Marty’s POV

I woke up free of all status effects. Heading downstairs with a spring in my step, I called out when I saw Alnoss, “Hey Alnoss! Can I get a few days-worth of food? Something that’ll keep.”

“You want it cooked or not?”

“Cooked. I probably won’t want to be cooking after exploring all day.”

“Ok, I can give you a few flatbreads stuffed with sausage and cheese. Three silver and I can give you enough for five days.”

“Sounds great. Can I get an order for breakfast too?”

“Sure, I’ll have your food done by the time you’ve finished eating.” She headed into her kitchen and came out with a plate of sausages. “Here you go.”

I tore into my food, excited about going out and getting some actual action today. Once I got everything packed into my bags, I waved at Alnoss and headed out.

I headed towards the cave with the cave rats, only killing those that were in my way. Staying near the walls of the cavern, I came across a tunnel leading out. I took random turns through the tunnel system, making sure I marked the way back with a notch in the walls. Eventually I entered a large, mist filled cavern. Looking around, I found three different types of mushrooms that I started harvesting. The first had a red cap with purple edges, the second resembled a bunch of pure white grapes, and the final one resembled a sickly green morel.

Once I had samples, I started looking around for enemies. The mists limited my vision to around 15 feet, which would hopefully be enough to get in a surprise attack if I was careful. Keeping a wall to my back, I started working clockwise around the room, thankful that most of the rocky formations ended up being like terraced hills. After a few minutes of slinking around, I saw an oddly shaped mushroom.

It was bent so the top was facing me, and the cap was three concentric golden rings on a bluish cap. As I was observing it, it started shaking and stood up! At seven and a half feet tall, the stem was instead a lanky humanoid shape. I slowly took aim with my crossbow where a heart would be, and launched the bolt only to see the health drop by 10%. Glaring at me, it swiftly charged. I pulled my weapon, and decided that a hammer blow to the ribs would be the perfect opener. “[Crushing blow]!” I cried with my attack, only to receive a grunt in return as a fist slammed into my snout with unexpected force. Staggering back turned the solar plexus combination into a glancing blow to my shoulder. Snarling at the unexpected strength of the monster, I tried dancing back into and out of range, using my scythe to try and wear him down with shallow slashing attacks. Though not always successful, I was still giving more damage than receiving. Until I noticed his eyes change at about 1/3 of his life, and his entire body started shaking.

Sensing a special move, I retreated as fast as I could without falling over some of the hilly areas. Just in time, as the gills beneath his cap exploded in a golden spore shower. I took the time for the spores to disperse to regain a bit of stamina and plan how to attack. Looking at him, he didn’t seem to have any joints, as his arms would bend in a constant curve instead of a sharp turn. Damn, it’s going to come down to a slugfest. I drank a health potion to get me closer to full health, and charged in when the spore concentration had dropped to under half. Immediately a portion of my health bar turned green, but I ignored it to start swinging. My first target was going to be a vertical strike to the bastard’s face, and to boost my attack even further I coupled it with [Reaper’s Edge]. It dropped the health into the red, but opened me up to a few swings in retribution before I could remove my weapon. Tossing all technique to the side, I simply stood there and traded vicious blows until the walking mushroom expired. I touched the corpse to see what the heck I had been fighting was and see what I could do with it.

Mycofiend corpse level 14

This is the corpse of a Mycofiend. What would you like to do?

Loot

Store body

Nothing

So this was a mycofiend? I could see why Khaliss wanted them dead, they are tough bastards to kill. I didn’t think I had even gotten a single critical hit that entire fight. No matter, this body would soon be giving me all its secrets as I choose to store it. As soon as I did that, my body locked up as my vision turned into golden sparkles. I felt a massive blow to the back of my head and a popup.

You have died.

As you are above level 10, you have lost 10% of the experience required for the next level and all equipped items have lost 10% durability. Death forgoes the monetary penalty in favor of removing one kill towards your weekly quota. You now have 0/7 weekly kills.

Reviving at Kobold Sanctuary.

I came to in the barracks area, pissed off. What the hell had attacked me? Opening up my damage log, I was determined to find out.

Unknown hits you with disabling spores. Paralyzed for 3 seconds.

Unknown’s disabling spores have poisoned you (second stack). You will take 15 damage per stack every 10 seconds for one minute.

Unknown hits you with unknown for a critical hit. You have died.

So that spore attack is disabling spores? Guess I had another mycofiend sneak up on me when I wasn’t looking. Looks like they had decent physical attributes, and their spore attack could paralyze and poison, but they had yet to use a mana based attack. Too bad I also lacked a mana based attack. Shaking my head, I started towards the temple of Thanatos.

“Greetings brother.” I said as I entered, once I noticed the head priest.

“Welcome brother. What brings you here smelling of the touch of our Lord?”

“Well, I was out earlier and managed to kill a mycofiend before one managed to get me in return. I did manage to bring back one of the bodies, and was wondering if there were a room where I could perform my examinations and dispose of the body after in a respectful manner.”

“There is, follow me.” He turned and headed down a tunnel hidden deep in shadow. We came to the circular chamber that I entered the game from. Before I took out the body, I looked to see what kind of space it took up. Because of the cap, it took up a T shaped space, three blocks across the top and two coming down as the stem. Looks like I will only be able to bring back two of them per trip.

Putting the body on the altar, I took out a knife and got to work. “Can you explain what you are doing? Lord Thanatos wishes to know some of your reasoning.”

“Sure. First thing I am going to do is look in this chest area for vital organs. Most creatures tend to hide them behind ribs, but when I shot him in the chest I got no extra damage.” Working slowly, I started by peeling back the odd skin. It was almost leathery, and came off like it was the bark of a birch tree. The tissue underneath was rather odd. It was all composed of bands of corded material, and there were absolutely no bones. The only organ I could find ended up being a stomach, as I found a few partially digested mushrooms. “Ok, this is really odd. There is only a stomach here. I’m going to look at the arms and legs next, see what is going on with these lack of bones.”

I made deep slashes in the meat of each arm and leg, and saw more of the corded material. “Are all these cords bones and muscle in one? The thicker, vertical ones act like flexible bones. The cross ones must act like muscles, letting this guy move.” Heading to the face, I widened the gash left by my slash in the battle and tried to find the optic nerve. Having no luck, I simply started moving towards the cap, splitting the body as I went.

“This must be the brain.” I noted as I came upon a grey, spherical object. “Shouldn’t be too hard to hit, its right at the base of the cap.” I opened up the cap, and that’s where I found the organs. The heart was a simple one chamber bulb, surrounded by thick cords to protect it. I had no idea what the other organs were, as they didn’t seem to correspond in shape to anything I had seen before. Sighing in defeat, I told the high priest, “Well, that’s all I can figure out. I have no idea how this thing breathes, as there are no lungs. No bones mean a crushing blow is less than worthless in a fight, and that heart is in basically a fortress. The only weak spot would be the brain, but it looks like such a simple brain that I don’t know if a direct hit will end up killing the thing.”

“How do you know it is a simple brain?”

“It is almost perfectly smooth. Brain space is usually limited, so in order to get a bigger brain in there you need to have folds. I can show you later when I kill a humanoid. I just wish I had a way to test this thing for elemental weaknesses.”

“Hmmm, that would be useful. Are you done with this body? We need to burn it soon.”

“Yes, let’s do that.” Nodding at me, the high priest took a jar off of his belt, and sprinkled an oily substance all over the altar. Cupping his hand, he called forth a ball of green flame and dropped it onto the body, which immediately burst into flames that rapidly consumed everything.

“So, did you get your skill you were looking for?”

“No.”

“Any ideas why?”

“Maybe I didn’t learn enough, or maybe I need to use it in battle. It could be I haven’t looked at enough bodies. Too many to narrow it down, but I did learn enough to know why I didn’t get any critical hits last time. I’m heading back out to test my strength against them again, is there anything you need when I’m out there?”

“No, but thank you for asking brother.”

“Anytime brother.” I turned and headed back out, making my way swiftly through the streets. As I was storming past the barracks, I caught someone dismembering a training dummy with savage blows out of the corner of my eye. Slowing down, I felt myself drawn to watch. While his blows were taking down the training dummy, I couldn’t help but notice how much he had to telegraph his attacks in order to get those results.

I headed into the barracks, and sat off to one side of the training yard thinking. Removing a limb with a quick attack would give me a massive advantage in battle, but how could I do it? [Reaper’s Edge] was great, but that hour cooldown was problematic. I activated it, watching as the grey energy lined the edge of the blade. Could I duplicate that with my own mana? It almost seemed as if the energy extended beyond the physical limitations of making a blade from metal. Cancelling the skill, I gave it a try. The first time, I saw my mana flow evenly throughout the weapon. Several failures later, and I managed to get the mana to flow only to the scythe end.

“Hey, mind if I take a few swings at a training dummy?” I asked the warrior who was still smashing away.

“Huh? Sure, go ahead.”

I strolled up to an undamaged one, and took a regular swing at the extended arm. My scythe managed to bite about a quarter inch into the arm, and I had to rock it back and forth to get it unlodged. I tried adding my mana to the blade and swung at the same arm, slightly farther away from the body. The mana shattered on impact, but I still got the same penetration of my weapon. Several swings later and no progress had me incredibly frustrated. Damnit, I could almost feel that there was a skill there. What was I missing?

Maybe swinging my blade was what the issue was. I tried a draw cut, where I placed the blade directly against the arm and slid it, slicing into the arm slightly less than half of what a swing would get. Placing the blade against it one more time, I concentrated on making my mana sharp and drew the blade along the dummy. The mana wavered a bit, but managed to remain intact. Progress. I tried checking the wounds left, but the seemed identical to my eyes. I kept trying this until I drained my mana several times, downing potions to recover quickly. I had slowly been making progress, but still no skill. This time I tried compressing the mana, and letting it only cover the edged half of the scythe. This made it noticeably darker in color, and the slice cut almost as deep as a full swing. Encouraged, I took a step back to collect myself and walk through the process in my head. Collect mana in my blade, compress it while sharpening it, and use it to extend past the blade itself.

“Hyaaaaah!” I let out a small cry as I swung, this time managing to cut nearly halfway through the arm of the training dummy, and finally getting the popup that I had been waiting for.

New skill acquired!

Mana Edge

Beginner lvl 1

This skill is an imitation of the Reaper’s Edge that uses the wielder’s mana to increase the slicing power of edged weapons.

Cost: 30 mana

Cooldown: 30 seconds

Increases weapon damage by 10%. Slight increase to chance of amputation.

Smiling, I turned and left the training grounds and headed out to hunt some mycofiends. Glad that I had the foresight to mark my way, I rapidly came to the grotto where I had been killed earlier. I took my time to thoroughly scout, and found two mycofiends though there was a large gap between them. I took up position by a shallow pool, hopefully far enough away that my battle with one wouldn’t draw the second one in. Before battle, I tried to get an analysis of the odd creature.

Mycofiend lvl 16

Barely possessing intelligence, these simple ambulatory fungal creatures were said to be created when a wizard experimented on mushrooms with infernal mana stones. They possess an incredibly powerful body that is resistant to damage. Some reports have mentioned minimal magic usage, but most experts agree that these creatures are too stupid to use it in anything more than an instinctive manner.

I took careful aim, hoping to hit the small brain of the creature. Firing, I watched as the bolt flew true and took off nearly ¾ of its life in one blow. Bellowing in rage, the walking mushroom turned to me and bent over. Confused, I watched as first one ring, then a second started glowing. Diving out of the way, I barely avoided a powerful stream of water the size of a baseball as it rocketed past where my head just was. I looked back at the smirking mushroom before charging. I used [Mana edge] as I leapt and dealt a massive overhand blow to the bastard’s cap, trading what I hoped would be a killing blow for a solid punch to my stomach.

“Experts say no magic my ass.” I muttered to myself as I added the body to my bodybag. I kept a wary eye out this time, not wanting the other bastard to manage to sneak up on me again. I tracked it down, and disposed of it in much the same manner as the first one. It also fired a stream of water at me, but they didn’t seem to take into account that their opponent would move. At least they were as simple as their brains implied. I cleared out a majority of the harvestable mushrooms and headed into the next room.

Once again the cavern was covered in terraced hills of water reservoirs, except there were two mycofiends hanging out together near enough to the entrance that I couldn’t go exploring. Well, time to see just how dumb these things are. I took aim at the one farthest away from me, but kept the other between us. Soon enough the middle one bent over for something, and I fired at the cap of the other. His health dropped by a quarter, and immediately turned to me and bent over to unleash his attack. I moved out of the way and observed as he blasted his partner point blank range, and was shocked at just how powerful that water jet was. It managed to drill straight through the body, and continued on to chip the stone wall by where I launched my attack from. While it didn’t do a lot of damage, it did give me plenty of time to reload as mycofiend number two bellowed in rage and aimed its own water jet at the first. As it was charging, I decided to try for a tricky shot. Slipping back to my original position, I let my bolt loose just as the mycofiend fired at its partner. Aiming slightly above where the main body met the cap, I hoped to strike the small heart of the creature. Luck seemed to be with me, as it didn’t receive a fatal blow but did get a strong enough critical hit to drop its health into the red. Rather than wade into the melee, I let them wear each other down and finished off the victor with another critical hit to the cap. Even without the skill, knowing where the organs were for monsters was doing wonders for my critical rate.

Since I had filled my bodybag with the first two mycofiends, I simply looted their bodies only to receive a few copper coins and a bit of their spores. Always happy for another alchemy ingredient, I resumed my hunt. Soon enough I came across a single mycofiend. Hmm, I wonder if I could disrupt that magic attack? There was no way to reload a crossbow in time, so I went with one of my tricks from the Kobold Warrens. Sculpting a baseball sized chunk of rock was incredibly easy, but as soon as I started pushing mana into it I ran into problems. It almost immediately started shaking then crumbled to dust in my hands. What the? I tried it again only to get the same result. Damnit, did they effing nerf something again and not give me warning?

Emily,

Did someone nerf the mana infusion into granite spheres and not tell me? Because that’s uncool. I am trying to use it in the start of a battle and it is really frustrating when my abilities don’t work. Can you get back to me with what happened?

Thanks,

Marty

Well, even if I can’t charge them for a small explosion maybe a thrown rock will still get its attention. I carved one last rock and let it fly, taking aim at the mycofiend immediately. Sure enough, the thing turned to face me and bent over to attack. As soon as the outer ring charged, I fired at the center of their convenient target. The results were spectacular. A good third of the cap simply disappeared in a burst of gore as something inside exploded. Smiling at my success, I looted the body for a few more coppers. Rather than go for more exploring, I harvested from the room and started back towards the city. Time to find out just what causes a mushroom explosion.