Chapter 3: Boss battle, and what comes after

Claire’s arrow plunged deep into the alpha warg’s flank. It sprang up and began casting about for enemies, fearful jaws closing hard on empty air before its burning red eyes fixed on her and it leaped for the stairs. Her second longshot caught it still in the air, and it recoiled – scarlet light covering almost a third of its fur now – but that was almost the last of her mana. Barely a trickle went into her next arrow, but now she could loft them as quick as her hands could move, and each took the warg’s health down another ten percent or so.

The huge clawed paws landed together on the midpoint landing… which was the one Claire had salted with her improvised caltrops. She’d never heard a warg scream in baffled fury before – it was worse than the time she stubbed her toe on a ceramic astromech droid and stumbled backwards into lego. There wasn’t any lego available in this cave, but it did fall rather comedically off the staircase, giving Claire time for a few more arrows before it gathered itself with a loud snarl.

Very loud, in fact – the deep grinding, tearing sound reverberated through the cave, and a pebble landed on Claire’s shoulder from the ceiling. A debuff icon with a pair of jaws popped into view, matching the fearful shivering in her muscles, and the arrow intended for its open mouth crashed into the cave wall instead. “Teach me to be fancy… just stick it with the pointy end, Wolfbiter.”

The alpha warg had less than a tenth of its health left, coat almost entirely hidden beneath swirling red light, but none of her arrows were hitting, and it cleared her improvised barricade with ease. The next few moments were a blur of pain and terror and foul-smelling fur, red light clouding over her eyes, but eventually the pain… stopped getting worse, at least, and the scrabbling and snarling stopped.

“Owwwww….. am I dead? Was I a good girl? - no, wait, it still hurts, so I can’t be dead. Status?”

You have slain your first boss monster! You have gained 500 xp. Quest progress (Wargs in the Greenwood) 10/10 wargs slain. Rabbits collected 4/4. You have discovered and slain the Alpha Warg. Bonus criterion met: slay the Alpha Warg by yourself. Reward: 500 xp and enhanced loot drop.

You have reached Level 3!

New skill gained: Pinning shot (active, combat): Use an arrow to pin an enemy to any hard surface. Root lasts for level+3 seconds.

New skill gained: Explosive arrow (active, combat): This arrow explodes on impact, dealing additional fire damage and potentially destroying objects.

“Now I could really have used those five minutes ago… hm. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to tackle him on my own. Oh, well, it’s over now, and I can skin this angry bathroom carpet for a cloak… maybe a bedspread.”

The red mist dissipated as her hitpoints crept up, and she belatedly realised she had a deathgrip on one of her own arrows, embedded in the corpse’s side.

Achievement unlocked! Safe Distance: kill a boss monster using only ranged weapons. Smart and cautious, or a dirty coward? You decide.

“...well, I suppose technically I killed it with arrows. Wouldn’t call this safe, though...” It was an odd sensation seeing the red light receding from her limbs, leaving neatly mended rips in her clothes behind. She let go of the arrow and the alpha warg’s corpse dissolved into sparkles, leaving behind a large pile of fur, a stack of coins (ooh, actual gold!), and a knife in a brown leather scabbard. Touching them gave a popup window:

You have acquired some magical equipment. These will bind to you on equip – you will be unable to sell or trade them.

Cloak of the Warg-Slayer: +25% damage vs wolves and lupine monsters, 25% reduction in damage taken from wolves and lupine monsters.

Skinner’s knife: Increases the amount of usable fur or leather from a monster. +50% damage vs beasts.

Do you wish to equip these?

“Yes! Loot, loot, lovely loot!” The knife and cloak sparkled and faded, reforming at her belt and on her shoulders. She could definitely feel the cloak there, and it swirled the way heavy fur would, but it wasn’t nearly as cumbersome as it looked. “Oh, for a mirror – wait, the pond!”

The pond reflected surprisingly well for a large puddle in a dimly lit cave, but she still recoiled in shock as it showed her reflection with a skull for a head – until she realised it was actually a complete skeleton, under the water, positioned exactly wrongly. Now, is that just scenery, or random loot, or is there some plot there… maybe the “enhanced loot” it promised me… She reached in (checking for cave crabs first, this time) and started groping around for – well, for anything that wasn’t rocks or bones. It turned out that there was precisely one object that fit that criterion, and it was a chest with a metal handle… which was wedged firmly between the rocks, and Claire’s excited yanking succeeded only in toppling her headfirst into the pond.

With an annoyed and woeful splutter of complaint, she waded out of the water and started to wring her hair dry. “No sooner do I get this new cloak, but it gets wet. I’ll never get rid of the smell of wet dog now...” A puzzled expression crossed her face, and she reached up to remove a large frog from her head. “Where did you come from? I could have sworn – no, never mind. You’re a narrative imperative. Back you go, little froggy.”

A much more careful heave managed to extract the chest from the water. “Whaaat’s in the box… wonderful things!”

What was in the box turned out to be a crown. An ornate dwarven-looking crown, made from a silvery, slightly bluish metal, ornamented with battlements and moonstone gems. Since it’s physically impossible to hold a crown without trying it on, Claire lifted it on high, adopted a noble and resolute expression, and slowly lowered it onto her brow…

Racial requirements met. Gender and bloodline requirements not met. Cannot equip this item.

“Useless piece of tin-plated outdated aristocratic sexist nonsense! I hope you roll into the gutter and fall down a drain!” The crown went back in its box, the lid slammed down forcefully, and the whole thing stuffed into her inventory, there to be probably completely forgotten about.

Except…

A Mysterious Crown: Find the matching pieces of the Royal Regalia. Discover who its last wearer was and what happened to them. Find a suitable heir to wear it. Reward: 200,000 xp, noble title, other bonuses.

“Republican principles, what republican principles? Lost princes here we come!”

She squelched cheerfully out of the cave, whistling a merry tune. Or at least whistling in a merry mood. Even her dearest friends would have hesitated to describe it as a tune.

“Dammit, gotten turned around. Let’s see if I can find the river again...” She didn’t manage to find the river, but she did find a field of wildflowers, a dead tree covered in roses, a stone circle surrounding a spring, three leftover wargs (who found their eventual destination to be thirty square feet of warg hide and a half-dozen fangs), a sounder of wild boar which she carefully left alone, and a magnificent oak tree with a craggy bearded face in the trunk. It was snoring, so she immediately engaged high stealth and tiptoed away. If I wake him up, he’s either going to attack me or give me a complicated fetch quest, and I am SO not in the mood for either of those… aha, a path! Left or right… when in doubt, turn right.

The path eventually debouched into a large open glade, at one side of which was a sturdy turf-roofed wooden hut. Smoke curled from its chimney, climbing plants grew around the door, and a thriving vegetable patch sat nearby, while a red-haired dwarf woman was energetically breaking ground for another, wielding an iron hoe twice her height, probably stolen from some agricultural deity who was currently scratching his head and wondering how he’s going to get that mountain levelled now. She straightened up when she saw Claire approaching, and leaned on the hoe.

Claire waved cheerfully. “Hello! Did you know you have a goat on your roof?”