> Quote:26/9/2015. Minor tweaking.

She had gone back to the adventurers hall to pick up a good few easy money jobs over the day, the plan was to get better equipment so she could move on to proper copper rank jobs as soon as possible.

After numerous requests she had finally accumulated enough money to buy set of leather gear, leather jacket, leather pants, leather boots and a pair of leather gloves which all could take more of a beating from every day life than her raggedy clothes and they were a lot better for winter wear, she also bought a bow so she could try and minimize close combat if she ever had the chance.

With a little bit of money left over she decided to restock on her supplies, few rolls of linen for first aid use and with the rest she bought food. Returning back to the adventurers hall instead of going straight to John she instead stopped at the copper rank billboard.

"Ready for real work Aleyn?" could be heard from behind the clerks counter from John.

"Never know if I don't try." she yelled back with a grin.

There were numerous jobs to go through, but there were a lot which she didn't understand the purpose of and a lot which were too long term for her taste so she took a moment to look through the jobs thoroughly.

"Town smithy looking for ore of any rarity, payment decided on quality and quantity. Do not remove."

"In need of a courier, destination Syls Lake. Payment on delivery."

"Old woman in need of wolf hides for her tailoring hobby, payment decided on quality and quantity. Do not remove."

The 3 tasks seemed simple enough for her, Syls lake was a 30 minute run northeast of the town and the forest in between was known to have wolves running around, be it in packs or alone. The ore job didn't sound too complex, but she had no real clue about mining so she decided to leave it for now. Aleyn took the paper for the courier job and brought it to John to claim it.

"It's basically a normal courier job, an old hunter lives near the lake up northeast and occasionally comes in to restock and order things while leaving a job request for people to bring the items back to him once they've arrived. You're gonna need to bring this paper to the general store to prove you're the courier this time. He left the request around 5 days ago so his order should be here but if it isn't then you just need to keep checking." John explained thoroughly as he processed the papers and handed one of them to her.

She took the paper and put it in her backpack, but she wasn't done yet.

"So what's with that "Old woman looking for wolf hides." request? Or rather, how do I claim it?" she asked John.

John went to the board and looked at the request since he didn't really remember the details

"Oh yes the Old lady. You don't need to claim the job, just bring her the hides. It's the sort of a request where the person them self decides when they no longer need to be supplied and they come and ask to take it down.".

"So the only worry for me is that she takes it down before I bring her the fur?" She wanted to confirm

"Exactly, but you don't need to worry about that. She has had that request up for months and even if she does take it down you can just sell the hides at the market." He said and walked back to his counter.

"Okay understood, well thanks again John." She said as she was getting ready to leave.

"Don't mention it." John waved her off.

The general store was located on the East side of the town, from what she had heard they provided tools, materials and equipment, but they were more known for providing things you couldn't get in the mountains through orders.

Aleyn entered and saw few people turn her way, but then disregard her and continue shopping, the shops main counter was void of customers so she didn't waste any time since she could look around the store after she got the ordered items.

"Hello I've taken a up a courier job to bring some items to an old hunter at Lake Syls." She said while handing the paper to the shops clerk.

The clerk was a short old man wearing thick glasses he was probably mistaken as a tall dwarf more than few times.

"Ahh yes his order, we have it right over here in the back room. Come in." The old man disappeared in to the backroom and Aleyn followed close behind.

The old man went to a shelf and started looking around until he found specific bundle "Satchel filled with herbs and 3 Books, yep all here"

He returned to Aleyn with the bundle, she put the satchel and books in her backpack but as she was about to leave the clerk interrupted her.

"Be careful with the books, that man loves reading so he cut the last couriers pay by half when he discovered that the guy had torn some pages after fighting a wolf."

"Thanks for the heads up." She couldn't think of anything else to say and walked out of the store.

Going through the forest between Syls and the town wasn't the only way to get to Lake Syls, but the detour that went around the forest took almost twice as long so she decided to just abandon the thought.

The forest was quite thin, you could see far and wide in between the trees so avoiding wolf packs was easy, however she did want to meet some for the other job request.

After walking for a few minutes and dodging few bigger packs she came across an usual site, a wolf was lying down in the snow making awkward grunts of agony while the snow around it was getting red rapidly.

She moved towards the wolf while keeping an eye on her surroundings, the wolf noticed her and started growling on top of grunting.

The wolfs rib cage had a huge gash which was bleeding steadily.

"I don't think this guys gonna last too long." She thought while looking over the wolfs wound.

Aleyn went to her backpack and picked up her short sword and after she was mentally ready she

aimed towards the wolfs heart,piercing the wolfs chest and ending his agony.

She Pulled the sword out and washed it in the snow, she was ready to try and skin the wolf but as she opened her backpack she heard footsteps coming closer from behind her.

A wolf almost half bigger than the one dead in the snow was staring at her, its height reached to her chin and it was approaching her, on a closer look the wolf had blood all over its face.

"So you're the culprit."

Aleyn turned around to face the wolf, there was no running from it now that it was only few feet from her, she dropped her backpack and took a firm grip on her sword as she readied herself for battle.

The wolf noticed her intent and became more alert, it circled around her for a few moments watching her reaction. She kept her eye on the wolf not letting any movement slip by.

Suddenly the wolf started running at her and at the moment the wolf jumped at her it grazed her elbow leaving few drops of blood dripping from her sleeve.

The wolf lunged at her again, but this time she was ready, she took the sword and blocked the wolfs face, punting it away.

The wolf spun and landed on its side in the snow and couldn't stand up for a brief moment feeling dazed by the impact to its head, but in a moment the daze was gone and it was more angry than before and started stubbornly attacking continuously.

The wolf attacks were too predictable and the result was the same she blocked the wolfs attacks and pushed it away with heavy impact and no injuries. The wolf was getting exhausted and took some distance, but the pause didn't last long as it started charging again this time going for her lower body.

She blocked the wolf again but it had put more effort into its legs than its upper body and Aleyn could feel a slashing impact on her thigh.

The pain was moderate, but it seemed that the wolf had lost its footing in this final strike and stumbled on the snow falling in to a short daze again, she had to ignore the pain and go for it before the wolf could attack again.

She aimed at its chest to pierce the wolfs heart. The wolf bled and struggled aggressively as she pushed the sword down deeper in to its chest and the snow. The wolf kept struggling but eventually the loss of blood claimed its life.

With the danger gone, she had to take a look at the damage, her right thigh had multiple bleeding wounds but they weren't too deep, her elbow was bleeding as well but only a little of skin was torn off. Still needing to stop the bleeding she started digging into her pockets looking for the straps of linen she had bought earlier.

After bandaging her thigh and elbow she took a look at her backpack, there was no sign of damage on the outside but to confirm she took a look at the books inside and found them intact as well, sighing in relief she decided to check the wolfs.

Both wolfs had dyed the snow around them in crimson red which worried her as animals would be attracted to the smell of blood.

Remembering the old lady's request for hides, she took her sword and started skinning both wolfs as fast as she could while looking around for any attracted animals.

Luckily the only creature that came to her was a young fox which observed her from far away and didn't disturb her.

As she was about to leave she noticed the fox had gotten quite close, it looked at her and looked at the carcasses keeping an eye on both but didn't seem too afraid of her.

"Yeh you can have them, I'm leaving."

After traveling for a while she could see lake Syls and the end of the forest, she was almost at her destination after her small adventure in the woods.

She had ran across a few more wolfs after the first two and now she had five hides and three new wounds which weren't severe, but they still took a toll on her. Realizing how close she was she picked up her pace, she was about to leave the woods as she heard the snow shuffling in the distance as if someone was running, after a moment of scanning the surroundings she noticed three wolfs running in the forest.

The wolfs were chasing after a rabbit, but it seemed to disappear into the snow, the wolfs circled around the area they had last seen the rabbit at and started turning the snow but in the end it seemed their rabbit hunt was over, they were ready to leave but as they were leaving they noticed a familiar scent of blood in the air.

Stolen story; please report.

They took a moment to find out where the smell was coming from and that's when they noticed her staring at them. The fact that they had picked up a scent from her didn't register in her head until the wolfs howled and started running.

Aleyn wasn't in any shape to fight against a pack of wolfs even if she wasn't injured so she put her sword on her belt and started running along the lake towards what was supposedly where the old hunter lived.

The wolfs were catching up to her at a moderate rate and after a bit of running it was clear that they weren't giving up and they would catch her even if she kept running.

Realizing the situation she stopped to conserve her energy and took her short sword out.

"If you come at me one by one, I can probably get rid of you one by one as well." She said with a low voice, but as she turned around she noticed the wolfs had split up and started to encircle around her.

If the wolves now came at her at the same time she could block one but the other two would hit her without any resistance.

"Shit, at least give me an opening of some sort!" she was getting desperate.

The wolfs smelled her fear and kept on closing in towards her until one jumped at her, she was caught off guard and she knew there was nothing she could do about it.

The wolf missed, the idea that the wolf had missed a point blank jump which was pretty impossible didn't click in her head and she thought she had gotten the chance she was hoping for.

She took a new stance towards the other two wolfs but surprisingly the wolfs were no longer looking at her, instead they had their eyes towards the forest.

A man was standing at the tree line across the snow, that figure was a man with a long coat made of wolf hides, he had a bow on his left hand and an arrow ready in his right one. As if the wolfs recognized him they retreated away from both of them and into the forest.

"Looked like you needed help, and I needed lunch. Two birds with one stone yeh?." the man yelled from the tree line in a jolly manner while walking towards her.

She was confused as to what had happened until she took a closer look at the wolf that was lying in the snow, it had an arrow sticking out of its throat and it lied dead in the snow.

"You saved my life old man." she yelled in realization.

"Names Terry, people in Ironedge call me the "Old hunter" you are? The man that came to Aleyn had dark hair, short beard and a lot of wrinkles on his face.

She stood up brushed the snow off of her clothes and put the sword back on her belt "Aleyn, I was actually sent here to bring you your order of items." She tapped her backpack.

"Ah yes, my books! Come lets get back to my cabin, you can rest while I evaluate your pay." He motioned for Aleyn to follow and started walking into the forest.

Few minutes of walking led them to an old cabin, it had a roof made of straws and grass while the walls were made of logs, it was very modest and probably made to accommodate one person.

When Aleyn entered the cottage she looked through out the room, there was one bed on the other side of the room, a table right next to the one window he had and a place for a camp fire right in the middle of the room.

"Lets see those books then, you can lay down in the bed if you want but put the satchel next to those sacks first." Terry pointed next to the bed where there were three sacks.

She dug the books out of her bag and gave them to Terry and then went for the bed, she dropped the satchel next to sacks and laid down on the bed.

The first books front cover had stains of blood on it from the hides she had collected, Terry took a quick look inside.

"The front cover is stained but I don't really mind since I can clean it myself. The pages look to be intact."

He took the second book out, its front cover and back cover were clean and the pages were intact

"This ones good as well"

Then he took a look at the last book, its front cover was intact but the back cover had a wolfs tooth going through it. Aleyn was shocked as nothing had gotten in her back during her travel but then she realized it's one of the teeth she had taken from the wolfs she had killed.

"This doesn't look promising." Terry said while flipping through the pages, the tooth had pierced about 15 pages from the back.

"Well this ones the worst out of all of them I guess, the tooth pierced a good few pages and some words are missing due to it. I'll give you two thirds of the payment for this one since it doesn't make it unreadable." He sighed while putting it down next to the other two.

Aleyn was relief, Terry could have been heartless and just refused to pay for the book all together and she couldn't say anything about it in her situation, two thirds compared to that felt like a fortune.

Terry handed her a pouch filled with silver coins, the coins totaled to 45 silver.

She was taken back by the amount and looked at Terry "Woah isn't this a bit too much?"

Terry turned around with a confused face.

"Why would you think that? Books are expensive. The fact that you brought them back mostly unharmed is also worth the money" He said while turning back to put the books in their proper corner.

That was actually correct. Most books were hand written making their value huge just due to how much effort it took to make them.

Aleyn put the pouch in her backpack as the amount was way too much for her coin pouch. They were both going about their businesses, Terry was starting to clean the bloodied book while Aleyn was looking through the money she had just acquired and trying to rest.

Suddenly they both heard a scratching sound on the front door, Terry grinned and opened the door

"Come on girl, get in then."

A fox strode in and barked once as Terry took it in his arm.

"This is my girl Emily, she usually runs around the forest on her own and returns here in the evening."He pet the fox a few times and then put her on the floor.

The fox strode towards the bed and sat next to Aleyn.

"She seems fine with you, you met her already?" Terry asked. Aleyn took a moment and realized she might have.

"Earlier today I fought a wolf who had killed another wolf and a fox was observing me while I skinned them." She said while reaching to pat Emily.

Emily wasn't bothered by her which made Terry nod.

"Yeah that was most likely her, she loves meat and has a habit of going after hunter left overs."

Emily climbed up in the bed and nestled in to Aleyns lap for more petting.

Time had gone by and it had gotten dark outside, Terry had lit up a small fire in the middle of the room for some warmth.

"So what would make an old man live in the middle of nowhere."

Aleyn asked the old hunter who was cleaning the bloodied book while running her hand through the foxes fur.

Terry stopped and looked up as if he was thinking of an answer.

"Well.. there are many reasons, but in short I'm a retired adventurer, I used to live here with my wife who passed away a year ago. We were both fond of nature and preferred to live outside of civilization so this location was perfect. Not too far from the town, but if anyone wanted something out of us they would have to put some effort in to it."

Preferring to not dwell deeper into something sad she instead asked.

"Why would someone want to come here though? Other than courier jobs."

Terry turned around to look at her and smiled as he noticed her and Emily both looking at him.

"Some people come to me after hearing the stories and ask if they could learn from me. I teach them for a day or two and they leave with the knowledge. Word travels fast and I've apparently made a new name for myself as a teacher for survival skills"

Terry turned back and continued cleaning the books cover.

"Survival skills? Like how to start a fire or how to use a bow?" She kept asking curiously.

"More or less, though what I teach can be more broader."

The subject had triggered her curiosity so she kept going.

"So, is the pay good? You live in the back of the woods and order expensive books. Must mean you make some nice profit."

She wanted to have a go at learning archery at least but if the cost was too extreme then she wouldn't bother.

"You've got the right idea, but you're wrong."

Terry paused.

"While it's true i need to buy things from the town occasionally i don't need an income."

"I don't really value money in fact. Occasionally having a person come to learn and be willing is enough for me. Not to mention a little company is always welcome." Terry seemed to be reminiscing as he stopped talking.

"Would you be willing to teach me?" She said without hesitation.

More knowledge would always be useful and since she had already experienced the dangers of the woods she knew that wild life was no laughing matter.

Terry paused his cleaning for a moment.

"Ah so that's why you asked about the pay, clever girl." He gave a small chuckle

"I wouldn't have my reputation if I denied a person who wanted to learn" Terry continued.

In the middle of all the discussion Emily made a small squeaky yawn, which both of them could hear. Terry put the now somewhat clean book away.

"I think that's the cue for everyone."

Terry put some hides on the floor and blew out the candle lights.

"We can talk more about it tomorrow. Lets get some rest for now."

And with that note all 3 of them went to sleep.