~‌‌ ‌‌2.10 ‌‌-‌‌ Battle Between Poison And Potion ~‌‌

Back Alley of Duskgrove

3rd Dreamday of the Full Moon

I turned to the sound of a dog running towards us, down the alley where I had just killed the two Elves and helped a dog who was still howling his head off as his leg repaired itself. Moments later, a massive wall of muscle made its way closer to us.

“Damnit Dirk, you caused a howl. What the hell are you howling for like that?” the massive dog said as he came to a halt in front of us.

It took a few moments for Dirk to calm down. Once the healing potion finished working, he looked down at his leg in astonishment.

“Thank you, cat. That was a terrible experience,” Dirk said.

The massive dog was now looking at the two dead Elves behind us.

“What have you done? They are going to hunt us even more now.”

“I’m sorry Kresp, They were going to kill me, and this cat jumped down from the roof and killed them both incredibly fast,” Dirk said.

The giant Saint Bernard looking dog then turned his attention to me, staring for a few moments before speaking.

“Thank you. You must be... ‘Bob.’ The pack has been told to help you and your companion if we are able. Unfortunately, that howl is going to bring the baron’s men running in our pack’s direction. The baron seems to think if he can capture enough of us, our leader will give him what he desires. But we’d rather die than let that happen,” Kresp said.

“I’m sorry If I caused your pack any grievances. I couldn’t watch these two beat a helpless animal and do nothing.”

“We will manage and move our people around to new hiding places and lay low for a bit. Right now, any animals found in town are being detained by the baron and his men, so we need to keep laying low.

“Understood. I need to get back to my companion, as well. If you need my help with anything, let Zan know.”

I walked over to the two Elves and went through their belongings. I couldn’t find anything on them worth taking. Saying my goodbyes, I jumped atop a crate and was back running over the buildings’ roofs toward the wall facing the prison camp.

It didn’t take me long to run down the road to the camp. Getting back, I nodded to Uglar, who was sitting at the campfire writing something on what looked like a clipboard. Entering the cabin, I found Flea asleep. Thinking about the cores in my bag, I climbed up the inside wall of the cabin and lept onto one of the extended beam supports in the ceiling. I didn’t want any of the others to see me crushing the cores. I had to use both paws to destroy each one, so it would take me some time to absorb them all.

After about forty minutes of continually taking out one core at a time and crushing it, I got a prompt to pop up.

Absorbed 131 Clouded Cores

+ 851 Energy

I mentally pulled up my Status screen and leveled up as many stats as I could. Hitting the accept button, I looked at my status and figured out how much Energy I still needed.

Companion Lv.9: Bob

Persian Earth Cat

19 Energy ➕

10

Strength

10

Constitution

10

Dexterity

10

Intelligence

6

Wisdom

➕ [30]

20

Magic Bag 🛈

➕ [25]

I needed another 340 Energy to hit level 10. I wondered if I would gain a mana gate and use skill orbs like Kyle?

As I sat up in the rafter thinking over the possibilities, I heard the door open. Two Dwarfs walked inside the cabin, closing the door being them. They walked over to where Flea was sleeping. They nodded to one another then walked deeper into the cabin.

“Man, I hate being by new players. The constant warnings are so annoying.”

“Oh, I agree with you on that. They only have what, three more months of protection? There don’t seem to be many of them either. I wonder if their explorer explained the ramifications of their choice to join The Games. No matter, they’ll end up like all the others soon enough.”

What were these NPCs talking about? Why would the game warn the AI’s playing NPCs? I sat still and kept listening to the two. They gave away nothing more of interest and just talked about getting out of Duskgrove as soon as their contract was up.

After they left, I hopped down to Kyle’s bed and curled up at his feet. I could get used to this position. It was so relaxing on the body. I put myself into standby mode to wait for Kyle to awaken.

***

Flea awoke around midnight. Looking around, everyone seemed to be sleeping in their beds. Pulling himself up and hanging his feet over the bed to swing in the air, he rubbed Bob’s head, waking him up. Flea pulled up Bob’s status to see how the dogs did in helping him.

“Let’s get back to the grind. You only got a couple more attributes to level before you hit level 10. Going to have to ask Uglar about a large enough washbin for you to use when you level up. He should also have your bow tomorrow, so we might be able to start heading in deeper and hunt those damn bugs.”

“Sure, you’re the boss.”

“You know, you can give your own opinion on things. I don’t need to be just the boss. We can work together while we play.”

“Understood, I just want to do what you want to do. It’s kind of programmed into me. Oh, also, earlier today, I overheard two Dwar…”

Flea watched as Bob’s eyes went wide, and stopped talking.

“You overheard what from two Dwarfs?”

“Nothing, I was just going to say a joke, but I think the punchline was bad. I’ll work on it some more.”

Flea shook his head at Bob and hopped off the bed onto the floor.

“Well, let’s go. How did the dogs do with selling the iron?”

“I had to go back into town to sell it. They don’t seem to have magic bags, so it would have taken them ages to bring it back to town. The blacksmith gave me 8 copper each. Said to bring as much as we wanted to him, and he would be glad to pay that price.”

“So 24 silver for three-hundred iron. Even at 1 gold for twelve-hundred iron, how long is that going to take us?”

“62,500 iron for 50 gold. At our current rate of five iron an hour, it’s going to take us 12,500 hours or five-hundred days. We will still be here for the year. Not to mention we will need to mine the twenty or twenty-five required for our contract,” Bob rattled off the numbers.

The two started heading back into the mine and down the right-most shaft to the iron deposit.

“Damn, so that 50 gold is basically to try and force us to sell our extra iron in a desperate attempt to give us hope of leaving sooner,” Flea said.

“I believe that is the case as well, Flea. The best way for us to get out of this mess is to find gems or sell the bugs’ materials back in town. My ability to come and go as I please is our greatest chance to make enough gold to leave. We also have the gold coming in from the dogs. They were able to give me over 2 gold yesterday. I spent most of it on the armor I have being made, by the way. If they can continue to farm that much each day, we’ll be out of here in less than a month.”

“When will your armor be done?”

“She said later today.”

“Almost 2 gold for armor?”

“Affirmative. It sounded like armor made from tier two materials. I was hoping it would last me much longer than any of the armor you have had.”

“Hey, no one warned me about leveling to 10.”

Bob did his cat shrug and grin.

“You’re becoming kind of a dick, Bob.”

Bob’s grin grew larger.

The two reached the same deposit they had been previously working on and got to it. A little after five hours of mining, the bugs showed up. This time the normal three small ones showed up, along with a massive sized one. It was almost three times larger than any others that had shown up til now.

“Bob, try and take out the smaller ones; I’ll get the big bastard.”

The largest of the four was in the lead. Flea immediately threw a rock, hitting its head and getting it’s attention. The large centipede hissed and darted towards Flea. The massive centipede lunged forward, mandibles wide, ready to snap shut on Flea. As its jaws were just about to land, Flea jumped forward and up over its head. Landing on the monster’s back, the centipede appeared much stronger than the others as the Gnome didn’t weigh its body down. The centipede kept charging forward as its legs clanked in rhythm. Flea lost his balance, fell, and rolled off into one of the smaller ones’ waiting jaws.

The pain was sharp and burned hot. Flea stabbed his dagger into the base of its mandibles and twisted. The right mandible fell away, releasing the pressure on the arm it held. Cursing and jumping onto its back, he started stabbing into the week point behind its head, killing it.

Getting to his feet, Flea could see the large centipede had turned around and was rushing back towards them. The Gnome could see Bob had killed one and lay close by. His cat companion was currently jumping over the last small one as it charged him. Looking back at the massive one, Flea decided to run right towards it. Instead of jumping over, this time he dodge-rolled to the left as it charged past him.

Rolling to his feet and pushing his hand against the cave to steady himself, a pain shot down his arm causing him to scream. That scream caused Bob to turn his head, looking around for Flea. This action was enough to allow the smaller centipede to get far enough away from the cat where it could turn around and run back deeper into the mountain.

Seeing Flea alive and realizing his prey had gotten away, Bob ran towards his companion. As the massive centipede’s attention was on Flea, Bob jumped onto the back of its head. He drove his left dagger into the top of its head, creating a handhold steady enough to keep his balance. With the other blade, he started stabbing into the many eyes of the creature. With a hiss, it bucked hard, sending Bob flying until he crashed into the shaft’s wall.

With the two daggers still embedded in its head, the centipede started to shake its head violently. Flea was able to use this time to circle around, stow away one of his daggers and then leap to the same spot just vacated by Bob. Grabbing onto the dagger still stuck atop the centipede’s head, Flea began stabbing at the weak spot; where it’s head met the first segment.

Moments later, as the massive centipede died and curled up, Flea crawled over to Bob’s body. The Gnome found his little friend had only been knocked out and seemed to be in relatively decent condition. Sitting with his back against the wall, he looked to his wounded arm. He found two small holes on either side of the arm. The wound was leaking a very dark substance. Taking the lamp from his belt and shining it over the wound, he could see the skin and tissues under looked to be slowly melting.

Taking out one of the potato looking vegetables and his last Lesser Healing Potion, Flea drank the potion down and bit into the raw potato.

I swore I had two potions left.

His thoughts were halted as he bit harder into the potato and let out a muffled scream. His arm felt like it had been dipped into a vat of acid. Getting some control of his body back after the spasms stopped, he looked over his arm. The tiny appendage looked as if it was waging war with itself. The black would clear from his veins and skin, and the hole would start to close, only for the blackness to go back up his veins and start eating away at his flesh again.

Flea felt like he was dying for what seemed like hours. Finally, the potion appeared to be winning out over the poison but was taking a massive toll on his body. Cursing himself, he took out a Spiced Rabbit and ate it, boosting his constitution some, and then gobbled down a Titan Turtle Pie to get more food in him. Standing up, he unsteadily made his way over to Bob and nudged him with his foot. The cat didn’t stir; so Flea kicked him in the leg a little harder.

“What’s going on? Did we beat them?” Bob said, suddenly alert as he jumped to his feet.

“Yes, but I had to use a potion, my last one. You know where the other is?”

“Oh yea, about that, I used it.”

Flea waved at him to stop talking.

“I’m going to pass out as soon as I stop moving. Harvest the cores fast. We need to leave before any more return. I’ll be useless in another fight.”

“Sure thing.”

Bob harvested two Clouded Cores out of the two smaller centipedes and a Clear Core from the larger one.

“Want me to harvest anything else off them?”

“We don’t have time; we need to hurry.”

Bob nodded to Flea, and they started walking back up the shaft. Before they could get to the large cavern with all of the shafts’ entrances, Flea suddenly stumbled and fell forward. At some point, the poor Gnome had passed out while walking. Bob tried to wake him up, but Flea wouldn’t stir. Grimacing, Bob started running towards the surface to get help.