I clung ever tighter onto Bobbie who was sitting in front of me, as we both barreled together down the highway at increasingly high speeds on her exotic custom-made dwarven motorcycle.
“C-can you really hear me with these things?” I asked, referring to the enchanted set of ear cuffs Bobbie had given me before we had set off from the ice cream parlor.
“For sure, you can mumble in as quiet a whisper as you can and I’d still be able to hear everything you said.” She replied back without taking her eyes off the road.
It was a little bit strange having a crystal clear conversation on a noisy motorcycle like this with someone who was sitting directly in front of me, as in I've been tightly pressed against her back this entire time.
These magic ear cuffs were sort of like a bluetooth mic and headphone combination, but they thankfully ignored the constant barrage of wind that a standard mic would pick up. Also, according to what Bobbie said just now, they could transmit my voice clearly to her no matter how quiet or soft-spoken I was.
Taking the chance to relax slightly, and get used to being on the back of a motorcycle for the first time, I took the opportunity to sightsee and stare out at the wilderness and scant few structures we were passing by.
“I can’t believe Gunderson let you just take me away like this.” I mused out loud. “Honestly, I can’t believe I’ve willingly gone with you on this dangerous, spur of the moment….”
“Adventure.” Bobbie completed before I could settle on the right word. “Look, you can still stop and go home at any time new girl. This isn’t a kidnapping.” She said with a mirthful chuckle that the magic ear cuffs picked up for me to hear. “As for Herbert, he might not like putting you in situations he considers risky, but he knows I have your back and with me around you’re safe as a baby covered in bubble wrap in a room full of feathers. Plus, I’m kinda like his boss, so there's also that.”
Gunderson did seem noticeably unhappy when Bobbie had told him she was taking me off to hunt monsters. At the same time though, he didn’t seem all that surprised, like he was expecting something like this.
Did he anticipate Bobbie taking me out monster hunting or something else equally dangerous? Was this maybe pre-arranged between them, or did Gunderson just know Bobbie well enough to guess what she’d end up doing with me after meeting up?
“Did you plan on doing something like this ahead of time?” I asked Bobbie innocently.
“Plan to do what? Go on a monster hunt?” Bobbie asked back, clearly confused by my question.
“Yeah, did you know we’d end up doing something like this before you even met me?” I clarified.
“Uh no, not really. I mean, this is the kind of thing I spend most of my time doing anyways, and you’re also a supernatural like me, so it just makes sense, right?” She answered a bit awkwardly. “I meant what I said earlier though, you really should be doing more stuff like this new girl. You never know what monsters or quests you might end up facing. Better to work hard and prepare now, than end up being sorry for not doing it later.”
“I do work at being prepared.” I shot back defensively. “I told you, I study and train my skills every night, at a minimum.”
“That’s all well and good, but you to get those sweet, sweet experience points as well. Experience points give you levels, levels give you more attribute points, more health, more stamina, more mana, and possibly even new skills as well.” She listed off slowly, ensuring that I heard each item that she mentioned. “Not to say, you shouldn’t make improving your skills a priority, you definitely should. But, if that’s all you do, it’ll only end up getting you killed one day.”
“So I just need to spend more time killing monsters then huh?” I asked dejectedly.
“Yep.” She replied happily. “Don’t worry it’s fun, once you get used to it.”
I was starting to form the belief in my mind that this girl was crazy.
“Quests are also an important source of experience points, but it's hard to reliably predict when and how you’re going to get a new quest and what reward it will give. Killing monsters is a much more stable and predictable way to grind levels.” Bobbie instructed, going into full teacher mode at this point.
“You never really did give me any advice to do better with my class.” I pointed out. “You were supposed to go over my first fight with me, or something?”
“Oh right, I guess I got distracted in the excitement to go off hunting monsters together.” She replied, her eagerness for the upcoming fight audible in her voice even if I couldn't see her expression. “Well, you go first then, tell me what happened in your first fight. What even was it that you fought anyways?”
“I-It was a ghoul hound. Big, bloody maw, baleful almost intelligent eyes…” As I started to describe I could feel myself being dragged mentally back to that moment in time. The same feelings of fear, confusion, and anger were starting to simmer inside me from the memory.
“How many though?” Bobbie asked, interrupting my gloomy revelry.
“Huh?”
“How many did you fight? I’m pretty familiar with ghoul hounds, killed tons of 'em myself by now, but how difficult the fight was very much depends on how many you had to fight, especially in the case of ghoul hounds.” Bobbie said, taking some of the wind out of the sails of my gloominess.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Oh, uh, just the one.” I said a bit embarrassedly. At the time it seemed like a giant horrific monstrosity, but to someone like Bobbie, it was probably nothing.
“Huh, not too bad an encounter for your first fight, especially as a mage. Undead like that tend to be weak to magic, but hold up… what was your essence again? Shadow, right?” She inquired with sudden curiosity.
“Uh yeah, shadow essence.” I replied, confirming her assumption.
“Weird, undead are usually pretty resistant to darkness and shadow magic.” Bobbie mused, taking a brief pause in her discussion to consider what that might mean.
“Well, I did have a few supporting skills that boosted my magic. So maybe that helped?” I offered, not really sure how strange it was that my shadow magic seemed to do a decent job of killing that ghoul hound.
“Maybe that’s it. Eh, whatever, I think this is our turn-off anyways.” Bobbie said before suddenly whipping her bike almost exactly 90 degrees to the right, and then pulling back hard on the bike’s throttle.
“What the frick!?” I almost screamed out before, remembering I didn’t need to scream for Bobbie to hear me.
“Chill new girl. This bike works just fine off road, no worries.” She said confidently.
With large, almost panicked eyes I quickly took in the landscape Bobbie was rapidly sending us both into, and it wasn’t some gently rolling hills or a nice peaceful meadow, it was a dense and tightly packed forest.
“Y-you can’t be serious. You’re taking us into that? On a motorcycle?” I asked in an ever more fearful tone of voice.
Bobbie’s response was only to laugh.
“Chill new girl, chill. I’ve done this basically a million times already. You’re fine. Relaaaax.” She elongated the word relax, like somehow that would calm me down or something.
Then, once we crossed past the first trees, instead of slowing down somewhat, as any sane person would do, Bobbie pulled back even more on the bike’s throttle and caused us to accelerate even faster as we started almost speeding past more and more trees and other vegetation.
“What the frick are you doing! Are you crazy?!” I demanded, basically screaming right into her ear again.
“Only some of the time, but what’s wrong with a little extra speed. No need to pretend this bike is just ordinary and mundane if none of them are around to see us.” The excitement was clear in her response, but her words were also somehow calm and relaxed, like she really had done this sort of thing plenty of times already.
“Y-you really know what you’re doing then?” I asked her desperately while feeling her weave the bike around obstacles at a near-constant pace now.
“For sure new girl, for sure.” She told me with confident surety. “So did you have any other questions about your first fight then, or would you rather focus on the one you got coming up?”
She asked me this while going at what must be at least 200 mph in a very densely packed wooded landscape. The trees and other vegetation were now just a brown and green blur as we were moving past them. It felt almost surreal that this was even happening to me right now.
“Y-you want to ask me about that now? Shouldn’t you be focused on driving?!” I loudly insisted.
“Eh, I’m pretty good at multitasking. Didn’t you ever text on your phone when you’re driving?” She casually asked.
“I-I don’t even have my own car to drive around in s-so no, I don’t.” I replied, the fear and adrenaline starting to get the better of me.
“Huh, right. Still in high school. Aren’t you a senior though? Shouldn’t you…” She started to critique, before my annoyance finally got the better of me.
“Y-you really want to be talking about my school life right now, when we're both a mere instant away from colliding with a tree and both turning into a bloody smear?!” I interrupted angrily.
“Ooh, nice one there new girl. I guess you do have some bite in you, nice to see. I was just making conversation though, but you’re right. Let’s talk about the monster we're supposed to be looking out for.” She said in a suddenly more serious voice.
“G-good.” I replied with all the confidence I didn’t feel. Hopefully, she wouldn’t call me out on it.
“So, according to the nerds back at the IDPA office, were looking for a single Lesser Forest Drake. It’s classified as a Rank D, but it’s somewhere around mid to high Rank D though. It’ll be a good challenge for you.” She said sagely.
“D? But my class is only low E right now. Isn’t that going to be a problem?”
“Hmm, nah. If you took it on all by your lonesome, sure. But I’ll make sure it’s a fair fight.” She said with little concern. “Oh, watch this. Big obstacle ahead.”
My brain, slower than I’d normally like it to be, finally computed the meaning behind Bobbie’s last sentence. I quickly lifted my head to look over Bobbie’s shoulder at what she had been talking about.
It was a series of large fallen trees laying on top of each other and blocking the path straight ahead.
I was waiting for Bobbie to make a sudden sharp turn or something, but she didn’t. She instead just kept us headed straight forward, going at full speed.
“W-what are you doing? Aren’t you going to turn off or something?” I asked her fearfully. After a while though without a response, and the large imposing obstacle drawing ever closer, I realized with cold certainty that Bobbie had zero intention of turning and was going to take us straight into that large wooden obstacle. “T-turn off already, are you seriously crazy?!”
“Maybe.” Bobbie said with calm laidback joy in her voice.
Reaching somewhere underneath her jacket, Bobbie pulled a thin metallic blue cylinder in her right hand and held it out purposefully at her side.
“What is that?” I demanded, not taking my eyes off our impending doom for more than a split second.
“You’ll see.” Bobbie replied cheerfully.
Not even a second later, Bobbie clicked or activated something on the blue cylinder and it elongated and transformed into a large and elegantly wrought spear.
The haft was the same blue metal as the cylinder, but designs and patterns ran up its entire length until you reached the top where sharp a shining triple-bladed spear point sat.
I barely had even a moment to admire and take in the sudden appearance of this new weapon before Bobbie hurled it with considerable strength at the obstacle in front of us.
The speed at which the spear left Bobbie’s hand was very much not human, but in Bobbie’s case, she was not in the least bit put out by the effort.
The spear itself rocketed to and impacted with the large collection of fallen trees and the resulting impact resulted in a loud cacophonous *BOOOOM*.
The sound seemed to echo and spread throughout the entirety of the forest, and before the smoke could even clear, Bobbie rode us straight through it and delivered safely to the other side.
“See, what did I tell you.” Bobbie said, even going so far as to look backward at me to showoff her cocky smirk.
Holding her right hand out to her side again, the long blue metal spear shot out from the cloud of dust and debris and returned to Bobbie's waiting grip with a satisfying *Smack* sound.
“Nothing to worry about.” Bobbie told me with the biggest smile on her face.