My eyes went from the dwarf to the horse-thief and back. Thinking purely logical, the thief would be the better choice, a lowlife should have the ability to help me vanish into the city, whereas the dwarf’s ability to do that was a lot more questionable. Sure, his people had built parts of the city some hundred years ago, but who knew if there actually were those tunnels and such he alluded to.

But at the same time, the thief’s behaviour had been hostile, or rather fearful of me, the whole time, making me wonder if there would be a betrayal at some point in the future.

However, it was a game. So, I was rather sure that either would get me out, but that going with the dwarf might be the harder version. Still, I would likely be able to manage, simply because it was the tutorial and generally, no games would end a player’s path within the first few minutes, not unless the player did something particularly stupid.

So, with that in mind, I guessed that helping the Dwarf would likely link me to the Dwarven-Faction and The Gathering in general while helping the thief might link me to the human criminal underworld. As I considered that, the quest I had forcibly abandoned by killing my owner, it would likely have linked me to the official Human and Council of the Wise-forces.

But it might be problematic to leave the thief behind, if we did, he would certainly use his knowledge to his advantage, telling about our escape, either to profit or solely out of spite. I walked over, smiling gently, I told him, “Don’t worry. I will free you in a moment.”

He looked quite hopeful, at least until I pulled out my new dagger, that was when his face changed and he opened his mouth to scream, which was, just like the guard’s scream, muffled by my second hand. This time I didn’t stab my victim in the back, I stabbed him into the front and, for once, I was able to get a good look at the action. The dagger slid into his body, coming back out with a small spurt of blood, while leaving only a small, glowing mark behind.

After a few stabs, the thief stilled and I stepped back, letting him sack in his bonds. That was one problem solved. A new blue window told me that I had acquired a new title, Ruthless, increasing the damage I dealt with critical strikes. I even got some EXP for the thief, but only fifty, keeping with the difficulty of killing him.

New Title: Ruthless

Mercy is for the weak, compassion is a shackle holding you back. When you strike, you strike to kill, making sure that your foes will never rise again.

1% increased Critical Strike Damage.

When selected, effect changes to 10% increased Critical Strike Damage.

I would have to look into the question how to select a title, but for now, I had an arena to escape from.

When I turned to the dwarf, he looked slightly worried, maybe because of the fact that my kills had added some blood splatters as decoration to my clothes, face and hand or because he had just watched me murder someone. He would come around, I was sure of that.

“Don’t worry, I will free you. But I didn’t want to risk him alerting the guards, just to spite us.” I explained, walking over and realising that I had never looted the guard I had killed. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if he had the keys to both their shackles, making killing the thief unnecessary?

When I accessed the bag left behind by the guard, there was no second key inside, merely another dagger, identical to the one I already had. I would give it to the dwarf, if I tried to dual-wield, I’d be more likely to muck up and using my paw had served me well so far.

Opening the shackles was simple, I just had to touch the key to them and they sprung open with a soft click, allowing the dwarf to move his hands.

He rubbed his wrists, looking much happier now that he was free and when I presented the hilt of the second dagger to him, he even grinned, at least a little.

“Thank you kindly, orc.” he nodded to me, “Now, we just need to get out of here.”

“Agreed. But I doubt that fighting would work very well, we need some sort of distraction.” I explained, curious how good their NPCs would be. In previous games, they had managed to make them quite lifelike but there had been glitches when asked for things outside their parameters, causing the occasional, hilarious conversation.

In this case, the question of a distraction was obviously not outside his parameters, so when he nodded and asked if I had any ideas how to cause one, I wasn’t too surprised.

“Not yet, but maybe something will jump out to us.” I told him and together, we started our way back up, into the hallways of the arena.

Both of us kept silent, merely communicating with simple gestures and intently listening to anything around us. When I ducked around a corner, I almost singed my hair on one of the oil-lanterns that kept the place lit and at that moment, a sweet smell tickled my nose and memory. The lamp was smelling almost exactly the same as the store-room I had been in before, when hiding from the guards. A smile spread on my lips when I realised that it might be the ultimate distraction, even in a building mostly made from stone, a massive, smoking oil-fire would cause confusion and distraction. Maybe enough of both for two figures clad in rags to vanish in the, hopefully, ensuing panic.

With a little more purpose in my steps, I retraced my way to the store-room and it was then, that our luck ran out. Right before we could duck into the room, a pair of guards came around the corner, almost running into me.

Knowing that our escape would be brutally cut short, I instantly triggered my rage-mode and put the rush on the first guard, trying to bodycheck him into his friend, causing a tangle of limbs that I could stab into. While it was doubtful that I would easily be able to pin down two level two-guards, I had to try.

“Strength of the Mountains!” a rumbling voice called out behind me, and a symbol appeared in the corner of my eyes but I had little time to look closely before impacting with the leading guard. The impact bounced him back without slowing me down much and, to my surprise, the plan went exactly as I had hoped, the guard was carried into his partner and all three of us went down, with me up top, dagger out and blindly stabbing into the squirming limbs below me.

The first guard’s health-bar vanished but not before his buddy managed to get out of the pile, rolling away from the tangle. We both stood at the same time, just in time for him to get rushed by the dwarf. But, contrary to my expectation, the guard managed to push the rushing dwarf off him, turning to run away.

I had yet to fully get to my feet but I was quite sure that, if he managed to run, we would have huge trouble, so I tried to simply leap forward in a flying tackle. It was a maneuver born from reckless desperation and, in this case, it worked like a charm. The guard’s eyes widened as roughly two-hundred pounds of hairy orc-muscle flew towards him, and, just like before, he went down, hard. But he had managed to get out his own knife and I felt the stinging indicator that I was damaged, just as I stabbed him.

For a few seconds, we stabbed into each other, my health quickly draining, just as his was. I quickly realised that I was winning the race, allowing me to calm and focus on getting my attacks right.

Once the guard’s health-bar was empty, he stilled and I pushed myself up, taking a look at the buff I had gotten. It was, as expected, called Strength of the Mountains and increased my strength by fifteen points and my armour by twenty, lasting for the next one-minute, thirty seconds, so it had originally likely a duration of two minutes. Checking my combat-log informed me that I had gained 120 EXP for killing the guards and that my “Harnessing Rage”-Ability had grown to Novice III, with a few extra percent.

“Quickly, we need to hide their bodies.” the dwarf told me, making me wonder what he was talking about, the bodies would despawn and that was it. But, to my surprise, he grabbed the first one and dragged it to the store-room we had been about to enter when they came around the corner.

Following his lead, I did the same with the second body, realising that it no longer felt like a body and more like a heavy pillow shaped like one, I was quite relieved, otherwise it would have been rather creepy.

Inside the store-room, the barrels were still there and, just after we dropped the bodies, they despawned into the chalk-silhouettes I had come to expect, complete with small bags in their middle. Opening the bags netted some more coins but also a one-handed sword, called an Iron Gladius, dealing quite a bit more damage than the dagger. I instantly equipped it, in exchange for the dagger, slightly annoyed that there was no way to keep the dagger as a second, readied weapon. Or maybe there was and I just didn’t know it, not that it mattered, I had no time to look for the option.

Looking at the barrels I had come for, and actually focusing on them, labelled them as Lamp-Oil Barrels and now, my smile was back in force. The plan in my mind was rather simple, but maybe that was for the best. Using the dagger as a hole-punch, I opened the top of one of the lamp-oil barrels before going into my menu and taking off my upper-body clothes, leaving me in the most powerful garment of all, the indestructible underwear of privacy. In my case, it was an ugly, tan sports-bra that strangely covered more than the rags I had on before. It was part of my character, impossible to take off outside of designated, special areas and only after giving explicit consent, something I wasn’t sure I would ever do.

Still grinning like a loon, I pushed most of the rags into the barrel, soaking them with oil, lots of it, making sure that they were still in the liquid inside.

Once I was done, I started laughing when blue windows appeared.

New Skill acquired - Improvised Crafting

Armed with nothing but what you find at hand and your ingenuity, you manage to craft things that seem improbable, whether it is their chance to actually work as expected or the question if a sane mind came up with them.

You can craft without a plan or the normally required facilities. The result can behave in unexpected ways.

Crafting Successful

You successfully crafted an item:

Maxotov Cocktail.

Getting my laughter under control, I peeked outside, grabbing an oil-lamp when the air was clear, setting my improvised insanity on fire.

“Let’s run.” I told my dwarven companion who had watched me with a look of slight worry, but now, he happily followed behind me, hopefully towards our freedom.