Chapter 42

An hour was not nearly long enough, and passed in a blink. One moment I was replaying the battle in my head, going over the different ways my attacks had worked, the boss’ mechanics, the interactions with the others, trying to find ways to save energy over the course of the fight so I wouldn’t end up absolutely wiped out every time I fought something big.

The next moment, I became aware of a steadily growing pile of sticks behind me as one of them poked me in the back before burning away. I didn’t sense any danger or hostility, so I allowed myself a moment to regather the flames and stand.

As I did, I heard a few soft murmurs of “aww” and a single, “damnit.” I turned around to see the others clustered around me, a dead Boarfiend several feet away, and several long sticks set up to hold thin slices of meat a short distance away from me; they ranged from well-cooked to newly seared, with Lyrella still holding a stick festooned with chunks of meat toward me. She gestured impatiently to the stick. “Do you think I’m doing this for fun? Flame on, David. Alex,” she gestured to the androgynous healer, “Has several herbs that work both as medicine and as spices, and I don’t intend to miss this.”

I stared at them all in confusion for a few seconds as I pulled my thoughts away from the battle, and saw a few of them staring at me with a mixture of fear and concern, while Lyrella’s gaze had a hard edge and a glint of ‘just trust me.’ Even as I was about to relent, seeing Cenna’s face buried in her hands, cheeks red with the effort of restraining a laugh, I almost decided not to; reluctantly, I sighed, and conjured a loose flame in my hands, spreading it a little wider to provide steady heat to the various pieces of meat. A chorus of cheers went up, and the few whose meat was still undercooked quickly darted forward to finish up their own cooking. Before long, conversations resumed, various discussions about the battle and a few compliments about my own attacks, to which I fired back a few lame but well-meaning compliments in return, still uncertain of how this very temporary dynamic worked. Ella was snapping off sticks and handing them out like Christmas presents, including handing one to me. While my look was suspicious, my concerns were quickly allayed by the absolutely juicy smell wafting off of it. The first few bites were hot enough that I was glad of my resistance to heat, my utter disregard for it drawing a few wide-eyed stares that I almost failed to notice.

It wasn’t the best thing I’d ever tasted in my life, but it was far better than anything I’d expected to have anymore. The meat wasn’t just delicious; it felt restorative in a way I couldn’t quite quantify, filling me with a sense of warmth and satisfaction. “Damn,” I finally spoke, nodding to the group, “That was delicious. Uh, Alex?” I smiled toward the sullen healer, who was gnawing on a skewer with an expression a bit like an annoyed chipmunk. They glanced up at me, a single eyebrow raised, though they didn’t stop their eating. “Thank you for the uh, spices. It was really tasty.”

Ella cuffed me on the shoulder playfully, though it still held enough force to make me briefly waver in place. “Don’t count yourself out, Barbeque. And don’t count me out, either; it was my idea.”

“You’re always hungry, Ella,” Cenna answered from a few feet away, sitting on one of the shattered stumps that littered the area. “I don’t understand how you can eat so much.”

“Because I can eat all I want without gaining any weight. Are you kidding me? This is awesome. I can let my inner fat kid out without coach making me run sprints after.” She patted her midsection, stark muscle definition looking sharp enough to be dangerous; her preferred armor was a close-fitting leather shell that left her midriff and arms bare, with an outer layer of woven leather straps that provided surprising protection.

“No wonder you’re in such good shape,” I said to her, carefully sitting down to eat on one of the fallen logs from the Stag’s dying tantrums. “Here I thought you were just a gym rat.”

She looked offended. “ Gym rat? Fucker, you don’t recognize me? I’m famous. She lifted her fists in the air, skewer held aloft, the meat hanging from it like a trophy. “Midweight women’s champion, four years running. Well, champion locally; it’s hard to break into the national scene.”

Cenna laughed at her, and gave her a quick jab in her exposed ribs; somehow the rogue came out the worst for it, clutching her hand in mock pain. “Well, now you’ve got a better shot at it, I think. You could probably throw your coach, now.”

The laughter subsided after a moment, as reality slowly trickled back in. “I wonder if he’s doing okay,” Ella answered, her voice low.

“Don’t think about it,” I told her, shaking my head. “There’s gotta be more tutorials like this,” I gestured around, “There’s no way they crammed everybody into one arena like this. I think they just pulled from our area.”

“Who is ‘they’, anyway?” One of the others asked, voice raised in question.

“The Scribe, naturally,” I answered, as if I knew all the answers, and shook my head. “Or something anyway. Maybe the Scribe just writes shit down.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

We all spent the next few minutes absently debating the nature of the Scribe, with Cenna commenting that she felt the Scribe was like the Norns; recording fate, but also creating it, weaving it together. That seemed to discomfort a few of the others, including the lightning mage.

Now that I looked at him, it was easier to tell his age; he looked to be in his mid-forties, and almost looked like a wizard right out of a fantasy novel. A long but well-kept beard, gray hair tied back into a loose ponytail, a long, straight metal staff in his hand that he used as a walking stick. The only thing out of the norm was his build; he looked like Gandalf the Bodybuilder. “I’m David,” I called out to him, gesturing him closer. He stood at the edge of the group, seeming reluctant to approach at first. “He means Barbeque,” Ella added, after a moment. “I’m Ella.”

“Cenna!” The redheaded rogue called back with a wave.

The warriors around us introduced themselves one by one, until they finally looked to their grizzled wizard, who frowned for a moment, and then spoke up, in a thick, halting eastern European accent. “Dima, you can call me.” He paused, clearly trying to decide what else to say, “Thank you for help,” a pause, then an impish look as if considering whether or not he could get away with it, before calling me by my new nickname, “Barbeque.” His smile was big and genuine, and even a touch apologetic. He seemed extremely conscious of the fact that he was covered in his own blood, though he seemed somehow accustomed to being embarrassed of his appearance.

Finally, I looked around, though the clearing wasn’t quite large enough to perceive much going on outside of it; as big as the bear guardian had been, we couldn’t see far enough over the tops of the trees to tell the state of its’ battle. “We have any idea what’s going on with the bear?”

“Yeah,” Ella replied, nodding toward Cenna. “She climbed a tree for a peek.”

“The bear doesn’t seem to be fighting right now,” Cenna answered, with a frown. “I’m not sure if they lost, or if they’re just pulling back… There hasn’t been any sounds of fighting for maybe half an hour, now.” She sounded worried, looking in the direction of the ursine guardian, as if trying to peer through the trees to see it; for all I knew, maybe she could.

“Alright, alright, I can take a hint,” I said, to no one in particular, dusting myself off and swallowing the last bite of meat from the skewer. “Well, lead the way, Cenna; let’s see if there’s anything left to fight.”

That out of the way, I pulled up my notifications with a smile.

[Starsnare Stag slain! EXP Gained.]

[Deathmark: 2/3]

[Level up! You are now level 28. +9 Free points gained from Race and Class.]

[Level up! You are now level 29. +9 Free points gained from Race and Class.]

Damn, two levels? I must’ve been close to a level after the Leviathan, then. That means the Stag gave a level and a bit. I paused, thinking back to the numerous games I’d played; that amount of EXP was almost unreal, usually a result of either power-levelling or-

I winced. Or were these things just that far above us in power?

I shook my head, and dumped all eighteen free points into Intelligence; I had a couple of abilities that ran off of it, including [The Fire Within] , and I had a feeling I was going to need to use that speed boost again very soon.

To my satisfaction, I had another notification lurking.

[Skill Increase] The Fire Within (Basic -> Initiate)

This skill enhances and governs your ability to control and direct your internal use of magic; such effects will become more efficient and less damaging to your body, scaling somewhat with Intelligence.

Finally, back in motion, we made quick progress through the forest, approaching where the bear had last been seen. Cenna kept using her trick of running on vertical surfaces, leaping from branch to branch, laughing and cheering as she went. Her cheers died down, however, as she got some distance ahead of us, and perched, waiting, halfway up the trunk of a tree.

Ahead of her was an absolutely barren area, every tree knocked flat and shredded; at the center of it sat the bear, claws red with blood, surrounded by corpses. Even the ground was not immune to the bear’s aggression, huge furrows torn up in the dirt, stumps uprooted, trunks toppled. For perhaps a hundred yards or so around the enormous bear was only a wasteland. The bear’s head dipped down, muzzle pushing at something for a moment, before the sound of crunching metal, like a car crash, and the bear’s head came back up, muzzle bloody, and spat aside a chunk of metal, dipping back down for another bite of whatever lay before him. This close, it was easier to make out details about the Guardian; intermingled with its’ fur were long, trailing spines like a porcupine; their like could be seen, here and there, a shotgun-like spread of them embedded in trees and bodies. The standing warriors gathered together at the edge of the clearing, silent; out of fear or respect for the dead, it was hard to say.

“Oh, hell,” one of the warriors finally murmured, breaking the silence. “We’re supposed to fight that thing?”