Rastel was feeling irritated by the constant mishaps he had fallen into in just the space of a few hours. His original plan was a wreck and he couldn't even do a simple recon right. Not to talk of the haughty elf that had been pursuing him for the past few minutes while throwing the occasional jibe.
"WHAT'S WRONG LITTLE MONKEY? NOT ENOUGH BALLS TO FACE ME!!?" she yelled as an arrow flew by, narrowly missing the side of his head
You're an elf! A female elf at that! Can't you be elegant and graceful and say things like 'Oh young valiant warrior! Help me save my kingdom and try not to stare at my overflowing bosoms in my tight dress as you do it', can't you? Fuck there must be something wrong this elf! Who said stereotypes are bad? They create a sense of order! Expectations! Fucking hell, he was appreciating the elf at the library more and more, she would at least give a smile that left him feeling all fluttery.
"DO YOU PLAN ON RUNNING ALL NIGHT OR FACE ME LIKE THE BALL-LESS USLESS EXCUSE OF A MAN YOU ARE!?" she yelled as another arrow missed his side.
'The fuck is wrong with this dumb bitch? Does she know it's not healthy for her social life if people knew she's this obsessed with balls?' Rastel was perplexed even while running for his life.
"HAH! I BET YOU WERE BORN WITHOUT BALLS! YOU HAVE PROBABLY NEVER DONE ANY THING THAT REQUIRED BALLS IN YOUR LIFE!"
"THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!!?" Rastel screamed back at her this time.
It was getting too ridiculous to continue listening to her tactless attempts at provocation. How bad could somebody be at provocation? And what with is her obsession with balls!?
She didn't stop though, she kept throwing more provocations, all about balls at him. Twice more, he had to yell back to vent his irritation but she never stopped yelling and firing arrows either.
After a few more minutes, Rastel finally saw the village walls appear. Fighting a wood elf skilled at archery in a forest would be the most stupid mistake he would have made since he entered the game. It was tantamount to serving yourself on a chopping block to be slaughtered! Aside from the fact that Rastel saw she was stronger than him since her level showed 13, he had to give himself as many advantages as he could.
He jumped into the large clearing that existed around the village with a huge leap from a branch and started making for the walls. He did this to create the image that he was running away! He never really expected help from the village guards or a group of players or anything, they would definitely be weaker than her.
What he wanted was for her to come down to him so as to even the playing field!
Without hesitation, the elf followed him down while continuously firing at him as he relied on his reflexes and sometimes a spell to dodge or block the attacks.
The space between the village and the forest was wide, enough to give the guards enough time to shoot down any incoming beast aiming for the village. After rastel saw the elf reach about half the distance, he suddenly leaped to the side while firing a fire ball!
The elf was ready, she dodged it nimbly like she was simply floating by as it scorched the earth behind her. She didn't forget to follow up skillfully with an arrow that rastel had to duck and roll to dodge.
"Fucking ball-maniac...now you can act graceful?......must be a fucking sadist…...huh! the bosoms! It's always them I tell you! ..." he muttered un-intelligently as he ran while preparing another spell.
The elf upon noticing him preparing another spell instantly nocked an arrow and pulled back hard as a dark brown halo suddenly coated the arrow before she fired!
The arrow moved with tremendous force towards rastel who although looked very surprised, was fast enough to pull up an earth wall to shield him before the projectile hit.
CRACK!
BAM!!!
The arrow met a bit of resistance against the wall but managed to pierce through it eventually before slamming hard into rastel's side as he unsuccessfully tried to dodge the attack.
He was knocked backwards with immense force as he tumbled on the ground a few times and came to a halt laying face down while appearing very still.
The elf lowered her bow with a smirk, very satisfied with her work. She walked slowly towards Rastel's prone body to claim her prey as she didn't notice an unassuming lump laying around.
She stood directly in front of him as she used her bow to turn him over only to see Rastel very much alive and conscious and even more so, smiling!
"Hey…." He beamed up at her as she quickly reacted by nocking an arrow to her bow and drawing back.
As soon as she drew the arrow though, she heard a loud rumbling behind her as a huge shadow suddenly covered her from behind.
She paused in fear, her aim faltering as she didn't know the identity of the new party. But as she looked down at the muan's grinning face, she gritted her teeth as she quickly adjusted her aim to fire!
She wasn't sure what happened after that, all she knew was that before she could let go of her aim, she felt a huge blow at the side of her head that made her think she was hit with a brick building compacted in one punch. She actually felt her body sail through the air for a moment before everything went black.
Rastel lifted himself gingerly from the floor and dusted his beginner's gear carefully. In the name of all things good and evil they were the only pieces of clothing he had! And there was already a significant tear on the right shoulder. So much for holding back on clothes till he reached the city.
He carefully checked the bruises he got from the hit he received from the arrow. He had not expected it to be honest. His original plan was to fire spells randomly at the mage while setting up golems to ambush her without her knowing. He had held the first golem in his hand to set it up while pretending to cast a spell when the arrow came.
Shocked at the sudden attack, his first reaction was to defend himself so he set up the earth wall and tried to dodge only to notice it cracking his best defensive spell.
Greatly panicked, he used the only thing at hand at that point, his golem to block his side which was still in line of the attack. This led to him tumbling hard on the floor while the golem flew out of his hand.
As he stopped, he was initially in too much of a daze to do anything so he was still. It wasn't until he picked up light footsteps that he immediately became alert! He was silently thinking of a plan when he sensed his golem laying not quite far from his enemy and behind her at that!
Silently thanking his luck, he waited till she was nearby before he got ready to activate the golem with the special connection he shared with it. When he felt her bow turning him over, he felt compelled to smile as he said "Hey" while she got knocked out cold by his bashing golem.
Walking to his hulking 2-meter-tall hammer monstrosity, he lightly patted it on the head and controlled it to lower its head as if honored by the pat.
"You did good saving my life and finishing my enemies buddy, I shall knight you for diligently protecting your lord after this, ahem!" he cleared his throat shamelessly as he willed the golem back into his hand and into his inventory.
Walking up to the elf, he looked down at her unconscious form for a while before sighing lightly. Taking strips from less revealing parts of her clothing, her bound her tightly before stripping her from her of her weapons and about nearly 2000 kryts from a purse she had.
"Oh wow I've struck it rich! With this much money I would be able to get an average quality robe probably, or at least one with a reasonable magic effect!"
Grinning happily over his mini-boss loot, he began thinking once more as he headed toward the forest quickly. He had already sighted multiple parties headed towards his location and some even going into the forest. The ruckus the fight here and with the syndicate had caused had not gone unnoticed and other players would want to get in on what could be a potential loot fest.
A few groups could be seen rushing into the forest so as not to make a loss by arriving too late to whatever activity they thought was going down.
He nimbly swung unto a branch as he moved towards what he could remember was the way back to the camp. He had thought about it and had decided to rescue the mad monk's team from certain death, if they were still alive that is.
He had just realized that they were the one people that if he played his cards right, could give him valuable information about the person behind the organization. And seeing as they were already planning on running and were even eventually backstabbed. He figured he could get them to easily tell him the details by getting them to owe him for saving their lives.
He didn't even have to do much, he could just posture for a bit and the influx of players coming in from all over would create enough chaos for him to easily escape with them!
"Hurr Hurr Hurr! This is what it means to be truly shameless! Hurr Hurr!" he laughed in what he thought would be a perfect imitation of a villain about it commit a vile crime.
He moved swiftly through the trees with increasing familiarity as he quickly reached the battle site. As he arrived, he saw that the team were in a bad situation indeed, at least they weren't dead though.
"This is the end of the line for you bastards! Don't worry, I'll personally send you to your graves!"
Seeing the red haired mage raising his hand to finish them off with a spell, he quickly casted a fire ball to interrupt him while calculating how many cool entrance points he was about to get.
He watched with twinkling eyes as the warrior blocked the attack with his shield and then everyone staring up at him in shock!
Deciding that the moment was perfect, he let out the words he felt would max out his appearance all while standing coolly on a high up branch.
"I dare you"
Rize and her team of 4 were rushing through the forest with utmost speed to reach the sounds of battle that was echoing throughout that part of the forest.
She was a level 5 mage and together with her team consisting of a warrior, ranger and cleric, they completed the holy trinity quite perfectly and were a relatively strong group in the small village of Laron.
After the ranger in their group, a wood elf, noticed all the commotion. They quickly came to the conclusion that something big went down and decided to go check it out for potential gains.
With the guidance of their ranger and the fact that they were among the first few people to head for the location, they arrived a few seconds earlier before the rest of the players. Arriving near the mass of people and lights, she witnessed a massive explosion as a fire ball was tanked by a warrior wielding a shield.
'This man looks very strong' she frowned beginning to worry that they were a bit rash. She had noticed the players looking all battered and guessed that like her, they had come to get some loot and were beaten up by the NPCs.
As she saw everyone's gaze moving, she traced it to the source of the fireball and saw a muan player standing high up on a branch with his beginner clothes while illuminated by floating balls of white light as he said;
"I dare you"
Her and the rest of her team were awed as much as confused as to where his confidence was coming from. He was alone while facing a small army here. And why was he still wearing his beginner's gear! Her entire team had changed outfits since they reached level 3!
Even as they stood there looking perplexed, more teams were arriving at the area.
Rastel was very pleased with his entrance. He noticed the look of shock ad awe in the eyes of the grunts around and even on the newly arrived team he spied out of the corner of his eye. Even the mage and warrior looked stunned to see his appearance.
'Yes! This is what living in a fantasy world is all about! Hero moments!' he cheered inwardly
Gai and his team on the other hand seemed to have a mixture of relieve and intense confusion in their eyes as they looked up at him. What the hell was this one up to?
The red mage, quickly recovering from the shock was instantly outraged!
"Fuck! You dare to obstruct me! Where is that stupid bitch anyway? Damn it! Somebody shoot this bastard down!"
The men immediately began shooting multiple arrows at rastel but they were not a threat. Rastel still put up a show of dodging them with effort as he yelled.
"Hah! Even after stealing my magic weapon and giving it to one of your men to run away with you are still so vicious? I know it's with one of them! I will hunt every last one of your men till I find it!" he chuckled inwardly as he dodged arrows left and right from the men's clumsy shooting.
He shouted those words after noticing quite a few players walking into the scene and just like he expected, the words "magic weapon" sent the whole crowd into a frenzy!
"A magic weapon? Holy shit! I thought we won't be able to see those until like level 30! And one of these grunts have it?"
"No way! A magic weapon! We have to get our hands on it!"
"kill these stupid grunts! A magic weapon is worth a fortune if we sell it to the big guilds!"
Rastel chuckled grimly at the massacre that erupted! The men were naturally weaker than the players and offered little resistance. Some tried to run away only to be hunted down by eager rangers hoping to practice their archery skills on moving targets.
He noticed that Gai and his group were already trying to retreat within the chaos and he went to help them escape the battle.
He jumped down as he sent an earth pillar to one of the grunts aiming on taking Anna's life from the back while following up with another one to his side at another grunt trying to escape, sending him back to the warrior that was fully intent on killing him with his spear.
He pointed at the direction of the village as he reached their location and tried to talk above the yells and screams.
"Go in that direction and you'll reach the village after a few minutes!"
He was just bullshitting, they probably knew their way back. But he had to put up the image that he came here for them so as to get them to easily co-operate later on.
Accentuating the friendliness in his tone by casting a couple of Insta heals to relive then of the pain from their injuries, he motioned at them again.
"Hurry up before he decides to change his mind!" he pointed at the red mage that was already slowly retreating the fight with the warrior and a few men at his side as they were assaulted by groups of players.
Glaring ferociously at the mage, Gai turned his stare to Rastel for a while as if trying to figure out his motives before leading his team out of the madness.
"Alright, karma has been sowed! Hurr Hurr Hurr!" he chuckled in his villainous tone as he watched them leave.
"And now…" he muttered as he turned around and started rushing through the battlefield while dodging all sorts of flying missiles and spells.
His grin deepened as he neared the retreating mage.
"Time to end this chapter"