“Damn this is too hard! How am I supposed to translate this?” grumbled Zundar as tried to read the old book that Akira had bought. He had been given the task to read and write down the proper modern translation of the words in the book.
Whenever the group stopped to rest or for a meal Zundar was working on translating the book.
“Didn’t you say that you knew how to read the ancient language?” asked Akira as he looked at the Mysterious cursive scribbles mixed in with hieroglyphics.
Grarr looked at the pages along with Akira and had no idea how someone could understand anything like written language. Some people and races were just too strange.
“It’s been over several hundred years since I last read something like this. I’m a bit rusty, and even back then I didn’t read much. I was more into training with my weapons…”
“Will you be able to translate the book or…”
“I already looked at the book and it seems to have three sections. I am ashamed to say I can only read the first section. Burkin do you know if your clan has any dictionaries to help me?”
“No,” said Burkin, shaking his head. “We may have recorded information about the kingdom but there are too many kingdoms and cities that have all risen and fallen leaving only a footnote in our history books. Way too many to be keeping detailed language and other data for each one.”
“What is the book about? I hope it’s not someone’s random notes,” asked Akira. He was worried he had bought a worthless item.
“From what I have translated so far it seems to be the training manual used by the royal sorcerers of my past kingdom,” Zundar looked at his written notes for a second. “Something about Holy specialization.”
Akira looked to Klyn who was standing next to Zundar looking at his notes. “What do you think Klyn? Can you learn it?”
“I’m not completely sure since he hasn’t finished translating all of it. I have a feeling that it has a slight similarity to my own studies, it’s just going about it in a different way.”
“I hope that the two of you can crack the book’s secrets so you can put it to good use,” said Akira as he put out the fire that had been used to cook their lunch.
Several days passed as they quickened their pace towards Ribor city.
“We should be reaching the village either tonight or early next morning,” said Burkin as he looked at the nearby towering snow-covered mountain that had several pine trees covering its base.
The road leading to the village looked well maintained but they found no one traveling it all morning.
“Is this normal?” asked Akira.
“Yes we are a race that generally does not like to exit our mines and caves… but now that you mention it, it does seem odd that we have not even seen a merchant or farmer in the area.”
As they walked further along the path Akira and the other werewolves could smell a strong scent of blood coming from a clump of trees further down the road.
Akira followed his nose and stopped right under a tree. He looked up into the branches to see what it was.
‘Someone is up there,’ said Grarr as he sniffed the air.
The other guards surrounded Akira and the tree in question. Their weapons were drawn as they stared at the shadow figure in the tree.
“Wait! Friends, there is no need to be hostile!”
The shadow figure jumped from the high branches and fell face-first into the snow below the tree.
A short man who was maybe a head and a half taller than Burkin, stood up and wiped his pale chubby face and brushed the snow off his raggedy clothing.
“I have no armor or weapons to attack you! Please team up with me! I need your help to fight some monsters so I can get my items back. The monsters are terrorizing the local area back at the caves,” said the fumbling man. Akira focused on the man to find out who he was [Billy B. Babyface].
Without a word, Akira gave the silent command to stand down. His guards were unsure what he was doing but followed his orders.
Seeing this [Billy B. Babyface] happily started to talk quickly, “Thank you! You won’t regret teaming up with me I know the cave quite well.”
Akira ignored the man and turned around, he raised his sword to return it back to its sheath…
“If you just follow me you…”
Shunk!
“…Gurgle.” [Billy B. Babyface] fell to the ground. His neck had been pierced through and was almost severed by the sneak attack from Akira’s special extending sword. His face had an evil grin that had contorted into shock at the sudden attack that took his life.
Everyone else was just as shocked as [Billy B. Babyface] when they saw Akira attack without warning.
Ding!
-
You have killed Infected criminal [Billy B. Babyface].
With his death [Billy B. Babyface] has been cleansed of his infection.
Class upgrade… 50% …
“Be on guard there may be more demigods lurking around,” said Akira as he sniffed the air. He had no time to be playing games with demigods. If they showed up he would kill them.
“Demigods!” said Burkin.
The body of the [Billy B. Babyface] disappeared into many light particles only leaving a pair of blue metal gauntlets on the bloody snow.
“Grobe’s gauntlets? Why did that demigod have these?” asked Burkin as he picked up the gauntlets.
“What I want to know is where he was hiding them,” said Zundar. In his mind, there was only one place it could be and that was gross.
“Lord, I have found tracks that lead back towards the mountains. Do you want to follow them or should we keep going to the village,” asked Dolph.
“We need to check and see if there really are any dangerous monsters in the area,” said Akira as he hopped back onto Grarr and followed the footprints all the way to a small cave.
Akira took out a torch from his bag and lit it before tossing it into the cave to light up the darkness inside. He could not use his nose to see what was inside as the smell of blood was overpowering every other scent.
He was unable to find anything suspicious so he led the group inside with their shields raised.
Akira waited just inside for a second expecting a system message to pop up but there was none.
The cave was only a medium size but the ceiling was too far above them still covered in pitch black.
Looking around the cave he could not see any blood or waste on the ground or walls. Everything in the cave was covered in fresh snow that had been undisturbed.
In one corner of the cave, there was a pile of bones that looked to have been gnawed on. From what Akira could see the majority of the bones were smaller, but thick, meaning they were probably bones from dead Dwarves.
“Why is all this stuff here?” asked Burkin, as he walked over to a pile of metal armor, weapons, and tools.
Fluffball walked over to the pile and nosed around finding several piles of gold coins, uncut gems, jewelry, and even some stale food which he ignored.
“This looks to be the demigod’s stash of loot he took from those he killed,” said Akira.
“Yap!” said Fluffball as he dragged a bag full of coins towards Akira.
Akira reached down to scratch Fluffball’s head when a loud high pitch sonic screech echoed throughout the cave.
“SCREEEEE!”
One after another, 100’s of screeches echoed through the cave, all coming from the darkness above them. The loud noise caused everyone severe pain in their sensitive ears causing some to try and cover their ears that were still under their helmets.
While they were in pain from the screeches hundreds of bats the size of an adult’s head, swooped down while continuing to screech before they collided with the werewolves and Zundar below.
[Level 60 Bloodsucking Bats]
“Damn annoying gnats!” growled Zundar as he ripped several bats off his body as they tried to latch onto him and bite open his tough skin.
The cavern was full of chaos as everyone was getting swarmed by the bats that were trying to claw and bite through their armor’s weak points.
Akira pulled Burkin away from the pile of loot and retreated back towards Klyn, Dolph, and Vilkas slashing at any bat that came near him as he protected the two.
Klyn quickly chanted off buffs for everyone while under the protection provided by the others.
Blood from a bat that had been split in two rained into Akira’s helmet visor and splashed his face.
Ding!
-
You have resisted the [Blood sucking Bats] Infection.
“Don’t get the blood on your skin! You too Fluffball, don’t go eating anything,” shouted Akira as he knocked back the swarm of bats trying to latch onto him and the two behind him.
“Too late!” said Zundar who was already drenched in the blood of dead bats.
“Roar!” said Fluffball who had already transformed and was just about to eat one of the bats he had slaughtered.
A few of the other guards exclaimed worried questions as they fought the dwindling numbers of bats.
They were forced to dodge and weave away from the bats attacks as well as the splattering of blood as they were killed.
The bodies of the dead bats piled up on the ground where they were killed. The cave floor was now slick with blood and melted snow.
“What about this blood?” asked Zundar.
“You need to wash it off immediately, you could be infected. Klyn please look over them and see if you can use your healing ability on them. Just don’t touch them.”
Akira looked at the dead bats on the ground trying to figure out their secrets.
When Klyn finished casting his buffs on those who had received wounds he walked up to one of the larger piles of dead bats near Akira.
“What do you think? Do they have something that can infect others?”
“From the wounds I saw, there wasn’t anything serious. But if it does end up getting worse I think I can take care of it or at least keep them alive until my grandfather can take a look at it,” said Klyn.
“Is…is that the last of them?” asked Burkin looking up at the quiet dark cavern ceiling.
“I can’t sense anything but let’s not stay here any longer. We can let the local guards know of this place and have them keep an eye on it. They can make sure no one uses it again for a hideout,” said Akira.
“Help me carry all the dwarven crafted items back so I can return them to their relatives,” said Burkin.
“What about the other stuff?” asked Akira.
“You can split it amongst yourselves or sell it to me,” said Burkin.
Akira helped Burkin pick up the items from the ground and stored them in his bag. There was quite a haul. It seemed that [Billy B. Babyface] had been using this place for quite some time.
As Akira and the others left the cave two human-sized red eyes opened and peaked out of a hole at the top of the ceiling.
“Damn that useless fellow! If he hadn’t already died I would go and kill him myself for leading such a large group of strong people to my cave! They killed all my minions! Now I have to start all over again…” mumbled an angry high pitched male voice as he stared daggers at the empty cave entrance.
“Should I go and kill them?” the voice changed to a flat tone as he asked himself the question while fuming at his loss.
“No…best to stay here and be safe…” said the high pitched voice.
“Right It’s definitely not that I am scared of them or anything. I just can’t grace those lowly people with my lordly presence.”
“Right! It is best if I rebuild my forces and take my revenge on them then!”
***
Akira and the werewolves sat at a large stone table inside of Ribor city’s clan meeting hall. Several other elderly Dwarves sat at the table with him and his guards.
“As Hiber said the book does look like something from the ancient kingdom you mentioned but we do not have any material to help you read it.”
“That’s a shame,” said Klyn as he had now had no clue how he could read the other sections.
“We’ll make sure that we keep an eye out for anyone around that area you mentioned,” said an elderly dwarf who had droopy eyelids that made him look like he was ready to fall asleep at any minute.
“We encountered some odd bats that may have infectious blood at that cave. So you should also be careful of them as well,” said Klyn.
“The culprit was a demigod so you cannot let your guard down. You should make sure that anyone who goes out there is not alone,” said Akira.
“We are grateful for your help in returning the stolen property of those killed. It is no problem for us to accept a basic trade agreement with you to further strengthen our relationship with each other,” said Hiber.
“I would suggest that you prepare for some hard times coming in the future. As there will be one or two armies passing by. As well as the demigod problem,” said Akira.
“Is there something you know that we should be aware of?” asked Hiber.
“Nothing concrete, it is just a warning so that you can be prepared.”
“Very well, we wish that you all have a safe journey back to your city.”
