----------------------------------------
It was a three-day journey over coarse but manageable terrain back onto the pilgrim’s path. Gorman took the time to resupply in Vault with some root veggies cultivated by the dirt farmers, so rations for the trip were no issue.
The great, jagged peaks around Granite Pass gradually receded into the south, then out of sight at their backs. Across a particularly large canyon, they could now make out a coniferous pine forest. The next station along the pilgrimage was somewhere deep within – but it was not the holy city of Deepwood that the pair was aiming for.
“I suppose Deacon will be assigning some church missionaries to Branding the creatures around Vault,” Calaf said after a time.
“Yep,” said Gorman, with a yawn. “Hear it can take a while to get full saturation. Mostly they just let a critical mass of Branded creatures reproduce and eventually it spreads to the whole population after a generation or two.”
----------------------------------------
On the final day of Deacon’s blessing, the canyon warped into a cascading series of falls. It then transformed into a narrow but fierce river, grew slower and wider, then reduced to a minor trickle easy enough to wade over while barely getting one’s feet wet all in a span of a few miles.
Calaf and Gorman crossed over.
Already the mood seemed lighter. They were in the plains – every creature properly Branded and governed by the Menu. That said, the first flock of dire-doves they saw in the distance was already level 29!
“I suppose we did skip the natural leveling progression. Bypassed two and a half zones,” Calaf said.
“We still have that blessing for another couple of hours,” Gorman said. “Stick to the path and we should not run into anything too terribly threatening.”
The lower end of the Plains level structure was a little overleveled for Calaf but right around what Gorman would hunt for proper leveling rewards.
Land in the plains was, per the name, flat like a pilgrim’s bread rations. They could see the steeples of the local Plains Church of the Menu a full day’s travel away. With no exterior wall to speak of, the outer suburbs of a sprawling town gradually came into view piece by piece.
There were still miles of travel to go, the city inching ever closer but still quite far away.
Not a single traveler was to be found on this west-east route. It was barely more than a footpath – one being reclaimed by nature day by day. Nothing like the grand avenue that marked the pilgrim’s path. And the land here was arid and sparse, where the north-south route at least skirted fertile river valleys.
The sun was hanging low in the late afternoon. They had maybe another hour on the shield blessing.
A great dust storm raged in a distant, dried-up riverbed. In fact, it snaked across the landscape wildly, far too quick and fierce to be some natural formation.
Whirling sand blocked out the sun.
“That’s a…” Gorman began.
A great, scaled beast broke the surface of the sand.
Name:
Dire-Worm
Rank:
Legendary Beast, Beast
Level:
46
Status:
1706/1706 HP
“Level forty-six!?” Calaf said, though his voice was stifled to avoid making too much noise.
Were they too late? Had their quarry already stolen the relics regulating this region’s level range?
“Oh, it’s a legendary beast,” Gorman explained. “They’re usually a few levels above the region cap. Deacon probably could’ve explained why, something to do with maintaining the ecosystem? Not worth engaging with just the two of us, either way, Maybe once we’re in town we can come back with a group of sixteen or more and take it down.”
No sooner had Gorman said this than did the Dire-Worm leap into the air with full force. Indeed, there was someone in its jaws. Someone wearing a leather duster and a particularly large and fragile-looking sword…
The Dire-Worm turned, and then slammed into the dried lakebed again at full force. The ground shook with the force of the blow, cracking the road ahead and sending Calaf and Gorman off-balance.
The dust settled. A five-foot-six figure wielding a six-foot-six sword emerged.
Name:
Walter
Rank:
Hunter, Church of the Menu
Level:
93
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Status:
1220/1245 HP (Flesh Wound)
All that, a full-force slam of a gaping, toothy maw of the Dire-Worm, and this figure hadn’t dropped ten percent of their health.
“Level ninety-three!?” Calaf said, mouth agape.
Why, he’d hardly met anyone above level 70 before. They didn’t typically have reason to stick around Riverglen, what with the Rat Kings offering only a pittance of experience past level twenty or so. Church clerics stopped by the cathedral of course, but even among their number there weren’t more than two dozen clerics above level 90. And most of those were archbishops and the hallowed and immaculate archpope, spiritual heir to the Cleric of the ancient heroes.
The Hunter of the Church swung his overlarge sword with his off-hand, slicing and dicing the dire-worm all along its face.
Name:
Dire-Worm
Status:
1075/1706 HP
Such strength, and the hunter was hardly trying. But the creature wasn’t done yet.
Special Technique: Bile Spew
Effect: Barf up refuse, filling the immediate surroundings with toxic sludge.
Sickly purple sludge spewed forth from the beast, covering the entire floor of the lakebed with radioactive nonsense so sickly and terrible that it hurt just to look at it. To wade through the stuff would inflict such a horrible poison that only the highest-level cleric spells could possibly dispel it.
Only, Walter was nowhere to be found. Gorman pointed up, and sure enough, there was a figure far in the air, maybe sixty feet, if not more, the sun gleaming off his sword.
Special Technique: Flying Leap
Effect: Leap into the air, distance equal to 52% of user’s Strength. (Attacks on the downswing have a multiplier based on velocity)
Special Technique: Two-Handed Stance
Effect: Hold the Sword with Both Hands And Swing.
The sword hit the beast upside the head and kept slicing! Sickly purple fluid flowed from a head-to-whatever-Dire-Worms-had-on-the-other-side wound.
Name:
Dire-Worm
Status:
152/1706 HP
A mighty blow! And yet, the creature’s remaining HP was still well above the fiercest of high-level threats that Calaf would ever hope to be able to face.
Walter, though, landed in the lakebed, which was now filled to its shores with toxic sludge.
“Oh, we have to back him up!” Calaf had already brandished his shield. “Maybe we can at least tide him over with antidotes until we can get him back to town.”
At the very least, they needed this guy up and fighting long enough to finish off this Dire-Worm. It had noticed the pair, and coiled its segmented body up, ready to lunge at them. Calaf’s mere steel shield wasn’t going to cut it.
Calaf Uses: Quadruple Thrust
Effect: Stab the nearest target x4.
Sickly purple ooze coated Calaf’s spear tip. Still, the beast would not stop:
Name:
Dire-Worm
Status:
149/1706 HP
All that for three hit points. The creature prepared to wretch up more bile. Only then, it thrashed in pain.
Hit notification after hit notification blared, so fast the Menu couldn’t keep up with it all. Then, after another flying leap:
Special Technique: One Big Swing
Effect: One Full-Force, Two-Handed Swing.
The Dire-Worm paused, deathly still. And then…
Name:
Dire-Worm
Status:
-233/1706 HP (Bisected Lengthwise)
Each individual segment of this worm likewise fell apart, most landing in the miasmatic lakebed. Walter held a hand up.
“Each segment must be disintegrated, or it will grow into a new, stronger Dire-Worm.”
Church Approved Forbidden Magic: Giga-Smite
Effect: Arc of Fell Lightning Reducing All It Chained Targets to Ash.
A green bolt arced to the two halves of the worm’s mouth, then to the next segment, then to the next from head down to the tail. Each segment poofed away into a pile of ash in an instant. The lightning hit the tail… and then arced towards Calaf and Gorman! Their holy shield tanked the blow, then dissipated once and for all. They were safe… but only because of Deacon’s blessing from several days in the past. Another hour or two later and they’d have joined the worm as ash piles!
“Hey!” Gorman said. “You’re clearly a highly experienced battlemage. So, you ought to know better not to sling your spells around like that. You could’ve killed us just now.”
“You had a shield,” said the hunter, implacable.
“Are you sanctioned by the church?” Calaf asked. “What is it that you do here?”
“I hunt,” Walter said.
Walter’s extra-long sword was impaled in the ground. He pulled it out and wiped toxic bile off with a swift swing.
Despite having just emerged from a lakebed of toxic sludge, Walter was not poisoned. He must have prodigious Effect Resistance.
“Do you normally stick around the plains?” Gorman asked.
“I come down once every three months to cull the legendary beasts,” he said. “Safer than sending teams of at-level pilgrims to do it.” Walter looked up into the air expectantly. “Hmmm. There’s always a delay when felling beasts that require disintegration. Should be coming soon…”
And then…
Item Obtained:
Ash of the Dire-Worm x12
Worm Hide (Destroyed) x3
Gold x 20560
Experience: 999 xp.
Even split three ways, this was enough gold for Calaf to replace his entire kit – again! And the experience…
Level up! Level-Level up! Level up!
Calaf Leveled Up! Level: 16
Strength: 24 (+6)
Endurance: 32 (+11)
Agility: 15 (+1)
Intelligence: 10 (+0)
Charisma: 10 (+2)
Arcane: 5 (+0)
Luck: 21 (+4)
Already, Calaf’s stat distribution was conforming to a sheilder class. The first commitment on the road to Paladin. Still a little under leveled for the plains, but he was that much closer to catching up.
Gorman, too, had leveled up approximately twice. Walter, though, seemed to consider the gains of gold and experience to both be a relative pittance for his level.
“Good hunter of the church,” Calaf raised a hand in salute. “Would you be so kind to accompany us back to town? We are on an important mission from Riverglen…”
“Bring it up with the city watch.” Walter took off walking to the north, off any beaten path.
“You’re not going back to Plain’s Junction?” Calaf asked.
“I’ll be back in Fellmarsh.”
What an interesting person. Why, if this church hunter had merely escorted them to town, they’d have nothing to fear at all. And if he could’ve accompanied them on their quest, then, Jelena wouldn’t have lasted half a turn against that gargantuan blade.
----------------------------------------