Vina walked slowly to the bounty board. Her mind was in a bit of a haze. Between Pawld’s forgiveness and affirmation of her being an adventurer and Jan’s similar position, Vina felt weighed down. Could she do this adventure thing? Should she? She was not sure what she wanted. Vina reached for the lantern in her backpack, seeking the calming glow of the runes, but she stopped. She couldn’t dare bring that out in front of the entire town. They were already gawking at her armor. Then Vina heard a whisper behind the adventure board.
“But who is she? She only arrived a few days ago and already she has that armor!” one voice said
“I know! And did you hear about those dead pilidar? Their blood was completely drained!” said a second voice.
“Is she some kind of blood sucking creature?” said the first.
Vina realized then, it wasn’t just her armor. Someone had verified her kills from last night and discovered the bloodless bodies. Vina cringed. “They must think I'm a monster…” she thought to herself.
The voice behind the big board continued their gossip until Vina cleared her throat and spoke loudly, “I wonder what bounty I should do today”. There was a strangled squeak from one of the voices and then the sound of feet moving quickly away.
Vina looked back at the board. This time she looked at some bounties for medicinal leaves, a missing pet, and some messenger work. These all looked doable to Vina, so she picked them all up. The rewards were low on bounties like this. Most of them were twenty five to fifty Randars.
When Vina picked up a package and merely walked it to the other side of town, she actually declined the money offer. The payment was so low and the effort so minimal, Vina felt like she was just doing a good thing. To her surprise she had a window popup.
Bounty Completed. You have gained 70 experience by declining the bounty reward.
Vina knew she had around 500 Randars. That felt like a minor fortune for the cost of things in this town. She found getting experience points safely and thereby levels was much more difficult. Leveling a skill granted experience points, but she was quickly realizing how little it was. She pulled up her character screen and looked at the progress.
Experience Points: 1285 / 3000
Vina spent the rest of her day grabbing bounties she could complete quickly and safely. She declined every reward that Randars offered. By the end of the day Vina had completed seven bounties and earned 590 experience points in total.
She was feeling quite tired by the evening, but Vina was determined to focus on blood runes. “I need to get this note unsealed.” she thought to herself, but she was having trouble coming up with ideas on how to level her skill faster. The way she had learned the blood runes was by feeding them blood, but leading up to that point, she had been writing them. So Vina picked up some scrap wood from Pawld’s shop before returning to the inn, determined to do some more carving tonight.
In her room, Vina set the lantern down beside her. She really enjoyed its companionship and felt a little empty when she had to hide it away in her backpack. She pulled out her piece of wood and a carving knife. First she drew the entire runic alphabet from memory. The carving was easy for her now. With her skill improving her speed by 15%, she had carved every letter in just a few minutes. Next Vina tried drawing runic words. The only words she knew were On and Off. Vina drew On to the left and Off to the right on a square board.
Vina poked her finger and pressed it to the On runic word. A single rune didn’t take much blood and the word lit up. Vina pressed her finger to Off, expecting On to no longer be lit. Instead both words were lit up. Vina scratched her head, trying to figure out what went wrong. She looked at the lantern for inspiration. However, her skill was still not high enough and nearly every word swam around so she could not read them.
The runes on her backpack were even worse, so she instead pulled out Priya’s note. The runes on the note moved about, but far slower than the lantern or the backpack. Vina strained her eyes to read what the runes said. Instead of learning a new word, Vina saw a thread. The thread connected and wove around every word. While the words moved around, the threads tied it all together. Inspiration struck Vina.
Vina took her piece of wood and using her knife, she carved a line between the words. The line connected the two words together, but it also connected to every letter. Vina gasped when she saw the runes move. They wove themselves together into a new complex design.
Once she connected them, they seemed to know how to work together and began the same swimming motion, but at a much slower speed. Vina squealed in joy when she felt the runes communicating to her. Vina pressed her finger back to the On rune and it lit up. She pressed Off and On went out, but Off lit up. Vina switched the rune words on and off with fascination. She was enjoying her creation so much, she was almost irritated when a window popped up.
Skill Level Up: Blood Runes have reached level 5. Blood runes can be drawn 20% faster and take 20% less blood to activate or maintain. You have gained one skill point. You have gained 75 experience from leveling a skill.
Where would you like to spend your Blood Runes skill point? Option 1: You can now control the rate of blood you feed into blood runes Option 2: Blood Runes you create are 20% more durable and resistant to damage Option 3: Wounds caused by feeding blood runes heal twice as fast.
Vina put her runed board down and considered her options. She was really interested in the first option. Being able to control how much blood the runes take from her would be an amazing benefit. The runes scared her sometimes; they were always so hungry. Having perfect control over how much she gave to them would change their relationship. Vina momentarily considered the third option, but so far the bleeding effect had not been too massive unless she lost control. If she took the first option, she was certain that losing control wouldn’t happen easily. Vina selected the first option. She had also gained level 3 in Wood carving, but she didn’t much care about that skill.
Vina brought her lantern closer and pricked her finger once again. The bleeding had stopped, so she needed to refresh it. Vina pressed her finger to the lantern and immediately felt the lantern pull blood from her. This time though, Vina felt something different. Like swallowing or moving a finger, she had only to engage her will to control the flow to the lantern. Vina smiled at feeling the lantern’s hunger. She could understand exactly how much the lantern wanted from her now. Vina slowly fed the lantern until she felt she could give no more. The lantern seemed content, but not entirely satisfied.
Vina looked at Priya’s sealed note again. She wondered if her recent level up had any affect on her ability to read the runes. To her great delight, she could make out one more word. This word read Seal.
Vina picked up her piece of wood and on the other side she created On and Off and the word Seal between them, Vina connected the three words together. The words connected together once again and swam about slightly faster than before. Vina began to realize that the more words she added, the faster the runes would move. She fed the words some of the last of the blood she was willing to give.
She was surprised when the words On and Off disappeared from the wooden plank. Only the word Seal remained. Vina pressed on the word, tried to feed it more blood, but nothing she did would get On and Off to reappear. “Did I just do a one way encryption?” Vina asked herself. From what she could tell, the Seal word would hide any runes connected to it. She had not carved in a way for the Seal to be undone, however. Vina sat there in fascination and deep consideration for a long time.
~~~
On the morning of the fourth day in the town of Prosit, Vina returned back to the Bounty Board. She noticed a few more bounties had been placed on the board. She ignored those for now, determined to resolve the older bounties first. Vina saw a few more complicated bounties like when she killed the Pilidar. She was unsure if she wanted a combat based quest. However, the payout was quite large for the capture of a bandit.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Bounty: Capture or kill the bandit leader that is attacking the trade wagons. Reward: 500 Randars
Vina couldn’t believe that payout. What would happen if she declined that sum? Just how much experience could she get? Would it be enough for a level up? She only needed a little over 1000 more experience points to get level five. Vina swallowed hard. “Time to be an adventurer I guess” she said aloud.
As Vina left the town, spear in hand, knives on her belt and bow in her backpack, Vina wondered how she was going to do this. She didn’t have any interest in killing a person, but she doubted a bandit would be willing to just return back to town with her.
Vina followed the quest marker. It had specified the location of the last wagon attack and it felt like a great starting point. She didn’t walk far before she arrived at the location. The area was just around the corner of a dirt path. Vina looked around and recognized it was a great spot to surprise someone. As she examined the area, Vina activated Observe. She stood as still as she could since so much of the world was spinning around her. Vina’s eyes locked on the ground and she slowly saw blue highlights that looked like shoe prints. She knelt down and tried to make sense of what she was seeing. It was clearly a struggle with the scattering and dragging of boots across the ground. In one area someone was dragged and then dropped. In another, a person’s boots suddenly got deeper than they were before. Vina could only assume they were carrying something. Vina suddenly got a window popup.
New Skill Learned: Tracking. Tracking is an active skill. You can read the coming and going of people and animals. Progress to next skill level 23%. Quest updated: Learn Skills 2 19/25
Vina suddenly heard something rustle in the bushes beside her. A man leapt out with a sword in his hand. “Gimme all your coins!” He yelled.
Vina brought her spear forward quickly and set it between them.
The man hesitated when he saw her, doubt clearly evident on his face. “Er… uhm.. are you an adventurer?”
Vina looked the man over and saw he was very ill equipped. She tried to use Examine, but found all of his information was marked as private. The sword in his hand was slightly rusted and he wore simple light armor with rips in it. By comparison to Vina, he had horrible equipment. “Yes. I am an adventurer for the Town of Prosit. I’ve come to take you in for crimes against the town.”
Intimidation successful. Bandit Toler is scared of you.
Toler stood for a moment, slightly swaying. Then he bolted in fear back into the woods.
Vina activated her new Tracking skill and followed after him. She was far faster than Toler. She had no idea what level he was, but clearly his agility was lower than hers. She had no problem keeping pace with him, but her stamina was draining from the combination of running and the use of tracking. Vina spun her spear around and used the shaft to whack Tolers knees. He went down with a cry.
“Please don’t kill me! I’m just trying to survive!” Toler said, tears running down his face.
“I’m not going to kill you. I just need to bring you back to Prosit.” Vina brought out some rope from her backpack. She instructed Toler to face away from her as she tried to bind his hands. The rope tried to slip from her fingers like it was an eel. Vina gritted her teeth as her dexterity fought her lack of skill.
After several minutes of struggling with the ropes, Toler stopped crying. “Say uhm… what’s going on back there?” Toler tried turning his head to look at Vina, but she pushed him back to the ground. “Your strength isn’t even that high is it?” Toler said, confidence growing in his voice.
Vina drew a knife from her bandolier and poked Toler’s back with it. “I don’t need strength, when I have a knife to your back.”
Intimidation successful. Bandit Toler is terrified of you.
Toler began to cry again and beg for his life. Vina was visibly confused. “Is this man really a bandit?” she muttered. Vina continued to struggle with the rope as if it was a matted net. The rope acted like it was a living octopus made of glue and oil. It kept sticking to itself and uncoiling itself seemingly at random. When she pulled, it would slip undone like it was greased. She barely wrapped the rope around Toler’s wrists and tied a knot. “Fucking A, Trina…” she muttered, somewhat out of breath. Finally she had a window pop up.
New Skill Learned: Knots. You understand how to use a rope to tie a knot. Progress to next skill level 65%. Quest updated: Learn Skills 2 20/25
Her new skill had given her some knowledge of proper knots. The process of having that information forced into her mind was much easier than when she learned Blood Runes. The worming sensation had lasted barely a second and she suddenly knew a couple of basic knots.
With the new knowledge in her head, Vina tied Toler up a second time, even including a lead line. She ordered Toler to stand up and had him walk ahead of her by about 5 feet. The lead line ensured Toler was always within the range of her spear, if she needed it. Vina led him back to the dirt path
“Where is your leader?” Vina asked and Toler fell to his knees, begging to not be killed. “Just answer me and I’ll let you live.” She clarified, trying to control her tone after seeing how much it was affecting this man. Her prisoner finally managed to get out a location between his sobs and Vina had a quest marker appear in her vision. Vina interrogated Toler as much as she could and discovered their bandit team consisted of just four people in total.
“Are you sure there are just four of you? I wouldn’t exactly call that a band of bandits.” said Vina with skepticism in her voice.
Toler sniffed back some snot before saying, “Well… you don’t have to be mean about it. We’re just starting out.”
Vina stared at the man in disbelief. “I… it was an observation. Not a judgment, Toler.” She ordered him to walk and she took him back to town. She wanted to make sure Toler couldn’t alert his fellow bandits, and this seemed the safest course of action. At the gate she handed her prisoner off to the guards. They thanked her profusely and Vina returned back to where she found Toler.
Vina activated her tracking skill once again and found where Toler had been laying in wait by the dirt path. The skill highlighted the steps Toler took down to the road. She could see about 12 feet away with her skill currently and it slowly highlighted the signs. Vina found the skill was lacking currently. It would sometimes only highlight a part of a footprint. A couple times she lost the trail entirely and had to walk around in wide circles before she could find it again. Nonetheless, she leveled the skill up quickly.
Skill Level Up: Tracking has reached level 3.: Detecting the movements of people or animals is 6% easier. Tracking may give additional information. You have gained 70 experience from leveling a skill.
By midday, Vina had followed Toler’s trail up a hill and into a dense forest. Vina activated stealth as she approached an open clearing. The open area was big enough for several people to make and camp, and sure enough Vina saw a firepit with four tents set up.
Scattered about was plenty of trash and crates that looked to be perfectly sized for the wagons she had seen in Prosit. She sat for several minutes in some bushes, waiting to see if anyone was at the camp. Vina soon heard someone running toward the area and saw another man, similarly decked out in equipment as bad as Toler’s. The man ran into the largest of the four tents.Vina could barely make out two voices, but she was way too far to hear the specifics. Two men stepped out of the tent and Vina had a quest marker appear above one of their heads. “Thanks Trina.” Vina thought to herself silently. The man with the quest marker was speaking with the other man. Soon the other man ran back out of the camp.
Vina couldn’t believe her luck. She had no idea if anyone else was in the camp, but at a minimum she knew it couldn’t be more than two. The other bandit had left, leaving her target alone in the larger tent.
Vina slowly made her way down the large tent as quietly as she could. Her stealth skill had improved her movement speed and she was greatly appreciating her choice right now. Vina headed to the back side of the tent. She was thinking she could cut through and surprise her target from behind. Vina canceled her stealth skill and stood up. She activated her new spear skill: Spear Slash.
The skill took over her body and she felt she had no control. Her arms swapped spots on the spear. Her dominant left hand moved to the front of the spear and her nondominant right hand moved to the back. She swung the spear around her back and over her dominant shoulder in a downward sweep. The spear swung down and around her body until it was parallel with her leg and nestled against her hip, the spear tip pointed toward the ground. She swept a foot out and twisted her hip. The spear flew forward again with the power of her body twisting into an upward slash. The spear swung over her shoulder where it had started. The tent ripped open violently. Without hesitation, Vina jumped through the hole and inside.