POV - Tad

I sat there and I thought.

And the thoughts I thought were hard.

And it is hard to think hard thoughts. That was why I tried not to as a practice. And to be honest I was completely out of practice. It was so much easier to think easy thoughts.

Or not to think at all.

But facing an alien looking monster who was fixated on eating your innards had an effect. It brought you face to face with some of the more unpalatable aspects of life.

And death.

And so I was brought up short. I realised that despite the difficulties of my life, the challenges of being sick. Of being unwell. And tired, yes really tired. In spite of all the setbacks and hurdles and disappointments, yes, in spite of it all, I was soft. And weak. Yes, I was a pansy. I was not ready. That was a hard thought to think. I was so much less combat ready than I had supposed I would be.

The fact that the fight went like a thousand times better than it could have was staggering. I hadn’t panicked. Yes, I’d fumbled that first throwing knife. But I’d kept my cool. My thoughts had moved into battle speed. In fact I was surprised I hadn’t unlocked a Skill. That was probably the debuff from my Atelophobia hindering me. But I had identified and executed a plan. And it had worked. And now that it was over, I was a mess.

I was so not ready to take my life into my own hands and put it on the line like that. Despite all the new Skills. The Perks and Awards and what have you, I was ill prepared. It was sobering. And that sucked because I wasn’t even slightly tipsy to start with. And that was enough hard thoughts for now.

I sat back up and brought up the Combat reports. I skipped down through the play by plays and found the ones I was interested in.

Hmmm. Good to know how long the cool down was. This should decrease as I slowly improved my proficiency.

‘Stab’ and ‘block’ weren’t [Skill]s, but the impression I got from reading the notification was that they had the potential to be one. I would need to work harder to unlock them. And ‘environmental element’ also had a vibe to it. That was Mr Stiff. He was my literal meat shield. And he had done a great job. Because of him I had actually suffered no damage. I was grateful to him yet again. "Thank you Mr Stiff." I gave him a pat. "You're the best."

The [Bleed] effect was interesting. This wasn’t one of my Skills. So how had I effected it? It had basically tipped the fight in my favour and finished off the mob. I looked at my new daggers.

[Inspect]

The throwing ones were simple daggers. Nothing special here. But the stabby ones were anything but simple. They were named items.

>Item:

Mr Stiff’s Stabby Dagger

> Grade:

Uncommon

> Status:

Normal

> Description:

A vicious and malicious knife made especially for Mr Smith. Will inflict 1HP/Sec [Bleed] effect until healed.

>Item:

Mr Stiff’s Slicey Dagger

> Grade:

Uncommon

> Status:

Normal

> Description:

A vicious and malicious knife made especially for Mr Smith. Will boost AGI by +2 while being held.

And they provided a Stat boost and the [Bleed] effect. This was great. Even better, the Stat effect looked to apply prior to my Modifiers kicking in and counted even when Mr Slicey was being held by my holster. I didn’t need to be holding it in my hand. That was excellent. And instead of a +2 boost, it was +3 AGI. No, it was +3.22. I had forgotten the Atelophobia Award which currently added an additional 11%. This was broken. And I liked it. Luckily I had them in the right hands. I would need to keep track of which was which and always use Mr Stabby in my dominant hand.

Oh. His name had been Mr Smith. That sounded totally suspect. And I had somehow renamed the knives as well. That was weird.

I needed to get my bearings. There were monsters out here and I was pretty exposed. This first one had been within my Tier and while it had been a challenge, I had prevailed. Oh. I should check out the Combat Summary.

So a total of 245XP for the battle. That was pretty lame for the intensity of it all. And I hadn’t taken any damage. I wondered if it was possible to be awarded negative XP if the damage I took was more than the damage I dealt. That was concerning. Not only would I lose the double up bonus, my base XP would be eroded and I would be left injured. I checked my HP. Drat, that last potion was only half as effective. That means I would be at least 149/225HP once it finished acting. Hopefully more with some natural regeneration as well. I tried to work it out. Maybe 1HP per hour? Hopefully I could boost this with [Advance Mediation].

But first, find a safe place. Or at least a safer place.

All the time I had been here random portals had been opening, depositing and winking back closed. There was no discernable pattern and likewise the amount that dropped through fluctuated wildly. From a couple of bodies, case in point, to several large rubbish truck loads all at once. I realised the entire landscape was in fact debris that had accumulated over time.

And judging from the state of Mr Stiff, time was accelerated. He was looking decidedly worse for wear even over the short time we had been here. My meat shield would very soon be a bone shield. Hmmmm…. I considered pillaging him further. A bone shield was better than no shield. I quickly convinced myself that this was not an optimal choice. And anyway what's to say that his bones wouldn’t also crumble away to dust at an advanced rate. No, I would have to say goodbye. I was on my way.

But where?

Which way did I go? Everywhere looked the same. The patterns of the hills and valleys certainly indicated the pathway of something exceedingly large meandering its way through the dump. A processing device maybe? Something that kept the cavern from filling up by grinding it down? That fitted. That was why the hills were so uniform in height. It was grinding down the highest points, where more rubbish had accumulated. I scanned my immediate surroundings. About 500m to my right I could see a pile which was significantly higher. I would steer clear of there.

But while that crossed off that direction it didn’t really suggest another one.

Perhaps one of my Class Skills would help?

In fact I should slot in [Run] and [Dream] now while I could. [Run] was a no brainer. I was so under levelled I could almost guarantee that nine times out of ten I would need to flee. And [Dreaming], well that just sounded too good to pass. I wanted to [Dream] myself some more Skills. And Stats. I could hopefully break my Stat cap. A training montage in my dreams. That sounded fantastic. I was itching to try it out. But sleeping out here in the open felt unwise. In fact I doubted I could sleep out here in the open. No. It was time to relocate.

But I needed to decide on my Class Skill. Was I going with [Delve] or [Prospect]? Both sounded promising. [Mine] sounded less applicable. That was more about extracting wealth from the ground. Digging and excavating and gathering wealth. No, it wasn’t [Mine] that I was interested in. Not right now.

But [Delve] and [Prospect] were very interesting. But I needed to choose just one. They both came in under the title of Prospector. Someone who searched out riches. But there were subtle differences in the how this occurred. I cast my mind back to what Nige had told me, back when we were just looking at the Class.

‘Delving includes searching out ruins, dungeons and rifts and is of great use in exploring these instances.’ Well, I am not in a ruin or a rift. That was easy to cross those two options off. Maybe I am in some sort of instance though, a rubbish dump dungeon? That sounded possible. But it didn’t resonate. ‘Prospecting on the other hand starts with simply looking for goodies laying about to a more focused search, inspecting, exploring, scouting and seeking out riches specifically.’ Yes this sounded more helpful. ‘Scouting’, ‘exploring’. Yes this was the one. And I might even find some more items laying about.

I selected [Prospect] and locked it in.

[Ding], [Ding].

I was tempted to check out the notifications but I had already delayed long enough. I triggered [Prospect]. I was looking for a safe place. Prospecting safety. That sounded weird but it seemed to work. I orientated to my left. Away from the tallest nearby ridge. That stacked up with my previous musings.

I said farewell to Mr Stiff and set out.

Alone.