As Dan and Frank settled into the lean-to to rest, I processed the squirrel. I had taken out the E-tool and dug a hole about fifteen feet from our camp to bury the entrails. The processing should have been done farther out but I surmised it would be okay since we were only going to be there for the next few hours. If it was going to be a long term set up, I would’ve pushed out the processing area to at least one hundred meters from the camp.
Once I finished processing the animal, I quartered it and wrapped it in hide. I procured another length of “550 cord” from my ruck and hung the hide package from a tree branch. I placed it a ways away from the camp and the processing site. I then settled down by the fire and added a couple more pieces of wood. I didn’t have a watch and my phone was dead so I couldn’t really tell how long it had been. I did the best I could with counting the minutes but after what I thought was an hour, counting had become really monotonous. At the end of what I figured was three hours, I woke Frank up for his turn at watch and then settled in for some sleep.
The next morning I awoke to Dan shaking my leg. The sun was still a few minutes away from rising, but the eastern sky was getting brighter. I stoked the fire and retrieved the packaged squirrel and began roasting the meat. This being the first time Dan and Frank had tried squirrel, I thought breakfast would be interesting. Squirrel is a lean white meat that is similar to rabbit, but is less gamey. With a couple salt and pepper packets from an MRE accessory pack, I seasoned the meat as best I could. Overall, it was a decent breakfast. After breakfast, we packed up our camp before heading south towards Dan’s home. Theoretically, we should already be halfway there. Hopefully, Dan’s wife will be at the house. That would definitely take some worry away from Dan.
No sooner had we got back to walking south, we ran into a solitary man sitting on a stump in another copse of trees. This was on the other side of the open field from where we spent the night. The man didn’t appear threatening, and actually had a bright smile on his face as he waved at us. With caution, we approached him. I pulled my hammer from my belt and held it nonchalantly over my right shoulder. This position wouldn’t normally look threatening, actually looking kind of arrogant. But in reality, one could throw an item without windup. It is the preferred method of hunting small game with something known as a “rabbit stick.” No wind up means less opportunity to scare small game with aggressive movement.
I stopped about thirty feet from the newcomer. I figured that was far enough away from the guy that we couldn’t be immediately attacked. However, close enough that I could launch my hammer and get a decent hit if needed. Dan and Frank stopped about two feet behind me, taking up both my left and right sides. The man was dressed in blue jeans and wore a tan Carhartt jacket with brown cowboy boots and a ball cap. Not an uncommon style here in dairy country. I noticed the man was armed with a machete sheathed on his right side. I could see small traces of blood on the man’s clothing. I didn’t believe for one second the blood was from hunting animals for food. This man had killed, and I knew he wasn’t here for anything nice.
“Hey there” the man said as he stood up from his stump. “I’m Jack. I smelled your cooking fire a while ago and I thought I’d come over and say hi. I noticed you guys were headed this direction so I thought a meeting in the shade would be pleasant on what’s already looking like a hot day. You guys wouldn't have anything left over, would you? My friends and I are terribly hungry.” At that, two men stepped out from behind some trees on either side of us. One man was armed with a bow, which he held drawn on Dan.
The other stepped to Frank's side with another machete. Except the machete was pulled out of its sheath and held down by his right leg. “Now hold on for a minute," Jack said. We’re just looking for food. Don’t nobody get any notions of being a hero.”
“We don’t have any more, I explained. We only caught one squirrel.”
“Well now, some of those squirrels are as big as dogs," Jack said. "Surely you have something left?"
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but we don’t,” I replied. I stared intently at him in an effort to gather as much information about him as I could. I was hoping that what I recalled about some gaming aspects was true, and to my surprise, I got exactly what I wanted.
-Skill gained: “Inspect Beg 1: While looking at a person or object with the intent to glean knowledge, gain minimal information regarding the subject. Skill: passive MP: N/A Cool down: N/A.”
The information provided read as follows: “Human, level 5, bandit.” That sums it up for me. This person was an evil man. Gaining four levels in a single night and achieving a bandit class meant Jack had been up to no good over the last twelve hours or so. I wondered how many people Jack and his crew killed throughout the night.
Jack continued, “fine, if you don’t have any more squirrel meat, just drop your weapons and your packs and we might let you go about your day. If you don't, we'll have to force you to give us what you’ve got and that won’t make for a good morning for you guys.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Look man, I said, we’re a long way from home. We were caught working out of town when this shit storm hit and we’re just trying to get back to our families.” I knew this man couldn’t be dissuaded but I thought I would give it a shot anyway.
Pulling his machete out of its sheath, Jack stated more firmly “I’m only going to say this one more time. Drop your weapons and packs. NOW.”
Turning slightly to my right, I made eye contact with Frank and winked. This did two things: It let Frank know I was about to do something, and it also gave me a little bit more wind up with my hammer without being perceived in a threatening manner. Unfortunately, the man with the machete on Frank’s side saw the wink and immediately started to move. Fortunately for Frank, the man still held his machete down to his right. This gave Frank the chance he needed. He dropped his right shoulder and pushed towards the man. He brought the head of his sledgehammer up and into the man’s rib cage like a battering ram. A loud crunch was heard as his ribs broke.
Not wasting time, I twisted left and whipped the hammer at Jack. The hammer spun through the air and caught Jack in the head with the hammer face. Jack was knocked down hard and I hoped it was a critical hit. I spun left, pulling my bush-craft knife from its sheath at the small of my back, facing the archer that had drawn on Dan. Fortunately, I wasn’t needed to fend off the archer as the archer stepped within reach of Dan’s makeshift bow staff. Dan twisted left, spinning the staff knocking the bow away from himself and sending the arrow off into the woods. He thrust the staff up into the man's face, throwing him off balance and swept his feet out from under him.
I turned back to Jack, seeing he was attempting to get up on his feet. I rushed towards the man, driving my knee down into his chest. Jack gasped painfully as his breath left his lungs. I used one quick motion with my blade to open Jack’s neck and carotid artery. Without any healing magic, I knew he was not long for this world. I turned back to see what was happening with my friends and noticed the man Frank fought lay on the ground not moving. There was a sizable dent on the left side of the man’s face. The archer lay on his back with his arms raised as Dan pointed his staff towards him.
I sheathed my knife and recovered my hammer. Dropping my pack by Frank, I strode over and hefted the archer to his feet and pressed him up against a nearby tree.
“Don’t kill me,” the man begged.
“We’re not intending to kill you if you give us some information," I said. But if you try anything or we don’t like what we hear, you’re going to join your friends over there.” I inspected the archer. “Human level 4,” was all the information given. “How is it that your friend Jack over there was level five and had a bandit class?" I asked. "And how is it you’re only level four with no class?”
“I don’t know man," the guy whined. After the lightning, Jack came and found me at my house. He was already at level two. Jack said we needed to loot some houses for food and weapons. We decided to pick up that other guy and hit some farm houses in the county area. If anyone was home, Jack just killed them. He found out that killing other people gives you experience points. At level five, Jack was given a choice of classes and picked Bandit. I guess it gave him some bonuses to stealth and other skills related to thieving. That’s all I know man.”
“How many people did you and your friends kill to reach level four?" I asked.
“Awe come on man," the archer begged. We were only doing what we needed to survive.”
“And what about the people you murdered," I asked. Were they only trying to survive as you broke into their homes and started killing them?” At this the archer started to weep. I turned to Frank and Dan looking for help in this matter, when I saw the archer reach for something behind his back. I turned quickly and buried my hammer’s claw into the top of the archer’s head. The hit must have been a critical hit as the archer instantly dropped dead to the ground.
I searched the body and located a fixed blade buck knife in the archer’s belt line. Looking back up at Dan, I could see a regretful sad look on his face. I wasn’t sure if it was because of what the archer had admitted to or if it was because I’d taken the man’s life after passing judgment on him. I sighed, “Let's check out the bodies, then get back on the road. We can discuss what happened later, when we’re far from here.” With nothing else to say at the moment, we started checking the bodies.
I took the Buck Knife from the archer and recovered the archer’s bow. I used Inspect on the bow.
- You have found a: shoddy quality wood bow. Rarity: common, Damage: 3-6.
I scoffed at the crappy bow. I could get the same amount of damage with my boots, and even had a chance at a critical hit. The string however, was of decent quality. I didn’t need Inspect to tell me that much. I had enough experiences with bows that I knew a good string when he saw one. In fact, I was pretty sure I had a better quality bow at home that needed a string. This one looked like it might be close to the right size. I unstrung the bow and threw it to the ground. I rolled the string up and placed it in one of the outside pockets in my ruck.
Frank and Dan each picked up one of the machetes and strapped it to their belts. They also found a couple of fixed blade knives, but nothing else was worth taking from the bandits. Jack’s Carhartt jacket would’ve been nice to have, but after the way I took him out, the jacket was pretty trashed with stains. Whatever the bandits took from people’s residences must have been stashed elsewhere, and we had no time to look for it. With the corpse looting out of the way, we put our packs back on and started towards Dan’s house yet again. Hopefully this time we wouldn’t meet anyone along the way that wanted to rob us for our meager possessions.