The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound

Several hours later, Decklan picked blood out from under his nails, waiting for his hands to stop trembling. Tera sat huddled up next to him, dull eyed and unfocused, her blood stained daggers laying next to her.

Although she was cute enough, Decklan was already tiring of her flimsy bravado and her excitable personality. Still, if he would be forced to wake up to a horde of monsters every morning… he definitely needed someone to vent his nervous energy on.

Not that Decklan minded, looking at delight at his status screen.

Decklan Hyde

Class: Killer

Level: 7

Health(/R per hour): 9/80 (44)

Mana(/R per hour): 22/33 (8.5)

Stam(/R per min): 14/50 (16)

Vit: 11

End: 4

Str: 9

Agi: 18

Perception: 7

Reaction: 9

Resistance: 5

Willpower: 2

Inteligence: 3

Wisdom: 6

Control: 7

Focus: 3

Skills: Sneak Lvl 5, Slash Lvl 7, Dagger Mastery Lvl 5, Backstab Lvl 12, Feint Lvl 1, Dual Wielding Mastery Lvl 4

Most of his stat points he had put directly into agility, and that had let him move freely among the three dozen or so wolverines that had streamed out of the woods, coming for the Newbie Village. 11 People had gotten Classes the previous day, and those 11 men had generally gotten rather bland classes like “Minuteman” or “Subordinate Thug”. Still, they all gathered, nervous and excited, at the prospect of strengthening themselves.

Of those 11, Decklan and Donny made it out alright, staying close to each other. As much as the little shit was annoying, he could slow several down with his shield work, and handle the attacks of several at once.

A few of the other people who had obtained classes had broken and ran, quickly hamstrung and eviscerated by the wolverines. Decklan had been considering fleeing himself when that Ghosthound had come out of the hills.

With a wave of his hand, blasts of energy accurately smashed several Wolverines to the side. Even more frustratingly, the guy moved like a ghost, his spear lashing outwards, leaving only dead bodies in its wake. He cleared out the bulk of their forces, and then left them to thin out the stragglers.

By that time, only 6 of the 11 Classed individuals were still breathing.

After they had killed the rest, Decklan had walked to the forest, curious where the Ghosthound had come from. What he saw had even left the man with the class Killer nauseous. It looked like less than half of the wolverines had made it passed the Ghosthound, reaching the rest of them. The bodies were caking the forest floor, headless, blasted, burnt, impaled on thorns…

Some of them appeared to have been splashed with acid, most of their bodies melting away.

And so now Decklan sat, trying to contain his rising excitement, barely keeping his hands from trembling. The Ghosthound was talking with the old man he was often with, who was carrying a bloody axe. They seemed to be talking about using the wolverine bodies for something.

“I’ve decided.” Tera said next to him, looking up at him. “I’m going to get a class. Even if I could get a better class by getting stronger first… I need strength now.”

Decklan nodded lightly, watching the Ghosthound. As the Ghosthound waved his hand, roots sprouted out of the ground and began slowly gathering the bodies of the wolverines into a pile.

His face splitting into a wide grin, Decklan turned to Tera. “Good. Do it as quickly as possible, and we will go hunting immediately.”

Her face brightened “Really?! Can Chubbs come?”

“Sure, sure, whatever.” Decklan said, already turning back towards the Ghosthound, who seemed completely uninjured.

That level of strength…. He would do anything to have it.

***

“You want to skin them?” Randidly asked hesitantly, looking at the impressive pile of bodies. And then his eyes shifted to the spear holes ripping through most of their pelts, and he shifted slightly uncomfortably.

Sam nodded. “Both for the skins, and for the meat. I suspect we can get something akin to a Tannery skill, which will be useful. Also, the rations we brought are starting to run low. Are your… plants safe to eat?”

“Yea, the first batch will probably be done later today.” Randidly answered, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling upwards. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Decklan was staring at him again. Resolving to ignore it, Randidly turned back forward, to see Sam making an uncomfortable expression.

“Hmmm…. Then perhaps… you could come to my, uh, camp for dinner. We could have discussions.” Sam finished, with atypical awkwardness.

Shrugging in confirmation, Randidly switched the subject. “I did a rough count of the amount of wolverines that were here while I was fighting them. About 80 or 90. How many did you get by you.”

Sam grimaced. “Quite a few. Nowhere near what you had up here, just some stragglers. Maybe two dozen. Lucky you warned me in time, I was able to set up enough traps to stall them while I got to work with my axe.”

Randidly said nothing about the numerous arrows that he had seen sticking out of the wolverines down by Sam’s camp. “...If that puts it right about 100...just a theory, but I suspect there were 110.”

Glancing at him, Sam’s eyes suddenly sharpened as he made the connection. “...10 for each of the 11 people who obtained classes?”

“I already asked Nul, and he said that we would be forced to discover the rules as we went along. But if this gets worse, or if more people come for classes….”

“Or if you hadn’t been here…” Sam muttered, his eyes glittering. “The village would probably have been wiped out before it even got off the ground.”

“Well,” Randidly said with a nasty glint in his eye. “Hopefully most people wouldn’t have gotten drunk immediately after obtaining a class. If they had leveled a few times-”

“Enough to fight off 10 wolverines each? All at once?”

Sam’s statement hung in the air, and the shared a long glance.

“Then I guess it’s back to work, so it doesn’t happen to us next.” Randidly said, raising his hand to block the rays of the rising sun coming up over the horizon.