by Sam Ferguson
The group walked along the outer wall until they reached the stable at the south-eastern side of the city. Rhonda purchased four horses and then brought them out to the others.
Brian thought it funny that he ended up getting the same horse he had stolen before, or at least it looked the same.
Made it back in one piece I see. Brian patted the horse and mounted it.
“I could fast travel ahead to Konji, has everyone been there already?” Brian asked.
“I have,” Rhonda said. “Good place to buy and sell alchemy ingredients and potions.
“I have,” Augustin said. He tapped his armor. “They have a blacksmith there that can add silver to your armor and weapons. It only gives a half-point bonus to base defense or damage, but it adds some fun protections or bonuses against certain kinds of enemies.”
“I have not,” Mike said. “My mage guild quests have all sent me westward, and the book I hunted down with you was that way too,” he added.
“No worries,” Brian said. “It won’t take long to make up the difference on horseback.”
“It will be better, since part of our quest is to deal with bandits on the road between the two cities,” Augustin pointed out.
Brian and Augustin led the group, with Rhonda in the middle and Mike bringing up the rear. This way they had their two warriors up front, the alchemist with healing potions in the middle, and their mage in the back if they needed ranged support.
They galloped along the road. To the east they could sometimes catch glimpses of the sea through the surrounding trees, but most of the time the road took them through dense woods and meandered around hills—a somewhat longer route than Brian’s previous direct trip had taken.
They passed by a single guard on horseback, and then about two minutes later they passed a horse-drawn carriage.
“Oh, I bet there’s treasure to be looted from them,” Mike said.
“Not this time, Mike,” Augustin replied. “We have to move forward with the quests.”
“But... I can hear the gold calling my name.”
Brian laughed. “Come on, there is gold enough to take from the bandits on the road to Bohotes, right?”
Mike sighed. “Such a pretty carriage too. You know it might be unique, a once-in-a-game kind of opportunity.”
“Mike...”
Mike slowed his horse. “You guys go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”
“It’s a good thing this is just a game,” Rhonda said. “Otherwise, this kind of behavior might lead a person to distrust you.”
“Hide your piggy bank,” Mike jested.
“Don’t get caught,” Brian warned. “After all, your actions will reflect on House Bob now.”
Mike laughed. “True, wouldn’t want to bring dishonor to House Bob.” With that he turned his horse around and galloped off after the carriage, which had already disappeared around a tree-covered hill.
Brian and the other two went on up the road, far enough away that they could neither see nor hear the ensuing encounter. More importantly, far enough away that they couldn’t be blamed for it if something went wrong.
[Do pick me up something nice.] Brian messaged Mike directly.
[Oh, of course. I’m nothing if not selfless—Kolvurin]
When they finally arrived at Konji, they waited outside the city at the crossroads for several minutes. Finally, Brian caught sight of his friend coming fast down the road. He was smiling ear to ear.
“I earned a few hundred experience points.”
“That means you killed everyone,” Rhonda said with a shake of her head.
“Can’t leave witnesses.” Mike shrugged.
“Was it worth it?” Brian pressed.
“About a thousand gold, and a bunch of potions actually. It was an alchemy guild supply wagon I think, or perhaps some sort of supply caravan at least.”
“Great,” Rhonda said.
“On to Bohotes,” Augustin said impatiently.
The group turned southward, but Brian checked the map. The road meandered a lot, taking indirect paths and then crossing a large river. “We sure we need to take the road?” he asked. “The direct path would be faster, and we’ll probably still see some baddies along the way.”
Augustin shook his head. “The quest is to clear the road specifically.”
Brian relented, and the group resumed their journey toward Bohotes. The road took them deeper into the forest. The fern bushes gave way to larger briars and berry bushes, and the trees became thicker, taller, and darker the farther they went. The coastal hills gave way to flatter ground marked with groups of boulders and thick grasses punctuated by swaths of purple and yellow flowers.
This time it was Rhonda who wanted to stay behind.
“I don’t think I’ve seen those kinds of flowers before,” she said. “You all go on ahead; just need to pick a few so I can identify them.”
No one argued, but Mike offered to stay behind with her in case any dangerous animals snuck up on her.
Brian and Augustin trekked on alone. They went due south for a few minutes, covering several miles of game distance, and then they wound their way around a particularly large mass of boulders at the bottom of a gently sloping hill covered with thick pines and maple trees. As they rounded the southern edge to take a more easterly direction, a heavy tree fell directly in front of them. Branches snapped and dust kicked up, scaring their horses into a skidding stop.
“Ambush!” Augustin cried.
Brian looked behind them and saw a second tree fall. Sure enough, a group of six dwarves emerged from behind trees.
In front of them, four more dwarves jumped up from camouflaged holes in the ground. The dwarves had axes and spears at the ready. Whatever Meredith might have said about the moondust wolves being nice, there was no friendliness to be found here. Fortunately, all ten of them had green dots above their heads.
A dwarf rushed forward, but Augustin charged and leapt from his horse. He landed a heavy blow with his sword, which looked rather fancy with the silver additive. The dwarf died and fell onto his back.
Brian pulled his longbow and fired at one of the dwarves coming from behind. It struck the dwarf in the chest, but the dwarf charged for a counterattack. Brian couldn’t go forward or backward along the road, but he could go south toward the forest. He trotted his horse toward the side of the road, happy to discover that the pace easily put distance between him and the chasing dwarves. He fired again. A heavy, hollow sounding thabunk sounded as the arrow struck the dwarf in the head and dropped him.
Two shots to a dwarf. I have enough to take on the other five.
He fired two more rapid shots, but instantly wished he had taken a half second longer to aim as both shots missed their mark.
Augustin hollered out, “Two!” as he felled another dwarf with his sword.
Brian focused and sent another arrow at one of the five chasing him. It hit home and flashed yellow as it struck the dwarf. The HP bar dropped all the way with one shot, and the dwarf fell face-first to the ground.
Critical! Brian smiled and set another arrow to the string, but before he could let loose, there was a strange sound behind him between the trees.
He turned around just as a large, thorny rope net sprang up from the ground. In his haste to escape, he hadn’t thought to check for additional traps.
Clever! The net caught his horse and inflicted some damage on the mount. It whinnied and shook its head as small cuts appeared on its neck. The more it struggled, the more it seemed to stay stuck in the net. Brian dismounted and switched his bow for his longsword.
Two dwarves came in hard and fast. The one on Brian’s left swung an axe that Brian was able to jump away from, but the one on the right jabbed with his spear and caught Brian with a grazing stab. Brian felt the heavy, vibrating sensation that spiked his heart rate and got his adrenaline pumping. His HP bar dropped about fifteen percent. He countered with a diagonal chop of his sword.
Critical! A yellow flash signaled t
he spear-wielding dwarf’s death as the sword cut through him, but the triumph was short-lived as the axe-wielding dwarf came in and landed a blow on Brian’s side.
His HP bar dropped to two thirds.
Wheeling around, Brian landed a first hit, taking a third of the dwarf’s HP away, but the dwarf didn’t let up. Brian managed to block the next axe attack, but it drained some of his stamina. He tried to front kick the dwarf, but the short enemy easily sidestepped the maneuver and then countered with a two-handed bashing move that sent Brian back a couple feet and drained more of his stamina.
“Three and four!” Augustin said. Brian thrusted his sword at the dwarf’s face, but the dwarf deflected with the flat of his axe. Brian came in with a quick slash and caught the dwarf in the side, then he somersaulted to the left and came up just out of the dwarf’s reach. The axe sailed harmlessly in front of Brian, and Brian came down with a chop that finished the axe-wielding dwarf.
Augustin took down one of the last two dwarves by himself. He and Brian both reached the last dwarf at the same time. The poor, bearded highwayman had no chance—his life was ended sandwiched between the two warriors’ blades with a simultaneous attack from both.
[+112 XP]
“Not a lot of XP off of those bandits,” Brian complained.
“I got one hundred and thirty-seven experience points,” Augustin replied. “It wasn’t terrible.”
“So I got four myself, you got five, and we split the last one,” Brian said.
“Literally, if you will excuse the pun,” Augustin remarked with a quiet chuckle.
“Ha, that’s true,” Brian agreed. “Shall we see what they have for loot?”
“Sure, go ahead. I’ll see about moving the tree from the road,” Augustin said.
Brian realized his horse might still be stuck, so he turned and worked his mount carefully backward away from the net trap. He then cut the ropes suspending the net and checked his horse. The animal’s HP appeared to be replenishing quickly now that the battle was over. The red cuts shrank and disappeared in seconds. Brian went into his inventory and ate the bread he had, restoring a bit of HP. Then he went to work looting the dwarves.
The first two dwarves had broken leather armor, so he left it. He did, however, take an iron axe and an iron spear, as well as four gold coins.
He moved from corpse to corpse, pulling everything of value he found.
“A total of three axes, three spears, ten gold, and one leather hauberk,” Brian said after he finished with the six dwarves nearest him “Oh, and one spell scroll.”
Meh, why not? Brian thought to himself. He opened his user interface and moved to the scroll.
[USE SLOW SCROLL?]
Brian affirmed that he wanted to use it.
[YOU ARE UNABLE TO USE SLOW SCROLL]
“Pft,” Brian rolled his eyes. What a dumb name anyway. Brian could see why Meredith might have had a reason to be less than impressed with some of her team members if this is what they came up with. “Any interest?” he asked Augustin, holding the scroll out to him. “Evidently I’m not qualified to make use of it.”
Augustin didn’t answer for a moment, as he was in the process of pushing the tree off the road. Konnons were a large and heavily muscled race—the tree was little more than a minor hindrance to Augustin. He dragged it to the side of the road and then turned around, shook his head, and pointed to the other tree.
“Not interested in spells. Moving that tree though gave me an athletics boost,” he called out. “Kind of like weight training, I guess.”
Brian shook his head. “Maybe it’s like Scottish Highland games,” he said. “They throw trees and rocks around, right?”
Augustin shrugged and went to work pushing the next tree from the road.
Brian looted the first of the last four dwarves.
[+200 GP]
Brian exhaled a quiet whistle. The dwarf’s spear and armor were broken, so he left those.
“The first dwarf over here had nothing,” Brian lied, keeping the gold for himself. He checked the next three and came up with an iron dagger, two axes, and one steel spear. “Got some more weapons off the others.”
“You’d think the bandits would have more gold,” Augustin said.
Brian shrugged. “Maybe they’re just bad at being bandits. I mean, we put them down pretty easily.”
Just then Rhonda and Mike came thundering around the hill, pulling their horses to a stop just a few yards short of trampling Augustin.
“Whoa, looks like we missed the fun,” Mike said.
“My magely friend!” Brian greeted enthusiastically, “I have a gift for you!” He tossed the spell scroll up to Mike, who immediately opened it to read through its contents.
“Are either of you hurt badly?” Rhonda asked.
“Nah, just a few bandits,” Brian replied.
“Only ten gold pieces though and a few weapons,” Augustin commented.
Mike looked to Brian and cocked his head to the side.
[Ok, how much gold did you really find?—Kolvurin]
He knows me too well. Brian thought.
[Don’t impugn my honor... you’re the thief.]
[Says the assassin...—Kolvurin]
“What spell did the scroll give you?” Brian asked exaggeratedly, attempting to signal that it was time to move the conversation along.
Mike gave him a sly smile but let the coin question go. “It is a spell of slowing. I can use it once a day to slow the movement of a single creature for five seconds,” he snorted and tossed his hand with a dismissive gesture. “Drives me crazy to find these ‘nothing’ spells. They basically just clog up my menu.”
With that, the group gathered the two horses that were now off grazing to the side of the road, then they continued along their way.
“If all the fights are this easy, the quest should be a piece of pie,” Augustin said.
“Cake,” Rhonda corrected softly. “The expression is piece of cake.”
“Oh, I see,” Augustin replied. Had Brian been able to see Augustin’s actual face, he imagined the man would be blushing right now. He was incredibly smart, and very gifted with languages, so he hated to make mistakes with common metaphors or idioms. Not that Rhonda was harsh with her correction, she had sounded as sweet as ever, but Augustin took a certain pride with his foreign language skills, and rightfully so.
Brian decided to throw him a bone to boost his confidence back up. “Augustin, how would you say that in your language?”
Augustin turned to Brian. “I have something similar in my language, but it’s not a direct translation. But, if you want to say it my way, then you would say this.” Augustin cleared his throat and spoke the phrase in Mapudungun. As usual, whenever Augustin spoke, the words were far too fast for Brian to pick out each individual one. It was more like a river of syllables bursting from a dam and smacking his ears. It sounded eloquent, but there was no way he could reproduce it.
“Try it,” Augustin encouraged. He spoke the phrase a little slower.
Brian took a breath and tried to repeat the phrase as best he could. Judging by Mike’s laugh, Brian guessed he had maybe half of the words correct. Augustin was patient though, and he slowed the phrase down a bit more and repeated it until Brian was able to parrot back something that sounded close enough. Augustin nodded and smiled.
“Well done, my friend. Well done.”
Brian knew he was just being polite, but that wasn’t the point. Augustin had now already forgotten his own mistake, and the group was well on their way to Bohotes. They only traveled maybe another two in-game miles before they had another encounter.
In the middle of the road a large bear sat upon its haunches. Its fur was brown and green, with pink spike-like quills growing from its shoulders. It turned and looked at the group as they approached. The creature rose to stand on all fours, took two lumbering steps toward the group, and then reared back to stand on its hind legs and sniffed the air before bellowing a loud roar.
“All I see is a pelt and teeth, maybe some claws and quills too,” Brian replied.
As if the bear could understand them, it charged. Brian whipped out his longbow and fired a shot. Direct hit. The bear’s HP bar dropped about ten percent, but it kept coming like nothing had happened.
Mike sent a stream of icy spray shooting into the ground in front of the bear, creating a slick of black ice just as the bear galloped over the area. Its feet slipped for a second before the two back legs seemed to become entrapped in the ice. Rhonda threw a potion bottle into the bear’s side that shattered on impact and began smoking and sizzling, dropping the bear’s HP to a little less than half.
The strange quills rippled with color and the bear reared up once more. It swung its left paw, which was weird to Brian, because the animal was still twenty yards away. Everything became clear when a multicolored quill zipped through the air and caught Mike in the chest, throwing him off his horse.
Brian fired another arrow.
The bear took the second arrow in the chest and then flung its right paw. A quill sank deep into Brian’s horse’s neck. The animal faltered to the side, shook its head, and then started bucking uncontrollably as the bear turned to claw at the ice entrapping its back paws. Brian’s verbal commands had no effect on the horse, and he was forced to put his bow away and focus on the animal.
As he wrestled with his panicked steed, he saw Augustin rush in, blade out, war cry sounding through the air. It looked as though Augustin would have the advantage riding upon his sturdy horse, but the bear was much more nimble than Brian could have guessed. All four limbs now free, it shuffled to the side to dodge Augustin’s swiping sword, and then it lashed out with its right paw, raking four gashes along the horse’s right flank. The animal whinnied and shrieked, but didn’t panic like Brian’s horse still was.
As Augustin rode in an arc to make another pass at the bear, Brian was forced to leap from his mount. There was no way he could control the thing. He hit the ground hard, half jumping and half thrown by the animal, but at least he wasn’t kicked in the head or something. He pulled his bow again and prepared to fire, but Augustin rode directly into his line of sight and engaged the bear.
