Bowman vs cavalry. Wait, no, what? Seriously!?

John bit his lip to prevent himself from screaming out as the ground under his feet collapsed. The ground started to keel over, slowly collapsing in on itself. As John tried to find anything to grab onto, he realized to his horror that there was nothing there to grab onto. John decided to make himself as small as possible, curling up in his cloak while holding onto his bow with one hand, seeing the ground come closer and closer.

John launched himself off of the platform as he was about to hit the ground, rolling over a few times until he came to a stop against a half rotten barrel, the wood giving in and covering him in dust as he tried to get to his feet again. John coughed softly, looking around in a daze. While the fall had not caused any damage to his body, he still felt sore all over. The wall he had been on had completely collapsed to his right, to his left there was a keeling over door frame. The house behind it looking to be in no better state than the rest of the castle he encountered so far.

Looking over his shoulder, John saw a couple of orcs sitting around a campfire about five hundred meters back in the middle of what looked like a game of dice, even though John could see that their dice were nothing but round rocks with dots painted on them.

Then finally ahead of him there was the miniboss; he was currently walking away from John, but if this place was governed by video game logic, which, knowing Gaia, it might just be, there was a good chance that he would turn around and spot him any second.

John’s mind worked overtime, pulling a trap out of his inventory, the last one he had with him; for some reason the prototypes Ilis had given him were one use products, he found out. While it was probably a bad idea for John to use his last remaining trap already, he thought that he had little choice. He could not hide, the house next to him looked like it could collapse at any time, he had no confidence in being able to fight off five orcs on his own, and the way he came was blocked due to failing infrastructure.

John sighed. ‘Only way is forward, come on, John, you can do this. Just see this like any other boss fight,’ John egged himself on. He threw the trap down in front of him, its slow ticking indicating that it was setting up. John, with at least his melee area secure for now if he was able to lure the stupid creature into the trap, started thinking of a way to fight the boss.

‘I will need to dismount him, that’s for sure. Too bad I don’t have a rope, if I had one, I would have been able to span a line… But ok, no debating what ifs. Hmmm, I think I got it.’

John nodded to himself, feeling both his tattoo’s throb slightly, the pets sending him encouraging feelings from their dismissed states.

“Don’t worry, guys, I got this,” John whispered to them softly, drawing an arrow as he saw off in the distance that the boss had indeed turned around and was slowly riding Bob back towards him.

The boss spotted him about the same time that John saw him too, the orc driving his heels into Bob’s flanks to spur him on. “Get him, Bob, or no dinner tonight!” he screeched in a horrible high pitched voice. Bob let out a high peep, then started to charge at John, slowly decreasing the distance between them.

John almost chuckled if it wasn’t for the fact that it was a rather tense moment. The high pitched voice totally not fitting in with the large orc’s posture. He managed to fire a couple of arrows, one being swatted out of the air by the orc, the other sticking in his shoulder only causing two damage. John swallowed hard, cursing the orc’s thick hide.

By then the guinea pig had come within casting range for John, so with a small prayer to Gaia, John decided to try and trip the mount, casting Pitfall; the ground underneath the guinea pig sank 30 cm into the ground, causing his feet, about to clear the hole to slam into the side of the pit.

With a shrill squeak the guinea pig tripped forward, his back legs coming up from the ground due to sheer momentum, his rider getting launched directly from his back, flying through the air. John switched his bow for his sword, readying it as he saw… The boss falling headfirst into the trap. With a sickening crunch, the trap closed around his neck, forcefully ripping his head clean off of his rump.

+75 exp

Seeing this, John had to turn away, holding his stomach as he vomited right there onto the floor; it was one thing to shoot a creature, it was something completely different to watch a decapitation from up close.

After losing his breakfast John ran his hand over his lips, trying to wipe away the sour taste, realizing that he still had to take care of the guinea pig.

John turned towards the beast, seeing it slowly roll over to have his feet touch the ground again. As John once more took out his bow, he took a few steps back, readying an arrow on it as the guinea pig approached his dead master, tapped him with his snout, and then peeped at John without any malice.

John stared at him intently, drawing his bow as the big lug of a critter nudged the headless corpse again, then stared at John one more time. As John did not say anything, the guinea pig started to eat his former master’s foot, eyeing John as if to ask, ‘you gonna stop me?’

When John just guffawed Bob increased his eating speed, eating the corpse of his former master, clothes and all.

John cried silently to himself as the possibility of loot disappeared into the monstrous guinea pig’s stomach. When he was done eating he stepped forward, John once again raising his bow, only to have the big lug start to nuzzle into his hand. Squeaking as he looked at him expectantly.

John shuddered, seeing the guinea pig go through his knees, gesturing with his head for John to get on.