There was a fast-moving stream not far from the fight scene. I didn't have to leave the road much to reach it. I was both worried about getting lost and getting into fights I couldn't handle. I swished my club around in the water, not only to clean it but to see if anything in the water wanted to bite it.
I watched as bits of fur and gore swirled downstream. Little minnows darted out their little bodies flashing silver, but as they had a hard time nibbling at the bits of flesh, I decided they wouldn't be much of a threat to me.
I splashed into the water. It was ice cold. Bracing, a bit painful at first, but it felt good to wash the blood off myself. I took some sand from the bank and scrubbed at my skin and clothes. I'd be in wet clothes for a bit, but the day was warm and I would rather dry in the sun than ripen.
I also wanted to get the nastiest bits out of my hair before it glued itself with dried blood in clumps. It had taken a long time to get all the bits out last time.
I dunked my head in quickly.
Almost immediately, my head felt funny. I quickly stood upright. My head felt heavy. I reached up to touch my head. There was something on it. It was jellylike and soft, like a combination of jello and slightly cooked egg whites.
My scalp started to sting. Shaking my head back and forth, I tried to dislodge whatever was up there. I tried pushing it off with my hands, but it was impossible to budge. My hands just sank into some sort of soft, gooey flesh. Then they started to burn too. I brushed my hands on my trousers to try to wipe the stinging slime off of them. I looked down at them, was that slime. OMG did I have a slime on my head?
My scalp was on fire. There was a slime on my head trying to dissolve my skull. My hands were useless I couldn't get a hold of it. It slid down in a discoserting swallowing motion and covered my eyes. I clamped them tightly closed.
Then like any reasonable human, I panicked
I ran.
Headfirst— into a tree.
This wasn't as bad as expected. Oh, it hurt, and I felt I had done some damage to myself. But it seemed to have hurt the slime, it's body had cushioned my head and absorbed some of the impact. Though not as much as I would have expected.
It was squishy when I pulled at it, but when it was hit; it had felt hard.
I reached up and hit the slime as hard as I could. It felt like hitting a solid object. Oh, oh there was a term for this. Like cornflour and water. Oh what was it called? A non newtonian fluid! Ok so my brain was still working! And I had an idea.
I stood up shakily and ran into the tree again, this time bending forward and trying to hit the top of my head.
The slime stopped undulating on my scalp and flopped trying to escape. I wondered if I had hurt it. It started to try oozing its way back to the river.
I grabbed my club and chased it. It moved deceptively quickly. I bashed it with my club until it broke. As soon as it lost cohesion it just started soaking into the grass.
18XP! CONGRATULATIONS FIGHTER YOU HAVE LEVELLED UP! +2 to strength, +1 to constitution. +2 to speed You have one skill point to allocate. Would you like to allocate you skill point now? Yes/No
You have received 1 slime essence water (craft item)
I blinked that away, what was that in the goo? It looked like wet hair, long dark hair.
Oh no, no, no!
I reached up and touched my head. My fingers found angry, sensitive skin and patchy bits of partially dissolved hair. I grabbed the water skin I had refilled in the stream and splashed it all over my head. The stinging started to abate, but my hair was mostly gone. Maybe I had an option to restore my base appearance?
Angrily I hit my chest to open my HUD. The skills box was glowing and pulsing. Letting me know I had a skill point, as if I could forget that.
I wasn't going to put it in armour as I hadn't even come across any. That made my options to put a skill in Weapon (Club) or in Unarmed. Still not thrilled with the idea of getting my hands bloody.
Since I had already unlocked the Weapon branch, I could unlock Swing or Block, or I could continue down the Hit path. My options there were Crippling Blow and Targetted Hit.
I know Richard had said it was best to level up evenly, but I liked how Hit felt.
Right now I really wanted to hit things in general. I chose Crippling blow. And after finding no way to restore my hair, I rage quit the screens.
The stream burbled cheerfully, as if nothing had happened. The minnows, I noted, that were nibbling at slime fragments drifting downstream looked to have three pairs of tiny eyes. This place was weird.
I sat back on the bank my club across my knees, it and I were gross again. I was now wet and disgusting. I gripped it, the my knuckles turning red as I held it tighter. I felt the need to hit something. I stood and swung it around, it felt good as it swooshed through the air feeling lighter in my hand. I stalked off looking for something to try Crippling Blow on.
My scalp stung with every breath of wind, raw and exposed. I felt naked in a way the had nothing to do with clothes. I pressed the heel of my hand to my head, felt the tender patches, the sticky remains of slime, the absence where hair should've been.
In some games, when you level up, you get healed. Not this one.
Words could not express how much I hated his game.
Maybe it's not that bad. Maybe it's just a little patchy, I tried to reassure myself. The stream was close to the road again here. I carefully walked the short grassy distance and I leaned toward the stream for a look, careful to watch out for monsters big and small.
My reflection wavered in the moving water. Ugh. I moved down stream a bit to where the water was calmer. Big mistake, I looked better with the distortion. The reflection staring back at me was… horrifying. My hair was ragged, clumped, bald spots glistening red in the sunlight. Most of my hair that had survived was around the edges giving me a sort of tonsure like hair style.
"Oh my god. I'm hideous. I look like a discount friar." I said out loud. Hoping maybe some watching game dev would see and take pity.
I splashed the reflection into ripples, as if blurring it could erase the truth. A biting insect landed on my damaged skin up there and it felt like fire. I wondered
how much damage I had taken.
I didn't have to wonder, I could check.
I tapped my chest, calling up the HUD. The now-familiar flood of boxes and numbers swarmed my vision. I squinted through the chaos, swiping menus away until I found the detailed health tab.
And there it was.
Condition: Slime Burn (Mild).
Effect: Scalp Damage.
-1 Charisma (visual), +5% vulnerability to cold damage.
I stared at it, jaw hanging. "You have got to be kidding me."
Not only had a blob of jello tried to eat my brain, but now the game had the audacity to put it in writing.
I was officially ugly. Not even just ugly, ugly in a way that penalized stats. I was really glad Rodney couldn't see me now.
I scrolled down. No other details. No important information, like how long it would take to grow back.
Oh, that's just great. Not only do I look like a barbie doll who's been subjected to a child with scissors, but people are going to actively dislike me for it. That's… that was just mean.
I headed back to the road, trying to find the words to express my hatred of this game and its creators.
A bird chirped overhead. I flipped it off.
In every RPG ever made, slimes are supposed to be tutorial mobs. Slap them once, XP pops out like candy. They are not supposed to melt your scalp. They're not supposed to give you everlasting cosmetic debuffs. This is…this is Slime Trauma Simulator.
My scalp throbbed in agreement.
Third, the weapons. Don't even get me started on the weapons. Fighter class. With a club. A freaking log. I even died, you would think then I could choose something other than 'barbarian classic'. No. I'm stuck as 'Elizabeth the Club Wielder.'
I stopped dead. If anyone called me 'Beth the Barbarian' I was going to bash their heads in.
If there wasn't a respec option somewhere I was going to riot. I don't know how, but I would find a way. I thought about singing that old song We're not going to take it while burning down a village or something.
My voice cracked into half-hysterical laughter.
The HUD still hovered faintly in the corner of my vision. I swiped it back open and scrolled randomly through stuff till my reputation stats caught my eye. I had reputation with more than just the village.
The idea of trudging into the next village with my scalp patchy and weeping made bile rise in my throat. Did NPCs laugh? Would they whisper behind their hands, point at the outsider and make jokes? And why did I care? They weren't real people.
My bladder started complaining. I had been ignoring it. But it could be ignored no longer. I didn't want to be caught in the forest by monsters with my pants down. But what if someone came along the road? I decided I could pee fast at the side of the road. This was most undignified and completely unnecessary. I had never had an MMO character need to use an outhouse.
I resumed walking, every step a stomp, every mutter another stone tossed into the well of my frustration.
I hated this game. I hated the notifications. I hated the mechanics. I hated that every weapon choice was a lie. I hated that I had to pee but that I didn't get coffee.
I had a rhythm going. I chanted in my head in time to my steps: I hate the slime, I hate the wolves, I hate the ground squirrels not that I know what they are, I hate these shoes, I hate how pain is real, I hate the way they programed boob sweat into a game… I was really getting into the swing of this new angst filled mantra.
The road twisted around a series of curved as I walked on, gravel crunching under my shoes. My scalp stung, sweat trickled into the raw patches, and the cloth I'd tied around my head felt like both armor and humiliation.
"Goddamn game" I said out loud. "Goddamn fucking game."
The breeze rustled the trees as if in answer, the whole forest complicit in mocking me.
The steady clop of hooves grew louder as three riders rounded a bend in the road ahead of me. They spread across the road in that very deliberate way that screamed formation. For a moment I let myself hope they were just friendly travellers, but the way they were decked out said it wasn't likely. And their tall, lean, fine-boned beasts that looked bred for speed, made that hope shrivel up and die. No peasant had horses like these.
"Hey, you there," one of them called.
I pasted on my best NPC smile, "Good day to you, sirs." And tried to walk past them.
The skinny one moved his horse to block me and leaned forward in his saddle, his moustache bristling as he spoke. "It is, it is a good day. And if you give us all the coins you're carrying, it might stay that way."
Literal highway robbery.
Classic, I exhaled a sharp laugh. I tapped my chest to open my HUD, clicked on my currency, held out my hand, and summoned my coins from inventory. They shimmered into existence in my palm, heavy and cool.
"Fine. Here." I held them up to the one who looked in charge.
He snatched them, sneering. "Stop holding out on us. All of it!"
"That is all of it."
They looked at each other. The big one with a slow voice and dull eyes jabbed a sausage finger toward my head. "Whut's wrong with her hair?"
The skinny one leaned closer, then recoiled. "That looks disgusting." He turned to the leader. "Do you think she's contagious?"
The leader looked down at the coins in his gloved hand like they might start oozing.
I
seized the moment. "Oh yeah. Definitely contagious." I tried to sound casual, like someone discussing the weather. "I'm on my way to find a healer. The last guy who got close… well, let's just say his hair wasn't the only thing that fell off." I hid my smirk by looking away.
All three jerked their reins, horses sidestepping nervously. A ripple of unease passed between them.
I walked forward, trying to bluff my way forward before they thought too hard. "You should keep your distance. Could be you're already infected." I said trying to dissuade them from attacking.
That got them muttering, voices low. I almost let myself believe the lie had worked.
Then the skinny one's voice rose again, sly and sharp. "Healers ain't cheap. If she's looking for one, she's gotta have coin she didn't show us."
"Ohh yeah," rumbled the big one, eyes lighting with dull realization.
Panic spiked. "Gentlemen," I said, voice high and fake-sweet, "fire scrolls are expensive, aren't they? And if you kill me, you'll have to burn everything of mine you touched. You'll lose coin on the deal."
The leader frowned, weighing it. His horse stamped and tossed its head. For a heartbeat, I thought I was free.
"Yeah," the skinny one said, "but what if she's lying?"
"And we can burn stuff with regular fire, that's free." The leader said.
That was my cue to run.
I bolted off the road into the trees. Trying to fight all three of them on horseback didn't seem viable. And they all had swords at their hips. I hoped that maybe they wouldn't risk their fancy horses on the uneven ground. A broken leg could kill a horse, and there was no way I was worth as much as one of those beasts.
Branches whipped my arms, tore at my clothes. The ground turned uneven as I sprinted into the forest, roots rising like traps. Behind me, the thunder of hooves didn't slow. They'd risk their horses' legs to get me? Of course they would.
I dodged left, lungs burning, praying for anything: a stumble, a deluge of slimes, divine intervention, anything. A horse snorted right behind me, hot breath prickling my neck.
"Cut her off." one of them shouted. I heard one of them pulling off to my left.
I ran for the sound of the stream, hoping slick banks or mud might slow them. My feet pounded, my heart hammered, but the hoofbeats were all I could hear.
The impact came from behind, bone-jarring, world-ending. A wall of muscle and hooves slammed into me. Pain flared white-hot and then I was floating in that black nothingness again.
Fuck!