《The Rise of The Emperor of The Dreadlands》Chapter 11: Horned Rabbit Den
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I cleaned the bone dagger and put it away and looted the dead corpses. I took their armour and weapons, both of which were in bad shape but hey, it was better to have some form of replacement I guess. I also found a couple Drachma on them, around 24 Drachma, bringing my total amount to over 50 Drachma. "I'm starting to get quite a stash to be honest. Though what these are even good for I don't know. Nothing here even sells things, but meh I might find someone who actually wants to sell me something so I'll store em for now."
I put the coins back into my inventory and took one last look at the corpses for anything useful and when I found nothing I dragged the corpses into some house nearby and dumped em in a corner. I decided that was good enough to hide the bodies and used the rift home since I had saved enough mana to use it. I stepped through the blue mirror like portal and wound up back at my home in the inn. I cleaned the blood off of my clothes and equipment and then just sat in bed and thought about whatever.
I probably spent over half an hour just sitting there mulling over what had happened. Was it the right thing to do to kill them? Was there another way? I kept thinking things like this but again my mind settled onto the point that had made me commit the act back there in the first place. This place wasn't kind and it was either kill or be killed.I was going to have to do this sort of stuff to live whether I liked it or not but I decided I wouldn't become some raving lunatic that killed everyone for fun like those bastards. That said they were planning to attack my home so I was trying to figure out what to do.
"Why do they want me dead so badly? It's not like I have much good stuff on me in the first place. I barely have any good equipment so why did they say I had good loot? Is that ability they talked about talking about my Drachma or is it talking about something else?" I sat there in confusion and couldn't think about what I had that was worth something other than my Drachma. I gave up and decided to think about what to do. I didn't want to move but they seemed to have a tracking ability user so they would find me eventually regardless of where I was. "Hmm, should I just attack them first? If I repeatedly raid their camp, kill a few people, and then portal out several times they should probably give up or I will end up whittling enough people away that they scatter. But where do they even live??"
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Just as I had gotten a plan the fact that I didn't know where they lived smacked me in the face. I really should have kept one of them alive to ask questions, but then again I'm no good at interrogations so whatever. I got out of bed and sat at the table, eating an apple while I thought about my game plan. I had decided that I would do the following.
I would continue hunting skeletons and possibly the odd rabbit thing here and there to continue levelling up. I needed the strength and power. Next I would try and find more of the bandits while out and about, or even their base if I could find it. They probably don't live too far away as they need to walk everywhere so they are somewhere closeby which was something I wasn't sure was a good thing.
"Alright, that's my current game plan settled, how much mana do I have now? Oh I'm almost fully regenerated. Sweet. Hot damn I also gained a level?! Wait...does that mean you get Exp from killing people?" I didn't know how to feel about the last fact I just found out but I wasn't complaining. I was now level 4 and my mana had increased to 250 and my health was now 1200. The more mana the more ranged attacks so I was glad and more hp meant I was less likely to die so I wasn't going to complain.
"Alright, lets get this show on the road and start hunting some more skeletons and exp- I mean bandits. Right, bandits not Exp." I shook my head and reminded myself once again to not become a crazy killing lunatic as much as it paid in Exp I had my own standards to abide by, as small as they might be. With renewed vigor I went outside and began hunting for more skeletons and strained my senses to catch a whiff of some bandits.I was calling those bastards bandits as that's what they were essentially. They killed, looted and pillaged whoever they wanted and didn't care about the consequences so Bandits it was. Made it easier on my mind that way as well if I thought of them as criminals and not people. Leaving my internal dilemma alone , I went out and continued searching buildings, fighting the odd skeleton here and there but not finding much in terms of loot. I had only gotten some Drachma and a couple bone daggers from the remains of the skeletons. One of them was using his own rib as a god damn weapon!
"How are you just going to rip out your ribs and use them as weapons?! That sure scared the hell out of me but for real tho! That's not normal, I swear!" I was grumbling about my latest encounter as I was walking through a small clearing when I saw a Horned rabbit. Urgh, not those again. "Alright you shit faced horn demon. I'm going to just walk around and you better not come near me or so help me I'm-" The little shit just charged straight at me after making some weird noises and scratching the ground with its horn. I saw several other horned rabbits coming out of a hole near a wall. I hopped backwards and to the left to avoid the charging rabbit and made a mana ball and then sent it flying at the throng of rabbits. It slammed through one of them and blew up after hitting the ground, effectively killing 6 rabbits with 1 hit. "Booya! Sweet Sweet Exp!"
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I saw that the horned rabbit charging me was now injured by the blast but still trying to charge me, although it was far slower now and had several burn wounds. I also saw more horned rabbits pouring out of the hole I assumed was their den. "Just how many are there in that damn hole?! Is there some sort of rabbit complex underneath the ground with hundreds of you freaks?! Just die!" I fired another mana ball and it also blew up successfully amidst the throng of horned rabbits, killing several more but I then noticed the initial rabbit getting too close for comfort so I turned my attention to it and fired a mana ball at it.
To my surprise the thing dodged the mana ball and kept running at me. I had to dodge again but it managed to nick my leg as it passed by but it only scratched my armour. I kicked at it and stepped back a bit, rethinking my plan. "Should I leave or should I continue to farm the rabbits for Exp? They give a lot more Exp than the skeletons but I don't fancy the idea of becoming a walking pin cushion."
I fired a third mana ball and killed a few more horned rabbits but when I saw their numbers only increasing I decided to book it but made sure to remember where this den was for future use. I ran forward and grabbed as many dead horned rabbits as possible and started chucking them into my inventory. I had tossed over 40 of them into my inventory while firing 2 more mana balls to cover me before deciding I had had enough and started running. I sprinted out of there an kept running, looking back to see a wave of fluffy death chasing me. "Why is there so many of you?! You breed like rabbits!....... wait..they are rabbits...Screw you anyways! Why are there so many of you?!"
I rounded a corner and was deciding on whether I should use my rift skill or not. I had fired 2 more mana balls, killing over a dozen more rabbits and increasing in level once again, becoming level 5. I was excited but squashed that down for the moment and kept thinking. I was about to make the rift when I heard voices. They sounded familiar too. I rounded a corner and saw that there was several of the bandits I had met the first time, milling about what looked like several large houses they turned into a fortress of sorts, with shoddily built stone and wood walls surrounding the fort. The guards on duty were chatting but soon noticed me and screamed out, alerting everyone else to my presence.
"It's the bastard we were looking for! He's charging straight at the base! Wait...what's that behind him?" Another guard nearby squinted and looked behind me to see what it was before he spoke up, saying "Isn't that a fluffy blob chasing after him? The hell is it? Some new monster? Wait, those are horns. Oh shit." He looked panicked and screamed as loud as he could. "The bastard brought an army of HORNED RABBITS! I REPEAT! HORNED RABBIT ARMY INCOMING!!"
The genuine terror in his voice from the wall of death bunnies was so dumb it made me bust a gut laughing even while I was sprinting. I decided now was a good time as any to dip, so I made the rift and turned to their leader who was now on the wall looking at me. I said "Enjoy the fluff. It's a house warming present for moving into the neighborhood." With a smirk on my face I dashed through the rift, it closing behind me as I heard someone screaming something. I had made a note of where their base was located and decided to change my gameplan. It was time to introduce operation fluffy doom.
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