Colthorn’s breath fogged the air as he stumbled through the ice crusted gates of Cresthaven. Veca, the largest of the moons, had already risen hours ago for his nightly vigilance. Alagossa had wanted to get home as quickly as possible, saying that they had to prepare for “the Week of Memnon.” So, instead of clearing a campsite of snow like usual after the day’s training session, they trudged through the snow to get back to the city. They were able to pick up speed when they found packed trails, and managed to get back to the city before midnight.
Colthorn knew who Memnon was, of course, he was one of the Sibling Moon gods. However all that he knew of Memnon was that he was banished because he had been evil... What Memnon did or where he was banished to Colthorn didn’t know. Why there was a week named after Memnon was confusing, but with all the sudden rushing to get back home Colthorn hadn’t been able to get a straight answer from his mom. All he knew was something about blood and monsters and that they had to get back.
The rush home instilled a sense of urgency in Colthorn. What’s going on? Why are we in such a hurry? Blood and monsters? Are we in danger? Memnon? Is he coming back from his banishment or something? Unanswered questions filled his heart, churning up fear and unease that kept his exhausted legs moving towards home.
Colthorn looked back at the gate closing behind him and let out a slow breath. Whatever it was that was going to happen, at least they had gotten to safety. Those walls were too thick for any monster to break through.
They kept going, moving through the dimly lit streets. The streets were cleared of snow, with small piles building against the sides of buildings. A few taverns were still open, light and music filtered out from shuttered windows, but there were few people on the streets. Which wasn’t surprising, considering the late hour and the cold.
Eventually, they made their way home. Walking through the storefront, Colthorn was surprised by the large amount of boxes stacked everywhere. They had to weave their way through.
“It looks like your dad was busy... and still is,” Alagossa said, looking down the hall to the lit doorway of the lab. She ruffled his hair and said, “You go ahead and wash up, then get some sleep. We have a lot to do tomorrow.”
He opened his mouth to argue but what came out instead was a giant yawn. So, he just nodded and shuffled up the stairs. He dropped off his backpack in his room, grabbed something clean to change into and went to the bathroom.
He got the water going and placed the heating stone in the tub. Then, at the faucet next to the bathtub, he stripped and used the room-temp water to start scrubbing off all of the dirt, sweat, blood, and grime of the trip. Once clean, he used tongs to take the heating stone out of the steaming water and stepped in.
He groaned as the hot water washed over his bruised, aching, and frozen muscles. Sighing as he settled into the tub, letting the heat seep into his bones. He let himself sit and enjoy the heat, sinking low. After a few moments, Colthorn brought up his Status page.
Getting Mana Manipulation and Eyes of the Arcane Moon... what was it? 8... 9 months ago?... Yes, 9 months ago. Getting those skills were awesome, and Colthorn enjoyed experimenting with them, but ultimately they weren’t necessary for the Survivalist (Unc) class he wanted. That he was training for. So, for the last 9 months, he had been training almost exclusively on the list of required skills.
And finally, he had capped the last required skills during this last trip. Hunting was especially slow to level because they were trying not to get his own level to the cap yet, just the skills. So, Colthorn had spent many many days tracking beasts and other monsters in the forest with the intent to actually kill, but when he found his prey his mother would either tell him to hunt something else, physically stop him from killing it, or would let him kill. Hunting was a very passive skill that didn’t do anything but give a slight boost to other skills, but those little effects did add up so it was worth it to train.
Of course, it was easier to track and hunt in the winter, when beasts and monsters left clear tracks in the snow. But this winter had been especially difficult because of Nikos. Nikos was the white moon in the southern sky, and every six years it would pulse with a light blue light that would lower temperatures by five degrees for a month. It was fine when it happened in the summer, it would just be a pleasant month then. But when it happened in the winter there would be harsh snowstorms and an increase of monsters with an ice affinity. The good news was that Nikos had stopped pulsing about a week ago, so there would be a normal winter from here on out.
Colthorn sighed, and quietly replaced all the capped skills in his Favored list with some skills that haven’t been capped yet. He was done. If he wanted to right now, he could ask his mom to help him power through to level 100 and then he could tier-up and finally have this Quest over with... but not yet. His dad wanted him to attend the Adventurer’s Academy. The Academy started its classes at the beginning of the year, on the first day of Spring, so he had about five weeks to go until classes started. Apparently, Tier 0 kids could take classes at a discount price. Not that that was the only reason for not tiering up yet. It was also due to the fact that most Tier 1 adventurer parties, at least in the beginning of their careers, were formed in their Tier 0 years... and Colthorn needed friends.
He looked at his Status page again.
[Status]
Skills
Quests
Library
Friends
Notices
Settings
General Info
Name: Colthorn Leokast
Class: [Child of Jornan/Alagossa Leokast (Sta)]
Race: Half-Human, Half-Elf
Level: 0th 97
Age: 8
Experience: 58.2/97
Health: 325/325
H. Regen: 5.4/day
Stamina: 109/210
S. Regen: 4.1/day
Mana: 682/735
M. Regen: 7.5/day
Stats
Strength: 27
Intelligence: 97
Constitution: 15
Will: 50
Alacrity: 55
Acuity: 53
Pending Stat Points: 0
Favored Skills
Eyes of the Arcane Moon 0th 51
Running 0th 84
Mana Manipulation 0th 43
Appraise 0th 41
Tumbling 0th 41
Analyze 0th 76
Skills:
Acid Resistance 0th 100 Archery 0th 100 Astronomy 0th 10 Awareness 0th 100 Basic Alchemy 0th 100 Botanize 0th 100 Cleaning 0th 52 Climbing 0th 47 Cooking 0th 19 Drawing 0th 100 Field Dressing 0th 100 Follower of the Sibling Moons 0th 56 Glanic Language 0th 51 Geologize 0th 100 Harvest Plant 0th 100 History of Malroth 0th 18 Hunting 0th 100 Identify 0th 32 Jumping 0th 80 Knife Handling 0th 95 Mathematics 0th 10 Pain Resistance 0th 100 Poison Resistance 0th 100 Standard Language 0th 39 Stealth 0th 100 Tracking 0th 100
Stolen novel; please report.
He had gained a lot more levels than his dad had predicted he would. Of course, his dad had only counted the experience gained purely from training the Survivalist (Unc) required skills and the two Mana skills. He didn’t account for any of his other skills leveling, the EXP gained from killing monsters, or for the EXP gained as rewards for Quests.
Several of the Quests that he’d completed had given him some form of EXP, whether the reward was straight EXP into his own level, EXP for a skill, or a boost to EXP gained. He tried not to do the Quests that gave EXP to his own level, but most of those Quests were related to his training so they couldn’t be avoided. He made sure to complete all of the Quests that gave rewards that helped his Skills grow or directly gave Stat points. Stat rewards weren’t common to get, so Colthorn was surprised that in just 9 months he’d gotten five Quests that gave Stats. They only gave one Stat each, but Colthorn made those Quests a priority every time he got it. He’d gotten 2 strength, 1 constitution, and 2 alacrity basically for free.
There were only a handful of Quests that he still hadn’t gotten to yet, or had saved for once he finished his training. Most of the Quests that he’d received revolved around his training and his Skills though, so there weren't any problems or conflicts. When he had asked his mom, she said that the Gods, mainly Giannis, only gave us Quests according to our desires and that most of his Quests that he was getting were related to his training because he actually wanted to train and to train fast.
There was one more Quest that he’d gotten that surprised even his mom. He had to have a training session that lasted for a full 10 hours. Meaning that he couldn’t stop for more than a few seconds. Because if he stopped for a break, then he wouldn’t be “training” anymore he’d be “resting” and the “session” would end by granting him the EXP gained from that training session. It took him a few days of frustration before he’d managed to complete that Quest... and as a result, he’d gotten x2 EXP from that 10 hour long session.
He’d gotten so many skill levels from that Quest.
His mom said that that was due to a couple reasons. The first most obvious reason being the double experience reward, but there were other factors in play as well. She said that experience gained during training sessions are affected by the complexity, length, familiarity, passion, and danger.
Complexity was determined by not only how difficult the training is, but also how many Skills are being trained at once. Shooting a swinging target would grant more EXP than just shooting a standing target, but shooting a swinging target while being all stealthy in a tree gave even more EXP.
Length of the training session, meaning the time from the start of the training until the EXP is granted, is probably the one factor that his mom had increased dramatically since starting the grind to the finish line. The hunting trips used to be... well, they were hard, but he used to stop every once in a while for a break, or to sketch out a cool looking flower or scene. But since getting his Mana Skills, they’d really started increasing the length of the “sessions” for that extra bit of EXP.
Familiarity wasn’t that big of a factor in Skill training, especially with the Archery Skill... There's only so many ways you can shoot a bow. But trying to use your Skills in new ways or discovering new things did help speed up the experience gain. There’s a reason it’s called “experience” after all. And they did try to come up with new ways to train up his skills, but it wasn’t that important, so they just switched the training activity every month or so.
Passion was similar to what his mom had been saying about Quests, it was desire. If you love something, are passionate about it, then the Gods help you out. Of course they would, why wouldn’t they help you do what you love? And considering all the Quests that he had gotten revolving around his training, Colthorn considered himself pretty passionate in his training.
Danger was probably the factor that helped Colthorn get his Awareness Skill, despite not dedicating his time to getting that Skill. The threat of getting dinged on the head with a pebble and the threat of the monsters in the forest sneaking up on him certainly helped him stay constantly aware.
All of those factors came into play when training, and his mom certainly used them to help him.
And now he was done.
Colthorn closed his Status page and sighed, sinking low into the now lukewarm water.
He stayed there for a while before getting out. He put the heating stone back into the tub because Alagossa would want a bath as well, then toweled off and changed into his pajamas.
A few moments later he flopped onto his bed, and before he could forget, he opened his Status page and tapped on his Friends tab.
Status
Skills
Quests
Library
[Friends]
Notices
Settings
Alagossa Leokast
Alissa Songler
Jornan Leokast
Wa Yong
He tapped on his mother’s name and a blue pencil, the same color as the box of the Status page, appeared floating in the air. He grabbed it and wrote in the box next to his friends list. When he’d finished writing, the script shrunk down, aligned itself neatly in a straight line on the right side of the screen, and was sent to his mom. A few seconds later, a faint pop sounded and his mother’s reply appeared, neatly aligned on the left of the screen.
Status
Skills
Quests
Library
[Friends]
Notices
Settings
[Alagossa Leokast]
Alissa Songler
Jornan Leokast
Wa Yong
Bath is ready. Left stone in.
Good night, love you.
Thanks! Goodnight, Little Coal.
Love you too.
He thought about sending a Direct Letter to Yong and Alyssa to tell them that he was back from his hunting/training trip, but it was the middle of the night and they were almost certainly asleep. Instead, he just closed his Status page and snuggled into his blankets. It had been a long day and... he fell asleep.
<<<>>>
The sound of the city woke Colthorn; it sounded as though the whole city was agitated into motion. Colthorn groggily brushed aside his window curtains to see what was going on. His window opened to the side street that intersected with “his” street. Outside, right below his window, was a whole crowd of adventurers in a line despite the cold. He looked left, the line wrapped around the corner of the intersection to the shop’s entrance. He looked right, the line continued down the small street and disappeared around the bend in the distance.
What the...? Are they lined up for potions? He looked up at the sky. The sun wasn’t even fully risen yet!... Wait... what is that?
Up in the sky, between Resia and Atepa, was a red dot that seemed to flicker like a candle flame. The sky around the dot also seemed tinged with red, like the dot was bleeding into the surrounding sky.
Is that... Colthorn gulped. Memnon?
Hurriedly, he jerked the curtain closed and leapt off his bed. He dashed out of his room, went down the hall, and was about to charge down the stairs to question his mom when he heard the commotion in the storefront.
He paused. Right, there’s a ton of customers right now. He took a deep breath to calm himself, then returned to his room to change into regular clothes. There wasn’t going to be any training today, he was done after all, so he put on a pair of his good clothes. A nice blue long-sleeved shirt, a pair of black pants, and his “city” boots instead of his worn “training” boots.
Once he was ready for the day, he calmly dashed down the stairs and into the storefront. He was right, the line of adventurers began at the counter and went out the door. The large stack of boxes that had been there last night were already gone, and Alagossa was quickly filling a 4x4 potion box from the rack of potions on the wall.
“Colthorn!” She practically shouted when she saw him. “I need more empty boxes!”
He saluted, right fist over his left breast, heels clicking together, back rod-straight, and shouted back to her, “Sir, yes, sir!” then dashed back into the hallway.
There was a brief moment of silence, then the sound of adventurers bursting into laughter followed him as he went towards the storage room.
Today was going to be a long day... for a different reason than what he was used to.
<<<>>>
Jornan, Aagossa, and Colthorn all groaned as they sank into their chairs around the kitchen table. The sun had set long ago, but they hadn’t gotten a chance to sit all day until just then.
So. Many. Customers. He groaned, resting his head on the back of his chair.
“So,” he said after a moment of silence, “What exactly is the ‘Week of Memnon’? And why were there so many people buying potions?”
His parents looked at each other, then back to him.
“Well,” his dad said, “The Week of Memnon is a week-long event that happens once every fifteen or so years. Memnon is the blood moon, one of the three moons that radiate enough mana to affect the world; the others being Nikos and Vebru. During this week when Memnon is in the sky, the mana that he radiates will spawn countless blood monsters. That’s why people are buying so many potions, because they’re going to be fighting the Blood Horde... Ah! Don’t worry! The Blood Horde is just made up of Tier 1 monsters; the city’s adventurers are more than enough to handle them.”
Colthorn blinked. So that really was Memnon in the sky...
“But wasn’t Memnon banished by the other Siblings?”
“He was,” his mom said, “but he despises the world and his Siblings, so he comes back to wreak havoc every fifteen years. The stories say that long ago, in the third age, Memnon used to be among the nobler of the Siblings, using his magic for good and healing, his moon would circle the sky every six years. But he grew impatient with mortals, saying that we were too weak. So, he started spawning hordes of blood monsters to kill everyone he claims isn't strong enough. That’s when the other Siblings came together to banish him.”
The conversation trailed off, everyone too tired to really continue speaking.
Follower of the Sibling Moons gained 1 level. +1 EXP.
Astronomy gained 1 level. +1 EXP.
Jornan groaned as he got to his feet, “Alright, I’m going to whip up some dinner.”
Colthorn and Alagossa gave a small round of applause and weak cheers.
“So, what are we going to do during the Week of Memnon?” he asked once the smell of cooking roused his consciousness back into focus.
“Nothing,” Jornan said from over by the stove, “our part is basically over. Everyone should have stocked up on their potions. There might be a few stragglers to sell potions to, but we get to relax. Ally, on the other hand, is going to be up on the wall killing the Horde.”
His mother groaned at the thought.
“All combat classes are required to help defeat the Blood Horde,” his dad continued.
His mom groaned even louder, “Can’t we just pay the fine? It’s only 100 gold plates...”
“100 gold plates is not an amount you can say ‘only’ to,” Jornan chided. “You’ll be fine. Just shoot an arrow every once in a while and everyone will be happy.”
“... fine.”
Soon, dinner was done and they were chowing down.
“Oh,” his dad said, cheek stuffed with food. “One more thing. Everyone gets at least one Quest during the Week of Memnon. I had already gotten one, which was to prepare a ton of potions, but you’ll be getting one as well. You’ll probably get it tomorrow because that’s when Memnon’s gonna be close enough to start spawning monsters and the Week officially starts.”
Colthorn’s fork paused and he looked up at his dad, “... a Quest?”