Luke left the barn area, post-haste, having made enough of a ruckus there to draw everyone else’s attention. Hopefully, this would throw them off so that no one could guess the direction he’d be taking for his escape.

He used all the cover he could find on his path to dodge any guards he encountered on the way, and within minutes, he’d made it to the backstreets of the western quarter. He believed things would be smooth sailing from here on out, given almost no one else knew as much as he did about maneuvering the backstreets unseen.

The trick was to take the ‘streets’ part of the task out of the picture, and to use the rooftops instead. This way, he could ignore the limitations of town planning and cut the shortest and straightest path to his goal.

Once he’d made it to the top of the first building, he appraised the tiles he was standing on and a straight path to the western edge of the city popped up. He traced the arrows to Little Root, the local banyan tree whose outer-most branches sidled the wall, forming a wooden plaster all the way to the top. This would provide a good assist to his point of egress, and he would surely make good use of it.

Intending for a mad dash to the wall, he needed to make sure everything else was sorted before embarking on this leg of the journey. Top on his to-do list was addressing his health and the dwindling stamina capsule, so he popped a single health capsule and unsocketed the almost-empty stamina capsule to that end. He ignored the spillage and downed the rest of the stamina potion before retrieving a fresh stamina capsule and socketing that instead.

Despite still having remnants of the previous capsule still coursing through his veins, socketing a new one still had the same results as before; a sharp pain which he hypothesized to be a brief overload of the potion.

Hmmm, maybe this is exploitable, he thought, putting test to supposition by executing a quick dash and as expected, his movements had been enhanced. The unusual enhancement only lasted as long as the sting did, but Luke didn’t stop to contemplate this further, choosing to continue on his path instead.

He blazed a path from roof to roof, making sure to maximize the speed whilst minimizing the distance between footfalls. This ensured he progressed while making as little noise as possible. He continued this way, oblivious of the tail he’d gained a few minutes prior.

◆◆◆

The shadowy figure watched Luke from the shadows, ecstatic his guesses had landed him the biggest fish in the town. Its guesses had been informed by the countless rounds around the town it’d made with the quarry, as well as the countless missions and strategy sessions they’d participated in together.

The figure was as he, and he hadn’t anticipated Luke taking to the rooftops for his escape, but lucky enough, Luke had been careless in his haste, knocking off a loose tile that gave his position up to Johnny. Not wanting to spook his prey, he stayed back and let the tile spin to the ground, only intercepting it before it impacted the ground. This way, Luke wouldn’t be alerted to his own carelessness.

There was also the possibility Luke had let the tile fall as a way of seeing who’d react to it, but the figure doubted that, seeing as the man hadn’t stuck around to observe that. With the tile in hand, he closed his eyes to sense where his familiar was, and once he’d gotten a hit on his position, he mentally instructed the familiar to jump onto a lower roof in preparation for his next attack. Once the familiar was in position, he puckered his lips and readied the distraction.

◆◆◆

A loud whistle sounded from behind him, and Luke abruptly slid to his stop, turning to face the whistle’s direction as he did so. There was nothing behind him but instead of providing him with comfort, this only heightened the tension, and the feeling of impending doom finally kicked in. He was already someone else’s prey, and it felt like he’d fallen into their trap by stopping.

Wanting to increase the distance between himself and the whistle’s origins, he turned to run for the wall again, but something impacted his first step forward. It burned where his sheen became a foot as he tumbled to his fall.

He could’ve lessened the effects of the fall by blinking for an estimated duration of his fall but that would give up this trump card, so he chose to go about this in a different way. He blinked, literally, to avoid any immediate projectiles aimed his way, and using the small force generated in that moment to power the turn of his body to face any assailants from above. This proved to be the right decision as when he opened his eyes, he saw three fire arrows proceeding his descent before the clockwise turn placed the arrows out of view.

The fact that the arrows had passed him would look suspicious to any observers, but given his immediate turn, one would first take a guess at a dodge skill before jumping to teleportation or temporary intangibility.

He caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure on the roof before another leapt at him from a different position. This one was small enough to be a child but the eyes that the silhouette it cut told him it wasn’t human. He squinted to try get better detail, but he couldn’t wrest his focus from the figure’s eyes, as if he’d been entranced. A split-second later, a notification informed him of the effects, and he made to rectify this as the figure flew closer to him.

You have been affected by [Entrancing Eyes]. Duration - 1 second. You have invoked [Advanced Appraisal] on . has been identified as Gob-smacker (Juvenile)>.

+--------------+

|Personal Alert|

+-------------++

|“Gob-smacker”|

+-------------+---------------+

|Class: Species Classification|

+------+----------------------+

|Detail|

+------+--------------------------+

|“A modified dragonoid of - - - - |

| unclassified potential. The name|

| comes from an estimation of its |

| abilities, but these will not be|

|- - limited to, and are not - - -|

|- - - guaranteed to be.” - - - - |

+---------------------------------+

Luke had ended up resorting to appraisal, and he now knew what the dragonoid looked like, despite never actually seeing its full form in clear lighting. It looked more like a frog with thin, leathery ears and a tail, and it lacked fore limbs while the hind limbs were replaced with those of a scaly lizard. Its green skin looked like it could blend well in greeneries, and the spots mottling it could be likened to poisonous varieties of wild frogs he’d seen in the nearby swamp. The biggest irregularity was its distended belly, that would put any fat drunk’s or over-indulging baker to shame.

Beyond appearance, the notification had given him a little more information that brought with it questions, what did modified mean, and if the name pointed to its abilities, what were they?

The second part was partially answered moments later, when he’d been smacked by a wet tail in the face, disorienting him. He’d tried to blink to avoid the impact but debuff interrupted the invocation, resulting in him crashing back-first into the pavement.

#Womp!

You have been hit with [Smack]. [Smack] has induced the debuff on you. Duration – 3 seconds or X ticks of health. [Phase Blink] invocation interrupted by .

#Crash!

The damage from the impact was enough to overcome the debuff, immediately canceling it, and Luke did not waste time getting further acquainted with the ground. Instead, he rolled backwards into a hurried backpaddle for the closest wall, all the time inspecting his surroundings for the humanoid shadow he’d seen on the roof.

He assumed that was whoever was directing the juvenile dragonoid to attack him and taking him out would likely stop the assault altogether. As he was thinking this, the Gob-smacker was preparing to acquaint him with the other part of its name. It drew in a deep breath that further distended its already bulging mid-section, then drew the bulge inwards, forcing it to its throat. It finished this maneuver by expelling three wobbly gobs of... something, that either exploded or stuck-true on impact with a surface.

Luke had been smart enough to dodge all three whilst keeping his eyes on the Gob-smacker, but the explosion of one of them was enough to draw his attention away from it for a second, which was all the time needed for his assailant to make his move.

◆◆◆

The shadow had watched as Luke plunged to a normal man’s end, but he knew Luke was anything but, so he had to do his best to help him along. He’d fired 3 fire arrows in succession, replacing magical aptitude with mechanical assistance by using real arrows for the projectile shafts, and concentrated balls of fire on the arrow tips. For the propulsion device he’d chosen a triple-shot crossbow, ready drawn for a quick attack.

His prey had managed to dodge it somehow, but the shadow doubted Luke could continue pulling this off for every attack levied his way. As Luke had made his turn to face him, the shadow had stepped behind the ledge’s cover, resorting to a familial attack instead.

He’d only known Gobby for 3 months, but the dragonoid was fast becoming the best companion he’d ever had, and its skills were a credit to that. Those who’d seen it so far had been blind to its physical charms, but to the shadow, no familiar could be cuter than this companion of his. The beauty of it was it had capabilities to match its exterior, making it quite the companion for one with his choice of occupation.

It actualized those capabilities, tenderizing the unsuspecting Luke for his eventual slaughter. Luke had managed to create enough distance between Gobby and himself, but that was what the shadow had predicted, and expected of him. With the prey where he wanted it for his next move, he instructed his familiar to gob him, presenting the gap he would use for his glorious entrance.

◆◆◆

The explosion, and the vapor that followed told him he had to be careful of all the projectiles from the Gob-smacker. Surprisingly, only one of the projectiles had exploded whilst the others remained intact, albeit stuck to the wall. The vapor tracked his movements, and he appraised it while dodging to try understanding what he was dealing with.

has been appraised. Specific Effects: Unknown.

That didn’t seem like much, but to him it was all he could ask for. The vapor was obviously a debuff, since there was no way an assailant would buff him during an attack. He kept the vapor and the Gob-smacker in view in his retreat, but he’d briefly forgotten about the other gobs, one of which the vapor was slowly directing him towards.

It exploded with a dampened pop that plunged the surroundings in murk. Appraisal surprisingly displayed enough information about the cloud, and it seemed to be free of any other effects besides obscuring an observer’s view, which meant it was intended as way of masking his assailants’ movements. With this in mind he shimmied to a corner below a balcony. This way, he would eliminate drop-in attacks and limit the avenues of attack to upfront confrontation.

He quickly had the Gob-smacker in sight, and it blew another gob at its feet, producing more murk around itself. Luke had the foresight to guard against this and he immediately called his appraisal on it before the murk could swallow it. An unexpected notification popped up, giving him the briefest pause possible.

+--------------+

|Personal Alert|

+--------------+------+

|“Gob-smacking Sample”|

+---------------------+---+

|Class: Quest Notification|

+-------------------------+-------+

|“Retrieve a sample from/of a - - |

|- - - - - Gob-smacker.” - - - - -|

+------------+--------------------+

|Basic Reward|

+------------+----------------+

|Sequencer’s Language (basics)|

+--------------------------+--+

|Bonus Rewards (Spare Prey)|

+--------------------------+------+

|- Incubator Gel (recipe + main - |

|- - - - - - component) - - - - - |

+-----------------------+---------+

|Bonus Rewards (On Kill)|

+-----------------------+---------+

|- - Illusionist’s Coach Whip - - |

|- - (recipe + main component) - -|

+---------------------------------+

|- - - Gob-smacking Camo - - - - -|

|- - (recipe + main component) - -|

+---------------------------------+

|- - - Alchemic Buffer Pouch - - -|

|- - (recipe + main component) - -|

+---------------------------------+

|- - - - - Ears of flight - - - - |

|- - (recipe + main component) - -|

+---------------+-----------------+

|- - - - - Hunter’s bounty - - - -|

+---------------------------------+

|- - - - Gourmet’s bounty - - - - |

+---------------------------------+

Killing it and harvesting it naturally brings more rewards, but does the reward for sparing it measure up? If so, wouldn’t slicing off a chunk and running away be the best approach? He questioned himself, before thinking better of being waylaid.

He considered ignoring that quest notification altogether but resolved to at least give it some thought after taking down his assailants. An irregular distortion occurred where it stood, and he lost the Gob-smacker for a moment before catching a glimpse of it darting side-to-side to approach him.

He’d initially thought this a ploy to lose him in the murk, but a second possibility popped up in his mind a second later, but that was a split-second too late. An arrow to the knee confirmed that possibility and as he turned to the arrow’s origin, the Gob-smacker’s original position, another arrow pieced into him, but from the Gob-smacker’s new position.

The Gob-smacker closed the distance between them, and he quick-drew Gentle Breeze to end the Gob-smacker as soon as possible. I guess it’ll be the ‘On Kill’ rewards then, he thought as he lined his thrust to the approaching Gob-smacker’s head.

In the final moments of their impending clash a visual distortion occurred, similar to just before the Gob-smacker had begun its zig-zagging assault, and his thrust met a metallic immovable object that parried it upwards, bringing his new attacker, a shadowy humanoid figure into his personal space. His sword flew into the distance as his assailant’s parry quickly turned into an overhead thump that sent his dizzy form sliding onto his bottom.

As he struggled to shake off the stun effect of the blow, a somewhat familiar, but dreadful voice talked down to him. “It’s been a while, Wind Sword, or should I say Commander?”