I blinked the sleep out of my eyes to get a better view of my mugger.

He was tall and broad at the shoulders, a cape similar to mine clasped around his neck. His beard was scraggly in that rustic handsome outbacker sort of way. “Don’t got much on ya, from what I’m seeing.” His accent was Australian. Or New Zealand, I always had difficulty telling the difference.

Player Met

- Roland Deere -

- Hunter -

- Party: The Ruby Rangers -

I slowly curled my fingers around the knife.

“Ah-ah,” he warned, gracing the blade against my skin. “Let’s not complicate things. What can you give me?”

I could feel the sharpness of the ax when I gulped. “Pretty much what you see,” I said, doing my best poker face, but my heart was banging against my ribs. Briefly my eyes drifted to Gnome, still draped under my cloak.

Roland’s gaze followed mine. “What’s that?” He asked. “Potions?”

I would have shook my head if I didn’t think I’d slit my own throat. Instead I shrugged.

He pulled the ax away just enough to give me a moment to breathe. “Sinthu, if he moves, shoot him,” he said.

Over his shoulder was another. A girl, bow in one hand and arrow in the other, her right arm ribboned tight with a bandage dark with blood. She winced as she raised the bow to me.

Player Met

- Sinthu Laghari -

- Gatherer -

- Party: The Ruby Rangers -

Still holding the ax in my general direction, Roland used his foot to sweep the cloak off of Gnome. There was a sharp intake of breath, followed by a whistle. He briefly lowered the ax.

“You shoulda said something. That’s quite a find,” he said. “What’s inside?”

I displayed my empty hands to Roland to show him I’d be no trouble. “Nothing.”

He tilted his head at me. “Nothing? You walk around with empty chests just for the hell of it, eh?” When I didn’t reply, he sighed. “Gotta do everything yourself these days.”

Roland squatted, bringing the ax back to my neck while he reached for the chest, splitting his attention between us. Sinthu gritted her teeth and rubbed her injured arm. She looked uncertain.

There was the sound of Roland fiddling with the chest. “Got a way to open this thing?” He asked. Before I could answer, his scream startled both Sinthu and I. He dropped his ax and fell on his ass, arm flailing in the air with a small mimic at the end of it.

“Open, you say? How about now? Is this open enough for you?” Gnome yelled, having snapped shut around Roland’s wrist.

I leapt to my feet before Sinthu could react and, sweeping up my bow, dashed around Roland to put him between us. Sinthu was slow to draw her bow against the pain. I crouched low and was ready to fire. Don’t do it, Sinthu.

Roland was rearing, trying and failing to shake off the little wooden monstrosity. Sinthu hesitated. The pain was straining her, and her shot had at least a fifty-fifty chance of hitting her party member. Come on, Sinthu. Put it down.

She lowered the bow. I breathed a sigh of relief and nodded to the woods. She didn’t need more direction than that. After giving a final remorseful glance to her screaming ally, she bounded down the slope and out of sight.

“You’ve done it now!” Gnome said, sponging hit after hit from Roland’s ax. “You’ve awoken the feast in me! The cloves are off, now! Rancid, I tell you!”

I pulled him away. Roland collapsed, blood spurting out of the space where his hand should have been. Gnome’s lid snapped shut, and then I swore I heard gulping and the licking of lips.

“Too tough. Poor circulation,” he said. “I’ve had better.”

“You son of a bitch!” Roland managed to cry between bouts of screaming. “My hand! What have you done?”

“Kill him so he ceases his whining.”

“Now now, don’t be rude,” I told the mimic and set him down. I grabbed my cloak and kneeled next to Roland. “You’ve already taken his hand, let’s consider it before we take his life.” Hell, I didn’t even know if I could. Killing monsters was easy, but another person? He was in the same situation I was. Lost. Trying to survive.

I struggled to grab hold of the man’s bleeding arm as he rocked from side to side, fighting me. Eventually I managed to long enough to tie the cloak over his open wound. “You got a potion on you?” I asked. He screamed in reply. A quick pat down came up with little more than a knife and some rope, so I cut some of the rope and used it to hold the cloak in place, tying it as tight as I could.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“This probably won’t do much,” I said. “I don’t know Sinthu but I imagine she’d be back at some point.”

Roland rested his head in the dirt. His hair was matted against his profusely perspiring forehead. “Gonna take my stuff then, eh?”

I shook my head and used Gnome as a stool. His protests went unheeded by my cheeks. “You were the one trying to rob me, not the other way around. Listen, I’m sorry about your hand, I really am, but I think you’re going about this game all wrong.” Roland eyed me suspiciously. “Why rob me when you could have just asked for my help?”

“You pick and choose your allies,” he breathed through gritted teeth. “We have enough allies. You were an easy target.”

“Oh yes, the Ruby Rangers." Pardon me if Im not shaking in my boots. "How many are you?”

Roland’s face hardened. “There’s a few of us,” he said, giving nothing away. “And they’ll be back for you.”

I sighed. “Am I missing something? Wouldn’t it be smart to team up with as many people as you can?”

Roland’s laugh was choked with pain. I couldn’t tell if his sense of humour was a result of his blood loss or something stupid that I’d said. Maybe both. “You haven’t been here long, have you? The fuckers who made this game know all that. You’re penalized for having too many allies. Keeps things interesting, you see?”

“Penalized how?”

He rolled onto his back, biting his lip to stem the waves of pain. It was my turn to hold the ax to his throat.

“Penalized how?” I said again. I felt odd threatening his life with a pointed weapon, like I was speaking another language to a native who could tell I was trying so very hard to come across like I was fluent. Roland could tell that I was not.

“Go on and find out. Make some friends,” he said, and laid his head back to watch the sky. He was playing their game, and playing it well. He knew the odds of survival were slim. It wasn’t personal, that was true. It’s just a game.

I withdrew my ax and held it up to my face. The thought of killing him briefly entered my mind. It might’ve been the smartest thing to do, to drop the member count of the Ruby Rangers by one, so if they decided to come for me my odds would be slightly improved.

The blade was marred by scratches, but through it I could see the doubt in my eyes.

I can’t.

“Seems to me fighting each other is what those bastards want,” I said, standing. “Sorry again about your hand.”

I grabbed Gnome and my supplies and, cloakless, left Roland on the bluffs.

----------------------------------------

I drew the arrow back to my cheek, one eye peering at my target over the fletching.

The furbo had taken the bait. I had dropped a little piece of Large Bird’s decomposing leg atop a tree stump in the middle of a clearing and slunk back into the underbrush to await the first buffalo to come to the watering hole.

We stumbled on the spot after trekking back down the bluffs and heading towards the mountains. I had a campsite already set up nearby, and wanted to squeeze out some hunting practice before the last rays of evening light receded beyond the ranges.

I fired. I missed. Sigh.

The furbo skittered, and I went to go retrieve my arrow when I felt a tug in my mind. I looked in the direction the abomination had run and could feel it moving, darting side to side. The hunter. I was about to give up on the chase before it began when I remembered my title. I knew where it was. Where it was going. It was marked. A new sense, different from smell or sight but as intuitive as breathing, or a sense of balance.

“Well that’s nifty,” I said, and picked up Gnome. The two of us chased after my quarry.

Time was against me. I was still learning, still making the slow climb from clueless marksman to shitty hunter, but the shadows advanced all the same. And I hunted.

I followed the furbo to a ravine, keeping my distance and allowing my mind to feel it moving along its edge, occasionally jumping down and across.

Eventually it stopped on a muddy island where the stream split in two, its armless body bent over, tiny tongue lapping at the flowing water. I felt bad about drawing my arrow back and readying the shot. If Brie was here she’d run in front, scoop the little fucker into her arms and take it home with us. If my niece was here, she’d shove me in the ravine first.

But I needed to eat. So I fired.

And missed. I sighed. This is hard.

As I watched my diminutive nemesis escape my clutches a second time, I made a mental note to myself:

Tomorrow you practice. Dummy.

My mark wasn’t so lucky at our next encounter. Maybe it was the chase that tired it out, but the little thing stopped further down in the water for another drink.

Thunk. The arrow knocked it off its feet.

Achievement Unlocked

- Make your first ranged kill -

You’re starting to get the hang of things. Don’t let it get to your head. I mean, I’m already in there. You know what I mean. Shut up.

Reward

- Favor +1 (6) -

“So you can use that thing after all,” Gnome said as I plonked him down in the mud. “I was beginning to worry. What is this substance?”

I knelt down to pull the arrow free and grab the furbo when I noticed a ripple in a puddle.

“Sapien, I fear I am sinking.”

“Shh.” The ripples gradually became more pronounced. The caws of birds drew my attention to the trees they had scattered from.

I heard the heavy footfalls before I saw the creature. Slow punctuated cracks of thunder preceded a hand the size of my head grip the side of a tree just above the ravine. I grabbed Gnome and dragged him over to the slope, where we could hide.

It was ten feet tall, maybe twelve, as it lumbered by, bending trees out of its way with moss covered hands. It ducked under the canopy, glowering ahead with yellow eyes. But its hair… oh, its hair.

Creature Discovered

- Forest Troll -

Challenge: 6

They’re a little bigger than the toys your sister used to play with, and a little more disheveled. Don’t hold it against them. Seriously, look at those hands. Now imagine it wrapped around your head.

The shock of green hair wasn’t as straight as I remembered. This one looked like it had come out of the other side of a nasty divorce with the battle scars to show for it. The right side of its hair was frizzy and spiked, and the other tangled around a hive of insects that were buzzing about its head. The creature swiped ineffectually at them. Bits of moss clung to its cheeks, and an enormous wooden shield hung off its back. Small critters and bugs crawled over its body, a fact the troll didn’t seem to mind.

It nearly snapped a tree in two while making way for its hulking stride. I waited and listened. It passed overhead, unaware of Gnome and I, and continued on its course. Slowly the footfalls faded, and my mind tugged me towards it.

“What are you doing?” Gnome inquired, a touch of worry in his voice. I picked him up, attached the furbo carcass to my belt, and climbed out of the ravine.

“We are going after that thing,” I said.

“Did you lose your wits back in that ditch? You could barely fell that rodent!”

“Bigger target, easier to hit. Or maybe I can trap it. Besides, it might take us somewhere interesting.”

The mimic protested fiercely as I started off after the troll, tracking far behind.