Unbelievable. It was totally incomprehensible. Jessica was outraged. The story was spreading faster than she could possibly have predicted which would have been good if her name had been attached to it. Instead the story of the Unnamed adventurer was the talk of the town. She didn't need to calculate any odds, she knew that her chances of fixing this were low enough not to try. This, however was the new Jessica. This was the Jessica of risk, highly calculated and planned risk but chances must be taken. So she had bought some clothes and taken advantage of the crowds to get her mask to the [Mage] unseen. She was just Jessica now. People knew her and they knew her name.
Playing the masked character had taken a toll on Jessica she hadn't even realised. Taking the mask off was like lifting a weight off her shoulders, she was back in the inn to get intel on how things were going. Just walking into the inn was easy, nobody stared at her and nobody said anything. It was a bit like coming home, things were just the way they should be. This wasn't so bad. She could relax and be herself finally. In fact there were several people she knew in Liscor and at least one was in this particular in.
"Lyron!" She called out, his face turned and he smiled to see her. Jessica made her way through the crowded inn, slightly better quality than the one she was actually being forced to stay in but just as crowded. The [innkeepers] of Liscor were doing very well for themselves she was sure. Even if they didn't always like the adventurers Jessica knew they liked their gold.
"Jessica, It's so good to see you! This, this is a good sign. The very fact you are here makes me feel better about that dungeon. Are you with a team? I hear you are gold rank now." they were old friend and Lyron had known Jessica since she was bronze rank. He had made silver before her and was surely ready to be ranked gold but he had learned a little from her and played it a little safer than most.
"This is going to make me you know Jess, this is my gold rank right here. The Dungeon of Liscor... " but her face had dropped. He knew what that meant. Lyron had worked with Jessica quite a few times. They had worked they way through quite a lot of very unpleasant bronze rank adventures. They had killed their share of rats together and the only time he saw her face change that quickly was when somebody said something stupid. Not just stupid, but get yourself killed within the hour stupid.
"Don't. Just don't go in please. I am not with a team here, I was just visiting to do recon on the dungeon but it's crazy. There is no way anybody but large gold rank teams can get anywhere. I hardly looked into the entrance and didn't go anywhere near that shortcut they found. I know no dungeon is safe, but this is something else." Jessica meant every word of it. There was no chance of playing with her friends fate for fame, she just wanted to keep her friend alive.
"That bad eh? You haven't met my team yet have you? There are 12 of us and it's basically a gold rank team. We just haven't officialy got that title yet. The plan was to start off with a big one." even as he said it he could see her expression, the way her eyes shifted as he gave her the facts. This is why he didn't invite her. Lyron knew Jessica would never approve of the Dungeon of Liscor and was actually surprised she was here at all. He like many others however were ready for the big times, ready for the big win. The drinking continued and they started to talk about old times, Lyron couldn't help but notice that Jessica kept steering the conversation to the stories they had all heard. Ever since Goblins Gift had come back they hadn't stop talking about the unnamed adventurer.
"But she HAS to have a name, maybe she just couldn't get a word in edgeways with them! Have you heard Albron talk? It's like trying to swim up a waterfall talking to him." it was a bit of a risk at 6% chance somebody would work out she hadn't actually been seen talking to Goblins Gift herself bit there was a 59% chance she could easily explain it away so she had decided to try and steer the conversation to her agenda.
"The Unnamed adventurer sounds silly, Surely it's the named adventurers that get famous?"
"Sure, but so many people know about her she is probably getting more famous by not telling anybody her name. She clearly found some treasure in that dungeon and all she chose to bring out was one ring. You don't just find a ring laying on the floor in the entrance hall so she must have been far deeper in than most." Jessica almost laughed when he said that last part. You did find a ring laying on the floor of the entrance if you had just hacked up a zombie who was wearing it. Jessica leant in for some more of the food. It was surprisingly much better than the stuff served in her inn but then she couldn't be picky with the gold she had left.
Lyron was sharing his drink and food generously with Jessica. She hadn't said as much but he could see she was on hard times. Gone were any of the things he heard she had found including her sword. It must have been harsh even scouting the entrance if she had spent that much on healing potions. She was talking a lot too. He didn't remember her being this chatty, but it had been a while since they had last seen each other. Maybe he should help her out. There was a way he could help his own team at the same time. If there was one thing Lyron knew about Jessica it was that her intel was top rate and worth every coin you payed for it. She normally didn't even charge, just ended up joining with them most times. Lyron always felt safer with Jessica around so he made a decision.
"Come with us. Help us, I will pay you well. I have never had a bad time in any dungeon with you, hah. You know it's true! You are my lucky charm. Remember that time I nearly stepped on a trigger plate? If you hadn't bumped into me and pushed me aside I would have killed us all. Lucky charm I tell you!" Jessica could be a clutz sometimes he remembered. She had bumped into him quite a few times over the years, more than once they had to go back or leave because she had forgotten something. She was certainly better in the later years than at the start with regards to the bumping into people but she had always been his lucky charm.
Jessica was enjoying the food but starting to remember why talking to people was so hard. She had expected the invitation, 48% chance. The talk of being a clutz hurt her feelings a lot though. Sure she hadn't been as subtle in the early days but it took a lot of care to bump people just right. If she had pushed him a tiny bit harder he would have fallen on the other trigger plate. The harsh fact was she needed the money right now. She needed to eat and keep her room at the inn and most of all, she needed a sword. There was no way she would get lucky like she did with the ring again. Odds were calculated, plans considered. She knew her friend had little chance without her help but even with it things would be dangerous.
Lyron could see she had that glazed look in her eyes again. He was used to it even if he didn't like it. Would it be so bad if she paid attention when he was talking? He had tried to start a relationship with her many times when they first met and wasn't even sure she noticed any of them. They had settled into a solid friendship though and had many profitable adventures together. Even if she did keep wandering off, that was what had finally done it. He wanted somebody who would be 100% present with him. He never felt quite like she was part of the team even if he did like her.
"Just some scouting, come on. Show us what you know, talk us through the things you've learned. It will save us time and it will be just like the old days." but hopefully far more profitable. They talked until late and drank some more. Jessica promised to rejoin them the next day and departed for her own inn.
How on earth was she supposed to pull this one off. Chances of getting them to anything of value intact were so small she couldn't risk it as Jessica and the other her wouldn't risk her friends either. It all hinged on the rooms they got. She would make sure they went in the front and find a reason to turn back if a room she didn't know turned up. It was an old trick but there really wasn't any other option. They would plan together for a few days which didn't really matter as she had been planning for weeks.
Morning came and Jessica woke early. She had a lot to do. She hadn't been followed since that first night and she hadn't put the mask back on, it wasn't ready yet so this was just Jessica. This was just Jessica doing her least favourite thing, interacting with people. Shopping no less. Lyron had insisted on paying her up front for her work so she had set out to get a sword.
"Do I know you?" The Gnoll sniffed as she looked at the weapons on display. He was sure she smelled unpleasantly familiar.
"I don't think so. I've been around a bit so you might have seen me pass by." that sounded plausible if not convincing but the prospect of a sale was far more important than an unpleasant smell, most of the humans smelt bad in some way anyway.
"Ah, yes, that's a good choice. Quality at a price that one. Only slightly used too, it will do you good service as long as you are not stupid enough to take it into that dungeon! Hah, but you don't look like an adventurer. just for bandits and Goblins yes?" She didn't. He didn't know what it was she did but clearly she was no gold rank adventurer. Brwnaw watched as the girl at his stall picked up and inspected the blade. She didn't look impressed but what did she expect for his prices. He was quite surprised when she swung the blade. For one thing the market was crowded and he was waiting for a scream and blood but by a stroke of pure luck she managed to miss all the passers by. He snatched the blade back,
"No more of that! Buy it or put it down. I am not having you slash my customers" at least two people had moved on weary of the blade being lofted by the girl in front of him.
The sword was barely passable. She could sharpen it, fix it up and take proper care of it but it would hardly do for any serious work. Sadly it was all she could afford. She took the handful of coins she had allocated for a weapon and looked at the Gnoll sniffing the wind. He seemed to be looking towards the food stalls a way off serving some strange round bun things with meat in the middle. Jessica couldn't smell them but the drool in the Gnolls mouth suggested they tasted better than they looked. That might be just the distraction she needed to haggle.
Brwnaw looked at the coins she had in her hand and was not impressed. He would make a profit on the sword but barely and there was not much room for haggling. He just wanted her to go away now, it was time for lunch and he smelled something extremely delicious being cooked up.
"What's that! Are you determined to cut my throat? Either with that sword or with that offer!" he was proud of that one. She looked quite taken aback by it and he watched he check her pouch again.. She put one coin back.
"Oh come on. You can't be serious That was a quality sword when it was made. I am sure it only had one careful owner" and quite a few reckless ones by the look of the blade. She put another coin back in her purse. That was the last straw, Brwnaw was hungry and didn't have time for messing around with what was honestly one of the worst swords on his stall.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
"Fine! Take it. May a goblin cut you down and eat your flesh." and they probably would if she tried to defend herself with that sword! hah. He grabbed the money, covered the stall and ran towards the smell before there was none left.
Jessica was proud of her purchase. It would take some work but it could be made into a passable weapon. She wouldn't really need to use it in the dungeon because she had no intention of taking them far enough to get to any of the real monsters anyway. Coming at lunchtime had been the right choice of course. Conversations always went better when the other person didn't want to have one. The rest of the day consisted of another bath, some edible food at her inn and more planning with Lyron. It took a few days to convince him he had been doing the planning. She had used that time to work on her sword. It hardly resembled the state it had when she bought it but no amount of care could make it any better than it had been made. Sharpening, polishing, sharpening, reworking the handle but eventually they headed out towards the dungeon. They only had to stray off the path by a tiny amount for her plan.
The goblin picked his nose as he waited. The snow was cold and so was he but a trap was a trap and they were waiting. The roads were still mostly covered by snow and quite a few adventurers, the lower ranked ones anyway had got lost on the way to or from Liscor. Pickings had been good, in more way than one right now. He watched as the group came towards them, typical humans. There were quite a lot of them but a few were trailing behind, they could pick them off easily and be gone without too much trouble. They had been raiding like this for weeks and been very profitable.
"So Jess, that sword..." Lyron was not impressed but he knew his team would protect her. She was there for her intel. He knew she was a good fighter without a doubt but that sword, that was not the sword of a silver rank adventurer let alone gold. If she would just... The arrow hit him square in the back. He turned and drew his bow never being happier than now that he had offered to carry Jessica's pack for her. Somehow the arrow had stopped in the pack, something must have blocked it.
"Goblins!" he fired and caught the goblin archer as it was firing another shot, a shot which caught Jessica and she fell to the floor as the rest of the goblins rushed towards them. Arrows were falling all around now and the rest of his team was running back towards them. He hadn't realised that they had lagged so far behind. They must have looked like easy pickings to the goblins. Jessica was bleeding quite badly from the wound but she was on her feet pulling the arrow out and Lyron ran to her with a healing potion. There were quite a lot of goblins and they had started to rush the two straglers as Lyron cursed himself for dropping so far behind. He cut down three goblins with his bow before they got near enough to attack with their swords. Six goblins were coming for him and six more were chasing Jess away from him and the group. Curse those green skinned rotten damn....
Swords clashed as he blocked the first blows. It was far too busy now to follow Jessica or stop her running the wrong way. A goblin bit at him and smashed at his back with a club. Again Jessicas pack took the force of the blow and Lyron made a mental note to offer to carry her pack more often, it was damn heavy but he was happy to have the protection whatever it was she put inside it. A larger group of goblins had blocked them off from the rest of his team and the fighting was in full force. He couldn't tell numbers but there were enough this was going to take a while. He had changed from bow to his two daggers for this. Blood spurted from the neck of the nearest goblin as he stabbed one down into the things neck while his other hand whirled around and slashed the throat of a goblin trying to come in from the side. The club weilding goblin was drawing back for another blow and he plunged both daggers into its sides and drew them together almost bisecting the goblin.
A sword swung down towards his head as a particularly large goblin came in from his now exposed side. Lyron slammed his shoulder into the goblins face as he pushed sideways away from the last two coming in to attack him. The sharp teeth bit into his flash as he did so but rapidly lost all traction as he plunged a dagger deep into the goblins eye socket. Another goblin had made it behind him and he spun on the spot with a dagger outstretched slashing across the goblins chest. Only two left and one injured. A goblin stabbed him in the side and slashed at his leg, Lyron doubled over in pain and dropped to his knees just in time to dodge another blow. It was a good thing coordination wasn't a goblins strong point. They didn't know how to attack together or he would be dead. He grabbed the goblins arm and carried their swing ontowards the injured goblins face. The blade shattered teeth and plunged deep into the goblins head as it fell backwards. He other hand brought a dagger up into the goblins thigh stabbing upwards. He rolled backwards finding it difficult to stand and finished the last goblin off with both daggers to the chest. Lyron looked up and saw the fighting was almost finished for the rest of his team as well. There were goblin bodies everywhere and it looked like very few injuries to the rest of the team, his only worry was Jessica.
Jessica was pleased with how well the plan was going. It had been too easy to get Lyrons back shielded properly and he hadn't even commented once on the weight of the pack. It had been harder to make sure the arrow hit her somewhere that wouldn't kill her but that had worked out well because she knew where and when the attack was coming from. A little pain and a used healing potion, a good turn up so far. The sword had worked as a great distraction and allowed her to slow Lyron down enough that the goblins would attack. They would never have attacked the whole team at full strength, but a couple of stragglers with terrible weapons? That was something they wouldn't pass up. Now however she had six of the things chasing her. That sadly wasn't the hard part. The hard part was the group she was running towards. The goblins had kept a sizeable force back to flank the team and while they could easily take the force attacking them now they would probably not fair so well with the whole goblin force at their back. She knew where she was going though and she knew why.
There he was. The hob. Clearly in charge of this group and she knew the key to breaking them. He also wasn't expecting her to attack. As far as the hob was concerned she was running in terror from his best [warriors]. He smiled as she was forced towards him. He drew his sword. Naturally as the Hob he had the best weapon, it had been a great thing to take from the adventurers they killed before and he was enjoying it a lot. He knew he would probably have to give it up when they went back, but for now it was his. For now he was... bleeding? Why were there only four [Warriors] chasing her now and how did this blade get in his neck?
Jessica had cut down two already. Her concealed weapons were small and light enough to throw with deadly accuracy. Never fight fair. If you wanted to win and not get hurt you had to make sure people under-estimated you. She let two more blade drop into her hands and stretched them out to the sides stopping suddenly and whirling around. Two of the goblins stopped running and looked at each other. They raised their hands to point and laugh at the other as they each saw the thin red line across the throat start to spurt blood. The last two slammed into their bodies as Jessica reached the Hob. She had already inflicted a fairly serious wound but Hobs didn't go down so easily. She had watched him for a week. He loved the sword and she knew exactly what his first attack would be. A typical Hob who loved brute force, he swung the sword straigh down in a massive arc.
He didn't know what his [Warriors] were up to but he could easily cut this human down. She wasn't even wearing armour! He drew up the enchanted blade and began to swing while showing all his teeth in a horrible blood covered smile. He enjoyed crushing humans and wondered if he could finally cut one in half with one blow. She stumbled directly towards him and the sword came down, slashing and cutting everything in it's path through to the rock on the floor sliced in half.
[Shadow step] was surprisingly misleading in it's name. Jessica didn't need a shadow. She stepped forwards but moved sideways. The sword cut the air where her head should have been as she sliced around the Hob's neck. [Shadow Step] brought her behind him and she plunged a blade into the back of his neck, splitting the spine. The Hob dropped to the floor like a rock. The rest of the goblins around were in shock. Arrows rained down around Jessica, each one landing where she should have been standing but never was. Jessica began cut down the remaining goblins. She had picked up the blade the Hob dropped and was cutting through them like she was slicing through air. Honestly, the hardest part was staying out of the blood. A goblin swung with a spiked club at her face as she bent backwards and swung ler foot up into it's jaw snapping the things neck like a twig. She span and kicked two more goblins to the ground before completing her flip and bringing the blade down on another very large goblin.
"Jess! Jess!" Lyron shouted. His team were mopping up the remains of the goblins while he had healed himself and was now searching for his friend. It was surprising that the goblins had attacked with the numbers they had, he was sure there should be more but was more than happy not to have to fight any more right now. She should have been easy to track in the snow but there were so many tracks where she had crossed the road he could only guess where she went. He was also going in the wrong direction. It was concerning just how far off the road they had wandered and he could only hope Jessica had the sense to try and double back towards the main group or keep on towards the city.
She had quickly covered the bodies with snow and doubled back towards where she knew Lyron would be looking for her. The sword had been concealed in a makeshift pack which appeared to contain a few sets of goblin ears and her poor quality sword along with other salvaged items. She saw Lyron fumbling around as predicted some way away from where the goblins flanking team had been and ran towards him, limping slightly and clutching at her arm.
"Lyron, are you ok?" she called out and saw the relief on his face. She made a show of pouring some healing potion on where she should have had wounds before she got close to him.
"That was too close, we've used up several of the healing potions and my sword was almost no use. I was lucky to outrun them long enough to get the upper hand." it was almost true. She had certainly outrun them and had certainly got the upper hand. Luck however had very little to do with it. Plans like this took quite some work. She also had to trust in the abilities of others around her. It was also a relief to see they performed as predicted. All in all this had worked out quite well and the last part was...
"We can't go into the dungeon now, not after that. Curse the rotten green vermin." Lyron was annoyed they had wasted so much time and even healing potions on such a small group of goblins. It was not a good start to the day and certainly not the way they wanted to start their trip into the dungeon.
"Come on. Let's get back to the others and head back into Liscor for today. What a waste." at least they could collect the bounty on the goblins but honestly it was hardly worth a days adventuring. Lyron made a note to let Jessica claim the bounties. She needed the money more than he did by the look of the sword she had. They met up with the rest of the team and all agreed that the day was lost and some food and drink would make things much better. They slumped back through the city gates as a Drake watched on from his guard post.
Jessica was having trouble hiding her smile. The sword she had got from this proved what she had always known. The biggest danger was not always the biggest reward. She lured the goblins into a trap and even the people making up the trap didn't know. She had come away with a weapon almost worthy of her rank and wasn't even going to use it. At least Jessica wasn't going to use it. An unnamed adventurer would make good use of that sword though.
"Told you. Pay up, they failed." The drake on guard grinned at the Gnoll watching beside him.
"That doesn't count, they didn't go into the dungeon! Neither of us won." The group had survived but they hadn't survived the dungeon, they never got there. The bet was hardly valid if they didn't get to the dungeon.
"They never would have survived! They nearly got beat down by a group of goblins. They lose, you lose."
"But that doesn't count! It's invalid I tell you. " Brwnaw was double or nothing on the loss from the game of chess and this wasn't making things better.