Autumn Year 2002, Age of Clemens
2 and a half men were trekking along an incline in the Forest of Forgotten War. Atreidus in a hushed tone was teaching Lucius about how to tread lightly, keep to the shadows, and stalk the prey. Father, son, and a bored Uncle were silently stalking a 200 kilo stag. Lucius had his bow and arrow out, sword sheathed to his side in case of melee situations. Eyes on the prey and his surrounding, Lucius made his way through the trees, this would be the first time he killed a living organism. This hunt would make him a man. The stag he had been stalking went round the corner of a forest path towards a lake. Atreidus and Ajax had stopped following Lucius for the last kilometer or so to give Lucius enough space to hunt. As the stag lowered his head to drink, Lucius lowered his breath, calmed his beating art and aimed for the neck. The wooden hunting bow bent slightly as Lucius drew the bowstring. Lucius's aura slightly resembled his surroundings, he was slightly experiencing a state of harmony, a state seen mainly in expert bow masters. With a twang, the bow was released and the bronze tipped arrow lodged itself into the stag's neck. The stag in pain started writhing and stamping the ground, but the blood loss quickly made it fall weakly. Lucius covered the distance between him and the stag quickly and lodged his sword into the stag's head to give it a quick death.
Lucius's first hunt was over, he was now a man. Atreidus and Ajax came up to him, congratulating him on his victorious first kill. The stag was brought to a nearby hunting camp, strung up and was drained of all its blood. As Atreidus was busy with the skinning of the stag, Ajax and Lucius were sparring using battle axes. Lucius as a magic weaponmaster had to learn a multitude of weapons to successfully level up.
Status: Ajax
HP: 1500 MP: - Level: 10
STR: 152 AGI: 103 VIT: 80 INT: 80 SOUL: (*^47676(*&
Job Class: Berserker
Axe Mastery LVL 5
Stampede Rush LVL 3
Bloodlust (Rare)
Ajax had 2 Red class skills: Axe Mastery, and Stampede Rush. Stampede Rush was a skill that was obtained from a monster drop. Some special monsters drop an orb once killed, the orb either has a skill that can be obtained by anyone or it has a talent that can be incorporated into a magic weapon. The stag was just a normal beast, not a monster. Ajax got his stampede rush from an Elephantidae, an elephant beast that turned into a monster. Ajax also has a monster skill incorporated into his magic weapon: battle-ax. His battle-ax weighed like a feather for the wielder but came down heavy for the victim. This battle-ax made soldiers speedy and effective killers in battle. Ajax, however, was a mercenary, not a soldier.
After a nice sparring session, followed by a relaxing dip in a nearby lake, Lucius and Atreidus started to hunt more. It would be winter soon and it would be hard to feed the village in the winter. As the father-son duo moved about, stalking and hunting, they came upon a swamp with glowing green waters, slight presence of vapor above the swamp making it hard to see the ground and judge if the bog was deep or shallow. As they were retreating, a soft hiss sounded from above. A 60 feet swamp boa was hanging from the trees above eyeing the duo. Atreidus pushed Lucius back and shot 3 consecutive arrows toward the swamp boa while retreating. The arrows did little to harm the boa. Atreidus retrieved his Artifact Bow, the Bow of Ares and shot 6 flaming arrows towards the boa's head in rapid succession. The big snake could hardly dodge these magic arrows and its head had a gaping hole within that small time period.
The Bow of Ares looked like a piece of art. It had an enraged warrior's face in the grip and a natural crystal in the sight window, which enhanced the aim of the wielder. The limbs were metallic and had a red glow to it. On the metal limbs were carved human corpses in various stages of death, portraying a very grimy battlefield. The bowstring looked like a faint line of flame hanging taut between the tips of the bow. Even the twang of the bowstring had sounded like a volcanic explosion. This Artifact was definitely a fire attribute treasure. As Lucius was staring at the bow, Atreidus chuckled as he said, "I found this bow in a cave in a volcanic mountain that faced an ancient battlefield. It has a high destruction capability. It is named Bow of Ares."
The dead boa was dragged to the hunting camp, its scales picked out to make armor, fangs pulled to create weapons, and the meat was preserved for the village. The snake had also dropped a green orb. It could be appraised only by people with MP, so Lucius was made the ad-hoc appraiser. As Lucius concentrated on the orb, his consciousness told him it was "Poison Fang". Generally, Poison Fang was a skill that one could give to their pet or incorporate it into a dagger type magic weapon.
Ajax, on seeing the snake felt ashamed that he had volunteered to stay back and look after the meat. Such a big boa could have helped him level up. After this incident, Ajax and Atreidus went hunting and Lucius was guarding the hunting camp. Lucius also wanted to join in on the hunt, possibly hunt monsters, but the village was depending on the meat and ape-like beasts could pilfer the hunting camp. As the sun started to set, the meat and boa's goods were brought to the village. Ajax had managed to fight a Thunderbear, a bear monster and leveled up. Unfortunately other than Thunderbear fur and meat, no other monster drops were obtained.
The hunt was to be continued next week after checking the consumption rate of the village. Lucius had one free week to train and he had asked his father and uncle to give him their Artifact and Magic Weapon so as to check the difference between them by using his trait Weapon Provenance.