Accidental Champion Boxed Set

by Jamie Davis

  The speed of the falchion attacks increased. Cari didn’t know how he could wield the heavy and ungainly weapon with such grace and ease.

  She took two slashing hits in rapid succession.

  Health damage — health -8

  Health damage — health -12

  The slaver captain yelled over the shouts and jeers from his crew. “You can yield, girl, at any time. You know he has you beat.”

  “Never.” Cari gritted her teeth against the pain and redoubled her efforts, pulling out tricks she’d never tried before in an effort to get past the orc’s defenses with a killing blow or at least hit him enough times to power-up her burst of speed.

  The desperation of her attempts opened her up to more strikes from the heavy weapon.

  Health damage — health -12

  Health damage — health -10

  Pain and blood loss took its toll on her. She was slowing down. It opened her up to a sweeping downward blow from above.

  Cari raised her rapier, trying to stop the heavy falchion with her thinner, more delicate blade.

  It didn’t work.

  Her precious sword snapped in half, leaving her holding a foot and a half of useless steel in one hand.

  The orc’s sandaled foot came up and kicked her in the gut, driving the air from her lungs in a coughing whoosh.

  Unable to stop herself, Cari fell to her knees.

  She was done, and she knew it.

  Cari dropped her stub of a sword and her dagger into the sand and raised her hands.

  This wasn’t part of the primary plan. She’d counted on her dueling ability to help her fight past anyone she faced one on one.

  Cari glanced over her shoulder, praying she didn’t see her small shore party disobeying orders and trying to save her despite the odds.

  The tree line was empty and she smiled. Good. They’d followed orders.

  Cari caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked to the right in time to see the descending pommel of the falchion just before it struck her temple.

  Health damage — health -12

  Critical hit -- Unconsciousness

  Quest completed — get captured alive by the slavers

  10,000 experience

  Everything went black as her eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped over onto the sandy beach.

  Chapter 29

  Cari awoke on a narrow wooden platform. There was a similar platform a few bare inches above her. Beyond that, she couldn’t make out much of anything else in the gloomy darkness.

  Judging from the rocking motion beneath her, she was in the slaver ship’s hold, held just like the other slaves. She glanced from side to side and saw a three long rows of platforms, stacked five high, stretching both left and right from her position along the length of the ship.

  Cari rolled to one side, pulling on the chain running from her manacled hands to a ring set in the corner post of her bunk. She craned her neck so she could see as far as possible down the rows.

  Every one of the slaver’s cargo platforms was full as far as Cari could tell. She struggled in the darkness to spot Janey on one of them, but it was impossible to pick out individuals more than a few bunks away from her own. The strain on her chains also set her head to pounding. She was still sorely injured.

  Cari looked over her stats for the first time in a long while, trying to assess what options she had for the rest of her plan to work out.

  Name: Cari Dix

  Class: Duelist

  Level: 12

  Attributes:

  Brawn: 12 - +2 to hit/damage

  Wisdom: 10 - +1

  Luck: 10 - +1 to all saving throws

  Speed: 22 - +7 defense

  Charm: 18 - +5 personal reaction

  Health: 44/120

  Skills: Two-Weapon Combat, Acrobatic Dodge — 2, Multi-Foe Tactics — 2, Feint — 2, Taunt, Bladesmith — Master, Prescience — 3, Ambidexterity, Seamanship — Master, Navigation — Master, Aimed Cannon Shot — 2

  Master Duelist Bonus — Projectile Dodge (55% chance of activation)

  Regeneration – 1 hp/second (max 60 seconds) 1/day

  Experience: 386,500/600,000

  Cari wished she’d somehow managed to develop some thieving abilities or some way of picking locks. That could have come in handy right now, and she wouldn’t have to try the crazy idea that had seemed so sensible back on shore. She shook her head. No sense whining about what might have been. She just hoped she had enough health points to spare for what the plan called for next.

  Shifting to one side so she could peer over the edge of her bunk, Cari looked up and down to see who her neighbors were.

  The elderly man directly below her was sleeping. The girl to her right at the same level was awake, though. She looked to be about fourteen, though she could have been older and just small for her age.

  “You’re her, the real Dread Raider Cari. I saw you fighting for us. I’m sorry you lost.”

  “So am I,” Cari replied. “What’s your name?”

  “Trina.”

  “How long have we been on the ship?”

  “I think it’s been three and a half days.”

  “Hmmm,” Cari thought. Three days? She’d lost a lot of the time while unconscious. She was running out of time and needed to enact a significant part of her plan. That blow to her head would have put her in a coma if it had happened back home. Here, with her extra ability to absorb damage, it had just knocked her out, albeit for a long time.

  Cari shook her head. “We don’t have much time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “Time until my crew comes after me. We need to be ready when they get here. That means I have to get out of these shackles.”

  “How are you going to do that? Can you pick locks?”

  “Sadly, no. I’m afraid this is going to be much more of a brute force approach, something my pig-headed father would probably do.”

  “That doesn’t sound like it’s something good.”

  “It’s not, Trina, believe me. Plus, it’s gonna hurt like hell. You might want to look away for a few minutes until I’m done. I’m not sure how long this is going to take or even if it will work the way I planned it.”

  “Why would I look away? I don’t even know what it is you’re going to do.”

  Another voice sounded from the bunk above Trina. “I’m not looking away either, missy,” a bearded man in his fifties said, leaning over as far as his chains would allow so he could see into the narrow space where Cari lay. “After that fight on the beach, I want to see how you’re going to get yourself out of this predicament.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Cari didn’t want an audience for this next part. She didn’t want anyone to see her cry and she was pretty sure she was going to.

  Twisting around, so her bare feet were planted against the post where the ring was bolted that secured her manacle, Cari leaned back until her arms were stretched to their limit.

  “Ooo, she’s gonna use super-strength to pull the bolts free from the frame,” Trina whispered.

  “I wish,” Cari muttered.

  The old man chimed in. “She’ll never do it. There’s no way.”

  “Oh, there’s a way,” Cari said through gritted teeth. She pushed with her legs while she held her arms straight out towards the ring, the chains of the manacles pulled tight, her shoulder muscles tensed to pull against the manacles.

  The iron cuffs dug into her skin, and she felt a stab of pain as the one on her right cut through the skin, making her wrist slick with blood.

  Cari’s stomach churned as the pain in her protesting wrists started. She resisted the voice at the back of her mind telling her it would never work. There was no stopping now. It was the only way out.

  Pushing harder with her feet, increasing the tension further, Cari pulled back against the manacles, her fingers and thumbs angled away from her, pointing straight at the post.

  More blood flowed as the other manacle cut
into her wrist just below her thumb.

  The pain made her groan and she bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood as she held back the screams.

  It was now or never. She’d lose her nerve if she waited any longer.

  Cari steeled herself against the pain, bunched up her shoulder muscles and wrenched her right shoulder backward once, twice, and then a third time. She felt a pop followed by a wave of pain shooting up her arm.

  Squinting through a haze of tears down at her right hand, she saw the thumb slip out of its joint and collapse the size of her hand. Another tugging pull through the wave of pain broke several bones in her hand, collapsing the end of her arm further.

  A fifth tug on the right side and the manacle slipped off her wrist, over her mangled hand and clattered on the wooden platform.

  Health damage — health -20

  Forcing herself to keep going, Cari set to work on her left hand. It took six tugs on this side to break enough of her bones to pull it through the iron cuff. She almost passed out as her hand slipped through the manacle securing her wrist.

  Health damage — health -20

  Cari collapsed back, weeping silently, hugging her bloody and aching hands close to her chest. The pain overwhelmed her for a few seconds and she forgot part two of her plan for a moment. Then Cari remembered and she forced herself to remain conscious as the red “critical health warning” flashed in the corner of her vision.

  “Huh,” the old man said. “I didn’t see that coming.”

  “Me, either,” Trina replied. “That was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. Are you alright, Captain Cari?”

  “I. Will. Be.” Cari gritted her teeth against the pain as she spoke. It was hard to concentrate and she had to focus on this or it wasn’t going to work.

  Taking a deep breath and letting it out slow and steady, Cari opened her ability and skill menu, scrolling through until the regeneration ability was in place.

  It took her several tries to get it to highlight and show it was selected. The throbbing pain in her hands and wrists kept distracting her.

  Finally, she saw the golden flash that showed the ability was engaged. She mentally clicked yes. A second later, the familiar warmth spread outward from her center, washing away the worst of the pain. Cari watched her thumbs pop back into place and her crumpled hands reform as her health points ticked upward. A minute later, she’d regained the full sixty points the ability enabled.

  Her hands still ached, as did her other wounds but, when she flexed her fingers, everything moved and her dislocated thumbs were both back in position. The right side was sorer than the left, but she could live with that for now.

  “How did you do that?” Trina asked. “Your wounds healed while I watched.”

  “Not all the way. It’s something a friendly troll taught me to do.”

  “Bah, there’s no such thing as a friendly troll,” the old man said. “They eat small children for God’s sake.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I made friends with this one. What’s your name, old man?”

  “Careful who you call ‘old,’ missy.”

  “I’m sorry, but unless you want me to call you old man for the rest of the trip, you should tell me who you are.”

  “He’s Zeb. He is the worst fisherman in our village. My dad always says he can’t catch a fish in a bucket.”

  “Your dad’s not any better than I am. I was fishing when he was a youngster only old enough to mend my nets.”

  “Quiet, you two. I don’t need your bickering to draw attention over here. What do you think the guard will do if he comes over and sees my manacles hanging there?”

  “Sorry,” Trina mumbled.

  Zeb just grumbled to himself and rolled over.

  It was already too late.

  Others from neighboring bunks were paying attention to what Cari was doing now. The growing buzz of voices around her drew the guard from the far end of the hold.

  “What the hell are you all up to? I swear if another one of you useless curs is dead, I’m gonna throw somebody else over the side with them.”

  Cari slid off her bunk to the floor between the stacked bunk platform she’d been on and the one Trina was on. She crouched down and waited.

  The grumbling guard’s boots thumped on the decks’ planks and Cari listened, trying to judge the right time to make her move.

  Across the aisle from where Cari crouched, a fisherman about the age of her father stared at her. He nodded and called out to the guard.

  “Guard, over here. I have something I have to tell you.”

  At first, Cari thought the man was turning her in. Then she realized he was trying to distract the guard away from her hiding place.

  “It better be something good, or I’m gonna beat you so bad you’ll wish I killed you. I was almost asleep and it’s my nap time.”

  “It is very good. It’s so important I had to tell you right away and couldn’t wait another minute.”

  The guard stomped past Cari’s hiding place to face the fisherman across from her. A long knife was shoved in the slaver’s belt at the small of his back.

  Cari sprang forward, launching herself across and up to land on the slaver guard’s back. In the same motion, she reached down and pulled the man’s knife free.

  The slaver reacted quicker than she expected.

  He arched his back and slammed his shoulders backward, attempting to crush Cari against the row of bunks behind her.

  Health damage — health -5

  Cari grunted as the impact drove the air from her lungs.

  She raised the long knife up to plunge it down into the guard’s chest with one hand while she held on tight with the other hooked around his neck.

  The guard caught her descending wrist with one hand, stopping the knife only inches from his skin.

  He leaned forward and bashed backward with his superior bulk again. This time Cari’s head struck the corner of the bunk hard.

  Health damage — health -8

  Cari shook her head to clear her mind. The blow had likely caused another concussion. She’d worry about that later.

  If she had a later.

  Cari dropped the knife and wrenched her hand free of his grasp as his grip slipped on her still-bloody wrist. She used the free hand to grip her other wrist and lever back on the arm wrapped around the guard’s throat. He clawed at her arm, trying to pull it away from his neck. Strangled gasps wheezed through his collapsing airway until the guard couldn’t breathe at all.

  He slammed backward again, with less force this time. Cari managed to absorb this blow without taking any damage.

  She leaned back, putting all her body weight on her arms, tightening the stranglehold even more.

  The guard’s legs buckled and he dropped to his knees. Cari rode him to the ground. His hand scrabbled at the deck, reaching for his knife where it fell when Cari dropped it.

  Her bare feet on the deck now, Cari lifted and pulled the man backward away from the weapon, maintaining her grip with her arm locked across his throat.

  He stopped struggling and his hands dropped to his side. Cari held him up on his knees and continued to press in on the guard’s neck with all her strength while she counted to sixty twice.

  When she was sure he wasn’t faking, she let go and he slumped over to the deck.

  2,500 experience

  Cari smiled at the fisherman who’d helped her by distracting the guard.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re our only chance of getting out of here alive and not in chains.”

  “Speaking of chains,” Cari said as she started searching the guard for the keys to unlock the manacles on the other slaves.

  “He doesn’t have the keys on him,” the fisherman said. “When they brought us down here, I saw a ring of iron manacle keys on a wooden peg by the ladder up to the next deck.”

  “Alright, while I go and look for the keys, pull his body up and stash it in my bunk where I was, just in case an
other guard comes by while I’m gone.”

  Cari bent down and scooped up the belt knife and started down the aisle between the rows of slave bunks towards the end of the hold. The desperate faces in each bunk she passed faced her way, punctuating her desire for this plan to work.

  She reached the end of the row of bunks and crouched, peering around the corner. She saw a chair and a small table by the ladder leading to the next deck above.

  Sure enough, the keys were there, hanging from a peg on the cross beam where the ladder entered the upper deck.

  Cari dashed out and reached out for the key ring when shouts from up above and the sounds of pounding feet had her duck beneath the ladder and pull herself back into the shadows for fear someone was coming down the ladder.

  The running feet above increased in number and Cari overheard orders shouted from an officer or bosun’s mate above her to clear the deck for action.

  Cari smiled to herself. They were preparing for a fight against another ship.

  She had a hunch which ship that might be.

  Knowing the activity above her was only going to increase, Cari took a chance and darted out, climbing halfway up the ladder, and reaching out for the keys.

  Snatching the key ring off the peg, Cari jumped down to the deck. Time to put the rest of her plan into action.

  Quest accepted — lead a successful slave mutiny

  She ran back down the aisle of bunks to where she’d started and reached past the fisherman who’d helped her, unlocking his manacles first.

  “I’m Cari.” She handed him the key ring.

  “I know who you are,” the fisherman said rubbing his wrist where the manacle had gouged him and cut into his arm. “I’m Merk.”

  “Nice to meet you, Merk. If you know who I am, then you know my reputation. I don’t lose and I don’t plan on starting now. All that noise above means my ship has tracked me down. There’s going to be a fight. We need to be ready to lend a hand from down here when the time is right.”