Through the mad crowds of horrified peasants, the sight of the undead horde fills the horizon like their fiery arrows. They're only minutes away.

Hero weaves into the crowd of fleeing people as he makes his way to the elder’s at a breakneck speed. Unlike the other humans, Hero has always been able to manage his stamina perfectly, with no small thanks to the nifty green bar in his H.U.D., telling him precisely how much breath he has before he runs out.

He dashes onward past a slow, tripping crowd and into the quieter part of the village. From here, the screams of the villagers are nearly muffled out by the steady breeze as it rustles against the woodlands. By the old watermill stands the elder’s house, far older than the elder and much easier to look at. Hero breaks through the elder’s door, dark with the mustiness of little use and few visitors.

“Elder! I need the healing spell!” Hero calls out.

From a side room, the light of a candle steadily glows its way to the entryway. Entering via cane is the elder, as slow and old as ever.

“Hero? Is that really you?”

“Yes, I can speak now! I need the healing spell to save my father!”

“Your father…” the crusty elder uses his free hand to stroke his long beard. “The dwarf?”

“Yeah!”

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“The one with all those dirty elf magazines?”

Hero hesitates. “…Y-…yeah.”

The elder’s gaze sharpens to a knife-point. “I suppose I could part with the healing spell, that ancient, sacred knowledge, but only to one who is both pure of heart, and strong of wit.”

“O-okay.”

“Have you ever told a lie?”

Hero thinks back to his early memories, but then realizes he couldn’t talk.

“No,” Hero says honestly, if impatiently.

The elder nods, his gaze unmoving from Hero’s bright blue eyes. “Have you ever touched a girl’s bottomly rumpus without permission from her father?” he asks with an official, no nonsense tone.

Hero draws back. “No, elder, but you need to understand this is a life or death situatio-”

“You are truly pure of heart. And now the test of wit,” The elder says as he waves the scroll with the healing spell about in Hero’s face condescendingly.

Truly, the only thing Hero is feeling tested on is patience.

“What is the airspeed of a…” The elder’s riddle begins; a long, winding verse wrought from the very deepest archives of mystic knowledge. Hero shakes his head. He hasn’t the time for this.

“Give me the scroll,” Hero says, interrupting the elder’s riddle as he reaches to snatch the scroll from the old geezer.

Shirking away with surprising speed, the elder guffaws pretentiously. “You dare demand from me, young man? I will teach you what it means to be proper in my own day and a-” The old man’s lesson is promptly cut short when Hero smashes his fist into the elder’s crusty face; didn’t see that one coming.

A “stun!” pops over the elder’s head as he plops to the floor and buckles over in unconsciousness and probably other quite serious old-person problems.

Hero takes up the scroll:

You looted: Scroll of Lesser Healing!

Without pause, Hero flees out the open doorway back into the warm night air, rushing forward with every effort to save his father, and the town.