Looking at the other players in the expedition, they had also received the quest update. Captain Miller was directing the army in an offensive against the bandits, who were encircling the company. Once the bandit archers were taken care of, groups of warriors marched in formation towards the bandits. Some of the players often broke rank to chase a fleeing bandit or to attack one of the bandits that a group had already targeted. In doing this, they threw the familiarity that they had earned with the soldiers.

On the other hand, I helped out other soldiers. Whenever I saw someone who needed help, I would jump in and deal the bandit swiftly before moving on to the next. Since I had killed their leader, many bandits came after me, either seeking revenge or notoriety. The result was that I had no problem finding an adversary.

When twenty of the bandit had fallen, they quickly realized that they were no match for us and scattered. The expedition took a moment to gather ourselves and catch our breath. We also healed the wounded. The wagon driver had taken an arrow to the knee so Lendell, Owen, and I would have to take over his duties on the way back. However, being the old stubborn man he was, the driver insisted on riding up in front. The body of the bandit chief was wrapped in cloth and put in the back of the wagon, proof that the job had been done.

We set up camp for the rest of the evening and were divided in teams of five, each team was entrusted with an area of the forest. The Captain, the second-in-command, the driver, Landell, Owen and myself would stay and protect the wagon.

Of course.

I was about to protest when the second-in-command pulled me aside.

"Who are you?" He asked.

"What do you mean?" I replied, genuinely confused.

"Don't play games with me, Varrant. No ordinary cook moves like you do." Oh, he meant my combat abilities.

"Oh. My teacher showed me moves and taught me how to fight, but this is the first time I have used them in real battle, not sparing."

"Teacher?"

"Kaden... from the training hall." I replied.

"Wait, you are Kaden's student?" He asked. I could see him putting the pieces together.

"Yes."

"I see..." He trailed off. Somehow, mentioning Kaden seemed to calm him down. I made a note to talk to Kaden when I get back. "But if you are Kaden student, what are you doing, posing as a cook?"

"I am a cook. I just happened to be learning how to fight for future plans, that's all."

"Plans?" He asked.

"Yes, I wish to travel the world and discover new place. I want to meet new people and learn their stories and cultures."

"Ah. You wish to become an adventure?"

I sighed. "I don't know." I honestly answered. "It seems a bit... boring to me."

The mage stroked his chin. "An explorer, then?"

"Carving my way to celebrity and wealth in blood isn't really agreeable to my morals."

He looked at me. "Celebrity and wealth?"

I grinned. "Who doesn't dream of those?"

He grinned as well and nodded. "Indeed."

He looked at me in silence. I was becoming slightly impatient, but I waited.

"You have a gift with people." He said. "You are hard working and know how to manage goods. You seek to travel to many places and meet new people."

I saw a lightbulb go off. "Say, you wouldn't be interested in becoming a merchant by any chance?"

"A merchant." I hadn't expected this. "What do they do?"

"You probably know a bit about them, but they buy and sell goods. They seek to become rich by looking for new ideas, new clients, and new places."

Oh wow, I thought. This sounds exactly what I was looking for.

"That sounds quite interesting." I replied. "I will think about it."

He nodded. "If you do decided to follow the path of the merchant, go to the Bubbling Bar and look for a man named Gerry. Gerry runs the bar and is looking for help. It should be perfect for you."

I bowed. "I understand. Thank you."

He bowed and left. Before he left, I called out to him.

"I did not catch your name, sir."

He smiled. "It's Cage. John Cage."

And with that, he went off. As he left, three windows popped up.

Kaden's name seems to have a lot of weight with military officials. You should dig deeper.

***

You were presented with the "Path of the Conquering Merchant." Ask your mentor about it for more details.

***

You were proposed the position of "Assistant" at the Bubbling Bar. To accept it, go see Gerry at the Bubbling Bar in Djaden.

Path of the Merchant, I thought. It sounds like a special profession. I should definitively look into that.

The rest of the day went by in a flash. THe cleaning groups came back around sunset. When all of the groups were back, I looked at the mission status. There were only seventeen outlaws left. Most of them were probably holed up in their camp.

The Camp!

I took out my map and noticed a second red dot. Just next to the one indicating the ruins.

Of course! They were using the ruins as shelter.

My first instinct was to tell the captain about my discovery. The second was not to. After all, if the entire expedition force went, there was the possibility that I would have to share the Forest Ruins Quest with them. But then again, if all the bandits were there, this is critical to the mission.

I decided what to do. I went to the Captain's tent after finishing my duties of a cook. Both Captain Miller and John were leaning over their map, studying it. Black dots were spread randomly around the forest. Most of them were grouped around the ruins. I realized that those were the locations of the bandits that were killed by the soldiers.

I bowed to my superiors. Immediately, I began listing off rations that we were running low on. After a minute, Captain Miller held up hand, signaling me to stop.

"I suppose that what you are trying to say is that we are still running out of food." She said, running out of patience.

"Yes and no. Yes in that we are still running out of food and no in that unless we find the bandit's storage of food, we will be out of food in the next two days."

"And where would that storage be located?" She said, placing her hands on her hips.

"It has be secured and close by as well as protected from the weather."

John had already figured it out and pointed to the ruins on the map.

"Here. The ruins."

Captain Miller turned around and focused on the map.

"Yes," She said. "That's the only place that we haven't looked at yet."

"Their main camp would have to be in one of those three small clearings..." Began Captain Miller.

"Or in all of them." I finished. I let them discuss it for a while. They decided on sending scouts.

"We should send men to check all situation of the three clearings and the ruins." Captain Miller spoke.

"Agreed." I responded. "I volunteer for the ruins. As a cook, I should be present to evaluate any food supplies I can find. I don't want to risk the lives of the men for a bunch of moldy bread and rotten vegetables."

The captain nodded. "I agree. We will act as if we still know nothing and still randomly search for them. At nightfall, we will attack."

"What if they are in all three clearings?" John asked.

"Then we will split up. The element of surprise is vital to this mission. As long as they have lost their leader, they will coordinate more slowly when sudden attacks happen. By attacking them all at once we will prevent any reinforcements from coming." Captain Miller responded.

"So we attack all four locations at once?" I asked.

The captain shook her head. "No, just the clearings at first."

John bowed. "Understood. I will go get some men for reconnaissance mission now."

John came back with three NPCs and, to my horror, six players. There were three swordsmen, three archers, and three mages. After I got over the fact that there were players on the mission, I started to see the logic behind John's pick. 3 people per clearing, one swordsmen, one archer, and one mage. They were small enough to be fast and quiet but balanced enough to be able to fight a group of bandits just in case they run into trouble.

John bowed. "Here are our most trustworthy and capable soldiers, Captain."

"Good pick, John." With that, she had the chosen soldiers line up and divided them into three small groups. She then addressed them.

"We believe we have finally found the last hideout for the bandits. The problem is that there are three clearings and we have no information on them at all. In order to launch an attack, we have decided to send you all as spies. Office Cage, brief them please."

"Yes Captain." John stepped forward. "Tomorrow, the expedition will check the woods for any remaining bandits. Using that as your excuse, your groups will travel a camp and scout it and report back. Be back before the nightfall. Don't get spotted for we cannot say that you will come out of that battle alive since there are only three of you. However, one of you must escape and report back if you are captured."

When she saw the men tense, the Captain spoke up.

"Listen, the success of this expedition is on you. However, it does not mean, and I repeat, it does not mean you have be the hero and die. If things go south, the best plan of action is to get captured, not killed. If you are captured, we can rescue you later when we do attack. Understood?

"Yes Captain." The men spoke in unison while the players were fumbling in front of them with their hands because a quest update had popped up. Captain Miller then turned towards me.

"As for you, cook, Boek and an archer will accompany you going with you for your damn supplies."

I bowed. "Thank you Captain."

I then turned to the soldiers and players. I wanted to make sure they didn't suspect anything about the ruins.

"On that note," I said, "keep an eye out for any food storage locations. I won't try to hide the fact that we need extra supplies for our journey back."

A window popped up in front of me.

Through your position as the cook and the leadership and respect you have gained, you added the sub-objective "Locate Food Storage" to the quest "Spy on the Bandit Camps"

Any NPC(s) that are subject to the sub-objective will automatically try to fulfill the objective(s)

Any player(s) will receive a bonus at the end of the expedition if the sub-objective is completed

I saw the other players reading the notice before closing it. The captain then divide the people assembled into three separate teams and appointed a leader, which was a NPC, because the players were too inexperienced. Before the assembled teams were dismissed, John told them to keep the mission a secret for there was no reason for other soldiers to be talking about it in the middle of the forest where bandits could overhear them.

After leaving the tent, I started on preparing the next day's breakfast and lunch and worked through the night. Before serving breakfast, I asked, well, more like pleaded, for Landell's and Owen's help serving lunch. They accepted, after some pleading, to take my place while I was going to take a day to "hunt and gather supplies" in the forest, which wasn't a complete lie. During breakfast time, I was serving an oatmeal made with several herbs when an archer started talking to me.

"Good morning SIr Varrant." He addressed me. SInce I had earn a certain amount of respect on the expedition, NPCs started addressing me with the title of "Sir" or "Mister."

"I was told that we will be going hunting later, Sir."

I smiled. "Ah, yes. I see, so you are the third member of our little hunting party. Please, call me Ben, I don't like all the formalities."

"Very well, Sir V-er, I mean, Ben. In the case, please call me Nathan as well."

"Alright, Nathan. As soon as I finish with my duties here, I will be ready to go. We should leave early."

"Understood, see you soon." I nodded in reply. Nathan left to eat his breakfast and I moved to serve the next person in line. Less than an hour later, I had finished cleaning the wooden plates and the pots. I checked my equipment, repairing some of the weapons. While I was checking my inventory, I remembered I had gotten the leather vest from the bandit chief. Equipping it, I gained 2 points in toughness and 1 in both endurance and dexterity. I gave some instructions to Landell and Owen about cooking. I changed the bandages to the driver's wound and made him drink a herbal tea to help heal. Heading to the campfire, I noticed that most of the men had already left camp to patrol the forest.

I found my companions chatting like old friends by the embers of the fire.

"Sorry about the wait." I said. "The old man wouldn't drink his medicine, kept saying it tasted awful, which is entirely true."

They laughed. "No worries," said Nathan, "we have all had your medicine before. It does taste terrible."

We started on our trek to the ruins. We ran into a few bandits. The first encounter was with a single bandit whereas, just before lunch, we ran into four of them. We ate while walking. Our meal consisted of a simple cheese sandwich with lettuce and dried meat.

The closer we got to the ruins, the more frequently we encountered groups of bandits. The groups grew to include five bandits per group. However, bandits were not the only threats. We were also attacked by foxes and boars. We also ran into a bear, but we decided not to engage. We hunted almost every dear, rabbit, and squirrel we saw. We had to make an appearance that we were actually hunting.

A little after midday, Nathan spotted a sentinel perched in a tree, a hunting horn attached his belt. The man was dealt with by an arrow shot by both Nathan and I. One pierced his heart and the other his throat. Beok scaled the tree and sat at the perch. Using his Hawk Eyes ability, he scrutinized the forest ahead of us. After a few minutes, he came back down.

"There are a few patrols up ahead." He spoke. "We will have to be careful, eliminating one would alert the others of our presence."

"How far are we from the ruins?" I asked.

He thought for a moment. "Two hours tops at our certain pace."

And with that, we continued our trek, hiding behind trees and bushes when we heard footsteps or chatting. Through listening to the bandit's conversations, we learned that most of the bandits had been dispatched to the three campsites. That was good news for us as the ruins would be less dangerous, but then the other groups would have to be more careful to not get caught.

When we finally arrived at the ruins, we hid behind a couple bushes some way from the camp, watching the bandits. The camp was simple. Six wooden huts placed in a half circle in front of a large wooden door. Thick wood pike barriers were placed between the huts, their points stick out from the camp. There were around sixty bandits walking around, each of them were armed with either a sword or a bow. The large door opened regularly, letting bandits in and out of the ruins.

As we were watching the camp, a window popped up.

You have discovered the Forest Ruins Back Entry
-Your map has been updated

Updated Objective:
-Observe them the whole night then go back to report

Updated Requirements:

-Don't get caught

I shuffled over to Nathan's and Beok's position.

"This is the back entry of the ruins." I whispered. "We should check the front too, just in case."

Nathan nodded. "Good point. If their numbers are smaller there, we could pass through the tunnel and take them from the rear."

We stayed hidden for the next three hours, regularly changing our position. When the sun set, most of the bandit went inside. All that remained were ten men guarding the entrance and others that went off to patrol. By midnight, we left Nathan there for the night and traveled towards the front of the ruins.

Going through the woods in the dark was a different experience. All the sounds were amplified due to the silence. Stepping on a twig sounded like a gunshot. You could also get easily disoriented or walk into a tree. Once, I even thought that we were being watched. It turned out to be a gray wolf. Normally, the wolf would have attacked us but thanks to my passive Nature Understanding ability, we weren't. Seeing the wolf gave me an idea. I unequipped my clothes and equipment. I then used my Spirit of the Wolf skill.

Immediately, I felt my whole body tickle as my bones and skin rearrange themselves to those a large black wolf. I noticed my mana had decreased due to the consumption cost. A window popped up.

You have used the Spirit of the Wolf skill.
You have shapeshifted into a wolf

-150 mana

As a wolf, some equipment cannot be worn and has been returned to your backpack as a result

You know have the stats and skills of a wolf:

Stats:
Health: 205

Mana: 250

Vitality: 39
Endurance: 55

Strength: 45

Speed: 38

Dexterity: 47

Intelligence: 43

Leadership: 13
Respect: 15
Honor: 15
Luck: 37

Fame: 52

Skills:

Tracking: You can follow anything by smell
Level: Beginner 1

Bite: You can attack your prey with your teeth
Level: Beginner 1

Claw: You can attack your prey with your claws

Level: Beginner 1

Howl: You can call for other wolves, the number depends on the number of wolves in the area and your leadership stat
Level: Beginner 1
Mana Consumption: 45

Growl: Your growl will paralyse prey for at least 2 second(s), the length of time depends on the size of the prey and the level of this skill
Level: Beginner 1
Mana Consumption: 20

Predatory Eyes: Footprints are highlighted
Level: Beginner 1

Mana Consumption: 7 per minute

Night Vision (Passive): You can see up to 10 meters in the dark
Level: Beginner 1

Cushioned Paws (Passive): Your footsteps make less noise
Level: Beginner 1

Predatory Ears (Passive): You can hear better
Level: Beginner 1

After reading the window, it closed. I walked up to Beok and rubbed my head on his legs. When he looked down at me, I suddenly got enveloped in a sour smell.

Fear.

Beok froze up and started whispering my name, his eyes darting around the forest. I barked quietly and raised my paw, trying to imitate dogs I've seen. He chuckled nervously, half amazed and half frightened by my unexpected transformation.

Once Beok was okay with my new form, I went ahead, scouting and checking for enemies and traps. The forest floor had many different smells. I took the time to learn what each one was. I tried to hunt a few rabbits. Running and sprinting was difficult for me as I was used to walking on two