Can't Stand the Heat? Get Out of the Kitchen

I try to dodge the bolts of white energy coming right at me, but I get hit straight in the chest. It feels like someone just threw a sizeable rock at me, but it's not something I can't handle. Looking at my health, I see that I only lost two HP. Despite not losing much health, there is probably a sizeable bruise where I was shot.

The guard with the bow pulls an arrow out of his quiver, so I start running towards him when I see him doing so, but I'm intercepted by the one with the sword before I reach him. He takes a wide swing towards my stomach with his sword, but I react quickly and jump backward, narrowly dodging the blade by a hairbreadth.

Since I have never handled a knife for anything but cutting meats and smearing condiments on bread, I'm unsure how to go forward in my offensive. The sword-guard continues swinging in my direction, so I continue doing my best to dodge the scary blade. While I'm busy dodging, I'm shot in the shoulder once again by more energy bolts; it stings like hell. It's clear that these guys aren't holding their punches, so why should I?

I move in for a quick stab towards the sword-guard, but he turns his blade sideways and parries my thrust by locking his sword under my knife and pushing it up. He follows this up by unlocking his blade and smashing my face in with his pommel.

His attack causes me to stagger backward, and I instinctually move my left hand towards my face. I find my nose to be bleeding, probably broken. My health shows me to now be at 93/100. While I'm discombobulated due to the mess I have gotten myself in, an arrow lands itself in my left side, dealing another four damage to me.

"Ahhh!" I exclaim out in pain as I feel the arrow dig deep into my flesh and tear through my skin and muscle. I start to move my open hand to grab the bolt, but I opt to leave the projectile situated inside of me for now, as I see a sword being thrust right towards my neck and breakneck speed.

I move to my right, barely dodging the thrust, and I slash my knife towards the sword-guard with a simple lunge in a moment of quick but absent thinking. My attack manages to connect and somehow pierces through the chainmail protecting the sword-guard. Now, I know I'm not the ripest apple on the tree, but even I know that my feeble knife should not be able to penetrate through the metal chain like butter...

The guard steps back and screams in pain due to the stabbing while I notice that he lost more than half of his health in just that one attack. I end up falling onto my hands and knees due to my ill-managed lunge, but I manage to scramble to my feet before getting punished for my mistake.

I send a reckless punch towards the sword-guard, who seems a little distracted trying to stymie his wound, hoping to finish him off regardless of any blowback I will face for it. My punch lands squarely in the guard's face, but only at the cost of another energy blast to my back and a shallow cut to my right bicep from the said guard, who reacted to my attack.

Out of sheer luck, perhaps on his part, I'm not able to finish him off with that punch, but he was sent to the ground and lands with a thunk. I'm not left to bask in my achievement, though, as two more white energy bolts strike me against the back of my head. My head is sent towards my chest as I fall forward, losing my footing. Yowch!

I'm knocked to the ground, but only for a second, and I stand right back up, ready for more. Turning to look at the guard who shot me, I find him glaring at me with a serious-like expression. "You damn...!" My angry cry is cut off when I feel a force digging into my left side. Looking down at it, I see a sword lodged in my shirt...

I guess the sword-guard decided to reward me with another free cut to my left side, right where the arrow was lodged in me, for my previous effort... How nice of him!

Looking at my health, I find it to be at a solid 68/100, but I also see the bleeding notification. I may have to drink my health potion if this gets worse.

The cut to my right arm has left it feeling weak and painful to move, so I move my knife over to my left hand and turn around. I punch towards the sword-guard again, ignoring my other injuries. An arrow whizzes right past my head, thank god, as I send one last punch towards the sword-guard who is panting with a pained look on his face. He tries to block my strike but can't raise his arms in time to do so. The punch lands in the cheek, and he falls back onto the floor and explodes into motes of light, dropping nothing.

+1XP

[Lvl 1: 34/50]

I turn my attention towards my last two 'friends.' The staff-guard has a firm expression on his face, while the bow-guard is looking, rather... lackadaisical. What are these guys' problems? They didn't even consider guiding me, The Kitchen Inspector, towards the exit; they obviously don't care enough about their jobs... Pshhh.

I shake my head in displeasure while at the same time trying to hold back tears.

It hurts.

I rush towards the staff-guard, my knife ready to stab at him. Once I get close enough for a quick thrust, I lunge towards the guard, only for him to spin his staff and smack me right in the face with it. The strike causes me to stumble back a little bit, but I quickly rebound for another thrust. He attempts to dodge to the left, but I can follow his movement, and I swing my knife in that direction.

My hit connects and slashes through the chainmail, cutting deep into his chest, doing more than half his health in one blow. At that second, I feel like I can use my right arm once again, so I switch my knife hand back to my dominant arm.

"Ahh! Damnit!" The staff-guard yells out in discomfort.

As I am processing information, I start to feel dizzy and light of breath. Looking towards my health, I see that I'm missing more than half of it. I must be getting anemic or something since I can still see the bleed notification and the obviously large gash on my left side, my shirt soaking up blood around that area. This needs to finish quickly.

I take another quick swing towards the staff-guard, but he steps out of the way just in time for another arrow to dig straight into the middle of my chest. There was virtually no time between the crack of the bow and the arrow's penetration into my sternum.

I try to take a deep breath, only to stop when I feel a sharp pain in my chest. I'm not sure what I am thinking in this situation, but I, follow through on my attempt to end the staff-guard's whole career. Lunging forward, I stab him right in his upper chest region, bypassing the chain entirely and managing to avoid any of the ribs penetrating deep into his lungs.

He falls off my knife and turns into motes of light once he hit the ground. Still not thinking, I take out the arrow's shaft from my chest, snapping it away from the arrowhead, leaving it in my chest due to it being stuck in my sternum bone which doesn't want to leave my body, and for a good reason.

+1XP

[Lvl 1: 35/50]

I look towards my health to see that I'm only at 29/100. Miraculously, I start thinking for a second; I take out the health potion from my potion slot. It magically appears in my hand, uncorked, and I don't hesitate to chug it down.

Feeling the cool refreshing liquid as it falls down my throat, sending a slight tingle through my whole body, I feel good! I can feel the arrowhead being pushed out of my chest and side as my skin closes around the wounds, leaving them good as new. The bruises on my face, back, and shoulder also disappear.

The last remaining guard sighs in annoyance as he watches my wounds heal. He says, "Cmon, you're wasting my time. Let's get this over with."

What do you mean 'I'm wasting your time?' Shut the fuck up bitch, I'm healing!

He knocks another arrow into his bow and draws back to fire. I discard the empty potion bottle as I throw it towards the wall. It doesn't break surprisingly and just falls onto the ground. The bow-guard fires the arrow, and now feeling energized, I jump out of the way, successfully dodging it this time, making me evermore envigorated.

I take this opportunity to rush the now defenseless guard, knife primed for stabbing, but like always, I underestimate his abilities. He sends a spinning kick towards my face, and I take it like a goddamn champ! Kabalmo!

By take it like a champ, I mean that I fell onto the ground, on both my hands and knees. While I'm down, he runs up to me and kicks me in the stomach, putting me on the floor on my side. He continues kicking my chest while saying, "You assholes always coming here, killing my friends and me over and over and over and..."

He kicks me every time he says 'over and over.' Eventually, I'm able to grab his foot mid-kick and pull him onto the ground with me. Despite the pain in my chest, I crawl on top of him and punch him in the face. I don't understand why he said those things, but I don't care. I strike him again.

I manage to somehow beat him so hard that I break off one of his teeth as I see it fall onto the ground right next to him. This only causes me to continue on in my fury, swinging at him as he tries to block. He all but deserves what I'm dishing out to him.

Eventually, he losses all his health points and explodes into the motes of lights, leaving me alone on the now bloody stone and with broken knuckles.

I want to cry...

+1XP

[Lvl 1: 36/50]

---

None of the rooms I have explored since have been at the same level of threat. Most of them are either filled with more cells of chickens or are storage cabinets with spices and other food items. I did take some bread and pastries I found in one of the rooms because I was hungry, so that's a plus.

Also, I have come across a couple of chickens and two more lone guards. They were easy enough to deal with now that I have a little bit of experience defending myself and a weapon. None of them seemed interested in talking and only wanted to bring me to a person they called "The Butcher." Very ominous naming if you ask me.

The room I'm in right now has another table and cuts of chicken, but it's abandoned. What catches my attention the most is the breakable wall I found. I have not already broken it because I'm debating if it's a trap or not. Figuring that it can't be that bad, I kick through the wall. Inside I find shelves of food spice, health and mana potions, and a long staff topped with a dark red crystal.

I move over to the potions and move them into my respective potion slots. I now have 2/6 health potions and 3/6 magic potions. I then move over to the staff and pick it up. When I pick it up, a screen pops up telling me...

[Firebrand Staff T1

Staff: Is Applicable

Damage: 10-30

Shots: 2

A staff imbued with potent magical fire.

Feed Power: 7]

The staff is now in my inventory on the bottom right corner of my vision, but it's not equipped like my knife was when I first grabbed it. Despite still holding the magic staff, I move its icon over to the weapon slot and watch as the sheathed knife disappears from my hand and into... Somewhere other than here.

Despite the staff doing lower damage, if it's anything like that one staff the staff-guard had, it's probably a better idea to use this over the knife. I just need to figure out how.

Exiting the small storage room, I point my new stick towards a nearby wall with the intent of lighting it up, and...

It does nothing.

I look at the crystal, and I shake the magical staff up and down like a spray paint bottle hoping that it would juice it up or something. Then, I point the firebrand towards the wall again and...

It does nothing, again.

"Mmm, what makes you work?" I ask as I swing the stick around

I continue on my journey through the kitchen while messing with the staff. It seems like I can't figure out how to blast those energy bolts yet, but I hope to figure out the solution before finding more problems down the line.

---

While walking down one of the numerous halls in this kitchen, I come across a closed door, which is strange given that I have not seen a single one so far. I move to push it open, which it does, and it leads me into a massive, spacious room filled with shelves upon shelves of food and other valuables.

Exploring to see if I can find any potions or things I want to snack on, I come across a sword and a short scepter-looking thing with a big lifeless-grey gem adorning its tip.

I pick them up, one by one, and read...

[Bronze Short Sword T0

Sword: Is Applicable

Damage: 25-80

A Bronze short sword.

Feed Power: 5]

[Ice Wand T0

Wand: Is Applicable

Damage: 30-55

Shots: 1

A wand that casts a simple ice spell.

Feed Power: 5]

Putting each of the two weapons inside my inventory, just in case I need them, I continue walking around the room while playing with the staff. By the end, I didn't find any of those health potions or magic potions in the room, sadly, but what I did obtain makes me a very, very happy boy.

---

It takes a while, but while walking down one of the numerous halls in the "Kitchen," I suddenly shoot out two bolts of fire down the hall. The red-hot bolts fly away from me, moving in a criss-cross pattern before they eventually dissipate into the air.

I look towards my mana bar to see that I used one mana point, but it regenerates quickly, bringing me back up to full. I'm unsure how I did it but, I felt like some of my energy was sapped from me and directed towards the staff. Try to replicate it, to little success at first, I manage to send three more blasts of fire down the hall soon after. Still, I don't know what I'm doing, but it works, so I will just keep doing that until I have proper answers.

---

It hasn't been too long, but now after more practice, I'm able to send the blasts of fire out of the staff without error. Bolts after bolts of flame at my fingertips as I send them crashing into a nearby wall. I still don't understand what I'm doing, but every time I 'will' my mana into the staff, it shoots it back out as fire, and that's cool.

And apparently, I learn how to do this just in time as I enter another spacious room only to hear, "There's the runaway meat. Don't let it get away!"

In front of me, I can see six separate guards in chainmail wielding different weapons and one guard in some armor that has the same coloration as my new sword. He appears to be wearing a bronze plate over his chainmail.

The six average-looking guards rush to my location quickly and move to surround me. There are three sword-guards, two bow-guards, and one staff-guard. I instantly assume they are not looking to talk, given prior experience, so I blast the closest one with my glorified heat stick.

He takes the bolts of fire, seemingly unfazed, and rushes towards me with his sword, so I blast him again. This time it seems to do the trick, but I don't have much time to dwell on it as I hear the snap of what I think is a bow, probably in my direction.

I jump to the right hoping to dodge the arrow I don't see, and I hear it whistle past my ear. A close one, I think to myself as I duck under another sword swing coming straight for my head.

I start walking backward out of the room, getting the three sword-guards in front of me as I step back into the hallway behind me. The three guards are blocking me from any projectiles, so I start shooting them with my magical staff as they start running at me without worrying about any return fire. They each have scowls on their face as they attempt to reach me while trying to block the fire from reaching their face. It seems like they are used to this situation, so I don't know why they still followed me into it despite knowing the foreseeable outcome...

It doesn't take long for the guard I first hit, back in the new room, to fall onto his knees in pain as I continue bolting him down with fire. The other two continue standing and follow me into the room I was in earlier, connecting to the hallway. Just keeping my distance seems to work for the most part, but they are catching up to me since I'm walking backward, unaware of what's behind me.

Once they get too close, I equip the Bronze short sword in my inventory and lunge towards their location, surprising them a bit as I bet they did not expect me to whip out a sword. I see a look of momentary fear flash through their faces as they realize what I did before being followed by a smirk. The left guard lets me thrust my sword straight through his neck before going wide-eyed and slumping over on the ground. He turns into the motes of light soon after as we watch.

+1XP

[Lvl 1: 41/50]

The other guard quickly losses his smirk and yells, "RUN! RUN! He can use the sword!" He genuinely seems panicked as he quickly turns around and runs down into the hall towards his companion. I equip my ice wand this time, and I do the same as with the Firebrand Staff; I watch the new weapon create a big ball of ice and shoot where I'm aiming it.

Fast, the spell flies through the air and hits the retreating guard right in the back. He falls over onto the ground and explodes into motes of light. This leaves only one sword-guard remaining, who is still kneeling on the floor in the hallway.

The last sword-guard looks up at me with resolution in his eyes as I approach him. I point my wand at him, ready to fire, but before I do so, he says, "Do it, shoot me! I will just come back, and the next time I see you, I will destroy you... You abomination of the sys...!" So anyway, I started blasting.

+1XP

+1XP

[Lvl 1: 43/50]

Even though the wand apparently does more damage, I re-equip the staff because it has more feed power, which probably means it's better, but I can't tell much of a difference other than the number of shots. The staff always shoots two small bolts that hit together, while the wand shoots one big shot.

I walk back towards the room with the bronze guard as I fire my staff towards the two bow-guards in front of me. They took the warning from the last guy properly and started to retreat backward, trying to put distance between them and myself.

My blasts of fire don't seem to have enough energy to reach them as the shots dissipate before they get anywhere close, which leaves me at the mercy of their arrows.

I manage to reach the room where I find the bronze guard still standing where I last saw him, but the staff-guard ambushes me as soon as I enter. He strikes me right on my noggin, and I falter a little. "You little... Mmmmm!" I groan out in frustration, a slight rasp in my voice.

"Bronze Short Sword!" I yell, and it replaces my staff in my weapon slot. I proceed to swing my sword at him, but he dodges the blade and shoots two bolts of white energy at me.

They hit my stomach, knocking the air out of my lungs. I recuperate and lunge towards the staff-guard again, barely dodging two arrows being shot my way. This time, my stab lands and pierces into his shoulder. I pull my sword out and swing again as quickly as I can. He doesn't manage to dodge or block the strike this time, and I carve deep into his left side.

I watch his health bar empty out completely, and I turn around to focus on the last two arrow-guards. "Ice Wand!" I shout out. It equips my wand, and I send a big iceball towards the left guard.

He doesn't even attempt to move out of the way as the iceball hits him right on his forehead knocking him out cold and turning him into motes of light. The other archer guard seems surprised. He has the same exact look as the second sword-guard had when I defeated the first sword-guard. He looks towards the bronze guard to see the same look of surprise as he has.

I take advantage of his daze by shooting another iceball right at the arrow-guard, knocking him out just like the last one. It seems like the wand has more range than the staff does; that's what allowed me to hit the two of them from such a distance.

I equip my staff and turn towards the last guard. He still seems confused, so I send a little bit of fire his way. I aim straight at his face and start blasting with my staff. The fire bolts proceed to pelt him down as he looks on, confused. He waves his arm towards the last set of bolts dispersing them; and then asks me, "How can you use every weapon?"

Huh?

"Huh?" I voice out my confusion

"You can use the sword, the staff, and the wand. You can't do that! It's impossible!" He replies to my confusion as if in distress.

Since he just took the earlier fire bolts without complaint and is now at half of his health, I respond to his words with more bolts of fire.

"I can do whatever I want," I say as I keep blasting.

"Arge! Stop, you scoundrel! I'll crush you myself if I have to!" The bronze guard growls out in clear annoyance.

He charges towards me with his sword drawn, looking to end my life. I won't let him do that, of course; I keep blasting him with my staff. He doesn't even bother to dodge, which is stupid, and just walks straight towards me. It seems like I got to his head or something with my multiple weapon magic.

It's not long before he losses all of his health and falls to the ground without taking his eyes off me. I don't think I saw him blink once; then again, it was only like ten seconds. Near the end, his health bar was depleting a lot slower than it was before. I did notice a little shield icon above his head. I wonder if that means he had more defense or something.

+10XP

[Lvl 1: 56/50]

[Level Up!]

[Lvl 2: 6/150]

[+26 HP, +14 MP, +1 ATT, +1 SPD, +1 Dex, +2 Vit, +1Wis]

I see a brown bag drop where he died. Also, I notice that I have leveled up, which gains me an increase in my stats. All this new information causes me to sit down on the floor to think and rest for a bit.

While resting, I think back to what the bronze guard told me about the weapons, but I am sure he was just in shock and going crazy. Maybe all that fire I shot at him caused him to stress out, and honestly...

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, bro.