DD1 ASC - Chapter 11 - Hunt

"I don't see why I couldn't have picked a sword. This hammer is too heavy." Arilla complained as she collapsed in the sand exhausted. The warrior having long since pushed past her empty stamina pool, meagre as it was, by repeatedly swinging her new weapon at the straw-filled training dummy for the better part of the morning.

"What are your skills again?" Typhoeus asked, his voice tinged with condescension as he called out from the edge of the training grounds, where he was comfortably reclining on a wood and canvas sun lounger. His attention currently split between ‘supervising’ Arilla and the children's picture book that he was discreetly trying to decipher. A book that he had taken great pains to keep hidden inside the cover jacket of a primer on some local God who allegedly ascended in Terythia a couple of centuries ago.

The two of them were in a large courtyard located around the back of the adventurer’s hall, where several runically reinforced scarecrow-like dummies were arranged in an open sand filled square, allowing for adventurers to practice their skills against something vaguely man shaped. The training courtyard was surprisingly unpopular, with higher-level adventurers either completely forsaking such mundane forms of training or doing it in more private and likely higher-end training facilities. On the one hand, it made a lazy kind of sense; why bother training your class skills when you could just go hunt something and improve them whilst also trying to level up? Certainly a much less tedious method of improving oneself over the incremental gains that come with practice and repetition. But Typhoeus needed to stall Arilla a little bit longer while her body recovered from its malnutrition and packed on some much needed muscle as she got used to the idea of wielding an actual weapon rather than a stout stick.

After the bathing incident two days ago, Arilla suddenly seemed a lot less disposable. The things that she had done to Typhoeus’s body was more than enough to make him question everything he thought he knew about human sexuality. To think that the human form was capable of so easily experiencing that much pleasure was mind-boggling to him. That a sensation he normally associated with levelling could so easily be replicated and surpassed by the skilled waggling of human fingers was enough to make him reconsider a career of adventuring entirely, as a small part of him vocally advocated in favour of devoting himself to a life of hedonism. Arilla had given him a wholly new perspective, and for that he was grateful, so much so that he was loath to risk his newly revalued pet warrior, especially when a little bit of work now would make it that much easier to keep her alive in the long run.

"You know what they are, I’ve already told you, and when I did you made me put down the sword and pick up this stupid hammer." She continued from her vantage on the floor.

"What are they?" Typhoeus asked again, a hint of irritation in his voice as he carefully closed his picture book.

"[Heavy Blows] and [Warriors Strength]." Arilla said glumly, already anticipating Typhoeus's answer.

"Well, there you go then. You choose not one but two skills to help you swing heavy things. Heavy things, I repeat, not sharp things, so that's why you don't get a sword. Anyway, you should be thanking me for letting you use my credit like that, not complaining that my gifts are too heavy for you." Typhoeus said.

"But they are Typh, the hammer is one thing, but the mail shirt is too heavy." She complained.

"No, it's not; you’re just weak. You should be glad that my credit doesn't extend to a suit of platemail, or you’d be struggling in that. Besides, you are eating more meat and sleeping in a proper bed, you're getting stronger every day. Once you get both of your skills up to level 2, we'll take on another bounty and see if we can level up some more."

"It's just not fair that I have to train all day while you get to relax," Arilla said, pouting slightly as she sat up wiping away the sheen of sweat covering her brow with the back of her hand.

"Well, you got your class a week before me; it only makes sense that you'd be a little ahead on the levelling curve." Typhoeus lied, well aware that most of the experience he earned was wasted on his capped class. "Just don't worry about it. You got [Warriors Strength] to level 2 yesterday, so [Heavy Blows] can't be too far behind."

It had been two days since the Shining Swords had left Rhelea on a wild dragon chase to go hunt some poor creature that they had mistaken for Typhoeus. Considering that he was currently staying in their favoured inn in a room that they had paid for, he almost felt guilty for the long weeks in the mountains that lay ahead of them. But then again, they were out there trying to kill him, so it wasn’t like they didn’t deserve a few weeks of uncomfortable mattresses and Riyoul’s lousy cooking.

[Alternate Form] had reached level 37 yesterday, raising the cap on his much reduced physical attributes to match, but other than that, he had yet to see any real growth since taking his class from the chained dungeon core. He was getting antsy. They had already travelled across Rhelea to the different stores that the Shining Swords had given him credit at and used the majority of it to outfit Arilla with some decent starting gear. Now that the warrior wouldn't be going into battle clothed in rags and armed with a stick, the only thing holding them back was [Heavy Blows] refusal to level. An issue that was greatly exacerbated by Arilla's pitiful stamina supply.

Eventually, Arilla got up and resumed her training allowing Typhoeus to relax in his sun lounger as the afternoon’s heat, and the sounds of Arilla's warhammer intermittently smacking into the training dummy lulled him into a gentle sleep. He dreamt briefly of soaring through the sky on warm updrafts, of towering over his cowering siblings and of going on an extraordinary journey to visit his mother, who was somehow back safe from the Everwar. It was a nice enough dream until he remembered that his mother was most certainly dead and that it was his siblings who in fact towered over him. Their cries of terror morphing into domineering roars as they held him down, their loud voices rumbling through his bones as they commanded him to leave the Dragonspines and never return. Again he felt their claws rip into his scales. His wings break beneath their jaws. Then finally, almost as if it was a mercy they released him, letting him run away on four legs like some pathetic landbound mammal as the force of successive blasts of [Sovereign’s Breath] periodically buffeted him into the sides of the mountains that he fled across.

"I did it!" Arilla exclaimed in triumph, her shout of enthusiasm startling Typhoeus from his nap and saving him from his rapidly worsening nightmare.

"Great, in that case we can get lunch while we browse the notices." He said, feeling a little shaken as he discreetly wiped some drool away from the corner of his mouth.

The two of them walked into the main hall to find themselves a suitable kill quest, which was easier said than done. Rhelea's proximity to the Dragonspines meant that there was an endless supply of monsters and the like for adventurers to hunt and kill. The quests on offer reflected that, with the vast majority of them offering large rewards for specific monster parts that were wanted by various crafter's or alchemists within the town or by merchants who would then go on to distribute them throughout the country.

The issue was that the vast majority of those quests required long expeditions into the massive mountain range where high levelled monsters freely intermingled and preyed upon the low, ensuring that any such trip was a virtual death sentence for the sufficiently under-levelled. Sure they had the necessary levels to hunt goblins and stray kobolds, but to physically get to the right hunting grounds, they would first have to embark on an epic journey through an area where levels varied from 1 to 30. A journey that Arilla simply couldn’t survive, and Typhoeus would struggle to maintain his guise as an average low levelled mage. The guild was seemingly aware of this problem and kept a carefully curated list of accessible low levelled monster dens that were more annoyance than a threat for the graduates of their adventuring classes to complete as they ground their way through their early levels. Of course, these kill quests assumed a balanced party of at least four where each member was a minimum level of 5. It wasn't that they would be remotely challenging for him, but Typhoeus was hoping to avoid the attention that completing those bounties would undoubtedly garner given their lower level and much smaller team.

Typhoeus was making good use of his credit with the Adventurers Guild. Rather than taking the time intensive lessons and training provided by the guilds instructors, he had instead been buying food, a lot of it. While he was undoubtedly enjoying the humans' expertise with spices, the true value of the meals lay in trying to quickly build back Arilla’s strength by stuffing her full of mana rich monster meat. Given the comparative cost between food from the small kitchen behind the bar, and the months of tuition from high-level adventurers, they had enough credit to eat well for the better part of a year. Arilla returned from scouring the boards with a handful of multicoloured notices just as their lunch arrived. She sat down at the table opposite Typhoeus and he listened to her intently as she described the numerous bounties on offer as he made a start on his meal.

"What we need is to find out where those goblins came from," Typhoeus said after she was done before tearing into a large shank of unidentified meat.

"What? But what's wrong with these notices?" Arilla asked, gesturing to the small slips of coloured paper arrayed on their table.

"That pink one is to literally find someone's pet cat." Typhoeus said, sounding unimpressed between bites.

"Okay, so they're not all great, but goblins can't take over every farmstead within a day's walk of Rhelea," Arilla said, sounding exasperated.

"I wish they would," Typhoeus grumbled, sticking another large forkful of meat into his mouth as he began chewing loudly.

"What was that?" Arilla asked.

"Nothing," Typhoeus said. "As I was saying, we should go back to the farm and track down the goblins that ran away."

"Okay, I’ll admit that I do hate goblins, but I don’t want to waste a few days chasing after a small group that should have already been picked up by an outlying patrol." She said frowning.

"Do you have a better idea? Because I am not accepting a notice to go looking for a cat. I want to kill something, and goblins are practically everywhere. Even if they are all dead, we’ll likely stumble onto something else out there level worthy." He said, shaking his fork animatedly, not noticing until it was too late how droplets of meat juices were shaken across the table.

"But there's no notice…." Arilla said, sounding hesitant.

"No, there isn't, but each goblin ear is still good for two chalkoi, and the levels are worth more anyway." He said with a triumphant smile.

"Okay, I guess but isn’t there anything else we can do?"

"Well, there are those bandits..." Typhoeus said, his eyes lighting up with a predatory glint.

“No, Typh. I am not killing people, not for any amount of money.” Arilla said resolutely.

“The money is pretty good considering they don't even have levels, so it’s not like it would be hard.” He continued.

“They don’t have levels because their lord refused to let them near a class stone. There’s a reason that bounty is unfilled; half the people in Rhelea were ‘bandits’ from some noble or anothers estate until they made it inside the town's walls and became people again.” She said, her voice rising in volume as she became visibly angry.

“Fine, fine, no killing other humans then, I get it. So the goblins?” He asked hopefully, not wanting to risk her ire again so soon.

“Yeah alright, let’s go kill some monsters. After all, it’s why the Gods put the soulless things here for.” She said, not noticing how her words made Typhoeus’s smile fall.

The walk back to the farm was as boring for Typhoeus as it was the first time around. The land gently flattening out as the rolling hills that surrounded the large town slowly turned into carefully cultivated farmland. This time, he was treated to a new set of complaints from Arilla. "My armour is heavy.", "My hammer is heavy.", "Do I have to wear it while we walk?". Typhoeus decided then that it was a good thing that they had left Rhelea so soon, he needed the reminder of how irritating the young warrior truly was. A shared bath and a few nights in the same small bed, and suddenly he was treating his disposable minion like a treasured item from within his hoard.

He looked at her, really looked. Arilla was taller than him at 5 feet and 10 inches or so to his own meagre 5 and 0. She was uncomfortably thin, with only the barest hints of muscle and fat reappearing on her frame as a result of her newly improved diet. Her hair was long and auburn, tied back in a tight braid that was tucked underneath her mail shirt as it fell halfway down her back. Her face was intangibly soft, and despite her lack of fat giving her an almost gaunt look, her cheekbones somehow retained a roundness to them that made her seem younger than her 18 years. Her hazel eyes were extremely expressive, alight with a curiosity and enthusiasm that seemed to almost grow in intensity with each passing day. She was wearing a modest cotton blouse and pair of dyed blue trousers, a marked improvement on her tattered rags that she once wore before. Of course, all of that was covered up by the long mail shirt that was belted around her narrow waist and hung down to the top of her knees, giving her a delightful metallic scent that enchanted Typhoeus’s refined nose.

"Is something wrong?" She asked, chewing her lip nervously as she looked back at Typhoeus inquisitively.

"No, we're close; get your hammer ready." He said dismissively, as he refocused his attention to better observe their surroundings.

"Oh right, sure." She said as she fumbled for the heavy weapon tied to her belt, clasping it firmly in two hands as she marched onwards. Typhoeus hanging back for several seconds like a good mage before following, after all it was only proper to let the warrior go first.

The farmhouse was much as they had left it. The former residents likely had no interest in returning, and the Traylans who actually owned the land had yet to find new tenants. With that said, it was also apparent that the area had been looted, with the farm equipment that the goblins had once wielded now being conspicuously absent. That wasn't all that was missing however, as the goblin corpses which they had left to rot where they fell had all been removed, with wide streaks of blood along the ground making it obvious the direction that they had been taken in.

As they approached the blood trail, Typhoeus was getting unpleasantly strong scents of goblin through [Sovereign’s Perception], but beneath that, there was something else, something more pungent. He relaxed his face into his usual predatory smile, delighting in how its presence caused Arilla to look around nervously. He quickly scanned the ground around the trail for something to confirm his suspicions, taking note of how the loose and sandy topsoil had been disturbed first by the creatures passing, and then again by the strong winds that tended to blow across the plains.

"Something big went that way," Typhoeus said, pointing in the general direction of the blood trails.

"I could have told you that," Arilla said, sounding unimpressed. “Any idea if we can kill it?”

“Yeah, it should be below level 5. Easy experience.” Typhoeus lied as he began following the blood trail, his nose and his skill telling him that it wasn’t particularly far.

[Ogre level 12]

“That is clearly not below level 5.“ Arilla whispered, her panic rising as she watched the monster sharpen its oversized tusks against a precariously leaning willow tree.

“Oh, come on its only level 12. We can take it, just think of the levels.” Typhoeus urged as he leaned in close against the warrior, pressing his small body against hers as they both lay flat beneath the long wild grasses of the disused field.

The ogre lazily picked up a fallen goblin, lifting it effortlessly up into the air with one of its overly large hands wrapped around the much smaller creature's green leg. It opened its mouth wide, revealing a huge gaping maw filled with thick flat teeth, as it carefully lowered the goblin corpse towards its mouth and bit a large chunk out of the decomposing corpse. It chewed loudly, its blunt teeth pulverising flesh and splintering bone as it enjoyed its meal, a gormless look of contentment on its almost human face as it ingested its mouthful of rancid flesh. The unsettling sounds of its mastication echoed out through the open air to where Typhoeus and Arilla hid, the two lying flat on the ground in an attempt to evade detection as they observed their chosen prey.

Arilla watched on white as a sheet as the enormous creature finished its mouthful with a loud belch before taking another massive bite of foul green meat. The ogre rested its broad back against the ailing tree, occasionally pausing with its meal to scratch its leathery hide with its large blunted fingernails.

“We can’t fight that; how would I even...” She said, her words trailing off into nothing.

“With your hammer of course, just because it’s taller than you doesn’t make it unkillable. You can’t go your entire career hunting things shorter than you.” Typhoeus said with no small amount of amusement.

“No, I guess not...” Arilla said meekly.

“Okay, now listen up. Ogres are scavengers for the most part. They are too slow and stupid to really hunt anything, and this is one is just a baby.” Typhoeus said knowingly.

“That’s a baby?” She hissed.

“Well, technically it’s a child. Now don’t interrupt. As I was saying, think of it as just a really big flesh-eating child. It’s barely past the second interval, so your strength scores won’t be too dissimilar, but it’s almost twice your size so if it hits you, then you’re probably not getting back up without a healer.” He said.

“So I’m supposed to just defeat a monster 10ft tall without taking a single hit.” Arilla asked sarcastically.

“I make it 9 and a half feet.” Typhoeus corrected.

“Are you serious?” She said, her resistance to the idea wavering.

“I don’t see what you're complaining about; you have a warhammer, a coat of chainmail and me. It will be easy. Now, do you feel ready?” He asked, nudging her reassuringly.

“No I don’t, but I guess you’re right. I’ll never achieve anything if I try to stay in my comfort zone.” She said with something resembling determination.

“Good,” Typhoeus said with a warm smile before he quickly stood up from his hiding place in the long grass, his shimmering golden dress catching the last rays from the setting sun and immediately attracting the ogre’s attention. He raised an arm, firing off a low powered mana bolt just to make sure it noticed him. The giant creature rocking back on its heels as a chunk of condensed mana hit it squarely on the forehead. A large torrent of blood spraying out everywhere despite the spell failing to penetrate the creature's thick skull. Most of the mana dispersing around it’s tough, apparently mana resistant hide.

It roared in anguish, blindly charging forwards as thick blood covered its eyes, kicking up great clumps of dirt as knuckle walked towards them at great speed. Typhoeus looked down at Arilla, smiling sweetly as he looked at his warrior.

“Well, go on then. Slay the ogre for me.”