The area around the fountain stank. Like electrified flesh, which was a pungent smell Hannah would never forget. The two corpses that had been hit by the taser smoldered, smoke rising from the charred wounds. Hannah pushed her palms against her eyes, in a familiar motion... it was her go to stressed and thinking pose. There were so many thoughts rushing around in her head, she was surprised by her own calmness.
She began to organize her thoughts... as a teen who had struggled with feeling overwhelmed, to the point of meltdowns... Hannah had a little therapy, and she began sorting her feelings. Things she could control, things she couldn't, and unknowns... Top of the list of things she couldn't control was being in this dungeon. It was almost not worth thinking about the time before she entered, even though she had been in the dungeon less than 10 minutes.
"Okay what can I control?" She asked herself, moving her hands and standing up. She looked around the camp, the bodies... "Looting and moving." She said, crouching down she began to rifle through the lizard creatures pockets, and fanny pack. Just some coins, which gave an error when she picked them up.
[You can not store these in your inventory, until you complete the tutorial]
It was a small frame that jarringly blocked her vision, and flashed. The words were read by the robotic voice, that read the description of these creatures earlier. She fetched her taser, and went through the pockets of the other two, then the scattered belongings of the creatures around the camp.
"Tutorial guild. I have to get there soon." She said to herself, the sound of her own voice comforting her... audibly repeating her plan, helped Hannah focus and calm down. The only problem was there was absolutely no direction or flow... It was more hallways leaving this courtyard, and they each looked exactly the same... Hannah was actually a little unsure which one she had entered from.
She finally decided to exit into the hallway to the west, according to the little map she had found in the UI while toying around with mental and verbal prompts. She had found a few interesting tabs which were locked... including one for spells! So this was really going to be a dungeon crawl... like a roguelite?
She felt utterly unprepared for something like that. Armed with a taser, and her schoolbag... The lizard creatures had only yielded about 30 gold coins, which now inhabited one of the tiny fanny packs she had looted, and strapped around her thigh. It made for a convenient place to store her taser, as she could clip the hook to the pack and let it dangle at her side.
"The voice said the guilds were pretty common, how hard can it be to find one?" She asked herself in a falsely confident voice.
After about 5 minutes of travel, Hannah ran into a group of those lizard creatures. They looked like they were heading to party, too! One was carrying a large umbrella, and two over stuffed totes... The other two were dragging a large cooler filled with ice and cans. "I'm not usually a party crasher." She grumbled as all of the items the three were carrying clattered to the ground, and started to run towards her.
She dodged the first lunge, and grabbed her taser. Landing a 300 spartan-esque kick into the chest of the second one, before being tackled by the third... She screamed as teeth sunk into her shoulder. They weren't very tall, but their head was like 50% mouth. She pushed the creature away, the wet sound of her shoulder being flayed and cut up. She felt the hot and cold of her blood rushing from the wounds and her sweater being shredded.
She jammed the taser into the creatures chin, ZAAAP-BZZT! Her left arm felt heavy, her right both wielding the taser and pushing the creature away. The lizard-ish goblin creature slumped away it's eyes smoking, Hannah was almost stunned by the creature giving her nearly a fourth of a level in experience.
The short crawler was reminded of the other two creatures, by a swift blow to her back. One of them had punched her, the red bar indicating her health dropped... the tiny number reading 60%... 59%! It was the bleeding, fuck. Of course, it was the bleeding! She spun lashing out with another kick, her foot smashed between the eyes of the creature, and she saw a health bar appear! Dropping to about 70%! These things were more fragile than her!
Both of the goblin fish things, were recovering... the one she had kicked in the chest, was rubbing it's chest obviously just recovering the ability to breathe! She jumped forward, and slammed the taser and her body into the mob! She felt the electric current! She recoiled as the energy flashed through her own body! WOWZA!
She coughed rolling onto her back... the wind knocked out of her, and her arms feeling stiff... especially the bleeding one. Her sweater was wet, and heavy with blood. She could feel the thick wet blood gushing from the wound, the last Wily was quicker to recover. It was quickly crawling over her, she managed to get her hand up and block the chomp that went for her throat. Her hand and forearm getting bit, "FUCKER!" She screamed, as her health dived... 34%!
She jammed her free hand into the creatures oversized eye, until she felt something pop! The creature screamed and she drew back her hand. She rolled so she was pinning the creature to the ground, and slammed down with both injured hands gripping the taser. The metal prods sunk into the screaming mobs forehead, and she squeezed the button.
She slumpped to the side, "Fuck your party, bitch." She said, trying to catch her breath. She turned her head to look towards the direction they had come from. She was bruised, bleeding, sporting far too many bloody wounds to be happy... but she couldn't stop the smile that came to her face. "Found it."
Glowing the distance, was a sign saying... "Crawlers Welcome! The tutorial guild".
She shakily found her feet, cradling her left arm. She laughed, and kicked the body of the last Wily she had killed. After about a minute of stumbling down the hallway, she made it to the door. The bleed must have worn off, cause her health was stopped at about 25%. She knocked on the door, and stepped inside when it opened.
"OI! Your bleeding on my carpet!" The voice said, pushing her back onto the tiled entry way. "Use your heal spell, you barbarian!" The voice was coming from low, and Hannah's vision was woozy. She looked down, and saw a green creature! She was about the swear and prepare for combat when the robotic voice gave a new description!
[Igva level 85 Goblin Tutorial Guild Master, This is a non-combatant NPC!]
"H-Heal Spell?" She asked, trying to focus her eyes. It was harder than she thought, Hannah was beginning to realize... she might have lost more blood than she thought.
"Yes! The Heal Spell!" the goblin said, "It should be action 2 on your quick actions."
Hannah mentally queued for quick actions and found the spell Igva was talking about! It was like being hit with a hair dryer, hot relaxing air whooshed against her! Wounds closed, her body ached less... her vision cleared up! "WOW!" Hannah said surprised by the effectiveness of the spell. Her health launched to nearly full stopping at around 87%...
"Well crawler, you made it... to the tutorial! Congrats on not dying, usually now I'd launch into explaining as much about this shit-fest as I could... but, this solar... I can't until the surprise announcement has aired." The little goblin said, looking Hannah up and down... "Since your hear, it should count as you having started the tutorial... So you can explore your menus, but I can't answer any questions until after the announcement."
"Can I come onto the carpet now?" Hannah asked looking around the room. It was circular, and it wasn't very large. In the center was a large fire pit, with a roaring blaze... which should have made the room an oven, but it was very comfortable. The walls were lined with books, and trinkets.
"You can't read those, so don't even try." The guild master said seeing Hannah stare at the books. "You can have a seat, I wouldn't recommend leaving... Your here, stay put for another 20 minutes until the surprise announcement. It's bullshit, like it matters to you... this is all a surprise announcement."
Hannah kind of liked the grouchy little goblin already. She sat on one of the benches, and started to dig into her bag. "Damn wish I had known about the heal spell before I came in... I left a bunch of stuff unlooted." She said mostly to herself, but the goblin made a noise of acknowledgement. She opened the menu mentally, and was surprised at the screen that popped up. It was much more detailed than the one she had found earlier... maybe because this was a "Safe-Room"?
She saw a tab named Lootboxes, and opened it. She had so many questions, and she knew the goblin wouldn't answer them. She had 5 lootboxes, there were little pictures... and the flashiest looking one was that Platinum box. The little card in her inventory was holographic! The gold box was outlined in glimmering gold filigree, and the other three looked like low level boxes.
She wondered what they were waiting on. "Do you tutor more crawlers? or just me?" She asked, not expecting an answer. She did not get one, the goblin sat about 10 feet away slowly turning the pages of the book on the table. "Right, no questions." She said, the game wouldn't let her open her lootboxes... which was bullshit.
This was gonna be a long twenty minutes. |
StratRat
Vyce
StarfrostedFox
ThisIsFine
SonnetNSunbeam
Ruby
loco rococo
SilverPaw
Lilac404
