Bloody Crucible- Lone Wolf Read online
Page 20
Chapter 21 – Road Trippin
Wolf woke with the dawn in the little nook of the tree just big enough to allow him to lay down. Opening the satchel, he removed the boots and map to better examine them.
Would you like to soul bind the Enchanted Imperial Map?
YN
Selecting yes, to Wolf’s surprise the scroll crumbled to dust.
“Dafuq?!?” He said in surprise
Looking around the icons in his vision he found a new icon flashing with a red exclamation. Mentally selecting it caused a large parchment to form in his hands. When he unfurled the parchment, he could see only his own position in the middle of the forest. The map looked like those you would see in old history books, for all intents and purposes Wolf found that this would be all but useless to him for precision land navigation. Willing the map to disappear it did so allowing him to pick up the boots.
Would you like to embark on the quest ‘Raider’s Nation’?
Type: ClassDifficulty: Dark Souls
Conditions: Find the location where the Black Raiders congregate
Reward: Induction into the Raider’s Nation and 15,000EXP
You are currently do not meet the quest requirements. This quest will be available at level 10
Desponded he put the boots into the larger pack as he pulled out the jewelry box. Still locked and with no way of opening it he placed it in the pack as well. Next up were several vials which turned out to be various potions; three healing, two mana, and one stamina. Several small pouches revealed almost one hundred fifty gold and a handful of silver which he immediately placed in his coin pouch around his neck and tucked it into his armor. Now that he had finished getting a small look at his inventory he packed everything up and ate a trail ration of dried meat and fruits. Climbing down from the tree he picked up the jog heading away from the rising sun to continue his trek west.
Periodically he would summon various elements to build his affinities. Occasionally he felt as though something were watching him or following him. Wolf would randomly turn, backtrack, go into stealth, and climb trees and other methods to avoid being tracked. When nothing ever came of it he eventually figured that his paranoia was just getting the best of him. Feeling it would be a good idea to not linger long in this area he moved quickly and delayed doing a complete inventory of his reclaimed and filched goods. Gradually the forest gave way to a vast sea of rolling green hills with a mountain range off in the distance. Deciding that it would be as good a place to head as any he continued his journey through the grassy hills, ping ponging from tree to tree.
Wolf came to a stop at a large oak looking tree to rest and eat a quick meal and let his stamina recover. Taking several long gulps from the water skin he had he ate another cold trail ration. Summoning the map, he discovered that things he could see in the distance were vaguely shaded allowing him to see major terrain features which were interesting enough as it would help him in the long run. Having recovered he picked up his pack, adjusting it to a comfortable position and started jogging again. He made it about thirty meters when he was suddenly tackled from behind knocking the breath out of his lungs. Rolling Wolf felt the assailant fall free allowing him to rise. Now on his feet he was face to face with a dog sized spider, his hand immediately went to his sword readying for a strike as he bared his teeth.
“Fucking spiders, I hate spiders” Wolf cursed through his teeth
As if on cue the spider leaped into the air trying to pounce on him only to be met the flashing edge of his sword cutting a deep groove into the exoskeleton but not breaking though. The strike did throw the creature off target, it landed nimbly and poised for a new attack. Holding the blade in a high position of ‘Jodan’ ready to bring it into a savage center slash he held still waiting for the next attack. The spider did not leap this time but skittered forward as though it were trying to tackle him again.
Wolf remained unmoving until the spider was within striking range and bringing the blade down. The spider deftly leapt to the left narrowly dodging a strike that would have cleaved off several of its legs. Resetting his stance to the ‘Seigan’ stance he pivoted to face the spider. Watching it’s creepy twitching he could almost see the ‘gears’ in its head turning and weighing its chances of success. Only two or three meters away Wolf readied for the next attack which came in the form of the spider charging again. Wolf wound back for a lateral slash catching nothing but air as the spider took to the sky again.
The impact on his shoulder was combined by a pair of long dagger sized fangs piercing his left shoulder. Searing pain shot through his arm as it lost all strength. Using his right hand, he thrust the blade through its cephalothorax causing it to squeal in a high-pitched whine. When the spider squealed the fangs were pulled out with thick viscous green blood smeared on his sword. Wolf struck again as the spider tried to pull back slashing through the two small legs near its fangs and followed up with another thrust into the face of spider. It crumpled to the ground twitching and balling up in its death throes. He noticed that the wound had stopped hurting shortly after being bit and saw a notification explaining why.
You have been inflicted with the ‘Partial Paralysis’ debuff, you are unable to use your left arm until the poison is either healed or runs its course. 5-minute duration
You have killed a level 8 Plains Stalker, 75EXP gained
He spat on the dead spider, thankful that the poison had dulled the pain. After having been ambushed once he was more alert and watchful of attacks from these stealthy creatures.
……………………………………………………..
Several days passed with him killing another thirty Plains Stalkers. He increased his agility by two points from all the dodging. Other creatures that he would frequently encountered were large Grass Ants the size of cats and Goblins that were similarly as easy to kill. Individually they were no problem and easily dispatched but in a swarm the only way to survive was to run and pray something else would draw their attention.
Almost a week into his journey toward the mountains did he finally run into something that peaked his interest. Nestled in between two hills was a pair of weather beaten pillars leading into a small canyon that would have been missed if not for the pillars. Stalking up he peered in, discovering the detritus indicating a large predator’s den. A war of curiosity and common sense waged as he debated investigating the obvious fight he would be in before he finally decided to investigate.
Activating ‘Stealth’ he crept closer to the den, careful with the placement of his feet to ensure that he wouldn’t make too much noise. A sickening stench of feces and rotting flesh assaulted his nose making him pull his facemask up over his nose to muffle it. The closer he got the stronger the stench became and more rotting corpses he found. When he managed to get by the final corner did he see the beast which lived in this place. A monstrously large lizard lay sleeping in the sun in front of what looked like the ruins of a mausoleum entrance. Using ‘Analyze’ brought up the information for this creature being a Large Monitor Lizard at level 13 with over 250HP. It was almost 6 meters long and its head alone being the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, he was a bit intimidated to say the least.
Deciding to take a risk and ambush the Monitor Lizard he carefully scaled the side of the elevated draw. Once at a good perch above it he coated a liberal amount of Plains Stalker venom on to his blades. The feeling of being watched returned putting him on edge, looking around quickly he didn’t see anything or anyone watching. This aggravated him to no end as he was tired of this feeling, his instincts were rarely wrong. Seldom did he ignore them as a little caution often saved his life and it didn’t hurt to take heed. When the feeling faded he summoned some of the elemental ice and infusing it into the sword he took aim and jumped.
Critical! You deal the Large Monitor Lizard 106 damage+30 Ice Damage (weakness) (10 damage mitigated)
You have inflicted the Large Monitor Lizard with the debuff ‘Partial Paralysis’ for 3 minutes
Wolf attacked the inner elbow of the paralyzed leg with the hopes of permanently disabling it. After two cuts, he needed to evade the snapping of its jaws and certain death. Dancing back, he prepared to strike out at one of its back legs when the beast inhaled deeply. A premonition of danger came too late as the beast exhaled a stream of rocky dust spewed forth in a noxious, choking cloud. Temporarily blinded from the dust and coughing as he couldn’t dodge the breath attack in time, he missed the moment when the beast’s jaws clamped onto his leg.
The rows of three-centimeter-long teeth easily pierced the leather and gambeson armor piercing deep into his leg. Wolf screamed in pain as the beast’s teeth ground against the bones. The comforting red hue of anger tinged his recovering vision. Anger and rage once again fueled his muscles and giving him new energy to stab his sword through the beast’s eye. Screeching in pain the Lizard released Wolf causing him to flop hard on the ground. The rage built as it in turn fed of the pain from his leg. As he got to his feet he activated ‘Shihogiri’ making the world come to a standstill. Hobbling as best he could to the neck of the beast he slashed four times trying to decapitate the monster but only managed to get about half way through.
When the world sped up the beast’s tail came around and smashed him another several meters away. In his vision, Wolf could see his health bar flashing an angry red indicating that he wouldn’t be able to take another hit. A passing thought occurred that he should use a health potion, but the rage clouded his mind to the point where it was a fleeting thought. Limping toward the Lizard he saw it inhale again and quickened his pace. With its head reared up he took the point of his sword and drove it up through the jawline and palate, piercing its brain. Wolf went further by shaking the sword intent on causing as much damage as he could. With a savage twist, he jerked the sword out and tried to move out of the Lizard’s collapsing body. In its death throes, it knocked him away where he smashed into a pillar and fell unconscious.
Wolf finally came to from his unconsciousness to the flashing health bar that was slowly creeping up. Several icons demanded his attention through the fog that was his mind. The first told him that he was under five percent health and needed to heal or risk death. The next was a prompt telling him that he had a bleeding debuff taking ten health per minute until treated or healed. Immediately, he began to apply field dressings from scrap cloth to staunch the bleeding through clenched teeth and much cussing. Finally, when he got the bleeding under control did he have a moment to breath and take in the scene. Thankful that the Monitor Lizard perished, which is why he was still alive, unable to move until his natural regeneration would kick in he sat back and waited. The next notification that appeared was his attaining level nine.
Congratulations! You have attained level 9. You have 4 stat points and 1 skill points to distribute.
He pondered where he should put his attribute points in before he realized that he needs to avoid taking damage as much as possible. Placing two points into agility he considered putting more into strength for the added damage. Considering everything that he had gone through constitution wouldn’t be that bad of a second choice either.
Deciding to hold off on the last two points he pulled up the next icon.
Congratulation! You have unlocked the skill ‘Ambush’ at Beginner Level1
Ambush Level 1 (Active, Common) – Attacking unsuspecting targets deals an additional 50% more damage. Cost: 10 STA, Cooldown: 2-minutes
Figuring he could use a little more oomph in his attacks he added the point into it bringing it up to level two, increasing the damage to fifty-five percent. Reaching into his satchel he pulled out his water skin and took several gulps while he waited for his regeneration to finish knitting him up. When he was finished healing he rose, but his leg was still rubbery and couldn’t hold his weight very well. Using the scabbard as a makeshift cane he hobbled over to the Lizard’s corpse. He struggled with the head trying to move it enough to retrieve his sword but was so far failing spectacularly.
Giving up until he was fully abled, he retrieved the shorter sword and began to cut a large section of the lizard’s skin away to get at its meat. It had been quite some time since he had last eaten fresh meat with all the spiders and ants being foul with poison and such. As blood gushed out of the skin that had be cut away, Wolf pulling on the water out of the lizard’s blood and body he was able to refill his waterskin. This wasn’t the most efficient way to get water, but it would keep him hydrated and alive. Gathering some of the discarded wood and shrubs he started a fire.
Eating his fill of roast monitor lizard and regaining his strength he finished skinning the beast, removing as many teeth, claws and meat as he could. He burned the rest, he settled in for the night confident that not many creatures would willingly wander into the den of such a predator. Still not taking chances, he found a small nook higher up the wall just in case. Wolf’s dreams that night, like most were full of the same nightmares he had grown accustomed to over the years. Waking up early to the sound of scratching and footfalls of multiple creatures.
Peering down from his perch he could see a dozen or so squat sickly green humanoids that just screamed ‘goblin’. They were donned in strange armor that looked to have been made from the Plains Stalker corpses. Wolf nodded to himself, ‘crude but resourceful’. Then he saw that they were helping themselves to the meat he had started smoking. He couldn’t take or eat it all, so he would let them have their fill and carry as much as they could to their tribe or village. Watching them for several hours he avoided a confrontation since they were not threatening him, and he wasn’t threatening them.
They left shortly before dawn allowing him to begin scavenging and looting everything around winding up with a few rusty daggers that were long in need of maintenance and a few pouches of copper coins. Eating some of the remaining smoked lizard and dried fruits he decided it was time to check out the opening. At entrance he felt a cold wind blow out chilling him to the very bone. Every fiber in his being was screaming at him to turn around and leave. He had every intention of doing just that, except a horde of goblins had decided that they were about to be the new occupants of this little area.
The blare of a horn pulled his attention back to the entrance of the draw where any hope of escape was soon dashed to pieces by a sea of goblin bodies. A literal wave of sickly green was sprinting toward him, hooting and hollering with reckless abandon. Like with the ants, individually they were no threat or danger but in a large group they were impossible to survive. The only path of escape led into this entrance that contained goodness knows what. Estimating that they would arrive in approximately fifteen minutes he gathered as much of the smoked meat and other supplies he could. He left with no choice but to fall back to the entrance. At the entrance he decided to make his first stand, with it being a natural choke point he could in theory hold off an army by himself indefinitely.
The twenty minutes that it took the goblin horde to charge the kilometer down the path toward the mausoleum entrance. Setting everything down just inside to allow him to grab it and flee at a moment’s notice. He pulled the earth up and placed it on the sides of the entrance creating a deep pit almost two hundred meters down and six feet wide. Over the past few weeks he discovered that it was more mana efficient to pull the earth up and place it elsewhere than to push it down. The sudden ex
penditure of most of his MP caused a massive headache to strike him right as the first goblin was crossing the narrow earthen bridge.
Despite his headache Wolf focused on the task at hand. The goblin snarled and screamed as others pushed and shoved each other off the edge trying to get to Wolf. Taking a step forward he was on the edge of the land bridge where he could strike at the goblins crossing. ‘Why let such good EXP go to waste’ the thought.
With each swing he would knock one or two goblins covered in poorly crafted armor from the Plains Stalker’s exoskeletons. Several hours would pass as he could hear goblins continuing to shove and push their way into the small breach. A few of the larger and better equipped goblins began to push their way forward through the crowd. Indiscriminately throwing their brethren into the pit and certain death. Wolf was beginning to tire and the thought of fighting these much larger, seemingly stronger, more skilled, and better equipped goblins not something he wanted to try fighting.
Taking a step back from the land bridge he waited until the larger goblins pushed all other out of the way or into the pit before pulled the earthen bridge’s foundation out causing it to collapse. One of the larger goblins managed to leap the distance and landed on Wolf’s side. It swung its large barbed club at Wolf only to have it deflected harmlessly to the side. An idea made him smile as he reared back his leg for a powerful kick.
Bloody Crucible- Lone Wolf