Chapter three, Crossbows and a Legendary skill.

“Hi I’m Green Raven,” I said when I got closer, “want help with moving the trees?”

“Yes, that would be helpful,” said a gangly older man. He looked like he had his best years behind him, he stood with a bent back, and you could see that his hand that was grasping a wooden staff was shaking just so little. “Hi, I’m Rondellen.”

“Nice to meet you Rondellen.” I said and moved closer, “Is it only you here?” I asked.

“Yes, I’m on my way to my daughter and her husband. They have a small plot of land just outside Ostvik” Rondellen answered.

“Well let's see if we can move the trees, do you have an ax of some sort?” Rondellen gave me an ax and I dug in, soon the splinters were flying. After chopping through both tree trunks on each side of the road. I could roll them to the side.

“There you go Rondellen,” I said while drying off my forehead. This was a good workout.

*Congratulations, hard work pays off.*

*+1 to strength*

The notification had been blinking for a while, but I had ignored it. Well, that was a nice surprise. Rondellen had while I worked, been rooting through his wagon and turned when I was done.

“Thank you so much, what do you want for helping me?” He asked.

“Well if you have water and or food that would be much appreciated,” I said. Rondellen looked at me with a strange expression “you don't have any food or water and you are out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“Thing is, and it might sound strange to you, but I'm not from his world,” I said while looking down at my feet.

Rondellen perked up and with a smile, he said “an offworlder you are?”

”Yes that’s right,” I said looking up at him.

“Well, tell ya what lad, how about you travel with me to Ostvik. And I’ll feed you along the way. And if trouble finds us we fight it off together?” The old man said.

“Yes, Rondellen, that would be a mighty kind of you,” I said with a smile.

“Then let us get on our way.” The man said as he jumped up on the wagon, all of a sudden he didn’t look so old and decrepit anymore.”

At the time I didn’t put any weight on it but just followed up after him. Sitting on the bench beside Rondellen just rolling and bumping along on the road was quite nice after all the walking in the woods.

After a while without speaking Rondellen opened up and said “So I can’t help notice your sword, Green Raven.”

“Yes I know, it’s not much, I got attacked by Goblins and well they didn’t need it anymore so I relieved them from it, so to speak,” I said with a smile.

“Haha, yes I thought it was a goblin sword, no serious sword man would be caught dead with something like that. It’s not quality in any sense.” Rondellen chuckled.

I smiled and said. “Beggars can’t be choosers. So talking about swords, do you think that I could find a good one in Ostvik?”

“Well even if it’s a small village they have quite a good blacksmith there, I should know, it’s my daughter’s husband, he is known for his good craftsmanship. Since you helped me, I'll tell him to give you a fair price.” He was about to say something more.

But he never got the chance, an arrow hit the bench just between us. And more arrows started falling towards us. We both jumped off the wagon and took cover.

I was shouting to Rondellen, “do you have any ranged weapon?! I only have this crappy sword as you know.” There were 6 enemies, and they looked quite fierce with light armor and bows and proper swords, they were all shooting arrows at us now.

He didn’t answer but started to retrieve a couple of crossbows, and asked me, “know how to use one of these?”

“I’m afraid not”, I shook my head, “but I could probably figure out how to load it.” Thinking back to all the movies I saw back on earth, about medieval times when those kinds of weapons were used. Rondellen didn’t say anything, just shot and gave me a crossbow to reload, pointing to the quiver where the arrows lay. I managed to reload the crossbow just as Rondellen had shot two of them. He had three crossbows, and we soon got in a rhythm where he shot and I loaded. And as soon as it started it was over.

*Congratulations, you have received:*

*101 experience points*

*You have defeated 5 Shadow warriors being 20 levels or more above you. Additional experience received. Experience earned is reduced due to being in a group.*

More notifications blinked up in the right-hand corner of my eye, but I ignored them as Rondellen said. “Bah, it was just low-leveled shadow warriors, the last one just disappeared as they can do. Cheeky bastards.” He said when the last of the attackers fled or just vanished.

“Shadow warriors?” I asked.

“Yes, right you are not from here.” He told me, “you see the ones we call shadow warriors are people that are not here, they can fight us. And we them, or talk and trade with them and so on. But you always can see if it’s a shadow warrior. They have a kind of shimmer around their bodies. They can disappear all of a sudden or reappear in an instant. They are immortal or we can kill them as we did now. But if we don’t hurry they’ll be back soon. Thank the gods that we soon are in Ostvik. I inspected you earlier and saw your level. I know you want to go through your notifications and so, but do that when we are on our way again. We were lucky that they all were under level 30 and that they didn’t kill my horses. Inspect each of the bodies and loot all, then we can be on our way.” He said.

“Thank you, but don’t you want anything of the loot?” I asked.

“Well I just voided my share, I do not need that stuff. But you will probably find it useful. Just bring back all my arrows.” Rondellen said with a smile. I instantly nodded and ran towards the fallen. Happy that I met him.

*Inspect being*

*Shadow Warrior, level 25, 2 silver, 1 small health potion.*

*Shadow Warrior, level 25, 20 silver.*

*Shadow Warrior, level 28, 1 gold, 2 medium health potions.*

*Shadow Warrior, level 25, 2 silver, 1 small health potion.*

*Shadow Warrior, level 26, 100 gold.*

I was amazed but remembered that we were on a tight schedule.

*Loot /All*

*You have looted:*

*120 gold, 24 silver, 5 light armor full-body, 5 light armor helmets, 5 pants, 5 Sweaters, and 5 shoes. All of the good quality. 1 bow, excellent quality, 4 bows, good quality, 2 medium health potions, and 1 small health potion.

I raced back to the wagon, at the same time as the bodies dissolved into thin air and Rondellen started moving, I jumped up and exclaimed, “are sure you don’t want any of the loot?”

He just said, “Inspect me, and then you will know why I’m not interested. And tip, don’t inspect other people without asking, or getting your level so high that they will not notice you doing it. So I did what he told me.

*Inspect being*

*Rondellen, LVL 54, human.*

“Damn, yes I see now, but the money then? There was even gold in there.” I said with wonder in my voice.

He just laughed, shrugged, and said, “you will need it much better than me.” I thanked him and started to look through my notifications.

*Congratulation you have reached level 6*

*You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.*

Checking status.

*Status:*

*Name: Green Raven*

*Level: 6*

*Coins: 120 gold, 25 silver, 8 rusty copper*

*Attributes:*

*Strength 8*

*Dexterity 8*

*Endurance 7*

*Vitality 10*

*Intelligence 7*

*Wisdom 2*

*Available points: 10*

*Health: 100/100*

*Stamina: 70/70*

*Mana: 2/2*

*Skills:*

*Inspect item level 2/10*

*Inspect being level 1/10*

*Skill that unlocks at level ten*

*Randomized skill from uncommon to epic.*

With 101 experience points, I guessed that I’d level up quite a few levels, at least five, so I read four more notifications to speed things along.

*Congratulation you have reached level 10*

*You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.*

*At level 10, you get a random skill from uncommon to epic.*

*Congratulations you have received a legendary skill. [Telekinesis] level 1 costs 10 mana to activate and 5 mana per second the skill is used. The range is 5 meters at LVL 1.*

Wow, that sounds awesome, now I need to put some more points into wisdom to get my mana up to speed, I thought. But first I’d get my basic stats up to even 10.

*Status:*

*Name: Green Raven*

*Level: 10*

*Coins: 120 gold, 25 silver, 8 rusty copper*

*Attributes:*

*Strength 10*

*Dexterity 10*

*Endurance 7*

*Vitality 10*

*Intelligence 10*

*Wisdom 30*

*Available points: 0*

*Health: 100/100*

*Stamina: 70/70*

*Mana: 2/30*

*Skills:*

*[Inspect item] level 2/10*

*[Inspect being] level 1/10*

*[Telekinesis] level 1*

I did all that without asking Rondellen, I’ve been a sucker for spells and mages since I was little. But now I thought I’d ask. “Rondellen?”

“Yeah, hmm?” He looked up, seemed like he’d been in deep thoughts.

“I just reached level 10 and got my random skill, I got [Telekinesis] level 1. Is that any good?”

“You got what??” He exclaimed! And looked at me with astonishment.

“Tele” I started.

But Rondellen interrupted me, “yes I heard you I just don’t believe it! It’s a legend, wait for it, -dary skill. It’s practically unheard of that a level 10 gets something like that! But yes it can be a good skill if you use it right. Like if you’d have had it in the fight earlier, you could have changed the trajectory of the arrows or even taken their weapons. But you need to practice a lot to get good with it as with everything.”

I thought about what he said, and then asked, “Okay, so I have this fantastic skill now, but how do I use it or activate it?”

“That is something you need to figure out for yourself, it’s different for everyone. But what I can say is that you need to look within. You can’t just think about it.” Rondellen said.

I needed to check the new skill out obviously but first I needed to go through the rest of my notifications and then maybe see if the armor I looted fit me.

*Congratulation you have reached level 11*

*You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.*

*Congratulation you have reached level 12*

*You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.*

*Congratulation you have reached level 13*

*You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.*

I got another 15 experience points but decided to save them. To be honest, now I just wanted to get everything sorted out, so I could try out my new skill. So time to check my inventory.

*Inventory Slots 18/15*

*1 Pant, low quality (Equipped)*

*1 Sweater, low quality (Equipped)*

*1 Shoe, fair quality (Equipped)*

*1 Knife shaft*

*3 Swords, level 1, low quality*

*1 Sword, level 2, fair quality (equipped no)*

*2 Water-skin, empty, fair quality*

*3 Wood wolf pelts*

*12 Wood wolf portions of meat*

*5 Light armor full body, excellent quality*

*5 Light armor helmets, excellent quality*

*5 Pants, good quality*

*5 Sweater, good quality*

*5 shoes, good quality*

*1 bow, excellent quality*

*4 bows, good quality*

*2 medium health potions*

*1 small health potion*

*BEFORE CLOSING THIS WINDOW YOU MUST DROP THE ITEMS IN 3 SLOTS! If you don’t, 3 random slots with items in them will be deleted.

Hmm, okay, so I can have more than one of the same items and it fits in the same slot. There is probably an upper limit. And it seems that I get an extra slot per level, wonder if that can be expanded somehow. So completely remove items from 3 slots. I went through my inventory and decided to drop the following items.

*Equip Pants, good quality*

Automatically the pants I was wearing changed to the new ones. And the old ones lost the [Equipped] tag. I did the same thing with the rest of the things I was wearing and then dropped them. They landed on the floor of the wagon.

Checking inventory just in case before closing it.

*Inventory Slots 18/15*

*1 Pant, good quality (Equipped)*

*1 Sweater, good quality (Equipped)*

*1 Shoe, good quality (Equipped)*

*1 Knife shaft*

*3 Swords, level 1, low quality*

*1 Sword, level 2, fair quality (equipped)*

*2 Water-skin, empty, fair quality*

*3 Wood wolf pelts*

*12 Wood wolf portions of meat*

*5 Light armor full body, excellent quality*

*5 Light armor helmets, excellent quality*

*4 Pants, good quality*

*4 Sweater, good quality*

*4 shoes, good quality*

*1 bow, excellent quality*

*4 bows, good quality*

*2 medium health potions*

*1 small health potion*

Crap, crap, good that I checked, so equipped items take up their slot. Hmm, what to drop. The knife shaft, the 3 low-quality swords, but that’s only 2 slots. So I asked Rondellen. “I have a bit of an inventory issue. I've dropped everything with low quality but I need to drop one more thing. Is there a way of expanding my inventory or some other way to fix it?”

Rondellen looked at me, “ah, yes the hardship of low-level inventory, when you get over 25 it mostly stops being an issue. And you haven’t tried on the armor yet together with the helmet, that is two more slots you need. What you will find out at level 15 but what I can tell you right now is to bond the items you are wearing to a separate clothes/armor slot. It’s called. [Bonded items]. So drop items in one more slot, doesn’t matter what, since it will just end up at your feet. Then you think, bond with worn items.

So I did what he told me, I dropped the small health potion.

*Bond with worn items*

*Want to bond with worn items, you can not change bonded items without releasing items Y/N*

I thought YES.

*Following items have been bonded to Green Raven:*

*1 Pant, good quality*

*1 Sweater, good quality*

*1 Shoe, good quality*

It felt a bit strange but all of a sudden my clothes that a moment earlier had been a bit too big in some places and too small in others, fitted me perfectly.

Rondellen smiled and said, “feels much better now, right?”

And I was speechless, so I just nodded.

[Inventory]

*Inventory Slots 12/15*

*Bonded items:*

*1 Pant, good quality*

*1 Sweater, good quality*

*1 Shoe, good quality*

*Inventory*

*1 Sword, level 2, fair quality (equipped)*

*2 Water-skin, empty, fair quality*

*3 Wood wolf pelts*

*12 Wood wolf portions of meat*

*5 Light armor full body, excellent quality*

*5 Light armor helmets, excellent quality*

*4 Pants, good quality*

*4 Sweater, good quality*

*4 shoes, good quality*

*1 bow, excellent quality*

*4 bows, good quality*

*2 medium health potions*

I equipped the armor and helmet, it didn’t suit me that well, but after bonding with them too, they felt as perfect as the clothes and shoes. I put the small health potion back in inventory. Okay, so at last I was done with all that “admin-work”, so I closed everything down. The pain I experienced was as bad as last time, I forgot that I had put some points in strength and dexterity, but like last time it was over before I knew it.

Rondellen openly laughed at me when he saw me squirm. “Not gotten used to becoming stronger and faster?”

“No not yet, or wait, do you get used to it?” I asked.

“Haha, not really,” Rondellen said with a big smile.

After that, we sat silent for a while, Rondellen in his world. And I was trying out my [Telekinesis] skill. He had said that I needed to look within, look within. I didn't even know what he meant by that. So I tried my best to activate it. Most of the ways I thought would work failed and soon I was about to give up when I saw a flower next to the road and just thought, I’d like that flower in my hand. And slowly it came towards me and ended up in my hand.

That got Rondellen going. “Wow, you did it!” He almost screamed!

I turned to him and with a big smile, I said, “yes!! It wasn’t easy but I did it!”

Up ahead we were beginning to see smoke from chimneys and hear the usual sound from a village. So I had to save the training of my new skill for later. I looked towards Rondellen and he nodded, “yes, we are soon in Ostvik.”