Ace woke up in a cold sweat and quickly looked around his surroundings. He was laying in a bed inside what seemed to be a wooden hut. It was warm and he heard the fire crackling. As he was about to move, he felt something weighing down his left leg. That's when he realized how his sense of touch seemed rather unresponsive.
He nipped himself in the arm but nothing really came through. It felt like something happened and registered that something touched his arm but it didn't hurt. In a slight panic, he nipped again and again, his arm going more and more red.
Not being pleased with the testing he did, he touched everywhere to see if he could feel anything. To his disappointment, he didn't feel anything except for the fact that something registered.
"You're up!" Screamed Sage with worry in her voice. She quickly hugged him but caught herself thinking about his wounds.
"Yeah. What happened?" Ace asked. He couldn't remember what happened beyond the fact that he fought against the minotaur and that the both of them were bleeding out.
"We carried you out of the dungeon and brought you to Jude who managed to save you just in time. I then carried you to my lodgings since I wasn't sure where your bed was."
"Thank you for saving me!" Ace exclaimed, a certain feeling spurring in his chest.
"You should go thank Jude the second your body is healed. For now, it's best we keep you inside recuperating." She smiled. "I'm so glad that you're safe."
Ace laughed. "So am I."
"But what happened to your arm?" She asked, her face a question mark.
"Oh- I did that. Don't worry about."
He didn't want to worry her about any issues he had going on with his body. He figured his sense of touch would eventually come back.
"If you say so."
Sage started walking towards the door and said, "I'll be back later with some food. We're thinking of going hunting koboary to bring back."
"Be careful! And thank you." She nodded, smiled and closed the door behind her.
The room was soon quiet once again and Ace leaned his head back on the pillow.
"Losing my sense of touch sucks..." His train of thought spiraled to all different kinds of topics but eventually stopped as he remembered leveling up. Quickly, without even thinking about it, he opened the character sheet.
Looking over his character sheet, he saw how his level had jumped from three to five. A wide smile covered his face when he saw the four unallocated stat points.
"So far, my kit mostly consists of going in and out, killing enemies by bleeding them to death. Definitely now that I'm supported by [Hemorrhage]." He thought to himself. He spent another couple of minutes to think it over and what would be best for the future. He ended up leveling up talents across the board with the main focus being his agility.
>Character sheet
[Name: Ace Hill] [Class: Rogue]
[Level: 5] [Race: Elf]
[Titles: None] [Languages: Elven]
>Stats<
Strength: 1 > 2
Agility: 8 > 10
Intelligence: 1
Constitution: 3 > 4
Unallocated stats: 4 > 0
=================
The rest of that day was spent in bed, waiting for his body to feel alright. Later that night, Sage came back holding a bowl of what looked like meat stew together with different plants mixed in.
"Welcome back!" He lit up finally having some company. Laying in bed all alone without anyone to talk to was too boring and it had gotten to the point where he counted the items in the room.
"Hey, thank you." She smiled and handed Ace the bowl. "It's not much but it should be enough to get rid of the hunger."
"The fact that you're here is enough. By the way." He started with a spoonful of food in his mouth. "Am I occupying your bed?"
"Please don't worry about it. I can find somewhere else to sleep tonight. Probably at Avery now that she has a bed free and all."
Ace stopped his eating and looked at Sage with worry. "What? Why did you say it like that? Did someone die?"
Sage noticed and quickly tried to rid him of his worries by saying, "No no! No one died. A group just left the village because they felt that the dungeon was too much for them."
This news didn't help Ace's worry however as their strength were already thin. With less people to fight the orcs, their chances were only getting slimmer. Lost in deep thought, he tried to imagine how they'd fight with less than the ideal amount of people.
"Why? Is there still a problem?" Asked Sage now worried as well.
"It can be if we're not prepared. I guess it depends on the amount of warriors and priests we still have." Looking down at the bowl, he started eating again.
"I'm pretty sure the ones who left were either rogues or mages. I don't think any priests left at least."
With a mouth full of food, Ace said "That's good. Then we can plan around that."
The rest of the night was spent chatting about all sorts of topic. Despite smiling and laughing, Ace couldn't help worry about the upcoming fight. While he believes the average orc to not be any stronger than the minotaur or the last orc he encountered in the forest. The fact that their numbers were decreasing meant that a few of the ones who entered the dungeon, probably didn't level that much.
Ace thought back to his own group. While he himself was strong, the girls had only gone up one level and that would hardly matter in the bigger picture of things. If they wanted to win, they all needed to increase their levels and fast at that.
Once Sage left, his mind continued to run, thinking about where and how they would put up defenses. Where they would meet the enemy. "Should they stay and defend from the city walls, or should they create a vantage point a little bit away from the walls?" He thought.