Chapter 11

Joe was staring at his armor on the anvil, it had only taken 20 minutes to fix the rings on his armor. The thief had used poignards, a long narrow blade, to stab him. They were designed to bypass chainmail by being narrower than the diameter of the rings.. The rings had been stretched, but not actually broken. Joe thought back on the fight, the thief must have been dumping almost all of his stat points into dexterity. A typical glass cannon type. All damage focus and no defence. He had to admit though, if the thief had started the fight with a backstab he would have most likely died. He needed to remind himself the world had changed, he had been shot in Ramadi in 2006 and spent four months in the body shop. This time he had been almost been killed and was on his feet ready to fight two hours later fully healed. Their opponents this time were over twice their level, better gear and his First bonuses would only help them so much. They needed to level up, badly.

They spent the rest of the day loading up the two wagons and were starting to build a third when they struck gold in a neighbor's backyard. Up here people liked to use the remains of old farm equipment and wagons as decorations. In the backyard was a good sized wagon the missing neighbors had been using as a raised flower bed. Once it was cleared off, a few rotted boards replaced and the wheels axles greased it was good to go. In fact with the new wagon they were going to have to leave one of the smaller wagons behind. It would take both Carl and Joe to pull the larger wagon. That would leave the smaller wagon to Rachel and the rest of the party could help push as needed. What they really needed was horses, but every barn they had come across the horses had been eaten or ran off.

Carl watched in amazement as his 400 pound forge anvil disappeared into his inventory. It took up one full slot but who cared it beat the hell out of loading it and carrying it in a wagon. He filled the other five slots with his iron working tools. He was staring at his piles of coal when Joe patted him on the shoulder, “Don’t worry about it, I’ll be able to make you a rune forge easy enough.”

Carl turned to look at him, “How does a rune forge work?.”

Joe replied, “Just a matter of choosing the right runes, then setting it up so you can use your mana ta power it. Should be a piece of cake, only down side you will need ta rest and recover your mana now and then. Beats the hell out of making charcoal and California is not a easy place ta find coal.” Clapping Carl on the shoulder Joe said, “Just focus on the things it will be hard for us ta replace, tools, your anvils, things like that.” Joe smiled as Carl started rooting around in his piles of metal and headed over to where his dogs were all watching the packing going on.

Joe focused on Crace, she had changed more as the night progressed. It appeared as though the trauma had forced her to use the troll hide as a catalyst to evolve. Graces head was broader, her hair had turned green, and she had put on about 40 pounds of muscle. Grace had also gone through about 40 pounds of dog food. The weirdest thing was the armor was still attached to her, the mounting bolts and straps were all gone and he had no idea how the armor was staying in place. Considering he was now a dwarf he decided it didn’t really matter. He rubbed Graces ears and headed over to the piles of gear. They needed to get packed and on the road before anything else happened.