Congratulations! Your ability Shared Bond has evolved to Shared Bond, Second Degree. It has long been known that the irony of gaining strength is that one must first pass through the halls of weakness. Only by facing refining moments with acceptance can weak things become strong. Aiding your bonded to recognize and overcome true weakness has exponentially increased his capacity for growth.
Both are granted the following:
* The ability Inner Strength (+25% resistance to fear based spells and debuffs - includes fear, anxiety, doubt, and panic)
* Can learn 1 of your bonded’s skills
Note: Your title Royally Bonded has evolved to Royally Bonded, Second Degree and grants you the status of being a voting member of the Elvish Lower Court.
Glade dismissed the prompt, simply accepting the adjudicator’s acknowledgement that he and Kedryn were on the right track. He ignored the added note. He would sooner face another host of astral spiders than get involved with politics of any race.
“Awesome,” Kedryn whispered into the night before sneaking a glance at Glade.
It was only after the third furtive glance that Glade turned from his moment of peace.
“I’m assuming you want to talk about our shared bond leveling?” he asked.
“If you think now is a good time,” Kedryn said. The Kid was visibly trying to hold back his enthusiasm. To be honest, he looked like he was on the verge of exploding.
“We’re not in a rush, but now is fine I suppose. I’m assuming you want to talk about which skill to learn?”
Kedryn nodded enthusiastically. “I have so many questions! What is your time dilation skill like and is it as awesome as it sounds? Have you tried using it in conjunction with your telepathy or reflection skills yet? If so, what were the results? What about your cartographer skill? Have you tried connecting with others with your telepathy skill to see if they can contribute to your internal map?”
Glade didn’t see the Kid take a single breath that entire time. A few days ago, this line of questioning would have frustrated him to no end. Instead, he smiled. Quirky the Kid may be, but he really did have a knack for dealing with the strangeness of this new world.
He did his best to answer Kedryn’s questions while asking a few of his own.
----------------------------------------
“Let me see if I understand,” Glade asked as the two slowly made their way back toward the hall. “You are asking about how my skills synergize with each other because you want to lean two of my skills?”
Kedryn waived his hand back and forth. “Sort of. My level eight racial perk lets me copy someone else’s skill, to include their level, knowledge and experience up to the last level of the apprentice rank. It’s an insanely powerful perk so long as I pick the right skill. Add in the bonus from leveling our bond and I can stack the deck with known synergistic skills.”
“I see what you mean, but you would be wasting an opportunity to gain some serious levels and knowledge. Why not learn Bragden’s enchanting skill?” Glade asked.
“I tried. I don’t meet the pre-requisites,” Kedryn sighed. “I would first need a Concordant level attunement in astral magic as well as level my channels at least three times to maximize the perk. Same goes with your telepathy skill. I need an astral attunement if I’m going to copy it.”
“I was wondering if there were any limitations,” Glade said.
“Yeah. Another limitation is the person you copy from must be a willing party.”
“I can see your dilemma,” Glade answered, rubbing his chin in thought. “To be honest, I haven’t tried out all my skills yet, let alone see if they synergize with each other. Then again, it’s not like we’ve had large amounts of free time to experiment or ‘grind’ as you call it.”
Kedryn barked a laugh at Glade’s use of air quotes when he said grind.
“Tell you what, why don’t we test your theories first thing tomorrow?” Glade said. For once, he was looking forward to working with the Corporal on something. “That way, you can make a more informed decision.”
“Sounds good to me!” Kedryn said with an infectious grin.
As the two approached the hall they could hear fighting and cheering, with accordion music playing loudly in the background.
“That’s going to be a mess,” Kedryn said, his grin widening.
Glade sighed. He really didn’t want to face a room full of opinionated dwarves. There was a good chance he would be dragged into their form of debate. With everything that had happened, all he wanted was a good night’s sleep.
As he silently contemplated the pros and cons of sleeping in the privy, Kedryn spoke up.
“What do you think we need to focus on next?” he asked.
“I have a semblance of a plan,” Glade began, but decided not to share his ideas with the Kid just yet. This would be a good opportunity to see where Kedryn’s mind was. “What do you think should be our priority?”
“Not going to lie, I’ve been thinking about it a great deal. Every time I played a world-building game…” Kedryn stopped with a visible wince. “Never mind.”
“No, go on,” Glade said, and meant it.
“Well,” Kedryn began slowly, watching Glade’s reaction very carefully. “In world building games, there are several strategies, but I’ve found that momentum is essential. Both in growing your settlement’s capabilities and building a force to handle local threats. The key is understanding our assets and resources first before you grow. For instance, have you taken a look at the available magic on the settlement interface?”
“No yet,” Glade said, wondering where Kedryn was going with this.
“The available spells offer both some good offensive and settlement support type spells across all the attunements. Let me show you,” Kedryn said, sharing a notification with him.
Level 1 Settlement Spells: (Must be cast within the settlement's Area of Effect)
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Astral:
* Identify: 25MP (Identifies items - based on users skill level in their identify skill)
* Far Sight: 15 MP (Able to see anything within the settlement's Area of Influence)
* Open Slot: Storm of Magic may allocate 1 of his known level 1 spells for others on the council to use.
Corporeal:
* Weak Body Enhancement 15 MP (Increases chosen attribute by +1 for 24 hours, cannot be stacked)
Fire:
* Fire Needles: 10 MP (Creates 15 needles of flame that strike for up to 3 HP each, range 10 ft.)
* Warm Area: 15 MP (Warms an area to pleasant spring climate up to 1,000 sq ft for 1 hour anywhere within the settlement's Area of Influence)
Water:
* Morning Dew: 25 MP (Saturates an area up to 10,000 sq ft with water anywhere within the settlement's Area of Influence)
* Ice Shards: 10 MP (Projects 3 shards of ice that can strike up to 15 HP each, range 25 ft)
Light
* Illuminate: 10 MP (Illuminates an area up to 1,000 sq ft for up to 20 minutes anywhere within the settlement's Area of Influence)
* Projection: 25 MP (Project a mirror image of yourself anywhere within the settlement's Area of Influence - Can project simple phrases only)
Shadow
* Darken: 15 MP (Submerges an area up to 1,000 sq ft into darkness for up to 10 minutes anywhere within the settlement's Area of Influence)
* Dark Vision: 10 MP (Provides sight to the sightless for up to 10 minutes, range dependent upon skill level)
Earth
* Shale Attack: 10 MP (Projects a dozen sharpened pieces of shale that can strike up to 4 HP each, range 15 ft)
* Cultivate: 25 MP (Prepares a field of up to 10,000 sq ft for planting anywhere within the settlement's Area of Influence)
Air
* Honed Wind: 15 MP (Projects a slash of wind from a sharpened weapon that can strike up to 30 HP of damage, range 100 ft)
* Pollinate: 25 MP (Creates a mild windstorm that stirs up pollen within an area of 25,000 sq ft anywhere within the settlements Area of Influence.
Celestial
* Healing (Basic): 10 MP (Provides basic healing of wounds, amount healed dependent upon skill level of user)
* Mend Bone: 25 MP (Guides break back to its proper alignment. Does not alleviate pain. Spell completes when bone is sufficiently mended for movement, further healing still required)
* Cure Disease: 15 MP (Cures basic diseases, dependent upon skill level and attunement)
* Cure Poison: 15MP (Cures basic poisons, dependent upon skill level and attunement)
Glade’s eyebrows shot up. Those were some useful spells. Not only was there offensive magic, but there were spells that would help support the settlement’s future farming operations. The healing spells alone were beyond priceless.
“Right now, only the council members can cast those spells. Also, we can only access them when we are in the settlement’s area of effect. For all intents and purposes that means they can only be cast from inside the hall.”
“Not very helpful,” Glade muttered.
“Exactly! Not unless we can learn the spells, which I think we can if we have the right attunement. I’ve almost got Fire Needles down, but I’ll have to increase my mana channels two levels if I want to cast Warm Area outside the hall. I guarantee if we can increase our magic user population and their capabilities then we can get a jump on almost everything else.”
“And we can grow our population’s earth abilities by using the core ability to unlock the dwarves earth attunements,” Glade said.
“Yes! But only a few at first,” Kedryn said, his excitement ramping up. “We still need to clear the area around Storm’s Rest, which will take a great deal of Golem support. We also need to expand our Areas of Influence and Effect so we can use the settlement magic to rebuild. When you take all of those into account you start to see what our most important asset really is.”
“Mana,” Glade said with a sigh. “Which is a limited resource.”
“Yes,” Kedryn agreed, but his grin didn’t diminish. “But it is a renewable resource. So long as we can increase our meditation and mana processing techniques. Which comes back to building up our people’s magical capabilities.”
“It also makes renewing the link with the mana well a top priority,” Glade said.
Kedryn nodded enthusiastically.
“After we get the mana well situated, we have to send out an expedition to the closest city,” Glade said, beginning to pace. “We don’t even have the basics to build up a settlement, not to mention the dwarves need to deal with their charter problems. I also want to get Riya back with her people and look for our lost team members. I hope those shards are as valuable as Bragden says, because we’re going to need a lot of money.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to hunt some more shards, or even try opening the Core Vault. There might be something valuable in there,” Kedryn paused, looking thoughtful. “I’d also like to ask the others why being a fire magic user was so surprising. That, and why they were surprised at my name. Wouldn’t that be just our luck to find a city close by only to be thrown in jail or something.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” Glade sighed. He could almost picture that exact scenario happening. “We also need to figure out exactly where we are. Riya, nor the dwarves, know this place. After we deal with the mana well, I’d like to find that Gnoll ship Krazzik and others spoke of. If they’re right, it should have less than a skeleton crew on it, which means it’s likely still around. There should be maps or charts at the least, maybe even some other things we could use.”
“I’d forgotten about that,” Kedryn said, slapping his forehead. “But shouldn’t that be a higher priority? Maybe before we deal with the mana well?”
Glade shook his head. “Something one of the Adjudicator’s mentioned is bothering me. I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was along the lines of being disappointed that I’m not progressing all my gifts. While that could mean any number of things, I can’t help but feel he was referring to Storms’ Rest. My gut is telling me the mana well is the priority.”
Kedryn nodded, then gave him an odd look.
“Did you really talk with the Adjudicators? Bragden almost had an aneurism when you mentioned that.”
“Oh yes,” Glade’s expression soured. “They put on a good act of not letting you speak your mind unless spoken to, but I realized two things while I was there. The first is they have rules they must follow. The second is that they have to listen to you if you speak to them.”
“Really?” Kedryn said, his eyebrows shooting up. “What did you say?”
“Oh, I gave them a piece of my mind. They may be demi-gods to everyone else here on Veil, but they’re little more than bullies with a god complex to me.”
“I bet they didn’t like that,” Kedryn whistled, unconsciously taking a half step away from Glade.
“I said they had to listen, not that they liked it. I did get one or two concessions out of them though.”
“The upgraded clothes for your rebirth?” Kedryn asked.
“Not just me, or did you forget that Croon and a couple of others that rebirthed after him had on winter clothing?”
Kedryn nodded. “What else did you ask for?”
“To stop sending stupid quests and monsters my way.”
“And?”
“I now know that Adjudicators can laugh,” Glade responded with a dark look.
Kedryn chuckled nervously. Or maybe that was excitement. Glade couldn’t tell.
“How about we head in? If I’m getting colder by the minute, you must be freezing,” Glade said, turning toward the hall.
Kedryn shrugged, reaching for the door. “After trying that Warm Area spell earlier, I figured out how to cycle my mana to keep me warm.”
Glade simply grunted a response. Of course, the Kid already figured out how to keep himself warm with magic.
both men stopped in the entrance, taking in the pandemonium in front of them. As Glade had feared, the hall had become a free-for-all. Dwarves everywhere were piling on top of one another, some proclaiming support for one leader or another while others spouted their own opinions on what they thought was best for Storm’s Rest and the Slaghammer Clan. Then there were the ones that looked like they just wanted to fight.
“Do you think Riya is ok?” Kedyrn shouted so he could be heard over the noise.
“She’s probably practicing her healing spells and taking notes,” Glade yelled back, surveying the scene.
Gird and Patch were in a corner munching on elk meat while Croon sang something about braiding flowers in the beards of dwarven maidens. Krazzik had his one good arm around Bragden’s neck while Gent lay unconscious on the floor next to them.
As he’d predicted, Riya was casting healing magic while scribbling notes on some paper she had found in one of the Hall’s cabinets.
“And this is without them drinking alcohol!” Kedryn yelled, a smile on his face.
Glade just shook his head. They had a long road ahead of them.