Chapter 61

I took what paltry supplies Cyrus offered me. An amphora of water, and some food. I stored them on my hotbar, as I checked through my abilities. I had two, daze strike and fortification, though both were useless to me, requiring a sword and shield I didn’t have.

If I was to confront the bandits, it would have to be with what I had. Fists and a can-do attitude. I had asked Damon to lend me a weapon, but he looked at me the same way he’d probably looked at the goat herder’s son. I decided to leave it at that.

But I did have a strength of 46. I could have punched through a tree if I wanted to. It would have to be enough. I mean, how tough could bandits be? They were humans after all. They weren’t the Drenched.

I walked through the city, across the cobbled steps and through the buildings built from those different coloured stones, arriving at the gate and walked through, heading for the location on the mini-map. I kept looking around. Why did I feel like someone was watching me?

I couldn’t entirely dismiss it. The alert feat made me, well, alert. At least I couldn’t be ambushed. The feat was worth its weight in gold, and then some.

I arrived at my destination, which appeared to be the mouth of a cave up in the hills. I smiled. Classic quest set up, I thought. Bandits in a cave. I felt good actually, as I approached, seeing two bandits posted, watching, with spears equipped.

‘Nothing personal,’ I said brightly, ‘but I’m going to need that copper back. You know, the one you stole from Damon.’

They looked at me. Then they looked at each other. Then they were laughing. In fact, they were still laughing when I knocked them both out, ramming their heads together.

‘Glad I could brighten your day,’ I muttered, looting them. Annoyingly, despite very clearly wearing what looked like leather armour and wielding copper weapons, their downed bodies contained nothing other than salves, three gold pieces and a sling. A sling? It did seven points of damage and had a chance to daze, apparently. Seemed useless, but then it did have unlimited ammo.

I equipped it, heading into the cave. It was a classic setup. The bandits would perk up at my approach and say, ‘never should have come here!’ before proceeding to attack me. They did damage, chipping away at my hit points, but the toughest of them was level eight. Probably would’ve been a lot easier with weapons, and my fists were getting sore as I entered the final area of the cave.

It had been built like an arena of some kind. A little dirt circle where two enormous men were battling one another, as all around them bandits were cheering, and jeering, and throwing down gold pieces.

I guessed they were betting on the victor as one of the enormous men struck the other, knocking him out cold. The victor raised his arms, cheering, and the crowd went wild. That’s when they noticed me, stopping immediately. The big man approached. He was at least a foot taller than me, with a scar across his mouth.

‘I’m Scar, leader of the hill bandits,’ he said, in a gravelled tone.

‘Right,’ I said, pointing at his mouth. ‘Because of the…you know what? Never mind.’

‘You must be new around here,’ said Scar, beating his chest. ‘You’re a fool to walk in here!’

‘And the system is clearly holding back processing power rather than waste it on your dialogue,’ I said, stretching.

Scar frowned. ‘What?’

‘Never mind,’ I said, as I struck him hard in the mouth. I thought he’d go down. Everyone else had. But he’d taken it on the chin. Blood oozing from his lips. He was smiling. I examined him. Bronze three.

Shit.

His haymaker hit me like a sabretooth tiger, pummelling me. I was suddenly aware of my lack of proficiency in hand-to-hand as Scar grabbed me, his thick arm across my neck, choking the life out of me. Cheers rose up from the crowd. Gold was flung as a notification appeared.

[You are choking. You cannot breathe.]

I slammed my elbow back into Scar’s gut, and his grip loosened. I slammed back again, and he let me go. I sucked down deep lungfuls of air as his foot slammed into me.

‘Scar, Scar, Scar!’ His men chanted. My eyes were watering, as I scrambled to my feet. Thankfully the bandit leader liked his posturing. He was flexing for his men, rather than seizing his chance to finish me. This was about spectacle to him.

Okay. Time to stop playing around. I searched the environment. This was a lot easier when I had keen eye…

There was nothing. Literally nothing. A dirt arena. Bandits all around us. No clever terrain. No lighthouse to helpfully drop on him. Nothing on my hotbar except a sling.

A sling?

A sling!

I equipped it, firing a stone directly at Scar. It soared, screaming through the air like a demonic, no, biblical sphere, straight at my enemy, hitting him square in the forehead.

It pinged off, landing on the stone. He looked at me incredulously. The crowd went silent.

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Hmm. That might have been a mistake, I thought as he charged at me, knocking me clean off my feet. The breath was knocked from me as he pushed me into the ground.

What followed was messy, free of anything tactical. We traded blow for blow, chipping away at each other’s hit points. All I could do was somehow manage my stamina better, but he was his own class entirely — bandit — and he had more stamina than I did.

I had taken half his hit points off, but mine were down to a third. We were both breathing hard, slightly away from one another. Fuck it, I thought, equipping the sling again and pinging off a stone at him. This one didn’t even hit his forehead, instead hitting him in the arm.

But it had worked. He began to sway. He was dazed! I wasted no time. I wasn’t proud of what I did next, but I wasn’t dying in a bloody cave to a bandit with the most generic name and the most generic dialogue in the entirety of the Doomsday Trials.

I kicked him in the groin. Critical strike. I winced, even though I was doing the striking, as he fell to his knees clutching said groin. I pressed the advantage, hitting him as many times as I could in the head. Pound, pound, pound, until both he and his hit points were gone. I breathed deep, sweat beading my forehead.

All around us the bandits were still. Unsure of what to say or do. Out the corner of my eye, I saw one crouch surreptitiously, and gather the tossed gold pieces.

Then a scream. Scar was screaming, but it was inhuman. He rose from the ground and began to…actually I had no idea what he was doing. His body began to twist, as though every limb were breaking itself, folding into itself.

‘The stranger cursed him!’ shouted one bandit. ‘RUN!!’ That did it. The stampede began, the lone bandit still gathering up the gold though it was spilling from his vest, even as he ran. Scar turned over and over until he was back on his feet.

But gone was the bandit leader, replaced entirely by that cat-like face, those pupil-less eyes, and that matted, muscular body beneath fur.

Shade. Drenched. Here?

The shade screamed at me, but before I could even think about equipping my sling, before I could so much as examine him, a copper blade was through him, and the shade stumbled to its knees. The blade was pulled back, and in a single swipe, the shade was now missing a head.