Dances With Precogs? No, Dances With Wolves
Rose sat awkwardly across a campfire from two battered, bruised, beaten down, and other bad descriptors girls within a handful of years of her age, the beneficiaries of me completing an unmarked Slave Rescue side quest when I tracked down the bandits from earlier in the evening to their off road camp and slew the remaining six members of the gang. I used the power of devouring their memories and possibilities to purchase a unit of Health, and it felt like lighting in my veins and made my cock hard enough to drive nails, something I kept hidden till it went away given the present sensitive company.
I killed time waiting for my Will to recover by gathering the weapons of the men I killed and giving them a good clean and oil, storing the finished equipment in oilcloth the gang oh so generously donated to me. While banditry may be a low education, low skill, low morality profession, the men involved in it stock up on the tools of their craft just like any other tradesmen, and I'd suddenly come into a great deal of iron wealth. Every man in the gang carried a gun of some sort, not the expensive turret or clockwork varieties, but the flintlock variety, though not the flintlock system of Earth. I'd gather six pistols, ten rifles, and two blunderbusses along with a small supply of paper wrapped munition loads. Toss one of those down the barrel, pull a charging handle, and fire. No need for ramrod or primer load.
I understood the basics of using them just by picking them up. While others need time and effort to achieve a basic combat proficiency, I simply need an implement of death and destruction placed into my hands and I'm ready to fight to the death. Other peoples' deaths. While I earmarked a rifle and a pair of pistols for my personal use, the rest I prepped for storage and the start of my personal trading empire along with the rest of the melee implements minus two of the better made knives and obviously the iron greatsword I'd sharpened, honed, and oil to a shine after serving me so well tonight.
All this maintenance work alone would have tired me out in my last life, but as the scion of the world's premiere super powered bloodline, things like sleep and fatigue were luxurious novelties, decadent even. I indulged often growing up, but I'd no intention to rest until Rose and I reached Rookridge, and even then I'd sleep lightly. Rose finding the music box near our campsite left me quite shook, and wrecking a bunch of nobodies as the sun set didn't suddenly alleviate my feeling of helplessness, much like running in slow motion in a nightmare while whatever horror your subconscious whipped up to torment you for the night languidly closes in on you. Only it's a real woman playing life and death games with me, and whatever I may tell Rose I will always be behind the eightball when dealing with Theresa, as her approximate knowledge of many things comes with a side order of progressive revelation.
Dances with precogs aside, my future looked bright. What the gang of outlaws I'd destroyed lacked in power they made up for in audacity. They'd operated incredibly close to Bowerstone's walls, likely capitalizing on the way the Albion Guard tend to stick close to their brazers and patrol the roads far less during winter. Though trade also decreased during the freezing months, the industrializing city always demands more resources. Raw materials enter the city from towns and villages like Rookridge and Oakfield, and the city exports finished goods back out, and the gang managed to snag themselves a small caravan loaded with these very valuable exports with their boldness.
Finders keepers means I now own two mules, a cart, several crates of rugged textiles, six barrels split of three salt beef, pork, fish, and pickled eggs, and four kegs of ale. A mild fortune at best, but combined with a small strongbox of coin and my new weapons stockpile I'd more than enough to set a pair of kids up in style for several years. The girls I rescued held a claim to everything but the weapons, being the daughters of the original legal owner, but they'd learned the hard way their futures in wandering trade put them at a higher risk profile than their father's prior to this trip. Normally when a merchant and his guard are outnumbered and ambushed, they surrender the goods without a fight. This time daddy's caravan carried precious cargo he'd sooner die for than hand over.
I'd see them safely returned to civilization, their goods traded, and on a return journey to their mother and younger brothers in Oakfield. If they take umbrage with my taking the lion's share for myself, that's gratitude for you. I even considered healing them with my Will, but they'd not yet seen me use magic, and I intend to keep my growing mystic might hidden away for as long as my clothing can reasonably hide my emerging will lines. Some people find it too akin to becoming a glowing smurf, but I quite like the dim blue heart rune that appeared on my chest this evening.
I finished my work around the bandit camp, and with the inventory and clean up finished I found myself praying for something to call me away from the gloomy trio around the fire. Best leave them to it as I am a modern man, and thus must love independent women. At least, that's what my brainwashers constantly insisted. Was it my dedication to feminism or the faint sound of shouting coming from the roadway that led to me creeping back down the rise to get a view of the scene of two of the Albion Guard's mounted officers - in this case dismounted - investigating the slain bandits I'd graciously dragged off-road? I didn't have too, mind you, but it was a benificent act of service done for the people of Albion. Saintly even.
Benificent? Barnum's brief diatribe must have set off my love of butchering English.
The one yelling currently had a finger pointed at the smoke rising from our campfire obscured from sight by the terrain, "It's our duty to investigate!" he shouted as he waived his ham-hock hand my way.
His brick shithouse of a partner shook his head, his head donning the uniform's navy kevenhuller cock-tricorn allowing me to make out the gesture in the distant moonlight with ease, "We've orders from the top. We continue to search the road for the children. That's that."
"But what if they're over there?" his partner insisted.
"We don't get paid for what if's." the dissenting man spat, "We ride the road as fast as we can and get our asses out of the cold. We're not running down every possible lead, not looking for runaways no matter what they might be carrying."
"Yer a lazy sod." the insisting man spat back.
"And cold. Only one of those has a chance at getting fixed tonight." the other chuckled thickly.
"If the kids are actually there I'm giving you the biggest I told you so ever." the insisting man relented.
"Whatever." the winning man grinned, "Sides, heard the boy got bit by a gypo. Could have turned already, then we might have to put the blighter down."
"Bit by a gypo? Put him down? What the hell are you even on about?" the more honorable guard questioned while he pulled himself back up into the saddle on his beefy riding horse.
"Bit by a gypo 'slpains itself. How'd you think they come about?" the lazy scoundrel confidently stated as he rested his meaty ass atop his mount.
"By fucking, you ijit." the honorable guard shook his head, "A fool's born every minute, I swear."
After the two finally rode out of sight I got the chance to laugh hard and deep. Bit by a gypo. What will I come up with next that can top that bit of misinformation? My laughter ended quickly when a wolf howled loudly nearby. The guards made the right call to move on as I got front row seats to ten grey wolves padding across the road to the site of the cold meat feast I'd left behind. They went to town ripping and tearing, their muzzles painted in thick cool blood. I'd leave them too it if not for the threat they'd pose to our campsite. They either ran off after their meal, or I'd drive them off. Or they'd be EXP. Life is full of possibility after all.
They chose violence. I'd have happily let them eat their fill, but one seemed to get a hair up its ass about my presense, or perhaps this creature simply preferred a fresh and hot kill. Either way, it left the roadside buffet and began stalking in my direction, growling. I'd already loaded my sling back when the guards were considering coming my way, so I gave it a good smack on the nose. Rather than drive it off, the wolf came at me snarling, and the other members of the pack came behind it.
A part of me wondered what the hell was in the Albion water supply that these mundane beasts would forgo a fairly fresh feast for a bit of live game, but I'm a contractor, not a scientist. I just need to deal with the conditions on site, not the why of things. I drew my new iron knife, and when the wolf leapt to take me down I blitzed it with the high speed movement of assassin's rush, appearing behind it far faster than it moved even at it's top speed. I rammed that knife into its neck as it flew through the air and chained to the next one, repeating the process until instead of chaining the movement, I felt a heavy weariness settle over me.
And then brilliant pain brought me back to the heat of the moment. Though drained of Will after seven consecutive rushes, I still needed to fight off the remaining three adult grey wolves, and one now had its jaws wrapped around my knife wielding forearm, shaking its head around trying to break the limb. Thank you, Rose, you brilliant amateur seamstress, for the thickness of my winter clothes taking most of the teeth out of this bite, and thank you me for somehow knowing Toughness and Health are two different categories and guiding my accumulated power into developing both. The natural armor of Toughness paid dividends this night.
I felt another wolf leap onto my back and try to get my head in its mouth, and in a showing of Speed I leaned my head away and unsheathed one of my long slim daggers. I felt another set of jaws pulling my boot, but before it tripped my I jabbed that knife back at the beast still trying for my head and felt the tip skim across bone until it found a soft spot to slip into, the razor sinking easily once it found its purchase.
Now off my feet the two left in the fight began tugging and wrenching my limbs fiercely, but the aggressive beasts underestimated my reach. I'm spec'd for ranged combat, and so the one pulling my boot got another of my knives in the eye, falling to the ground stone dead, and the other got the last as I pulled it in with one hand and stabbed it with the other. The third of my successful assailants choked to death nearby on the dagger jammed in its windpipe and mangled its jugular. The rest rapidly bleed to death from their more effectively torn open throats. Meanwhile I shook like a leaf on the ice and snow covered mountainside wishing my canteen was full of health potion rather than water. It's not my fault those things are damn expensive, even for the least effective of them. I'd kill for a few shitty Instant Java Potions right now.
Eventually I swallowed down a spoonful of cement and hardened up. I'd not taken enough damage to warrant such a pathetic response, but let he who kept calm and carried on after getting mauled by two adult grey wolves cast the first stone. Once more full of piss and vinegar, I rose to my feet and hauled one of my kills across my shoulder. Wolf fur coats don't sew themselves.
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Mediocre! No bonus EXP. Getting clipped in a random encounter with trash mobs hits different when you're all real.
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