Wolf-Man Bandits

The roads near the main gates of Elzor were pretty peaceful, since spawn rates of random encounters were low both to help new players get their feet wet slowly and because in-universe it was one of the more well protected lands in all the kingdoms. Still, that did not mean there were NO enemies to be found. You just had to go out a little ways or go slightly off the main paths for a slightly higher (but still appropriately low level for the area) rate. So I did and after a few minutes of looking around and crashing through the brush, I reached a clearing and found what I was looking for.

In the middle of the clearing I saw two NPC travelers down on their knees, hands behind their heads heads as they looked up in fear at the three Wolf-Men who stood over them. Two of the Wolf-Men were at least six feet in height and dressed in the ragged, simple white shirts and black pants of the bandit class. The third was at least a foot taller and much more muscular, an eye-patch covering one scarred side of his face and his grey fur contrasting with the deep brown fur of the others. He was dressed similarly but with a bandoleer of what looked to be sticks of dynamite strapped over his chest.

"Give us all yer goods and we'll let ya live," the leader growled to their victims, "Maybe."

Okay, so I wanted their aggro but I wanted to get the civilians out of the way both because you got XP and reward bonuses for getting NPCs out of danger unharmed and also, even if they were NPCs, I did not want them getting caught up in what might happen... later.

So while they still had not noticed me, I cast a Blast Blind spell. A ball of light formed in my hands and I threw it towards the three Wolf-Men, using their greater height and the fact the two NPCs were looking down at the ground to my advantage and having it blow up in mid-air right at the monster's eye levels. The three screamed in surprise as I raced into the clearing and shouted to the NPCs, "Get out of here and head for the road! I'll handle this!"

Fortunately, the NPCs were generally smart enough to not ask questions when a random hero showed up to save them, so they got up and ran. They quickly left the clearing, leaving me alone with these beasts. I bit my lower lip, noticing my Need stacks had started to grow already even as they were regaining their sight and had not attacked yet. "I told ya this was too close to the town," one of the two smaller Wolf-Men complained, "Here's one of them wanna-be heroes!"

"Shut it!" the larger one snarled back, "It's one little girl so we can take her!"

"I'm not so little," I taunted as I readied the second spell I had learned, Ice Arrow to fire, "And I'm more than enough to take the three of you on my own!"

It may seem strange to hear that I was legitimately planning to fight these guys, given what I have implied I wanted, but part of the game was playing out the role of a character earnestly living in this world... and Wolf-Men were the second lowest ranked monsters in the game. They had to EARN me!

"Get her!" the eye-patched leader snapped, the two smaller ones charging at me fast.

I learned two things in the next few seconds as I unleashed the Ice Arrow towards the first of the two smaller Wolf-Men.

One: I had gotten used to being much stronger due to having played as a higher level Black Mage for so long.

Two: Even by that metric, a Beast Mage's starting base stats were total ass!

My Ice Arrow smashed into the first Wolf-Man's face but, instead of running him through, it broke apart like a softly packed snowball. It certainly stung and slowed him down for a second, but he resumed his charge alongside the second one and I yelped in surprise as I just barely managed to dodge both of their grab attempts. Scrambling back, I tried again to fire off two Ice Arrows, which again seemed to annoy more than hurt them and yet again I was just barely able to avoid the grabs of my foes. I was already breathing hard, my face feeling flush, and there was a notable throbbing between my legs I could not ignore.

Something was wrong and a quick look at my Needs stack told the story. I had kept them aggroed for about a minute, so my Need should have been at four but instead they were at twelve! Two seconds later they jumped to eighteen! As I'd understood the description, they were supposed to build up for each ENCOUNTER, not each individual monster in it! This had to be some kind of coding error and I knew I'd have to make a bug report la--

My distraction cost me as the second of the smaller Wolf-Men caught me with a flying tackle, knocking me to the ground and pinning me beneath him... causing my next jump in Need stacks to go up to thirty!

I whimpered as he looked down at me hungrily, pinning my arms to the ground. The pressure of his body against mine, his chest pressing against my breasts, and the feeling of something hard pressing against my thigh adding to the distractions my Need were already causing me. "Hey boss," the one that was holding me down said, "this one's actually really weak! You want us to finish her off?"

The Leader Wolf-Man laughed in a very nasty sounding way as he replied, "Naw. I got a better idea."