Bloodfallen: Curse of The All Knowing

I slowly opened my eyes as my vision cleared up. Looking up from where I was lying I saw a familiar stone ceiling, the very same ceiling I saw when I awoke within the depths of Dom Badaher about a year ago. ‘Wait a minute.’ I thought to myself as I quickly sat up on the old bed I found myself resting on, my body stiff like I had been there for days.

‘What happened? I thought I died after that one dark imperial mage used that terrible spell against me.’ Slowly I stepped off of the bed and looked around the bedroom I once again found myself in. It was exactly as I recalled it before, like someone recreated my memory of the place down the smallest of details. ‘Is this some sort of trick?’ I thought to myself as I looked into the mirror, I looked thin and weak unlike the mussel that I put on from my time while fighting through Dom Badaher. I also felt slow and my eyesight was no better than the average commoner one might find on the street.

‘This isn’t normal. I know for a fact that I wasn’t hit with a teleportation spell, I also know that such spells take a lot of time and energy to cast without even counting for the requirements regarding long distances. Which means I can’t be in Dom Badaher, which only leaves one possibility for where I am. I am dead.’ I wasn’t sure how I should have felt reaching such a conclusion, I did know it wasn’t a good feeling but there was nothing I could do about it. So instead of trying to run from an inevitable fate of all living things I turned to the front door of the bedroom and reached forward to open it thinking that afterwards I would be going to whatever afterlife existed. But I was wrong.

When I opened that door I was expecting to see someone or something on the other side to greet me in a place I had never been to, maybe a god or an angel service of a god that I heard of in passing. But what I wasn’t expecting was a hallway with many doors along the side just like the one I was currently in.

‘What? This isn’t an afterlife, this looks just like the outside of the bedroom in Dom Badaher. But that isn’t possible, because I'm not in Dom Badaher. I died and my soul left the physical world, so why does this place look just like it?’ Half panicking, I closed the door and locked it. In my mind I thought that if I somehow was in Dom Badaher, which I couldn’t have been, then I would need a weapon of sorts. Since I couldn’t feel my mana that would need to be a physical weapon like the sword I took from the nearby office the last time I was in Dom Badaher. With a slow push the door to the office space opened and revealed it to be exactly as I recall including the set of plate armor and the longsword both forged from that familiar yellow metal that I only found in this one dwarven city.

‘This feels so wrong, I already took these things with me. Unless someone replaced them or something and brought me here as well before the red smoke spell could kill me.’

Like last time I donned the armor and strapped the longsword to my hip and stepped back into the hall closing the door behind myself and. Before I took my first step I forced myself to take a deep breath to somewhat calm myself down and to allow the armor to finish up its size ajustment that it did the last time as well. I used this opportunity to take a look at the magic at work as it only ever did anything like that once.

After watching and calming myself down I walked slowly and carefully down that familiar hallway looking in each of the rooms I passed by incase something was different from how I remembered it, but everything was as I recalled. Eventually when I reached the room that once contained the skeleton with the hammer a slowed down and stoot against the opposite wall to keep as much distance from it. Something about the undead skeleton even if it no longer existed was uncomfortable to think about let alone look at.

But to my misfortune I saw it there in the middle of the bedroom motionless and facing the wall like it was in the middle of a conversation. I held my breath to make as little noise as possible, but I accidently kicked a small stone as I tried sneaking past and the skeleton reacted by turning to look at its source and saw me. Like the last time it raised it hammer and shambled towards me ready to strike me down like last time, but the major difference this time was I actually had some training and raised my own sword for an overhead slash.

When it was within two meters of me I stepped forward and brought the longsword down with all the might I could muster aiming directly for its right arm in which it held the hammer. With a small crunch the arm was severed from its torso and fell to the ground with the hammer, but the skeleton was undead and could neither feel pain nor fear and raised its left hand towards me to try and grab me. Using the momentum from my first swing I brought the blade back up and into the lower torso of the skeleton cutting through several of the old bones and knocking it off balance. Like a drunken man the skeleton stumbled off to the side in an attempt to regain its footing, I used this as an opportunity to make a third swing towards its head.

From right to left my sword was swung and the skeletons skull was severed from the rest of its body and fell to the ground like a puppet severed from its strings. With that the adrenaline slowly started to wear off and the weight of the armor and sword slowly became more present within my mind. I quickly sheathed the sword and sat down on the cold stone floor as I took several deep breaths.

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+ 200 Exp

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Name : Arthur

Level 1

Exp : 200

Next Level at : 500

Mana : 1/1

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The HUD showed itself once again a few moments after the death of the skeleton and I just looked up towards it like a lost child. I opened it up further and looked at my attributes and found that they were all reset to ten like when I awoke down here the first time. For a moment I didn’t feel anything, I just sat there and beathed heavily and recovered my strength as I looked through the whole HUD to see if anything else had changed.

Thankfully all my skills were still there so I didn’t need to relearn anything, I probably would have cried if my magic skills were lost. But to check I conjured up a small flame on the tip of finger no larger than a candle. Seeing this small yet ever so significant amount of magic was enough for me to forget my situation for a moment, it was such a small flame and yet it filled me with hope and the knowledge that I hadn't lost everything.

Soon I was on my feet and mentally preparing myself to leave when I looked at the hammer the skeleton was wielding a few minutes prior. The last time I was here I didn’t take it with me because I didn’t have anywhere to put it, but it might not be a bad idea to bring it with me. ‘Who knows, I might find a use for it.’ I smiled as I picked the hammer up, it was lighter than I thought it would have been and further inspection showed it was designed as a tool rather than a weapon, yet the way the skeleton used it the last time was as dangerous as it was impressive. It must have been a strong person in life, perhaps a blacksmith.

Pushing those thoughts to the side I continued walking down the hall until I reached the end which connected to the second hallway. Like I recalled it was half illuminated by the dull blue crystal that partly lined the walls, looking back I never had the opportunity to think about what they even were but they were likely the same thing that was used in that cavern system underneath the temple of Velerin located within the western district of Antium.

‘I remember last time I was down here with my group the quickest way to the stairs is to follow the remaining crystals to the right. The other way does eventually loop back around, but this is quicker and there isn’t anything aside from a few collapsed interiors that way.’ Like the last time I was here I followed the hallway to the right and headed towards the stairs, but I did recall the cafeteria that a small group of goblins and I wondered to myself if I should kill them like I did last time. I decided that I could put off that decision until I reached the door.

As I walked down the hall I saw the same goblin corpses that I saw before, their blood smeared across the walls and floor like a child playing in mud. The wounds they also had were telling of how they died, numerous stab wounds from small blades like knives or daggers. Instead of the fear I felt the first time I saw these I felt disgust. The extensive combat I took part in against goblins was removing any fear I might have had in the past.

‘I wonder why they didn’t try to eat any of these corpses after they killed them but went right ahead and started cooking up the bodies of their recently dead the last time I was here?’ I made a mental note to ask someone about goblin behavior and why they chose to engage in cannibalism.

Soon I reached the door to the small cafeteria and the goblin corpse next to it with an arrow through its eye. Inspecting the scene it looked like it was running away from someone or something and turned to look and received the arrow in its eye killing it. If it hadn't been such a disgusting creature I would have felt sorry for it.

I put my ear against the door and I could hear something on the other side, it sounded like small animals growling and snarling at each other and then it suddenly went quiet. For a moment I was wondering what happened when shouting of some sort could be heard that sounded an awful lot like a goblin.

‘I remember this, the goblin leading the other seven goblins just killed his rival by stabbing him in the chest. That must have been him just yelling at his subordinates to carry his corpse away. I wonder how it would react to someone entering his little kingdom in full plate armor and cutting him down a size.’

Having made my decision I slowly opened the door to the small cafeteria and peeked around for any sign of the goblins inside. The first one I noticed was the de facto leader sitting in that slightly nicer chair at the very end of the room, it was fiddling with a knife in its hand and a piece of bone. The other goblins were either sitting around or standing while making a very basic effort at standing guard, they did this mostly outside of their leader's sight likely to avoid being yelled at for their incompetence and non compliance.

To the best of my ability I slowly stepped inside the room and hid behind one of the overturned tables to avoid being seen. Peeking over the top I was able to get a better look at what the goblins were doing. From what I saw they weren’t even doing anything other than trying to look like they were guarding the room, their eyes were half closed and they occasionally yawned and had difficulty keeping their balance.

Their layout was also just terrible as the right side of the room had only one guard while the other side had three leaving a big vulnerability on that side of the room. Since I wasn’t one to turn down such opportunities and slowly made my way around to the right side of the room and up to the exposed back of the goblin. In as quick a motion as I could I reached around and wrapped my arm around its neck and squeezed like a snake capturing a small rodent to eat, the goblin predictable flailed around its arms and the small knife in its hand in a desperate and futile attempt to escape. With my other hand I reached around and took the knife from the goblin and slowly stabbed it into the goblins neck slowly letting it bleed to death, as its slowly lost its strength and put it down onto the floor and hid it behind some nearby broken and overturned furniture.

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+ 50 Exp

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I looked at the familiar HUD notification with a smile, even though it was so little it was quite a bit to me considering that my level somehow reset. ‘By the time I kill all these goblins I will definitely reach level two. Then I could probably rest somewhere and use the twenty points I have received. I wonder if I should priorities my magic related stats or my physical ones?’

Pushing that thought out of my mind I looked over towards the leading goblin on his little throne, he looked unconcerned with how his subordinates were and more than happy to force them to work hard on his behalf. I didn’t really think all that much about this goblin before but now that I had the time I realized that its actions disgusted me and I wanted to hurt it. I couldn’t explain why, but I knew it was going to suffer for its arrogance and its undeserved pride.