The day was drawing to a close, and the sun was already low. The trees grew far enough apart so that the path was always visible. Dragonflies buzzed around them. The smell of rotting water drifted through the air, but after two hours in the swamp, they had gotten used to it.
He was on an adventure! Finally! A real quest, with his own group of heroic adventurers. Well… there had been other adventures before. The one with the wolves, where he killed his first revenant and got the assassin class. He had taken part in a witch trial, had been teleported by a blood magic ritual, killed an evil necromancer, and almost stopped his undead summoning ritual. He’d joined the quest to save a dryad princess and the last surviving duskgnomes. He fought in underground caves against hordes of undead and enemy revenants. He met a dungeon core and made a pact with him. When reaching Mulnirsheim, he became an apprentice to the steward of the baron of the city. A steward who, as it turned out, was also a master assassin and head and only member of the local royal secret service.
Plenty of adventures and quests, but he’d mostly stumbled into each of those. This time, it was different!
He’d joined a group of heroes and was now on the way to a quest they had freely chosen at the Adventurers’ Guild. Well, officially, only Trulda had taken on the quest there since they could hardly officially register their group. Even among thousands of revenants, a group consisting of a human assassin, a dryad healer, a duskgnome tunnel scout ranger, a dungeon-fairy familiar, and a human steppe barbarian would attract quite a bit of attention.
He concentrated and looked at the appearing group screen in his field of vision.
Group name: NPCS
(Nonstandard Party of Charismatic Specialists)
Skorr Callad (Duskgnome)
Tunnel Scout Ranger, Level 8
Selvara (Dungeon-Fairy)
Familiar, Level 6
Trulda (Human)
Steppe Barbarian, Level 5
Ulmenglanz (Dryad)
Healer, Level 5
Weylan (Human)
Shadow Assassin, Level 6
Leveling up from level 5 onward was known to be difficult. Quests got more challenging, and monsters of the necessary level to gain XP were much more dangerous. Almost every danger, monster or problem an average citizen met was rated as level 1. Since every level below your own meant a 20% decrease in XP, almost everyone reached level 5 and many eventually level 6. But advancing from there was something completely different. Everyday challenges no longer gave you any XP. You needed access to dungeons or challenging quests to advance. Or you had to go into one of the more dangerous wilderness areas and look for real monsters. Exceptional craftsmen managed to create masterpieces, which awarded some XP as long as they used the appropriate skills of their craft. Weylans father had reached level 6 when he was almost sixty, after a comparable dangerous life on the edge of civilization.
Normal citizens didn’t need to know anything about the leveling system upward of level 6, but Trulda and Skorr had explained it to the rest of the team. Especially the tier grades.
Everyone who had not yet activated the leveling system and chosen a class, which usually happened at age 16, was Layman tier. Level one to five was Apprentice tier. Levels six to ten were in the Journeyman tier, and that was the highest ordinary people ever got. Only revenants reached levels eleven to 15, which was Master tier or sixteen to twenty, which was Grandmaster. Only the most legendary heroes and archmages had ever reached the Legendary tier at level twenty-one and above.
Having a higher tier had many advantages he’d not known about. Damage was increased by about 25% per tier against enemies of lower tiers, while the higher-tier combatant took 25% less damage. It wasn’t something Weylan had yet noticed, probably because everyone and everything had been much stronger than him anyway. Skorr wasn’t quite sure if that increased, if the difference was more than one tier. Weylan didn’t care. If a Grandmaster tier monster attacked him, he’d die. Simple as that. What even was a Grandmaster tier monster? Hydras, Elder Gorgons, Ancient Dragons, City-Mimicking-Slimes?
Even more important was the skill tier limit. You could increase a skill to a maximum of one tier higher than your character level. For example, to forge Master tier weapons, you needed a Master tier smithing skill. This meant you’d need to be at least level 6, the start of the Journeyman tier. Come to think of it, every master craftsman he’d heard of was supposed to be at least level 6, so that sounded right.
By now, only Trulda and the dryad were still at level 5. They had set the XP distribution so that those two would get everything the team earned until everyone was at the same level.
Trulda had found a quest that had been taken by Iron Ma’am weeks ago, but she never reported it finished.
"Swamp Village in Peril”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Objective: Protect the Village of Marshend from a nearby Shraal Nest.
Since she’d been seen respawning since then at least three times, it didn’t seem to go well. The quest was rated for a group of level 6+ adventurers, but since no one was interested, she’d taken it alone. With the expected results. Trulda had spotted her once trying to get some more adventurers to join her, but without success. The journey north took a whole day of boring walking. The quest took place in a swamp. Revenants hated swamps. Since arriving here, Weylan understood why. The constant dampness, unstable ground, leeches, and the overpowering smell of stagnant water and decaying plants. Great Golgoroth, the smell! He’d grown up with flower meadows. It had been boring, but at least the air had smelled much better.
Their group was probably a bit under-leveled, but they’d all trained their skills and gotten new equipment and artifacts. Malvorik had also finished brewing a whole set of potions.
Skorr, the duskgnome walking in front of the group, held up his hand and signaled them to stop.
Weylan scratched his feet in annoyance: "I'm still not convinced why you must be the leader. What can you do that I can't?"
Skorr didn't even look back at him: "Other than everything I learned during years of leading small and medium combat troops? Watch out..." He raised his right hand clenched into a fist, signaling, "Be prepared for anything."
Weylan snorted and was about to reply that this was not a useful instruction when the voice of the world interrupted him.
A leader with a Journeyman tier tactic skill commands you.
Reaction speed +20%
The probability of recognizing ambushes +20%
Trulda received the same message as everyone else and nudged him in the side encouragingly. The assassin raised his hands briefly in surrender: "Okay, you win. I’m convinced. But you have to teach me that sometime."
When Weylan dreamed of his future adventures, he always pictured himself leading the ragtag group of heroes he would assemble. But now, he had to admit he had no idea how to lead. What exactly would he be supposed to organize while on a campaign? He had a rough idea of the equipment they needed—food, cooking utensils, tents, etc.
He paused, nearly stumbling. Should they have brought tents? They didn’t have any, but perhaps he could have bought a few cheap ones. Skorr hadn’t mentioned tents, but then again, Skorr had lived underground his entire life. The duskgnome had probably never even seen rain.
Weylan recalled that they had planned to reach the village before nightfall. But what if they didn’t? The ground was already wet, and they hadn’t even brought waterproof blankets. He could use the drying spell-focus, but that would drain most of his mana. He sighed. Who was he kidding? He couldn’t use his mana for anything truly useful anyway.
Despite being level 6, he still hadn’t chosen a single feat. According to Trulda, feats were one of the major game-changers. His master, Jago, had at least permitted him to take any feat he unlocked that had the word "Assassin" in it or that enhanced his shadow magic. Unfortunately, Jago didn’t know anything about Weylan's evolved class, so he was on his own in that regard. They had also discussed a few emergency feats he could take—Danger Sense was always helpful. There was even an Assassin’s version that could trigger automatic evasion of a surprise attack. That was one he was supposed to take immediately if he unlocked it.
No one knew precisely what unlocked which feat. According to Trulda, there was something like a giant notice board, a 'forum', where revenants speculated endlessly. Some feats were straightforward; you just needed the correct class. Others had additional requirements, like specific attribute values. The more exotic feats required particular deeds. For example, Trulda’s Barbarian Smash feat required at least a Strength of 14, the barbarian class, and a successful two-handed strike in mortal combat. Striking someone in a surprise attack often unlocked the Advanced Sneak Attack feat—a feat that his master considered as common as dirt, plain and boring, though almost every thief and assassin had it. Extra damage was never wrong.
Weylan had the corresponding skill but hadn’t unlocked the feat for extra damage, which baffled his master. The answer, however, seemed obvious to Weylan: his Live in Interesting Times trait. It increased his chances of gaining rare and exotic abilities but hindered his ability to unlock common feats and skills.
His master aimed for the rare Assassin's Sneak Attack feat, which also increased the chance of escaping after the strike. Weylan wholeheartedly approved of that decision since getting away alive was one of his top priorities.
Weylan’s thoughts were interrupted when Skorr stopped and sharply held up his hand. Weylan froze, his hand instinctively reaching for the hilt of his short sword. The rest of the group, scattered along the narrow forest path, stopped as well, eyes scanning the darkening woods.
Skorr signaled the group to be quiet. Trulda swung forward her new lute club, which she carried on a strap on her back. Her new weapon was too wide to fit in her cleavage of holding, but she’d taken a liking to the weapon that was even heavier than her old two-handed mace. She could still swing it faster than the mace after Malvorik had enchanted it shortly before they departed.
Selvara muttered a few words and became invisible. Weylan could feel the breeze of her wings as she hovered close behind him.
Ulmenglanz fell to one knee and pressed a hand against the damp moss. Her eyes lit green as she let her consciousness seep into the surrounding plants. She shook her head. If there was danger, the plants around her could not sense it. It was too far away or no danger to trees.
For a moment, everyone stood still and looked around.
Skorr's ears twitched, and he pointed forward and slightly to the right of the direction they had been wandering so far. "Screams and the noise of battle."
He beckoned the others to follow him and ran off. After a few steps, their path led onto a walkway of wooden beams on stilts jutting out of the swamp. They stepped onto this walkway and hurried on. After a few minutes, they could hear shouts and the muffled thuds of wood on wood, even over the pounding of their footsteps and the increasing volume of their breathing. After a slight bend, a few wooden houses covered with reeds came into view, rising from the ground on stilts. There was a round platform around each hut. Apparently, the inhabitants felt that the ground was not stable enough for normal houses. The group kept to the walkway, which branched off in several directions here.
Empty wooden beams protruded from the ground in three places. They were surrounded by piles of debris and loose bundles of reeds. The source of the noise was now in sight. Some men were poking into the ground with long spears. In their midst stood a figure in red and gold plate armor. Quite obviously a female knight.
Weylan whistled through his teeth, "I didn't know there was plate armor with tits."
Trulda slapped the back of his head without looking, "Concentrate. Something is attacking the village, but I can't see it."
Skorr placed both hands on the wooden planks of the path and closed his eyes in concentration, "I can barely feel anything through the wood and earth... But there is something... Something big... " He stood up hurriedly and picked up his spear. "It’s coming!"