by Adam Drake
-15% all melee skills
Value: 8 Gold Pieces
Rob blinked at the shield. He hadn't seen some of these stats before. The Charge Ability must be what Dodger used to fly out of the bushes at him. Was it shield based like his Shield Bash skill? Was there a difference between an Ability and a Skill?
Judging from the massive size of the shield, he could understand the melee skills penalty. It might offer great protection, but severely hindered the user's ability to swing weapons around it.
Still, despite being on the receiving end, that Charge had been potent, almost fatal. How could he get such an ability?
He fished through Dodger's pockets, trying not to grimace too much. He found 50 silver pieces in one and a folded piece of parchment in another.
Opening the parchment revealed a message.
Find Tyric the Animal Charmer and bring him to Ernest, the Bandit Leader. Must be alive, or at least breathing. Bounty: 500 Gold Pieces.
The name Ernest was circled several times, and the bounty underlined. What was this about?
You have found a quest. 'Fair Warning'
Find Tyric the Animal Charmer and warn him of the bounty on his head. Lend him assistance if you can.
Reward: 500 Experience Points
Animal Charmer. Now that sounds interesting, Rob thought. What happened when you charmed an animal?
It appeared Dodger and Gredd had other business in the valley other than looking for pech 'scraps'. Were they in league with this Ernest fellow? He shook his head. There wasn't time for this now. It would be another quest he'd have to deal with later, and the list was growing.
He mulled over what to do with the sword and shield. Carrying the sword wouldn't be that much bother, but he really wanted to leave room in his pack for better items. He already owned one similar.
As for the shield, there was no way he could haul it around and keep his own. It was too big.
He shoved them both inside a gap in the tree's roots, and covered them with leaves and branches. Then he hacked a large X in the bark of the tree so he could find this spot again.
Finished, he realized something. Opening his Location Scroll he tapped his indicator and said, “Sword and shield”. The words appeared on the map where he stood. Now there'd be no problem finding them again.
Before he closed it, he checked the map for any new markers. One showed 'Bear Rock' back at the creek, but nothing else. Then he noticed the question mark that indicated the general area the scrolls from the Secret Knowledge quest might be.
“Hmm,” he said. It was southwest of his current location, close to the mountains. He wanted those scrolls. Hell, he needed them, regardless of what they might be. Magic was the name of the game and facing off with an army of pech slavers with only a silly Light spell didn't make sense. Not when he had the chance to increase his magical arsenal.
Plus, there might be a healing spell amongst them. That alone would be worth taking a detour, wouldn't it?
As he mulled this over he moved back to the muddy path without giving Dodger's corpse another look.
According to the map, the path continued westward and faded out roughly south of the question mark, so he'd follow it until then.
This time he was even more cautious than before. Gredd may come back, or there could be other bandits about. Next time he came across a stranger on the path he'd consider attacking first and ask questions later.
He encountered nothing over the next hour, other than swarms of annoying flies which buzzed around his face. A creeping sense of guilt started to seep into his thoughts as he debated with himself over taking a detour for the scrolls. But when he reached the point along the path where he was parallel to the quest's location, he veered off and headed south. There, debate over.
The lure of magic was too strong to ignore and the prospect of learning more spells overwhelmed any logic.
There wasn't a path to follow, so he had to push through the underbrush, occasionally hacking at branches when it got too thick. In moments, the path behind him vanished from view and he was surrounded by trees and vegetation that all looked the same.
Several times he lost all sense of direction as he trudged along and had to refer to his map. He was thankful to have it or he could end up traveling in circles.
After what seemed like hours, he considered taking a break when he suddenly broke through to a large clearing. He stopped, a little surprised at what he saw.
A large, two-story house sat in the center of the clearing. It was in a serious state of neglect and disrepair, with its front door missing and all the windows on both floors shattered or gone. Thick vines and vegetation grew up its walls so high that it even covered most of its tapered roof.
Its large stone chimney had crumbled partially away, exposing a gap in the top floor. From his vantage point he could see a wooden chair sitting within the exposed room.
If ever there was a candidate for the most haunted looking house, this would take the cake.
A little unnerved by the creepy building, he looked around the clearing. High grass covered most of it and a stone well was close by to where he stood.
Rob became more unnerved when he realized how quiet the place was. Even the rustling of the surrounding leaves seemed subdued.
With dread, he opened his map and looked. Sure enough, the question mark was gone. In its place was an outline of the building with a small red X in the middle of it.
He looked up at the ugly, ruined building. The scrolls were in there. Great.
For several moments he was uncertain of what to do, but convinced himself he didn't need to enter the building right away. He'd walk its perimeter in case he missed something important outside.
The well was the closest, so he walked over to it, keeping his eyes on the building. He watched for any movement within its shattered openings that would indicate someone, or something was home.
At the well, he noticed there wasn't any rope or bucket to retrieve water, probably long gone. He carefully peered over its edge.
The depths of the well became completely dark a dozen feet down the shaft.
“Hello?” he said, his voice echoing below.
He wondered how deep it went, so he picked up a rock and dropped it down.
The rock vanished into the darkness and Rob listened. Seconds passed. He heard nothing.
Man, he thought. A bottomless well? If there were treasure down there, he'd never make an attempt to find it.
He suddenly heard a rustling sound which made him look about to find its source. It didn't come from anywhere in the clearing or the nearby trees. The noise didn't emanate from the creepy house, either.
As it grew louder, he looked to the well. It was coming from there.
“What the hell?” he said. The rustling got louder and louder. Something was definitely in there and rushing up. He considered his options, stand there like an idiot or run for cover. Maybe to the trees or even the house.
But before he could move a black mass erupted from the mouth of the well and swirled into the sky.
Bats.
Taken aback, Rob could only stare in shock as dozens of the bats swirled around the well. The clearing was filled with the sounds of flapping wings and squeaks.
As he got a better look at them, he realized how big they were. Their bodies were the size of house cats, and their eyes glowed a faint red. They seemed agitated and appeared to be focusing on his presence.
Damn, Rob thought. Guess I shouldn't have dropped that rock.
A bat suddenly broke from the swirling group and dived at him. Rob raised his buckler and felt the creature slam against it. It quickly flew off, screeching angrily.
Then another dove down, and another.
He swung his axe and caught the first bat in its middle mass, causing the creature to fall to the ground, dead.
You have killed a Large Bat. You have gained 50 experience points toward your next level.
The second bat snagged onto his arm as
he was swinging at the first. It raked at him with long claws and he swatted at it with a backhanded swing. The bat flew off, unharmed.
Rob looked at the scratches on his arm and the tears in his shirt. Well, that didn't take long to get ruined. He resolved to carry spare shirts with him in the future.
More bats attacked, taking turns diving at him, sometimes in groups.
He defended himself as best he could, but he found it difficult looking up and swinging his axe at the same time.
The creatures really took a dislike to his buckler and continually bashed into it, only to try and scramble over to bite at him.
He'd killed four more bats when the futility of his situation hit home. There were too many, and they had started to attack in twos and threes. While he swung at one, the others would scratch at his exposed side or try to bite him.
He found himself backing away from the well and across the clearing to the trees. Even under such an assault he didn't want to go straight to the house. It had trap written all over it.
Soon each attack was of three bats or more, fully overwhelming him as he tried to strike at them all. His hit points started to drop at a steady rate from the continuous barrage, and he was getting tired from all the swinging he was doing. But he was killing more of them, just not enough to make them stop.
When he reached the trees, he decided he'd had enough. With a final swing that cut a bat in two, he turned and fled into the forest, hoping the trees would give him some kind of cover.
As he hurried along, bats continued to hit him from behind or scratch at his back and neck. All the while he swung his axe wildly, using his buckler to partially cover himself.
Heedless of where he was going, he ran into the underbrush, leaves and branches slapping and cutting at his face.
After several minutes of panicked flight, the bat attacks subsided dramatically, but he kept going. He figured the well was their spawn point and they wouldn't go too far from it.
Eventually, a single bat remained, determined to dive at him, over and over.
As his last opponent attacked, he kept swinging at it and missing. His arms felt like lead.
Then he found himself next to a rocky outcropping that rose up into a hill. But before he could get a good look at it, the bat dropped onto his buckler and scrabbled up at him with a wide mouth with long vampire-like fangs.
He suddenly turned toward a nearby tree and lunged at it with all his strength. The Shield Bash mashed the bat into the tree trunk with a sickening crunch, and the bat flopped to the ground.
You have killed a Large Bat. You have gained 50 experience points toward your next level.
Panting heavily, he looked down at the dead bat. “Thank God that's over with!” he said, gasping for air.
From behind him he heard a slow clapping sound.
Surprised, he spun around, raising his axe and buckler with tired arms.
A beautiful woman stood a dozen paces away from him, clapping slowly. She was stunning, with long black hair pulled back in a pony tail, and a lean sumptuous figure clad in leather armor. Her eyes were comically large and shaped like teardrops. But her most prominent feature were her long pointy ears that extended past the back of her head.
Rob stared at her, both stunned and awestruck. Then he noticed a long growth of rock which extended from the ground and went up to envelop her right leg to the knee.
The woman finished clapping and placed her hands on her shapely hips.
“Well, it's about damn time!” she said.
CHAPTER SIX
Rob gaped at the stunning beauty standing before him. Wowzers! Not what you expect to run into when fleeing through a forest.
Her gorgeous face was only slightly marred by the fact she looked very annoyed. “Well, are you just going to stand there?” she said. Her voice had a faint tinkling quality to it, like every word she said was magical.
“Yeah, sure,” Rob said, a little dopey. Realizing what he said, he shook his head. “What? Sorry. What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? I mean this,” she pointed at the rock on her leg and Rob noticed several rings on her dainty fingers. “This isn't going to take care of itself, you realize.”
Having recovered from his surprise Rob blinked at her tone of voice. Tinkling quality or not, she sounded downright condescending.
He raised his hand up. “Whoa. Wait a second, will you. I've just been through a bit of drama and need a moment.” The scratches and bites across his arm and back hurt like hell.
The woman batted her eyes and looked him over. “Oh, I see. Sorry. I heard a lot of girlish shrieking out there, but I had no idea it was coming from a grown man.”
“I wasn't shrieking!” he said, but knew different. A guy can shriek if he's being eating alive by giant bats.
“Well, it wasn't cheers of triumph, either,” she said.
What is this woman's deal? Incredibly beautiful or not, she had a hell of a bad attitude. “I'm hurt and need to heal up, do you mind?” He didn't wait for an answer and took out a Medium Healing Potion.
The woman held up her hands. “Wait a second, what are you doing?”
“Drinking a healing potion,” Rob said, stating the obvious.
“That's a waste of a potion, just cast heal on yourself. Or are you out of mana?”
“Something like that,” Rob said, not wanting to get into his lack of a healing spell.
She waved her hand at him to come over. “Don't do that. Here, I'll heal you. My mana is maxed out.”
Rob considered her offer. She seemed ingenuous, enough, despite the princess complex. He noticed the sheathed sword at her curvy hip.
When he didn't move over right away, she flapped her hands some more. “Come on, don't want you bleeding out on the forest floor, now do we?”
Curiosity overcame caution, and he slowly walked over to her, axe gripped at the ready by his leg. If she tried something he wouldn't hesitate to make her pay for it.
Once within reach, she placed a hand on the bare flesh of his left shoulder, exposed by a rip from the bat attacks.
As she mumbled some words, Rob watched her. Being so close to her made him feel tingly all over. Then he realized it was just the healing spell flowing through his body.
In moments, his hit points rose steadily and his wounds stitched together and vanished.
“Is that better, now?” she asked softly, her hand on his shoulder.
“Yeah, I feel great now, thanks,” he said. Her touch was definitely making him tingly even after the spell had finished.
“Good,” she said, then suddenly cuffed him on the ear.
“Ow!” Rob said, surprised. He nearly swung his axe at her, but refrained. “What did you do that for?”
“That?” she said, glaring at him. “That was for making me wait two damn days!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Rob said, taking a few steps back. Was this chick insane?
“I've been stuck here like this for two days!” she shouted. “Not exactly on my list of fun things to do.”
“I had nothing to do with that!” Rob shouted back, rubbing at his sore ear.
“Yes, you did! You could have showed up earlier and freed me ages ago!”
Rob was genuinely baffled by her. “How does that make any sense? I didn't know you were even here.” And now that he did, maybe he'd just leave her there.
She raised her hands up in a shrug. “I don't see any other adventurers questing around here. You're the first one, so you get the blame.”
Rob gaped at the woman, again, not because of her beauty, but because of how nuts she was. The familiar flame of anger suddenly sparked inside him. This woman was off her rocker.
Take it easy, Robert, he thought to himself. Take some deep breaths and count to ten. No need to lose your head and do something stupid like Shield Bash her by accident. Although the thought did have some appeal to it.
Rob slung his axe on his belt and hooked his buckler behind him off his back
pack. He raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Look, we just met. So why don't we start over?”
“Sure, we can start over if it makes you feel better,” she said. “You can start by getting my leg out of this rock!”
Rob forged ahead. “My name's Rob. Rob Barron. What's yours?” He even managed to smile while he spoke.
She blinked at him several times, and he couldn't help but notice her incredible eyes were gray in color. Visibly relaxing, she said, “My name is Myna. Myna of the Ghostblade Clan.”
