Ceras and Grikius ran over to the rats surrounding Rinaldo and started to hit them with weapons, each of them had. Grikius stick sent the body of the rat body flying across the room with a sick thud echoing around the room. What was most surprising to Ceras, was that every time he hit a rat, it was like an explosion of blood and bone as the body was torn apart.
Soon the three had the situation under control as the rats in the immediate area had been cleared. Rinaldo was laughing and smiling from ear to ear as if this was all a game to him, but Rhef was still shouting curse at her overexcited brother.
From the back of the cavern came the next rush of rats, with a large rat in the center biting at the other rats as if it makes them attack:
Name of Monster
Level
Agility
HP
MP
Skills
Fanged Rats Queen
3
4
21
-
-
The three boys moved forward to intercept the horde of rats and started to thin the number out as they hit the rats with each of their weapons. Soon they were in the midst of flying bodies as the rats were hit and killed with each hit. Finally, as the queen rat reached Rinaldo, he tried to hit the large rat with his club, but she doge to the side with her greater agility the normal rats they had shown. Frustration showed on his face as he swung again at the large rat but missed. The large mangey queen moved in and bit his leg with a slobbering mouth, causing him to shout in pain and start to bleed onto the dirt ground again. Ceras notice that the blood also had saliva from the queen rat and thought how gross.
Holding his leg, Rinaldo took another swing and this time hit the queen. Ceras noticed that her health bar dropped down to only one-third full. Another healing ray hit Rinaldo, allowing him to let go of his bloody wound that had now healed. All of the three boys were now clear to attack the queen of the rats, but out of nowhere, a stone hit her on the head, causing her health bar to drop as she dropped dead with blood flowed from her head.
As the five adventures stood in stunned silence, looking around at about forty dead rats, the silence was broken by Rhef shouting at her brother saying, "You're a complete idiot, next time wait for a plan of attack before running off."
Rinaldo who was still smiling, said in a tone of voice that showed he was unconcerned by his sister's comment and said, "It worked didn't it, so why are you so upset."
Rhef pointed at Symania and said, "It only work as she had a spell of light if we had no light where all would be going to the resurrection point with very unhappy memories."
Rinaldo looked a bit thoughtful as the rest of the team nodded in agreement.
Out of Grikius's cloth that held the small puppy Apollo, the dog jumped out and scampered over to one of the more gruesome rat bodies and started to sniff it. Soon to ever bodies disgust, except Grikius, the small dog started to as quickly as he could eat all the meat he could wolf down.
To the back ground of small dog gorging himself with the loud sound of tearing flesh, Ceras said "We need to harvest as much as we can from the rats. First, the monster cores, meat, and anything else that would be useful to sell."
Everybody excepted Symania nodded and took out their skinning knives and started to cut the back of the head to retrieve the cores. As they worked, Rhef noticed that Symania was looking pale and said to her, "Why don't you start a fire outside so we can cook some of the meat."
Symania nodded her head with a grateful expression as she ran outside. Soon the rest of the team made short work of skinning and cleaning the bodies of any meat. Grikius had suggested that they take the fangs of the rat as he knew somebody that would buy them in the town. When Rinaldo tried to take away a rat's body from the small dog, the dog turned around and snapped at him, warning him away from his meal. Rinaldo tried to kick the dog, but it easily avoids him and bites his ankle. This caused Rhef to laugh as Rinaldo limped of the find the healer.
Ceras sign in relief to be walking outside the burrow as he carried an arm full of rat's skin and meat. Grikius had the cores and the fangs inside his pack for sale in the town. Ceras was glad to see a fire about ten meters from the burrow being tended by Symania and Rinaldo who was sharping stick to roost the meat on. Ceras felt the first hungry pangs as he had not eaten yet, and it had been a busy day so far. Soon the, not so present smell of rat meat was cooking over the fire, with most of the team eagerly awaiting some food. When the hot sticks were handed out with slightly burning rat, all the members of the group started eating quickly, while only the healer Symania took tentative bites of her food.
"Not the worst thing that I've had to eat, but it is close," Rhef said with a look of acceptance of his meal on her face.
Rinaldo said with a grin on his cheerful face, "If you're not hungry, I'll have yours." Rhef made a rude sign to him and turned her back on her brother.
Chapter 4 Tracking Monsters
After finishing the meal, of a large amount of rat meat, the team packed up and started on the next quest. Ceras said to the Grikius, "OK it your turn to shine and get Apollo to find use some 'Tusk Pig'"
"It shouldn't be any problem for use. Ok Apollo out you jump and let's track down some pigs, "said Grikius smile with a confident grin.
"Does he understand what you say?" Ceras said with a confused expression,
The warlock said with another happy smile, "The words are for you all, as I had a mental link with him when I became a warlock. That's how I communicate with him, even over large distance when we get more powerful."
The small dog jumped out of the cloth around Grikius neck and scampered along the ground sniffing amongst the leaves of the forest. As the dog led the team further into the forest, the paths he took them down were small animal tracks, with twigs crisscrossing blocking the way the team walked. Every now and then one of the group would release a twig, that they had pushed out of the way, which would hit the person following on behind them causing some talk about being more careful. After Rhef was hit by a branch from her brother and hit him several time, everybody was very careful around her.
The forest that they passed through was beautiful in the mid-afternoon sunlight, with white light from the sun shining through the canopy, spreading patterns of light across the forest floor. The green of the leaves were all shades from a grayish to dark green with the browns of the wood on the trees standing in stark contrast. Moss was growing on the same side of each tree trunk with thick slabs of fungus on the trunks and dead logs on the ground.
During the walk as they were following the dog, they had seen some animals but most had stayed away from the party of five adventures.
A dog bark could be heard from up front of the column of adventures, and everybody ran forward to see the dog pointing its nose at a large pig across a small clearing in the forest:
Name of Monster
Level
Agility
HP
MP
Skills
Tusk Pig
3
4
30
-
Charge
The small dog jumped up into Grikius clothing and poked his head out growling at the pig. That was standing about thirty meters away, snorting at the group. Rinaldo shouted and charged at the pig with his mace raised in the air as the rest of the group was stunned for a second. The pig dug its trotters into the ground as it shot forward, and seemed to blur with a green light as if it had some skill. It quickly reappeared a few feet in front of Rinaldo, who took a swipe at the charging pig with his mace but missed. The pig tusks hit him full on taking a large amount of flesh out of his legs, as he was thrown sideways of the trail.
By the time the other had reached the pig and were trying to hit it on the ground as he was rolling in agony. The only person who was able to hit the large tusked pig was Ceras who with one hit killed it, sending the body back down the path as if he had just batted a ball.
"Are you sure you cho
se to be a wizard, as your hitting like a high-level warrior?" As Symania was healing Rinaldo, Rhef said to Ceras.
Ceras said as he looked at his states, "I just have a very high strength that is causing my hits to be so powerful."
Rhef looked like she was about to ask more question but turn to Symania and said to her, "Leave him in a bit of pain, so he starts to learn from his mistakes!"
The shy girl looked at Rhef in with a shocked expression and said in a gentle, quiet voice, "Sorry Rhef, I won't do that," and then back to healing Rhef brother.
The healing took a long time as he had lost a third of his health in one go. By the time Symania had finished, with the barbarian, the rest of the team had quickly gutted the pig.
"Let find a camping ground for the night, and hunt from there until we have all the pig we need for the quest," Ceras said to the group.
The rest of the day continued with the team hunting pig with the help of Apollo tracking skills and by the time it was starting to go dark they had six pig in the campsite ready to take into the town the next day. Except for one which would be cooked on the fire tonight.
As most of the team were from farms and us camping on hunting trips, that was able to set-up the campsite quickly in the hollow they would be staying for the night. A large fire pit was made with rocks placed in it the heat up to fry the meat on. Ceras using some branch's and leaves to build a temporary shelter between two large rocks with the fire on onside for protection and the back blocked as the rock meet. Rhef and her brother were happily, butchering the pig for them all to eat as much as possible tonight and the rest from eating over the next few days. While Grikius was gathering firewood, his dog Apollo was watching the butchering of the pig, every now and then barking for some scrap of meat that he wanted.
Rhef said in her blunt manner to Grikius, "That dog of yours seems just to eat and eat, all he can get. For something so small it like a bottomless pit."
Grikius smiled at his dog and said, "He's a grown little puppy and deserves all he can get."
Ceras who was watching the exchange seemed to see the dog smile at its warlock and them go back for demanding food scraps from the twins. As the meat sizzled on the hot stone frying with only the light from the fire and a magical light from Symania magic, the group of adventure talked as they ate the pig's meat.
Symania was the only one that did not have a background from one of the surrounding farms in the provinces; in fact, she was so shy it was difficult to get any information out of her. The rest all admitted to being poor and looking forward to earning some money from adventuring.
Rhef said in her loud commanding tone of voice, "If we're going to carry on adventuring together for some time, we need to spend the money we earn wisely on weapons, skill, and spells for the magical amongst us. We also need to get the best deal on what we are able to sell."
Grikius suddenly got very excited as he was a subject he loved and said, "If you let me do the trading then, I can promise you that will get the best prices on everything. It my area of expertise, as we have a small trading post on the farm, and I often practiced trading with working in the shop."
Everybody agreed to try that out to start and see how it went.
Ceras said to the group looking at Rinaldo "Talking about trying the thing out, I generally have some ideas on how the approach fighting situation, that might prevent injury. Rinaldo how about if you take some advice from the rest of us before rushing off into danger."
"You better do that, or you're never going to level-up and be left behind by the others," said Rhef hitting her brother on the shoulder.
Rinaldo thought for a while and said as he was rubbing his leg in remembrance of the pain, he had experienced, "OK if their time before a quest we'll have a chat about what to do."
The rest of the evening was filled with small talk about what they were looking forward to, as they ate as much meat as they could, before all making bed for themselves out of cloaks.
Chapter 5 Money at Last
Ceras was taking the last watch just before dawn. As he saw the dog move away from where he was snuggled up to Grikius, and walk over to the sleeping figure of Rinaldo and cocked his leg up as he peed on Rinaldo's head. Before Rinaldo could wake up, the dog ran back to his hiding place by Grikius and acted as if he was asleep. Rinaldo woke up, with a start, as the liquid dripped down his face and smelt it. With a start he got up and went stumbled over to a small stream close by the campsite, swearing to himself.
Once Rinaldo had cleaned up, he came back and said to Ceras, and said, "The strangest thing happens, I seem to have gotten some smelly water in my hair. Oh well, do you want to exercise to start the day."
Ceras nodded as he was trying not to laugh. As the two started to exercise, to start the day, Ceras felt full of energy as the exercising came easy to him. He noticed that Rinaldo looked at his with a slight look of envy when Ceras was doing one handed pull up easily. Soon the rest of the adventures were up, and they decided to take the pig into to town to get the money.
To carry all the pig and rat skins, the team builds a triangular frame that they could be used to drag the meat to the town. Ceras was designated the mule to do most of the pulling due to his high strength, so he found himself flowing the other as he pulled a large wooden frame through the forest's small path trying to avoid branches from hitting in the face as the other walked ahead of him. The task that would have been previously difficult to him was easy with his new strength, and soon the team was walking along the track in the farmland toward the town gate.
Ceras noticed as he walked through the town, the cobblestone caused the frame with all the pig on to bump up and down, making a loud noise that got some look from other passersby. Rhef was in the front directing the team towards the butcher shop, as the team of bedraggled adventures made their way through the towns shopping district. In his peripheral vision, Ceras saw people sometimes staring at him, pulling the large load along the cobbled streets as people had to get out of the way.
The group of adventures finally approached the large butcher's shop, with the carcass of animal hanging in the window to show what was on sale today. Ceras noticed that there was a glowing magical field around all the meat keeping any insects of it and keeping it fresh and preserved. He wondered in his mind when he would be able to do such spell, as it would be useful when he thought about the times at home when food has spoil because nobody in his family was a wizard.
Grikius went into the shop first with an eager smile on his face; Ceras followed, leaving the pigs with Rinaldo. The shop was empty of customers, and just had a large man behind a wooden butcher's board cutting up some meat in the chops with the loud thud of the meat cleaver.
The man looked up and said with a skeptical tone of voice to Grikius, as he looked at the poor clothing of the two adventures, "How can I help you this morning?"
Grikius said in a respectful tone of voice with a bright smile, "We have five tusk pig from the forest for you."
The butcher stopped cutting up the meat and logged, his cleaver into the top of the wooden butcher's block and said now more pleasantly, "Let's go and see the meat them." As he walked, with the two adventures, out of the front door of the shop.
As he saw the five pigs on the frame, he inspected them and nodded as he saw how large they were and that they had been properly gutted and they said to Grikius, "You did a good job, bring them in and I'll pay you."
Grikius indicated for Ceras and Rinaldo to carry the pig into the shop, as he talked to the shop owner. As Ceras carried the pig into the magical preservation area in the back of the shop and hung up the pigs on hooks, he heard snippets of the conversation. At first, it seemed that Grikius was trying to get a better price for the pig and them something for free.
As Ceras was standing next to Grikius in the shop as Grikius was taking to the butcher, he heard Grikius say, "We have a lot of rats meat from the forest as well, do you want to buy it."
The butcher looked at the large bu
ndle of rat meat the adventures had collected and said, "I can use it, but I'll only give you 50 copper for all of it."
Grikius said with a smile, "Could you add five pies with that, and we'll make the deal?"
The butcher smiled and nodded as he handed over 350 coppers coins and five pies in a brown paper bag. As Rinaldo grabbed a pie from the bag and handed it to Symania, who took a pie with relish and bite into it with a satisfied look as if she was grateful that she did not have to eat the rat meat. Rhef ran up to the team of adventures as she had been into the guild hall to report the completion of the two quests, and she took her pie before her brother ate it.
Ceras looked at his hand and saw another dot starting to form, next to the first dot, wondering at how many experiences points he had gained, in his vision, the text came up:
XP 4 of 11 too level 2 Wizard
Surprised as he had one more XP than he expected from the two quests he said to the group of adventures, “I’ve got four XP rather than the three I expected. What has everybody else got?”
Surprised as he had one more XP than he expected from the two quests he said to the group of adventures, “I’ve got four XP rather than the three I expected. What has everybody else got?”
The rest had four except for Symania who had five toward her next level, Rhef said in curious voices, “I wonder why we’re getting more then the reward says?”
As they wondered about what was happing Rhef led them out into the forest, towards the location of the goblin gang.
--
Ceras was lying next to Rhef as they look over a crest of a hill into a forest clearing with a cave entrance at the far end of the clearing. Rhef pointed out the two goblins guard pocking a fire with sticks.
Origins Page 4
