Aiden

  We caught our breaths as we looked over ourselves for injuries. Heidi had a lump on the back of her head, but it seemed to already be going down, and her headache had already gone away. I grabbed my shield and kept an eye on the fire burning in the distance. I could see shadowy figures walking in front of it from time to time, so I knew at least one if not both remaining birdmen were still there.

  “What should we do? They are going to be expecting their friends to come back after taking us out.” I pointed at the glow of the fire.

  “I think we can take two of them if we can get close.” Dax looked at his kamas and shook his head as he spoke. “This is not what I planned to be doing when I woke up this morning.”

  “If we take out those two, we finish the quest, and we can go back to town, right?” Heidi rubbed the back of her head and shrugged. “I would like to spend as little time in the open as possible.”

  Janet looked up from where she was wiping the blood off her dagger on the fallen enemy’s clothes, “Then let’s go finish this and then get back to the compound in the morning.”

  We took another few minutes trying to figure out how we would attack the camp. During this time, we were able to watch close enough to determine that there were two different people around the fire as well. We had all recovered some energy and decided it was time to start creeping towards the other camp as the moons in the sky crossed paths.

  The plan was simple, sneak up, and Heidi would trip one with her bo staff while Janet took one down with her chain dart. Dax and I would pounce on the fallen guys, and we would finish the fight fast and with a lot less effort than the last one. But as the saying goes, the best laid plans and all that.

  We got into position, and the first move was great as Janet through the weighted dart and it wrapped around one of the guys legs and he let out a yelp of pain. The second one turned and took a step towards his partner causing Heidi to miss with her staff and whack him in the ankle instead. The one Janet had snared was going down but was caught by his friend. “There goes the quick fight.” I thought as I pounced at the one who was now standing on only one leg fighting with Janet for his other. The crash of my shield against his body finally took him down to the ground. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dax launching at his target as I fell on top of mine.

  I raised my hammer and brough it down with all my might onto the beak of the victim pinned below me. “Please forgive me, lord.” My hand shook as the hammer landed and only barely cracked the white boney material. I say the eyes widen before they closed, and my fight was done. I was looking up just as I heard Dax.

  “Ow, damn it!” Dax stepped back from his target who was still standing, his sword drawn and a bit of blood running down his blade. I looked at Dax and saw that a wet spot was forming across the fabric of his pants around a clean cut on his thigh.

  Heidi must have seen an opening before me, because by the time I was swinging my hammer to help, her staff was already connecting with the face of the remaining enemy. The birdman stumbled and was falling backwards already when my hammer hit the back of his skull and a sickening wet crunch was heard as his head shot forward and a dent was already visible in the back. With both fighters down, I ran over to Dax who had fallen to the ground holding his leg.

  “Oh my god! How bad is it?” I was on my knees looking at the blood seeping out around his fingers.

  “It hurts like a bitch! But I’ll be fine, I have honestly had worse injuries working construction.” Dax was pushing hard on the wound. I was still concerned but couldn’t ask any more questions because a system prompt distracted me.

[Quest updated]

[One of the attackers has remained alive after you have prevented them from returning to their base. Use this opportunity to find a way into the enemy compound and eliminate the threat. Rewards will be adjusted to match the new quest objective.]

  I looked over at the fighter with the cracked beak and let out a heavy sigh. “Are we being punished?” I moved my gaze to Janet and Heidi who looked as though they had just finished reading the prompt and were now both looking at the birdman who was still alive.

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  “I don’t think we are. But I don’t like this either,” Dax said as he grunted and sat forward. “We should tie him up and we can interrogate him when he comes around.” He moved his hand to check his cut, and the bleeding had stopped. “That is either a good sign or a really bad one.”

  We all took up spots around the fire and sat quietly. I looked at my screen to see how everything was coming along,

[Name]Aiden Michaels

[Level] 2

[Race] Human

[Strength] 9

[Agility] 8

[Endurance] 6

[Constitution] 7

[Mind] 8

[Quest] Weapon Proficiency-Warhammer

Work with the Warhammer to survive to better understand the weapon and how to use it.

[10%]

[Quest] Armor Proficiency-Shield

Survive while wearing your shield to understand how to use it.

[19%]

[Quest] Eliminate Threat

Infiltrate and eliminate the threat of the enemy compound.

  “At least I’m making progress on the proficiency quests.” I thought as I stared into the fire. We sat there quietly for a couple of hours before the sound of struggle brought all of our attention to our captive.

  “What are you?” Heidi was the first to speak as she turned to face the creature.

  “I’m a kenku warrior, and you need to release me if you want to be spared.” The kenku puffed up his chest as he spoke.

  “Oh, we are going to return you to your base, just as soon as you tell us where it is.” Janet moved to sit next to the tied-up fighter. She loosely held the chain of her weapon letting the dagger swing ominously over the kenku’s thighs.

  The fighter visibly gulped while he watched the dagger swing. His friends dead body lay just off to the side, and once he saw that and realized the same fate must have befallen his other two comrades his head sank. “It’s about a one-day hike in that direction.” He nodded his head with little energy. “It’s suicide though, our strongest fighters will be waiting for a retaliation strike.

  “How many fighters are there?” Dax had slowly managed to get to his feet and was looking down at the captive now.

  “I don’t know. I just appeared here with some of my fellow fighters, and we got the quest to eliminate the opposing force in the area. I saw maybe five or six others before we decided to join the squad that was already marching towards your base.”

  Dax leaned down and grabbed the rope bindings and dragged the fighter to his feet. “I appreciate the help.” Dax’s voice was somber and even quivered a bit as he pushed the prisoner towards the woods. “But we can’t let you live to stab us in the back or alert the others.” Dax followed until the darkness hid them from us.

  Seconds felt like minutes and minutes felt like hours as we waited. There was no sound of a struggle, no yells or screams just the sounds of the woods and the crackling of the fire. Dax returned from the darkness, limping his way back to the fire and almost fell as he sat in his spot. Everyone had the same question on their mind. “Did you just execute that living creature?” but none of us wanted to ask, because we knew the truth, and no one liked it.

  “It needed to be done.” Dax was staring at the base of the fire, as he spoke. His tone was quiet but firm. It was as if he was trying to convince himself as much as explaining it to us.

  “I hate this place! I never even made a fist at another person before this.” I couldn’t help myself as tears started to roll down my face.

  “I was just a blogger, and not I have killed! Why us? Why not real soldiers?” Janet wrapped her arms around her folded legs and hid her face as her body shook from silent sobs.

  Heidi took a steadying breath before speaking. “I want to stop the people from destroying this universe because I think it is the right thing to do. I don’t think I want to commit myself to Michael and his forces though. Not if they take innocents like us and force us into fighting and killing.”

  “I saw we finish this quest. We can discuss the next move after that. It seems the system or whatever it is has given competing quests to us and these kenkus. It is us or them who has to die, and I would much prefer it not to be me.” Dax was staring at the fire still, but his words made sense and I nodded along in agreement, tears still running down my cheeks.

  Janet let out a muffled “mhmmph” as she stayed in her little ball. We continued to sit there around the fire, no one having anything else to say. I couldn’t figure out what, but there was something in the back of my mind bothering me.

  As the sun began to rise, I realized that I didn’t even feel a little tired despite the crazy day and pulling an all-nighter. We all stood up and got ready to head out. I was standing looking through the trees before I finally realized that this sun seemed smaller, closer, and kind of orange. I had to force myself to stop trying to look at it and to finish get ready to head out.

  “Your limp.” I pointed to Dax’s leg as he walked around the camp. He moved the fabric around on his pants to look at the cut, and it had already scabbed over. It wasn’t fully healed but it was a lot closer than it should have been. “That’s a pretty neat trick.”

  “I’m traveling with fricking Wolverine here.” Heidi smiled and slapped Dax’s leg as she spoke, drawing a pained grunt from him. “Guess it’s not that healed huh?”

  “I can walk fine, but it still hurts!” Dax glared at the airhead before just shaking his head seemingly letting the annoyance drop away.