The little ball of muscle and beard named Damak strolled up to the two, who had been waiting seated on the rock, from the side. They turned as he said, “My boys, I see you’ve found us a new cart.”
“Hey Damak,” said Dakkon. “Good to have you with us.”
“Yup,” agreed Ramses. “Always a pleasure to have a sturdy meat shield to keep them guessing while I work.”
Damak grinned fiercely. “Just see that you drop ‘em like you did last week and you won’t have to worry about it.”
“Now we’re only down one prim, proper, and persnickety bard,” said Ramses shaking his head.
“Ah he’s not so bad,” Damak explained how they had spent a bit of time together. He talked about how Finnegan did, however, manage to find himself in the middle of quite a bit of trouble. Then, after Finnegan had not shown up in another 15 minutes, Damak admitted that Finnegan didn’t seem particularly punctual. Just as Ramses began to send the bard a piece of his mind, Finnegan strolled up.
“Oh, you’re all here?” said Finnegan with a look of somewhat disinterested surprise.
“We’ve all been waiting on your sorry hide,” snapped Ramses.
“Ah,” said Finnegan, still clearly disinterested. “Well, I figured you’d be trapped under a bottle somewhere, so I’d have plenty of time to finish up and head this way at a leisurely pace.”
“A bottle?” asked Ramses. “I don’t drink.”
“Is that so?” said Finnegan. “I thought all rogues drank.”
“No, I’m straight-edge,” said Ramses.
“Straight-edge?” asked Finnegan, now showing a bit more interest than he had before. Damak and Dakkon looked confused about what he meant as well.
“Yes, straight-edge,” Ramses said in a practiced tone, then sighed. “Just like in the real world. My body is an unblemished, unbent, and honed instrument.”
“You’re saying…” Finnegan paused for a moment while a grin spread across his lips, “you’re a tool?”
“What?” snapped Ramses. “No. I’m a blade not-dulled by substances.”
“So, you’re…” Finnegan nodded his smiling mug in appreciation, “an exceptional tool?”
Damak shook his head and Dakkon cracked a smile. It was clear that Finnegan had a talent for pressing other people’s buttons.
“Oh, shut up already,” barked Ramses. “You’re the one who showed up late. You’re the tool, tool.” Ramses was not holding his own very well in the situation.
Dakkon spoke up early to make sure nothing got out of hand, “Now, now, now. No need to get bent out of shape. The wait isn’t a big deal.” Dakkon turned to look at the bard. “Finnegan, would you give it a rest. We’re only just getting started.” Finnegan halfway rolled his eyes and Ramses shook his head in consternation. Damak simply shrugged.
Despite the group’s rocky reunion, once they were back out and working like a well-oiled machine, tensions alleviated. Their teamwork spoke volumes for each player’s ability. Finnegan pacified their krimmer target and the other three finished it off. Experimenting with their methods, they found that Dakkon alone was insufficient to instantly fell a krimmer. Only when both he and Ramses struck the beasts’ underbellies did they fall so quickly since they had lost the damage output of Hebbeson and Benton.
The only reason anyone felt comfortable varying the routine to find out what worked best was because Damak never allowed the boars to turn away from him for an instant. If they tried, he would immediately bash them in their nose with his shield, using a skill which caused them to be stunned briefly, giving the rogue and edgemaster enough time to finish their job.
The group no longer had Hebbeson with them, so Ramses auto-harvested the krimmer after each fight, yielding less than they had received before. Still, that only meant that the group needed to find another half dozen boars to fill up a cart load, which meant more experience on each outing. The smaller party number and the absence of the higher-leveled Hebbeson meant Dakkon was gaining experience at a pace which gave him hope for overtaking his friends.
|————
|Statistics ( ][][ ) ( ][][][ )
|————
|Strength: 13 — (10 + 3 Equipped) ( ? )
|Stamina: 25
|Agility: 64 — (50 + 14 Equipped)
|Dexterity: 13 — (10 + 3 Equipped)
|Intellect: 13 — (10 + 3 Equipped)
|Luck: 50
|Free Stat Points: 60
|Hit Points: 625/625
|Endurance: 338/338
|Mana Points: 362/362
|Leveclass="underline" 24
|EXP Until Next Leveclass="underline" [
|————
|Traits ( ][ ) ( ][][][ )
|————
|Appearance – 8 (Equipped)
|Disciplined – 8— 12— 62% [
|Heroic – 2— 2% [
|Hunter – 9— 42% [
|Rider – 2— 15% [
|Steadfast – 1— 0% [
|Stealthy – 4— 80% [
|Thick – 1— 20% [
When they went back into town to report, they, four players—clearly devoid of any magic user and therefore with no healer—wheeling in a full cart load of krimmer drew attention from everyone. A player who had pointed toward Dakkon from earlier in the day did so again, and around a dozen players followed the four to ask for tips and invitations while they went to sell their bounty. When the krimmer meat, furs, tusks, and glands sold for 112 gold, the crowd surged.
“What?” a member of the crowd asked. “How come they got so much?”
“The meat and glands they brought are fresher than most and their furs are less tattered than average pelts brought before us,” replied the apprentice chef tasked with appraising materials whom the member of the crowd had directed his query.
“So, we just need to kill them quickly and not mess up the furs?” asked another from the crowd. Without anyone speaking up to correct the idea, the crowd erupted into a restructuring of groups, aiming to finish off krimmers as quickly and cleanly as possible. Healers, counter to usual overwhelming demand, would be neglected in some sort of twisted image of Dakkon’s group.