It didn’t take William long to find Devlin. The man had been near one of the more damaged huts with Frenn. The two seemed to be inspecting the support beams and talking between themselves. It was the perfect time for an interruption.
“Hey guys, I need some info if you’ve got time?” William said, as he approached, also eyeing the support beams that were made of some dark type of wood.
The two turned, surprise flashing on their face having not expected his approach but the expressions shifted to recognition as they saw William.
Frenn spoke first, “Afternoon William, We’re trying to figure out what the two of us can do to get satisfactory repairs on the more damaged buildings. Our ability is slightly limited given that neither of us are builders.”
Devlin hopped into the conversation immediately after Frenn with a tired face as he said, “What my ever so intellectual brother means is that we can do repairs, as I know a few carpenter’s tricks for these sort of jobs and though it pains me to admit it, Frenn as a thatcher of his level can work the thatch roof to cover the small holes in it.”
“An expert with wood to match the hardness of your head Dev,” Frenn shot back, some challenge in his eyes.
William found the repair stuff only marginally interesting, and was more fascinated with the brotherly bickering. He couldn’t let himself get distracted though and mentally slapped himself to get the conversation onto his topic.
“Well, I’m sure you both know what you’re doing, but I actually had some questions about Everglade if you didn’t mind answering?” William said, hoping the pair wouldn’t descend into their infighting again.
He was lucky as the two brothers shared a look of interest as Devlin replied, “Ah so you picked that one for your first trip. It’s a good choice. The people there have long dealt with roaming bandits and highwaymen so with the recording that Elf put out, you’ll probably get some fanfare, provided he wasn’t bullshitting of course.”
“Bullshitting? That’s an Earth saying!” William thought, more curious now about that little titbit of info.
“Hold on Dev, I’m gonna use that if you don’t mind as its faster than your full name. Where did that term ‘bullshitting’ come from?”
Devlin frowned briefly when William used the shortened version of his name but shrugged after a moment, seeming to be over it.
The man thought briefly on William’s question before answering, “It was a term coined by a warrior from about a decade ago who fought in the battle of Mistvein. He died fighting a horde of Fell-kin. The term was an apparent favourite. He was also an integrated like you now I come to think of it.”
William’s eyes widened in surprise at the revelation. His group weren’t the first from Earth to arrive on GAEA after all. William, fortunately, stopped himself falling down that rabbit hole. It wasn’t relevant. Not yet.
“Thanks for that Dev, what else can you both tell me about Everglade?” William asked, partially curious if asking them both at the same time would lead the two to bicker again.
Devlin looked thoughtful for a couple moments before he replied, “The people there raise various animals such as Green-Bees for honey, Rellzin for transport, and Wyrdlings for personal familiars.”
Frenn nodded sagely then added, “They also respect strength, so showing up as you are now will do wonders for you.”
“So these people are a warrior type then? Given their respect for strength?” William asked, excitement showing in his tone.
The brothers looked at each other and laughed, their mirth honest and true. William was confused by the outburst and waited for the two to collect themselves. About a minute passed as William had taken a seat on the ground waiting for the bicker brothers, his new name for the two as a collective now to calm down.
Devlin’s amused voice broke the laughter as he said, “Sorry William, it’s just, they are the polar opposite. They’re not strong in the slightest and rely on the creatures they raise and their natural fortifications to stay safe. They’re as pacifist as they come.”
William’s brows furrowed, triggering a few beads of sweat to run down his face as consequence for sitting still in the early afternoon heat.
“Then how do they respect strength? I don’t get it,” William said, wiping the accumulated sweat from his head, marking his sleeve with a wet patch.
“Because nature is the strongest force on GAEA and they respect that. As such, anyone that isn’t devious or deceitful and strong in some way is worthy of great respect. I get it, they’re rather weird, but thinking about it, they would be an outstanding trading partner,” Frenn said, having calmed himself down.
“You guys think we have anything to offer them that they don’t already have?”
The two brothers looked around at Greenwell, coming to the same conclusion as William, both appearing to look slightly sheepish.
William shrugged and stretched his limbs out as he said, “It’s fine, maybe they need something sorted or killed. I’ll figure it out as I go. Two more questions. One: Are there any weird customs we need to follow in Everglade? Two: Any dangerous creatures on the way to the town?”
Frenn spoke first, “No weird rituals or customs or the like, just don’t be a bastard to people.”
“Easy enough. Dev?”
“Nothing too noteworthy. Maybe the odd Burrower, a small and scaled creature with sharp claws for digging or, burrowing I guess. Oh, also the odd flock of Fluster Gulls. Those are birds that are maybe the size of your hand who swarm people with numbers and knock them unconscious. Then they eat them. Some people have woken up partway through being eaten only to suffer briefly before being made unconscious again, never to wake up.”
William let out a sigh as he replied, “Lovely, so just a couple nasty critters then,” Sarcasm dripping on his tone.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
He did look forward to finding new monsters to fight. If he was lucky, then he could use it to get the others some nice power levelling. William couldn’t think of much more to ask other than some questions that would probably be best left to the people living in Everglade. With nothing else to ask, he left the bicker brothers to do what they seemed to excel at; bicker.
With his questions asked, there wasn’t too much to do. William decided to put his time to the best use he could and decided to try for his third sword-form. Taking the time to lay out the magical bed, he pulled out the book of sword-forms from his spatial ring. William lay down on the bed and immediately paused to take in the comfort. The bed was arguably the best thing he found in GAEA so far.
William woke up, realizing that he had fell asleep as he saw the book of sword forms on the bed beside him. He quickly peeked his head out of the shed and looked to the sky, finding that the sun had moved onward, maybe an hour or two passing as he slept, leaving only a few hours until evening. William slapped himself with both his hands telling himself to get his shit together. As his cheeks stung from the impact, he picked up the book and opened it, letting the world take him into darkness.
William found himself in the same training hall as the two previous visions. This time though, several individuals dressed in the same garb as the master who had been in the previous visions were present. Three such people stood in a line, bows drawn and aimed for the same master as the previous visions. The master held his training sword in a two hand grip, legs limber almost padding like a cat, feet facing towards the bowmen. William had noticed that the sword-forms so far had been themed around water and storms. It was a trait that, William guessed through his level of insight into the art, flowed in the master’s technique. He seemed weightless, still, but ready to become the tempest in an instant.
William watched for what felt like an eternity but had only actually been a few seconds when suddenly, the bowmen loosed their arrows. William had expected the master to do some sweeping slash to destroy the three arrows but what the man actually did was even more astonishing.
The master moved forward as the first arrow left it’s owners grip, a wave roaring towards a coastline. As the two other arrows followed, the master pivoted on his left heel, spinning, his sword coming out from the spin and slashing cleanly through the arrow. The master wasn’t done their however, as he crossed his right leg over, shifting the momentum to his other side, reversing the spin and with a clean upward slash, sliced a second arrow in half, as the third zipped past the spot he had just been stood in. He continued his advance that way, dodging and destroying arrows with ever increasing speed, his momentum never stopping, only growing, a wave of unstoppable momentum descending to engulf anything before its path of sheer force.
With a few more repeats of the technique, the master was upon them, sweeping their legs out with his training sword. Man and bow were both briefly airborne before crashing back down to earth. William couldn't help but be awestruck at the display. It was beautiful, and powerful the kind of momentum generated would probably kill most humans by earth standard. With his ever growing shift to dexterity, the technique could reach a scary potential. William found himself drawn to it and as he watched the scene repeat a few times, he started to mimic the steps which, to his delight were easier to pickup as they were only slight shifts to the footwork of the other two forms he knew. He also had an odd intuition that the footwork was what made the technique truly shine as with William’s stats, hitting an arrow with his sword should be easy enough, easier with what he already knew of the Arcane Sword art, let alone what he could potentially gain from this.
William awoke once more in the real world, some desperation creeping through him, wanting to go back and see it again. When he closed his eyes, he could see the essence and outlines of the technique and the scene as a whole, but not in as vivid clarity. With begrudging acceptance, William got out of the bed. He would just have to train from now until they were on the way to Everglade.
Two days passed, with nothing truly exciting happening during them. William had spent much of it training, trying to nail the new sword-form. The practice focused mostly on footwork, which William had got down for the most part, with a few small parts of the technique escaping him. The difficulty he had was in the shifting of momentum. He was maybe doing it two out of five times successfully, with only one of those successful ones flowing into the next. He had done it three times consecutively in one attempt, but only once. He knew that it would be tougher than the previous forms at that point, but William was nothing if not stubborn. One of the days was more painful than the other as he had come up with the truly brilliant decision to have Jane, John, and Stacey throw rocks at him as he tried to dodge and deflect them with a shitty sword they had spare from the bandit loot.
The endeavor had been painful to say the least, with John and Jane finding the process incredibly amusing, and Stacey saying sorry after every throw. William had from what he could tell, was a sixty or so percent success rate at the effort. He could’ve easily dodged the normal way, but that wouldn’t give him any help to succeed. The next day, John and Jane had been eager to help him with his training, but he had in no less than the highest of eloquence, told them to go get fucked, again, in the nicest way possible.
Now they were at the gate of Greenwell, geared up and ready to set off. Wallace and Mary were both stood opposite William and his party to see the group off.
“William, Jane, look after each other and get back quickly. Please have a safe trip my darlings,” William’s mother said, pulling him and Jane into a tight embrace.
“We will, Mum. You stay safe and keep up the training, okay?” William said warmly, enjoying the embrace.
“I’ll make sure William doesn’t do anything too stupid,” Jane said, chiming in, prompting a poke in her ribs from William.
Their mother let the pair go and shook her head with a warm smile.
“Honestly, you two are a nightmare.”
The pair put on faux faces of affront at that, clocking each other doing the same thing, prompting William to get back on track as he knew that the back and forth here was pointless.
Wallace took a step forward and put his hand on William’s shoulder as he said, “Look after ‘em, and I’ll do the same here Lad.”
The face was stoic and experienced, and William knew that this was an agreement and an understanding between two men, two warriors.
William returned the same expression as he put his own hand on Wallace’s shoulder and replied, “That’s what we do.”
With nothing else to say, the party departed. Along the way, William had noticed that John and Jane were stealing glances at each other. Not even a little bit, but a lot.
Stacey noticed too as she whispered to William, “I think Jane and John like each other.”
William leaned in kissing her on the cheek and then whispered back, “John likes Jane, and I wasn’t sure about the reverse, but apparently so.”
“It’s really cute. I wonder how long it’ll take for them to talk to each other about it.”
“Good question, let’s find out.”
William saw Stacey’s eyes widen in what he wasn’t sure was shock, or interest. He turned to look back at the pair, a couple feet behind him and Stacey.
“So, you two like each other right? Just get together already so you can be honest with it, instead of the glances back and forth.”
Was William a bit of a dick for it? Yes. Was he getting revenge on the pair for the training stuff? Definitely. Did he feel regretful at saying it? Abso-fucking-lutely not.
The two were horrified at the sudden words but soon turned bright red. William saw that and gave a loud shout of victory as he said, “I fucking knew it! You two should definitely get together with how red you’ve both gone.”
William heard a sigh from Stacey, but could see that she was trying not to laugh. He definitely didn’t deserve her. Something else he didn’t deserve was his good mood broken as his [Danger Sense] triggered, prompting him to block the threat with his shield.
An arrow bounced off the shield, deformed from the blow. William got ready to unsheathe his sword and took point in the direction of the new foe. The rest got behind him as they had practiced on multiple occasions.
William took in the foes. Four men, three with swords and one with a bow were dressed in yellow garb that was annoyingly familiar.
He took a deep breath, keeping his blood thirst at bay and asked the obvious question.
“The fuck do you want?”