The next day came around and Raph was in the workshop practicing his weapon forging skills by making a longsword. He continued to practice for most of the morning making various types of weapons, even gaining a few levels in his second class.

You are now: Isaac’s Apprentice Lv.34

…

You are now: Isaac’s Apprentice Lv.36

Raph offered a spare room in the shop to Clark and he’d accepted it; they decided to go to the Guild and see if there were any jobs that could potentially get them to 50. They walked over to the board and began looking for anything that could help them. After looking over a few of the jobs Clark found one from a village requesting help from bandits. The odd thing about the request was that even though the difficulty said Iron rank there was a star next to it. Walking over to the counter they decided to see what that was about.

“Hi, could you tell us what the star means?” Raph asked the older bespectacled man, who he’d seen here before.

“The star indicates that this job, even though it is Iron ranked, will be difficult. I guess for this one in particular it will be because some of the targets are over level 50.” He explained.

Raph looked over to Clark who nodded in agreement.

“Ok, we will take this job.” Raph said.

As he said that they were both analyzed. “I just needed to make sure that you aren’t going to run off and get yourselves killed.” He said as he left only to return a minute later. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.” Raph said as they left for the carriage that was parked near the workshop.

The direction of the village had them heading out past the fields and then north, unlike the way they took to The Emerald Grotto. The village in question was called Wallowdale, it was relatively small with only around 1000 or so people living there. The information stated that a group of bandits had made camp a few kilometers outside the village and had been harassing caravans and parties that had been coming in and out. The bandits who apparently go by ‘The Blood Hawks’ have a reward of 2 gold for their removal.

The journey was a simple affair that took around 2 hours from when they set out at Langreth, they arrived at Wallowdale mid afternoon and were met by two guards at the front gate.

Raph looked at the guards when they arrived, both had mis-matched leather armor and a worn pike in their hands.

Your skill: Analyze has upgraded to Identify

Identify: Identify targets 100 levels above your own. Only very high level targets will detect identify.

Guard Lv.40

Warrior Lv.36

‘Huh, skill upgrade. Well I guess that makes things easier.’ Raph decided to dismount and speak to the guards.

“Good afternoon gentlemen.” He began.

“Hold.” The guard said as he readied his pike. “What’s yer business?”

“We are here to assist you with your bandit problem.” Raph said rather enthusiastically. He held out the job notice and his Guild Id in front of him.

The guard took a step forward to read the paper. “As you are.” He said and turned to his counterpart. “Let them through.”

“Thank you sir.” Raph said politely as he got back on the carriage, they continued up to what looked like a square with a large-ish municipal building heading it and an inn to the side.

Clark hitched the carriage up next to the inn while Raph walked inside to check it out. He walked up to the barman to see if he had any information.

“Not seen you before,” the pot-bellied barman said in a booming voice.

“Me and my friend just got here, we were looking for bandits.” Raph said quietly.

“Ahhhh, so that’s how it is.” The barman said, with a much lower voice this time. He looked over to the corner of the inn at a secluded table that had two men sitting at it.

“You want them.” He said, and left it at that.

Clark walked in and nodded to Raph as he followed him to the table pointed out by the barman.

“May we sit?” He said as he approached.

Now they were closer Raph got a better look at the two occupants. The man on the right had a wild air about him, his hair was unkempt, his clothes raggad, and his bare forearms were covered in scars. To contrast, the man on the left was well presented with combed hair and nice clean garments.

The man on the left looked up at Raph and Clark. “Of course, do take a seat.” He said as motioned for the two to sit.

“My name is Raph and this is Clark, we are here about your bandit problem. The barkeep pointed us this way.” Raph said as he stuck out his hand for the well kept gentleman.

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The gentleman returned the gesture. “Ah. A pleasure to meet you, my name is Jerome Curtis, and my friend here is Fletcher Bartley.” Jerome said.

He continued. “I am the mayor of this town and Fletcher here is our best hunter. It’s excellent you two showed up so promptly, I don’t know what we’d have done otherwise.” Fletcher just grunted in response.

As Jerome was speaking they heard a commotion outside so the four of them got upt to take a look.

“The tax will be increased by another 2 gold.” Raph heard a sinister voice say as he left the building, encountering a group of around 15 of the so-called Blood Hawks in the main square on horses.

Identify

Assassin Lv.52

Bandit Lv.36

...

Vagabond Lv.45

Only the speaker was above level 50, which filled Raph with some confidence. As the approached Raph motioned for Clark to hang back and keep quiet, he didn't want to draw any attention to them yet.

“2 more gold?” Jerome shouted. “That’s absurd”

“It’s 2 more gold by tomorrow or we take two people of my choice.” The assassin said with an evil smile. With that final decree they turned and left the village back to wherever they came from.

Raph turned to Fletcher seemingly confident that he was a capable man despite his outward appearance.

“Do you know where their camp is?” Raph asked him.

“I do not. But if we are quick and you’re serious about this we should be able to track the group that just left.” Fletcher said confidently.

“Alright, Clark, will I be able to ride one of the horses?” Raph asked.

“Yeah boss, these are the best trained in Langreth, you have my word on that.” He said with a smile.

“Alright get them ready, quick as you can. We will follow them.” Raph ordered.

“I’ve seen remains of a forward camp before.” Fletcher continued. “They might be stopping there so they don't have to travel through the night.”

While they were getting the things ready Raph prepared for a potential fight by taking out his hammers. The hammers Isaac had given him had the ability to change their mass, since he had a massive strength upgrade he thought now would be a good time to fix that. Focusing on the hammers he kept increasing their mass, up to 600kg each which was plenty heavy for Raph at this point. Satisfied he stored them back in his ring when no one was looking.

Clark came over with the horses and Fletcher with his. It took Raph a few minutes to get used to it, but maybe due to his new high Dex. stat it was fairly easy and they were on the trail in no time.

Raph and Clark followed Fletcher while he tracked the group of bandits. Clark was occasionally whispering to his horse while they rode, Raph wasn’t sure if that was a class thing or a Clark thing. Eventually Fletcher motioned for them to stop and dismount, they were currently in a forested hillock and just over the crest was a small clearing well covered on all sides. The bandit group were camped out there and they seemed to be preparing dinner, with a pot over a small fire in the middle of them.

Raph turned to Fletcher.

Identify

Fletcher Bartley -- Hunter Lv.53

‘Hmmm.’ Raph thought for a moment. “Feltcher I can see that you’re quite strong but you don't have to help us fight them, we will be fine by ourselves.” He said.

Fletcher narrowed his eyes at Raph as if he was looking at some kind of prey. “I will be fine.” He said, clearly not one for words.

“Alright.” Raph said in a whisper. “Clark, can you get their attention with the horses?”

Clark nodded, “Sure can.” He moved over the crest of the hill to get a good look at the horses that the bandits had with. Using dominate he controlled two of them and got them to break free from their hitch and start running around the camp.

Raph obstructed his hands from view and pulled his hammers out, while Fletcher grabbed the bow from his back. Raph nodded towards Fletcher as he moved towards the group of bandits with his hammers akimbo.

Activating Forged Hammers while he went in for the first hit as his hammers started to glow. Raph struck his target; one of the weaker bandits he identified earlier, he made a clean connection to the bandits head. As you can imagine, in a contest between a 600kg hammer and someone's head, well let’s just say the hammer won and leave it at that. Raph was taking them down like a bulldozer, he was unstoppable when he activated Forceful and Amplified Sound to disorientate the enemies.

There were only two left in Raph's view, moving towards them to end the fight he suddenly felt a great danger emerge from behind him and then a pain in his right side. He spun around as quickly as his body would allow, activating Eruption and swinging both hammers behind horizontally to his right side. As he turned around he caught sight of the Assassin, unfortunately for him he wasn’t fast enough to evade Raph’s Eruption and he was hit full force by both of Raph’s hammers. The noise was sickening, guttural and violent. The Assassin died without really knowing what happened.

Fletcher finished off one of the two remaining bandits and wounded the other, while Clark re-gained control of the horses.

You have slain: Bandit Lv.36

....

You have salin: Assassin Lv.52

You are now: Breaker Lv.47

You are now: Breaker Lv.48

You are now: Isaac’s Apprentice Lv.37

...

You are now: Isaac’s Apprentice Lv.39

“Phew,” Raph said as he looked at the large cut in his side, “That was close.” He took a health potion out of his ring and drank it, wincing at the taste.

Raph searched the Assassin for anything useful and found a few silver and a nice looking dagger that he would give to Clark. Walking over to Fletcher and Clark who were currently interrogating the last bandit for information, he handed the dagger to Clark.

“Oh, this is nice. Thanks boss.” Clark said as he inspected the dagger.

“Found out anything?” Raph asked Fletcher.

“Yeah, this little idiot spilt everything.” Fletcher smiled. The bandit on the floor was looking at Raph with pure unbridled fear in his eyes, apparently what he did to the rest of the group had made quite the impression on him.

“I have a good idea where they are hiding now. There’s this old hunters outpost way up in the forest, seems like Thornton’s made himself a little base of operations up there.” Fletcher explained.

“Thornton? Is that the leader or something?” Raph asked.

“Thornton the Hawk, yes. He’s the leader of our problem and quite the fighter.” Fletcher said.

“Right, ok. Let’s get a move on and find that hideout.” Raph said, as they began to gather their things and get the horses. It took them a while to find the hideout as it was hidden in a dense and secluded area of the forest. By the time they got there it was already dark, they hitched the horses a ways down the hill from the hideout so as not to spook anyone. The trio sneaked up to the camp, it was only four low buildings surrounded by a wooden spiked wall with some sentries outside.