by Edward Brody
Steam rose from the pinned down man, and underneath the sound of the water splashing, I could hear him screaming in agony.
Gerard paused his attack, and the water stopped, leaving nothing but a few puddles of steaming liquid on the ground and a man writhing in pain. He turned and held his hands out in another direction, firing the water jet at another one of our attackers, this time unleashing just enough of the magic to knock the man back onto the ground.
Gerard took a hard step forward, kneeled, and slammed his hand into the ground. “Wilbro!” He rose back to his feet and waved a flat hand out in front of his chest. “Enough of this!”
The strong patter of hooves could be heard approaching from somewhere in the trees, and Gerard gave a strong nod as if he were signaling something that no one else could see.
Suddenly, an animal akin to a bull, but larger and more terrifying, charged into the clearing. It was taller than Sora with a thick, muscular brown frame and a thick brown fur covering the front part of its torso and a portion of its upper back. Two short but sharp curved horns rose from its head.
The beast ran full speed into the battle, knocking aside any and all bushes or foliage that got in the way, then slammed head-first into one of the attackers, sending him flying across the ground.
Realizing the danger, most of the attackers turned their focus towards the raging animal, and those who still had their bows out, fired. Most of the arrows hit their mark, piercing the beast’s hide but having no noticeable effect other than making it charge faster.
Another jet of water flew past me, blasting into a different attacker, again pushing him back and pinning him against a tree. Gerard spun and fired another jet at yet another man, spun again and connected the attack with someone else. Each time, the men were left on the ground with a steamy mist rising from their bodies.
It was the first time I had seen Gerard fight, and even in my dazed state, I was impressed. He was a lot stronger than he appeared.
Ozzy and several of the elves ran between the trees, driving their weapons into the bodies of the men that Gerard and his pet fell. Quickly, the skirmish seemed to go from full-on chaos, with the attackers having the advantage of surprise, to a one-sided fight, heavily in our favor.
When the bull-like creature impaled the last standing attacker with its horns, pinning his body against the forest ground, the battle seemed to be over. An elf strode up to the pinned man and ended his cries for help by swiping his sword across his throat. Other than a few disabled men writhing and moaning on their last breaths, it seemed as if we had killed them all.
You have gained 1200 XP!
There was a brief, awkward silence amidst the moans. Everyone just froze, looking at each other and catching their breath. There was a feeling of shock that hung in the air.
“Drink up,” Jax said, breaking the calm. He threw a potion my way as he approached.
I was still in incredible pain, so my reflexes weren’t all there. The potion clanked against the edge of my forehead and fell to the ground when I tried to catch it.
“Owwww!” I groaned and leaned forward to pick up the potion.
You’ve received: Minor Healing Potion. Durability: 10/10. Quality: Average. Rarity: Common. Weight: 0.1 kg. Drink to recover 50 HP over 5 seconds.
I popped the cork and immediately started drinking.
“What just happened?” Rina asked as she moved to join us. “Who were those men? Are you okay, Gunnar?”
I pulled the vial from my lips as I swallowed the last drop of liquid and threw it a few meters away. I immediately felt better as my health bar rose, but I knew it was just a quick fix as I still needed to remove the three arrows that were lodged inside of me. “Fuck if I know,” I cursed as I stood to my feet. “I guess that guy who tried to rob us brought them here.” I looked around in the immediate vicinity for the thief’s body but didn’t see any that looked like him. “Where’s that asshole’s corpse anyway?”
“Hey, fuck you!” I heard a voice yell from above.
We all looked up towards the voice at the same time, and I reflexively held up a hand to block as I saw the newbie thief flying down from an overhead limb, hammering a sword towards me. I flinched and heard what I thought was just a thud, then immediately felt an incredible burning sensation. When I parted my eyelids, half of my arm was gone.
I grabbed my arm below the bicep and screamed as I stared at the amputation. There was only an inch or so beyond the elbow that was still attached, and blood was pouring out of the wound.
You have obtained grievous wounds and require immediate medical attention. Grievous Wounds is an extreme damage-over-time affect.
Below my status bars, an icon with a generic broken bone and blood drop overlay appeared.
“Gunnar!” Rina yelled and hurried closer to me.
The thief rolled on the ground and snickered, but before he could continue his attack, a quick jet of water smashed him in the back, causing him to slam forward and land on his own sword as he tumbled across the ground. He croaked loudly, and when he rose to his knees, his sword was sticking through his shoulder.
“Ahhhh!” the man shrieked, grabbing at his blade.
I moaned loudly and panted, ignoring the man as I continued to focus on the surreal image in front of me. It was clearly my arm—at least what was left of it—but I just couldn’t process the fact that I only had a stump.
Ozzy jumped towards the thief and swung his hammer against the base of his spine. The man jerked and shrieked, right before two dark elf guards lunged forward and drove their swords into his body. He croaked, and within a few seconds, fell dead to the ground.
I groaned as I squeezed at the base of my arm. The pain was agonizing, and my life was ticking down by 1% every few seconds. At 50% health, I wasn’t going to last long.
I had seen some pretty crazy injuries and mutilations since being in Eden’s Gate and had been the subject of some intense, fatal death blows, but this was the first time I had a limb severed. The logistics of an amputated extremity in the game had never even crossed my mind.
“Do you have a bandage?” Rina asked.
I nodded, let go of my bleeding stump, and started fumbling in my bag with the arm that was still intact.
When I pulled out the only bandage I had left—the type I had been using since I had been in Eden’s Gate—Rina shook her head. “That’s just a small bandage. We need a large bandage for a wound like that.”
“Huh?” I asked. I hadn’t seen any other type of bandages in the game.
“Anyone?” Rina turned her head and scanned our survivors. “Does someone have a large bandage? Quickly!”
“We don’t have any in the shop,” Gerard affirmed as he strode a little closer.
“Oh hell,” Rina sighed. “I don’t have a spell that can stop this kind of bleeding.” She took a step back and stood straight before raising a hand in the air. “Heal!”
Energy covered my body, and my health bar shot up, but the blood that was pouring out of my stump continued.
“Is there any cloth gear that can be spared?” Rina asked. “With some tailoring tools, I might be able to salvage a bandage if the cloth is large enough.”
“We have a few cloth pieces in our inventory, and Aaron probably has some tailoring tools in his home,” Gerard said before turning and rushing for the shop’s door.
Rina turned her eyes towards Ozzy and the elves. “If his health gets too low, give him a health potion. I should be able to craft a bandage, but it might take a few minutes.”
Ozzy and the elves nodded as she spun and followed Gerard.
“Hang in there, Gunnar,” Ozzy urged. He reached out as if he were going to put a hand on my shoulder, but then retracted and frowned. He was obviously just as disturbed by my severed limb as I was.
I gritted my teeth and squeezed my stump tightly, trying to prevent as much blood as possible from pouring out. I gave Ozzy a slight nod of assurance while willing myself to ignore the pain. “I’ll g
et through all this.” I turned and looked towards the dead thief. “No thanks to that prick.”
“What did he have against us anyway?” Ozzy asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I breathed through the pain and realized that some of the guild was missing. “Forget about him. Where’s Keysia and Aaron…. and where did Jax go?”
“Aaron’s dead…” Ozzy said.
“What? Are you sure?”
“He’s laying a couple meters behind his home. Looked like tried to make a run for it but ended up with some arrows in the back,” Ozzy explained.
“Damn,” I hissed, shaking my head. I wasn’t thrilled to hear that Aaron had died, but he was at least a Reborn. “Keysia? And where did Jax disappear to?”
“I’m still here…” Jax answered from several meters away, pushing towards us through the trees. “One of the guys was playing dead. I saw him get up and make a run for it. Had to chase him a few hundred meters away to take care of the situation.”
I was only able to give Jax a half-hearted nod of approval for his diligence. The pain in my arm was distracting me from providing a proper thanks.
My health ticked down as I waited patiently for Rina to return, and when I reached 20% health, I started to feel uneasy. By 15% I was a bit nauseous and disoriented from the pain.
“Got it!” Rina explained as she burst out of Aaron’s home and ran towards me. “It took me a few attempts, but I managed to craft an adequate bandage.” She held up a white cloth that looked much like a small bandage except thicker and around three times the size.
“Hurry please,” I urged.
Jax reached down to the ground and picked up the other half of my severed arm. “You’ll need to be careful when you’re ambushed.” He ducked his head down a little and bobbed to his right. “It’s natural to hold your arm out to block when something’s coming towards you, but try to default to a quick dodge if you can’t block in time.”
“Yeah…” I groaned, barely listening to him as I focused on the pain and the awkwardness of seeing him holding half my arm in his hand. He picked a strange time to offer fighting tips.
“Help me,” Rina ordered, throwing Jax a menacing glance.
Jax nodded and kneeled in close as Rina took my arm out of his hands. With her free hand, she grabbed my stump and lifted it, then put the two bloody ends together until they were aligned. There was a wave of pain that caused me to hiss when the two made contact.
She looked back to Jax. “Hold this here, so I can easily wrap the bandage.”
Jax grabbed my arm without saying a word and held the two pieces together.
Rina started carefully wrapping the large bandage around the wound, forming several layers until it almost looked like the beginnings of a small cast. When she finished with the last layer, she leaned back and looked at me.
“Is that it?” I asked, not feeling any immediate sensation or difference in the pain.
Rina nodded. “Let it take effect.”
A second later, I felt a hint of a tingling underneath the bandage, and just another second later, the grievous wounds icon below my status bars disappeared. There was a period of more tingling, and slowly but surely, I started to feel the sensation of having a full arm again.
Rina stood, raised her hand, and cast a heal spell on me, then another, bringing my health back to a comfortable level and easing the pain. Beneath the bandage, the tingling intensified until I could fully move my hand and everything started to feel normal again.
I squeezed my hand and wiggled my fingers around. “Wow... That’s so weird but so awesome.” I looked up to Rina. “Thank you.”
Rina smiled and nodded. “Of course. Thankfully, the severed half was still intact.”
“What’s that mean?” Ozzy asked. “What if it wasn’t intact?”
Rina pursed her lips together and furrowed her brow. “If his limb had been lost or destroyed, we would’ve been able to stop the bleeding with the bandage, but he’d still only have a stump.”
“Wait. What?” I asked. Since entering Eden’s Gate, I had counted on the idea I could always heal any wounds with potions or bandages, so the idea that limbs could be permanently lost made things a little more complicated. I supposed I’d get any lost limb back upon death, but death was painful. If I lost a limb, I couldn’t imagine killing myself to get it back, so living with a missing limb for a while was a real possibility if I didn’t have the tools to take care of such an injury.
“Don’t worry,” Rina assured. “There’s a divine spell that can replace a missing limb, but only high-level healers can use it. It’s quite uncommon.”
“There’s a nature magic spell that can regrow a limb as well,” Jax added. “I’ve heard whispers of it in The Vale but never seen it in person.”
“Hmm,” Ozzy hummed and put his finger on his chin. “What if you bandaged someone’s severed limb to another person?”
“Ewww,” Rina moaned. “Are you making a sick joke?”
Ozzy shrugged and shook his head. “Not really. The possibility popped in my head, so I thought I’d ask.”
“Sounds like you’re talking about necromancy-type skills,” Jax said. “I’ve never witnessed anything like that.”
Rina smirked. “As far as I know, large bandages can only reattach limbs to their original owner. You can’t just exchange limbs.”
“My friend…” I heard Shal say low in the distance. When I looked over to him, he was kneeling beside one of the dead dark elves. “Why did you have to die on me?”
“Shit,” I spat and stood to my feet. “Enough chatter. We need to find Keysia and figure out what to do with these dead bodies.”
“Keysia’s over here! She’s been killed!” one of our guards shouted from several meters away, looking down to something that was hidden behind a bush. “Looks like she took several arrows.”
“Damnit,” I cursed. “Keysia was…” I paused and turned to Rina. “Wait. You can rez anyone, right? Not just Reborns?”
Rina nodded. “I’ll resurrect Keysia.”
“What about the others? Aaron, our guards, the customers?”
Rina shrugged and shook her head at the same time as she scanned all the dead bodies. “There’s only a two-hour window from the time someone dies that they can be resurrected, and there’s a cooldown of 20 minutes on my resurrection spell, so with the time I’ll need to meditate between resurrections, I can resurrect four people—maybe five if I rush.”
“Resurrect Keysia first,” I ordered.
Rina nodded. “And then Aaron?”
I shook my head and groaned. “He won’t like this call, but he is a Reborn. Let him respawn and walk back to the village himself. Maybe this will be a lesson that he needs to get out of the village more and train his fighting skills a bit.”
“So then…”
I turned to Shal. “How many guards are dead?” I asked loudly.
“Looks like three,” he replied.
“Okay,” I affirmed. “Resurrect Keysia and the other dark elves, and…” I swallowed and turned to the dead newbie thief who was lying nearby. “If you have time for a fifth rez, resurrect this guy.”
“Why would we resurrect him?!” Gerard cried. “Better to use the use the spell one of the customers that were killed. And didn’t you say this guy is a Reborn too? If that’s the case, he’ll be back.”
“As far as we know, he is,” I said with a nod. “And that’s precisely why we should resurrect him. It’s the second time he’s...” I turned, scanning everyone and searching for the right words. “…fucked with our village, and if we just let him disappear and respawn, we don’t know if or when he’ll be back.” I laced my fingers together, bent them back, and cracked the stiffness out of my previously missing hand. “I think it’s time that him and I had a little chat.”
Chapter Two
1/25/0001
“Are you okay?” Shal asked another elf who was pushing himself up into a sitting position.
Th
e elf nodded and looked around, dazed. “I died?”
“You did,” Shal replied and pointed to Rina. “The human resurrected you.”
The elf took a deep breath. “I thought I was...” He trailed and looked up, wide-eyed at Rina. “Thank you…human.”
Rina smiled and nodded before sitting down and quickly entering a meditation pose.
“She’s great,” Keysia said low as she walked up to my side. “Without her…”
I nodded in agreement. “She’s a wonderful asset.” I turned and faced Keysia. “And I’m surprised you managed to get yourself killed.”
Keysia snickered. “Did you see how many arrows were flying through the trees? I made an effort to take cover, but… that didn’t work out so well.”
“No magic tricks?” I asked.
She gave a slight shrug. “I barely had a chance to figure out what was going on. Everything happened so fast.”
I nodded and rubbed my torso over one the areas where I had extracted arrows. Pulling them out and bandaging the wounds was nearly as painful as when they had pierced my body. “I’m glad the ones that I took didn’t kill me.”
“You’re strong, Gunnar.”
I grinned and placed a hand on Keysia’s shoulder. “Don’t confuse lucky with strong.” I tilted my head to the side. “We should finish looting these guys up.”
The guild members and our hired military were busy collecting all the valuable items from the dead. Any armor, weapons, gold, or trinkets were removed from the fallen and handed over to Gerard in the shop.
I ordered the bodies of the attackers to be moved deeper into the forest, away from the camp, to be taken care of by wild animals or just decompose naturally. The bodies of customers were moved to a designated spot out of the way in preparation for a later burial.
I felt a little bad about looting the dead customers, but there was no better option. If we didn’t take the loot, someone else would. I wondered what would happen if any friends or family members came looking for the missing dead people, but we could just take those instances as they came—if they’d ever come. Thankfully, none of the dead customers were dark elves, so I didn’t need to worry about stirring up trouble with our neighbors.