A Warlock's Ascent

Dave's thoughts kept him busy most of the night, just a few days ago, his major concern of the day used to be, what should he eat for dinner. But now, he had a lot of concerns, which kept him up that night, his habit of overthinking everything kept his brain busy.

Sometime around midnight, Jurgen woke up and relieved him of his duties. As soon as he lay down and closed his eyes, he fell asleep, he was very tired from all the fighting and desperately needed some rest.

It felt like just a second had passed since he closed his eyes, but then someone woke him up. He opened his eyes, someone shook him, he saw the forest illuminated by light, it was daytime. He wanted to sleep a little more, but a hand on his chest kept shaking him over and over again, trying to wake him up.

He shifted his body and was about to groan, as he pushed his body up, it is then someone put a hand on his mouth. Clarity came to his eyes, Jurgen was squatting down beside him, he was the one that had woke him and blocked his mouth.

Jurgen put a finger on his lips, gesturing him to keep quiet. The serious face of that man made him realize, something was amiss here. He nodded his head, it is then Jurgen removed his hand from his mouth. He pushed himself up and laid his eyes on the reason, why he was prompting him to keep quiet, there was a monster just a few feet away from their camp.

That monster was humongous, it was as tall as a one-story building, the brown muddied fur of the beast made it smell like Earth, while the loud breaths of the creature resounded in the whole area. He recognized the beast at once, it was the Mountain Bear, the monster that Grump and Hamel were worried about.

Everyone was tense, the monster could not see nor smell them, but it had come too close to the camp. A tremor from its steps from its heavy paws could shake the poles, revealing their location.

The sheer size of the thing was enough to make him realize that he was not an opponent of that thing, while these would be of no help either. They were in no condition could take it down, and it also didn't look like an opponent that would not go down easily.

The monster was sniffing the air around the camp and was chowing the Werewolf that they killed last night. Everyone took out their respective weapons, ready for a battle if the poles failed them, then they were all ready for a fight to the death.

Luckily, lady luck shined her grace on them, after gobbling the carcass of Werewolf like fried chicken, the monster then went away, bending and breaking trees that stood in his path. After the monster was gone, he couldn't help but chuckle at his situation. This earned him a glare from both of his new friends.

While glaring at him with her murderous eyes, Hillary whispered. "What are you doing? Keep it down."

He whispered back. "It is gone now. Dont worry about it."

"What is so funny about coming close to being mauled by an 8-9 ton monstrosity?" Jurgen asked.

"Well, I laugh that the face of death." He tried to make a joke, he thought it would lighten the mood a little bit, but he was wrong, the joke was not that good. Hillary and Jurgen were not amused, not even a little bit.

After eating some beef jerky for breakfast, he thanked both of them for saving his life. But he has to go now…

"Where did you have to go?" Jurgen asked with concern, considering the condition of Cloudhold, it was not wise that he wants to move alone. Especially someone weak as him should show caution.

He smiled awkwardly, not knowing what to say, he spoke the first thing that came to his mind."I have to be somewhere."

"But we are going Vecrus just like you, why aren't you coming with us?" Hillary asked.

"I cannot say." He felt bad about deceiving them, but still, he continued. "Guys, I have some prior commitments that I have to see through. I cannot stress this enough, but I really wanted to go with you guys. But I cannot. Not now at least. So I think we should our separate way from here."

"Well, if that is what you want, we won't force you," Jurgen said with a plain face. "But before you go, do you want anything? Water, supplies, potions, anything?"

As he heard their offer, he felt that he should really use this opportunity. "I could use a sword if you have one in spare. Also, I could really use some of those healing potions."

They were more than happy to give him the things that he had asked for. It turns out that Gibbon's spatial pouch contained all the supplies of their group. These supplies contained weapons, potions, rations, and camping equipment. As they have all those things in bulk, they were happy to share them with him.

They gave him two pairs of camping poles, some healing and stamina regeneration potions, three freshly minted swords, some good spears, arrows, and a very good bow. After they have divided everything, they started bidding farewell to each other.

"We will meet again, in the future," Jurgen said while shaking his hand. While Hillary came close to him and gave him a peck on the cheek, thanking him for what he had done for them.

As they were about to head out, he suddenly remembered the ingredient that Hamel needed, it was the sole reason because of why the old man was not able to make an antidote for his grandson. It was called Yellow Tail Flower, he is not wrong. It was a long shot, but before bidding farewell, he asked both of them whether they had this ingredient.

Surprisingly, they did have it…

Lily is a common flower around Cloudhold, and it is very different from its counterpart on Earth, this lily was poisonous, and every now and then travelers and adventurers come to contact with its pollen, and get poisoned. That is why most of the adventurers that operate in Cloudhold have spare ingredients to make the antidote to the poison.

Both of them were very happy to share the juice of the Yellow Tail flower with him, which was essentially the main ingredient to make the antidote…

After bidding them farewell, as he walked under the dark and moist canopy of trees, alone, he couldn't help but wonder if it was a good decision to split up with them. Now all alone in this vast forest, he was feeling a little scared.

Thus, he increased his pace, he wanted to meet up with Grump as soon as he can. Luckily for him, during his journey, he didn't encounter any monsters, so, he was able to cover a significant distance till evening. With his increased stats, his body underwent a tremendous change, because of which his traveling speed, as well as his stamina, had increased…

The sun was about to set in a few hours, he had been following the rock that Hamel gave him, and that rock had saved him a lot of time, checking his directions over and over again would have consumed a lot of his time, luckily, he had the rock.

But the only bad thing about that this piece of rock was that it was not a GPS, back on Earth, GPS gave the person the precise distance between the user and their destination. But no such option is available with this rock. Whether he was getting closer, or not, he couldn't tell, which was getting on his nerves.

BAAAAM

Hearing the sound, he stopped. The sound came from south of his location and based on the sound, it originated from far away from him. Still, he got his guard up and brought out his sword and his shield.

He turned around and started looking in that direction, but he could not see any movement of any kind, he even checked the canopy for Kongs, but they were not there. Everything seemed safe to him.

BAAAM

This time the sound came from the Southwest, he turned towards that direction, and it is then he saw a cloud of dirt in the direction. The cloud was far away from him, but he was concerned about what could cause that cloud to form.

It is then he started hearing roars of some kind, coming from beyond the cloud. And from the noise he understood that some beasts were fighting with each other, causing that smoke cloud to form. He decided to make some distance between himself and those monsters and started falling.

But it is then, two giant monsters ripped through the cloud with amazing speed and started coming towards him.

ROOOAR

The roar was the wake-up call he needed, he immediately started running in the opposite direction. He didn't dare to look back, he recognized the silhouette of the monsters, Moutain Bears, he had already seen them this morning.

Those monsters were faster than him, from the sounds of trees being uprooted and the loud shaking of the ground, he could tell that those monsters were closing on him, fast. Before he could come up with a plan, a very loud and powerful explosion took place behind him.

The shockwave from the explosion blew him away, from his trajectory, it was evident that he was going to hit a tree. Luckily he used his shield to soften the blow, which in turn broke his left hand. A nearby tree broke down and fell on him, once again lady luck shined her grace on him, and he was only caught under the branches of the broken tree.

Trapped by the cover of branches, his whole body felt heavy, he head was disoriented. Still, with sheer willpower, he pushed away the branches that fell on him, and crawl his way out, only to witness an inferno of fire…