As they walked out to the forest, Susan grimaced. Practically every step. She was barefooted, and felt barefooted. She felt every blade of grass, stone, stick… the hot dirt of the town, the cool of the grass… she could hardly walk.
But she walked on know that all she was feeling were feelings. That her feet were not really being bruised and burnt or even chilly. That it just felt that way. And that the boys were most likely about to get attacked by monsters and would protect her. And she would seem like an idiot if she complained about the cold! Or even the rocks. Ow!
Seth stared at the forest as they came up. It would be hard to imagine anything less ominous. A nice mixture of trees, but mostly oaks. A forest floor carpeted with leaves. A nice sunny day… birds singing, the whole thing.
“Ok, so, let’s not be idiots,” Frank said, as they made it to the edge of the forest. “None of us have had to die yet, and I’d like to keep it this way. This forest might be easy for that NPC kid, but we are all still really low levelled. Owls and snakes. George, I, and Sue will all look for snakes. There are way too many places for them to be, with all these leaves. Seth, your job is owls. Get at the back of the formation, so hopefully we will have found all the snakes by the time you get to whatever patch of land we are on.”
“What about mushrooms?” Sue asked. “Isn’t that why we are here?”
“If we can’t notice red capped mushrooms while bending down looking for snakes, we need another job.”
“True that.”
Seth didn’t like his role at all. To be unable to watch for snakes, but at the same time to be totally responsible for spotting owls? And the only way he had hit something with this stupid bow and arrows so far had been to stab bunnies with arrows. At least he had levelled up, so his stats should be better. It was so bizarre not even paying attention to them! He assumed that Oscar would tell him if he got any skills, but to not even know what is stats were!
He drew his bow back and started scanning the sky. And the trees. And the branches of the trees. And the sky.
“Snake!” George said, and Seth snapped his gaze down, and then had to snap it back up again. George would handle the snake, but any owl worth his hoot would take advantage of the distraction to…
“Freeze,” he said. “I mean, don’t take any more steps. You can finish killing the snake.”
“What… what is it?“ asked Sue.
“I see an owl watching us,” Seth said, pulling the string back a little more and aiming…
“Ah, I got it but I didn’t kill it!” he said, “ware one o’clock, mid.”
“Where?” Sue asked, but George got his sheild up and turned in the right direction and at the right height enough that the owl slammed against it and dropped to the ground with a squack.
Frank was dashing around George, and Sue was stepping hastily back, when Seth manage, after his third try, to put an arrow into the body of the practically motionless owl!
ding
“Yes!” he shouted.
“Ware the skies again,” Frank said, going back to his position after storing the owl. “Let’s keep a good eye out, everyone.”
Seth was thrilled! He had hit and then killed the owl with an actual arrow, actually fired from his bow! And he had spotted it, too!
“Snake!” Sue said, almost leaping into him.
Frank turned around and, after about ten hits, manage to kill the snake, which didn’t even really look like he… or she… was trying to do anything.
They made it a few more steps before Sue said, “Mushrooms… ummm… to the left.”
“We need to teach you the clock,” Frank said. “Everyone move left slowly. Now, Sue, imagine that we are all walking in the same direction. That direction would be ‘twelve o’clock’. Or, if we aren’t walking, the last direction we walked. And then six o’clock would be behind us, and three o’clock off to the left…”
“Oh, I get it,” she said.
“And then ‘ground’ is the ground, low is belly button height, mid is about head height, and ‘high’ is above that.”
“Oh, got it,” she said. “Ok, everyone just stand here and look out and I will collect the mushrooms. Oh!”
“What’s the matter?” Seth asked.
“I guess I didn’t do it right. It just kind of, mushed. Oh. Oh, good. Oh…”
“Well, that was annoying. There were six mushrooms but I only manage to harvest two.”
“Well, we’ll learn. Let’s keep going this direction, so we’re not too far from the edge of the forest…”
“Twenty two mushrooms, seventeen snakes, and three owls!” Frank said, as the group sat at the edge of the fountain in the middle of town. “Three silver, which we don’t really care much about, since Mr Madison is funding us, and I have three levels now.”
“I have four,” George said. “I did good with the snakes. It’s a dull wooden sword, but it’s good enough for snakes and bunnies.”
“Four, too,” Seth said. I think that hitting those owls was particularly profitable.
There was a bit of silence, and then everyone turned to Susan. “Susan?”
She blushed, “Umm, I hit level eight. But Mr Madison said we aren’t going to discuss levels and classes and all until we go back.”
“So, what’s next?”
“Skill work. Back to the bunnies, and we’re going to do some training.”
“Off to the bunnies it is,” Frank said.
“Now, we’re just going to do George and Sue. George, your job is to protect Sue. Sue, you get ready to bandage up our boy. And hopefully not yourself.”
“You mean, just the two of us are going out there?” George asked.
“That’s right. And you’re going to work on your sheild work, particuarlly.”
“Well, Ok…”
The next half hour seemed like it was a meeting a very badly trained drummer. George managed, mostly, to keep the bunnies off Sue by having them hit his sheild instead. But he mostly failed to kill them with his sword, so by the end he had seven bunnies hopping furiously at him, making his shield thump with their bodies, and then, laying, stunned, as he worked on their compatriots.
“Ok, Frank, Seth, come in!”
Soon the remaining bunnies were dead and stored.
“Back off. Now, Seth and Sue.”
“Ah!” Seth said. “How on Earth am I going to keep the bunnies off her?”
“Go slowly, don’t go too far, and work with your knife.”
Half an hour later Seth was covered in strips of gown, and Sue had several on herself.
“Ok, Frank, your turn, then you lot can turn your winnings in and call it a day. Or, part of a day. We’ll be having a meeting after you lot get dressed again.”
Frank and Sue ended up just as bitten as Seth and Sue had done, but Frank had manage to kill more of the bunnies. So it was a tired, sore, low health, and in pain group that went off to the tanner, the flower girl’s father, to turn in their winnings.
“We’ll talk about how we did with Oscar,” Frank said, sounding very tired. Sign out, everyone.”
—
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Von