Hello, hello, hello, what's happenin' readers?

This chapter was edited and re-uploaded at the time chapter 79 was uploaded.

Disclaimer: I do not own Jagex, RuneScape, or any of the RuneScape characters. All I own is the plot of this fanfiction and some of the characters in the story. I am not making a financial profit from this story.

Enjoy!

Chapter 6: The Sword and the Short Bow

I walked through the dark, dismal tunnel that the mining and smithing tutor had indicated me to go down. A drop of some kind of green fungus fell on my head with a small plop. I shivered miserably. I wanted to get to the light badly because this cavernous darkness made me feel nervous. Before I could do that, however, I had to go and learn about combat, which basically was learning about how to kill stuff. But then, I thought, killing was probably a crucial skill to learn, if it was being taught on Tutorial Island.

After what felt like hours of walking, I reached an opening in the cave. I stopped, panting, with large blisters on my feet, squinting in the darkness for some sign of life. Large torches lit up, illuminating the cave so I could see where I was.

I was in a tunnel that opened up into a pit. even worse, it was a pit full of rats. It was a pit full of enormous rats. They were gigantic, colossal, hairy, smelly, noisy rats. Then I saw a gruesome sight. People were in the rat pit, and were slaughtering the rats. Blood was lying on the ground in pools, along with a few dead rats, and the killers were picking up their winnings: a hunk of rat meat, and some bones. I shivered again disgustedly, and climbed down the ladder, into a safe spot.

There was a gate barring us from the rats here. There were quite a few people here. There were people behind the gates, shooting arrows at the rats from afar. The rats were squealing, and were trying to escape from the arrows, but most of them hit their target, injuring the rats and causing more blood to spill all over the rocks. My face was turning green with all this killing and blood. But there was one man behind the gates that really caught my attention.

This man was enormous, and looked just too big to be allowed. His biceps were the size of boulders, and it didn't look like he needed the rune scimitar and rune kite shield he had on his belt. He could just grab enemies by the neck and choke them to death. He wore a large rune plate body, rune plate legs, and a rune medium helmet. He had a magic longbow on his back, with what looked like hundreds of weird blue arrows. Like all the other guides, he had a striking dark blue cape, with a large rucksack. I came to the decision that he was the combat tutor, and I needed to talk to him to pass, even though he was so intimidating I just wanted to cower against the wall. But, I forced myself to stand up straight, and to walk up towards him and talk to him. As if by magic, I knew instantly that he was a level 140.

"Excuse me, but are you Vannaka?" I asked as bravely as I could, fighting the temptation to run and hide.

"Yes I am, and I don't care about your name. To me, you are just another noob who thinks they are ready to fight," he snarled back at me. I almost burst out crying because of his rudeness. But, again, I forced myself to stand up straight and to look him in the eye. I stared in his blood-red angry eyes, and I felt all my determination ebbing away, as though his stare alone sucked the bravery out of me.

"But I'm supposed to fight, aren't I? I mean, this is a part of the island, isn't it?" I asked timidly, sniffing, blinking tears out of my eyes, surprised I had enough confidence to talk to him any more. He glowered at me, and I felt like going to hide again.

"Yes, I guess so," he said grudgingly. Here, take these and get into the pit. Go and try them out." He handed me a simple bronze sword and a wooden shield. "There are a few skills that you could raise while killing: attack, defence, strength, hit points (that is the amount of points left you can have while you are being attacked, yours now is 10), ranging (only raised when using a bow and arrow), and magic (you'll learn more about magic later)," he explained. "Now, just get in the pit and try them out!" I yelped with fright, and rushed into the rat pit.

I felt like being sick. The people here were showing no mercy at all towards the poor rats, and were killing them heartlessly. But, for some reason, the rats kept reappearing after dying. I didn't spare this a second thought, though, as I stepped into the heart of the pit. I eyed a nearby rat nervously, but it got there first.

It looked at me coldly with its large yellow eyes, and then stepped towards me. I stepped back. Then, suddenly, the rat squeaked loudly, and pounced. I screamed, and ran for it. I could hear Vannaka laughing past the gate. I realised the only thing to do now would be to kill the rat, so I stepped towards it, and wielded my sword, and held it above the rat's head. Vannaka stopped laughing. I grimaced, and swung it at the rat's head. I heard a squelch, a squeak of pain, and a gasp from Vannaka. I looked at the rat, and saw blood flooding all over the floor. The rat's head lay on the floor, with its body lying nearby.

I saw some bones and raw rat meat on the floor. I picked up the both, and put them in my bag. I just stood, flabbergasted, at the rat I had just slaughtered. I ran towards another rat, and this time stabbed it in the chest with my sword. It squeaked, partly because of pain, partly because of anger, and lunged at me with its large claws. I thought fast, and blocked its attack with my shield. I hit it again violently, making it squeak again. It slashed at me angrily, and this time I wasn't quick enough to protect myself from its vicious claws, and it hit me hard on my arm.

The cut began to bleed profusely. The pain felt terrible, but I forced myself to numb out the pain, because the rat was once again attempting to slash me again. I protected myself with my wooden shield again, and hit the rat another time with my sword. The rat tried to attack me again, only managing to cut me slightly on my hand. I stabbed it once more, this time through its neck, and it fell on the floor, dead.

I felt even braver then when I first entered the pit. I stepped towards another rat, and killed it with a few slashes. But this one scratched me on my stomach, and it hurt. I killed another few rats, until I had five sets of raw rat meat and five sets of bones. Then, fireworks set off around me. I looked in my green book, and I saw that I had raised to strength level 2, then suddenly, even more fireworks set off around me, and I checked in my book, and found out I had raised to hit points level 11. My hit points were 4 after fighting the rats. I stepped back behind the gate proudly. Vannaka was gawping at me by now. He shook his head though and mumbled a 'brilliant' at me with much difficulty.

"That was much better then I expected it to be, youngster. Well, we'll see how skilled you are with a short bow!" he told me triumphantly, regaining his pompous, rude, old self. He handed me a wooden small bow. I looked at it curiously, having no idea whatsoever what I was supposed to do with it. Vannaka sighed, and got out his own magic longbow, and took out a blue arrow.

He inserted the arrow on the back of the string, held the string back, and let go. The arrow went flying high in the sky, like some kind of pointy blue rocket. It landed with a sickening squelch, and when I looked closely, I saw that the arrow had gone through a rat's neck. The rat squealed noisily, and slumped on the floor, dark-red blood streaming all over the already blood-stained floor. I nervously got my bow into a similar position, when I realised I had no arrows. Vannaka laughed, and took out about 50 slender bronze arrows, and handed them to me.

"Those arrows are very brittle, so be careful with them. If you break any, I'm not going to replace them," he snapped. I looked nervously at my short bow and arrows. I put an arrow on the thin rope, pulled the rope back, and let go of the string and the arrow.

The arrow went sailing through the air. It went down, and instead of hitting a rat, it hit a level 3 boy wielding a wooden shield and a bronze sword, like me, in the side. He shouted with pain and anger, pulled the arrow out of his side, and marched angrily towards the gate. Vannaka stopped to watch. The boy opened the gate, and stormed towards me.

"What the HELL are you playing at, shooting an arrow at me? Was that supposed to be a joke?" he bellowed in my face, spraying spit everywhere. I stuttered helplessly. He glared at me, and then continued, "If it was a joke, it wasn't a very funny one. I lost five hit points because of that!"

He brandished his bronze sword, and stepped towards me. He slashed the sword in my direction, but it hit my wooden shield instead. I decided it was time for self defence, so I slashed my sword in his direction. It hit his wooden shield. I saw his face turn puce, like a radish with hair, eyes, a nose and a large mouth. He swiped his sword in my direction furiously, and this time it hit my upper chest. I yelled in pain, and fell back, dropping my shield by accident. He smiled, not like the warm smile Brianna gave me, but an evil smile, full of malice and hatred.

He stabbed at me again, and the sword went right through my flesh in the side. My vision went foggy, and my blood poured all over the floor. He smiled evilly again, and got his sword at the ready. But, that smile made me feel something I had never felt before: anger. Not angry, such as waiting impatiently to talk to the RuneScape guide.

I felt adrenaline pulse through my body. Despite the pain in my side, I got up, and picked up my shield. He laughed. "You've just been stabbed right through your side. You have no chance against me," he taunted.

He swung his sword at me, and I swung mine at him. Our swords came into contact, and we pushed. I could see beads of sweat going down his forehead. I pushed with all my might, and finally he dropped his sword, which fell on the floor with a clatter. It bent, and I took it, and threw it like a javelin into the rat pit. He let out a frightened shout, and held up his wooden shield, hoping to protect himself. I swung my sword with all my might at his shield, and they collided with a loud CRASH.

His shield cracked, and fell in half. The two pieces fell on the floor, just useless pieces of wood now. The boy stepped back, and tried to run away. But, with quick thinking, I aimed an arrow at him, and shot. The arrow hit him narrowly in the stomach. He fell over, shouted with pain, and I stepped over to him. With my sword clutched angrily in my hand, I went up to him, and chopped off his head cleanly. His head flew through the air, before hitting the wall with a sickening crunch.

Right now, everyone was looking at me with shock. Even I was shocked at what I just did. But then, small fireworks popped up around me, indicating I had risen to level attack 2. I thought that killing people like this must be very common in RuneScape.

Vannaka went up to me. "You hardly practiced ranged combat today, but, nevertheless, the skill you showed while killing that person was absolutely fantastic. I feel like you have earned some rewards. I'll reward you with 50 strength experience, 50 attack experience, 50 ranged experience, 50 defence experience, and 50 hit point experience, but there is much more you have earned," he told me. At once, fireworks set off around me, telling me I had raised a defence level to two, and to range level two.

"Your second rewards are a bow holder and arrow holder, and another 50 bronze arrows," he said, and handed me a long leather tube-like thing to keep my bow and arrows in. I slung it on my back, put my bow and 98 bronze arrows in, and carried on listening to him.

"Your third reward is this exclusive bronze medium helmet," he said, and handed me a tough-looking bronze helmet. I put it on, and made me look like a mighty warrior. I smiled gratefully at him. He smiled back. He handed me a small white box with a red cross on it, which contained some healing tonic in a bright blue bottle, bandages, plasters, and a small beaker of water, for cleaning wounds, I guessed. I cleaned and bandaged up my several stab and scratch wounds.

"Now, it is time for you to go down that tunnel, and to resurface to Tutorial Island. I think, next, you will learn about the bank and how to make money with the financial advisor, and then you will go to tutorial church to learn about prayer with Brother Brace. After that, you will go to Terrera the wizard to learn about magic (a skill I don't really understand) and then you will be teleported to Lumbridge, a city in RuneScape. Goodbye, whatever-your-name-is. I'm sure one day you may even enter the dreaded wilderness! Though, that is unlikely, because even I have difficulty going in there," he gabbled, then sighed. I was really wondering what this wilderness was. I hoped I would find out soon.

I gladly left the rat pit, and climbed down this tunnel. I was wearing my bow and arrow sling, and my rucksack. I was also wearing my helmet proudly on my head, and I was wielding my bronze sword and wooden shield. I could see a ladder and a bit of white light at the top of the ladder in the distance, and I wondered what kinds of things awaited me at the end of that ladder.

I hope you enjoyed that!

I have tried my best to remove errors/typos, but some may still remain. If you spot any please tell me what they are so I can fix them.

Next chapter: Mainiac97 meets a good friend and a terrible enemy.

Until next time, toodles!