“So, an enchanter, huh.” Dorian commented after a few minutes of pregnant silence. The ranger had been rather silent until they had separated from the group and made their way deep into the forest. “Why do you want to level up your Combat class, then? I doubt the free stats are that useful to a crafter.”
“If I’m being honest, I just wanted to.” Unlike with the serious and irate swordswoman, Nido felt comfortable with the ranger. “It also influences the fact that I have chosen Hybrid Specialization.”
“You may be the first crafter I know that has picked up Hybrid Specialization.” The man strolled across the forest with ease, as if he knew its ins and outs.
“I was told that it wasn’t uncommon.” Did Matilda give me wrong information?
“Sure, maybe you’re right. It’s just that spending all this time along the pacifist Wanderers, it’s weird that one of their crafters choses anything besides Profession Specialization.” Though the ranger strook a conversation with a laidback attitude, the enchanter did notice that he was paying absolute attention to his surroundings.
“It’s true that I know how to fight, if that’s what you are wondering about.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it.” Dorian was being sincere, not a shred of sarcasm on his voice. “It just feels weird seeing a crafter eager to go to battle. Maybe it’s just me.”
“No, I agree with you here.” Nido told while searching the local ether net. If he wanted to kill a monster, then he had to look for unusual spots of Chaos-imbued ether. “Most people will center exclusively on their job if they are able to.”
“Let me guess, you aren’t able to do so?” Even though the ranger was walking before him, Nido could sense him grin.
“Well, I’m currently on a travel to find something, and I’m more than disposed to battle my way through if needed.” The enchanter’s staff slightly sunk on the muddy ground. Not too wet to make himself a mess, but enough to make the ground somewhat unstable. “You could say I’m not exactly able to close myself in a workshop and craft item all day long.”
The undergrowth of the forest became scarcer as the soil gained more wetness. It wasn’t like the lifeless area that the spectral birch emitted, but just a common drowned dirt.
“Hmm…” The ranger huff as he looked at his surroundings. “I do hear a river, so maybe the water has overflown…” Dorian knelt and touch the wet soil with the tip of his fingers. “Must have been recent, probably happened during the night or early morning.”
“I’m not a druid or an expert ranger like you, but if I remember correctly, it is quite rare for rivers to overflow. Specially if the river in question is nowhere to be seen.” Nido added.
“It isn’t that rare for wetlands or fjords, but a normal-ass forest? It isn’t a natural occurrence, that can I tell.” Dorian got up and drew his bow.
“So, you suggest that someone has tempered with the river?”
“Or something.” The ranger continued.
“Right.” Nido replied and raised his staff in precaution. “You are saying that some monsters messed with the course of the river.”
“It’s the most likely outcome.” Dorian added with a whisper as he crouched, slowly moving forward. “Whatever monsters did this, they mustn’t be high-level though. These woods are tame, and no anomalies were detected by the Adventurer’s Guild before the caravan left Marina.”
“That’s reassuring.” The enchanter followed his gesture and spoke quietly as he crouched to the ranger’s side. “What do we do then?”
“We are going to do some basic reconnaissance, and if the objectives are few and manageable, we are going to exterminate them. Otherwise, we will retrieve back to the encampment and come back with the whole gang.”
“Understandable,” Nido commented, “let’s go then.”
“Will you be able to sneak up without alerting anything?” For the first time, the man’s voice spoke with seriousness.
As actions speak louder than words, the enchanter made a demonstration to prove it. Taking advantage of the illusory properties of his staff, he added a coat of mild invisibility on top of him. His voice became translucid and less saturated, making him less likely to be seen.
“Work for me.” Dorian let out a short snort and quickly reverted to his serious attitude. “Be behind me at all times, and only initiate combat if I say so.”
“Understood.” Even if the enemy was an archdemon, the enchanter wouldn’t be at any real danger. Yet he played by the ranger’s rules and didn’t fool around.
Dorian had been right, after a few minutes of slow and stealthy crouching, Nido was able to hear the sound of the river. And although the duo had yet to see or hear the presence of monsters, the enchanter had perceived an echo of Chaos in the ether. It didn’t come from the caravan’s position, so it wasn’t the natural Chaos that humans emitted. It came from monsters.
Of course, the ranger couldn’t know this, and he wasn’t going to reveal him his ability to perceive ether. Either way, Dorian notified a few weird sounds coming from the left just a few seconds after Nido had detected the perturbances in the ether. What a nice hearing. I guess I should boost mine or make an item to do so. In the end, his solution to everything was to enchant an item.
The ranger made basic hand code communication, indicating that something was before him. He silently raised his bow and aimed forward. Dorian consequently made another set of gestures to tell the enchanter to get cover behind a tree. It seems that they would engage in combat.
Relying on his coat of magical camouflage, Nido peaked over the tree and saw their objective. It was a trio of weirdly shaped wolves. Whilst the general complexion of the monsters was that of a wolf, their head and tails were plenty different. Unlike the long and hairy tails of the canines, the one’s of the monsters before him were hairless and flattened. Their cranium was also smaller from their expected size, with bigger frontal teeth than fangs.
What the hell are those? Which alchemist failed his chimeric experiment and released this abomination into the wild? Are they a combination between a wolf and a… beaver? Right.
Nido let those useless thoughts aside and looked at the ranger, who pointed at the chimera at the right with his fingertips whilst his bow aimed at the one at the middle, who was closer to him. The enchanter quickly realized Dorian’s intentions and readied a simple Arcane cantrip.
The mage maintained his spell on hold until the ranger released his arrow as the magical construct would shine brightly once it was summoned on the physical plane. And as anyone with half a brain cell could guess, that would reveal his position.
The chimeric monsters rested on the riverbed, alongside a pile of wood. Are you shitting me? Are you telling me that these wolves have built a damned dam? The enchanter would have snickered at his word play if it wasn’t because the situation was so stupid that it wasn’t funny.
Even though the monsters had the body of a wolf, they certainly didn’t have their characteristic sense of smell, as the duo had watched the trio of animals for a while and had yet to be detected. Dorian was taking his time, which didn’t bother Nido as he saw him work a perfect shot. The ranger had climbed on top of a tree without making a sound and now aimed his bow from at an advantage point.
Whilst the enchanter could appreciate the dedication of his partner, it was a bit overkill. Sure, there were three monsters before them, but judging by the concentration of Chaos on the local ether cumuli, they weren’t much stronger than the common wolf. And though the ranger had no way of doing so, someone couldn’t survive as an adventurer by failing to evaluate a monster’s strength. Dorian had to know that he was being overly cautious.
Nido understood why the man had been so precarious a pair of minutes later. Another duo of wolf manifested in the vicinity. One of them carrying a mangled rabbit carcass in its jaw. The ranger had somehow sensed the monsters with minutes of anticipation.
He glanced at the hunter, who promptly pointed at the wolves. They began to feast on the little critter, the perfect opportunity for an ambush. An arrow flew at high speeds as the ranger thought the same.
The closest wolf-beaver collapsed dead in the ground, an arrow traversing his skull. Nido quickly followed, unleashing a bolt of arcane energies that arched towards the pack and struck two wolves. The first one was fried instantly by the overloaded magic after minutes of spellcasting, whilst the second one survived and yelped in pain. In an instant, they have managed to greatly reduce their numbers.
Two down, three to go.
The enchanter greatly doubted that the wolf which had survived was able to fight, but he still counted him as a threat anyways. Dorian grabbed an arrow from his quiver and aimed at the rapidly approaching monsters. Nido decided to cast a Life spell instead of a devastating Arcane one after the last spell had consumed half his mana. He wasn’t proficient with mana to begin with, and there was a lot of Life-imbued ether on the forest where he could easily rely on.
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Life magic wasn’t exactly the go to option when intending to deal damage, but only a fool would assume that Life was harmless.
The three remaining wolves rushed towards them enraged. Only two were a real problem since the last one was partially fulminated by the overcharged purple spell. Dorian was quick with his fingers and shot the faster monster right in the eye, and whilst the arrow had gone through the wolf’s eye and most likely penetrated its brain, the chimera still rushed towards them. Even more enraged and faster than before.
The half-blinded monster focused on the ranger, this allowed the enchanter to jump on top of him and activate his spell as it failed to notice him with his limited vision field.
“Decomposition!” Nido shouted, imbuing his words with the energies of life itself. Ah! Xenoglossia at its best. Gotta love giving power to words.
The wolf, and by extension the enchanter, collided with a tree as their momentum was far too great. Nido quickly got himself up, the monster having taken most of the damage and also having mitigated his tackle. He readied another spell, as he knew that this wolf wouldn’t suppose a problem no more.
A foul odor impregnated the place as the blinded wolf began to decompose hastily. His lush fur became dry and soon after dust. His face was deformed, his skin becoming a nasty ooze alongside his meat. The Life spell was on the darker side of the element, and quite an abominable field, but the decomposition of living bodies was as easy, if not easier than healing them as common healers and druids did.
The ranger distracted himself by shooting the last healthy standing wolf. This one had proven quite agile and had evaded some of his shots. Enough so that it had arrived towards the tree where Dorian stood on. Though the chimera didn’t prove much of a climber, and whilst it tried to jump up to kill the ranger, it was shot down before it could do anything.
At least his death was rather clean with a shot across its skull, unlike the pair of partners the mage had killed with his magic.
The last remaining wolf, the one half struck by the Arcane projectile, whimpered unknowingly what to do. Everyone on its pack had died, and all thoughts of revenge were nullified thanks to its weakened status. The muffled cries of the slowly decomposing monster next to Nido didn’t help that much.
It tried to run away. Keyword, tried.
Dorian shot an arrow to its front legs, already knowing he didn’t have a clear shot for a straight kill. The projectile was enough to destabilize the half-burnt chimera, making it fall to the ground. It didn’t have any chance to get back as Nido shot an Arcane bolt towards it, completing the job that the first couldn’t.
“That was… messy.” Dorian commented after coming down from the tree and approaching the enchanter. “I didn’t expect the first wolf to survive an arrow through his brain, and then again, I didn’t expect you either to be this competent in combat.”
“I did tell you I was able to hold by myself on a fight.” Nido said, dusting away the remains of the decomposed wolf from his clothes.
“What was that second spell, though?” The ranger asked as he gathered the arrows he had used. The damp sounds that came from extracting the projectiles from the monster’s skull weren’t exactly pleasant. “I can recognize the first one, Arcane Bolt, pretty standard with Mage things going. But I’ve never seen the other.”
“Decomposition, a rather basic Life spell. Certainly not the one you’d be expecting from a mage’s repertoire.” The enchanter explained, helping the man recollect his ammunition.
“And you say that’s a basic spell?” He furrowed his brows looking and pointing at the still living monster.
Dorian took a knife and killed it with a quick and methodical stab, ending the creature’s suffering. The neutrality on his expression whilst he performed the did and his knowledge on mages, indicated that this wasn’t the first time he had things gone rather poorly with spellcasters. At least the man was professional about it.
“Complexity and power do not often correlate.” Nido handed him the bloodied arrows. “Though I won’t lie telling you this is the standard potency of the spell. I have empowered with multiple means.” Namely ether and xenoglossia.
“Thank the Divines then, I can’t imagine seeing every Biomancer with such spells at such low levels.”
Nido wanted to correct that the spell wasn’t exactly correlated to the field of biomancy but the Life element as a whole, though he decided otherwise as it seemed more of a misunderstanding caused by the Arcane Records and their weird Class system.
“How many levels have you obtain with this whole ordeal then? There were a few of them, so I guess five levels?” Dorian asked him, cleaning the tips of the arrows with a rag full of dirt.
“Huh, you are right.” Nido was surprised that the ranger had been correct with his guess once he looked at the notifications of the Records. Well, he DOES know how this Records thing works. These ones were a tad bit different than the ones he had saw when enchanting.
You have killed a Canine Beaver! You have killed a Canine Beaver! You have…
You have leveled up! You have leveled up! You have…
You have reached level 7 on Voidborn! +5 Constitution, +1 Attunement!
You have reached level 6 on Mage! +10 Intelligence!
Leaving aside the unoriginal name of the monsters, the enchanter found odd the absurd amount of notification he had gotten from this simple hunt. One for each kill, one for each level up, and then a debriefing for every class he had level up. Summing up for the total amount of thirteen notifications. It was idiotic that Records considered this to be organized. They were called Arcane Records after all. Aren’t records supposed to be organized and categorized or am I wrong?
Nido, while frustrated by the unnecessary number of pop-ups, was gratified by the amount of gained attributes. Sixteen points in total. Not the most in a session, but they were free and won in a matter of minutes.
Yet he didn’t fail to notice one thing. Mage’s level ups give two attribute points. He didn’t know why Enchanter and Voidborn had given three and six points, respectively, until now. But when his Mage class gave him the last piece of the puzzle. Class rarity and attributes per level up are related. Uncommon was an step backwards from Rare, that was common classification. That’s also why Enchanter gave one more point than Mage.
So, if Voidborn gave three more points, it meant it was not once, nor twice, but thrice steps beyond Rare classification. Nido could easily imagine which were the missing links. But the fact that his Racial class was so high on the classification, it only raised even more questions on the bottomless well that this mysterious class was.
“How did you know I’ve got five levels, though?” He asked to the ranger. In reality, he had increased six levels when taking onto account his Racial class, but he really didn’t want to talk about it.
“Occupational hazards, you could say.” The man responded after he had thoroughly cleaned the blood out of the well-crafted arrows. “When you’ve been with as much adventurers as me, and slain even more monsters, you begin to understand how experience works regarding the person and monster’s level.”
“Huh, I’ve never thought about it.” The enchanter added as a way to apparent comprehension of the workings of the Records. “Enchanting gives wildly different experience and I haven’t got the hang of the rewards for a successful crafting. Besides the “better item, more levels” thing, that is.”
“Well, that’s kinda what happens with Combat class.” Dorian commented, taking a closer glance at the putrefied monster. A decision he quickly repented by the grimace on his face. “The higher level is the monster you just have slain, the more experience you obtained. Though most people won’t try to get themselves involved in a big game hunt because every experience beyond the cap is useless.” The man shrugged, getting away from the corpse.
Although no one had told him how the Prestige classes worked, Nido mostly had a solid idea about it. Doing something noteworthy would grant you with a title, and this title would allow you to level up beyond your limits.
This was perhaps the most sensical application of the Arcane Records the enchanter had seen. In his times, most people were limited by a wall, whether by their lack of skills or their insufficient innate talent. Nido wasn’t a stranger to this phenomenon, not at all. So that the Records gave a way for mortals to go beyond their wall and truly express their true self. It was the “godliest” thing the enchanter had seen the divines do, that’s for sure. The selfish superior beings normally treated mortals as toys or insects, when they had been proven more than once that mortals could easily achieve their level.
“Are you going to get materials from the wolves?” Dorian asked after a few moments of silence.
Nido had been too focused on bad memories, losing the notion of time. He was currently free from the divines, and honestly, he didn’t want anything to do with them. Though the whole Records ordeal would prove his wish difficult to fulfil.
The ranger looked at the rest of pack with dissatisfaction. “If you are planning in doing so, I’m afraid you won’t be getting much out of this lot.”
“No, I don’t need their parts.” Nido inspected the monster’s body, searching for anything worthwhile. “Maybe if I was a leatherworker or an alchemist. Perhaps even a tailor. But no, I don’t really work with such materials.”
The enchanter went towards the corpse in better shape, the one that Dorian had sniped at the beginning of the ambush. Its fur was intact, only a few splatters of blood in the head, but that’s all.
“Don’t you want them for the caravan?” Nido asked him. “I’m sure they would appreciate a blanket or two.”
“Normally I would say yes, but this fur isn’t the best, and we are only two to transport it, instead of my party.” The ranger sighed. “Are you sure don’t you want anything? These things are free.”
“Hmm…” The enchanter pondered after having had a better look. “The fangs are solid and smooth… I think I could make use out of them.”
“That’s how I like it!” Dorian exclaimed with a sudden boost of joy. “Give me a second and I will take them out. How many do you want?”
“Two will suffice, though I won’t stop you if you decided to get four.”
“Roger that!” The ranger handled his knife with smooth sleight of hand. The man certainly liked using it, even if his main weapon was a bow.
It took Dorian less than a pair of minutes to remove the teeth from the canine. He had to be a skinner, or closely related, considering the ease and ability with which he removed the fangs.
“Are you a skinner of some sorts?” Nido asked him for the sake of conversation.
“It was that obvious?” The ranger joked. “Yes, my Profession class is Skinner. These pests don’t give any considerable experience unless I skin them whole.”
“Huh, fitting.” The mage commented as he observed Dorian removing the frontal teeth from the wolf that had tried to climb the tree.
“I’m normally the one who gets the materials from our little party. Though Garn isn’t half bad at it.”
“Who’s this Garn you are talking about?” The enchanter asked after he was handed the fangs by the skinner.
“Oh, right. I kinda forgotten that you haven’t had any real introduction to my party. Garn is the Rogue.” Dorian explained and stood up. “Jeanne, who you already know, is a Fencer. And the guy with the shield, that’s Robert. He’s a Warrior, though he works as the tank.”
“You are well-rounded.” Nido told, walking besides the ranger. “A tank, two melee fighters, and a ranged one. Except for…”
“Except for our lack of magic users.” Dorian cut him off.
“Emm, yes. Except for your lack of magic users.” The enchanter didn’t like being interrupted. He wouldn’t make a fuss out of it, but it did bother him greatly.
“Why don’t you join us, then?” The ranger asked as he cleaned his knife with the same dirty rug he used for the arrows.
“Perhaps.” Nido toyed with the pointy fangs, not really bothered about their dirtiness.
“Perhaps? It’s a simple yes or no question.” Dorian looked at him, continuing to polish his knife in a menacing matter. It was easy to understand that the man was joking through his exaggerated gestures.
“I would love to keep going to these hunting expeditions until I obtain my level ten perk.” The mage explained, unphased by the ranger’s actions. “But I will be at the caravan for a while, so I wouldn’t mind lending you a hand if my help is truly needed.”
“Yes, that’s how it’s talked! Like a real Wanderer!” He sheathed his knife and patted the young mage in the back a bit too forcefully. “You and I are going to have a fun time.”