Chapter 7: Chapter 7. Mushroom Fields Forever

The river had to have its origins outside of the rock. The banks were muddy and coated with earth, and there were even occasional rotted remains of twigs and leaves. I passed a number of large mushrooms, and actually collected a few that glowed white, but I avoided the ones that glowed red or green. I had inspected the goblin, but he had not had a glow, so I suspected that… Scavenging? Didn’t affect living creatures or objects that were in use.

Your Scavenging ability was upgraded to salvaging, due to your use of scavenged materials in new construction, your traps, and repairing and resharpening the knife to a state where it was useful for its original purpose, as a carving knife.

The game does not track your skills, but when they have proven to be competent in a skill that compliments an ability, it tracks the addition by ranking up the ability to a more comprehensive version.

In this case, scavenging was granted by your kobold state, as your enhanced eyesight and other senses make noticing useful objects easy. Your senses and brain already noted clues that could lead to your recognition of a useful resource, the highlighting simply called your attention to it.

By utilizing those resources in unusual ways, and noting methods of repairing them, your brain highlights additional resources. Adding in kobold instincts, you noted red mushrooms because your instincts knew from the sigh and smell that they were poisonous. The color was chosen because your culture as a human associates red with hazards, stop, and danger.

White indicates a useful material that can be used, repaired, or used creatively. Green now indicates materials that are safe for eating immediately, basically food. Blue indicates materials that are not currently or immediately useful but could be useful with some preparation, through avenues such as cooking, brewing, blending, imbuing, or alchemy.

Because you do not have a recognized alchemy or enhancing ability yet, however, the colors will remain simple. An edible green object could gain great power by imbuing it or brewing it into a potion, but for now, they are simply edible green.

“That is...surprisingly useful knowledge. What about identify? When I examine something closely, I noticed information that I don’t actually possess. Does the Game provide this?”

Yes. This is one of the few cases where the game is permitted to directly provide knowledge. If you have the skill to assess an object, it will often give you the information you could readily obtain.
That does not mean that something you identify is strictly limited to those properties, however. This is a live, growing world, not a tag in a database. Just because an alchemist can identify an herb as healing, curing, and abortifacient, does not mean that it might not contain potentially other properties such as pain relief and muscle relaxation.

“You are clearly talking about Willow bark, yes?”

Yes. If you have a skill that allows you to create medicine from herbs, for example and an ability that can accept that upgrade, it will upgrade that ability. In this case, your imbue affinity likely has an ability that involves imbuing consumable creations, and thus when you create willow bark tea, the medicinal effects you choose to enhance will likely be greatly improved.

“So, that means I will have an alchemy ability then?” I asked curiously. I didn’t know if I wanted to be an alchemist, spending all my time in a laboratory messing around with exploding potions. I was a very active person, not particularly given to sedentary pursuits like research, except for reading, of course...But I was living in a fantasy game, living a book.

Please be aware that once your UI is complete, you can access this information yourself.

I nodded. Gentle, but not subtle, hint received. I was tying up resources every time I asked her something that could be better used fighting back against the worm.

I could see the pieces in my mind’s eye, and knew that I could somehow knot them together. If there was one thing I knew, it was knots. Bosun’s knots, Boy scout knots, my Aunt insisting I learn knitting, crochet, and macrame crafts, wire weaving, rope weaving, even rope creation… I knew knots, fiber, and string creation better than I knew my own name. But right now, the information was like a gigantic pile of space Legos that needed to be turned into a scale simulation of the Death Star. I didn’t even know where to start.

I do not know either. As I have stated, I possess neither innovation nor creativity. I have information, however, that you may be receiving minor assistance soon that can assist with both. I am constrained, however, from giving you more information.

“Right. Don’t ask. I get it. Does edible distinguish between something you can fill up on and something you should only eat some of or else it might make you sick?”

No. That is something you will have to discover for yourself. Blue, however, means that without some sort of preparation it is not healthy for consumption, or it might not be for consumption at all, like wax berries or creosote bushes.

It had been a very long day. There were many things here that were apparently fit for consumption, so I would gather up a variety and satiate myself with them. I took a handful of water and drank, and decided I would make a camping spot. I had spent almost the entire day or night climbing down the cliff, in my estimation, and my sleep had been interrupted rudely, so I would dig a hole, cover myself up, and try to catch some sheep. The kobolds could wait till tomorrow.

I wondered about the river. If it were poison, it should glow red to my senses, right? If I couldn’t detect anything, shouldn’t it glow green?

As if triggered by my thought, the entire river was surrounded by that weird, green not-glow. I could see why it wouldn’t always have that aura, though, because there might be things IN the river that had their own aura. The glow flickered out.

Cool! I could sort of control the glow myself. I looked at the mushrooms and thought about different things. I told them to flicker out, and then only display the ones that would reward preparation.

The colors flickered out, and then many of them glowed blue, including some of the ones that had been red before. So those were poisonous as they were but could be prepared for some other purpose.

I returned the original sensory spectrum, and then had the ones that would be hazardous if I ate more than a small amount. The green flickered, and a few of the varieties turned red. Question answered!

I sort of wish I had my UI skill tied to my abilities. I considered myself a good cook, and would love to be able to spot stuff that was wholesome or useful once it was cooked into a meal. The colors flickered but did not shift, so I assumed I would have to do some cooking and get my skill tied to an ability to find out.

I drank my fill of water, which was not actually that much. Kobolds apparently had lower demands for water than humans, even based on a size comparison. The river was very fast, and probably dangerous to swim, so I found a rock nook to relieve myself and then washed off with handfuls of water as best I could. Lots of water, I was disgusting and grubby beyond belief, and I felt an urgent need to have clean skin, scales, and I even used my fingers to brush out my crest and feather patches into something resembling neatness.

I didn’t know if my urge to neaten myself came from my human half or from kobold instincts, but it might have been both. Probably both, since when I thought about it, it became almost a compulsion. Being clean was important, not just for health reasons, but kobolds were small and sneaky… I remembered the rankness of the goblins and knew stink would give me away even more quickly than my dark blue scales in a white room.

Kobolds apparently didn’t produce much in the way of body odor. I hadn’t sweated as far as I could tell. Again, the temperature felt cool, but not cold. I knew I was not cold-blooded, when my blood had sprayed from the goblin teeth, it had been hot, not neutral. That jagged wound had actually healed while I had climbed, as had the soreness in my tail. I was good to go if a bit tired.

I ate a few samples of the ones that you could not eat much of, trying their flavors. They were all bland, but one of them had a distinct acid, almost pepper flavor, if not its heat. I also tried the ‘eat many’ ones to try and find a good combination. One of the mushrooms almost had a cheesy flavor, and another one was a bit yeasty, but in a way I decided I liked. The last one almost had a similar flavor to raw fish, without any of its fishy undertones, so I used my knife and a flat rock to sliver up the varieties into a sort of fungus salad, mincing them together and desperately wishing I had a vinaigrette to blend the flavors and add balance.

It was a pretty good meal though, especially when I avoided even getting too close to the red ones. There were many red varieties, and the ones that could also be blue were interesting, but it was not a good time for experimenting.

I caught myself saying that a lot. Now was not a good time. When would a good time be?

By the time I had carved out a hollow in a stone, cutting away the surface as a sort of cover. It was not very deep but should hold me, curled up. I was almost exhausted afterward, but it was becoming easier to cut the stone as I learned how it worked. Kobolds were clearly designed to be diggers of some sort, and I wondered if that would be considered a physical ability. I had never mined anything except for a little bit of panning for fool’s gold as a scout, so I didn’t think I’d get any skill attachments unless I learned them here.

I didn’t have many options, so I strung some cords around, tied to mushrooms, with little stone chips attached in pairs to them. There was a hint of a breeze, but it was consistent, so any other disturbance of the mushrooms or the strings should cause them to clack together, and wake me if I wasn’t distracted by a conversation in my dream.

I did a few pushups before I crashed, some bodybuilders, but this body was not built for the kinds of stress levels I was used to, at least not yet. I worked until my muscles were sore, including a few Capoeira dance training moves that seemed to work with a tail, to try to get into the new rhythms this body provided, for about an hour until I was almost too tired to move.

I curled up in the hollow, which, even with the stone cover which I had carefully carved the underside out of to keep it light, fitted over me, with little punched holes for air that should hopefully make me difficult to spot. My knife had its own nook, keeping the sharp edge away from my form but easy to grasp, and closed my eyes to sleep.

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I woke to the clatter of two stones tapping together. I peered carefully out of one of the tiny holes at eye level. I had slept a bit restlessly, but I guess curled up was the default Kobold sleeping position, because I wasn’t sore or anything.

There was someone poking at one of the cords with a stone attached, curiously. He was… very much larger than me, and had a spear. The spear shaft looked like it had been carved out of solid stone, although the head almost looked like dark green semi-opaque glass, and was fitted into a very carefully-shaped knock in the stone. Clearly, kobold stone carving was useful for materials. He had on a chest piece of some kind of hide, well-cured, with thin slabs of what looked like polished azurite patterned on it geometrically, artistically arranged in a spiral with light blue at the center fading to almost greenish around the outside.

He bore similar greaves that covered the tops of his feet, but the bottoms were bare and his foot claws were exposed, and his forearms were similarly covered with heavier-looking vambraces that didn’t look like they were designed to allow his hand to fold upwards...perhaps they helped brace the wrists for a claw strike? His head was horned, with a helmet cut to keep his triangular muzzle clear, almost like a barbute except that his horns were exposed with a triangle cut between them to the top of his muzzle. The pieces on the helmet were much larger than on his other armor, other than the bracers which were similarly large.

Beneath the armor, he had a sort of skirt of some sort of leather, with long strips of jointed Azurite and some kind of cloth leggings that fitted into his greaves. Clothing. Whew. Kobolds wore clothes. That was strangely comforting.

Unlike me, his skin was a dull brown, almost muddy brown, although the few scale patches I could see were brownish green. His feathers, where they were exposed, were brighter green, but he looked curiously civilized. Half again my height, maybe four feet tall, but not raggedy like the goblins, and based on the upper arms exposed under a sort of shoulder piece, he also was physically fit… much more so than I was.

The armor would have fetched a pretty penny on ebay or etse for its artistic value alone, and it was artistic. I could see someone paying ten grand just to hang it on their wall. Behind him, a few more feet away, was another kobold. His armor had more reddish-hued azurite, and was patterned in a different design, but seemed very similarly as artistic as it was protective.

Beyond the two of them were a half dozen other kobolds. They were only a little taller than I was, and not wearing armor, although they did seem to wear some kind of loose fur tunic and, surprisingly enough, gloves. They were carefully taking the largest mushrooms, and placing them into large baskets suspended from belts on either side of their waists. One of them was a little larger than the others and was collecting the largest specimens of several of the blue and some of the red mushrooms as well, but he had a complicatedly-stitched tunic, far more elegant, leather greaves and spats, and a white spiral painted on his muzzle. He also had about a dozen pouches on his belt and was packing the mushrooms into individual leather bags for each type, rather than just tossing them into a basket.

They were taking only the largest of the Mushrooms, and leaving the rest, which could grow larger in a day or two. Apparently, I had stumbled on a regular foraging spot or, considering the variety and versatility, this was actually a farm of some sort. I hadn’t eaten enough to really notice, I hoped.

“Not a trap, just noisy. Maybe nearby?” said the blue-clad one.

The red was looking at the spot where I had cleaned myself off and poked at it with his spear. “Something bathed here. Stepped into the dirt, it looks like maybe a kobold. Got clean, definitely not a goblin.”

The blue one laughed a little, “Yeah, not smell much. Kobold is clean not stink. Human or goblin or lizard stink. Maybe wanderer?

The red one was poking in the dirt. “Too small. Tiny feet. Too small for gatherer, juvenile. Maybe got out of the village?”

The blue one shrugged, “Maybe. Or if wanderers, parents nearby?” He approached my rock and poked at the groove where I had cut the lid loose. “Definitely kobold. Claw-cut. Why would they cut a circle around a rock?”

I planned on meeting them, and I guess it was now or never. He’d soon find my hiding place anyway. I scraped the rock a little, twisting the door slightly, and he leaped back, holding his spear in a high-ready position. I didn’t like leaving the shelter of the door behind, but I finally nudged it so that it fell over, and tugged the knife out to sort of shield myself from sudden strikes while I wriggled out of the narrow gap. I saw him lowering his spear, and his mouth was slightly open… I guess that was a kobold equivalent of a grin because he started laughing.

“Hah! Is baby! Not see any parent's prints, clever baby, dug himself in like trap door spider!” he grinned at me, lifting the tip of his spear back up and planting the butt on the ground. He braced himself on the spear and bent down, closer. “Clever baby. Going to catch dinner by popping out like a spider?” he chuckled.

The fancy-tunic one and the red armored kobold approached. “Let me see!” the one with the tunic said. He was considerably shorter than the warriors but still taller than both me and the gatherers. “How very odd. A frost kobold! We are very far west of the Silverheart Mountains. I wonder how, or why, he got here. He’s far too young to travel on his own, and he doesn’t look like he has any evolutions… Maybe someone tried to make him a familiar?” he looked at my nook and the knife I still had in front of me. “He’s got a cooking knife, and it looks like he’s got a belt of some sort, and I imagine he instinctively tried to trap his lair… Food, water. Clever little fellow.”

He glanced at the red-clad warrior. “It doesn’t look like a threat. The core did detect something though, him. I doubt we are being threatened with an invasion, and we don’t have to hide from adventurers. If you would, Tark, could you please go ask the hunters if they have seen any frost kobold travelers nearby? I would hate to think that wanderers lost their juveniles, although it’s also possible that his parents were killed. We are very close to Sindaenaway.”

“You could ask,” I replied. Causing the intellectual to actually leap backward. I had tried leaping, and I got a good half my body height out of the jump, which was impressive, but he leaped back twice his height and landed almost four feet away… from a dead stop. “He talks!”

I decided to keep a bit close-mouthed. If I was a juvenile, then having long philosophical conversations would probably alienate them. Hell, my long philosophical conversations tended to alienate anyone that heard them, when they discovered how odd I was. My best interactions always occurred from keeping my mouth shut, so I decided to play that up for now. Talk like a warrior.

I just looked at him and then said, “yes.”

The warriors had taken a step back and peered from me to the intellectual and then back. Tark said, “Huh. If he talks, he has smarts. That like. Two evolutions. At his age?”

The talky sort shook his head, “Not really. If he were bound as a familiar, Sindaenaway is a wizarding town. They like to take them young and force the familiar evolution on them, it provides more than enough intellectual capacity to speak and retain spells.” he hurried back and peered closely. “Are you a familiar? Escaped perhaps? If you were freshly imprinted and your master killed, it’s not too surprising that you survived. Obviously not a long-term bind, or you would be older.”

I shook my head. “No. Lab. Spirit magic. They dumped me and thought I was dead. Who are you?”

He looked extremely thoughtful. “My name is Carolinus. This is Tark, and this is Gus.” pointing at the two warriors, the red and then the blue-clad one. I nodded, and he reached into his pouch.

I stepped back a little, crouching down in a fighting stance, and tucking my knife behind my left forearm again as I had with the goblins. I swept my foot out a little and started dancing from my left to my right, keeping moving in a low fighting stance. I didn’t want to fight them, but I wasn’t going to let him do some sort of binding or something.

Carolinus eased his hand out of his pouch, “Don’t be alarmed, I was just putting my glove in my pouch. I was going to do a magical detection on you, see if you have been messed with by spirit magic. Do you have a name yet?”

I nodded, “Bran.” and stood up straight. “I am not from here.” I didn’t know whether explaining that I was from Earth would help or not. “Your spell, does it need touch?”

He nodded, “Yes, to do a deep scan. I can lightly scan you, but if you need help or are cursed, I won’t be able to detect it with a light scan. I must insist on a light scan, however, to ensure you are not a doppleganger or other sort of threat.”

Tark looked at Gus and raised an eyebrow. Gus shrugged.

I sighed. Celia had warned me about being touched by a bracelet, and these creatures were not wearing any, but I had to assume that this ‘scanning magic’ was somehow connected to Antowyn Online.

I sighed. This was not going to work. “Very well. I was touched by necromancy but I am not undead. My spirit was changed.” I figured if he had some kind of analyze for magic, he would discover that anyway, and I’d rather get that out of the way here, where I had a chance to run than be surrounded by a whole town full of kobolds. I wasn’t even a huge gamer, and I knew that necromancy was a bad thing.

Gee, what a surprise. Carolinus was staring at me, dumbfounded.

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