The crimson moon descended above the storm clouds and the bloody light that filtered through brought about an eerie atmosphere to the world.
Flashes of lightning accompanied the heavy downpour of rain and obstructed the sight of anyone unlucky enough to be out at this time.
All that didn't affect the travelers though as they sat by a warm fire and entertained themselves with small talk and stories.
Roxanne and Rastel were keeping themselves busy as they looked over a small heavy hand gun. This was Roxanne's primary weapon which had developed a fault and was the reason why she ended up been chased by the beast earlier.
"Something seems to be wrong with the firing mechanism. It just clicks and nothing happens."
She frowned her brows as she looked at the gun once over.
Rastel was actually very interested in the buildup of the gun. Even if he couldn't do much with it, he wanted to make one just for the novelty of it.
He looked at the heavy but elegant weapon with its polished wooden handle and barrel which was long and made from a white metal he couldn't recognize.
Similar to the long shot gun he saw her use on the beast earlier, this one had a series of inscriptions drawn all over it.
These inscriptions were used to create enchantments on materials and give them varying effects based on the creator's intentions.
Even his low ranked mage robe had such inscriptions that gave it an increase in the casting speed of fire based spells.
Although enchantments made weapons and equipment more powerful than normal, they were still far weaker than the rare and bizarre rune weapons as enchantments weaken and wear off after some time.
Rastel thought back to the runes he had seen in the immortal's cave when he was on his class quest.
Although he had no idea how any of it worked, he had made copies of all the runes that were carved into the walls. He also had four golem cores that seemed to have runes carved into them.
Thinking about this, he started getting excited as the thought of wielding elemental golems appeared to him. He would be greatly overpowered if he could wield spells and have golems who could do the same!
With amazing dexterity, Roxanne dismantled the weapon in her hands into different parts so she could have a closer look at it.
Rastel took a close up look and tried to understand the components and how it worked but ended up seeing a lot of parts he couldn't recognize.
It made him frown.
"You see right here" Roxanne pointed with a long finger.
"This is supposed to react with my mana and trigger this to move, the inscriptions on this part are set to use this mechanism to fire the bullets in the loadout but it seems the mechanism is faulty."
She sighed deeply.
"At least it is not an inscription problem, those are hard to fix."
Rastel took a hold of the mechanism she was talking about and looked at it carefully. Although he had little knowledge of this kind of magic technology, he could still use his knowledge of real world mechanics and try to fix it.
"You know how to fix this kind of stuff?" Roxanne looked at him almost hopefully.
"I can try, I think I already know what to do" his eyes sparkled at the sight of the machinery.
After memorizing the layout of the mechanism so as not to make a mistake in reassembling it, Rastel took out the immortal's blade and levered out the outer layer that was made with a metal plate while been careful not to damage the inscriptions.
He took out several other parts to reach his target, a spot where the bullet was supposed to go through was bent out of shape somewhat.
Rastel took it out and took a look at the small cylindrical tube.
"We would need a blacksmith for this" Roxanne took it from him and looked at the damage.
"There should be one in the town we are heading too. Hopefully this storm would weaken soon."
Actually, Rastel had a small anvil and hammer he had purchased from Laron before he first left but he didn't have the confidence of bringing it out right now as he had no skill in smithing.
In fact, his smithing skill was at level one. And that was what he got after reading a book about the basics.
As they were sighing and lamenting their lack of ability to travel, they heard a series of loud footsteps coming through the rain from the outside.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
Everyone suddenly became silent as the footsteps approached.
Rastel instantly held his immortal's knife close as he brought out the figure of one of his normal looking golems and went on alert.
Roxanne on the other hand drew out her long gun and began setting it up with a series of actions after which she promptly aimed at the entrance.
Even though there was a storm, it was still the first month of the blood moon, the chances of encountering ordinary berserk or magic beasts increased exponentially.
Traveling was a very dangerous affair!
The thumping sounds continued echoing out as they reached the entrance blocked by the cart and stood still for a moment.
Everyone in the tent held their breaths as they waited to see who the intruder would be. The air became tense and Rastel roused his mana as he was ready to toss the golem figure towards the entrance.
"IN THE NAME OF THE GODS, I BID YOU BLESSINGS! CAN YOU ACCOMMODATE TWO WEARY HUNTERS!?"
A loud voice with a deep bass suddenly echoed out from outside the storm.
A collective sigh of relief rang out from the settlers when they realized it was just another person and Rastel walked forward to meet whoever it was.
"Come on in" he gave an invitation.
"THANK YOU KINDLY!" the voice boomed back
The next minute, a small head wearing a tattered straw hat on top of a large body pushed through the carriage and entered the large tent.
Rastel stepped back to take in the full figure of their guest.
It was a rather tall beast man with a large body, small head, heavy looking arms and short stubby legs. He had on what he may have assumed was a warm smile but instead looked a bit scary because of a few protruding teeth and he wore a large green tunic that went down to his knees with a black leather belt around his thick waist.
It was a bear beastman.
There was a large wooden club hanging from his waist and another weapon made from long strips of leather that Rastel could barely identify as a sling.
The bear beastman took off his straw hat and shook off the raindrops that were on it. His whole body was drenched from staying in the rain for too long so he shook it vigorously to dry off.
"Baluu! Stop that at once or else I swear I will knock you over!" an angry voice suddenly sounded out from behind him.
"Ah keep it quiet you little viper. It is not like you aren't wet already." The huge bearman called Baluu chuckled good naturedly as he stood to the side to allow his companion to come in.
Rastel watched the second figure come in. This person was much smaller than his friend and was clearly a human.
He was wearing a similar type of belt and tunic except his was black and he wore a set of black trousers underneath.
His thick long black hair was matted all over his face from getting wet under the rain and he had a bow with a quiver full of arrows on his back.
He shivered a bit after meeting the warm environment and used his hand to push his hair away from his face.
Looking at him closely, Rastel was sure that the boy was young, younger than him probably. Although he had sharp cut features and intense eyes, he still had that childish aura around him that could easily be recognized especially from the way he glared at Baluu who was ignoring him.
'His eyes…...'
As Rastel took a close look at his eyes under the light from the fire, he realized that it had a rare shade of light amber that was bordering on red.
It looked fascinating as flames seemed to dance in his eyes as it reflected the camp fire.
After putting down his club and drying off a bit, Baluu stared around at the settlers before his eyes landed on the muan that was standing in front of them.
Coming to the conclusion that this person was the leader of the group. He extended his hand and revealed a 'warm' smile.
"You can call me Baluu, friend. Baluu Balii is my full name though." Rastel accepted his handshake which he shook vigorously.
"This feisty one here is Vars."
He patted the young boy hard on the back but the boy didn't even flinch and instead returned the favor by giving the bearman a heavy back slap as well.
Baluu grinned.
"As you can see, he is very lively!"
Vars took his gaze away from him and faced Rastel. He extended his own hand albeit a bit stiffly and they shook hands.
"Vars Vulcan" he nodded.
"It is just Rastel for me" Rastel was seriously considering a second name at this point, just for show.
'At least Roxanne is with me in this naming thing' he sighed internally.
"Come sit by the fire where its warmer, would you mind some soup?" Rastel invited them in.
He led them to his spot where he sat with Roxanne who had gone back to looking at her disassembled gun after realizing there was no threat.
"Hey, it is really you! Baluu!" a voice suddenly shouted out.
"Huh? Baluu?"
"Ah I should have recognized that huge belly anywhere! What are you doing out here?"
It seemed that Baluu was a very popular figure as people from the settlement seemed to recognize him and swarmed over in seconds.
There was a lot of back patting and happy banter going on as they cheerfully welcomed him.
Vars just followed the bewildered Rastel who couldn't understand how the huge bearman could be so popular to sit beside Roxanne.
At this point, Myra and Lana followed by the old man came over.
The old man looked at Baluu with a disapproving look before peering closely at Vars.
"Yer Vulcan's little kid aren't yer. How is that old dwarf doing?"
"He is still a drunk old bastard." Vars responded without a change in his facial expression.
This reply seemed to amuse the old man greatly as he started laughing, something that bewildered Rastel even more.
Myra curiously came closer to Vars and she seemed to also be captivated by his eyes.
Vars turned sharply to look at her.
"What is it?"
She flinched as she turned her gaze.
"N-Nothing, it is just that your eyes…. erh…. Nothing really."
Roxanne turned to stare at him and loudly commented.
"This pretty boy has some interesting lookers, doesn't he? I have never seen one like those before."
Rastel joined in the conversation as he nodded his head.
"They are quite something right? Wait even throughout all your time here?"
"That's why I'm surprised. You would think that after being here for so long not much would surprise me anymore." She shook her head as she tinkered with another part.
Looking at her still trying to tinker with her gun, Rastel shook his head as he passed Vars a bowl of soup brought by one of the women.
"You should just leave it for now, until we can see a blacksmith there's not much you can do about it."
"Did you say you are looking for a blacksmith!?" a loud voice suddenly interrupted them.
Baluu came bounding over with a large bowl of soup in his hands.
He plopped down between Rastel and Vars and winked roguishly at Myra and Lana who were staring at him with wide eyes.
"Keep yer mouth shut around me Baluu, I don't want any of yer nonsense!"
"Ahh… old man. Have your bones been creaking the wrong way recently? You should be giving me a warm hug after not seeing me for half a year." Baluu took a huge gulp of the warm soup from his bowl.
The old man just snorted and ignored him.
"You said you knew a blacksmith?" Rastel asked the big bellied bearman.
"Of course I do! You are looking at him right here!"
Baluu patted Vars heavily on his back as he was trying to sip some of the soup and he ended up spilling some on his clothes.
'This guy?' Rastel and Roxanne turned their heads simultaneously to look at Vars's lean figure.
Although he seemed to be built with hard muscles as they could see from his exposed arms, they didn't take him to be a blacksmith who were usually really buff and muscular.
"Don't underestimate this little viper here. He is the one and only disciple of master Vulcan who is the best blacksmith in the whole of the lands of Kurn. No, in the whole of Gorm!"
Baluu laughed as Vars gave him a revenge smack on the head which he ignored.
"And anything master Vulcan can do, I can bet you a thousand kryts that little Vars here can do it at least half as good!"