Draft: 57 Poisoned

James refused to count how many fish she had just gone through. Maybe more stats meant increased appetite. She doubted that was true since she’d been eating less since going out to the forest on her own, but a girl could dream.

Maybe new stats meant increased appetite? She had gotten some levels from her morning fight with the goblin, and now that she thought of it, the first thing on her mind after every fight tended to be food. And after most fights she tended to level.

Regardless, James enjoyed her first nice meal since she’d left the clearing. She didn’t like to think of how they were doing over there without her, the possibility that they were much reduced frightening despite her treatment. Especially because of how much she appreciated getting away.

Arthur would have never let her leave; he didn’t even really let her get a Class or any real Skills. Still, she had done some good at the clearing. The type of good that was the palest shade of white. Her actions had directly saved the lives of her fellow humans by alerting them of attacks. She still didn’t know exactly how since she hadn’t had any premonitions before or since, but it had been useful all the same. She should probably try to investigate it more closely, see if she could replicate the premonition effect, but she was flying completely blind.

Even while the System seemed to be designed to explain the world with all of its new quirks, it seemed to invite more anomalies. James simply had no way of (safely) investigating premonition ability, given that it had only been useful for a monster attack on a large group of people. She could hypothesize that those exact circumstances were what led to her precognition episodes, but she would never be completely sure. And she wasn’t willing to go back to the clearing just to test out that theory.

Still, for all that she had eaten, James still felt like she was missing something. Her meals had only consisted of protein for a while, lacking any sort of greenery or vegetable. She had been unwilling to eat anything in case it was poisonous, but after looking at her stats she had gained confidence. Her vitality as high and had more than enough free points that she could invest in it if it started to all go wrong.

Walking along the river, James tried to identify leaves or fruits that seemed to already have nibble marks on them. As opposed to other topics where she had watched multiple YouTube videos before the Integration, she was completely knowing to this. Her novice level showed too as she walked along the river bank, occasionally stopping at some plants.

One plant had pretty, medium-sized pink berries, almost like cherries in their appearance other than their larger size. Picking some off, she put them all in her earrings. Hopefully these would be sweet and prove to be a good snack, she could really use some pick me ups through her travels.

The next plant that caught her interest was low hanging with nibbled on leaves, smelling fragrant, especially she crushed two leaves between her fingers. With any luck it would work in a salad.

Going back to her fish cooking station, she hovered her hand over the rock and was glad to see that it wa still hot. Using her fire starter to begin a new fire, she let it heat up further. Hopefully, cooking the fruits and vegetables wouldn’t make them any worse on her body than keeping them raw. Adding the finishing touches of salt and pepper, and again wishing that she had some olive oil to drizzle on top, James plated the greens.

Looking at the drab looking food in front of her- cooking leaves tended to make them shrivel up and wilt- James tentatively took a bite. It didn’t have the same filling feeling as the Sharped Carp gave her, but then, it was vegetables. What could she expect? She certainly hadn’t thought it would taste as good as it did either.

Shoveling more of the cooked salad into her mouth, she certainly hadn’t realized how much she’d been craving something other than protein, James hoped she would have similar plants to these next to her apartment back in the United States. Assuming she ver got back there. Being in France with the rest of the French didn’t exactly fill her with confidence either.

You have been poisoned by Tasty Green [inferior], your Health goes down 12 points.

The first warning flashed before her eyes a second before her last bite. Holding her stomach, James released a deep groan. Why had she been so confident? Even if this were all she felt she’d have preferred to put off eating greens.

You have been poisoned by Poisonous Green [inferior], your Health goes down 24 points.

You have been poisoned by Horrible Green [inferior], your Health goes down 11 points.

You have been poisoned by Nefarious Green [inferior], your Health goes down 27 points.

You have been poisoned by Annoying Green [inferior], your Health goes down 38 points.

More and more of the same notification pulled up before her eyes and James forced herself to open her status page. The name of the green plant also continued to change as her own reference to it within her head did. She didn’t want to think, but if she was at the edge, she would need those free stat points. Leaving them for a rainy day when she could do analysis wouldn’t help her if she never reached that rainy day.

---

I really was going to release Po's story part 2, but that's a lot harder to write, so I'm releasing this instead. Do you think James will actually need to distribute her free stat points? If she actually does, what do you think the distribution should be? Also, I've been keeping from using swear words, but do you think it's worth it to use some in the naming of the poisonous plant?