Rotten arms sm against Joshua’s shield.
With a grunt, he pushes the zombie away and sshes at it with his sword.
Metal meets flesh, cleaving through its fickle body in an amateur ssh, and snuffing the undead light out of its eyes.
Joshua pants as the zombie falls, he adjusts the sword and shield in his hands in a feign attempt to feel more secure.
It doesn't work.
There's a loud thud behind him, and he turns just in time to see a skeleton fall into pieces as a shovel shatters his skull.
Jophiel huffs through her muzzle as she walks up.
“You okay?”
“Pony” She nods.
“Christ… we just need to avoid caves, don't we?”
“Pony”
It is 1:12PM.
They are west of the mountains, northeast of the hospital.
According to the Pokenav, there is… something nearby, but so far he's yet to see anything.
He wants to check it out, maybe it has some loot, or more importantly more clues how to escape this pce.
And maybe another note from Ace?
Maybe.
But something has made itself abundantly clear.
Mobs are “spawning” now.
Just like the game, they seem to just… appear in pces too dark for him to see, mostly stumbling out of cave entrances he walks past.
Zombies are slow, loud, and stumble into everything around them like the average Atnta resident. They're harmless by themselves, only taking a few easy swings to kill (luckily, they don't follow the ‘destroy the head’ archetype), but it's when they're in a group that makes him quite threatening.
Slow, clumsy, and dumb. But they are persistent. Once they see you, they just make a straight line towards you until they are killed or they can't detect you anymore.
Skeletons are a fucking nightmare in comparison. They're brittle, even weaker than zombies, but they have access to bows and arrows and can use them (albeit poorly).
It's the reason Joshua spent an iron ingot to make a shield, skeletons are experts at shooting in a sneaky shot while you're distracted, or God forbid there's multiple of them. Then they'll just rain arrows at you with reckless abandon. Most of the time, the shield takes care of it, sometimes though an arrow would slip through his defenses.
Like what happened just now.
“Fuck…”
“Pony?”
Joshua looks down to his leg, he winces as he sees an arrow sticking out of his calf. Blood stains his pants, and a sharp pain runs up his spine each time he puts pressure on the leg.
He immediately falls to his ass, wincing in pain.
“Shit… shit!”
Jophiel runs up, her eyes widen at the sight of the wound.
“Pony!”
“I don't know! Do… do I pull it out?”
“PONY!”
Jophiel trots in pce as she looks around, anxiety building on her face. She doesn't know either.
Doesn't pulling it out make it worse? Or is that just for knives? He doesn't know!
But he has bandages, so the bleeding shouldn't be so b-
Joshua opens his inventory and sees something off to the right of the interface. A smaller box with a symbol of three green bubbles in it, with the rgest bubble having the shadow of a skull over it.
[POISON I - 00:39]
[POISON I - 00:40]
[POISON I - 00:39]
His heart drops.
Jophiel has a ghastly expression as she reads it too. They watch it count down for a moment, then count back up, stuck at 40 seconds. Is it because the arrow is still in him?
Is he going to die? Poison? Is it like in the game?
Questions run through him, but he shakes it off. He knows better than to let his thoughts spiral, like with what happened earlier.
No no, he's not a game character, this isn't just a status effect, this is honest to God poison.
Joshua takes a deep breath.
He can't afford to pussyfoot.
Pulling it out is going to hurt.
Hovering his hand over it, he hesitates.
Then something strikes him.
“Wait a second”
Joshua gets an idea.
He doesn't have to pull the arrow out.
Willing his aura, he hovers it over the arrow and watches as it envelopes it. With an almost anticlimactic fir it disappears into his inventory, a noticeable pressure leaves his leg.
He looks at the box beside his inventory again.
[POISON I - 00:40]
[POISON I - 00:39]
[POISON I - 00:38]
A small relieved sigh escapes him, at least one problem is getting fixed.
His wound has a green, almost sickly hue to it. And for some strange reason, one he can only dismiss as “Minecraft logic”, grossly green bubbles seem to float off of him before popping.
He can't recall exactly, but something simir would happen if you get poisoned in the game…
That's not how poison works in real life though.
But that doesn't make sense…
Unless status conditions also work like it does in the game.
Unless Joshua also works like a pyer in the game…
…That's a scary thought.
He doesn't like things being… changed. Especially in his body. Joshua can already feel the existential dread creeping up as the idea of his physiology being changed without him knowing.
Joshua moves despite his thoughts, pulling a roll of bandages out of his inventory, hes about to use them before a particurly white horse stops him.
Jophiel roughly nudges the bandages out of his hand with her muzzle and pushes him down with her hooves.
Her horn ignites, and the bandages in his hand floats out and unravels in the air.
It seems to glow slightly brighter, the pastel pink energy gaining a denser edge.
And instead of enveloping the bandages, it envelopes him. After a moment, a cleansing white light fades off of him.
He looks at his inventory again, and to his surprise…
The poison is gone?
There's no second box anymore.
He looks at Jophiel, who's coat now has a noticeable sheen to it due to the sweat, she's also breathing quite heavily.
“You can… do that?”
Joshua looks at his wound, it's remarkably cleaner than before, and as Jophiel begins wrapping him up, he notices a distinct ck of pain compared to before.
“Pony” She nods.
“Is it a magical pony thing? Or are you special like that?”
Jophiel scoffs, then brings a hoof to her chest with prideful arrogance.
“Ponyta” She chuffs with a snooty tone, trying to hide how tired she really is.
“Of course”
All this from a skeleton.
They haven't even encountered all the mobs from the game yet…
Joshua devises a pn, in case they meet some of the others. A creeper could probably kill him instantly, and he doesn't want to be caught unprepared.
But still, how did she do that? The curing thing. Jophiel has only done some telekinesis and minor telepathy (according to her).
[TulipOfficial: Oh that's Pastel Veil, Garian Ponyta’s ability, she can protect others from poison]
“...”
He keeps forgetting he has a chat.
