Real Taste of Battle

After Murmayd snapped out of her state of disbelief, she collected the items they dropped and some coins as well. 'I'll be out of here in no time at this rate,' she thought to herself. She ran back to town before planning her next adventure.

"I can't get too excited because I don't have much money and need better materials but you can't find anything above poor here so it might be difficult to make more money selling materials. I'll need to keep hunting to increase my stats and gain coins that way," she told herself as she made a plan in her head. "I need better armor but since my weapons are strong enough to kill monsters before they can even get close, I'll wait to upgrade mine."

She visited the tools shop again and paid another silver coin. She didn't have much left, so she had to be very frugal with how she spent the rest of it. She used the hides she gathered to create some reins, a saddle and saddle bags for her mount. She was thrilled when she saw the notification pop up every time, she created a new item.

"Creation bonus activated: (1) Increased quality (2) Less raw materials required (3) 0% chance of breakage (4) 100% chance for random perk"

"Items received"

- Mount Reins (epic quality, +100 speed perk)

- Mouth Saddle (epic quality, +100 speed perk)

- Mount Saddle bags (epic quality, +100 storage perk)

She proudly walked back outside and summoned Walker. "Check it out Walker, I made you some new stuff," she told her cow. "Now you can help me carry more and be you'll very useful." She placed the saddle, the bags and the reins on Walker and jumped on. As Walker started to move, Murmayd noticed a significant speed increase as Walker was able to move much quicker. She was just as fast as Spark's spider and still way less creepy. "You're such a good cow," she told her mount.

"Moo," Walker replied as Murmayd laughed.

She continued exploring the map and felt brave enough to go past the area where the wild dogs lived. Soon she encountered other creatures that were stronger but were still no match for her epic arrows. She put away her bow when she realized one arrow would kill the creatures and she wanted to focus on increasing her lower stats to get them all to 50. She hunted for several hours and killed everything she came across with only one hit. Small goblins, scorpions, huge spiders and even trolls didn't stand a chance against her measly but epic copper weapons. It wasn't until she found a giant cyclops that she began to worry.

She stopped to eat and drink before challenging the cyclops. She was feeling very confident in her abilities and decided to fight this giant beast. She was sure she would be able to defeat it like all the other creatures with no problems. As she pulled out her sword, she checked her stats to see how much she had improved in the last few hours.

- Melee: 5

- One-handed weapons: 41

- Two handed weapons: 2

- Ranged: 263

- Spellcasting: 280

- Creation: 8560

She decided to fight with her bow first then later finish it off with her sword. This technique worked better when she first fought the pack of wild dogs and she wanted to play it safe. She pulled back the arrow and let it fly. The arrow pierced the cyclops right though its heart and blood flooded out of the wound as the arrow lodged deep inside its chest. It was not enough to kill the beast right away, but the damage was severe, and she was sure it would die within a matter of seconds. Murmayd pulled out her sword and shield as the giant monster screamed and thrashed its arms around easily knocking over trees. Once it spotted her, it ran straight to her with rage in its eyes. The dying monster kicked Murmayd hard, and she flew into a nearby tree. CRACK! She blocked the kick with her shield, but her body screamed in pain as her back smashed into a tree a few meters behind her. She coughed up some blood and fell to the floor as she watched the giant cyclops fall to its knees. It let out a loud painful roar before falling over as its heart stopped beating. It all happened within a matter of seconds and in that instant Murmayd's courage disappeared.

She cursed at herself for getting too cocky. 'Why did I think I could conquer that giant beast,' she questioned. 'What was I thinking fighting that monster unprepared?!' Her spine felt as though it had broken in several places, and she couldn't feel her legs. 'Is this what it feels like to die?' The light faded from her eyes as she lay on the floor in pain covered in her own blood. She checked her health and saw it was at 10% and quickly falling. Her hands trembled as she struggled to pull out her healing potions.

8%, 7% ....

The blood on her hands made the glass bottle slippery and difficult to open. She was hysterical and her shaky hands caused her to drop the potion.

5%, 4%'

She ripped off the cork from the bottle with her bloody teeth and quickly swallowed the red liquid. Her health stopped dropping at 2% but it was not improving. It also did not stop the feeling of dread nor the excruciating pain that coursed through her body. She ripped open another bottle and swallowed the entire thing. Her health was slowly climbing back up as feeling started creeping back into her legs. Now she could feel the shattered bones in her legs too and she screamed in pain. She had 32% health back and decided to finish off the last healing potion she had. She was up to 62% health now and her searing pain subsided as she felt her bones snapping back into place. She could get up and move now but still felt her body was struggling to listen to her. She dragged herself up while clinging to the tree behind her. She summoned Walker and jumped on. Walker followed Murmayd's commands as she tugged on the reins and headed over to the giant cyclops. It's one large beady eye was lifeless and the pool of blood surrounding him grew larger. Murmayd picked up the loot and directed Walker back to town. She slumped over her fat cow and felt blessed to have such a trusty steed as her companion.

Almost an hour later, they made it back to town and Murmayd realized how far she had traveled. She was so thrilled by the ease with which she was killing that she lost track of time and hadn't realized how far she had ventured. She slid off Walker and slowly walked into the one of the shops. She sold some of the loot she got and bought several healing potions. She drank one and instantly felt relief from the pain as it slipped away.

'That was a close call,' she thought. 'I can't risk fighting like that again. I might not be so lucky next time, and I can't go through this kind of pain again. It's time to take a break from fighting and start crafting.'