Return to Jorgaldur Volume III: blood warrior

Green leveling area (IV)

It was a bit strange. She was chasing the scarlet antelopes, obtaining their reddish skin, their blood and their meat, but she couldn't kill them with her own hands. At least, five of them had been killed by other predators, which in turn had been preyed upon by the vampire. With that, she had managed to raise to level 11.

Fraternize was a spell common to all classes, thanks to which they could share their blessings with other players, although she had few that were shareable. In fact, at that time, only Dark Touch, for Bloody Touch was only useful for vampires.

The Intangible skill causes the body to assume a disembodied form for a few seconds, by spending 10% of the blood pool every second it is active. It also causes a great burden to the body, thus losing 10% of the vitality. Further, it can't be used for an hour after casting it. It was a skill with which she harmed herself, but which could also save her from a critical situation. With it, she felt much safer.

Twelve antelopes remained, which had managed to hide in a second refuge, However, they were watched by a silent Bat, which was ordered by her creator to explore the surroundings.

The main problem was how to hunt down all of them, how to get all their blood and experience points. Those which had managed to survive were the highest level ones. A couple of them had reached level 13.

Digging traps would have been too slow and noisy, plus she didn't think she could build them by hand, and Eldi wasn't there. So, she had to settle for creating as many Tentacles as possible in their escape routes. It took several hours, as she had to keep recovering mana.

Gjaki would have wanted to cast more, but she couldn't spend much more time on it or the sunrise would come. So, she slipped between them by Gliding, and quickly slashed a level 11 one on its leg. Before they could react, she did it with another, and another, and another.

They were quick cuts and not very deep, but her plan wasn't to kill them. She wanted to use Betrayal to turn them against each other.

While it wasn't going to last long, it was enough to create chaos, to make them to fight each other for a few moments, for others to run and fall into her traps.

She slipped under one of her preys, and took the opportunity to disable one of its legs. Then, she headed towards those which were fleeing, those which had been caught by the traps. They were rearing up, trying to break free, when the vampire attacked from behind.

She Bit on its neck, to bleed it and recover what she had spent. Weakened, it was finished off by a precise stab wound.

She wrapped herself in Darkness to attack the next one with Backstab. She left both daggers stuck to finish it off with Scratch, thus piercing with the nails of both hands near the daggers, into its neck.

Gjaki had to jump to the side to dodge a level 13 antelope's attack. Blood Overload's extra agility came in handy, as well as being able to switch to the whip and catch two of the legs with Grab.

She couldn't bring it down, but she destabilized it, and used the momentum of the whip to get closer to the antelope. The vampire blocked its antlers with the shield that was still intact, and jumped over, to fall just behind said antlers, after having released the shield.

Clinging to them, she stabbed a sword a few inches inside it. Then, she struck the weapon with a hammer until it pierced its neck. It wasn't easy to wield and use the big hammer with one hand, while holding onto a rearing animal with the other, but soon its body fell limp. Wasting no time, she made her way to the next prey.

In the end, four of them escaped, while eight were killed, bled and quartered. She hadn't reached level 12, but she didn't have time to keep trying. The sun would rise soon, so it was better to go back. Therefore, she quickly left the place.

Gjaki again summoned a Bat to explore the way, to discover its dangers before she did. Thanks to this, she avoided a strange green snake with gold patterns, and didn't cross the path of a level 12 armored armadillo. It was two meters in diameter when coiled.

However, an owl attack caught her off guard. Hidden in a branch, it dived on her in silence, and at the tremendous speed that its level 23 could reach. It had been resting and licking its wounds, after fleeing the area of its level, and a prey had just appeared to satisfy its hunger.

She saw it when it was just inches from her. She didn't have time to dodge, to change direction. The vampire could only watch its powerful claws pierce her from side to side, to the surprise of the bird of prey.

She had had no choice but to activate Intangible. It took her three seconds to deactivate it, thus wasting a large amount of her blood pool, and being unable to use it for an hour.

She felt pain all over her body, as if every part of her could break off. She had lost 10% of her vitality and could feel how Self-Regeneration was working, was gradually softening the pain. It was repairing the disruption in her body from the use of the skill, perhaps on a molecular level.

Nonetheless, she didn't have time to worry about it or the pain. The owl had turned, and was looking at her. It was flapping its wings to pounce on her again, even though she had wrapped in Darkness after deactivating Intangible.

Gjaki doubted that she could escape from that predator, who seemed to be able to detect her and follow her through the sky. So, while she was drinking blood, she used the stupidest tactic Goldmi had ever proposed. Of course, it had never worked in the game. She threw a chunk of antelope meat as she turned off Darkness and sped away.

The Owl looked at the meat without really knowing where it had come from, but it was certainly fresh, preferable to that stunted and strangely elusive prey.

So, as the Owl devoured the gift, she was running relentlessly, using even Blood Overload, while fearing being pursued by the fearsome predator.

Only when she crossed through the barrier did she calm down. Gjaki sat on the cave floor to catch her breath, though she soon decided that she needed something more to get that ordeal out of her head. Thus, the last piece of chocolate cake disappeared from Gjaki's inventory.