"This is a lot more fancy than what I expected..." Nick looked over his guild ID, it was a fancy card with a lot of personal information. The card was so well made that it looked almost modern by earth's standards. The card came inside of a leather holder with the guild's insignia, a black lion with red eyes, embossed on the front. The card and its holder were enchanted to be resistant to cuts, fire, and water.
"Yeah, especially considering we are low ranking and haven't even gone on a quest yet." Alyssa had taken her card out of its holder and was looking over it. Nick flipped his closed and ran his thumb over the logo.
"I wasn't even expecting to get a card, to be honest. I just thought that once we joined we would take quests and complete them and get paid."
"Well, we will still be doing that, but the guild is a bit more official than that. They don't want people impersonating their more famous members. I didn't know they gave IDs to people under A rank. I have to admit, it is pretty cool. Here, let me see yours, you can look at mine."
Alyssa handed Nick her card and he handed her his. He looked over the card, the card said a lot about her. It said that she was a vampire, it said she could use both ice and water magic, it said she was 16, and many other things. "No way..." Nick raised an eyebrow, looking at Alyssa's bewildered expression. "Shock and healing?"
"Yeah."
"But... I have never heard of someone with shock magic having a second affinity that wasn't common." She looked at Nick, disbelief in her eyes.
He nodded. "Yeah, Rolfe had a similar reaction. I can't explain it, but it had to happen to someone at some point. I guess I am just lucky." They exchanged their cards once more.
"You are far beyond just lucky..."
"You had ice, isn't that pretty rare?"
"Sure, but it is a lot less rare than shock magic. And for all we know, you may be the first to have both shock and healing magic. You are truly one of a kind... I'm kind of envious." She put her card back in its holder and put it in an easy to access pocket on her backpack, Nick did the same.
"I guess so. Why don't we go look for a quest?" Nick wanted to change the subject before he let anything too personal or weird slip out.
"Sure." Alyssa stood up and started to walk to the bulletin board. The board had a lot of pieces of paper pinned to it, each one stamped with a big red letter which showed it's difficulty rank. Nick began to look over all of the ones marked 'C' along with Alyssa. They all looked difficult. One was for taking out a group of bandits, one was for eliminating an ogre, one was for hunting a pack of dire wolves, and another one was a bounty.
"Man, these all kind of sound out of our league..." He had not realized there would be such limited options when it came to quests.
"These are all easy. Besides maybe the bounty. Here, let's do this one." Alyssa grabbed the quest that required them to hunt an entire pack of dire wolves. Nick did not even like the idea of going up against one regular wolf. This was an entire pack of dire wolves, they are larger and much more deadly than normal wolves.
"Alright... Sure, let's do that one." He also realized that would probably be the easiest. He knew that wild animals were usually scared of fire, and he did have a sword that could catch on fire. However, the thought of killing another living thing felt strange.
"It is pretty close by, it shouldn't take more than two or three days to complete. Maybe a week at most if we have trouble finding the pack. Don't worry, you should have no problem taking out a few wolves. You have great reaction time." She patted him on the back before walking to the reception desk to tell the woman behind it that they will be taking that quest.
The receptionist quickly wrote something down and then told Alyssa that they were good to go. The reward for clearing the quest was four gold, Nick was not sure what that translated to but it sounded way too low for him to risk his life. Though, he knew that beggars can't be choosers and that the prices, most of the time, are non-negotiable. "Let's go."
Nick nodded and followed Alyssa to the door, once outside she looked over him with a questioning glance. "By the way... Why didn't you bring a sword or anything?" Nick let out a nervous chuckle.
"I actually did bring a sword... I will show it to you later."
Alyssa looked at Nick suspiciously. "If that is a perverted joke I will punch you in the face."
"It's not, I promise." Nick smiled and took a look at the paper that Alyssa was holding that described the quest. "I don't know this area at all, you will have to lead the way.
She rolled her eyes. "Alright, follow me."
The rest of the day was mostly walking. Nick got to see a lot more of the city as they made their way out, it was pretty impressive considering this world was several hundred years behind what he was used to. At around four in the afternoon they began to make their way into the woods. There was no path they could use, so they traveled at a relatively slow pace until it got dark. "Alright, let's set up camp here."
Alyssa was talking about the small clearing they had stumbled upon, it was an ideal place to sleep for the night. However, Nick had a horrible feeling that they were going to get attacked by something in the middle of the night. "Alright, sounds good." He set out his sleeping bag and took off his backpack. Alyssa did the same, though she also took out a hatchet.
"We are going to need some fire wood. Did you bring a hatchet or anything?" Nick shook his head, realizing all of the things he did not think of bringing. For example: a way to light the fire. "Oh! I have an idea."
"What is that?"
'Um... Remember when you asked about a sword? Well..." Nick telepathically told Azara to turn into a hatchet. Alyssa watched in amazement as his gloves burst into flames and became a hatchet in his hand. It was a tool, but it could also be used as a weapon, which meant that Azara could turn into it.
"How the hell..." Alyssa narrowed her eyes.
"Meet my familiar. She has the ability to turn into anything that can be classified as a weapon."
"She?"
"Ah, yes... Her name is Azara and she has a more humanoid form, but let's not worry about that right now. You will see that in due time, but for now let's just focus on getting some wood." Alyssa shrugged it off and disappeared into the trees. Nick did the same, finding small pieces of wood and chopping them up before bringing them back to the growing pile of fire wood in the camp.
"That should be enough for tonight." Alyssa sighed, sitting down on her sleeping bag. "Do you know how to make a fire?"
"I can try." Azara turned back into a glove as Nick started to arrange wood into a small pile near their sleeping bags. He made the pile big enough so it should burn for a few hours and whoever is keeping watch has the job of adding more wood. Roughly every two hours they were planning to alternate keeping watch just in case they get attacked by an animal. "Now I just need to figure out how to light it."
"You aren't too bright, are you?" Alyssa asked, only half joking.
"Do you have an idea?"
"Your familiar can use fire magic, can't it?"
Oh, that's right. Azara seemed to take the hint, bursting into flames. Luckily, Azara's flames didn't harm Nick. He stuck his gloved and flaming hand into the wood pile and pulled it out once the fire started to spread. Even though the fire was started by Azara's flames, once the wood caught on fire it started to hurt his hand.
"Huh, fire magic is pretty useful." Nick watched as the fire that once encased his glove dissipated.
"Yeah, and if we were in a desert you would probably say the same about water. All magic is useful, it just depends on the situation." Alyssa turned over and closed her eyes, Nick was supposed to keep watch first.
"I suppose so." Nick looked up at the night sky, he had never noticed how amazing the sky looked in this world. He could watch the night sky for hours, and he did. It must of been three hours before Nick woke Alyssa up and got some sleep himself. They alternated two more times before they began to pack up.
Today was the day. If everything went right, they would kill a group of dire wolves. If everything went wrong, it would be the other way around. But Nick was optimistic, if nothing else he was sure Azara would be able to save the day. He was not quite sure how strong she was, but he was confident that a demon was a bit stronger than a pack of dire wolves.
"Man, sleeping on the ground sucks." Alyssa stretched and Nick could hear her spine pop.
"Yeah, it's not too fun. I hear it can be good for your back, though." Nick could remember reading somewhere that sleeping on a hard and flat surface can help your back.
"Yeah, I wouldn't call what it did to my back 'good'"
"Fair enough."
"Let's get going, if we find them in the next few hours we might be able to make it back to the guild by midnight." Alyssa didn't even wait for a reply before putting her backpack on and walking away. Nick quickly followed behind, if he got left behind he knew he would get lost. Getting lost in the forest of a new world would be a horrible idea.
Four hours passed, they had not seen any sign of wolves. They had seen a couple deer, but they didn't do anything besides make enough noise to make them think wolves were around. They had not seen any deer or other wildlife besides birds and insects for the last hour, Nick was starting to lose hope.
"Man, this is so boring. Maybe we should have gone after that ogre. It would be a lot more dangerous but it would be a fuck of a lot easier to find." Nick complained, coming to a stop and taking a sip of water.
"We might have walked right through their territory. It is hard to tell when you are just wandering in the woods." Alyssa stopped as well, taking out a map and looking over it.
"Wonderful." Nick put that canteen back in his pack and began to stretch.
"Hmm..." Alyssa was deep in thought for a minute before sighing and folding up her map. "We should change direction. We need to be careful though, or we might get lost in here." Alyssa turned to look at Nick, her eyes going wide.
He raised a brow, turning to look behind him. Before he could turn fully he felt a pain shoot through his arm, he looked down and could see a wolf biting him. "Fuck! Azara!" Nick shouted, his gauntlet bursting into flames. The sudden heat made the wolf let go and back off. Once Nick turned around he could see a pack of twelve wolves spreading out around them. "This is not good."
Azara quickly turned into a bastard sword, though stayed flaming. Nick focused his mana and healing magic on the bite wound to try to slow the bleeding and ease the pain. "There are a lot of them... this is bad. Definitely worth a lot more than four gold." Nick looked around, trying to keep track of all the wolves. Alyssa walked up beside him.
"You gonna be okay?" Nick looked over at Alyssa, she was holding a sword made of ice and had ice covering her arms and hands. Her fingers looked more like talons thanks to the ice covering them.
"I'm fine... Huh, that ice magic is pretty cool."
"Let's save the small talk for when our life is not in danger. Shit, there is no easy way to deal with this situation. We are severely outnumbered." A couple of the wolves took a few steps forward, they seemed to be being cautious due to the flaming sword. "Best way to do this would probably be for us to each take 6, but they could easily overwhelm us and you are injured."
"Well, whatever happens it is probably going to involve us dealing with multiple of these... I wish they were just normal wolves. Don't worry about my arm, the bite was bad but I should be fine." Adrenaline was coursing through Nick's veins, he was visibly shaking. Yet, he wasn't nearly as scared as he expected himself to be.
"We can't just stand here. I'm going to count to three, on three we will charge them. If nothing else we should at least be able to take out one or two before they all attack. Our magic should give us the upper hand." It was surprising to him that she was able to keep calm and think in this situation.
"Alright, I got it. Be careful though, my healing is pretty low level so I don't know what I can save us from with it." Alyssa nodded as she began to count. With every number Nick's heart rate increased and his hands gripped his sword tighter.
"Three!" Alyssa shot forward, her sword falling hard into the skull of one of the wolves. The wolves turned to look at her as Nick followed her lead, shooting forward and bringing his sword blade down on the neck of a wolf. The feeling and sound that followed surprised him. It felt much like he would imagine it would feel like to hit a punching bag with a dull sword.
Nick watched as the wolf collapsed, it's head severed from its body, blood beginning to gush out. Another wolf rushed Nick from the front, this time Nick swung his sword at the head horizontally. In the middle of his swing he felt a searing pain shoot up his leg, a wolf bit his calf. Once the sword impacted the second wolf's head it dropped dead, blood pouring out of its large open wound.
The third wolf, that was biting his leg, was pulling hard. He couldn't turn around and the wolf was out of his reach. The other three were quickly approaching, he had to do something and fast. He was running out of options, he could only do so much while an overgrown wolf was holding his leg in place. There was no time to think.
One of the wolves jumped at him, he let go of his sword handle with his left hand and punched the wolf in the head, unleashing a devastating wave of shock magic. It was enough to send the wolf flying backwards with a shattered skull. The wolf on the right he skewered with his sword, though the middle wolf got a firm bite on his right wrist. That was his second bite on that arm.
Nick quickly punched the wolf biting his wrist in the torso, his shock magic making the wolf collapse. He could only imagine the kind of damage he caused to the wolf's insides. But he still had a wolf biting his leg and he had no idea what do to about it until he heard the wolf yelp and let go of his leg. Alyssa was standing behind him and she was breathing hard. She also had a couple bite marks, they seemed to be a bit more severe than Nick's.
"Man, if this was a competition I would have won..." She tried to joke, but her blood soaked clothes told Nick she was losing a lot of blood. She was bitten on the left side of her stomach and her right thigh. The wolves on the ground were in really bad shape, either dead by a sword or some kind of icicle-like weapon.
"Quick, sit down. I'll try my best to patch you up. Healing magic should keep me stable enough to stitch you up." Alyssa nodded, sitting on a nearby rock as Nick dug through his backpack. Currently he was focusing his healing magic on his mangled right arm and his damaged left leg, it helped ease the pain and also slowed the bleeding. He brought out his first aid kit and a bottle of medical alcohol, he was hoping he wouldn't have to use all of this so soon.
Nick quickly used some of the alcohol on his own wounds, it burned like hell but it would disinfect the wounds before they closed. He was not sure if that mattered, but he assumed it did. He grabbed a suture kit from his first aid kit and knelt beside Alyssa. "Lift up your shirt a bit so I can suture the wounds shut."
Alyssa lifted up the bottom of her shirt to reveal a bloody bite wound, Nick needed to do something about it fast. He quickly splashed some alcohol on a clean rag and began to wipe the wound down, both disinfecting and cleaning the wound of all the blood. He quickly began to suture to the best of his ability, Katrina taught him how when she was teaching him how to use healing magic. He was not the best at it, but he was able to close up the parts of the wound that were bleeding the most in a couple of minutes.
It was still bleeding but not nearly as fast. Once he sutured the less serious marks on the wound he handed her the a clean piece of cloth. "Here, cover the wound with this." She nodded and pressed down on the wound. He took a look at her leg, it was also bleeding, but it wasn't as bad as the one that was on her side. He soaked the wound with alcohol as she screamed in pain.
Nick grabbed a small pair of scissors from his first aid kit and began to cut her jeans above where the bite mark was. Once that was done he rolled down her detached pant leg and wiped the area clean of blood. The wound was not that serious, but Nick still sutured it shut and then tightly bandaged it. "Alright, that should be good for now. It is a temporary fix, but this is the best I can do at the moment."
Nick quickly bandaged his own wounds, though he didn't bother to suture them, and also bandaged Alyssa's more serious wound. Once they were both bandaged he began to use some of his healing magic on Alyssa's side while using the rest on himself. For the next two hours they didn't talk much, but after those two hours he could tell that his injuries were no longer life threatening. They would still bleed, but they wouldn't kill him. He began to focus all of his magic on Alyssa for the next hour.
"Man, I'm seriously wishing we would have taken a different quest right about now..." Alyssa let out a half laugh before wincing in pain.
"Yeah, that could have gone a lot worse. If I didn't know healing magic we might have died out here."
"Thanks, by the way. For helping me like this."
"You don't need to thank me, I'm just doing what any half decent person would do. There is no way I would just let you die out here."
"Still, thank you." Nick nodded in response, focusing on healing her.
For the next hour, Nick focused as much as he could on her wound. He was running low on mana, but the wound had already stopped bleeding ten minutes ago. He was just making sure to do as much as he could. He was getting slightly lightheaded due to blood loss and using so much mana. "Alright, you are out of the danger zone. Just don't make any fast movements or the wounds might reopen."
Nick sat down on the ground, he was sweating and breathing hard, he then reached into his bag and pulled out a large bag of peanuts and his canteen of water. He took a few sips before handing it off to Alyssa who did the same. He looked at his right arm, it was still in serious pain and it was soaking his bandages with blood but he knew he would be fine for a couple more hours. In an hour he would begin to focus on his own wounds again.
Nick took a large handful of peanuts with his left hand and stuffed them in his mouth before handing the bag to Alyssa. They both ate and drank for the next twenty minutes. "I guess we are going to have to camp here tonight. Man, I wasn't expecting it to be such a large pack." Alyssa complained, leaning up against a tree and relaxing.
"Yeah, let's not go after any more packs of large wild animals." Nick began to laugh, putting another small handful of peanuts into his mouth.
"Agreed. Man, this quest was seriously not worth it. But, hey, this was a lot more exciting that sitting in the castle all day." Alyssa laughed as well, though it obviously hurt.
"That's for sure. For the next quest we should do something a little less exciting." Nick slowly stood up and limped over to the wolf he skewered, pulling his sword out before it turned back into a glove.
"I was beginning to think you had forgotten about me." Azara telepathically said with a sarcastic tone.
"Well, I had a couple more pressing issues at hand."
Nick groaned as he walked back to where he and Alyssa had moved to. "Hey, I'm going to get to work on skinning the wolves. We should be able to sell them when we get back to town. You stay here and work on healing yourself." Alyssa got up and took a knife from her bag.
"Alright, just don't push yourself too hard."
"I know."
The rest of the day passed slowly, Nick was able to make good progress on his own wounds and even healed Alyssa some more. They were both no longer bleeding enough to matter, Nick changed their bandages once the bleeding had slowed considerably. Alyssa had skinned all of the wolves and laid them out far away from where they had decided to set up camp. Overall, Nick was satisfied with the outcome of his first quest.
As he lit the fire near their sleeping bags, Alyssa spoke up. "If you want, I can keep watch for the first five hours, you must be extremely exhausted from having to use all of your mana to heal us. I'm out of the danger zone as far as my injuries go and the chances of us getting attacked tonight are slim."
"That would be nice, thank you. Hopefully we can get back to the guild before it gets dark tomorrow."
"Yeah, I sure hope so. I just want to take a shower and get some hot food. Hopefully our next quest will be near a town."
"We should take it easy for a while before heading on another quest. Five days or so of rest and relaxation would be nice. I would say we earned it."
"Yeah, I can get behind some rest and relaxation." Alyssa laughed. "Now, get some sleep. Early to bed, early to rise."
Nick nodded, crawling into his sleeping bag and closing his eyes. He was looking forward to getting a full night's sleep in a bed once they got back to town.