Axel read through Jim's message one more time before groaning and swinging his feet out of the bed. Standing, he stretched and his motions attracted Drago's attention as he began to yawn and stretch as well.

"Come on bud," Axel said as he splashed some of the water from the decoratively carved wooden bowl onto his face. "Jim wants us to go find a civilian and lead him back to the city. If we're quick with it, we might be able to swing by the Carnix Cliffs and see if King Burny needs some help with stuff."

Leading the way, Axel stepped out onto the crowded streets of Hero's Crypt and began walking toward the market streets.

"Just because Jim said this guy's pretty desperate, we've got to go before finding some proper breakfast," Axel told Drago. "But who says we can't grab some street food before we leave?"

Yipping agreeably, Drago's tail began to wag as he took his place beside Axel and they searched for one of the food carts before leaving the city.

"Still got the trail?" Axel asked Drago as they Tracked Jim's route the day before. "It's noon, I'd have thought the guy would be around here by now."

As Axel complained about their missing charge, Drago came to a stop, sniffing at one of the trees before turning off the trail and letting out a light growl for a moment as he led Axel deeper into the woods.

"What's wrong?" Axel asked, voice falling to a whisper at Drago's growl. "Did Jim change directions? Did the other guy's scent finally show up?"

While Axel tried to guess what the Rockwolf's senses were telling him, Drago led deeper into the forest, leaving the path they'd been following behind. Before long, they were crouched low in the brush, watching as a group of men, mostly Humans with a few Goblins and Orcs, milled about the large camp, rusted weapons, dulled from lack of care, were on display and more than one of the men wore tattered armor that looked like it had been scavenged from dead bodies if the visible efforts to repair them were anything to go by.

"Who the hell are these guys?" Axel asked as he activated Examine on one of them.

Human Bandit: A Human that has given in to a life of banditry and murder.

"Let's see if we can't figure out how many of them there are," Axel muttered as he observed the camp and began to count the occupants.

"Looks like a dozen of them," he told Drago as the Rockwolf growled at the unobservant men in the camp. "Think we can take them?"

As one of the men stepped away from a pole he'd been standing by, Axel saw an Orc man wearing dirty clothes tied to the pole, his green skin darkening as his face showed bruising.

"And they've got a prisoner," Axel said. "Great. We need to free him before we do anything, or they'll just threaten to kill him. Wonder if that's the guy that Jim wanted us to find."

Observing the camp for a few minutes longer, Axel worked out a plan of attack.

"Okay Drago," he said, grabbing the Rockwolf's attention. "I'm going to use my Manipulate Earth to form a wall around the guy and then I'll focus on keeping the rest of them from swarming us. I want you to focus on taking them out quickly. I'll do my best to help you, but I can't promise anything, I'll probably be busy dealing with my own guys. If we have to back off, then we do that. We go when the wall's up."

Drago didn't answer, his gaze glued to the men in the camp as Axel began to push his mana through the ground and mentally shaped a wall from the stone in the earth. Once he had the mental shape and the location he wanted his mana in, Axel tapped Drago's shoulder and gave an order.

"Sic," he whispered as the skill took hold and Drago took off in a brown blur, growling and snarling toward the nearest bandit while Axel finished shaping the wall around the Orc prisoner.

As the large rock wall appeared in their midst, the bandits looked around in confusion until Drago made his presence known as he pounced on one of them and began to savage his throat, sending blood spurting from the Human as he screamed wordlessly before falling silent. Roaring and screaming, the remaining men in the camp, an even dozen if Axel had counted right, drew weapons and charged the Rockwolf.

Before any of them could reach Drago, the Rockwolf rose up from his kill, growled, and charged the men as Axel raised tripping hazards for them, forming low walls haphazardly and sudden rabbit holes and mole burrows that sent more than one man tripping to the ground, shins bruised and ankles sprained. The number of men charging Drago reduced, Axel charged forward, two fist-sized rocks in hand, shaping them around the studs on his gloves and forming blades at the ends of his hands.

The bandits were quick to notice the charging Wolf-man loping toward them as rock shaped itself around his hands and more than one took up a cry.

"A Mage!" they screamed. "It's a Mage!"

Their warning was too late to help the men that Drago crashed into as the Rockwolf's claws suddenly gleamed with an inner light and they flashed out, ripping deep gouges and wounds into the men's flesh, causing the three men to drop their rusted weapons, screaming in agony.

Before any of the other's could react, Axel dove to the ground, palm slapping to the ground as rock burst from the ground in long, needle-thin spikes that skewered the men, killing them, before driving into the feet and legs of more of the men.

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While the two men Axel had rooted to the ground screamed in agony, another of the men threw his weapon to the ground, falling to his knees and sobbing his surrender while another turned and bolted from the clearing, limping from his sprained ankle and casting furtive glances over his shoulder as he crashed through the brush.

Seeing that the odds were much more even now than before, the remaining four men shared a look before hardening their faces and charging toward the snarling wolf and the Beastkin. As they approached them, Axel rose up and, with an exaggerated motion, stomped heavily on the ground, sending a ripple of soil rising outward and knocking all of the men off balance as Drago rushed toward them and ripped into one of their throats.

While Drago ended one of the bandits, Axel approached another, snapping his leg out and kicking the man hard enough that his head snapped to the side violently and Axel worried he'd killed the man. Before he could check, the last two men rose to their feet and both charged him, rusted weapons raised.

Stepping back, Axel raised his fists and prepared to meet the men head-on as Drago charged into the side of one of them, sending him sprawling to the ground while the Rockwolf snarled and ripped at his arm with his teeth. Grinning savagely, displaying his enlarged incisors, Axel stepped forward to meet the last man, fist crashing forward as he called the ground beneath his opponent to crumble and weaken.

Off-balance and desperately swinging his sword, the bandit fell to the ground as Axel's fist impacted the side of his head, crushing his skull beneath the heavy rock that covered the fist.

Raising himself up and looking around the aftermath, Axel watched as Drago finished ripping the other bandit's arm to the bone before calling him back.

"Heel!" Axel's words had Drago stepping back from the bandit as the man sobbed and begged for mercy, the groans of pain from the other survivors filling the air. "Good boy, Drago! Before you know it, we'll be tearing through stronger guys than these!"

Offering a short woof of agreement, Drago butted his head into Axel's waist and demanded more attention.

"I know," Axel said, kneeling down to scratch at the Rockwolf's jaw and ears the way he liked. "Who's the best boy ever? That's right! It's you!"

Groaning in joy, Drago accepted Axel's attention before letting out a bark and turning to sniff at the men that had needles of rock in their legs and feet. While Drago was satisfied with Axel's attention, and had turned away to examine their prisoners, Axel turned toward the wall he'd raised in the camp to protect the prisoner.

With a theatrical wave of his hand, Axel willed the wall to fall away into sand, revealing the Orc that was looking around in confusion. At the sight of Axel and the dead and captured bandits, his face brightened and he spoke.

"Thanks for the save," he said, bruised face stretching into a grin before he winced in pain. "You are saving me, right?"

"I am," Axel assured him as he approached and cut the Orc's hands free.

"Thank you," he said gratefully as he rubbed his raw, chafed wrists and stepped away from the rough pole he'd been tied to. "I kept expecting them to kill me, cause I thought that C99 would have made sure that torture wasn't a thing, but they just beat me a bunch and tied me up."

"Who knows what sort of limits the devs put in this whole thing," Axel said to the now-confirmed player. "I'm Axel, that's Drago. What's your name?"

"I'm Grog," the Orc said. "I was trying to get to Hero's Crypt, but these guys ambushed me and dragged me away. Thanks again for the help."

"No trouble," Axel assured him. "I was looking for you anyway. Jim asked me to find you and make sure you got back to the city okay. Looks like it was a good thing he asked me that."

"You're Jim's friend?" Grog asked excitedly. "That's great! He practically saved my life!"

"He did mention that you'd been out here for a while without food," Axel said with a nod. "Come on, let's get you and these clowns back to the city, I'm gonna get paid for them."

"What, do bandits have a bounty at the adventurers guild?" Grog asked.

"At the Hunter's Guild," Axel nodded. "Help me carry back the weapons from the others, yeah? It's gonna be bad enough with the ones I rooted to the ground."

"How did you do that?" Grog asked as he began to move from body to body and grabbed the rusty swords and daggers.

"I used a skill to stab needles of rock into their feet and legs," Axel explained as he began to grab the weapons as well, resisting the urge to put them in his bag of holding.

"Ouch," Grog winced. "Remind me to never fight you."

"Don't worry about that," Axel assured him. "Drago's my real weapon."

With a light, playful growl of agreement, Drago bumped into Grog and nearly knocked the Orc over. Gulping, Grog nodded seriously at the large Rockwolf.

"I see," he said, voice squeaking. "Don't suppose you can point me toward one just like him."

"I could," Axel said with a grin. "But I won't."

As they gathered the weapons and pulled the groaning prisoners to their feet, Grog was happy to tell Axel what had happened to him since joining Astrana.

On the trip back to Hero's Crypt, more than once the three prisoners begged Axel to release them, tied as they were with rope from the camp, claiming that they would lead him to their plundered loot and even serve him as slaves if he promised not to hand them over to the city's guards. Axel refused all their begging and, at times forcefully, dragged them through the woods as they all moved back toward the city, speed hampered slightly by the men with horrific wounds in their feet and legs, and by Grog's own bruised ribs and general exhaustion.

As the city's walls came into sight, the three prisoners fell silent except for sobs more than once. At the gate, Axel showed his badge to the guards and told them the three men were bandits and that the Orc was someone he'd freed from them. Accepting the three prisoners, the guards sent Axel on his way through the gate as the sun fell lower and the evening shadows stretched out.

"They just let me in?" Grog asked as they entered the city and left the guards' range of hearing. "At my starter town, they didn't let me move through the place without a guard to make sure I didn't 'disturb the peace.' Dicks."

"Where did you start out?" Axel asked. "My friends and I started here because we all knew that we wanted to play different races and Hero's Crypt was the only city that wasn't so dominated by another race that it would be difficult to start there if you were something else."

"I started in some village called Pip's Rest," Grog told him as they moved through the crowded streets. "Sounded like fun and it was one of the 'neutral' places, but it was filled with hobbits."

"Halflings," Axel corrected the Orc. "Hobbits are from Lord of the Rings, the rest of fantasy uses Halfling."

"Whatever," Grog said. "The point is that they didn't want me there, practically threw me out of the place after I told them what I wanted to do and sent me on my way."

"The whole 'make my own house in the woods' thing?" Axel asked.

"That's the one," Grog nodded as Axel led him into the Hunter's Guild. "Where are we?"

"Hunter's Guild," Axel told him. "I have to turn in the bandit's weapons and give them the note from the guards."

"Cool," Grog said, looking around at the still-crowded but emptying building. "What do I do?"

"Find someone to talk to," Axel shrugged as he approached Inkfingers' counter. "Join the Guild?"

"You can join without paying a fee?" Grog asked excitedly.