Midsummer Feast

“Are you inviting me to an outing with you and the girls, Adu?” Lart seemed surprised by Adu’s idea that he also should join the hiking Merie had suggested when she would pay a visit to Adu’s tribe, which had been a bother and a half, only to get there as the monsters on the way there was a slightly too high level for her to handle them easily.

“Yes. Something like a hike or an outing for all of us, and I’m kinda sure that includes you, Lart.” Adu seemed sure about what she thought. And even though it just was through the chat, so did Merie feel it was easy to tell. But to be honest, so hadn’t Merie thought about Lart when she suggested it. Still, neither did she mind if Lart joined. He was a good guy, adult, and father? He was a good person and was easy to get along with. Even though it wasn’t often she spent any time with him. “Sounds like a good chance for you to chase some tail, Lart. If your young daughter accept it.” Hopefully so wasn’t Opiom serious as she spoke. If Merie didn’t remember wrong, so did she think Lart had said his rougher just was slightly younger than Merie. And both Anlie and Adu were about Merie’s age, only about a year’s difference, so it couldn’t anyhow be comfortable for him to chase one of them. And even though Merie didn’t know Opiom, so did she get a feeling she also was somewhere about their age. “I don’t think you should give me those offers, Opiom. Please think of this elderly man’s poor heart. I might be able to join, all depending on when we divide to go. I’ll check when my former wife will take care of my daughter next time, and message that since I’ll be able to spend a whole day in the game.” It didn’t sound like a bad idea, and if he would so like that so could Merie also do the same and spend those days at Anlie’s place. “I don’t think that was what Adu had in mind, Opiom. But I’m sure she might be able to sell some members from a rival tribe if you want.” Did Anlie really have to make it sound that horrible? “If she would decide to allow and sell slaves, so would I almost suggest that we go on an adventure and pick down any tribes we can find, just like when I was young, about “Eighteenhundred-froze-to-death”. A soo long time ago.”

Merie closed the chat, finding it to be enough of that for the moment. Even though she knew that none of them was the slightest serious, so did she still find it annoying listening to them. Which meant that she could spend her time doing better things, like getting her ass in gear and trying to level up both her Potion-craft and Bomb-craft abilities. Which she was sure could’ve saved her when that count tricked all those monsters into attacking her. And it should surely help them quite a bit when it finally got time for a hunt again. Which would increase if she also found good ways to add any kind of poison to it. Setting out to a dark and damp forest she heard should contain powerful herbs to create poison, if it wouldn’t turn out that they were lying at the forum. Which wouldn’t be the slightest surprising as it happened many times before, often about the smallest and unimportant things.

The only way to reach that horrid place was through a swamp-like cave, with mud which would swallow any player, not keeping an eye on the ground and checking every step taking. Merie had tried to use it as a training ground when she first had got Senses, but soon noticed that she’d better chances surviving the top players than to survive some training there. Still, it didn’t stop her from trying to find a way to train the ability again. Of course in a far less dangerous way, stomping the ground, trying to see if she could hear any something indicating unsafe ground, taking a guess and then using a pole to check if it was safe. Or if it was a trap when she tried to find that out. And she thought that she was into something as she guessed right about 7 out of 10. And it felt even better that some of the monsters, Lesser-trolls and Goblins tried to approach her and sank like stones in the mud. Simply meaning that she did a better job noticing the traps than the monsters. And during her way through the cave, so did she also found a bunch of herbs and minerals. All of them were from clear gathering points, meaning that she for sure could restock there time after time again. At the very least if she found any use of them. But it was something she would find out as time passed and she got the time to research it more. Which sadly the forum wasn’t helping her too much with. Giving her some tips from time to time, but there was nothing like recipes there as everyone made things differently.

Reaching the destination of her journey, a thick forest with dark green moss covered almost every space. The ground felt unstable, almost sending small waves with every step she took. Giving her a feeling that the danger of this area was far greater than inside the cave, and it was without including the threat of the monsters. Those writing in the post said that they never had seen any monsters there, but they’d heard them. Still, so had they all got fucked over by the ground beneath them before they even got a chance to find out where the noise came from. Merie would try to her very best to avoid making the same mistake as the rest of them, caring more about the monsters than where she put her feet.

Merie was still using a pole to check the floor. She tried and failed to use the former tactic of listening to how the ground sounded, as it was far too humid to give it any distinctive sounds. But the only thing that meant was that she would need to find another way, which she wasn’t late to take. Firstly trying to use her vision, but it was impossible to differentiate between dark green and dark green. Smell wasn’t even anything she gave a shot, as she couldn’t see how that even would work. With those two so was it only her feeling remaining, and even though it was more or less the same as guessing, so did she get a feeling the floor felt slightly different from one place to another?

There were quite a bunch of new herbs there as she never had seen before. Some of them not even existing, previous to now, in Flora, an ability she honestly thought contained all herbs and other flora she could use in Potion-craft, but it wasn’t the case. Glad with the new discovery so did she happily continue to search through the area. Always paying full attention to where she set her feet and to the surrounding, in case the monsters would find her. Which of she got a horrible feeling of what assholes the developers would have been if they had placed Ballbugs there. She could just think of how many would’ve died by those traps, because those fucking crickets would’ve pushed them half a step in the wrong direction.

And she heard something from behind, making sure to not take any larger steps as she moved, making sure to stay in the area she knew she could stand. What she saw was indeed a monster, of the cutest kind. A Green rabbit, fluff ball, with spots of all different colours in its fur, as if would’ve been some flowers. Searching the area without a care in the world, nof even bothered that Merie was there.

Merie made a movement with her hand, taking a snapshot of the little green critter. And then slowly started to search her way over there, as the solid floor where the rabbit skipped was away from her. But no matter how cute the little fellow was, so was she uncertain if she would let it live. As she was sure she could get some new material from it, maybe some of that fluffy fur would have been nice. Thinking of it, if she talked it through with Opiom, so could she perhaps help Merie find someone making clothes for Anlie with that kind of fur? The rabbit turned to her and looked at her with its large, deep red, eyes. Almost inviting her to kill it, something Merie thought more about doing by the second. Still, she wouldn’t hurry her way over there. Considering how easy it would be for her to die, and horrible her luck had been from time to time, so was she sure that she would die before even getting over there.

At last so did Merie reach the rabbit, using the pole to kill it with a couple of beats to its head. First after killing it, so did Merie notice the danger she was approaching. The rabbit had been jumping around without caring the slightest about the ground, and because of that so had she thought the floor was safe. But it wasn’t. If she only had taken the tiniest step to the side, so would she’d been in deep shit, too deep. Knowing that so could Merie only make sure to be more careful, as it apparently wasn’t possible to even trust the cutest things.

With the rabbit dead, so did Merie return to gather material. And she would of course gather more fur if she got the chance, and possible material from other kinds of monsters, if there were any. She was bothered that she hadn’t seen any other monsters there, as she felt that it might be something lurking there. No matter how good people the developers could be, she still got a feeling they wouldn’t miss a chance of being assholes. And this should be a golden opportunity. Looking at the minerals she’d gathered, she saw what their name was in the item list, but nothing more than that. So she’d no idea what she could use it for, but maybe she could ask the others what they thought she would do with it. There were some noises again, this time circling her. It sounded and turned out to be the rabbit, many of them. All looked at her with their tiny red eyes, no, maybe they were more glaring at her. They weren’t jumping or skipping around as the one before, rather… They seemed to move in unison, giving Merie quite a bad feeling. Rapidly using the pole to get a feeling of where she could move, then putting away the stick and equipping her claws.

She honestly didn’t care if someone would happen to see her and call her paranoid, which she thought the screen could speak of, but she honestly didn’t trust the rabbits. They might be cute, fluffy and not do much damage. But if they could push her around, so could they simply put her in the mud and let her sink. An idea she really wasn’t fond of and would like to avoid as long as possible. The rabbits started making tons of noises, communicating?, and before long so did they start rushing her. The first attack, simply turning her body and letting it pass. The second, slash across the stomach, catching it and slamming it to the ground. Finish it off with a stomp. The rabbits didn’t have much health, but Merie could guess that they made up for that with speed. Something like how she’d made her build.

After some defending and quite some slaughtering, so did they finally hit Merie. Leaving her surprised as she wasn’t even moved by the attack, honestly, so wasn’t she even taking any damage. Meaning that they didn’t pose any threat to her as long as they didn’t trick her into walking into the mud. Satisfied with that, and feeling a little cooky, so did she put away her claws and got out the poke again. Starting to feel her way through new places in the area in the hope of finding even more material. Lazily cracking the skull of the rabbits that happened to reach her. As she noticed there were always a bunch of them attacking her, and it didn’t seem to be an end to it.