Max lay on the ground with the wolf standing on top of him, the creature’s crushing jaws biting down onto his shoulder. Looking into the branches high above him, he saw them form into the window of stats. He checked his health and saw there was only a small sliver of red.
The wolf sunk its teeth deeper into Max’s flesh, tearing skin and muscle. With its grip firm, the creature started to shake Max about in a wild frenzy before it finally let go and dropped him. The thief looked up at the wolf, and it stared back down on him. The monster was glaring at him with deep black eyes, totally empty and devoid of any emotion or compassion yet mesmerizing all the same. Fear hammered in Max’s chest, knowing he was only moments from death. Over the hairy shoulder of the wolf, Max saw the Druid approach.
Anita’s hands were busy, moving in a complex pattern in front of her. She was chanting in an unfamiliar language, words Max couldn’t understand. They were strange and beautiful just like the Druid herself, and as she spoke, soft lightning flickered between her fingers. She rolled her hands over one another as if moving an invisible ball.
Max could see a strange, shimmering effect around her hands. And as she spread her hands apart, a glowing golden cloud filled with flashes of blue lightning appeared. She moved her hands forward, and the glowing cloud flew forward and enveloped him.
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> Anita casts Basic Healing on Max.
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Max immediately felt revived. He felt his wounds heal and saw the stats in the branches above him change, his health bar filling back up, at least a little bit.
He looked up at his savior and saw she had her staff in her hands again. The Druid swung it around in a wide arc and cracked the wolf on the side of the head.
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> Anita attacks Wolf causing moderate damage.
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The wolf let out a howl of pain and turned its attention to the Druid. Max scurried backward through the leaves, trying to create separation from the beast. Once he was clear, he staggered to his feet and gripped his staff in both hands. He leaped forward and swung with all the might he could muster.
The swing was on target, and he caught the wolf hard on its rear hindquarters.
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> Max attacks Wolf causing moderate damage.
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Max saw a red health bar appear on the ground under the wolf’s feet just as Anita twirled her staff and delivered a double blow to the wolf’s head.
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> Anita attacks Wolf causing heavy damage.
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The wolf staggered from the powerful blow and Max could see the beast was almost done. The wolf looked at the Druid with a whimper then bolted away, into the trees. Max backed away, happy the fight was over.
Anita, on the other hand, had no intention of letting the wolf live to fight another day. She quickly moved her hands in an intricate pattern in front of her then threw them forward, toward the fleeing wolf. Lightning shot forward from her fingers
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> Anita casts Magic Bullet.
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The Magic Bullet flew forward catching the fleeing wolf on the back of its head with a sickening crack. The wolf dropped, its legs gave way from underneath it, and it skidded forward in the leaf litter. Its tongue hanging out between its terrible yellow teeth.
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> Wolf has been defeated.
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In the dust that swirled up around the fallen wolf, he saw his stats.
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> Max gains experience points.
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He could see experience points from the defeated wolf pouring into his XP meter. It was filling up, but he had barely survived the encounter. Again.
Max let the stats displayed in the swirling dust fade away as he noticed Anita limping toward him. She was using her staff to help her walk.
“Well met, traveler,” the Druid said as she approached Max. She was still slightly breathless from the fight with the wolf, and Max did his best to ignore her chest heaving inside the snug leather tunic as she caught her breath.
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“Hi,” Max said and held out his hand. “I’m Max. I’m very pleased to meet you.”
Anita took hold of Max’s forearm in greeting. Max understood and took hold of her forearm, too, and they stood there for a moment, locked together. She was staring into his eyes. Her green, almond-shaped eyes were so strange and absolutely beautiful. He knew she was checking him out too.
Max had never met anyone like her before, and maybe he was as strange and appealing to her as she was to him. Finally, Anita pulled away. “Hello, Max, I am Anita. Warrior Druid.”
“I thought that wolf was going to be the death of me,” Max said, looking toward the fallen animal.
“It was nearly the end of both of us,” Anita said. “I have taken a lot of damage, and my Health is low, and I can see you, too, are quite low on Health. Unfortunately, I cannot cast the Basic Healing spell again. It is going to be dark soon, and I need to rest and prepare more spells. I think it best if we leave the forest. What way are you heading, Max?”
“I was heading to the town just on the other side of this forest valley.” Max pointed in the direction he had been heading before the wolf had trapped him up a tree. “I think that’s probably the closest safety we can find.”
“That’s the town of Burke just up that slope. I will travel with you if you are happy to have my company.”
His heart began to beat faster. “Of course, I would be happy to have your company.” Max could hardly take his eyes off her. “We should definitely stick together, at least until we get to safety.”
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> Anita Charmroot, Level 10 Warrior Druid, joins Max’s party.
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Max picked up his burlap sack and used his staff to help him walk. The pair of them went as quickly as their wounds would allow them, and soon, they found themselves in the densest part of the narrow forest valley. The trees were so thick that Max could hardly see more than a few yards ahead. The dense tangle of branches made progress slow and difficult.
“So, why are you out here in the forest, Max?” Anita asked.
Max was breathless from picking his way through the thick branches, and he struggled to speak. Anita seemed to have no such difficulty.
“I thought I was taking a shortcut,” Max said.
“You tried to take a shortcut through the forest valley? You must be very brave . . . or very foolish. Everyone in the Breamor Kingdom knows to avoid this area.”
“Lucky for me you weren’t avoiding it. I might have been stuck up a tree for days if you hadn’t come along.”
“I am not here by accident, Max. The Druid Order of Eveirea has detected a shift in the natural order. We have observed a change in many wilderness creatures, driven by some dark magic new to the world. I have been sent forth by the Order to try and track the dark evil back to its source.”
Anita had quickened her pace while she talked and Max let her pull ahead so he could admire her from behind. He was barely paying attention to her words as she continued to tell her story.
“So far, all I have learned is that this dark magic is spreading, it’s corrupting animals, and it’s even starting to corrupt people. The taint is spreading through the earth and through the air. It moves from creature to creature and along the branches and the roots of the trees. It infects everything as it creeps slowly over the land, and I can’t find where it is coming from.” The Druid turned toward him, her lips pursed—full luscious lips that Max desperately wanted to kiss.
“I came down into the forest valley here to find creatures affected by the darkness. I thought it would help me find the source of the taint. Unless we can find it, we will never be able to save Eveirea from this terrible corrupting evil.”
Anita stopped in her tracks and tilted her head as if listening carefully. She took hold of Max’s hand and pulled him close. He didn’t resist as she raised her hand—and his—and let her place his hand against her leather-clad chest. Anita pressed her finger to her full lips and bid him be quiet.
Anita was listening carefully, turning her head slowly as if to detect the direction a distant noise was coming from.
Max could feel Anita’s strong heart beating in her soft bosom as they looked around the forest, searching for whatever the Druid had heard. A small white cloud swirled out of thin air and formed before him, but it appeared to be only visible to him as Anita’s eyes passed right over the cloud without pausing.
It was the same cloud he had seen before, and as he looked closely, the cloud took the form of a person in a white robe. As the cloud’s swirling slowed, the robe started to look more like a white laboratory coat. A person emerged from the cloud, still surrounded by the black outline, red hair dancing about her head like flames. Max spotted the name tag on the chest of the figure.
Janet.
The woman, who he now recognized as the technician from the laboratory, looked at Max and then pointed into the forest behind them.
“Something is coming, Max. Something dangerous.”
“It’s coming from over there,” Max whispered to Anita, pointing with the tip of his staff in the direction that Janet had indicated.
The white cloud swirled away and vanished. Anita turned to him with surprise in her eyes, and he could tell she was impressed with him. He looked down at his hand which she still held tight to her chest, and had to admit that he was very impressed with her as well.
“You are a surprising man, Max. I have been trained in Wilderness Lore since I was a girl, and yet I only just detected the wolves closing in on our position.”
“Wolves?” Max spoke in a loud, panicked voice.
Anita hushed him again. He calmed down instantly, lost in her emerald eyes.
“I can move through the forest easily and remain almost entirely hidden. The wolves will not find me unless I want them to.” She looked Max in the eyes. “Can you outrun them?”
Max felt weak in the knees. He was wounded enough that it was difficult for him to walk. Running for any distance wasn’t a good option. His Sneak ability seemed like a better option.
The thief pointed up into the trees.
“I can climb and move silently through the trees. There are too many sticks and dry leaves that rustle underfoot down here. The wolves will find me for sure. We must climb.”
Anita shook her head as she laid a hand on Max’s shoulder. “You climb. I can hide down here, and the wolves will never find me. I am a Druid, and this is what I’m trained for. Head for the town of Burke.”
Max climbed the nearest tree and picked out his route through the branches. He moved carefully and quietly. The thick branches under his feet felt firm and let him move with hardly a sound. He looked down toward Anita with concern, but she waved him on. Max realized that quite by accident, he could see right down her tunic. She was an impressive woman, but he was no Peeping Tom, and he was just about to avert his eyes when she moved and was gone. She had only turned slightly to the side, but she simply melted into the leaves of the trees around her. Max studied the branches below, trying to see where she had disappeared to. She suddenly re-appeared, emerging from the cover of the dense foliage and pointed in the direction they needed to go.
Max moved off, across the branches from one tree to the next. He felt the air grow colder as the sun set, and by the time he reached the edge of the forest where it met the sloping grasslands, the sky had turned from blue to black. Stars filled the deep black of the night sky, a mass of twinkling lights. Anita was waiting for him, and the pair walked up the slope, both tired, both using their staffs to help them climb. And then, at the top of the slope, Max saw the dark outline of the town of Burke, a distant shadow in this strange world.