I decided to put off any of my thinking until I got back to the beach, focusing all of my attention once again on trying to detect any approaching enemies. I was in no position to fight anything else, and if something DID appear, I’d have to risk further injury by running. In my current state, I was struggling to move as quietly as I could while I held on to the massive open wound in my side. I was reasonably confident that something had been pierced, and a whisper of knowledge told me that it was surprising that I was still conscious, much less approximating walking.

  My efforts to keep quiet and aware seemed to be useful, though, and I soon found myself ticking up in both Stealth and Perception, spending half the skill points I’d gained with my Warrior level.

  My senses sharpened slightly and my footsteps landed just a tiny bit softer as I walked the last section of the path before it turned the corner towards the beach. In hindsight, this path was probably the animal run towards that pool I’d found. I let that thought trickle in as my vigilance lowered slightly when my foot touched the sand. For some reason, the beach and the monolith still felt ‘safe’. I didn’t have any particular reason to feel that way, though I did at least have three clear lines of sight. I dragged myself over to the base of the monolith and sat down on the stone.

  The movement jostled my wounds once more and I winced at the flare of pain. Finally sitting down, I kept one eye on the entrance to the forest as I leaned back against the stone. I briefly considered the fact that this might be sacrilegious in some sense if this monument was holy enough to qualify for an offering, and then decided I didn’t much care at this point. I took a laboured breath and lay out the facts.

  I was wounded. Heavily. I was down to 3 HP, and I’d somehow crippled myself in a way that I’d lost 20% of my max HP. My brand new clothes were already full of holes and covered in blood. My essence was back up at 550, but I had nothing to spend it on other than a class level of Commoner, if I wanted it.

  I really didn’t.

  I fought through the throbbing pain and focused on assessing the contents of my inventory, eventually receiving a stream of information with the details.

  I’d forgotten about the various greens and things I’d retrieved on the way to the pool, not that they’d be much use right now unless I planned on eating them raw. I had no other supplies other than the bodies. The numerical values next to them reminded me of the offering option the note with the clothes had mentioned. In light of understanding all of my options, I struggled to my feet, turned around, and willed open my personal space. When the black portal opened in front of me, I reached in and pulled out one of the snake corpses with another mental push.

  I stared at the still-warm body briefly before shuddering and placing it on the stone. I then murmured what I soon realized were my first real words in this new world and new life I’d found myself in.

  “I dedicate this to the Master of Games.”

  The voice that came out was a raspy, gravelly thing, more out of lack of use than any particular timbre or characteristic. Seeing as how it wasn’t salient to my current survival, I ignored it for the time being, focusing more on the shimmering aura surrounding my kill as it dematerialized. In its place was another note. I picked it up.

  I smirked despite myself. For an entity with the kind of power they seemed to have, they certainly were irreverent. I briefly wondered if that was common or more related to their specific bailiwick.

  For the moment, I tried to once more push past the throbbing pain in my side and focus my thoughts on the new “Shop” my patron had provided. After what seemed like a significantly longer period of time than had been necessary to open up my space or call up my inventory, a new stream of information flowed into my awareness.

  I grinned. Finally, some options. Curious, I mentally prodded the first section.

  The list went on and on. From netting to backpacks to canteens and compasses, pretty much anything you could need to brave the wilds or unknown was listed. I even found a 10 foot pole listed, for some reason. Perhaps most importantly, they had rations listed. It probably wouldn’t be the most appetizing thing, but as long as I had the points, I didn’t need to worry about starving, so that was nice. Unfortunately, food was not my top priority, considering the giant hole near my stomach. I moved on to the next section.

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  Yet another massive list of entries, anything from Gambler’s Gear to Woodcutter, but I finally found some options that were useful for my current predicament.

  I prodded the former for more information.

  This sounded like what I needed. I delved for further information on the Surgeon’s Tools as well.

  Unfortunately, despite my searching, I couldn’t find anything like a healing potion, analgesics or even alcohol for disinfection. It seemed like the shop was more geared towards tools and didn’t provide a lot of shortcuts. Digging into the Knowledge category flooded my consciousness with a massive amount of information on titles, none of them cheaper than 300 points. Clearly, knowledge didn’t come cheap. A quick glance showed the cheapest title with anything related to Healing or Anatomy at 1000 points, so I quickly gave up. The Other category was currently completely empty, much to my chagrin.

  Nowhere could I find any weapons, either. Weapon making tools and kits were around, but nothing that would be serviceable beyond an improvised weapon that I could see. For now that wasn’t my primary concern, so I instead returned to my inventory and “dedicated” both of the other corpses.

  My status now had a new line with a total - 700. I guess he’d shaved a bit off the original offering as well. Still, I had a bit of currency, and it was time to do some shopping.