second rat’s tail jerked up and it too came rushing down the hall towards me – which actually worked out perfectly for me this time!
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The first rat got to me just in time for me to use my club and send it flying like a baseball, and then the second one got to me just as I’d recovered so I could do the same with it. Apparently those points I’d spent in club use had made quite a difference for me, as each hit dinged a popup letting me know the rat was slain. Now I only needed 3 more for the achievement. (Apparently the one I’d batted out the window yesterday must’ve died and counted for me before the others overwhelmed me.) Individually, these rats were easy as cake. Get them in a swarm however, and it’s a completely different story.
I waited a moment to make certain that there wasn’t any more to come out of the room from where the two had squeaked and squealed before they died, and then I repeated the process. A few light taps on the left wall to try and lure another couple out, but this time I didn’t have any luck. I tapped a little harder, and then a little harder again. On my fourth try of increasing loudness, I succeeded with drawing the rats out of the room – but I’d drew more than what I was wanting to deal with as there was half a dozen of them that scurried out to see what the banging was.
I tried to back away down the hall, hoping that I might get lucky and only have to deal with one or two that’d come this way to investigate, but it didn’t do me any good. The whole group of them squealed, threw their tails in the air, and scurried to where I was. The next few moments was a flurry of furious hopping and swatting and backing up and trying not to die, and when the dust finally settled I was victorious. I was covered in bites and scratches and bleeding, but I’d managed to fight them off – and I’d gotten a few more pop ups to appear letting me know I’d leveled up and gotten my achievement.
Congratulations, you have unlocked the Apprentice Rat Slayer achievement.
You will now do 1.5x damage to all rats.
Your total Bristlebane Rat kills is: 10
You need 90 more to unlock the Rat Slayer achievement.
Congratulations, you have achieved level 3!
You gain 10 HP, 8 MP, 4 SP!
You have been awarded 20 CP!
I was certain that I’d killed more rats than I needed for the achievement, but those windows don’t seem to stay up long. They probably closed themselves before I noticed them.
“Stats”
Name: Bloody HellTitles: The WitnessAge: 17Level: 3CP: 20STR: 9SYI: 8WIL: 7DEX: 8MYS: 8PRE: 7CON: 10SPR: 4LUC: 11HP: 52 (22)MP: 32SP: 16PD: 0DR: 0MR: 0SE: 8
I was over half dead once again, and I felt it. Figuring DEX would help me dodge a bit more, I tapped it twice spending 17 character points in it to raise it up to a 10. As it hit double digit values, my PD also increased a point to 1. I still didn’t know exactly what it represented, but apparently it was somehow related to my DEX. The three points I had left, I decided not to spend currently and just save them. What I ended up with looked like the following:
Name: Bloody HellTitles: The WitnessAge: 17Level: 3CP: 3STR: 9SYI: 8WIL: 7DEX: 10MYS: 8PRE: 7CON: 10SPR: 4LUC: 11HP: 52 (22)MP: 32SP: 16PD: 1DR: 0MR: 0SE: 8
My hunger was growing, I was hurt, and I needed to rest up before I took a chance on luring out any more of the creatures. Slowly I backed away – I wasn’t going to turn my back to that room again until after I’d destroyed that whole swarm – until I’d backed all the way up to one of the rooms between where I was standing and where the goblin’s igloo room was and then darted inside it.