"Good choice, kid," said the short man in a green coat as he went through the contents of the envelope Frankie gave him.

"I'll do all I can for my new family."

You really are something. You even betrayed a crime family.

-20 righteousness.

[Turncoat] completed.

Rewards:

Convert your reputation with the Gazpachos into reputation with the Beanies:

+130 reputation with the Beanies;

-130 reputation with the Gazpachos.

Congratulations! You're now liked by the Beanies.

Bonus rewards:

+10 reputation with the Beanies;

[Intimidate] has been replaced with [Extort].

Extort (Uncommon)

Skill description: You've learned from the Beanies how to make a scary face, and your prey shakes so hard that they drop some of their precious coins.

Skill effects:

Passive. You gain +10% gold from mob drops;

10% discount when buying from NPCs in the family's pockets.

During the 24 hours Frankie spent in prison, Peace Corps officers had interrogated him several times about family activities. Even though he'd been mad at the Gazpachos, he still had his sense of honor. He was no snitch. He didn't give them anything about the family.

After serving his time, Frankie went back to see the family. He was refunded the gold he'd lost and gained some reputation, but his old captain told him the family was going through a hard time. The Beanies and the Raviolis had seized the Gazpachos' moment of weakness and had encroached on their territory.

Additionally, the raid and the information the authorities had on the family was a severe blow to their business. There was a power shift in the slums, and the Gazpachos became the underdog. At this time, he bumped into a girl he'd met at Baldwins. She told him how she had changed sides and gone over to the Beanies. Frankie decided to follow in her footsteps.

After doing a simple quest and ratting out everything he knew about the Gazpachos to the competition, he was back on top of the game.

"So, any jobs for me?"

"Hmmm..." the man looked left and right to ensure they weren't being overheard.

"The family invested in a tailor shop called ‘The Crafted Hem.’ We were working on a mutagen that forces sheep to produce more wool. The Peace Corps discovered it. The scientist we hired to do the job has disappeared, and so have the drugs. We must find at least one of the sheep he was working on. There must still be vestiges of the drug in its bloodstream, which can be reverse engineered." Whereas the Gazpachos had been all brawn and muscle, the Beanies were more the mad scientists of the slums.

"OK. So you want me to find the sheep."

"One of our informants saw a foreigner leave with the sheep through the North gate one hour ago. He was heading North. Get your hands on at least one of the animals, and bring it here."

You've received a new quest: [Sheep Thief].

Sheep Thief (Rare)

A foreigner was seen taking away the sheep of Thadeus. Get at least one of the animals back so the family can experiment on them.

Quest objectives:

Find the sheep and retrieve at least one of them;

Work alone so that you don't draw attention to yourself.

"On it!"

Frankie took off running toward the North Gate.

*

By the time Roth reached the tree line, he had thwarted four wolf attacks. The combo of [Taunting Roar], [Screeching Terror], and then a [Haste Scroll] had worked like a charm every time.

Undoubtedly, the balance between Roth's level and the wolves', coupled with the power of the [Polyglot] title, was enough to buy him enough time to get in the clear. Now that Roth was inside the tree line, he took a deep breath and stretched his back. He had overcome the first hurdle.

He was now in a forest. The road cut through it, with tree lines on both sides. The Pegasus guild focused many of its activities in Green Country and made a thorough map available to even the newly joined guild members. Thanks to the rescue library, he had a good guess of what problems he would have on the trip.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

According to the map Drake had taken from Brian, there were owls on Roth's left and bats on his right. He didn't imagine either would want to target the sheep for any reason, so this should be a peaceful stretch in their journey.

After a few minutes, Roth was startled as he received a notification.

Congratulations! Peace endures among the ratans, snakes, and Mario.

+22,180 XP.

He forgot his [Peace Treaty] skill in the middle of this rescue operation. What a nice feeling to receive some free XP out of the blue. Well, it wasn’t exactly free, was it? He’d worked hard for it.

After walking in silence for several minutes, Roth tried to chat with the sheep. "Why are you always singing?"

"We don't sing," answered the collective voice of the twenty sheep.

"What do you do then?"

"We listen, and sometimes we hum along."

"Where does the sound come from then?"

"The song is the flock, the flock is the song," came the ceremonious answer.

"I don't know what that means. Can you explain to me what the flock is?"

"We are. So are you, as long as you're with us."

"But is the flock an organization? Is it a group of animals?"

"No, the flock isn't the instruments. The flock is the song. We explained this to you already."

Roth wanted to tear his face off and tear it again into small pieces of confetti. Talking to these sheep was like talking to a wall.

"Ok, so the flock is a song."

"The song. Yes."

"Earlier, when wolves attacked us, I heard that the song changed."

"Yes, fear makes the 'we' become the 'I.' The 'I' is weak."

Roth gave up on trying to understand the sheep's jargon. He checked the time. It was almost lunchtime now. He thanked the heavens that he didn't need to eat inside the game. It was already complicated enough to manage his weight capacity. He was glad this was not the kind of game where he would starve to death if he got a [Hungry] debuff.

Roth caught movement in the corner of his eye and was terrified to see that wolves had sneaked up on them and were almost on the sheep. Unlike the previous times, when the sheep could feel the wolves nearby, the attack came without warning. The wolves came from the trees. Their fur was brown, and they were bigger than the prairie wolves. Roth inspected them.

Timberwolves

Lvl. 24

2000 hp

Maybe because of their higher levels, they had ambushed them undetected by either Roth or the sheep. At least, the stretch between the tree line and the road was wide enough to give Roth the necessary time to react.

Taunting Roar!

About a third of the pack kept running straight for the sheep. Roth clicked his tongue as he realized that he hadn’t been able to generate enough aggro. It was time to use one of the aces up Roth's sleeve.

Peace Decree!

Suddenly, everything became black and white. The shout that came out from Roth's lungs changed the color of the forest but didn't change the wolves' behavior or the sheep's terror. Some of the pack was still heading toward the sheep. The wolves taunted by Roth's skill dealt their first attacks.

-Null!

-Null!

-Null!

As wolves tried to bite the sheep, their damage was also negated. The clock was ticking. Roth had given his flock two minutes to live. The wolves didn't relent in their attack and kept scratching and biting Roth and the sheep but couldn’t cause any damage. Roth used [Taunting Roar] again as soon as it came off cooldown.

Taunting Roar!

This time, the skill drew all the wolves away from the flock. Once Roth concentrated all the wolves around him, he pulled out another item from his inventory.

Hallucinogen Grenade (Consumable)

Item description: A mix of powerful drugs and chemicals that affects the nervous system and induces panic.

Item effects:

Makes those inside the explosion radius less resistant to fear;

Lasts 30 seconds.

As the sphere hit the ground, it unleashed blue smoke, engulfing all the wolves. When Roth unlocked subterfuge or bought the [Basic Toxicologist] set, he hadn’t felt any excitement over the buffs to poison potency and duration. But he changed his opinion once he saw all the different poisons for sale in the auction house. Poisons were powerful tools for a player like him, who didn’t want to hurt others but just wanted to stop them temporarily.

Screeching Terror!

The combination of the [Hallucinogen Grenades], his [Basic Toxicologist] set, and his [Screeching Terror] proved more than enough. The wolves took off running, desperately whimpering and crying. They ran away faster than the lower-leveled wolves from the prairie. Roth tore a [Haste Scroll] and took off. Looking back, the wolves had disappeared behind the trees.

[Peace Decree] had served its purpose, and no one had suffered damage. Roth painedly looked at the smaller stack of Hallucinogen Grenade in his inventory. Each of these cost ten gold! He had risked not using it in the grasslands around Hilsford because he didn't need to use [Peace Decree] then. But here, there was no safety margin.

You've interrupted the hunt of the timberwolves.

-30 reputation with the timberwolves.

Roth was on his way to becoming disliked by the prairie wolves and, by the looks of it, by the timberwolves. He was mad at himself for being caught off guard earlier. Why were there wolves here? As Roth marched on the road, followed by the flock, he consulted the rescue library and searched for information on the timberwolves.

Turned out that packs of timberwolves could randomly appear in any place in the woodlands and forests of Green Country. Even though Roth had been in owl territory, he had the bad luck of being attacked by a pack of timberwolves prowling nearby.

*

"Argh! I don't believe this!" said Frankie as he kicked a stone in the graveyard. He'd been running North, trying to find the player who'd stolen the sheep, when he came across a crazy pack of timberwolves all running desperately toward him as if they'd seen a ghost. Long story short, he was surrounded and killed.

He now would have to spend an hour in physiotherapy to cancel the loss of stats. The worst part was that he had to return all the way to the spot where he’d been killed. He ran to the city gate and Northward again.

*

Roth was now walking in monkey territory. He'd just encountered a silverback who ignored him and the sheep. This was one of the mobs that he hadn't been sure about. Luckily, his scent as a zoomorph had been enough to get him safe passage.

Were it not for his race, there was no way he would be able to complete this quest without hurting the roaming animals. There were too many dangers on the road. So far, his race had gotten him out of being attacked by owls, bats, rhinoceroses, gorillas, and beavers. The only problem was the wolves.

Roth had been attacked three more times by timberwolves over the last four hours. Each of the [Hallucinogen Grenades] he threw cost him ten gold. That, combined with the added expense of the [Haste Scrolls], was bleeding Roth’s wallet dry. He sure hoped that the rewards for this quest were worth it. He was on his way to becoming a poor man.

He still had his trade run to make, but even with the cargo he carried in his inventory, he wouldn’t break even if the quest rewards were no good. Roth felt his blood pressure go up as money-related worries flooded his mind. He had to pay Mario 50 gold to fix the machine. He also had paid 50 gold for all his equipment and skills in the auction house, and another 300 gold for consumables and preparations for this trip.

Roth spotted an obstacle ahead of him right in the middle of the road. It seemed like a black hill. Roth recognized it immediately. One of these killed him when he traveled from the Green Woods to Greensburg. It was a grizzly bear.