The Butcher of Gadobhra

Ozzy didn't sleep a hell of a lot the night before their first day off, excited about doing something besides cutting and smoking meat. He was finding out he really didn't need to. Sleepless in Seattle meant he could get by on four hours of sleep and feel well-rested. But it had taken nearly a week to adjust to the skill. Sleeping was a habit, and even if your body didn't need the rest, your mind was in the habit of taking that time off. Today, he was up before the sun rose and greeted by a message sent from Billy to each of the workers:

[Billy has offered you a lovely package to help you celebrate your first day off. It includes:

+100 copper coins.

- Late Breakfast at the tavern after you sleep in. Get ready for a tasty breakfast of muffins and two boiled eggs!

- Free lunch and dinner with an ale at each meal.

- Free classes on how to stuff mattresses and make homemade cots and stools.

-A shopping spree at the general store from 11 am to 2 pm. Save on blankets, pillows, and tasty snacks!

- A group discussion on how to improve worker accommodations

- A dozen marshmallows around the fire to celebrate the first week.]

Ozzy was curious why Billy was willing to bribe his work crew to stick around the village today, but he’d rather take the money and skip the rest of the program. His group had plans, and it didn’t include sitting around town. His first job was getting clean. He wasn’t heading into the wilderness smelling like dried blood.

He went down to the river where some of the workers did their washing. He filled a tub, stripped, tossed his clothes in the cold water, and added a bit of lye soap he found near the stacked tubs. He scrubbed the clothes, dumped the filthy red water, and refilled the tub to let them soak. His job really got both he and his clothes filthy, every day. He'd tried rinsing them out at night, but they really needed a good long soak. So did he. He knew the water was cold, but it really didn't bother him much. A lot of things didn't bother him - and that fact bothered him. The "don't worry, be happy" buff was always on unless he thought about it. All of the workers had discussed whether to use the buff or not, but in the end, it made the work a lot easier.

After both he and his clothes were clean, he wrung them out to remove as much moisture as he could. He had to be careful, it felt like he could easily rip them in half. His STR was going up fast, with all of his skills adding to it. With eight STR, his job was getting a lot easier. He'd felt the same feeling of getting more powerful each time but hadn't grown any bigger. Instead, it felt like his muscles tightened. They were more corded, less bulky, like they were made of steel wire. This wasn't necessarily a good thing. The System messages had suggested he might want to focus on CON or risk injuring himself. At the end of the day, his shoulders and elbows were sore as hell and he had to spend a lot of time stretching. The problem was getting more skills.

He'd visited the general store as soon as it opened and used the little bit of bonus money Billy had dispersed to them to buy some new clothes. They still had the same baggy look to the pants and tunic, but they were much better made than what he had started with. The fabric was some sort of course, thick wool. It was dyed in a light brown color. The man running the store had said it would get softer after a couple of washes. He also got a wide leather belt with hooks to hang a pouch. A new set of heavy leather gloves and work boots completed his purchases. He was burning through the but he could at least charge the gloves and boots to ACME. His original set was worn out after a week of hard work and multiple washings. He’d told Billy that he needed boots, not sandals if he was going to work heavy animals with huge hooves. He planned on butchering in the cheap work clothes and keeping his good set for the days he could sneak off to do a little exploring.

Thinking of his friends, he used the rest of his money on three hooded cloaks, one for each of them. Can't go adventuring without a nice cloak. When they met up, his friends were quite thankful for the upgrades. Walking over to the barn, Rolly retrieved the gear they had stored behind the hay. They had four wooden spears with carved bone tips. Each of them had an eating knife that wasn't quite a dagger. Ozzy took his hammer and cleaver. The others also had a short wooden cudgel. Pretty primitive weapons to be sure, but they were also going after level 0 creatures. At most level 1.

Ben had tried to craft some leather armor, but his skills and available patterns were mostly saddles and tack. He’d struggled to make much of anything at all, only some crude vambraces for their lower arms and wraps for their shins. That would be their only armor this first time out except for Ozzy’s heavy leather apron. They each had packs, some food, and water skins. Suzette had some first-aid supplies and herbs in a basket, hoping she wouldn't have to use them.

A little bit after the sun came up, they packed things up and prepared to head out as soon as the morning meeting was over. The rest of the workers were there milling around and eating the ever-present groat muffins, some yawning and anxious to go back to sleep, still in the habit of it. Billy came out of his hut and, for once, had no paperwork with him.

"Congrats, folks! We all made it through our first week. We got a lot done and made a good dent in things. We'll pick up tomorrow morning, right at dawn, with some new goals. But for today, you get a day off. I made sure management kept their word on that. Trust me, almost any other manager would have you working 24/7 if he could. This project means that much to ACME. But I told the head office, ‘Hey, these guys are working hard. They deserve that day to themselves. We'll be back to it on Monday morning.’ I've got a bit of clout upstairs, so I went to bat for you. And I want you to have fun."

"But seriously, I've got to be honest with you. I worry that some of you are going to try and go do the adventurer thing and bop turtles on the heads for some experience and copper pieces. It's not easy for a Contract Worker. We got you guys a lot of skills that will pay off down the line, but we didn't figure on anyone trying to play Conan. But that's up to you. Do you want to get mangled by a rabid fox or piss off a bear? Go right ahead. It might be painful as hell, but good for you to die a few times and get it out of your system. Don’t let me stand between you and a lot of pain.

"Of course, if you want to play it smart and avoid that, there are some things you can do around the village. First, take a nice walk and go shopping. That’s why I gave you some extra cash to go shopping; it’s more than you’d get trying to kill a rabid squirrel or juvenile goblin and a lot easier. And there's free lunch and dinner at the tavern with a complimentary ale at each meal. My little thank you for a week of good work. In the afternoon, I thought we'd work a bit on some quality-of-life stuff. Fix up the huts a bit with some better cots and stuff some mattresses. I'll bet we can make them downright livable. And for tonight, I've got marshmallows to roast on the campfire. Should be a good time. But whatever you want to do is just fine by me. Just don't say I didn't warn you. All right, off with you."

It was about an even split between the yes and no groups. Two groups decided to explore in the direction of the keep. Ben motioned for his group to walk toward the village like they were going shopping and then exit out the other side. They stopped at the barn to retrieve their gear and then headed to the meadows.

Rolly had found a nice spot that wasn't an official starting area for players but was filled with slow, fat rabbits. Ben had gone out at night and checked it out. He started to head towards the river, but Rolly stopped the group. "Uh, best we did not go that way, folks—let's circle through the woods a bit."

"Any particular reason why? What's wrong with this way?" Suzette didn't like the idea of an extra mile through the woods. The encounter with the weird monster had made her realize this wasn’t a peaceful area

"Well, best to avoid that field today. See, I moved over a few more cows last night, and Ferdinand was giving them that look that said, 'I'll be by tonight, ladies.' But Betty had her look that said, 'I think I'll kill everything that moves if you do that.' She's awful jealous and tends towards violence even at the best of times. I saw her grazing by that stand of willows. We'll go around and not have any hassles."

The others shrugged, and they set off; no one wanted to mess with an angry adult sedge beast. It was about a two-mile walk through light woods. Ben was trying to spot tracks but couldn’t tell one part of the muddy trails from the next. Suzette was stopping to gather any interesting herbs. Ozzy noticed she wore a pair of gloves and used a trowel to pick them up, being as careful as she could.

After a bit of a walk, they arrived at the hunting grounds that Rolly had found for them. He was very excited to show them something. When they were almost out of the woods, he led them to a newly dug ditch. It was nearly 6' deep and 3' wide. The end in the woods sloped down easily, and they followed him for about fifty feet to where it sloped up a bit and came out behind a simple structure. Made of logs and dirt, it was a hunter’s blind dug into the ground and camouflaged with bushes and sod he'd used to disguise it.

"Isn't it great?! Once I found this place, I came out here for a couple of nights to work on it. It gives us a spot to watch the herd of rabbits and not be seen. Plus, it keeps the rain off of us if we need a break." He was quite proud of it, and the others made appreciative noises. "I found a nice stand of ash here and showed it to Jon and Cham. They cut the logs for me in exchange for giving them a report on how well our rabbit hunting goes. They're going to grab Miriam and Jorges and try in another direction.”

Suzette sat down on the ground and leaned back against the log wall. “Meeting time before we start hunting. Grab one of the muffins out of the bag, they have wild blackberries in them, which make them almost taste good. I want to go over what each of us has learned so far this week.”

Ozzy laughed. “I learned how to throw logs at sedge beasts, not sure how much that will come in handy, and a horrible tasting way to increase poison resistance eating uncured meat. Other than that, I killed a lot of ugly cows. I got enough experience by last night to hit level 1 at 1000 points. Now I need another 1000 experience for level 2. That's going to be tough since all of my skills are derived from STR, and I've maxed out my STR at rank 5. The system says that's the cap for now. My only other skill is Minor Poison Resistance, which I can increase by eating sedge beast meat and making myself sick as a dog.”

Ben grimaced at the thought, “Sounds awful, but I’ll try it. I get the distinct feeling I’ll be dealing with a lot of poisoned darts and arrows when I start doing Courier quests. The only skill I’ve managed to unlock is Tool Crafting. I broke a shovel, fixed it, and gained experience. It’s a DEX skill. Not a lot of experience, but it will all add up over time.”

Ozzy was immediately interested. "I need that. I keep breaking sledgehammers. I'll try repairing them and see if I get the skill."

Rolly shrugged. “Nothing new to report yet for me; I’m still working on getting a pet. Tool fixing sounds interesting. Are there simple tools to break and fix? We should experiment."

Suzette pulled out a set of darts she’d taken from the tavern. “I have a skill called Pub Games, and I’m a lot better at darts now. I’m going to see if that works as a combat skill. I have some other things that might work out, but I’m going to hold off on the details until I’m sure about some aspects of the skills. But overall, I'm quite happy with my upgrade to barmaid. The skills are much better. I had one skill before, baking. Now I have four and in different stats. I got level one this week, too. What about you guys?" Ben and Rolly both nodded.

Ben stood up. “I declare this meeting over then. Let the grinding begin!” Stepping up to the front of the structure, Ben looked through the slits made for observation. They were just at the edge of a field of close-cropped grass. A dozen large, fat rabbits grazed there. He concentrated on the nearest one.

FAT RABBIT LEVEL 0

"Not a lot of info on those critters. At least we can tell what level they are. These are ok for our first hunt. Our skills are probably weak. We can level up some on these and maybe try some of the level 1 areas later on. Is there a way to form a group? That's a basic function of any game."

Suzette looked at the rabbits and shrugged. "Not sure we can form a group or not, as Contract Workers, but you'd assume that there has to be a way, right? Every game has a way to form groups."

Various commands were tried. "Start Group," "Group!" "Invite," … nothing worked.

Ben paced and grumbled, "What does it take? There has to be a way!"

Rolly turned to Suzette and bowed at the waist. "My dear, allow me to introduce myself; I am Dragonlord Roland of Ebonmount. Would you be so kind as to join my party?"

Ben scoffed. Suzette rolled her eyes but played along and curtseyed. "Oh, but of course, M'lord. It would be an honor."

Suzette got a message.

[Dragonlord Roland of Ebonmount has extended an invitation to join his group. You will share experience points and loot from fighting and quests. Accept?]

Rolly, in turn, saw:

[Lady Suzette has joined your party.]

[Thank you for suggesting an alternate form of creating a party. The System approves. This formal method is now permanently in the game and may be used by anyone. You can share or not share as you wish. New Commands:

"Would you be so kind as to join my party?" Sends an invitation to someone nearby.

"It would be an Honor." Accepts the invitation.

"Not today, I'm washing my hair." Declines the invitation.

"Ta Ta, I must be off." Removes you from the group.

"Out of wine. Sorry, the party's over." Disbands the party

"That's about enough of you." Removes a player from the party

"We're putting the band back together." Reforms the latest party and sends out invitations.]

Ozzy and Ben accepted an invitation. "How? Just how did you figure that out, Rolly?"

"Sort of obvious when you think about it, Ben. You said there had to be a way. If we didn't have one, it meant that ACME didn't want us to have one. Which means the normal commands don't work. So, I tried a more traditional approach. The game likes the suggestion, obviously."

"Nicely done, Rolly. Let’s go kill some rabbits." Ozzy grabbed his spear, and the others followed. Their names and health were now on a small screen they could see if they chose.

Benedict (Courier) Current Health: 400/400

Suzette (Barmaid) Current Health: 400/400

Roland (Shepherd) Current Health: 440/440

Ozzy (Butcher) Current Health: 500/500

As the party screen appeared in the corner of their vision, they all pondered it for a minute, noting their different stats. Rolly looked at it for a moment. “Hard to say how stats are going to affect things, especially when we don’t have any spells to use our mana, but it’s obvious that STR and CON are going to help with Health, and getting another level is a huge boost. Time to go get some more experience.”

Rolly started sneaking up on the nearest unsuspecting bunny. Sticks and dried grass crunched under his feet as he slowly moved around it, staying about thirty feet away, but ignored him. He moved forward and thrust his spear at it…and missed. He thrust several more times, but the rabbit didn’t move, content to munch grass. Finally, on his 6th try, he stuck the spear into the rabbit, and it squealed in pain. The battle was on!

[Critical Hit! You have done 20 points of damage to a Fat Rabbit with your 'default weapon.']

The rabbit tried to bite Rolly but missed. As the others watched, Rolly and the rabbit circled each other, mostly missing or adding small scratches. The rabbit actually overbalanced at one point, but Rolly only managed to give it a light wound on its back despite it lying unmoving for a few seconds. Finally, after a couple of minutes, the Fat Rabbit put its teeth into his thigh and bit a chunk out of him, causing Rolly to fall over, screaming. The rest of the group rushed in to help.

Ozzy missed several times with his spear but kept it away from Rolly. Suzette got in a small strike. Ben tripped and fell over. The bunny took a chunk out of Ben's ear while he was getting up, doing minor but embarrassing damage. After another dozen attacks by all combatants, Ozzy had numerous bites on his legs and had lost 40 health, Rolly was at half of his health, Suzette was unharmed, and Ben was just missing the tip of his ear and down 10 points. Ben finally managed a solid hit and put the beast down. The other rabbits ignored them and continued eating grass.

[Congratulations! Your group managed to kill a level 0 Fat Rabbit and survive its terrible wrath. You should treasure this moment forever and tell the story to your descendants.

You have earned 3 experience points each.]

Ozzy looked at the bloody, panting group and at the carcass of the rabbit. "Let's take a break and consider this some."

They moved back to the blind, and Ben started a fire. Ozzy butchered the rabbit in a few seconds and put some pieces on skewers. Suzette took chunks of meat and set to work on a recipe of her own. The rabbit was meaty, with about 10 lbs. of good parts that would cook up well.

Suzette chopped up the meat and fat and mixed in some herbs and breadcrumbs. Molding them into a familiar shape, she put them by the fire to bake. "Are those supposed to be muffins?" Rolly asked.

"Yep, I only know how to make muffins. So, I'm making Meat Muffins."

The roasted meat got done too quickly. No matter what Ozzy did, he either burned the skewers or they came out raw. Disgusted, he tried a muffin. "Damn, Suzy, this is tasty!"

[You have created a new recipe. Meat muffins are now a thing!

You may not earn experience as a baker or cook as you lack the skills.

You have earned 50 experience points in Hermetics and 50 experience in INT. Meat isn't a muffin, but you made two dissimilar things be equal. Continue your quest to find new things in the world. Eating a Meat Muffin restores 10 Health.

Thrice Blessed Hermes, God of All Things Cool, would like to try Meat muffins sometime.]

Blinking at the message, Suzette kept it to herself but tried one of her muffins. They really were good. After about 20 minutes, they all received a message.

[A short rest is good for healing small wounds. You recover 10 health from the rest and 10 health from eating a Meat Muffin.]

"Well, that's something. Enough of these, and we can stay healthy." Ben left his spear behind, intending to try a club this time. Rolly did the same. Ozzy brought out his cleaver, and Suzette produced some darts.

"Going to try your darts?" Ben was curious.

"I brought them from the Tavern. Pub Games include darts, some card and dice games, and some drinking games. I'm pretty good with darts in real life. It can't hurt to try."

The next fight started off with them circling a Fat Rabbit and Suzette tossing two darts quickly at it. Both hit, one going in deep. The angry rabbit started waddling toward her, but Ozzy intercepted it. Everyone else attacked and missed, including the rabbit. Suzette had backpedaled as soon as she threw the first two darts. Her next two also hit, and the rabbit died. Everyone but Suzette got a message similar to the first, giving them 3 experience points. Suzette got the following:

[Your group has killed a Fat Rabbit. You receive the following:

-You have adapted the skill Pub Games to learn Combat Dart Throwing. This is a secondary skill.

-10 experience in Combat Dart Throwing, and 10 experience in DEX]

She shared this with the group as they sat down in the sunny meadow and discussed ideas. The rabbits ignored them.

After much sharing of skills, stats, and past messages, they all turned and looked at Rolly.

"Ok, this is just a theory, but I think it's all about how ACME is trying to screw us and keep us from Adventuring. It's pretty obvious - Billy, as much as they said it straight up. Whatever skills normal players have for combat, we don't have. I notice the little bits of armor we made aren't doing anything, either. The rabbit bites right through them, and they slow us down."

"All of us are crap at hitting what is probably the easiest mob in the game - maybe 10% by my estimate, or less. I think it depends on level and DEX, neither of which we have much of. I hit once, and it said 20 points on the crit. I think critical hits are double damage. So, I'm doing 10 points, and it says 'default weapon.' Everyone but Suzette got the same messages, but I noticed Ozzy does a LOT more damage. The one time he hit, it was for 50 points. 10 points base, 8 STR, so extra STR equates to 5 pts of damage per hit - at least for 'default weapons.'

"Suzette isn't using a default weapon and is hitting a hell of a lot more often. So obviously, we all need to figure out some way to get weapons that don't use the default rules with a horrible chance to hit and damage."

Ben was looking at Ozzy. "Why doesn't your cleaver do more? Is it still a default weapon?"

Ozzy looked at his sheet. "I don't have Cleaver as a weapon. I have Hack Flesh and Chop Bone. Neither skill can be used against living creatures, just carcasses. I'm sure they put Cleaver on the 'No, you don't get to use this' list. It's too obvious."

Ben stood up. "I think we need to modify our plans in a few ways. First, level up some stats. We can work on CON later today by eating poisoned meat. That will help with Health. If we can get to 50 experience points, the three of us will have 1 CON like Ozzy. He gets 20 extra health from that point. I think it takes 150 to get to the next point and 350 after that. Any skill that gives STR, DEX, and CON is good for combat. We work on those during the week. Secondly, we experiment with odd 'non-weapons' and see if we can each find something that each of us can use to attack. It's slow, but we can beat this."

Rolly was happy. "We know stuff and have a plan; let’s go kill more rabbits. We all need to block the bunny from getting to Suzette next time. We suck at hitting it, but we can still get in its way while she deals death from above. Kick it around and keep it from getting hits on us."

With this plan, the group set to work and, one by one, ganged up on the overweight rabbits, who lacked any survival instinct and just waited their turn to be attacked. They occasionally took breaks to heal up. No matter how careful they were, the bunnies were better at landing blows than they were at dodging them. They were accumulating a large pile of rabbit carcasses. Suzette said, “Can we sell these to the tavern or the inn? There’s a lot of meat here.”

Ozzy remembered something and brought up his character sheet. “Grab six rabbits by the ears, Ben, and ask me for a quest. Ben humored him, wondering what was up.

[You have accepted the quest: Tasty Rabbit for Dinner

You receive 10 copper pennies and 50 experience in either STR or DEX, your choice.]

The other two quickly grabbed their own sets of rabbits and got the same. Ben was immediately intrigued. “Can we do that more than once? And what other quests do you have.”

“Just once a day, which is going to be once a week with our schedule, but I have another quest for hunting down a boar. That one sounds tougher.”

“It does, but we should keep a lookout for where we can find them.” Ben was happy to find the small exploit. “Ten copper is more than we had this morning, and the experience is huge compared to killing these things. But let’s go kill more. Every little bit helps. And we're learning things.”

Little by little, they cleared the rest of the Fat Rabbits until only a few remained. After their final break, they noticed the last three Fat Rabbits were moving towards them.

Ben noticed first. "Heads up. They might be working together now rather than letting us kill them one by one."

Rolly thought they looked scared. "Poor things are shivering. Come here, little bunny, I'll protect you."

Laughter echoed through the meadow. And not the good kind like at your 6th birthday party. No, this was more like the laughter of the pack of bullies who caught you in the men's room and wanted your lunch money. A cloud obscured the sun, and the wind picked up.

“And who is going to protect you while you protect the chubby bunny? I'll give you a hint: No one. “

A large wolf with red eyes, ragged fur, and exposed ribs stalked into the meadow. That was enough for the three remaining Fat Rabbits, who started running for the safety of a hole in the side of the hill. They didn't make it. Black lightning arced from the Wolf's eyes, and the rabbits slumped to the ground. Then they clumsily got back up, the name above their head changing.

FAT ZOMBIE BUNNY Level 1

Chartok, the Scourge of the Holly Woods (Elite Boss Level ?)

“And since you took my lunch, let’s bring out a few more friends to play with you.”

With a horrible screaming sound, the earth broke open around them, and a pack of dead things crawled from the ground.

ANIMATED RABBIT SKELETON Level 0

“This will teach you to steal a poor, hungry puppy's lunch!”