“Don’t you think we should have asked Bruk where the town is?” I shouted over the roar of the engine. Paco had grown more confident in his driving. The war wagon ripped down the dirt road spewing black smoke in its wake. I thought we were gaining speed which only meant that Paco wished for the car to go faster.

  “I think Mr. Shoulder will be okay with a little fun right now,” he said as he took a corner way too hard. We skidded off the road and into a ditch. Thank God I was buckled in, otherwise I would have gotten thrown into a tree.

  “My wagon!” Paco shouted as he hopped out to assess the damage.

  “It doesn’t look so bad. Maybe you should think of a way for this thing to get more traction, and also a roll cage so if we flip it we don’t, you know, die.”

  Paco walked closer to the war wagon and pulled it into his inventory. “Let’s walk for now,” he said. “Maybe we can find some stuff to kill on our way to town.”

  “We don’t even know where it is.”

  “Didn’t you see the signs? While we were driving? It’s 4 miles West.” Paco pointed down the road he had tried to turn on to.

  “No, I was holding on for dear life.”

  “Whatever, let’s go, Chris.” Paco scampered off into the woods instead of following the road.

  “I don’t think we should go this way.”

  “I doubt there’s going to be much this close to the road for us to worry about. Plus, it’ll let you get used to hunting with a bow.” Paco started to climb a tree. When he got to one of the larger branches, he equipped his stick as he took the pose of a fencer. He started to swing and stab the air around him. Each time he did, the stick made its classic whooshing sound. I equipped my bow and pulled out one of my arrows. I rested it against the string and walked forward.

  “You know, this feels pretty natural to me,” I said. “Like I’ve done this before.”

  “I think it’s because of our classes. We have basic instincts of how we’re supposed to attack.”

  You are correct, little one. You both have basics that help your class. You’ll have to level up your abilities. Now that you’re not in a safe area, you can see what those abilities are in your hotbar.

  I looked and saw a few. Hunter’s Instinct. It marked targets within 50 feet of me. Deadeye. That one increased damage 2.5x if I shot something in the head. And I had a magic ability. Heal. It cost 5 mana to cast, but raised my health 50%.

  “What’d you get?” I asked after telling Paco what I had.

  “I also got Heal. Then there’s Double Slash. It hits a target twice for each swing. There’s a cooldown on it for one minute. If I use a sword it has a 50% chance to inflict Bleed. Right now it has a 5% chance to inflict Stun because I’m using the stick. Then I have Second Wind which grants me 10% of my life back. That has an hour long cooldown.”

  Use that one sparingly. It doesn’t require mana like Heal does, so you can use it after it cooldowns, but it should be used when you desperately need it.

  Paco climbed back down the tree and came to my side. We walked further West.

  “Shoot it, Chris,” Paco whispered.

  Ahead of us there was a large bird. It was a Level 5 Demon Hawk. Its wings were obsidian. Its torso was white, and it had bright red eyes.

  “Okay, just be quiet and stay here,” I whispered as I skulked forward. I tried not to step on any twigs even though my boots would deaden most of the noise. I didn’t know anything about this thing, and I didn’t really want to find out. It was only 3 levels higher than us, but I wasn’t comfortable. I pulled myself next to a tree, and slammed down on my Deadeye as I leveled my bow. The arrow loosed itself and pierced straight through the demon hawk’s eye with a sickening squelch. It went out the other side and slammed into a tree.

  “You did it!” Paco yelled from behind. I heard him running through the brush. He pounced and hit me in the shoulders, almost knocking me over. He had used me as a springboard. He rocketed towards the dead demon hawk. I ran over but it had already been looted.

  “Nothing really here,” he said.

  “That was my loot because it was my kill.”

  “You really are selfish. You got most of the XP for the kill, and now you won’t share the loot? Fine, take it.” Paco produced demon hawk breasts. They plopped to the ground in a pile. “Here, take the feathers, too.” He handed those to me. They were a mix of white and black. The white ones were shorter than the black ones which had obviously come from the wings of the bird.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “What else was there?” I asked.

  “I’m keeping the skull,” he retorted.

  “Skull?”

  “Yeah, it says you can wear it.” Paco put the skull on. It formed over his head and resized itself just like my boots had. The beak elongated in front of his face. He truly was something to see. A raccoon wearing a hawk skull.

  “I hate it,” he said as he took it off and stowed it into his Hamster of Holding. I watched as the hamster opened its mouth and swallowed the skull. It had enlarged itself, then shrunk down to its original size. The whole scene was off-putting to say the least.

  My XP bar had gone up halfway from killing the hawk. Paco’s went up about a quarter of the way. It wasn’t much, but if we kept killing low-level enemies, surely we’d hit level 3 by the time we made it to town.

  We heard a screech that sounded like nails against a chalkboard mixed with metal scraping against metal. Paco’s tail shot straight up, and his eyes grew wide as the hair on my arms stood at attention. We both turned our heads around and saw it.

  Level 15 Demon Hawk.

  This is the mother of the Demon Hawk you just killed. Poor baby. He was just venturing outside of the nest for the first time and Chris decided it would be a good idea to put an arrow right through its soft, squishy eyeball like it was a juicy grape. Now mama is mad. Like, really mad. Enraged even. She’s coming for you. Luckily dad hasn’t heard the news yet. You’d be all around fucked if he wasn’t at work.

  “Run!” I shouted to Paco.

  The demon hawk was massive. Easily the size of a black bear. Her color was the same except for a few red feathers that sat atop her head. She screeched again before she opened her wings to take flight towards us.

  Even with my new boots, I heard the leaves crunch and twigs break as he ran towards town. We aimed for a denser section of trees hoping it would stop the demon hawk from getting to us too quickly.

  Paco looked up to the sky and saw her soaring overhead. He pointed at her. It was like a goddamn police helicopter circling, waiting for the criminal to come back into view.

  “What’s the plan, Chris,” Paco said panting as we started to slow.

  “We have to get to town, we’ll be safe there at least.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “In all of the games I played, the town is almost always safe.”

  “This isn’t a game, Chris!”

  “I know, but maybe the dwarves can help us.”

  “Mr. Shoulder is going to be pissed at you. Not at me. But definitely at you,” Paco said.

  I rubbed my hands against my face. I just wanted to be home.

  “Let’s go.” I turned and started going through the denser trees towards town.

  The demon hawk continued to screech overhead as we made slow progress. I was grateful that the leaves of the canopy were thick, even though it made this section of forest more miserable to get through.

  As the forest grew less dense, we could see the fortifications for the edge of town maybe a quarter mile away. A massive wall of wood stood surrounded the area. Each log was sharpened into a point. We waited just at the edge of the woods.

  “Hold on,” Paco said before he turned and ran back the way we came.

  “What the hell is he doing?”

  Hunting.

  The AI on my arm decided to chime in.

  “For what?”

  Paco re-emerged from the denser section holding a snake.

  Level 2 Snake. Nothing special. Poisonous. Don’t get bit.

  This was the shortest description I’d seen in a while. Then I noticed Paco was now level 3.

  “Congrats,” I said.

  “Thanks, I’m gonna keep the teeth.”

  “How’d you know it was back there?”

  “I saw it when we were running, but I was more worried about staying alive than whacking it with my stick.” He threw it on the ground in front of me. Sure enough, it had no teeth. “Keep the meat if you want.”

  I inspected it and stuffed a single Snake Cutlet into my inventory.

  “Okay, so what’s the plan?” Paco said as he came and stood next to me at the edge of the forest staring at the town.

  “Take out your war wagon and see if it runs. That’s our best bet.”

  Paco’s War Wagon dropped in front of us. It was still spewing black smoke and the engine still ran. Paco hopped into it and revved the engine.

  “I think it works,” Paco said as he tried to adjust the rearview mirror which magically appeared.

  I hopped in and nodded to Paco. He floored it so hard that my head hit a piece of the roof as I was thrown back into my seat. This time I didn’t buckle in. I needed a clear view when mama bird came screeching.

  “Give it more power,” I shouted as I produced my bow.

  The demon hawk was now in full view. She soared above the trees and dove down behind us. She was lining up for the kill. I watched as her feet turned to a chrome color, and her talons elongated at least 3 feet. She had definitely cast some kind of spell or ability and I knew that if she caught up, we were most certainly dead.

  “I’m trying! But it’s fighting me! It doesn’t want to go any faster!”

  “Shit,” I said. I knocked one of my precious arrows and loosed it at the hawk. I missed entirely. I pulled another and let it fly. Still missing.

  “We’re almost there!” Paco shouted.

  “Third time’s the charm,” I whispered as I tried to calm my breathing. I let the arrow go and it soared and found the mark. The demon hawk screamed bloody murder. A health bar appeared above it. It had barely gone down. But it did what I needed it to. She veered off and circled back.

  The gates to the town opened and Paco slammed on the brakes. I watched the world spin as I was tossed through the open section of the war wagon.