Chapter 22 – A Dangerous Place to be Level One

  “What are we going to do?” Elaine whispered. They stood on top of a branch overlooking the scene. They haven’t been noticed by either group yet, but their window to act was closing.

  “I don’t know but we need to act fast,” Jack said. “Do you think we can take three of them?”

  “Maybe,” Elaine muttered. “If we act fast. None of these are the elite ones. I think these are among the weakest of them, but I don’t know if we can handle any more if they call for reinforcements.”

  “Then don’t let them,” came a throaty voice from behind them.

  “What the…” Jack nearly fell off the branch but caught himself before he alerted the Wenduags. He turned around and saw Jasper sitting on the branch behind them.

  “Act now, explanations later,” Jasper said.

  “Right,” Jack said. “I’m going in. Back me up?”

  “Right behind you,” Elaine said.

  Shifting down to the ground, Jack reappeared behind the Wenduags. Before they could notice his presence, he took a low stance and thrust out with his spear, channeling his Imbued Strike skill as he did. He struck one of the Wenduags squarely in the back piercing through its thick hide. The wound quickly started to turn black and red where Jack’s spear cut.

  “Jack?” He heard Bryant call, but he didn’t respond.

  With a thought, Jack activated his Spinning Blaze Ward and pulled back removing the spear from the Wenduag. He was readying for another strike but had to dodge instead. The other two Wenduags were quick to react to the new threat, and he found himself moving on reflex. Jack dodged three swift strikes from one of the Wenduag, and he had to teleport behind another as it tried to jump on him. He swiped his spear across the back of the one that tried to smash him, before having to move again as the other two were attacking again.

  The exchange lasted only a few seconds, but in that time, Jack managed to keep the three Wenduags focused on him as he placed himself in the middle, between Bryant and the Wenduags. He even managed to land a few of his own strikes as they exchanged blows. It was a strange sensation. He remembered when he had first seen the Wenduags, he couldn’t comprehend how fast they were, but now they appeared slow to him. Well not slow, they were anything but slow, but slow enough that Jack could keep up and track their movements as they made them.

  Jack focused on dodging and keeping the three Wenduags busy as the poison from his spear and the fire from his ward slowly battered and weakened them. He barely noticed when Elaine joined the fight a few moments after him. She dashed into the fray, stabbing one of the Wenduag who was focused on Jack with her daggers. There was a strange discharge of Mana and Jack thought he felt static electricity fill the air like the moment before a lightning strike, and the next moment one of the Wenduags was twitching on the ground struggling to stand up.

  Jack took advantage of the distraction to land several more strikes on one of the Wenduags as it tried to react to the new arrival. He swiped his spear in a large arch catching the two with the swing. It barely managed to cut their skin, but that was enough to add more of the poison from the spear.

  The three Wenduags were not looking too good now. All three had taken at least one of Jack spear strikes and a few impacts from his orbs. The one Elaine had brought low was now being stabbed repeatedly as Elaine moved around the giant ape. It tried to fend Elaine off, but she was a blur of motion as she dodged and stabbed at it in a flurry of strikes. Combined with trying to recover from the electric shock it had received, he was too overwhelmed to fend her off.

  Meanwhile, one of the Wenduags was barely able to stand. Jack could see the poison starting to work and even if he did nothing more to it, he doubted the Wenduag would last much longer.

  A thought that the last and healthiest of the Wenduags had as well. It took one glance at its two companions along with Jack and Elaine still unscathed throughout the entire fight. It did what was probably the smartest thing it could do. It turned and ran.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Jack yelled after it. He started to chase after it but stopped to make sure Elaine and Bryant were okay.

  “Go!” Elaine yelled at him. “I can handle these two. Don’t let it get back to the others!”

  Jack took off after the Wenduag using his Shadow Shifting to catch up to it. “Zyne, hug!”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “HUG!” Zyne’s excited voice came out at the same time as a long thorny vine sprung out of Jack wrapping itself around the Wenduag. Zyne quickly constricted the Wenduag binding its arms and legs causing it to trip and crash into the ground. The Wenduag tried to break free. It was too strong for Zyne to fully constrict, but it kept moving around the Wenduag, leaving a trail of blood where its thorn cut into the Wenduag and preventing it from being able to stand up.

  The Wenduag tried to call out, but Jack was already there, throwing a ball of fire into the Wenduag’s head, stunning it and preventing it from yelling. Jack followed up with a few quick stabs of his spear to finish it off. He doubted it would be able to escape from Zyne and given enough time he was certain that the poison already in its system would eventually kill it, but he wasn’t sure how long that would take. He didn’t like the creatures but there was no reason to have it suffer like that.

  Still, Jack made sure to keep attacking it until he got the kill notification. Once the notification appeared, he quickly looted the Wenduag and ran back to the others. Zyne let out a mild complaint about having lost his hugging companion, but Jack ignored it as he ran pass, picking up the Familiar as he did. There was still two more Wenduag he hadn’t received any kill notifications about.

  It didn’t take him long to return to the others, but he needn’t have rushed. Elaine was still busy taking care of the Wenduag on the ground but was keeping a close eye on the second Wenduag who appeared to be slowly succumbing to the poison and hadn’t moved since Jack left.

  It wasn’t long before another kill notification popped up in front of Jack as Elaine finished off hers. Jack quickly scanned the area making sure there was nothing else waiting for them, but only Bryant stood watching everything that had happened.

  “Dude, what the fuck!” Bryant practically yelled.

  “Let’s keep the voice levels down,” Elaine whispered. “We made enough of a racket already.”

  “Is everyone okay?” Jack asked

  “I’m fine,” Elaine said.

  “Same,” Bryant said. “But what was all that? Where’d you two come from?”

  “We can explain,” Jack said. “But first I think we should find somewhere safer.”

  “We should clear any signs of us being here first then get away before other show up to investigate,” Elaine said.

  “I’m for that,” Jack said. “First things first though.”

  Jack went over to Elaine’s fallen Wenduag and looted it, adding its loot to his Storage. Turning to the last Wenduag, he was about to put it out of its misery but was stopped by Jasper jumping down onto his head.

  “Wait,” Jasper said.

  “What, why?” Jack asked.

  “Did that frog just talk?” Bryant asked.

  “Not a frog,” Jasper croaked to Bryant before saying to Jack. “This is a dangerous place to be level one. Let him finish this one. You’ll still get most of the experience for the effort, but it might be enough to help him catch up a little. He’ll need levels if he wants a chance of surviving out here.”

  “Your call,” Elaine said. “But make it fast. I don’t want to be here too long.”

  “You ever kill anything?” Jack asked.

  “Managed to get something called a Skee the other day,” Bryant said. He approached the Wenduag, coming to stand next to Jack.

  “Think you can kill this?” Jack asked.

  “Sure,” Bryant said. “I don’t think I can afford to be a pacifist here anyways. I’m not against a little power leveling either.”

  “Let’s just hope it’s not enough to get you to level five just yet,” Jack said.

  Bryant brought up his spear, leveling it at the Wenduag. “You know,” Bryant said. “It looks a lot more human-like now that it isn’t trying to kill me.”

  “It’s a four-arm gorilla creature with three eyes,” Elaine said.

  “But it’s like… in the eyes, you know,” Bryant said.

  “It’s going to die either way,” Jack said. “The poison will make sure of that. You’d just be putting it out of a slower more painful death. If it is a problem, I can do it. Believe me, I understand.”

  “No,” Bryant said. “I can do this. Alright here I go.” Bryant raised his spear pulling it back to strike but stopped again.

  “I don’t know man,” Bryant said. “Just feels wrong to kill it when it isn’t even doing anything.”

  “It was going to do something before we got here,” Jack said. “And even if it does survive the poison, we can’t let it go now.”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Elaine said.

  “She’s right, Bryant,” Jack said. “If you can’t, then I will. But we got to get moving now.”

  “Alright, alright,” Bryant said. He raised the spear again to strike and with one quick thrust, stabbed the spear into the Wenduag, ending its life. A notification popped up in front of Jack confirming the kill.

  “Great,” Jasper said. “Time to get moving. Ciao, that means you too.”

  “Ciao is here too?” Jack said.

  “Not by choice,” Ciao said, jumping down from a tree branch. “Bonded Familiars have a tether to their summoners, and you went too far away from us. I was about to try some of that delicious looking cooked Rouke lying around when I was yanked here.”

  “What the fuck?” Bryant exclaimed. “Can all animals talk here?”

  “Great,” Jasper said, ignoring Bryant’s comment. “We are all here and everyone is still alive. Is there a place nearby that we can go right now?”

  “I’m not familiar with the area,” Jack said. “Maybe Zephyr can find somewhere.”

  “I can do that,” Zephyr said.

  “And the talking spirit is back too,” Bryant shook his head. “This is unreal.”

  “Let’s find somewhere to hide first then we can have Zephyr scout around,” Elaine said ignoring Bryant.

  “It’s all real,” Jack said looting the last Wenduag like the others. It dissolved into brown and green smoke as it broke down into a large amount of fur and meat in his Storage. “Hopefully that might help hide what happened here. Just to be sure though, we should try focus on trying to hide our tracks as we leave.”

  “You think we might have left a trail coming here?” Elaine asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Jack said. “Both our movement skills allowed us to pass through the area with little interaction with the environment. Hopefully that will be enough.”