Pebble ventured further into the forest as he continued east. He'd stop at the occasional odd bug and wondered, again, if it was a new species or one he already knew and simply forgot. He knew he had no way of obtaining any answers for now, but the question still haunted him.
It's been around twenty minutes since Pebble left Kris. He began to imagine scenarios of how the situation at the general store could be playing out with Puffy and Bard. He also started to picture the potential purchases that Fred and Phil might show up with when he sees them. 'Must be nice to be able to actually buy equipment.' He thought inwardly.
Pebble still had 1230 CP points and he was starting to get tempted to take a look at the store and see his options. Perhaps he could find actual armor instead of these white robes, since he felt like he stuck out like a sore thumb in the woods. It did have a pretty neat feature of self cleaning though. He noticed that the dirt seemed to fade away on its own whenever it got a bit messy.
Pebble did not have the time to waste, so his thoughts for shopping are on hold for now. He observed his surroundings. The last trail he marked was not too far behind him, but he could no longer see it behind the foliage. He was standing in a small clearing and there seemed to be another path up ahead, but he needed to traverse through a ditch under a fallen tree to get to it.
Pebble nodded and ducked under the fallen tree that was blocking his path. While he was stepping into the ditch, Pebble's foot stepped on a trip wire and the sound of wood cracking was heard followed by a loud whipping. A wooden spike that was tied with a rope to a branch above, came flying down from behind him like a pendulum. The spike pierced deep into his ribs.
<43/100 HP>
The trap was the hardest hit that Pebble has received so far, dealing 57 points of damage to his health. Blood started flowing from his back, trickling down his leg. Pebble struggled for air as the sudden attack seemed to knock the wind out of him. He looked back at the protruding spike. The piece of wood was as long as a tall man and about as wide as two fists held together. The sight made Pebble's skin crawl as he never anticipated being gored like this out of nowhere.
In the distance, excited voices could be heard. Sweat started beading on Pebble's forehead as he realized that if he had not taken the Reeki's Mountain Blood reward he would actually be dead right now. Panic started to settle in his bones, but he gritted his teeth, "Focus, focus!" He snapped himself out of it and quickly punched the ground four times, activating his Life Rock skill. He summoned four more healing stones, making his friends' rocks useless, but he currently needed them desperately. It would take about 5 minutes to heal him all the way up with all five Life Rocks and he did not believe that was enough time. He felt like he had to sneeze as his Coin of Communication began ringing from within his inventory. Pebble assumed Puffy must have noticed that his Life Rock stopped working and was calling him currently. Given the circumstances, Puffy would have to wait.
Pebble reached back with his left arm and gripped the spike. He had a strong urge to use the Shout skill right now, but he did not want to draw further attention. With gritted teeth, he used his inhuman strength to rip the spike out of his back.
<38/100 HP>
The danger stick swayed on its rope, swinging Pebble's blood all around the ditch. His eyes narrowed at the sight of his own blood and he felt a sense of excitement and rage.
Pebble snarled and showed teeth while clutching the Life Rocks. "I'll f*cking kill them." He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end as he began to reach back to summon his axe. Right as he felt the handle of his trusty weapon, his vision widened as he snapped out of his momentary trance and quickly put the weapon away.
'What am I doing?' Pebble looked around him in wonder. All it took was one surprise attack to send him into a murderous state.
'I really am a monster.' He slumped his shoulders.
The voice came back with a tone that insinuated that she was not a fan of Pebble's reaction to his own rage.
"The, f*ck? You really come and go, huh?" Pebble whispered.
"I think this was the one that was triggered!" An unknown voice shouted from nearby.
Pebble kicked the ground where he stood and activated his Rock Throw Support Augment skill. Stone armor quickly wrapped itself around Pebble and the Life Rocks. The armor held the healing rocks against his chest, applying all 5 heals to him. He then quickly rolled around in the dirt and blood to coat his stone armor. He then balled up next to the ditch and pretended to be a boulder.
'Shh, don't get us caught!' Pebble thought as he received several more muted notifications.
'Right…' Pebble wanted to talk to the voice a bit more while it was still around, but he was hyper focused on the approaching footsteps.
'Two? Maybe three?' Pebble estimated the number of men approaching and was met with another muted notification.
'Might be? You don't agree with me being selected as a hero?' That caught Pebble's attention.
The voice sounded like it enjoyed Pebble's suffering, 'Seriously, what the hell?!'
—
"Hey, Rori. Do you really think you heard a trap get triggered?" Lue questioned as he stumbled over a bush chasing after his running friend.
"Most definitely, Lue! It might be our lucky day! Larry, we be wrappin' 'er up early if the one of the good gods above blessed us, Ahaha!" He laughed loudly through rotten teeth.
"You two are psychos. You've been trying to follow that warrior and wizard all night. What makes you think you have something now?" Larry interjected. Larry was a short man with a massive backpack. He always found himself being assigned as a pack mule whenever he formed a team.
"You idiot, we know they rested in Kris!" Rori smacked Larry , "We've seent them head east and after we followed the trail, we 'eard from a guy who says he's seent the exact same wizard we've seent with the starry robes." Rori looked away, "Of course, the informant disappeared on us, which doth bring sorrow into my heart, but 'at's not here nor there."
Larry rubbed his face and stayed quiet. After Rori turned around, he eyed the man with malice. He hated Rori.
Lue chimed in, "Er, Rori, what if the dragon returns?"
"Ahaha, I wouldn't waste no thoughts about that. I take it that Uth'Lauren has found what she ventured out for and is headin' back to her throne down south." Rori disregarded the concern.
The group had arrived at the location they had trapped just the night before. The log was no longer being held up in the tall trees and
"A'right then, let's get to it." Lue said as he hefted himself on top of the downed log and began to crawl towards the middle to disarm a secondary trap that wasn't triggered.
Rori walked around and peered into the ditch, "Holy hell! Look at all this blood!"
Larry followed behind Rori and took a gander at the bloody scene, "Yup, I think this might be the one that was triggered, alright."
Rori smacked Larry again, "I swear you're a dumb as a rock, boy." Rori waved at Lue, "Ay, Lue! The sharp log be swinging, lad! Whoever triggered it must've had some buddies with them, no? It sounded like it just happened, so they couldn't have gone far!"
"What if it was the goblins?" Lue replied.
"Ah, you're probably right! Those little green bastards! We told 'em exactly where we put the damn thing!" He pulled out a pack of tobacco and packed his lower lip, "Little runts didn't listen at all." Rori's anger turned his face red.
"Well now what?" Questioned Larry.
"Well now, Lue an' I are gonna go pay the goblins a little visit. You are going to stay here and reset the trap." Rori replied.
"Me alone?" Larry wasn't fond of the idea of being alone in the woods. People go missing all the time in these parts, knowing his luck, he'd be next. Not to mention how much work was required to get that trap set up in the first place, and that was with three of them.
"Don't give me no whinin'! Reset the trap and make yourself useful before I repurpose your meat." Rori shoved Larry to the ground and sat down on a nearby boulder. He rummaged through Larry's bag and pulled out a map. "Ah okay, got it. Are you ready Lue? It should only take us about 15 minutes or so to get to the cave." Rori held up the map and pointed to their path.
"Aye, let's get going. Don't mess things up with the trap, Larry. The first one seemed to do some damage, so just set it up the same way you did last night." Lue projected his voice down from the log above and Rori stood up. Lue got a good look at Rori. "Rori, you dummy. You shouldn't have sat on that rock, now you have blood and dirt all over your ass."
"Awe, what the f*ck? How did blood get all the way over here?" Rori looked back at his bloody pants and sighed.
"Maybe they patched themselves up on it?" Larry responded from the dirt.
"No way. Whoever got struck is definitely dead." Rori said definitively. He then leaned down and put the map back in Larry's backpack, "See Larry? I'm not that bad of a guy, Lue and I will find our way, I know you need the map."
Larry gave a limp thumbs up from his prone position in the dirt, "You're so generous, Rori, thank you." He groaned.
Rori and Lue both laughed, "A'right Lue, let's get out of here. I'm going to strangle those little green f*cks." Rori commanded.
"Okay, maybe they've caught some more people. What if they caught our wizard and warrior friends?" Lue smiled.
"Haha, yeah right, they are too busy falling for our traps that we've already warned them about. You think they'd be able to do anything actually worthwhile?" Rori chuckled as he climbed out of the ditch and held a hand out to help Lue off the log.
Larry watched as his two friends left without so much as a goodbye for him. After they were gone for a few minutes, Larry finally felt safe enough to voice his opinion, "F*cking pricks. Why don't I just run away and start a new life? I hate this sh*t." He said as he stood up and dusted himself off. He wiped a lone tear from his eye.
"Do it, bro!" Said a disembodied voice.
"Ah! Who goes there?" Larry shouted and pulled out his knife, "I know Knife-kwondo and I'm gonna mess you up! Hello?"