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Over the next couple of miles, the road slopes gently upward, and the forest becomes more dense. Soon the road narrows and becomes a footpath switching back and forth up the steep hillside. Eventually, they can see the sky clearly through the trees, and then they crest the hilltop at a clearing to look over Noob Valley below them, bordered by mountains and rolling foothills.
“Pretty,” Phyr says, “But kinda smelly, innit?”
“Well,” Pannych says with a shrug, “If the Grayls have been killing destined heroes by the hundreds over the last few months, and leaving the bodies to rot, then I can’t imagine that smells very good.” Phyr wrinkles his nose and they begin their descent into the valley.
Before too long, the smell gets more intense, and then they hear something crashing in the brush ahead. They draw their weapons and ready themselves, and just as they’re about to roll for turn order, a gigantic orange-furred bear rears up on its hind legs and gives a deafening roar. Despite having weapons drawn, the adventurers are so alarmed by the beast’s appearance that it gets a surprise round. It’s still pretty far, though, so it goes down to all fours and charges at Phyr. They roll turn order: Pannych goes first, followed by Phyr, and then the bear.
Pannych pulls a handful of caltrops out of her bag of tricks and scatters them on the ground in front of Phyr, then says, “Back up a bit!”
Phyr shoots at the bear with both his blasters, but the recoil makes the shots go wide and he doesn’t roll well enough to compensate. He obliterates a couple of trees.
The bear continues charging, and will nearly reach them next round.
Pannych leaps backward a bit and raises her sword over her head to prepare an attack. She shouts at Phyr, “BACK! UP!”
Phyr aims at the bear with one blaster, fires, and hits the bear’s chest for 125 damage. He scoots a few feet back.
The bear continues to charge, and is almost within striking distance.
Pannych keeps her sword up and concentrates on her prepared strike.
Phyr shoots with one blaster again, and hits the bear’s shoulder for another 125 damage.
The bear charges over the caltrops and is about to strike at Phyr, but it stumbles a bit on the spiky things and Pannych uses the opportunity to launch her prepared strike: she rolls a 20 and does double damage with no resistance, for 78 total. She cuts deeply into its neck, severing its spinal column.
Phyr dives out of the way as the bear goes limp and slides along the ground for a couple yards. Pannych is almost caught by its shoulder as it goes by, but she nimbly spins out of the way using the momentum of her strike. They each earn 1 XP.
“Holy shitfuck,” Phyr yells as he gets up off the ground. “What the Hell is that thing?” They look the beast over: it’s easily about as tall as Pannych at the shoulder, and two or three times that height when standing erect. Its head is flopped to the side at an awkward angle, on account of basically hanging on by a thick flap of muscle and skin, and noxious green blood flows from the wound. Its claws and nose are a glossy grey-blue, and its still-open eyes are pitch black.
“Kinda looks like you,” Pannych says.
“Does so not,” he objects, then adds, “Wait a sec.” He pulls out the tablet of identification and has Pannych read it while he looks at the carcass.
“DEAD NOOB,” she says, “Nasty, Overpowered Orange Bear. Holy Christ.”
Phyr stares slack-jawed for a moment, then says, “Noob Town. Noob Valley. Noob hunts. Oh God, noob shit!” As if on cue, the noob voids its bowels, and an awful stench fills the air. “Eeeeuuuugh!” He holds his nose at the awful stench.
“Wait, let’s see what the tablet says about that,” Pannych says, wrinkling her nose. Phyr shows her the tablet and stares reluctantly at the awful green pile. “NOOB SHIT - hard to get, but a valuable crafting ingredient. Huh, maybe it’s like a magic fertilizer or something.”
A flaming bough falls from one of the destroyed trees, and the adventurers notice that they have the beginnings of a forest fire on their hands. Phyr casts Chill and regulates his mana flow to cool the burning stuff below its flash point, and the flames die out with a decent Magic roll.
“Dude, you have got to be more careful where you point that thing,” Pannych says.
“Sorry, I was startled by the giant bear charging at me. I’ll be more careful next time.”
“I think we should be more careful in general from here on in,” Pannych says. “Those things are really rugged, and I only stopped it from hitting you because I rolled a crit. We got lucky this time.” She wipes her sword clean and places it back in its scabbard, then looks for the path again.
“Hey, what about your little spiky things,” Phyr asks.
“Leave ‘em,” she says. “I have a bag of tricks, they’re unlimited.”
“Wait, so you could just like fill a whole room with caltrops?”
“No,” Pannych says, “Because that would be stupid. But every time I use something in it, it magically pulls another one, and the last one I used goes away if it’s still around. Saves the tedium of cleanup.”
“Handy,” Phyr says with an approving nod. “So what else have you got in there?”
“Oh, just a smoke bomb, shuriken, grapnel and rope, first aid kit, shuko - that is, climbing claws. Y’know, normal stuff. I also have two slots open, in case we find something we need to hold on to - but they don’t replenish.”
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