Skeletal Dragon Avatar

Convoy

Matt wasted no time or coin, he went and accepted the request to guard the merchant caravan, then he went out and brought some basic supplies and a proper backpack along with a few coils of robe, oh and a woven cloth shirt too, all this set him back about 1 and a half gold coin, leaving him with 22 gold coins all before he met with the people from the merchant caravan, they had been caring ingots and salt to Tevil and were now bringing monster loot and cores back towards the capital and the mountain forges in the west, speaking of Tevil from what Matt learned it was located on the eastern frontier of the republic of Kel.

Matt met up with the merchant caravan, he recognized some adventures in the caravan from last night of drinking, and they naturally recognized him and greeted him warmly, one of them called out when he saw Matt

“Hey it’s Matt!”

Matt showed a smile and greeted the man back

“Hey Seb”

The bear of a man was named Sebastian, though he was Seb to his friends and after a night of drinking the two of them had hit it off rather well, Seb threw his arm around Matt’s shoulder and whispered

“I thought you and Michelle hit it off rather well last night, and now you’re leaving with us? What’s the deal?”

Michelle was naturally the pretty receptionist, Matt showed a smile and told a lie without blinking

“I figured if I did this job and a return one I could buy a house in town and propose to her? Think she’ll forgive me?”

Seb’s eyes widened before he spoke in praise

“Not bad Matt, that’ll knock her legs out under her”

“What are the two of you whispering about?”

Seb nearly jumped at the voice of his wife, another adventure named Lise, she wore a triangle hat and a robe, she also carried a staff, her skills allowed her to wield mana and use spells, that’s right, she was one of the famed ‘mages’ and had graduated from an esteemed academy in the capital, Matt showed a flattering smile and spoke

“I’m still in awe that a bear named Seb managed to land such a fine woman as you, Lise”

Lise showed a smile in her eyes as she giggled before she looked at Seb and spoke

“He has some soft spots too, you know”

Seb laughed before he spoke loudly

“Here that Matt? Maybe you should take a note out of my book? Not that your idea isn’t brilliant too”

Lise walked over and asked

“What's a brilliant idea?”

Seb quickly whispered Matt’s ‘plan’ to Lise that blushed in response before she looked admiringly at Matt, then she pushed up her glasses and patted him on the shoulder as she spoke

“Not bad Matt… Not bad at all… If things comes to it, I’ll lay in a good word with her for you”

Matt showed a smile and nodded, soon the convoy began moving and left the gates of Tevil behind…

The thing about convoys was that they were a massive target, both for roving bandits and monsters, the wealth contained in this particular convoy was massive and its route well known, that said there wasn’t only 3 adventures guarding it, there were close to 30 as well as 15 merchant guardsmen that were employed directly by the merchants in the convoy, the difference in the two were that the adventures were employed by the guild and were lent to the merchants were the convoy guardsmen were employed directly by the merchants. This was not necessarily a good thing, the guild categorized its members into a ‘rank’ that went from the lowest, F, E, D, B, A, A+, S, S+, SS and finally at the highest rank SSS that said, to acquire a rank it was necessary to complete a ‘trial request’ where statements from the other adventures were taken to categorize ones rank. The merchant guards were either people that didn’t like how the guild worked or, more likely, people that had been kicked out of the guild, thus the two groups of guards and adventures only cooperated when absolutely necessary, such as now

“Five more on the West side! Two South-West!”

“Got it!”

The convoy was currently under attack by giant army ants, they had already killed about 15 of the dog sized ants, still they showed no signs of stopping their onslaught and came pouring in from the surroundings, the ‘ankle-biters’ were annoying to deal with as they were small enough that they were hard to hit, but big enough to bite straight through the ankles of the guards and adventures, though Matt didn’t seem to have any problems with them (despite being unarmed) as he yelled out

“I got the 2 South-West!”

Matt kicked off the ground and jumped up about 10 meters, after soaring through the air he landed on his heel, stomping the head of an army ant, killing it at once as he squashed its head then he kicked under the other army ant succeeded in propelling it into the air where he punched it with a right hook shattering its carapace killing it at once

“Hey rookie! Slow down!”

“Yeah, leave some for us, rookie!”

Matt figured it was about time to slow down, he had defeated 17 army ants so far, besides it looked like it was about to be the end of the attacking ants, so he began gathering his kills, after about half an hour he had harvested all the cores and sold the rest of the carcasses to the convoy that had room to spare for this purpose, thus the convoy days began merging into each other and by the time they had reached the capital of the republic of Kel about 4 months later Matt was infinitely close to reaching level 3, he had long since forgotten the people of the border city of Tevil, if only they had forgotten him too…

Matt looked up at the high walls of the capital, it was this city that the republic had been named after, it was the city of Kel, having about 1 million inhabitants it was known as a never ending swirl of desire, plots and greed, still Matt had come here, he had thought a lot about if he wanted to move on from here, but in the end he decided he would stay in this city for the foreseeable future, to many innocent eyes this was a city of hope and dreams, but Matt could smell it, it was indeed a city of dreams, though only for the strong, as for the rest? They were simply fodder to feed the strong

‘Michelle’ suddenly muttered

“Oh… I am dead…”

She didn’t know when, how or why, she just realized at one point of the last 2 months of staring at her own corpse decaying that she had died, her soul had been separated from her body, she was currently overlooking the hellscape that used to be the people living in the town of Tevil, there had been no survivors. Michelle’s soul had been trapped, forever condemned to be stuck in this hellscape, that was until something happened, a crow landed on her corpse and began picking at the decaying flesh, this was nothing new, but when it tore open her clenched fingers and a glint of gold was revealed something changed in Michelle, that was the gold coin that Matt had given her. That was the thing she had been clutching as she died, now seeing the crow attempt to take it her soul was filled with immense anger, an anger she could not contain as her illusory figure clutched her head and screamed

“That’s mine! You can’t take it!”

The crow pecked on at her tightly locked fingers, ignoring her cries, it was still trying to rob her of that which was hers, her anger was so intense, she had never cared as much about something as she cared about that gold coin

“It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine!---“

At that moment, it happened, her will seemed to break through something as her illusory hand suddenly grasped the crow and instantly turned it into a bloody pulp and mess of black feathers as her corpse’s locked fingers opened and the gold coin floated up before it became the center of something unholy, something that had successfully crossed the borders of life and emerged in death, at that moment Michelle became a specter, her scream echoed around the hellscape of Tevil and attracted all the souls that were still lingering to her as they were instantly consumed something that only had happened at the start of the last dark ages happened again, the illusory figure seemed to condense further and further as the newly reborn Michelle muttered

“Where are you, Matt? I want to see you…”