Chapter Fifteen

  After respawning at the rotting log, Alex retrieved her travois and cages before returning to her camp. The Ghostly Cobrawasp had dispatched her with one sting, and even though death had erased the poison from her system, she kept rubbing her chest where the stinger had gone in.

  She'd lost 500 experience when she died, which thankfully hadn't deleveled her. But it meant she'd have to re-earn that 500 experience.

  The four bloat minions were waiting for her back at the camp. She turned the cages into nests for them, removing their doors, flipping them on their back, and lining them with leftover fur scraps until they looked like chicken roosts.

  Despite their new linkage to her, Alex left them at the above camp. She really didn't like the idea of sleeping in the same place as the bloats. But they didn't seem to mind and greeted her by hovering into the air when she came up the next evening.

  "I don't have anything you can feed on today, so you can hunt across the chasm," she told them.

  Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde immediately set off across the expanse, bobbing in a line towards the Plains of Warsong.

  Alex waited until the deep night before returning to the forest to scout. She moved slower this time, scanning the sky above her in case the Ghostly Cobrawasp returned. She managed to find two potential targets that evening—a hogappillar and a stonegoat.

  Freed from hauling cages, Alex dispatched them both the next night as she was more mobile. But on the following night when she returned to scout, the Ghostly Cobrawasp caught her and killed her with one massive critical hit.

  This pattern went on for the next two weeks. She killed fourteen new warped animals, but died to the cobrawasp three more times. The only saving grace was that she was only losing 500 XP each time, rather than an escalating number.

  That night, rather than hunt, she hid in the trees to ambush it, but it never showed. The only sign she ever got that it was near was a buzzing noise moments before it struck.

  Since she no longer had to spend so much time weaving grass ropes and mending minor gear, Alex experimented with her spells, trying to find new effects. Since she sucked at fire spells, primarily producing sparks no matter how many times she tried, Alex switched to air, hoping she could produce wind strong enough to affect the cobrawasp.

  The early experiments produced more substantial effects than her lame fire sparks, including one attempt that created a gust of gray cloud that crackled with static electricity, but unfortunately no new spells. She gained five skill points in air magic during that time, which was enough to convince her to keep going. It was possible that the game had hidden skill affinities that allowed certain skills to progress faster. Or she just sucked at fire.

  Alex also spent time investigating the chimeric stones. She had a stack of eighteen, mostly from the smaller critters since she hadn't figured out how to get the larger corpses into the Dented Cooking Pot to boil them down.

  The stones seemed to have different markings and swirls each time she looked at them, but that could have been her memory too. Alex tried cooking the stones with other items in her pot, hoping they might combine or create a beneficial effect, but the stones just sat at the bottom while the rest of the ingredients interacted.

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  She did figure out a number of recipes by throwing random items that she picked up in the forest into the cooking pot. It was how she'd created the Spicy Iguana Steak, by combining the meat with a plant that looked like sage called indigo in her pot.

  After a while she started throwing anything and everything into it, hoping for a new recipe. Most ended up as char in the bottom of the pot, but thankfully, the game didn't require her to scrub out the mess. She only had to tip it over, and whatever it was, it fell out.

  "A dented cooking pot you may be, but you're a freaking miracle in my eyes," she told the pot more than once after ejecting a particularly disgusting failed combination.

  On a particularly clear night—it never stormed in the Warped Forest—Alex was throwing random items into the pot: a stonegoat hoof, indigo, blue leaf bark, a sparrow feather, and a Dewdrop Orb. Normally such varied mixes ended in the black mess, but when she let a little faez flow into the pot, it crackled with energy, a brewer's mist forming on top before dissipating into a chunky bar that looked similar to granola if it'd been made with handicrafts.

  Item: Acceleration Bar

  Use: Increases Effects

  You know you want to...

  You have gained a skill point: +1 Cooking

  You have gained a skill point: +1 Devious Devices

  You have gained a new recipe: Acceleration Bar

  Alex held it in her cupped hands as if it were made of gold. If she understood it correctly, it was a powerful one-use item. It seemed strange that she got two skill points off the same creation until she realized the container in which it'd been cooked seemed different.

  The dented pot had lost its signature impact, and its dull gray exterior had turned glistening black. It looked like if a black Porsche had been turned into a cooking utensil.

  Item: Exquisite Cooking Pot

  Dmg: 2-5 ? 25/25 Durability

  Yet you'll still only cook ramen

  She wasn't sure how, but she'd transformed the dented pot into an exquisite one. Maybe items could level up? Or maybe because it was her starting item, it had hidden properties that she had to unlock.

  Alex put the Acceleration Bar into her Handysack for later. An effect like that would need to be used at a special moment to maximize its effect.

  The next day she went in search of new creatures to hunt. She let her minions feed on the Plains while she crept through the undergrowth.

  Alex took special care to climb into the upper canopy frequently to survey the forest, hoping to catch a glimpse of the cobrawasp from a distance. She also moved with what she hoped was special care.

  But her precautions proved fruitless when the cobrawasp caught her as she shimmied down the tree and dropped into the dirt with her climbing rope in her hand.

  A faint buzzing announced its presence. Without waiting to get a visual on it, Alex dove to the right, rolling beneath the black stinger as it slammed into the trunk.

  It hit so hard the tip sunk into the soft wood. The cobrawasp struggled to remove it while Alex pulled out her Vicious Thorny Whip.

  You miss a Ghostly Cobrawasp!

  You hit a Ghostly Cobrawasp for 3 damage!

  You miss a Ghostly Cobrawasp!

  Alex struck the creature in successive fashion, but despite it being held in place, her weapon did nothing. She quickly realized that normally she fought the denizens of the Warped Forest after they'd been drained by her minions. The loss of blood must have made those creatures more susceptible to her low-level attacks.

  But she knew running wasn't going to work either, and she hated giving up an opportunity while the cobrawasp was stuck in the tree.

  With a flash of an idea, Alex pulled a hemp rope from her Handysack. She made a loop and threw it around the head of the flying snake. The cobrawasp hissed as the rope nestled around its slender neck.

  Alex ran the long end of the rope around the tree and was preparing to make a second loop when the cobrawasp managed to free its stinger from the tree trunk. Before she could throw a second loop, it turned its head at her and spit venom right into her face.

  You have been hit by Ghostly Cobrawasp venom!

  You are affected by rotting venom!

  You take 24 damage from the rotting venom!

  You take 23 damage from the rotting venom!

  You have died!