From earthling to legendary

nine more feet to go

He sat down, mind poring over every bit of poison trivia his late-night Wikipedia binges had turned up. The knowledge was there, but accessing it in his current mental state was like trying to find a library book in an earthquake. Not that it mattered either way; he didn't have access to any kind of antidote, or medical supplies, or a doctor, so his only real option was to sit down and keep his nerves in check.

I'll be okay. It was just one berry, and I only got Poison Resistance Level 1. It...probably would have already gone up to Level 2 if the damage was that going to be life-threatening. This can't possibly be worse than taco night.

It was worse than taco night.

Five minutes of worsening stomach pains and slowly – but consistently – falling HP, Rob panic-shoved his 5 unspent Stat Points into Vitality in the hopes of getting an upgrade to Regeneration. The skill stayed at Level 1, and he panicked further. His stomach bubbled and broiled with nausea to the point where he felt like vomiting, before Rob belatedly realized that his gut's instinct was a solid idea. He shoved two fingers down his throat and evicted the offending berry from his stomach. After that, all he could do was wait and pray.

By the time the poison had passed through his system, he had 163 / 270 HP remaining, the objective mathematical knowledge that he hadn't needed to pump up his Vitality, no stat points left to spend, and the sense in his core that he was nowhere close to Level 4.

—

Passive Skill Gained!

Name: Swordsmanship

Prerequisite: Dexterity 10, spend at least several hours wielding a sword.

Description: Become more proficient with sharp-edged, bladed weapons with the shape and weight of a sword.

"Nice," Rob crowed. "Apparently, when you've never held a sword in your life before yesterday, all it takes is practicing swings and getting used to its weight to go from Level 0 to level 1."

Simply put, wielding his blade after gaining Swordsmanship felt more natural than before, in subtle yet noticeable ways. The added weight straining his arm and the hilt gripped in his hand took less conscious thought to keep track of. His swing that had killed the Frenzied Wolf was one of pure desperation and haphazard instinct; less of a strike and more of flail. He was still very, very far from being able to cut the wings of a fly in a single stroke, but at least now he felt confident that he wouldn't accidentally stab himself while fighting. More confident than before, anyway.

I wonder how that works. Some skills like Tough Skin and Regeneration give me a hard number to work with, but Skills like Foraging and Swordsmanship are much vaguer about their effects. Does learning them provide a tangible benefit, or are they simply a representation of my own practice, put into words by the RPG system? Not something I'll be able to figure out without further testing and – THERE'S LIGHT!

The sight left him awestruck. At the edge of his vision, the dense wilderness that had been obstructing his sight as he traveled through the forest was suddenly absent. The concentration of trees thinned until there weren't any left, and beautifully blinding light shone through the opening, calling to him like the pearly gates of heaven.

He ran. No trees meant no forest, which meant no wolves, which meant no poison berries, which meant civilization, which meant—

His thoughts halted when he cleared the opening and quickly realized two things. One: that he hadn't given his eyes time to adjust to the light and be able to clearly see what was out beyond the trees. Second: his foot was reaching for the ground and finding only air.

Rob backpedaled like a madman as he barely avoided falling over the side of the cliff. The combination of the light, the cliff's edge being sloped downwards, and rising hills in the distance had created an optical illusion that there was more forest ahead of him, when in fact there was a valley the size of the Grand Canyon spread out below him.

No guard rails in fantasyland, I guess, Rob thought, sweat running down his forehead. Haha. Oh boy. I think I need to lie down.

The thought was jettisoned from his mind as a labored scream drew his attention. Rob barely had time to draw his shortsword as a squirrel – ten times as large as the last one he'd seen – jumped from the treetops and pounced at him with its claws extended. The furred hellbeast rammed into his chest, scratching wildly as it tried and failed to get a good grip on his skin. A glimmer of realization sparked in its glowing red eyes as the squirrel bounced off his chest and was sent careening off the edge of the cliff, screeching wildly as it flailed all the way down to its demise.

Rob, having been near the edge when a tree rat the size of a dog had tackled him, almost followed suit.

Reacting faster than he'd ever done before in his lifetime, Rob used the leverage afforded to him by the remaining foot he'd managed to keep on solid ground to push himself back towards the edge of the cliff. Gravity won their duel, his foot sliding down and off the sloped edge, but he managed to push his momentum towards the cliff before his foot completely lost purchase and he started to fall. Rob collided with the cliffside, the clawmarks on his chest leaving streaks of blood as he slid down. Fingernails tore free from his left hand as he fiercely grasped onto the dirt and stone, searching for some sort of leverage to hold onto. His right hand, holding his shortsword, dragged the edge of the blade against the side of the cliff in an effort to slow his descent. He slid a full ten feet towards oblivion before the tips of his fingers latched onto a minor outcropping, nearly pulling his arm out of its socket as his downward momentum halted in an instant.

Rob pressed himself up against the cliffside, teeth chattering. He gave himself several seconds to compose himself, understanding that every moment he spent hanging there was putting more pressure on the little outcropping that had snatched him from the jaws of death, but also knowing that if he climbed now he would fall because he was still shaking and so fucking scared.

The wolf attack couldn't compare to this moment. You could stab an animal. You could heal from a wound. You couldn't win against gravity.

Not without a plane or a parachute, and all he had was a sword which somehow hadn't slipped out of his grip on his way down.

Not that he should think so poorly of it, when it might still save his life.

His shortsword was sharp, almost unnaturally so, and whoever had forged it had done a really fucking good job. Despite his precarious position, he found it easier than expected to stab the blade perpendicular into the dirt and clay to carve out minor handholds to latch onto. Rob began his laborious climb back up the side of the cliff, creating handholds – later used as footholds – at various intervals with his sword. Each motion upward was a little bit closer to safety. Precious inches, bought with sweat and grit.

Only nine more feet to go.