Out of the frying pan and into the fire would be an apt expression to explain my current circumstances. My arm is still on fire from the small monstrosities that defiled it. Taking a glance at my status page I am relieved to see my health tick up by 1 after a few moments. Well that answers my question as to whether I have any type of passive health regeneration.

Giving a final stomp to the tiny corpses that caused my pain, I look back at the small pond I just extricated myself from. It seemed innocuous enough. No ripples or movement of any type I could discern. Still, I had gained experience and a level from killing just three of the slippery nightmare spawn.

With a flash of inspiration it occurs to me that this may be an opportunity and that some experimentation might be in order. Looking around, I spot a low hanging branch on one of the nearby trees. Moving to the branch grab it and I apply weight until it snaps off the tree with a audible cracking sound. I quickly glance around looking for movement, but seeing none progressed to stripping the branch of its offshoots until all that is left of this is nubby spikes along the length of the branch. I break the thinner end of the branch until it is only about its length about matches the length of my arm and then inspect my work.

To my surprise a box springs up.

Makeshift Club

Force: Blunt

10-25 Damage

Excellent!

Looking at it I am confident that it will not snap immediately if I want to use it to wallop the shit out of the next evil bugger I see.

Ok, I might be a little tense at the moment.

At any rate, I now have my brand new, not so shiny implement of death. Moving back to the water’s edge with maybe a small amount of trepidation I slowly lower one end of the makeshift club into the water and wait a few moments before pulling it back out of the water. As I inspect my new handy weapon I do not see any passengers. Fair enough, it was not really a surprise that this was not going to be as easy as I might have liked.

I pause to consider my options briefly before I make my decision. Steeling my resolve I slowly press my fingers into the gauge wounds left by the Essence Leaches. I do not stop until my hand is covered in my blood and it is dropping down off my elbow to the ground. Not giving myself time to talk myself out of my decision I step back to the edge of the water and lower my hand in.

The effect is instantaneous. Ripples appear in the middle of the pond and start speeding at me. I take my hand out of the pond as fast as I can. I take a step back in the process, then several steps. After I removed my hand the ripples did not slow. I observed calmly and waited. As the ripples reached the water’s edge with no delay the cause appeared. Leech after leech flew out of the water to land on the ground where my blood had spilled and where I had stood only moments before a swarmed a massive dark mass, if I had been still standing there I had no doubt I would be dead.

The leeches paid me no immediate attention however as they single-mindedly slithered all over the ground. I figured they were seeking my blood and that when it had dripped to the ground it had confused them. It was now or never so I leapt forward smashing their tiny bodies to bits and pieces. I continued to smack them with my club until they all stopped moving. It took a good while as there must have been around a several hundred of them. All slimy with eel like bodies ending in circular mouths ringed with sharp serrated looking teeth. The bloody leech pieces where everywhere by the time any of them took notice of the danger I represented to them. The sheer number of leech bodies causing my footing to be haphazard at best. As the last surviving leeches seemed to somehow sense me amid all the rest of the blood and carnage they swerved towards me, gathering together again in a mass that was to say in the least quite diminished now. Sadly for them, their ticket was up. Even if they did not know it yet. I took my time and let them come at me. To say that having a weapon like the club was unfair might have some merit. Not that it would stop me from using it to my advantage. The remaining leeches where simply not able to get past my gore covered tool of destruction. I did not count how many more swings it took, but by the end there was not a single leech so much as twitching or in one piece for that matter.

Served the malicious critters right.

I paused to catch my breath and checked all over myself to make sure none of the sneaky fiends had somehow attached to me in my onslaught.

Thankfully finding none, I check the lone notification box and then my status page.

Essence Leech Slain X 498

Exp Gained

Level up x 10

50 Attribute Points gained

Name

Jax Hills

Level

12

HP

110/140

Strength

12

Constitution

14

Endurance

11

Dexterity

12

Intelligence

12

Wisdom

15

Charisma

12

Perception

15

Luck

20

I grin to myself. I think I have found my new favorite pass time. Fishing! Although next time I will be sure to take a hard pass on being the bait.