Chapter 18: Sheep Shearer

Osrie1 moaned at my feet, and he sat up.

"What happened? Where am I? Where is the dragon? Where is that guy in white armour?" Osrie1 mumbled. I sighed, and explained everything that happened in the cave to him. By the end, he was standing up straight, no longer dizzy, and was perfectly alert.

"You know what makes me most curious? Something is going on. Let us count all of the strange events that have happened lately. First, James appeared in the bank. Why would he want the money so desperately? And why would he want the money from tutorial bank in particular?" Osrie1 asked.

"Well, I found out recently that James might possibly be a thief as well as a dark sorcerer," I replied.

"Secondly," Osrie1 continued, ignoring me, "Master Samuel tried to take over tutorial church. Why that church in particular?"

"Well, he said he wanted to train new people to love the power of Zamorak," I said, rolling my eyes.

"But why?" he asked. I shrugged. "And there was the army of rats that invaded the island." I nodded. "And those goblins attacked you. And, people have been going on about mad ghosts and zombies. And, also, people have been telling you that there was something on your back. The doomsayer and Master Samuel mentioned approaching doom, and some kind of grand plan. What is going on?" he demanded. I shrugged again.

I was also wondering what was on my back. I felt movement at one point on my back, but I hadn't really thought about it. I had just counted a mischievous spider was jumping on my back every now and then. That would explain the girl screaming and running away. But, Ilookgood99 and the doomsayer mentioned it a bit more seriously. Ilookgodd99 and the doomsayer….

Strange things were happening. Like, Ilookgood99 kept popping up, and was acting very strange. And this white dragon with the white-robed man on its back kept coming to save the day (like, the rats would have demolished the island if the dragon hadn't stopped them, and the three-headed dragon would have reached the surface if it weren't for the white dragon). But, I thought, there wasn't much point in wondering. I decided to drop the subject.

"I'm going to go mining," Osrie1 said, and he walked off in the direction of the graveyard. All of the guards were back in the castle, and the barriers were gone. The padlock had gone from the graveyard gate. The town was bustling again, and people were chatting about the events.

"I could have taken out that dragon easy!! Sir Vant was just showing off," a sneering voice said from behind me, and I swung around, and came face-to-face with Madrey1.

"It was over level 200 mind, and you should stop showing off yourself. Sir Vant was just helping, and if you think you could have handled a three-headed dragon, why didn't you come down yourself?" I retorted. His face turned steadily purple, and a vein started throbbing in his temple.

"The opinion of a little noob such as you isn't very important at all," he shouted, sending spit flying everywhere. He kicked me, making he keel over in pain, and then he threw me into the ruins of the house.

My head had collided with a brick. I lost a hit point, leaving 12 left. I sat up, rubbing my throbbing head. Madrey1 was stamping down the street in the direction of the sheep pen, cracking the pavement a little bit, and causing passers-by to stare.

I went towards the furnace, deciding that the copper and tin in my bag needed to be refined. I stepped inside. The furnace stood there, like always, red-hot, like a portal to hell. I put all of my copper and tin in together. They both got very hot, and began to melt into each other. The melted mess turned from silver and orange into a shiny brown. I used the iron ladle to scoop up the melted bronze. There was too much there to fit in the bar mould. I put in a bit of the bronze into the bar mould. It hardened, but I took the bronze bar off quickly, so the rest of my melted bronze wouldn't harden in the ladle. I made several more bars, until the ladle was empty. I had six bars in total.

I decided I would spend the rest of the day exploring down by the windmill. I set off.

I passed the sheep farm. The sheep stared at me as I passed. There was a level 3 farmer inside, using a pair of shears to cut off the sheep's wool. That sheep was looking at the shears with what might have been fright in its eyes. I walked past a passing goblin, who glared at me, towards a small wooden building.

I opened the front gate. The building had a small chicken coop in the front, with a basket of eggs in the corner. There was a tree in the corner of the coop. There was a shiny bronze axe wedged into the tree. There was an empty bucket near the door to the wooden house, with some leather boots next to it. There was a black-and-white dairy cow standing in the corner, tethered up to a wooden post. The chickens and the cow looked at me, as if I was disturbing the peace. I gulped nervously, and stepped inside the house itself.

There was a sink and a stove in the corner. There was an open door with two small beds (one red, one yellow) and two large cupboards behind it. There was a pitchfork and a spade propped up against the wall in the bedroom. A farmer in a straw hat and blue overalls sat there at the foot of the yellow bed. There was a barrel with a pair of shears on top of it. There was a small table with a stack of plates on it and a small box full of pie dishes next to it. There was a small crate full of money in the corner of the room. The farmer spotted me, and his eyes narrowed.

"What are you doing in my house?" the farmer roared. I began stuttering an apology, but then we saw the level 3 farmer rush through the door, screaming. His shears were snapped in two, and there was a deep gash in his stomach. Deep red blood was spattering all over the floor. Then, Madrey1 stepped into the house too, a look of enjoyment on his face.

He used his sword to chop the farmer's head cleanly off. The head swerved over us in a brilliant ark, before landing slap-bang in the sink. Blood and unpleasant pinkish goo was going down the drain. The other farmer who shouted at me roared in fury again, this time at Madrey1.

"You killed Farmer Sam. What did you do that for?" the farmer bellowed. Madrey1 laughed.

"It was fun to see him squirm," Madrey1 grinned, picking up the coins and bones that had suddenly appeared on the floor. "You are Farmer Fred, aren't you? The one who lets his sheep open for the public to shear? Why should we do your dirty work?" Madrey1 then said. Farmer Fred glared daggers at him, still purple in the face. Madrey1 laughed again, stepped out the house, and closed the door. We heard the squeals of chickens outside. They must have been murdered. Farmer Fred sat down on his bed, and stared at the place where the decapitated body of Farmer Sam used to lay.

"Who is going to help me hear the sheep? They are getting mighty woolly," Farmer Fred moaned.

"I could help you, if you like," I said shyly. He looked at me.

"Would you?" he asked. I nodded. He then sat up.

"Thanks. Could you get me 20 balls of wool? Consider it a quest and I could pay you," Farmer Fred said eagerly. I nodded, thinking I would take the wool from the sheep to the spinning wheel in the crafting tutor's room in Lumbridge to turn the wool to balls. He handed me a pair of shears. I waited patiently, to make sure that he didn't have anything else to say.

"Well don't just stand there!! I'm not paying you by the hour!" farmer Fred yelled. He had a big temper, I thought privately. "And you may want to watch out for the thing," he said.

"What's the thing?" I asked, puzzled. He sighed.

"The thing is something mysterious that is killing my sheep. It is disguising itself as a sheep, so I can't tell the difference," he whispered. "Now, go and do your job!!" grumbling, I stepped outside, towards the gate that led to the sheep pen.

I passed a group of goblins bickering over a sack of gold.

"My money!! My shiny money!!" one goblin roared, attempting hopelessly to kick off the others. I chortled at their arguing over a small sack of money. Goblins were so stupid, I thought. They only care about money, not of its worth, but of how shiny it is. If I waved 20mil in front of their faces, but the coins were filthy, they probably wouldn't accept them. I stepped into the sheep pen.

The sheep gave a start when I walked in, and scattered. I chuckled softly. I stepped towards a sheep with my shears, but it just ran away, baaing. I grunted with annoyance. I stepped towards a sheep eating some grass, and managed to successfully cut off all of the sheep's wool while it didn't notice. Now, I had a small fluffy cloud of wool. The sheep didn't notice, and it continued to eat the grass. I needed a bit more to make 20 balls of wool. I stepped towards another sheep. The sheep had a lot of wool on him, making him look fat. It looked up at me, and just ignored me. I quietly cut off all of its wool with the shears. With a bag full of wool, I stepped out of the sheep pen, and into the main town.

I passed a very pretty girl that was level 4. She was a head shorter then me, but was stunning all the same. She had long blond hair, and blue eyes that twinkled like mine. She wore blue thin trousers and a green shirt. She smiled at me as I passed her. I smiled back, stunned. She was just so pretty.

I saw Madrey1 run down the path that I had just walked down. He barged past me, knocking me down. He looked at the pretty girl, and stopped in his tracks.

"Well hello little missy," he sneered, and he grabbed her by the waist. She screamed, struggling to get out of his grip.

"Let me go, what have I done to you?" she wailed.

"Shut up, and take this like a woman!!" Madrey1 roared. He began walking towards the bridge with her, but I jumped to my feet, and ran towards him. Knowing full well that I was basically committing suicide doing this, I jumped onto his face, pulled of his dragon helmet, and threw it into the river. I grabbed at his face, scratching every single inch of it I could scratch. He roared, dropped the girl, and swiped at me. I flew backwards into the ruins of the cellar. I fell on top of the corpse of the dead three-headed dragon. Madrey1 jumped down into the cellar with me. He climbed towards me, and as a last ditch attempt to save myself; I threw my sword at his face. It hit his head, and I felt him lose three hit points. He laughed, and he got out his dragon sword. He waved it at me, but I ran underneath him, and he accidentally decapitated the dragon's middle head. He lost his balance, and fell into the landslide that the dragon created. The rocks came tumbling down on top of him, and with a final roar of rage, he was buried in rocks.

I climbed out of the dungeon, picked up my sword, and stepped towards the girl. She beamed at me.

"You saved me!! God knows what that man would've done if he had successfully carried me away!" she said. I bowed at her.

"Not a problem, your name?" I asked.

"Oh, my name is Amy11," she said, giggling. I nodded, and I shook her hand.

"I'm Mainiac97," I said.

"Right, well thank you Mainiac97, I hope we will meet again," she said, before skipping off. I sighed, and set off towards the courtyard.

I stepped inside the castle. I went automatically towards the stairs on the left. I clambered up them, and stepped into the crafting room. The crafting tutor waved cheerfully at me, and I stepped towards the spinning wheel. The crafting tutor was knitting something out of a piece of coloured cloth.

The spinning wheel was a wheel on a stand, with a pin underneath the wheel, and a handle on the wheel. I took out some of my wool, and put it under the pin. I grasped the handle firmly, and began to pull it around the wheel. The wool on the pin was being shaped into the shape of string with a little help from my free hand. It took quite a while to shape all of the wool into string. When I was done, I had five balls of wool. I took out some more wool from my bag, and shaped it into another five balls of wool.

After another quarter of an hour, I had 20 balls of wool. I decided to make a stop in the bank to put away some of the items I didn't need. I climbed further up the stairs, until the small but packed stone building and the wooden bridge that led to the hotel was visible. I went towards the bank, and went to the back of the queue. When I was in the front, I pushed my bank PIN in the red panel, and my enormous bank account was visible. I put in a pot and a bucket that I uncovered at the bottom of my bag. I put in my experience lamps and 50gp, so now I had 95gp in the bank. I was quickly getting rich, I thought. I put in my pair of shears and my bronze bars, and closed my bank account. I set off down the stairs, and out of the castle.

I walked all the way back to Farmer Fred's house. He wasn't inside, but I found him behind the house, burying Farmer Sam's head. Farmer Fred's garden was consisted of a few trees, a few flowers, and a large onion field growing in the middle. There was a compost bin nearby. Farmer Sam was buried in a corner of the garden, with a small stone saying 'Here lays Farmer Sam, who would help with shearing the sheep as often as he could'. I poked Farmer Fred in the back. He turned around, and gave a start when he saw the balls of wool in my hand.

"By golly, you actually did it!! I wasn't really expecting you to do it!!" he squealed excitedly. "You have earned this!! I guess I have to pay you too." He took the wool, and he handed me a scroll reading:

You have earned:

1 quest point

100 crafting experience

60gp

Use of Farmer Fred's farm

Use of the farming ability

60gp had automatically appeared in my money pouch, and my quest journal now read 4 on the front. The scroll automatically glued itself into a page that read 'sheep shearer' on the top. Fireworks rose up around me, telling me I had now risen to level 3 in crafting.

"Farming? That is ability?" I asked. Farmer Fred sighed.

"I'll help you get used to farming then, because you got me my balls of wool," Farmer Fred said.