1 The Bounty

"Now!" Cried the immense bandit. He raised his axe and charged towards the boy. As his exclamation echoed throughout the forest, a dozen of his comrades followed behind him, weapons raised skyward. Their heavy hobnail boots shattered undergrowth and dead brush, emitting a sound emulating that of a roaring house fire.

The boy dropped his backpack into the ferns below, and his hand naturally dropped to the handle of his sword as he turned his hips to face the bandit leader. He drew the sword and widened his stance. The bandits drew closer. They rushed into the boy's range but as soon as they were two arms' lengths away, the boy's sword seemed to disappear, reappearing in the bandit's neck, carving out a large chunk of flesh. He danced around the standing corpse and cut down another man, then another. He hewed through half the men and dodged around the blades of the rest. Without the boy so much as breaking a sweat, half the bandits were on the ground, motionless, and the other half were silent, stunned. They eventually gathered themselves and regrouped, forming a scrappy rank. The boy dashed forward, dodging a spear and disemboweling its owner. He parried a blow from a sword and gored the arm holding it. The remaining four men turned tail and ran.

Not missing a beat, the boy gathered a spear from the ground and sent it whistling into the hamstrings of one of his charges. He fell to the ground screaming and threshing, tripping one of his comrades. The boy dashed past the two on the ground and cut down the couple still running. They hit the ground, and the boy turned back towards the men on the ground. He walked to them and retrieved the spear from the man's leg and put him out of his misery with one small motion.

The remaining bandit tried to run away but tripped and fell on his bottom. Facing the boy, he shambled backward, begging for his life.

"Please, please spare me!" He screamed, sobbing and snotting all over his leather jerkin. "I swear on me life I'll never hurt anoth-" He was abruptly cut off, for the boy threw the spear into the man's neck.

"Well that's that, I guess," the boy said as if speaking to an audience. "One more job's over and done. Now's time for the fun part!"

He excitedly retrieved his backpack and took a cloth from within. He wiped his sword of blood and grease, sheathed it into its scabbard, and set his bag back down. He unbuckled his sword belt and let it drop to the ground.

"What a bear!" He said, finding his way to the corpse of the bandit chief. He flipped the man over, and his hands moved like that of a raccoon, checking the man's pockets for anything valuable. He robbed the corpse of a snuffbox, coin purse, ring, and its gold piercings.

The boy dumped his loot into his backpack, then patted down the rest of the bodies. He transported anything shiny to his backpack, the same as the first time. By the time he was done, the wood frame pack was swollen like a boil on a hag's nose.

"Well, I've had better hauls," he said, matter-of-factly. "Guess I'm done here."

He retrieved the axe laying by the leader's corpse and grabbed a bunch of the man's oily hair. Lifting the man's head off the ground, he-

THWACK!!!

-swung the axe into the gap in the corpse's neck, hacking clean through. The body hit the ground with a wet thud, and blood spattered onto the vibrantly green ferns. He dropped the axe, and retrieved a canvas bag from his backpack. He dropped the head into the bag and equipped his sword belt. He threw his backpack on and started walking due West.

The boy eventually came to a worn trail marked with drab rocks. It jarringly cut through the uniformity of undergrowth like a stroke of gray paint on a green canvas. It looked so unnatural that one could deduce that the trail was formed with terraforming magic, a common Druid practice. Nobody knows when the druids made the trail, but the elusive group hasn't been spotted in centuries. Since the druids' disappearance, many outposts and hunting villages have been established in the forest. The biggest village, Carragard, is a popular gathering place for hunters, adventurers, and rogues alike.

Shadows started to lengthen and light began to fade. The boy had been walking for well over two hours, but he wasn't concerned that day was beginning to slip away. He was only twenty minutes away from Carragard, and he could already smell the chimney smoke.

Carragard was wrapped in a wall made of the massive trees that covered the forest. The village itself was nestled between a handful of colossal boulders that towered over the forest's considerable canopy. They were pockmarked with numerous caves inhabited by the villagers. Houses and shops hung from the faces of the boulders, and the bases of the boulders were also covered in structures. The largest structure in the village, however, was an ashlar stone building three stories tall. The stone seamlessly melded into the largest boulder, and the front was symmetrically littered with marble pillars. This building was the Dufrea branch of the Adventurer's Guild.

The boy flashed the guards his steel guild tag. They nodded, and the boy entered the gate between two flanking towers. Left hand on his sword pommel, and right hand holding the dripping sack, he walked under the portcullis and headed for the guildhall. The roads snaked in and out of crags and ravines, between taverns, and even tunneled underground. There was absolutely no organization or infrastructure in the city. A newcomer could easily get lost within a matter of minutes. The boy, however, walked with purpose and knowledge. He knew every street, bar, shop, and brothel in the entire town. If there was a shortcut, he took it. He slipped in and out of alleys like an eel, and in minutes he was right outside the guildhall. Adventurers of all races loitered outside the multiple doorways, chatting and planning their night out tavern hopping.

The boy slipped between people, not unlike how he dodged blows in his recent skirmish. He pulled the massive oak door open and stepped into the building, which was also crowded. He slipped past the people not in line and hopped into the shortest line. After several minutes of waiting, the last person left in front of him turned around and walked off. He stepped up to the marble counter and set the burlap sack, now dry, onto a brass rack. The receptionist behind the counter, a halfling man donned in a black and gold trim vest, looked upon the boy with familiarity.

"Ah, Kane! You're back with another bounty!"