LOOT DROP Chapter: 12
“Keep running!” Fisk yelled, dragging Faith behind him through the woods as shouts and screams trailed their every step.
“I… I can't! Wait! S-slow down!” Faith let out, wheezing as she attempted to keep up with Fisk dragging her at full speed. “I can't keeEEE-!?”
Fisk turned, the woman tumbling down a hill letting out yelps as she hit nearby trees and bushes on the way down.
“Shit!” Fisk let out, his eyes darting between the pursuing voices getting closer and the woman still tumbling.
The players were close, too close, if he stopped to help Faith there was a high chance he'd be caught but if he ran…
Fisk was off, racing down the hill after Faith who landed in a trench.
At least Fisk attempted to follow, yet his metal leg slipped, sending him falling just as Faith did until he collided with the woman.
“OOoF!” Fisk let out as Faith screamed. Not wasting time, he pulled Faith to her feet, the woman dazed, out of breath, and wobbling.
“Come on!” Fisk yelled, ducking just in time to avoid an arrow that embedded itself in a nearby tree.
“H-huh?!” Faith let out as Fisk swooped her legs and began princess carrying her into the forest.
At least for a few yards before his SP meter began to run red, his food and water meter low.
Shit.
Fisk clinched his jaw, the players not yet seen but close, too close for him to keep running with Faith in his arms. At this rate, he'd collapse or die of exhaustion.
Then, he saw it, a large mound of mud and forest debri, big enough to hide a person.
“Faith, hold your breath!”
“What?” Faith said before noticing what Fisk was looking at, “WAIT!”
Fisk jumped into the nearby mud pile, the woman's scream cut short by the rough hand on her mouth as she was pressed down and forcefully buried in mud.
“Stay still!” Fisk ordered, covering the woman with leaves and mud before ducking behind a tree as footsteps neared.
Out of breath, covered in dirt, grim, and mud, Fisk faded into the forest as he lay propped up watching a group of players led by a familiar yellow furry face.
“Where the hell did he go?”
“I don't know, does it look like I know? I'm searching for him same as you!”
“Hey I just asked a question dude, why are you so pissy?”
“Because he shot me in the face! I lost hours of progress and a bunch of XP for my skills! I want him dead!”
“Dude, it's just a game,”
“JUST A GAME?!” Sonichu yelled, turning on his companion, another furry player. “How about I TK you here and now and you come back not pissed?!”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Chill dude dang, have you eaten a Snickers? You aren't you when you're hungry.”
“Shut up! He's around here somewhere!”
Fisk eyed the duo, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he waited for his mana to regenerate.
He clutched his shotgun, the weapon unable to fire without mana but still usable as a club as he kept close to the earth as much as possible without laying down.
Then… they passed, allowing Fisk a moment to breathe as he shifted towards the mound of mud beside him that suddenly blinked.
“You okay?” Fisk whispered, the woman nodding as her eyes and nose became visible from the mud. “We need to move, the immortals will be out in a frenzy, it isn't safe.”
Fisk reached down, helping the woman up who groaned as she looked down at her ruined clothes.
“Great… I don't even have a spare…”
“I’ll give you ten minutes… then we'll have to move again.”
“Ten?!” Faith said with exasperation, “Only ten?!”
“I'd prefer three but you seem like you need the extra seven.”
Faith scowled before her face went blank as a loud growl sounded out.
“Grrrrrr.”
Fisk tensed, his eyes darting left and right, the sound of a predator causing his anxiety to shoot up his entire body.
Damn… I'm only at nine mp! If I have to fight I'm screwed!
“Grrrr.”
The sound again, it was close, too close, almost as if-
“Grrr.”
Fisk turned to Faith, the woman frowning with embarrassment as her stomach let out another loud predatory growl.
“Stahp! Don't look at me like that! I haven't eaten since yesterday!” Faith shouted. “I'm starving!”
“You had all that time in the kitchen, you didn't eat?” Fisk said, scanning his surroundings.
“No… I was making lunch,” Faith said, her face almost pouting, “And waiting so we could eat together…”
Fisk's head shifted to stare at the woman looking away, “Oh…”
“Oh? Oh what?” Faith said, “Stop looking at me like-!”
Suddenly Fisk shoved Faith down, the woman splattering into the mud only for Fisk to join her a moment later as she screamed.
“Quiet!” Fisk whispered, silencing Faith's muffled protests as yet another patrol of players ran by.
Fisk frowned, with his SP low, Faith’s constantly growling stomach, and packs of roving angry of players, today was going to be a long day.
“Okay Fisk… time to put all this training to use again…”
****
Sam blinked, the blacksmith staring at the ruins of her collapsed workshop as Immortals surrounded and pestered her.
Anger. Sadness. Disbelief. Emotions one should feel at the moment of losing one's entire life's work yet all Sam felt was…
Indifference.
No, not indifference, something different, like a roof that had been removed from her home to allow her to see the sky for the first time.
At first, she had noticed a slight change when she touched Faith's boytoy, a slight brush of his hand as she had taken his blueprint from her.
It tingled, like a mana spark, the fog around the world somehow lifting to reveal more and allow her to see.
But… she wasn't sure what she was seeing. A mystery that blossomed within as she stared at the wreckage of her home.
Her home?
Sam gripped the smoldering hammer in her hand, the only item she had managed to salvage before her home collapsed.
Then, a movie of a lifetime began to play in her mind, the heat, the sweat, the hours of practicing her craft, memories of years spent tolling away inside her forge. Yet, as she recounted them, somehow they felt…
Fake.
Like she was seeing, not experiencing something that had happened to another.
“Samantha…” Sam said, her own name strange as it came out of her mouth.
Sam dropped her hammer and looked past the clambering crowd, her attention off to the distant forest where Fisk and Faith had fled to.
The unknown… for one reason or another, something was calling to her, like there was more to this life than just her forge, more than just this village.
Sam looked down at her rough hands, her hammer already snatched away by an immortal raising it up high like a trophy before scurrying away.
She blinked, furrowed her brow, her first instinct to smite the immortal but unable to summon the will as strange thoughts clouded her mind.
Then, without a word, Sam walked off, pushing past the other villages who had joined with the immortals to witness the spectacle of her life's work gone.
