Debuff Added — Concussion! Health regeneration is slowed, and attacks based on Intelligence will do half-damage for 30 seconds.
But before I could wrap my head around…well, anything, I felt another gust of wind lift me off the ground and spin me around.
Blue Hand Raider mage strikes you with Whirling Dervish.
The spinning came to an abrupt end with a sickening, back-breaking crunch. I collapsed at the base of the juniper tree, my health flashing at one hit point. Through the mist of pain, I giggled. Somehow, seeing God Mode working was funny to my agony-addled mind.
Everything hurt. Every one of my ribs felt like they’d been cracked apart. I couldn’t move. I noticed my health slowly ticking up, but the throbbing of every fiber in me didn’t ease any.
“Z!” Leesha yelled again. In the back of my mind, I realized she’d been yelling for a minute now. Luckily for me — if I had any luck left at this point — my head was faced toward the fight. I saw her pull her knives from the last melee raider. All that was left now was the damn mage. And he’d had enough of my Sylvad companion.
I tried to call out a warning, but all that came out was a moan and a line of drool. I could only watch as the mage let loose another Whirling Dervish, which sucked Leesha up and sent her flying into a wagon.
She struck the big wheel hard and her health plummeted to zero.
20
Risky Business
The mage raised his hands and looked at me, somehow sensing I hadn’t died. He strode closer, waving his fingers like a puppeteer and chanting. As he did, tendrils of flame rose from his fingertips. I struggled to sit up. Burning alive did not sound like fun. Willing my deadened limbs to life, I managed to scoot one leg closer to me, but, by then, the mage stood over me. His pale, sunken face grinned like a skull. He raised his hands, now holding an entire ball of fire.
And then an arrowhead burst out of the front of his chest.
The Blue Hand mage screamed in pain, and his health dipped below half. We both looked and found Lucas still standing on one of the wagons. As soon as we saw him, the merchant released again. This time, the mage somehow managed to release a small gust of wind that blew the arrow off course.
I glanced at the top corner of my vision and saw my health inching back to full. The pain started to recede as my body mended itself. Although the actual knitting of bone and muscle didn’t hurt, the feeling was deeply disturbing, to say the least.
And taking way too long. The mage threw another gust at Lucas that knocked him from the wagon. Angered that he’d been shot or perhaps thinking I wasn’t much of a threat, the mage staggered toward Lucas. In that moment, I hated the hit point system. The dude had an arrow sticking through his entire body and he wasn’t dead?
My body cracked again, but this time warmth and feeling flooded back into my limbs. I looked to my health and saw it was over a third full. I took that as my cue to try to stand up. Bracing myself against the tree I’d been thrown into, I managed to rise on shaking legs. I knew if I could land just one hit on the mage, the fight would be over. The guards were still fighting the remaining raiders, but they had the upper hand now. Everything hinged on finishing the mage before he could kill Lucas and turn his attention on the other NPCs.
I gritted my teeth and hauled my axe over my shoulder, limping toward my opponent. Between our injuries, the mage and I must have looked like a couple of too-old cosplayers who’d escaped a nursing home. Biting back groans of pain, I forced my legs to take longer steps. The mage had reached Lucas now and raised his hands to summon his fire again. He slurred his words and I saw his arms shaking as he attempted to summon the spell while fighting his gruesome injury.
One more step, one more step. One more —
With each stride, I grew stronger and faster. At the same time a fireball appeared in the mage’s hand, I raised my axe and half lunged forward. The head buried itself in my enemy’s back.
You critically strike Blue Hand Raider mage!
The mage crumpled and lay still. We’d done it.
+2 Assassination Skill Points
+1 Two-Handed Battle Axe Skill Point
+1 Sneaking Skill Point
Well, that had been quite the profitable little attack. My health nearly back to full, I yanked my axe free and prepared to help the guards finish off the rest of the melee fighters. My axe lowered to the ground as I took in the sight. The good news? The rest of the raiders were dead. The bad news? So were the rest of the guards.
“Y-you saved us,” Lucas said. He climbed to his feet, using the wagon wheel to steady himself. “Without your help, we all would have died!”
Good Deed Rewarded!
You helped the Crystal Fen merchant caravan by defending them during a bandit attack. Each member of your party has received one Unassigned Point as a reward for your selflessness. Just remember, no good deed goes unpunished…
Which reminded me…
I found Leesha’s body nearby in a heap next to one of the wagons, her head still open from being launched headfirst into it. I would have felt bad for her if she hadn’t gone rogue as soon as the fight started. Fortunately, whenever you died while in a party in MythRune, you didn’t get sent back to your spawn point unless all of your party died. As such, I just had to walk up to her, now that combat was over, and touch her. I knelt down and unceremoniously poked her in the shoulder.
“What the hell, dude!” she yelled as soon as her eyes opened. “You have one job: you stand there and take the aggro and look stupid. And when I say attack, you attack!”
“Last I checked, that was exactly what I did!”
“Then why did you pause?”
Okay, she kinda had me there. I did pause mid-battle as she’d had the mage in a stranglehold. I had been deciding if it’d be smarter for me to help her or the others. When all was said and done, I had decided to help her, even if —
Wait, how am I letting her turn this on me?
“Forget about me. Where did you go?” I said. “I turned around at the beginning of the fight and you were gone.”
“I went to make sure they weren’t attacking from behind,” Leesha said. “Trying to draw our attention with all that yelling and horn blowing while more of them came from behind.”
That certainly made sense, and I actually believed her until I noticed the brand-new silver necklace around her neck.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked even as the answer dawned on me. “That’s why you really left — you went to steal from the wagons while everyone was distracted!”
I couldn’t believe this chick. Was she that greedy or just some kind of kleptomaniac?
Leesha glared at me while unequipping the necklace and stuffing it into a pouch at her side. “Chill out, will you? Besides, look whose actions got who killed. If you were so concerned about a battle strategy, then why didn’t you listen to me when I told you to finish off the mage while I had him stunned?”
“I—” I interrupted myself. I guess from her perspective, I had left her hanging. “Let’s just forget about it,” I said, mustering as much calmness as I could. I glanced toward Lucas, who was busy seeing to the other merchants and the remaining oxen and mules storming about. Hopefully the traders hadn’t overheard us. “If you’re going to go around stealing from everyone we meet, how about you don’t do it in the middle of a fight?”
“As long as you start acting like a tank and stop leaving me to be ganked.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
With that, Leesha stormed off to start looting the bodies. Before I could check on Lucas or join in on plundering the dead, a quest notification flashed before me.
Quest Updated: The Road Less Traveled
You have found the Blue Hand, an Urok band that has been raiding caravans along the trade roads to the south of the Bloodbone Plains. Although you have emerged victorious in your encounter with the Blue Hands, all is not as it seems. Two Eedari were numbered among the dead raiders. Locate the hideout o
f the Blue Hands to investigate this strange development. Just don’t get yourself killed.
Objectives:
1. Find the hideout of the Blue Hand raiders and learn more about their alliance with the Eedari.
2. Kill the remaining members of the Blue Hand Raiders.
Well, that was just great. In spite of all that time and effort we’d spent to find the Blue Hand Raiders, we still had to track down their base. Still, some progress was better than nothing, and the Unassigned Attribute Point I’d earned saving the merchants was an unexpected reward.
I pulled up my stats and thought about where I could best spend it. I was still far from the invincible Urok I wanted to be come tournament time. Sure, I couldn’t die, but I also couldn’t afford to constantly be incapacitated for long periods of time. Time to bulk up — HP or Defense. Given that my Defense was already at four, the decision was easy. I spent my Unassigned Attribute Point and increased my Health by one.
Character Stats
Name: Zane
Title: None
Race: Urok, male
Level: 3
Total Attribute Points: 16
Attribute Points to next level: 4
Health: 4 (80/80 Hit Points)
Attack: 3
Defense: 4
Speed: 2
Agility: 1
Intelligence: 1
Luck: 1
“Excuse me.”
I swiped away from my stats menu to find Lucas in front of me.
“All the guards are dead,” Lucas said. He sounded exhausted, and I wondered if, as an NPC, his health didn’t regenerate as fast. “Not only that, all of our animals are scattered. We’re sitting ducks out here.”
The trader paused as if to let his words sink in before he continued. “Would you and your partner be willing to escort us to the eaves of the Lazulis Forest? We’d be willing to pay you! And it never hurts to have a trader in debt to you.”
By the time he finished, Lucas came off as downright desperate. I looked over to Leesha, who was still in the process of looting the dead raiders.
She caught my eye and shrugged. “There’s money either way, so I don’t care.”
What a profound and compassionate partner I’d found. So the decision was mine, then. And unlike Leesha, I recalled that several Sylvad players would probably kill her on sight if she showed back up in the Lazulis Forest. I opened my mouth to try to nicely tell Lucas that he and his friends were screwed and on their own. But then an idea struck me.
“We can’t go to the Lazulis Forest with you,” I said. “But I would be willing to escort you somewhere closer where you’ll be safe and could still sell some wares.”
Lucas looked hopeful for a moment…until he registered what I was proposing. “The Horuk village? I already told you, I have no interest in taking this caravan to a hunting camp. There’s no profit there. I might as well turn around and head back to Crystal Fen.”
“The journey is a lot shorter,” I reasoned. “Less than a day, and you’d have the potential to be the first trading company to open up a whole new trade route. You’d be able to hire more guards there as well.”
I didn’t mention that the best help he could likely hire was dumb-as-a-rock Durk. I wasn’t on Leesha’s level of duplicity, but I wasn’t a Boy Scout, either.
“It’s still risky.”
“Then stay here and be vulture food,” Leesha shouted over her shoulder. I made a mental note that she was very good at eavesdropping, even from a distance. She might not have had any tact, but she sure didn’t waste time.
“She’s got a point,” I admitted to the merchant. “And even with our help, three days to either the forest or Crystal Fen is going to be tough going. One more attack like that and we’re toast. Like I said, the Horuk camp is less than a day away.”
As if that was her cue, Leesha started singing, “It’s only a day awaaaayyyy.”
Lucas threw his hands in the air. “Fine, damn you both! We have a deal.”
Before I could shake on it, a notification flooded my vision.
+2 Mercantile Skill Points
Civil Pursuit Unlocked!
Any beast can fight — the staple of a real civilization is the ability to wheel and deal. From leadership to scholarly pursuits and mercantile endeavors, welcome to a more civilized age!
Congratulations! You have unlocked the Mercantile Pursuit Sphere! Open your Pursuits Menu for more information.
After glancing through the information, I dismissed the pop-up and reached for Lucas’s hand to seal the deal. Leesha smacked it away.
“Not so fast,” she said. “Let’s settle on the terms of payment.”
I didn’t think I’d been reading that long, but apparently it had been enough time for her to make sure we didn’t do anything out of the goodness of our hearts.
Lucas laughed. “A woman after my own heart. Fair enough — although I have no plans to cheat you. We’re all friends here.”
Leesha pursed her lips. “Mmhmm. Sure. Then how does one hundred RuneCoins, one mount each from the dead guards, and all of their weapons and armor sound?” She then added, “Friend,” as an addendum.
Lucas’s lips tightened and all traces of amusement at Leesha’s tenacity vanished. “Ridiculous is how it sounds.”
“Not as ridiculous as dying out in the middle of nowhere because you were too dumb to take a good deal when it presented itself.”
“I’ll need to have a word with my associates,” Lucas grumbled before stalking off to the ring of anxious merchants not far away.
“What the hell was that?” I whispered to Leesha. I couldn’t tell if I was annoyed or in awe at her bartering ability.
“If we’re sticking around for these guys, we may as well get something else out of it. You’re too nice. You know these people aren’t real, don’t you?”
Of course I knew that, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t screwing the merchants over. And, as I’d seen earlier with the Good Deed reward, MythRune definitely kept track of ethical decisions.
After a few more seconds, Lucas returned, a resigned look on his face. It looked a bit too dramatic, and I reminded myself he was an expert hand at striking deals. Leesha was probably right.
“Seventy-five RuneCoins,” he said.
“Each,” Leesha specified.
Lucas sighed. “Each. Along with any weapons and armor you want from the guards —”
“And the mounts!” she said.
“There’s the one thing we have to compromise on,” Lucas said. “Some of the oxen and mules have run off. They need to be found before we can continue. Once they’re found, we’ve got a deal.”
I didn’t want to spend all night listening to Lucas and Leesha haggle, so I grabbed the merchant’s hand before Leesha could stop me.
“Deal.”
Quest: Fair Trade
The Crystal Fen merchants have hired you to replace their dead guards. As part of the deal, you have convinced them to alter their destination to Chief Ugola’s tribe.
Objective: Escort the Crystal Fen merchants safely to the Horuk Encampment.
“No, you idiot!” Leesha stared at our handshake as if it were the end of the world.
“What’s your problem?” I asked. When I turned to see Lucas’s face, however, I could tell he’d pulled one over on me.
“Well,” the merchant said, dusting off his hands, “we have a few hours left until daylight. My cohort and I will rest up while the two of you gather our livestock for us.”
He patted me on the shoulder. “Thanks again.”
Quest: Horse Play
The Crystal Fen merchants have lost some of their oxen and mules during the Blue Hand attack. You will have to retrieve them before the merchants can move their wagons.
Objective: Retrieve the nine lost pack animals and mounts.
It was a small and petty move on Lucas’s part, but given the position we’d painted him in, it was clearly the only one that made him feel like he had any s
emblance of control.
“Way to go, genius,” Leesha said. She’d probably just received the same quest prompt.
“Well, with the two of us, it shouldn’t be any problem, right?” I tried to sound like this had been my plan all along. “Plus it’s another quest!”
“Two of us?” Leesha snorted. “Uh, yeah. No. I have some more bodies to loot.”
“No you don’t!”
“I’ll find something to do, then,” she said, already walking away. “I probably missed someone.”
“But —”
She tossed her hair, not sparing me a second glance. “Good luck, Z!”
21
To The Victors Go The Spoils
Day 4 — Sixteen Days to Tournament Start
I spent the entire night chasing down the lost animals, expecting to be ambushed by more raiders at any moment. Plagued by sleep debuffs and hating both Leesha and Lucas every time an animal refused to be led back to camp, the only thing that kept me going was reminding myself this was all in the name of saving Brandon.
The only ray of fictional sunshine in an otherwise very literal and abysmal night was that I’d been able to do some serious upgrading to my battle axe skills thanks to the fight with the raiders. Not knowing when I’d have to fight again (although I hoped it wouldn’t be any time before I got a rest period in), I had taken the opportunity to spend a whopping ten Two-Handed Battle Axe Skill Points to increase my Swing Speed by five percent. That put a pretty good dent in the first tier of my battle axe skills, leaving only Hook and Hack and Lock and Twist that I had yet to unlock.
God Mode: A LitRPG Adventure (Mythrune Online Book 1) Page 14
