Neil

As I ran up the last of the stairs to the top of the mountain I was far more aware of my bodies temperature on my run up, than I had been on my run down. With the potion keeping me from getting tired it was easy to push myself beyond my maximum and ignore the heat. This time I was more aware of the risks and made sure to stay better hydrated and splashed more cool water on my head.

Although the sun wasn’t as high up in the sky it was still ungodly hot and if it weren’t for the potion it would have taken me hours to get this far.

Cresting the top of the mountain I knew exactly where my first stop was, the pool. Running up the stairs and seeing the rift still pouring water out put a smile on my face. Putting my pack down and taking off my shoes, I left my socks on as I simply fell over the ledge of the pool and landed in the icey water. Holding my breath I submerged myself and felt pure bliss.

“Oh god.” I said as the absolutely freezing water plunged over me. Having done this I started to remember that changing your body temperature so quickly was actually really bad for you and I hoped that this wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass. It could cause shock or something? I wasn’t really sure, but the cold water on my overheated body was too nice for me to worry about it too much.

Stripping off my clothes I lay under the torrent of water with my face breaking the water and my mouth wide open drinking as much as I could. I had actually run out of water just before reaching the top of the mountain and drinking as much as I wanted was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Sighing I laid back down, relaxed and tried to ignore the socks floating by my face. As nice as this had felt I was already starting to freeze my ass off so collecting my clothes I tried my best to give them a scrub in the water. I wouldn’t be able to get them too clean without soap and my single bar of soap was too valuable to use on my clothes but I tried to clean the most obvious stains and get most of the sweat.

When I judged my clothes as clean as I could get them, I got out of the pool gathered my things and walked back to my camp just wearing my shoes. Drying myself off and hanging up my wet clothes I changed into something dry. Feeling a small headache coming on and a wave of exhaustion hit me as the stamina potion wore off. Collapsing on the ground I considered the wisdom of drinking another healing potion today. I wanted to but I really didn’t want to get magic shock. The ability to better judge when magic shock would hit me would be extremely useful, and I didn’t think I could get that without more exposure to potions, or other sources of unrefined mana, but I had too much to do today. If my headache got worse I would have another, but until then no more potions. For now a regular pain reliever from my first aid kit should be fine.

Thinking back to my run in with the Onca Parda my hands started to shake a little. I’m pretty sure I didn’t actually hurt the damn thing, just gave it a shock and caused it to run off. If it had actually been hungry it probably would have pounced on me no matter what I had done.

My potions were excellent for utility and staying power, if I wanted to punch above my weight level though I needed something that gave me a bit more bite to it. I needed poison.

The unrefined waste mana was a good start, and I had access to a few other poisonous materials as well, if I tried I might be able to make something out of that. It was a shame I hadn’t grabbed those poisonous berries I found on the bottom of the mountain, but without something to keep them in I hadn’t wanted to just place them in my bag. Next time I would bring some empty vials to put things that I found in.

Entering the garden, I looked at all my cooking gear, and materials. “Good all still here.”

Working quickly I was able to get a fire going and make several clumps of dried healing powder, making sure to collect as much of the unrefined mana as possible in my small flask. This time instead of adding water to the healing powder I just left it as it was and placed it into a one of my MRE bags. "I hope this is actually a good idea. If it expires in a few days that would suck.” By keeping it dry it would travel much easier and adding water to it when I needed it I could turn it into a potion. Or even just eat it as is.

Next I made three potions of stamina, I was able to get these to each work for just over 2 hours, it seemed that was the limit of my current skill or materials.

Looking at the end of the retort I saw that the small flask I was using to collect the waste mana was filled to just over half, much more than yesterday.

Now the hard part, picking some of the poisonous Sorath grass and refining it into something even more dangerous without poisoning myself. Probably health potions would take care of poisons, probably.

I had thought of testing if a healing potion would actually neutralize the poison but ultimately decided against it. “If it doesn’t work I’d be pretty fucked. So better to just be extremely careful and try not to ever actually find out.”

Taking a garbage bag I placed it over my arm and hand, I put an inside out MRE bag over that I tried to open and close my hands a few times. I had almost no fine control of my fingers but for this at least I didn’t really need it.

Very carefully I picked several handfuls of the poisonous grass and placed them onto a rock I had brought over for just this purpose. Taking another rock in my bagged hand I began to carefully grind them up into a paste. When I judged them to be properly mushed I added onto it several pieces of Telerath Grass and a few seeds from a Moon Berry. Grinding all of these up for a few more moments I stopped when I felt they were sufficiently mashed and mixed up.

“What, what, In the butt?” I was really starting to miss Shassala, I hadn’t realized how much I liked having some company.

DING

Toxic Substance

This substance will cause mild to severe irritation to skin. If eaten it will cause vomiting, liver damage, kidney damage, and chemical burns to the esophagus and digestive tract. If it enters the blood stream or comes in contact with a cut it will cause improved blood loss, weakness, and dizziness.

Not bad, actually pretty damn good. Now there was just one more ingredient to add. Adding a small amount of the unrefined waste mana to the glob of toxins I stirred it a little with my rock, careful to not wring out the water by accident.

“What?”

DING

Extremely Toxic Substance

This substance will cause mild to severe irritation to skin, dizziness and magic shock. If eaten it will cause vomiting, liver damage, kidney damage, dizziness, magic shock, loss of consciousness and chemical burns to the esophagus and digestive tract. If it enters the blood stream or comes in contact with a cut it will cause improved blood loss, weakness, dizziness, kidney damage, liver damage, irregular heartbeat, magic shock and death.

WARNING THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

“Well shit.” I said out loud. This is actually pretty damn scary. The real question is, how am I going to actually carry this around safely? Picking up a small stick in my left hand and a vial in my right hand I abandoned the MRE bag and just relied on the garbage bag. Carefully I scooped the green glob into a vial. Once I got it in I securely closed the vial with a stopper and then put that inside a fresh MRE bag and tied that shut. There we go, that should be safe for transport, not sure how I’ll use it but I’ll figure that out some other time.

Looking down at the surface I had been working one I considered the rocks. “No way I can make healing potions on these rocks, poisons would be ok though. It’s not a good idea to keep them here though.” Picking up the rocks I carried the two I had used to grind up the poison to a far part of the mountain and stacked a few rocks in front of them to make sure I wouldn’t grab them by accident.

Still I had made what I set out to, if I ran into an Onca Parda or something else, well I wouldn’t really be able to use it because it was in a vial which was in a bag... but well I’d figure something out.

I was just walking back to my cooking gear and fire when I saw movement on the mountain, dark shapes were leaving the Palace and moving towards me.

Cursing myself for once again not having my weapon with me I ran towards it and picked it up before the dark shapes made it to me. Holding the spear in front of me I got a good look at what was rushing towards me. “Fuck.” I muttered.

It was three spider rats.

These were a little more symmetrical than the ones I had seen when I had been with Shassala, their legs were more even on each side of their bodies, their fur was thicker, a little less greasy and their faces were more like that of a rat. Except for the teeth. Those were longer, and sticking out of their mouths in a way that they actually cut their own faces a little as they ran screaming at me.

The symmetrical legs apparently allowed them to run quickly as well, because they were crossing the distance towards me quickly. Cursing that I had just put my poison away I ran towards the monsters, my spear held in a tight grip, more like a baseball bat than a spear.

The monsters are running at me in a triangle formation with one in the lead and two behind it slightly to its sides. As the distance closed I could see the lead monster’s legs tense in preparation for a leap, shifting my weight and bringing my weapon back I took another step forwards and then as it lunged towards me I shifted to the right and swatted it out of the air.

There was a meaty crunch as I caught its body with my post and it continued past me its howl choked off and more of a gurgle now. Moving to the right I watched as the closest monster moved towards me its mouth open and howling. Thrusting my weapons forwards as if it were a proper spear I managed to catch it directly in its mouth and throat. Its screeches turned even louder and more frenzied as it waved its head back and forth trying to dislodge my weapon. Charging forwards I pushed at the back of its throat even harder wishing I had put some poison on the front of my weapon.

Walking around the monster to my right I tried to keep it between me and the third rat, but it was fast enough that it was scrabbling around us faster than I could turn. When I saw the third rat was about to leap I pulled the post out of the rats mouth and swung towards the leaping rat connecting with several of its legs.

Hearing a satisfying crunch as it passed by me, I turned back to the second monster which was still recovering from having a spear jammed down its throat. Using the momentum from the impact of the third monster I swung back and hit it solidly in the head.

I was expecting to hurt or maybe stun it, but instead the top half of its head shattered spraying blood and gore over the mountaintop.

Spinning around I looked at the two remaining monsters. The third one struggling to get up and the first already turning around with murder in its eyes. Holding my weapon in front of me again I prepared to meet its charge.

Stepping to the side I tried to keep both of the monsters in front of me which was easy as the third one was trying and failing to get its non-broken legs underneath it. The third monster however was apparently barely injured by my first attack. As we looked at each other it was slowly circling me to the right, forcing me to turn towards it putting the other monster behind me.

Deciding to take the initiative I moved forwards and speared towards the rat, not to hurt it just to force it to move and to put some distance between me and the monster behind me. It dodged backwards before lunging forwards snapping at my hands. Falling back I spun the fence post and managed to clip it in the side of its face.

As it reeled back I pushed my advantage and moved forwards hitting it again and again with quick jabs. I wasn’t able to wind up too much so none of the hits were very strong but I was hitting it in the mouth, knocking out teeth and causing a lot of pain if its squeals were anything to go by.

While I was keeping it off balance I could also see that I wasn’t really making any progress in killing the damn thing. I needed a proper wind up but that would give it a chance to lung at me, still that wasn’t so bad so long as I was ready.

Pulling back further on one of my back swings the monster wasted no time in diving towards me. Its mouth open and full of jagged broken teeth. Already moving to the side I brought the post down on it in an overhand strike and heard a crack.

Once it hit the ground it was moving but while before it was smooth and quick now its movements were jerky and slow.

Feeling pretty good about myself I finished this rat off with a golf swing and then I turned to face the last rat when it lumbered up beside me and bit into my leg.

“FUCK!” I shouted as it took a chunk out of me. Backing up I quickly beat it to death with my weapon. It wasn’t able to dodge due to its broken legs, and I pressed the attack enough that it wasn’t able to attack me again.

Once my breathing and heartbeat settled backdown I stood up and shouted at the Palace. “Fuck you underground assholes! You fucking suck! I am king shit of this mountain!”

I was seriously never going to get tired of shouting like a crazy person after a fight, or at least after winning a fight.

DING

For using an improvised weapon you have increased your IMPROVISED WEAPONS Skill, you are now able to understand how to use improvised objects as weapons much faster, they also have increased durability!

For dodging several enemies in one battle your DODGE Skill has improved. You are now able to roll faster, further, more smoothly, stand up faster and see your enemy's intentions more clearly.

Nice, these were probably my most used skills, and the dodging one was definitely the what had kept me from getting hurt the last few times I had to fight.

Hobbling back to my potions I drank a healing potion feeling the tense knot in my stomach grow tighter. I knew that I could have maybe one more potion today without getting magic shock, and even that depended on the quality of the potion.

DING

Your MANA SENSE skill has improved! You are now aware of Unrefined Waste Mana in your body and can estimate how much Mana you can consume before suffering from MANA Shock. Continue to meditate while exposing yourself to mana to improve this skill!

Nice.

Well now that, the fight was over I could do a quick after-action report. The fight itself went pretty well, I didn’t get hit until the end when I got stupid and allowed the one mutant rat to distract me from the other. That was actually kinda scary, had that been intelligence from the monsters? One trying to distract me from the other? Or just bad luck that caused it to circle me that direction? Either way I shouldn’t have let that happen, next time never allow an enemy to get behind you.

The good news however was that I was able to kill three enemies that had scratched me fairly badly last time I fought them. Compared to that first fight I was a beast this time. At least until the end.

I didn’t really want to touch the rats, but I also didn’t want to leave them here, so I picked up the garbage bag I had used to collect poison and put it back on my hands. Using that I carefully rolled each of the corpses off the mountain. “Shit I hope those don’t land on anyone, ahh it’ll probably be fine.” I said out loud as I watched the corpses roll wildly down the mountain their legs flailing wildly.

That done I really needed to figure out was how to get at the toxin I had made a little faster, what’s the point of it if I need a few minutes to open a bag, open a flask and then pour it on my weapon?

Maybe take it out of the flask and just keep it in the bag, then I can dip the tip into the bag to coat it? I’ll have to be careful but that goes without saying. Also my post was working as a staff weapon but this toxin worked best on a stabbing or cutting weapons. I don’t really want to put it on my knives, maybe I could find some way to shape the end of this into a point? Just enough to pierce flesh a little easier.

I had watched enough videos online about stuff like this so I think it was possible, I'd just need a lot more firewood and some rocks to act as an anvil and a hammer.

Gathering as much deadfall as I could I put it on the fire in a log cabin style leaving room in the bottom to place my spear. Blowing on the wood it didn’t take long before the fire was fairly large and hot. Placing the end of the spear under the wood I kept blowing on the fire until I was starting to get light headed, but when I took the spear out the iron was starting to glow a faint red color.

Placing it on a smooth rock on the walk way I began beating it into a rough shape with a flat fist sized rock. I had to heat it up a few more times and I ended up needing to gather even more wood but with a lot of effort I had managed to get a simple point on the end of the post. Not very sharp but with enough force behind it I should be able to pierce flesh, and then if I have poison on the tip that should be enough to do the job.

Finally done I collapsed on my ass by the fire. Damn what a long day. Eating some of the fruits and vegetables I had gathered today I cleaned up the fire, gathered up my things and then went to bed. My last thoughts before falling asleep were “Maybe tomorrow I’ll see about going down the mountain to Shassalas people. It’s starting to get lonely up here.”

When I woke up the next morning and opened my tent I found myself face to face with a pissed off looking male Lamia.

“Hello!” I said with a smile and a wave as he grabbed my shoulders and pulled me out of my tent.