Ch10: Checking Out Her Gear & Continuing to Explore

The walk back to her little respawn point cave was uncomfortably cold, just like stepping out from a hot shower into the freezing air. Luckily Krvavy has a campfire to warm herself back up with, and a conveniently placed rock right beside it to sit on. But how long will this fire last? She doesn’t want to have to constantly be carrying sticks all the way up here to keep it lit. That’d be annoying, to say the least.

Ever-Burning Campfire: This fire is sustained by magic and will not die out. Radiates a pleasant heat and burns with a woody scent.

Krvavy nods as she reads the popup, happy that her campfire will take care of itself. This is supposed to be a fairly realistic game, but she'll give that a pass because it is so convenient for her. Besides, it is magic, so who is she to complain about it?

Trailing her eyes across the room, Krvavy quickly learns that she can use Inspect on just about anything.

Supple Elgian Moss: This dense mat of moss is soft to the touch and exceptionally well padded.

Pure Spring Water: This water is kept clean and healthy by magical means.

Iron-Headed Femur Axe: This crude two-handed axe is composed of a jagged chunk of iron wedged into one end of large femur bone. Deals primarily Slash damage.

Ice-Wolf Pelt Loincloth: This thick white furred loincloth is surprisingly durable and well insulated.

Crude Waterskin: This waterskin is crudely made and gives the water held in it a leathery taste. Can hold 1.6L of water.

Assorted Jerky: These thin strips of various meats have been been thoroughly dried.

“Great. Mystery meat jerky. If this wasn’t a game I’d find that a bit worrying. The rest is... Well it is starter gear, so it could be worse. Still doesn’t feel good that the moss sounds like its a higher rarity, but alright.” Krvavy comments with a shake of her head. “Guess I’m going for more of a physical power build anyway, so my gear won’t matter all that much. Wearing armour would make the definitely not programmed by a pervert unique trait of mine useless, after all...”

Glancing back to her loincloth, still resting on the ground where she left it, Krvavy considers putting it back on. She figures that she has dried off enough, but she also wants to see how much True Defence her Naturists Blessing gives her. If it even gives her any when she is naked.

But how would she check that out? Focusing on True Defence just brings the definition back up, and the same thing happens for Naturists Blessing. What does she need to focus on to find it? Resistances?

“Huh, that’s a lot to take in...” Krvavy idly mutters as she inspects the small info box. “First off, why the fuck couldn’t I have seen this in the character creation?! This is something that you normally get to see, what with how important it is! Secondly, what is with temperature being on here? I guess it makes sense thematically, but what the fuck does it mean by ‘comfortable’ and ‘tolerable’?! Is ‘tolerable’ just uncomfortable, or does anything past that become fatal? And are these ranges for when I’m naked, or what?”

After a moment of absolutely nothing popping up into her vision to answer those questions, Krvavy simply groans in annoyance before moving on. “Fine. At least the actual resistances seem pretty good. A little too good, actually. Those are some big percentages to start with. How can this be balanced? Ahh... I probably shouldn’t complain about that if it is in my favour...”

Krvavy abruptly stands up. She is dry enough now, so might as well see how her True Defence changes when she puts on that loincloth. Retying the braided leather cord over her hip and securing the loincloth on her, she focuses back on her resistances. Now only mostly naked, her True Defence has increased to 28.47%.

“Wow. That’s actually pretty good. Almost a full third of all damage taken off. And that is before the other resistances.” She idly comments, before getting an inquisitive look on her face. “Hmm... My Naturists Blessing said that it gives True Defence in proportion to how little I am wearing, though not what the optimal amount to wear would be... But since I can see how much True Defence I have, there really isn’t anything stopping me from just trial and erroring my way to the answer...”

She doesn’t have anything else that can even be called clothing in this cave of hers, but this game also doesn’t have equipment slots. As such, Krvavy figures that she could just try covering her body up. But with what?

After a quick glance around the room, she sees that there are only two things that she could really cover herself with: the small animal skin covered in strips of jerky, or the larger pelt that is her bedding.

Without any other options, Krvavy lifts up her surprisingly heavy bedding and wraps it around her shoulders, trying to cover as much of her body as possible. With little more than her head showing she looks back to her resistances. Her True Defence has decreased to 2.22%.

“Dammit... I was hoping that, at the very least, ten percent was the minimum... That way end-game armour could still be an option...” Krvavy sighs as she opens her impromptu fur cloak up, so that it only really covers her back and leaves most of her front bare. That makes her True Defence increase to 14.76%. “Alright, fine. Guess I’ll have to try this again later when I have some actual clothing...”

Putting her fur bedding back in its place on the ground, Krvavy decides that she has hung around in here for long enough. Time to get back out there and continue exploring. But first she should see if the waterskin is filled up, or if she’ll have to do that herself...

Walking down past where she showered, Krvavy pauses to take in her surroundings. She finds it oddly comfortable, standing here surrounded by steaming hot springs. It is kind of like a sauna, which she could never really stand as Leanna. She isn't the biggest fan of heat and she hates humidity. But here, as Krvavy, it feels so luxurious. Maybe the steam has the same properties as the water does?

She doesn’t bother inspecting it though, as she doesn’t want to waste her time any more. It took her long enough getting the waterskin open without breaking it, and even longer trying to find a way to carry some jerky around. It turns out that her loincloth has a small pouch on the opposite side to the braided leather belt, right next to a spot to tie her waterskin. Hopefully the jerky is filling, as she couldn’t fit all that much in there...

Shaking her head, Krvavy continues on. She has to step over quite a few little streams of this warm hot spring water, as it cascades from one pool and flows to the next. There must be at least ten hot springs clustered together here on this fairly steep hill. But at least they provide a bit of light, so she isn’t walking in complete darkness here. Without their dim light she might have even missed the turn, walking further off into the darkness instead of taking the switchback path heading towards the lighter grotto section of the cave.

Said path leads off and away from the hot springs, crossing through an expansive and mostly flat section of this rocky cave, only dimly lit up by the light from the water and the distant plant filled area. Leaving the steam, she quickly comes across a river that has carved its way into the ground. It isn’t particularly wide, and she could probably jump across it if needed, but that isn’t necessary as there is a natural bridge of stone stretching across it.

Even though she doesn’t have the best opinion of the developers, due to all the horny and perverted things they needlessly added, she can’t help but admire the level design here. This whole place looks very natural, if clearly on the fantasy side, but it is still pretty clear where she needs to go. The path isn’t too obvious, but it isn’t hard to follow either. The stone beneath her feet isn’t much different looking than the stone off to the side. It is fairly subtle really. At least beyond the bridges over the rivers.

With another stone bridge, the path crosses the next river before sharply turning left a bit before a third one, where it passes through an archway of two large columns that reach all the way up to the cave ceiling. The path then descends down a switchback path, crossing those three rivers over natural stone bridges multiple times.

The geology of this cave is quite interesting. Probably. Krvavy vaguely remembers taking a few Earth Science courses back in Uni, so a lot of what she is seeing in a little familiar. She honestly didn’t pay much attention in those classes because they were so easy to pass, but some of the pictures shown were interesting enough to stick with her.

The cliff that she is descending seems to have some columnar basalt flows along its edges, kind of like the Giant’s Causeway. But she doesn’t remember enough to know if it being here is particularly realistic. Probably not, but it doesn’t really matter how much creative liberty was taken. That the end result looks nice is all that really matters.

As she makes her way down through the three sections of the switchback path, the area around her gradually gets brighter and less barren, with patches of moss cropping up alongside small shrubs. The view of the large lake and plant-filled grotto is still pretty amazing, though nowhere near as good as it was from up on the ledge where she could overlook the entire cave.

Approaching the lake, Krvavy notices that she can’t tell if the water is still glowing or not. The light spilling down from the holes in the ceiling of the cave is fairly bright, so it could be drowning it out. Or maybe the magic is getting drained by all these plants, as they have become quite densely packed. It is almost like a jungle down here, just not as hot, or as humid, and without all the trees...

The path is a lot more obvious now though, as it carves through the larger plants. It still feels fairly natural with moss, dirt, and stone leading the way, but it also gives the impression that any larger shrubs were cut and cleared.

Krvavy has no idea how large this cave is, as she can’t see an obvious exit. Even looking up towards the holes where the light spills in doesn’t help, as no matter the angle she can’t seem to get a clear view of the sky. This path also seems rather long and winding, which is starting to bore her a bit. Sure, the view is beautiful, but it is all kind of the same down here.

Crossing a bunch of rivers and going all the way around the lake, the path switches back again. She follows it around two smaller lakes as it continues to descend into the earth. A part of her is really considering just ditching the path and climbing the couple meters of cliff that separates them as a shortcut. Maybe she’ll do that on the way back.

The area around her grows dimmer as she descends further into the cave, walking away from the skylights. The plant life becomes sparser before ending completely, as the path begins to follow the sole river of fast-flowing water, which no longer seems to provide any light.

Crossing the river back and forth multiple times, the path descends into the darkness. Krvavy figures that Draklings must have some form of night vision though. By all means it should be absolutely pitch black here, but she can see just well enough to make out the shapes that define the path. It does kind of hurt her eyes though, so she’d rather not have to do this for too long.

It is only when she passes between a pillar and the cave wall that Krvavy notices the all-consuming darkness is beginning to fade. In the distance ahead of her is a bright white light. It looks like, after what felt like at least an hour of walking, she has finally found the exit to this cave. About time too.

Hopefully this actually is the way out...