“How fresh?” Olaf asked.
“No more than an hour old,” Sooty answered, moving to follow the tracks I could only intermittently see with my ‘Perception’ skill. I found myself wondering if the skill was another one with a stat requirement to unlock the next Rank of the skill. Though given how high the chance to see and track were, I doubted it.
Skill: Perception
Rank: I
Level: 100
Experience: N/A
Description: The ability to perceive the world around you, often being able to see things others cannot.
Skill Range: 20.00 yards
Chance to See: 35.00%
Chance to Identify: 60.00%
Chance to Track: 60.00%
Then again, maybe the next Rank, if there was one, would give me a boost to one of my stat experience gains. I would just need to wait and see. For now, I needed to focus on keeping up with my group. I needed to be ready to jump in to protect Sooty the instant any danger appeared.
Sooty tracked through the brush for another hundred yards before stopping.
“What is it?” Olaf asked.
Sooty was frowning. “There are two paths.”
“Which is fresher?” Olaf asked.
“They are both fresh,” Sooty replied, sounding slightly worried.
“Are we being led into an ambush?” I asked.
“Maybe, could be there was another lion you did not know about,” Sooty replied. “The larger prints might belong to an Alpha.”
“Let’s assume there isn’t an Alpha for now. Which path would you take?” Olaf asked.
“Neither left nor right. Personally, I would back away slowly and leave this beast alone. The only problem is that this beast does not seem content to leave you alone,” Sooty said.
“I saw something,” Vision said softly, suddenly popping into view. “It was not clear, but definitely angry.”
“Which way?” Micaela asked.
“To the right,” Vision said. “But . . . I think it noticed me. It was moving fast.”
“Time to run,” Olaf stated. “Vision, you lead, and we’ll follow.”
Vision nodded and took off at a run, popping in and out of the Spirit Plane every few steps and picking up speed. Olaf, Rose, Harrison, Micaela, and Baby, all chasing after him in hot pursuit.
I put a hand on Sooty’s shoulder before he could join in the chase, stopping him. “Nahid, wait a moment,” I said, causing the Catgirl to appear from ‘Stealth’. I gave them both a serious look before speaking, “If either of you want, you can go back to camp. I know this lion is making all of us uncomfortable.”
Sooty huffed and puffed for a moment before he spoke. “No ruddy lion is going to get the best of me,” he stated aggressively. “Besides, if it has been leveling up, you are going to need all the help you can get.”
Nahid simply nodded her agreement.
“Then we better get moving, the others are moving fast,” I said.
Sooty nodded once and he and his shadow took off at a sprint, one clearly enhanced by the ‘Body Control’ skill. I gave them and everyone else the skill and a few subskill scrolls for it a couple days ago. I was glad I could share the skill with my friends. I was pleased when they actually trained with the skill. I didn’t mind the levels my ‘Runology’ skill gained either.
Sooty and I caught up to the others just as they caught sight of a lion. The beast was larger by half at least, just as Sooty suggested it would be based on the size of its paws. More than that, the lion’s mane was now pitch black while the fur seemed to be a darker red or brown maybe. And it had indeed leveled up.
“Is that lion caked in blood?” Harrison asked, noticing a detail I had missed.
And it was. Just as Harrison said, the fur was caked with dried blood, like it had rolled around in blood and now wore it like a badge of honor or some kind of armor.
“My blood,” Olaf roared, firing a shot from one of his hand-cannons. He had finally managed to build a second hand-cannon to replace the one that had been destroyed during the siege of Anvilton. He also upgraded his other hand-cannon while he was at it. He claimed that he wanted to keep them a matched set, not that I needed an explanation. Still, the lion was much too far away, and his shot missed or at least we didn’t see it hit.
But if Olaf was right, and that was his blood, then that lion was coated in the blood of his enemy. Part of me felt a little impressed. It took real dedication to actually bathe in the blood of your enemies. Another part of me was disgusted and another, smaller part of me, told me we should run away. Whatever this lion was now, it was something dark and twisted. Then I met the lion’s eyes and I saw a dark intelligence lurking there. Then it smirked. The beast actually smirked at me . . . or Olaf . . . or all of us. That wasn’t the point, the point was that it smirked at us at all. The lion then turned and ran.
“Don’t let him get away,” Olaf shouted. “Stun him if you can,” he added, running after the beast.
I tried to hit it with my ‘Holy Shock’ spell to stop him just long enough for us to catch up but he was out of range. Like the others, I chased him, I tried using ‘Sprint’ and other ‘Body Control’ subskills to close the distance but the lion seemed to be able to anticipate any attempts and sped up just long enough to stay out of range. The beast was smart. Way too smart. He kept doing things like changing directions at random or weaving through the occasional copse of trees. Forcing us at every turn to try to keep up, burning SP to do so. And with each passing minute, I watched with more and more concern as my SP bar fell lower and lower, something I was sure the others were experiencing as well.
After nearly thirty minutes, we thought we finally had him cornered as he ran into what looked like an old rock quarry. One that didn’t appear to be in use anymore, if the collapsed mine shafts and broken cart tracks were anything to go by.
“Finally cornered,” Olaf crowed in victory, then the lion growled, but it sounded more like a sinister laugh. It was far more eerie from the way it echoed off the quarry walls. When he suddenly turned away from us and jumped onto the sheer rock face that was behind him, his claws digging deep furrows as he climbed the vertical wall with almost no effort. “No!” Olaf shouted, running ahead and shooting at the wall the lion was climbing, his shots missing low as he still wasn’t close enough. In fact, the shooting only propelled the lion up that wall that much faster.
“I can’t believe that just happened,” I mumbled, staring dumbfounded at the sheer rock wall. The lion we had been chasing for the last half an hour just climbed up a wall using his claws to cut into the stone and create traction.
“That thing is a demon cat,” Sooty said, making some strange movements with his hands. I guessed it was to ward off evil or something.
A new voice echoed off the stone walls of the quarry that surrounded us, “Well, lookie what we have here boys. Volunteer slaves, have you ever heard of such a thing?”
I turned swiftly, looking for the source of the voice only to find a band of about twenty Humans, their levels started at 15 and stopped at 23 and all of them bore the now familiar emblem of the Bandaka Slave group and a nameplate stating
Class Quest Alert: Bandaka Slave Ring 1
You have stumbled onto a group of Bandaka Slavers. Kill or capture every last one of them.
Reward: Experience, +2-Sigils of Issara, Bonus Experience per Captured Slaver
Do you accept this Quest?
Yes
No
None of us said anything to the quest prompt, there was no need as the ‘Yes’ flashed briefly and the message window disappeared.
“And it led us into a bloody ambush,” Micaela hissed, pulling out both of her axes and looking ready to strike.
“When I get my hands on that lion, I’m going to strangle it with my bare hands,” Olaf threatened, reloading both of his hand-cannons. “You hear me you demon cat, I’m going to kill you,” he shouted up the wall where I co
uld now see the lion sitting at the ledge, his head tilted down at us and watching. With the new threat levied, Olaf turned away from the lion to face the small horde of Slavers.
“Sooty, I’m starting to think you might be right about that lion,” I said, brandishing my spear. My eyes naturally scanned the assembled bandits. They looked a lot more organized than I would have expected, heavily armored men and women making up the front line, lighter armored just behind them and what looked like a few spellcasters in the back.
The apparent leader of the Slaver group yelled, “Oi, you adventurer types would not be ignoring me, now would you?” The leader was the only level 23, he was also one of the more heavily armored. He wore chainmail covering his torso and legs with thick leather on his hands and feet. He also carried a net in one hand and a trident in the other.
“What if we are?” Olaf asked loudly.
“Then I might kill you and your friends slowly. Otherwise, you, the pigman, your women, you last two will make fine slaves,” the leader threatened.
“I don’t like how tight their formation is,” I said softly while Olaf was keeping their leader talking.
“Hey Harrison,” Rose said, smirking in a way that let me know she had a devilishly good idea . . . or bad idea. I hadn’t quite mastered all of Rose’s facial expressions yet, but I knew enough to know she was excited by whatever she was thinking. With her eyes focusing on Harrison just long enough to meet his, she asked,“Think you can pull off that move?”
Harrison grinned to match Rose’s own. He nodded then pulled a small vial from his belt and quickly downed the contents. I watched his SP bar suddenly refill in my UI. “Yeah, think your shield wall can hold and protect the others?”
“Easy,” Rose said, facing the group of Slavers and slamming her interlocked shields into the stone ground and cutting just deep enough to hold. “Everyone behind the shields,” she ordered. “Olaf, help me brace.”
Realizing we were up to something, the lead Slaver asked, “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Me?” Olaf asked. “I’m keeping an idiot Slaver distracted,” he added, then he threw something in the direction of the Slavers. Olaf then ducked quickly behind Rose’s shield and shouted, “Take cover!”
“Run!” one of the Slavers shouted as she realized what Olaf just threw.
I expected an explosion and screams of pain. Instead, there was a soft pop followed by coughing and gasps for air.
“Smoke bomb,” Olaf answered the unasked question with a grin.
“Every-” the leader started but stopped to cough. “Everyone, attack-” another pause to cough, “adventurer slaves are worth ten times more than any of the other trash we have captured.”
“My turn,” Harrison said, crouching low with his shields locked in place directly in front of him.
Realizing what he was about to do, having seen it before, I moved in tighter next to Rose and helped brace the shield. “Tuck in close and keep your heads down,” I said quickly to the other members of our party.
Harrison started to glow a few seconds later. Then he charged straight toward the oncoming horde of Slavers that were just starting to come out of the smoke cloud. Not twenty feet from the majority of them, he jumped straight up. I watched him reorient himself in the air such that his shields faced the ground. Then he dropped, the impact exploding like a bomb, shaking the stone beneath our feet and pushing Rose’s shield wall back a few feet despite having both Olaf and me helping Rose hold it in place.
“Attack!” Harrison shouted.
I couldn’t see much through the dust and smoke as details went. But I saw plenty of red outlines, including a large clump of them standing together inside the smoke.
“Boar Charge on the left flank,” I shouted my warning to my friends, already channeling the spell.
“Take down the casters in the back,” Rose shouted her orders. “I’ll pick up the front row. Harrison, on my right.”
The heavily armored soldier ran out of the cloud that was finally starting to dissipate with three Slavers chasing him. Rose saw them and used her own ‘Charge’ skill to ram her shoulder into the one in the middle, then smack the other two with a shield each. I was confused when Harrison kept running away only to suddenly stop and reverse, activating his ‘Charge’ skill to ram into a fourth pursuer I hadn’t seen behind the other two.
As my ‘Boar Charge’ channel ended, I targeted one of the spellcasters and hit him with my ‘Heavenly Blade’ spell, pinning him to the ground with burning blades. Vision appeared behind the next spellcaster and bit into her neck, dragging her to the ground. Sooty appeared next to Vision as soon as the woman was on the ground, a pair of daggers arcing through the air to slice into her. As if that wasn’t enough, Nahid appeared next to him, mirroring his attack. As the slaver’s life bar hit zero, Vision, Nahid, and Sooty were already vanishing from view, hunting their next target.
Across the quarry, I saw Olaf putting the hurt on the leader of the Slavers, first with his two hand-cannons then with his maul.
I looked away from Olaf and turned my focus to the nine Slavers Rose and Harrison were holding at bay. I ran for them, placing myself between them.
“Give me a gap,” I said. Rose and Harrison separated just a step, opening a hole in the shield wall, I fired off a ‘Holy Blast’ into the gap, enjoying the cone of damage it created, hitting six of the nine Slavers, weakening all of them to physical damage. I flowed right into ‘Rapid Striking’ for the cone of physical damage, then triggering it a second time. As soon as the second ‘Rapid Striking’ ended, I let loose another ‘Holy Blast’, hitting four this time. “Close,” I said stepping back before the Slavers could do any more damage than had already been done in the little more than ten seconds my attacks took.
While Baby healed me, I added a stack of ‘Holy Fire’ to my pinned target, trying to make sure he didn’t get the chance to cast whatever spell he had up his sleeve on one of my friends.
“Ollie, look out!” Micaela shouted. I hadn’t seen Micaela before, she was attacking one of the spellcasters near the ramp leading out of the quarry. It appeared Micaela was stopping one from running away. It just happened that Micaela positioned herself between the ramp and the fleeing Slaver, giving her a view of the entire battlefield.
I turned sharply toward where I had last seen Olaf. He was still fighting with the leader of the Slavers, but that wasn’t the problem. It was the damnable lion again and there was nothing we could do about it. In one move the lion leaped forward, his claws lashing out and taking both the Slaver and Olaf’s heads clean from their shoulders.
I could only watch as the lion’s nameplate updated with his new level,
When the ‘Terror’ debuff ended and we could all move again, most of the Slavers fell to their knees, some of them sobbing. None of them were interested in continuing to fight us, especially not if that chimera was still around.
As soon as the Slavers surrendered, combat effectively ended as far as the game was concerned. It allowed Micaela to use her ‘Spirit Recall’ to resurrect Olaf.
Cl
ass Quest Alert: Bandaka Slave Ring 1 – Completed!
You have stumbled onto a group of Bandaka Slavers. Kill or capture every last one of them.
Reward: +25,000-Experience, +2-Sigils of the Goddess Issara +1,000-Experience per Captured Slaver (x16)
“I really hate that lion,” Olaf groused.
“Chimera,” I corrected. It might have once been a lion but now that thing was a Chimera, a malevolent one apparently.
“I don’t really care what it is now, the point is, I hate that thing,” Olaf snapped irritably.
“Ollie, that’s enough of that,” Micaela chided her husband.
Micaela was right. I moved on the highest leveled of the remaining Slavers.
Class Quest Alert: Bandaka Slave Ring 2
You have captured or killed the Slavers only to learn there is another group with several citizens being held against their will nearby. Stop the Bandaka Slaver caravan and free their prisoners.
Reward: Experience, +2-Sigils of the Goddess Issara, Bonus Experience per Captured Slaver, Bonus Experience per Freed Slave, Bonus Sigil of the Goddess Issara per 10 Freed Slaves
Do you accept this Quest?
Yes
No
“Your boss, he said we were worth more than the others you captured,” I started. “Where are they?”
“They will kill me,” the Slaver said, not meeting my eyes.
“I will kill you,” Harrison said, yanking the Slaver from my grip. “You do not need to fear what the other Slavers might do to you. You should be more worried about what I will do to you,” Harrison stated heatedly, snorting angrily.
“Harrison,” Rose said. “That’s completely unnecessary. There’s a better way.” I was so proud of Rose in the moment. Stepping in before I could, and putting a stop to a senseless murder, no matter how effective it might have been.
World Tree Online- the Endless Savanna- 3rd Dive Page 34