Quest completed.

Consumption of an unknown substance has caused:

–all health regeneration, -ability to sense outside mana

New quest

Mana wildspark

Trace amounts of mana ravages through your body, deal with it.

Or die.

Reward

Completion-depended

When Peter woke up it was already getting dark. The quest completed window surprised him, but after a while he discovered that it must have been the river quest, which he completed. Where the essence went which he had gotten for it, he didn’t know. He should’ve gotten 10 essence, but there was no indicator saying that.

The berries were supposed to be safe, but he was left defenceless for a pretty long time. After one use of his new skill, he discovered that it had flaws. The new quest he had gotten was interesting though, it was another confirmation that there was real magic in this world.

Peter clenched his fists and swore to himself that he would use magic, and this quest had pointed him in the right direction. There was mana in his body, and what he remembered from various fictions mana was the fuel of magic. He only had to look in his body, but that could wait for later. It was getting dark and monsters lived in the dark. He would not be chased by a wolf again or attacked by weird green creatures for that matter.

A safe place to sleep would be high in a tree or maybe in a cave of some sorts. There were bigger trees in the deeper parts of the forest and maybe there would be a cave there as well. The stream went uphill, it came from a section of the older forest.

So he decided to walk uphill, following the stream. It looked like he had maybe one more hour before it got really dark, so Peter walked with a brisk pace. Sadly he had to be concentrated on his walking, because the ground was uneven, or he would have activated meditation.

Twenty minutes into his hike Peter felt a pinprick in his neck. Green blurs filled his vision, just before he faded into unconsciousness. The cackling laughs of goblins filled the forest.

“Hey you awake? Damn they got you good too, ey? You awake?” Groggily Peter mumbled a reply. “Yeah, yeah, I’m awake.” Slowly his eyes started to work again. A small torch was lit in one corner of a cave or mud hut of some sorts, and somebody sat opposite of him.

“Hey be happy, I discovered something you know. Wanna know what?”

The situation we were in clearly didn’t curb his enthusiasm. With a big smile on his face the Caucasian man said: “Ah you now what, I’ll tell you. The blue boxes don’t like these goblins very much, luck is on our side. I got a quest! Kill all the goblins it told me! Everything is gonna be alright!”

Peter, in a sassy mood for losing his consciousness twice within a day, asked: “How exactly are you going to kill those goblins? You are tied to a wall.”

“That won’t stop us though. You are tied to a wall too, but I bet you’re figuring out how to get out of here.”

As if on queue a big blue box popped up.

New quest

The Escape

Escape successfully.

Or be eaten.

Reward

50 Essence

This quest would give him a whopping 50 essence, more than thrice what he had gotten from his kill the goblin quest. The consequences of failure were bigger too, as even Peter could figure out that he would die if he didn’t escape.

“Ey, what’s your name? Mine’s Raul.”

“Raul, nice to meet you, mine’s Peter. Could you do me a favour? Could you be quiet for a while?”

Raul mumbled a quick reply and then went into silence, giving Peter the opportunity to use his meditation skill. He needed the quiet in his mind to figure out a solution. He began looking around more carefully, but there was nothing in the room to help him. There was a torch outside of reach for both him and Raul, and there was an tunnel which turned left, which was also the only way out. He and Raul where tied to a wall with some sort of rope. His hands were behind his back, and he couldn’t move them.

Looking around was useless, so Peter closed his eyes and focused even harder. As he was thinking of all sorts of improbable escape methods, he suddenly thought of his other quest. Maybe he could use the mana in his body. It would be like a kill two birds with one stone scenario, use the mana to loosen the ropes and run away.

Peter tried to find the mana coursing through his body, but it was harder than he thought it would be. That was okay however. He would try even harder. And then he felt something, wiggling and squirming inside of him. Visualizing a hand inside his body he wrestled with it. Almost he lost control, but he held on. After a while it became docile. Then he guided it towards his hands and pushed with all his might.

An explosion rang through the cave. Raul screamed in surprise. "The fuck was that?". The raw mana Peter forced out of him had reacted rather violently with the outside air, creating lots of noise and a little fire. The fire was luckily all Peter needed to get loose, the adrenaline made it so that he didn't even feel his skin sizzling from the fire. Quickly he put down the small embers on his shirt and then he rushed towards the stunned Raul to help him. Grabbing the torch Peter burned his ropes, taking a bit more time to make sure he didn't burn Raul's skin as well.

Raul got up and said to him: “Quick, we need to get out of here, the explosion must have warned the goblins.”

Peter hadn’t thought of that, nodding in acknowledgement he turned towards the exit. The two of them were able to run for a minute before they had to stop.

In front of them was a very large cave, filled with goblins who were staring at them. A screech rang through the air, and then all the goblins rushed towards them.