With two more lizards approaching rapidly, I had to finish the first one quickly. Actually fighting three versus one might be a bit much for , so I slamd the lizard into the tree again, and again!
[You have defeated a Lvl. 4 (Hatchling Green Lizard) and earned 10 xp!]
[For killing a higher leveled monster than yourself, you have earned 50% extra experience! You earned 5 xp extra!]
[Congratulations! You have reached Level 2!]
[You have gained 1 Strength, 1 Endurance, and 1 Vitality!]
Perfect! I have just enough ti to jump out of the way of the lizards charging at from behind! I hop to the side and the monsters ram into the dead body of their comrade and into each other. They almost seem to forget about for a second as they start hissing at each other, and for a nanosecond I wonder if I can sneak away. No such luck though, as they turn on again.
The closest one lunges at again and I hop over it to hit the one lagging behind. I need to keep one of the lizards between and the other one and not let them surround . Unfortunately, without sothing to knock them against the lizards are hurt but not disoriented by my attacks and the lizard tries to claw ! I dodge once but get scratched by the lizards second claw!
[You have learned the Skill: Dodge! Dodge is now Level 1!]
[Jumping has Leveled up! Jumping is now Level 2!]
[You have been scratched! You lost 4 hp!]
I ignore the notifications for now as my opponents turn on . I am forced to dodge again almost imdiately as one of them tries to bite again. I try to evade in such a way that the sa movent allows to slam into the slightly more injured one again. I dont feel like my body slams are doing much damage right now, but what else can I do?
I dont really have any weapons, natural or otherwise. Clearly, the lizards dont care about my [Toxic Skin] racial Skill either because they are immune or too stupid not to try and eat anyway. I could try and kick-!?
Before I even finish that thought, one of them knocks over. It is now or never, I either kick or die! A lizard is about to pounce onto my exposed belly and I kick out as hard as I can- and it tosses the lizard into the air My thoughts are, but right now, at Level Two, I am five tis stronger than a normal Level one Hatchling Boreal Toad, three tis stronger than a Level three Hatchling Boreal Toad and only a little less than one sixth as strong as the average human!
I might not have enough mass to really hurt them much when I Charge into them, but I have more than enough Strength to toss them around! The only issue is that my toady anatomy isnt exactly suited for this, so I need to get creative. I manage to scramble back onto my feet and launch into my newest plan: hopping on top of the lizards head!
I imdiately jump off, the force of my movents cracking the lizards head against the ground. I aim my jump at the other lizard, slamming it off its feet again. If I keep this up, I will undoubtedly win!
Fifteen minutes later I stood alone in the forest, victorious over the bodies of my enemies!
[You have been scratched! You have lost 3 hp!]
[You have been scratched! You have lost 4 hp!]
[You have defeated a Lvl. 3 (Hatchling Green Lizard) and earned 10 xp!]
[For killing a higher leveled monster than yourself, you have earned 50% extra experience! You earned 5 xp extra!]
[You have defeated a Lvl. 4 (Hatchling Green Lizard) and earned 10 xp!]
[For killing a higher leveled monster than yourself, you have earned 50% extra experience! You earned 5 xp extra!]
[Congratulations! You have reached Level 3!]
[You have gained 1 Strength, 1 Endurance, and 1 Vitality!]
[Jumping has Leveled up! Jumping is now Level 3!]
[Dodge has Leveled up! Dodge is now Level 2!]
[Charge has Leveled up! Charge is now Level 2!]
...Yeah, I might have won, but it had hurt to do so. I had lost twenty health in that fight, and I was exhausted now as well! I decide to slowly head back to my burrow; Id rather not rush right now. My head wont turn enough without turning my body, so I cant tell for certain, but I am fairly sure I am bleeding a little bit in a couple of places. I need to take so ti to recover.
On the bright side, my updated Character nu definitely showed progress!
Character nu:
Na: - Species: Hatchling Boreal Toad Level: 3/5 Experience: 0/40
Class: -locked- Health: 25/45 Mana: 0/0 Stamina: 35/100
Statistics:
Str: 16 End: 15 Vit: 15 Agi: 9 Dex: 5
Per: 15 Acy: 20 Wil: 3 Cha: 12 Mgc: 1
Lck: 163
Abilities:
[Breathes through her Skin](racial) [Toxic Skin](racial) [Better First Impression]
[Healthy Thoughts] [First Words] [Killing Blow]
Skills:
Analysis: 1 Charge: 2 Digging: 1 Dodge: 2 Jumping: 3 Swimming: 2
Stealth: 1
Wait, how do I heal? Hopefully I will do it naturally? What if I am dying right now!? Analysis, help !
[Your Health. When your Health reaches 0, you die. Your current Health is 25/45. You are healing at a rate of: 1 hp/day.]
[Base Health is equal to your End plus 2 tis your Vit. (h=(e 2v)). Base Health Regeneration is equal to 1 plus your Vit divided by 100 rounded down to the nearest whole integer. ((1 (v/100))=r). You heal 2 tis faster while sleeping.]
How the hell was I supposed to know those mathematics abilities would suddenly be useful for my survival as a toad!? Creeping through the forest on my way to my little hole, I have the ti I need to think. And I really do need the ti.
I had never really considered what it ant to have low Stats before. Sure, every ti I was reborn as a baby my Stats were pretty low, however I rarely had to use them. Babies dont often need to fight and their only real job was to learn things. My low Acuity would be a problem, except that my ability [First Words] made it easier to learn a new language, which was the only difficult thing to really learn!
Otherwise, what did I have to use my Acuity for as a baby? What danger could I be in if my low Willpower ans I am distracted easily? Plus, if you combine low Acuity and Willpower, that just exacerbates my inability to think! Not only do I think slowly, but I get distracted easily. It has been incredibly hard to keep up this train of thought during my walk even.
My low Endurance and Vitality is also screwing over as well here. Those lizards could probably barely hurt if I had the average humans Endurance, and the damage wouldnt even matter because Id have around three hundred health! Plus, I would heal twice as fast. As it is, it will take sowhere between ten and twenty days! Doing the math to actually figure out how many days is too hard right now.
I finally made it back to the pool, having eaten a few more bugs along the way so that I wasnt hungry, and made my way back to the bush and my little hole in the ground. I hunkered down inside and went to sleep.
***
Im not sure how long I was asleep. It was daylight, but my xp had yet to tick up- presumably it would go up by one when twenty-four hours had passed since I hatched. My health had yet to go up as well which left in a difficult situation. There was a part of that wanted to hunt - to fight - but I was also terrified to do so when I was just a little bit above half health.
I learned, from reading the Analysis of my species na, that I wasnt just any old toad. No, a full grown mber of my species could swallow people whole. Actually, it made wonder why I didnt see one of my parents around. You would think it would be hard to miss a giant toad like that. More importantly, my species was described as highly aggressive carnivores, which explained where my constant and ill-advised desire to hunt ca from.
If I just sat here, I would probably be overwheld by my instinct, so I had to do sothing. In the end, I decided to make my ho a little more hoy. First, by digging out a bunch of mud and creating a little wall around my little hole beneath the bush. I gathered sticks to help hold the inside together and fetched pebbles to go around the outside.
[Digging has Leveled up! Digging is now Level 2!]
[You have learned the Skill: Crafting! Crafting is now Level 1!]
Shouldnt it be construction? Is this discrimination against toads!? Dont make make Podi slap you again System!
A few hours later, I got another notification.
[You have gained 1 xp!]
Woohoo, Ive survived one whole day! I even built myself a ho in that ti; I feel very productive right now. Of course, when I step back to look at my new house I have to admit that it might just be a pile of muddy sticks and rocks, but what matters is that it is my pile of muddy sticks and rocks!
I did my best to sleep and rest in Toadho, but by the ti I had recovered a single point of health, I had to admit I was incredibly bored. I wanted to hunt so bad! Sitting still when I wasnt tired was simply impossible, I just couldnt do it. I ended up hopping around my little ho for hours, desperately trying to expend enough energy that I could go back to sleep and heal.
[Jumping has Leveled up! Jumping is now Level 4!]
The worst part was when a snake ca to the pool to drink water and my instincts were to just attack it imdiately. Watching it drink, apparently unaware that I was even here, was driving to madness! I barely had the wherewithal to Analyze it before I leaped out.
[Young Glass Lizard, Lvl 1]
[Often confused for a snake, the Glass Lizard is - as its na implies - a legless lizard. They can move surprisingly fast.]
[Quite cowardly; Glass Lizards tails can be detached and when detached will thrash around to distract predators. While carnivorous, they cannot unhinge their jaws as snakes do which limits the size of their prey. Adult Shatter-Glass Lizards are capable of regrowing their main body from their broken off tails, but most other varieties are incapable of doing this.]
It is lower level than . As long as I am not distracted by its tail, I should be fine! Weird that it is a lizard though, it really looks like a snake. Either way, it is going to be my first victi- I an, test subject - for an idea I had for hunting. At so point, I noticed that I didnt have to always look forward or move my head to shift my eyes.
I could actually sowhat look behind without even moving! Although my depth perception beca pretty shitty, which might be very relevant in a second because my grand plan was to kick so of the small stones I gathered at my opponents.
...Yeah, I missed and the lizard ran - slithered? - away. It really was quite fast! On the bright side, it didnt seem interested in trying to eat , so I think I can call that encounter a win and pat myself on the back. The only issue was that I was back to square one, unable to sit still!
I decided to try and play the ambush predator. I feel like it should be easy with my racial ability [Breathes through her Skin] allowed to breathe underwater, and in mud? That bit seed strange to , but I will think about it when I am smart again.
Thoughts were hard, so I kept my plan simple. I sit under the water, creatures co to drink, I jump out and murder them. Easy! The only problem was that the first monster to co to the water was huge.
[Young Green Lizard, Lvl 2]
[A highly aggressive and common Lizard monster. Known for attacking just about anything that moves.]
[Only growing to the size of a large dog and often unwilling to share territory with others of its kind when it reaches the Young and Adult stages, Green Lizards are considered a nuisance monster and do not have a posted bounty from the Guild. In fact, because they tend to suppress the younger forms of much more dangerous monsters, it is generally advised to try and avoid killing them whenever possible.]
Suppressing the younger forms of much more dangerous monsters, isnt that just a euphemism for, it eats other monsters babies before they can grow up!? It is a lower level than , but it is four tis the size of the Green Lizards Ive seen so far! Is it because it is Young instead of a Hatchling? Does that an that the Young Glass Lizard I scared away probably could have turned around and murdered !?
I am just going to stay under the water of this pool and just let it drink. I am not ready to fight sothing like this, especially not when I am injured.
[Stealth has Leveled up! Stealth is now Level 2!]
I wait for a while after the big lizard leaves and then pick a different spot for my ambush. It is, for the most part, an utter failure. Monsters co and drink, and I am almost always too far away to do anything! It was incredibly frustrating, although it kept my instincts down enough for not to actually try and hunt the lizards down, so I guess you could call this a day of rest and relaxation. At least I managed to level up my Swimming
[Swimming has Leveled up! Swimming is now Level 2!]
As soon as dusk hit though, I no longer was content to just sit around in the pool. I had to hunt; the most I could manage was to try and be far more careful this night. The area was swampy, so I decided to try and stick to the shallow water instead of just wandering into the woods.
I had a lot more success sneaking around when I hid under the water. My first attack, on a Level 2 Infant Blood Squirrel, was a wonderful success! I even learned the Skill Ambush! Unfortunately, it was barely worth any xp at all. I only gained a single point from it because there was a fifty percent xp penalty since it was below my level! I suppose it shaved a day off the ti until I could evolve out of being a murder toad, which was sothing I guess.
I did get a better idea of the wildlife that lived in the area. Considering that most everything was trying to kill everything else, it was pretty diverse. Monsters were fighting each other everywhere. I guess monsters are born and then fight amongst each other until the strongest evolve and go sowhere else?
Most of them looked like things I would have seen in a forest on Earth, just dialed up to eleven. However, so things were distinctly not Earth like, the sli being one of them. Slis, as far as I can rember, were supposed to be so of the weakest creatures in a lot of fictions. Here? I watched Spawnling Common Sli slaughter a whole nest of Blood Squirrels. Anything that tried to attack it just got stuck in it and eaten!
It wasnt until a Hatchling Glass Lizard managed to break - out of pure luck or maybe pure Luck - an orb floating in the sli that the thing died, and it was basically dead and half digested anyway. I, not wanting the xp to go to waste, finished the Glass Lizard off and gained six xp for my trouble. It was level three so I didnt get a penalty or a bonus for my effort.
Counting the xp I gained passively, I only managed to gain five xp today and recover a single point of health. If things kept going at this rate it would take a long while to evolve into sothing else. From an xp point of view, the only prey worth hunting was at or above my level.
I would head back to Toadho tonight, but tomorrow I think I will have to take so risks. Perhaps, as hard as it might be, it was ti to stop thinking like a murder toad and start thinking like a person. I didnt need to be stronger than my opponents if I fought smarter, and my Acuity might be causing trouble but I still was far more intelligent than lizards that charged ahead with their mouths open and their eyes closed!
Reviews
All reviews (0)