Wow… I don’t post one day b/c of Christmas… and I come back and some guy’s (PraveenLvv) given me half a star on everything on the ratings page, screwing up the ratings completely….LOL… I can understand getting that for the story and overall score etc… but I didn’t think my grammar and writing style was that bad… Also, I thought the purpose of chapter title was to summarize the chapter or give you a good idea of what’s in the chapter… LOL… Merry F#$king Christmas right?... anyway…

It seems like part of the issue is that my chapters are too short and since my story is not hack and slash or ‘adventurous’ everyday, you aren’t seeing excitement in each chapter… Up till now, I’ve been trying to put out one chapter a day with about 1500 words and decent to above average grammar... Well… I decided to go ahead and stop that after this chapter. From now on, I’m going to do one chapter every four to five days with maybe 4000 words or more in it. It’ll give you guys a bit more to read each chapter and maybe expand the story each chapter instead of spreading it out. Hopefully, that’ll resolve a few issues.

____________________________________________________________________

It was midday, and for what it was worth, Richard was in a good mood. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and more than anything… his inventory was stuffed. In fact, it was pretty much full, so he was carrying his share of the loot from the battle with the slavers in a rucksack on his back. The salvaged sword, clothes, food, and a few other items from their packs added about 20 or so pounds to his weight, so… it was slow going, but Richard didn’t mind. Waste not, want not, right?

He had been wandering around the outer fringes of the marshlands for the last few days after splitting up with Nevel and the women. The hunter had decided to take the women to somewhere safe… at least that’s how Nevel had put it… and Richard hadn’t second guessed him. For one thing, Richard had observed the hunter long enough to realized he wasn’t a bastard, and for another, the man really hated slavers. So, it wasn’t too difficult to let the tearful/thankful girls go with him…

Part of the reason was because he had wanted to some time to contemplate what had happened that night. Thinking about what had happened… it gave him shivers… Never mind what he had done… the girls had been very… ummm… ‘thorough,’ would be the best word.

Overall, Richard felt just a bit uncomfortable with how cold and ruthless he had been… Though, all of it happened in the spur of the moment, the more Richard thought about it, the more he realized something was fundamentally changing inside him. In some ways, the change was good, because he wasn’t afraid of the unknown anymore… but he was starting to develop some deep hatreds that were starting to nag at him… like wanting him to hunt some more of those bastards down even now… He wondered if that would make him a serial killer or maybe a vigilante… Hmm… Well…

But for the present, he was just happy that shit was behind him and that he was finally heading back to what counted as civilization in this place. A week and a half without a shower… was a bit disgusting feeling. Thankfully, the village was a few miles… somewhere ahead, and he… well… honestly, he was lost. Richard stood in the forest, looking around and scratching his head in confusion. From the position of the sun… and the moss growing the tree… “Umm… Let’s see… Nevel said east and southeast, so I’ve been moving… ummm.”

Technically, he had been lost to start out with. Sooo…. He had even tried using his Compass of Seeking after remembering about the damn thing. The first day… when he had requested it direct him towards the village, nothing had happened, and the countdown timer on the damn thing had reset to 24 hours. The second day, he had tried to be more specific, forcing his desire for a building to be forefront on his mind… He had ended up with three different trails, two of them heading in the same, general direction. So, he had followed the two trails, and after a while, the third, misty/smoky trail had disappeared. Of course, as his luck would have it, he ended up finding a couple of old, rotting cabins.

And now, it was the third day… and the clock showed 3 seconds… 2… 1… Richard tapped the top of the compass/watch.

Ding! A message box popped up right in front of him.

What do you seek?

Richard kept his mind clear… since the stupid thing seemed to pick up on the first thing he thought of… So, the first think he thought of was ‘people.’

For a second, nothing happened… Then suddenly, a single blue, misty trail popped up, heading somewhere off to what he thought was… the east? After wondering about it, he shrugged and decided to head that way instead of wasting time. One thing he had learned was that the stupid compass thing had a time limit of about a half an hour or so. It seemed to be one of those ‘not important’ details that was left out of its description by whoever had made the thing...

A couple dozen minutes later, he started hearing voices…. Well, there was some high pitched screaming… followed up raucous laughter. The forest had been getting denser as well, so Richard couldn’t actually make out a lot of what he was heading towards… However, he got that shitty feeling that it was another one of those stupid ‘random encounters’ he was starting to get lucky with. And this one was starting to sound like it was going to be a messed up one… again.

So, he crouched and quietly dropped his rucksack before slowly maneuvering through the forest underbrush. He wasn’t exactly Solid Snake from the Metal Gear games… but he had learned a few tricks of the trade from Nevel… Also, hunting Blood Vipers had been a pretty good motivation towards staying silent and hidden… considering the alternative had been having a 15 foot freak of a snake wanting to take a bite out of you.

One of the main things that had been pounded into his head was that if he could see the enemy, the enemy had a good chance of seeing him in return… So, he instead peeked through what looked like a bush. “God [email protected]$king shit… why can’t it be something peaceful for once?” Quietly muttering his breath, Richard took in the situation.

1. Three no good, piece of shit armed douches were laughing like a bunch of third rate villains.

2. The object of their ridicule was tied to a tree, with his back facing towards the third rate villains.

3. The object of their ridicule looked like some kind of young kid.

4. The object of their ridicule had his pants down around his legs.

5. One of the third rate villains was waving around a stick, which seemed to have a tip that was slightly smoking, no doubt having been burned by the small, smothered campfire they had going.

“Seriously….” Muttering, Richard shook his head in disgust…

Anyway, the moment he had seen the kid, he had decided to help… but after watching the morons and their stupidity for a while, he decided killing them was a gods’ given task… since it would at least improve the average IQ in this world.

So, he quietly snuck a bit closer, trying not to rustle any bushes or snap any twigs…. He had always wondered how a snapping twig could be so loud in a forest where the wind was blowing, rustling leaves and generally making a racket…. but, he decided to be careful nevertheless. His luck wasn’t exactly the best lately, and there was always a shitty chance that the bandits had some super skill like ‘Cat’s Ears’ or some shit like that.

Finally, when he thought he was close enough, he targeted one of the morons, who looked like he was carrying a crossbow. The idiot had his back turned to Richard… and though he seemed a bit skinny, his back was a pretty clear target… The other two, one of whom was the bigger and bulkier of three goons, were standing closer to each other, so Richard reserved the area effective spells for them. However, watching them for a bit, Richard realized the trio of morons were so absorbed in their little game, that they weren’t paying any attention to anything….

Thug One….who’s name didn’t matter anyway… felt perverse glee at watching and hearing the little freak tied to the tree squirm and squeal in a squeaky voice. The gang had netted the twerp in their last night raid on a camp on the road to Ortesse. Though the pickings hadn’t been too good lately, Thug One was happy that they had at least gotten the squirt to torture a bit. Thug One’s companions… hadn’t been too happy after the last raid… Thug one scowled. It wasn’t his fault that their mark the last time had been some kind of magic user. Of course, Thug one had gotten the blame since he hadn’t actually been hurt… Well, at least the others now had the twerp to rough up a bit….

“ARRGGHGHGH!!!”

Thug one collapsed forward onto the ground, screaming and his hands dropping his crossbow as they clutched his sides instead. His back felt like something had just slammed into it… breaking something. It felt like his insides were being poked… and… and… he couldn’t move his legs…. “Uggaggghhhh….! Whaaaaa?!!!” Thug one choked out a scream and looked up through watering eyes, trying to find his companions. However, to his shock, he saw them flailing around, while holding their throats and faces… and to make things worse, they seemed to be stuck where they were standing... Thug one moaned in pain and tried to move his body. He was afraid… as afraid as he had been that night… His eyes suddenly widened and his heart started racing…. That night! Then from behind him, he heard a sarcastic voice…

“Oh… so it’s you three f#$k heads… I wondered where you dumbasses ran off to back then…”

Standing behind the bandit trio, Richard quickly recognized the huge bulky one as one of the swordsman from the night ambush. So… that meant the other two were the archers…

Richard shrugged… It didn’t really matter… They were still idiots…. Hell… they hadn’t even bothered to keep an eye out on their surroundings… Richard could have probably stabbed one of them in the back, before they realized something was wrong.

Now… one was on the ground squirming like his back was broken or something… and the other two’s legs were firmly implanted in the now dry ground. One of them even collapsed as though he had fainted from the Biogas… They were helpless….

Richard pulled out his halberd from his inventory, coated its metal head with Blood Viper Venom and stabbed at each of them a few times. The big one got a couple extra pokes due to his size…

“ARGGGGGG!”

“MAMAAAAA!”

“NOOOOOOO!”

After watching them squirm and scream for a few seconds, Richard decided to finish things… the bandits were stupid and evil and probably deserved the slow and painful death… but they were making too much noise. Gods forbid that there was something horrible and nasty wandering around the forest….

Hack!

Stab!

Stab! Stab! Stab!..... Stab!

“Sheesh… you f#$kers bleed like pigs...” Muttering, Richard walked past the bloody mess he had made and looked at the half naked kid tied to the tree… Richard didn’t really feel any remorse in killing the morons… mainly because of the kid. Any piece of shit that did this to a kid, deserved to die a slow, painful death. However, Richard also felt as sense of… taking out the trash… yeah, that might be the best way to describe it.

The little kid, who came up to about Richard’s abdomen in height, was whimpering and crying. Richard couldn’t exactly see much since the kid had his face up against the tree, so he walked around the tree, pulling out his hunting knife from his inventory. “Alright kiddo, I’ll have you free in a sec. I’m here to help ya.” With a quick slash, the rope tied to the kid’s arms and around the tree fell away, and the kid quickly backed away from the tree. Richard stepped around the tree with a comforting smile…

His smile quickly dropped… and “Welks! You f#$king midget!”

__________________________________________________________________________

See Chapters 8,9, and 10 to see why MC hates Welks....