Steal was already becoming sick of following Kor'Ak through the winding, bustling and busy streets of Veera, although Kor'Ak seemed intent on looking at odd bottles of strangely coloured liquid at a market stall, Steal couldn't care less. A smell, just a smell was what took all of his attention away from Kor'Ak. pungent, powerful, aromatic, and meaty. It wasn't the drinks that interested the gluttnous goblin, it was the food. Roasting on spits, boiling in pots and cooking on grills, people were handing over these strange glinting circles, and taking away the delicious, juciy looking meats and stews.
Kor'Ak had just gotten a lot of those glinting circles. Except his were a different colour, more yellow than the brownish, copper circles the other people handed over.
Nevertheless, it was worth a try. Steal hobbled closer to Kor'Ak, narrowly missing getting stood on by some odd, scaly-skinned woman that stood taller than even Kor'Ak, curved horns adorning her head and sprouting outwards like the branches of a tree.
Steal reached up and tapped Kor'Ak's waist, the bony, clawed finger hidden underneath an over-sized sleeve. He'd been learning from how this man seemed to interact with him, and made an attempt at trying to display his desires. Looking down at the creature from the two vials of blood-red liquid he was comparing, the Djaal watched on as Steal tapped Kor'Ak's satchel, the pointed off towards a vendor a few stalls down the road, massive hunks of mutton and lamp spinning around on spits over open, stone firepits.
The towering man followed the goblin's finger, then sighed, nodded and handed him a Silver Krown, not the money he'd gotten as a reward, but it seemed rude to pay for something worth a few Coppers with a Gold Krown.
He watched on as the goblin nodded, looked directly up at Kor'Ak, revealing the lower half of his otherwise obscured face and showed him a wide, toothy grin.
Steal promptly hobbled off towards the meat vendor, dodging and weaving it's way through the crowds. It would have been safer to take the goblin out later in the night or far earlier, foot-traffic in the markets was always rather high around noon in Veera. Atleast in the short while that Kor'Ak had stayed in this town.
The Djaal adventurer followed after Steal, giving the creature enough space to act on his own, but he was close enough to help him out. Or stop him from doing something... monstrous.
Instead, the goblin merely waved the Krown at the vendor, some sort of odd humanoid insect species that Kor'Ak had seen a rare few times, but never interacted with. It was primarily the clicking mandibles that convinced Kor'Ak to keep his distance, but their dispraportionate arms, with the lower set being rather small and fine, and the higher set being longer and often more muscular looked odd to the human. After a brief clicking of mandibles and excited finger-pointing and squeals from the hooded little green creature, the insect took the Krown from his outstretched hand, chitin-armoured fingers on it's lower arms deftly opening and closing a lockbox of Silver Krowns. The insectoid grabbed the knife that lay by it's side as it produced a wooden stick from a small, wooden box that sat to one side of it's stall.
Gently and smoothly, the knife began to slice through a thick layer of meat on one of the larger, juicer looking hunks of cooking mutton that Steal was practically slobbering over, jumping up and down in excitement and pointing towards it.
As the layer of meat began to dip as he cut along it's length, the insect used one if it's other small arms to pierce the meat, continuing to do this as he folded the mutton over itself on the stick. The end product was a solid, dozen-times folded length of mutton speared through it's center, making a mutton kebab, still slick and dripping with it's juices.
As the insectoid shop vendor was doing his craft and Steal was almost completely absorbed in the frankly mundane spectical, Kor'Ak muttered "Status.." gently to himself.
STATUS General Attributes Jobs/Classes Name Kor'Ak Gale STR 84 Human (Djaalic) 17 42,315/65,684 XP Race Human (Djaalic) DEX 78 Warrior 20 205,531/221,683 XP Age 32 Years 5 Months AGI 57 Guardian 7 762/1,139 XP HP 378/378 (9.8/s) FRT 98 Tinkerer 4 163/337 XP MP 135/135 (4.0/s) INT 45 Affiliation Djaal/Adventurer's Guild WIS 45
ADVANCED STATUS Traits Skills Spells/Martial Arts Trait Level Skill Level Spell/Art Level School Manbutcher 1 Sword Expertise MAX Shield Bash 3 Warrior Wyrmslayer 2 Sword Mastery 1 Furious Charge 2 Warrior Soldier Of Djaal MAX Shield Expertise 4 Unstopabble Force 2 Warrior Djaalic Heat Resist MAX Medium Armor Expertise 1 Adrenaline Boost 2 Warrior Headhunter 1 Heavy Armor Expertise 3 Iron Will 2 Warrior Captain INACTIVE Shield Toss 1 Warrior Daemon-Touched 1 Bulwark 3 Guardian Unbreakable Guard 2 Guardian Bloody Harvest ERROR ERROR
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
He'd been expecting a level up from hunting a wyvern, admittedly it's wounded eye, the dead hobgoblin and his newly acquired companion made it clear he hadn't done all of the work.
experience from jobs was always divided between those that fought a creature, although the system is oddly arbitrary, it seemed to award experience depending on controbution in a fight, not just damage. It was likely to ensure that adventurer healing jobs and supporters could gain as much experience as their warrior and offensive caster counterparts when adventuring. Although Kor'Ak was certain he had done the majority of the work on the creature, especially with plunging his blade through a spot that contained the largest amount of the creature's vital organs, he hadn't gained quite enough experience to level up any of his jobs.
It was certainly a little dissapointing, but the jingling bag of gold at his side certainly made him feel better about it.