“I hate this weather” Pyro shouted while walking down the road. “I hate summer, I hate sun, I hate-” he was currently seriously pissed. Mostly because his fur armor was rather warm, and he got nothing else to wear.
“We will get to the city in two days, one if we skip on rest.” was the reassurance of his companion. It was the same knight that Pyro encountered in the crypt, and after some brainwashing the knight who came to slay the evil, thought of said evil as some old, slightly perverted, hermit. “It's not like you were the one to travel throught the country.”
“Say Eric, why wouldn't you get yourself a horse or something? You could probably get to Al in some carriage with bunch of servants and other stuff, not going there on foot.” Sir Eric, as the knight was called, came to explore the crypt underneath the old temple in order to get information on [Elixir of Ji'rah], which was supposed to cure any aliment, yet no information could be found on it, unless you count fairy tales as the source of information.
“True adventurer would never use a carriage. And... I'm not good with horses.”
“For real? Well, neither am I, but that doesn't mean that horse couldn't act as a packmule.”
“I have enchanted bag, so I don't need some lousy horse!” Unknown to many people, Eric had the phobia of horses and a few other animals, which usually resulted in him either getting as far as possible from said animals, or kill them outright.
“Oh of course sir, how could this plebean forget that you could just store all the 40 kilos of shit in the bag, and carry it on your belt. Am I supposed to be burned for spouting heresy or what?”
“It's 43 kilograms! The best one you could get in the kingdom!”
“Yeah? Then how come MY bag can store twice as that?” which was actually more or less true, as Pyro had stored a few bags and rings of holding. “Not counting the ring I gave you, still don't understand why you were so reluctant on having one. *Sigh*. I hope that town has an inn with baths, or sauna at the very least.”
“If you count big tube of water as bath then there are a few...” Erci suddenly stopped. “Can you hear that?”
“Eh? You mean the clashing of metal? Yeah, around a minute ago.”
“And you didn't think that someone might be in trouble?”
“Why? Not like you get something out of it” “Unless both parties are dead.” thought Pyro, but didn't voice his thoughts aloud. “Besides, it's most likely that some bandits decided to attack a merchant or noble, which gives around 20% chance of winning-” when Pyro noticed running Eric, it was already too late to stop the hothead from getting into fight, and getting all the spoils for himself. “Never learns. Idiot.” Pyro started running on the treetops, unlike Eric, who brandished his swords and ran on the road.
Needless to say that when both got to the battlesite, they came to help those who were attacked by bandits. How did they know who's who? Eric knew a lot of adventurers, merchants and nobles, while Pyro could just look at the titles, race or name, which would show who was who.
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Before the duo came to help those in need, bandits were gaining an upper hand, but once Eric got there... bandits never had a chance. First highwayman was brutally slammed on full speed with the shield, knocking him out, and sending poor bastard flying into another one, while the one besides him was seeing the world upside down.
While Eric was busy fighting in melle, Pyro was shooting arrows and spells from trees. He decided just shoot every bandit he could see, without some specific targets. His motto “Don't help those who don't need it, or if you don't want to” works wonders in this medieval fantasy setting, mostly because most who might need your help would either won't give you any reward, or would act like total douchebags, at least that's what he was convinced about. That, however, never stopped him from getting a few exta experience points by killing either bandits or guards, “EXP is EXP” second motto of fantasy world.
Needless to say that the guards were now having boost to their morale as they now had backup, despite that said backup managed to dwindle their ranks by few freshly impaled corpses. Most of the bandits were now either barely walking pincussions with occasional burnmarks, or brutally mutilated corpses. Except for one particulary bulky bandit. He swatted most of the arrows Pyro launched at him, and evaded a few spells.
“YE BASTARD!!! COME OUT AND GET AXE IN YA FACE!!!” which could be translated as “COME OUT YOU COWARD AND FIGHT LIKE A MAN!!!”
“Nope.” said Pyro mockingly and barraged him with a few more fireballs. “Eric, can you get to this guy?”
“What, can't fight him by yourself?”
“Nah, don't want to get more sweaty than I already am.”
“YOU-” as bandit leader were ready to launch at the mocking voice, he was quickly swatted by shield into the nearby tree. “*Cough-cough* YOU!!! I'LL FOGGIN GUT YA AND-” he couldn't finish the sentence as the head was launched away, along with the spine.
“HOMERUN!!!” happily exclaimed Pyro. “I would say it was 4 out of 10 on the scale of Gory.”
“Hey, Kage, why can I hear you?”
“It's magic, deal with it.”
After the fight, and helping the injured by the initiative of Eric, the duo was escorted to the city by merchant with the surviving guards.
“It was as if fate was guiding you Sir Erica! If not for you-” basically it was a usual interaction between saviour and saved.
“Psst. Hey. What's the cargo? Do you sell clothes?” merchant was rudely interrupted by Pyro, who wanted to know if he could get anything valuable.
“It's luxury wares designed for noble-”
“So it's just gems and trinkets? Not interested.” and he jumped on the carriage. “Eric, wake me up when we're near city, ok?”
On the next day caravan finally arrived to the city, where energetic duo parted ways with merchant, who actually gave some reward for saving his skin.
“Dunno why would you want something like that. It's just a necklace, who cares about this stuff?”
“Not 'just some necklace', but enchanted one! This one gives increased regeneration and-”
Sun Symbol
Necklace with the image of sun, which is considered a symbol of good fortune.
Enchanted.
+10% to Health Regeneration
+10% to Mana Regeneration
+10% to Mana Regeneration
+1 to Vitality
+1 to Vigor
“Yeah, I noticed. Quite good stuff...” “If only it was something else than sun...” after travelling for so long, Pyro was tired of seeing sun, be it in the sky, reflection or some ornament. “It pays being famous.”
“We just saved him, so he just wanted to give us some sort of thanks-”
“Anyway, those bandits had quite a few of coins on them, so we're going to get myself some stuff.”
“Wait, we?”
“Of course we. You think I'm familiar with your land? Besides having you by my side ought to get me some discounts. You are actually quite famous.”
“Of course I am!” but then the gravity of the situation caught up. “I mean-”
“Great, let's go!” Pyro then grabbed Eric, and started running somewhere, but then stopped. “By the way, where can we find shops?”