As I sat on the broken tree outside the outskirts of my dungeon and town I couldn’t help but watch the horizon. The unbroken forest across the river with the mountains over top showed a wild and untamed land, only dispelled by my walled settlement. The dock and water inlet system was freshly repaired, and I checked on the logs to see Dan had ordered a cistern made to house water in case the river froze again.
I settled back into my cloak’s hood and brought up the rabbit fur blanket around my chin as I absently checked on the minions' work, my growing list of recipes for magical items that was starting to unlock and a few weak crafting talents that had popped up in the last while. The wands in my bandolier pushed out on the blanket and I hummed as I narrowed my eye on the missing links in the recipe list. As my crafting skill had developed things had filtered in from my knowledge skills, like a cleaning stone that copied part of my arcane trick spell, or a dwarven metal detector for the drones to hunt ore.
“Hmm, they have this place covered well,” I said, watching a glowing orb light up in one of the ballista towers.
I had found an abandoned ruin, and after destroying the place it had been rebuilt into a self-sufficient fort, one block at a time. I checked on some of the more advanced crafting recipes, seeing ingredients that were missing, rare items stripped from monsters or exotic plants and tools we didn’t have at the moment. I could make the place better, I could make the defenses stronger, but I needed to go elsewhere to make it happen. I needed to adventure.
From my still nameless town I watched several figures approach. Lin was dressed up in winter gear with a bow in hand and a colourful quiver on her back, beside her in extra layers was Yara in lighter gear than normal. Behind them were three goblin robots, one crawler, and two hobgoblin robots that were armed. I sat up, tucked my blanket away in my backpack full of camping gear and slung it onto my back. The rest of what I needed was in my brand new magical bag, which would be covered in glitter when I finally took it out.
“Glad you wanted to join us Yara,” I said, holding up a hand. “What’s with the bots?”
Yara hid further into her scarf from Rolada. “If we get a good haul of stag hares they can carry the animals. Plus I wanted to see how they handle moving around, and test out some gear from the tower.”
The nearest hobgoblin stood at attention and saluted me, holding its spear out. I saw the runes in the shaft, the care it had been made with, and the enchanted leaf shaped metal spear head. I took it and ran a hand down it, getting an item menu to pop up.
Flame Spark Warspear
Tier II - Weapon (Uncommon)
This enchanted spear is made for short fights against resilient beasts, perfect for adventurers. The enchantments enhance damage, accuracy and additional elemental damage as long as the charge holds. Once the spellwork within the spear is discharged it can take over 24 hours to fully recharge. During this phase this weapon is considered to be unenchanted.
+5% Accuracy and damage.
+2-12 Fire damage on hit.
Low chance to ignite on hit.
Knowledge Arcane : Success!
+3 XP gained.
The spear was strong, the elemental damage hit far beyond its weight class of being second tier. I did unlock another line along the bottom showing me a bar with several coloured lines. The spear did have a lot of damage, until it started to use its powers. Every few hits would discharge it to a lower level, dropping the damage range until it hit a single point of extra fire damage before going out. Overall the spear could land about a dozen hits before its damage was massively impacted, and about sixty before it was completely discharged. Big and better enchanted weapons would have a buff like this, without needing to worry about losing its charge.
Lin held up a bow with a similar enchantment, just with lightning damage instead. “Mind if I use this one? I found you a crossbow version, and Dan also dug out several low damage arrows and bolts to try so we brought a few.”
“Go ahead, a crossbow seems easier for me anyways. Just point and shoot right?” I grinned as I took the fusion of metal, wood and magic into my gloved hands. “Oh, it’s one of the goblin ones the attack dogs had.”
The crossbow was weighty, and the menu over it called it an auto light crossbow with the same flame spark bonus, limited to only a dozen shots before the enchantment ran dry. It looked fairly normal, only with a crank in the back, and a magazine in the middle able to hold onto three bolts. The gears, extra strings and wires held onto extra energy, resetting the string to let out three rapid shots before a lengthy reload was needed.
Yara took out her own crossbow, a more normal design, and smirked at the one I held. “If we run into an extra large stag hare at least we have the firepower to down it.”
“We have more of these, right? If we can line up a squad of drones with these I would love to see the gnomes try to attack us again,” I said.
Yara shrugged. “Your minions are still going over the ton of supplies down in the tower. These look to be like the cream of the crop, along with whatever the doppelgängers brought. Oh yeah, want a new dagger?”
She held out a long slightly curved dagger. It was more like a short machete, the vicious blade was razor sharp, and the handle was wrapped in thick leather. It felt good in my hands, but the enchantments it listed were fairly weak, just a touch of added durability.
“Thanks, I always need a good knife on hand,” I said. I belted it next to my sword and gestured to the robots. “How do we control them?”
“With one of these control wands to wake them up. I set them to listen to you two as well, ” Yara said, holding up a short rod of brass.
The nearest robot had a window over its shoulder listing a set of commands, and other units in its group. Yara was named as the group leader, with Lin and I as captains, with the rest of the machines following after. They were set to follow us, listen to orders and protect us no matter the cost.
The rest of the mechanical allies were less equipped than the one with the magic spear. The other iron bound hobgoblin had a large shield and war hammer, the goblin sized ones had short unenchanted javelins and the crawler. The brass orb with short spindly legs had a weak unstable fire crystal to use as a weapon. The thing was probably best left to light campfires or walk around as a torch.
“Let’s get this hunting party going!” Lin cheered. She bowed to me and clasped her hands. “Want to make it a quest?”
I checked the quest menu and saw enough time had passed that I was eligible for another quest from my town. Our banked experience was still high, well over eight hundred. “Sure, let's say fifty experience points for each of us for three stag hares. Is it possible to do that?”
Lin set up the quest and sent it off for us to accept.
Quest offered!
Hunt the tasty stag hares in the woods and return them to town!
-Hunt 3 Stag Hares
Reward : 50 XP to Josh, Lin and Yara.
(Half XP for the minimum of 1 Stag Hare.)
“Alright let's go before I freeze my tail off,” Yara said, tugging her hood down further, making the outline of her horns stand out more. She turned and waved in the direction of the robots. “Automatons, follow a hundred paces behind us, your stealth is terrible.”
The hobgoblin with the spear saluted and spoke in a slow metallic voice that bounced around its helmeted head. “Following orders.”
We dug around the woods near the river, finding a promising trail of tracks. After Lin gave me a few tips I tried to lead the way, with several successful survival checks leading us towards the dirt road I had appeared on so many months ago. I walked past the snow melt standing in the exact spot I had first touched Ewyernar, feeling a sense of gravitas. I could see the outline of my settlement far greater here now, and watched Lin and Yara make their way towards me.
“Find something?” Lin asked.
“Just looking at stuff,” I said. I looked around for more hare tracks and saw something new to grab my attention. “Wagon ruts?”
The spear hobgoblin walked over to jab at the divide in the wet dirt road. “Yes sir.”
Yara crouched down and set her crossbow beside her to poke at the earth. “Hobnails on these ones, military or mercenaries, while these ones are flats for comfort, and those are horseshoes. A group of merchants went by.”
Lin’s ears perked up as she scanned the horizon. “They didn’t even stop by to chat or trade with us?”
I put a hand over my brow, looking as far down the road as I could, seeing the forest eventually getting turned into rockier terrain. “They must have gone by in a hurry. Time is money. Hey Yara, what’s down this road?” I asked.
Yara got out her old map and we crowded around it. The source of the dirt road eventually connected to the large impressive stone road going by Wyrmbreath that headed towards Dastow, which was probably where they came from. Further down the dirt road was a lake. There was a small fishing village and trade post there, and her map had a sketch of it having a river that led to a sea, which ran up the coast to Dastow as well.
“Why would they travel by road, sea fare is way cheaper,” Yara said, narrowing her eyes. She let out a low growl. “Something isn’t right.”
“Maybe they get sea sick?” I offered. I scratched at my head and checked the road once more. “If this is a trade route maybe we should put in a path to link up to it. We can use these robot guys above ground and keep the minions underground when we have visitors.”
Lin hushed us, pointing at a twitching nose in the distance, along with several of its friends kicking up snow banks to find food. A dozen plump stag hares were just out of reach of us.
We abandoned the road and crouched in the snowbanks, watching the stag hares move back into the forest. Lin and I went ahead as Yara held back to cut them off. Yara wore a layer of stiff cloth armour beneath her snow clothes, but for our hunting trip, she only donned the metal breastplate from her plate armour, which was noisy enough she didn’t want to spook dinner.
Lin spotted the stag hare tracks again, and I found them leading to a pool of snow melt the animals seemed to frequent for water. We found a ridge behind some foliage to hide behind with Yara, the automatons as Yara liked to call them, stayed far out of sight, under orders to be silent.
It didn’t take long before stag hares showed up, six this time, each of the critters had a thick snowy coloured coat around their fat round bodies, and their antlers were fuzzy too making them appear adorable. But I knew better, they were killers in disguise, and aggressive to boot.
We aimed our ranged weapons, with me aiming the head of an enchanted bolt at the face of stag hare looking in my general direction, the beast not even knowing danger was near. I steadied my breathing and placed my finger tip on the trigger of the crossbow, my allies waiting for one of us to make the first move.
A distant crash came through the trees, followed by shouting. The stag hares jerked towards the direction, with questioning gazes and ears up, aimed in that direction. We were in luck as they presented their flanks to us, and I was the first to act.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
My bolt sailed true, slashing through a thin bush, destroying it as the added elemental damage was dumped into the hapless vegetation. It was gone in a column of smoke, and it blocked my vision, but I heard the thump of something hitting the ground. Lin’s arrow and Yara’s bolts must have been true too, because two more thumps hit the snow, and the stampede of stag hares vanished into the forest.
“Whoops,” I said, checking my magazine. “These were the enchanted fire bolts, I guess adding the crossbows additional power was quite a lot.”
Lin let out a low whistle. “Wow, that bush never stood a chance against our sneak attack. That bolt might have been worth a whole lot of gold!”
Yara rose to her feet and we flanked the area finding three dead stag hares. “Worth it if you ask me. It did that and was still able to kill its target. Those engineers sure made some decent gear.”
I inspected the crossbow seeing the charge bar had dropped quite a bit. Satisfied with my new ranged weapon we called for the automatons and jogged over to our kills. The stag hares lie dead where they had stood, parts of their fur smoking, but clearly they had died instantly without even realizing it. I was glad for that, as much as these things had been a nemesis to me I liked that it had been a quick, clean death.
“We should check on that shouting. It could be the merchants,” I said.
I ordered two of the goblin automatons to pick up the hares and head home. We jogged towards the source of the sound, finding a patch of forest that thinned out into rocky crags, with a thin creek and waterfalls heading down. We listened out and Lin’s sharp hearing heard a sharp rush of air across the creek.
I jogged across the creek, went past a few trees finding an open field full of rocks, and corpses. Dead pack animals were strewn about with obliterated carts, while small scavenger birds picked at the bodies. I saw a hairy arm full of bloodied feathers the size of my dagger sticking out of the side. I hurriedly went over to help drag them out, pulling the arm out that ended in a bloody mess, still weeping blood.
“Shit,” I said.
A shadow passed overhead, the hair on the back of my neck stood up and we sprinted for the nearest tree. I turned to see the goblin automaton valiantly standing behind rattling off “defending” as it threw a javelin into the air. A gale of wind threw it straight back, impaling the automaton onto the destroyed side of a cart.
The tree line exploded with sound, arrows and bolts flew into the air and a large man dashed between the trunks heading towards us, shouting at us to hide. Yara waved off the automatons who went to intercept him, and she aimed her crossbow towards the sky between the limbs of the trees.
“Don’t use ranged weapons now!” the man shouted, sliding to halt near us. “Magical beast, level ten, has ice and wind magic. It will toss your attacks right back at you.” He hefted a two handed axe in his gloved hands and threw off his hood, he was a beast-kin with short fuzzy ears, a wide build covered in scale mail armour, and a thick burly beard. “Is that Elkan’s arm?”
“Oi!” An armoured dwarf clutching a bloodied stump followed behind the larger man. “You bloody thief, stealing a good dwarf’s arm, give me that!”
I didn’t even realize I was still holding onto the torn off arm like a club. I gladly handed it off and a brown haired short tailed beast-kin stitched it back on while the dwarf drank three potions at once. I put my crossbow in my magic bag heeding the advice of the man and drew my sword, watching out for any signs of the creature.
The creature in question slammed into the corpse of a large pack animal, a giant goat with a saddle and tore into it. I felt my breath catch, the monster was huge, one I could recognize from my own world’s stories, it was a gryphon.
The eagle half was coated in glistening white and grey feathers, with a thin layer of frost dotting them. Blood covered the large talons on its front legs, and its lion rear was dotted with bolts, arrows and a dagger plunged into its back right leg. Around its neck was a blue collar with a dinner plate sized bronze disc with an orange gem set in it, a control collar.
The collar was on the fritz, sparking off with energy, and the remnants of a small saddle could be seen on its back. I saw stuck in the icy quills was a red cone shaped hat the gnomes seemed to like.
“Damn thing flew by our caravan, picked off a goat and harassed us. We chased it off while the rest escaped,” the large man said, crouching down to point at the creature’s flank. “Elkan shot the gnome off its back and the thing went feral and followed us. Name’s Emile by the way, a retired bear, but one with some fight left in him.”
The large man held out his arm. It was hairy, full of muscle, covered in scars, and tanned so badly that I thought his skin could partially be leather in a few places. I shook it and a prompt appeared to swap information.
Emile Dubois, Bear beast-kin, Level 9 Forest Hunter
“A wizard type eh? Don’t suppose you have a way of dispelling that damn collar permanently do you?” Emile asked. “We found you can bait out the wind reflect attack if you hit it with enough arrows, and you have a few seconds to get in your ranged hits.”
“Sorry, nothing like that yet. I have a few tricks up my sleeve, and if I can land a sword hit I’ll do a lot of damage. Do we have to fight it? Can we get your people away?” I asked.
Emile’s people were a bunch of misfit humans, beast-kin and dwarves. They had a wounded pack goat with them, a young cat boy stood next to it, chanting and waving a wand at it. A prompt told me it was a silence spell, and I could see why. The goat constantly let out screams, and the bandages with red marks all over the animal’s neck and legs showed it was hurt. The majority of them seemed like commoners, regular folk, with only the dwarves having any sign of armour or weapons with them.
Emile shook his head. “That thing is pissed, more so than one of my wives when I forget the cheese from the markets. We also wounded it, and those damn beasts understand the concept of revenge. The only way we are getting out is to kill it, and I have a duty to these people.”
I turned to my allies, seeing their weapons were ready, and the hobgoblin clutched its spear tightly. I looked at the gryphon, seeing the large magnificent wings it had. “We need to keep it from flying, have any items or spells?”
Elkan the dwarf spat, plucking out feathers stuck in his arm that was still getting attached. “Had a mildly enchanted net, even got it around that thing's wings. These feathers are sharper than steel, and inflict ice damage. The only way you're stopping it from flying is chopping them off.”
Yara tightened her grip on her halberd. “It has twenty strength, not like we could hold down a creature of that size anyways. Got a plan?”
The gryphon turned from its meal to look straight at us, and it screeched.
“Yeah, run!” I said.
The creature rushed towards us, throwing out its wings and channelling magic out of the air which threw me for a loop. As ice spikes built up in front of it I quickly aimed a wand and had an orb of fire meet the ice. The gryphon fired off its spell, and when the magical attacks met they exploded, sending vapour over the ground.
The gryphon flapped up into the air, and Yara commanded the crawler to shoot at it. The brass orb robot shook violently and small thin darts of magic flew towards the aerial foe. The gryphon's wings glowed, the collar around its neck faded and it created a dome of semi-translucent air that caught the attacks, then flung them back down, obliterating the crawler into scrap.
“Now, shoot it while it has to recharge!” Emile shouted.
I reached into my bag, took out my crossbow and fired off two rapid shots. The aerial foe was quick, and it dipped below my bolts, screeching angrily as its feathers smoked from the fiery enchanted bolts. Lin’s lightning enhanced arrow stuck into its chest, barely noticed by the creature and a series of mundane bolts harmlessly glanced off its sides.
The bronze disc glowed again, tipping us off that it was recharged. I frowned as I changed back to my sword and found another tree to lean behind, watching the shadow of the gryphon on the ground. The people who weren’t combatants found new places to hide, while the wounded goat was freaking out, refusing to go under a cluster of small dense trees. Emile was still near me and I waved to get his attention.
“Why is the hide so tough?” I asked.
“Magical beast, gryphons are naturally absorbent of magic, and this thing has soaked up plenty wherever it nested. Not to mention you can tell it's a male, and he is pent up with fury. No mate, so he's taking that rage out on us,” Emile said.
“How can you tell?” I watched one of the hobgoblin automatons rush towards a man who was trapped under a dense pine, out on his own. The man ran towards us as the hobgoblin waved its warhammer, and then promptly vanished as the gyphon’s talons carried it away. “I’m losing distractions, Emile.”
Emile laughed. “For starters you can see the size of those things between its legs, and that it's willing to fight us on the ground. Goddess be kind if I can get to it I will cripple it, I got a strength potion ready to go. It should be enough.”
The gryphon crashed down into a pine, getting stuck in the branches as it tried to peck at a few dwarves. Yara used her halberd, nearly taking its head off, but the creature backed out at the last moment and she only got a grazing blow to its cheek.
“It’s sticking its neck out. Say, if you had a little more strength from a spell it would stack with the potion?” I asked.
Emile was half done downing a potion, and he snorted. He downed the rest and nodded yes as he coughed. “I’m head out, everyone ready your weapons!”
I ran low to the ground, slapped him on the back and flexed my magical might. “Mark of the warrior!”
Over Emile’s cloak with a great oak tree appeared a golden symbol of a demon warrioress in full gear wielding an axe. Emile flexed an arm showing it had grown to nearly twice the size. He gave me a thumbs up and ran out, calling out the gryphon in a challenge. He flexed a hand towards the ground, causing the snow to melt as he used some kind of nature based magic. It made his tanned skin darker and it gained a bark-like texture.
The shadow of the gryphon passed over Emile as the creature was trying to loop above him. I could see the angle it was coming from, the flap of its wings revealing a few bolts in its feathers showing a weakness in the natural armour if we applied enough brute force. The spear hobgoblin was near me, running out to help, and I intercepted it, grabbing its spear and dropping my sword.
“Need to borrow this. Gust!” I pushed hard with my wizard shoes, with the added wind power aimed at the earth blasting me up towards the gryphon with talons outstretched towards Emile. I aimed the spear at the gryphon's side, feeling the weapon in my hand respond to the magic I was about to dump into it. “Flame blade!”
The world seemed to slow down as several things happened at once. For one I was curious why I was able to handle a spear so well, the martial talent I picked up long ago gave me the rudimentary knowledge, which was a huge help. Two, I had just seen what happened when ice and fire magic met head on, and here I was about to do that with my face near it, not my best plan. Finally, both Emile and the gryphon were quite surprised I had arrived to interrupt their little duel.
The initial hit of the spear dumped part of the spear’s charge into the creature’s side, the fire damage met the icy feathers and I was blown away from the shockwave, sliding to a halt when the fragments of cart caught me, leaving me stunned. The small blast of fire damage from my ability tore off the feathers making a bare patch of skin, and on it was the mark of fire that then exploded, shearing off the wing joint of the gryphon. The magical creature struck the ground, sliding near Emile, alive and very, very angry.
A half dozen bolts came at it, and the creature turned to use its good wing to deflect them away. Lin’s arrow came from above as she had climbed into a tree, and the lightning arrow shocked its tail as her arrow pierced its haunch. The hobgoblin automaton had claimed my sword and came at it from its flank, thrusting the blade deeply into the burnt flesh.
The gryphon bucked, and screeched, slapping the hobgoblin away, shearing it apart. It slammed its head into the ground when it tried to fly up, and it was set upon by Emile. The strength boosted axeman tore a strip of flesh off with his first swing, followed by a brutal attack that hewed a front leg off the gryphon. When the magical beast rose the man flicked a seed towards it, turning it into a dense cluster of vines that pinned the gryphon wing down, keeping it from casting another air spell.
More arrows and bolts peppered it, and when the gryphon started to thrash Emile swung down with a devastating strike, hewing the creature's head clean off.
I blinked out the stars in my vision, the stun effect finally leaving, and I felt sick to my stomach. I checked my status effects and noticed I had unintentionally dumped every remaining mana point into that hit. Mana blight was rearing its ugly head, I felt sick to my stomach and tasted bile as my consciousness dimmed. I popped a Go Berry into my mouth and the worst of the ill effects left. “Whoops.”
I grabbed onto the wood scraps of the broken cart and dragged myself up. Lin and Yara were at my side helping me hobble over to the cheering people surrounding the dead gryphon and Emile who held the head high.
Emile chuckled and placed the creature’s head onto its torso. “Fine work mage. Your attacks did something to that spell gem in the collar, so want to make a deal? I keep the head so I can mount it on my fireplace to tell a story and you get the gem and collar?”
In his hands was the gem, now full of lights within it. It glowed with icy blues, fiery reds and the yellows from lightning. I felt quite curious and Yara gave me a subtle nod. I claimed it, and held it high.
Elkan the dwarf stumbled out of the tree cover with the healer who had been helping him following closely behind. “You bloody bastards! I just got my arm fixed and when I show up for vengeance you killed it!”
I gave my sword embedded in its side a light kick and the dwarf grabbed it, tearing it out, and opening a wound in the creature’s side. The dwarf stabbed the gryphon, and hacked off a leg, kicking the corpse and spitting on it. Finally he tore the dagger embedded in the gryphon's leg out, patting it when it returned home to the scabbard in his belt.
Elkan then let out a pent up breath, wiped my sword clean, inspected it, noting it was undamaged and bowed as he held it out to me. “I believe this is your blade, my good fellow.”
I gladly accepted it. “Thank you very much. Glad to see your arm is in working order.”
The healer behind him kicked at the snow. “Took a dozen gold in potions to do it.”
The wind blew past us and I felt the dropping sun as the winds grew cold. Emile put the head under his arm and held his axe up. “Strangers, you have helped us in battle, I name you friends. Would you like to come with us to rest and recover?”
I eyed the dead gryphon, sniffing the air. “Smells like roasted chicken. Want us to bring dinner?”
The party has helped with a deadly encounter!
An even amount of experience has been disrupted from another party.
+900 XP to Josh
+900 XP to Yara
+900 XP to Lin