He paused to consider a bit before calling the two out, “Garnedell, Zilnek. Come here,” accompanying the cry with a large come hither gesture.
Both stood up relatively quickly, although Garnedell reacted slightly more quickly, and Joe nodded his head in watching this. He had both come to stand beside him, giving Kilniara some rest before continuing the fights.
“OK. Let’s do this. One person will fight one on one with me, but the other two will fight two on one while I train the other, OK?” Joe looked at the three, waiting for nods of agreement before continuing.
“Good. Then we will rotate through a bit faster, because I don’t want you to be too tired to fight, Zilnek. Kilniara, be careful with your shorter weapons. Garnedell, you make sure to keep the two safe with your longer staff. Zilnek? Kilniara? While Garnedell is training solo fights with me, Kilniara will help with defenses. Got it everyone?”
All three quickly nodded and Joe sent Garnedell and Zilnek out to fight, standing to the side and watching them prepare. Joe did take a moment to reposition them a bit closer to him and the corner, instead of so far out, not wishing to be so far away, before allowing them to pull their first goblin.
After watching a few strikes with the pair, Joe nodded and pulled another goblin himself, using the poor half stick half club, enjoying the rather violent game of fetch as the goblin picked it up and brought it back as the weapon closest to it. Joe stepped back and kept Kilniara in focus, although he had Garnedell and Zilnek’s fight in the right background, eyes maintaining focus on Kilniara’s fight with some quick flickers towards the other two.
Fights continued for the rest of the day till lunch and Joe quickly brought all three back to the corner for a meal. Joe’s mind picked at the question of intelligence for the beginning of the meal until he felt satisfied with a decent enough answer for now, although he wondered what Kukurnal could add to the discussion, shelving intelligence for the evening meal. When he focused back on the conversation, he found the three arguing about who was best and Joe smiled as he joined in with the conversation.
“Hmm… I’m pretty sure I’m the best,” Joe offered with a smirk.
The other three stared at him until Garnedell replied with a grimace, rejecting Joe’s claim, “You don’t count. You aren’t an apprentice!”
The other two both looked at Garnedell with some fear, worry flickering in their eyes as they glanced back and forth between Garnedell and Joe, although Zilnek’s was delayed, as usual. Still too worried to relax around me, I guess?
“Really? Well, I still have a master, so I’m an apprentice as well, right?”
Garnedell opened his mouth quickly when he heard Joe start to counter but then found himself sputtering to a stop as he heard Joe’s reply, “No, you don’t… uh… well.. um…”
As Garnedell struggled to reply, Kilniara quickly realized the game and joined in, “Ah, but you are not an apprentice of our master!”
Joe found himself stumped, looked back and forth between the two as his mouth closed and opened a bit like a gaping fish before he shook his head and conceded, “Right. Looks like you got me, Kilniara. I don’t count.”
Joe’s chuckle revealed his humor and Garnedell and Kilniara both started laughing, Garnedell crowing in triumph at their win, with Zilnek joining later.
Garnedell’s joy, however, was cut short as Kilniara backstabbed him, “But, I’m still the best anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Hey! No! That’s… no! I never admitted… we still … I can use the full staff!”
“And I still can defeat more goblins!”
“And who keeps you alive to do that? Me!”
“Bah! I still kill more alone than you do alone.”
Garnedell’s sputtering reply was cut short as both stopped to politely listen to Zilnek’s energetic reply, “I’m the best, obviously, as I’m still able to fight even with lower level than you both! And I gained five levels in only a couple days! Ha!”
Both Garnedell and Kilniara offered energetic faux angry responses to Zilnek before diving back into their own argument although both, including Joe, offered congratulations to Zilnek for reaching level five. Joe smiled, watching their antics, but also quite astounded at how both Garnedell and Kilniara seemed to be able to keep two conversations going simultaneously, one with each other, and one each with Zilnek. Zilnek also seemed to be able to keep dual conversations as well, easily responding to both Garnedell’s and Kilniara’s angry counter exclamations with decent rebuttals of his own, leaving the lunch conversation a convoluted messy triple conversation occurring simultaneously but at two very different speeds which soon had Joe dizzy and surprised that they seemed quite able to keep up with two different conversations simultaneously.
A special ability? But not … I don’t see it in their titles or skills… maybe just … something that’s become the norm on this planet because of such disparity between speaking speeds! You just got to get used to handling it? Maybe? People can do some pretty crazy stuff if they get used to it, I guess!
Joe’s mind wandered as he considered the ramifications. But paid little mind to it and just enjoyed watching the developing relationships and conversations. The three continued their conversation with Joe interjecting frequently, and lunch passed with an easy joy.
The afternoon found them continuing their rotational training and Joe rapidly gaining levels in his Virtus Theorist job and the other three enjoying their private training under Joe. Afternoon faded into evening and Joe found the three flagging so shooed them all off to the corner before throwing himself into wiping out a great majority of the floor, slicing through dozens of the goblins easily before their evening was done and he led them all out, heading back to the inn a bit earlier today than the norm where they could spend the evening preparing for the next day. Joe planned to spend a good chunk of the evening also going over how the three had fared in combat today as well, but was simply exhausted and dirty, wishing to be clean and resting around a table topped with a good meal.
Virtus Theorist had grown well, and while he’d taken the time to glance at its stats when it level one, his excitement was dampened even further when he saw the stats were identical to all the other theorist jobs. He had managed to make it to level thirty one, although he barely made it as his time had been spent helping the others develop their skills. Joe was, at first, frustrated with that fact, but then quickly realized that it wasn’t quite the disastrous detriment he feared it was as the one extra level, while adding a good chunk of learning, was minor since he only gained ten percent with the job unequipped. Still… ten learning is ten learning… Should I not? Well… I did well enough today, meeting my goal, although I should be about a quarter a way through level thirty one, not just barely into it… but still… It shouldn’t make that much difference, right? As I gain more learning from other jobs and come back to burn through the thirties? Now? Maybe?
Joe glanced over what Virtus Theorist gave him at its current level before dismissing it again rapidly, finding it, like the others, identical in stats and skills, although specific to the ‘Virtus’ line of jobs. Whatever that means…
Status
Blessings
Current Job
Available Jobs
Current Skills
Available Skills
Log
Joe McConnell
Status
Physical Resistances
Magical Resistances
HP
31.00
Physical:
MP
62.00
Piercing
0.00
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Attack
31.00
Crushing
0.00
Defense
31.00
Slashing
0.00
Magic
62.00
Magic Defense
62.00
Strength
31.00
Dexterity
31.00
Agility
31.00
Virtus Theorist
31
Speed
31.00
Endurance
31.00
IQ
496.00
Wisdom
620.00
Learning
3100.00
Luck
0.00
Joe sighed deeply before allowing himself to be distracted by the scrambled ‘glitch’ of a skill at the level twenty skill. All the latest theorist jobs had had this: Education, Crafter, and Virtus Theorist. He picked at the significance, trying to understand why it was there or why it was so important, but couldn’t figure anything important or meaningful about it, dropping it much more quickly than when he’d first noticed the corrupted skill available at the level twenty Educated job.
His inner dialogue was interrupted with their arrival at the inn, the three others scrambling inside and up the stairs. Joe shook his head at their antics before calling out to one of the bartenders to bring up water, tossing a coin in payment and thanks before scrambling up the stairs after the other three. He came to the room, finding Zilnek and Garnedell wrestling with each other and Kilniara standing aside and looking down on the two’s behavior. She ran up the stairs as fast as any other, though. Joe chuckled as he saw her disapproval. He settled on the foot of his bed, not wishing to dirty more of his bedding than necessary while he waited for the water to arrive.
When it did, he bid Kilniara to go first before shooing everyone out of the room before begging her not to take too long with her bathing.
She nodded easily, confidence unable to hide the betraying subtle blush of embarrassment, “Yes, Joe. I will finish quickly.”
Joe smiled before settling against the door while the other two migrated their play fight into the hallway. The fight continued on in a light mood with Joe only calling for their cessation once when another resident came up the stairs towards their room, passing the now quiet boys standing politely out of her way. Their polite step aside lasted all of a second after the resident disappeared up another flight of stairs before they quickly tore into each other, their fight now a more laughing fest of mocking humor as the bore down on each other both verbally and physically.
Joe found the time sliding by quickly and soon Kilniara had unlocked the door to allow the other three in, which the two boys took as permission to turn their quiet restrained war into a full on wild battle that rattled throughout the room, albeit still quietly so as not to disturb the others. Both Joe and Kilniara shook their heads at the same time, watching the two boys before looking at each other and laughing.
“Well, I’m going to go first if they keep fighting,” Joe said as he turned to his bed and pulled off his shirt, “Do you want to stay here in your room or head down to the common room?”
Joe didn’t take off his pants, not wishing to make Kilniara uncomfortable, but turned after he’d removed his shirt.
Kilniara seemed to stare into his eyes a bit stiffly before nodding jerkily, “I’ll wait in the room to go down to the common room with you, if that is OK?”
Joe nodded, without too much concern but then quickly noticed the odd mood in the room coupled with the frozen and now stilled fight of the two boys. Glancing at them, Joe questioned with some worry, “What? What’s wrong?”
Kilniara didn’t answer, but turned to leave the room for hers, but Joe thought little of it as he looked at the two boys, “Why are you guys freaking out? Did you guys want to go first? You can if you want. I don’t care.”
The two boys seemed to flinch back into awareness and both quickly shook their heads, “No! No… nothing is wrong,” Garnedell quickly replied, with Zilnek’s following a few seconds later, echoing Garnedell’s comment.
Joe looked at them a few more moments carefully before shrugging and removing the rest of the clothes before jumping into the barrel, cleaning his clothing quickly, first, before taking the time to relax and leisurely clean himself as well so as to maximize his time in the warm water.
The boys continued their friendly match, but soon were panting quietly on the bed and Joe found them watching him. He smiled before turning to end his bath and allow the other two their turns.