After many hours of walking Raven comes to a sharp bend in the river forest on his side still but finally on the other side of the river is a clearing a grassy plains and in the distance he can see what appears to be horse sized brown woolly mammoths grazing on the tall grass in the field a small herd of 8 including 2 little ones. Amazed Raven watches them for a few minutes before deciding to set up camp here before crossing tomorrow with his tent destroyed he will need to build some kind of shelter in case it rains. Setting up a lean-to Raven uses the destroyed tent as a bedding and blanket in one wrapping himself with the foul smelling tent and using his bag as a hard pillow. Not setting up a camp fire today as he wanted to get right to sleep so he could wake up early to do his crossing Raven finishes his camp set up fast and heads to bed.
The next morning he wakes up cold but well rested and ready to face the day, Getting up and going to the river bank to wash his face and try to wash his shirt at least scrubbing with his hand very little progress on the brown leather shirt is still stained purple in large spots. Giving up on it and putting it in his bag taking off his pants and adding them to the bag as well he gathers all his supplies into his bag tying it to a large stick and heaving it over his shoulder to keep it dry on the crossing. Slowly he wades out into the water quickly it comes up to his hips as he's crossing the water is still moving slow but is very cold bone chilling cold in fact, Raven deciding he's going to need to warm up after crossing quickens his pace and gets across the river getting up onto the bank he gets his clothing out to put it on when he notices it. One of the fish that he caught earlier attached to his right calf hanging off him. With a squeal he grabs his dagger and stabs the eel in the body prying it off him, as it comes off there's a ripping sound and some of his flesh comes off with the fish and blood squirts from the wound. Stabbing the eel a few more times Raven curses but gets back to warming himself up carving wood shavings from his stick and breaking it down into small pieces he sets to getting his fire going to warm up placing some grass on to help it along.
Cooking the fish that tried eating his leg is strangely satisfying eating it instead, growling at it as he pulls its crispy husk from the fire and biting it. While its not the greatest tasting food in the world its not horrible even if it is a little vampire. Cleaning up his campsite and looking around he doesn’t see the Mammoths anywhere but he does notice a small trail of smoke down the river a little ways, deciding he's got nothing better to do he decides its time to meet civilization and starts walking that way. As he gets closer he finds a small camp fire surrounded by 4 tents and 4 Humans skinning and breaking down a mammoth corpse, Raven gets excited and goes jogging up to them with a hand raised in a wave, when he's spotted the 4 humans stand and arm themselves 2 of them with sword and shields one with a spear and one with a long bow and arrows with metal tips. Shouting they get into a defensive stance and ready for a fight. Raven slows calling out “I’m friendly, I’m so happy to see other people out here. Everything keeps trying to kill me. Any chance you could point me to the nearest town?” one of the sword wielders shouts back “stay back monster or we will kill you. This is our kill and you can not have anything from it leave now or we will add you to our collection!” Raven stops in place gathering what he just heard replying “I'm not a monster my name is Raven, I don’t know where we are I’m lost my tent was destroyed and id like to get back to civilization I don’t think I’m cut out for the wilderness.” The humans all chuckle and the same human replies “ you can fool us monster just because your kind can speak common doesn’t make us anything alike… oooh hooo what's that I see!?” The human turns and speaks to his partners chuckling and whispering away they all laugh and nod together “alright tell you what we will let you camp with us if you help break down this beast once that's done we will point you to our outpost and you can get transportation from there to the major cities. How's that sound mon… eeerrr Raven was it?” Raven nods “yes that will be fine but I don’t have much experience harvesting animals if you don’t mind that I would really like your help and will take you up on your offer.” The humans all nod and wave him forward as they turn back to the beast, Raven notices all but the leader put their weapons back and go back to work on the mammoth while the leader watches raven with a piecing gaze.
Raven walks up to the beast pulling his dagger and helping strip the animal of its hide and helping break down the bigger parts to more manageable pieces. As he's doing this the leader slowly walks back and forth behind him watching him with intense focus when he gets a chill on his neck and a pull on his stomach like he felt when he cast his first spell. Turning and looking at the leader he sees that his eyes are glowing blue and his gaze is locked on the ring on Ravens right hand. “I knew it, its a magic item boys get em!” the leader belts out. Raven jumps to his feet looking at the other three hunters as they stand grabbing their weapons with big grins on their faces, Raven decides this is not a fight he could win and runs for the river bank as fast as he can. The leader shield bashes Raven causing him to stumble crashing into a tent knocking it over and rolling over a box on the other side of it. Getting to his feet he finds the 3 with melee weapons in front of him towards the center of the camp and the archer standing next to the mammoth with an arrow knocked and ready to loose. Raven swings his dagger trying to keep the approaching men back but not really achieving anything. The leader side steps and an arrow comes flying past them directly into Ravens right shoulder screaming in pain Raven stops trying to fight turns and runs for it as fast as he can to the river. As he gets to the bank the hunters are right on his tail another arrow wises by his head just missing him as he dives for the water hoping its deep enough to help him get away. As he hits the middle of the river he splashes down thankfully this part of the river is a fair bit deeper than where he crossed. The humans shout and curse as Raven swims with the current to get away as fast as possible the act feeling a little to natural with very little need to surface for air as he swims he hears a few plops on the water above him but doesn’t look back and just swims as fast as the current will take him.
After 10 minutes of swimming under water he surfaces with a gasp of air climbing onto the rocky area blocking this part of the river standing up and getting to the opposite bank of the hunters pulling the arrow from his shoulder he decides here's where he will go back inland a little to try and lose them. As he walks he checks all his gear thankfully he didn’t take his bag off as he worked and nothing came out in the water. With a quickened step he moves back to the trees that are a 5 minute job inland to find somewhere to hide. Pulling out his hard tack from his bag it has turned to mush but since if he doesn’t eat it now it’ll go bad in scarfs it down and continues he's jog. Coming up to the forest he finds the ground is slightly on an incline the first real hill he's seen since the first field he left continuing to run into the forest he looks over his shoulder and sees on the other side of the bank the hunters mounted on large wolves all four of them looking directly at Raven as he runs into the forest, Cursing Raven picks up the pace and runs full out into the woods. Running for an hour at full speed Raven starts to slow down due to exhaustion and notices a flashing icon in the top right of his screen, opening his stats page he sees the icon indicates Fatigue 1 which says stamina will regenerate 5% slower due to prolonged exertion resting for one hour per Fatigue tick will recover it. Unable to rest here Raven decides to slow his pace to a fast jog and continue up the forested hill for another hour. As he hour passes he decides its time to take a quick rest maybe try and make a trap of some sort in hopes of slowing them down or getting them off his trail. Using his dagger he sharpens a few short sticks as he walks, once he finds a flat spot he makes sure to leave a trail to the area highly visible digs a small hole spreading the soil through the trees placing a few sharpened sticks into the hole then placing a few sticks over the hole and covering it with leaf litter then carrying on up hill. Following a game trail up the hill he finds a good spot to rest there's a few large rocks resting on the top of a stone ledge that over looks the trail setting up a simple resting camp he sits and waits.
After an hour the fatigue icon goes away and just as he's getting up to carry on he hears a loud scream come from down the trail. “My foot! My foot! Oh gods my foot, why is there a hole here aaaaghh!” there's a few other voices that shout something but Raven can’t make it out. Getting the rocks ready he waits for the first sign of some one coming up the trail when he sees the archer bastard come bounding up the trail looking down at the ground tracking his prints and tail drag in the dirt. With a hefty push Raven pushes the first rock as it falls from the short cliff it makes a loud bang and starts rolling down the hill following the trail, the archer hears the bang looking up just in time to see the rock barreling towards him, jumping from the trail into the thick trees Raven hears the archer scream as he falls down a embankment and starts rolling down hill. The Rock continuing down the hill comes in contact with the second shield man hitting him directly the rock the size of a backpack bouncing off the ground just before impact causing it to hit him directly in the chest knocking him back down the trail several feet where he lays unmoving. More shouting follows the rock and the spear man comes running up the trail looking straight at Raven, Raven gives him a little wave then pushes the second and last bolder down the hill turns and runs as fast as he can up the hill farther. The rock rolls down the hill but Raven doesn’t look back to see if he hit anyone and just keeps on running once he gets to the top of the hill he finds a mid sized lake atop the hill surrounded by rocky bare hills so without wasting time Raven dives right into the water and goes as deep as he can to stay away from shore.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
Raven sits in darkness even with his low light vision he cant seem to be able to make much out under water the water seems to be heavily silty and his dive disturbed the ground muddying the waters. As he sits on the bottom as still as he can he can hear the humans at the shore line shouting and throwing stones into the water. After a few splashes from the rocks he feels something swim past him something large and strong the displaced water almost pushing him over Ravens heart starts racing all he could see was a giant tail fin the size of him go by. Raven starts slowly swimming back to shore in hopes he can get away from what ever just swam past him and get away from the hunters at the same time when he hears a blood curdling scream muffled by water filling lungs and then silence as the water towards the hunters turns red with blood. Raven swims full speed back to shore on a 45 from the hunters jumping out of the water he sees a spear laying on the ground next to the leader of the group with his shield and sword raised towards the water and the archer holding his ribs hanging back away from the water both ghost white and shaking. Raven does his best to sneak out of the water and get to the woods once again when he hears an arrow whiz past his head ducking and running as fast as he can he gets back to the trees and starts descending the hill. Finding a small out cove Raven dives in covering himself with tree litter and tries to activate his stealth skill an icon pops up on his screen with an eye half closed in the upper right of his screen taking that as stealth he lays and waits.
Laying there Raven hears the last two humans talking some where near by “I’m taking jock back to the outpost this was stupid we lost Jock and Tim and its going to take me months to heal up from this I may as well be dead too. Your on your own James.” “Fine leave you coward that's fine once I get the ring ill sell it and all the profits will go to me and me alone if your not going to help” grumbled James their leader. Raven relaxed a little knowing its just the one last guy hunting him and at the same time scares him even more. “What the hell is it going to take to get this guy off my ass I mean seriously 2 of his guys are dead and his buddy is abandoning him in the wilderness.” Thinks Raven. A few minutes go by and he cant hear the archer anymore but the leader is still walking around the area grumbling under his breath looking for Raven when he jumps down from the stone Raven is hiding under landing directly in front of Raven. Slowly drawing his dagger he starts to push himself up trying to be as quiet as he can. Fully standing up behind the leader Raven drives his dagger into the center of the mans back driving the dagger to the hilt into the mans back. Screaming the man turns around to swing at Raven, Raven pulling the dagger from the mans back, when his sword hits the stone Raven was hiding under not allowing for enough room for the man to swing his long sword. Raven ducks down spinning around and wiping the mans legs with his tail knocking the man down Raven jumps on top of the man diving the dagger into the mans left shoulder the man screams again pushing Raven off and throwing him down the hill. The man stands up not able to hold his shield up any longer due to the cut he drops it to the ground holding the longsword the man has turned ghost white and is sweating heavily and seems like he may pass out at any moment. Grumbling under his breath he starts to walk towards Raven but he's not in the mood to stick around so Raven takes off running being at a disadvantage here makes there no reason to engage having a shorter weapon and being down hill from the his attacker would just mean death for him better wait him out and let him bleed out.
Raven takes off down the hill at full speed not looking back trying to get back to the river to follow it again to get away from these crazy people in hopes of finding true civilization. As he disengages from the fight a system notification pops up “congratulations you have received your first player killer point or PK point. These points can be turned in at system approved dealers for gear information or upgrades. As this kill was considered a “player” there is no EXP reward for the kill PK points are based on the players level. You have killed a player and can now have a bounty placed on you at an assassins guild be careful you never know when someone might want you dead. PK points earned so far 3.”Blinking at the notification Raven sighs wishing he got EXP instead skills cost a lot and he hasn’t even figured out how to raise those skills yet. Shaking off the distraction that is the system he continues his run down the hill as he gets to the clearing before the river he finds the archer mounting onto one of their wolves with the body of the other shield hunter strapped to another wolf with a kick of his heels the wolves take off down stream at an alarmingly fast pace. Standing there in awe of the animals that seem to go faster than a car he hears a loud bang behind him as he turns around he sees the leader of the hunters standing there sword banging across his chest in challenge. Raven pleads with the man “ look we are both hurt you more so I don’t think your going to survive if you keep pushing yourself your bleeding out. Please lets not do this I don’t want to kill you.” The man scoffs at Raven walking towards him with his sword pointed at Ravens chest. The mans eyes glow orange as he comes closer and he smiles at Raven “time to die monster that ring is mine!” in a split second the man seems to blur forwards covering 10 feet in a second coming face to face with Raven and stabbing his sword towards his gut. Raven stumbles back raising his dagger into a guard as the sword swings at him deflecting the sword but knocking the dagger out of his hand Raven falls back onto the ground in front of the man. “Please don’t do this I haven’t done anything to deserve this!” Raven screams “ you don’t have to simply being a monster is enough reason for me on top of that you have a magic item that could pay for my retirement right here and now. Now die monster!” James swings his sword down at Raven with all his might Raven rolling to the side the sword just missing him, as he rolls his tail flicks up striking the man in the face hard knocking the man down as he falls he rolls down the hill a little as he rolls his sword falls from his hands scattering down the hill with a loud clank. Raven gets up as fast as his tired body will allow picking up his dagger and walking towards the man who will not stop trying to kill him, Standing over the man it seems hes lost all will he had left bleeding heavily and coughing spitting blood up as he coughs. Raven looks down at him and says “ I tried dammit I tried! I kept telling you I had no quarrel with you and yet you kept trying to kill me! Because of you 2 people are dead and soon you will be dead too. Was it worth it you idiot!? Well was it!??” Raven kicks the man in the ribs as hard as he can the man groans and coughs even harder but doesn’t move or respond. “Warning killing an unarmed and injured “player” is considered a crime and can cause faction loss bounties and a PK flagged status for 24 hours giving bonus points to anyone who kills you during the timer and allows trackers to easily find you if they have an open contract on you.” The system must be reading his mind because the second he thought he would ram his dagger into this mans heart he got the warning message. “Well guess I wont kill you directly but I can watch you die from your wounds you scum bag.” A few minutes go by the man coughs harshly spraying blood all over his face and chest wheezes a few times then stops breathing. “ You have gained 5 PK points, but due to the way you let the “player” die the system has decided a penalty is warranted and has put a Dark point on you.” “Danger you have earned a dark point towards Humans, if you gain 10 to one race their relations to you will become hated and they will attack you on site despite personal relations to you.”
“Due to the extreme fighting you have faced your dagger skill has gone up by 1, due to your constant running you have raised running by 1, Due to having a dark point you have unlocked a spell Detect human it allows you to see silhouettes of humans through solid objects within 10 feet for 1 minute per 5 MP.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Stats Block<<<<<<<<<<<<
Name: Raven Hex
Race: Kobold
Class: not selected
Level: 2
Skills: dagger 2 10% damage per level, parry 1 5% parry chance per level once per combat, Survival 1 various crafts and knowledge as well as a 10% per level resistance to weather, Running 2 10% bonus to speed and a 1% bonus to duration, basic crafting 1 stone age crafting with 10% quality boost and 20% chance to make a masterwork item at level 10, Sneak 1 10% bonus per level to hiding in full cover, Physiological resistance 1 reduces damage taking by 2% per level as well as increasing your save chance from disease poison and illness. Affinity double resistance *2 hidden affinities*
spells: create water Hero modified Level 1 1 MP generate 5 gallons of water, repel undead major knock back on undead creatures *from item*,
Stats: Strength 9 Endurance 12 constitution 10 Dexterity 12 Wisdom 12 Intelligence 10 Luck 2. HP: 12 MP: 12+4 from magic item
Dark Points: 1 Humans
PK points: 8
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Chapter End<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<