Evren had gotten pretty deep into the forest. He had followed the overgrown road killing whatever monsters he came across. Including the first five he killed before entering the forest, he had killed fourteen goblins and eight orcs. He was now walking along chewing on jerky following something large on his sensory field.
He had been hit only a few times, and always by the orcs. They were significantly stronger and faster than the goblins. When they worked together, they would be able to get a hit in with Evren unable to respond in time. Fortunately, they were swinging sticks as clubs, and they hadn’t broken any of his bones.
He was pretty sure what he was following was an ogre and he had already alerted it to his presence. Evren was upwind of it, so if it had a strong sense of smell, it would seek him out. Evren wanted to fight the ogre in the mostly clear area of the road rather than the forest, where trees would get in his way. The ogre had stopped and was looking around itself. It seemed agitated by Evren’s sensory field.
Evren had drawn one of his field arrows and was aiming at the ogre. He put magic into the bow and the pressure on his fingers increased. As Evren released the string, he poured magic into the bow, launching the arrow towards the ogre. Evren could only see a shadow of the arrow as it flew towards its target, the belly of the ogre. When it struck the ogre, it sank about half way into the flesh, one of the fletching had been torn and was dangling from the shaft.
The ogre roared and swatted at the arrow, snapping it. It looked in the direction of where the arrow came from and saw Evren standing there waving with a dumb smile on his face. As the ogre started charging, Evren jogged to the other side of the road where he laid down his bow and quivers next to a tree. He then jogged back to the center of the road as the ogre was breaching the tree line. It was using its left arm to help its running, its right arm dragging a log behind it.
As the ogre got closer, Evren set his feet shoulder width apart and prepared to react. Faster than he thought possible, the ogre swung its log horizontally towards Evren. Evren leapt back but didn’t make it in time and got stuck in the hip by the tip of the log. It sent him spinning to the ground. Evren rolled to his feet feeling his hip with his left hand while cringing slightly. The ogre chased after him and swung its log down on Evren to smash him into the ground.
Evren leapt forward to the right to avoid the log, and swung his sword down in front of him, and up to the left of him hitting the ogre in the wrist, severing the tendons. The ogre roared and pulled its right hand back. The ogre swung at Evren with its left hand, which Evren tried to jump over, but failed to. He spun in the air, landing on his side. When he looked up, the ogre had grabbed its right hand with his left and were about to swing both of them down on him.
Evren rolled away from the ogre, barely making it in time. When he stopped, he looked at the ogre and cast ‘avalanche’ while getting to his feet. Ten head sized rocks appeared in a three-meter diameter over the ogre and fell. Four of the rocks hit the ogre, but it didn’t seem to react as much as Evren had hoped it would. “Shit.” Evren said as he thought about his next course of action.
Evren picked up one of the avalanche rocks and launched it at the ogre with telekinesis. The ogre ducked out of the way, but when it stood upright with the rock behind it, Evren cast ‘explosion’ on the rock, sending shards flying everywhere and causing the ogre to roar in pain. Evren used the momentary laps in the ogre’s awareness to charge at it and swing his sword.
Evren ran past the ogre on the left, and swung his sword to the side, cutting the back of the ogre’s right leg, causing it to fall to its knee. Evren ran back to the ogre and swung down his sword on the ogre’s shoulder, cutting it deeply and causing it to hang by the ogre’s side. The ogre roared again and swung the log in its left hand at Evren from the front. Evren ran to the back of the ogre, swinging his sword toward the lower back of the ogre, slicing deeply and causing the ogre to fall back. Evren stopped and pushed hard to the right with his legs, swinging his sword with all his strength towards the ogre’s neck, succeeding in cutting its head off.
The head fell to the right, and the body fell backwards. Evren managed to miss getting hit by both. With his left hand he held his hip and stretched it by bending to the side. “Haaahh… that’s going to leave a bruise.” He cleaned off his sword and put it away, drawing out his dagger, “Yeap, that’s enough for today.” He said as he approached the ogre to remove the core. After retrieving the core and putting away his dagger, he went over to the tree where he left his quiver and bow and picked both up, heading back towards Plinth.
Along the way he came across a couple of deer and thought to hunt them but passed in the end. As he approached town he got used to the pain in his hip and started to limp less. When he got to where the skeleton of the ogre was, he stopped to see if he could find the arrow, and he did see the nock and some fletching sticking out of the ground. He pulled on the arrow, but wasn’t able to grab it much, so using his hands, he dug a little around the arrow so he could get his whole hand on it and pulled the arrow from the ground.
The shaft seemed a bit warped, half of one the fletching was torn, but the arrowhead was fine. The arrow was muddy, so he didn’t put it into his quiver, instead opting to carry it in his hand back to the workshop. When he reached the workshop, he stood outside and cleaned his boots with water and a brush before entering. When he got inside, he set the bow and quivers on a table, then took of his sword belt and set it on the table as well. After he removed his dagger, he pulled down the waist on his left him, showing the bruise that had formed there.
There was an abrasion above his belt line, and a dark colored bruise down the side of his hip and buttocks. He took off his left boot and noticed the ankle was bruised and swollen tool. He used a couple ‘heal cut’s on the abrasion, clearing up that problem but he could do nothing for the swelling or the bruising. As it was afternoon and heading towards evening, he decided to just go upstairs and lay down to rest.
His book of choice for the day is on the Aernide dungeon. Even before the Holy State’s aggressive conquest of the continents, the Aernide dungeon was old. The deepest recorded depth was 145 levels, and even had useable farmland on the 86th floor. Nobody was sure why the floor was bereft of monsters, but they took advantage of the false sunlight and rich soil and produced an area that could be used for farming crops and livestock.
The Aernide fortress had set up a halfway point town at that location to assist explorers of the dungeon compete with a farming community, stores and available housing. Evren was hoping that if he didn’t find anyone in the fortress, there would be people on this floor. He thought about the things he would need to take with him, aside from food. He wanted some extra clothes, maybe the important books and Von’s journal. He really wanted to bring along his anvil and all his runed tools but was afraid the extra weight would be a burden.
