Book 2 Chapter Eighteen: Catching Up

EIGHTEEN

The sun broke the horizon to match the burning remnants of the two villages lost to the night’s fighting. It rose higher and higher and soon the faint glow of the fires was lost, only greasy, black smoke trails showing where the two villages had been.

Roan rubbed at his bloodshot eyes with the heel of his hands. Even with the life energy flowing through the amulet and his tempering, he was tired. The race through the forest and subsequent fights had been brutal and he wanted nothing more than to lay down and take a nap.

There was too much to do. With the armed mobs walking down from the walls and retaking their positions, he had bounties to turn in. He hadn’t been desperate enough to take goblin ears, but others had. Piles of the bloody trophies were stacked around, ready to be turned in for sweet credits. Roan hardly paid attention to them as he looked over the notification that had come at the end of the night.

ENEMIES SLAIN

GOBLINOID: 32

OGRE: 13

SHAMAN: 4

HOBGOLIN: 1

CREDITS EARNED: 6,240

QUEST BONUS MULTIPLIER: X2

FINAL CREDITS EARNED: 12,480

Roan couldn’t help but feel a flush of pride at the massive amount of credits that had poured into his account from fighting through the night. It amused him that the ogres were his biggest earners, the slow, powerful monsters easy prey to his methods. They were also the group taking the worst amount of casualties, over sixty percent of their number dead already.

LEVEL QUEST

FIND THE NEXT PASSAGE

TIME REMAINING: 2 DAYS 20 HOURS

LEVEL 2 CLEARANCE RATE: 32%

HORDE OFFICERS SLAIN

LIEUTENANTS: 645/1,000

CAPTAINS: 81/250

MAJORS: 8/25

GENERAL: 0/1

HORDEMASTER: ???

Even with the heavy losses the ogres had taken, the survivors hadn’t managed to increase the rate of kill percentages. They’d even killed the same amount of hobs in both nights, but now there were two spare hobs to come out tonight with only the two villages left. Seven hobs spread across two villages with a dragon coming was too much. It just further reinforced Roan’s opinion they had to be proactive, they couldn’t just sit and wait out the horde.

In the four hours since the night had ended he’d been busy. He’d gone and turned in all of his bounties he’d collected through the night to get the rest of his pay. The total of all of the bounties, thirteen ogre pendants, four shaman, and the hob’s own necklace, had amounted to a staggering fifty-six thousand credits.

His loot had been donated to the Association, at least the stuff he didn’t want to carry around. A few nice daggers had been added to his arsenal along with a second short sword. He now had six shaman staffs collecting dust, but he refused to sell them for a pittance, even if nobody could actively use them. There had been a few potions in the mix, all healing, and they’d gone into his rapidly filling storage ring.

CURRENT BALANCE: 103,311

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Roan couldn’t help but stare at the number, mind trying to process how quickly his bank account was swelling. The heavy bounties on the Horde officers was the deciding factor. Just turning in the ogre bounties had been more than he’d earned from doing the nightly quest.

“Not everyone can farm powerful monsters like we can,” the voice whispered in his ear. Roan had to agree with that, only Taoya and a maybe a few others had the skillset, weapons, and physical abilities to slaughter ogres like he could. Even a powerhouse like Tyler didn’t have the endurance for marathon battles like they were going through. Taoya’s mana core had leveled the playing field and taken away what Roan had thought was his only advantage, his prodigious endurance.

ROAN

STRENGTH: 18

ENDURANCE: 21 (+1)

SPEED: 15

DEXTERITY: 17

PERCEPTION: 13

INTELLIGENCE: 11