Alexander swung his sword at the slave. Returning him alive was practically impossible. Returning his head was his goal.
As the sword continued downwards its trajectory a black figure falling from the sky stopped it, using a kick. The figure kicked the sword into the ground and made Noah drop his balance, but Noah quickly recovered and stepped backwards.
The slave looked shocked, this clearly wasn't his doing. The man who had attacked Noah had a black cloak covering the top of his face. He had a hooked nose, dry and twisted lips, his tongue was swirling around licking his lips repeatedly.
Something about him was strange, no matter how much Noah focus on him his mind tried to stop him. It was as if though the figure which was the center of Noah's vision was simple a prop in his peripheral vision.
"Kid get lost" the figure said, clearly directed at Noah as stood in front of the slave. Noah, slightly agitated, said "This is my fish". The hooded man's lips swayed down, "get, lost" his tone dropping drastically at the last word.
"Its not fa--", before he finished his sentence the hooded man had struck him. Faster than lighting, the man had turned around, blinked towards Noah and gave him a spinning kick sending him flying into one of the crack-filled walls.
…
Crows pecking his head, small intervals of sharp pains. He opened his eyes a crack, his sight dizzy, he spotted a small trail of light. He remembered, he'd chased the slave, only for his prey to get stolen at the last second, now he was shoved into the wall.
"Shoo, shoo, get off me damn crow", he tried scaring the crow of him. The crow jumped a few steps back looking at him sideways. "fucking crows", he thought.
He looked around, the man and the slave were nowhere to be found. He took out the quest paper and threw it at the ground, sighing. He stood up, one, no, two of his rib cages had been broken. He felt it hard to walk but he powered through.
The middle of the night, it was pitch black, but some light emitted from the lanterns stuck to the wall. He stumbled forward, trying to regain his balance on the way. He tottered onto the edge of the wall.
He looked right, nobody as far as the eye could see. He looked left, fuck, he counted 5 people leaning in the alleyway. If they spotted him they might kill him for the fun of it, as of now darkness was his ally.
He breathed in, rested a bit, and when he was ready he tottered forward trying to cross the intersection without being spotted. Heavy breaths, Light steps, hopeful eyes. He had crossed the intersection successfully and tottered forward.
'Sub-stealth has levelled up!'
"At least something good came out of this" Noah thought to himself.
…
He had successfully made his way to the adventure hall, he could hear a cacophony of noise inside, he felt joy as he entered. The same spot which had seemed so empty hours earlier, was now completely filled with happy parties of adventurers. Swords, staffs, bows, tattoos, beasts and familiar faces everywhere the eye could see.
Needless to say, this was the last place you would rob.
Noah walked over to a healer, she had black hair and peaceful eyes. He had met her near when he had started questing, nowadays she was the healer he would always turn to when hurt.
She sat beside her party, consisting of two swordsmen, one archer and one mage. They all had bandages and look quite roughed up. "Must of been a tough day" Noah thought. When he got close enough to hear their individual voices instead of the collective noise produced by the constant chattering, he said "Hey, Eva could you heal me?"
She rolled her eyes, before a warm smile crept up on her face, "Haven't seen you in two days, I got slightly worried" she said, in response Noah gave an awkward laugh and said "who knows". "Where did you get hurt this time?" she said as she turned towards him. The rest of the party was rather familiar with this occurrence and had come to see Noah as a cute little brother.
"My rib cage" Noah said, he had been through this process a bunch of times. The next thing she would ask of him was for him to let her see the wound, so he preemptively took off his shirt. It showed his bony but muscular upper body, doing quests had positive consequences and being poor meant he had no money to buy food to grow muscles with.
On the right side of his chest, there was a large blue bruise spreading all the way from his waist, to the middle of his chest, to below the armpit. "Holy" Eva said surprised, "What mess did you get yourself into this time?", "Honestly, I don't know. I was chasing somebody and someone just randomly attacked me".
Her eyebrows tightened, "try not to go there again, whoever it was, they seem strong." Jake, one of the warriors in the party, remarked "Not even I get bruised that badly, kid".
Eva quickly got to work, the pain surfacing from that area soon started dissipating, then his bruise started shrinking until there was no more. By the end, Eva looked exhausted, but she wore a smile, Noah felt bad about it.
He took out 5 of his recently gained copper coins and gave it to Eva. "Please, you don't have to do that.", "No, take it" Noah forcefully said. Once she had taken the coins out of his hand Noah pridefully walked away.
"5 copper coins," Jake said, "if the kid knew any better, he'd realised that was an insult". The party collectively laughed at his actions before ordering more food.
Noah made his way back to the room he had rented earlier that day. He walked into the suffocating room, it wasn't big enough for him to fully stretch out. He had to bend his back when he walked to not hit the rough, and he had to lay curled up on the bed. It was terrible but it was cheap, and that mattered more. Plus, he had gotten used to it over these two years.
Noah woke up with his back aching like always, he exited out of the inn, on his way out he saw a rat. He choked, since the image of him splashing in the sewer waters resurfaced.
He opened the door to the adventure hall and walked up to the quest board which was surrounded by other adventurers. Today he felt, how might you say it… dangerous.
--
Quest.
Slay the rats in the sewers.
20 copper coins reward
--
"You know what, fuck those rats." Noah thought as he ripped the quest paper off the wall.