Wandering Around the Wilderness

To say that Krvavy had anything planned for the day isn’t quite true. She just wanted to wander around the rocky hills for hours on end. So that is exactly what she did.

While she hasn’t accomplished much of anything, her day has been rather relaxing. At least within this game. It might have been a bit of a waste of time, but she isn’t trying to min-max here.

The scenery is quite beautiful, with all the trees, bushes, and even rocks adding to the experience of being outside surrounded by nature. But Krvavy hasn’t just been looking at the scenery. She has been doing a little bit of hunting as well. Granted, all she caught in the entire day is a single grouse, but it is a pretty big one. It is even harder to hunt when she has to lug her large two-handed axe around with her.

Unlike last time when she went towards the plains to the north, Krvavy has decided to explore the hills to the south. The Orcs she fought up there were a fair bit higher level than she is. Hopefully the hills will be a little bit lower level. This is her starting area, after all, and she hasn’t seen anything beyond prey animals so far.

But the sun is starting to set behind the hills, so Krvavy should probably head on back now. She has been meandering around quite a bit throughout the day, so it should only take about an hour or two for her to get back to her cave.

Just as she is turning back a faint smoky scent hits her nose. Part of her is tempted to just ignore it, as the last time this happened she came across the three Orcs. But on the other hand, Krvavy got some useful loot out of that encounter, so maybe there is something better at the source of that smoke? Not that she has high hopes of that, or anything.

Ultimately, curiosity wins. After all, there isn’t any harm in at least looking. Especially since this might be her only chance to see what it is. This could be a one-off encounter for all she knows.

Carefully creeping towards where the scent of smoke is strongest, which simply happens to be the direction that the wind is coming from, Krvavy hears some faint voices.

Due to your Not So Cunning Linguist trait you are [1%] of the way towards learning Common Trade Tongue (Northern Dialect).

Krvavy cannot understand a word of what is being said. Not that she was expecting to, of course. But the fact that this is a different language than what the Orcs were speaking is quite promising. For one, she won’t have to fight Orcs again so there should be different loot.

But also, considering that this is a game, she figures that whoever is speaking will be a whole lot weaker than the Orcs were. After all, all player character start with the ability to learn other languages quickly and it only makes sense to direct the player towards a commonly used language so that they can better interact with the world.

With her mind made up, Krvavy makes her way towards the voices and hides behind a nearby rock. Just down the hill from her are two men who are sitting near the edge of a cliff. They both appear to be humans with weathered light skin and are both wearing a rough padded gambeson, which looks a lot like low-level gear to her.

While Krvavy has no idea what these two humans are saying, she is almost completely certain that they are at least a little bit drunk: they might be slurring their words, unless that language is supposed to sound like that. They are also a bit wobbly looking, though not too much that they are nearly falling over. But most importantly, they are both drinking from glass bottles that really look like they have **** in them. They just have that classic bottle of nondescript **** look to them.

These two men seem like they would be very easy to fight, even if they weren’t drunk. But Krvavy isn’t going to just rush down there and attack them. She would like to get as much of the way towards learning the Common Trade Tongue before doing that. But more importantly, these two drunks don’t have campfire, so the smoke isn’t coming from them.

Looking around she spots a few thin columns of smoke off to the left of the men, though their sources are hidden behind a hill. It would seem that there is a whole camp of these people out here. And if she had to guess, she’d say that it is a bandit camp.

Not only are bandits a classic early game encounter, but these two drunks are really giving off some bandity vibes. They aren’t particularly clean, their armour and weapons look pretty cheap and not very well maintained, and she thinks that one of them might be telling a story about killing people. Either that or he just happens to make exaggerated girly screams before every laugh.

Krvavy is just going to go off the assumption that they are bandits. Gives her a moral reason to wipe them out, beyond just wanting the exp and loot. They probably are bandits anyway, as why else would they be out here in the middle of nowhere?

She supposes that she’ll be home a bit late tonight, as she might be here a while trying to learn their language. Hopefully her Orc isn’t too hungry by the time she gets back.

Due to your Not So Cunning Linguist trait you are [73%] of the way towards learning Common Trade Tongue (Northern Dialect).

Sitting on hard uncomfortable ground and listening to what is essentially complete gibberish is not an exciting way to pass the time. To Krvavy it feel like hours and hours have passed, but she doesn’t think much more than a single one has gone by, if even that.

The sun has set and it is starting to get dark out, but that hasn’t stopped the two bandits in front of her from drinking and cheerily telling what she can only assume are pretty grisly stories. All it did was make them light up a pretty rough looking lantern.

One of the men suddenly gets up onto his feet. It seems like his bottle of **** is finally empty, as he is shaking it to get the last drop out. Giving up after a few seconds, he gestures roughly towards where Krvavy assumed that their camp was and grunts something out.

The other man nods and waves his hand as the first one turns and leaves. It seems like this is as much progress towards learning a new language that Krvavy will get for tonight. Bit of a shame, as she was getting pretty close. But at least she won’t accidentally fall asleep out of boredom.

Almost as soon as the first bandit is out of sight, the second one puts his bottle down and stands up. Taking a step closer to the edge of the cliff, he begins to fiddle with something at the front of his waist completely out of Krvavy’s sight. If she had to guess, he is probably undoing his pants to take a piss.

Krvavy is quickly proven right, at least by the sound of it. While a bit of a dick move, this does seem like the perfect time to attack. Though rather than run down and chop him up with her axe, she decides to pick up and throw a decently sized rock at him.

For whatever reason, the man suddenly jerks a tiny bit to the side just as the rock leaves her hand. Her throw nearly misses because of that, but not quite as she is able to get a glancing hit on his head.

30 Damage dealt to [Drunk Bandit]

The bandit grunts out in surprise and staggers forwards, right off the cliff. He must be really drunk, as that grunt is the only noise he makes before he crunches down onto the base of the cliff a few seconds later.

[Drunk Bandit] has been slain!
+150 Experience

That was a lot easier than Krvavy expected, even with her nearly missing the throw. She got a lot less exp from defeating him than she did with the Orcs though. Is that just because he was a lower level, or did the environmental kill take some away? She didn’t get a damage notification for him hitting the ground, so is that just the exp for an assist?

She is snapped out of those thoughts as she hears two voices approaching from the left. It would seem like a couple more bandits are heading out to this drinking spot, though it doesn’t look like the one who left is with them. So that means there are at least four bandits in this camp.

The approaching bandits aren’t drunk, or at least not drunk enough that they are stumbling around, and they immediately notice that the bandit she just killed is missing. Drawing their weapons, a crude axe and a chipped sword, they cautiously approach the lit lantern.

Krvavy feels like she is hidden decently well in the dark, but they’ll probably be able to see her bright red hair if they glance up at her. Or her very pale skin. So she gets a good grip on her axe and gets ready to charge.

Just as the axe wielding bandit begins turning his head towards her, the other one calls out. He is standing near the edge and looking down to where the drunk bandit fell. It would seem that they found their drunk friend, though friend might be a bit of an optimistic word considering how they react to seeing him dead down there. The sword wielding bandit seems more annoyed than anything, while the guy with the axe laughs as soon as he looks down.

Their uncaring reaction to the **** of the drunk bandit cements them as bandits in Krvavy’s eyes, as there doesn’t seem to be any true camaraderie between them. That said, rather than head back to their camp the two bandits sheath their weapons and turn to the right before heading down the cliff on a rather narrow path. Are they going to collect his body?

Regardless of their intentions, Krvavy is going to stealthily follow them as best she can. She wants to take out as many bandits as she can, and these two are isolating themselves from the rest of their camp, making themselves easy targets.

Following them is a little difficult due to the narrowness of the path and the fact that it switches back, so they will be able to see her if she isn’t careful. On top of that, how is she going to kill them? Throwing rocks is not going to work, as Krvavy doesn’t think that they’ll fall far enough to die from here.

But rushing at them with her axe is also not an option. It is just too dangerous for her, as even if they aren’t much of a threat she could still fall off the cliff herself. That probably wouldn’t kill her, but she doesn’t want to break a leg. Or any of her bones, for that matter.

Krvavy has to stop herself from groaning out loud, as she just remembered something: she has magic. She doesn’t even know how she forgot that, as she kind of wanted to play a mage in the first place! But it somehow slipped her mind, and now she feels a bit stupid.

Seismic Stomp: Through a mighty stomp Earthen magic is sent into the ground, sending forth a rolling wave of earth. Costs up to 40 Mana per use. Associated attributes = Might & Willpower.

She doesn’t know how much damage it’ll do, but at the very least this will be a damn good way to open the fight. Hopefully it will at least knock them off their feet.

And so, Krvavy creeps as close to the bandits as she can. Her large frame isn’t the best for stealth, and while she doesn’t know what exactly she did, something alerts the sword wielding bandit. Before he can fully turn around and spot her, Krvavy raises her right foot up and thinks about activating Seismic Stomp as she brings it down.

-40 Mana

Luckily, that seems to work as her foot crashes into the ground with a crack, sending a ripple of rock towards the bandits. Seeing the ground move up and down in a wave is a rather unnerving sight, something more suited to a tile-based game than anything as realistic than this.

36 Damage dealt to [Sword Bandit]

29 Damage dealt to [Axe Bandit]

The initial wave doesn’t do anywhere near as much damage as Krvavy hoped. But it is enough to knock them off their feet.

Both bandits shout out in surprise as they crash into the ground, and that shout quickly turns into a brief scream of terror. Not because Krvavy is charging at them, as she can’t be certain that they have even seen her yet. No, they are screaming out for a pretty understandable reason: part of the cliff is collapsing right towards them. Guess that is what happens when you send a wave of earth across a narrow path down the side of a rocky cliff.

[Sword Bandit] has been slain!
+200 Experience

[Axe Bandit] has been slain!
+200 Experience

Krvavy has to scramble back a bit from the collapsing cliff to avoid being caught by its edges. That was both anticlimactic and more than she expected. It doesn’t look like she’ll be able to loot those bandits though, but that isn’t too bad. They didn’t look like they had much on them to begin with.

But now she should head over and wipe out the rest of the camp. They probably heard all that noise, but hopefully they don’t think much of it. Annoyingly, the rockslide cut off her path back up, so she’ll have to do some climbing.