Alaric continued to follow the southern route out of the city to find where the paved road ended at the head of a vast grassland there with scattered woods bordering its fringes. Upon this location where the cobbled course terminated amidst the sea of swaying emerald grass of the immense prairie, Alaric observed a fortified circular stone block tower.

He surmised that this isolated tower with its flat roof and numerous arrow slits must be used by travelers as a refuge to hold up for the night or by the sentinels of the northern municipality as a watchtower to guard against any trouble that would encroach into the southern frontier. After the conclusion of a brisk investigation of the tower’s two unoccupied floors, Alaric resumed his southerly exploration over the enveloped lush plain.

He soon encountered an abundant population of rabbits who were out of their burrows enjoying the pleasant summery weather or grazing on the sprawling lawns. Alaric pulled out his bow and began taking amateurish archery shots that fell in random places. Considering he hadn’t trained his ranged ability, this was to be expected from him.

He may not have bagged his prey as of yet, but his ranged proficiency continued to consistently increase with every released arrow. Approximately twenty minutes thereafter of missed shots his accuracy improved adequately to at last skewer his prey with the wooden arrow.

-18 (0/15)

Alaric utilized his knife to field dress, skin the fur, and quarter the meat of the shot rabbit. He stored the rabbit meat and fur into his inventory and continued to stalk rabbits.

Increased Ranged Proficiency: 8%

Now having hunted for a few hours now managed to raise ranged proficiency to 8% allowing him to hit his target maybe once out of every ten or more shots. He had now hunted twelve rabbits from start of his hunt till now. Having just finished cleaning his twelfth kill, he stood up to observe the growing shadows as the sun slowly dropped on the western horizon.

He started walking over toward the trees east of his present location in order to scout out dry firewood. He had decided against returning to the city and renting a room in an Inn. Instead, he would collect some firewood and spend the night at the stone tower.

As Alaric approached the eastern wood line he turned to look behind him to judge how much time he had before the sun set behind the distant mountains. Just when he turned it felt as if something had struck his left upper arm and spun him around toward the direction he was looking.

-10 (110/120)

He looked down to see a large gash that cut across the outside flesh of his arm. The pain from the wound then began to creep up on him making Alaric hiss through his clenched teeth as the burning sensation intensified. He clamped his hand over the wound out of reflex and whilst inspecting his surrounding. Alaric could not understand what may have injured him because it appeared he was standing alone out in the open.

A sudden movement in the treeline some twenty yards away then caught his eye. He happened to spot what looked to be a goblin who had just released an arrow that a fraction of a second later zipped past him close enough to hear the feathered arrow cut through the air.

Alaric quickly realized now that the goblin tried to stealthily snipe him and when he turned to observe the sun the arrow instead of hitting him square caught the outside of his bicep area. With his bow in hand he quickly notched an arrow and sent a returning shot whistling toward the goblin, but the lack of skill and pain from the wound sent his arrow slightly off course thus missing its intended target.

The missed shot was enough to put the startled goblin on the defense momentarily ducking behind a wide tree trunk in fear of another arrow being sent his way. Alaric slung his bow string around his neck and took the opportunity to draw his sword and charged the treeline.

He had covered half the distance when the goblin peeked out to find he was being quickly rushed. Alaric’s attacker fumbled for an arrow and nervously began to notch it. Finally fitting the arrow to the string the goblin looked up to draw back and aim and found that Alaric was just a few steps away bearing down on him.

Alaric raised his sword over his head and swung down with all his might at the goblin. The green attacker raised his bow to try and ward off the inevitable blow from Alaric’s longsword. Gripping the sword handle with two hands he drove it down with all his might. The iron blade diced through the goblins bow and bit down deep into the upper shoulder near the neck.

-35 (40/75) [bleeding effect]

Tunnel visioned on the little green foe before him Alaric never seen the blow that caught him on the side of his ribs. A second goblin had come around on him and slashed at him with a crude short sword. He lucked out that the slash fell on his leather armor and didn’t cut through, but the felt pain was like having a hammer bash his ribcage. Alaric turned his sword blade still embedded in the goblin’s shoulder and ripped it free causing, even more, damage to his foe.

-15 (15/75) [bleeding effect]

The severely injured goblin dropped to the ground.as he spun with the extended sword blade held horizontal to the ground. As the blade came around it caught the goblin behind him across the arm nearly severing it below the shoulder.

-32 (43/75)

The force of Alaric’s strike spun the small goblin attacker around knocking it off balance. Alaric sword slash had destroyed the stumbling goblins arm so much that it could no longer wield the short sword that fell into the leaves and pine needles covering the ground around them.

Alaric showed no mercy and quickly swung at the exposed neck of the goblin after it regained its footing and bent over to recover the dropped weapon with its good arm.

-49 (0/75)

The downward slash sliced cleanly through the vertebrae in the neck instantly killing the goblin who crumpled to the ground. When he spun back around to examine his first attacker he found that it had bled out it's few remaining hit points.

Alaric quickly pulled himself together and scanned his surroundings for more hidden enemies. Then he caught sight of some type of crude wood structure through the trees about fifty feet from him. Sheathing his longsword, He nocked an arrow and stealthily stalked towards the structures. When he was near twenty feet from the wood huts he quietly barked twice like a dog with his arrow drawn pointing at the hut entrance.

Almost instantly a goblin came out the door to investigate the noise it just heard to be greeted by an arrow shaft sprouting from its chest.

-65 (10/75) Critical Sneak attack!

Alaric dropped his bow beside the tree next to him, drew his longsword, and charged the stunned goblin who was clutching at the arrow shaft. The goblin was in a state of shock and oblivious to the human bearing down on it.

When Alaric was in range he drove his blade into the goblin running it through its abdomen.

-33 (0/75)

He pulled his blade free from the now dead goblin and entered the shabby wood hut to find another goblin who soundly slept through the attack. Alaric quietly sheathed his sword and took out his wood handle axe and swung it over his shoulder and straight down into the sleeping goblin’s neck as if he were splitting a log.

-80 (0/75) (Critical Sneak Attack!)

The blow decapitated the goblin in one fell swoop while the system displayed massive dealt damage numbers. Alaric slowly came out of the hut checking his corners before walking out to avoid any more surprise attacks from these sneaky little green bastards. He crossed over to the second hut and peaked the corner to find it was empty.

This may be the hut of those two that ambushed me from the start. He thought while walking inside.

Alaric searched the hut but did not find anything of interest in there. The floor was littered with animal bones, a couple ragged blankets and two crude iron tipped spears that leaned against the back wall. He decided to take the spears to deprive any returning goblins of weapons and went over to search the first hut he had entered.

When he entered through the open doorway the goblin bodies began to shimmer and vanished into specks of dancing light. Where the goblin he killed with the arrow had fallen was a small leather pouch with a couple silver and copper coins and his arrow remained behind. The sleeping goblin did not leave any drops of any kind when its body dispersed.

Now that he could relax after clearing the small camp area of enemies, Alaric brought out his healing salve and bandages. He stripped off his armor, jacket, and shirt for better access to his injuries and packed the gash on his upper arm with the salve and wrapped it with the clean cloth bandages.

He examined his side and found it free of punctures or cuts, but a large black bruise had already begun developing. Alaric massaged some of the salves into the bruised skin and gulped down a couple bitter mouthfuls from one of the liquid healing concoctions.

Alaric then redressed after tending to his wounds and grabbed his arrow and the coin pouch drops off the floor on his way out of the dirty hut to collect his discarded bow. He found the bow next to the tree where he had dropped it and stored it away as he made his way back to where the first two goblins ambushed him.

He found another bag of coins and an iron shield reflecting the orange rays of the setting sun off of its surface nearby in the ankle high grass. Alaric collected his first missed arrow and took out his axe to once again return to gathering up firewood. He found a dry log that fell not far from the goblin camp and he proceeded to gingerly chop off a few good sized branches while the pain in his arm and ribs complained about every swing he struck into the dead tree.

Once he gathered up his chopped wood he made his way over to the tower and shut the heavy wooden door behind him. He found a wooden draw bar behind the door after closing it and he decided to slide it in place to barricade the door shut. Alaric ascended the staircase to the tower roof that was protectively encircled with stone battlements for archers to use as cover while reloading during attacks.

Removing some of his wood Alaric made a small fire with kindling and flint. While the small fire slowly grew he prepared to make dinner for himself. He took out his cooking oil, flour, rabbit meat, an egg, and some vegetables. Inside of a bowl, he scrambled an egg and in another bowl, he poured out a little flour from the bag.

When the fire had died down leaving behind a nice bed of coals, Alaric propped up an iron skillet on two pieces of wood just above them. He covered the bottom of the skillet with cooking oil and began to cut up chunks of rabbit meat while the oil heated up. When the oil was hot he dipped the pieces of rabbit meat into the scrambled egg and then coated them with flour from the other small bowl.

After coating all the rabbit meat in flour, he gently dropped them into the hot oil and cooked the rabbit cutlets to a golden brown color. Alaric scooped the meat out of the oil to a plate and diced up some carrots and mushrooms that he also cooked in the flavored oil.

When it was all done he leaned back against the tower battlements and enjoyed his first dinner in a new world while looking up at the stars that shared the heavens with two moons. One moon was white and resembled Earth’s moon, while the other looked to be twice the size and was a light purple color.

“Yup, definitely not in Kansas anymore” He chuckled to himself while enjoying his meal.

“I need to find some water tomorrow so I have something to drink and clean up with,” he said aloud while opening the local map.

It looks like there is a river just south of this tower. I can make my way there and check it out. If it is flowing and looks clean I can scoop some up in my containers. Alaric thought as he made plans for tomorrow.

He closed his map and brought out his bedroll that looked like a heavy duty sleeping bag and spread it out right there on the roof. He opened it up and climbed inside feeling quite comfortable as he lay there and thought about all that had happened today.

As he lay there reflecting on everything and gazing at the stars above the cool nighttime breeze blew across his face sending him off into a peaceful sleep.