CordAniCol Pt1

Tagging everything in sight, I came up with mostly stuff like ruined furniture pieces or different types of brick from the fireplaces. Closer to the bar, though, I got a few tags for 'spoiled wine' in some dusty but whole bottle. When I went over to investigate, I ended up tagging over a dozen more scattered bottles and other wood or metal containers. Most of the bottles and containers were marked ruined in some way but a few bottles turned out to be liquor that had simply spent its time aging.

As well, some of the metal containers contained different seasonings like salt and pepper and other basic spices that patrons probably once helped themselves to. Now, I was helping myself to all of it. Especially a certain bottle marked Brandied Citrus Bitters whose descriptions claimed to contain mashed and dried clumps of citrus pulp and was still fifty-five percent alcohol.

Brandied Citrus Bitters was probably a house liquor by its name and was pretty strong at one hundred and ten proof. The others were simple whiskeys and even a toxic-level potent drink called Death's Drink that was distilled from almost pure honey and sugar to come out one hundred and seventy proof.

There was no way anyone on my team but Merch was even going to know this bottle existed and even then it was only going to be to sell it with the rest of the liquor. The small half-gallon jug of house brandy, though, was a different story. There were several people in the party who enjoyed drinking in games because they could not in reality.

Sadly for those people, though, I did not allow them to buy alcohol without occasion and thus only really let them drink whenever it was loot. It was not that I had a problem with them drinking, but one of them would spend half of her time drunk and that would affect their leveling and stats in general from inebriation. She would then influence the others to spend more time drunk, too.

Oleander could not be allowed to buy or supply alcohol for herself. Ever. Period.

Part of her backstory was that she was a recovered alcoholic in her early thirties in reality who originally used virtual reality gaming to deal with her addiction. Then she enjoyed all the side jobs and side features such as drunken fun. Which was how she ended up a seductress assassin when we met.

Leaving the counter behind to search the kitchen proper, I find all of the brick and metal cooking equipment ruined and scattered as well as all the wooden cabinetry and pantries. However, there was a larder cellar right in the middle of the floor with an old and rusted chain lock that was still intact. There was where I would likely find more goodies.

Retrieving a basic iron fuller sword from my inventory, I raise the weapon up in both hands before slamming it down on a pitted portion of chain. One side of the link I struck broke apart but the rest of the chain was still intact. When I raised the sword again to finish the job, though, I was half blinded by an immense and full dark red combat alert.

Mana Radar kicked on of its own accord an a single particularly large dot appeared somewhere on the second floor as large and sharp sounding thuds start echoing through the commons from the floor above. Giant enemy indicator in a place that one held already giant spiders? I turned and ran.

The ceiling in the middle of the commons started groaning and cracking as I reached the door with a sudden series of quick and harsh thuds, steadily giving way under the immense burden the floor above carried. Turning around like an idiot as I stumbled out of the building, I saw a giant spider with a body the size of an SUV squatting low to the floor as it charged at the front wall of the lodge that I had escaped through.

Groans and whines from the weak old wood sounded through the night air as most of the front wall of the lodge fought to contain the giant spider. I fought to gain distance as I turned back around but I did not have much time for running. Maybe a second or two after I turned back around there came the crashing of dry shattering wood and the thudding of a giant heavy body hitting the ground.

Figuring the spider had fallen out of the building, I turn around while charging my hands with the small amount of mana I had replenished. However, the enormous monstrosity tagged Gigantula at level forty-four was already rolling over onto its legs. Luckily, from inside the building came a wall of rushing wind and fire that poured over the Gigantula.

Now that it was outside, the Gigantula stood more than ten feet tall but was still shoved hard to the side from the force of the attack cast by Hermes who was not far behind in levels. Despite the amount of knockback, though, the Gigantula only lost ten percent of health from what was originally Hermes' strongest magic attack of the element that this creature was weak to.

Releasing my charged electricity now that the opportunity presented itself, all of the dozen arcs from either hand closed the twenty yards of distance between the Gigantula's face and I in an instant. Once again, though, it seemed that this boss beast was resistant to magic attacks because only fifteen percent of its giant health bar drained away. Still, that was one fourth of its health gone in two attacks.

Controlling the giant beast by shoving it with one of the last Burning Gales he could cast, Hermes leaves Cweeper and his own mount in the enlarged entryway while drawing his sword from his back. Doing her part to lay down sustained damage, Cweeper begins slinging short firebolts about the legs and lower sides of the Gigantula. Each stream only amounted to one percent of initial damage but each of them burned for several seconds as Hermes spun through the two front left legs of the arachnid.

A whopping thirty percent of the Gigantula's health disappeared in that brief combo, bringing the giant spider down to forty-five percent as I finally ran forward with Midnight Hauntings in hand. Easily warding off the thrusts of the front right legs, Hermes keeps the arachnid's head open to attack as Cweeper begins laying down random Elemental Claw streaks all over the spider's back from the ruined wall of the building.

Even Duck managed to make an entrance, briefly landing behind the spider's fused head and taking off again after plucking an I as I leaped into the air. Landing in the form of smashing my sword down into the spider's face, I let go after sinking the blade most of the way through and fall to the ground. Then I ran away again.

The Gigantula was now down to its final ten percent after after receiving two critical hits in a row, leaving it open for Hermes to hook his sword up under and behind its head before dragging its body to the ground. Then, a set of six large icicles from Cweeper's hands impaled the weak underbelly and finished the spider boss. Cleanly.

[+120XP]

[Acquired Gigantula's Carapace x3]

[Acquired Gigantula's Leg x4]

[Acquired Gigantula's Fang]

[Acquired Gigantula's Eye x3]

[Acquired Gigantula's Silk x4]

[Acquired Gigantula's Venom x2]

[Acquired Gigantula's Core]

[Acquired Gold x100]

[Acquired Unique Title: Giant Gigantula Collector]

[+50XP]

[Giant Gigantula Collector: Uncommon. Active. After collecting a sample of every piece of natural loot offered by this boss not only in one go but your first go, you have been dubbed the Giant Gigantula Collector. +5% PATK/PDEF/MATK/MDEF/XP when facing anthropod enemies while wearing this title. Permanent +5% loot from both insect and arachnid enemies]

Whistling low and slow while looking over my loot so far in my inventory, I look over at Hermes while retrieving a Gigantula leg, eye, and some Giantula fangs and silk before giving the items to him and pointing at his dress. If I had been given a second fang from the Gigantula I would have given it to him. Sadly, though, I was not so lucky.

From my recent reading I now knew a great deal more about monster cores and their uses, namely the weapon and armor affects that most of the lower and medium grade monsters gave. While a Giantula's core would bestow a great deal of Agility to a piece of armor or accessory, the Gigantula's cores would bestow an even greater amount of Strength to a weapon. Especially one made from its parts.

Thinking of my teammates and familiars as I plan out what to do with my new finds, I consign myself to try harder next time to preserve the bodies better and receive more loots. As it was, I only had enough to make one stat bearing weapon and three accessories. Who these items would be for, though, was anybody's guess at the moment.

Returning to the building with some confidence that it had been thoroughly emptied, I return to the ruined kitchen and open up the larder. At first, all that greeted me was some stale air but then came the rotten funk of something that had gone really bad a really long time ago. It was so bad that I abruptly turned and threw up while struggling to leave the kitchen.

I had to leave the entire building, pulling an assortment of fruits and flowers from my inventory to bury my face in for the sake of breathable air. However, whatever had been in the air seemed to be stuck in my sinuses and the back of my throat despite my vomiting. Every intake and outflow of air smelled and tasted like a combination of bile and long rotten meat.

"Fuck! This! Realism!" I scream into the plants and ground under my face, venting my frustrations at the horror I had just experienced.

Being much more used to such scenes and circumstances, Cweeper and Hermes simply used air and fire magic to purify and ventilate the air in the building. It was actually surprising how smart they were, but they both came from underground habitats. Fire was probably how they cleaned their waste areas for the same reasons.

When all was finally well in the world again, I returned to the kitchen while binding a folded hand towel under the mask of my helm to breathe through. For reasons such as this I would probably need to make proper gas masks in the future. That, though, was a project plan for another day far away from now.

For the time being, I finally found out the source of the smell in the larder. There was a cluster a moldy skeletons down in the middle of the cellar surrounded by what could only be described as a pool of fungus and spore pod stalks. It was probably one of the most disgusting and terrifying things I had ever seen.

Worse still was the fact that there were scattered pieces of much cleaner skeletons. With the cellar door locked from the outside, these people who were for some unknown reason trapped down here had probably been forced to cannibalize before the air in the cellar became too toxic to breathe from crowding and waste. The sight was even worse than the smell.

I could not stay there but instead walked away while Hermes filled the cellar with fire and Cweeper covered the kitchen with water and ice to compensate. A few minutes later, my fearless familiars braved their way down into the cellar. After another couple of minutes and a lot of loud noises, they both came up with an assortment of loot.

Most of what they brought up were ruined pieces of metal armor and weapons, but some of them bore familiarly humorous names such as Perfectly Pointless Pauldron. If I were to scrap these, they would probably create interesting recyclables. Collecting the three named pieces from their loot, I disregard the rest except for some handfuls of smelted gold coins and ruined jewelry.

"Whoever they were, they were locked down there with their armor, weapons, and money," I find myself musing while drawing Midnight Hauntings. "Spirits!" I call out, releasing my mana in a massive pulse that spreads throughout the area Then again, and again before I finally ran out of mana all over again.

However, it was enough because now there were suddenly smaller pulses appearing in the kitchen with ghostly ethereal humanoid forms hanging about the air, walls, and floor. "Can any of you tell me anything about what happened here?" I ask curiously only to be answered with silence. "Can any of you show or lead me to any clues or points of interest in the area?" Once more, I was answered only with silence.

"I see…" I say slowly while pointing Midnight Hauntings forward. "If that's how it is, then begone from this world!" In response to my command, all of the spirits flew forward and shredded themselves upon the end of my sword before disappearing into the blade. This time, though, I did not receive a notification about my sword becoming stronger.

Then, of course, curiosity finally got the better of me. Holding a piece of old burning table leg for a torch, I walk down into the larder and stop at the bottom of the steps while using Appraisal. While Hermes and Cweeper had only been interested in the things that belonged to the bodies I soon found numerous tags for glass and metal containers of dry storage goods like liquor and ruined flours.

Walking deeper into the larder to look at shelf of liquor and wine bottles at the back, I soon find something crunching underfoot. It was part of a skeletal arm that was smashed into the ground under some ruined metal cabinetry. However, as I looked at the arm, it turned out there was a tag about the arm's moldy marrow.

[Cordycep Animatum Infected Marrow]

As the skeleton broke under my foot, a thin cloud of dusty spores puffed up into the air and began spreading. I barely even had time to take a step back before the circulating air in the cellar drew the thinning spore cloud up and back toward the kitchen. And all around me as it passed by.

"Burn it!" I scream suddenly as a new notification appeared in my field of view.

[You have been infected with Cordycep Animatum, the animation fungal parasite. You have sixty seconds before you rot into a ghoul, please lower your body temperature to slow down the process. Suicide is an option]

I could feel my skin softening and turning runny as I drew upon what little mana I had, holding my breath as flames appeared in the opening of the cellar and poured down around me for minimal damage. The softening of my skin started slacking and tearing from all over my body as I unleashed Frostbite on my own armor and body. The pain was relieved a little as a thick layer of frost appeared around my body but the muscles inside my body suddenly started softening the same as my skin like an acid was coursing through my body.

Screaming uncontrollably as I fall to my knees, I hug my frigid body as the smoky air clears and begins filling with a chilling vapor. Cweeper had caught on to what I was doing and was freezing the cellar for me.

[Parasites are slowly going inert, you now have 2.5min before ghoul conversion. Suicide is still an option, Hack]

"Y-y-y-you w-want me t-t-to d-die?!" I demand bitterly through chattering teeth as the cellar around me develops layers of frost and ice on every available surface. "M-mel-m…"

[You are now seventy-degrees hypothermic]

Giving up on speaking as I begin taking one damage per second from the cold, I simply yell in my head, 'Melpomene, you don't know me like that! I won't give up till the last point is gone! THERE'S A RANKING FOR HOW LONG MY FIRST LIFE LASTS!'

Clenching my teeth against the varying pains in my body as my strength continues fading and I find myself curled up on the floor of the cellar. Still, even as the cold rose and with it the damage I was taking the only thing I could think to do was cast First-Aid to extend my life.

[You now have four minutes until becoming a ghoul, you can no longer extend your transformation any further. Healing will now invigorate the parasites. Suicide is still an option]

But was it the only option?! Give me something I can work with instead of telling me to kill myself! Or do you just really want to see a pretty corpse?"

[The Cordycep Animatum will take over your mind and body and seek out food for procreation. Your party is the closest sure food in your memory. Killing the host will kill the parasites before the ghoul has formed. In Bygone Era, Cordycep Animatum is a very rare and dangerous fungal monster that can take any host that was already alive when exposed]

"M…" I breathe through lips so frigid they were cracking with spots of red ice forming around the already softened flesh of my face. "M… mon… ster? Heh…" I sigh almost in relief, closing my eyes as ice crystals began painfully forming on my cornea. CAPTURE!

[Failed to Capture: Cordycep Animatum Colony]

FROSTBITE!

Another layer of frost and ice appeared over my body and I went completely stiff, no longer able to even breathe.

[Failed to Capture: Cordycep Animatum Colony]

FIRST-AID! FROSTBITE!

[Cordycep Animatum has integrated into your bones, you have 1.5min until you become a ghoul]

[Failed to Capture: Cordycep Animatum Colony]

[Killing yourself is no longer possible. I am sorry, Hack. Your familiars may not know to run in time]

FUCKING CAPTURE! TAME! FROSTBITE! TRANSMUTE!

[Transmuting: Cordycep Animatum Colony]

[Transmuting: Life Hack]

[Cordycep Animatum Colony and Life Hack have entered Stasis]

[Successfully Captured: Cordycep Animatum Colony]

[+3000XP]

[Leveled up]

[All stats raised by 1]

[Luck has reached 100 points]

[Acquired Luck Perk: Windfall]

[+250XP]

[Windfall: Passive. After reaching one hundred points in your Luck stats, you now have slightly increased chances of receiving more and better loot from combat as well as greater chances of finding rare quests and rewards]

[+3000 Beast Mastery XP]

[Beast Mastery Leveled x8]

[200XP]

[Acquired Unique Title: Carrion]

[+1000 XP]

[Carrion: Legendary. Passive. As the first player to not only successfully tame an A grade fungal parasite monster responsible for history's worst plagues but to convert the parasite into a symbiote you have earned the title of Carrion to show the world that you are no longer human but a member of the living dead. Not only do Cordyceps replicate the tissue of their hosts while taking over, a symbiotic relationship like yours will allow the Cordyceps to heal your injuries. Wild undead will now defer to you, permanent +5 to all stats, and you have received a race evolution. +15 Imperial Reputation]

[Evolved from Human to Plaguedman]

[+500XP]

[Leveled up]

[All stats raised by 1]

[Willpower has reached 100 points]

[Acquired Willpower Perk: Unbending]

[Unbending: For reaching 100 points in the Willpower stat, you now have the Unbending perk that increased your physical, magical, and even pain resistances by 10%. You also now regenerate an extra 3MP per second]

[Acquired Unique Title: First Metahuman]

[+300XP]

[First Metahuman: Legendary. Passive. For being the first human to evolve passed their mortal or biological limitations, you have been awarded the First Metahuman title. To prove your supremacy over the basic races and even those who follow in your footsteps, +10 to all stats and +10% to all attack and defense parameters. +30 Imperial Reputation]

[Strength has reached 100 points]

[Acquired Strength Perk: Inhuman]

[+100XP]

[Inhuman: For reaching 100 points in Strength, your body has become numb to the burdens of the world. Your armor, weapons, Character Inventory, and even enemies now weigh 10% less while your physical attack is increased by 10%]

[Acquired Unique Title: First Transcendent]

[+500XP]

[First Transcendent: Legendary. Passive. As the first player to transcend the race they started the game with, you have been named the evolutionary front runner by the title First Transcendent. To set your achievements apart from the other players who will surely follow in the wake of your enthusiasm, +5 to all stats and +5% to Loot/XP/MVSPD. +50 Imperial Reputation]

[15s remaining until you suffocate, Hack]

Using all of the mana I had just gained from my levels and stat raises, I mix Quick Quake and Firebolt and let it explode outward from around me to shudder and shatter all ice in the cellar as well as raise the temperature by fifty degrees. Seeing that I was alive and below half of my health, Cweeper fearlessly raced down into the cellar to place her hands on my side and start healing me.

In seconds I was feeling almost like my old self again except for the fact that I felt a little taller and heavier than before. If not for the fact that our armor changed sized to suit the body wearing it I would have probably been squeezed tight in my suit. As well, my body still felt somehow soft and light.

*