Aria awoke feeling refreshed as ever, the steady sound of running water and feeling of soft grass making her stretch out in comfort.
However, the oddly toad-like growl from beside her made Aria sigh.
“Haaa, still in hell.”
Aria took half a second more to relax before performing a fluid kip-up and landing gracefully on her feet.
She turned her attention to the beast stalking her from a few yards away. Aria was somewhat wary of the creatures after yesterday's fiasco with the level 50+, but this one seemed common enough to her senses. In fact, this one really seemed less than adequate.
“Inquiry.” Aria stated in a deadpan tone.
Bulbion Wolftoad, Level 14.
Aria almost laughed at the thing’s pitiful level. No wonder it seemed so useless.
Well. Aria mused. Maybe not entirely useless.
…
Ten minutes later, Aria sat atop what looked like a sphere of obsidian water. Her flames flowed smoothly, like a current as they ran over the surface of the dead monster. Her super stomach, as she’d coined the ‘stomach’ where she stored energy, was filled to the brim, and the flames had no reason to devour their mistress’s perch.
The Wolftoad had, indeed, not been entirely useless. Although it was truly a joke of a monster, it proved quite capable as a test dummy. Aria was able to confirm several theories.
First being, her white flames were fully capable of healing other creatures, albeit at a slower and more costly resource consumption. Healing an injury on the unfamiliar body of the road seemed to take as much as three times the energy it took her to do such a thing. As she grew more intimate with the inner workings of the creature, the cost seemed to reduce, but she was never able to get it below twice the amount.
Second, was that stats and levels had a huge impact on a creature’s power. Despite being the same species as the beast that had thoroughly thrashed her yesterday, this one was like a newborn puppy. Its teeth couldn’t break her toughened skin, and the adhesive on its tongue wasn’t even enough to get past her resistance.
Third and finally, was the fact that Wolftoad meat was off the menu. Call it morbid curiosity or insanity, Aria couldn’t keep herself from taking a small taste of the beast’s flesh.
And, after violently wretching up the little contents of her stomach, she promptly covered the creature’s corpse in the dark obsidian flame.
Aria gracefully hopped off the flame-wreathed figure, pulling away the obsidian fire with a wave of her hand. The corpse it left looked wholly unburned, more like something had severed it so cleanly as to not even leave a drop of blood.
Aria shivered, remembering the taste of that horrible creature. “Nope!” She stated, walking back toward the forest. “I’ll keep to my fruits, thank you very much.”
A few minutes later, a naked girl sat comfortably on the thick branch of a tree, contentedly eating a large fruit while staring into the space before her.
Name: Arienna Dubrai
Age: 18
Race: Variant
Vitality: 62
Strength: 27
Dexterity: 27
Intelligence: 50
Wisdom: 70
Unallocated stat points: 25
“Hmm…” Arienna silently mused, absentmindedly contemplating her free stat points and what she should with said points.
Aria casually ate the fruit that could kill a full grown man, the juice dribbling down her chin. She frowned at the menu, not really knowing what to do. She got a lot of points pre distributed from her class ups, but she was torn. It was clear that her class favored intelligence and wisdom, but it already put so many points into those stats that it seemed like things were getting a bit unbalanced.
After mulling over it for a few more minutes, Aria decided to dump everything into her physical stats, heavily favoring dexterity. She put four points into vitality, thirteen into dexterity, and eight into strength.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Name: Arienna Dubrai
Age: 18
Race: Variant
Vitality: 66
Strength: 35
Dexterity: 40
Intelligence: 50
Wisdom: 70
Unallocated stat points: 0
Aria smiled at her new status, her back arching as the energy of the world flooded her body. Her muscles tensed as the sensual feeling rampaged through her, her thighs squeezing the branch so tightly it snapped.
A small squeak jumped from her lips before Aria’s hang sprung out, latching onto the stub of the once large branch. She hung there, suspended high in the air, a wide smile on her lips. The power coursing through her body was intoxicating, she felt as if she could hang there for hours.
A truly terrible idea came to her then as she looked down at the ground some sixty feet below her, and she let go.
Aria found peace in those small seconds, the wind comforting her naked form as she fell. She did several aerial flips before landing heavily on her feet. With a crack, Aria’s left foot gave out from under her, sending her sprawling onto the forest floor, but within moments she was whole once more, laughing maniacally.
She lay back on the firm dirt, looking up at the broken tree branch she’d just fallen from. Her bare chest heaving with every deep breath. “Hell or Heaven, this world is insane.”
Aria heard it then, a scream.
She sat up like a bolt, listening, trying to pinpoint the direction. It came again, far off in the distance, but seemingly human.
Aria jumped to her feet and took off running.
…
Senna ran, her boots ripping up the dirt as she did.
She thought back to Percy’s cold words, ‘accidents happen in the Wilds.’ She would’ve chastised herself if she could spare the energy, but she couldn’t. Her everything was focused, hellbent on running through the thick woods.
She heard it, the laughing growl of the creature behind her. She heard the trees and branches cracking, falling as it ran straight through them. She stood no chance in a direct fight. Her only hope was to run.
Her small lapse in concentration was her undoing. Senna's foot caught on a jutting root, sending her tumbling into the dirt. She landed hard on her shoulder. She screamed as her shoulder popped, but she couldn’t stop, she couldn’t…
Senna rolled to her stomach pushing up with her good arm to run, but a weight crashed onto her back, sharp claws digging into her flesh. She screamed again, then again as sharp jaws closed over the back of her neck, crushing her spine.
Dread and an uncontrollable flood of panic swam into her mind as she lost the connection to the rest of her body. Phantom pain tore at her mind where her body’s nerves once were. She was then airborn, flying quickly before crashing harshly into a tree’s trunk.
Now, she could see it, her soon-to-be killer. The beast stood like a man, Two hairy legs thick as trunks held its furry body aloft, the snout of a wolf opening to show rows of teeth like razors.
The beast loomed over her motionless form, stepping closer slowly as if to enjoy her suffering, her defeat. Her broken body didn’t move, but her mind instinctively recalled her most used skill - inquire.
Werewolf, Level 32
A shudder ran down Senna’s shattered spine, werewolves were feared creatures, capable of taking out entire adventuring parties matching their levels. And here she lay, helpless, in front of such a beast. All her training, all her effort, all her spilled blood, her tears, her sweat, for nothing. She was going to die.
The beast stood over her now, its maw leaning down toward her face, its lips pulling back, revealing a sneering jaw filled with rows and rows of razors.
Senna could feel the life draining from her body, even if the beast didn’t finish her off, she only had moments.
The werewolf paused in its approach, its head raising at it sniffed, its lupine ears perking up. Senna heard nothing but the blood pounding in her head, growing fainter with every passing moment.
Surprise overwhelmed Senna’s worry as the beast growled, turned, and ran. Heading opposite to the way it seemed to have sensed something. It’s running? Senna was able to make one simple thought before another creature broke the brush before her.
It looked like a girl. A warring mix between the messiest and most ragged looking person Senna's ever seen, and the most beautiful girl she’d laid her eyes on. Even more odd was that the girl was showing off all the goods.
…
“Fuck!” Aria screamed after seeing the state of the woman before her. She rushed forth, placing her hands onto the woman. She smiled, thankful for her unwilling lab rat showing her how to use her skill on others.
Energy flowed from her hands at a rapid pace, rushing into the battered woman before her. The woman’s near lifeless eyes sparked, a look of disbelief replacing death. Her wounds closing in moments, stitching back together as white flame ran wild in her blood, lashing out from the wounds. The flames flowed over the woman, making whole what was broken.
It was then that Aria’s instincts screamed.
Aria threw the woman away, pushing her almost recovered body into the thick tree as a massive force impacted into her side. Pain exploded into Aria’s mind as she was thrown back. Her naked body smashing through the trunk of a tree as thick as she was.
Energy rushed through her, knitting her broken bones and sealing the bleeding gash on her side. Aria propped herself up with one arm, then, with no small amount of exasperation, pushed herself back to her feet.
The tree she’d chopped with her body fell harshly to the forest floor with a crack. Leaving the path open for Aria to see the beast that attacked her. A werewolf? Aria thought. There was simply nothing else it could be. Aria was pulled back to earth when she was little, obsessed with horrible fictions about vampires and werewolves.
“Inspect.” Aria spat blood with the words, a message stamping itself onto her vision.
Werewolf, Level 32
Aria grinned at the confirmation, the blood in her mouth making her smile look sinister. Black flames covered her hands, running up her arms. “I always was more of a team Edward kinda girl.”