Chapter 6

After a few minutes of sitting down and trying to calm down the trembling of his hands, Theo rose up and looked around his vicinity. The wolves were still lying on the ground with no discernable movements, and he did not notice anything moving in his immediate vicinity aside from the fluttering of leaves.

He kept his bow in his left hand as he started to climb down from the tree before walking towards the wolf that was spread-eagled on the ground.

Theo prodded it with his foot a little before kicking it slightly and turning it over in the process.

The ground beneath the wolf had become painted with a pool of its blood. It seemed that the fall had forced the arrow deeper into its back when it had hit the ground.

Theo pulled out what little remained of the arrow that was now coated in blood. It was not salvageable as the shaft had been broken during the impact. He threw it away and started to walk towards his first kill.

During the walk, he picked up the arrow that was sticking out of the ground. While it did have a smear of dirt on its tip, it was still usable. After brushing off all the dirt he could with the hem of his shirt, He placed it back into the quiver.

The ground beneath the second wolf was also covered in a pool of blood. The arrow sticking out of its eye was partially covered in gore as he drew it out. The tip was also covered in some gray matter.

He started to look around the area, searching for the arrow that had flown above both of the wolves, but didn't manage to find it.

Giving up on trying to find it, Theo contemplated a way in which he could present proof of his kills to Wesley.

The wolves were big enough that he could maybe manage to carry one on his back to the village, but that would make it almost impossible to defend himself should another pack of wolves catch the scent of the blood.

Remembering the fact that there were packs of wolves wandering around the forest, and very near him too. Theo gave up on trying to carry the bodies with him and just cut off both pairs of ears from them, took out the rest of the rabbit carcasses from his stash – which amounted to two rabbits – and started to try and make his way out of the area quickly, and stealthily.

He hadn't made it far, before he started hearing howls coming from behind him. Barely five minutes had passed, and they were already on the scene of the crime. Theo quickened his pace.

He was halfway to the village when he heard another howl, this time much closer and in front of him. He quickly climbed up another nearby tree, but in all the hurry he had been forced to choose the nearest one.

The tree did not have much in the way of cover, the leaves were sparse, and the branches were not as thick.

He resigned himself to the fact that there was next to no chance he would be able to hide from whoever was in front of him, if they decided to look around and up.

As Theo was quietly contemplating how he should proceed, there was rustling in the bushes around ten meters from him and a single wolf walked out.

While he was trying to identify if there were more wolves coming, the singular wolf continued to leisurely make its way through the path he had been walking on moments before.

When the wolf stopped below the exact tree Theo was hiding in, he saw that the wolf had the same type of bulging muscles as the one that had killed him earlier in the day.

He began to pray quietly in his mind for the wolf not to notice him, and miraculously it seemed to work. The wolf pissed on the tree and looked around a bit, before starting to leisurely walk forward once more.

There might have existed a chance to shoot at the wolf, had he drawn his bow and taken a shot. But the fact that he had been so focused on trying to hide himself better that he had not drawn it out beforehand, would have caused problems.

Since drawing the bow out would have made noise that would have given away his position, it was not worth the risk.

This time, Theo did not wait more than two minutes before he jumped down from the tree and continued to make his way further from the scene of the hunt.

After around twenty minutes of wandering around, Theo found himself standing in a small clearing in the middle of the forest.

In the middle of this small clearing stood a singular big rock. The stone looked to be perfectly ovular in shape and there was no vegetation growing within five meters of it. Not even a single blade of grass. It stood around five meters tall.

The rock didn't appear to be naturally formed, since it was perfectly smooth with the exception of a big crack that seemed to have almost split it in two.

"Is this the Stone of Respite Wesley told me about earlier?" Theo mumbled as he recalled a piece of information given to him by Wesley.

Wesley had told him of a specific rock that had helped keep the wolves at bay, something that had been installed by someone during the village's boom in activity. He had found it here cracked during his investigation into the villager's disappearances.

A Stone of Respite was something that was supposed to keep out predators from its vicinity. Sadly, the one before him had apparently lost most of its repellant powers and could only keep wildlife from approaching within five meters of itself.

Theo walked forward and laid a hand upon the stone surface, but there was no extraordinary feeling emanating from the stone, aside from the sensation of perfect smoothness.

He lifted his hand and slowly traced a singular finger on the edge of the large crack. While there were smaller cracks branching off from the larger one, the stone under his finger still felt perfectly smooth, even when his fingers brushed upon a jagged edge.

Puzzled, he tried to put his finger into the large crack itself, but Theo couldn't force his finger into it no matter how hard he tried. All he felt as he tried to plunge his finger inside of it was the same feeling of smoothness on his fingertip.

"What the shit is this?" Theo mumbled as he drew back and inspected his finger. It looked completely normal.

Theo once again laid his eyes on the stone in front of him and tried to push another finger into the crack this time. The results were not different.

He tried everything from the tip of an arrow, the shaft of the arrow, his bow, his knife, and even trying to insert his tongue into the fissure but all that resulted in was the weird feeling of smoothness on his tongue and an earthy taste.

After quite a while, he gave up and looked the stone up and down once more before turning around and freezing in place.

There on the edge of the five-meter line that separated the clearing from the rest of the forest, amidst the bushes Theo could see at least four wolf heads glaring right at him.

The wolves had been perfectly quiet until Theo had turned around, and the instant he noticed them, they started to let out threatening growls.

"What the fuck, man!" Theo yelled out as he backed up against the stone. There were hardly any places he could climb onto, and the chances of escape were slim to none.

He pulled out his bow and nocked an arrow whilst steadying his aim on the nearest of the four heads in front of him.

Weirdly enough, despite their growling and snarling, they did not move closer. They stayed put and simply glared at him.

Regaining some of his composure from the earlier surprise. Theo heard more growling from around him, from someone or something that was not included in the four wolves he had seen before.

Sweeping his gaze across the edges of the clearing, he could see the heads of multiple wolves and their eyes glaring at him while letting out threatening growls and snarls.

There were at least ten more that had appeared and based on the sounds nearby, it sounded like there were even more hidden from his view.

"What the hell? Did the whole pack come to deal with me? What the fuck is this?" Theo asked to no one in particular as he kept his aim trained on one of the four wolves in front of him.

Yet he waited, not releasing the arrow immediately. He continued to observe the wolves around him and noticed that despite having him surrounded, none of them moved forward.

They kept growling, snarling, some bit and clawed at the air in front of them in a display of frustration, but none passed into the clearing.

"Huh." Theo lowered his bow but kept the arrow still within his grasp and on the bow as he moved slightly closed to the four in front of him.

The four wolves seemed to increase their attempt to claw and bite something out of the air as he cautiously walked towards them.

Theo stopped around one meter from the edge of the clearing and squatted down to eye level with the beasts. He curiously turned his head from side to side as he observed the wolves' frantic attempts to reach him.

Soon, the attempts died down and the beasts just kept glaring at him, keeping up the snarls and growls from earlier.

Cautiously, he moved slightly forward, and took the arrow in his grasp and slowly extended it forwards, towards the edge of the clearing. The arrow passed through whatever was keeping the wolves at bay with no problem.

Straight into the eye of the wolf nearest to him.

The wolf let out a loud cry as it stumbled backwards and tried to frantically paw at its eye, trying to get the arrow out of it.

It managed to get the arrow out of its eye, but not before pushing it deeper – breaking the shaft – and letting out a howl of anguish.

"Interesting." Theo backed up a little bit and looked at the wolf now struggling with an arrow in its eye and then to his hand that had pushed it in there.

He backed up even further, his back almost pressing upon the stone once more. He carefully ran his hand through the remaining arrows in his quiver.

Sixteen arrows, not enough to be able to kill every wolf in the vicinity, but he should be able to fell a few.

Theo brought the interface back up and looked at his quest log. The log was separated into two broad categories, ongoing and completed.

He browsed through the Wolf tide quest and looked for any sort of progress bar, meter, something that would have informed him of his progress. There was nothing.

He sighed and closed the interface and focused his attention on the beasts in front of him.

The wolf whose eye he had pierced howled once and glared at him through its one operational one, before it turned and left the others and headed further into the forest, out of his sight.

Theo watched it curiously, wondering what it would do, before directing his gaze towards the other wolves in front of him.

He drew out an arrow and notched it on the bow, took aim and released it. The sudden attack caught the beasts off guard as the arrow managed to pierce through the eye of one the wolves growling at him.

The beast let out a whimper as the arrow sank in deep, a quarter of the arrow disappearing from view.

It managed to stumble backwards a little, before it slumped down and did not rise again.

The next arrow flew out as fast as the first one, but this time the beasts were prepared, the one he targeted managed to protect itself from being killed in one hit.

It sank instead into the left flank of one of the wolves near his first kill.

"Dammit, they move so fast, it's hard to track." Theo cursed to himself as the wolf let out a yelp and turned back towards him, snarling. He drew forth the third arrow and shot it.

The arrow did not manage to hit the targeted maw – as it closed – but managed to strike the now exposed throat of the beast.

This one also started to back away from him as though starting to retreat but did not manage to do so as a fourth arrow flew and struck it in its throat again.

It slowed down and keeled over, bleeding from the three points where the arrows had struck.

Theo pulled out a fifth arrow and was about to release it but stayed his hand as he noticed more wolves appear nearby.

The beasts now outnumbered him at least twenty to one. There was no chance he was going to be able to bring them all down with his remaining arrows.

They had proved to far more robust than he had expected. The first one had fallen after just one shot, and he had managed to kill two wolves beforehand with only three arrow strikes.

Yet, the fourth wolf Theo had managed to kill had taken three different shots in three different locations before going down. That had crushed the misconception he had about the beasts.

They were not killable with just two arrows if he did not strike vital locations within their anatomy, the details of which he was quite ignorant about.

Of course, there were the obvious ones such as the eyes and the brain, but he knew next to nothing else.

'I should have really paid attention in those biology courses.' Theo thought to himself as he put the arrow back into the quiver and decided to conserve the rest of his arrows.

He leaned the bow against the stone as he took off the quiver off his back and slumped down against the stone.

"Guess I'll just wait here then, they won't stay here for long, right?" Theo mumbled out loud as he looked around the wolves once more.

More and more seemed to be appearing from within the forest, all coming to look at this human who sat upon the bare and dry dirt, leaned against the big stone in the middle of this clearing that barred their entry.

"Well, I guess this will take a while, huh." Theo released a sigh as he noticed them and made himself as comfortable as he could.