NOVEL NEXT Chapter 28: Planty
At first glance, Dominic was disappointed. He’d been half-hoping for some new piece of equipment, now that he knew how awesome it could be. It wasn’t equipment. Then again, what could he have enhanced? His claws? His teeth? Ooh, I know – something I could attach to my tail and make it into a morning-star. Actually, that sounds kind of cool…. Well, maybe next time.
In this box were instead a round glassy marble with veins of colour running through it and a glass vial containing a murky green liquid. Dominic eyed the liquid dubiously. Am I meant to drink that? It certainly didn’t look appetising.
The other prize in the box was more instantly recognisable – it was a Beast Core. It wasn’t the biggest he’d seen, but wasn’t the smallest either. He’d say it was about the size of the level 4 or 5 trodils.
Information, he requested, wondering whether it would work. Actually, why hadn’t he tried it on any of the other Beast Cores that the meerkats had left? The little finger-nail sized Cores were still littered around the room, waiting for him to consume them. If they were worth consuming, that was.
[Beast Core: Meerkat level 5
Ability: Group Attack]
Group attack….? Some sort of ability that gives bonuses to attacking in numbers? I can see why a meerkat Core would have that ability, but it’s not much use for me. Not much use at all considering his solitary progression so far. On the other hand, he might not be alone forever, so perhaps it could come in handy later? Probably shouldn’t be, considering the social nature of both humans and lions. That said, he doubted that he’d get the ability directly from the single level 5 Core, so it might not be worth even absorbing it.
I’ve got a bag of holding now. Well, sort of bag, anyway. I’ll save it for later – even if I don’t use it, perhaps someone else will find it later. After all, thinking about it, Dominic couldn’t have been the only one the System had difficulty with. Maybe he could trade it at some point – even without words, surely it would be possible to communicate with others? People who spoke different languages did it all the time.
Slipping the Core into his gorget’s inventory, he turned to the other item, the glass vial.
Information.
[Minor Health Potion (minor, T1)]
[This minor health potion offers an immediate healing of up to 75 HP and its accompanying wounds (starting with most life-threatening). It also offers a small boost of +10% to healing over the next 15 minutes. Single use.]
A sense of elation ran through Dominic as he read the description. That’s exactly what I need! Or at least, he needed a regular supply of those. Unfortunately, he only had the one.
Should I take it now? Or keep it until I
really need it? It was a good question. 75 HP wouldn’t even take his health back up to his maximum though the 10% health regeneration could help him get there. On the other hand, what if he used it now and then got really low another time?
Then again, he mused, If I get really low even having had the health potion, I’d probably have died without it. And what if I’m being attacked and can’t actually take it?
Deciding to take the potion was one thing; actually drinking it was another. Given that the vial was made out of glass, Dominic didn’t want to risk breaking it either through fumbling with his paws so that it fell on the hard stone floor, or by applying too much pressure at the wrong moment.
Once more wishing that he had dexterous fingers rather than awkward paws, it took him more than a few moments to find a way of doing it. In the end, his tongue proved to be the best tool, wrapping itself practically the whole way around the vial’s neck and drawing it into his mouth.
Pulling out the cork was a whole other challenge, but eventually he found a way of trapping the vial against his teeth with his tongue, and then scratching at the cork until it was sufficiently damaged to allow the liquid within to leak out.
It tasted like….swamp water. Very...planty? Is that a technical description? Planty? Anyway, it was like loads of plants had been stewed together with a bit of earth. There was also a nauseating hint of mould, like the whole mixture had been allowed to go bad.
Well they say that if medicine doesn’t taste bad, it’s not doing a good job, Dominic told himself, grimacing as the whole nasty mixture trickled down his throat. If that’s true, this has got to be the greatest medicine ever invented.
As soon as he swallowed sufficient liquid, he saw the red bar in the corner of his vision starting to inch upwards. He kept the vial tilted downwards until the flow of liquid stopped, though, not wanting to miss out on any of the healing benefits, regardless of the murky taste that matched its colour.
Once it had stopped, he spat the empty glass vial out onto the floor, making a face even as he tried to clean his tongue with his forearm. Actually, he was covered in blood still, wasn’t he? That had tasted a lot better than the healing potion.
So thinking, he let the lion’s instincts take over and continued the process of giving himself a tongue-bath. Although he’d just intended on clearing the taste of the nasty health potion from his tongue, replacing it with the much more appealing flavour of blood and bodily fluids, he ended up getting more into it than he’d planned.
It was just...soothing. The feel of his tongue bristles combing through his fur, the clearing of sticky blood that was matting it and tugging as he moved…. He found his human mind being pushed to the side once more as he first groomed his shoulders, then his sides. His spine twisted in ways that would have been impossible for him as a human as he licked at his own back and hindquarters.
It was only when he found himself in a lamb-leg position and licking at his own genitals that his human mind came back into focus. He was simultaneously disgusted and intrigued. The sensation of grooming around that sensitive spot was undoubtedly pleasant, and he couldn’t deny that there was a temptation to take it a bit further.
Dominic, you’re not the singer who supposedly took out his own rib so he could be more flexible, he told himself firmly, remembering a set of rumours which had circulated about a particular singer. Whether they were true or not, he had no idea, but either way, although he was now in the position to be able to do what the musician had been rumoured to do, he wasn’t going to give into the temptation. At least, not in the middle of a dungeon which had tried to kill him multiple times.
With the area between his hind-legs now clean and tidy, along with the rest of him, Dominic assessed his tongue bath as being complete. Standing up, he took a moment to luxuriate in feeling clean once more. Although his human mentality didn’t want to admit it, grooming himself had actually felt better than the feeling of getting clean on level up….
Anyway, moving swiftly on,
Dominic thought to himself, a bit embarrassed despite knowing that it was a completely normal action for a lion to take. Cores. They were scattered everywhere, some clumped together, others lying separate. Getting to the first, no bigger than a necklace bead, Dominic focused on it.
Information.
[Beast Core: Meerkat level 0
Ability: Group Attack]
He went to the next and repeated his actions, the same message appearing. Moving around, he checked all the Cores within a few steps of his position. The only slight variation was that some of the Cores were slightly bigger and were level 1 instead of 0.
That correlates with my experience, he mused. Given that the level 0 meerkats hadn’t given him any Prey Points, did that mean that their Cores wouldn’t actually count towards an ability for him? Or didn’t it work that way? There were enough level 1 Cores that, in addition to the one he’d received from the dungeon, he’d probably still manage to get the Skill. But do I want it?
It was a good question. On the one hand, any ability was good, right? On the other, if it added bonuses to attacking as a group, it was useless; if it forced him to have to fight in a group, that was worse than useless.
Maybe I don’t have to decide now. He had his inventory now, and plenty of space in it. Maybe he could wait to see what the future held. Just like with the prize from the dungeon, even if he didn’t use the Cores himself, maybe he could trade them to someone who would.
Decided, he moved around the area, adding the Cores, many at a time, to his gorget’s extra-dimensional space with swipes of his paw. He also chucked the vial in there for good measure – who knew if it would come in handy? Since it hadn’t broken when he’d spat it out, it was clearly more sturdy than it looked.
The room clear of both threats and treasure, Dominic once more checked for any secret doors in the walls or floor. Frankly, this room had been a bit disappointing. Between the frustrating task of getting the meerkats back into their cages, the loot which hadn’t been nearly as beneficial to him as the leather gorget, and the fact that he’d explored both rooms to the dungeon and hadn’t found its final altar, he was a bit annoyed.
Yes, he was once more almost at full health and most wounds had been healed or turned to the merest of scrapes. Yes, he now had an awesome extra-dimensional space that he’d be able to fill up with all the trash and treasure he found. But had he finished the dungeon? No. Had he levelled up again? Also no.
Huffing in frustration, Dominic turned back to the corridor he’d come through. He’d found nothing in this room to indicate that it was anything but a dead end. He’d jiggled the torches, pushed on every stone tile he could reach on the walls, inspected every single dent and scratch on the stone slab of the altar.
Bar the exit being triggered by leaping on the coloured tiles in a particular pattern, he was out of ideas. And, frankly, if that was the solution, there should be some sort of indication to give him an idea of which pattern. So no, he didn’t think that that was likely to be the solution. Could there be a doorway in the corridors themselves?
It was possible, he supposed – Dominic remembered playing a game where one of the hidden doorways had been in a trapped corridor rather than a room itself. But he didn’t see how. Unless one of the triggers was to open a door rather than a trap? But how would he know which trigger was which?
Maybe I missed something in the starting room? He wondered. I’ll look for any signs of a hidden door in the corridor, but I’ll check the first room before I start intentionally triggering traps.