William’s exploration ended...dully. No shiny loot, dangerous foes, unique plants or herbs to gather, or dungeons to explore. He could only summarize his mood as disappointed. Three hours had been wasted. The only value gained was from the time to think with no distractions. He thought back to his fight with the last group of bandits. They were weak compared to him, but he hated that he couldn’t tell if it was due to his ability, or their lack of ability that made the fight so skewed in his favour. Not long after giving up the exploration plan, he sat atop a large log, lost in thought. It would look like folly to most, being distracted while in potentially dangerous woodland, but he had [Danger Sense] so he felt that his situation allowed him to be less concerned about ambushes and the like.
He turned to happier thoughts, like his new Recall rune. He really wanted to try it, but needed a test subject. He considered the mini armory he had just acquired and pulled out the sword that his first prey had. He could tell it was a mundane sword from a brief glance, indicating that enchanting it shouldn’t be hard. He placed the sword down onto the log beside his perch and left it sheathed. He intended to enchant the hilt, as doing the enchanting on the blade gave him the mental image of William impaling himself on his own recalled sword. That would be a bad day.
He began his work and within a few minutes, the work was completed. He felt the EXP gain was disappointingly marginal, but it still seemed to give him a fair chunk. He figured that the level threshold or whatever it was, was lower meaning the nerfed EXP gain would still give a higher percentage for William's Enchanter class. He had a feeling that one full day of enchanting would get him to level nine in the class. William doubted that he could reach level ten before the assault, unfortunately.
William put his tools away and stretched, loosening his muscles in the process. Being sat in the position he had been in was nothing less than bad posture. He assessed his work and smiled. The engraving was clean and the Mana flowing through the rune was unobstructed. It was then time for his first test.
With a strong fling, the blade careened into the shrubbery a few feet away. William then willed the rune to activate. He was completely startled as the blade zipped towards him at high speed, giving nary a single fuck for the bushes that separated sword and enchanter. He dove out of the way on impulse as the hilt nearly planted itself in his face. The blade weapon seemed to have a mind of its own however as it curved in mid-air, circling to fly at him once again. William resigned himself to some pain as he extended his hand for the flying sword. He was overjoyed when the hilt flew gracefully into his grasp and he let out a massive grin.
The next hour was, from his point of view, the second worthwhile event of the day, with the first being the fight with the Alpha. He had worked out the kinks of his new enchantment, and the effects were significant. He could activate and deactivate the enchantment at will form a maximum of sixty feet. He doubted that he was at the strength required to make such a long throw. He tested the range by walking away form the blade and then activating it. The activation and deactivation were both instant and he could switch between the two states as if he had a mental toggle for the rune. He spent another few minutes engraving one of the spears he had acquired. He didn’t want to try it on his personal kit yet, not until he had done the enchantment successfully a few more times, but the prospects for the future were exciting to William. He imagined finding a way to engrave his six Mythril daggers. He had a mental picture of throwing the weapons either at enemies, or into the vicinity near to them, and using Recall to create an array of flying blades. He had one major obstacle to the fantasy, however, as Mythril was hard to enchant well.
“Hard, but not impossible,” William said, lost in his imagination. He decided to end the experiments for the day, it was getting close to evening time and he felt that it was about time to head home. The trip back was quite frankly, boring. No Lynxes, no Fell-kin, no bandits. Just quiet chirping of birds in the canopy. The sky was filled with warm oranges and purples by the time he got back to Greenwell. He was greeted with waves from a few people, and hugs and kisses from his girls. He enjoyed the experience for a pregnant moment before he spotted Jane approaching.
Stacey and Armine wrapped themselves around his arms, prompting an eye roll from Jane, forcing William to stifle a laugh.
“Thanks, William. I know you and the Duncans don’t exactly get along, but you did the right thing. The good news is that the three are unharmed. These bandits don’t all seem as barbaric as we believed,” His sister said, hopefulness plastered atop her tone.
Unharmed. “Why?” He asked himself. Every encounter with bandits had given him a clear picture of their foe. He thought back to the rescue, and as he came to think about it, they didn’t seem any worse for where.
“Unharmed. Hmm,” William muttered, unintentionally revealing his musings.
Jane grew concerned and replied quietly, “I know they rub you the wrong way, but hurting them won’t do you any good.”
That was not what he had expected to hear her say. There was a potential problem for Greenwell as a whole, and Jane seemed to have misinterpreted his words. Should he voice the concern? He decided against it. He wouldn’t tell anyone for now, and would try to keep an eye on the family. He didn’t want to risk revealing the concern as it would cause unnecessary suspicion and awkwardness before the battle. Fortunately, he felt like he had a means to keep them inside Greenwell, just in case his fear was confirmed.
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“I need to speak to Wallace about some things, so I’ll leave you lovely ladies...and Jane to it,” He said, throwing a cheeky grin at Jane.
His sister just gave him a crude middle finger. He unwrapped the girls from his arms, already missing the warmth, but he had stuff to do. He searched for a few minutes until he Found the older man. Wallace was alone by the well, lost in thought. The veteran snapped from his thoughts back to reality as he saw William enter his periphery.
“I heard about what happened, Lad. You did good, even if you don’t necessarily feel that way,” Wallace said, giving William a knowing look.
“It’s done now, but I think they shouldn’t leave again until the bandits are dead. They don’t need to make themselves even bigger liabilities.”
The older man nodded sagely, and stretched, loosening himself up from what William assumed was a good while of sitting in the same position.
Wallace considered something for a moment, but seemed to just shrug and speak up once more, “Lad, it’s looking like we’ll still have a weak spot in the walls during the assault. Noctis has said that he can make most of the reinforcement work complete in the shorter time frame, but couldn’t say where exactly they would be in the process when the assault happens. Are you willing to stay around that spot with John, Stacey, and Jane during the assault?”
William considered it for a moment, the idea was reasonable, but he had already considered another option, “If they manage to breach any area, I intend to be in the center of Greenwell. That way, I can immediately get to it, regardless of where the breach is. I’ll do that alone, and would prefer the others to join the four person squad and support everyone else.”
“I also don’t want anyone to slow me down, or require my rescuing.” William mentally added, obfuscating that part to prevent any headaches.
Wallace thought on the idea for a couple of minutes, once again, deep in thought.
“Okay, Lad. If you think it’s something within your ability, then we can go with that plan. I also have final numbers of our non-combatants. Armine, Devlin, Frenn, Noctis, both of your parents, and to no one’s surprise, the Duncans. The Duncans and your parents have agreed to support the defense with pails of water and such as a fire fighting method. I have a feeling the bandit’s will be using fire if what we know from Devlin and co is true.”
William frowned at the report. He expected all of those except his father. He kind of expected his father to fight too, but maybe he wanted to defend mother. That did make sense. With his suspicions of the Duncans, he was relieved that someone would at minimum make the defenders aware if something went wrong, and at best, drop the Duncans like a sack of shit if needed. He much preferred the second mental image.
“Fighting fires is a good way to help without entering combat, but if possible can you keep them nearer to the center of Greenwell? I wanna be nearby in case things go wrong,” Wallace said, his true intentions being to keep the Duncans in check.
He also felt that the defenders using [Mana-ward] would prevent most fire around the perimeter, and expected any stray fire attacks to go over the defenders into the center of Greenwell anyway. This method ticked all the boxes he wanted.
Wallace agreed with the plan after a moment of thought. He looked out towards the spot where Noctis and team were erecting the palisade supports and spoke up once more, “I think we’ll be in good shape. If the numbers we were going from are true, the bandits you took out earlier would reduce their number to even less than the number of fighters we have.”
It made sense, yet William felt that the event would end if that was the case as taking over a defended point with fewer men than the defenders required a stupendous amount of work and skill, something he couldn't see the bandits managing with such little information on Greenwell. Why did he have a bad feeling then?
“I feel like the numbers may have been true before, but if the event hasn’t ended, I’d guess the bandits probably grew their numbers. My work so far has probably made the attack harder, but I would still expect us to be outnumbered. Even NPC logic isn’t bad enough for them to attack in folly,” William said, some concern evident.
“NPC?” Wallace asked, confusion present on his face.
“Gaming reference, don’t worry. Either way, I believe our...special operation will help our chances much further. I’ll take John with me as I imagine you’ve stuff to sort here, and I don’t want to put Stacey in harms way unnecessarily. Purely selfish, but it’s what I want. I also want to go with John on a few trips into the Sylvar Woodlands – that’s the woods we’re logging by the way – mainly to improve our teamwork for the plan. I wanna make sure we work together smoothly as a duo,” William said, considering the best way to work with John for the sabotage mission.
“Ah, caught feelings for the lass eh?” The ol’ codger teased.
“Of course, She’s great. Understanding, kind, and beautiful, it's a no brainer as to why I want her in my life,” William replied, blushing towards the end of his statement.
“Ah to be young again. I get it though, My old lady before she departed would always wait for me while I toured, and I was always thankful that she never had to see the hells I witnessed, and participated in. I think hanging out with someone of a similar age to you will do you good too, Lad.”
William couldn’t help but be a little bit surprised at the response the old man gave. It did make a lot of sense though, come to think about it. Experience trumped all, so William took the words on board. His stomach rumbled then, breaking him from thought and pulled out some dried meat to nibble on until the evening meal.
“I’ll leave you to your thoughts, Boss man,” William said, a playful grin present on his face, prompting a good laugh from Wallace. With that, he went to relax in his shed for a bit, wanting to think about how to implement the new Recall enchantment to the best effect.