“So you guys spent half a year hunting heratosks??? THOSE heratosks???” I said, clenching to keep yesterday’s dinner in my colon.

“Ahaha no no they weren’t as bad as that. The ones we hunted didn’t use magic.” Grey chuckled.

“Oh” I said, sucking it back in. “Actually I need to use a tree and some toilet paper. I’ll be back.”

“Alright, be quick though. You never know what else might be out here.”

“Yeah, yeah I’ll be careful.” I waved him off then retreated a ways into the woods. Finding an appropriate place I put my toilet paper on a nearby branch, squatted down and began to ‘do business’.

“Well, well, well what do we have here? Looks like a little kid got a little lost, doesn’t it boys?” The voice echoed through the trees. It took no effort to find that the source was the dirty looking man who had just stepped out from behind a nearby tree along with his gang. Bandits.

“Bro. Really? I’m shitting.”

“Too bad. Grab him.” The last two words were directed to the men next to him. As they grinned and started towards me I stared dead in their eyes.

“You guys can rob me, kidnap me, or use me as a hostage for my friends up the road but, if you don’t wait for me to finish shitting I swear to whatever god answers to your filthy prayers when you cry to your virgin selves at night that I will wipe my ass on every part of any of you that I can reach.”

The men hesitated. They weren’t clean by any means, who could be after however long they’d spent living outside? But they also weren’t quite willing to have actual shit rubbed on them by what was starting to look like a bat-shit crazy stranger.

“Fine. Surround him boys. We can wait.”

“It’s gay to watch.” I said, my bowel excavation slowing in the presence of shame.

“You’re right.” The leader smiled, and then dropped his pants. Oh sweet Jesus I’m in trouble. I willed my hands to reach for the toilet paper –priorities kids- but all I managed was a tremble. Slowly, excruciatingly, the boss turned his back to me and squatted down.

“Uh…”

“Hah! With me doing it too you’ve lost your advantage!” The leader cackled next to me. “C’mon boys! Let’s show this fool how the Brown Back Bandits do business!”1 This might be the first time in history that command was taken so literally as the rest of the bandits all squatted down and politely started looking up while getting busy.

“Nice weather today huh.”

“Ye’ it’s bee’ pretteh consisten’ feh a few mon’hs nah.”

“Oh look a bird.”

“Oh you’re right.”

“I wish I was a bird sometimes.”

“Y’know what man, me too.”

“Bird? Hah! You dream too small man! I dream of being a DRAGON!”

“OH YEAH? WELL I DREAM OF BEING TWO DRAGONS!”

“What? Dude how would you be two dragons?”

“It’s cause one of them is you and we’d never be apart again.”

“Dude. That’s perfect.”

“That’s gay.”

“You’re gay.”

“Hey guys I don’t mean to butt in (heh), but does anyone need the toilet paper?” I held up the roll I’d brought with me while pulling up my pants.

“Oh yeah man could you toss it here?” The two-dragon-bandit raised his hand and waved a bit. I chucked the paper over to him.

“Oh hey! Me next!” One of the bandits further away, the one who pointed out the bird, maybe, called out. It went around like that until we were all standing up more or less how we’d started.

“Alright boys. Hows this gonna go?” I gently backed against the tree while reaching into my pocket.

“Ah. Hold up.” The leader raised his hand. “I’m not done yet.” He lowered his head and looked away. I think he’s pouting.

“Dude,” I settled my hands on my hips, “I still have to catch up to my companions you know?”

“Fine! Fine!” The leader waved his hand as if to brush me off. “Just toss me the paper and start over.” Aww, he’s blushing. I chuckled and tossed him the paper.

“Alright boys. Hows this gonna go?”

“Simple.” The leader said. “Get him.” As the bandits rushed in I kicked off the tree into the closest bandit, slapping my guild badge onto my chest. There were too many to sacrifice my bones punching, but as long as I didn’t fight I could use them. The one I chose tried backing off when I came close. Seeing my opportunity, I planted a foot on his knee and leapt back onto the tree, quickly climbing as high as I could go. “What now kid? You’ll have to come down eventually.”

Ignoring him, I shot my spider’s web into the top of a nearby tree and leapt. The web went taut and swung me back to the forest floor. I’d only gained about twenty feet but I’d broken their encirclement. A grin lit up my face. Let’s see if that training paid off shall we?

“Catch me if you can, boys.” I winked at my pursuers then sprinted into the woods. The bandits wasted no time at all chasing after me but that made things easier. Swinging my arms out, I sent my wire into the base of two nearby trees before twining the wires together. Stopping in place I turned around while holding the wire in the cat’s claw.

“Ooo you got so close!” I laughed while letting go of the mana-coated wire, it sparked as it tore away from my claws and snapped back towards the bandits. The two fastest bandits noticed the wire and attempted to leap over it only to have it catch their ankles, spinning them face-first into the dirt. Looking back at the remaining bandits I tossed some leaves in the air and, relying on enigma to blur my presence, focused on using traveler to step behind the bandits. I chuckled a bit watching them looking around and carefully hopping over the wire stretched a handful of inches off the ground. My laughter was cut short when I heard a rustle from behind and whipped around to see the bandit leader, who had apparently finished up, draw a sword and savagely swing down towards my neck. Shit shit shit.

I leapt back to avoid his first swing. He laughed and used the swing’s momentum to pivot, sliding a boot behind my own and letting me fall to the ground.

“Ahaha being quick won’t help yous on the ground now will it?” The leader snarled through blackened teeth. Ugh, his breath smells like...oh!

“CHIMPANZEE POWER!” I scream at the leader while picturing my mana forming an air cannon. I release my mana and piles of very recent human poop launch from the leaves around me directly into the bandit leader’s face.

I have no idea what the hell he feeds his men but he went down. I’m talking from standing to prone in 0.5 seconds. Good enough. I slid Sir Spike from his holster and sheathed him in bandit leader before turning to the remaining bandits, who were now spreading out around me. Man, groups are hard.

“Hey guys, let’s just calm down. We’re friends, right? People who poop together troupe together, right?” I backed up towards the nearest tree.

“Wha’? Thas th’ dum’est thin’ I eva hea’d.”

“Well you heard that guy say he wanted to be two dragons so y’know what, bite me.” I stuck my tongue out at the bandit who likes apostrophes more than showers and fired a wire into a branch above me and yanked down hard.

“O’ tha’s it, bo’i.” The bandit snarled and stabbed at me with his dagger.2 I caught the attack on the wire, looped it around his arm, and let go.

“A’a’aa’ugh’!” With a short scream he was dragged off his feet and I took the opportunity to run. I’m an assassin, remember? One and done. The six or so remaining bandits all shouted and gave chase with resounding warcries like: “Get ‘im!” and “What’s wrong with two dragons!?”

Right before reaching the road I heard screams. Breaking through the trees I saw about fifteen more bandits. Ten of them were lying on the ground, but so was Grey. From the way there were no bandits around him it looked like he got done-in by...ah...me. Damn, I glanced down and saw my badge had been knocked off at some point. Which means, for at least my own conscience, I needed to help out. Kel was good but she was being pressured enough to have pulled out her bow and I have no mana left. Ah fuck it. With a deep breath I jumped out of the trees and sprinted towards the bandits. It looks like there are four swordsmen and a magician left not chasing me. Using enigma at its full output alongside silent movement I ran behind the magician and slammed Sir Stabbington Spike into his neck. The magician crumpled but I was already gone. Using traveler to ‘teleport’ behind the nearest guard I tickled his brain with Sir Spike. Immediately the other three bandits noticed me and two swung at me while one went for Kel. Kel fired an arrow into one of the ones targeting me so fast even I couldn’t react before he dropped. The other swung his sword at me but I blocked with the guard stuck on the end of sir spike.

I pulled Spike out and backed off only to see the guard who had attacked me how had an arrow in his eye. I turned to Kel to see her helping Grey next to a freshly smoking body. I turned around to see six bandits running as fast as they could in the other direction.

“Kel, did you even need help?” I said while looking at the piles of bandits.

“Actually, yeah. Grey dropped for some reason after taking down a few of them and the damn mage cast slow on me so I was freaking out a bit there.”

“Ah. Well Grey is probably my fault so lemme look at him.” Sure enough, Grey had a dislocated arm, dislocated hips, and broken leg without any surface wounds: my bad.

“I can use treatment on him but I need time for my mana to regen. Might as well go find my badge while I’m at it.” I nodded to Kel and turned to jog back the way I came.

“Alright. I’ll see what we got.” Kel laughed while she started pilfering items from dead bandits.

Treatment

----Lvl 8----

Similar to healing magic, but requires medical supplies as well as mana. Treatment can heal most minor and medium wounds, as well as some major wounds at the current level, but takes time.

An hour or so later, Kel Grey and I were sitting a few hundred yards down the road eating lunch.

“Wow.” Grey said, flexing his fixed arm. “Your healing is pretty damn good.”

“I had a great teacher. I can’t regenerate anything with it though, just put back together what’s there so be a bit careful.” I said while packing away my med kit.

“Sure thing. Anyway you said you know what happened to Grey?” Kel asked. I cringed. I really did mean to tell them before we got in a fight but I forgot.

“Yeah…ah…that was my fault. I have a skill called aura of misfortune…” Kel, sat down and crossed her arms.

“Which does…?”

“It makes every combatant within a certain area have a huge chance of failing catastrophically. The area is based off of my luck so when I’m wearing this badge” I gesture at my guild badge “I can reduce the area to about three feet.”

“What is it without the badge?”

“Without the badge it’s about my luck times ten, so about a hundred meters.”

“Your luck is only ten??? How is that even possible?” I laughed nervously. Yep. It’s totally ten. Not at all negative.

“I really don’t know.”

“Hmm,” Kel mused.

“So we just need crit chance accessories.” Grey spoke up. “Also Jin I’m going to punch you.”

“Wha-“ Was all I got out before Grey, still laying down, socked me in the jaw: sending me flying a good twenty feet. “Moffer fuffer.” I spent a few minutes fixing my broken jaw before flipping off Grey.

“You deserved that.” He was right, but it still hurt. “Anyway, chance of failure when attacking is directly balanced by critical hit chance, so we just need a high enough critical hit chance right?”

“Uh. I guess?”

“Jin. How high does it increase the chance of failure?”

“A level 164 master assassin couldn’t get off a single attack3 without dislocating something.”

“We’re fucked.” Grey pinched the bridge of his nose while sighing. I laughed since they now understood my pain. I suffered with this nonsense for a year already. “Ok so you need to wear that badge all the time basically.

“Yeah. So it should just affect me and whoever gets too close. Just, if someone pulls the badge off somehow, only use magic.”

“All the more reason to get to that academy. How far is it again Kel?” Grey turned towards Kel, who was still rested among piles of bandits.

“Let’s see. Remember when we were on the mountain after picking up the noob?”

“Yeah”

“Well when we were up there we looked out over the forest and saw a single trail through the mountains. The magic academy is through that trail and immediately on the other side of the mountains. Kinda in the mountains actually. Three days. Tops.” Kel said with a deadpan expression and a confident thumbs up.

NAME: Jin ﴾Third Prong﴿

TITLE: Enigmatic/ Endless Sleeper/ Graduate of the Third Prong

AGE: 20

RACE: ???

LEVEL: 20

CLASS: Assassin

STRENGTH: 81

VITALITY: 131

SPEED: 179

AGILITY: 173

LUCK: -10

INTELLIGENCE: 91

DEXTERITY: 184

MANA: 123

SKILLS: Origin Lvl 2. Traveler (+lighten load/+quick travel/+distance travel). Enigma Lvl 4. Mental resist. Aura of Misfortune. Projectile weapon proficiency. Lock-picking. Silent movement. Treatment Lvl 8. Hide. Quick Climb. Bluff. Emphatic Cry (+increased tear volume). Pain Resist Lvl 2. Trap Proficiency.

Enigma

----Lvl 4----

Can change apparent status at will (Works against magic beneath high level). Can encrypt information. Can thin presence including sight, sound, and touch.

1Buh dum tsss

2Have I worn out the penis jokes yet?

3(after being designated a combatant)