《Technocide》 Prologue ¡°Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.¡± - Arthur C Clarke, 1973 ¡®The Hazards of Prophecy¡¯ Alarms were blaring all across earth. Although the year was lost to history, there are many things that were not forgotten so easily. The leader of the western nations had rebelled against their common sense and elected an angry orange man to be their king. Although I said there were some things not lost, this is a point of contention for a lot of the modern day scholars. They argue that although there were many skin colors during the pre-nerf era, orange was not one of them. Still, the writs insist that it was a very angry and selfish orange man with tiny hands, even though humans were still the only humanoid species that was acting out in the open. That is beside the point. The angry orange man had finally pushed the other powerful nations too far. Through some sort of spider-related magic that has also been lost to the passage of time, this new king of the western world insulted many of the other monarchs at once and they decided to finally act upon it. They launched their most powerful explosive magic weapons from all over the world, knowing full well that it would be mutually assured destruction. The king obviously retaliated by launching his own more powerful and plentiful magical arsenal back at the offenders, including several nations that had not attacked him. This in turn caused them to launch their own at him and other nations, etcetera etcetera. Many of the common folk attempted to hunker down in their private bunkers, as well as the wealthy being spirited away to the private havens provided to them by the devious Bunker-Co corporation. Fires filled the night sky with a violent glow, blotting out the stars and many cults marched through the streets screaming about the end times with singing and screaming to their heart''s content. Public services shut down, stores were looted, magical metal carriages were burned and flipped, and murder and rape were at an all time high. The world was truly going to end, and nobody would be spared. Throughout the entire event, the angry orange man used his web-magic to chirp about how the entire thing was fake news being spread by the biased donkey parties. ¡®Wrong! Lies and slander! Fake news! Saaaad!¡¯ he chipped out to the world from the safety of his exorbitantly expensive bunker. He knew the world was ending, but his wealth secured him the closest thing to life that it could, and he couldn¡¯t help but take final shots at his political enemies on the way out. Chaos for Chaos¡¯s sake, that was his memo the entire time he reigned. Elsewhere ¡°Well, wake them up! The world is going to end if we can¡¯t push the vote through! Rip their hair out if you need to!¡± Apollo was very angry. The humans had finally gone too far and were going to destroy everything that they¡¯d built along with everything that they hadn¡¯t. The gods knew that they possessed the power of the gods for a long time now, but since the first time they¡¯d used it on other humans they¡¯d managed to reign in themselves and not do it again. Nuclear warfare did not have a victor, only sorrow and death. [Vote: Quick-Load 50% for, 6% Against, 44% Not voted] [Status: Still pending¡­] The gods only hope was to force a quick-load of the planet before the nukes went off and destroyed the natural infrastructure. Unfortunately, every god that had been worshipped by a certain number of people also maintained a vote on the council. Many of these gods had faded to near obscurity and had been sleeping for many centuries. Without followers sending them power through faith, they simply did not have the energy or really the care to pay attention to the day to day activities of the humans. In fact, if it weren¡¯t for the emerging fiction novels and comic books that were becoming popular, there would probably be far fewer gods and goddess awake to cast their votes to save humanity. As it was they¡¯d been hung up at 50% for the quick-load for almost 15 minutes now and the first missiles would be landing any minute. The Egyptian, Norse, Greek, and Roman gods had all gained enough belief from popular media so they were awake and attempting to rouse the others. Damnable humans and their migration to monotheistic religions. Even Christianity had only three votes for God, Jesus, and Mary. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°I woke Ki up!¡± shouted a named Disir from across the plane. Apollo rushed over as she explained the situation. It was a long way away, and before Apollo could reach him, his vote was cast. [Vote: Quick-Load 50% for, 7% Against, 43% Not voted] [Status: Still pending¡­] ¡°No! What is wrong with you, woman? The world will end and we will all cease to exist!¡± Ki glared back up at Apollo, ¡°Why should I care? The bipedals stopped worshipping me long ago but I can not fade away to death. With them finally dead and knowledge of me erased, I will at last be at peace.¡± A boom resounded throughout the plane that the mortals currently referred to as heaven. The first nuclear missile had landed and taken out most of Washington D.C. The world was ending, just as the oracles had predicted. The folly of man was pulling hellfire down upon their heads and laying waste to the nations. Countless missiles landed and tore cities asunder, there was screaming and crying and radiation all over. There was a silver lining however, the massive shaking of the earth sent tremors even up to the heavens and awoke the many personalities of the oldest god. Gaia, Mother Earth, Gaea, Ge, Great Mother, Magna Mater, Tellus, Terra, and many more awoke at once. All shared a single body but represented many votes. She heard the screaming and crying of her host body and tremors were sent throughout her. Unlike the other gods her slumber was not due to the lack of followers but the abuse that the humans had been pumping into her. If any god had a right to end humanity it was she who had suffered so much, not these miserable cultists and fanatics that just wanted to see the world burn. She wept a tear for what her kingdom had become and every god and goddess wept with her. The moment stretched into eternity and then she cast her vote. [Vote: Quick-Load 56% for, 7% Against, 37% Not voted] [Status: Majority reached¡­] [Quick Load failed: Save corrupted] [Quick Load failed: Save corrupted] [Quick Load failed: Save corrupted] [Quick Load failed: Save corrupted] [Qui¡­ ] Everyone saw the messages and knew that due to the extensive damage caused by the god leveled weapons that devastated the planet, most of the infrastructure had been damaged. So many of their save points for humanity were corrupted. They blew past the roaring 80s, the world wars, the age of slavery and colonization. Even past the bronze age had been corrupted. Gaia had awoken but it had been too late, many gods were going to die their final death. [Due to lack of viable save, Quick Loading from alternate timeline] [Nuclear radiation incompatible, reformatting¡­] Many of the gods faded away instantly as the internet and other records of their existence disappeared. They had no followers and nothing to declare their existence, and so finally they died a true death. Humans who had died in the explosions stayed dead, and their souls were erased from existence as none of the gods of death had survived the culling. Very small amounts of the human population were saved, the land shifted, and the nuclear fallout morphed into something henceforth known as Aether. Most human knowledge was reset and they were left only with a baseline knowledge of common in the bronze ages. Strangely enough, most memories of fictions that they¡¯d read persisted throughout the reformatting, albeit nothing with guns or explosives stuck. Human memories were tricky to mess with as no human¡¯s brain would be wired the same as another''s. Gaia watched all this happen through eyes as old as time. She would survive this culling because she needed to exist for the humans to exist. Without Earth there would be nowhere to survive, and she did not need their worship to survive. So long as a sapient life existed upon her planet, she would live for the fact that they unconsciously worshipped her every day. The Age of Magic had begun at last. Chapter 1 || Ceremony ¡°Hey! Wake up! Wake up! Hey!¡± I slammed my hand down on the alarm box, the only enchanted item that I owned. The sunlight was filtering in between my sheet metal shutters and I knew it was time to be awake. Most days it would have been a battle with the alarm, me demanding ¡®5 more minutes¡¯ while the alarm demanded ¡®Hey!¡¯. Today, however, was not one of those days. I¡¯d been lying awake in my bed for at least an hour, staring at the roof of my shack in anticipation. Today, was the coming of age ceremony and I could finally make my own decisions. As the last vestiges of the alarm faded away from my ears I threw back my tattered sheets and hopped out of my cot, ready to face the day. Were it not for the cold metal of the floor on my bare feet, I would have forgotten to even get dressed. I snatched up my best set of clothing from where it lie folded on my desk in preparation and dressed myself. I pulled on my thrice patched socks along with a faded red tee and rough woolen trousers. The shirt I wore was not the best quality one I owned, but meant something to me as it was a relic of the past. I decided to wear it because in my mind, it would help me better explain my decision to my parents. Now that I was dressed and ready, I made my way through the short hallway to the living space my family shared with the Jacksons, careful to avoid any rusting portions of the hallway. The Jacksons were two brothers who helped work the same farmland as my parents, working hard days and long hours to try and tease some food out of the near-barren soil. It was hard work but without the other farming families, the entire shanty town would have starved long ago. Right, shanty town. Most of the buildings that were standing, along with all of the magic items, had been destroyed during the nerfing four generations ago. What exactly the nerfing entailed was constantly debated by scholars and priests. Whether it had been a god saving humanity from their self destruct or a magic experiment on a grand scale gone horribly wrong, nobody could be sure. This was due to the fact that, along with most of their buildings and farms, almost all of humanity''s knowledge had been erased from the minds of man. Entire professional schools of magic had been forgotten overnight, banks of knowledge razed to the ground, and words stolen from the tongues of teachers. That being said, not everything was lost. A large portion of works describing magic and romance were able to be salvaged. Unfortunately the magic systems in these books did not work anything remotely like the Aether based magic of Earth, so they were deemed fictional and passed off as stories of fantasy. That didn¡¯t stop me from reading every story I could get my hands on though, or stop me from dreaming of one day wielding magic of my own. Humanity had been granted a second chance, but it mandated that they start over from scratch. That worked out best for me anyways. It hadn¡¯t been long after the nerfing when people started experimenting with magic again, harvesting Aether from the nerf-sites and using it to power what little remained of pre-nerf enchanted items. My alarm box was a good example, as it had been reworked to run off of passive Aether gatherings from the atmosphere. They were cheap to make and practice for most upcoming wizards, therefore widely available in the larger cities and hamlets. Mine had been acquired years back when a merchant passed through town on its way west, and was one of my most valuable possessions as it was one of three in the entirety of Tinyton. That was the town I¡¯d spent my life growing up in thus far. I cast my eyes around the living room knowing that I would not find my parents or the Jacksons here, as they had long since left to tend the fields. There were several small holes in the patchwork wall of plywood and sheet metal, allowing the sunlight to filter in and light up the room. There was a small cooking fire in the hearth, surrounded by smooth rocks from the river bed, and cotton stuffed blankets scattered around for seating. The fire had gone out hours ago but there was still a slight warmth from the cooking pot that contained what was left of that morning¡¯s meal. I helped myself to a serving of potato based porridge, with fresh peppers and extra broth. I soaked up the extra broth with a hard wild grain biscuit that had been cooked earlier that week, not allowing any of the food go to waste. That was another thing that had changed post-nerf, humanity had finally begun revamping their wasteful ways. I¡¯d once read a book about a tiny metal golem left behind as humanity teleported into the sky, slowly cleaning up trash to try and grow life on earth again. The story spoke to me because of the farming struggle of getting anything to grow abundantly, and the fact that today¡¯s humanity would never leave all that scrap lying around. Scrap could build more shacks so that people like the Jacksons weren¡¯t forced to impose on others. Not that it really an imposition, they helped my parents with a lot of the manual labor required for field upkeep and there was safety in numbers. There had been rumors of monsters who snatched people from their homes at night so you could never be too safe.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. With my hunger sated I scooped up my worn boots from beside the front door and set off. Tinyton was, as it sounded, a very small town located in what used to be known as northern Florida. It had been cobbled together on the remains of a town whose name was lost to time. Nearly every building was cobbled together from the ruins of what had been left behind during the nerf. Most of the stone that had been used to build became too pliable, and the steel reinforcements had melted down into puddles. The townspeople who decided to rebuild took these puddles of various metals and whatever pieces of wood and lumber they could and slapdashed them together. It gave the town a very poor look, buildings that leaned a bit precariously this way and that, ready to fall over at a moments notice. Of course the buildings were a lot more stable than they looked. The town only held about 200 people, all of whom did their best to provide for everyone else. There was also the nicer district, the one that was constantly under construction. There you could find a couple log cabins fastened together from felled trees. The issue was a lot of the insects around here enjoyed chewing through the logs as they rotted, so the homes were constantly being repaired. Most prefered the ragbag trailers as they had far less upkeep. The coming of age ceremony was set to take place soon so I made my way toward town center. It was clearing between several of the tradesmen¡¯s shops and the mayors shack that had served as a gathering place for the people of old. There was still a plinth in the center, where the bell was fastened. Because the bell wasn¡¯t a magical item pre-nerf it had been spared during the nerfing and still stood there. The smell of food wafted out of the square and made me wonder if I had actually been sated by breakfast. There was already a collection of people gathering of people there, those whose work had not yet begun or who were taking a break to observe the ceremony. The other two who had come of age this season were already there and the mayor was looking at me expectantly. ¡°Now that Lucas is here, we can begin,¡± began the Mayor, ¡°As has been our tradition since the nerfing years ago, we gather here today to unlock the potential of these three young adults. They have survived on this newly harsh Earth for 18 years, and are finally ready to have their skill screens unlocked. ¡°Marsha, please step forward.¡± I¡¯d always thought it was stupid that they waited until we were 18 to unlock our interface. If I was old enough to farm or hunt by 12, then why was I not old enough to have access to my skill interface? It was a very antiquated way of thinking, and one of the reasons I was looking forward to getting away from here. Marsha, the baker¡¯s daughter, stepped up to the Mayor and got down on her knees. The Mayor removed the Key from the breast pocket of his jacket and there was a hush that spread throughout everyone collected. From what I¡¯d heard, the feeling of having your interface was something you never forgot. The Mayor closed his eyes and pressed the Key to Marsha¡¯s forehead. It began to glow brightly, even in the glaring daylight, and Masha¡¯s cheeks became flushed. After about 20 seconds the light began to dim and the mayor pulled his hand away from the young girl¡¯s face before helping her to her feet. She bowed her thank you and stepped back beside Dillon, the other boy who had come of age. Dillon stepped forward and the same process happened again, but at this point I was watching Marsha. Her face was still heated and her eyes were darting back and forth, looking at a interface that only she could see. Finally, my turn came and the Mayor called my name. ¡°Lucas, please step forward.¡± I knelt before the Mayor and greeted him. He began talking to the crowd again but I wasn¡¯t listening. My eyes were locked onto the Key in his hand, waiting for it to approach me, and then it did. As the Key made contact with my forehead, I lost myself. The world was engulfed in blue light and I felt like my entire life had finally come to a climax. My heart began beating faster than it ever had, and sweat poured out of every one of my pores as the cold wind blew across my face to cool me back down. It was an overwhelming sensation, but not one I was ever going to forget. Then just like that, my interface appeared.
Name: Lucas Cob Level 1
Class: N/A Profession: N/A
Status Healthy Stamina 105/105
Mana 10/10 Aether Saturation .03%
Strength 11 Perception 11
Endurance 11 Charisma 8
Intellect 10 Agility 10
Skills: Farming (Peppers, Potatoes, Minor Herbs), Reading, Basic Spear Spells: Weak Growth
The Mayor began thanking the crowd for coming and thanked Marsha¡¯s parents for bringing freshly baked bread for everyone to enjoy. I through the semi transparent blue screen in front of me toward the crowd and saw that my parents hadn¡¯t made it. I didn¡¯t really expect them to, they were far too busy trying to reap in one last bounty before winter finished setting in. I walked up to the table set to the side and collected a few fresh buns in my arms before breaking out of the crowd. I still had to finish preparing my things. Chapter 2 || Goodbyes My plan was pretty simple but at the same time a bit hard to follow. Although I¡¯d just received access to my interface there was no stopping people learning about the different statistics ahead of time. Most of them aligned with traditional RPGs I¡¯d read about and were fairly self explanatory, but the one stat that wasn¡¯t straightforward was the one I planned on raising. Aether saturation had to do with how much Aether your body naturally absorbed and held at any given time. The Aether was how humans generated their mana and was also tied into the strength of spells cast with mana. Most of the exact numbers were not exactly common knowledge as those who were capable of wielding great magic were also disgustingly stingy about who they shared the information or training methods with. There were ways to naturally raise your saturation through various meditation or cultivation techniques, or so I had been told. After spending an entire eight hours sitting outside with my eyes closed and not feeling any changes, I¡¯d given up on that quickly. Looking at the minute amount in my interface now that I could actually measure it didn¡¯t reassure me that culviating it was the correct path either. Everytime a merchant passed through town I would always ask them if they owned any books or knew of the path to power, and it was almost always a bust. However, one of the merchants who¡¯d passed through last spring gave me knowledge that I hadn''t heard before. I approached him when he was at his cooking fire with his guards as they¡¯d elected to stay in Tinyton overnight rather than risk the roads and night. The merchant was an older man with a weathered appearance and greyed hair. I was apprehensive to approach him because it was apparent from a distance that he¡¯d been drinking, but I steeled my nerves and pushed through anyways. ¡®Those disgusting wizards will never tell you how they gained their power, they all sit up high in their towers and dingle each other and themselves all day rather than help humanity advance.¡¯ When first I asked him if he knew anything about wizards, I earned myself a 10 minutes rant about how wizards were the worst of the worst, super cheap, and would try to scam any honorable merchant out of their coin. Apparently they were all natural hagglers and had higher charisma, allowing them to ¡®swindle¡¯ people out of their goods. From what I¡¯d seen of his prices, the wizards he encountered likely wanted to pay what the goods were worth, not the ludicrous markup his items were sold for. I didn¡¯t say that to him though, as he may have knowledge I wanted. Every minute of his drunken babbling had made me want to just walk away, but I didn¡¯t and it was a good thing that I hadn¡¯t. ¡®There are other ways though, ways nobody mentions because they wouldn¡¯t risk it. You ever hear about how much larger and powerful the mutant beasts are closer to the nerf sites? They soak up the Aether and it empowers them, it even gifts some of them with wisdom and magic.¡¯ ¡®That¡¯s all a myth though, everybody knows you can¡¯t survive in the nerf sites.¡¯ At the time, I¡¯d believed that to be the truth. If somebody could live there then why would they ever leave, what with the entire area being filled with magical power. ¡®And that is exactly what the people in power want you to think. The most powerful and lucrative dungeons and instances are located near the nerf-sites, and that''s how the powerful stay in power. They farm the areas along with their goons and try to keep everyone else out. They say it''s for public health, all because some people have adverse effects to the exposure. Eh? Yeah, adverse effects. Some people lose their hair, or a limb, or the coloring in their skin. Or they get a new color, grow more hair in strange places, or extra limbs. You get the point. But it isn¡¯t that common I say.¡¯ I stopped listening to his drunken wisdom at that point, knowing that it was going nowhere fast. I¡¯d already gotten what I wanted, my road to power. I realized that even though I¡¯d been told that the areas were unsurvivable, that didn¡¯t align with what I¡¯d heard of other tales. Like the origin of the elven race or the dwarves, who came froth from various nerf-sites. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. I¡¯d finally figured out what I was going to do, I was going to trek to one of the nerf-sites that wasn¡¯t controlled by the government in order to gain power. The journey would be dangerous, and there was a high likelihood of my dying, but it was what I wanted out of life. So began my training with the hunters of the village, learning how to live off the land and follow tracks. I¡¯d even learned how to wield a weapon from the town guard and exchanged one of my first kills for a poor quality salvaged spear. Most of the weapons the village owned were of poor quality, due to our being located nowhere near any mountains or major mines. Instead we created our armour and weaponry from melting down the dead metal carriages of ages past that were located along the paved roads. I went back home and packed the road rations I¡¯d prepared in the coming weeks, dried grain biscuits and smoked jackalope. The jackalope had been a lucky kill, usually the deer-rabbit hybrids were far too fast to catch with a spear but I¡¯d managed to find one that had been injured by another wild animal and stole the kill. The pelt had been sold to the tanner and I used the coin to buy a new bag to carry my belongings in and a waterskin. After I stowed several changes of clothing, the food, spare cloth to be used as bandages, and several other essentials in my bag, I made toward to field to say goodbye to my parents. They¡¯d known for some time that I had no intention of sticking around in Tinyton, but I hadn¡¯t yet told them where I was headed. Truth be told I wasn¡¯t even sure of where I would go, just that I would be going west. Away from the government, and way from the shithole called Florida. West, toward my destiny. Toward wealth, power, land unsettled, and magic. I found my father where I thought I would, just outside the outskirts of the village, although my mother was nowhere in sight. They were doing their best to finish off the crop of bell peppers and potatoes before the first frost set in, and spent most of their days ripping out the rampant weeds that sucked life from the area and spending what little mana they had to grow crops. I approached my father and he looked up at me before returning to funnel his mana into the pepper bush, trying to encourage it to bloom again. I decided to help and spent my mana on [Weak Growth]. The effect was almost instantaneous as the magic drained from me and left my arms feeling weak and my head lightheaded. 9 of my 10 available mana sprung forth from my fingers and reinvigorated the plant, causing it to bloom and even grow a single small pepper from the end of one of the branches. ¡°Eh. Good one son.¡± My father was a proud man. He had once been apart of the town¡¯s guard until he hurt himself fighting off a wave of beasts. He didn¡¯t talk much about his past, and was a very quiet man more content to farm his fields than attend a dinner party. We were a lot alike in that aspect, both very unsocial. ¡°I don¡¯t suppose you¡¯ve changed your mind?¡± ¡°I¡¯m afraid not, Father. I¡¯m dropping by to say goodbye, where is Mom?¡± ¡°Laura is away with the Jackson brothers collecting water.¡± ¡°Do you know how long she will be?¡± ¡°A couple minutes longer than you¡¯ll be here, if my guess is correct.¡± Ahh, so that¡¯s how it was. My mother was a very timid woman and had been vehemently opposed to my leaving town. We had a falling out almost a week back that ending in screaming and yelling about whose right it was to leave or stay. She told me that if that was the way I was going to be, than I was no son of hers. The last thing she¡¯d said to me was good riddance. ¡°Right¡­ I thought she may have changed her mind and would want to see me off. Guess I¡¯ll be going then.¡± ¡°Wait.¡± My father shocked me by pulling me into a heavy embrace that lasted longer than usual, ¡°You need to stay safe, you hear me? I know what it is like to feel wonderlust, I didn¡¯t always live here after all. Just¡­ If things get too tough, know that you¡¯re still welcome here. Laura is going to regret everything she said to you, and regret not seeing you off, but she loves you, okay son? Where are you heading.¡± ¡°West.¡± He released me from the hug and held me at arms length. Then, with a final pat on both my shoulders and a nod of his head, he said goodbye. I looked away before wiping away the tears that had collected in my eyes and strode off toward the western edge of town, taking a short break to grab my spear where I¡¯d stashed it away from my Mother. I didn¡¯t put it past her to hide my weapon in order to try and convince me to stay. I found my chosen path of Us 98, a road labeled by the past generations that was referred to these days as Westway, and set out with spear in hand and hopes in my heart. Chapter 3 || Menacing Wood The first few days on the road were relatively uneventful. I found myself walking farther than I usually would be able to and was happy to use the road while I still could, before the growth finished reclaiming it for nature. From what I¡¯d read the roads had all been constructed by a massive government known as the Roman Empire. They were known for their military formations and excellent use of spears on top of their sprawling road network, allowing them to maintain supply lines and communications with parts of their empire. As far as anyone knew, as long as I kept following this road I¡¯d end up in Rome eventually, as that is were all roads led. That would have been pre-nerf however. Ever since the cataclysm nature had gone wild from the excess Aether released into the air. It wasn¡¯t uncommon now to find fully grown trees sprouting from the center of the roads, or entire cities that had been swallowed up by forests and wildlife. The chances that the road still led to Rome were slim to none, but I still followed it while I could as it was much more friendly on the traveller than the brush surrounding me. Even when there wasn¡¯t a massive forest the grass rose past my head in most places, making it treacherous to travel through and easy to lose your way. Sooner or later I¡¯d have to depart from westway and head along the smaller dirt paths that led through the growth. Unfortunately it was a lot closer to sooner rather than later. When I finally reached the end of the road I¡¯d been traveling for four days. The beaten road faded slowly into a thicket of large trees that stood at least three times higher than me. The leaves ranged in color from dark green to a vibrant red, reminding me that it was going to be getting cold soon as well. Perhaps I should have kept the jackalope hide and had a coat fashioned for myself. No, the spear was going to be more useful. I was far more likely to die to a beast than the cold in the night, and I could always keep hunting and look for a town to trade for warmer clothing. The trunks of the behemoth trees that took over the Us 98 were black in color. Not black like the road I was walking up, but the kind of black that seemed to drink in the light around it and expel out antilight to force their gloom on all who observed them. Seriously, I didn¡¯t know that plants could be so menacing. I took a second to prod the bark with my spear just to verify the trees weren¡¯t going to sprint into action and try and murder me. Naturally they didn¡¯t, they were just trees afterall. I stood there shaking my head at my silly antics, what did I expect? If I was reading the sun correctly I had a few hours left until the night set. Camping on the road statistically made more sense as it was flat and less likely to have bugs crawl into my clothing overnight but every time I looked back at those trees I got the creeps again. Since the trunks of the trees were too close for me to travel past anyways, combined with the fact I kept getting the eerie sensation that I wasn¡¯t welcome there, I decided I¡¯d head north off the road and look for another way past the forest. From what I could see the trees got progressively less¡­ aggressive looking farther from the road as well, and the grass was still only about waist high along its outskirts. With that in mind I set off into the grass and realized a couple things, the grass came up almost to my chest and the step off the road was a lot farther down than I¡¯d anticipated. I took a bit of a tumble because of the expected drop and rolled, dropping my spear and luckily not impaling myself with it. I stood up and brushed myself off before grabbing my spear and looking around to make sure nobody saw that. Stupid, of course nobody saw it, I¡¯m alone out here. Still I had the feeling I was being watched and even the trees seemed more like they were laughing at me than threatening me. I gave the black titans one last glare before turning around and heading out into the grass. To polish it all of I¡¯d gotten a message on my interface letting me know I¡¯d made 0.001% progress toward unlocking the ¡®Acrobatics¡¯ skill. Stupid interface. I was cautious as I travelled through the grass along the edge of the forest but it seemed relatively barren. If it weren¡¯t for the occasional bird call or squirrel jumping from the trees I¡¯d assume the area had no animals in it at all. That would be very unfortunate as I definitely had planned on doing some hunting to supplement the lack of travel supplies I¡¯d packed. By the time the sun was setting I¡¯d made a lot more progress than expected headed north. It wasn¡¯t nearly as fast as traveling along the road but it was a lot better than I¡¯d expected. The forest had thinned out on my left and was passable now, but I felt like it was probably safer to camp out on the outskirts. So as the last of the light faded away I decided to set up camp. It took about 15 minutes, but before long I had a sizable area cleared of grass, thanks to my skinning knife, and a nice grass mattress to soften my rest for the night. Waste not want not and all that jazz. I apprehensively entered the forest to gather stray branches to build a fire, doing my best to be expeditious. Although this part of the forest did not feel nearly as menacing as the southern area, it still felt like somewhere I shouldn¡¯t tread lightly after dark. Yes, camping outside had been a good idea. I knew I¡¯d have to travel through the forest at some point, but I was glad it was not going to be tonight. It didn¡¯t take long to get the fire going. I lied down on my makeshift grass mattress and used my pack as a pillow as I stared up at the stars. They were a bit harder to see so close to the campfire, but still very much visible. It reminded me just how vast and wonderful the world was, and how small I was in comparison. I¡¯d read a few stories that referred to the stars as gods and more that told me that there were more humans living out there. I slowly closed my eyes to rest while still chewing on my travel biscuit, tomorrow was going to be an eventful day and I wanted to get up early enough to do some good hunting. My eyes snapped open an indeterminate amount of time later. The sun still wasn¡¯t up and my fire had faded to a smoldering pile of embers. I was still tired and did not feel the need to relieve myself, so why did I wake up?This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Rustling off to my right, in the tall grass, alerted me again. It wasn¡¯t very loud at all, but in the dead silence of the night it was a give away. Even the insects had gone silent, and whatever was moving out there was doing its best to move slowly and quietly. With my right hand I reached over and grabbed my spear slowly, careful not to alert it to the fact I¡¯d detected its presence. There was a bit more rustling and then nothing. The tension in the air made my tongue feel heavy in my mouth and I started tensing up. Countless seconds that stretched into eternity passed as I waited. I could not see all that well in the moonlight and my fire had faded so I needed to wait for the visitor to act first. As I fought the sensation to swallow the hostile finally acted. There was explosion of movement from the grass closest to me and a large shadow burst out at my bedroll. I rolled off to the side, bringing my spear up to guard as I heard a heavy thud resounding from where I¡¯d been laying moments before. I struck out and managed to score a glancing blow against the creature. From what I could see in the light provided by the new moon and distant stars I was facing some sort of small bear-sized rodent. It came up to around my chest and was glaring at me, it¡¯s eyes reflecting the dim light and letting me know how angry it was. I¡¯d managed to scrape open a gash along it¡¯s right forearm and shoulder. Serves it right. I liked my chances against an overgrown rat and put my weight on the back of my feet as I prepared to lunge forward and finished this battle. My heart was pounding and my legs still felt sore from days of walking but I was confident that I¡¯d win this engagement since I¡¯d managed to arm myself and avoid the initial ambush. I jabbed forward with my spear only to leap to the left and do a roll as I attempted to avoid a new development. The thump I¡¯d heard wasn¡¯t the rat landing, but its tail impaling my backpack where my head had been resting. As I leapt forward the tail came flying through the air at me, scarcely missing me. Unfortunately it was not a regular tail. Now that its secret weapon had been revealed it hissed at me and displayed it freely as it wavered back and forth above the rodent. The tail was at least as long as the creature, somewhere around six feet, and half as wide as a man. It resembled a scorpian¡¯s stinger but was able to rotate freely as if it were a snake¡¯s tail. As I stood there slightly transfixed with the motions of the tail it lashed out at me again. I hadn¡¯t gotten up from where I rolled yet and was limited in my movement as I was pretty close to the tall grass again. My odds of winning the battle were still relatively okay, but if I let it back me into the grass I didn¡¯t like my chances. As it were I was forced to leap forward, doing my best to keep my spear in my hand, and scramble to stand up. I swung wildly at the tail which was still close behind me and managed to score a scratch along the surface. The consistency of the tail was somewhere between a snake and an insect carapace. The creature stared at me wearily, with a keen animal intelligence in its eyes. I circled it widely, putting the dying fire between myself and the predator. It slowly tred closer to me as it seethed in rage. Really? I should be the one angry here, it was attacking me after all. So sorry I didn¡¯t roll over and just let you kill me. Wait, rolling over was probably what made it angry in the first place. I chuckled a bit out loud at the ridiculous train of thought I was having in the middle of a life or death situation. The rakopian, or at least I think that is what this particular breed of beast was called, was alarmed at the noise and hissed at me. Apparently it liked being laughed at just about as much as I did. Since I was not going to be able to get very close without being impaled by the venomous stinger, and the rat was far more agile than I was, I¡¯d developed a plan. As it tensed to attack again I put my plan in action. The rakopian¡¯s tail sprung forward like a pissed off cricket and I side stepped it again. It seemed prepared for this and adjusted the path of its tail but not before I kicked the embers of the dying fire into its face. Disoriented and temporarily blinded, the creature did not see me leap forward to perform a coup de gras and impale it with my spear. Some might argue that the creature wasn¡¯t really mortally wounded, but the moment it decided to interrupt my sleep its life had already been forfeited. What I didn¡¯t account for was it pulling its tail back to shield its face when it was blinded. I managed to penetrate the head of the stinger and even impaled a second layer of flesh in the tail before my spear was ripped from my hands. I¡¯d been so concerned with the tail the entire fight I forgot that this was still a dangerous beast, which it was more than happy to remind me. As the rakopian¡¯s tail was taken out of commission with my spear it whipped it backwards and leapt forward, tackling me to the ground. With my arms and legs were pinned down by its freakishly large paws as it began snapping its jaws at my face. Saliva splashed all over my face and smelled like rotting compost, causing me to gag momentarily, but I managed to hold it away from my face by its neck. I couldn¡¯t believe I was going to die to a fucking rat. In several of the stories I¡¯d read large rats were beginner level fodder that would die from a mean look, and here I was about to be done in by one. The snapping of its teeth grew louder as it slowly as the strength slowly sapped from my arms. Then the weight suddenly shifted. Another creature had burst forth from the trees and tackled the rat off me. As they tumbled close to the grass I got my bearings again and rolled away from the conflict. It looked like some sort of dog saw my plight and decided to intervene. Unfortunately, it was just a dog and therefore not much help. I needed to act fast or it was going to pay with its life for helping me. My spear was still lodged in the beast¡¯s tail so I pulled my skinning knife out from where it was sheathed on my left leg. The two circled each other and when the dog was between the rat and myself I decided it was time to try something new. ¡°Growth¡± I poured all of my 10 mana into the [Weak Growth] spell, attempting to overload it with additional mana and force it to do my will. The tiny bits of grass that I¡¯d sheared off with my knife earlier in the evening as well as the stalks of chest high grass behind it burst into action. The grass underneath the rakopian¡¯s feet burst into growth and wrapped around the creature¡¯s legs as the stalks behind it also grew and reached out to wrap around it and constrict the movement of its tail and back legs. I was instantly fatigued and a few messaged popped up in the interface but I couldn¡¯t concentrate long enough to read them. Although I¡¯d surprised the beast, it was still grass that ensnared it and that would not last forever. I stumbled forward with my knife in hand, intent on finishing it off while I could. As I approached it the dog leapt onto the opposite side of the rat¡¯s head in order to distract it. Its head turned toward my canine hero in order to respond to the few chunks of its face that had been misplaced and allowed my knife to fall into its neck. Literally fall. I went to lunge at its neck and lost my balance, falling forward with my knife hand outstretched as my vision faded to black. Not ¡®it¡¯s dark and there is no fire¡¯ black but ¡®oh man I can¡¯t breathe and I haven¡¯t eaten in two weeks¡¯ fade to black. I vaguely recalled the sensation of my knife arm feeling resistance as my conscious fled this plane to resume the night of sleep that I¡¯d lost. Chapter 4 || Aftermath ¡°Marsha, slow down a bit. I¡¯m down to get dirty as much as you are, but are you sure this is what you want? What will Dillon think? Aren¡¯t you a thing?¡± Marsha, the baker¡¯s daughter, was all over me hot and heavy. I couldn¡¯t say that I hadn¡¯t admired her form before when dropping by the shop. More than once I¡¯d caught myself drifting off thinking about her long blond hair with stray bits of flour in it, or the way the sweat from working the ovens made her skin glisten and caused her smock to hug her form in all the right places. She wasn¡¯t speaking much but she¡¯d come onto me very quickly. It was odd because she and Dillon had been a set since a few years back and every assumed they¡¯d be getting married, but I was not one to complain. Right now I was on my back while she straddled my chest trying to make out with me and I¡¯d finally decided to stop resisting and allowed my tongue to meet hers. ¡°Ow, what the fuck! Did you just bite me?¡± I sat up and the dog fell off my chest. The sun wasn¡¯t quiet up yet and I was still more tired than I¡¯d been in a very long time. I looked around and realized that I had been dreaming and I was still in the field next to the forest. I wiped my face and found my hand to be wet with dog saliva as I pulled it away. Wait a minute, does that mean I kissed¡­ A quick look around told me that there was nobody else here to have seen it and so it never happened. There was not a single chance my first kiss had been with a mutt I¡¯d just met. I leaned pushed myself onto my feet, much to the protest of my legs, chest, and arms. When I did not instantly collapse I decided I¡¯d acknowledge the interface pop-ups I¡¯d received during the battle, not before I went over and pried my spear free from the beast though. It wouldn¡¯t due to be caught unawares and unarmed. The rakopian was located on the edge of the clearing and was still covered in a plethora of grass, although it had stopped growing and squirming around now. It seemed that my skinning knife had managed to slit the beast¡¯s throat as I¡¯d fallen and slayed it. Judging by the drag marks and the pain in my left shin the dog then dragged me farther from the ominous grass wall before licking me awake. I involuntarily shuttered when remembering the method I¡¯d been awakened. After dislodging my scrap spear from the rat¡¯s rear I limped over toward the dead campfire. All semblance of the embers had faded away now so it took me a few minutes to get a fire going again. I pulled up my mana to judge the passing of time and was surprised at what I saw. It had fully regained, which at about 1 mana per 7 minutes meant I¡¯d been out cold for at least an hour. I wasn¡¯t sure of my exact regen rate but it was somewhere around there judging from what I¡¯d observed after growing my father¡¯s pepper bush before leaving. That wasn¡¯t the surprising part however, my maximum mana had increased by 1! Right, no point putting off now. I pulled up the missed notifications. [Congratulations! Due to your excessive practice, and never ending drive to improve yourself, you¡¯ve unlocked ¡®Basic Acrobatics¡¯. You didn¡¯t let anyone telling you that you smelled like dirt stop you, good job!] [Congratulations! Due to your extensive efforts and natural affinity with the spell, [Weak Growth] has been upgraded to [Minor Growth]. [Minor Growth] costs 1 additional mana point per cast.] [Congratulations! Due to your extensive efforts and natural affinity with [Weak Growth], you managed to overload the spell and craft its effects to suit your own needs. Awarding ability [Spell Manipulation]. This ability does not have a traditional skill level, but don¡¯t let that fool you! It can still be improved and refined through continuous practice.] [Congratulations! Using the ability [Spell Manipulation] and spell [Weak Growth], you¡¯ve managed to craft a spell resembling another in the Nature Spellbook. Awarding the spell [Entangling Roots].] [Juvenile Rakopian slain. Opponent¡¯s skill and power level outnumbered your own, but against all odds you¡¯ve managed to prevail. Due to method of victory, .3 Int and .2 Dex have been awarded.]Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! [Progress Made: .003% toward [Maintain Consciousness] skill.] The prompts flooded my vision all at once and it took me a moment to read through them. A few things occurred to me after I finished reading. The first was that it looked like it was a lot easier to gain skills after you unlocked your interface, another reason my village shouldn¡¯t have restrained their children, and even faster during combat for some reason. I was nowhere near unlocking Acrobatics that morning, but after doing a few rolls and evasive maneuvers during the fight I managed to unlock it. I¡¯d test out how much easier movement was when my legs weren¡¯t killing me. Second I noticed that the interface seemed to have a bit of a sense of humor, that or everybody who unlocked Acrobatics did it by taking a couple of tumbles. I was very excited to check out my new ability and spell. Since my mana was recharged I decided to try out [Entangling Roots] first. I targeted one of the trees and cast it. 5 mana drained away from me and the grass and bushes around the tree burst into motion. The plants wrapped around the tree trunk all the way up to my waist. I really had gotten very close with my casting, so it made sense that the spell was unlocked. Naturally casting the actual spell instead of brute forcing it with another one was far more efficient, costing 5 mana rather than 10. The [Spell Manipulation] was a lot harder to grasp, and it seemed like something I could only really use when I had proper inspiration. I wasn¡¯t really sure what else I could do with my spells right now, so I shelved it for now. Without much else to do I had a decision to make. I was running low on travel rations, and in front of me was a freshly slain beast. Granted it was a rat, but I¡¯d eaten rats during past winters before and wasn¡¯t very picky. The issue was, I didn¡¯t have enough wood here to make fires to smoke it properly. Was it worth going into the forest to collect more while it was still dark? I decided that one way or another, I couldn¡¯t really spare the fresh kill if it was just going to walk out and present itself on a silver platter. I spent a good amount of time untangling the rakopian and dragging it back over to the fire, which is where my savior was curled up sleeping. The venom sack had been pierced and drained during combat but the rest of the creature looked salvageable. It was unfortunate because a rakopian¡¯s venom sack could be sold to herbalists to craft potions or anti-venoms. By the time I¡¯d finished skinning the upper half of my vanquished foe the sun was high enough that I was willing to venture in to collect more firewood. Without much space in my bag to carry a lot I decided I¡¯d smoke about 6 pounds of the rat to carry with me. I sliced off 6 slabs of meat that weighed close to a pound each from the front half of the rat and smoked it in separate small fires. I did my best to flay the flesh from the rat hide so that I could use it to carry the cooked meat. I knew that it wouldn¡¯t preserve very well if I didn¡¯t tan the hide first, but I wasn¡¯t really planning to save the rat hide anyways, it wasn¡¯t very valuable. As I cut off one last chunk to toss into the fire and char for breakfast I decided to feed the dog. I looked around and found the bitch, it was a female dog as far as I could see, was already feasting on the offal. To each their own I guess. Almost as an afterthought I sliced out the sinew from the rakopian¡¯s legs and wrapped them in dry cloth from my bag. I wasn¡¯t sure if it would be as effective as a deer¡¯s sinew but I¡¯d read that it was possible to fashion a hunting bow string from it. A couple hours later the sun was fully up and my meat was finished smoking, or as close as it was going to get. In the future I¡¯d make a real camp so that I could properly dry and tan hides as well as smoke meat and make jerky. For now I was in a rush, and I wasn¡¯t sure any amount of preparation would make the rakopian less stringy and gamey. I planned on traveling at least a few more days before stopping. I may not be in a rush but I wanted to at least make some distance toward my goal, wherever that was. I was as rested as I was getting and my stomach was relatively full, so after wrapping the smoked meat in rat hide and stashing it at the bottom of my bag, I set off into the forest. I wasn¡¯t sure if the dog was going to tag along, but before long she trotted over and was walking beside me. Whether it was because the sun was up or because I now had a companion, the forest seemed a lot more accommodating. I still got the feeling I was being watched, but it no longer made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. As I progressed through the forest I saw a few nuts I knew were safe to eat as well as some flowers and herbs that I could brew into a tea or sell for medicinal qualities. These finds were accompanied by a message letting me know I made a bit of progress towards ¡®forage¡¯. Mentally, I ordered the interface to only notify me about skill progress when I made progress toward it the first time. I found the pop-ups annoying but I also did not want to miss out on a new skill discovery by muting them completely. Progress through the underbrush was a lot slower than the field or road had been, both because I was tired and sore and because of roots and uneven terrain. I decided to take a quick break around midday. I walked over to a nearby bush to answer nature¡¯s call and then I heard it. ¡°Hello? Is there anyone out here?¡± A female¡¯s voice drifted over the wind to my ears. I was unsure if I should try and seek them out or not because I¡¯d heard stories about nature spirits that lured young men away with alluring voices, just to kill and eat them or something. I¡¯d also heard tales of bandits, admittedly a far more plausible scenario. Just as I¡¯d made up my mind to ignore it the dog who¡¯d been following me like a, well like a dog, whined and started walking toward where we¡¯d heard the voice from. I guess if the dog trusted it, I could too. I pulled my pants up and grabbed my belongings, telling myself that I¡¯d be cautious. Chapter 5 || A new companion arrives! The noise was coming from a fair bit of distance away, farther into the forest from where I¡¯d entered. I was careful to make my way toward where I¡¯d heard her while trying to make a little noise as possible and keep an eye on my surroundings. The dog decided it would just run toward her, throwing caution to the wind and charging through the thicket making noise with wild abandon. I sped up to keep the dog in sight, but was still wary of walking into a bandit ambush. It turns out that my worries were for nothing, because the only thing we found was a young girl alone in the woods, sitting under a tree with her head in her lap and arms around her knees. She was located in a bit of a clearing in the trees and looked worse for wear. She was shaking, with a bloody dagger grasped in her unsteady right hand. She had thin gashes along her legs that had stopped bleeding and her clothes were torn. Not too far from where she was seated was the culprit, a dead weresquirrel. Not were- as in a werewolf, but it was what the locals called the cat sized squirrels with sharp canines and a more meat based diet. It had been stabbed several times and the pelt was far beyond ruined, which was disappointing because they were generally very soft and fluffy. Okay, so the girl doesn¡¯t seem to be a threat, but I was unsure how to approach her without getting stabbed as she was obviously feeling very traumatized. Once again I let the dog make my decision for me, as she burst from the tree line and trotted over to the girl. When the dog licked her leg the girl tensed before slowly picking her head up from her legs. She was a very beautiful girl, about my age or perhaps a bit older. Her eyes were a clear green, although they were a bit red from crying at the moment, and she had a cute little button nose to set it all off. With light freckles and deep orange hair, I realized she matched the appearance of a lot of the dryads from the so-called fictional stories I¡¯d read. I tensed up, ready to defend the dog who¡¯d saved my life, but when she smiled and pushed her hair back behind her ear before petting the dog my worry melted away. Although it was a very weak smile, like you¡¯d expect from someone having a hard time, it still radiated goodwill to me. Combine that with the fact that I saw her ears were rounded like normal humans and I was pretty sure she wasn¡¯t about to eat my dog. Unfortunately when I relaxed I leaned back a bit and crushed a branch under foot. ¡°Who''s there? If it¡¯s another one of you squirrels, I will murder the acorns out of you!¡± She¡¯d gotten unsteadily to her feet and was standing in front of the dog with a dagger in both hands. Even when she was inadvertently threatening my life, I still thought she was very cute. Far cuter than Marsha had been at least. ¡°Woah, Woah, Woah! I¡¯m coming out with my hands up,¡± I exited the tree line with my hands over my head, taking care to stash my spear over my shoulder where I could still reach it. It wouldn¡¯t do well to disarm myself for no reason, ¡°My dog and I heard you call for help and came to investigate. We don¡¯t mean you any harm.¡± ¡°Then why were you hiding in the trees like some sort of creep?¡± When I mentioned the dog, her eyes had flicked back for a second as if remembering that it was there before returning to me and hardening. ¡°I was just making sure you were some sort of bandit setting an ambush for travelers, that¡¯s all. I see that you are injured, do you need help? I have some sal-¡± ¡°Stop right there! Don¡¯t come any closer, okay? For all I know, you¡¯re a bandit. It would sure be in theme with my luck today.¡± I stopped making my way slowly toward her at her behest. I¡¯d never been very good at talking to anybody, let alone girls, so I sort of stood there. My arms dropped to my side as I tried to figure out how to convince her that I wasn¡¯t a threat. She was still glaring at me expectantly. I tried to smile to show her I was nice. Nope, bad idea. She didn¡¯t look angry at me so much as uncomfortable now. I guess standing there and staring at her in silence for a minute before smiling could be interpreted as off putting. I really didn¡¯t understand how I could be so bad at this kind of thing. I don¡¯t know how much longer that would have gone on before I figured out how to be social. I didn¡¯t have to know, because the dog decided it would walk back over to me and help me out. After seeing that the dog really did know me she visibly relaxed before apologizing.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. ¡°Sorry, that was really rude of me. I guess if you were a bandit, you would have just attacked me or something. My name is Brook. What¡¯s yours?¡± ¡°Lucas, but call me Luke. What¡¯re you doing out here in the woods, all alone?¡± There was another awkward pause where Brook took a step backwards. Her eyes darted around the trees and she held her dagger a little closer. Right¡­ ¡°Sorry, I didn¡¯t mean for it to come out like that. Err¡­¡± I really didn¡¯t see how to talk my way out of this. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it, I¡¯m just a little shaken still. I was traveling with a caravan when we were attacked. I escaped into the woods and I¡¯ve been wandering ever since.¡± ¡°Right. Well you, uh, you can travel with me I guess. I¡¯m not sure where I¡¯m going other than west but it¡¯s probably safer than walking around the woods on your own. Especially if you said bandits are in the area.¡± It didn¡¯t take her much convincing to tag along. Even with my low charisma and social awkwardness, traveling this forest on your own was a far less appealing option than just grouping up. I stopped myself from offering to bandage up her legs, because wow that would be creepy, and handed her the pulped healing herbs and spare bandages I had in the bag. While we were at it we shared lunch of mostly-smoked rat meat since I hadn¡¯t had a chance to eat yet and she hadn¡¯t eaten a proper meal in who knows how long, and we set out. The days passed pretty quickly as we traversed the forest in the general direction I believed to be west. There was a decent chance I¡¯d lost my bearings a ways back but I didn¡¯t bring that up, there was no sense panicking Brook. While we walked I learned a bit more about her. Brook had come from a smaller town in the Carolinas. Her father was a soldier but died when she was young and her mother took up with a trader. Since then Brook and parents had been on the road up and down the coast, trading goods and trying to make enough money to buy land out west. Everything had gone well too until her mother and adoptive father had been killed by bandits a few weeks back, taken out by arrows from the tree line. She was a few years older than me, somewhere around 21 or 22, and had trained to use knives to defend herself. Brook had been surviving off nuts and wild root vegetables when the dog, who she was now calling Sophie, and I stumbled upon her. She¡¯d inadvertently picked a fight with the weresquirrel after finding its stash of nuts in the clearing and eating them. I told her all about Tinyton and my parents in return. Explained my passion for reading stories from merchants, her parents did not deal in them apparently, and my dream of being a wizard who helped explore the lost magics. We talked about my skills and proficiency with the spear. I even showed her how my growth spell worked when we found a nut tree that had been stripped clean. I did a lot more talking than she did once I got started and she didn¡¯t seem to mind allowing me to fill the silence. I probably shared more with this stranger I¡¯d just met in the five days we¡¯d been traveling than I had with anyone else in my life. Why is it so much easier to talk to strangers? Probably because you know that once you part ways, you¡¯ll never have to deal with them again. Being known intimately is far less intimidating when the person is just a passing face in the crowd of life. Honestly I think I mostly talked because of how boring it was traveling in the forest. It was just trees and trees and, oh look, more trees. ¡°If we don¡¯t find the road or something sometime soon I¡¯m going to fall on your spear when we make camp.¡± I smiled a little awkwardly at the joke. I couldn¡¯t tell if she was messing with me or if the turn of phrase had been accidental. Judging by the shit-eating smirk on her face I assumed it was intentional. A theory rapidly validated by good natured laughter when I looked broke eye contact and looked away blushing. ¡°We should be finding the road any day now, we¡¯ve been sticking to a straight line.¡± ¡°Yes we have. I¡¯ve been trying to stick to a straight line for days now. It¡¯s been very, very hard.¡± Sophie saved me from having to respond to what had becoming an increasingly awkward situation with a bark. So far she¡¯d only alerted us when she found small game for us to hunt or a stream of water to drink from. ¡°Sophie found something, we should check it out.¡± ¡°Hmph, of course that¡¯s what you want to check out right now.¡± Brook started fake pouting, which only made my face that much warmer, but came along with me to investigate the finding. It wasn¡¯t like I found Brook unattractive, but I had no real experience with the flirting thing and I couldn¡¯t tell if she was genuinely interested in me or just teasing me for fun. I did not want to take her seriously and try to reciprocate just to be embarrassed. It would make the journey that much more awkward. A message from the interface broke me out of my reverie, putting that train of thought off for later. [Warning: Now entering localized instance. Instance type: F rank monster lair] Chapter 6 || Its Quiet [Warning: Now entering localized instance. Instance type: F rank monster lair] I¡¯d heard about monster lairs from the hunters when I did my training with them. They were the most common type of occurrence, and if left alone long enough, could turn into an infestation or even a dungeon. There were usually occupied by an invasive species of some sort and there was a prize at the end of the lair if it was conquered. The lairs were rated based on monster difficulty. The most difficult dungeons were ranked SSS+, SS, S, A. They descended down from A to F, FF, and finally FFF as the weakest. Naturally this was just a general power estimate the interface assigned them based on population and combat viability. From what I¡¯d heard it didn¡¯t take into account the environment or skill sets of the people approaching. For example, you could find a lair ranked S that was a simple hole in the ground, easily cleared by a couple strong fire mages from the entrance. Or you could find a FF lair located in the center of an Aether desert filled with difficult obstacles designed to break ankles. Basically, you should always take the ranking with a grain of salt and accept that it may be a little off. Generally it was pretty close though. At rank F there was a decent chance that Brook and I could clear the lair on our own, but I wasn¡¯t sure it was worth the risk. ¡°Alright, now this is what I¡¯m talking about.¡± I gave Brook the best exasperated side eye I could muster, mouth hanging slightly agape, ¡°What? I¡¯m so bored and there could be treasure or something. Pleeeeaase?¡± ¡°I¡¯m just not sure we should risk it, Brook. You only have your two daggers and my magic isn¡¯t really combat oriented¡­¡± ¡°Come on, Lukey. You never take me anywhere.¡± She was fake pouting again while hugging my arm to her chest and whining softly in my ear. Unrelated, but I was started overheating a bit and found it harder to think. Totally unrelated. ¡°Besides, last time you battled you told me that you gained an extra max mana. We should do more battles to increase our stats, so you can be a more powerful wizard.¡± ¡°Alright, alright we can check it out.¡± It was the eyelash batting that did me in. ¡°Sweet, let''s figure out where the entrance in!¡± Just like that she released my hostage arm back to me and started looking around for the lair. We didn¡¯t have to look too hard. The lair was located in a ruins of a deteriorated cabin of some sort. All four walls were still standing, but after slowly entering, we found that the roof was missing and the interior walls had collapsed. There was what looked to be a large nest made of rotted branches and unrooted bushes. I started to ask where the monsters were when Brook swatted my arm. She motioned at me to stay silent and pointed at the center of the vacant, overly-large, nest. There was a chest just sitting there. A literal treasure chest!. The voice in my head told me that it was an obvious trap, but the other voice was yelling that it was free loot to be had. If we managed to claim the prize and escape without fighting, that would be all the better. Cautiously we climbed over the knee-high barrier of the edge of the nest and progressed to the center where the box was resting. The chest was a very simple wooden box, two feet high and four feet long. Unfortunately there was no way to open it, as it was seamless. As far as I could tell the chest had been carved from a single piece of wood, with nowhere to open it or try to pry it apart. Frustrated that I was taking so long, Brook pushed me aside to try her luck at opening it, only to find the same thing I did. We made eye contact and she tilted her head, giving me a perplexed look that almost mimicked the look Sophie gave me whenever we ate and didn¡¯t feed her first. I covered my mouth to try and muffle the snort of laughter that escaped at the thought and Brook squinted her eyes at me. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. At a loss for what to do next, she picked up the chest and shook it. There wasn¡¯t a single noise from the box which confirmed to me that this was definitely a decoy and we had walked into a trap. I signaled to Brook that we should escape while we could but before we could go anywhere Sophie let out a whimper. The sun flicked in and out a few times and I realized that monsters were above us. Naturally. Thud. Thud. Thud. Three large mutant birds landed on the walls around us. Each of the birds probably stood about as tall as Brook, somewhere around 5¡¯4, and had large brown talons that were currently carving furrows into the wall of the decrepit cabin. Their wings were black feathers like a raven and terminated in disgusting human-like hands with more large talons. The rest of the bird was a fleshy pink, apart from a mohawk of feathers than ran from the birds¡¯ heads to their tails. Most disturbingly for me were the beaks and eyes. Rather than bird eyes, these creatures had eyes that looked deceptively human with irises that were colored orange, light blue, and red. Their beaks were bone white and looked like someone had carved teeth into them to make it easier for them to rend flesh from their victims. On top of that, one of the birds had a long forked tongue hanging from inside its beak, which was open and presenting me a view of another row of canine teeth inside the bird¡¯s mouth. I stared at the loose tongued creature as it stared back at me. Then, although it should be impossible with a beak, the creature¡¯s eyes lit up and it seemed to smile maliciously at me. The creature tensed, ready to take to the air, and as it moved forward to attack it slumped over and fell dead to the ground with one of Brook¡¯s daggers buried hilt-deep into its left eye. ¡°Don¡¯t just stand there, let¡¯s kill this.¡± Brook withdrew her larger dagger from where she sheathed it on her side but did not whip this one through the air as it was not balanced correctly for throwing and if she missed, we¡¯d have two enemies facing us down with only one of us armed. The beasts screeched at us and then leapt down into the nest as we scrambled to stand back to back. By this point I had my spear in my hand and was ready to defend us. The birds circled us for a time, occasionally snapping at us to test our reaction time. In returned I jabbed back at them with my spear, hoping to pin one down at some point while Brook watched my back with her dagger. Quickly I grew tired of waiting and whistled, calling Sophie into action. Over the past few days, whenever we¡¯d hunt slightly faster creatures Sophie would help us catch them. Through practice and repetition, I managed to communicate when I wanted help by whistling a tune to her and she picked up on it rather quickly. Sophie jumped up from where she¡¯d been hiding in the nest behind the bird in front of me, the one with the orange eyes, and landed on its back. She bit at the back of its neck and pulled backwards with her four feet planted firmly on its back. In doing so, the neck of the bird was exposed for me to lash forward and impale, so I drove my spear under the creature¡¯s chin and felled it with one strike. The blue-eyed bird decided that this was its time to act and sprung forward to attack Brook while I was dislodging my spear from its brethren. She stumbled backwards and fell on her ass, allowing me to chuck my spear as hard as I could at the bird as it swooped down her like a bird of prey. Now it is probably a good time to point out that my salvaged metal spear wasn¡¯t the best ranged projectile that you could ask for. It wasn¡¯t exactly aerodynamic or designed to be a javelin, but I was too far to do much else. The spear managed to collide with the bird¡¯s right wing, knocking it aside with a sickening crunch. The would-be predator fell to the ground squirming and screeching at the top of its lungs. From there, Brook made short work of it with her dagger, attacking from the side of its broken arm so it could not lash back out with its claws. Before long the disgusting creature lay dead along with the other two. ¡°That was way too easy,¡± Brook called from the other side of the cabin where she was retrieving her first dagger. Pop. With both daggers in hand she continued, ¡°How in the world could that be a F rank? If anything that should have been a FF or just triple F. They basically just ran into our weapons and keeled over dead.¡± ¡°You really shouldn¡¯t tempt the gods, Brook. You¡¯re going to jinx us.¡± ¡°No, no, no. You¡¯re the spell slinger here, Luke. I couldn¡¯t jinx a fly.¡± ¡°You know good and well that isn¡¯t what I was saying, it¡¯s an idio-¡± ¡°Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw¡± An ear splitting screech, followed by the loudest thump yet, interrupted our little quarrel. The largest monster yet dropped a fully grown stag into the nest before landing 12 feet away from us. ¡°Oh, that kind of jinx.¡± Chapter 7 || Jinx If you¡¯d ever tried to hiccup at the same time you were swallowing water, you¡¯d know how I was feeling right now. In an instant all the adrenaline and giddiness from winning the battle with the raven mutants instantly drained away. I was left standing there, incapable of movement. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Brook was having a similar situation. The new challenger stood twice as tall and wide as the previous birds. Although I could tell that it was still an avian, only its wings were feathered whereas the rest of its body was covered in dull green scales. Unlike the other birds, this one had a longer snake like neck that ended in a semi-human face with a permanent grimace on it. It was also disgustingly obvious that this creature was a female. ¡°Mmm, two little birdies have fallen from their nessst. How dare they invade my home and kill my children.¡± The creature¡¯s cadence shifted as it spoke, as if common tongue did not come naturally to it. All the while it observed us from a distance while tilting its head back in forth, not making any move to disarm us or attack. If that was the case, I was going to take advantage of the situation while I could. It was then I realized that my current immobility wasn¡¯t just anxiety like earlier, but I was paralyzed somehow. As if she could read my mind, the tips of the monster¡¯s mouth tilted upwards in a malicious grin as she revealed a row of naturally sharp teeth. ¡°Ssssince you were ssso kind asss to drop by for dinner, I should give you a show. If I¡¯d know you were dropping by, I might have cleaned up the nessst, sssuch a messss.¡± With the reptilian beast standing at almost 12 feet I expected to be able to feel its movements, even just a slight tremble. When it progressed toward Brook however there was nothing to give it away, not a tremble or sound. It didn¡¯t even snap the dry branches that made up the nest underfoot as it stalked toward its prey, a natural predator. It reached Brook in only a couple steps and towered over her sneering. After taking a couple of whiffs, the monster whose home we¡¯d invaded reached down and ran her hand over Brooks form. I struggled to react, still paralyzed and rooted to the spot. Unable to speak or act, I watched the hand work its way up Brook¡¯s side before lingering on the side of her face. ¡®Ssssuch a sshame to kill sssuch a pretty little bird. Sssuch soft skin-¡± A cry of pain from the beast split forth from its unnatural maw. As it was talking it had been running its hand across Brooks face only to linger on her lips. I don¡¯t know how she managed it, but Brook broke free from the creatures grasp long enough to snap out and bite its long gangly fingers. It pulled back before striking Brook so hard across the face that she flew backwards and slammed into the wall. In that moment I was freed, and I burst into action. Now that I knew of its ability to stun us with fear, I felt better equipped to resist it. It worked almost like getting over a cold, I¡¯d developed a slight immunity. I still felt the monster¡¯s presence heavy on my back, slowing my movements, but it was no longer something that could disable me. I stabbed at its side and scored a blow underneath one of its wings as it reeled backwards. Unlike the previous birds, this one knew what its advantage was and took to the air. Once it was out of spear range, I took a moment to check on Brook. That seemed to anger the beast though, because as I started toward her the creature lowered in altitude. It was obvious to me that it would dive the moment I turned my attention away from it. I cast my eyes around looking for literally anything that could help me turn the tide of this battle. A slight groan from my left told me that Brook was still alive, or a zombie. I was going to go with alive for now because as far as I knew zombies were just fictional characters or had gone extinct long before I was born. The beast did not seem content to wait. As it realized that it literally held every advantage and that waiting could only ever decrease its chances for victory, it dived at me. I¡¯d been trained to hunt wild boars, and other dumb beasts, by setting my spear against the ground and allowing them to use their weight against themselves so I decided I would give that a try. I braced myself for impact and held my spear in the trajectory with the butt against the ground. This beast however had a keen intelligence and did not murder itself. Instead it veered slightly and took the spear across its already injured wing, lashing out with the other hand and sending me flying to the other side of the decrepit cabin. I slammed against the wall with enough force to feel it splinter behind me before slowly sliding down. As I struggled to breathe, I twisted to try and find the creature. It was currently nursing its injured wing, licking it with a long disgusting tongue, while staring at me with a tilted head. The smile appeared on its visage and I started crawling away. Brook was nice to talk to and all, but it would help nobody if we both died so I looked for some shelter until I could catch my breath. I hadn¡¯t had such a hard time breathing since Dillon and his friends tossed me from the cliff into the bay and I landed on my stomach. If I didn¡¯t know better, I would have thought that somebody had filled my lungs with sand and dirt before capping it off in my throat. On top of all that I had a blaring interface notification that refused to be muted like the others, making it harder for me to think. [Warning: Vitality at critical levels. Internal injuries possible, external injuries pretty obvious. Health is sub-ten percent! Seek shelter and medical attention!] Right, maybe the notification wasn¡¯t the issue so much as the precariously tender spot on the back of my head that was both numb and throbbing at the same time. A cackling laughter reminded me it was time to stop internally monologuing and figure something out. The creature started laughing louder as it painstakingly slowly made its way over to where I lie. As the crackling reached an all-time high, a whine drew my attention to the outer ring of the nest I was located inside. I managed to spot Sophie through my bleary eyes and reoriented myself to crawl under the shriveled bushes she was under.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. I drew myself inside of the makeshift shelter ignoring the scraping and tearing of the bramble. I wasn¡¯t sure how the whole vitality thing worked, but my Status screen now read ¡®Impending Doom¡¯ which I didn¡¯t think was the best, but I was also pretty sure a couple more scratches wouldn¡¯t be my death. Now securely under the bush I reached for my spear, only to realize I didn¡¯t have it. It was located across the clearing, half piledriven into the ground and the top half crumpled like a can that had been stomped on. My skinning knife was still strapped to my leg, so I pulled it out and tried to hold it in front of me. I was acutely aware of how painful it was to breathe still and assumed that I had several ribs that were cracked, if they weren¡¯t broken that is. Either would make sense to me right now. ¡°Are you a birdie or a sssssnake? Tsk, Tsk, Tsk. Making me work for my mealsss. No worriesss, I¡¯ll pluck you out like the little worm you are.¡± The voice was eerily getting closer and closer without any other noise giving it away. I was going to die, and there was nothing anyone could do to save me. Thanks to my selfishness in wanting even a few more moments, there was even a chance Sophie was going to die now as well. She was cowering behind me, scared for the first time since I¡¯d found her. No. I reject my death. I am the protagonist in my own life, so it was up to me to save myself and everyone else here. The first time Sophie found me I had been dying to a rat and she went out of her way to save me after I¡¯d accepted death. I was tired of just lying down and waiting to die every time things got difficult. That isn¡¯t what heroes do, and that isn¡¯t what a future magus would do either. Sophie had put her life at risk to secure mine, and it was time that I do the same in return. I reached deep within myself, to that part of my soul that spoke to me during the fight with the rakopian. I felt around my soul, searching every crevice for that inspiration that allowed me to craft a spell and save my life. My entire being trembled and shook while I groped for that spark that would save my life. ¡°Gotcha,¡± I felt my leg get accosted and I was slowly dragged out. I kicked out with my other leg and managed to dislodge the hand and backpedaled deeper in my plant-made cave. ¡°Wasssssting my time, bad morssssel.¡± I felt the structure of the nest shift slightly as the creature tried to haul itself into the opening, slowly opening it farther to accept its girth. ¡°There you are, get over here worm. It¡¯sss sssnack time.¡± It was now or never. I reached out to the dead plant life around me, and the living plants that slowly peaked out between branches and logs every now and then. I poured my soul into the spark of creation, adding fuel to the fire that would hopefully save my life. I spoke three words. But in these three words I threw the weight of my entire soul, of all my mana, of all my dreams and aspirations. I put all of my hope in those three words, and they spoke mountains more than any book ever had. ¡°Entangling Roots. Growth.¡± I did not have to speak to cast a spell. Most people didn¡¯t, but using words and motions usually helped reduce the cost of the spells and increase potency. I also had a theory that it further allowed you to influence the effect of your spells, using your words to project your intentions to the spell as it formed. As it was, I was attempting to use more than my maximum mana. I was literally being a begging chooser. Begging the universe to allow me to cash two spells totaling 1 mana over my maximum and projecting my will that I needed it to be more potent than the spells would have been normally. Whether it was because there was some overlap between what the spells actually did and that saved me mana, or some god or another had taken a liking to me, the spells both cast in short succession and erupted forth into the environment. The plants burst forth with the power of a raging wildfire, instantly enwrapping every part of the monster in reach. That was a significant portion considering it had bent over to start digging me out of the tunnel I was hiding in. The [Minor Growth] portion of the spell had the added effect of increasing the amount of grasses and plants that enwrapped my attacker. I thought I could even see a couple saplings that had grown from tiny seeds lying dormant in the soil to assist in the cause. Additionally [Minor Growth] had made serious headway toward the goal I¡¯d set with it when casting. The brambles and thorns of the dead bushes that crafted the wall and roof of my cavern had impaled the beast from all sides after enlarging to the size of a small spear. The creature let out a gagging noise as blood poured from its mostly humanoid face. I wiped the stray flecks of blood from my face and just laid still, staring at my foe and waiting for the faint struggle to stop. When I was convinced it was done moving, I closed my eyes, ready for unconsciousness to take me. As I drifted away however I remembered that I wasn¡¯t alone here. I needed to check on Brook. I fought off the enclosing walls and forced my eyes open, looking for an alternate exit now that mine was blocked by 700 pounds of raw turkey. Above me, light was trickling in. Apparently, when I spurred the dead brambles into growth toward my foe, they stretched that way and after impaling it, were dragged forward when it fell to earth. This created a skylight in my cave that, while not big enough for me to get out, was a good start. With no energy left in my body I forced myself onto my knees and pushed at the crevice with my arms and shoulders. I don¡¯t know how rats and cats did this, as the feeling of forcing myself through an opening that, by all means, was too small to fit me was very unpleasant. Once again, I was reminded that I¡¯d likely cracked several ribs, but I managed to worm myself out. Pun not intended, of course. I stumbled across the nest to where Brook was lying to make sure that she was still alive. I was aware of several notifications trying to pester me, but even if I¡¯d wanted to read them, I wouldn¡¯t have been able to. When I reached what I thought to be Brooks slumbering form, I slowly bent over to check her pulse. I wasn¡¯t a healer, but I¡¯d been taught basic first aid by the hunters in the village. I turned her over onto her back and felt at her neck. I pushed the thoughts of how soft her skin was out of mind and concentrated. Finally, I felt a weak pulse and sighed in relief. She had a nasty looking head wound that was bleeding profusely above her hair line, but it seemed to be clotting and slowing down. Since I was already crouched over her from checking her pulse, I decided I¡¯d better check for breathing. Her breathing was very soft, but I could feel the gentle warm air push against my ear every so often. It didn¡¯t sound to me like she had fluid in her lungs, which was a relief because I didn¡¯t really know how to treat that. I made to stand so that I could retrieve my pack and get salve to slow bleeding and help prevent infection. At least that was the goal, but as I pushed my arms against the ground to shift my weight and stand up, my vision finally gave up and I collapsed forward. The last thoughts I remember as I drifted off were related to how warm and soft the ground was today. Chapter 8 || Loot I awoke slowly at first, groggily pushing my way through unconsciousness. Once I remembered why I¡¯d passed out in the first place, I woke up much faster. ¡°Woah, slow down there Lucas. Don¡¯t sit up like that, you took a nasty hit to the head.¡± Brook stopped me from sitting up with a hand on my shoulder pushing me back down. ¡°Good, you¡¯re still alive. I really didn¡¯t want to try digging a grave without a shovel.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be silly. Obviously I would want to be cremated, otherwise the beasties would just dig my corpse up and eat it.¡± ¡°Right, of course you¡¯d choose to go out smoking and hot.¡± The only response to my ill-advised attempt at humor was a light punch to the arm. Brook was currently sitting next to me inside the nest, looking more or less uninjured. Considering how hard that thing had hit me that was a small miracle. As was rapidly becoming tradition, I figured now was probably a good time to check the notifications. [Due to your assistance in distracting {Woods Harpy} by staring deeply into its eyes while someone else killed it, you have been awarded +0.1% Charisma and +/-?.?% Luck] That one had to be the harpy Brook took out with her throwing knife. At least the notifications were useful for identifying the foes we fought, so long as we won that was. I decided to ignore the snark and just be thankful that I¡¯d gained anything for the encounter at all, however minute. My Charisma could definitely do with being leveled a bit. [x2 Woods Harpy slain. Opponents¡¯ skill and power level outnumbered your own, but against all odds you¡¯ve managed to prevail. Due to method of victory, .3 Agi and .2 Str have been awarded.] Fair enough I guess, I didn¡¯t use magic to slay the harpies so I couldn¡¯t expect Intelligence gains. It was pretty short sighted, considering I wanted to become a wizard. I really would need to make a better effort to cast at least one spell per battle in the future. Still, if I had done that I would not have had enough to handle the boss. If that was the case should I not save my mana for emergencies? The plight of an underpowered mage was starting to give me a headache, so I decided to think on it later and moved on. [Woods Harpy Broodmother {Hybrid} slain! Opponent was immensely more powerful than you, and you battled almost one on one. Once again, you pushed yourself past your limit to defeat something that should have killed you. This strategy will keep working forever, until it doesn¡¯t and you die. For now, enjoy the rewards for a battle well fought I suppose. +1.2 Int, +1.0 End, +.7 Str, +.7 Agi, +.4 Per] [Congratulations! You have completed an F ranked instance with a party of 2. Due to small party size and relative levels, rewards have been granted accordingly. +.1 to all visible stats. Instanced cabin will function as a Rest Area for 12 hours. All healing effects x4 within premise.] Well, that explains how Brook was already looking recovered and I no longer felt like a cabin had run me over. This was how the world was able to keep functioning and have people dungeon dive and what not. If everybody was put out of commission after each battle, nobody would ever complete instances and the world would just be covered in dungeons. These still weren¡¯t the notifications I was looking for so I pulled up the last one. [Spell Manipulation. Progress made toward unlocking x3 unknown spells.] That was it? Whatever I had done managed to slay the boss creature of an instance, and I don¡¯t even get to learn how to cast it again in the future? What a load of- never mind. I should be thankful and stay positive. There were two ways of looking at this. In one of them I had been cheated out of 3 spells by the skill and cosmic laws. On the other, learning spells was supposed to be near impossible without tutoring or spell books. For all I knew I was fortunate to have learned [Entangling Roots] after only manipulating [Growth] once. Beggars couldn¡¯t be choosers and I fully intended to keep begging the universe for magic. I hadn¡¯t looked at my interface in a while so I willed it to my sight for a review. Spoiler: Spoiler
Name: Lucas Cob Level 1
Class: N/A Profession:Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. N/A
Status Healthy Stamina 110/110
Mana 12/12 Aether Saturation .03%
Str 11 Per 11
End 12 Cha 8
Int 12 Agi 11
Skills: Farming (Expand), Reading(Common), Writing(Common, Spell Manipulation, Spear(Basic), Acrobatics(Basic) Spells: Growth(Minor), Entangling Roots(Weak)
Since I couldn¡¯t see the fractions attached to each stat I couldn¡¯t be sure, but I was pretty sure I was getting close to increasing my Strength and Perception. I also gathered that I was healed, meaning or injury or illness, from my ¡®Healthy¡¯ status. Now that I¡¯d checked all the notifications and verified I wasn¡¯t about to lose a limb, I felt comfortable getting up to investigate what these rewards were. Brook had been silent while I was reading, probably because she knew I was checking my own interface as she¡¯d likely done after waking up. I tossed off the blanket I was covered with and made to stand, before scrambling to grab the blanket again. ¡°Why am I naked?¡± The question came out at a much higher pitch than I wanted it to as I franticly tried to cover myself up. The mirth evident on her face told me this was exactly why she¡¯d been quiet, just waiting for me to notice. ¡°You aren¡¯t naked, your underwear are still on after all. I needed to strip you to get to your wounds and apply your herbs and bandages, assuming you wanted to make use of the Rest Area¡¯s healing buff. Besides, I didn¡¯t think you would mind after coming onto me like that.¡± She trailed off and broke eye contact, looking down to the ground between her feet. ¡°I guess you¡¯re right about the healing stuff, but what is that second part supposed to mean?¡± It took me a second to collect my thoughts before replying. She was obviously still messing with me, but I couldn¡¯t find the angle to this joke. ¡°Well, Luke, when I woke up you were passed out on my chest and drooling. I really didn¡¯t think you were the type to try and take advantage of a girl while she was sleeping, but I¡¯ve been wrong before I guess.¡± There it is. With a single look I was able to figure out that even she wasn¡¯t taking herself seriously. Her breaking eye contact and looking way was an attempt to disguise her smirk, and it wasn¡¯t a very good one. This line of conversation had gone on long enough. ¡°So what is this about a reward?¡± I watched a couple emotions flicker across her face, first disappointment that I wasn¡¯t playing along and then excitement. ¡°Oh! The box we found, it split in half. And we can open them now! Or at least I think we can, I couldn¡¯t open either of them without you being there too. I guess it¡¯s a function to try and make loot balancing more fair? Either way let''s go!¡± Brook grabbed my arm and dragged me out from under the blanket, against my protests. I felt my blood boil a bit and I definitely reddened a shade or two, but I was also excited to see what we¡¯d gotten so I allowed myself to be dragged. The box was back in the center of the nest even though I didn¡¯t think that was where I¡¯d left it, and according to Brook she couldn¡¯t move it. Them, she couldn¡¯t move them. The box hadn¡¯t split in half like she said, but there were two of them now, sitting across from each other. Duplication was not the only thing that had changed either, as they now looked more like a classic treasure chest depiction. The chests were a little more ornate and had locks on the face, both with keys in the lock. Brook had tried to unlock both while I was recovering, but it was to no avail. In order to open the rewards, both keys had to be turned at the same time. Usually there was a singular chest to be opened that contained all the rewards, but because we¡¯d earned ¡®bonus rewards¡¯ for having a small party it reconfigured itself to award each of us. Our first attempt to open the chests was a bust, the keys did not budge at all, so we swapped sides and were able to open the chests at last. In my chest were two items, but they were two items that were worth more than most things I¡¯d owned. First was a small sheathed knife. I pulled it out and discovered it was a serrated steel dagger with a single edge. It wouldn¡¯t be the best for combat but I could definitely use it for woodworking and snares. It would make a nice addition to my skinning knife, which I had been using for almost every function so far. On top of that, it was made of what looked to be steel rather than salvaged metal, which meant it would be worth money even if I didn¡¯t keep it. The other item was the real prize. I re-sheathed the knife and placed it back into the chest before pulling out a long shape. It was sheathed sword, about 4 feet long from hilt to tip, and even came with its own belt. I¡¯d always wanted a proper sword but spears were more practical and more durable when made of the salvaged metal my village had access to. Here however, I was holding a beautiful bronze blade the likes of which I¡¯d never seen. I had no formal training in swords but had seen a couple guards practice them before. I decided to try and mimic the motions I remembered but ended up just swinging it around at the air instead. It was a lot of fun and I¡¯d probably have kept messing around for some time if it were not for a giggle capturing my attention. Brook had turned around and was looking at me with her mouth covered, trying not to laugh. How rude! Then I looked down and realized what was so funny. I was just a skinny teenager swinging his sword around while practically naked. I set the blade down and ran over to my bag to pull out a spare set of clothes. After dressing myself, I walked back over and strapped my knew knife to the inside of my calf, opposite the skinning knife. I also put the belt on and strapped the sword to it. Turning around I saw Brook bending over the chest still and caught her just as she was standing up. She turned and gave me a knowing look with one eyebrow raised. I obviously responded by blushing and breaking eye contact, because what else would a grown man do, before looking back after my face had cooled sufficiently. ¡°Well, since you showed me yours I guess I can show you mine,¡± she really never stopped with all the innuendo, did she? Brook was wearing a new sleeveless leather top with a sort of sash, running from her right shoulder to her left hip, which held two new throwing knives and slots for several more. She even had a new dagger that was sheathed on her lower back. ¡°So what do you think, does it make me look fat?¡± ¡°Definitely bulkier but I wouldn¡¯t say fat. It¡¯s nice, looks slimming.¡± We made a little bit of small talk, and after eating some of our rations and verifying we were both healthy, we decided to set off in the direction we believed to be west. It was time to put this forest behind us. Chapter 9 || Setting up Camp My spear was utterly destroyed. As ironic as it was for a weapon that had been crafted from salvaged metal, what was left of my trusty polearm was unsalvageable. It was yet another problem that plagued many small towns that were far from viable mines when it came to tool production, and one that I was intimately familiar with as an ex-farmhand. When tools went through wear and tear it was possible to work them still, polishing out nicks and doing your best to preserve them. Eventually though, my parents had been forced to periodically replace their salvaged tools, often offsetting the cost by selling back the broken tools to be melted for thin sheet metal. The core of the issue was that every time metal was reforged, that is to say melted and recast, the integrity lessened, making it less viable to use. For things like hoes and axes it would often just slow down efficiency as it progressed. When it came to reforging weapons there was a real risk attached however. Each time a weapon was demolished and needed to undergo extensive repairs, the warrior wielding the weapon assumed more and more risk. There was no telling when a spear would give out or a blade snap off the end of a sword. Before Brook and I had left the overgrown cabin I gave my spear one last appraisal, knowing what I¡¯d find. The Broodmother¡¯s aerial dive had pile driven the shaft so hard that half of it was lodged in the floor and ground below it while the other half was crumpled like a nail that had been repeatedly smashed with a hammer at a bad angle, bending this way and that. There were multiple factors that prevented me from carrying the retired spear with me to sell as scrap. Namely it was stuck fast and unwieldy even if I managed to free it like some sort of predestined leader of men. On top of that, I had no way of knowing how close the next settlement would be or if they even purchased scrap. I¡¯d heard of towns that rebuild with brick using tools they forged from nearby mines. If that was the case then trying to sell them what was essentially trash would not pay for the effort to lug it that unknown distance. Still, the loss of my spear was felt every minute that we traveled and brought us to the circumstance Brook and I found ourselves in now. Every night while Brook set up camp, I took Sophie out and looked for small game trails to set up snares. Some days yielded more catches than others, but even with our foraging nuts and tubers we were not what I would call ¡®Food Secure¡¯. So when, on our sixth day of travel since the instance, Sophie happened upon what looked like deer tracks, Brook and I elected to take a break. We¡¯d been traveling nonstop for a while and both of us were tired so we would have camped soon anyways. We¡¯d had a few chats what to do about hunting, neither of us really comfortable with the idea of Brook throwing her knives. There was always a chance that the beast wouldn¡¯t go down with the knives and would run off with her means of defense. Still, we had to eat. It was noon and we decided we were going to take an early day and try to track down and take down this deer. There was a suitable clearing for our bags not too far back so from there it was all a matter of tracking down the deer. We proceeded through the brush before we found the sole buck lounging not too far from a small brook. Not a miniature Brook, of course, but a small trickling of water passing beneath the trees. The entire hunt was pretty anticlimactic if I am being honest. I captured it with an [Entangling Roots] and Brook took out its eyes with her knives and let it bleed out. I tried to expedite the whole process with the sword I¡¯d gotten but every time I got close the buck started flailing. I dragged the buck back to camp while Brook cleaned herself up in the brook after refilling our waterskins. Since we decided to make a semi-permanent camp this time I took the time to properly dress the deer and skin it. The hide would be worth something with winter setting in soon and we managed not to mangle the deer when we took it down. Luckily the trees around the glade we¡¯d stopped in were thin and closely placed enough for me to stretch the hideout between them. With that out of the way I started making areas to smoke the deer meat so that it would last longer, and collected firewood for the cooking fire. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.??All in all it took a couple hours to get thing situated before I could start cooking our early dinner. It was when I was trying to coax the cooking fire into fruition that Brook finally walked back into our clearing. I had been a little concerned about how long it was taking her, but she had Sophie with her and the brook wasn¡¯t so far that I wouldn¡¯t have heard her yelling for help. What I didn¡¯t expect was how distracting she was going to be walking back into the clearing. ¡°I¡¯m back, Luke. Did ya miss me?¡± The voice was behind me, but I was busy battling the kindling to catch so I didn¡¯t turn around. Instead I just grunted to acknowledge that I heard her, a technique I picked up from my frequently mute father. It wasn¡¯t until she slowly walked past me toward where the bag was lying that I noticed her completely. I muffled a less-than-manly yelp when I struck my hand with the flint I¡¯d been striking against the steel. Brook slowly passed me in a state of very-undressed. Her long auburn hair cascaded down her back, wet and clinging to her skin. That¡¯s right, her skin. Instead of getting dressed again, she slipped on shorts that looked like they¡¯d also taken a wash in the brook and wrapped up her breast with cloth. Were the cloth not so dingy and far removed from the white gauze it started life as, I¡¯d probably be able to see through it. Not that she was leaving much to the imagination. Naturally as I was taking this in, she happened to look over her shoulder with a smirk. I realized quickly that I was both leering at her, and sucking on the finger that I¡¯d hit with the flint subconsciously. ¡°Like what you see there, Luke? Here I thought I¡¯d be able to dry my clothes without being assaulted by your eyes. Tsk tsk tsk.¡± Insert non-committal grunt as I forcefully redirect my attention back to tending the flame. Smooth, real smooth Lucas. Once it was clear that I was done rising to the bait, figuratively and hopefully literally, Brook stopped teasing and started helping set the campsite. I finally got the campfire lit so that I could start making dinner, and used a flaming branch from there to ignite the smoking pits for the leftover meat. We weren''t likely to move out for a couple days so I decided to leave foraging for fruit and nuts for the next day. That night as I lie down to sleep with a belly full of venison and legs sorer than they¡¯d ever been before, I spent a lot of time thinking about what was next. I decided it would be easiest to make a goal of immediate goals, as the endgame of ¡°Become powerful mage¡± was just too vague and abstract for me to feel like I was making progress. I¡¯d left my home almost two weeks ago and felt like I was getting nowhere. 1. Find a Nerfsite and increase Aether saturation/ Become powerful mage 2. Learn how to talk to other people, specifically girls. Specifically Brook, probably. 3. Unlock those spells I made progress toward fighting the broodmother 4. Increase Int attribute for more mana 5. Unlock [Basic Swordsmanship] /Find trainer? 6. Craft a bow from the drying sinew and ?wood? 7. Find another town or city to resupply a. Travel rations b. Survival gear c. Clothes for winter / barter off hides and pelts from hunting d. Magic items? Good enough for now. With the list set I could start mentally crossing things off and make it feel like I was progressing. I thought about adding ¡°Fuck Brook¡± to the list, naturally, but just the thought made my face flush so I mentally erased that. I spared a quick glance over where she was sitting at the fire on watch to make sure she hadn¡¯t read my mind. The fire was at her back as she gazed out into the forest, casting shadows and shapes. Naturally her clothes had dried off a while back and she¡¯d gotten dressed again, antagonizing slowly. I really couldn¡¯t tell if she was genuinely interested in me or if she was just messing with me because she thought it was funny. Naturally I assumed it was the later, and that was a large reason why I hadn¡¯t tried to make any moves. With that little mental exercise done, I rolled over to sleep. I didn¡¯t have too much time before I¡¯d be awoken to stand watch and I wanted to get as much rest as I could. Chapter 10 || Right back in We ended up only taking a day off our journey, neither of us really wanting to stay in the forest for too much longer. For our day off I ended up practicing with my [Growth] spell and managed to get us a nice stash of berries, with the yield slowly increasing the more frequently I used my mana. While I spent my day doing that Brook and Sophie explored around us to see if they could figure out which way the forest ended. So when it was time to head out, we had a rough idea of where the trees seemed to thin a bit. After six or seven hours of walking, it is kind of hard to keep track when you cannot track the sun across the sky, we finally found the edge of the forest. ¡°Finally, some sunlight! Oh beautiful sun, how I missed you so.¡± ¡°There¡¯s no need to be so dramatic Brook, we still had sunlight through the trees. It is nice to finally be out of the woods though.¡± After some brief deliberation we decided we could skirt along the outskirts of the forest until we found some sort of road or sign to travel with. As we made our way south-west around the trees we could see a symbol carved into the trees every so often. It sort of looked like a cross with three lines protruding from the bottom of the cross, and was obviously man made. ¡°It¡¯s probably a bandit claiming their territory so that other brigands know not to poach their victims in the area. That or it might be some sort of marking that rangers leave for each other, to mark a direction toward a camp or something?¡± Brook was quick to offer her opinion on the mysterious symbols. Sophie just sniffed the tree a couple of times before peeing nearby. ¡°Gotcha, guess we will move into the tree line when we camp at night.¡± Bandits had been a problem in the past but it was one of the few things Florida got right, having very few bandit attacks at all most times of the year. Apparently the whole, ¡®Nobody wants to be in Florida¡¯, applies to brigands and ne¡¯er-do-wells as well as regular people. I couldn¡¯t really blame them, the place was a cesspool and most of us there didn¡¯t have enough for ourselves, let alone anything to be stolen. Somehow my solution to the problem didn¡¯t put Brook at ease and her eyes darted along the tree line while we walked. ¡°So, Luke, how is it that a farmer like you ended up with a combat skill like the one you used to save us? Or any spell at all really, I thought that they were impossible to learn without being in a mages guild or something.¡± ¡°Well, you aren¡¯t exactly wrong. Mage guilds horde a lot of their proprietary spells and magical knowledge but they still put very weak spells out into circulation. If they didn¡¯t, they would have a much harder time finding children with strong magical talent. As for my spell, it was just [Weak Growth], it kind of¡­ evolved? after leaving home.¡± ¡°Mmm.¡± The entire time we spoke, Brook hadn¡¯t stopped being vigilant. The question was a good one though, spells were wildly expensive and difficult to learn. It wasn¡¯t unheard of for somebody to learn a spell naturally, although it was very far from common, and most other methods of learning a spell were difficult to say the least. After the Nerf, nobody could remember any of their magic. It wasn¡¯t until sometime later that the first spell scroll was located in a dungeon loot, and magic started to be reproduced. A spell scroll was a sheet of paper that held the formula for a spell. The first one that was located was some form of [Magic Dart] if what the traveling merchants had said was true. The men who found it were unable to read the scroll and had no idea what it was, so they brought it back to their village. One of their wives was able to read it and learned the spell, also populating a mana section to her sheet that hadn¡¯t been seen before. One other person was able to read that first scroll and learned the spell, but nobody else was able to learn it. People with the gift could still read it, and while holding the scroll they could cast it, but nobody else was capable of learning it. Naturally the next thing attempted was transcribing the spell again, that way the ones who hadn¡¯t learned it could still cast it. It didn¡¯t work. It wasn¡¯t until somebody reached the late stages of the spell, years later, that they were finally able to recreate the formula. Although the original spell was regular [Magic Dart], the newly written spell came out as a [Weak Magic Dart]. While writing the scroll was very much an autonomous process, the mage in question was able to realize at some point that she¡¯d written down a 3, without context. In her heart, she knew that only 3 people would be able to learn this vastly weakened version of the spell and had to select very carefully who she wanted to learn it, and so the beginnings of the very first mages guild had begun. As assumed, only three of her friends with ¡°the gift¡± were able to learn the spell, but surprisingly this time the page disintegrated after being learned the third time.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. So there they were, five women who knew the spell and a single copy of the spell to be cast from those who hadn¡¯t learned it, birth of ¡®The Coven¡¯. At this point, many other spells had been discovered from dungeons and even a few prodigies had self-discovered spells. The ability to teach any number of students a spell upon mastering it shook the fledgling mage¡¯s scene, leading to the rapid formation of several guilds and the hoarding of knowledge. There were still a few spells that were mastered and given out to the populace (sold to merchants) like [Weak Growth], a mana-inefficient spell that had little combat use and was better served with farmers. My father had gotten the made-scroll last winter and gifted it to me after neither he nor my mother could learn it. I pushed back against it, telling him I was still leaving to become a mage and that he couldn¡¯t guilt me into staying, but that was never his intention. He¡¯d given me my first spell which I used every morning to help the crop come in, and it had saved my life within the first week of travel. ¡°Into the woods, now!¡± A shove from Brook took me off the side of the road and tumbling into the trees. She grasped my hand and pulled me with her as she dashed through the low bushes and twigs, deeper into the forest away from the road. ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± I¡¯d recovered by now and was running behind her rather than being pulled, trying to figure out why in the hell we were sprinting back into the forest after just having escaped. I was shushed and it wasn¡¯t until 10 minutes of sprinting/running later that we slowed down and she explained herself. ¡°I heard a bird call.¡± The blank look on my face must have conveyed exactly how that sounded to me, because she continued the train of thought a second later. ¡°It was the same bird call I heard when the bandits attacked my parent¡¯s caravan. It is how they signal to the other scouts that they¡¯ve seen someone on the road and should set up an ambush.¡± I¡¯d almost forgotten how Brook ended up lost in the forest by herself, and finally understood why she seemed so uneasy after seeing the carvings of bandits on the trees. ¡°Right, thanks for listening out then.¡± I had not heard a bird call but I¡¯d also been lost in thought, so it was a good thing that Brook had been so vigilant. The rest of the day was spent walking through the forest parallel to the road, or at least as close to that as we could get. I used my [Minor Growth] whenever I regenerated my mana to full, saving some incase we came into conflict but also trying to advance progress with the spell. I nursed a few bushes to bloom berries and a few trees to drop their nuts with my magical fingers, wait. No, not that, I used my spell to refresh my travel rations. Ugh. Brook also showed me a few herbs to harvest to flavor food or brew into tea, and gathered a few more that she said were a ¡®surprise for later¡¯. When sun set we decided to risk a small fire, doing our best to keep it smokeless. It was a risk, but so was freezing to death and the winter was setting in. Brook boiled some water for a tea in a small portable container I¡¯d brought with me specifically for boiling/cleaning water. We both set around the small flames in silence, staring into the depths of the crackling wood, before Brook spoke up. ¡°Are you a virgin, Lucas?¡± ¡°Wha-Why¡­ where!? Where did that question come from?¡± Brook was quiet for a moment, still looking into the fire with her arms around her knees. I realized quickly that the question was just as awkward for her as it was for me. ¡°Look, I¡¯ve been making advances on you this whole time and you haven¡¯t responded. It¡¯s not like I can¡¯t tell you are interested, just afraid. If you¡¯re a virgin that¡¯s okay.¡± Well, in that case, ¡°Yeah. Sorry.¡± ¡°Why are you apologizing?¡± Silence. ¡°Anyway, this is an herb that should help you keep it up. If we are going to do this I want to make sure I am getting something out of it too, until you get more practice at least.¡± All of the anxiety I thought I¡¯d seen on her face previously was gone as she stood up and poured the water into a cup of the surprise herbs from earlier, and the usual confident and forward Brook was back. She pushed the cup into my hand and I hesitated. Was she doing this because she was scared and alone, or was she genuinely interested in me? I looked up, to reassure her that this wasn¡¯t necessary and that I¡¯d travel with her and protect her whether or not we were sexual, and was treated to the sight of Brook in her underwear. Just like that she¡¯d stripped and my doubts were erased almost instantly. ¡°While it¡¯s still warm, hurry up. It doesn¡¯t work as well when it cools too much.¡± I down the tea in a few short gulps and stripped as fast as I could. With every second that passed my heart slowed down and my head got heavy. Isn¡¯t that backwards? My eyelids got heavy and I fell over backwards, watching Brook slowly stalk over to me. I got a notification that I couldn¡¯t read in my current state and it faded away quickly to free up my rapidly blurring vision. Brook sat in my lap and leaned over to whisper in my ear. ¡°Sorry about this, Luke.¡± My vision went black and my consciousness fled from me for what felt like the millionth time since I¡¯d set off from home. The last thing I felt was a lingering sensation of pressure on my lips. Chapter 11 || Shafted [Skill Unlocked! Whether due to constant over exertion or consumption of questionable teas, you spend more time sleeping than you do awake! With each bout of self-induced loss of consciousness, the little voice that screams for you to do better becomes a little more fearful, afraid of the day you take a nap at a bad time! As such, your body has decided to compensate for the mind and you have earned [Maintain Consciousness](Basic).] [Progress made: ??% toward [Poison Resistance](Sleeping) skill.] Those two prompts were the first thing to greet me when I awoke. The light that was filtering through the trees overhead was far brighter than it had any right to be and seemed to weigh heavy on my eyes. With muddled thoughts I lethargically read through the notifications several times before comprehending them. Even after comprehending what the prompts were saying, I couldn¡¯t full register the implications behind them. In my addled state, I was actually excited to have unlocked a new skill. It was even a useful one to boot! Now I¡¯d be able to push myself harder during fights and would worry less about passing out before I could treat mine and Brook¡¯s injuries. A piercing pain appeared behind my eyes, shooting backwards through my head. Brook! I looked around at the campsite, worried out of my mind. If the sun was up than she should have already woken me up for watch. Instead of a campsite however I was greeted with nothing but trees. I¡¯d been relocated deeper into the forest and covered with branches and leaves. Right, it was all coming back to me now. The [Poison Resistance] progress had something to do with Brook¡¯s actions the night before. Rather, it had everything to do with them. The beautiful young woman I¡¯d been traveling with for the last few weeks had drugged me and, from the looks of it, made off with some of my belongings. My pack was nearby and still contained a few things, but almost everything made of metal was missing. My canteen, the sword I¡¯d gotten from the lair, even my skinning knife was gone. Sophie! Brook had even stolen my dog! It was one thing to take everything a man owned, but to even steal my dog was just beyond low. I¡¯d been grifted, robbed blind by a girl that I¡¯d started to fall for. The worst part was, even though I constantly told myself there was no way that she¡¯d been interested in me, a small part of me thought she may have felt the same way about me after all. Right, well sitting around crying for myself in the middle of the woods wasn¡¯t going to accomplish anything. I pushed myself out of the foliage I¡¯d been buried with and took stock of my situation. Most of the rations I¡¯d stockpiled were missing as well as my weapons. Wait! With a quick pat of my leg I verified the knife I¡¯d gotten from the dungeon went untouched. Thinking back, I never mentioned it to Brook and she¡¯d been too preoccupied with her own loot to notice it at the time. I didn¡¯t conceal it from her intentionally, but in the end her ignorance worked out in my favor! For all of her teasing and provocation, she¡¯d never actually seen me without my pants on, so the knife managed to survive the robbery. The small voice in the back of my head that had been crying ¡®she could have at least fucked me before she fucked me¡¯ finally shut up and I was able to find the silver lining in the situation. Or the steel lining, if my guesses were correct about the material of this knife. Some would even value this small blade, about the length of my hand, higher than the bronze sword I¡¯d lost because of its far higher durability. Stolen story; please report. Apart from that, the sinew I¡¯d been harvesting was still located in the pack alongside the fire starting kit and a few neat looking rocks I picked up along my travels. Okay, so she¡¯d mostly robbed me blind but at least she left me materials to keep myself warm and not literally blind when the night fell. She also didn¡¯t kill me which was a plus, I guess. I got to thinking about why Brook had betrayed me, but quelled that train of thought pretty quickly. It didn¡¯t really matter if she¡¯d left because of the way I looked at her, or maybe the way I didn¡¯t look at her. In the end she¡¯d left, and that was just something I had to accept. I had a few scrapes and cuts on my back, which I chalked up to being dragged through the forest while I slept, and a pretty bad headache, but I was otherwise unharmed from the entire endeavor. That would change if I ran into another beast or a bandit however, so my first concern right now was equipping myself. Whereas the knife was undoubtedly of a high quality, it was far too close quarters for me. After walking around looking for a tree with branches low enough and sturdy enough to suit my purpose, I finally found what I was looking for. I sawed off a six foot length of wood from a nearby hickory tree. Before settling down to whittle away at it I used up my mana coaxing some edible plants from my surroundings. Most forgeable food had become scarce as the winter set in, picked clean by animals storing up fat for the winter or squirreling it away. To my surprise, using up the mana actually lessened my headache by a good portion and even slowly improved my condition as it regenerated. I found a nearby trunk of a fallen tree and sat down to begin my work. The branch I¡¯d selected was about 2 inches in diameter and six feet long. I did my best to trim off all the little branches that, well, branched off the branch and stripped it of leaves. I then sawed off the knobs that protruded too far and rubbed it against a nearby rock to attempt to smooth it out a bit. I now had a long pole, but that was about it. I decided it was serviceable and started carving away at the end of it to make a good point. This part took a lot longer than I had expected it to and was very taxing, physically and mentally. I managed to fashion a pointed end that was about 4 inches long, and was back to collecting branches. This time it was for a small fire, which I used to temper the end of the spear. By baking it I was able to remove the moisture from the recently living hickory branch, making it a better weapon than a bendy green branch. It took more than a few hours but I managed to carve a pretty rudimentary spear from the hickory branch. The wood was flexible enough that it might just survive an encounter or two, but still not really sharp enough to be a threat to anyone. Unfortunately, my lackluster rock collection wasn¡¯t of useful rocks of the pointed variety, but of shiny or smooth ones I thought looked nice. I won¡¯t say I was collecting them to have them made into a relatively cheap but sentimental piece of jewelry for Brook because that would just be sad, but I also don¡¯t know why I was collecting them. In the future I decided I would keep my eye open for useful rocks, the kind that could be spearheads or arrow heads. That being said, I didn¡¯t pour out the pebbles. Even if they didn¡¯t carry the memory I thought they would, it was still a memory worth keeping. A lesson learned. A new challenge to overcome. Chapter 12 || When pigs fly. With a spear in hand again I felt infinitely better about the scenario I found myself stuck in. Sure, I was extremely under geared to be out here in the wild by myself. Yeah, I¡¯d been figuratively backstabbed and dragged an unknown distance back into the brush. And of course, by best weapon was a knife that was only slightly larger than my hand and I was surrounded by hostile wildlife. All that sucked, but I now had a sturdy stick in my hand with a nice pointy end, and a hand that could fondle the most succulent berries off even a barren bush. There was probably a better way to phrase that, but I was excited and optimistic for the first time that since Brook drugged and robbed me the day before. After eating my fill of berries, nuts, and tubers I managed to coax out of the ground with my magic, I decided it was time to trek out of the forest again and get back on the road. I quickly found out just how difficult that was without a road to follow or a dog to lead me. Seriously, I didn¡¯t think I could be this directionally challenged. I ended up just picking a direction and walking in a straight line, to the best of my ability. Eventually the forest had to end again and I didn¡¯t think that Brook could have dragged me too far. The trees in this forest loomed over me, glaring down at the human who dared walk amongst their branches. It wasn¡¯t as foreboding as the forest I¡¯d found near westway weeks ago, but I still felt like I wasn¡¯t exactly welcome. I decided to try and use my [Growth] spell on a nearby tree to appease it, and to see what would happen. The spell consumed more than twice as much mana as it usually would but gave no visible results. The forest felt less menacing afterwards. That or my almost-lightheaded state made me less perceptive to the angry trees. It was hard to keep time in the forest by myself. In the past I was more aware of the passage of the hours because of casual chatter with Brook or she would suggest when to stop for a meal. Right now, however, I was just zoning out while making my way through the brush, occasionally slowing down to bribe the trees with my sweet, sweet growth spell. It was the only way I could track the time, counting the mana regeneration, and some small part of me told me that it was gaining me favor with the wooden giants of the forest. By my count it was probably about noon the day after I¡¯d been hoodwinked when things started to go wrong again. My mana had just topped off and I spent it on a sturdy looking oak, allowing it to drain away at my stores with my [Growth] spell. As I turned to continue on my way (West? North?) I heard a loud groaning, like something really heavy stepping on a wooden board and stretching it out past its limit. I turned around quickly, expecting to see the tree grow, but couldn¡¯t find the source of the tree. I wrote it off as my mind playing tricks on me and started walking away. That¡¯s when I heard another noise. A tree branch far overhead cracked and then snapped. I head snapped up and what I saw was terrifying. A flying pig was leaping out of a nearby tree and diving at me like a hawk!Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. I jumped to the side and rolled, hearing a very loud impact off to my side. I pushed myself back onto my feet with my spear at the ready to observe my assailant. The flying pig, for lack of a better word coming to mind that moment, was probably as large as I was. It had two tusks, each the length of about half of my forearm, and a very pissed off look in its black eyes. The boar¡¯s coloration matched the trees surrounding us, a motley of dull browns, from its fur to its oversized wings. Oh yeah, that is what the important part was. The fucking pig had wings that resembled a blackbird¡¯s, but much larger. Its wingspan was at least 15 feet from tip to tip, and far more muscular than it had any right to be. It looked like tweety bird had been pumping iron for 20 years in prison with daily doses of steroids and a hefty amount of eating the other prisoners for protein. I tried to snag the beast with my [Entangling Roots], knowing it wouldn¡¯t hold for long but hoping it would hold for long enough. There was no way I was fighting this behemoth sized boar on its own turf. The day I threw my life away like that would be the day pigs fly. Wait a minute¡­ Naturally when I went to use my new spell nothing happened. I¡¯d just drained my mana feeding it to an oak tree, and was unable to cast the snare now! While I was coming to accept that pigs did fly, and I was going to die here, the boar finally made its next move. It came charging at me, on foot this time, intent on getting me for trespassing in its territory. I scrambled backwards and fell on my ass, holding my makeshift spear in front of me in a feeble attempt to protect myself. Then the boar died and I survived. Really, it happened just like that and I missed it too. Somehow, mid charge, when I totally did not have my eyes closed with tears streaming down my face crying to my mother, a root exposed itself from underground and snagged the boars hoof as it charged me down. The boar went tumbling forward, its momentum not completely arrested, and landed neck-first on my spear, which was somehow braced against yet another root I hadn¡¯t seen before. Somehow, the surrounding trees had banded together and saved my life while I was cowering. I¡¯d been putting up a bravado, telling myself everything was fine and I¡¯d make it out of this alive even without Brook or Sophie, but it had been a lie. It took until I was going to die from a boar attack for me to realize that I¡¯d given up the moment I woke up alone, and I had resigned myself to die even while telling myself I hadn¡¯t. Standing up and dusting myself off, I decided that was a load of pig shit. I wasn¡¯t just going to die and I wasn¡¯t just going to forget this had happened. I was going to track Brook down somehow, and I was going to make her pay for what she¡¯d done, but to do that I needed to get out of here alive. I had been spending my mana to keep myself in a lightheaded state, so I wouldn¡¯t have to think about my situation, but no more. I would keep enough back now that I could defend myself if need be. I would also need to find somewhere to wash my pants. It was a good thing nobody had been around to see what happened. Or had they? I had started to here an awful lot of quiet wood-groaning noises that sounded a bit like laughter. Chapter 13 || A good nights rest
Little Piglet (Ariel Variation) slain: At the end of the day, it was your spear that slayed the beast. Due to method of victory, .01 Agi has been awarded.
¡°Son of a bitch.¡± The laughing, which may have just been a figment of my imagination, had already faded into non existence, or was it never existence? For a long time, at least 30 minutes, there was no movement in my little corner of the woods. Not from me, the trees, or the boar¡¯s corpse. When the pain in my chest had finally subsided, and I was breathing regularly again, I sidled out from under the boar on my ass. The wooden spear that¡¯d I¡¯d lovingly carved that very same morning was pinned to the ground by hundreds of pounds of pork and feathers. The spear entered through the nose of the boar and exited out a man made hole behind its skull. The blood still dripped down the shaft, staining the previously light colored wood a dark red, and pooled on the ground. It¡¯s probably weird to say, but the vibrant red looked really good on the autumn leaves scattered around the forest floor. I didn¡¯t think I would get that spear back. A real shame considering how long it took to carve. I decided I would call it an early day, partially because I was tired and partially because my knees would not stop shaking from excess adrenaline. I whipped out my knife and got to work setting up a campsite. I was on my own now, so I would be spending the night in a tree. It would be a lot more uncomfortable, but I didn¡¯t have someone here to stand guard while I slept so I was better off out of sight in the trees than on the ground. Short of another flying pig or harpy, I should be safer in the branches than on the ground. Several of the oaks around here looked sturdy enough to hold me, so I decided I would camp nearby. Step one was spear recovery. I walked up to the deceased pig and eyed it. The creature was almost as large as I was and had to weigh at least 300 pounds. Combine that with a wingspan that was as long as I was tall and you had a very terrifying looking piglet. I stuck my foot on the back fat right below the neck and grasped my spear from where it was protruding from the boar¡¯s skull. Each tug on the spear gave a little bit more until, several pulls later, the wooden pole came loose with a slurp and a pop. Although it was disgustingly sticky and damp with blood, the overall integrity of the spear withstood the charge and was still in one piece. It would probably need to be sharpened again, or at least retipped, but the weapon was still useable. Speaking of weapons, I suddenly had an idea. First up, I dug a hole with my hands and a flat-ish rock I found nearby. I wanted to clean the boar and see if I could salvage some meat and its tusks. The hole was for the entrails and whatever I didn¡¯t cook tonight. There was already a chance that the smell of blood would draw predators, but I didn¡¯t want to tempt them even further with decaying meat left out. After a couple more hours I found myself the proud possessor of two very sharp, medium length boar tusks. Unlike most boars I¡¯d seen in pictures, this boar¡¯s tusks had jut straight forward rather than curving upwards, shaped more like horns. I wrapped the wide ends that had been located in the beast''s jaw with hide to make a grip. I also roasted a few pounds of boar meat wrapped it in boar skin before stashing it in my pack. When my sinew finished drying out a week or so from now, I¡¯d be able to use one of the boar tusks as a spear head, but for now they were really good for stabbing things, probably. Without much more to do I dragged the rest of the boar¡¯s corpse over to the hole I dug and buried it before casting my [Growth] spell back to back. This managed to convince the nearby vegetation to take to the carcass like a compost and explode into growth, burying it under a new born bush that looked at least a year old. There was a tugging sensation at the back of my head when this happened, like it was something I¡¯d seen before in a dream. That was swiftly overwritten with a lightheaded spell from expanding my mana, so I crawled up into the tree I¡¯d selected to sleep the night away. Once I was cradled in my little nook far away from the forest floor, I realized that I was not tired yet. The sun was still shining through the trees, and my mind was still roaming. For the first time in a long time I started trying to interact with my interface and pulled up some information on my new skills and spells.
Skill: Farming Due to intimate knowledge or experience with farming, the following crops are less susceptible to disease, drought, or pests when grown by you. They will also have a slight increased yield. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.Peppers: Bell Tubers: Atlantic Potatoes, Sweet potato Herbs: Chives, Parsley Vegetables: Snow Pea Misc Harvestable: Acorn, Dwarf Chestnut, Pecan, Blackberries, Blueberries, Strawberries, Mulberries, Youngberries, Wild Onion, Wild Potato
The farming was to be expected, considering I was raised on a farm and had access to a spell specifically catered to enable rapid farming. I was a little surprised to see how extensive the list had gotten since leaving home, but I guess it was to be expected considering how often I¡¯d used the spell on various plants since leaving. I wondered how long it would take until the spell upgraded again, I¡¯d heard it was one of the easier ones to master.
Skill: Reading Due to intimate knowledge of the language, you have obtained the ability to read, and therefore write, in the following languages. Reading works in this language will improve retention of subject matter. English Arcanus
English was self explanatory, it being the primary language of the now collapsed union of states that Florida once belonged to. Arcanus, however, was news to me. I hadn¡¯t read the skill definition for reading before, so this was the first time I was seeing it. After a couple moments of deliberation, I decided it must be the language that the spell pages are written in. Arcanus is close enough to Arcane, and the page for [Growth] is the only thing I can remember reading that wasn¡¯t english. Definitely the only thing that I¡¯d read and understood.
Spear (Basic) You know basic spear maintenance and handling. Wounds you inflict with a polearm damage slightly more, are more prone to finding vital points, and cause more bleeding. Polearms in your possession need less maintenance, and are maintained easier.
Guess that explains how the wooden spear I¡¯d crafted didn¡¯t snap in half when the boar plunged itself into it. Next!
Acrobatics(Basic) You have a basic understanding of how the human body moves. Improves flexibility by a small amount. You are less likely to sprain a muscle through abrupt movement. Take a small amount less damage from falling.
Only one skill left.
Maintain Consciousness(Basic) You are less likely to lose consciousness against your will, be it from exhaustion, poison, or mental attacks. When losing consciousness, you will be slightly more aware and capable in the moments leading to blackout. Less likely to lose memory due to loss of consciousness.
Wow! That skill did a lot more than one would assume from the name. Reading the tooltips on my skills turned out a lot of good information, apparently, and I decided I would check upon gaining every new skill from now on.
Spell: Growth (Minor) The mage expends an amount of mana (No less than 7 for a full cast) to encourage grown in targeted plants. Fully grown plants will concentrate more towards flowering and fruiting. More or less mana can be funneled into this spell for increased or decreased effect, efficiency will be lost. School of magic: Wood Evolutions: [Entangling Roots] Unlock Method: Man-made(Apprentice Laura White) Arcanus Writ (Durability 3 of 3)
Spell: Entangling Roots (Weak) The mage expends an amount of mana (No less than 5 for a full cast) to encourage grown in targeted plants. Plants will experience explosive growth of roots and/or vines in the direction of directed adversary, willed with the intent to bind and fasten. More or less mana can be funneled into this spell for increased or decreased effect, efficiency will be lost. School of magic: Wood Unlock Method: Self-discovered combat-evolution of Growth.
I wondered how many people had ever discovered the evolution of [Growth]. The way the read out for entangling roots read, it had to be discovered in combat. I imagined that a spell sold for a copper to dirt-poor farmers in Florida didn¡¯t have many widely-known combat applications. I started scheming on how I could capitalize on this knowledge. Maybe one day I¡¯d be able to settle down and buy up tons of the spell pages before releasing the knowledge, sell them all out to the public at a big profit. Either way I was starting to feel a bit tired, so I decided I would let sleep take me after all. I didn¡¯t dream much that night, just fell into a thoughtless slumber. A slumber that ended far too abruptly shortly thereafter. Chapter 14 || Rude Awakening I did not dream of Martha again, nor did I dream of Brook, like I feared I might. My dreams were devoid of both the blonde baker''s daughter and the red headed damsel-turned-robber. They were devoid of everything, actually. One minute I was finally closing my eyes and falling to sleep and the next I was falling from the tree. Now it should probably be said that I¡¯ve never been a morning person, but when I went tumbling down from the nook in my oak tree, I hit the ground running. I¡¯d been knocked out of the tree by something larger than myself, although I couldn¡¯t quite make out what it was with the world flying by me so quickly. I hit the ground, miraculously not breaking anything, grabbed my spear from where I¡¯d laid it against the trunk and continued forward at a mad dash. Luckily, if that word could even apply to someone in my situation, I thought to sleep with my pack on strapped to my stomach. It didn¡¯t make a very good pillow and I didn¡¯t want an animal breaking into it at night if I¡¯d left it on the ground with the spear. I managed to shift it while running, putting it back on my back so that the weight would stop messing with me as I ran, which was hard enough at the moment. Before I could even think about slowing down to check behind myself, however, cracking branches and the sound of heavy feet let me know I was being pursued. It was some five minutes later when I finally managed to get a look at what was attacking me, dimly lit in the fading twilight. The beast was at least the size of a bear, not including the massive leathery wings attached to its back. From the glimpse I¡¯d gotten of it while abruptly turning to avoid a fallen tree inspired a deep dream in me. It was the biggest wolf I¡¯d ever seen, and one of the meanest as well. Its dark grey fur contrasted with the gleaming white of its fangs, both doing their best to help the mad look in the canine¡¯s eyes. I don¡¯t know how it hadn¡¯t caught me already and could only attribute it to the dog enjoying itself, occasionally falling behind just to sprint. Every maneuver I took to try and lose it, every tree I jumped and every rock I circumvented was conquered by a hop and flap of the giant bat-like wings on the wolf¡¯s back. On a serious note, why does everything in this fucking forest have wings, and where do I get my pair? It was as if flying pigs were not good enough anymore, now we needed batdogs? And while I¡¯m on the subject, how the fuck did a bat end up breeding with a wolf? All the pre-nerf books I¡¯d read insisted that bats and wolves hated each other! It wasn¡¯t lost on me, either, that the thing attacked me during twilight. The forest was filled with irony and, somehow, I was only equipped with wood. Not that an iron or steel spear would help me much in this situation. Gnashing teeth broke me out of my pity party and helped coax a little more speed out of my legs, finding my own little hop rhythm while I ran. I heard water running up ahead and turned toward it. My legs were beginning to feel like lead and my lungs were aflame, I was going to die if this kept up. [Entangling Roots] My attempted over-the-shoulder cast failed, much the way I assumed it would. The beast wasn¡¯t even delayed for a second before it ripped the vines to pieces. I¡¯m not sure it even stopped running, but I do think I saw it smile at me, as if wolves could smile. The sound of running water was getting closer, and I was hoping that I swam faster than the creature. At the very least I could let the river do a lot of the work and swim along it. In an ideal world. In the best-case scenario, I lost it and the river covered my scent, worst case the wolf caught and killed me. I wonder if it preferred wet food to dry. Oh! New best-case scenario, it can¡¯t cross moving water. I remember reading a book where bat creatures couldn¡¯t do that. Or was it stagnant water¡­ I crashed through the brush out to where the river would be and got ready to dive, only to take a running leap. Instead of a river, I stumbled out into a chasm, several meters across. Unable to see how far down the river was, I panicked and leapt. Thankfully, the other side of the chasm was lower than where I¡¯d leapt from. Even then I made it only by a few inches, and only with my front foot. Were it not for [Basic Acrobatics] I¡¯d have stumbled backwards into the chasm, or never have made the jump in the first place. Maybe I could lose the wolf here. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I started to jog forward and looked over my shoulder, just to see the wolf jump out into the clearing and flap its way over the chasm. How the fuck did I forget about the wings? I literally spent half this run complaining about them. I dry heaved and leaned forward, my legs picking up to a brisk run once again. Ever since Brook left, I¡¯d been running from one near death experience to another. How could someone so bad be a good luck charm? Sophie must have been the good luck, she¡¯d saved me the first time she¡¯d seen me after all. I miss my dog. Without much more to do I kept running through the brush, closer to stumbling at this point. The trees let out into a glade, the brush and brambles ceding the way to tall grasses that reached up to my shoulder. Last I¡¯d looked over my shoulder, the wolf had decided to do the thing where it fell back and let me gain a lead. This time I intended to capitalize on it. The grass was too tall for the wolf to see over and my scent should''ve been erased, all I needed to do was find a good spot and lay down. I wasn¡¯t sure if it was my best chance at surviving or if my body was finally giving up, ready to lay over and die. I charged about 15 yards in, running in a different trajectory than I¡¯d entered in the clearing in, before slowing down and crouching to hide my head below the grass. I heard the wolf catch up to me and stall at the edge of the glade, snapping a twig loud enough to send echoes around the clearing, before entering and walking in a semi straight line. The beast slowly made its way forward, sniffing while trying to remain stealthy. I could almost swear that I felt its breath against the back of my neck. Eventually the beast flared its wings, beating back the tall grasses in an attempt to expose me. When that failed, it picked up speed again and dashed through the clearing, passing me in a heartbeat and continued on its way. I decided to backtrack a big, hoping that if the wolf came back to pick up my faint scent it would assume it disappeared instead of me walking back. If only my life could be that easy. As I made my way back through the tall grass, a wild animal appeared! I was sent flying by a head-butt to my stomach from a greyhound sized rabbit, coughing up blood as I flew backwards. I rolled through the grass and decided that I was all ran-out. I looked up at the floppy rabbit, wingless I might add, and cast my go to spell. [Entangling Roots] This time it held. The tall grasses that filled the green sea in this glade seemed extra receptive to my mana, sucking it up and grasping the rabbit by its neck and hind legs. The beast struggled, eyes locked onto me and filled with a venomous hate. I pulled myself up by my spear, ready to swagger over and end the rabbit¡¯s life before I was rudely interrupted. The wolf came sweeping over the top of the grass, gliding on its wings before slamming straight into the rabbit and ripping out its throat. A guttural growl let me know that I was both seen and unwelcome there any longer. I decided I would take the hint and limp-ran away as fast as I could. Were it not for the slurping and flesh-rending noises I was hearing in the distance, I would have been worried about being attacked from behind. I looked into the sky, it being visible in this unusually thin part of the forest, and was astonished to learn that it had only been around 30 minutes since I¡¯d been knocked out of the tree. The sun had been below the horizon since before I was attacked, but dusk had settled in and was on its way out quickly. I figured I¡¯d gotten two or three hours of sleep at the most but as exhausted as I was, there was no way I was getting any sleep anytime soon. Just as I was wondering where to go, I noticed a slight glow in the treetops below the moon. A campfire or torch, most likely a campfire based on the fact that it wasn¡¯t moving. Linking up with humans seemed like a good choice right now, worst case scenario they were bandits and they either enslaved or killed me. I¡¯d rather be a slave or have my throat slit than to die at the hands of a wolf. The sounds of the rabbit¡¯s muscles being torn from its corpse would haunt my dreams for years to come. With a new goal in mind, I staggered toward the fire. Chapter 15 || Camp I consider myself to be a lot of things. I¡¯m a smartass, and occasionally a dumbass. I¡¯m smart, and I¡¯m dumb. But I¡¯m not an idiot. After escaping the wolf I was feeling particularly vulnerable and alone. I know I told myself I¡¯d rather be captured by bandits than rough it out alone for another night, but that wasn¡¯t really the case. It was just something I told myself to calm my nerves while approaching yet another unknown party in this godforsaken corner of the woods. That being said as I approached the fire I took time to do my due diligence, wanting to see before being seen and hear before being heart. The air in the surrounding woods near the fire I slowly trekked toward carried the scent of a cooking fire and fresh meat to me. For some reason I found this reassuring, the scent bringing to mind all the days I sat around the fire with visiting merchants telling stories or fires spent with the other kids of the village. It didn¡¯t smell like home, per say, but it definitely smelled safe. Still, there was a little alarm going off in the back of my head telling me things weren¡¯t quite what they seemed. The air on the back of my neck kind of stood up on its own and the layer of skin on my arms felt both numb and tingling, my mind going that special kind of light that made it feel like I was somehow squinting my ears. There was something wrong. As I got closer I heart laughing. It was loud and boisterous, deep and male. ¡®So not Brook then.¡¯ I don¡¯t know if I was excited or disappointed that it wasn¡¯t her, I hadn¡¯t quite figured out how to deal with the whole relationship mentally. The eerie feeling came back threefold, and I was paralyzed in confusion. It took me a minute to figure out why my mind was screaming ¡®danger, danger!¡¯ at me. The laughing was off. The laughter being carried through the trees to me, while faint, did not sound human. It was definitely humanoid, not canine or even like the harpies. It was just subtly wrong, wrong enough that I wasn¡¯t able to pick up on it until my subconscious made me stop moving and squint my ears. ¡®What do I do? What can I do?¡¯ Somewhere out there was a bat-wolf, one that probably only let me go to hunt me down later if all the playing during out first chase was any indication. You know what, there is no need to be such a xenophobe. I decided I would investigate the fire, gauge just what I was dealing with and then go from there. So that is what I did, I slowly crept up on the clearing doing my best to maintain stealth and silence. My spear was left stashed in thick brush a little bit of distance away and one of the boar tusk daggers was in my hand, in case someone popped out of nowhere. I took careful step after step, avoiding branches and crunchy autumn leaves, as I approached the campfire and the laughter. A couple times I stopped when there was a lull in the conversation at their camp, terrified that they¡¯d heard something and were listening for more. Even after the chatter and laughing picked back up I remained frozen for a second or two longer before continuing. By the time I made it to their campsite my calves were aflame from all the crouching and my heart was beating loud enough in my ears that I could scarcely hear them. Just a few more trees and a bush to traverse and I¡¯d have sight of them in the clearing they were camped in. I stalked forward that last few feet with what felt like minutes between each step before peeking out of the bush into the glade. With so much to take in, my mind decided it would shut down for a second before even attempting to register anything I was looking at. When it did decide to take things in, it did it a lot slower than it usually would and one thing at a time. The first thing I noticed was that this glade was much the same as the one I¡¯d ¡®lost¡¯ the wolf in. The grass that once stood here would have come up to my chest but had been cut away and/or trampled flat. All around the glade crude tents made of poorly cured animal furs were set up, ranging from deer pelts to wolves to many squirrels and rats sewn together, by the looks of it. Whoever lived here was most likely a nomadic people, I thought to myself. Next up the campfire came into my mind. It was large, much larger than any campfire I¡¯d seen. Were it not for the stakes of charring meat around the perimeter of the fire I would assume it a funeral pyre rather than a cook site. Bordering the fire on most sides were felled trees that the residents of the clearing used for seating. A fire hazard, no doubt, considering the size of the fire. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.?? Finally the humanoids in the clearing were processed. Their clothing looked much the way their tents did, a miss matched hodgepodge of various animal furs that covered almost nothing. When I say almost nothing I mean that, when seated, the creature¡¯s delicate parts were open for the world to see. As for the creatures themselves, they looked like they had definitely been human at some point in their distant ancestry. They had the whole two arm, two legs and a head thing going for them, but were probably at least a foot and a half shorter than me on average. Their skin was a mucous-y yellow and uneven, covered in large cysts looking like they were being scarcely contained by thin layers of skin. From what I could see at this distance, the majority of them had either no hair or just a small patch or two and beady eyes that were sunk into their skull a little too far. I watched as one of them waltzed up to the fire, his gait irregular and uncomfortable looking, just to reach out with fingers that were far too long and too thin for its body and rip off a hunk of meat from the animals being cooked. The morsel of flesh was unceremoniously shoved into the creature¡¯s mouth, allowing me a sight of a mouth full of long needle-like teeth and a triangular tongue that was too large for its mouth. A closer look around the fire showed that the nomads were primarily males and what few females that were located with the group were preoccupied. As disgusting as it was, I found it hard to peel my eyes away from the disaster that was their mating. First of all, the women were disgusting looking as well, their exposed breasts looking no less bulbous or pitted than the facial skin of the men. Because of the shortage of women, I noticed that there were at least 3 male nomads mating with each female, and that their fingers weren¡¯t the only appendage that were comically larger than their bodies should have. ¡®Fucking gross,¡¯ I thought to myself, gagging and averting my eyes. I did a quick head count and decided there were at least 30 of them there, the tents alluding to the fact that there were than I could see. I made a mental note to watch out for scouts or hunters when leaving, which was almost definitely what I was going to do. My stomach grumbled, telling me that I was judging them based too much on their appearances. I spent another minute there debating the pros and cons. Pro: Food smells really good, Con: I have no idea what they are eating. Pro: They seem like a really friendly people, at least with each other, Con: They might be¡­ overly friendly. Honestly I don¡¯t know how the decision would have gone had their leader not stepped out. The man was at least as tall as I was and his skin was less saggy and pitted looking, rather it was stretched over rippling muscles that were visible despite the leather straps of armor he was wearing. A loincloth covered his delicates and he wore no footwear, his clawed toenails and heavy frame leaving deep imprints as he walked closer to the fire. On his head he wore a headdress of a wolf that looked very different that the one I¡¯d seen not two hours ago, with larger eye sockets that were filled with what looked like small plates of metal, a dark blue and brown fur and two large canines that extended down half of the monster¡¯s face, covering his temples and terminating just past his ears. Most importantly was what the chieftain, as I¡¯d just decided to call him, was dragging. Behind him was a battered looking human corpse, completely naked and cut in a few places. The chieftain dragged it to the fire before grabbing one of the large stakes with no animal on it and skewering the corpse, from its throat to its cervix. The stake was then driven into the ground again and leaned closer to the fire to begin charring and cooking. The chieftain ripped off a hunk of flesh from another nearby stake, which I now recognized as a breast, and stalked back to his tent. This time I was unable to hold by the bile from rising through my throat, and almost didn¡¯t swallow it back in time. The mutant nomads were definitely not friendly and I was not sticking around. I turned around and started to head back to where my spear was stashed before a scream on the far side of the camp, near another fire, caught my attention. This one was also setting off alarms, but this time the alarms told me it was human. Chapter 16 || Hostage Alright, so let''s stop a minute and think about this. I have, already beaten bruised and exhausted, stumbled upon an encampment of crazed human deviants. Mutants. Even if I was in good shape, I am not a warrior or a hero. Even just the dozen or so of the green-skinned savages I could see currently could kill me on a good day, and that wasn¡¯t even mentioning all the additional tents or the one with canine headdress. I owed nothing to that scream, that disembodied voice. I probably wouldn¡¯t be able to save them and even if I could why would I risk it? All around the fire I could see bones and remains of several humans, now that I knew to look for them. These creatures were capable of either hunting down all these people, making them good trackers and hunters, or meeting them head to head and winning that skirmish. They would most likely catch him trying to sneak around, and they didn¡¯t take prisoners obviously, or track him and whoever their livestock was down if he managed to free them. If he just left now, there was a decent chance they''d never even know that he was there. Besides, that scream could have been one of them regardless of what the hair on the back of his neck was saying. I took two steps away from the camp just to hear another scream, from the same person. ¡®A human woman¡¯ my brain screamed at me, over and over. I didn¡¯t have much of a choice at this point. I willed up my interface to confirm I had enough mana for a spell or two and started making my way around the perimeter of the camp. The entire experience was nerve wracking. At any second a sentry could see me, or the wolf could come back for me, or I could even stumble upon someone out taking a piss. My spear, which I¡¯d gathered from the bush where it was stashed, was clenched so hard that I was losing feeling in my hand as I stalked around the camp.
congratulations, you¡¯ve unlocked a new skill. some would call you charming, others sketchy, and even more questionable. through practiced use you have managed to unlock [stealth], specifically the skill of [sneak].
I wasn¡¯t sure if it was possible for a non-living and non-speaking interface to whisper, but that was the distinct impression I¡¯d gotten from it. Naturally when the pop up appeared it scared the shit out of me and it was only due to my tendency to freeze and stop moving. I read the message twice before I really understood the implications, instantly pulling up the info about the skill.
Skill: Sneak Due to continuous proximity to hostile parties you have learned how to sneak from point to point. You are now able to better control your breathing, move more fluidly, and fidget less when not moving, so long as you attempting to sneak.
Even as I read it I knew that my breathing had become less erratic and I was more aware of my surroundings. I thought of the many times in the past that the skill would have come in handy, whether it was sneaking out of the house or swiping something from my parents room. Even so recently as trying to hide from the wolf in the glade. The more I thought about it the more I realized how lucky I was to unlock the skill. Each step I took felt more graceful and although it could have just been my mind playing tricks, I felt like I was breaking less twigs and crackling less leaves. With my new serendipitous skill, I was able to make better time around the encampment there where I¡¯d heard the noise, only having to stop twice to wait for a sentry to look another way. Whatever the deviants were, they were not exactly vigilant or intelligent, so he was able to make it over without any hassle. Of course that was only the first part of what he had to do. The area where the captive was being held was darker than around the campfire, lit only by a few torches, and was tucked away between a few tents. There were less dwellings here and only a single guard, nearest I could tell, standing on ground that was soaked in blood and various viscera. From what I could see squinting into the clearing, there was only a single living human there. ¡®Brook!¡¯ It was hard to see right away due to the various bruises and the lighting, but I was almost sure that it was Brook who was tied up to the post in front of the guard. Looking around I could see Sophie tied up and curled into a ball not too far away as well, confirming to me that it was in fact the woman who had betrayed me, robbed me blind, and then dumped me in the forest. Okay, so Brook might be a total traitor, not worth even a little bit of my sympathy, but she was also a human just like me. Also there was Sophie. Sophie saved my life at the risk of her own the first time she found me but wandered off with Brook when she robbed me. Even after I saved her from the harpy. I decided then and there I would do my best to rescue the ungrateful bitch¡­ and my dog. I was still very injured and exhausted so I was going to have to be very careful here. I mentally queried my mana levels and saw that I was almost topped off so I started planning my surgical strike. Step one was to gather more information, obviously. I had no idea if there were more guards around where I couldn¡¯t see them or a patrol or if Brook and Sophie would even be capable of walking. I did a couple of very slow rounds around the area where Brook was fastened to the post and was unable to detect any sentries, ignoring my creaking and screaming leg muscles as I carefully employed my new sneaking skills. That wasn¡¯t to say there weren¡¯t any there but if they were there, I didn¡¯t see them. That didn¡¯t exactly give me the warm and fuzzies if I¡¯m being honest. Now that I was sure of my escape plan (See: Run like hell into the woods and hope there aren¡¯t any super ninja mutants waiting to ambush) I started gathering insight on my ex-companion¡¯s situation. Since my painstakingly slow FOVwalk, that is my walk to check the field of vision into the clearing, not much had changed. Brook was tied to an eight-foot post with her hands above her head. Her clothing was conspicuously torn and tattered in most places and she had scabbed cuts along her legs and arms, as well as a few blood smears on her face and stomach. Whatever she¡¯d been going through here, it hadn¡¯t been pleasant. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. As I watched, the single guard watching over her sauntered over toward where she was constrained. Along the way he passed by Sophie who growled before being struck with the boot of the spear the mutant was armed with. He spat on the dog¡¯s head and kept up his slow walk toward Brook, who began whining under her breath. It was obvious she was trying not to give the creature satisfaction but was unable to completely silence her fear. The guard himself was at least two heads shorter than I was, with the same mottled green skin as his savage companions. He walked with a severely hunched back and his head seemed to list to the left a bit, with one eye significantly larger than the other. If he decided it was time to kill and cook Brook I would probably be able to take him, but that was a last ditch option. There was almost no way I¡¯d be able to approach and take him out fast enough to prevent him from crying out or killing Brook in retaliation. The mutant slowed as he stood in front of Brook, who was doing her best to make herself seem small and was looking anywhere other than at the guard. I realized then that the scratches along her legs had probably come from the wicked looking nails on the guard, so long and sharp that they may as well have been claws. I imagined one clawing along her thigh as she kicked out at her captors and cringed, even if we got away from here there was a decent chance those were going to get infected. The guard reached his gnarled hand up to Brook¡¯s face and ran a finger nail down the side of her face, pushing away the hair that been obscuring her face. When she didn¡¯t react by looking down at him he slapped her across her face before grabbing her jaw and turning it toward his face. Tears streamed down her face, washing away a small amount of grime while simultaneously not clearing much at all. The bright red mark on her cheek further highlighted her bloodshot eyes, which lifted to stair defiantly at the guard. The creature snarled back into Brook¡¯s glare, expecting her to back down. Even with tears streaming down at her face however, she didn¡¯t back down. In fact, she spat a glob of spit and blood right on the mutant¡¯s forehead. I saw the grip on his spear and prepared myself to come charging in, consequences be damned. She may have fucked me over, but it isn¡¯t like she¡¯d owed me much anyways. Besides, I was a better person than her. Instead of stabbing her like I¡¯d assumed he was going to do, however, he smirked before caressing the inside of her ankle with his spearhead. Brook tensed up as the spearhead migrated north, trailing along the skin of her inner thigh before arriving right below her ladyhood. The creature jabbed the spearhead forward into the post, not drawing blood but drawing an indignant yelp and causing Brook to break eye contact at last. The smirk on the creature widened as all of its teeth were exposed, gleaming in the low lighting of the torch. He leaned in on his staff a little harder, encroaching on Brook¡¯s personal space, if she could be considered as having any at this point. The pointed teeth parted as the mutant¡¯s tongue slipped out to lick the blood and spit off its forehead. Note to self: I now have a phobia of creatures with tongues longer than their heads are large, it¡¯s fucking creepy. The creature finished up by running its tongue along Brook¡¯s cheek, lapping up her tears before removing its spear and swaggering away while cackling. Had I not already made my decision to try and help, this scene would have convinced me. As it was, my resolve was hardened and I elected to act now. I didn¡¯t know if the next guard would be stronger or crueler, but this one looked weak enough to take down. I left my spear along my intended path of escape and readied my two boar-tusk ¡°daggers¡±. I wasn¡¯t sure if my spear would be sharp enough to pierce its hide or accurate enough to take the creature down in the dark. Getting up close and dirty with my new skill and knives was a safer bet, and part of me wanted to see the light leave this torturous wretch¡¯s eyes. I white knuckled my daggers as I slowly crouch-walked through the brush, getting as close to the clearing as I dared while I watched the guard patrol. During its rounds I noticed it had an almost predictable route and would eventually walk toward me to gaze out into the dark woods. I wasn¡¯t sure how good the mutant¡¯s eyesight was but considering that its eyes were still mostly human looking, it couldn¡¯t have great night vision after standing by the torches for so long. As predicted, the guard began to patrol in my direction about 5 minutes later. I say 5 minutes, but it felt more like a lifetime. Every muscle in my body screamed at me to move. Adjust, sit down, stretch, anything but maintain the stoic position I found myself in. Turns out I was a lot better at spotting patterns than I realized. Not only was the guard coming in my direction, but he was making directly for me. Literally a straight line. My monkey-brain screamed at me that I had been spotted, and the guard was casually walking in my direction as to not raise my alert. That is what I would have done in its position at least, walk close calmly before striking out with my spear. But although I the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up, something else kept me from moving. A silent voice in the back of my head, voicelessly saying I hadn¡¯t been noticed but would be if I moved even an inch. It screamed louder than the voice telling me to run but was inaudible. I had no idea why I felt absolutely sure that I hadn¡¯t been spotted, but I was sure none-the-less so I didn¡¯t move. The mutant stopped not even three feet from where I was crouched within the bush and I tensed, somehow. My muscles had been so tight for the last five minutes so I hadn¡¯t thought it possible to clench them further, but I did so while preparing to block a spear. My silent passenger told me that I¡¯d gone unnoticed so far, but I didn¡¯t entirely trust it while at the same time trusting it entirely. Conflicting emotions aside, I hadn¡¯t been stabbed yet so I got ready to strike out. As soon as the guard turned to walk away, evidently not having seen me, I silently cast my go-to spell [Entangling Roots]. Vine like branches shot out from the overgrown hedge I¡¯d been crouched within to constrict the mutant¡¯s mouth while roots sprung out of the ground to ensnare both of the hunchback¡¯s ankles. Before I even finished casting I moved along with the vines I was already in motion, flying out of the bush with a burst of speed that matched the bloodthirsty vines. My first tusk passed around the guard¡¯s shoulder and stabbed into the left side of his neck before being dragged to the right, tearing open the throat rather than cutting due to a lack of a cutting edge. My left hand was already flying around the creatures other shoulder to lodge itself in his oversized right eye. All in all the creature didn¡¯t even have a second to register its fate before passing away from my twin daggers. Any onlookers, had they noticed me, would think I was giving him a hug from behind. I moved to drag the body out of sight as I removed the tusks from their flesh sheath only to find that the roots were already retracting and pulling the mutant along with them. I followed the dragged corpse back into the bush and checked its pockets, yielding me a small dagger of questionable quality and a few... Oh gross. I dropped the burnt toes back to the ground and turned to leave the bush. I scooped up the guard¡¯s spear and hunched over as I walked back toward Sophie and Brook, doing my best to match the silhouette the guard would have cast for onlookers to see. No alarms had been raised so far. I knocked on the wooden haft of my spear and approached the woman who left me for dead, ready to save her life. Chapter 17 || Rescue mission Slowly I made my way towards where Brook was secured, walking with a shambling gait as like the deceased guard as I could, as not to raise any alarms from any casual onlookers. From where she was huddled on the ground, Sophie looked up towards me and started whimpering quietly. Large patches of the dog¡¯s fur had been ripped out and she was even missing an ear. I restrained my rage and kept walking towards Brook, slowing only to slice through the rope holding Sophie down with the dagger I¡¯d looted. Sophie did not instantly stand up but choose to follow me with her glazed eyes as I walked toward Brook. She too started whimpering as I approached, having apparently missed the entire scene where I slayed her captor. As she cringed and pushed her face as far into her shoulder as she could I took stock of her situation as well. Her clothes had been mostly shorn off, revealing a lot of skin that I hadn¡¯t seen before. Usually, seeing a beautiful girl in little-to-no clothes would excite me a little, but Brook looked so pathetic that I felt no reaction apart from pity. That would be the usual reaction, I would hope. Her arms were both suspended above her head, tied to a large post that had been driven into the ground, and her body was covered in scrapes and small cuts that had clotted. Beneath the later of what I hoped was mud that had been smeared on her, I could see that she had also been heavily bruised. ¡°Brook. Shh, Brook it¡¯s me. I¡¯m going to get you out of here. Can you walk?¡± As I spoke, the terrified girl lifted her head to look in my direction. Tears started to fill her eyes and she slowly nodded her head in the affirmative. In order to reach where her hands had been tied off, I was going to have to get on my tippy-toes and lean against the pole to saw away at the knot as it as just out of reach. ¡°Sorry,¡± I muttered as I leaned against her. I braced my left hand against the pole, which caused me to be touching the right side of her chest and raised the dagger in my right hand to start sawing away at the thick rope that fastened her to the pole. The angle that I was attempting to cut the rope at, along with its substantial girth, made it very awkward to get through it in a reasonable amount of time. When combined with the fact that I was trying to do this stealthily as to not arouse the attention of the distant guards, it made for a very annoying task I continued hacking away at the rope while at the same time trying to ignore Brook¡¯s breathy whimpering, caused by my left hand continuously brushing against her in rhythm with the sawing. Logically, I knew I was probably rubbing up against a bruise or cut and she was whimpering in pain, but another part of me told me that the enticing moans were for another reason, one that made literally no sense in the current context. I knew that I wasn¡¯t over Brook, but I didn¡¯t think that I was infatuated to this level. ¡®No time for that,¡¯ I shook my head and started sawing more vigorously while I tuned out all external stimuli. I couldn¡¯t afford to be inattentive while inside of enemy territory, I had a prison break to execute. Finally, I managed to slice open the bindings that kept her tethered to the post. In my state of distraction, I didn¡¯t think to catch her as she fell and watched her, and she descended while listening for any shouts of alarm. Instead she landed on her bruised and battered ankles and let out a yelp of pain, one she¡¯d tried and failed to muffle. That one, singular yelp sounded like a million screams in my ears. ¡°Who!¡± One of the sentries detoured from his station to investigate the noise. As he slowly approached, I prepared to lash out and kill him before he could raise the alarm even more. I kept my back facing him as his footsteps slowly approached, and slowly rolled my shoulders. In front of me, Brook was trembling and shrinking against the pole behind her, trying to fuse herself into the background and supporting herself at the same time. The terror in her eyes only made me even more motivated to save her Step by step the sentry slowly exited their campsite to approach the prisoner ground, slowly encroaching into my strike range. I knew that I had to do this as swiftly as possible and had to minimize the time the creature would have to shout for help. ¡°Ger¡¯rld, why you untie!¡± It was not a question so much as a demand. Even amongst this scum, the guard that I¡¯d slain seemed to have low standing. That or the one guard close enough to come investigate just happened to hate the poor decrepit creature. Either way I had no intention of answering. Swiftly, I pivoted on my feet and thrust out with the spear I¡¯d looted from the dead guard, catching the new arrival square in the middle of his throat. The poor guard¡¯s eyes bulged to the point that they looked like they¡¯d burst out as he dropped his weapon and grasped for his throat. ¡®Fat luck stemming that blood flow with your greasy fingers¡¯ I thought to myself, lacking all pity for those I¡¯d seen eating humans by their bonfire. The guard collapsed to the ground dead or dying. From him, I took his weapon of a rusted machete like blade which I passed over to Brook. As injured as she was, it was better for her to arm herself. ¡°Lucas... ¡°She started tearing up as she stared at the blade now resting in her hands, ¡°I¡­¡± Somehow I knew the tears welling up in her eyes had nothing to do with the pain or physical condition she was in. No amount of tears was going to mend the problems between us right away though, and we were in a bit of a situation that required all our attention. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°No time, Brook. We need to get out of here right away.¡± My eyes were anywhere but on her, using the excuse of remaining vigilant to avoid meeting her eyes. What I said wasn''t incorrect. Although it was currently silent, that didn¡¯t mean that their sentries didn¡¯t have to periodically check in. Any second now an alarm could go up and as easy as these things were to kill, they could easily overwhelm us just based on their numbers. ¡°Mm.¡± she nodded her head before hesitating. ¡°Lucas, they have something nearby. I¡¯m sure you figured it out by now, but I returned to my family when I left you. There was something I had to retrieve, something for you. I thought I could trade your sword for it, but by the time I arrived my fa¡­ the camp had been raided by these mutants. They captured or killed everyone and snatched me up before I could flee.¡± Beneath her voice I could still here a faint whimpering, either from pain or the sadness caused by talking about her deceased family. ¡°What could have possibly been so important that you drugged me and left me behind.¡± I hissed under my breath, far more aggressive than I¡¯d intended but still less aggressive than she deserved. In my anger I brushed over the fact that her family was supposed to have been killed in a bandit attack and even the fact that she¡¯d said they were merchants. Why would merchants have a camp rather than a caravan? ¡°Never mind that, it doesn¡¯t matter. Let¡¯s get out of here with our lives for now. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve realized what they do with their prisoners by now.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a spellbook, Lucas. I don¡¯t know what kind of spell it is because none of us knew magic, but it¡¯s definitely magic. I wanted to help you become a wizard¡­¡± She trailed off while staring at my face, silently pleading with me to just look at her again. I could feel her gaze boring holes in the side of my head but couldn¡¯t bring myself to look at her right now. I was afraid, afraid I¡¯d forgive her instantly. She didn¡¯t deserve forgiveness. After what she¡¯d done to me, I¡¯d almost died, and for what? A book she couldn¡¯t read, a book that may not even exist. Even if she wanted to trade the sword for the book, she could have asked me first, or even brought me along. But the sound of her voice and her pitiful condition continuously tugged at my heartstrings. I was weak when it came to people in need, this was something I was discovering. ¡°They have your sword too; all of their loot is stored just over there in that tent. You¡¯ve even killed the guard in charge of guarding it.¡± I looked down at Brook long enough to follow her eyes over to the tent. Truly, it wasn¡¯t too far away, and I couldn¡¯t see any guards in front of the entrance flap. The sword was good but not worth risking my life, but that spellbook¡­ Spell pages were condensed versions of spells, extremely simple and relatively ¡®easy¡¯ to learn if you had the gift for magic. Each of them had a limited ability to teach mage-hopefuls the spell after creation, the naturally generated pages existing afterwards for channeled costs and the mage crafted versions disintegrating. But spellbooks were different. A spellbook didn¡¯t necessarily contain a spell all the time but was a tome of magical knowledge. From what I¡¯d heard, the mage guilds would be willing to burn down a small village just to obtain another spellbook for their libraries. This was because the spellbook could be read and studied an unlimited number of times. Any mage could learn the spell or knowledge embedded in those pages, limited only by their acumen and talent. A spellbook was worth hundreds of lives, and there was one right there, if Brook was telling the truth that is. When I didn¡¯t instantly respond, Brook continued. ¡°You can stay here, Lucas, and I will sneak in and grab it. You¡¯ve already saved my life multiple times, and I owe you this much. It¡¯s the least I can do.¡± I opened my mouth to tell her not to risk her life, but no words came out. I never thought of myself as a greedy man, but my inner demons were screaming that she was right. She did owe me her life, and she owed me a debt for almost killing me as well. If she didn¡¯t bring back a spellbook for me, how could I ever believe that was the reason she¡¯d left me high and dry? I closed my mouth and look down her eyes, resolute in my decision. With a slight nod I whispered out what was likely a death sentence for both of us, should she be caught. ¡°You sneak in, but I won¡¯t stay here. I am going to get close with you, in case something goes wrong.¡± I knew it was risky. I knew that we should just get out with our lives while we could, and that if anything went wrong there was little-to-no chance of us both making it out alive. But at this point I felt I really didn¡¯t have a choice. Either she recovered the so-called spellbook and proved to me that she didn¡¯t betray me (maybe), or she came out empty handed and proved she was talking through her teeth. If what she said was within that tent actually existed, I would be willing to spend an entire week out in the wilderness for it in exchange. Everything else that had happened since she left me, as well as her motives, could all be hashed out and dealt with later. This was a windfall that I wasn¡¯t willing to miss, who was I to turn down fortuitous events when they presented themselves on a silver platter? Great gain required great risk She crouched toward the loot tent with her rusted machete in hand while I slowly crept up behind her, spear at the ready. We were only going to have one chance at this, so we needed to do it right. I wanted what was within that tent and Brook wanted to repay me as her savior. One could even say I was granting her the chance to avenge her family to a certain point, stealing valuables from under the nose of their killers. My thoughts continued along this line, desperately justifying the risk to myself.