Chapter 8

“Only one problem, I can’t let you come with us.” Serk said shaking his head. I stared at him for a moment trying to decide if he was serious or not. “At least not dressed in that armor.” He said with a wicked grin.

I glared at him, “Well, I don’t exactly have the coin to go buy a new set of armor.” I said crossing my arms in defiance.

“I know.” he said smugly then reached out and pulled from his inventory something bulky wrapped in paper. “This is from all of us, we planned to give it to you once your training was complete, but I figure this is good a time as any.” He handed over the package. I opened it to reveal a set of fine leather armor so dark brown they were practically black. The armor had small metal rivets around the chest and interlocking plates that gave it flexibility, a set of leather pauldrons covered the shoulders. It came with matching bracers, leg guards, and a belt with a small skull on it. The skull wasn’t a real skull, but rather it had been crafted to look like the same one the shaman had been wearing. I immediately put it on, thanks to my inventory and equipment page switching my armor was as simple as a quick thought.

You have equipped:

Fine Leather Armor Chest Piece Fine Leather Bracers

Armor rating 35 Armor Rating 12

Durability 40 of 40 Durability 25 of 25

Enchantment: Decrease damage Enchantment: Increases damage done by 5%

taken by 15%

Fine Leather Leg Guards

Armor Rating 25

Durability 30 of 30

Enchantment: Increase Agility and

Stealth by 10%

The armor fit perfectly, and I ran my hands lovingly across it. It was far better than what I had been wearing before and it had obviously been made for me and I looked up at Serk, who was looking at me curiously. “What?” I asked confused.

“Is that another one of your strange abilities?” He asked eyeing the new armor I had just equipped.

“You mean equipping the armor? Yeah, I have an equipment page as part of my inventory. Wait how do you put on your armor?” I asked slightly confused.

“The way a normal person does, one arm at a time.” He banged his fist against his chest. He had replaced his nice leather armor with a segmented metal breastplate. The segmented pieces were sure to give him more flexibility, much like my own armor.

“Oh, I didn’t realize no one else had that screen.” I said sheepishly.

“I have heard of a couple people with something like that, just never seen it used before.” Serk said with a wave of his hand.

“Thanks again for the armor, it is really great.” I said happily.

“That ain’t all boy.” He said and produced from his inventory a sword in a sheathe made from the same dark leather. I took the sword reverently drawing it from the sheathe. It was the same style of sword I had been using before, more ornate looking with a leather wrapped handle the pommel of the sword looked like a diamond with a small ruby set in the middle.

You have found:

Vicious Long Sword

Weapon Class: Sword (Fine)

Durability 50 of 50

Damage: 15-20

Enchantment: Targets hit by this weapon suffer an additional 3% bleed damage for 10 seconds. Effect does not stack.

I looked at the blade in wonder, it was beautiful and deadly. It also worked very well with my fighting style. My style relied heavily on dealing quick precise slashes and cuts to damage an enemy. This would make that even more dangerous. “Thank you very much.” I said sheathing the blade. “You really didn’t have to do this, you know.”

“It was no problem,” Zavra said eyeing the way my new armor fit, “I enchanted it myself, leveled my skill twice doing it.” I smiled at her but before I could respond Serk cut in.

“Besides, if you’re going to be part of this group, I can’t have you running around in low quality armor. Makes the rest of us look bad.” Serk said with a laugh as he gave me a slap on the back. “Now then how about we go find ourselves some trouble.”

Several minutes later we had left the streets behind, we were outside of Ravensbrook headed South along a well-worn gravel road. To the south of Ravensbrook was vast swatches of farmland spread across several rolling hills. The crops were tall and more numerous than I could count. Growing up in the city I didn’t have the faintest clue what each of the crops were, apart from something that looked like corn stalks. We walked for the better part of an hour finally reaching a farm at the edge of the farmland. Instead of patches of crops this one had several fenced in areas with a variety of farm animals.

A human man who looked to be in his 50’s was in the process of pouring slop into a pig trough. The pigs were squealing with delight as they pushed each other out of the way to get at the food. The farmer saw us coming and eyed us warily. Serk raised a hand in greeting, “Hello there” he shouted over the pigs, “We are adventurers, we heard about your trouble and came to see what we could do to help.”

“Well, it's about time,” the farmer said in huff. His face was pinched in annoyance. “Follow me.” He said with a wave putting down his bucket and turning away from the pigs. He led us around a large barn to a hen house set against the back of the barn. The chickens were out in full force pecking at the ground for any remnants of their breakfast. At a quick glance I could see part of the fence was damaged. He pointed towards it. “Something keeps breaking my fence and coming into the henhouse, ain’t touched the chickens, only stealing the eggs. I fixed that fence six times already. Aint seen what it was, just heard strange noises, but when I come out whatever it is has scampered off with my eggs.”

“Hmm, that is strange. We will look around and see if we can find whatever is causing you trouble,” Serk said offering the farmer his hand. The farmer shook Serk's hand with a nod.

“When you find the vermin, tell them Thomas sent you,” the farmer said with a grin showing off several missing teeth.

A couple minutes later Alvor was inspecting the broken fence. Whatever had broken through had only broken the top half of the fence, no doubt climbing over it to reach the chickens. After a couple minutes Alvor whistled, and we all stepped over. He pointed at a couple small oddly shaped footprints. “Whatever it was headed off in that direction a few of them judging by the footprints,” Alvor said pointing South.

“Lead the way Al” Serk said with a small grin as Alvor shot him a glare. Alvor easily hopped the fence and started following tracks that only he seemed to be able to see. I tried to spot any sign of the tracks and thought I caught of glimpses of something. ‘His tracking skill must be really high’ I thought to myself.

We followed the tracks for several minutes over a few small hills. Alvor dropped to a crouch as we reached the crest of one hill. He pointed down the slope of the hill at several small humanoid shapes. “There they are.” He said softly. Everyone had crept up beside him. I squinted at the figures, either they were much further away than I thought or much smaller.

“Are those what I think they are?” Serk asked squinting at the strange figures.

“I believe they are.” Alvor responded.

“Why in the world would they want chicken eggs and not the chickens?” Serk asked in confusion.

“What are they?” I asked not really sure what I was looking at.

“I do not know, perhaps you should ask them,” Alvor said with a small grin, ignoring my question.

“That aint a bad idea,” Serk responded.

“You cannot be serious?” Zavra said in mild alarm.

“Why not? I go try and talk to them and if it goes bad you three swoop in and take them out. Shouldn’t be too hard,” Serk said with a smirk giving Alvor a slap on the back.

“Wait, I’m confused, whats happening?” I asked completely confused.

“Serk is going to go down and talk to the monsters and wants us to save him when they try to kill him,” Zavra said with an annoyed glance at Serk.

“Why don’t we just attack them?” I asked Serk, but he ignored my question striding down the hill as if he was merely going for a walk and not heading directly for a pack of monsters. “Does he do this a lot?” I asked the others, they both merely shrugged. As he descended the hill out in the open, Zavra, Alvor, and I made our way down using small bushes for cover. It wasn’t much but the small humanoids seemed distracted pawing at the ground around them.

Suddenly one of the creatures gave an alarmed screech and all the others turned towards Serk, who was now only a few yards away. Serk held up his hands as if in surrender and shouted at the creatures. “Hello there, might I ask what you fine folks are doing?” Serk said sounding friendly. Now much closer to the creature it looked like a small lizard person, wearing simple leather armor and furs, a crude sword hung at its side. I had seen creatures like this in almost every video game I had ever played. Usually, low level and not much of a threat to a group of well-trained adventurers. Just to be safe however, I used Analysis on it grinning slightly when I saw its name.

Kobold Scavenger

Level 1

Experience 25

“We make chicken farm, you not welcome here,” the kobold sneered at Serk, placing a hand on his sword. Serk continued to move closer keeping his hands raised.

“Friends I don’t want to hurt you, but you keep stealing eggs from that farmer and its very upsetting for him. You look like you have plenty of eggs, perhaps that is enough for you, and you can leave the farmer in peace.” Serk said sounding calm and friendly.

“We take what we want from human, we plant chicken eggs, but they not grow. So, we go back for more. If these not grow than we take chickens,” the kobold snapped at Serk. I realized as I looked around that the other kobolds all had small piles of eggs next to holes they had been digging. The dimwitted creatures were planting the eggs like seeds.

Serk was now only a few feet away from the lead kobold who was shrinking back from the march larger man. “Now, see I can’t let y’all keep attacking that poor farmer. He’s a good hard-working man and y’all are making his life difficult. So, way I see it, you have two options either run along and find some place far from here to set up your little farm or I will have to bury you,” Serk said his voice dropping threateningly at the last part. The kobold took another nervous step away but glancing about, it seemed to realize that one Orc was vastly outnumbered by the 15 or so kobolds. It grinned maliciously showing off a row of sharp teeth.

“You is no threat to us. We plant you,” the kobold leapt forward, its sword swinging for Serk’s chest. Serk moved in a blur and suddenly what had been one kobold was now two halves of a kobold. A faint screech escaped the kobold as it died. The other kobolds let loose a howling cry and charged at Serk.

Next to me Zavra leapt into action releasing one of her enchanted parchments. The parchment burned away leaving a marble sized ball of fire. The ball launched forward covering nearly 100 feet in seconds. It impacted against one of the kobolds chest and detonated with a thunderous boom. Eight of the kobolds were caught in the blast. As the blast faded, I could see most of them were either died or badly injured their health bars flashing critical warnings. Arrows flew from Alvor as he targeted the injured kobolds. I leapt into action drawing my sword and charging at two of the kobolds.

The two kobolds, one with reddish scales and the other more of a muddy brown color, were circling behind Serk who was currently engaged with 5 other kobolds. Serk seemed to be holding his own against the five and I could see several of them had arrows in their back from Alvor. I charged between the two kobolds, lashing out with my sword. My surprise attack caught them off guard and they screeched as my sword sliced into them. Using my skills, I opened several shallow cuts across their arms and legs. My swords special effect triggered adding additional bleed damage. Both the kobolds staggered back in pain as their health bars rapidly began to drop.

I pressed the attack driving my palm into the chest of the reddish kobold. As I did, I cast my first leveled spell, Lightning Grasp. Lightning crackled through my palm and shot into the kobolds body. His health dropped to less than a quarter and his body began to spasm as the special stun effect triggered. I spun my blade through the air relieving the kobold of his head. His body hit the ground and continued to twitch for a couple more seconds. The other kobold struck out at me leaving a shallow cut across my arm. I silently cursed myself for not remembering to activate my protect spell. I spun catching his blade with my own and slammed my eyes shut as I thrust my hand at his face. Light erupted from my palm, and he screeched in pain. I darted in finishing off the kobold with several quick deadly thrusts.

Looking around the battlefield I could see 2 of the kobolds had broken away from Serk and were heading for Zavra, who was standing at the crest of the hill launching spells. I raced after them. I brought my sword in low nearly severing one of the kobolds legs. It screeched in pain falling face first into the dirt. A couple quick thrusts from my sword finished it off. The other kobold turned to look at me, than back at Zavra. Seeing most of his friends dead it turned to flee. Zavra and I launched simultaneous spells and four purple arcane darts slammed into the kobolds back sending it face first into the ground and draining away the last of his health.

I turned back to Serk only to see him land the killing blow on the final kobold. I breathed a sigh of relief and looked over at the kobold bodies. I marveled at how much easier this fight had been than my fight against the goblins. For the past week I had been training against opponents as skilled, or more so, then myself and it was good to see just how far my skills had progressed. I checked my notifications and smiled.

You have gained 94 XP for defeating multiple kobolds. 375 XP divided equally among four party members.

Level up!

You have reached character level 3. You have one stat point to distribute.

Your skills have improved, Analysis level 3.

My level hadn’t gone up in nearly two weeks since the only XP I had earned was when I gained my Draco Jitsu skill. Those points had put me 50 XP away from level 3. Now I had a dilemma, with one stat point to spend I could either increase my health, stamina, or mana. All three had gone up another 10 points upon my level up and had increased with all my training. This extra point wouldn’t make a huge difference overall but was still worth considering. More health was always a great option, then again placing the point into intelligence would increase my mana pool, since I was trying to use more of my spells during combat the added mana might be the best option.

After another moments consideration I put the point into intelligence and watched my Mana pool go up another 10 points. I hadn’t really reviewed my character sheet in a while and was impressed by what I saw.

Character overview

Name: Derek Erlan

Race: Human (Realm Walker)

Level 3 Assimilation Rate 98%

Health 140 Stamina 140

Mana 150

Stats

Strength 13 Endurance 12

Agility 11 Intelligence 13

Charm 10

Exp: 571 Skills: Draco Jitsu, Spell Casting, Evocation Magic,

Illusion Magic, Protection Magic, Summoning Magic, Analysis, Stealth.

I had certainly improved since waking up in this new world. I was also gaining an impressive number of skills. I smiled in satisfaction and closed the window turning my attention to looting the bodies. The battle had been over fairly quickly, our strategy of using Serk as a distraction while the rest of us got into place had allowed us to overpower the kobolds. With our superior training and magic we had beaten them without taking much in the way of damage. I marveled at how easy this fight was compared to the goblin fight just a couple weeks ago. Earning my skills had been well worth the effort.

Quest Complete!

A Farm in Danger

You have earned 75 Experience points

Return to the adventurer's guild for your payment.

I grinned and waved away the message, one step closer to the next level.

We looted the kobolds and I got 15 silver coins and a basic healing potion. With the threat eliminated we returned to the farmer to let him know. We approached as he was putting the finishing touches on the fence repairs.

“You shouldn’t have any more problems with those critters stealing your eggs. Turns out it was a few Kobolds, but they weren’t too much trouble,” Serk said as we approached.

“Well, I am glad to hear they are gone, Thanks for all your help,” the farmer said extending a hand to shake Serk’s. Serk shook his hand with a smile.

“We have something you might want.”

“Oh, what's that?” the farmer asked his eyebrows furrowed in curiosity.

Serk stepped back as I stepped forward and pulled 20 eggs from my inventory handing them off to the farmer. He grinned and whooped with joy.

“I certainly wasn’t expecting to get any of these eggs back. Thank you so much adventurers. I’ll be sure to tell all my friends about you,” the farmer whooped in excitement again taking care not to drop any of the eggs and he turned and headed for the hen house.

We made our way back into the city and headed for the adventurer’s guild to turn in our quest. Ardwin the surly gnome with the outrageous mustache was sitting at his usual tall desk writing something. He looked down his nose at us when Serk cleared his throat.

“Oh, it's you,” Ardwin said rolling his eyes, “What do you want?”

“We wanted you to know we completed the Farm quest. It was a group of kobolds stealing chicken eggs. We finished them off without a problem,” Serk responded.

“Good,” Ardwin’s eyes fell on me, and a look of annoyance crossed his face. “Don’t tell me, he went with you. I told you I don’t want untrained people going on adventures. It’s bad for the guild's reputation.” he said hotly.

“I think you will find I am plenty skilled to be an adventurer,” I said stepping up and crossing my arms with a smug smile. Ardwin scoffed loudly and his eyes went slightly unfocused as he read my character sheet. His mouth fell open and he sputtered for a few seconds.

“Now I believe our friend here has earned the right to join this fine establishment,” Serk said smugly. Ardwin sputtered a few more times.

“B-B-But how?” Ardwin finally stuttered after a few seconds.

“How about that application to join the guild.” Serk said ignoring Ardwin's confused look.

“Y-yes of course, that’s fine,” Ardwin said begrudgingly. He rifled through a few papers before handing me a couple. “Fill these out and sign them.”

I did so, returning the papers to Ardwin a few moments later, he was still looking at me in bewilderment which I found very amusing. He took the papers and quickly read through them.

“Very well everything is in order, you should receive your official badge within 1-2 days. Hold out your hand,” Ardwin said with a slight huff. I held out my hand warily giving him a nervous look. He pulled what looked like a black marble from a drawer in his desk and dropped it in to the palm of my hand.

The marble bit me. I winced in pain, yanking my hand away, and the marble fell onto his desk and Ardwin let out a low chuckle and I heard suppressed laughter from behind me. Ardwin picked up the marble which now had faintly glowing red lines on it.

“What is that thing?” I asked, “and why did it bite me?” Looking down at my hand I had a small pin prick where a drop of blood was slowly welling it.

“This is your tracker; it needed a drop of your blood to activate,” Ardwin said still chuckling slightly.

“Why do I need a tracker?” I asked slightly annoyed.

Ardwin let out an annoyed sigh, “Because you might go missing or end up dead and we need a way to track your body if you do. I am sure whatever family you have will want you returned to them in the event something terrible happens. Every adventurer is issued a tracker. Always keep it with you, most people have it fashioned into jewelry or fitted into their armor.” He tossed me the small black marble. It was slightly warm but thankfully it didn’t bite me this time.

Ardwin produced another satchel of coins from thin air and tossed them to Serk. “A pleasure doing business with you.” Ardwin said with a sneer. As Serk handed everyone their coins Zavra approached me.

“Congratulations on becoming an official adventurer, Derek. Glad to have you back on the team. I think we are going to work well together” she said with a smile as she gently caressed my arm. She turned walking away, and my eyes lingered, perhaps a little too long, on the way her robes showed off just the right amount of her delicate curves.

“Ahem,” Serk cleared his throat loudly next to me, and I jumped slightly. He smiled at me giving me a slap on the back. “I think she likes you boy.”

“M-Me,” I stuttered, “Why?” I asked in confusion. Serk simply laughed and walked away. I had never been great with social cues back on Earth, something I was hoping to change here. I had even less luck when it came to the ladies, I had a couple of short-lived relationships, but most women weren’t interested in the short, skinny guy with glasses. Especially when my idea of a party involved miniatures, maps with square 1-inch grids, dice, and copious amounts of sugary pop and chips. This was a new world though, and perhaps my luck was turning around.

We left the Adventurer’s Guild and headed for the Lucky Gnome, none of us had really eaten lunch that day, other than a few simple rations. So, we piled our plates full for dinner. A night of celebration followed as we toasted our accomplishment. At some point a band started and I had a feeling Merina might have liked them. Serk, who was drinking heavily, elbowed me “You should ask Zavra for a dance.” He said in a very loud whisper giving me an obvious wink. I looked over to Zavra who was giggling slightly at Serk. As I did Serk pushed me off my chair and I nearly fell into Zavra’s lap.

My quick reflexes barely managed to save me, and I was now standing awkwardly next to her. I smiled at her feeling my face go red. “Would you…” I said in a high nervous voice, I cleared my throat and tried again, “Uhh… I mean would you care to dance with me?” I said holding my hand out to her.

She grabbed my hand, and we made our way onto the dance floor. I had never been a great dancer and my moves certainly hadn’t improved. Despite my lack of dancing skill, we still enjoyed ourselves. Zavra and I laughed as we danced, at one point the more upbeat music shifted into a slower ballad and Zavra pulled in close to me and I held her as we swayed. Her scent was intoxicating and exotic. After several hours of dancing, food, and fun. I left the Lucky Gnome to head back to my rooms at the library.

Not wanting to make too much of a fool of myself I had only drank a small amount. My head was spinning slightly with thoughts of Zavra, some of her perfume had rubbed off on my shoulder and kept wafting tantalizingly under my nose. I was so distracted that I nearly missed Shadowfire’s shout of alarm. He stuck his neck out pointing off to my left. I turned to see what it was and all thoughts of Zavra fled.

A house about 20 feet from me was reflecting blue shimmering light from the neighbor’s window next door. I couldn’t see the window, but I recognized the blue glow. I dashed forward racing around the corner of the house and caught a fleeting glimpse of a blue light coming from the window. It faded a second later, but I noticed a figure slamming the curtains shut.

‘Twice might be a coincidence, but not three times’ I mentally said to Shadowfire, ‘We should check it out.’ He nodded his assent and we crept up to the window. I gently pushed against the window and was surprised to find it gave. The window pushed open a crack and with a mental command Shadowfire ducked his head inside. ‘All clear’ Shadowfire said a moment later. I gently pushed the window open and pulled myself inside. I dropped into Stealth and looked around. The room was dark and appeared to be a small storage room with shelves lining the walls and a couple small casks in the corner. There was only one door leading out of the room and it was open, from beyond I could see a faint light slowly moving away.

I crept forward as quietly as I could, Shadowfire darted ahead of me keeping to the shadows. His black scales made him nearly invisible in the darkness. I stepped out of the room and into a long hallway a couple of doors lined the hallway, but they were both closed. The faint light was further ahead, I continued creeping forward until the hallway ended. It opened into a larger living space with a couch and a couple of chairs sitting near an unlit fireplace. A set of stairs was against the far wall and silently creeping up the stairs was a pair of hooded figures. They were both wearing similar looking black cloaks the hoods pulled up to hide their faces. One was tall and lean, while the other was short and bulky. The shorter man was leading the way up the stairs a lantern with a very low light held out before him. My stealth cursor still said I was hidden so I took a moment to use analysis while I figured out what to do.

Jareth

Race: Human

Class: Assassin

Level 5

Skills: Assassinate, Stealth, Poisoner, Dagger fighting

Experience 105

Ronin

Race: Human

Class: Assassin

Level 5

Skills: Assassinate, Stealth, Poisoner, Dagger fighting

Experience 105

It seemed my recent level in Analysis was now showing me a bit more information about my targets. They were both higher level than me, their skills, and the fact they both had a class would undoubtedly make this fight more difficult. I had no idea what they were planning but I doubted a pair of assassins in someone’s house was a good thing. I had seconds before they were too far up the stairs for me to stop them. The problem was I couldn’t move towards them, between me and the stairs was open space with only a couch to hide behind I had no doubt they would see me if I moved towards them. I racked my brain trying to decide what to do, movement to my left caught my eye and I noticed Shadowfire clinging to the wall barely visible in the shadows. A plan started to form in my head.

I gave Shadowfire a mental command and slowly pulled my sword free. A moment later the leading assassin let out a shriek of pain as Shadowfire dove at his face clawing madly. He staggered back, slipped on the stairs, and fell backwards. He slammed into the second assassin and the pair tumbled down the steps. As they attempted to untangle themselves, I darted in slamming my eyes shut as I cast Dazzling Lights. A second scream of pain came from both men as the light erupted from my palm. I gave them no time to recover, swinging my sword at exposed limbs leaving deep cuts that bled more quickly thanks to my swords special effect. The smaller man, who was on top of his friend recovered enough to block my second series of strikes with his dagger. He lashed out at me, and I leapt back. He climbed to his feet drawing a second dagger. I darted back in spinning my blade for his wrist. He managed to block my strike with his first dagger and swung for my throat with the second dagger narrowly missing me as I dodged back. Mentally kicking myself I activated Protect and the small shield appeared between us. He struck out again, but his reach wasn’t as long as mine.

In the second he left himself exposed my blade darted in carving a gash across his chest. He cried out in pain as his health dropped too below half. The second assassin was climbing to his feet now, and I gave another mental command. From the shadows, Shadowfire lashed out with his claws cutting a deep gash on the man’s cheek. Shadowfire darted away before the assassin could retaliate.

I blocked another flurry of dagger strikes from the first assassin; he was faster than I was. For the moment, the second one was distracted but I was sure that wouldn’t last long. As the shorter assassin darted at me, I stretched out my palm summoning Produce Flame inches from his face. He pulled back but I didn’t give him a chance, I launched the small ball of fire straight into his face. He screamed as the fire washed over him quickly igniting his beard, eyebrows, and hair. I darted in driving my sword into his chest. His health began a mad dash to 0 and I kicked him off my sword as he fell to the ground, still clutching at his burned face.

The second assassin drove his dagger into my kidney and I screamed in pain. I barely managed to block his follow up attack as he pulled the dagger free.

You have been poisoned! 3 poison damage per second for the next 20 seconds. Agility reduced by 40% for the next 20 seconds.

“Son of Crap” I cried out in pain, the poison damage would eat through nearly half my health, I couldn’t even prevent it because I had no antidote potions on me. The Assassin pressed his advantage and I barely managed to get my Protect shield in place, deflecting most of the damage from one his daggers. A line of pain burned across my arm from where the dagger cut me, but I managed to get my sword up in time to block his second blow. I thrust out my hand casting Dazzling Lights again, but he threw up his arm to shield his face. I swung my sword in an arc severing his hand at the wrist. He cried out in pain as his health plummeted. He dropped his dagger clutching at his ruined stump. I drove the pommel of my sword into his face breaking his nose. He collapsed to the floor rolling around on the ground.

I pulled rope from my inventory and quickly began tying his arms behind his back. He struggled uselessly against me, but his strength was fading as his health continued to drop. It flashed a critical warning as I finished securing the ropes into place. I pulled a health potion from my inventory and poured part of it on his stump. The wound began to close, and his health stabilized sitting at less than 10%. I collapsed to the ground breathing heavily and drank the rest of my healing potion. It helped keep me above half health as the poison debuff finally faded.

You have gained 210 XP from Assassins (x2).

I heard noises coming from upstairs and a lantern peaked out from around a corner followed quickly by a balding elvish man in his pajamas. He looked down over the second-floor railing taking in the scene below him. I looked up at him and realized I knew him.

“Hello Dogan, sorry to bother you.” I said with a nervous wave.

“D-D-Derek is that you?” Dogan the alchemist said timidly.

“Yeah, it is I noticed these men breaking into your home and came after them. They attacked me, so I had to fight them off.” I looked down at the now unconscious, but alive, cultist tied up next to me. “Well one of them the other one didn’t survive. Sorry again for the trouble.” He disappeared around the corner, and I heard him shouting for guards, no doubt from a window upstairs. While I waited for the guards to arrive, I looted both the men. I found 20 Gold Coins a strange stone and what looked like a bottle of poison.

You have found:

Inscribed Rune Stone

Properties: You lack the appropriate skill to identify this item.

Paralysis Poison Bottle

Uses 2 of 3

Affect: Coats a weapon in poison. The next three attacks made with that weapon inflict poison damage on the target.

Poison Affect: Targets must pass an endurance test or become poisoned for 20 seconds. Suffering poison damage and minor paralysis. Targets with an Endurance score of 10 or lower automatically fail and are paralyzed for 20 seconds.

Holy crap that poison was nasty stuff. I was lucky all my training had raised my endurance to 12 or that fight would have gone very differently. I placed the items in my inventory and inspected the bodies. I pulled back their hoods. The shorter man’s face was badly burned but I could see he was middle aged with what had been a mane of salt and pepper hair. The taller man was bald and human, with heavy scars on his face and he a dagger tattooed on his neck. I also noticed an odd tattoo on his arm. It looked like 5 claw marks stacked on top of each other but each of the marks was a different color. One was a deep red, one black, a green, a white, and a blue. I was sure it had to mean something but didn’t have the faintest clue as to what. A quick check of the other man showed he had the same claw mark tattoo, perhaps it had something to do with whatever assassin guild they were apart of? I would have to ask around. Movement upstairs caught my ear and I looked up to see Dogan standing at the top of the stairs looking nervous down at me.

“Are they dead?” he asked a slight quiver to his voice.

“One is the other is just unconscious. According to my analysis skill they both have the Assassin class. Any idea why a pair of assassins would be coming after you Dogan?” I asked the bald elf as he slowly crept down the stairs.

"Assassins?” Dogan said breathlessly, “I have no idea. I am just a simple alchemist.”

“No enemies or outstanding debts?” I asked.

“What?!…N-No,” Dogan spluttered, “I pay my debts and as far as I know I don’t have any enemies.”

“I see, I don’t mean to pry just trying to figure out what they were doing here.” I said staring down at the bodies. The unconscious assassin, Jareth according to my analysis skill, stirred slightly but didn’t wake.

Several minutes later, and with my health mostly restored, I heard pounding on the door. I stayed where I was as Dogan rushed for the door. He opened it, and two burly looking guards entered the house. They looked from me to the two men sprawled out on the floor. I nervously gave them a wave. They questioned me and I related everything I had seen. I left out the part about the blue light saying I had seen them sneak in through the window. I still couldn’t figure out what that light had been. The assassins had been using a lantern, but it was a soft yellow not blue.

After questioning the homeowners, the guards called for a wagon to carry the two men. When it arrived several minutes later, I noticed the wagon had sturdy iron bars all around it to lock in whoever was placed in the back. The guards lifted the unconscious assassin and carried him out. They took the dead man as well placing both in the wagon and locking the door.

They spoke quietly with Dogan and his wife before departing. I was standing outside the house watching them leave when I noticed Dogan approaching me. “Thank you, Derek for your help.” He said offering me a smile. “Next time you find yourself at my shop you can have a healing potion on me.” He shook my hand and I smiled at him as he and his wife made their way back into their home. I heard the door shut and the sound of a lock clicking. I turned and surveyed the streets, but my eyes caught no further flashes of blue light.

I headed home, my thoughts racing. Who were these assassins and why were they after a simple alchemist? Maybe they wanted him for some sort of alchemy stuff. In games alchemists could make all sorts of nasty things, I supposed an assassin’s guild could make easy use of that, maybe they wanted more deadly poison or some other nasty concoction. I didn’t have a clue and the more I thought the less I could figure out. I stopped a block away from the library with a thought.

‘Hey Shadowfire, can you ping on my map the three houses where we saw that strange light?’ Shadowfire didn’t answer but a moment later my map appeared with 3 glowing dots. I stared at it for several seconds, Dogan’s house which was attached to his shop appeared to be the only shop out of the three. The others appeared to just be random houses. I wondered if perhaps there was some sort of pattern in the places I had seen the light, but after staring at the map for several long moments no discernable pattern appeared. In frustration I closed the map and made my way to my room. I was going to have to find Serk and tell him about this, perhaps he might have some clue what all this meant.