I focussed on it, and soon its stats displayed.
Undead Dire Grizzly – Level 19
HP: 750 / 750
Strength: ???
Weakness: ???
I knew I would need to concentrate harder to uncover its strengths and weaknesses, but I didn’t have time. The grizzly rushed at us, its black eyes full of hate and fixed solely on me. I backed away, pulling a bomb out of my bag as it approached.
Just as the grizzly reached me and swiped at my waist, Smoglar stepped in front of it. He absorbed the damage on his stocky body, and then fell back against me, grunting in pain. His health bar dropped below halfway. The bear’s attacks made the damage done by the Steers seem laughable, and it was clear that our plan wouldn’t work this time.
Smoglar glanced at the half-buried stash, but he must have realised he’d never be able to pull it out in time. Instead, he got to his feet. Brian threw a healing bomb at him, and his health bar increased.
The bear stretched out to full height, but it needn’t have bothered. I knew that bears did this to make themselves seem more threatening, but an undead grizzly was already menacing enough.
We needed a plan. Smoglar’s strength was in brute force, but it was clear he was outmatched here. That meant it would fall on Brian and me to deal with this.
I thought back to the library. Lastor Bombraid had faced an entire army of the undead with nothing but a bomb and a scroll of Bless. We didn’t have any Bless scrolls, but there had to be something we could do.
“Brian, pass me a healing potion,” I said.
As he looked through his bag to find one, the bear stepped forward. It roared in Smoglar’s direction and then slammed a meaty paw against his face. Agility was never one of the dwarf’s strengths, and when he stepped away a long red scratch covered his skin. Blood dripped from the new wound, and his health bar dropped once again.
I took the healing vial. I created a healing bomb, but this time I loaded it so that the balance was weighted heavily on the potion. When I was finished, I lit the fuse and looked up.
The bear towered over Smoglar. The dwarf got to his feet and struck it with his axe, but the blow barely registered. I gripped the bomb in my hands. This had to work. If Smoglar died, we were done for.
As the bear launched into a final attack on the dwarf, I threw the healing bomb. This time I hadn’t aimed at the dwarf but at the bear, and the bomb hit him full on and exploded in its face. Time seemed to slow as I waited for the effect to register.
I had banked on healing potion having the opposite effect on something that was already dead. It was a big gamble to take because for all I knew it could have healed the minimal damage we had already manage to inflict.
“What the hell are you doing?” said Smoglar.
The seconds seemed to stretch out into minutes. I held my breath and waited.
The bear stumbled back. It roared again, but this time the noise wasn’t one of aggression, but of pain. I allowed myself to breathe out in relief as the bear’s health bar fell more and more, and the animal crashed onto the floor and died.
50 Exp gained! (92 until level 11)
Items received:
Bear Claw x1
Bear Pelt x1
Smoglar looked at me. He wiped the sweat from his brow, and he seemed to study me for a long time. Finally, he opened his mouth wide and smiled.
“You crazy little git,” he said, laughing whilst blood poured down his face.
After fighting the Blood Steers and then the grizzly, none of us was in a good state. We were all in need of a good healing bomb, but Brian had given me his last potion. It didn’t matter, for now. We had the stash.
Brian heaved the chest out of the ground and opened it. I walked over and saw that it was filled with weapons made of glinting silver, and some had gems in them. Smoglar rooted through it and then laughed in delight as he pulled out an axe with a polished wooden handle and gleaming blade. He lifted it in the air in triumph, then brought it to his mouth and kissed it.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
I looked through the chest, but all the weapons seemed to be beyond me. I simply didn’t have the strength to wield half of them and even if I could, a melee weapon was wasted on me.
“Don’t worry, Janus,” said Smoglar. “There’s something here for you.”
He reached into the chest and pulled something out. He was about to hand it to me when a fireball rushed through the forest. It scorched the trunks of the trees as it travelled, and Smoglar didn’t have time to dodge before it hit him in the chest. He fell to the ground, dropping the axe.
I reached into my inventory and was going to pull out a bomb, but I realised I had used them all on the Steers and the Grizzly. I didn’t have time to make another before I heard a voice. I recognised it immediately.
“You owe me something, Tinker. And I never forget debts owed to me.”
I didn’t even need to see their player tags to know that Dracol and Red Leroy were in the forest with us. I had met them on the outskirts of Blundow. The two men demanded CR20 off me, and back then I didn’t even have a single CR to my name. I had managed to bargain for my life by promising them CR60 when I left Blundow. To make sure I made good on my deal the Shaman, Red Leroy, had placed a marker on me which meant he could find me anywhere on the map.
Dracol sported a new sword with a vein of ice running through the blade. He looked like he had levelled up a few times. Red Leroy held a staff that had thorns twisted around it.
“You promised me CR, Tinker,” said Dracol.
I checked my inventory. I owed him CR60, but I only had CR45 with me. I looked at Brian and Smoglar.
“Can you guys give them CR15? I just want to get this over with.”
Smoglar shook his head. “Spent my last CR on ale back in Dry Gulch. And even if I had any, I wouldn’t give these two arses anything but a smack in the mouth.”
Brian checked his inventory, and then gave me a grave look. “My coins went on casings and gunpowder.”
I sighed. “Listen, Dracol. I’ve got CR45. Take that, and get lost. I don’t owe you anything. It’s not like you’ve done anything for me.”
“We let you live,” said Red Leroy. “That’s worth more than what we’re asking.”
“How about I give you the CR, and I’ll throw in these fire-resistant gloves?” I said, just wanting to get rid of them.
Dracol thought about it for a few seconds and then shook his head. “That would be all well and good, had the price not gone up. It’s been so long since we saw you, that we’ve added interest.”
“You guys are ridiculous,” I said.
“You won’t be saying that when you’re waking up in a pod and crying to the techies that two guys killed you in a forest.”
“Why the price hike?” I asked.
“I don’t know if you noticed,” said Red Leroy, “But we don’t have those pretty Halon symbols above our heads anymore.”
“They kicked us out,” said Dracol.
“What a surprise,” I said.
“And being guildless,” continued Leroy, “means we need to equip ourselves better. The CR60 you owned us has gone up to CR150.”
“That’s quite an increase,” said Brian, not caring to disguise the sarcasm in his voice.
“That’s inflation.”
Now we were stuck. None of us had the CR to be able to pay them. Smoglar looked like he was ready to fight. I wanted to kill the two brigands, but even if they weren’t levels above us, our HP bars had been drained already. It was a fight that we were sure to lose.
I looked at Dracol. Staring him in the eyes, I used Snake Tongue.
“We’ll pay you,” I said. “But you’ll have to wait. Give us two days, and you’ll get your CR. After that, I never want to see you again.”
Dracol sighed. “Fine, Tinker. Two days.”
Snake Tongue increased by 25%! (25% to level 2)
He walked over to the weapons crate and picked it up, maki
ng light work of the box that even Brian had struggled to heave out of the ground.
“We’re taking this,” he said, “as compensation. I expect to see you in two days’ time with CR150. We’ll be in Ambergrim Fortress, not far from here. Do you know it?”
Brian nodded. “It’s a few miles east.”
“I’ll see you then, my friends,” said Dracol, and sneered.
As the warrior and shaman turned and walked away, I wondered how we would get the money. We could have spent all day picking mushrooms and selling to them, but I wasn’t going to be reduced to that. I was going to have to come up with a way to deal with the two brigands once and for all.
Without warning, Smoglar picked his old axe up off the ground. He charged across the forest, sprinting at the brigands as they walked away. When he reached Dracol he lifted his axe and smashed it into his back. It barely dealt the warrior any damage.
Red Leroy immediately cast a healing spell on his friend, topping up the tiny fraction of health that he had lost. Dracol stepped forward and punched the dwarf in the face. Smoglar’s health bar, already low, dropped further. He stumbled forward and then fell face first onto the floor.
Brian leapt to his feet. I watched on, certain that I had seen my friend die. After a few agonising seconds, Smoglar stirred. He was hurt and stunned, but at least he was alive.
“It’s gone up to CR300 now,” said Dracol. “If your friend tries that again, I’ll murder you all.”
When the brigands had left the forest, we all sat on a felled log. Smoglar said nothing, preferring to stare at the ground and stew in anger. It was Brian who spoke first.
“There’s nothing for it, gentlemen. We’ll just have to find the money.”
“Or we could kill them,” muttered Smoglar.
“And we saw how well that went, didn’t we?”
“Some support would have been nice,” said Smoglar.
“Support? You’re a fool sometimes, dwarf. Did you really think we could take them on?”
“Oh shut up, you lumbering oaf.”
I stood up. “Enough,” I said. The two of them looked up at me, seeming surprised that I had raised my voice. “Brian’s right; we can’t take them in a fight. But I’m not going to give them anything. We need to end this.”
“And how are you going to do that?” said Smoglar, not bothering to hide his mocking tone of voice.
“I’m going to teach them a lesson,” I said.
Chapter Five
Combining the health potion with the bomb and seeing its effect on the Undead Dire Bear was a great feeling. Who doesn’t like it when a gamble pays off? Well, bookmakers and casinos don’t, but everyone else gets a kick out of it. After seeing that work, I had an idea for dealing with Dracol and Red Leroy.
First, I needed supplies, and I knew that CR45 wouldn’t stretch far. My most discernible talents were bomb making and stabbing things with daggers, and people rarely get rich from those. I needed another way to make some CR, fast.
I spent the next few hours picking mushrooms and anything that looked like an herb in the forest. It wasn’t the most glorious work, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. There was a travelling merchant who had set up camp a couple of miles outside Gospag forest, and he’d offered to buy any junk I could find. While I worked, Smoglar and Brian roamed the plains outside the forest and spent their time levelling up by killing imps.
With an inventory that was now full of leaves, I found the merchant sat on the ground with a saddle bag beside him. His horse stood a metre away, tied to his arm by a rope. I wondered what would happen to the merchant if the horse suddenly sprang into a gallop, but I doubted he had thought that far ahead. When he saw me, he spat out the grass stalk he was chewing.
“What do you have for me?” he said.
After selling him the herbs, I ended up with CR102, which I then used to buy bomb supplies. After finishing the transaction, an alert filled my screen.
Ability Gained – Herb Master. You are at one with the forest. Well, the plant part of it, anyway. You are skilled in gathering herbs without destroying the plant, and you are more receptive to the knowledge of vegetation. Do you accept?
Although I was anxious to fill my 3rd ability and complete one of the quests I’d set for myself, I wasn’t sure this was it. I knew that once you chose an ability it was locked in, and I didn’t want to waste my last slot. In a way, herb master sat well with my other abilities of Appraiser of Men and Snake Tongue. They were all non-fighting powers, after all. In the end I decided not to accept it. Herb master became a skill rather than an ability.
Despite that, it did make me think. If I was going to start combining things with bombs, then it would be good to know the magical properties of the herbs that grew in the forest. I went over to the merchant and tried to buy one of the herbs back from him. He looked at me like I was crazy.
“You really want to buy this back?”
I nodded.
“Well, its CR2.”
“Come on, pal. You bought it from me for CR1,” I said.
“I’ve gotta make a profit.”
I put my hand in the air and looked deep into his eyes. “You’re going to sell this to me for CR1,” I said.
He blinked, and then nodded.
Snake tongue increased by 5%! (20% until level 2).
I walked away from the merchant so that he couldn’t see what I was doing, and then I sat down. I held the leaf in my hand. It was triangle shaped, and nearly all of it was green save for a thin blue line that ran down the centre like a vein. I focussed on it the way I would with creatures when I was using Appraiser of Men on them. I tried to look deeply at the leaf and discern its properties, but nothing happened. Damn.
I walked back into the forest and began picking more herbs. Another round of picking and then selling, and I would be all set. The irony was that soon I would probably have enough to pay off the brigands, but I wasn’t going to use the CR for that. I knew that even if I paid them, Red Leroy wouldn’t remove the marker he had on me, and the two of them would keep coming back for more. I needed to shut them up for good.
As I reached down to grab a purple leaf, a chill shuddered through me. I suddenly had the feeling that someone was watching me. I looked around and all I saw were the dead trees of Gospag, with their spindly limbs interlocking to form a roof. There were no Blood Steer around, and I knew it would be a while before they respawned. All the same, I felt like something was staring at me.
I stood up. As I looked around, I felt something hit me in the chest. It didn’t hurt but instead seemed as if something had rushed through me. It filled my body with cold, and I thought I heard a voice whisper in my ear. A second later, it was gone, and the feeling of being watched went along with it.
Quest Received: Find Her.
You have received a mysterious quest. You don’t know who sent it, who they want you to find, or what they’ll give you for completing it. Not much to go on, is it? It’s a complete leap of faith, but some people like leaping. Do you accept?
It was a strange thing to happen, but I was quickly getting used to how cryptic things were in Re:Fuze. First there was the mystery viewer, and then item they had sent me, and now this. Well, I wasn’t here to spend all my time picking herbs, was I? I accepted the quest and then checked to make sure it was in my quest log.
After selling the rest of my herbs to the merchant I bought all the supplies I would need to carry out my plan to finish the brigands. With that done, I went to meet Smoglar and Brian.
I found them camped in the mouth of a small cave at the edge of the forest. As I approached them, I saw that the giant and the dwarf were leaning in close to each other and whispering. When they saw me, they sat up straight.
Message From Viewer: ‘Don’t trust them.’
Dude, change the record. I was sick of his, or her, cryptic messages. Despite the mystery item they had given me, I was starting to feel that the viewer was working against me. It seemed like they
were trying to plant seeds of doubt in our small party.
I joined Smoglar and Brian in the cave and warmed myself next to the fire. The flames illuminated the stone walls, and I saw that stick drawings were scratched into them. We sat for a few minutes and spoke about our plans. There was a hamlet not too far away, but we decided that we would give it a miss for now. I think at that point, we were all sick of NPCs and other players.
I listened to Smoglar describe in graphic detail everything he was going to do to Dracol and Red Leroy the next time he saw them. As he talked, I couldn’t help but think about the viewer’s words. I hated even considering it, but a part of me wondered now if there was something to what they had said.
Tinker, Tailor, Giant, Dwarf ( LitRPG Series): Difficulty:Legendary Book 2 Page 5
