Daniel turned to the kobold, who appeared to be studying the long black dagger, dropped by the elf.

Polto’s eyes were distant, as he seemed to stare through the ugly weapon.

Like it had never really been there, the knife disappeared from his hand and the kobold’s eyes turned to Daniel.

“Make yourself useful and strip the bodies of all jewelry, bags, and weapons,” Polto said as he made his way over to the body of Drexler.

Daniel froze for a moment, but as he saw the kobold touch the troll, and the body disappear, he grit his teeth and set about the grim task.

Hearing a noise, he turned and spotted Polto stabbing one of the orcs he had knocked unconscious.

The kobold didn’t pause as he made his way through the bodies, only stopping to either stab a not-quite-dead orc, or to touch one of his friends, causing their bodies to disappear.

Daniel had managed to get through eight of the bodies, piling everything together in a rough pile, when he heard Polto making his way back over to him.

The kobold walked past him and sat with his back against one of the logs that they had been sitting against all too short a time ago.

“Human…Daniel, come here, please.” The kobold rasped out.

The fire was low, but he could now see the kobold’s face, his eyes held unshed tears, but his face was stony.

“I couldn’t find Jagarag,” he whispered.

“Want me to…” Daniel started, but the kobold waved it away.

“No. I need you to do something important. Something more important than you could possibly know.”

Daniel gave the kobold a pained smile.

“I didn’t think you liked me.”

The kobold gave a snort of laughter.

“I don’t. But I’m out of options and you seem to be a decent person, species notwithstanding.”

He paused as he stared at Daneil.

“Maybe a little too decent, in fact.”

About to object to the kobold’s assertion that being decent was a negative, Daniel stopped himself as he noticed the kobold’s arm.

Polto’s hand had blackened and was curled in on itself, and lines of black ran up from under his collar, causing scales to blacken and fall off.

“I don’t have much time left, so listen and don’t interrupt.” The kobold instructed.

Taking his ring from the finger of his disfigured hand, he held it out towards Daniel.

“Take this. Behind the wooden log where the goblin was sitting is a ritual circle. Sit inside it and bind the circle with a drop of blood. Then bind the ring to yourself.”

Daniel stared down at the ring as the kobold continued.

“Once that’s done, put all the orcs’ crap into the ring to sell later. You’ll need money.”

The kobold gave a racking cough, and his lips were flecked with black specks when he got himself back under control.

“Put my body in the ring, then find the map.”

Polto’s hand dropped, and the ring fell from his fingers.

“Follow the map…Give them our bodies and that cursed blade…Protect the dragon…Save the world.”

The kobold’s eyes closed, but he continued to talk, fading fast.

“Curb the naivete…be the hero…”

A golden light seemed to encompass the kobold, and his eyes opened as he leaned towards Daniel.

“Remember this, Daniel Bakerson, follower of Honos. Keep your secrets. Be wary of the pretty people. If you want justice, seek out the monsters. We are the true arbiters of justice, beauty being its own morality.”

The golden light faded away and the kobold’s head fell back against the log.

It was too much, Daniel thought. Too much had happened in too short a time.

His body shook as his emotions threatened to overwhelm him.

Tears in his eyes, he clenched his teeth.

“This isn’t the time for this,” he ground out.

He breathed in and out and pushed the emotions down.

He needed to focus, finish up, and get as far from here as possible.

Setting his jaw, Daniel picked up the ring from the ground and walked past the fire and to the log the goblin wizard had sat at.

There, just as Polto has said, was a circle carved into the old stone, with what were presumedly magic glyphs drawn into it.

Not questioning the function of the ritual circle, Daniel sat down.

Removing the small utility knife from his belt, he made a shallow cut on the pad of his finger and dripped the blood onto the circle.

System Message: Bind the Ritual Circle?

Shocked, he only waited a moment before accepting it with an effort of will.

A light blue transparent dome surrounded him, and he gasped at its sudden appearance.

Focus! He thought to himself.

Now he needed to bind the ring.

While Polto hadn’t explicitly said so, he assumed it was the same process as binding the ritual circle.

Squeezing another drop of blood from his finger, he touched the ring to it.

System Message: Bind Tier 10 Dimensional Storage Ring for 1 System Point?

He was a bit taken aback that one of his hard-earned points would be required to bind the item to his mana-gate, but having earned at least a point from his last fight, it seemed destined to be.

Once again, he willed his assent and like a curtain being pulled back, he was suddenly aware of what had been there all along.

He could now see what the ring held.

Slipping the ring over his finger, it fit snugly, but comfortably, like it was made for him.

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He desperately wanted to look through the ring, but now was not the time. He needed to finish up and get out of here as quickly as possible.

With an effort of will, he dismissed the ritual circle.

Daniel walked over to where Polto’s body lay and stared at the diminutive kobold.

He looked so much smaller than he did before; he thought.

Attempting to mimic what Polto had done, he crouched down and placed a hand on the kobold and willed him into the ring; the body disappearing without fanfare.

Standing, he walked over to the gear he had taken from the orcs and ran his hands over the items, storing them all in the ring.

He looked around the area and debated stripping the bodies of the other orcs, but his eyes fell on the body of the elf. An elf whose sullied blade had managed to kill a cleric, of all things.

Fatigue hit him like a physical blow. The post battle shock had kept him moving, but it had finally worn off along with whatever spell Polto had used to clean and invigorate him.

Looking around, he fixed his eyes on a large tree in the far distance and started jogging.

He needed a safe place to rest so he could go over his next steps with a clear head, and putting as much distance between him and this place was step one.

***

Daniel slowly opened his eyes.

This wasn’t his first time sleeping in a tree, but it never got any easier. He was not only still tired but was now incredibly sore from the uncomfortable branch he had slept upon.

Looking down from his perch in the tree, he felt a sudden wave of vertigo and clutched at the rope that secured him to the tree.

With the loss of his old backpack, he had needed to search through the orc’s packs for a rope thick enough to climb with.

Luck had been with him, and he had looped it around the tree and himself, then used it to slowly climb the thick tree, ascending one slow foot at a time.

A wide branch, a few loops around the tree, his perch, and himself, and he was ready to doze.

Unwilling to move just yet, he pulled up his System screen and was momentarily taken aback by the number of System points he had gained.

Four points for battling the orcs, one for his first use of a ritual circle, and one for his first binding of an enchanted item to his mana-gate.

It had taken him a full year of fighting against incredibly bad odds to get his first five points, and now he had received six System points in less than an hour, though he had spent one already binding the ring.

He smiled tiredly to himself, but the smile faded quickly. It was too soon, and the emotions were still too raw.

Daniel concentrated on his breathing and centered himself.

He couldn’t let emotions get in the way of what he needed to do.

Pulling up his available combat classes, he immediately chose Warrior and received a System message.

Select Weapon Skill and Specialized Weapon Skill.

He didn’t need to debate long, as the recent fight was fresh in his memory. His weighted baton had worked well. Even though it was much too short and too light for an actual battle; he liked the fact that it provided him with some measure of control over the damage he inflicted.

Without debating it further, he chose Blunt Weapons.

Reading over the specialized blunt weapons was interesting. Staff, Mace, Warhammer, Blackjack, Chain Mace…the list went on.

He knew he didn’t want to choose Baton, but not having a better blunt weapon on-hand, it made little sense to choose now.

He smiled then. Also, with two remaining System points, he only needed one more to purchase another skill outright.

Putting those thoughts aside for the moment, he opened the ring and looked inside. Ignoring the bodies, he scanned the ring’s inventory and was pleased to see it held stacks of gold coins.

With that much gold, he could pay the fee to the Adventurers Guild, buy new weapons and armor, and finally fulfill his dream of being a protector of humanity.

He enjoyed the feeling for a few moments before willing the thoughts away and looking into the ring for the map that Polto had told him about.

The map sat in its own compartment, and he summoned it to his hand.

Although it appeared well-drawn, it made little sense to his untrained eye.

He turned it a few times before understanding what he was looking at.

The map showed where he was right now, which was currently fifty feet up in a tree and marked with a green diamond.

An X marked his destination, which appeared to be several miles away through the forest and into the hills.

Dropping the map back into the ring, he pondered the circumstance he had found himself in.

He now had gold, enchanted items, and a quest given to him by a cleric of a god he hadn’t known existed.

What had Polto said to him while dying? “Curb the naivete?”

He grimaced at the memory.

How much of a bumpkin had he appeared to be for the kobold to spend his last few words to admonish him for it?

Shaking his head at the thought, Daniel untied the rope and prepared to climb down the tree.

The kobold was probably right. Here he was, putting his dreams on hold to fulfill the last wish of a person he had just met. A non-human person at that.

He was now planning on following a magic map to deliver the bodies of a powerful party and a cursed dagger to someone who was also most likely not human and…

He cut off the line of thought as he reached the ground and coiled the rope into a tight bundle before depositing it back into the ring.

“Protect the dragon and save the world,” he said out loud.

It had most likely been the addled thoughts of a dying being, but he would follow through nonetheless.

He snorted to himself. Yeah, the kobold was right. He really did need to stop being so naïve.

***

Daniel moved through the large trees as quietly as he could.

While he didn’t have the Survival or Stealth skill, he did at least have some knowledge of the forest.

You didn’t look around as you walked; that was a good way to get motion sickness as the elevation changed nearly imperceptibly as you traveled.

Instead, he fixed his eyes on a single target while he walked and made sure to fully stop to look around as he scanned for any threats.

It wasn’t the quickest way to traverse the woods, and he could probably go even faster if he moved towards the hills to the east, but he wanted what cover the forest could provide.

Bears and wolves were bad enough, but who knew what other monsters were nearby?

That wasn’t even considering the possibility of more orc warriors or elf slingers ready to put an arrow through his eye.

No, it was best not to walk out in plain sight.

His right hand rested on his baton at his hip.

Having his class now, he could now use the weapon with some measure of expertise, unlike before.

While the temporary point in the skill provided to him by Honos had allowed him to wield the weapon, the difference between being able to use something and having System knowledge of the weapon was night and day.

Daniel considered his newfound confidence. How many points did that troll, Drexel, have in his sword skill?

Drexel had taken down at least ten orcs by himself, and probably could have taken even more if multiple arrows hadn’t struck him down.

He took little comfort in the realization that his own fighting ability was nothing compared to the troll.

With that cheery thought in mind, Daniel made a mental note to make sure he chose a one-handed weapon as soon as an option presented itself. After that, he would start saving for the Shield skill.

Daniel stopped and took out the map. He was getting close to where he needed to exit the forest and head over the hills toward the mountains.

Following the bright light of the midday sun, he walked towards the point where the forest ended and the hills began.

Crouched silently behind a tree, he scanned the sunlit expanse before him. Patchy grass and weeds covered the area as he watched for any movement or signs of life.

Something caught his eye, but it wasn’t where he had been looking. Right there at his feet was a strange furry ball.

It wasn’t moving and was roughly the size of a human head, but it triggered a memory.

He thought back to his time in the town’s orphanage. It hadn’t been all bad. As a ward of the Kingdom, he had free access to the town library and had taken advantage of the privilege.

Knowing he would eventually join the Adventurers Guild; he had worked hard to increase his knowledge of any subject that he thought might prove beneficial.

In fact, he had been delighted to find books on etiquette and manners that had already stood him in good stead when he had needed to convince the local farmers to choose him over the older applicants with more experience.

Granted, him not having a drinking problem had helped as well. But they had seemed genuinely impressed that he could speak somewhat eloquently compared to the others.

Not that being able to speak intelligently would help him on the job, but perception was everything.

He shook away the memory. The books on etiquette were a treasure, however, it was a book on forestry and tracking that he now recalled.

These were owl pellets. Undigestible balls of bone and fur that the birds of prey would regurgitate after eating the small creatures they hunted.

He stared at the size of the pellet in front of him and slowly craned his neck upwards.

There, about twenty feet above him on a large branch, perched a creature straight out of his nightmares.

It looked like a pink fleshy ball, complete with a thick tail that was wrapped around the tree limb.

With his view of the monster largely obstructed, he couldn’t get a sense of what it was, other than being a featherless, owl-like predator.

Where it was perched gave it a clear view of the hills and there was no way he was going to take a chance on the creature spotting him while he crossed the open space.

He briefly wished for the bow the elf had used, but knew it would have been worse than useless in his hands.

If he attempted to use it without a System skill, he was more likely to injure himself than the monster he was aiming at.

Daniel quickly ran through his options. He could try to kill it like the bear and bury a few of the orcs’ swords in the ground, blades up, and get the beast to fall on them.

Though, based on the owl-like nature of the creature, he bet it could fly. So, knocking it out of the tree and onto his trap seemed destined to fail.

He could climb the tree and attack it directly, but getting up the wide tree would require him to use his rope, and he doubted the monster would sit idly by as he made his way to it.

Though the rope had some other possibilities.

He brought out the tightly bound coil of rope. If he was careful, he might be able to use it to snare the creature and then pull it down to be dispatched.

The rope wasn’t stiff enough to make a traditional lariat, but it should be good enough for this, he thought.

The trick he used against the bear was too useful not to repeat, so he would implement that as well.

Grinning to himself, he realized he really was more confident now.

His plan set; Daniel retrieved one of the orcs’ swords from his ring.

Time to get to work.