Nora spent the better part of the morning weaving in between the dense trees, scanning the ground for something to eat. On the way she noticed several glowing mushrooms, and a couple of different types of deer, each time she would pass a creature she would activate her inspect skill, and above the heads of all of them a small box would appear.
Most read:
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Forest deer
Level: 3
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But some were different, she saw a:
Moss covered deer, which looked like a regular deer but it seemed more mature, and it was absolutely covered in moss, she was only able to spot it because it happened to turn its head to look at her while she flew by.
Glacier hart doe which looked like a deer but was covered in ice.
And finally:
Dusk-rune elk, which looked like it was made out of shadows, she could barely even catch a glimpse before it disappeared, apparently being able to teleport..
It was only after a little bit of flying did Nora notice something weird, her surroundings had shifted, but only subtly. The forest was still quiet in the morning, but now it had gotten eerily quiet.
As she flew she noticed something strange the mushrooms that she was seeing on the ground seemed to have withered. When she inspected them, they said something strange.
Each box read:
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Witherrot Mycelium
Type: Tainted
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Seeing it Nora shuddered a little bit, this was new. Just as she was about to get closer she noticed something out of the corner of her eyes.
'Wait, what is that?'
Quickly turning her head and shifting her flight slightly, Nora saw it. It was another duskrune deer, but this one looked off. Nora didn't hesitate and used her inspect skill on this creature.
Ding!
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Corrupted Duskrune elk
Level: 19
Cursed beast
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'Oh no,' Nora thought. This was a new part of the description, and it looked really ominous, 'Wait a second, that elk is looking right at me… I gotta get out of here!' Nora thought in horror. Quickly Nora decided to turn around. She turned her wings and began to flap away as fast as she could.
The deer was level 19 after all, it could probably kill her without batting an eye. This was the first time in this life that Nora had felt genuine fear.
Sensing that the deer was following her, Nora decided to try flying faster, weaving as quickly as she possibly could through the trees, she ended up pushing her mind to the max in order to evade obstacles and get away from the deer.
After a minute or so she realized that she could actually just fly above the trees and probably get away from the deer. Quickly turning upwards she braced for going through the canopy.
When she emerged she didn't stop, instead she kept flying forward, desperate to get farther away from the deer and find somewhere safer.
'Okay so that kind of feels like an area I definitely should not have gone into.' Nora thought, 'that deer was definitely way too strong. I wonder what happened in that part of the forest though, it seems like the whole place is getting corrupted by something. That couldn't have been the boss, that probably was close to like a mini-boss or something,' Nora began to equate things from this life to games in her past life.
Eventually Nora felt like she was far enough away that she could finally rest.
'Phew, that was honestly really scary.., I was not expecting that at all. Perhaps I should stay away from that area.'
'I kind of got distracted there for a second, let's keep looking for food, I don't really want to eat any of the mushrooms that I saw around but I think that there might be some berries that I can eat'
.
.
.
It didn't take Nora long to spot a small shrub, next to each of its leaves was a cluster of small red berries
'aha ! there we go! Let's see how these taste.' Nora didn't even bother to inspect them before she plucked some off and ate them.
Ding!
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Nausea Debuff applied
Time: 2 minutes
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'Eugh gross! Aw these berries gave me a debuff too that isn't very fair…' she looked at the description and immediately felt stupid
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Dizzy berries
Type: Poisonous
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Nora's vision blurred slightly, and she could immediately feel that there was a disconnect between her brain and her body. It seemed like her body was no longer responding in time with what her brain was asking.
'Okay, so I shouldn't try to fly right now, let's just… uhh… go over to that tree and maybe sit for a little bit…'
She moved over to the tree, stumbling slightly. She got close to the stump and sat down. Closing her eyes she tried to calm the nausea.
'It'll be gone in like 2 minutes according to my system. Just don't puke… wait… can birds even puke? Is it the same thing as rats? Do I even have the thing that makes my body throw up? I have no idea… I really should have researched what crows were like in my past life.'
'Then again I would never have known that I would become one… oof all this thinking is making me more nauseous. Just don't think about Nora.'
After a few minutes she felt the nausea go away.
'Okay… it's probably time to go. Maybe let's change the strategy a little bit. I was going too complicated, this is still just the second quest so it shouldn't be too hard… let's look for some seeds.' Nora thought, changing her plan a little bit.
Nora decided to look around near the ground, focusing her attention on areas around trees. After a little bit of searching, she managed to find some bits of a pinecone that seemed to have been there for a while. She picked at the rather stale pinecone for a little bit, she heard a ding coming from her system
Ding!
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Quest complete
New skill unlocked: Greater Sight
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