Might as Well

After the disappointment that the cavern holding the stables was, Sam was hoping that the other two doors were hiding something better behind them.

Reaching the main hall, where the still comatose bandits were laying, snoring rather obnoxiously. He carefully tiptoed around the bodies on the ground while trying to hold back his laughter as his silly wolf pet tried to imitate him.

A few minutes later, Sam was once again standing before the three doors.

One he knew led to the stables. The question was: where did the other two go?

Staring at the two doors indecisively as Lucky was sniffing the armpits of a nearby bandit, he was broken out of his procrastination by a sleeping bandit snoring loud enough that Sam could hear its echoes deeper into the cavern.

‘Right, I don’t have days to make a decision…’ he thought, while still eying the doors and cursing their lack of identifying information. ‘Alright! Last time I went with the door on the right, let’s go with the one on the left!’

Decision made, he motioned for Lucky, and slowly began to approach the door on the left, hoping it would contain something more interesting than horses.

It didn’t.

The door on the left led to another big cavern full of beds and chests filled with the equipment of the bandits.

Despite his disappointment, he activated his Mana Sense skill and started to go through the chests that were of higher quality than the rest, deciding that those would contain more loot.

After a good half an hour of looting, while occasionally taking a glance at the sleeping bandits, Sam managed to scrounge together a few handfuls of silver, buckets of bronze, and five gold coins. The equipment was the same as in the armory, so he left them behind.

Sadly, aside from that and a lot of dirty laundry, he found precious little.

His Mana Sense pinged a few times, but every time he got excited, Sam only found an artifact that provided reading light or glasses that cooled what they contained.

Nothing important, or something he wanted.

Shaking his head, he made one last equipment check, then left the disappointing cavern, and headed directly towards the last door.

He wanted this entire adventure to be over.

Carefully slipping through the door that was opened just enough for Sam and Lucky to pass through, they found themselves in a corridor, lit not by torches, but by small artifacts radiating warm light, and eliminating any possibility of skulking around the shadows.

Frowning in disappointment, Sam motioned for Lucky to stay silent, then began slowly walking forward, making sure to make as little sound as possible.

The only person he hadn’t seen yet was the boss, and he definitely didn’t want to wake him up, if they were asleep. Eventually, their stealthy wandering found them before an enormous stone door, looking much stronger than the other wooden doors found around the bandit hideout.

A few feet before the stone doors, on the side of the corridor, was a small door, this time made from the familiar wood.

Sam tiptoed closer to the wooden door and turned his head and began trying to listen for any sound.

He let out a sigh of relief when he could hear the slow and steady rhythm of somebody snoring deeply in the arms of Morpheus.

Marveling at his luck, though knowing it was only this easy because he was low leveled and the game was making sure that he could complete his self-appointed mission.

‘Dynamic difficulty rules!’ he thought with a small smile, then stepped away from the door that probably hid the thus far missing boss of the bandits and turned to face the stone doors.

‘That has gotta be their vault…’

Sam then spent the next few minutes, with his Mana sense skill active, examining the giant door. The door itself was unadorned; simply two slabs of giant stone wedged in the ground. Sam gave it a try but as expected, he couldn’t make it budge.

Frowning at the expected hurdle, Sam took a deep breath and unsheathed his sword.

The opening mechanism would obviously be in the most protected part of the hideout, which would be the boss’s room. And given the sheer size of the door, there was no way that he could sneak in and open it without waking the man.

The only option was to sneak into the room and kill him…

Taking another fortifying breath, keeping his Mana Sense activated and coating himself with mana using his Mana Shield spell, Sam began walking towards the wooden door, instructing Lucky to stay and be on guard.

The smart wolf understood immediately and his continuously wagging tail stiffened, as the wolf turned towards the hall where the feast took place. Feeling proud of his little friend, Sam made sure to remember to reward Lucky, then slowly began to ease open the door leading to the bandit leader.

As soon as there was enough space for him to slip in, he moved through the crack, ready for anything.

The room was much more decorated than any other room or hall that he had seen during his infiltration. There were delicate carpets all around the floor in a dizzying array of colors; the walls were covered by lovely paintings, and where there weren’t any paintings, there were shelves filled with books and knick-knacks. On one side of the room was a queen-sized bed, holding the snoring leader, while the other held a wardrobe and a desk covered, from what he could see maps and notes.

‘Probably plans for the upcoming raid.’

Shuffling forward, making sure that there were no traps or alarms that would wake the man up, he approached the desk and pocketed the documents on it. In case the assassination went wrong, as the bandit leader was defeated by NPCs in his inherited memories, so nobody had accurate information about his abilities, he wanted to have at least something to show for it.

Done with plundering the secrets of the desk, Sam turned his attention toward the sleeping bandit.

Holding his breath, and trying to keep his hammering heart calm, he raised his sword and prepared himself. This would be the first time he would be killing a humanoid enemy. He didn’t know how he would react.

Plus, there was a chance that the strike wouldn’t be able to kill the bandit.

Before he could work himself into a depressing spiral, Sam raised the sword a little higher, tensed his entire body, trying to put his entire power behind the swing, then struck.

There was a swishing sound, then a small thunk as the sword made contact with the mattress, and the head was separated from the body.

As he was about to decide wether he should freak out, a few notifications appeared before him.

[Congratulations! You’ve killed the Leader of the Greenwood bandits!]

[You are now Level 7!]

[Thanks to your tireless effort to improve your capabilities with magic you gained +1 MAG!]

[Thanks to not charging in recklessly, you gained +1 WIS!]

[You gained 4 Unassigned status points!]

[You gained the skill Calm Heart!]

[Calm Heart: Level 0/50 (0%) You are the epitome of keeping calm and carrying on. You will have an easier time staying calm and focused. Increases resistance against mind-altering effects.]

Sam quickly assigned his status points, three to Endurance, wanting to increase his stamina, and one to Agility, as speed was always nice.

As those points went into effect, he could feel as if his body got lighter. Jumping in place a few times, to get a feel for his new agility, he gave the headless dead body a glance, then turned around, ready to search the room for the opening mechanism.

The room was a real treasure trove, even with Sam knowing that the vault was only a few feet away.

He found a nice coin purse filled with gold, though he had to swallow a curse when he saw some dried blood on some of the coins. Shaking his head sadly, he threw the coin purse into his inventory, watching as the counter went up.

During his search, Sam also found an enchanted sword, but when he tried to pick it up, he couldn’t help but yelp when the sword seemingly bit his hand. Cradling his hand, he looked over the sword and saw his blood on the grip.

‘Huh, bound to his blood? Well, that’s a waste…’

Bound items were mostly useless, as breaking the enchantment that bound it to someone would take much more power than he, or anyone in Greenwood, had currently.

Leaving the sword where it fell, instead, Sam refocused his search on the still elusive opening mechanism.

Sam found the opening mechanism inside the Wardrobe, of all things, hidden behind the leader’s undergarments.

He spent a minute observing the mechanism, making sure that the small lever wasn’t trapped, but neither his eyes nor his Mana Sense could find anything. Of course, there was a possibility that the trap or alarm was beyond his senses, but Sam doubted it.

Now the only thing left was to open the stone doors.

Quickly leaving the room, he spent a minute listening for any noise that would indicate that the bandits were waking up while patting the still on-guard Lucky’s head. Then, when he couldn’t hear anything, he sighed in relief and returned to the room, and simply pulled the lever, ready to sprint.

To his surprise, there was no loud sound accompanying the opening of the stone doors that would wake even the dead. While there was a small grinding noise as the doors moved aside, apparently the bandits kept the mechanism well-maintained.

He waited until the door was halfway open, then stepped back into the bedroom that held the dead body and flicked the lever back into a neutral position, halting the opening.

Then, with a big breath, left the room, softly called for Lucky, then stepped through the doors, and beheld the vault.

The vault was surprisingly well organized.

Chests, crates all marked with the insignias of well-known merchant companies, were on one side, while in the middle shelves were populated with all manner of artifacts. On the other side, armor stands were filled with all sorts of armor, though some of them were a little dented, and Sam spotted a few covered with blood.

The Vault itself was a fraction of the size of the hall where the festivities had taken place. This made sense, as no way a bandit group around the tutorial would amass enough wealth to fill a giant cavern that would make a small dragon jealous.

The first thing Sam did, while bidding Lucky to guard the opening on the stone door, was to look for a certain artifact.

He had every intention of walking out with everything in the vault no matter what it was, but his inventory wasn’t big enough for that. While people’s inventory could hold a lot, it was based on the person’s Strength and Endurance stats. The rule of thumb was that the inventory held around ten times the person’s weight with normal stats. With increased Strength and Endurance, you could move literal mountains with the inventory.

So Sam went looking for a Bag of Holding, and to his luck, after only a minute of walking along the shelves, he spotted one elaborately embroidered bag, capable of being attached to the belt. Picking it up, he examined it for faults, relying on his inherited memories, then turned it over, and checked the small note stitched to the bag.

It provided the name of the company that created the bag and its capability.

‘Hmm, a few tonnes are enough, I think…’ he thought as he looked around while holding the bag. Nodding to himself, he took the bag and began to shovel everything visible into it.

No matter what it was, artifact, armor, weapon, chest, or crate, it went into the bag. Sam wanted to check everything, but he knew he was running short on time. If he managed to escape successfully, then he would have all the time to inspect the items he just re-appropriated.

An hour later, Sam left the vault with Lucky, flushed, with a giant grin on his face, happy with his loot. Quickly, desiring to leave the place, he jumped back into the bandit leader’s bedroom, switched the lever into a close position, then left.

Watching the door close, he gave Lucky another pat on his head, then turned towards the door from where he came, raised his hood back, and began power walking towards the exit.

However, he couldn’t have taken a few steps when a soft voice spoke up, causing the blood in his veins to freeze.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

Sam whirled around and couldn’t help but gape at what he saw.

Behind him, holding the enchanted sword that he had discarded, was the headless body of the bandit’s leader. In the place of his head was a cloud of black gas that moved like fire, with two icy blue orbs where the eyes should be, narrowed into a glare, directed at him.

He was about to wonder where the being’s mouth was, when numerous small triangles appeared on the being’s face in two rows, forming a crescent shape, imitating a smile that would make a shark proud.

“I think we need to have a discussion about respecting other people’s property…”

Sam reached for his sword and couldn’t help but gulp.

‘This is not good!’