Ray seriously thought he was dead. His mind had blurred, and he had no vision. He could vaguely hear the meowing of a cat in the distance but couldn’t put together that it was Miu trying to wake him. Even if he woke, could he really do anything? Between a Rat King and the thousands of rats about to flood out of the cave, what use was he? No, he might as well stay dead, at least he had tried his best.

Pain started flooding Rays body again as his eyes shot open. What was going on? Wasn’t he supposed to die? The Rat King was motionless, Ray was still poisoned, and it didn’t look like his situation was all the better.

[Lifeline Activated – 31 Health Recovered]

[Congratulations… Lifeline has reached level 2]

So, he had been partially saved by Lifeline. He was still in a precarious position though.

Status Screen

Health

62/310 (Regeneration: 15.5 HP/hour)

Mana

100/100

Buffs

None

Debuffs

Broken Nose (Harder to Breathe, Strength -1, Dexterity -1, Agility -5) Cooldown: 3D:10h:12m

Poisoned (-13hp/minute) Cooldown: 4m:21s

Without any help, Ray would still die in 5 minutes, though just barely. As Ray sat up, he could finally hear Miu again.

“Ray! Hurry up, we don’t have any time left! The Rats are starting to come out, we have to run!” Miu screamed in a panic.

Ray jumped to his feet and prepared to run, it was too bad there was no chance of collecting anything, not even his daggers. As he began running, he saw Teddy’s lifeless body on the ground. He noticed a small bag in Teddy’s right hand.

“Hang on, this could be my only chance at survival, keep running I’ll catch up” Ray said as he charged towards Teddy. As Ray was running, a whole skittering of rats poured out of the cave entrance. There was no coordinated push. With every passing second, the ground was blackening with thousands upon thousands of the vermin.

Ray reached the body and scooped up the sack. He had no time to stop as the rats were closing in on him. With a burst of strength he didn’t know he had, he charged through the woods towards the direction of Finrial Village. There was no choice really. Either he would get help or he would die. While he was running, he opened the loot sack and to his delight, a small inventory window opened in his view containing 6 slots.

Small Spatial Sack

Item

Quality

Description

Sword

Common (F)

A sword of basic craft. No special traits.

Physical Damage: +6

Blowgun

Novice (F)

A poorly grafted blowgun. Pair with darts.

Physical Damage: +0

Basic Feathered Dart x 27

Novice (F)

Darts used in a blowgun or thrown.

Physical Damage +1

Poison Damage +1/minute

Minor Health Potion x5

Common (F)

Slightly heals the user. If the user has missing limbs or broken bones, will speed the recovery process.

Health +25

Lesser Health Potion x3

Uncommon (F)

Heals the user. If the user has missing limbs or broken bones, will speed the recovery process.

Health +100

Elixir of Life

Legendary (F)

Fully heals an (F) rank user. Will instantly heal all missing limbs or broken bones. Fixes all maladies inflicting the user.

Can only be used once per month.

Full Health

Full Limb Regrowth

Full Broken Bone Repair

Ray didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the Elixir of Life and drank it. His nose immediately snapped back into place, fully healing. He felt warmth run through his body and was invigorated. Unfortunately, he had no time to stop. As he glanced back, he was horrified to see the rats devouring Teddy’s corpse. He was even more horrified to see hundreds of rats right behind him.

Sprinting as hard as he could while dodging through the woods, he found that he could barely outpace most of the rats. Many of them were faster than he was, but they were also being hampered by the absolute cluster that was following him. Still, Ray couldn’t keep the running pace forever. Finrial village was at least a few hours away at full sprint. There was no way he could keep it up. If something didn’t change, they would die.

While Ray was running, he used the blowgun on any rat that was getting too close. It did slow him down a little bit, but he wanted to avoid taking any scratches or bites for as long as possible. Within around 1 hour of running, he had noticed that the rat horde was thinning out. The fastest ones were now breaking through while the slower ones were either falling behind or disappearing entirely.

Ray also used identify on the rats whenever possible. This allowed him to gauge his situation and gain some easy levels in the skill. He quickly realised that only rats of level 20 or higher were able to keep up with him. These were the rats that Ray was slowing down with the blowgun. Whilst he couldn’t kill them with a single dart, any direct hit would slow them down enough to the point they wouldn’t be able to catch him any longer.

After another 15 minutes of running, Ray had caught up with Miu. She was clearly tiring faster then he was. She was still wounded from the fight and would need attention soon.

“As soon as you tire out too much, shrink down. I’ll carry you and feed you a potion” Ray said to Miu.

Miu was originally going to reject this suggestion as it would slow Ray down and tire him out even further. If it came to it, she would happily sacrifice her life for his but she soon threw this out. If it was looking hopeless, they would have to turn and fight, 2 was better then 1 in this regard.

“All right but let’s do that now. I just need a little bit of rest, then I’m sure I’ll be good to keep going!”

Miu jumped onto Ray’s shoulder. She quickly swallowed as much of a regular healing potion as she could and assumed a resting position. With this, she could monitor the horde and warn Ray of any rats getting close. She wasn’t fully healed but it was enough that with a small amount of rest, she’d be in a decent fighting shape should it come to it.

Ray continued running. Within the hour, the rat horde was thinning noticeably. The numbers went from thousands, to hundreds, to maybe 50. Unfortunately, even if they could fight, Ray wasn’t sure if the others were still chasing, or had given up entirely. After hitting a level 25 rat with a dart, he had run out of ammo.

Miu was forced to leave Rays shoulder as he was tiring. He equipped the sword in preparation to fend of increasingly ferocious attacks. It was less then a minute after doing this that he took his first scratch on the back of his leg.

[You are Poisoned: Taking 1 damage every minute]

Since Ray was fully healed, he was confident he could take good 10 to 15 scratches before he needed to worry. He realised very quickly though that he was never going to make it back to the village. The remaining rats were just too quick. With the horde thinned, these rats were consistently nipping at his heels.

“We’re not gonna make it. I think it’s time to turn and fight before we take too many hits” Ray said.

Miu contemplated for a moment.

“There’s a small rock wall up ahead. You could use it to stop rats surrounding you. I’ll harass and keep as many off you as I can” she said.

They charged for the rock; it was time to make a last stand. Hopefully they could take a few out with them. Rats were easy to kill overall, they didn’t have a huge health pool and 1 or 2 swings with a sword would even take out a level 20 rat without too much hassle. The big issue was their swarming numbers and stacking poisons.

As Ray put his back to the rock wall, he was immediately beset by rats. There was no finesse to Ray’s fighting style, it was simply swing and stab as fast as possible while trying to avoid taking damage. Ray didn’t have the experience to parry Rats and other monsters. It wasn’t long before damage started piling on.

[You are Poisoned: Taking 2 damage every minute]

[You are Poisoned: Taking 3 damage every minute]

…

[You are Poisoned: Taking 10 damage every minute]

Miu wasn’t faring much better. While she wasn’t taking damage, she had no chance to actually swipe at the rats, there were simply too many. All she could do is ferry as many away from Ray as possible. She focused on dodging and weaving between the remaining rats. Within a short few minutes, Ray had 10 bodies at his feet, though Miu was getting worried. There were scratched and bites all over his body. At least 20 by this point. This wasn’t working.

It was no longer the time to be careful. Miu charged in front of Ray. She savaged the nearest rat with a bite to the neck and immediately turned to attack another. The rats trying to reach Ray immediately changed their target.

“Dumb creatures, come and get me!” Miu shouted in Rays mind.

Out loud, the shouting simply transferred to a loud hiss. The fight continued, Miu quickly taking scratches as well. By the time they had killed about half the rats, neither Miu nor Ray could afford to take any more damage. If they did, they would both surely die.

Luckily, the pile of rat bodies was creating a wall the rats needed to clear before getting any attacks off. Ray swung his sword in a vertical strike directly at a rat about to bite Miu. He decapitated it. As he recovered from his swing, a huge fireball appeared from the top of the rock wall. It landed about 5 metres from Ray, instantly killing 2 rats and setting their corpses on fire.

The skittering sounds of the rats suddenly stopped as they investigated the source of the fireball. Before the rats could react, a wall of flames was erected between Ray and the rats. Ray used the opportunity to down a health potion. A few of the rats braved the firewall and came out with their fur charred. Ray downed 3 more before the battle was clearly over. The remaining rats retreating.

Ray fell backwards against the wall, panting. This was one fight he didn’t want to relive. He was not in the hands of whoever had saved him yet again. Ray felt like he couldn’t catch a break. At no point was he able to survive alone, even if he felt like he was getting stronger. He had just been lucky so far, there was no skill or talent involved at all.

“Well ain’t that a bitch. Got to you just in the nick of time I did” a husky but clearly female voice came from the top of the hill.

Before Ray could react, the woman had jumped off the wall and landed right in front of Ray. Ray looked up and instinctively used identify, before even getting a proper look at the woman.

[Identify Failed]

“That ain’t nice, no thank you?”

Ray looked up, his mouth dropped open.

“You… You’re a lizard!”

The lizard girl laughed. “You clearly ain’t from around these parts mister. I ain’t no lizard. I’m a proud dragonkin and you owe me one for saving ya!”

It took Ray a full minute to comprehend what was going on. A dragonkin was speaking…. In English!

“Wait, how come you’re speaking English? I thought my language would be unique here?” Ray said.

“English? Dunno what that is, you’re speaking a fine dragon tongue though” the dragonkin woman said.

Ray wasn’t used to seeing a full-blown lizard talking. He knew Miu could communicate, but it was through his mind, like a skill. This was different. A lizard standing on two feet, around 6 ft tall, a staff in one hand was communicating with him. He was finally REALLY in fantasy land. Elves were one thing, they still resembled people, but this was different for Ray.

“So…. Uhh, thanks for saving us… umm dragon lady?” Ray said.

“No worries! The names Layla. Nice cat you got there, can I eat it?”

Miu immediately started hissing. “uhh, I’d rather you not, that’s my bonded familiar Miu” Ray said.

“Anyway, you just rest here. I’ll sus out the situation” Layla said and immediately walked through her firewall.

Ray sighed and opened his different character tabs.

[Congratulations, you have defeated a beast at least 30 levels above your own. You have earned the title Great Beast Slayer]

[That was a great fight. You survived against impossible odds. You gain +5 to all stats, +25 Maximum Health, +5 Unallocated Stat Points]

[Congratulations. Identify has reached level 14]

[Congratulations. Identify has reached level 15]

[Congratulations. Identify has reached level 16]

[Congratulations. Identify has reached level 17]

[You have levelled up]

[You have levelled up]

[You have levelled up]

[You have reached level 10. Please return to the nearest safe zone so you may select a class]

[You have levelled up]

[You have levelled up]

[You have levelled up]

[For successfully using throwing weapons in battle, you have unlocked the subskill Thrown Weapon Mastery]

[For the creation and use of deadly poisons, you have unlocked the subskill Poison Proficiency]

Character Sheet

Name:

Ray Atton

More Info +

Race:

Human-Error (F)

Level:

13 (F)

Stats

Strength

32

Dexterity

40

Agility

42

Body

36

Vitality

41

Intelligence

30

Mind

25

Luck

25

Unallocated Points

35

Titles

Outcast (Unique 1/1), Panther Cat Tamer (Unique 1/1), Great Beast Slayer (Rare)

Coins

Arkus System

13,862

Detailed Titles

Title

Description

Outcast (Unique 1/1)

Congratulations you are unique

You have shunned the system and are shunned in return.

+10 Luck

-10,000 Relation to the System

-10,000 Relation to System Merchants

One Time Bonus – You may call the system to you. It will send you to the void. You must make a final decision at this time.

This title can evolve.

Panther Cat Tamer (Unique 1/1)

You are the first person on Arkus to successfully tame a Panther Cat.

All stats +1

Miu is the sole-surviving Panther Cat. Title upgraded to Unique.

Bonus for unique title.

All stats +3

Giant Beast Slayer (Rare)

You have defeated a beast more then 30 levels above you.

All stats +10, except luck.

Skills

Skills

Level

Cooldown

Mana Cost

Description

Dark Elf Communication (Common / Passive)

Max

N/A

N/A

Speak and read the Dark Elf language.

Identify (Common)

17

None

1

Activate to gather basic information about the target.

Lifeline (Common / Passive)

2

23 Hours

None

When 10% health is reached, double your current health.

Subskills

Skills

Status

Description

Thrown Weapon Mastery

Novice

You are good at throwing weapons

Slight increase in accuracy of thrown weapons.

Slight increase in penetration of thrown weapons.

Physical damage +1

Poison Proficiency

Novice

You are good at making and using poisons

Slight increase to the potency of poisons made by you.