With a groan, Walter woke up and like the last time he dared open his eyes… He was exceedingly moist And oddly enough naked as the day he was born but had that been the oddest thing he may well have considered himself lucky. Waking up naked was not something he had expected, not that he had expected anything in particular but damp earth was close to the bottom of his list of things he wanted to wake up in no matter how comfortable it might have been.
Walter sat up feeling more than a little odd. Like he had just woken up from a nightmare. Manic with a side of jittery fight or flight energy. Oddly it Ifelt almost cathartic to Walter, as if he was truly alive. And then like a sledgehammer it hit him, he had moved. He hadn't twitched. He hadn't fidgeted. He had sat up. He had willed his body to move and it had
( GIVING UP THE GHOST) COMPLETE
You have bargained with a strange and powerful being and not only walked away alive but retained your sanity.
* Objective: Retain ownership of your body and soul during the merging.
* Rewards:
Complete body repair.
Patronage of The Silent.
1 copy of soul bound contract.
"A soul bound contract? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Glancing about Walter found that he was smack dab in the center of a rather large cave. Or is it a cavern? I can't rightly remember the difference. Regardless the cave was massive, roof at least twenty or thirty high with stalactites as thick as his waist. But as captivating as that was it paled in comparison to the towering mushrooms and thick carpets of moss that glowed in every color of the rainbow.
Pink fluorescent fungus the size of minivans dotted the landscape, pools of stagnant water filled with glowing yellow algae, walls dotted with clusters of undulating lichen the color of fresh blood. Walter blinked and nearly fell down as he slowly turned observing his underground pipe dream.
“What the hell is going on here and why in gods name am i surrounded by psychedelic fungus.?”
As if in response that same disembodied screen appeared in front of his face. He reached out to touch it, his finger passing through the space as if nothing was there. In fact no matter where he looked, up down, left, right the screen followed. It shimmered. It shifted. But always it followed his line of sight.
“Some sort of… Hologram? What is this Star Trek?”
There was text on the screen, or at least what he assumed was text. The characters making up the words were unfamiliar, almost like a combination of Egyptian hieroglyphs and old Norse runes. Slowly over the course of a few seconds though the odd almost alien words changed into his native english which he started reading.
________________________________________________
WALTER WILLIAM WARD
RACE: Human (Outsider Variant)
ARCHETYPE: N/A
LEVEL: 0
ATTRIBUTES:
Strength: 3
Agility: 4
Stamina: 3
Willpower: 10
Intelligence: 8
Presence: 6
COMBAT SKILLS:
N/A
LIFE SKILLS:
Cooking: 35
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Cleaning: 32
Mathematics: 21
History (Earth): 26
Academics: 17
Empathy: 13
Socialize: 14
Intimidation: 19
GIFTS:
Mark of the Silent (Soul Scar)
Descendant of Babel (Racial Ability)
Twinned Soul (????)
“Huh.”
Walter glanced around suspiciously poking and prodding his surroundings looking for just about anything that would make sense of his surroundings. Hidden cameras. A head injury. Aliens. Anything but the memories that haunted him of that weird in between place filled with monsters.
He looked at the screens. He looked at the lsd mushrooms and all the undulating fungai.
“ I must be going nuts. Right? Right.”
He looked back to the giant tree sized mushroom, blinking slowly.
“Like, I must be going crazy. This is a drugged out dream. I'm still stuck in my bed. There's nothing here and i'm just living my last moments in drugged out bliss.”
And then suddenly another screen appeared next to the first.
NEW QUEST: (Mush Room)
You’ve unintentionally disturbed a small colony of Saperlings. Defend yourself.
* Objective: Defeat the Saperlings 0/10
* Rewards: A Basic Backpack.
Experience
“A quest? Like… A game? What the actual hell? Owe!”
Walter yelled and fell backwards as he felt something sharp stab into his foot. Glancing down at where he had stood he saw what could only be described as a walking mushroom. Looking like nothing more than a one and a half foot portabella with stubby arms and legs ending in tiny sharp fingers and toes he yelled and scooted backward, his naked rear dragging in the cool mud.
“A mushman? What the hell!” It stalked forward moving at something best described as a crawl. Lacking eyes , a nose, or any real facial features Walter had to wonder how it knew where he was. Though that thought was short lived as he felt yet another stinging pain in his back.
Looking back he saw another of the odd mushroom creatures this one actually slightly smaller than the first. He threw his arm back swiping at the creature as he scrambled to his feet. Surprisingly the mushman was sent flying a few feet, only stopping as it hit one of the glowing mushroom trees almost seeming to disintegrate on impact.
Saperlings: 1/10 Defeated
“Okay… Okay I can do this. I can do it no issues.”
HE looked back at the first mushroom creature that had attacked him a small smile crossing his face.
“It’s been a while since I've played football…”
Hiking his leg back he hopped forward a step and kicked the faceless creature full in the stock sending it even further than the first and much like the first as soon as it hit any actual resistance it melted into thin error, leaving only a small cloud of spore where it had been.
Saperlings: 2/10 Defeated
“TAKE THAT YOU EYELESS FREAK!”
Letting out a small laugh Walter let his leg drop to the ground before he collapsed onto his knees panting at the minor exertion. And closer to ground level with his heart pounding in his chest he felt his first taste of fear in the new world.
The mud around the mushtree in front hom started to quake as ever so slowly more Saperlings climbed from the mud and slowly if methodically made their way towards him. First one. Then two. Then three tell there were eight of them slowly wadling after him.
Rushing to his feet Walter was at a loss. One or two would have been no issue. Hell Walter was fairly confident he could take four of them without any difficulty. But he was already feeling sluggish and the stinging pain in his back and foot felt the same if not worse.
“Did those fuck’s poison me? I mean come on…”
Looking behind him he saw that the next nearest mushtree was closer than he thought, but he somehow knew that there would be more of these… Creatures around its base. So he steeled himself glanced back at the approaching ‘horde’ and steeled himself for the pain to come.
As the mindless creatures grew closer Walter jumped as high and as far forward as he could his bare feet coming down in the leading Saperlings, crushing them into clouds of dust and spores. Coughing once he stumbled backwards shaking his head as he kicked out his foot smacking into another of the creatures.
Saperlings: 5/10 Defeated
Eyes watering all Walter could do was ignore the pain shooting through his body and fight on. Feet flew in haphazard fashion killing the creatures left and right, but the sting the creatures inflicted on him seemed to grow as he killed them and he slowly lost the feeling in his lower body though he retained control of his limbs.
Finally with one last kick he fell forward using his body to crush the final mushroom creature as he was completely and utterly out of energy after only a few moments of conflict. He couldn’t feel his lower body and it ever so slowly seemed to creep up his body as he lay in a cloud of spores.
Saperlings: 10/10 Defeated
(Mush Room) COMPLETE
The Saperlings proved to be tougher then you expected but you managed somehow.
* Objective: Defeat the Saperlings 10/10
* Reward: A Basic Backpack.
Experience
Skill gained Unarmed 1: You know that your body is a weapon, at least so long as you train it.
LEVEL UP. Level 1 obtained. 5 Attribute points gained. Weighing of soul(s) initiated.
"Wait. What does it mean by souls?"