Learning the Ropes

The next morning Kyle and Fi went around town to collect the various items that were being repaired and modified.

As they walked towards Aunty Zerah’s shop they heard a loud argument coming from within and several guards came out of the building carrying a man what had to have been a man on a stretcher, but it was hard to tell underneath all the fabric, entering the shop they found Aunty Zerah was in an argument with one of the guards who was complaining about this being the latest in a long line of incidents, Aunty Zerah replied that once people stopped trying to get away with not paying her so would she and with a sigh the guard walked out.

The formidable Aunty Zerah had been upset when he told her that he was returning to the Zone but was slightly mollified when Kyle explained he was going with an experienced Party. She handed over the Coat which was now in pristine condition insisting that he return to her for any further repairs if he was ever in town.

“So…let’s not get on her bad side,” Fi said.

“I’m glad she seems to like us, but yeah let’s not,” Kyle replied, and looking slightly shell-shocked the two headed back to Comhan’s blacksmith.

Comhan’s apprentice, a tall young man with a ruddy complexion due to the heat of the nearby forge scowled at them as they entered, he hadn’t appreciated the amount of running back and forth he had to do yesterday, and Kyle decided to apologise to him later, he didn’t really want to deal with the same stuff in this town as he had back home.

The Dwarf himself was currently busy, the massive muscles in his arm heaving as he worked on a blank of steel, slowly working it into a new shape.

Not wanting to interrupt the Dwarf he sat down in a nearby chair and watched.

About 5 minutes later Comhan dropped the metal, which now vaguely resembled the shape of a common sword blade came and sat down next to Kyle wiping the sweat from his prominent brow as he did.

“Thanks for waiting Kyle, that’s got some powder made from that shell, in it by the way,” he said glancing sideways at the young man, “If you had interrupted me when I was dealing with such an expensive material I would have bitten your head off, but it looks like you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. After all you lose most of it to the refining process, even if you have most of a shell like what you brought me, you only have enough for maybe 12 blades like that at the end.”

“Going to make a lot of money off what I make with it, Fi was right to be cautious enough to try and make sure I didn’t cheat you, but it’s hard enough being a Dwarf in a town with mostly Human’s without trying that sort of thing,” he said slapping the young man on his back, “anyway you’re not here for that are you.”

“No, I have some people to meet at the gate, we’re heading to a Zone that popped up along the road to Francisholt, the village I came from,” replied Kyle wincing at the pain in his back.

“A new Zone you say? Well, be careful lad,” Comhan said as he picked up the chains from under a nearby bench and handed them over.

Weighted Iron Chain

Weapon type: Chain

Primary material: Iron

Damage dealt: 10-18 Blunt Damage

A weighted chain that can be used to delivering punishing blows at a distance or up close. Can be attached to the wrist for ease of use.

The other chain had identical stats according to Fi and Kyle thanked Comhan for his help.

“Heh, don’t need to thank me kid, you paid me after all, and the information I gave out, you could have learned at one of the classes that the Adventurers Guild holds anyway,” laughed the gruff Dwarf as he waved Kyles thanks away.

Kyle smiled at him and said his goodbyes slipping a coin into the apprentice’s hand with a nod as he left. Why have an enemy when you could have a friend after all?

Ulrich and co. waved at Kyle as he walked in the direction of the gate, Kyle took a moment to look them over.

Ulrich’s massive frame was now covered by dull grey armour, a massive Kite shield slung on his back, and a short sword by his side, the dark-haired man looking the personification of a Tank.

Likewise, Resald was dressed in his own battle attire, mostly brown leather as one would expect from an archer but intricate metal bracers shone brightly from his arms. His long bow was unstrung for now to protect it while he wasn’t in a combat situation and poked up from wooden quiver that hung from his shoulders.

Claire on the other hand was wearing the same robes she was yesterday, her golden hair flowed down to her waist, glinting as the energetic woman waved excitedly at Kyle and Fi as they approached, her own companion had a holster strapped to a back with a staff inside it that Kyle assumed served as a conduit for her magics as well as her primary weapon.

“Alright people we’re burning daylight, Kyle we’re going to stop a little outside of town for a quick sparring session, I need to see what you can do before I entrust the lives of my friends to you,” said Ulrich in a business-like tone once the two had drawn level.

Kyle followed them out of the gate to a nearby patch of ground a short way off the road and clamped his chains around his wrists.

“Those are your weapons?” Ulrich asked raising an eyebrow as he unslung his shield from his back and slipped his left arm inside the straps, “never heard of a Class that uses a weapon like that, you sure you can use them both at the same time, you’ll be wasting your chance if you don’t have the Skill for it, I ain’t giving you a free ride”

Kyle realised the man was serious and quickly stowed one of the chains in a pocket, and Ulrich grunted in irritation before taking a stick of similar length to the sword at his side from Resald and charging towards Kyle.

By the time Kyle had even looked up the man’s shield was mere inches away from his face as Ulrich slammed it into him with punishing force, Kyle leapt back to create some distance flicking the end of his chain towards Ulrich’s face, the shield quickly came up to intercept the attack and Kyle quickly followed it up with a short barrage of strikes trying to tire the man.

Ulrich weathered the assault with ease, his experience showing through as he slowly crept closer, Kyle continued to retreat moving to the man’s right as he sent a Lash at Ulrich’s feet, the end of the weight making a crunching sound as it struck.

A now limping Ulrich continued to weather Kyle’s attacks the younger man using his attacking Skill whenever it came off cooldown, but little damage was done as Ulrich had gotten used to his fighting style and soon executed a lunging attack that caused the stick in his hand to glow before as it moved with incredible speed before the man stopped it just short of Kyle’s left temple causing Kyle to stop instantly.

Panting the two stood eying each other as they lowered their weapons, Claire hurried over to check them for any injuries as Fi who had retreated to her arms at the start of the bout draped herself over Kyle’s shoulders.

“A shaky start Kid. Don’t get caught out like that at the start of a fight, but good move trying to slow me down, too bad I have so many levels over you, but so will a lot of things in the Zone, so you need to be more careful about tiring yourself out,” said Ulrich eventually.

“Sorry about that, wasn’t expecting you to just charge me like that,” Kyle grumbled.

“You didn’t do too bad but there’s a lot of room for improvement, we’ll go over some Skills and tactics you can use later, but first you need to level up, both your Skills and your actual level. If we come across any weak enemies I want you to take part in the fight, or possibly fight on your own but I won’t let you take part in the boss fight at your level it’s too dangerous for the rest of us.

The others nodded in agreement, consoling the boy that he hadn’t even reached level 5 yet so there was no way he was going to fight someone like Ulrich who it turned out was level 11 and have any hope of winning.

Once Claire had healed their injuries they headed Kyle started leading the way towards the Zone and they started up a conversation about Kyle’s home village of Francisholt.

“So, all of you have companions in your village huh? Ulrich comes from another kingdom who don’t really use them, there are some who do but you can choose, and Elves don’t usually get them anyway, so Theodore here is the only one who’s travelling with us,” stated Resald nodding towards Claire’s companion as he did so.

“Yeah, the town priest gets all the kids who turn 10 together at the middle of the year and performs the ceremony,” Kyle replied as he walked along looking sideways at Fi who had once again situated herself in Claire’s arms and was currently having her crest of white feathers played with by the young woman who had a serene expression on her face.

“Heh, it was much the same in the village where we grew up, one day I found myself in a church in the middle of nowhere and Claire starts trying to call me ‘Teddy’, no way I was going to let that happen on a regular basis, so now I’m Theodore,” growled the bear as he looked fondly up at his master as he trundled along.

“What about you and Ulrich, Resald how did your people handle things?” Kyle asked the talkative Elf

“We pretty much used the same methods as each other, we visited the Class Stone, as we called them, once we became of age,” Resald replied easily, “not long after that I found myself in a human settlement. I wasn’t treated very well there, Human’s don’t always like other races, but I suppose we’re not much different at times.”

“I had a similar experience back at home, any groups I should be aware of?”

“There’s an empire out there somewhere treats those of other races particularly bad, calls itself the ‘New Byzantine Empire’ and was apparently made by a group of humans who refused to worship non-human gods, which is fair enough but no reason for taking others as slaves because of your own beliefs.”

“Yikes.”

“Indeed, they’re an extremist group that broke away from the other worshipers who wanted to treat the other races as equal, and they don’t get along now. I also won’t deny that humans aren’t the only race that use that horrible practice.”

“Care to expand on what other races use slavery?”

“Not really, like I said, its not a subject I find pleasant.”

Kyle nodded as the elves face darkened slightly, but this soon changed, and they continued their journey still talking amongst themselves.

The group made good progress, but night fell, and they had to make camp, as they sat around the crackling fire Kyle finally asked the question that he had been holding in all day.

“So, why’d you take the job? I mean doing something about the Zone is important but surely it’s too dangerous to be bringing me along too, I still don’t understand why Adrian wanted me to go along in the first place.”

“Well, the pay’s good for one thing!” Ulrich joked, his face glowing red in the light of the flames, “but in all seriousness, it’s sort of a tradition for experienced Adventurers to help with the new recruits, you’ll be expected to do something like this yourself when you get stronger, we don’t usually do this before someone joins the guild though.

“You should watch out for Adrian, he’s not a bad person exactly, but he does belong to a group of people who collect information for the church of Larchius,” said Claire in a serious tone of voice, something Kyle wasn’t really expecting from her, considering her behaviour throughout his admittedly short acquaintance with the young woman.

“The Shadow god? I think you might be right, we should be more careful,” replied Kyle glancing at Fi who had now returned to his shoulder.

Claire held her hand up as she tried to explain further, “Like I said he’s not a bad guy, the church of shadows just does a lot of trade in information and someone is interested in you. Adrian won’t let any harm come to you from his actions, he’d end up getting put on the Guilds blacklist if he did that, you’ve gained a bit of attention with your reckless behaviour entering the Zone and some of the higher-ups have told him to recruit you.”

“Just based on entering a Zone?”

“Surviving a Zone at level 1,” she said meeting Kyles gaze steadily, “alone, with next to no armour, is unlikely even in a recently formed Zone.”

The others nodded their agreement, the expressions on their own faces becoming as serious as Claire’s.

“She’s right, you had no way to tell how powerful the monster that caused the Zone to form was and if it was a powerful monster the Zone could have continued to grow while you were inside beyond your ability to adapt,” explained Resald.

A slightly embarrassed look upon her face Fi spoke up, “It was my idea, I had heard from a travelling merchant that a Zone was beginning to form and thought it worth the risk.”

“Well I suppose it did work out in the end,” Ulrich said consolingly, “now we know it exists and some of the monsters within, but you two do need to be more careful.”

“Anyway”, he continued, “how far away do you think we are?”

“Still a few hours depending if we get up at dawn we can be there before midday.”

“Sounds good, we’ll try to put you through your paces tomorrow if we fid anything around your level and give you some more advice, now let’s get to bed it’s going to be a long day tomorrow.

And with that Ulrich stood up and went into the tent he would be sharing with Resald when the latter wasn’t on watch and Claire followed suit, clambering into her own tent where Theodore was already snoring away. Smiling, Resald nodded at Kyle as he settled in for first watch.

“Ulrich will wake you when it’s your turn on watch, you’ve got the last one, so you should get some sleep.”

Kyle quickly got up and slid under the canvas sheet which was currently draped over a low—hanging branch before drifting off to sleep.

***

The next morning, at the end of Kyles uneventful shift on watch, he started making breakfast for everyone and smelling what he was cooking they appeared one by one from their tents. When they were done they packed away the camping supplies in Fi’s and Theodore’s inventories and headed off.

Some time later Kyle realised they were approaching the Zone.

“It’s just over this next rise,” he said pointing ahead as they climbed the hill. Upon reaching the top they were granted with an unfortunate view.

“… that’s not good, it’s grown by about half,” Kyle finally said as the group stared down at the now much larger purple dome which now let barely any light pass through it, giving the nigh unviewable interior a forbidding atmosphere.

“Shit, it looks like the monster’s getting powerful fast, it might have killed someone from a nearby village,” snarled Ulrich.

Kyle had mixed feelings as he replied, “The only village nearby is Francisholt.”

“Well then let’s hope I’m wrong, no one needs to see what happens to someone who gets killed by a monster, least of all if they know them,”

Kyle thought back to the corpse of the Tortoise he had killed the other day and paled, he might not like many of the people in the village, but he wouldn’t want to see that done to any of them. He gritted his teeth and followed the rest of them, who had already started off down the hill to the foreboding area.