Hunter felt something channel to his very core as a voice reverberated within. Volodar’s voice reached through to him, “Hunter. Adelia and I have found a group to work with. There is a portal that opened recently in a cave near Strosa. I need for you and Doppel to find your way over there, just in case I need assistance in the task. Remember, I am concealing my use of death magic and who I am. Do not fail me.”
He asked, “My lord, how would I know where to go?”
“Go to the adventurer’s guild and grab a bounty for it. That will tell you all that you’ll need to know.” Volodar disconnected the line as Hunter felt his animating energies return to normal.
“Doppel,” Hunter looked towards the transformed creature, “the master has assigned us a task.”
Doppel had taken the form of Volodar during this time. “Let’s do it to perfection, then. I’ll follow your lead.”
Hunter looked towards the walls of Strosa and whistles, “I don’t want to draw attention from the guards. The master wants his name and followers to be concealed.”
Doppel wrapped his body in white bandages during this monologue. Hunter was in disbelief, “What are you doing?”
“I look like the master, that’s bad for this mission.” Doppel seemed confused by the question as he stopped wrapping himself.
Hunter laughed, “If the master saw you, he would snap your animation in an instant. I’ll do this. You can watch over my hounds.” Doppel agreed as Hunter decided to scale the sheer surface that was Strosa’s walls. He stowed away his bow as it was too difficult to maneuver with. One grab after another, he found his way up the large walls through his finger strength and unnatural grip. Strosa’s inner workings looked petty with this much of a difference in height. It was liberating to see the city from this bird’s eye view. Hunter enjoyed the sight for a moment before noticing something. Quickly, he ducks behind a barrel as he sees a guard walking on the rampart.
The guard glanced over in his direction and started to walk towards his location. A voice called out, “Hey! Hey, you. I saw that.” Slowly, the voice crept closer and closer as Hunter decides to reveal himself. The guard was taken aback as he assessed Hunter, “What the hell?”
“Sorry,” Hunter said in a nonchalant way, “I was such a fool. I wanted to see the view from the top of the wall.” Foot by foot, he made his way over to the guard. He responded in kind by backpedaling. In any other circumstance, Hunter would simply be a pale, gaunt man. However, this was too strange for the guard to handle. He sighed as stared daggers at the man. Volodar’s words echoed through his mind as he knew that this human would tell someone about the weird, thin man on the ramparts.
Drawing his sword out of instinct, the guard held what ground he had left. “By the will of the queen, I demand that you halt.” His shaky words held little to no impact towards Hunter as he contemplated what his next move should be. He exclaimed, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Words like that bothered Hunter as he gnashed his teeth. Volodar created him with a purpose in mind. Saying that there was a flaw within his creation, would make his master flawed as well. Hunter’s emotions since his creation have been strange as he could feel what his vessel wished for as well. Out of a bruised ego, his vessel would’ve simply sliced the throat of the cretin and dumped the body off the wall. He knew well enough that he could overpower this man and do so, but his master’s words bothered him. This man was a root of failure for Hunter. A thorn in the perfection that would’ve been his task.
Walking up to the guard, he swiped the sword from the man’s grasp. Clank was the sound it made as it scattered across the rampart. A rage could be felt slowly swelling up from within. “Please,” the man begged, “I’ll do anything. Don’t hurt me.” Hunter could feel his claws that were now extended to full length. He paused to control his emotions as he placed his hand up to the man’s mouth, effectively silencing him.
“You’ve ruined my whole day, you know that?” Muffled noises came from the guard in response as Hunter hushed him once more. Releasing his grip, he continued to speak. “My master has told me to do this job in secrecy and your existence causes me grief. Why do I still wish to not kill you?” A nagging sensation ran through his body as he searched for the meaning behind his emotion. He gazed into the man’s eyes, looking for the answer to his own question. That’s when he remembered the first few days after he awakened. A memory of Volodar naming him and Adelia being by his side in that moment. It was a tidal wave of emotion as he figured out the true essence of his problem.
As a ghoul, Hunter still had some processes that are like that of a human. The words and emotions of Volodar were engraved upon him within that moment. “It’s because you’re innocent.” He repeated the words to himself several times as if it were a grand revelation. “He wouldn’t needlessly slaughter the innocent. The master wouldn’t want your death and would find a way around it.”
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The man couldn’t believe what he was hearing, “Look, I didn’t see anything. We can just go our separate ways and no one wi- “
“No,” Hunter sighed as he responded, “you have still made the mistake of insulting my creation. I would normally punish that with death as it’s an insult to the master. However, I feel you have given me something much greater in return to save your life. To absolve your remaining sin, you will help me. Get one of every bounty from the adventurer’s guild and bring it to me. I have a peculiar sense of smell. If you betray me, you will have betrayed the words of my master and will die within the night.” He released the man as the guard sprinted away. Hunter grabbed the crenulation of the wall and watched as the man disappeared down the wall.
Those are his true intentions after all, Hunter believed. Harm those who would hurt you and protect those who adore you. Perhaps those feelings promulgated within Volodar, himself. Hunter gave a warm smile as he believed that he understood Volodar on a deeper level.
Doppel knelt and ran his arm along the spine of a skeletal warg. He saw Hunter walking towards him with a lively gait. The voice boomed deep from within Doppel, “I see that you’ve got a stack of papers.”
“I got a bunch of bounties from the adventurer’s guild. We can go to the cave now if we want.” Hunter also paused as he flipped through some of the other bounties. “We could do other bounties on behalf of the lord while he is away.”
Doppel grabbed a few from the grasp of Hunter and flipped through them. “Collection quests for animal parts seem like an easy job.” Stopping on one quest in particular, Doppel was confused to see this. “The master would be interested in this.” It was a quest to clear out a group of goblins. He examined it for a moment, “I thought we cleared out Tulnan’s pass over a month ago.”
“Tulnan’s Rise,” Hunter replied, “not pass. We did clear it out. Why do you ask?”
“The quest says to collect goblin ears from that area.”
Hunter listened and nodded his head, “Well, they are goblins. They either took it back over or another tribe stepped in. You can see that from the bounty being a few coppers per kill.” He paused as he thought about the situation, “It is strange that they know what happened there already. Perhaps I underestimated humans and their abilities to transfer information.”
They finished packing their items and made their way over to monitor the cave. Hunter would periodically fulfill a bounty by acquiring the materials. This path continued until they were halted by a scene that Hunter had seen a few times before. It appears that some bandit group halted a wagon away from Strosa quite a way. Doppel asked, “Should we intervene?”
Dilemmas appeared before Hunter as he watched from afar. “It would blow our cover if we did. We could confiscate the materials of the wagon, but it serves to harm our primary goal. There will be plenty of times in the future that we could slaughter bandits.”
A fire seemed to ignite from deep inside of Doppel as he replied, “I will take care of it, wait here.”
“Did you not hear me?”
The shape changer shifted into Volodar’s form as he wrapped his head in bandages. “I don’t need to breathe. I just need my eyes.” He continued until he was sufficiently satisfied with the work and went towards the group. Hunter drew his bow and trained it towards the group.
One of the bandits pointed in his direction as a man lay on the floor, bleeding and currently alive. “Stupid bastard,” the man said, “why did you walk over here? Are you suicidal?” He pointed his weapon towards Doppel and waved it back and forth.
Doppel replied in earnest, “I was told a while back to stop banditry in the woods around Strosa.”
“What?”
“I guess, you could say that I feel compelled to kill you all.” The bandits responded to this threat as the rest of them stood up and unsheathed their weapons. It was obvious which one was the leader as he had better equipment than the rest. He was also a loudmouth it would appear as he delighted in the sound of his own voice. Doppel’s arms would grow as the muscles bulged excessively, his patience wearing thin from the man’s belligerence. His voice was calm, “Let’s see how well my enhancement went.”
He slammed into the head of the leader with blinding speed. His fist cleanly smashed the skull of the leader, sending matter spraying out backwards in a cone. The leader’s body let go of the sword as it wobbled and fell to the ground. Arrows soared in from a distance as fleeing bandits would hit the ground one after another. It didn’t take long before the bandits were slain.
Steam rose off Doppel’s body as his muscles rescinded back behind his flesh. He was certainly stronger than he was before, thanks to Volodar. Taking some of the surplus bandages he had, he wrapped the wound of the man on the floor. He didn’t speak out of fear that he couldn’t control his voice’s depth. Doppel fought back the internal panic as he realized he spoke to the bandits with this elder right next to him. The man looked at him and spoke weakly, “Thank you.” He was an elderly man with tears in his eyes. Doppel picked him up and placed him back onto his wagon. Slapping the back of the horse, it sent the creature bounding off towards Strosa with its cargo in tow.
Hunter monitored the situation before walking out of the woods, “Good strike.”
“Yes,” Doppel responded, “it was a good strike. His skull was soft.” They used their remaining time to grab the gear off of the bandits as they pocketed what little wealth the men had. Doppel seemed satisfied as he stripped the men of their gear, “I fulfilled the master’s command that he gave us long ago. You were always hunting them down as I pushed skeletons around. I was envious of your completion of the task in comparison.”
Hunter shook his head, “You made yourself useful to the creator, it doesn’t matter in what way you did it. I suspect that you will surpass even me in time. You’re not bound by a vessel in the way that I am.”
Doppel smiled as blood the of his enemies weighed heavy on the bandages around his face, revealing portions of it. “It feels good to know that I have been useful.”