One More Task for John

“You don’t need to give me anything, Gamer. You’ll actually be doing me a favor if you succeed,” Amanda smiled at him. “Going up against that tribe will be no small feat; you will need all the help you can get.”

“Why don’t you come with us then?” John asked the girl.

“I can’t. Believe me, I want to, and to tell you the truth, I was supposed to deal with them myself. That’s why I have this vial with me and I am now freely giving it to you. I was tasked to find the Bauchan camp, get in, use this sleeping concoction and tell Robert how to get there so that the clan can destroy the camp.” John saw the look of apprehension on her face, but what she had just told him did not help her gain his trust. It irked him somewhat that she was not going to join them on what was supposed to be her task in the first place. As if on cue, Amanda continued, “I really am sorry, but I am overtasked as it is. I need to head north really soon to do some errands for my Queen.”

John just stood there not knowing what to tell her; he didn’t know if what she was telling him was the truth. Even if they were helping one another, he had to be sure. He decided to cast observe on the vial.

Ok, this can actually help me. But it still doesn’t mean I can trust her, she could be setting me up for a trap, he pondered and then saw the girl still looking at him with the same apprehensive expression on her face. He decided to cast observe on her as well.

Damn, level 19, she could have really helped me and Aza. At least she is an ally to the MacKenzies. The 25 score is not bad too, it’s better than most of my classmates. With everything he saw, John concluded he could trust her at least with this vial.

“So, will you take this vial?” Amanda asked.

“Fine, I’ll take it,” John answered her while taking the vial from her hand. “I guess there won’t be a problem if I add it to the ale?”

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you,” the happy girl kept repeating, never answering his question. “I promise I’ll make this up to you the next time we see each other. You have really made my day,” she said as she hugged him. “I am sorry, but I really must go now if I’m going to make it in time. I hope we’ll see each other soon.” And with that, she quickly disappeared.

A few minutes later, Robert took John and a once again in human form Aza to his pickup truck where the driver was waiting for them with all the casks already tied up on its cargo bed.

“Gamer, this is Mark, he’ll take ya where ya and Aza need to go,” Robert told John and then addressed the driver. “Mark, Aza will ride up front with ya so that she can guide ya where to go. I am sorry, Gamer, ya’ll have to sit on the cargo bed with the casks.”

“Is it safe?” John asked worriedly.

“Don’t worry, Mark has tied them tightly so that they don’t fall on top of ya,” the innkeeper assured him. “I wish ya luck, laddy. Please keep yerself and Aza safe.”

“Thank you, Robert,” John told him and shook his hand. After that, Robert went back inside the inn.

“So, where are we heading?” Mark asked as they started entering the car.

“Head south towards the Smiling Owl bar and continue on the road until we exit the city. I’ll tell you where to go next from there,” Aza told him excitedly, happy to have a chance to retrieve her stuff and conclude her uncle’s tasks.

John climbed on to the cargo bed of the truck and realized this was the only chance he’d have to add Amanda’s concoction to the casks. He still had to figure out how much of the liquid he would have to add, so he cast observe on the casks and got the information he needed. Each cask contained 200 liters of ale. As he did the math, he found out that he only had enough for 5 casks, which meant he had to determine which one would be left out.

Trying to think of which to choose, John remembered that he had heard somewhere that in some places it was common practice to serve the guests first with the best quality drinks and then after they were too drunk to tell the difference, they would serve the rest. So, believing that the Bauchans would do the same, he chose to leave one cask of the poor quality ale without the concoction.

Each cask was lying down on wooden support structures and tied to the side of the cargo hold of the truck; there were three at each side. John moved one of them and saw the side plug was facing up. He tried to pry it open but had no luck; no matter how much he tried, it wouldn’t budge. He just didn’t have the strength to do it.

He pulled up his stat sheet to search for an answer and saw what he needed. He still had 6 stat points to use.

Not wanting to spend it all on his strength attribute, he spent just one point and tried removing the plug, no luck. He added another, and he felt that it budged just a little. After he spent his third, he finally managed to take it out. He then decided to wait till he had gone through the rest of the casks before spending the rest of his points on other attributes.

While using observe, John added milliliter by milliliter of the concoction to the cask until he saw he had added a total of ten. While pouring the contents from the vial, John noticed that it gave off a weird smell; once he poured enough in the cask, he tried to discern if he could distinguish its smell from that of the ale. He thought he was in luck as he couldn’t do so; the ale’s aroma was thankfully stronger. After that, he plugged the cask back up and proceeded to do the same to the other casks, leaving out one of the poorer quality.

He used up the rest of his stat points by spending two points on endurance where he felt he needed the most to increase his HP and regeneration. His last point was spent on agility, the reason being that he felt it would give him a better edge defensively when combining it with his proximity sense. It had certainly made a difference when he faced the three Bauchans earlier that morning.

John stored the empty flask in his inventory and made a small prayer for the concoction to actually work. He then realized that even if it did work, they’d still have to get the Bauchans to take the bait and loot the casks from wherever they were going to leave them. Aza had told him that their chance would increase the closer they left the casks to the entrance of the Bauchan camp barrier; he hoped her assumption was correct.

Ten minutes passed and John wondered how much more they had to go. From his position, he looked towards the front and saw nothing but trees on both sides of the narrow road they were driving on.

A few moments later, he felt the scene around him change and got the message informing him that he had entered a barrier. He saw a small girl by the side of the road waving her arms trying to get their attention. Mark instantly slowed the car down as they got closer to the girl.

"Please, help me!" John heard her yell a couple of times. Mark must have also heard her because he stopped the car.

“No, you idiot, don’t stop. It’s a trap!” John heard Aza yell from inside the car.

The small girl quickly went over to the driver’s side window and gave a wicked smile while removing the necklace she was wearing. Her appearance quickly changed to that of a male Bauchan and the truck was soon surrounded on all sides by the other members of his tribe.

“Thank ya for stopping, kind sir,” the Bauchan said. His face then turned angry and continued, “Now get the fuck out of the truck.”

The three got out and were taken to the side of the road where six Bauchans guards held them captive at sword point while the others searched the truck.

The first Bauchan climbed the cargo hold and went over to one of the casks. He knocked on it and heard that it was full. He used the tip of his shortsword to help him remove its plug and sniffed the contents inside. “Wait a minute,” he said as he smelled inside and gave an unsure glance to his captives. “What is this?” John started to panic inside, fearing that the Bauchan had somehow detected the smell of the concoction inside the cask. He put his small arm inside the barrel and then quickly took it out; he sniffed his now soaked hand and gave it a lick. “Fuck yes, I knew it! This is high-quality shit.”

John breathed a sigh of relief. Every Bauchan there was now wanting to have a taste of the ale, even the guards. It was at this time that Mark took advantage of their distraction, pushed one of his guards down to the floor and proceeded to run away, escaping and leaving John and Aza alone with their captives.

“Fools!” the Bauchan from the top of the truck shouted; John had figured by now that he had to be the one in charge. “Look at what ya have done, ya let one escape.” He got down from the truck and punched the guard most at fault for Mark’s escape.

He then approached John and Aza. His eyes went wide when he spotted Aza’s necklace; he swiftly tore it from her neck and smiled as the girl’s appearance changed back to that of a Kobold.

“Well, this must be ma lucky day,” the Bauchan chuckled. “First we catch a nice shipment of ale and then we recapture the traitorous Kobold bitch.” He spat at the girl and continued, “There’s quite a high bounty for ya and yer uncle, but before turning ya in, I’ll have some fun with ya.”

John had heard enough and rushed without thinking towards the Bauchan leader; the two guards beside him managed to bring him down to the floor before he could do anything.

“Stupid fool,” the leader said as he approached and kicked him in the stomach. He turned to Aza’s guard and commanded them, “Take the girl to our camp, ya better not let her escape this time.”

“What about the human boy?” asked another Bauchan.

“Leave him here, alive. We don’t want to push our luck too much and finally bring down the human clans’ wrath on us. Not before we reach our goal.”

John heard the leader approach him once again; this time he received a kick to the head.

Critical Hit!