by Ryan Rimmel
Badgelor had found a nice rock and spent the next several seconds repeatedly slamming his head into it.
“So, I shouldn’t stick my head in there.” I stated.
“That would be something to avoid, at all costs,” replied Shart.
Badgelor threw up.
Chapter 31: Reasonable Precautions
By the time we decided to stop messing around and actually go into the forest, the jovial mood had waned. We adopted formation, with me on the left, Badgelor on the right, and Shart watching from behind. By dividing the observation duties into thirds, and with careful preparation, we determined this was the optimum anti-puma formation.
I was wielding my shortsword and the staff, which was just long enough to politely be called a walking stick, if one was generous. The rest of our equipment had been shoved into Shart’s belly. Shart was quite happy about his ability to ‘take it all’’.
“Zone clear,” I stated.
“Zone clear,” called Badgelor, in his small form. We had determined that his smaller form was better for strategic defense. If he was large, then two cats would jump us at once. However, in his small form, only one would jump me. Then, Badgelor could shift into his larger form and attack.
“Zone clear,” called Shart. He watched the rear, making sure that there weren’t any pumas behind us. He also ensured that we didn’t put our backs against any bushes or other deceptively small things. Pumas could crouch and hide anywhere.
“Puma scan?” I asked. Shart began mumbling.
“I’m running a spell check now,” he replied. “There is not even a trace of feline.”
I felt my balls sink into my body. “You have to be getting something. You at least occasionally got something in the last forest, and now you are using an improved spell.”
“Maybe these can hide better,” stated Badgelor, sniffing loudly. “I can’t smell any pumas, either.”
My mouth was dry, and my forehead was breaking out in sweat. I was using my Perception skill on everything. “They can’t be this much better at hiding. We’ll just follow the road for a bit. Is the escape route safe?”
“All clear,” stated Shart. “I warded it already. There is absolutely no activity.”
We had screwed up the first time. By the time we’d realized that getting out of the forest was necessary, the pumas had cut us off. We’d attempted to double back three times, only to be painfully rebuffed each time. This time it was a clear straight run.
Suddenly, there was a movement in the bushes to my right. I pointed my staff at it and sent power up the rod and into the skull. My Magical Implement skill made the entire process much easier. I felt Mana being drawn from my own pool, rather than the staff’s. The icicle that formed in front of the skull had previously been finger sized. Now, it was the size of my fist. It rocketed into the bush, leaving frozen leaves in its wake. A squirrel promptly leapt away.
“This works much better than I remember,” I stated.
“Yeah, you sure scared the hell out of that poor defenseless squirrel,” Badgelor said, shooting me a dirty look.
“You’re a Mage now,” replied Shart, carefully working his magic.
I checked my Mana pool. “That was still more expensive than my other spell.”
“Gee, the spell that makes people fart is inexpensive to cast? Simply amazing.” stated Shart.
“Why didn’t I have to target this spell? I have to target my other spell,” I said, as we crept slowly down the road running through the forest.
“Because that spell isn’t targeted,” replied Shart. “Aimed spells and targeted spells are different. Most direct combat spells must be aimed, as in pointed, at what you are trying to hit. A targeted spell has its target declared during the casting and only affects that target.”
“So, Icicle Attack needs to be pointed at what I want to hit,” I stated, “but with Break Wind, I just need to think about the target?”
“Mostly, You CAN target your Breaking Wind spell,” stated the demon, “But you can just aim it at something, if you want.”
I sheathed my blade, now more confident that the magical staff would be a useful weapon. I held out my hand in an arcane configuration. Now that it had been explained to me, I realized I could just cast the spell at whatever I wanted.
“Hoopie,” I called, and a small wave of magic flew into a nearby bush. Nothing happened. I repeated the process on a different bush. There was a tiny sound, like if a stone had been tossed into a pond.
“Squirrel,” stated Badgelor, who was quickly becoming my resident fart detector.
“Have you ever smelled puma farts before?” I asked.
“No, but if I don’t recognize it, we can treat it like a threat,” he replied sagely.
Stinkdar, as I started calling it, became a thing. I’d cast Break Wind at anything that we had a question about or that made a noise. Either nothing happened, or some small animal farted. It made us braver. With all our spells and checks, we knew that there weren’t any pumas around. Eventually, the lack of hellcats started grating on everyone’s nerves. We had been assured of a puma problem and sent to handle it. We couldn’t very well do that, if we couldn’t find them.
“Nothing?” I asked Shart, again.
“I said nothing,” replied the demon. “I’m blowing through Mana like water in a desert, and I don’t see any fecking pumas!”
“We should have been hit by now,” stated Badgelor, as he continued scanning the area.
“Hoopie,” I announced, gesturing toward another bush. What followed was a much louder noise than we had been hearing. Badgelor twisted his head in that direction, a look of confusion on his face.
“Excuse me,” came a man’s voice, as he stood up from the bushes. He was wearing poor quality leather armor and carrying a longsword, also of poor quality. He’d obviously been hiding there for some time, and he looked positively happy to see us.
“It's so good to see you.”
Chapter 32: Calex’s Bad Day
I stared at the man for a moment, only recalling that I had Lore after the incredulity of the situation subsided. We were in a forest filled with fecking pumas and he was chilling in a bush?
Calex: Bandit (Level 6)
Hit Points: 80/80
Stamina: 90/90
Mana: 20/20
Perks: Ambush, Slash and Grab
A bandit is a lowly person who takes others’ gains for themselves. Poorly thought of in all but the most romanticized circles, bandits make their living on the suffering of others.
“Doesn’t this idiot know that there are puma’s around?” whispered Badgelor.
“Movement behind us,” stated Shart, and I tensed. This idiot’s distraction had given the cats time to sneak up on us. “Oh wait, it's just more bandits,” the demon sighed. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Aren’t you afraid of the pumas?” I asked.
“Pumas,” he chuckled, “No, I get along just fine with the pumas. Now, about your money.”
“He gets along with the pumas?” gasped Badgelor. “I didn’t see that he had any Animal Whisper skills, but he must somehow know their secrets.”
“How do you manage that?” I asked. I knew bullshit when I heard it. Fecking pumas were murder machines. They didn’t get along with anyone. My hand slowly reached for my shortsword.
“Tut tut tut,” he said, and, suddenly, an arrow whizzed past me from behind. It would have hit me, too, if I hadn’t dodged at the last minute.
“They missed. Still no pumas,” stated Shart, looking around. “I don’t see any pumas anywhere.”
While I could understand firing into a bush as a puma check, the second bandit would have hit me, if I hadn’t been able to Dodge. He must not be very good at aiming a bow. However, that was secondary. I needed to know more about this claim that Calex got along with the fecking pumas. “Go on. Tell me about this friendly relationship you have with the pumas.”
His eyes went wide for a moment. Another bandit came f
rom my left and joined the one behind me, bringing the total of bandits to three. They were shielding us from the pumas, it seemed. Maybe I wasn’t following something here; maybe they were on good terms with the ferocious felines.
“Uh, Dum Dum,” Shart said, as he moved closer to me. The bandits all appeared to be moving closer together, boxing us in.
“Wait,” I said, “Are you trying to rob us?”
“Dense, aren’t you?” Calex replied.
“But the pumas?” I asked, and the bandits all shared a laugh.
“We are the Pumas. We are all part of the Puma gang,” stated Calex.
“So, you aren’t cats?” I questioned.
“You…,” Calex trailed off, overcome with another bout of laughter. “When you said pumas, you meant the actual cats. Everybody knows there aren’t cats in this forest.” He nearly doubled over, wiping tears from his eyes.
“Oh.” I said, because, honestly, what else was there to say in the face of such a massive cluster of a misunderstanding. “Just to be clear, the three of you are trying to rob us, though?”
“Yes, your money or your life,” replied Calex, turning serious. He edged closer to us.
“Oh, okay,” I said. “Badgelor, you want this?”
“I guess,” replied the badger, expanding to his much larger size, much to the bandits’ chagrin. At least, I thought they were reacting to the sudden magical expansion of the badger. I was, once again, wrong.
“He’s a Beast Master,” called one, nocking his bow. This didn’t help Calex, who had stupidly walked much too close to me and my animal companion. Skills trained by fighting fecking pumas were more than adequate for fighting these pumas. The badger tore out Calex’s belly before he even realized what was happening.
Spinning around, I dodged another arrow, while pointing my staff towards the archer. I charged and fired a magical bolt that struck him squarely in the chest. It exploded for 34 points of Damage. He collapsed to the ground, clutching his now frozen chest, trying to recover.
The final bandit covered the distance to me in a moment. He had a longsword, but, by then, I’d drawn out my own blade. I parried his first slash and riposted, slashing a terrible 18 point wound into his side. As he pulled back, I executed a Hack and Slash, my new Duelist maneuver. I got two more wounds in, for another 39 points of Damage.
As he staggered backward, blood fountaining in all directions, the effects of the Icicle spell on his companion ended. He got back to his feet, trying to numbly aim his bow at me. I was struck by the realization that I was about to kill these idiots. I’d killed goblins, to be sure, but not people. I wasn’t sure about people.
Then, the guy I had just savaged collapsed to the ground. The fountains of blood stopped. I stared at his body for a moment too long. Another arrow was released, striking me in the chest, and causing 13 points of damage. They are trying to kill me. They had ambushed me, and they were trying to kill me. I lifted my staff up and pointed toward the archer’s face, as he attempted to nock another arrow.
His head exploded.
Chapter 33: Coming to Grips
“I just killed two people,” I said. It had become a mantra, running through my mind and out of my mouth.
“Lucky,” stated Badgelor, “I only got one.”
“Not lucky, you murderous little toad,” I screamed. “I don’t want to kill anyone. I don’t even like killing goblins. I really don’t like killing people.”
I collapsed and put my head in my hands. There were bits of the archer still on me, from the skull blowing up. He had been trying to kill me, but I could have done something else. I should have done something else. I should have run. They wouldn’t have been able to catch me.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Shart stayed quiet, but Badgelor sniffed the air. He shrank into his small form and walked further off the path for a bit.
“Well, they certainly seem to enjoy it,” stated Badgelor, after about 15 years of quiet.
Shart and I joined him behind a large, overgrown shrub. There was enough room for all of us to crouch without the chance of being discovered. We saw a makeshift camp, though it appeared abandoned. There was still evidence of burned logs for fires, and marks in the ground from tent stakes. However, there were no tents, and no people.
Badgelor nudged me toward a hole he had discovered. As I approached, I realized that it was a shallow grave. Four people, refugees by the looks of it, had been gutted and tossed unceremoniously inside
“These bandits aren’t innocent people, Jim,” said Shart. “They’re murderers.”
Chapter 34: Unfortunate Career Choices
As they were hiding near the roads, the members of the Puma gang were easy to find. Badgelor ranged forward in his smaller form; no one would look twice at a badger, so he could get very close to investigate. When he found targets, then I’d close.
Having only one good hand limited my options, somewhat. I had a bow, but I couldn’t nock or draw it with full strength. Magic Shot wasn’t a good choice, either. Sure, it formed a bluish white, glowing, arcane missile that exploded into motes of power. However, it also left a trail that led right back to the shooter. It was a miserable stealth weapon. I also had a magical staff, but it had very nearly the same problem as Magic Shot. In short, all my magical attacks seemed poorly suited to stealthy maneuvers.
Unless, I wanted to make them fart uncontrollably.
I was left with a more direct approach. I would have felt horrible about our madcap slice and dice attacks, except for one thing. One thing kept me from feeling too terribly guilty about the carnage we were inflicting.
Before we left the bandits’ old camp, we had decided to give the four refugee victims a proper burial. Badgelor had insisted that it wouldn’t take him long to dig separate, deeper graves for all four. We could lay the bodies in, respectfully, and cover them. We could even leave small markers, on the off chance that anyone would care enough to intern them elsewhere, later. As Badgelor began digging the holes, he discovered a problem.
Nowhere that he dug was free. There were dead bodies buried everywhere, all in varying stages of decay. Badgelor would dig, only to be greeted by a rotting foot. He would move and dig again. There, he would unearth the wrinkled hand of an elderly person, infested by maggots. Then, toward the center of camp, Badgelor discovered the special section. He made an odd, grunting sound and quickly tried to cover his findings before I saw. I did see, though. I saw a tiny foot, far smaller than my hand. He tried a different spot, only to discover an older child. This one had a hand that was half the size of mine.
We decided to give up. Badgelor didn’t want to keep up his morbid task, and I didn’t blame him. We made sure all the bodies he had accidentally disturbed were fully covered, threw as much spare dirt as we could find on the four newly deceased refugees, and got the hell out of there.
“Do you think the reason they left that camp was because they ran out of room to store their victims?” Badgelor had asked.
“Who knows?” I’d responded. “Let’s just make sure that is the last camp they fill up.”
So, we had begun our Puma gang hunt.
Chapter 35: Professional Discussion
It was not until we were between attacks and had some time to kill that I was able to ask Shart some questions. “Most of these hoodlums have the Bandit profession?”
“Yes,” replied the demon. “I assume you are wondering why they have so many hit points. You would have discovered, by now, that they have far more than any other professioned people you have encountered?”
I nodded, and Shart continued, “Their Bandit profession has several perks that raise their hit point totals. Typically, they gain extra hit points whenever they receive enhanced combat abilities.”
“So, they are level 6 bandits?” I asked.
“Technically,” replied Shart, rolling the word for a moment. “It's a bit more complicated than that, though. Professed people are just professed people. The
y don’t really get levels like a classed character does. Even if you were only a Woodsman, you’d be a level 7 Woodsman. Badgelor is a companion, so, his level is equal to your own.”
“That makes sense,” I thought, as Badgelor signaled toward a fresh group of bandits. It appeared that no one had trained their Perception skill enough, and I had Shadow Meld. Consequently, I was really hard to spot, even though I was only about 15 feet from the nearest one.
“So, most creatures aren’t really ‘leveled’ like that. A wolf is born and, when it hits maturity, it's level can be 2-3, in the valley. Elsewhere, it can be higher, but the animal didn’t really have to do anything to get to that level. That level is basically what the
“Meaning, this guy doesn’t have a bunch of bandit levels?” I asked, looking at the level 6 bandit in front of me.
“No,” replied Shart. “He’s got several ranks of skills in the Bandit profession, as well as the suggested perks. The
“Interesting,” I thought in reply, tossing an acorn into a nearby bush. The man turned to face the bush. He was not overly alarmed, though. This wasn’t a particularly quiet forest, as it was filled with animals. Not being alarmed was going to be his last mistake.
I slipped out of my cover, crossed the few feet to him, and drove my dagger into his heart. All of this was done quickly, from behind. The bandit never saw me coming. He took over 60 points of Damage from my dagger, that did 8-11 points of damage. Damage was strange here.
Dagger Damage 8-11 (1-4 Base + 3 Dexterity + 4 Skill), Durability 30/30, Fast
First, this wasn’t Dungeons & Dragons. I didn’t roll Damage; Damage was entirely dependent on weapon placement. So, when I found the spot in his armor that gave me access to the heart, I jammed the weapon home. I achieved the full 11 points of Damage with little difficulty.
