#010 – What’s the brand of this energy drink?

#010 – What’s the brand of this energy drink? My arms were jelly as I grit my teeth and forced myself to do one more pushup. With my stamina all exhausted, I fell back down, breathing heavily. “How... How many was that...?” I asked between the breaths. JamieWasTaken3: 21 trelipideliberitation: 21! I groaned. “There’s no way I can get that stupid skill point before I starve to death...” I mumbled. I was between a rock and a hard place. I could either risk it and try eating the green stuff without appraising it first, or I could try going into the dungeon again in hopes of getting a food drop, knowing that my inexperience might get me killed. “This sucks...” I said as I got up again after catching my breath. I glanced at a nearby bush, thought about my options for a minute, and then finally made an executive decision. I let out a sigh and very reluctantly walked over to a nearby bush, before reaching out and plucking a leaf out of it. I did not expect the small burst of orange smoke that came out of both the leaf and the branch from the point where I separated them. I yelped in surprise and dropped the leaf as I jumped back. JamieWasTaken3: wtf?! bloopbooper: bloop?! I stared as more smoke seeped out and dispersed in the air before the trickle gradually slowed down and stopped, leaving behind a completely innocent leaf and a bush. I stared at it. “...Chat. Something tells me these are not normal plants either,” I said, deadpan. “I don’t know if I wanna eat leaves filled with toxic fumes... No scratch that, I know I don’t wanna do that.” trelipideliberitation: but what if it’s delicious JamieWasTaken3: yea I dunno Jeofffff: eh so green sludge is better? I groaned again. “I don’t know! Dammit, I wish I’d gotten appraisal instead of heat vision now...” I let out a pathetic whine as my stomach grumbled again. This was getting me nowhere. As much as I wanted to first make sure it was all safe, stressing out about everything didn’t accomplish anything. Everything was risky, but I would be damned if I just didn’t even try anything and let myself starve to death. So I plucked another leaf from the bush. Just like before, the orange fumes seeped out of it but I didn’t drop it this time. Instead, I carefully reached out with my other hand to carefully wave my hand through the fumes. It didn’t feel like much of anything, but weirdly enough, rather than my hand blocking the smoke, it almost seemed to absorb it. I retracted my hand and looked at it. It didn’t look any more orange than before and I didn’t feel any different. “...Chat, why does everything about this world have to be so weird?” Irid123: it’s pretty unique though JamieWasTaken3: do you have tree powers now? trelipideliberitation: why not? lol PrestoFive55: you’re absorbing it? I rolled my eyes, but quickly checked my status regardless to confirm that nothing had changed. “No, I don’t think I have tree powers.” I sighed as the leaf I was still holding ejected the last bits of the smoke. I eyed it for a few more seconds before shrugging and putting it in my mouth. It tasted like... well, a random bush leaf. Bitter, hard to chew, and overall just unpleasant. Really, what else had I expected? I swallowed with a grimace and part of me expected to see the quest completed pop-up, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen. “I don’t think that was very nutritious... ” I shook my head. “Well, test number two then...” JamieWasTaken3: wtf dont do it trelipideliberitation: you’re not gonna do what I think you are right? There was another small pond of the green slime right beside the dungeon, so luckily, I didn’t have to backtrack at all to get to some. Once again, I knelt by it and scooped up a handful, ignoring the chat going crazy. “Look, chat. It’s either this or go back into the dungeon and fight weird zombies! And I suck at fighting!” It still smelled awfully sweet. “Here goes nothing...” I licked a bit of it. It was as sweet as its scent. I waited for a few seconds, but I neither felt like I was dying nor was there a quest completed pop-up. Of course, it could still have delayed side effects, but I couldn’t afford to wait around an arbitrary amount of time while my death clock ticked down every second. “I guess it’s like I have a fuel gauge for it that automatically fills up, but when I try to use it with an empty gauge, I choke...” GonguuH: that’s probably what Ether is JamieWasTaken3: yea you ran out of ether thats why you choke Jeofffff: so Ether recharges really fast then? I nodded. “Hmm, I guess so?” I continued to experiment, using the fire breath in various ways, and noticed the energy from before slowly fading. Even as I got more and more tired, I kept practicing the skill, trying all the different ways I could shape and aim it. But then, as I let out one last fire breath, instead of feeling the familiar ‘cooldown’ kick in, I suddenly felt like I got hit by a tsunami. My muscles all shuddered, my head spun, my vision got blurry, and I collapsed into a heap. My entire body shook and I felt sluggish. It was even worse than back in the dungeon. Fuck fuck fuck! I couldn’t move. I could barely twitch my fingers. Needless to say, I began panicking even as chat began to fuss over me. Somehow, despite my vision being blurry, I could still read chat perfectly. SpoOo0oOon: Nana! JamieWasTaken3: oh fuck you overdid it Irid123: uh that’s not good I couldn’t respond, though. I just lay there, my body twitching, my mind going into overdrive trying to figure out how to fix this. If I could, I would probably be hyperventilating and flinging my limbs around. As it stood, all I could manage were shallow breaths and small twitches of muscles. It was terrifying, this kind of loss of control. Luckily, even though nothing I tried to do helped, it eventually stopped on its own. It took a while – it was hard to tell how long exactly – but the sudden paralysis eventually faded and I could somewhat move again. “Ffff–iiighterplane...” I slurred out, my throat muscles still apparently not working properly. “What... even... was ‘hat...” I said between shuddering breaths. Jeofffff: I think THAT was you running out of Ether GonguuH: I think you have a big Ether battery and a small one JamieWasTaken3: too much smoke GonguuH: the small one quickly recharges from the big one GonguuH: fire breath uses the small one JamieWasTaken3: oh yea that makes sense GonguuH: and you just emptied your big battery I blinked a few times. “That... makes sense, yeah.” I sighed as I attempted to get up on my shaky limbs. “So... be careful not to run out completely or... that happens. Got it.” I was really lucky there were no animals around to chomp on me while I’d lain there. Still, I never wanted to experience that again. I really needed to be careful with how much I used the fire breath... and probably any other future skill that used Ether. I briefly glanced around and found out that it was getting dark again. It caught me off guard again, but this time, I didn’t panic. Since no monsters had come to get me last night, there probably wouldn’t be anything this night either. Hell, did I even need a shelter? If there was literally nothing except for weird smoke plants and dungeons as far as the eye could see... I groaned and plopped back down. “Welp, might as well just sleep wherever, right? I don’t get cold, and it’s not like I’m gonna find a more comfortable place to sleep.” PrestoFive55: already? “Yeah... It’s not like I can do much else, right? I’m just gonna knock myself out if I keep practicing. Screw that.” I shook my head. “And I’m definitely not gonna try and take on the dungeon now when I’m all tired.” JamieWasTaken3: hey maybe try to eat more goop? GonguuH: that’s true, maybe it recharges Ether I blinked... and then slowly got up again. “That’s a good idea, actually... Yeah, you know what? That energizing effect is probably my Ether being recharged!” I dragged myself over to the slime lake despite my protesting muscles, scooped up some of it, and drank it. I instantly felt better, the vague void inside me filling with energy again. My instincts were telling me that I was good to go, as far as breathing fire was concerned. So just to test it, I looked up, in a direction where no trees were, and breathed a little flare of fire. As expected, I felt the pseudo-cooldown settle in as always, but the emptiness quickly filled in again and I was free to use the skill once more. “Okay! Yeah! I got it! This stuff is like... Ether recharge potion!” Then I remembered the vial still in my pocket and pulled it out. “And this thing is a refined version!” I concluded with a grin. It felt good to finally figure out something in all the weirdness of this world. Obviously, I still had many questions about everything. Like, why were those sludge lakes even around? Where did they come from? Could I refine it into the viscous potion myself somehow? Could– My stomach growled. “Ugh... It doesn’t help with my hunger, though... Dammit.” I glanced back at the dungeon and eyed it for a moment. I no longer felt sleepy, I had my energy drink in case of emergency, and I’d practiced using my sword and fire breath a decent amount. Sure, it was getting late but... “Alright chat. Change of plans. It’s dungeon time again! This time for real!”