I ran, ruthlessly incinerating my Physical Energy. My lungs were burning oxygen in industrial volumes, my blood was playing a drum solo in my temples, and my eyes decided to treat me to a show of pulsating dots. On the plus side, I rounded the hill fast enough to realize I was late just enough for everything to be bad, but not yet hopeless.

  Stationary, squat cargo wagons sat on the road, harnessed to the same overgrown boars, which were now peacefully munching grass, ignoring the two-legged commotion. There were about thirty bandits. They were finishing a methodical gutting of the luggage, tossing bales of fabric and small barrels onto the shoulder.

  The prisoners had been herded into two separate, bound piles. I identified one as the "merchants": seven terrified humans of normal build on their knees, and five stocky ones standing up—though they were roughly the same height. Dwarves. One dwarf stood out with a shaved, meaty head and the gaze of a wounded bull; four less-meaty dwarves with long, disheveled hair huddled close to him. "Family," I aptly guessed. Behind the bald dwarf’s back, like his shadow, stood a motionless figure in a dark mantle with a deep hood.

  The second group—the "guards"—consisted of a dozen buffed-up humans, mostly beaten and, consequently, mostly lying on the ground. Among them, a brute with a bare chest, blue skin, and a mop of white hair stood out; he had been tied up with extra care. One of the bandits with a broken nose, was fitting a cleaver to the brute's neck, squinting evaluatively.

  The bandits had already finished the "negotiations" phase and moved on to the "let's kill someone as a preventative measure" phase.

  There was no time for deliberation. A plan, as such, was absent. I hated improvisations. So, I did the only thing that sometimes worked against people with weapons and poor educations: audacity, backed by theatricality. Without giving myself a chance to hesitate, I lunged from the ambush and jumped onto the nearest crate of goods. It let out a pathetic creak and tilted, forcing me to wave my arms absurdly to keep from falling at the most dramatic moment.

  PE: 9, ME: 46.

  "Ahem!" I straightened up and tried to look at least mysterious, or better yet, catastrophically dangerous. "A moment of your attention, gentlemen brigands! If I were you, I would... immediately... er... reconsider my life choices."

  The surrounding crowd granted me their attention quite generously; I hadn't seen eyes that wide in a long time. A pause ensued, during which we all took a good long look at my behavior.

  "Who’s this?" a bandit with a bad overbite asked.

  "Is it... a hero?" his partner with a scar crossing an empty eye socket suggested uncertainly.

  "With a pathetic little knife like that?" snorted a third, with an unnaturally narrow crown.

  "Is he threatening us, or what?" mused their pockmarked colleague with arms like hams.

  PE: 14, ME: 46.

  I demonstratively pointed the hand with the ring at a group of bandits and clenched my fingers. A spray of barely noticeable sparks flew from Sparkfall. They looked brighter in the evening. Still, it was more impressive than the fakir’s display.

  "Ooooh!" I let out a sinister whisper. "See that? Sparks. Very... magical sparks."

  A whisper rippled through the crowd. But not the one I was counting on. "Mage!" someone decreed. Instead of scattering like cowards, the brigands synchronously pulled black scarves—resembling veils—over the lower halves of their faces. Apparently, a standard protocol for protection against "spark-mages."

  The bandit with a tattooed dotted line around his neck and the caption "CUT HERE" narrowed his eyes. "What’s the play, boss? Killing or torturing?"

  "Quiet," the broken-nosed bandit hissed. "Let him finish. I’ve seen his type. They usually either explode right now or start lecturing, and that’s hilarious."

  PE: 18, ME: 47.

  "I’m not planning on exploding," I quickly assured them. "But as for you not exploding, I can’t guarantee that."

  "Why’s that?" asked the bandit with a nose ring.

  "Do you people even know how to listen when you're being threatened? I demand that you release the prisoners, scatter back to your burrows, and... er... I’ll pretend you were never here."

  "Aha!" the pockmarked one rejoiced at his own realization, as if he’d solved a complex riddle.

  "And if we don't?" the leader smirked, stroking the hilt of his cleaver.

  "Then... there will be... magic."

  PE: 24, ME: 47.

  The only one looking at me without mockery, but with focused, almost scientific interest, was the bald dwarf. Not the audience I was hoping for, but I’ll take what I can get. The brigands began to whisper:

  "He’s weird." "Mages are always weird." "What if he’s strong?" "What if he’s weak?" "What if he’s strong but as stupid as you are?"

  PE: 27, ME: 47.

  "Abra!" the leader barked, pointing his weapon at me. "He’s your department!"

  The hooded figure detached from the prisoners and glided toward me.

  "Of course," I exhaled. "Why not."

  "That was... touching," Valtar exhaled, as if he’d been holding his breath until now. "Like a wet kitten trying to imitate a saber-toothed tiger. I almost teared up from second-hand embarrassment. With your Charisma, the only way that would have worked is if there was only one bandit, three at most, and all of them had traumatic brain injuries."

  As the figure approached, she became... more elegant, I suppose. From the silhouette and gait, I realized clearly that it was a woman. A strange feeling of unbearable shame washed over me. "What am I doing?" I thought, and my hand instinctively lowered from the sword hilt at my belt. "She’s a woman... fragile, probably. And I’m standing here with hostile intent? What kind of person am I?"

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  This sensation—embarrassment, wrongness, the urge to lower my weapon—tried to hook into my consciousness. But it slammed into the concrete wall of [Flameborn]. The magically-induced chivalry evaporated instantly.

  "Picked the wrong guy, girlie," Valtar stated with almost fatherly pride. "You can’t even break this one with genuine feelings. Focus on her, Lex, like on the menu."

  A second later, I realized why he was suddenly on my side: he was simply enjoying another player’s failure. "Player Abrakta. Beauty" appeared over her head. In the title selection, I remembered having "Trickster" and "Smarty" for my best Attributes, but of course, I didn't flaunt them. She, however, had clearly put her high Charisma on display.

  "I’ll add," Valtar whispered conspiratorially, "that she’s Level 6. Kill her, and you’ll gain two levels immediately. Food for thought, eh?"

  Abrakta closed the distance. From beneath the cloak slipped a miniature feminine hand holding a bone dagger—thin and curved, as if it had grown that way naturally. The weapon flew at me with lightning speed, and I instinctively [Blinked]. Returning to reality, I felt a hot flash of pain in my side. The dagger, already decorated with my blood, returned to its mistress only to lunge back into a new attack. Fortunately, the wound was superficial.

  PE: 29, ME: 37, HP: 31.

  "Careful!" Valtar shouted. "She’s faster than your excuses!"

  "Great timing," I hissed through my teeth.

  The next strike whistled through the air. I barely managed to jump off the crate and place Chameleon’s Tail in the dagger's path. Bone scraped against rusty metal, and the vibration traveled painfully into my very shoulder. Rust flaked off my sword like a ginger lizard shedding its skin, revealing a glimpse of white, but there was no time to stare.

  My opponent jumped onto my former spot on the crate and attacked again. She moved like mercury—fluid and unpredictable. I frantically poked her with [Analyze], hoping for an informational advantage, but only learned that she was "something humanoid."

  Another thrust, and the sharp bone sliced my shoulder, shaving off another nine points of health. HP: 22. I decisively disliked this subtraction; I was only two mistakes away from a lethal outcome. I backed away, and she jumped down after me, the hem of her mantle flaring like a hawk's wings.

  My Physical Energy hit thirty, and I immediately slammed into [Energizer]. The world felt like it shifted into a different gear. My body filled with the hum of compliant power, and the enemy's movements stopped being blurred smears. When Abrakta lunged forward again, I gripped the Tail in a reverse hold and forced her to leap back with a sweeping arc.

  Now she was surprised. I knew this because the hood flew off her head, revealing a face and an expression of, as you might guess, utter bewilderment.

  The girl had short black hair, straight on top but fluffy near the ears. Thick, straight eyebrows, bright red pupils to match her lipstick, and light mascara that thickened at the outer edges of her eyes, emphasizing their predatory shape. If this isn't your first book, you've probably guessed that I wouldn't describe a random bandit I’d never see again in such detail. So, remember her, so you don't have to look for her description later.

  Now that our speeds had roughly equalized, I gained the advantage. Mentally drawing our reach zones, I realized mine encroached further into hers due to my arm length and height. I pressed her, knowing full well the advantage would only last another nine seconds. Abrakta began to back away, deftly avoiding my swings. Our suddenly similar blades met with dull clacks a few times, but mostly it was a dance of quick jabs, hacking strikes, and dodges.

  The girl found a moment and thrust her hand out, aiming for my collarbone. I [Blinked] mid-motion and, returning from the static void, found myself already to her side, with her blade whistling through the spot where I had been a moment ago. While Abrakta’s momentum carried her forward, I caught her throat with my right elbow, pulled her close, and twisted her dagger-wielding wrist with my left hand. For a second, her face turned into a hissing black cat's visage with glowing eyes. But [Energizer] ran out just then, and such a wave of exhaustion hit me that I couldn't even be bothered to come up with an analogy for it, let alone react to her trick. The road dust kicked up by our fight began to settle back down. I stood there, breathing heavily, holding Abrakta back with the last of my strength.

  "Boys, he’s spent! Let's cut him down quick!" the bandit leader roared.

  The brigands, who had been watching our duel like a show, moved toward me, toyed with their weapons. But they decided to cluster. I pointed my left hand, still gripping the opponent's wrist, toward them and extended my middle finger. The air exploded with a [Kinetic Wave]. The bandits were swept away like bowling pins: some into the mud, some into the wagons, the lucky ones into each other.

  "Alright, now he’s definitely spent!" the leader yelled again, though he himself wasn't in a hurry to lead the charge.

  He was right. But the bandits believed it less than he and I did, and they approached more cautiously now, pre-tensing their muscles.

  "You shouldn't have done that," Abraka hissed, still trying to squirm free. "I had everything under control."

  "Better total anarchy than this kind of control," I tightened my elbow around her neck slightly to emphasize the point. I meant that her "controlled" robbery was bad in itself, but in the heat of battle, it came out sounding stupid. I’m writing this clarification here so you know.

  "You don't—" she began, choked, but was interrupted by a small blue glass vial that thudded against my forehead and then rolled down Abrakta to the ground.

  "Catch, hero!" the bald dwarf shouted.

  Under my wonderful distraction, he had managed to free himself, creep behind the bandits to a broken crate, and grab a handful of multicolored vials, and was now throwing them my way with all his might.

  "Red for wounds, blue for thoughts!" he yelled, continuing to advertise his wares even on the brink of death.

  I shoved Abrakta away, giving her a boost with a kick to the back. Fine, fine, of course the kick landed on her buttocks—I couldn't have reached her back in that position. She flew obediently and landed spectacularly in a pile of scattered goods. Not very gentlemanly, I agree. But the alternative to a kick would have been a sword strike. And I don't recall any of the authors of those moral codes fighting to the death themselves against ladies five levels stronger than they were. I’d like to see them in my situation.

  Two more vials flew at me. A white one whistled over my head, but I instinctively caught a red one, slapping it to my chest. It shattered on impact. I won’t record what I thought at that moment here. A thick red cloud erupted from the shards and was instantly absorbed into my skin. The pain gnawing at my side and shoulder vanished. Health restored to a wonderful 40 units. I immediately crushed a blue vial on the ground with my heel. Blue smoke soaked into my leg, a cold clarity hit my head, and my magic reserve soared to 51 units.

  "Mirror Waste..." the leader cursed despondently. He knew, poor devil, what those vials were.

  A few thugs lunged at the vial-tossing dwarf, but I unleashed a new portion of kinetics on them. The dwarf was swept away too, admittedly, but that was clearly better than a hatchet blow to his hairless crown.

  I scattered another batch of attackers, and a couple of them crashed into a boar. The animal roared indignantly, like an overloaded engine, and decided to join the fray. The boar, weighing several tons, charged into the thick of the bandits, tossing the edge of a wagon aside with its snout. It managed to scatter the people even better than I had. In the chaos, several guards managed to untie themselves and were now getting up, picking up scattered weapons.

  "Retreat!" the leader barked and immediately led the execution of his own order.

  The bandits retreated not in an organized fashion, rather, they bolted in every direction on a "every man for himself" basis. Abrakta vanished between the wagons, rubbing her bruised spot as she ran. The slowest brigand, the one with the bad overbite, was caught by the blue-skinned giant; he grabbed the poor guy by the shoulders and "turned out his lights" with a powerful headbutt to the back of the head. The sound of a dropped watermelon and the "watermelon juice" on the blue face suggested the lights wouldn't be back on anytime soon.

  "Not bad," Valtar noted. "Very not bad for you. With a stat configuration like that, people usually die in the first ditch they come across. Looks like you’re eating on someone else's tab today."

  "What kind of person am I," I thought, wiping the sweat from my face with a trembling hand.