Resurgence: The Rise of Resurgence Book 1

by Joshua W. Nelson

  “Calm down bro, still in the trees, they aren’t coming out yet. Want me to grab Wayne and Allison or just put it through the group chat?”

  “No, you stay here, since you can see them and I can’t. I’m going to act like I’m stretching my legs and walk up to the next wagon. I don’t want us losing our element of surprise that we know they are out there. And I would suggest never calling Jason “Allison” to his face.”

  “Little bit crazy bro, not stupid. And I love my fun bag and don’t want to see it stomped by an angry High-Elf.”

  “Wise decision, be right back.”

  I approached Wayne and Jason, who were chatting in the back of their wagon. Jason was laughing at something Wayne had just said.

  “Naugha told me the funniest story from his days as a bouncer. The ridiculousness of some people.”

  “I bet. Probably make Dan seem normal and sane. Possibly. Maybe. Probably not.”

  They both laughed at that, and while I had them laughing, I said in a very natural tone, “keep up with the smiles and laughs. Dan has contact behind us, probably moving through the woods toward us. Which means there will probably be another group ahead of us, a pincer move. I want to head up to the wagon master and see what’s coming on the horizon.”

  Naugha smiled and nodded. But the smile was his “I get to crunch something” one, and there was a lot of canine in that smile. “I’ll head back with Jason toward Dan after you leave. Two front battles are not a good idea, though, so we need to assess this quickly,” Wayne said. I laughed and nodded my head and then headed forward to the wagon master.

  I saw what was going to happen almost immediately. We were cresting up a hill and would reach the top in another 300 meters. Dollars to donuts there would be an obstruction in the road just on the other side that would force us to stop.

  “Good day sir,” I said to the wagon master as I approached, him leading the team and holding the reins.

  “Why ain’t you back with the supplies?” He barked at me. It was hard to take him too seriously, as he was wearing an absurdly large floppy hat on his head. I guess when you are out in the sun every day on these wagons, you would want something to protect against the sun.

  “I’m just doing my job sir,” I said, trying to remain civil and non-assuming. I didn’t want to tip our hand.

  “Your job is to guard them supplies.” He said again.

  “And that is exactly what I am doing.”

  He gave me a sideways glance from under his hat and said, “What’a ya know?”

  “We’ve got someone in the trees trailing behind us, and I’ll eat your hat if there isn’t an obstruction just over that ridge. Likely with a welcoming party.”

  “We can’t turn around, ain’t no room for that. What ya suggest?”

  “Surprise my good man, surprise.”

  * * *

  I went around to the other side of the wagon, away from where the mobs in the wood were tailing us. I rolled underneath the wagon and activated my Conceal/Stealth. I had plenty of shadows I could have grabbed, but I didn’t feel as comfortable with them as I did with my old standby. By the time the wagon passed over me, I was invisible and walking back toward my companions.

  I walked past them as quickly as I could and made my way to the woods. With my Stealth activated, no one in the woods would hear me, and my Conceal would keep me hidden, as long as none of them had an item that could see through an invisible spell.

  There were only two of them. Humans, but they looked very scraggly. Their clothes were all torn and patched. But their levels were higher than mine, as their names, Woodland Bandits, were blue in front of me.

  I went back to the wagons, which were moving much slower now according to my instructions to the wagon master, and walked around one of them to disengage my Conceal/Stealth. Once I was visible again, I approached my team and told them about the two bandits in the woods.

  We decided to engage these two before we crested the ridge, so we wouldn’t have to split up our team in defending the wagons. The wagon master told me the others manning the wagons wouldn’t be able to help in a fight. But he glanced toward his sword next to him and told me he wouldn’t have any problem defending his goods. His name, Rendu, was green to me, so I didn’t know how much help he would be.

  “Flush ‘em out Dan,” I said.

  “With pleasure,” Dan said right before taking out his bow and firing two arrows into the tree line. He had shot at both of the bandits. And both of them came running out of the woods toward Dan.

  “Blueberries!” I yelled. And with that, Rendu halted the wagon train. We had come up with a code word so he knew when we were engaging. He suggested it. I thought it might be his normal “safe” word.

  Wayne went at the first bandit and yelled out “eat hammer, dick!” before swinging his war hammer at the bandit.

  Dan stopped shooting and looked over at Wayne, “was there a comma in there dude, or was that just a dramatic pause? Because the two mean something totally different!”

  “Shut up Dan and keep shooting!”

  Dan got back in the fight, giggling. I heard him whisper, “TheClaw got jokes son!”

  These mobs were nothing compared to our gear and levels and we were going to end up dispatching them quickly. I didn’t know what waited over the ridge, but these guys weren’t going to be a problem at all.

  Turns out I was wrong.

  The guy in front of us went from 40 percent health to 100 percent health in one second.

  “Shit! They’ve got a healer! Dan, do you see him?” Wayne asked.

  “Yeah man, looks like he is just inside the wood line. This could mean trouble,” Dan replied.

  Taking my usual leader role and dishing out assignments, I told Dan, “Disengage TC, put some arrows in that guy, and hit him with a snare. Once it lands let us know and Wayne will chase him down. I don’t want to waste time trying to catch him.”

  Dan did as he was instructed and quickly yelled out that the Snare had landed. Wayne ran over by Dan and started beating on the healer. There was no way we could have known which one was him if the other two hadn’t run out simultaneously to engage Wayne. Just like the others, the healer was a Woodland Bandit, nothing more was given about his Class.

  Wayne had to keep switching targets to make sure he kept the aggro. But now our focus was on the healer. Once we got him down to around 50 percent, he turned and started attacking me, as my proc had landed a number of times. I wasn’t taking much damage so I told Wayne to focus on the other two and Dan and I would take the healer out. Between my fast weapon and Dan’s steady barrage of arrows, the healer didn’t get off another cast.

  Once he was dead, we made short work of the other two. We got back to the wagons and found Rendu appraising us as we approached. “Damn fine work boys! I was going to jump in when you said there was a third out there, but it seems ya didn’t have any need of my blade. Let’s get set up quickly so we can keep going and see what be over that hill.”

  “If you don’t mind sir, my companions could use a few minutes to rest up and get us healthy and hearty,” Jason said to Rendu.

  “No problems, but we don’t want to waste too much time. Could give away our surprise.”

  We nodded our heads in agreement and took what time we needed to heal myself and Wayne. Jason was at 70 percent mana and wanted to get to 80 percent before our adventure began over the crest. I was inclined to agree, but with Jason’s huge mana pool, it could take a while before we got Jason that 10 percent.

  We waited as long as I felt was safe, and then told the guys to get ready. We would be walking along the sides of the wagons this time, not riding in the back. We wanted to all see what was over that ridge at the same time.

  And like I thought, there was indeed a tree laying across the road. There were five men standing around the tree, talking amongst themselves, but not looking nefarious in nature. Their names all said Woodland Resident, and all were Blue to us. Perhaps these were NPCs and not m
obs that planned to attack us. I wasn’t going to take any chances though, so I told Rendu to speak to them, but just to get their attention. I would handle everything after that.

  “Pardon me fine sirs,” Rendu said with hat in hand, “that tree been there long?”

  “Don’t rightly know now, do I? Just came upon it ourselves while we was out looking for a good place for our next hunting party,” one of them said.

  The same man paused for a moment, then turned to us and said, “But you know, I would think it would be the right and proper thing for us to help you get your wagons on their way. Suppose we could get this tree here out the way for a small compensation.” He smiled when he said it, but it was all teeth, like when Wayne got ready for a fight. Only he didn’t have that fire in his eyes like Wayne always had. Might have been because he didn’t expect four adventurers traveling with the wagons.

  “I don’t think that will be necessary. I’m sure my companions and I could move it with no problems,” I responded. Hell, the tree wasn’t all that big and I thought Wayne could probably smack it out of the road with his hammer.

  “Well now, see, that there is going to be a problem,” he said while looking at me. And just like that, his name turned from Woodland Resident to Woodland Bandit.

  “Ok, that was awesome. I didn’t realize they could shield and then shed their identities like that!” Dan said.

  “What the blazes you talkin’ bout boy? Only thing we gonna be sheddin’ is your blood on the ground.”

  The man took a quick sideways glance toward the woods, but I wasn’t ready to give away our hand just yet.

  Rendu growled from atop his perch and said, “That one is mine, you boys handle the other four.” And with that he jumped from the wagon, raised his sword and dashed at the bandit who had been speaking. I didn’t have much faith in his ability to take the bandit, but I wasn’t going to have time to worry about that. As Wayne engaged the bandit next to the talker, he yelled out, “Feel my steel!”

  We couldn’t help it, we all started giggling. Wayne had already engaged and didn’t realize until two seconds later that we were laughing. “Damn it! Fuck you guys! Help me out here.”

  Jason cast a heal on Wayne while Dan snared one of the bandits and started running him around. I was waiting to engage since I didn’t want to steal aggro. It also gave me a moment to address Wayne’s battle cries.

  “We really need to work on your word choice there Wayne. Perhaps something that doesn’t immediately make someone think about your penis.”

  “Dan said it sounded fierce!” Wayne yelled.

  “You listened to Dan?!?” Jason yelled back.

  Wayne gripped his war hammer so tight I could see his knuckles turn white as he growled, “I’m so going to put this shaft up his ass,” Wayne growled.

  Jason started laughing again, uncontrollably. “That one is on you Wayne, we are still over here thinking about your steel after all,” I responded while engaging the mob Wayne was attacking.

  “I was talking about my hammer Alex!”

  “See, that needs to be clarified. Hence why we are going to work on your word choice.”

  Wayne was definitely angry. If I didn’t know any better, I would say his anger was effecting the game and his hits were even harder than normal. But he never lost his focus on his role. It was amazing to watch him go from one mob to the other and keep them on him. He would hit the primary mob, then when his Bash was active, he would attack the second mob with it, only to switch to the third to use his Taunt. It kept aggro on him almost the whole time. However, with my dagger, I pulled aggro eventually.

  “Don’t worry about me, I’ve got the armor and hit points for this. Just keep doing what you are doing.”

  And shortly thereafter we took down the first mob and started on the second. I knew I wouldn’t be pulling aggro on either of these as Wayne had been building it up while we killed the first mob. I looked around for Dan, and saw he was still kiting his mob, shooting arrows at him the whole time. I also spared a glance over to Rendu who was still engaged with the other bandit. They both looked bloody and ragged, but were still going at it, although they had just separated to catch their breaths and gauge their opponent. The bandit took that opportunity to yell out, “Lester, you idiot, heal me already!”

  I didn’t need to tell him what had happened, but I knew it would make me feel good to do so. “No help coming from ol’ Lester. He and the other two are already dead in a ditch a ways back.”

  The bandit got a look of real worry on his face. Where he thought he had eight against five, in reality it was a straight up fight. He then noticed one of his was already down and his eyes got bigger again. Then realizing he may not be long for this world if he didn’t finish off Rendu, he reengaged with more fury.

  We finished our mobs, none having any good loot, and then helped Dan finish off his. Dan’s mob was already at 70 percent when we got to him, thanks to Dan’s steady supply of arrows. Although I worried that if we faced too much more resistance on our way to the outpost, Dan could run out of arrows.

  Turning to finish off the last mob, the bandit fighting Rendu, we ran toward his position. However, at the last moment, the bandit and Rendu put their blades through each other’s stomachs at the same time. Blood leaked from their abdomens, and as one they fell over. Both were dead.

  I ran over and grabbed for Rendu, hoping I could help him. Touching him opened up his inventory for looting. Definitely dead.

  He had only two items. A bastard sword that would get us a few silver at a merchant, and a letter for the outpost declaring the goods he was transporting. I took both items and stood up.

  I looked at the others from the wagon train and said “Well shit. Anyone know how to drive these things?”

  * * *

  Dan said he did. Know how to drive them. Said he read it in a book. Once. But then pointed at his head and reminded us what he could do. All with a very large dose of arrogance.

  It took us three hours more to get to the outpost. Should have taken half that. Not because there were more bandits, but because Dan lacked even the tiniest bit of skill with the wagons. I know, I know. Big surprise.

  Now normally, if we saw Dan had no skill at such a thing, we would have just gotten him off the damn wagon. But after only five minutes of trying to get the wagons going in a straight line, Dan suddenly pulled the reins hard one way and the horses reacted, and the wagon went sideways and then tipped over. It took us a half hour to get all the supplies back in the wagon, after the hour it took for us to get it righted with the others from the wagon train, and then calm the horses down.

  “What the hell was that Dan?” Jason asked, referring to the sudden yank on the reins.

  “Thought I saw a bee bro. I’m allergic. I don’t have my eppy pen,” Dan said dead panned.

  “It’s a game you doofus. Nothing would have happened!”

  “This shit is too real bro, how do I know the sensors wouldn’t take my real feelings and just make me go into seizures!”

  I didn’t think this would happen, but Dan’s worry seemed genuine. Needless to say, we didn’t let him anywhere near the reins again.

  As I was walking toward the front of the horses to see if their tack was secure, not that I really knew what I was doing, I heard Dan whisper to Wayne, “Did you see that Naug! I had it on two wheels bro. That shit was epic!” Wayne just shook his head, but I could see there was a small smile at the corners of his mouth.

  There was a guard at the outpost when we arrived. When he saw the wagons, and no wagon master, he started to take out the sword from his belt. Outpost Guard was Red to all of us. I didn’t want to mess with this guy at all and quickly put my hands up so he could see I didn’t have a weapon. Then I told him, “sir, we are the guards sent with Rendu. We were attacked by bandits a ways back. They killed Rendu, but we knew the King needs these supplies. So we decided to continue on instead of turning back for Port Town and Sir Kenyon.”

  Dropping the
name of Sir Kenyon had the desired effect and the guard calmed down a bit, but didn’t remove his hand from the pommel of his sword. “How many were there?”

  “Eight.”

  “And how many did ya kill?”

  “Seven.”

  “So there is still one of them bastards out there? Probably their dang healer, he seems to always get away from us.”

  “Oh Lester? No, he won’t be healing anyone again. I say seven because that’s how many we killed. Rendu killed the leader.”

  The guard smiled at that and removed his hand from the sword. “Damn, old git had some fight left in him huh? Well good on him, means he died a warrior’s death, something he would have preferred. You got his list?”

  I nodded that I did and handed it to him. He looked to be reviewing it. After a few moments he nodded his head and told us to take the wagons into the outpost and see the Captain of the Guard.

  The Captain was a large man, with a grizzly beard and some of the largest shoulders I had ever seen. He carried himself with the authority of a man who knew he was in charge. Which is why it surprised me that he had an open smile and a friendly demeanor with all of the other guards. I was guessing the Captain was held in high regard here and seemed to treat all of his people with respect.

  “Guard at the gate sent a runner to me. Damn shame about Rendu. He and I fought in a campaign or two back in the day. Glad to hear he died on a blade and not under a wheel.”

  “He fought valiantly sir. If it weren’t for Rendu’s aid, I don’t know that we could have held off five bandits at once. We will speak of his bravery upon our return to Port Town,” Jason said to the Captain. Damn if Jason couldn’t talk it up. Aristocracy, thy name is Allister.

  “See that you lads do. And now that you have completed your task, here is a letter for you to bring to Sir Kenyon. He will be able to provide payment for your services upon your return, as we don’t have much in the way of excess here, and no extra funds we could spare with.” Then with that big smile I saw earlier, he said, “However, please feel free to remain at the outpost for as long as you like. You did a good thing bringing those supplies here. I know it would have been easier to just abandon the wagon train, or return to Port Town. But you didn’t, and the King’s men here will remember your bravery. You will always have a hot meal here any time you need it.”