(Thrash’s POV)

“PULLLLLLLLLLLLLLL” PULL THAT ROCK ONTO LAND

“I CAN FEEL IT STRUGGLING, IT’S JUST BEHIND THAT ROCK, PULL WE’VE BEEN PULLING FOR ALMOST THREE DAYS WE WON’T BE BACKING DOWN NOW”

“I CAN PULL FOREVER” GIRL NEEDS ME!

“HERE SOME WEIRD MEAT THING” BACON GOOD, I AM LATE TO HELP GIRL, MUST FINISH THIS AND HELP NOW

“GIVE ME SOME OF THAT TOO STRAWBOY”

“COMING! ALSO THE ROCK IS MOVING”

“OF COURSE IT’S MOVING, WE’RE PULLING IT”

“NO LIKE IT’S GROWING”

You have awoken the Sunken Rock Giant [Elite]

“IT’S A ROCK GIANT” STRAWDER I KNOW

“KEEP PULLING, WE’RE GETTING THAT DAMNABLE FISH OUT OF THE WATER IF IT’S THE LAST THING I DO” WE WILL PULL THAT FISH OUT

“GUYS IT’S MOVING TOWARDS US”

“GO ANNOY IT YOU’RE GOOD AT THAT”

“OH THANK YOU, WAIT IS THAT AN INSULT?”

“YOU’RE LEARNING, NOW GO”

“HERE GIANT HERE GIANT COME SAY HELLO TO ME THE GREAT STRAWDER ADVENTURER OF THE STRAW PEO-”

*Slam*

“PULL”

You have 100% agro

“HE’S COMING”

The line goes a little loose for a second as the giant shuffles before going taught again

“HEY GIANT COME BACK, YOU HAVEN’T DEFEATED ME YET”

“WAIT STRAWDER, HE’S HELPING PULL, COME HELP PULL” He’s coming for me which is pulling the fish out one step at a time.

“NO, THRASH, LET GO AND TAKE OUT THAT GIANT. I CANNOT LET HIM HELP ME. KILL IT”

Letting go of the rod, Kill the giant!

The line is around it’s legs so let’s go around i-

*WHOOSH*

Dangerous!

Slam into it’s leg

-22

Run around, do it again as it tries to follow me.

-24

Again

-26

*RUMBLECRASH*

To it’s head and PULLLLLLLAHHAGHGH

“GIANT IS DEAD” back to the rod and PULL

*TSCHHRRRR*

Pulling dead giant with it is really hard

*SPLASHSPLASHSPLASH*

“IT’S THERE IT’S THERE!!! PULL HARDER”

“I CAN TASTE VICTORY”

“ACTUALLY ALL I CAN TASTE IS STRAW”

“FIGURATIVELY YOU DUMBASS”

“I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND A SINGLE WORD IN THAT SENTENCE”

“JUST PULLLLL”

The eel is MASSIVE: it’s even bigger than a rock giant, which is almost three times my height…

*SPLASHSPLASHSPLOPFLOPSPLASHFLOP*

“KEEP PULLING UNTIL IT’S FULLY ON LAND”

“WE’RE SO CLOSE, FOR GIRL I WILL DO THIS”

“FOR STRAW PEOPLE I WILL HELP PULL THIS LAST LOT”

“STOP BEING DRAMATIC JUST PULL”

*FLOPFLOPFLOPFLOP*

“IT’S ON LAND”

*Ding*

“WHAT NOW OLD COOT?”

“IT’S DANIEL AND HOLD IT THERE” He suddenly lets go causing me to fall face first into the ground. I CAN HOLD IT.

-1

-3

-5

-6

-8

-12

HOLLLLD. HOOOOO…it’s stopped fighting.

*ding*

“You can let go now” Daniel walks up to me proudly, planting himself on the floor next to me, snoring. We did it! Now to help Girzzzzzzzz

…

(Baila’s POV)

“Baila you are certainly high strung this morning” Rassin dodges my two throwing knives. “Extremely so that your aim is slightly off”

“let’s just say a friend got really drunk, took some angel and devil weed and ended up buggering off to god knows where and all we have is some weird hobo and his devil dog thing to help find him”

“Oh Hobo yeah he’s a bit of a strange one but his Devilhound will do the job of finding your friend”

“His name is Hobo?”

“He’s a strange fellow. But useful to know. You said he took angel AND devil weed? Oh that’d certainly take him places”

“Well after stealthily scouring the whole place and keeping that devilhound under wraps, literally, we know he’s not in town or the nearby countryside so we’re going to trace the devilhound’s steps after tomorrow”

“And what is so important about tomorrow?”

“A final meeting with my people” I don’t keep things from Rassin and she doesn’t keep things from me, a very nice relationship of trust.

“Well that means we’ve only got one more day before you leave little ol’ me alone again” She gives me a long fake whine knowing that it annoys me.

“Sorry can’t leave this guy by himself”

I see a grin appearing on her face. Oh bugger

“This guy…it can’t be Joat can it?” Get your hungry hands off of him you vixen!

“…Yes” Keep nothing from her and she’ll keep nothing from me.

“Oh perfect. Right, we’ve got one more day alone then. Shall we go through all the basics again?”

“That would be nice” Although I’m really angry right now so some fighting would be good.

“We’ll do some fighting to get you warmed up” That grin of hers knowing exactly what I’m thinking, I’ll wipe it off her face.

Pin and Heavy I already threw, bugger. Since she favours Spiral and Pin, compeletely offensive with no sort of defense.

But then again she’s impossibly fast so she doesn’t have to worry about defense that much. Erm let’s begin with Kite and Chain.

Taking out the respective daggers, one large flat one in the shape of a Kite and another with a thick hilt, filled with a chain connected to the small blade.

Defensive with longer ranged offense, quite a good combo.

“Not bad, very common. Kite works well against my Spiral dagger but against the needle-like Pin?”

-12

OW bugger. Didn’t even see that coming, and Kite’s now stuck to my arm.

“No time to think, here I come ahahaha” Shit dodge!

Roll under and smash the sticking out Pin in the floor

-16 FU-

DODGE

At least my Kite’s now free.

“Don’t just dodge, come at me hihi” Suddenly I don’t want to fight her as much anymore.

Chain her left hand shew switched dagger hands, pulling me in Shi- block with Kite

*Crack*

“You’re dead” she takes the Spiral away from my body, oh I hate fighting against that. “If you’ve got a damaged weapon don’t use it, your weapons are your life. The chain throw was useless since it wasn’t even to my dagger hand, and I even used it against you. You’re way of getting rid of the pPin was quick and effective, but you could’ve used it against me if you had thought and gotten rid of your Kite. Now pick another two and let’s go again”

And now I have to spend another hour repairing this already beaten up Kite dagger…haah.

Right, Trident might help against the Spiral but against the Pin? Ah screw tactics let’s just do this the usual way.

Taking out the Butcher knife and the Square, which is a nifty square shaped hook with a hilt, let’s do this.

“Oh you love those two don’t you”

*Whoosh*

“That was unexpected, throwing away your favourite knife already?”

Pin out, throw that, Heavy thrown, Square catches the spiral and skirt to the left slapping away her Pin with a Blunt dagger.

*Thunk*

“Watch out for your surroundings” bloody arm chair. Jump back drop Blunt, Trident out and sticking her Spiral into the chair.

“Good but you’re not the only one with multiple knives”

-13

Ouch Pin in my shoulder

“And don’t ever look away”

-14

Shit, that’s a Tooth.

Sliding forward as she jumps backward to keep the dagger inside me, I swipe at the outstretched arm with my own Tooth dagger but she let’s go, phew. That would’ve been bad if she had taken that out.

“At least you’ll never die from a Tooth” Damn grin!

Duck

*chinkchinkchink*

“Or a Shatter but if you’re on the floor”

-4

Ah my jaw!

“Does that hurt? Good”

Rolling up and slice both sides, damn Square on Square, twist twist shit she let go,

-22

FFF

-1

-1

“Split second battles, don’t make them last longer than 1 second” she licks her bloodied Saw

Take out my own Saw to her right as she drops hers, ripped out of my hand by her Trident. Kick, alright some space.

Take out my Pick, thrust

-1

-15 ow and rip Trident out her hand, at least it’s gone…into mine

“Ooh bad trade, losing a hand’s worth of daggers for just a Trident” She’s right but I bloody hate going against Tridents.

-1

Immediately she jumps towards me, Kite and Heavy dagger both slashing at me, dodge, left right, back, onto bookshelf, rafters.

“Don’t be running away it’ll be over soon” please don’t make it sound like you’re trying to kill me.

-1

She doesn’t even need the bookcase to get up, simply running up the wall and backflipping onto the rafters, but I’m ready

*clang*

“You’re learning, but if you had two daggers you would’ve had a chance” And she’s right infront of me, Ah shit. Block block

-13 ow bugger

*thunk*

-4

-1

“And you’re dead” Trident at my eye and square holding my other dagger down.

Didn’t think about her taking her Trident back.

“Desperate move using the Trident hilt to block, but that’s a free weapon for me to us so not that smart” She takes out a purple healing potion and pours the clear liquid over my wounds, sealing them up.

DAMMIT.

+25

Oh that’s good. But if I hadn’t been tripped there I had another hit to take before I’d have to have given up or actually died…

“As far as a rookie assassin, you should do half decently against someone with less speed than you” That’s not even close to a compliment… “But you seriously need some more weapon training” She jumps down the rafters rags following after.

How she can still zip around with all those rags I have no idea.

Jumping down with a roll, at least getting down is easier.

“Ok sit down and start repairing your weapons while I run you through the basics of poison”

“Do I really have to know about them? I don’t want to use them”

“Spoke Naïvely as ever. Do you think other assassins won’t use poisons against you? Now hush and listen. She takes a dusty book from a pile in the floor, opening it and blowing the dust away. “Haven’t you made the tea yet?”

“How strong?”

“Blackroot for me and baby caterpillar for you” Still can’t get over the fact that I’m drinking a little bit of caterpillar venom...though it got me poison resistance so that’s useful.

Heating up the kettle and crushing the literal black root in the pestle Rassin begins her little speech.

“Any assassin worth their salt will be able to resist all poisons from a lethality level of up to sixteen. Though that is barely above naturally resistant beings such as lizardfolk so it’s not that great. Most poisons the average assassin can get their hands on will at most be a twenty five, like Rockrot but one with contacts can get something a little more dangerous”

“What’s the lethality level again?” She keeps using that but I swear I was too busy focusing on my anaemia from getting stabbed by her Spiral dagger last time.

“How many people out of one hundred that die from it with no resistance” So at least 100 people have died from each posion “Although it’s decently arbitrary it’s getting more accurate next year thanks to some certain individuals. Back on subject; if the assassin is part of a guild, they can get up to a fifty lethality level which is as high as most go since above that…getting it becomes another world of difficulty. But anyways, the fifty lethality, which costs a pretty penny mind you, is well worth it, since only highly trained assassins have such a high poison resistance and even then”

“What would a 50 lethality be?”

“Hydra poison is I guess the most common, actually I’ve got some somewhere” She opens up one of the many trapdoors in the house and takes a little unrecongisable green vial “Here we go, extremely hard to harvest since it needs to be harvested from the poisonous head of a hydra and it’s limited since the hydra is usually dead. No one’s mad enough to try harvest it live. Have a guess what it does when ingested”

Firstly I’m only mildly surprised she’s got something of lethality 50, but that’s still scary: how did she got a hold of that?

“It melts the person from the inside?” I mean I swear I’ve seen a hydra do that somewhere in some random greek movie I saw some time ago.

“Nothing. But when it’s mixed with acid it does react and melt the person from the inside. So you’re technically correct. As a poison for 50 lethality rate it’s actually rather easy to stop it actually damaging you as you simply throw up before it reaches your stomach”

“But does it taste or would you have no idea?”

“Have a smell it’s harmless to smell” she pops open the vile next to my nose, well if nothing I do trust her that she won’t use such a way to kill me.

*Sniff*

Oh that’s rancid. Who the hell would ingest that.

“It’s uses are mostly for carrion feeders and undead, basically anything that will eat rotten food without a problem. So as we’ve learnt, the lethality rater is still pretty arbitrary. So assassins use poison and good ones learn to ingest a little every day to increase their resistance. You’re still working on a lethality two, but you’re doing well already moving up to that. The aim is to get it up to at least 30 before you begin making your name in the underworld of this planet…since then you’ll be relatively safe from individuals”

“But what about guilds”

“Just don’t piss them off, it’s surprisingly easy to do. Plus they’ll usually scout you out if you make your name”

“So I only have to worry about other assassins who don’t like me”

“Pretty much, so remember what is the most important thing about being an assassin”

“Studying?” bit weird but I do understand why

“Exactly. Study your opponent, study your surroundings, study the dangers, study some and study more because all it takes is one tiny slip and you’ve got blackroot in your system and you’re dead”

She does like ending everything in me dying…

“Wait a second, how strong is blackroot”

“Eighty seven”

“…But didn’t you say it was basically impossible to get anything above 50?”

“I said it was an otherworldly difficulty, in a literal sense, so unless you happen to know someone who can you know summon devils from other planes who also happen to be poisonous ingredients in nature, you’ll have to do some travelling…or know some pretty insane people”

Ah so that’s why she seems slightly chummy with Hobo.

“So blackroot”,

“Is the root of a demonic treant, very dangerous to let loose in a forest but apart from that their good for firewood and of course poison”

…

..

.

“So Hobo uses it for firewood”

“He’s a strange fellow, but then again they made the contract with him so that was their decision. As an assassin stay away from all of that nonsense, don’t waste years of training getting yourself killed by your own summoned devil”

Noted. Also noted you are extremely high levelled, in poison resistance too.

“And what about angel weed and devil weed”

“Harmless, well not to the respective opposites: then they’re full lethal, one hundred percent. To Joat however, each will only give him a spiritual meeting with one or the other”

“but with both?”

“He’ll meet both, at the same time, and that usually means the trip lasts…quite a bit longer than usual. Trust me, it took me two days and that was quick” Keep no information for me please

So Joat’s not only high and completely off his face somewhere else, he’s actually spiritually meeting a devil and an angel at the same time so his mind isn’t even anywhere near where it’s supposed to be.

Well thank god I’ve never taken drugs because that doesn’t sound fun at all.

“The iron’s melting” She points at the small pot filled with now liquid iron.

Taking out a the small Kite mold and slotting the Kite hilt into it (seems like Rassin took off the broken shards, thank you), I take the pot and pour the metallic liquid until it fills up the mold.

Hammer out and it’s like good old days with Daren, but no constant shouting, just the quiet sound of hammering and a satisfied sipping of poisoned tea from Rassin and my slightly bitter and goey tea, eugh.

A few hours pass of melting shards and rebuilding my broken daggers, only 3 this time, and I’m finally back to 100% dagger effectiveness.

Jeez having 16 daggers is annoying as hell, but I guess the more I have the more situations I can deal with.

“Perfect. Lunch is ready” She places a single sandwidch in front of me. Food is necessary woman! I may be a small person in real life but I still eat a truckload!

“You think you’ll be able to have large meals while waiting in silence? Usually a few nuts will have to suffice and that’s if you can even make that much noise”

“Why do you think I want to be an assassin? I don’t like killing people”

“He was a bad person wasn’t he? And you killed those prison guards who weren’t bad people. You seem fine killing people” She doesn’t seem too happy

“People were relying on me to make sure no one raised an alarm, or more people would’ve died, my friends included”

Her dissatisfied expression loosens up somewhat “I guess for a prison break only two dead guards is very good, and seeing as it was Hobo you saved...” She stands up musing “I guess you aren’t an assassin yet, and you definitely don’t act like it, too boisterous, too loud, too much cleavage makes you too eye-catching” Well someone sounds jealous “But at the same time you have the quality most assassins need but lack, compassion and willingness to help their friends. Jeez there are so many assassins I know who leave their allies for dead when they can save them. So if anything you’re a better team player than many assassins I know”

“But I don’t want to be an assassin, they kill people, and you know I don’t want to be doing that as my life”

“As a side-job? It’s lucrative, you get some good contacts and best of all you can make sure the bad ones don’t get away”

She’s actually trying to convince me to become an assassin.

I do enjoy the sneaking around and all the different daggers and how to use them, even the lockpicking is quite fun. But killing people is kind of horrible. Plus dragging dead bodies through the sewer sucks.

What would Joat do?

…

..

.

Well that’s obvious: as long as there is something to learn, he’ll go for it.

*Sigh*

“Fine I’ll become an assassin, but i’m not blindly killing anyone without a good reason”

“Perfect, thank god you did accept or I would’ve killed you, or wasted Flayer’s tentacle on you to erase your memory…but that stuff is expensive”

*Ding*

Congratulations you have earned a class! Your class slot is now filled

Due to your Murderer title, your title has merged with your class.

Your class has been altered into a Rare class

Due to your Hidden sub-class Vigilante your sub-class has merged with your class.

Your class has been altered into a Rare Variant class

RARE VARIANT CLASS: Moralistic Assassin

An assassin is a dagger in the dark hired killer. A highly trained individual in both daggers, poison and deception, they are feared among many as a target of a true assassin usually doesn’t know they have been targeted until they are dead.

A moralistic assassin is one who kills no for money but for their morals, most commonly known are ones who act as vigilantes.

All non-Deception, non-counter-perception, non-perception or non-Weapon related skills or proficiencies cannot be improved beyond beginner rank.

All Deception, Counter-perception, Perception and Weapon related skills, abilities or proficiencies can only be improved to Advanced rank

Class Bonuses:

+25 to Agility

+5 to Darkness

+10 to Brutality

+15 to Flexibility

+15 to Dexterity

+20 to Perception

+5% bonus to Deception Skills, Abilities and Proficiencies

+5% to Attack Damage

Stealth has increased to Intermediate rank

Dagger proficiency has increased to Intermediate rank

Have learnt Poison-Alchemy

Detect evil has evolved into Detect Alignment

Sneak Attack has evolved into Assassinate

No Darkness will be gained upon Vigilante-based activites

Class Penalties:

None

Due to becoming this Class, Rogue class and Assassin class have been unlocked

This Class is permanent unless another Class is chosen upon character creation.

“So are there really no limitations to becoming an assassin?” this seems pretty awesome, plus now I can detect all alignments not just my own.

“Assassins are the most varied of jobs in this world, each one who becomes a real assassin all end up with different specialities and quirks. I know one who uses magic to hide, another who’s weapon of choice is an arbalester. Assassination is a tricky business and being a one trick pony won’t get you far”

“So what’s your quirk?”

She just sips her tea…so poison I guess?

“Blood magic”

…

..

.

“How else do you think I’ve been healing you? By wasting 10 whole silver every session? Jeesh you’re not worth that much yet” Wait so what has she been pouring on me every time? water I hope.

“You know blood magic?”

“It’s not rare as you think, remember the underworld is an entirely different place to what you’re used to. Most assassins know a little to clean things up. I…know a little more. Though magic leaves traces and is deadly so once again don’t bother with it if you’re just dabbling”

“Alright” Note the fact that I’ll learn blood magic later. “So anything else you can teach me before I try find one Joat?”

“As a rookie assassin and my official apprentice-”

“Wait wasn’t I your apprentice when you know, you had me kill a guy”

“Oh that was just an initiation test” well remind me never to get initiated again. “Anywhoos as I was saying, there’s a pompous idiot bard staying at the Gallant Goose, go kill him and make it look like a suicide”

“Wait is he evil?”

“50 gold if you do it”

That’s a lot of money, almost tempted

“Is he evil?”

“Yes”

“And it’s fine if I go study him first?”

“I want it done before midnight, that’s 4 hours”

“I hate you”

“You’ll be glad I do this to you and toodles dear, these old bones need some rest” Hah old my ass.

Well off to figure out if this guy is actually bad and deserves to die. Gyugh doing dark justice isn’t easy.