Janet wasn't surprised to see the increase in tokens per level up. However she had more important things to do, and selected no. That was something she was going to want to dive into fully. She saw a green arrow by her health bar. She stood in the two times made battle field and listened. The wind was rustling through the trees, and shorty after bird call sounded again. She ran a bloody hand through her now black hair and it stayed back.
Gross. She had a feeling that this was going to be her new favorite word for a while.
I need to get away from here.
She walked over and picked up the backpack and a popup appeared before her. An Inventory was acquired. She looked quickly and briefly, but it seemed like a standard inventory screen. Though there did appear to be some restrictions, like weight and space.
Aside from the standard camping gear she found a scimitar and a hunting longbow.
Acquired Masterwork Scimitar , Quality Normal, Damage : 4 Acquired Hunting Longbow, Quality Normal, Damage : 2 , Arrows : 20
She also found a decent hand full of coins. The system didn't automatically count them, so she would do that later, they also had weight.
Last thing between she left the place. She wrapped her sticky hand around the arrow shaft in her shoulder and yanked straight out. A -3 appeared into her vision.
Yep, figured without the correct skill level that would happen.
She healed herself and then pulled the other two arrows out, the same as the first, then she healed to full.
Not bad if I say so myself.
The bars showed a 22/22 for her health and a 12/20 for her mana.
Overall not bad, now for someplace better so I can have a freaking out melt down properly and before my adrenaline wears out.
With that she hefted the pack up on her shoulders and picked a direction to walk in and just started to walk. She didn't know how to navigate a forest, she wasn't even sure which way the sun rose, or if it was the same as home if she did know. The sun was up, that's what mattered. The sun didn't penetrate the canopy fully, and it made moving through the undergrowth a bit harder than she thought.
Moving low hanging branches out of the way, and stepping up and over fallen logs and large stones that jutted from the earth. She maintained a general sense of going the same direction by focusing hard on land marks ahead of her. Traversing the forest that didn't have a clear trail or path wasn't easy. All those movies lied to her as they showed the characters clearly and easily walking through forests.
The adrenaline started to wane as she walked, though she was on alert, and startled at noises that weren't her, which would kick start the adrenaline again. Luckily, or unluckily she didn't see any more goblins on her walk. She did see fauna, rabbits that scurried off into the brush, deer that fled with graceful leaps, and other animals that she couldn't name.
By the time she heard the sound of water it was evening. Her legs were sore and aching, her stomach growled in protest, and her throat was extremely dry. Sweat had moistened some of the blood and dirt on her face as the trek had gone on. She jogged the rest of the distance between her location and the water. On her way she dropped the pack and hopped down into the river.
She screamed, and got back on the shore. The water was cold and soaked her everything. Smart Jan, jump into a freezing river in all your clothes while covered in dried who knows what, and lets hope this game doesn't have a river shark or something just as nasty. "God that was dumb," she said out loud as she squished. "UGH!" the voice, her voice, the deep raspy male voice had startled her, for just a moment.
"I am feeling wet clotty bits in places where I really don't want to be feeling them," she mumbled. She looked at her pack, and her inventory. She saw a tender box. She scratched the area between her nose and lip as she looked at it. She walked towards a tree and punched it.
There was a loud thud against the trunk. She pulled her hand away and shook it, hissing as she did so. "Ow..."
Her health bar had a small portion of the bar turned yellow. She rubbed her hand and checked her inventory. "Why didn't I get wood from that?" It was only a thought before she dismissed trying to punch the tree again. Instead she walked around and picked up sticks and branches that were on the ground and moved them to a central location. Once she had a decent pile she took out the tinder box and started a fire. It was harder than what she had thought it would have been.
Fire going she added some of the larger sticks and walked back to the river. Stripping down she carefully lowered herself back into the cold water. Ducking under the water a moment she cleaned up as best as she could without soap or other bathing items. She was even quicker with washing her new private bits. Once she was as clean as she was going to get, she dragged the clothes into the water and scrubbed those of the dirt and grime, but there were holes and tears in the fabric. She got out of the river.
"Thankfully no monsters in the river," she flinched at the voice. "I gotta get used to this." Hanging her head she walked her, male self to the fire and dug around inside the pack. Dressed in clean underwear she made a makeshift drying line with long sticks and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders before she sat down at the fire.
There she brought her hands to her face and just breathed.
Not the time for a panic attack Jan. Think of this as role playing, like at a DnD session.
"I want to go home." She said into her hands. She was cold, and hungry. The cold was being fixed with the fire and her drying off, hunger could be sated by the rations, but she didn't have the will power to take anything from her inventory. Or to set up a proper camp. Instead she lay on her side, and stared into the fire. Lost in her own head until she finally drifted off to sleep.
The dream that haunted her was of the was of falling through blackness, she closed her eyes and then the voice sounded in her ears. "Stand up and walk it off. I'll take care of yours, you take care of mine. The faster you win, the faster you go home."
It was a familiar, yet strange voice.
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself and just enjoy the experience. Use me, I am stronger than you think. Make this life part of your own story."
"My story?" she asked. She didn't know if she wanted her own story. The voice was silent as she fell through the blackness, but she could tell it was still there. Watching her, judging her, weighing her worth.
She woke up with the dawn. Clearly over sleeping the four hours she could rest. She was curled in the blanket using the pack as a pillow. Janet lay there looking at the coals of her meager camp fire thinking back. Sure she had fantasies of isekai'ing into stories, webtoons, and video games before. What teenage anime fan didn't? She used to pretend her stuffed animals were pokemon!
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DnD mixed with an isekai fantasy, god, what nerd wouldn't like this predicament? Not everyone gets to choose I guess, or be placed in something that's familiar to them, like Rimuru.
Sitting up she stretched out her muscles and felt her bones pop.
"Map," she said. No pop up appeared. "So I will need a physical map," she brought a hand up and rubbed her mouth, feeling the tusks she jerked her hand away on reflex, before sighing. Her stomach growled, she didn't eat at all yesterday, but before she dug into a ration, she stood and walked to a tree to relieve her bladder. "The game did boast about being realistic... this I can be thankful I have a male bit for... Its like the one jumanji movie..."
Finished she soaked her hands in the river and splashed her face. She studied the water for a moment, it looked clean, but she had watched enough survival shows to know that drinking that would be a bad idea without boiling it first. Maybe... she was a half-orc after all. Moving back to her meager fire she took out a ration and opened the bag to eat as she went over her level up screen.
Chewing slowly she read though the skills, most of them were self explanatory, and she got a taste yesterday on Anatomy. Herbalism would allow her to gather medicinal and eatable plants, hunting would allow her to more easily track and kill small game, and survival... well that had several things it can do under the umbrella of survival. It would help her over come natural illness, let her drink various kinds of water and adjust quicker to climate variations. There were also hundreds more to choose from in the skill list if she wanted. She spent a token and added three to each of those and 1 into hunting.
This minor thing allowed her to move to the river and it now had a drinkable tag next to it when she focused on survival. Dipping her head down she took in large mouthfulls. Skills were going to be useful, she may end up spending another token there.
Back at her fire she started to go through the list of spells. There were thousands, but she noticed that the fire based spells were all greyed out. "I must have an ice affinity that's hidden... from the elf side maybe?" she mumbled to herself as she scrolled and stopped on one. "Unique Acquire?"
Soul Blade :: Unique Acquire Cost :: permanently lose mana The Soul Blade creates a weapon in the form of a Dagger, Short Blade, Long Blade or Great Blade at any time out of energy from the lost mana.
Given up mana affects the ability in the future. How much you sacrifice is up to you.
Being able to make a weapon anywhere would be extremely useful. Down fall is I will have less mana in the long term.
She gave a shrug, I can always add point to my Intelligence or Wisdom.
She selected the skill and a slider appeared from 1 to 20. She slid it all the way over to 20 and hit the accept button.
You have chosen to give all your mana to this Ability. You will not be able to acquire Mana this Level.
"Well fuck," Janet said, and looked at her stats, sure enough the Intelligence and Wisdom was greyed out. "That's a bit problematic." Even her mana bar read 0, which meant she can't heal. It was a knee jerk, and she knew it was, she added three tokens to her constitution. Giving her a total of 31 Hit Points. She looked at her last token. She really wanted more skill points, but that point would be useful in her greyed out stats later.
She tested the spell she got and forming in her hand was a dark blade with a gentle curve up to a razor edge, it solidified. She stuck it into the ground and let go. It was there for a moment before it turned to a dark grey almost black mist. Standing she called a dagger in the same way and threw it at a near by tree. It thunked solidly, then it too vanished. Moving over she inspected the damage, there was a small gouge on the tree where the dagger had impacted.
"This, will be useful... and I can increase its ranks," she smiled at this, the tusks making it feel strange, but she was pleased with this turn of events.
Janet picked up the meager camp, stuffed the ragged clothes into her pack, and refilled the water skins in the river before she was ready to leave the area.
While not my ideal isekai... I should make the most of this. She looked at her hand and the green skin of her fingers, she made a fist.
Level : 1 HP :: 31 / 31 MP :: 0 / 0 Tokens :: 1
Strength
4
Dexterity
4
Constitution
7
Intelligence
2
Wisdom
2
Charisma
2
Luck
2
Ability Name Rank Mana Range Description Cure 1 1 Touch Heals 6 health (+1 Elf Bonus) Glacial Knife 1 2 Weapon Adds 4 ice damage to weapon (+1 Elf Bonus) Frostbolt 1 2 100 ft Deals 6 ice damage at range (+1 Elf Bonus) Soul Blade 1 -- Self Creates a Blade Weapon
Anatomy 5 Balance 2 Bluff 2 Climb 2 General Knowledge 2 Herbalism 5 Hunting 3 Intimidation 2 Listen 2 Search 2 Spot 2 Survival 5