Chapter: 14

Of course, he wouldn’t be back after lunch.

He chuckled thinking about the people lining up only to lose patience and leave; but Jay didn’t care, he was an adventurer now. Sometime soon, he would leave this city behind and get rich killing monsters for a living.

He was quite a sadistic person in this way.

With a spring in his step and a sunny smile, he began walking down the cobblestone street.

Checking his map to confirm the direction of the stink-rat marsh dungeon, he abruptly stopped, turned around, and began walking back the way he was coming from – this time in the correct direction.

Jay blushed as he hoped no-one noticed, his first mistake as an adventurer was embarrassing to say the least.

Imagining his melee trainer bursting a blood-vessel if he heard of this, Jay chuckled “He will never know.”

It was about 15 minutes before Jay reached the south side of the village.

On his way out he noticed a merchant arguing with a stable boy. Not caring for the argument, Jay continued to walk by as he gazed at the merchant’s caravan.

“Wow, those are some nice weapons. I guess he must be here to cash in on the new adventurers. Heh, but I won’t need a weapon with my class” Jay snickered quietly to himself.

The merchant noticed someone seemingly laughing at his stock, he paused, and gave Jay an obvious fake smile.

“Hello sir, you like what you see? Well…. you’re gunna have to wait till tomorrow! Ha-ha-haa! I’ll have the booth set up by lunch time.” The short fat merchant let out a bellowing laugh from behind his moustache.

Jay inspected the merchant..

[Bertram – Level 13]

Hp – 100%

Mp – 87%

The only details Jay could get was his name, level, and current health and mana percentages; this was the same for everyone. You would either need to party up to see someone’s class, and their actual health/mana, or touch a mana conduit.

Jay shrugged at the merchants’ teasing and left as Bertram pulled a pipe out and began to smoke it, periodically puffing smoke out as he went back to micromanaging the stable boy – who at this point had a red face and looked like he was about to tear up.

“Poor kid” Jay thought.

The cobblestone path ended and turned to a patchy dirt-grass path as he walked away from the village. It was nearly the middle of winter, no flowers were blooming and most of the trees in the surrounding forest were missing their leaves, though it didn’t get cold enough to snow in this part of the country, much of the vegetation still suffered through the winter.

Jay checked his map as he walked.

“Ok, just a little further on the path, then I have to cut through the forest to the south west.”

After making his way down the path, he turned and began working his way through the forest’s vegetation.

It was quiet as he walked through the winter forest, a light breeze waved through the trees, the only sound coming from the odd twig he snapped underfoot.

Approaching the map marker with expectation, Jay was confused.