To the Forest

Stepping out of your cave onto the lower slopes of Mount Imporne, you glance up the slope towards where the Kobold Clans made their settlements along with mini-bosses like Greg the Mountain Giant and end game bosses like The Dread Wyrm. You shake your head, the glowing red flames burning in the eyes of your skeleton minion are pointed towards you until you issue the mental command to start travelling down the mountain, without hesitation and on tireless legs your minion starts down the mountain with you following in its wake.

It takes about an hour and a half to pick your way down through the lower slopes of the mountain, the minion you had summoned dissipated back into another portal after the first hour but you felt safe enough here to not need to summon another one straight away. The mountain terrain was such that you would be able to see anybody coming in with plenty of time to summon a new minion. As you reached the bottom the the bulk of the forest rose up around you, once more you extended a hand an summoned another undead soldier. Tilting your head, you thought you could just feel the faintest sense of recognition, this must be the same skeleton soldier.

Venturing forth into the treeline with the newly summoned undead alongside her, you walked to the nearest tree and started banging your fist on it. The progress bar came up and started slowly inching along. A mental command to your skeleton had it go over to another tree and start the same process, the undead tirelessly beating the tree and starting to gather a mixture of wood, leaves and sap. You nodded thoughtfully, if you gathered enough wood now you would have enough firewood to last you for some time and so wouldn't have to make too many dangerous trips down to the forest. As the progress bar reached the end and you felt a stack of wood go into your inventory alongside a rarer drop of bird eggs. As you were about to start harvesting the next load of wood, you heard voices coming from close by. Quickly ducking down, you commanded your skeleton to halt its harvesting and come stand over you to protect you. The voices got louder but stopped a short distance away, calming your breathing you slowly rose and started making your way over to peer through the treeline.

In a clearing stood a group three humans, one male and two female, each dressed in rough leather armour with a variety of weapons. As you examined them, a small pop up appeared before your eyes.

Level 3 Bandit
Monster, Human, Explicit
Level Locked
Feats
Gang Tactics - When fighting an enemy at the same time as another member of the same group, gain a bonus +10 to Melee skills

You blink away the pop up, these must be one of the new mooks in the area. Level locked meant even if the poor bastards survived a day they had no hope of ever raising their stats or gaining new abilities. Shaking your head a little at how it turned out there were monsters that had it even worse than you. You withdrew, keeping quiet and collected the skeleton as you started back up the mountain, having gathered enough firewood to last you for several days. The bird eggs would make a fine meal for tonight and tomorrow you would be able to go up the mountain and kill some of the mountain goats. You had to summon your minion again on the way back up the mountain to keep all the wood , sap and leaves that had been collected in both your inventory's. Partway up the mountain back to your cave, just as you were nearing the entrance to your cave, you heard the ground shaking rumble of The Dread Wyrm grumbling in its sleep. Calming your racing heart, you entered the cave and started pulling wood out of your inventory and stacking it neatly in one corner, using the leaves to put another layer between the cold earth and your bedroll. You frowned a little as you realised you couldn't free up space in your inventory by taking the sap out as you hadn't found any goblins to trade with to get a whittling knife to create containers. Looking at the skeleton stood in the corner, you note it hasn't taken its eyes off you.

"Ok, I can't just keep referring to you as minion. If your the skeleton I am going to keep summoning I'd like to give you a name. I'm going to call you...Victor. When I refer to Victor, I am addressing you. Nod if you understand Victor."

The skeleton nods before dissipating once more through the portal back to the dungeon of the Grey Merchant. You pause as you hear shouting on the path, coming closer to your cave with each moment. Sidling up to the entrance, you peek out and see a figure sprinting and stumbling up the mountain path that will take the figure past your cave. The figure seems to be being chased by the three bandits you saw earlier.