Portal World: Quests (Kat)

I walked steadily, eye balling my surrounding. Grass as far as I can see, with some traces left behind by Leon and the members.

'Why were they here? Their starting point might be somewhere else. Were they looking for the badgers and just happened to pass by here?'

I had so many thoughts. I know I should be safe for now but I do not want it to let my guards down. I walk around for a while, trying to look for areas where the badgers might be. Simultaneously also thinking on how and what is the best way to kill them. I think the best course for now is trap them and then poison them. But if they are smart and fast enough, traps might not work. Not long after, I found a small water stream.

'Water. There must be some living things nearby then' I suspected

I slowly walk towards the water stream and glance side to side just to inspect for any potential threats. After confirming my surroundings are safe, I started to take a peek into the water. I put out my hand and touch the water.

'Cold' I felt the the icy water go through my fingers, pleased with how refreshing it feels. I scoop out the water with my hand and sip it through my fingers. Immediately I feel so much better to have fresh water pass through my throat into my body. I kept scooping and drinking until I was satisfied. Not wanting to waste anything, I decided to take out some empty bottles and fill them with this glistening fresh water.

'Should I also wash myself? It looks safe enough, and I'm already here. Might as well'

I quickly undress and make a small jump into the water. It's not too shallow, so I could freely submerged myself. Surely, I could feel my mind become clearer and my grogginess slowly disappear. I allow myself to stay there and soak in this luxury for a while.

It feels like it has not only been a full day since I walked to the meeting this morning with no preparation. But you never know, the time inside the portal runs differently from earth. It might have been a few hours or maybe days, so any opportunity for a quick wash is always welcomed.

I make a swift wash of my face and rub off all the dust from when I stumbled and fall before. Just when my palm rubbing my face and covering my sight, I heard a rustling sound. I froze.

'Is it a monster?' I slowly slide my palm away from my face and trying to assess the situation. Not far away, I see a brown animal-like creature walking towards the stream. Suddenly, I had an idea. I submerged myself fully and take out a small rock from the bed of the stream. I waited until the brown silhouette is just by the side of the stream, maybe looking for water to drink.

I make a small cut with the rock. It's hard to do it with a small rock underwater, but since I have done it many times over, it should do. I let my blood flow with the stream, it creates a small trail line of blood. The little trail of blood goes straight to the brown silhouette since it's pretty close by and I know my blood is potent. Hopefully potent enough that it won't take too much time to kill, since that's what I use as my base for all my poisons after all.

'Anytime now' I waited, struggling to hold my breath longer underwater. Soon, my wristband lit up and the holographic blur show Badger icon with a 1 beside it. I quickly come out of water and take a deep breath as I gasp for what feels like an extremely precious oxygen.

"1 down! 199 to go" I said solemnly. I do feel happy to know that I am able to take care of a badger but thinking of the effort makes my head aches. On the bright side, now that I have its' lifeless body lying there, I can try to make a new type of poison that is more potent.

I dried off myself hurriedly and put my clothes back on. I slowly walk to the badgers' dead body and stab it open with a knife I took out from my sling bag. The blood flows out, and I dipped my finger into it. I lick my finger as if trying to see if it's possible to make a poison out of it. I dip more fingers into the small pool of blood flowing from the badger, and I suck everything from my fingers. Immediately, I start concocting the poison inside my body.

After about an hour, I lay down trying to calm my breathing after successfully combined the badger's blood and mine as poison. Usually my blood would eradicate most foreign things coming into my body, so it took extra care and effort to not just prevent it to be fused into my blood but also to combine it. After I am ready, I make another cut on my palm with my knife and let the blood freely drip into the water stream. After a while, nothing happened. Since I just wanted to test things out, I was not expecting much. I was prepared to wait and drip a lot more but soon after, notifications from my wristband comes.

"It worked!!!" I squeak. I was happy for a second, but confused the next.

My notifications kept pouring in non-stop. Some numbers rapidly increasing from 3 to 12 to 27, and has yet stopping. From what I can identify, the icons showing are probably

Fish 28

Frog 9

Turtle 6

Snake 3

Crocodile 1

And the most alarming is the number that reaches thousands with an icon of something so small it looked like dot.

. 1286

I don't know and not sure what it is, but if it lives inside the stream and the numbers are in thousands, maybe it's like plankton or something? Boy oh boy, back then I could not have been further from the truth, since it might be the creature that marks the turning point in my life. But that is a story for another time.

I watched my wristband. The number that few seconds ago increased rapidly suddenly stopped now. Not slowing down, but stopped completely.

'Is my wristband broken and froze? or did the poison faded out? Since it's a stream maybe it leads to the ocean and faded out?' I tried to think positively.

Little did I know, that small stream leads to a small pond where a unique aquatic creature nestled in. It's great enough not to be affected by my unknowingly potent poison, even though every weaker beings from that small water stream all the way to the pond has been eradicated.