Name

Gwen Baird

Armour

3

Class

Hunter

Health

25

Level

5

Dodge

1

Species

Half-Elf (Wood/Human)

Species Skills (Half-Elf)

Strength

6

Elf Sight

5

Agility

5

Base Skills (Hunter)

Body

5

Stealth

7

Mind

6

Perception

5

Sense

6

Tracking

6

Charm

6

Archery

6

The reason Gwen knew she was alive again, really properly alive, not just awake and talking, was because the pain came back with a crash that she could feel in her nerves like someone had hit them with a chainsaw.

She didn't shout or swear in anything approaching a recognisable language, instead she gave a yelp that tore at her throat as it left her. She was left lying back on the stone altar just about managing to breathe and feeling the tears trickle down the sides of her face to the stone. She felt bereft and oddly vulnerable. As if she had been scoured of an outer shell that had been protecting her from the world.

There was another series of thumps in some other room in the temple and the priest came running in.

Nikolai looked completely flabbergasted to see her, which told her pretty clearly that he didn't see people respawning in his temple very often. But he came over once he had hurdled that moment of shock and looped an arm around her shoulders to help her up into a sitting position.

"What happened?"

"Monsters, at Jessica's farm. We fought them," she looked around and let out a sigh of relief, "I'm the only one here, the others must have made it." Or, she thought, Marina made it and the others didn't but got sent off into one of a hundred different directions.

But that was a grim thought and she was too raw still to allow for that kind of salt to be rubbed into her wounds, so she shook the thought away like a pesky fly.

Nikolai had been talking, but she hadn't been paying attention.

"Sorry, sorry, I'm not fully with it yet, can you say that again?" Gwen winced, she had tried to turn to look at him and her body was very happy to remind her that moving was not something it approved of.

"Oh, oh goddess, don't move," he said, lifting a hand over her chest he started to mutter a prayer. The spell he used glowed and felt like the warmth of sunny day, so she gratefully sank back against his support and basked in it. Her health, which had been a glaring red, started to rebuild and once it had ticked over the half-way mark it turned green again.

He pulled his hand away and she pushed up off the altar to sit under her own strength.

"Thank you," she said. She was leaning forwards with her elbows on her thighs and her back bowed as she gulped in breaths.

"The pain should go soon now you've got some health back, breathe deep, now," he spoke awkwardly, as if he was reading off a recommended list of things to say to the newly risen from the dead.

She gave him a look.

He blushed. "It's been a while since I've had to heal much beyond the usual farmyard accidents," he explained, "I fear I may be out of practice."

She laughed, the chuckle battering around in the echoing drum of her chest, "You're doing fine. What's happened since Marina and I left?"

"Not a great deal, at least nothing that caught my eye. You were lucky that I fell asleep while reading in my study, otherwise you may have had to come find me," He said. "If you are feeling up to it, shall we get you on your feet?"

"That sounds like a good idea," Gwen said, before grunting and moving off the altar in shaky lurches.

"What happened to you, beyond monsters and being in the wrong place at the wrong time?" he asked drily as she wobbled while holding onto his arm.

"We got to the farm, they were surrounded by a lot of monsters, still not really sure how many," she could admit that now, it wasn't possible to avoid it when she realised she couldn't tell Nikolai how many monsters there had been. That seemed like a glaring omission now that she had come out the other side of the battle with one more traumatic experience to add to her list. "There were a couple of Adventurers who had been hiding on the farm with them. They'd been keeping an eye on the monsters. Their numbers were growing, every dawn, like Adventurers coming back, like me, I guess," she rambled for a moment, then brought her mouth back under control, "so last night we sneaked out and started killing as many as we could before they noticed us."

"I take it that they noticed you," he said.

"Yeah," she said, "Yeah, that they did. There was one big monster, I, uh, took it on myself." Again, hindsight was making her want to kick herself, only she was too damaged right now, she would have to do it later.

"And so you ended up here," Nikolai's voice was carefully non-judgemental.

"I killed it and it crushed me, and no one else has turned up so it worked," she said defensively.

"You have an interesting idea of what constitutes a success," he said.

She didn't disagree with him. But her pride was still stinging, so she took her hand off his arm. Her knees wobbled but she braced against the altar, she had the warning from Dove. But how to phrase it? She couldn't just announce that an all powerful godlike figure had told her to warn the village of an oncoming monstrous hoard.

She thought for a moment.

No, she decided, that would raise more questions and if she didn't know how to answer the basic ones it couldn't be a good idea to bring in more complicated ones.

She took a breath and settled for, "the number of monsters in the woods seem to be rising. Is there anyone in the village who can fight? Or even anyone who can just throw stones or build a wall quickly, with what's coming I don't think we have the time to be picky over what kind of aid is offered."

Nikolai frowned and scratched his raspy chin, "myself and my husband, of course, but not for some years. And I think a few in the village helped with the northern defences, keeping the necromantic armies from intruding on the farmlands, in their youth. But to be blunt, this village is not prepared for war. Our greatest defence in the past has been in being beneath the notice of potential attackers."

That felt familiar. Certain memories tried to grab onto her but she ignored their sharp claws. "Right then, I need to get into the centre of the village. Forewarned is forearmed, even if it's not much of a warning," she started to walk forwards before hissing in a breath; she had moved. That wasn't wise.

"If the colour your cheek just turned is any clue, I don't think you'll be managing this by yourself any time soon. I'll come with you," he gave her a look when she started to disagree. It buttoned her lip shut with efficiency to spare.

Gwen dipped her head into a bow.

"Most folk will still be asleep, dawn is particularly early at this time of year and few try to match it," he started to lead her through the temple.

A gasp from the doorway. Gwen looked up, standing in the pink and gold light of the dawn was a young woman. Her hair was slicked back into a braid and she wore a simple dress in a dappled blue. She had opened the door with one hand, while the other was keeping her upright on a crutch. Only one leg was visible beneath her skirt.

"Wylla, go back to the village. There might be an attack coming, monsters from the forest. Warn everyone you can find and then get them to start banging on doors. After that I need you to go to the Inn and tell whoever's awake there that they need to clear the cellar out," Nikolai ordered quickly, it was clear he was relieved to have someone to deputise.

Wylla's face was struck with fear for a moment, then grim determination took over. She nodded once, then spun and started back to the village.

Gwen nodded, her hand drifting to her hip. Her belongings had stayed where her body fell, hopefully her sister would think to bring it all back, "Do you know where I can find a sword, and maybe a bow?" She might as well make use of all those levels of Archery skill she had earned at the farm.

Nikolai nodded, "Come on, we have a wee bit of an armoury at my house. We'll be able to loan you something." He pointed to a house on the outskirts of the village, "Think you can make it that far?"

She nodded, "As long as you don't mind taking it a bit slower than usual?"

"Of course," He gave her one of his arms to lean on and Gwen sacrificed her pride to be led across the village.

As Nikolai walked her up to his cottage one of the neighbouring doors opened, "What's all this then?" A middle-aged woman called out to them. She was dressed in a night gown and what appeared to be several blankets draped around her like a chrysalis.

"There might be an attack coming, monsters, not like we've seen before. Speak to Wylla if you want to know more, I need to get armed," Nikolai called back before pulling the door open and briskly ushering Gwen through.

"There's a box at the back of the cupboard we use for our coats, it should have some spare weaponry for you. Not sure how much of it will fit someone your height, but better than nothing," he ran a hand over the back of his head sheepishly, "And, uh, I need to go explain to my husband what the hell is going on."

There were noises coming from the floor above them and Nikolai jogged off to the stairs that had been carved, it looked like, out of a single squat tree and curled up to where a hole had been cut into the wooden floor above.

Gwen stopped. Somehow, being told to rifle through someone else's cupboards felt more alien than all the monsters and magic in the game so far. She kept an eye on where the Priest had gone, hoping somehow that he would turn back and absolve her of the awkwardness of the task. He didn't, instead he ran up the stairs as if it was a perfectly normal thing to instruct a complete stranger to look through the contents of your cupboards.

Maybe it is, Gwen thought, maybe it's just you who thinks this is weird. Maybe it's just you that is making this weird.

Taking a gulp of breath, she turned to the cupboard. It was the usual Station to Narnia Special. Big, rectangular, it had two thinner doors on the front hiding the contents of a broader inside. A very nice handle had carvings of a flower that she was unfamiliar with.

You're wasting time so you can put off doing the awkward thing, Gwen thought; taking another breath she did her best to square up to the challenge and, with another look over her shoulder in case Nikolai had come to rescue her, she opened up the wardrobe a hair. The door didn't even have the decency to creak so she couldn't feel like she was giving everyone ample warning and opportunity to tell her to step back.

Fuck's sake, Gwen, you can't lie and you can't go through other people's cupboards even with their explicit permission, you're shocking example of a thief, you are.

Trying to force her head on right she adopted the role of an aloof thief about her shoulders like a cloak. She had been a thief, gods damn it, and not just a thief but a good one. She was just out of practise. The aloof part she had never really gotten a good handle on, but she was trying, didn't she get credit for that? She took a peak at her skills table, but since nothing was moving there it looked like the answer was a very firm no.

And, to be fair, I never did the whole breaking and entering thing, she thought, allowing herself a moment of grace before she got back into the hectoring mode. Now hurry up and get your shit together, the harder you are to kill the less likely you are to feel that pain again. She shivered as she remembered the agony she had felt as she had slotted back into reality after dying.

That at least got her hands moving. There were a lot of winter cloaks in the wardrobe, clearly packed away during the warmer seasons, her fingers itched to run through the thick furs and soft leathers that were there, but she had wasted time enough.

Quickly she pushed through, trying to find the box. It found her, the lack of heavy fabric in front of it allowing it to fall forwards and land into her arms. She let out a loud 'oof' noise, and then lowered the box to the ground.

It had a weight to it that promised a pretty good supply: even if it was just filed with broken crockery there would likely be enough of it to put up a pretty lethal last stand. Gwen smirked at the thought of facing off against monsters with somebody's cracked china mugs, then her fingers finally untied the loops of string holding the box closed.

Opening it up she was surprised; it was better than she had guessed. It wasn't just an old Adventurers' junk and odds and ends box, but an actually decent armoury. If in miniature. At the very least, she realised as she tugged one of the scabbards on top out, they were well preserved. The leather had been oiled once and without any hands to work it in, some still lingered.

Pulling the sword from the scabbard she looked along its shining length. It was different to her previous sword, this one had a rounded hilt, less like a cross, more like an arch. The blade itself was leaf shaped, with veins scratched into the metal along it, the lines, she realised, must be to direct blood away from the hand of the wielder.

A handy adaption, I suppose, if you are carving through enough bodies that getting your hands slippery with blood is a problem, she thought. She swished it back and forth a few times before nodding in appreciation.

While the sword and everything else on her avatar had disappeared when she had died – hopefully staying behind where she had fallen – the belt had stayed with her. She tied the sword on with a twisting knot that she hoped wouldn't come lose any time soon. There was a dagger to balance her other hip, which she tied on after checking its condition.

There were a few other bits and pieces in the box. One of them was a very nice hammer with a beastly looking spike at the end: for smashing in heads. Gwen, however, had been having luck with her fast and agile style of fighting and she didn't want to chance a new style now.

Plus, there were all the levels she had put into her Sword Fighting skill. Better to stick with what she knew.

There was a shield too, but it had odd curves cut out of it and she didn't have the first idea how to use that, well no, she acknowledged. She knew the point was to get it between you and anyone trying to hit you with something, but that seemed fairly simplistic, this was not a beginner's shield, so best to leave it to the experts.

Sword and dagger will do, she decided, it would have to, unless she tried out a few of what appeared to be ninja throwing stars, and she wasn't quite that brave. They looked like they were as likely to take the wielder's fingers off as the enemies', and she wasn't ready to find out if magic was up to fixing that or not.

Closing the wooden box she stood up in time to see a second man coming down the stairs, someone she hadn't met before.

"I'm not stealing anything," she said in a rush.

"I know, Nikolai said you were borrowing some weaponry," he looked at her with a frown, "Guilty conscience?"

She sighed, some thief you are. "Not one that's currently relevant."

"Right, glad to hear it," he stepped off the final step of the stairs and walked towards her with hand ready to shake, "I'm Edgar, Nikolai's husband and the guard captain of the village."

You fucking idiot, she did not say but she thought it very loudly. Perhaps loudly enough that he might have picked up on it, since he was smirking a little as shook her hand.

"You home is lovely," Gwen said with a glassy smile.

"Thank you, now I hear there are monsters?" He was still grinning at her, but she deserved it so she didn't say anything.

She explained the general shape of the last day for her. The great deal of running, the getting crushed under a woolly mammoth/beetle thing, the worries that the monsters might be going to the next unprepared target they could reach.

As she told him all she could think of that might be relevant and useful she tried to judge him as accurately as he had her.

He was probably about the same height as Nikolai, but where Nikolai was lean and angular, Edgar was wide. It was almost like he had been built out of a series of blocks: the corners barely rounded off by the coarse fabric jerkin he wore over sleeveless arms. Edgar had dark brown skin and short hair and the air of someone with extreme competence in a world that fell far short of his most basic expectations.

She shook his hand after a moment of it hanging in the air in front of her, then blushed. "Have I mentioned that your house is very nice?" she added.

"Yes, but it's worth repeating, I'm very proud of it," he said with a shrug.

At that point Nikolai clattered down the stairs, his arms full of weapons and bits of armour. "Not sure what we have that will fit you, Gwen, but we should at least be able to give you a helmet to keep your head safe," he said, tossing her one. It was a bit bashed in places, but the metal still looked strong and whole and there was a fabric coif inside that would stop her head from rattling around inside.

"Thank you," she said with some relief, her head had started to feel very exposed.

Though that might be because Edgar was still looking at her as if he could read her mind.

She ducked her head and pushed the coif and the helmet on after. The fabric helped a lot, but what really ensured that the helmet fitted correctly was the long rope of hair she had that squashed flat across the back of her head creating a cushioning effect there. She wiggled her head from side to side, it didn't move overmuch.

A notification popped up, whilst Edgar and Nikolai were talking she checked on it.

You have gained +1 Armour for using 'Basic Iron Bascinet' you now have +4 Armour.

That ushered in a mix of feelings. It was good to know she was more armoured, but it wasn't fantastic to find out how low on that count she had been. She wasn't sure how Armour worked, but she had a pretty good reason to believe that +4 was kind of rubbish. It was not immensely reassuring to find that when she looked deeper into that subject, by opening up her notifications panel, that her bracers were the source of one of those points and the gambeson the other two. The Basic Iron Bascinet was clearly a very basic bascinet.

But better than absolutely nothing on your head, she thought. She tuned back into the conversation that was happening around her.

"If we can get everyone to the guard house then we'll at least have stone walls to protect us," Edgar was saying.

"And what, leave the rest of the village to be taken over? We can't even fit all of the village into the guard house, it's not much beyond a cell and a room with a desk. We can't fight if we're standing on top of each other," Nikolai countered, "the Inn has the space to take everyone and is sturdier than anywhere else in the village. It's also closer."

"Gwen what do you think?" Edgar asked looking over at Gwen who felt ambushed by his attention, "only the ground floor of the inn is built in stone, everything above it is wood, I worry that that might be a recipe for disaster."

Oh gods, one of those 'Oi adventurer,' questions, she thought. She licked her lips, stalling for time as she thought over her answer, "The inn: I like having height on my side and we need the space to move if they break in, there's no point in us cramming everyone in and losing our ability to fight because of it." The second reason was the better one, but the first was the honest one. It wasn't a good reason, but so far when she had kept gravity on her side things had worked out for the best.

The answer was not welcomed by either man; they accepted it, though Nikolai looked like he was about to retract his vote for the inn for a second.

"And it will be even better if we can build plenty of defences around the inn, to stop the monsters getting a good purchase on the houses. We don't want them holing up in someone's front room, or something," she added. That at least seemed to be more the kind of thing they were wanting her to say.

Edgar nodded and strode out of the house, calling back, "I'll go to the guard house, see if I can find anything else we can use."

"Some pikes would be useful!" Nikolai called after him, Edgar raised a hand to show he had heard before breaking into a jog.

"Right," Gwen said, surprising the both of them with her new determination, "Let's go pester everyone into going into the middle of the village where they won't get eaten by monsters!"

Nikolai somehow found something in that to relax about, and he gave her a grin, "sure."

***

By the time they had reached the centre of the village Gwen was almost fully healed, though the dark section over the last eighth of her health seemed to be stuck there for now. As she poked at it an alert was prompted:

Shadow of Death: Health will be reduced by 12.5% until you complete a long rest.

She sighed. Well, that's just the sort of thing you want to hear right before a fight, she thought.

A mob had gathered in front of the inn. The people there were split between the furious and the scared, and those who were still in their bed clothes and those who had managed to gather some sort of armour.

Wylla stood to one side while a woman who looked like Gwen but with an additional twenty years and a full right leg was whispering a lecture to her. Wylla was obviously paying only a token amount of attention, as when Gwen and Nikolai appeared she let out a shout, "the Adventurer's here!"

The eyes of the crowd shot to Gwen, it made her jerk to a halt, before she continued on. There had been a moment of silence, then everyone seemed to be determined to have their words beat at her. A light caught her eye, a quest notification, now? She brought it up:

Quest: Motivate the villagers to defend their homes, Part 1 of Defend the Village Quest

Accept: Yes/No

Rewards: ???

The option not to take the quest was faded out, apparently the choice wasn't hers. And question marks stood in the place of stated rewards, she didn't like that much either. Maybe it makes me greedy, but I like to see what I'm earning before I start the work.

She blinked away the message and followed in Nikolai's wake. Like a bodyguard, Nikolai helped her make her way through the ranks of villagers to a spot in front of the inn where a mounting block for horses had been built long ago. Nikolai helped her climb it, with his actions making it clear that he expected her to explain what was going on and he was leaving it all on her shoulders.

Once she reached the top, she was head and shoulders over even the tallest in the crowd and they quietened looking up at her. Gwen tried not to gulp too obviously. It was not the time to show fear, they might be her allies but she needed them brave and that wasn't going to work if she looked like she was about to bolt.

"Last night I died defending Jessica's farm out in the woods," she started.

There were gasps and whispers of, "she's an Adventurer?"

She continued, "those of us at the farm, and yes there were other Adventurers there, believe that the monsters will strike here next. We need to build defences and get ready for an attack."

"Why should we listen to you? You've already admitted you died fighting these things, how do we know that you're not just really bad at it?" Wylla shouted across the crowd.

There were more murmurs at that. Some in agreement, but also some in shock or scorn.

"Look, I'm not going to stand here and tell you that I'm the best fighter in the world. But I'm pretty decent, and these creatures that we fought aren't like anything you and your village will have faced before," she took a breath, "Unless someone hasn't mentioned regular attacks by monsters that are half one thing and half another. Like scorpion tailed wolves or beetles with the heads of pigs?"

There were shaking heads beneath her.

"There were so many at the farm that they slept in a circle that ran the whole way around it, just outside of bow range. Maybe you will find them easy enough to fight, but there are too many for them to not get plenty of lucky shots in, this isn't one or two monsters and they will not be scared off. This is an army."

Wylla nodded, her question had been answered.

"If anyone cannot fight, you need to get them out of danger and behind every defence you can afford. And if you can fight, I'll be fighting alongside you the best I can. But there's not a chance in hell of me winning by myself, luckily Nikolai and Edgar have agreed to stand for you, who is going to stand for them?"

That wasn't bad, she thought, but her heart still took a sharp nosedive after there was a worryingly long pause once she had finished.

"This is my village, so I can hardly leave it's defending to a strange Adventurer, can I?" Wylla shouted back, "I'll stand with them, though." She nodded at the men standing beside Gwen.

"Well, fair enough," Gwen said with a shrug, "Anyone else?"

As if Wylla had inspired them, or shamed them, the rest of the village started to volunteer.

She heaved out a breath, proud that she had managed to give the people the strength and bravery to face the monsters coming their way. A notification saying her Persuasion skill had gone up punctured the moment.

More than one teenager had their hand slapped down when they tried to volunteer, though. She had a sneaking feeling of what that would cause, so Gwen spoke up again. The village didn't need a bunch of kids running around getting into distracting trouble in the middle of a battle, better to keep them occupied. "We'll need to set up a central area where the vulnerable will be protected," she pointed to the kids who looked most mulish about being dis-volunteered, "You and you, get your friends."

The parents of the two kids looked like they were about to disagree vociferously, but she caught their gazes, "We'll need to set you up in the inn, you'll be the last defence."

This seemed to alleviate the parents' worries, at the very least they seemed to catch on that this was giving the kids a job that would be very important, but even more out of danger. And if they did end up in danger then everything was already very screwed up and they would need all the help that they could get.

Abigail appeared then and Gwen stumbled to say, "at least if Abigail agrees?"

Abigail looked surprised, "Oh certainly, we need help to clear the cellar and then," she said in a rush when she was prompted by several pairs of eyebrows, "We will of course need all the help we can get to defend the children against the monsters."

The kids bought this, somehow.

Then Gwen swept along to the next problem.

And the next.

And the one after that.