The next day had come and Chris was fast asleep in his room. The glare of the sun hit his face and as it reach his eyes he began to squint them and roll over to evade the sun's rays.
" Hey Chris, are you up," Lyra speaks loudly as she knocks on his door.
"Hey is he ready yet, we still need to get your braces from the blacksmith before heading out," asked Arnold as he yawned.
"Probably not, going to try some more, hey Chris, we need to get going. Hello?" Lyra shouted as she continued to knock on the door. They heard a big bang on the other said as if something fell to the ground.
"You alright in there?"
"Yeah, just give me one sec," Chris shouts back. The door swings open and there Chris stands with a tired look on his face.
"What going on?" he asked puzzled.
"We need to get going and get your gear still, Daniel is getting ready as we speak, now you just need to get ready as well," Lyra answered.
"The sun is not even half way in the sky yet," he mutters.
"Sorry, but that's how we function, the early we get stuff done, the better things will be later."
"Alright, I'll be ready in a bit," he replies and shuts the door. He leans on to the door as he slowly slides down onto the ground, with the only noise coming within the room is the ticking from the clock hung on the wall. He glares at the clock as the second hand slowly moves past twelve and continue to tick on and on and on.
"The next few months are probably going to be worse than what's been happening so far," he said as he sighed. He got up and began getting ready for the morning. While he was getting ready Lyra and Arnold was waiting downstairs for Daniel and Chris to get ready.
"Ahh, so is everyone ready for another day of exploring the forest?" asked Daniel while coming down the steps stretching.
"Chris just got up, but he should be ready in bit," Arnold replied.
"Hope he's gets used to our routine, because if not we're going to have to set him free," Daniel implied.
"I hope so," Lyra said
"He will, when we helped him out with the dire wolves he seemed capable of handling himself," Arnold inserted.
"I know he will be fine, I was just joking around, but still, I hope things don't end up like last time, or worse."
"I hope you guys aren't talking about me again," Chris says while coming down.
"What, we wouldn't do that to ya," says Daniel
"So are you ready to go and get started"
"Yeah, I'm ready, just hope I don't get attcked like how I did yesterday," Chris replied.
"Great, let's get going then," says Arnold. They all gathered at the doored and headed out to the blacksmith. Upon reaching the blacksmith he was hammering away at a blazing heated sword.
"Ah, it's you folks from the other day. Are you here to pick up your gear?" he asked
"Yes I am" Chris says.
"Well here you go, I finished last night just before heading home, I hope you enjoy them." The blacksmith went under his self and came back up with a pair of steel braces with a pair of gloves. They had a wave design engraved along the outside and each brace had an opening slot of some sorts.
"What are these opening for?"
"Whenever you have the chance, speak to a local magician in a town or city and they will be able to infuse your gear there with magic so you can use magic stones to enhance your attacks." the blacksmith replied.
"Awesome!" Chris exclaimed after he finished putting on the gloves and braces. Lyra passed Chris and stood in front of the counter.
"So how much will that cost?" Lyra asked.
"That will be 400 silver."
"What?!" Chris said with a surprised look on his face. Lyra handed the silver to the blacksmith.
"Thank you and I hope you folks have a fine adventure." Chris and the gang walked out of the blacksmiths shop and out to the dirt roads.
"You didn't have to do that, I could have gave them back and waited till I had the money."
"You looked happy though and besides, it didn't seem to occur to you that you would have to pay for them to begin with."
"I knew, but I didn't expect it to be that much with how much most things are here."
"Well he was a blacksmith, not a lodger or food stand, and he is the best blacksmith that lived here, his wear is always of high quality." Chris looked at Lyra with a sorryful look.
"It's okay, you can pay me back later, for now let's head to the quest board and see what's up there, okay?" Chris node his head and they went to the center of town. There was few other adventures there taking any request that they saw of interest to them. When Chris and his group went got to the board they started looking at what was there. There were quest of many types from killing mosters to simply delivering a package around town or to another town close by.
"Hmm, how about we take a few kill quest and see if there is enough time later to do something else." Arnold suggested.
"Sure, doesn't sound like a bad idea. How about you Chris, you up to slay some monsters?" asked Daniel.
"I don't mind, as long as we are doing something I guess," said Chris.
"Alright, I'll grab a few and we can head out." Arnold started to grab a flier one by one while the others looked at the reset of the request avaible on the board. Chris glared closely and saw a picture of what looked to be a wolf with some sort of danger markings on it. He couldn't read the language but he knew to avoid whatever monster that was.
"Okay, got some, let's start heading out towards the woods." Chris looked towards Arnold.
"Alright." Then they started to head to the gate leading to the Ermaroc Forest. When approching the gate they were greeted by the guards. They waved and continued passed the gates.
"Hold on," one of the guards called out to the group. They all stopped and turned around to look at the guard.
"Before heading out I should warn you about a dangerous creature in the woods. It's a Frost Wolf known as Frostbite has been spotted in the woods and has been making a lot of the monsters out in the woods come closer to the town."
"So that's what that wolf poster I saw earlier was about," Chris pointed.
"Yes and all the monsters surrounding the area has been a real issue lately. If you encounter Frostbite while hunting you are advised to not engaged, but if you are able to slay the beast you will be rewarded generously by the town."
"Alright, we'll see what we can do while we are out there," says Arnold.
"Wait, we might have to fight that thing."
"No, but if we figure out a way kill it then we will probably try," explains Lyra.
"Alright then, just stay safe and if you think you can't defeat him just return to town, alright?"
"Will do, thanks for the heads up and see you when we get back." They wave to the guards and start to journey into the first to start there quests. Whille in the forest they killed slimes from one order and some giant frogs for another. As they head deeper into the forest they also gathered some materials to help better their gear. As they got to the end of the forest they had only one task left to do and that was to finish of a few more giant spiders. They start wondering the woods and find three out in the opening. They slowly approach them and Daniel go in and slashes a leg off one of them. As it shrieks and the other two look at him Chris and Arnold charges in and Lyra stay behind readying her bow. Chris goes in and punches one of the spiders into the other while Daniel and Arnold finish the one he injured. The others stagger and Daniel comes up and cuts the head of one off and as the other gets up to try to attack Lyra shots an arrow into it's head and Arnold finishes it by make a gash from it's abdomen up to its head from above.
"Whew, well that's all the orders done, let's gather the parts and rest for a bit," says Daniel.
"Sounds good to me," says Arnold while wiping the sweat off his forehead. They went to a groups of trees to cook up some fish, eat and rest a bit before heading back to town.
"Well that was fun, hope tomorrow is a little more eventful," says Chris.
"It will due to the large amount of orders that people are requesting," says Lyra
"Surprised that you saw the poster about the wolf in town."
"Yeah but I couldn't read what it said."
"You don't know how to read Monthrin?" questioned Daniel.
"Nope, not at all."
"Well whenever you have the free time we can help you learn it. It's pretty simple to learn too."
"Alright, I'll let you know whenever I'm ready, but probably going to focus on some other things like synthesize and magic to be able to do more then what I can do know."
"Just know if you need any help or have any questions, just let us know," says Arnold and Chris nodes to him.
"Thanks, I appreciate everything you guys are doing for me so far."
"No problem. Glad to have you around with us. Now let's start heading to town to collect our reward and try to find something else to do before the end of the day." They finish eating their fish and started to head back to the town. As they walked through the forest they collected more materials like herbs for crafting potions.
"We're about half way back, can't wait till we can rest later" Daniel says.
"You can say that again," says Chris.
"Do you guys feel that?" asks Lyra.
"Yeah, feels like the air is getting cold," says Arnold. They all stop and stood still. There was crackling in the bushes next to Chris.
"GET DOWN!" Lyra yelled as she jumped towards Chris and they fell to the ground. A big figure jumped from the bush. Lyra got back up instantly and slowly got back up.
"What the hell just happened?" asked Chris. He finished getting up looked ahead of the hill and expression turned to horror.
"Oh no," Daniel said while looking in seriously and ahead of them was the great beast itself, Frostbite.