Goblin...

He ripped his eyes off the creature's innards. The smell of decaying flesh was still hanging in the room. It felt like he'd really killed something. He really had killed something.

He wanted to throw up.

Black mist rose out of the goblin’s corpse. John's eyes widened. The mist collected into a black orb, then rushed toward him. John tried to jump out of the way, but it changed direction and struck him on the back, as if magnetized to his body.

No. Something was different. Underneath his health bar was a new indicator.

Skill ****: 6

"Game menu," John said. The menu popped into view. His lean body was now holding a short sword and dagger in a neutral position. The sword was labeled 'rusty iron sword'. The dagger labeled 'cracked old dagger'.

He tried tapping the sword. An expanded view of the weapon appeared in the formerly blank right-hand field. A small description appeared under the weapon.

An old sword with a with rusty iron blade, approximately fifteen inches in length. It was found another weapon and a ruined set of armor - all that remained of a goblin’s meal.

• Rune Slots: 3
• Durability: Medium

Under the heading 'rune slots' were three black boxes. There were lines drawn from the boxes to the picture of the weapon. One indicated the grip of the sword, the other was lined up with the tip, and the last one connected to the blade If a rune was a magic spell, that meant he could place three enchantments on the sword. Unfortunately, he didn't know how to use magic at the moment. Maybe it had something to do with Skill ****?

The item description told him something he didn't know - apparently the thing he'd slain was called a goblin. He immediately started reading all the other descriptions. The rest of his items didn't give him much more, but he did confirm that the goblins were like any other goblins in video games or movies.

Wondering if anything else had changed, he pressed the skill tree button.

The active skill panel was still blank, but the passive skill panel now had three boxes. The first was the same as before - sprinting. The three new boxes were labeled daggers, and swords. Like his sprinting skill, they all had progress bars. Assumedly, by using one of the objects repeatedly, he could increase his skill in the respective field.

That was great, but he wasn't sure how it would happen. So far everything he did was under his own power. He ran as fast as he could in real life; he grew winded at the same pace. He stabbed as hard as he could stab. Would getting better with swords make him magically stab harder? Or would he actually become more skillful?

Well, he was a beta player, he'd have to figure it out himself. He opened his mouth to speak, but something caught his eye. There was a new symbol near the image of his avatar, a-

The door creaked. John looked up. A goblin was standing on the other side of the room. It stared at him, took in the corpse of its companion, then looked back at him.

"Close menu," John said.

The goblin lunged forward. John stabbed with the sword, but he telegraphed his intentions too clearly. The goblin dodged, batted the blade aside, and came in with a dagger.

John raised his dagger. The goblin’s dagger raked the iron. A half second later, it slammed into his body.

John, stumbled but kept his sword and dagger between the assailant and him.

The goblin sprinted towards him and lunged with the dagger. This time John blocked the goblins dagger with his sword and stabbed straight into the goblins stomach. The goblin dodged just in the nick of time blade grazing his ribs.

Again the goblin went on the offensive lunging his dagger towards John’s stomach. John dodged left, roaring he slammed his dagger into the goblins ribs.

The goblin collapsed to the ground. John now seeing a chance to end the battle jumped on top of him. He rose his sword and began to slam it into the goblins chest. He stabbed , and stabbed, until he felt his arms and hands drenched with the goblins blood.