Tony woke up way too early, to air that was way too cold, and to the sounds of angry growling not far away and the grunts of something else. He opened his eyes quickly and finding the direction of the sound he slowly rose from his hidey hole and peaked over the tall grass in the direction.

A fight. Not one that was going to well either. He saw the shape of a woman, or maybe a young man running through his field being pursued casually by a group of what must be wolves. Ten of them at least though he couldn’t get a perfect count. They followed after the shape swiftly and one broke away and closed the distance, it’s head lowering to bite what he assumed was the back of the figure’s leg, it went down with a cry. He lost sight of it in the tall grass but he could still see the wolves. They must be massive for me to be able to see them so well. Maybe standing 3ft tall themselves on four legs. Still not too big to be affected by his trump card.

Tony quickly drew out his pistol for the second time in as many days and still kneeling behind the tall grass took aim at the one who had bitten at the figure and taken it down. It seemed to be moving in for a kill. The trigger depressed and the firing pin struck the primer causing the mini explosive to detonate and the bullet rocketed out of the gun’s barrel. Even being large for a wolf didn’t stop the round from piercing it’s skull and mashing the brains behind the protective bone. It dropped like a rock.

Tony then stood up keeping count of the rounds fired. Acquiring a new target he quickly squeezed the trigger twice putting a pair of rounds into its side before turn to face him. The others started to turn now. Wary certainly, but no sign of backing off yet. Another two rounds into the second closest who’d turned to face him. The first caught the canines shoulder jerking the creature to the side but the second slammed true and caught the neck through luck as much as skill as the creature jerked in the direction of it’s new wound. Three down, for 5 bullets. 10 rounds remaining and he could now see 8 wolves still standing. One more than his earlier estimate. That’s fine. One started to rush him and standing his ground to get as much accuracy as possible he fired twice more. Wincing as the first missed and the second only managed to catch the creature’s front right leg half way down the leg. Harder to hit a moving target. Still it collapsed as it’s weight landed on that leg and the others came forward after it.

Another two rounds and a bit more luck as he managed to catch this wolf as it ducked it’s head down for a powerful dog like run as it’s back legs passed its front ones, the first pierced the back of its neck and the second further up the back and it too dropped, but this one didn’t move.

That left 6 rounds and 6 wolves. Cycling through he fired as quickly as he could. Aim, shoot, aim, shoot… until the slide locked back and he had three wolves still on their feet rushing him, and the rest probably not dead maybe not even out of the fight yet. He drew out his dagger and prepared for the creatures.

Tony was a skilled knife fighter. Years of alleyway fights and deals gone wrong had honed his instincts. At fighting humans or at least humanoids. Sure he’d had to stab a guard dog once but that wasn’t the same as three giant wolves barreling in on you.

He lept in to meet the first one and as it’s jaws leapt up to meet his face his knife swung up in the same motion he’d used to get the water goblin the day before. The Wolf was faster than the goblin though and instead of going up into the brain it struck the center of the neck. It was enough though to stop it from clamping it’s jaws down on his face. It didn’t stop the large panicking body from smashing bodily into his and crashing them both into the ground.

He heaved and pushed with all of his might and just barely managed to get the creature off of him… as the second wolf bit down hard on his arm. Tony cried out in main as the teeth buried themselves all the way to the bone and he in a panic stabbed the face of the wolf as quickly as his hand could move over and over again wondering when the third wolf would end his existence. He had time to think to himself that he really should have just let the figure die, but a choice made was a choice lived.

Luckily for Tony his lady luck happened to be with him today. The wolf never touched him. The figure who’d been taken down earlier had stood stood up on shaky legs and faced the fight. A line of greenish tinted energy emerged from its hands and shot out striking the ground directly in front of the second to last wolf’s body. Suddenly vines grew up and tangled the creature firmly locking it in place. The figure rushed forward breathing heavily and drew out a knife of its own before stabbing over and over again into the wolf’s back. Until it stopped moving. And by that tie Tony had finished stabbing the on on his arm until it stopped shaking his arm and whole body and dropped to the ground.

Tony glanced over at his mangled arm not even registering that his life had been saved as he quickly reached inside and drew out the energy. He drew until but a tiny glimmer remained and then cut the connection, holding with his mind the majority of the mana he possessed. He directed it all at once to his arm and gave it the same order as last time to heal, and watched and prayed that the mangled mess could be recovered.

It could and he watched in fascination as the white of bone he could see slowly got covered up by flesh and muscle grew and expanded. It grew and healed and then stopped. Raw muscle and tendons and veins remained visible in the bloody mess but not fully healed. Partially healed veins started to squirt out blood and he knew for the second time that morning he’d be dead soon.

Of course the figure that he’d saved couldn’t just sit by and allow it’s saviour to bleed out. It rushed over and soon a glowing green hand touched the ruined flesh and warmth pumped it’s way into the wound. Much more than he had been able to push in. Before long the flesh was healed and again looked better than the surrounding flesh of his body. He glanced up at the figure.

It was a woman. Or she was. Womanly certainly but young as well. Maybe late teens by her looks. Her body was strange though. Her skin a light green color and her hair an even darker green. Her eyes were the real interesting part tough. Golden colored and seemingly endlessly deep. Her features seemed mostly asian which would go well with her slight build. She couldn’t be more than 5’2” at the most.

“Thanks.” Tony managed to get out as he took in her form. Fit and slim, like a high school athlete. Tony couldn’t help but smile as the first thought that came to him, even while staring at this strange alien woman was ‘if only I was 20 years younger. At 48 he was far too old to be even considering fun with a teenager. Even an alien one.

“Your welcome.” She replied cautiously. Tony was sort of startled that they spoke the same language, but shook it off.

“That’s some powerful healing magic you got.” He pointed out as he stood up and tried to brush himself off. “Let me guess. Caster?” She smiled at that. Revealing teeth almost in humanly white.

“Nope. Druid actually.” She corrected. “It was my patron’s choice.” He’d guessed correctly. A new comer like himself. Maybe an enemy god’s pathfinder. Didn’t matter he could care less about this whole game of the gods.

“Spend the GP yet?” He inquired curiously. She nodded slowly.

“Yup, boosted my Magic. Better than letting it go to waste.” She replied. I disagreed. Who knew if the 10GP choices were significantly better than the 1% boost. I didn’t say anything though and just smiled at her.

“What’s your name girl?” Tony asked so that his face didn’t show any of his distaste for her use it or lose it attitude.

“Jasmine.” She said sticking her hand out towards him. “Nice to meet you.”

Tony nodded and took the hand to be polite. “Tony.”

“Well… that was exciting but now that this shit’s woken me up. I’m going to eat some breakfast and let the damned messages pop up.” as he said that again they came into view as if knowing that he hadn’t wanted to see them yet.

Congratulations! You’ve defeated 10 ‘Dire Wolves’ and are awarded XP!

Base: 50XP Each total 500XP

Outnumbered: x2

Total: 2 multiplier= 1000XP awarded

You gained 2 levels and are now level 7. You are now at 345 of 1280XP for next level

So down to two magazines but another two levels on top of that isn’t to shabby a trade. Though he knew that if he kept at this pace lady luck wouldn’t be by his side for long. He sat back in his little hole and started to eat some breakfast. More jerky and water that tasted funny. For lunch more of the same, and for dinner… well it’s what he had. He sighed to himself as he downed the bland food.

“Aren’t you going to skin them?” A voice asked nearby. He jumped a bit and looked up at the strange green girl.

“Don’t know how.” He replied tersely.

She looked down at him and at his little nest. She frowned suddenly. “That’s no good. You’ll die if you can’t even skin a wolf. Come on. I’m going to help you out.” She scolded and reached down grasping him under his arm and started to lift him. Tony went along for the ride figuring she had a point. He would probably need to learn eventually.

“Ok.” She started sitting him next to the wolf at her side. “It’s not hard you simply…” what followed was an hours worth of instruction that Tony was pretty sure he only got half of. He made sure to nod at the right places and the follow directions when given them. Soon she had him skinning the next one and was critiquing his technique like some ancient master skinner. It started to get on his nerves but he managed to keep his calm.

With that done they had eleven wolf pelts, 8 of which were in great shape and 3 of which were either shredded from the attacks on the wolves or shredded from Tony’s poor ability. Still. The wolves were huge so their furs were huge as well. “We need a TeePee.” Tony said suddenly looking at the furs that Jasmine had laid down near a fire that she had also started allowing them to dry up quicker.

Jasmine shook her head. “Not enough furs. I’m going to make us a Lean To. What I’d really really love is an ax so we could do some sort of basic cabin, but we will make do.” She said determinedly. Tony wasn’t sure what a Lean To was but shelter was shelter, and hopefully they had enough left over for some ground cover and a blanket.

“I guess I’ll scout the area again then. Maybe hunt some more.” He started to walk but she stopped him with a call.

“We don’t need more meat or furs.” She paused thoughtfully. “Well we do of course but what we really need is some wood.” And taking charge again she started to tell Tony exactly what size and shape and how much wood she needed and that he was to cut them from branches with his knife. His eye twitched and he mumbled vague death threats about the ‘damned women coming in here and taking over my spot’ but went out into the forest and started hacking down branches. Not an easy task with a knife.

It took him most of the day and multiple retries as she told him how wrong the pieces he’d brought were but soon they had a roaring fire next to a nice lean to and some fresh wolf meat cooking.

“You don’t talk much do you?” Jasmine said as they rested near the fire to stay warm as the sun slowly dropped below the trees.

“I talk plenty.” Tony responded grumpily. His arms sore from a day of hacking trees but the crude shelter nearby did make him feel happy. A pair of wooden branche shoved into the ground supporting another branch across the top tied with some rope like thing she made out of grass. Wooden branches laid from the ground to the top cross branch and bound to each one next to them as well. Finished off with some wolf pelts over the top fur down and some on the ground fur up, it almost looked inviting.

Jasmine shook her head and patted Tony on the back before heading to the Lean To. It would be a tight fit for the two of them but Tony was damned sure he wasn’t sleeping outside. Well he’d be sleeping outside either way really but at least he’d have some sort of roof over his head. He slowly got up and since Jasmine had built a basic fire pit by clearing out nearby grass and forming a nice ring of rocks she had grabbed around it he left the fire burning. Hoping it’ll keep other animals at bay while he got some rest. He climbed in after her and with no shame at all got between the wolf pelts and snuggled up close. She tensed but he just wrapped a large arm around her and pulled her in tight before closing his eyes and starting to go to sleep.

“Calm down. It’s warmer this way.” He mumbled to her and slowly drifted off to sleep.