Luther's Adventure Log

Griffin Hunters

Johnson and Kirito were our new Rent-A-Pawns, one a Warrior and the other a Strider. Johnson was a very large man whose intended ethnicity I couldn't quite pin down. He was some kind of vaguely dark-skinned guy with close-shaved hair and muscles bigger than my entire body. Kirito was some skinny little emo edgelord fuck dressed all in black. They were the first two Pawns I'd seen, and since I hadn't cared about anything but their ability to distract things, they did the trick. Johnson by being a massive, intimidating guy who commanded a lot of attention, and Kirito by having an extremely punchable face.

Seriously, on our way to meet the Griffin Hunters, we passed by some bandits that just completely ignored Monica and I to gang up on Kirito, hold his arms behind his back, and take turns punching him in the face. Even Johnson took a turn. I was about to take a turn myself, but Monica gave me the third degree about 'being nice', so I offered to let her go first. Unfortunately, Kirito had managed to free himself and cut the bandits down, so we didn't get a chance. Monica was moody for the rest of the trip, and I'm pretty sure it's because she didn't get a turn. I know I was disappointed about it, that's for sure.

Meeting up with the Griffin Hunters proper wasn't much of a thrill, either. It turned out that the Duke's idea of 'elites' was just a bunch of sellswords. Very unenthusiastic sellswords, at that. They were all a bunch of Debbie Downers, sitting around moping about how inevitable the cold, emotionless cycle of death was and how it had felt like they'd all done this before and how they would probably all die fighting the Griffin, which apparently they all actually believed existed.

"We need bait. Did anybody bring any bait?" One of the mopey sellswords asked without enthusiasm.

"There, Arisen! Goblins!" Kirito cried, pointing to a bunch of goblins that weren't bothering anybody.

"Yeah, so?" I asked, not really sure why this mattered.

"They ill like fire!" He yelled, stabbing one in the arm. Naturally, the goblin didn't like knives much, either, and called its friends. They promptly ganged up, knocked him to the floor, and began beating the crap out of him.

"...Maybe we could use Kirito as bait." I suggested, as the entire hunting party watched Kirito get hazed.

"Or the goblins." The mopey sellsword said as Kirito screamed for somebody to help him. Nobody did.

"Why? They're not hurting anybody."

"Help me! Please!" Kirito sobbed, taking another goblin club to the back of the head.

"Master, maybe we should help." Monica said, casting a healing spell on Kirito as the goblins each held one of his limbs and a fifth one sat on his chest punching him repeatedly in the face.

"Seems like they've got it sorted, Twintails."

"I meant Kirito."

"Ugh. Fine. Even though it's totally his own fault." Johnson and I pulled the goblins off Kirito and made short work of them, like literally anybody who wasn't a complete loser should have been able to manage. Johnson didn't even draw his sword. He just used the goblin he'd pulled off Kirito as a living club to beat the other goblins to death.

"Is that all? Barely worth the effort!" Kirito scoffed with entirely too much confidence given how badly he'd just had his ass kicked. Johnson dropped his goblin club, now very much dead, onto the ground without a second thought. As if by contrived plot magic, a Griffin came literally right the fuck out of nowhere.

"Ah, shit, it actually exists." There had been absolutely no sign of this giant bird-cat before this point, but once Johnson threw that dead goblin into the ground, it materialized out of thin air and dive-bombed us. Monica immediately set fire to it, and I ducked underneath its crazy-ass flailing and moved in close, jumping onto its back.