NOVEL NEXT Chapter 2: Ruins
When Miriam finally arrived at a road after six or seven hours of walking through the barren hills, it didn’t look at all like what she was expecting. The stretch of weathered cobblestones snaked through the hills like a muddy river, extending off to her left and right. A human-made structure! Overjoyed to finally find a sign of civilization, she ran the last few hundred feet to the road as fast as her legs could carry her.
The sun-baked cobblestones felt rougher beneath her feet than the ashen ground did, but were far less hot and far more firm. The stone is probably warmed by the sun, whereas the ashes are naturally hot from volcanoes or something. Don’t ashes come from volcanoes? She relaxed for a bit, some of the stress taken off of her feet by the comfortable solidness of the road.
“Now, where to next?” she said to herself. “Where are you hiding, people?” She looked in front of her. The road extended off into the distance until it disappeared behind a particularly large hill. She turned around, and saw a shadowy form in the distance. It looked hazy, but was unmistakably a building.
Her heart pounded with hope as she stared closer at the form. It was so far away that she could only make out the outline, but it looked to be around the size of a medium house. A house! People! Maybe they can help me! She took off at a full sprint towards the structure, heedless of her draining stamina points.
As she got closer, her initial hope started to fade. It was, in fact, a building - or rather, the ruins of one. Tall walls made of a navy blue rock were crumbling and overgrown with red and brown ivy. The voice analyzed the kudzu-like growth as [Demon Ivy: Lv. 0].
“Hello?” Miriam exclaimed. “Is anyone there?” No response came from the tall house. “Anyone?”
She circled the perimeter of the structure, searching for a way in. On the opposite side of the house, a door-sized hole had been cut into the rock, level with the ground. The inside of the building was dark as far as she could see. Taking a deep breath, Miriam stepped through the doorway. She called out again. This time, there was a response.
An enormous bug the size of a housecat dropped from the ceiling in front of her. She yelled in surprise and jumped back. She got a good look at the bug as it reared back onto its hind legs and hissed. It looked like a giant version of a normal cockroach, albeit with sickly green antennae and mandibles. A primal fear coursed through her as the voice spoke again.
[Combat initiated versus Entities: Ravager Cockroach Lv. 1 x5, Ravager Cockroach Lv. 2]
A bright green bar appeared above the cockroach’s head as it charged at Miriam.
“Goddamnit, get back!” Miriam shouted as she sidestepped the bug’s attack. She kicked at it. The strike connected, sending the cockroach flying back with a hiss of pain. The green bar above its head shrunk by more than half. I guess this bar represents its health. It writhed on the ground for a second before attempting to stand back up.
“Oh no you don’t!” snarled Miriam, adrenaline surging through her. She kicked the beast again. This time, it dropped for good, its health bar disappearing. Grey-green blood spurted from the large cracks she had made in its carapace as it stopped moving.
[Entity: Ravager Cockroach slain. Exp granted.]
No sooner than she had slain the first cockroach than two more like it appeared, falling from the upper floor. The first fell onto the ground, but the second fell onto her head. It grazed her scalp with its mandibles before she was able to yank it off.
[Hp: 32/36]
The pain she felt was more than the simple numbers representing her health pointscould convey. It felt like she had been slashed with a knife and had her hair pulled at the same time. She screamed in pain and stumbled back as the first cockroach lunged at her. She kicked it away from her, denting its health, as two more cockroaches dropped down from the ceiling around five feet away
Thinking quickly, she rushed to the nearest wall and put her back to it. Blood dripped down her forehead as she surveyed the roaches. The uninjured three rushed at her with wild abandon, but the injured one stayed behind, Miriam’s blood dripping down its mandibles and mixing with its own grey entrails.
“Fuck you!” she roared as she kicked her leg in a circle like a character in a martial arts movie. Normally, she’d have torn a muscle from the act. Thankfully, her enhanced stats - Vitality? Endurance? prevented her from injuring herself. She took two of them with a single kick, and brought her leg back to step on the third.
The one she stepped on instantly died, its carapace flattened to the ground by the force of her foot. It felt like stepping through ice into gravel, even with her Enhanced Calluses skill. The voice said that it had been slain, but Miriam hardly heard it. The other two took significant damage, reeling backwards in pain. But they must not have been very bright, because they charged again.
“What did Einstein say about insanity?” Miriam exclaimed between heavy breaths as she kicked the roaches. All three of them died in under a second, one to her wide kick and the other two crushed beneath her foot. “Oh, that’s right, it’s trying the same thing and expecting different fucking results!”
The last cockroach rushed at her, but it slipped on the blood of its companions, stumbling to the floor. Miriam crushed it with her foot, silencing it for good.
[Entity: Miriam Ward has reached Lv. 2 in Wretch. +2 max Hp, 3 stat points awarded.]
I leveled up! Does this mean I get more powerful? Immediately after the voice finished talking, Miriam began to feel more durable, her skin slightly tougher. Checking her Hp meter, she saw that it now read [Hp: 32/38].
She didn’t have time to celebrate her new power, because a sixth cockroach dropped from the ceiling. It looked bigger and nastier than its friends, more similar in size to a medium dog than a cat. Its hiss sounded like a roar as it charged her. She kicked it away, but the blow took only a third of its health away. Its carapace felt hard on her foot, like she was kicking a wooden board.
“Ow, fuck!” Miriam shouted as the roach went flying backwards. Thankfully, the injury hadn’t reduced her Hp. “That hurt, you bastard!” Clearly the frenzied clicks emanating from its mouth meant something similarly vulgar. As the roach desperately tried to mount another assault, Miriam rushed at it and crushed its thorax.
As she wounded it, it reached around with its mandibles and bit her foot.
[Hp: 27/38. You have contracted Debuff: Weak Poison (4m 59s remaining)]
In addition to the knife- like pain that went searing up Miriam’s leg, a second pain did so as well - it felt like an infection. Oh god, I’ve been poisoned!
“Die!” she yelled as she slammed her other foot into the roach’s side. It stopped moving, leaving her standing in a puddle of oversized cockroach remains. Her feet were stained green, red and grey, and blood dripped down her face and onto her robe.
[Combat complete. Entity: Miriam Ward victorious. Possessing 3 unspent stat points.]
She extricated herself from the carnage and walked over to a clean patch of floor. She sat down and slumped to the ground, her adrenaline surge being replaced with deep exhaustion.
“God,” she sighed. “Fuck, that hurt.” With a chill, she remembered that the final cockroach had poisoned her with its mandibles. Checking her health, she was horrified to find that it had dropped down to 24 and seemed to be slowly ticking down. The pain in her foot hurt more than ever, and her lower torso began to hurt too.
Oh no! Fuck, fuck, fuck! I’m going to die! A sob escaped her as she realized that she would die here. As she numbly pondered this reality, she realized that there was a timer next to her health bar. As she looked at it, the voice said, [Weak Poison: 3m 43s remaining]
Rapidly doing the math, she assumed that the poison drained 3 Hp per minute. In the four minutes it had left, it would drain 12 more Hp. I’ll be fine. I’ll survive.
She sat huddled against the wall as she waited for the poison to run its course. Sure enough, once the timer reached the one-minute mark, the pain began to diminish. It completely dissipated once the timer stopped, leaving her at a mere 12 Hp.
Looking down, she noticed that her leg and forehead were still bleeding. The injuroes seemed to have no adverse effect on her at the moment, but years of common sense taught her that untreated injuries were dangerous. Thinking quickly, she ripped a strip off of the bottom portion of her robe, ripped that in two, and tied the first piece tightly around her leg. The bleeding seemed to stop, so she tied the other piece around her scalp. There’s no water anywhere to wash the wounds, so this shit medical care will have to do for now.
Her injuries tended, she looked around the room. It was mostly dark, with faint sunlight pouring in through several cracks. With it, she could make out a rough dirt floor with the remnants of a few rotten boards poking out of it. White mushrooms grew around the side of the room. The voice said that they were [mushrooms] and provided no further explanation. Those look like horse mushrooms, she thought. I have some in my garden back home. They’re edible if I recall correctly. At that thought, her stomach growled with hunger. It had been at least seven hours since she had eaten that tuna fish salad with Tom, if not more.
She crawled over to the mushrooms and analyzed them. Yep, they’re around 5 inches wide, pink-white gills, spreading ring collar. They’re Agaricus arvensis all right. I can eat them. She plucked a small one and took a deep breath. She took a tiny, tentative bite.
Immediately, agony flared down her esophagus as the familiar 5-minute poison gague appeared beside her health bar. “Fuck!” Miriam cried. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Of course they weren’t horse mushrooms, this isn’t Earth! Fuck me, I’m so goddamn stupid and now I’m gonna die! Hyperventilating, she frantically looked around the dark, abandoned room.
“Fuck! Help! Anyone!” she cried. “How do I get rid of poison? Voice? Help me!”
[Vitality increases resistance to all poisons, and they can also be cured with antidotes and certain healing magic.]
So I need to raise my Vitality! She frantically pulled up her Attribute Sheet as her Hp ticked down to 11. She saw that she had 3 unspent stat points. How do I increase my Vitality? She willed the points to go into Vitality, groaning with mental strain. Miraculously, the unspent points disappeared and her Vitality stat increased to 9. She instantly felt more durable, her maximum Hp increasing to 41. Unfortunately, the poison timer didn’t go away.
She began counting the seconds between poison damage, breathing deeply to ward off her panic. 28… 29… 30… At the 30-second count, her Hp ticked down to 10.
Good! So I’ll survive with 2 Hp once the poison ran out, she thought. Immediately she felt calmer as she realized that she was not, in fact, going to die. Eventually, the poison ran out and Miriam felt nauseous. She vomited a pathetically low amount of her stomach content onto the ground, but she felt far better after she did so. She let out a sigh of relief. She pulled up her Attribute Sheet and checked it.
Attribute Sheet of Entity: Miriam Ward
Name: Miriam Ward
Class/Level: Wretch Lv. 2
Stat Points: 0
Moves (basic):
Unarmed Lv. 1
Defend Lv. 1
Dodge Lv. 1
Enhanced Calluses Lv. 1
Enhanced Breath Lv. 3
Moves (advanced):
Stats:
Hp: 2/41
Mp: 5/5
Stamina: 7/7
Defense: 7
Resistance: 6
Strength: 5 (+0)
Agility: 5 (+0)
Vitality: 9 (+0)
Endurance: 6 (+0)
Magic: 5 (+0)
Wisdom: 7 (+0)
Charisma: 5 (+0)
Her high Vitality had helped her to survive, but the rest of her stats were looking pretty low, as was her Hp.
“How do I restore Hp?” she asked, expecting the voice to answer.
[Hp can be restored by sleeping, consuming certain items, or using certain healing magic.]
Helpful as always, Ms. Voice, Miriam thought. She realized that the voice didn’t seem to be feminine, masculine, or even androgynous at all. Or is it Mr.? Mx.? Are you even a person?
[Error: Unknown Command.]
“I see. You’re gonna be obtuse again, aren’t you?”
[Error: Unknown Command.]
“Fine then, have it your way,” Miriam grumbled. “I’m gonna go to sleep. Those Hp won’t restore themselves.” She lay down with her side to the wall and immediately began to drift off. The strenuous events of the past hours hit her like a truck all at once and she immediately lost consciousness, finding her first true moment of peace in this cruel new world.