He had tracked the rat for a long time now. At least longer than he had wanted to, it seemed the rat had wandered further than his senses had let him believe. It was too long a trek for the mighty hunger, especially since his fancy new rod had grown heavy in his hands after only a few moments of walking. He had dragged it behind him over the ground for a long while, sending echoes of scraping metal rebounding through the sewers, getting transformed into horrific tunes by the echoes of the sewer tunnels.

Staying silent wasn’t a concern for Crag the mighty hunter. With his rod he was unbeatable. If only it wasn’t so heavy and large. He sat down at a crossroads of the sewers and took a breather. Not because he had collapsed against the wall. Okay, maybe it was because he had collapsed on his legs. He was really tired from chasing this rat for so long. Okay, not that long, but still, it was unfair how the rat had wandered away so far a distance through all kinds of small cracks and pipes that Crag couldn’t fit in and he had to walk around the long ways to get to the same spots.

Being a hunter was hard. The payout had better be good, otherwise, Crag would really be pissed at that rat!

A small insect crawled over his leg and Crag snatched it up and sniffed it, then unceremoniously tossed it in his mouth and chomped down on the crawling critter in his mouth. Then he promptly bit his tongue painfully for the unexpected notification that popped up.

[Ritual 3 out of 4 in progress: The bounty of death]

[22 hours remaining for completion]

[The bounty of death]

[4/100]

[You have hurt yourself]

[HP 40/41]

Crag swallowed the bug and blood mixture and let out a litany of curses and furious curses. He had forgotten about the curious notification he had gotten. After a few moments his anger subsided, and with a throbbing tongue, he studied the notification.

Scratching his sparsely-haired scalp with his claws he pondered about this notification. The level of the message [bounty of death] had risen. But what had he done that it would have risen? He couldn’t think of anything that he had done that was remarkable enough that the level had risen.

He tried to think back on what had happened. Biting his tongue? Had that risen the level? No, the loss of HP had occurred after the notification, and he had bit his tongue because of the notification. What else had he done? He had sat down, nothing much interesting else.

He focussed on the [bounty of death] to get the complex description of the skill to appear before his eyes.

[The bounty of death]

The ritualist must end a hundred lives of any lifeform, sized critter or larger, for the ritual to progress. For each critter killed the ritualist will gain permanent mana and health bonus relative to the life ended.

He slapped his forehead and cursed his forgetfulness! How could he have forgotten about this perk! Stupid stupid stupid.

He called forth his stats with a slight burst of concentration.

Crag

[Level 4] [goblin - minor]

Pools

[HP 40/41]

[MP 0/0]

[ST 1/20]

+[CH 10/10]]

Traits:

[darkvision]

Skills:

[spot] [pick] [minor carry] [minor identify] [track critte]

Quests

Rituals

[Ritual of reactivation]

[Ritual 3 out of 4 in progress: The bounty of death]

[23 hours remaining for completion]

[The bounty of death]

[4/100]

He saw that he had a new pool, named CH. After focussing on it more deeply he got the description of the Pool item.

Charisma [10/10]

Charisma denotes how attractive and trustworthy you are perceived by others. Charisma will affect the outcome of social interactions with other creatures in your favor. This will deplete your charisma pool dependent on the level of unlikeliness you would have succeeded in the social interaction otherwise. The charisma pool will regenerate over time. It will regenerate faster if you groom yourself to look your best.

+This is an unnatural trait for your race gained through participation in a ritual.

Well, that was interesting. By making sure his claws were polished he would be able to regenerate this. Maybe he could use this pool to convince a few of the females to share his bed. This might give him an edge to rise in status in his tribe! He would be the most attractive goblin! How anyone could disagree with his nose being perfect and his claws the best and perfectly sharp was beyond his comprehension.

He summoned his main status back up and studied it further for other interesting things to glean. His HP pool had increased by one point! By eating a little bug, he had increased his health pool by one point! He made a little dance of joy that he abruptly interrupted with an irritated frown on his face.

He had wasted one of his kills on the meager life of a bug! He should have not eaten that worthless morsel! It gave way too little HP! He should chase bigger prey so he would gain more health from each kill!

And he had only 22 hours left to make it to the 100 kills. He could of course quickly squash the bugs that lined the walls of the sewers, but that would only give him 1 hp each, if at all. He needed that rat nest, and he needed it fast. Rats were notoriously hard to kill creatures, they must have large health pools that would give his health pool a significant burst of stat points.

He was drooling at the idea of getting so much health. He would be unkillable with so much health to go around. But then he glanced back at his pools and saw with dismay in his heart that his stamina pool was nearly depleted, and he let out a wail of despair. The bug had given him possibly the only extra point in stamina he had now. He could eat more bugs to regain stamina faster, but they would use up precious health slots! Or he could lose time, by sleeping to regain his stamina.

He pulled at his hair in pure frustration about this agonizing decision. Sleeping would waste so much time, and he didn’t know how long he would have to walk to get to the rat nest. Would he make it even with the time he had left? Or he could sacrifice nineteen or more health increase slots to get his stamina back.

He hit his head back against the wall of the sewer in pure frustration because of the impossibility of the decision, pulling at his meager hairs.

[You have hurt yourself]

[HP 39/41]

The knock against the wall must have been the last nudge a loose brick in the barely maintained brick wall must have needed to loosen itself, and it started a slow shift out of the stones above the goblin, gravitating holding it in its tight grip.

The brick loosened itself with a slight grinding sound, causing the goblin to look up in surprise, the brick landing square on the face of the goblin, breaking the long pointy nose with an audible crack, causing the goblins head to hit the wall hard.

[You have suffered severe blunt force trauma]

[HP 29/40]

[You are unconscious]