The Power of Poison

Thankfully Michael and I had arrived just before a goblin was able to get to Riley. She was hiding, and the goblin must have found her. I glanced at the body of the man nearby, with his stomach ripped apart, and thought that she was lucky to have hidden in time. Alchemists could create useful potions, but their combat skills were abysmal, especially at level 1.

I wondered if I had received any exp for the kill, so I opened my status.

The forums had said that if you simply thought of your status page, it would appear, and it did.

[Name: Pestilence]

[Race: Human]

[Level: 1 0/100]

[Class: Rogue]

[Stats:]

Strength: 5

Constitution: 5

Agility: 5

Dexterity: 5

Intelligence: 5

Wisdom: 5

Charm: 5

Will: 5

Every human started with 5 points in all their stats, and gained 5 with each level up. In the game, you were able to change your race if you met certain requirements, which allowed you different ways to play the game. However the main focus of the game was to save the world.

Changing your race was only for unique benefits, it didn't make you a bad guy or anything. The enemies were clear, they were the invading monsters which came from an unknown universe, led by an unknown enemy. The answer was hidden within the dungeon.

This might be the same.

I somewhat planned to change my race later, but that wouldn't be available in the tutorial. Humans were able to take on a minor profession, as their racial trait.

Anyways, I didn't receive any exp for the kill on the goblin, so I thought of opening the social menu, and it again appeared. There was a list of nearby players, and I added Michael's character name.

[Micky has been added as a friend.]

[TroubleABrewin has been added as a friend.]

I then quickly added the two into a party.

"We don't share EXP unless we are in a party, just like the game. How much did you get for the goblin kill?"

"25. Pretty standard."

I nodded at Michael's comment. It was very standard, but when you thought about how it was real life, getting four kills is a tall task. Especially since not everyone had the stomach to kill another living creature.

Michael was an orphan from a young age, and grew up in the slums, so he was used to fighting. People dying was a reality of his.

Riley wasn't going to be much help in combat, but her potions were going to be necessary for us. I, on the other hand, didn't know how I would do. Using poison created a weird detachment from the act. Much like how most people couldn't kill someone with a knife, but could kill hundreds through the screen of a bombing drone.

I walked over to the goblin, while Michael and Riley were talking to each other, and took out my knife.

Taking a deep breath, I opened my eyes and resolved myself.

I then stabbed my knife deep into the creature's chest, and rifled around inside the cavity I created. Michael and Riley had noticed what I was doing, and both showed a visible sign of disgust. However neither said anything, as they knew what I was doing.

Soon after I started, I slowly pulled out a light blue crystal, no bigger than my pinky finger.

I wiped it on my shirt, cleaning off the blood, and held it out to Riley. She gingerly took it from me, and placed it into her inventory.

I then, went back to the corpse, and began to dismantle the creature. I pulled it's teeth out, cut it's fingers, removed it's organs, and essentially just broke down the body into smaller pieces. The purpose of this was to acquire a minor profession.

[Scavenger profession unlocked.]

[Meat From Bones (Common) has been learned.]

[Vulture's Boon (Uncommon) has been learned.]

'Perfect. These two skills allowed me to randomly acquire materials when I dismantle a corpse. These materials can be sold, or given to Riley.'

I then tossed the useless pieces of the corpse to the side, and moved onto the man.

I did a silent prayer, out of respect to a fallen comrade, and then began to dismantle his corpse as well.

Now I wasn't a psychopath, so I ended up throwing up a lot, but I needed to do this. Although his body should be treated with respect, the fact was that creatures would end up tearing his body apart anyways, so it was better to get what I could from it.

Player corpses could be harvested for their organs, and also a larger mana crystal. This time, I got a mana crystal the size of my ring finger. I handed this to Riley as well, who took it but ended up throwing up as well after.

I then continued cutting the body apart, removing flesh from bones, and fileting flesh.

[Bones x20 gained.]

I opened the crafting menu, and selected to create Bone Needles (Common). Everyone could make certain items, and if you were lucky you could even find recipe books for different things. Bone weapons were one use items, but they were better than nothing. Also, since I lacked weapons, I needed to do this.

After the crafting finished, I placed the 80 Bone Needles into my inventory. They could be pulled out of my inventory with just a simple thought, so I coated them with Weak Poison for now. They would make formidable weapons later, allowing me to apply my poison from a distance.

As I was finishing placing the organs into my inventory, a large creature crashed through the entrance to the apartment building, and blew the three of us back.

Coughing, I quickly got to my feet and looked warily at the smoke. I then caught sight of the creature that came to attack us. A mouth full of razor sharp teeth, and drool that flowed to the floor. The body of a giant salamander, it was a creature know as a Argorginian Lizard. The creature had protective scales, and an incredibly dangerous bite.

"Get up! It's an Argorginian Lizard! It's a lot stronger physically than us, but it's slow. Michael, you need to bait it into ramming itself into the walls, and we can attack it while it is stunned."

While I wasn't a top player, due to me playing a weak class, I was by no means a noob.

I knew how to fight all the creatures in the game, and I had even made it to the 90th floor. The highest ever recorded floor clear was only the 92nd floor, so I was up there with the top rankers.

Michael was also a veteran, so he quickly listened to my call. He activated Attraction of Light and moved so a wall was behind him. After a few moments, the lizard charged at Michael. Michael didn't even try to take the hit, and threw his body to the side.

The lizard slammed into the wall, breaking it but dazing itself in the process. I quickly threw six needles into the creature's back, but they harmlessly bounced off. Michael, as a veteran player, quickly used his Smite skill to layer an additional daze onto the recovering lizard. This gave us another couple seconds to attack.

Since the back was too sturdy, I threw a needle at the lizard's legs, hoping it would be weaker there since it would need larger gaps between the scales on it's legs so that it could move.

However the needle bounced harmlessly off it again. Frustrated, I began wracking my brain for a way I could help. The knife was unlikely to help in this situation, as it was imbued with any magic, and it was just a common knife.

'If only there was a way to get poison inside... I could try to throw the needles into it's mouth? However that was incredibly hard to do. My Throwing skill only allows me to be a little more accurate, and I instinctively knew how to throw ANY object. So that doesn't really help me...'

I began to look through my inventory for anything that could possibly help us. Michael was still avoiding the creature's charges, but I could see him sweating profusely. No matter what the fight was tiring for him.

I needed to come up with a solution, and quick.

It was then that I thought about something.

'This isn't a game anymore... There are different ways I can apply poison!'

I grabbed a liver from my inventory, and used Apply Weak Poison to it. I used the skill three times, each time caused the organ to change to a deeper shade of green.

"Michael! Back off!"

Michael instantly ran back to us, disabling his aggro skill, and caught his breath. While the creature was still dazed from it's last charge, I threw the poisoned liver in front of it, and the three of us watched with bated breath.

Slowly, the creature shook it's head and was about to look at us. However it's gaze never reached us, instead it's eyes rested on the bloodied organ in front of it. It slowly lowered it's head, and lightly smelled the organ. I held my breath, hoping to god that the creature couldn't smell the poison.

To my relief, the stupid lizard licked the organ up, and swallowed the liver.

"Michael, if you can distract it a little longer, my poison will have enough time to take effect."

*Huff*

*Huff*

"I can maybe dodge two more charges. Anymore after that will be dangerous."

I nodded. I knew I couldn't ask him to risk his life like that, and I didn't want to.

'Two charges... I think it's enough. There was a lot of poison in that liver... Let's hope, otherwise this will get dangerous.'

Michael toggled his skill once more, and walked forward. The lizard locked it's gaze on Michael, and charged once more. Perhaps because of his exhaustion, he barely managed to dodge it, but he took a hit to his side from the lizard's tail. This sent him flying down the hallway towards us, and he grabbed his side as soon as he got up.

"I-I think it broke one of my ribs."

I knew I couldn't leave him to try and grab the creature's focus. So before he could walk forward, I put my hand on Michael's shoulder. He turned to look at me.

"I'll distract it this time. You have done more than your share of the work... Let me take care of the rest."

Michael showed a sign of protest, but he quickly changed his expression. He knew he was in no shape to do it anymore, and to insist on doing it would only cause more problems.

I walked forward, and took out my knife. I threw a needle, just trying to get it's attention, but I ended up getting lucky. The lizard wasn't able to see the needle, and because of that the needle found it's way into the lizard's eye. 

*SCREECH*

The lizard roared out in pain, and began writing in pain. I stood a distance away, waiting for it to catch it's bearings. If it just flailed until the poison took effect, I would happily accept that outcome, but I didn't trust it.

As if scripted, the lizard's movements began to slow down, and it suddenly stopped flailing wildly.

'It's realized.'

The lizard, sensing it's end coming, turned it's eyes toward me. It must have figured that I was the cause of it's looming death, as it looked at me murderously. I crouched lower, getting ready to dodge to the side the moment I saw the monster charge.

Then, I saw it come. I predicted the trajectory, and threw my body to the side, however I didn't realize this wasn't a game.

The lizard adapted.

It stopped it's charge suddenly, and instead of slamming into the wall, it stopped in place before spinning in a circle.

It's tail whipped around, and I was caught in my roll.

Immediately I felt a sharp pain in my side, and then I felt another pain in my back as I collided with the wall. I gasped as the air was forced out of my lungs, and I desperately tried to crawl out of the range of the lizard.

It slowly stepped over to me, and opened it's mouth.

As it was about to bite down on me, Michael appeared in my vision as he threw his body into the lizard's side, but that only delayed it slightly. Quickly it hit Michael away with it's tail, and walked towards me again. This time, I didn't expect any salvation, so I closed my eyes and accepted my death.

However right when I expected to die, I heard the sound of glass breaking, and opened my eyes. I stared ahead in confusion, as I saw a slight sizzle coming from the top of the lizard's head, and I turned my head to look at the only person who could have created this situation.

Riley was panting heavily, although she wasn't tired, she must have tried her best to overcome her fear of fighting. Riley truly was afraid of fighting, which was why she chose to be an alchemist, but here she was. She had to have used her Skill Tome to unlock Weak Acid Vial, one of the few Alchemist combat skills, just so she could save me.

The Lizard turned it's head angrily towards Riley, and immediately turned to charge.

"RILEY RUN!"

I shouted, but I could see it in her eyes.

She was frozen in fear.

I tried to will my body to get up and move, but I only collapsed again.

I watched in horror as the lizard charged towards Riley.

However a scene from a story book appeared before my eyes. The lizard collapsed and slid on the ground. It created a huge cloud of dust, before it slowly came to a stop. Right at the feet of a fearful Riley, who collapsed and exhaled the breath that she was unknowingly holding.

[50 EXP gained.]

The EXP was equally shared between the three of us, and I still got 50 from the single kill. The Argorginian Lizard was a monster that usually took a group to defeat. Thankfully we defeated it, but now we had sustained some moderate injuries.

Riley quickly collected herself, and created two lesser healing potions. Both of them went to Michael, at my insistence, because he had actually took more damage than I did. I was hurt, but it was mostly bruising. Nothing was broken, so the potion was better used on Michael. He then cast his Lesser Heal on me, which alleviated the pain I was feeling.

Catching ourselves during this break, we were simply sitting in silence, but Michael was the first one to break that silence.

"Theo... Thank you. I know you risked your life there."

"Hey man... You saved my ass too, and Riley!"

We turned to look at her.

"You were badass!"

Michael exclaimed. 

Riley shyly smiled, and lowered her head.

"I-I just did what was needed... You guys.. Risked your lives twice for me. I can't just sit by and watch you die..."

Michael put his hand on hers, and looked her in the eyes.

"Still, thank you."

I watched as the two clueless lover birds had a romantic moment. The two were oblivious of their own feelings towards the other, and were unable of reading the mood at all. I stood up, feeling sore all over, and walked to the destroyed entrance. I looked outside and surveyed the street.

There were bodies strewn about, but there weren't any monsters anymore. Instead I saw groups of people patrolling the streets, and they were walking into the buildings one by one. They seemed to be clearing out the buildings of monsters, while looking for survivors.

I thought about how these were just parties right now, but there had to be guilds coming together. I thought back to my guild.

Relentless.

One of the top guilds, comprised of only people who played off-meta classes, but still worked together to clear all the way up to the 90th floor. Proving that all classes were viable. We had an emphasis on having fun, but also being proud of your class and the guild. 

I remembered that the guild leader, Twilight, was in a different city. I wasn't sure how we would meet up, but hoped it wasn't gonna be a problem. For now, I would gather teammates and get stronger.

I turned back to Michael and Riley.

"I think we should call it a day. We're all too tired to keep fighting, and the tutorial will continue for at least three days. We can spend the day tomorrow fighting. We have to find a safe place to stay."

"Why don't we just stay in my apartment? I live alone so there isn't any issues, and it's fairly big."

None of us had any problems with that, so we headed into the elevator, and up to her apartment. Once there, we secured the door by moving a few dressers in front of it, before we finally settled down for the night. Riley went into the kitchen, and began to heat up a couple frozen pizzas.

She had taken a few pillows and blankets out to the living room, for us to use. We were sitting on her floor, using her laptop to look through the forums. There was a post about how PunchFirstAskLater had sadly passed away. The post was mainly about how monsters were not mindless, and to expect variations to their old patterns.

Their party had challenged a Goblin Captain, a monster that required level 5s to defeat in the game, but they had decided that they could potentially outplay the monster now that it was real life.

They believed that the monster would follow it's old attack patterns, and with good aggro juggling they could defeat it. However without aggro skills, the old strategy didn't work. Just hitting a sentient creature wasn't enough. The Goblin Captain ignored the attacks meant to draw it's attention, and instead rushed forward to kill a healer. 

From there the party's formation collapsed, and the cost to defeat the creature was four deaths.

Reading the information, it was obvious that just because you were good in the game that you didn't exactly carry that over to the real world. Reading the posts, a melancholic mood washed over us. PunchFirstAskLater was a top ranked player, which meant he had a lot of knowledge, and sure a moment of hubris could be fatal it all just seemed so sudden. It was a real shock.

We were brought out of our state of shock by the oven timer sounding out.

We put aside our worries for now, and just enjoyed the small meal. Knowing our lives were on the line at all times, made the meal a little more savory.