Eight points wasn’t enough to close the full gap between myself and the ork’s massive strength stat. And the added vitality didn’t instantly heal my shoulder wound, as it still was bleeding down my arm as I fought.
My wrist and hand stung with every block of the ork’s axe.
“Bligfar! Vub jargary!” It yelled nonsense at me as it fought, and I could see its skin beginning to take on a red sheen of energy. It was activating some sort of skill that was boosting it even further.
But this also made it more predictable, its attacks becoming telegraphed and basic. Its openings grew in number and duration within moments.
[Ork Elite Warrior - Lvl 10; Marked to Die]
I side stepped the next axe blow, my sword slashing across the ork’s bicep, carving open its skin and muscle. It swung in a backhanded slash, and I ducked under, tearing my weapon into its thigh.
This repeated, me dodging a blow and countering with a cut or stab of my own leaving a small wound.
But it began adding up, my class’s skill appearing to ensure the damage I left behind being greater than the force behind my attack would suggest.
Within a dozen exchanges the ork was left with just as many wounds, bloody rivulets running down over its entire body. It began to show weariness, its footing becoming unbalanced. I knew my victory would be drawing near.
“Gaaah!” The warrior bellowed a warcry just before the red energy around its body condensed and was launched outward like a shockwave.
“Oh fuck!”
I leapt upward, my feet clearing the ring of energy by mere inches before it continued on, blasting away the tents around us and tearing them from their ground where they were staked in.
The force was enough that had I been hit, I knew that my bones would have been broken and my body practically crippled.
I landed on my feet a few yards from the warrior, whose posture showed me that the fight was basically over. With slumped shoulders, axe dangling low and the red glow of his skill now gone, it was obvious that the ork was exhausted.
“Spent your whole load, huh?” I stepped toward him, raising my sword with my still good hand. “I would say it was fun, but I don’t know if you are even real, and to be honest, you’re just experience and stats to me even if you were.”
It was a morbid sort of thought, but it was true. All these orks were to me were rungs on a ladder. Points to climb in making myself stronger.
“Bargver, drust,” the ork said between gasps, his eyes still focused on me, burning with hate.
“Yeah, yeah. Time to die you green skinned fuck.”
I brought my sword down,
[You have slain Ork Elite Warrior - Lvl 10]
[Optional Quest Completed:
Calculating rewards based on performance and actions…
Additional experience gained, loot table upgraded.
Rewards:
Additional Experience Gained.
+ Companion Egg Received,
+ 150 Copper Credits, + 1 Silver credits ]
I quickly spent my new stat points, making sure I didn’t forget later. All of them went into vitality, my hope being that they would at least help me heal faster. Which appeared to be working, as my arm had already stopped bleeding.
I checked my stats once more.
[ Name: Adam Pierce
Class: Death’s Disciple
Level: 11
Stats:
Strength: 25
Dexterity: 49 (53)
Vitality: 46 (47)
Intelligence: 32
Willpower: 32 (33)]
I was already looking to be far stronger than only weeks ago, which cemented even further my thoughts of what life would be looking like in the future. With the System in play, and the Dungeons popping up, all of human life would pivot on its axis.
I need to be ready, I need to be stronger.
It really was as simple as that.
[Ability Activated: Soul Usher (F)
Harvesting Uncommon Grade Sentient Essence…
Soul Essence Absorbed: 20
Essence to next ability rank: 99/1000
Essence Available: 44
Options available.]
Uncommon Grade?
I realized, reading the notification. That was new. Before, all the souls I had absorbed gave essence equal to their level. But the Elite Warrior, an Uncommon Grade enemy, gave twice its level in essence.
My thoughts went to the Dungeon objective, the ‘Lord of the Wood’, causing me to wonder what grade of soul the System would consider a Dungeon boss. What might my reward be if I harvested that soul?
But speculation at this point was just wasting time.
Then there’s the egg.
I checked my inventory, finding that sure enough, there was a new item tucked inside the extraspatial dimension tied to my system status. I removed the item, finding it to be about four inches long, and quite standardly “egg shaped”. Basically just a large chicken egg, but it was white with small greenish yellow spots doting it’s exterior.
I activated my [Inspect] skill, trying to get more information.
[Item: Companion Egg
Rarity: Mythic
Description:
A small egg containing an unknown creature. This egg will absorb nearby energy until it is ready to hatch. Absorbed energy will change the creature and its abilities upon hatching. It does not seem ready to hatch at this time.]
Yes another thing to look forward to, but nothing that would be immediately useful for me to ponder on right then.
I decidedly put the potential future omelet back into my inventory, and got to the task of looting the bodies of my recent kills. Once more, the weapons I had to loot manually, along with the few armor pieces that were still intact. The System otherwise rewarded my efforts with a couple hundred copper.
It wasn’t hard to make my way back to my team through the trees. By the time I had reached our camp, still stealthed with the use of my skill, everyone was still asleep. I reached the log just in front of the fire, which had burned down to nearly mere coals by then, and sat down to coax it back to life.
I used a few water bottles to clean myself of the blood that now coated my skin and clothes. Getting green-skin blood off was a lot harder than one might think. Once I felt un-gooped enough, I woke Barry for the next watch.
He didn’t ask questions, and I gave no answers, happy to not be under the microscope which Lucilla liked to point at me back at the facility.
Sleep came easily, as even after the increase in stats, I was mentally and physically exhausted.
It felt like it was only minutes before I was awoken by Huwett. She prodded my shoulder, getting me to rise from my slumber with little effort. Which seemed strange, as I thought I would be out heavily for hours.
The constant threat poised by the Dungeon seemed to have me on edge even in my sleep.
“Barry says we should get ready for hunting down the mission boss soon,” she said.
“I’m up, I’m up,” I muttered, blinking through the bleariness.
“Take your time,” she added, “It’s tough on all of us.”
I looked to her, seeing her face was earnest. It was almost touching that someone still appeared to care about my comfort even in such a situation. I nodded, and gave a half-smile that she accepted as a full answer.
The camp was basically torn back down when I finally left the small tent I had been sleeping in. The campfire was almost out, the coals barely glowing a faint red, but everyone had gathered around it regardless.
Protein bars, water bottles, and prepackaged gruel were passed around the faint warm. It wasn’t the greatest breakfast I had ever had in my life, but it was the most welcome one.
Nothing hit the spot after fighting green-skinned abominations to the death all night quite like stale water and a dry protein bar. And that’s a hill I’d be willing to stand on until my sponsor came for me.
“We have to move soon, if we want to make sure the orks don’t hunt the boss before we do,” Francis grumbled between bites of his military pouch oatmeal—or that’s at least what it looked like he was eating.
“I don’t know what happens if we fail the quest, but I’m guessing it’s not good. So I agree with you there,” Norton said.
“We will be relying heavily on you Adam, and you, Angela,” Barry turned to Huwett and myself as he spoke. “You’re our hunters.”
Huwett gave a quick smile and lifted her bow as if saluting with the item. I nodded quickly, my mouth still full of food.
The conversation at hand wasn’t that interesting to me. It was mostly what wasn’t said that caught my attention. No one mentioned the side quest of killing the orks being completed already. Which told me that they didn’t know, or hadn’t been notified by the System that I had killed the green fuckers and got the rewards for the quest already.
That also meant that the System was still withholding information if someone didn’t have a means of learning it already. It was something that I would later use to my advantage often, but for now I was simply relieved that my nighttime escapades were still secret, and that I didn’t have to worry too much about the System ratting me out like a little snitch.
I wouldn’t have to kick the System’s ass for turning on me, at the very least. Because, well everyone knew, snitches get stitches.
“Let's get to it then, yeah? I wanna see what this boss is, and find out if it’s fireproof,” Vasquez cracked his knuckles and stood.
The group was off within a matter of minutes, stalking through the trees once more. Huwett and I were ahead of the rest as we had been before. I was still using my stealth skill, happy to have it leveled up during the night.
I didn’t notice a big change just yet, but it might just be too soon to tell.
My focus was on our surroundings while Huwett’s attention was glued to the forest floor around us. She moved slowly, scanning, searching, prodding at foliage and dirt. Whatever she was looking for, I didn’t know, but I trusted her skill would guide us.
Sure enough, it was only two hours into the search that she finally stopped and turned to me.
“I’ve got it, we are close,” she said.
“How close?”
“A mile or two at most. My skill is telling me we have some fresh tracks.”
“Does it tell you what kind of beast we are actually hunting here?” I asked.
“Mmm, no. But the tracks are cloven hooves. So maybe a deer, or an elk?”
“Guess we will find out, let’s move,” I slashed my sword into a nearby tree, signaling the direction to go for the others as Huwett took the lead further into the overgrowth.
Just as Huwett had said, it was only thirty minutes or so before we got our first true visual. The creature was standing haughtily in the center of a clearing of high grass. Haughtily being the correct term, because I had no other way to describe its stance. It definitely knew what it was doing, I had no doubt at all about that.
Because the creature that stood in front of us was probably the second most hated species in all of the System, of course only closely behind the despicable Goblin species and their other green-skinned brethren.
[Lord of the Woods - Lvl 10]
Its puffed coat, and large horns were not the first thing I noticed. Nor was its large, nearly six foot height. No, my attention went right to its eyes, where its creepy as hell pupils swam about, looking around at the tree line. The horizontally shadowed black bars of abyssal evil that accompanied every creature of this dreaded species.
It was a fucking goat!
1.13 Free Omelet?