1.3
“If a baby can't even strangle a grown man right after being born then what's the point in having one?” - Madelyn the Skull Rain giving important life lessons.
The corridor was mostly cleared out. Some random benches and overgrown plants were scattered around of course but there generally wasn’t much cover.
Thanks to that I could see my opponents clearly. Short and sickly looking, they were about a meter tall each, with large, misshapen noses and pointed ears. I couldn’t discern their colour from this far away, but I bet they were green. Anyone with even a drop of genre-savvy would recognise them as goblins. I could see six to seven. Two were approximately thirty meters from me, a third at thirty-five and the last group clustered together around a campfire around forty meters, where my darkvision ended.
The first two had clubs, the third -I strained my eyes- a long stick? Wait, there’s a pointy end, a spear, I corrected.
The goblin on the left suddenly barked something and pointed directly at me, its counterpart gave out a surprised yelp. Behind them, I could see the rest of the goblins scrambling into action. Did they have darkvision as well?
Unless... I turned my head, catching my reflection in a dusty glass pane. A ghostly blue face looked back at me. I’m glowing. Damn, stealth wasn’t an option it seemed.
I switched my attention back to the goblins. The two in front were running right towards me, twenty meters. I bent down, my left hand touching the ground. “Grow Sporage, Poison Spores.” Ten meters.
I rose, both hands gripping onto my staff. Five meters. I took a step back and did a wide swing in front of me.
I heard a sickening crunch as my staff impacted and launched the foremost goblin. ‘One’ Quickly reversing the swing, I socked the other goblin. Sending both flying in separate directions. ‘Two’
My eyes followed the second one, oh god its eyes popped out- I reflexively took another step back as I heard the third goblin arrive in front of me, spear lunging out.
I glanced at the ground underneath it, “Poison Spores!”
The mushroom burst, releasing a cloud of spores. The goblin stopped, hands trying to fan away the spores. It staggered forward another step before dropping over dead. ‘Three’ I mentally tallied.
That was quick, I suppose tutorial mobs weren’t supposed to be too difficult.
I glanced at the two I took out first. Ugh, mistake. I’ve played my fair share of gory games but indented skulls was a new one. I shoved the disgust behind me, though I made a mental note to try and take out enemies with spells, before checking the other group. Only two left, one armed with a spear and the other with a dagger, both were cautiously watching me. The remainder was gone, outside of my vision.
It doesn’t look like they’re budging. Damn. For a mage I had a pretty short range, my spells went ten meters at most. I was hoping the remainder would come to me so I could use sporage to take them out. But if the first group was any indication, then these two won’t be difficult to take out.
I took a step forward, both goblins tensed. Hmm. I started slowly ambling forward, might as well get it over with.
Directing mana to my shoulder, I chanted, “Grow Sporage, Balm Spores. Grow Sporage, Sneezing Spores. Grow Sporage, Light Spores.”
I ran, well I went as fast as my stumpy myconid legs could take me, which was probably only as fast as a mobility scooter. I readied my longest range spell, “Acid Spit!” a glob of liquid welled up inside my throat, before being rapidly ejected from my mouth.
Both goblins ducked to the side, the glob of purple liquid splashing harmlessly onto the ground. The one of the left rolled before quickly rising and jabbing its spear at me. I tried to dodge to the left. But I was too slow. The spear stabbed me in the side. I raised my free hand, “Poison Spores!”
The goblin’s face scrunched up as it inhaled the spores, it weakly dropped the spear and fell down. ‘Four.’
I whirled around, trying to scan my surroundings, where’s the second one-
Something heavy grabbed onto my back, quickly followed by a jabbing sensation. Shit, it flanked me. I violently turned around. Throwing the goblin off my back. Using my momentum, I swung my staff horizontally. Only hearing a sickening crack as I got the goblin. ‘Five.’
Hendrix watched Declan dispatch the first five goblins. Not a bad first start, Hendrix assessed, he moved with the skill of someone who’s played a fair few fighting games. Clearly used to both melee and ranged roles or even a mix in between.
He scratched his cap. The pain limiter needed to be lightened. Myconids didn’t feel a lot of pain in the first place -at least not the ways most animals felt it- but with the pain limiter, Declan was barely feeling anything at all. Getting stabbed probably felt more like a sharp pinch to him. So Hendrix mentally sent a message to Eve to lighten Declan and all future myconid player’s pain limiters. Declan didn’t show any adverse reaction to the gore physics, so there was no need for him to do anything about that. Eve’s mental adaption program was working better than expected. There was a minor disconnect with how fast Declan thought his body would move versus how fast it actually moved but Declan would naturally adjust to it with time.
Hmm, Hendrix didn’t have much to do now. His main job was making sure the player transitioned smoothly but Eve was doing the lion’s share of the work. ‘I suppose I can check on the goblins.’
He could use Admin for this, but Hendrix wanted to keep himself in practice, so he directed mana to the earth. Mana signals travelled through the mycelium network he had prepared prior, towards a hidden corner of the mall. A single mushroom popped up there. Hendrix opened his new eye and glanced at the goblin village. ‘Hmmpf.’ He mentally snorted.
Indiri goblins wouldn’t be caught dead with such poor fortifications, certainly not with such low guard, -half the goblins here were lazily asleep- and especially not with such a poorly hidden lair.
‘Spark’, he cast and mana exited his body through the network and finally out of the mushroom. Striking a snoring goblin in the rear, jolting it awake. It spun its head around searching for what had stuck it in the rear, but its eyes quickly focused on a group of goblins running towards the village.
Hendrix disagreed with all the tutorials Eve had shown them as examples. Far too easy, far too much hand-holding. If Eve wanted players to go to Indiri then she needed to up the ante. If they can’t even solo a goblin village, a Gaia goblin village at that, then they’ll spend forever grinding levels here and that's just boring.
He nodded in satisfaction as the goblins started waking. Even if Declan died, Hendrix needed to give him a demonstration of the respawn system anyways.
“Balm Spores,” I muttered and the pain was replaced by a stinging sensation. White, fur-like fungus sprouted at the edges of my wound, growing inwards till the hole was more or less blocked. Balm Spores was an all-purpose healing spell, able to instantly fix skin-deep wounds such as cuts or burning and close off larger ones to prevent bleeding. It was one of the only healing spell options I had with Healing Spores and Fix-up Fungus.
That fight was a good starter, I learned that not only did I bleed yellow but I was also tougher than I expected. Getting stabbed twice barely slowed me down, granted the bleeding probably would’ve killed me eventually but I didn’t even realise it until after the fight. It’s a shame that I can’t see my HP bar. Hendrix complained about how HP was overrated since even a tank would instantly die if someone cut off their head due to the hyper-realistic settings. Which I translated to meaning, ‘You’ll die if it makes sense for you to die.’
I cast Balm Spores again on my back, closing up the other wound and stood up. I needed to get going, there were still three to four goblins that ran the moment they saw me. An odd amount of intelligence for tutorial mobs but it made sense if they were going for a realistic world.
If I remembered correctly, following this corridor should lead to a food court. The Macca’s here served great chips. Which led me to the realisation that going outside might actually give me an advantage in-game. I chuckled at the thought of couch potatoes everywhere suddenly going outside to better play the game. I wasn’t any better of course, but I finally might be able to work off my pot belly. Maybe even get a job-
I paused as I heard footsteps. I had arrived at another intersection, the footsteps were coming from the left corridor. Slowly, I crept towards it, hiding beneath a ruined display counter. I peeked my head out, before rapidly bringing it back in.
What the actual fuck!? There were at least thirty-something goblins! I know that this is supposed to be a realistic game but have some concern about game balance! I’m only level 1 damn it!
Ok. Fuck. Calm down, I took a deep breath. I can work with this. Maybe. First off, I needed to leg it. They were still far off and with how much noise they’re making it was unlikely they’ll hear me running. Probably. Shit. Start running Declan. Why of course Declan. I began quickly crawling behind the display, before rising and full-on legging it.
They can’t expect me to try and fight that horde. I might be able to one-shot the goblins but they were a lot faster than me. I could probably manage five but any more than that and their numbers advantage would just screw me over.
Was the goblin camp earlier some kind of outpost? And by not managing to kill them all before they escaped it triggered the event for the goblin horde. Was this a roundabout way of saying my actions had consequences? That was very likely. Which further proved that this wasn’t the type of game that would just spawn in an army of goblins. The fact that those goblins ran in the first place meant that they had a place to run to. I reached the intersection where Hendrix geared me. The goblin horde came from the left, so my current right. I headed down that corridor.
Now, if I was a rabid horde of goblins out for mushroom blood, how would I best murder said mushroom? Spread out, split the goblins into at least pairs and scour the entire mall. Upon contact immediately run and grab other goblins before swarming the myconid.
I, as the myconid being hunted by said goblin horde. Needed to avoid that situation. If they split up I could thin the horde, but I increased the chance of death by mobbing. So I needed to go where they have already searched.
It’s more or less confirmed at this point that Gaia was a real, living world, which meant that everything had to make sense in some way. The goblins needed to have come from somewhere. However, it was also a game world. A place where you're meant to grind levels like in normal games. Furthermore, I was in the beginning tutorial, a controlled environment. This meant that there had to be a solution, a way to beat that horde somehow. I just had to find it. The goblins probably originated from a larger camp, I needed to find that camp and decide my actions from there.
The mall here had a grid-like design. Assuming the goblins took a semi-straight path, then I could loop around and search for the camp or at the very least avoid the horde for the moment.
I turned right at another intersection. Soon finding myself on the path the goblins had already tread. I quickly peeked my head out to look on both sides. The goblins were nowhere in sight. Good.
I began heading left, following the goblin tracks. It wasn’t difficult. The grass and moss here were clearly flattened by the dozens of feet that ran through it. I’d be blind to not notice it.
I paused, catching my breath. I had more stamina in this body compared to my real one but not by much.
I was now on the opposite end of the mall. At what was once a food court, a large circular area with dozens of chairs, tables and benches scattered around, with various restaurants and fast food stores bordering it. The court was mostly cleared out of that stuff here, replacing it was some sort of tribal looking village. The village followed a circular design, a central large hut in the middle with more huts spreading out from there. Some white smoke drifted from the central hut. It looked empty and checking the doorways I could tell that the village was definitely made for something as short as a goblin. No ceilings oddly enough and the village overall looked very flimsy, I suppose the mall roof provided enough cover from the weather.
The annoying thing was, the entire food court was lit up by sunlight. There was a glass ceiling, which while it looked a bit dusty now, sunlight still streamed through it. With my Sun Sickness debuff, I wasn’t sure how far I could make it. The description said it only drained my stamina but I had no idea how quickly it would be. Not only that getting here had already tired me out by a fair deal. It felt like I was recovering quickly but I had no idea by how much.
Rest and prepare it is then. I stalked the edges of the food court, staying to the shaded areas away from the sunlight. Reaching a place where I was in view of most the entrances of the village.
Guarded, I sat down cross-legged. Placing my hand on the ground, I quietly whispered, “Mushroom Meal,” and a large, brown flat-topped mushroom sprouted next to my hand. I picked it up, looking it over before taking a bite out of the top
Hmm, tender but had a rubbery bouncy texture to it. I took another bite, there was a savoury liquid in it as well, which made the mushroom pretty juicy. My mouth felt weird too, like it was methodically grinding down the food. Definitely not human teeth, but not sharp like most predators’ or the flat ones herbivores have. I’ll check what my mouth looked like the next time I find a mirror. I felt my body slightly warming up a bit as I swallowed the mushroom.
Mushroom Meal was not only a pretty filling meal, but it also restored stamina and slightly boosted HP regeneration, with how many debuffs my race had in regards to stamina I figured this was a must-have spell. One should be enough to restore around half my stamina pool, with the passive regeneration I should be completely topped up by the time I’m finished.
I took another bite out of the mushroom. It was better than I thought it would be. The tenderness and juices made it like a medium-rare steak but the bounciness gave it an extra pseudo-crunch sorta like a vegetable.
Finishing the mushroom I stood up, just in case I cast another Mushroom Meal and kept it in my hand as a snack, before entering the village and into the light.
