'So, they're in the old mining camp, huh. Smart. If only he wasn't someone who knew nearly every small detail about this world, they might have never been discovered.'
Wayne had been to the location a few times in the past, but never extensively. There was one quest that took him there to search for a string of lost dogs, which turned out to be a chupacabra or something. Took minimum effort to dispatch the blood sucking fiend, and the town gave me a nice reward of the title "Honorary Pet Protector" and thirty silver pieces. Overall not a bad haul.
Now, if only I had a horse, this trek wouldn't be so bad. But, at least my endurance and stamina will slowly go up. This baron really needed to get out and off his horse more.
After walking for around 20 minutes through the woods, he began to notice the gnarled old pine in the distance.
'It's probably a good idea if I tried to be as sneaky as possible. I may be a skilled fighter, but this body isn't exactly suited for my style quite yet. In time though, it will come.'
Around the charred gargantuan pine tree was a large clearing with beautiful green grass and flowers blooming everywhere. Butterfly's and even an occasional nymph could be seen fluttering about aimlessly from flower to flower.
'This place is beautiful. There sure are worst views to have from your hideout. As alluring as that field is, i'll stick to the brush around the edge and sneak as quietly as possible.'
And that is just what he did for the next five or six minutes until the shack was in sight.
'Well, there's no time like the present. I'll just go say hello to two acquaintances of mine.'
The plan was pretty simple. Walk up to the door, knock, and run around as silently as possible to the back and try to come from behind and have the advantage of surprise, because surely they will be jumpy and cautious looking out for anything.
'As simple as it seems, I'm hoping I can use their paranoia to my advantage. Well, let's give it a go.'
*knock* *knock* *knock*
"What was that? Shhhh! Be quiet!"
"Get the door Talf! Don't just stand there! You're not the sharpest sword at the blacksmith ya know."
"Me? I'm way smarter than you are Arley! You can't even tell the difference between a sword and a stick if you were holding it!"
'Are they seriously arguing? Someone just started banging on the door of the abandoned shack they're hiding in. Instead of being reasonable and figuring out who it is and what they want, they begin arguing like children. Sheesh. They must not be the sharpest tools in the shed.'
The arguing went on for a few seconds until you could clearly hear fighting.
'Are they seriously fighting now? These guys sure aren't very good criminals. It must be a brother thing I guess.'
Wayne was an only child who's parents worked most of the time. He usually just stayed to himself and played video games.
'Well, at least now I use the distraction to my advantage. How did that level 4 thief get caught but you two didn't.'
Wayne took advantage of the situation and ran into the flimsy back door and straight into an all out brawl.
"You pea brained no good rat!"
"I'm the one with the pea brain? I could shine a light through one of your ears and it'll come out the other side!"
'They seriously are just going to ignore the man who just ran through their front door? These two have issues'
At this point the two are rolling around the cabin floor like children, insulting one another and throwing the occasional stray punch. After about thirty seconds of watching, they finally acknowledged their intruder.
"About time! Who starts fighting each other at a time like this? Seriously, I could have killed you both five times!"
"Where'd you come from?" The brother speaking to Wayne eyed him up and down with shock. "Now just wait a minute, you're not Daylen! Who are you and how did you get in!?"
Wayne looked towards the broken door, which was barely on its hinges still, and the brothers did the same. Wayne spoke quickly after.
"You guys are thick skulled or something. I ran through the front door and you never noticed."
"Ohhh, was it you who was knocking at the door? Sorry about that, I got a little sidetracked. Now who are you and why are you here? And where's Daylen?"
"I'm sorry to inform you, but your buddy is locked up. You didn't know?"
"No, it's the first I've heard of it."
"Oh, and I'm Wayne Blackburn. Ya know, the one you tried to rob and kill."
"Uhh- Uhh- Yeah about that. That's why we didn't know Daylen was in jail. We kinda changed our minds about helping him, ya know, off you. We're really sorry, we just couldn't go through with murdering an innocent man. The money was tempting, but it went against everything we we're taught. We may not be the smartest or always make the best decisions, but we aren't murderers."
Hearing this, Wayne was honestly shocked. He was not expecting this.
"Uhm, okay? Well, you seem like decent guys, just tell me who hired you and I guess we're all good, since you left and didn't, ya know, try to kill me."
"Daylen hired us. He came into town five or six days ago and we met him at the bar. He said he had two gold pieces for us both if we helped him. At the time, we had been drinking and weren't thinking straight."
"Wait, Daylen hired you? I thought he was just some random thief who heard easy money."
'So, either this goes farther than I know, or Daylen is the mastermind.'
"That's the truth, honest. We we're just meeting him here to give him back his gold. We won't take money that was earned through cold blooded murder. It don't sit well with sober me."
"Well, I don't think he'll be needing it. He's not in a great position or need of the money anymore."
"Well, you take the money then. As a token of friendship."
'Four gold coins? Hard to turn that down.'
"Well, if you don't want em, i'll take it. You guys don't seem half bad. How about I hire you, as extra security. You can make some money legitimately."
"Well, we need the work. What do ya think Arley?'
"Sounds good to me Talf. How much is it paying?"
"Well, I won't be able to pay you until we reach my lands, but i'll give you both half a gold piece."
The two men looked between each other, nodding.
"Deal."
"Deal. Good. I'll meet you at the bar later, i'm going back to see Daylen."
"Okay. We can come with you if you want. That's what you're paying us for, right?"
"Yes, but this time I think I'm fine. It's just to the jail, so I should be good."
"Okay. We'll be waiting. See you in a while."
'That was probably the strangest encounter I've ever had. All that suspense for this. Criminals aren't as evil as they used to be.'
*Infamy- Level One*
A little notification popped up in the corner of my vision, and smoothly slide in front of my eyes allowing me to read about the new ability. The accompanying message said this:
'You have reached level One Infamy. You can now effortlessly lead up to 5 people with minimum difficultly. While Infamy does not necessarily men you cannot lead a group of people successfully, it just makes it a lot easier, and comes will more knowledge at each level. Keep improving your skills in leading and you will eventually level again.'
After this, another message popped up.
*Story Quest- Infamous - Completed- Reward: 20 EXP
'Sweet. I have some more EXP now so I can level some of my more important skills. I'll definitely plan before I level anything up. I need to pick a strategy and stick with it. I'll give it some thought till later.'