Chapter Fourteen

**Charbur Forest**

Several calm hours past as Jason and Vanna trekked through the forest’s ancient oak trees. The highway, while well-kept and clear of large logs, did not seem to get a lot of traffic as Jason and Vanna had not crossed a single other traveler yet. It was hard for Jason to tell the time because the forest’s canopy covered the highway, but luckily enough light past through the leaves that they could see. To pass time, Vanna and Jason talked about their old lives.

“So I know you’re 91 years old and I know you’re from Tennessee, but what did you do?” Jason asked.

“I was a school teacher first, Honey,” Vanna began. “Then my daddy got sick. He had a stud farm north of Nashville and I moved back home to take care of him and the horses. He had cancer so I was preparing for the worst and I tried to get the farm together so it could be sold when he past. But then I met my husband. He was a farmhand for my daddy. When my daddy finally died my husband proposed to me. I quit my teaching job, stopped trying to sell the farm, and we worked together there for fifty-two year until the day he died. Of course when we got old our own children did most of the work around the place.” Vanna went silent and Jason wondered in the shaded light if he could see hints of a tear or not.

“Sounds like you had a good life,” Jason said and he meant it. Even though he had been successful it all felt meaningless because he had no one to share his joy with. Heck if I had been happy I wouldn’t even be in this game, I’d spending my life with people I loved and loved to be around.

“It was,” Vanna said quietly. “I’m sorry honey, thinking about my family chokes me up.”

Jason wanted to offer a hug but he always felt awkward even around those he was close to. Instead he said, “doesn’t your family message you? Do any of them play the game, you could see them that way?”

Vanna wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, “William messages me occasionally, and so does my daughter. They all have busy lives on the other side and can’t waste their time in a game.” She sighed, “still its better being away from them and having the memories of them then being in chemo coma.”

Jason smiled at her positive outlook but still regretted how he had wasted his life so far. “Thank you Vanna,” Jason said.

The woman turned towards him and gave a confused look, “for what Honey?”

“For being my friend,” Jason said. “You’ll never know how lonely I was but I’m so much happier now.”

Vanna smiled back at him and was about to say something when her face twisted into a smile. She pointed her hand towards the sky and said, “look.”

Jason craned his head up towards the canopy and saw a wake of large fat birds circling ahead. One cawed loudly, calling its brethren. “Vultures,” Jason guessed. He was well aware of their features. As a child he had to be vigilant of the birds while he played outside with Skippy, the dog.

“And when they’re like that it means only on thing,” Vanna said. “Let’s move carefully for a while, you and Skippy walk behind me,” she commanded.

Jason didn’t hesitate to follow her orders and let her move ahead of him. Skippy neighed warily but continued forward. “It’s okay,” Jason whispered as he brushed the donkey’s head.

All of a sudden Vanna stopped in the road, “don’t move,” she whispered. Jason wouldn’t have been able to move if he wanted to, no more than a hundred yards down the road where the highway began to bend a pack of wolves were feasting on a pair of unidentifiable corpses.

Vanna slowly gestured for Jason to move towards the trees for coverage. As they moved one of the wolves hoisted its head up and stared straight at their location. Luckily the bush they hid behind prevented the wolf from seeing them and the predator craned its head back down to continue eating.

“What are we going to do?” Jason whispered.

“I don’t know,” Vanna said. “Stay quiet, I’m going to try and scan them. You’ll get a description of them in a second.” Vanna poked her head out from the bush and stared at the pack. A moment later a notification appeared in Jason view.

**Party member Vanna has scanned a hostile group**

Wolf Pack Status: Undetected

Beta Male Wolf

Level: 2

Status: N/A

Beta Male Wolf

Level: 3

Status: N/A

Beta Female Wolf

Level: 2

Status: N/A

Alpha Male Wolf

Level: 5

Status: N/A

“So,” Jason said nervously, “what should we do.”

“It’s going to be a close call, but I think we can take them,” Vanna said indifferently, “but you’re going to have to follow my lead because you could easily become a liability in this fight.” Vanna pointed her finger at the largest of the wolves and a slight red icon appeared before it in Jason’s vision. “That’s the alpha,” Vanna said. “If we kill him the others should run away. That means if we can get one good fast attack in and kill him we will be alright.” She rubbed her hands and thought for a second then continued, “I want you to sneak on the far side of the road they aren’t on. I’m going to sneak up on the side they are on. Your going to jump up and distract them then I’m going to try and get a surprise attack on the alpha while they are focused on you. There’s not much room for failure, I’m almost certain any of them could take you in a one on one fight and I can’t fight all four of them.”

Jason nodded his head warily, for once afraid that he might die.

“Do you understand Jason,” Vanna said seriously.

Jason nodded again vigorously then hastily repeated what he was to do.

“Good,” Vanna said with a nod, “lets do this quick while they’re distracted on the food.” Vanna rushed to the other side of the highway and waited a second to ensure her movement hadn’t been detected. The wolves continued to eat their food, Vanna gave a nod and started to move.

Jason looked at Skippy nervously, he had nothing to tie the donkey’s reins to. “Stay,” Jason whispered firmly to the animal then started to move. Even though it’s effect was nominal, Jason activated his sneak ability. Once activated his body seemed to crouch down of its own will and Jason noticed that his footsteps were slightly quieter as he attempted to nimbly traverse between trees. Jason tried to find Vanna on the other side of the road, but she was no where in sight.

After a few slow minutes Jason stopped roughly ten yards away from where the wolves were eating their food. Jason took a closer look at the predator’s meal and his stomach churned. One of the corpses was a small muscular pig, but all that was left of the animal was its ribcage poking out from its mauled body like a bloody crown. Half the pig’s face was torn off and Jason could see brains oozing out of it’s skull, blood pooled on the ground. Even worse was the second corpse, Jason assumed it was a young man. Jason gagged once his sense of smell returned after recovering from the shock of the scene. The young man must have relieved himself as he was dying for mixed with the metallic scent of blood was the rancid sweet musk of human excrement. A large portion of the man’s neck was missing and Jason hoped the wolves had killed him quickly instead of feeding on a live victim.

A couple trees away from Jason a branch cracked up in the canopy. Jason and the wolves paused and looked up and saw one of the sickly vultures land and wait for its turn to feed. Vanna please be ready, Jason prayed then he jumped out of the trees onto the path.

The wolves craned their heads away from the canopy and stared at Jason. Their hollow eyes quickly tried to calculate Jason’s threat level. But before one could move Jason saw Vanna silently emerge from the trees behind them. With two hands, her sword was raised behind her head. In one fell swoop she sliced at the back of the alpha wolf’s neck. With a grisly snap the canine’s neck cracked and it’s head was cleanly separated from it’s body. Before any of the betas could react Vanna already had her sword swinging at another wolf. Her blade slashed the side of the nearest wolf and blood started to pour out of the creature.

Vanna and Jason had made a deadly mistake. Instead of running once their leader was killed the remaining wolves went into a rage. The two uninjured wolves pounced on Vanna simultaneously and if it were not for her leather armor, piece of flesh would have been torn from her body. The injured wolf limped away from the fight towards Jason. It growled angrily and with its remaining strength jumped at the trader. Jason dodge to the right but the wild dog had caught one of his legs and Jason fell to the ground; he felt blood begin to ooze from where the wolf’s paw caught his leg. Jason rolled to face the wolf and saw it limping towards Jason’s fallen position. Jason desperately pulled his dagger out and pointed it at the wolf.

Just before the wolf was going to jump at Jason a loud howl sounded out. The wolf paused and looked in the direction of the sound as did Jason. The distraction seemed to have also saved Vanna’s life as well, Jason saw. She had killed one of the wolves, but the other had her pinned weaponless to the ground; its teeth ready to shred apart her neck.

From the trees emerged a wolf at least six feet tall and ebony black. It’s eyes were cold black coals that stared down at the scene. It howled once more and the two surviving wolves ran away from the scene without hesitation. The giant wolf took one last panoramic glance at the wounded Vanna and Jason then disappeared back into the trees.

Jason and Vanna laid still for a few minutes in shock from the fight. Eventually Jason saw Vanna pull herself up and he was relieved to see she wasn’t injured. “Are you ok?” she called to Jason.

“One of them swiped my leg, but otherwise I’m okay,” Jason replied. His health bar wasn’t draining so he assumed he didn’t have a bleeding effect active. Vanna came over and help him up.

“It doesn’t look bad, but we need to wrap it or it might get infected,” Vanna said. Without hesitating she walked to the dead man and ripped the cleanest section of his tunic off. She returned to Jason and tied his leg with the makeshift bandage.

“What was that thing?” Jason asked.

“I got a weak scan of it before it ran off. It was a level 12 Direwolf,” Vanna responded.

“Like, a real monster?” Jason continued nervously. Why didn’t it attack us, we were wounded and several levels below it?

“Yeah, lucky for us it wasn’t hungry. Now lets get moving before those wolves think about coming back.”

“Wait, what about them,” Jason said pointing towards the man and the pig. They walked towards the corpses and stared at them. “Who do you think he was?” Jason muttered.

“Well this is an oak forest and that pig isn’t being raised for meat so I’m going to guess he was a truffle hunter,” Vanna deduced.

“What should we do with the bodies? People could be looking for him.”

“He probably lived in the forest,” Vanna said.

“Let’s at least move his body off the road and try to bury him.”

“Ok, but take his boot, shoes aren’t cheap in this world,” Vanna said grimly.

Jason was shocked by the woman’s callousness, but he guessed she was used to death after living on a farm for most of her life. She probably had to see many of her favorite horses die over the years. The black leather boots slid off the dead man easily and Jason remembered Skippy. “Skippy,” Jason called out, worried the donkey might have ran away or was caught by the fleeing wolves. Thankfully, the donkey came trotting down the road a few seconds latter and stopped in front of Jason. Skippy licked Jason’s hand and in turn Jason patted the donkey’s head. Jason stowed the boots in Skippy’s saddle bag then turned back to the bodies.

“See,” Vanna said holding out a black golf ball sized sphere, “this is a truffle. It’s small but we can probably sell it for a little bit of money in Laxtar.”

Together they dragged the bodies to an indent a couple meters off from the road. They piled leaves and branches on top of the bodies hoping it would prevent any wild animal from finding the corpses.

“It must have been awful for him,” Jason commented as he wiped his hands on his pants.

“Probably, but it’s a wild world, Honey. We’ve already lost enough time let’s get moving.”