When our protagonist woke up in the cave, he was angry and confused. Angry about how his life almost ended in the reality he was just in and confused on how this new reality came to be.
'If this just a dream, how come it feels so real?', he thought to himself.
His jaw still hurt and he still could not open it. He pried it open with the waterskin just enough to quench his thirst and then called out his inventory.
Looking through the inventory for any medicine the dead men might have carried with them he found there were several different kind of bottles on them. Checking them one by one he found most of them contained some alcohol.
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Item name: Alcoholic beverage
Quality: Low
Alcohol volume: 55%
Special effects: Gets you drunk.
Description: Alcohol made from distilling an unknown fruit.
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This was basically the template for all of them. The only difference between them was the alcohol percentage.
There in his findings were also two different kind of poisons.
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Item name: Unknown poison potion
Quality: Low
Special effects: Gets you dead.
Description: Poison made from an unknown creature.
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One was made from an animal and one was made from a plant with a minor difference being the potency which he was not going to try out on himself.
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Item name: Unknown poison potion
Quality: Low
Special effects: Gets you dead fast.
Description: Poison made from an unknown plant.
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Finally he found something he could use, and it was stacked. He has 12 pieces of the same potion the system determined to me some kind of medicine.
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Item name: Unknown medicine potion
Quality: Low
Special effects: Unknown healing properties and side effects.
Description: Low quality medicine potion with a high amount of residue.
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The unknown part worried him but his jaw was killing him so he took one out of the inventory and drank it. The pain lessened in a few minutes, and the swelling seemed to subside a bit.
Opening up the inventory again to take out another one was when he noticed a change.
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Item name: Low quality healing potion
Quality: Low
Special effects: Reduces pain and swelling. Side effects from the residual components include flatulence and diarrhea.
Description: Low quality medicine potion with a high amount of residue.
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Even as he was taking it out from the inventory, he started to feel his stomach bloat up. He rushed down to the bottom of the cave and into the woods before he could not hold it anymore. He was about to pull down his pants but he did not succeed in doing so when his an*s made a roar of an enraged dragon and he could feel wetness on the back of his legs dripping down. As the foul smell spread he walked down the hill to the waterfall.
Luckily he could clean his pants and armour by just putting them into his inventory and the waterfall would take care of the rest.
'If I find a town, I can open an express laundry service.', he thought to himself as he scrubbed down the backside of his legs.
Just when he was about to finish his gut started rumbling again.
Running into the woods from the waterfall he held himself on a tree as his insides spewed out from him like he was a spray can.
Taking another bottle of the potion and downing it he awaited round three. The stench was unbearable, and the situation was comical. A boy holding on to a tree with his backside exposed waiting to spray his feces into the woods.
The swelling went down a bit more and pain was almost gone by the time he farted a couple more times. Still having 10 more of these potions he took another one since he wanted to get this ordeal over and done with.
After an hour he could open his mouth normally and his guts have been still for quite a while. He walked back to the waterfall and cleaned himself off. As he took out the underclothing to dry himself off and returned them to his inventory, he let out a sigh of relief.
Suddenly his stomach grumbled from the emptiness. Sitting down he took out the dry meat and some hard bread which he was having trouble bitting into so he decided it was too hard to eat. Then he went back and moistened it under the waterfall and ate with relish. It was not delicious by any means but he would have to make due for now.
"I can finally eat and talk!", a voice was heard in the woods and on his face it showed a smile of satisfaction.
"I guess I should upgrade my shelter while there is still light outside!", he said before he stood up and went back uphill to the cave.
On his way he opened up his inventory and took out a battleaxe. It was meant of hacking down people but it was suitable for chopping down trees as well, he thought . It soon turned out it might be suitable for someone else not for this 12-year-old malnourished body of his. He could hardly lift it, not to mention swing it hard enough to make even a dent into the tree he wanted to chop.
He sighed and put it back into his inventory before he took out a dagger and used it on some smaller young trees the thickness of his two to three fingers.
Suddenly a message popped up.
Lumberjack skill unlocked.
Lumberjack skill LVL. 1 acquired.
Bonus Strength +1
He continued felling small trees and he could notice a big difference in the speed he cut them. After about 10 trees he again got a pop-up message.
Lumberjack skill LVL. 2 acquired.
There was no bonus this time which left him a bit disappointed.
He continued for about twenty more but he noticed that for some reason it was getting harder and harder to cut them.
He put the dagger back into his inventory and noticed the durability of the dagger has fallen drastically and the description had a dull prefix.
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Item name: Dull common iron dagger
Quality: Low
Durability: 2/10
Damage: 0-1
Special effects: none
Description: A dull iron dagger product of a novice blacksmith in need of sharpening.
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He took out another dagger, and it cut trough trees like he was cutting butter.
He checked its description, and there were an obvious difference.
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Item name: Common iron dagger
Quality: Low
Durability: 9/10
Damage: 2-2
Special effects: none
Description: An iron dagger product of a novice blacksmith in need of sharpening.
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After five more trees a pop-up appeared again.
Lumberjack skill LVL. 3 acquired.
There was no bonus though which made our protagonist sigh in resignation. He had enough trees for what he had in mind and only continued for the bonus strength possibility until now.
He was also getting tired, so he stopped with chopping and continued with removing the branches.
After a while he saw a pop-up again.
Carpentry skill unlocked.
Carpentry skill LVL. 1 acquired.
Bonus Wisdom +1
Bonus Intelligence +1
He wanted to insert the trees that now became poles into his inventory but the 5-6 meter long sticks would not budge.
'There must be a size limit', he thought.
Left with no other choice he dragged the cleaned trees towards the cave and then pulled them up with a rope in batches. Then he tied them together with ropes and put them over the crevice.
The poles acted like a makeshift floor on which he put stones to make it heavier. He only left enough of an opening for himself to come up which he also tied down when he was up.
Now no wild animal could come and threaten him unless it could jump five meters or break through his flimsy floor made out of poles.
He was satisfied with his work so he ate some more dried meat and bread and made himself comfortable in the innermost corner of the cave on a pile of clothing.
He was soon dozing off and woke up to the sound of the ventilators.
He was still in physical lockdown and couldn't move a muscle even if his life depended on it.
The smell of death and decay seemed stronger today.
He had nothing to do and there were not any other sounds than medical machines operating and an occasional moan to keep him occupied so he started singing a tube in his mind that fit the mood.
His go to choice his mind picked was Death in Vegas's Dirge. The repeating chorus played in his head as he thought about everything that has happened so far. He did not have much to go on anyway, so it didn't take him long to come to no conclusion at all.
Suddenly inspired he yelled inventory in his mind and the rows and columns of neatly stacked items in boxes showed in the darkness that occupied his vision blocked by his eyelids.
He had a fleeting thought of taking some items out but soon dismissed it since he had a nagging thought in his mind this was not something a normal person was capable of and he would become a guinea pig for a lab probably if someone found out he was the culprit. His situation also would not let him defend himself in any way so he just browsed the contents of his inventory.
He soon went through all the weapons which were all of low quality and made from iron except the handles which were made from wood wrapped in leather. He had four one handed swords, one battleaxe, two bows with two quivers and 87 arrows. He also had 7 daggers and a mace from the eight dead people.
All the armours they wore were leather with hardly any metal on them. He had eight full sets of leather which were had various degrees of damage. Some were almost completely undamaged albeit a bit worn out and some had gapping holes.
Soon he came upon jewellery but he skipped it since it looked crude and unrefined.
Next in line were books. There were four of them.
He selected the first one, and he was disappointed. He expected some kind of guide or skill at least something useful.
All that the description said was.
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Item name: Book
Quality: Low
Special effects: Unknown
Description: Low quality book.
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It had an interesting cover though. Some kind of devilish head with its tongue outstretched, and some special symbols scribbled below the head.
He noticed an analyze and read buttons below the description so he willed analyze.
There was a loading bar kind of thingy moving at a snail's pace until it came to the end.
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Item name: Book - Satire's depraved life
Quality: Low
Special effects: Makes reader horny.
Description: Low quality porn book with illustrations.
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Naturally he clicked the read button. As he was watching the illustrations and read the text below he suddenly heard footsteps.
He was half watching the man with goat's legs and a big appendage having his way with curvaceous women and paying attention on the footsteps which suddenly stopped really close.
'Don't tell me I have a boner!'
There was a rustling sound of something being opened, a tapping sound and suddenly he felt himself falling into oblivion.
'Oh, damn it ...'
He opened his eyes, and he was back in the cave. Of course he went back to reading the goatman's adventures first. It's important to have your priorities straight.
Greetings from the author.
First I would like to thank you for chosing to spend your time reading my book.
The second thing I would like to ask of you is to express your opinions about my writing, story progression and especially mistakes.
You can use paragraph comments or chapter comments. I was informed the paragraph comments disappear as the book as the chapter was updated if your paragraph comment gets deleted it only means I fixed some stuff on that chapter not that your comment was ignored and deleted.
All authors yearn for praise but I will be even happy to receive criticism as long as it's logical.
Thank you in advance.