Outside, the fields were under attack by a huge flock of crows. The black birds were everywhere, swarming the corn field as the few villagers tried ineffectually to drive them off. Besides the two boys with crossbows there were a couple of older women with brooms trying to protect the crop. The man who had knocked on Leandry’s door, pulled out a sword and started swinging it so violently I was certain it would fly out of his hands. A young girl threw rocks from a nearby pile. They were largely ineffectual, and only one bird, hit by a lucky crossbow bolt, lay dead. Lazily one bird landed on the scarecrow and cawed mockingly.

Leandry sighed, saying, “Every damn day,” and taking her hammer, unleashed a mighty swing at seemingly nothing, for she was still far from any birds. But to my surprise, the swing of the hammer created a massive shockwave of air that visibly distorted the sky, tearing a few crows from the air in a single swoop, stunned by the abrupt change in air pressure and turbulence. The man with the sword and the old ladies immediately converged on the stunned crows beating and stabbing. I imagined the ones stabbed by the sword were the lucky ones, as the old women had to swing quite a few times before they were satisfied that their brooms had put a permanent end to the crow’s crop stealing ways.

As Leandry reached the center of the field, she started spinning her massive two handed hammer overhead. As if the shockwaves had not been impressive enough, using only the fingers of one hand, she soon had it spinning so fast it blurred and created a turbulent tornado. The tower of spinning air reached up and caught crows by the dozen, and I watched in awe as they were sucked in by the vortex to hit the spinning hammer below, with a sound that brought to mind a weedwacker trimming a particularly thick tangle of weeds. Blood and feathers scattered in all directions, but did not touch Leandry herself. She must have mastered a technique that redirected the gore elsewhere, for not a single drop stained her attire.

If that had been the end of it, Leandry would have been correct, and the attack would have soon been over, for those crows that were far enough to escape the funnel of suction that was slaughtering their fellow corvids fled in all directions. It seemed Leandry would emerge victorious in her brief one sided slaughter of the murder of crows, as murder was the correct word for a group of crows.

But even as the last crow fled out of range, a new challenger swooped down from the clouds. As the new bird drew closer, I realized that not only had it been flying very high up in the now ominous darkening clouds, it was also enormous. It just kept growing bigger and bigger as it drew closer, until we could see that it was larger than a barn, larger than the fields Leandry was defending, larger than the whole tiny town. The tornado brushed against its feet and did nothing to draw it in, instead, with each downbeat of its massive football sized wings, it generated backdraft that knocked the villagers off their feet and flattened the now ruined crops.

“Oh ---- me,” Leandry muttered, though the curse word was lost in the whoosh between one enormous wingbeat and the next, I wholly understood the sentiment. I squinted up at the massive raven, and managed to see its status:

Mumninn, (Odin’s Pet) Level 400 Elite. Description: This Raven is one of two that serve Odin, gathering information, and occasionally enforcing his will.

I was flabbergasted, a lvl 400 elite? That was far beyond Leandry’s ability to handle, and I doubted anything I could do would make the slightest difference. By rights, I should immediately start running, but strangely the fear that gripped me when I saw the Big Bad Wolf didn’t reappear. Instead, I was mad. How unfair was this, sending a lvl 400 elite out to a safe zone? Towns were supposed to be sacred, and this raid boss wasn’t supposed to even exist in this relatively low level zone. This area was meant for level 20 to 30’s! It was like squatting a fly with a nuke, so unfair.

“Should we fight?!” I asked, more out of bravado than anything else.

Mumninn shot me a glance and I was rooted in place, unable to move under the tremendous pressure of its glaze. Somehow, I understood what it wanted to convey: Don’t get involved, it seemed to say. To reinforce that, it cawed, in a voice that shook the windows of every house in town, and a swarm of normal sized crows returned, aiming to harass me. They dive bombed me, and I was forced back, trying to dodge their sharp little beaks as they aimed for my eyes. I drew my knife and swung it wildly, but it proved no more effective than the villager with the sword; the birds were too agile and fast to be hit by such a short range weapon. The birds cawed derisively at my futile efforts, fueling my growing rage.

I needed to extend my range, and, while I couldn’t do the things I’d seen Leandry do with her weapon to extend her range, maybe I could come up with my own alternative. “Shield me!” I told Illona, who had been watching with a terrified look.

I saw resolve return to her face as she nodded and raising up her staff, she called out; “Shield!”

I now had a few seconds of invulnerability, as the crows slammed into the shield, damaging it, but unable to break through. I could tell it was getting worn down quickly though, as the faint glow around me dimmed and I knew that the spell had a twelve second cooldown, which meant Illona couldn’t simply recast it right away. I had to act fast, for once the protection wore out, I’d be too distracted by the sharp talons and beaks to do anything.

“Arcane Spell Creation.” I said, invoking the screen to appear before me. No time to fiddle with it, I simply put my palm on it and willed it to work. I heard something in my head, a message; Do you wish to allow Lugh to access your thoughts?

“Yes,” I said, briefly pausing to wonder who this Lugh was.

“I am the god of crafting and the user interface. I am whom you must bargain with to make the spell you want.” Lugh identified himself, speaking directly in my head.

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I knew what I wanted, but I only had 30 level points, 8 left over from my last upgrade to Fatal Kiss, and 22 new ones I’d just gotten. I didn’t think it would be enough.

“It’s not, but as I said, I’m willing to bargain. You’re lucky I don’t like Odin much; his quest rewards often make my crafted items worthless.” Lugh whispered in my head, and I could feel him browsing through my thoughts, reading the spell I wanted to make. “Perhaps, a wager might be more appropriate,” he mused.

A system message appeared; You have been challenged to a mini-game! Turkey Shoot; Kill twelve crows in two minutes to keep your new spell, worth 60 points, or lose 30 level points. Accept? Yes/No

“Yes!” I said, and as Illona’s shield shattered, releasing the crows to peck at me with renewed fervor, I throw out the Jackrabbit Ripper and activated my new spell; “Knife-kinesis!”

Knife-kinesis; Description: Remotely control a single knife as if your arm could stretch out and touch the sky. Effects: Attack with one flying knife at normal attack speed dealing normal melee damage. Damage scales with Intelligence rather than strength or agility. Bonus damage based on knife skill and mana consumed. Uses 0.8% of total mana per second, channeled interruptible spell, two minute cooldown. Max range; 120 feet. Max speed; 60 feet per second (40 mph). Limitation: Spell can only be used on a knife or dagger.

My knife flew out and swerving in mid air, skewered one very shocked crow. But that alerted the other crows, and as I spun my knife in mid air to toss the dead bird aside, I realized the true challenge of this minigame. I was still channeling the spell. While channeling, I couldn’t attack, or use any other ability, and I had a -75% movement speed debuff! That meant I could only very slowly try to move away from the crows who attacked me. My evasion was also greatly reduced, as it felt like I was moving while underwater.

Even worse, if I took damage, there was a chance the spell would be interrupted, and with the two minute cooldown, that would mean I would fail the quest. Lugh had given me a harder quest than I’d first thought.

The crows seemed to know my vulnerability, because rather than try to avoid my knife by scattering, they instead swarmed towards me.

Illona saved me by jumping in front of me and physically shielding me with her body, arms outstretched. She might not know the details of what was going on, but she knew enough about magic to recognize a channeled spell. I was standing in a faintly glimmering spinning column of blue light as a tether of energy stretched out from my hand to the flying knife.

A couple of crows slammed into Illona, drawing blood, causing her to gasp in pain. “Heal!” she cried, recovering her wounds, but also drawing more attention from the infuriated corvids.

“Shield!” She yelled, as the spell came off cooldown, but rather than shield herself, she shielded me, dedicating herself to protecting me, even while she came under increasing attack.

I needed to remind the birds who they should be afraid of. With another fast loop, I intercepted a crow as it was about to hit Illona, slicing a wing clean off. Illona took a moment to smash it with her staff, and I was relieved to see that counted, as the small quest status screen on the lower right side of my vision changed to: 2/12 crows, 1:48 time. The time was still ticking down.

I curved the knife around Illona as quickly as I could. Turns out forty miles per hour isn’t as fast as it would seem, when you are talking about arcs in three dimensions. The crows were almost as fast and almost as agile. They were actually faster than my knife while diving. They started fleeing the knife, and as I chased one, the others smashed against Illona forcing her to stumble back away from me. They were trying to drive us apart. It was lucky Illona’s health was shared with my own, as that seemed to mean the wounds she suffered were considerably lessened, but it also meant I could feel her pain through our link.

I was starting to lose my cool; seeing Illona suffering infuriated me. Anger and frustration was bubbling up and my vision was getting narrow as I focused on chasing down one particularly agile crow. But, I forced myself to calm down and instead, as the wildly evading crow looped around past another, I switched target to that bird, catching it by surprise, bringing my kill count up to three.

I needed to outsmart the crows, and for a while, I was successfully switching targets to catch crows that tried to attack, catching two more. But they wised up, and instead of attacking one by one, they launched a surprise coordinated strike on me, just as Illona’s protective shield faded out.

The way the cooldown on the shield spell worked was that it only started counting down as soon as the shield broke or it’s duration ran out, which meant there was always a twelve second gap in my protection. Illona, panic stricken by the sudden shift in targets, ran over to try to intercept the dive bombing bunched crows. But, she was too far, having been pushed away from me by earlier attacks.

Luckily, I thought of a solution. I heaved a nearby haystack with my knife, pushing it into the path of the incoming feathered formation. The punctured haystack exploded into a cloud of hay that surprised and confused the birds, causing them to abort the coordinated assault. Startled, they cawed and swerved into each other, giving me an opportunity to claim two more of their lives as a prize as my knife was briefly obscured from view. I had seven kills now, but less than a minute left.

One crow persevered through the confusion and smashed into my face, but I had managed to turn my glaze somewhat, moving in slow motion, so I only took a gash to my cheek. I managed to keep my concentration, and the spell wasn’t interrupted, but I pretended it was, briefly allowing the knife to fall straight down.

If the crows had been a little smarter, it wouldn’t have worked, as the glittering spell effect hadn’t actually gone away. But their instincts said, a stunned opponent would fall straight down. So they cawed in victory as they renewed their attack, confident that the knife was no longer a threat. That mistake cost them two more of their number as the knife swooped in from behind. Before they could recover from my renewed attacks, the twelve second cooldown ended, and Illona was able to restore my protective shield.

With only a few crows left, and my shield back up, they seemed to lose morale, and started to scatter. But luck was on my side, as Illona managed to smack one of the crows out of the sky with a well aimed swing of her staff, using it like a baseball bat. That bird exploded into a cloud of feathers that had nothing to do with the knife-kinesis spell, but as Illona and I remained in a party, it counted.

The last two crows I managed to nail mostly because I honed in from behind, where they couldn’t see to dodge. Also, the crows were affected by gravity, meaning they actually slowed down while climbing up into the sky in an attempt to flee, while my knife moved equally fast going up as coming down. I caught the twelfth crow with only a few seconds, and almost no mana, to spare.

Congratulations, the system message read, you have successfully completed the quest: Turkey Shoot. Reward; You are permanently awarded the “Knife-kinesis” spell.

I grinned in triumph, but while I had been busy with my own battle, things had not been going very well for Leandry. I turned to face her just as that duel came to it’s dramatic end.