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Pilgrimage season had begun on the plains when the lowest ranked member of this gestalt pick-me-up group was at level 16. Twelfthnight up in the highlands was framed by dozens – no, hundreds, of campfires as the bloated vanguard of pilgrims entered that fourth station on the route. The sheer mass of pilgrims shuffling along the road would slow them down, maybe take a day and a half before they reached the plains.
Calaf and his new party returned to Plains Junction for a single evening. Already, the city was a bit more crowded, and the market prices inflated with higher-level pilgrims who had the same idea of outpacing the main glut of worshipers that Jorge and company had.
They sold as much raw material as they could, basking in the inflated prices. Still, Calaf had that supply of plainskarst to hawk at the next town over. He would test this ‘market economics’ and ‘supply and demand’ principle. It was not a strategy the church educational program would teach him.
Just as they left the market and prepared to head to their inn for one final night before heading out, Calaf couldn’t help but overhear a particularly old gentleman. An impressive level 60, even in his old age.
“Bah. All these tourists. Pilgrimage has gone commercial, it has! Why, back in my day, only the most devout dared pass Deepwood. And we stayed at each station for weeks, leveling up as God intended. Nowadays we’ve got level twelves marching into town with scarcely even iron equipment. And the line of pilgrims stretches ‘twix the delta and the woods. A regular conga line, it is!”
Still, recent victories had boosted Calaf’s confidence. His fellow travelers wanted to gain as high a level as possible, as level 40 and above allowed access to prestige church positions. Level 60 and above were often allowed into the holiest of shrines and blessed with all manner of buffs in whatever town or cloister they happened to visit. Even these boons only made the journey towards the upper echelons and the grand cathedral at the site of the Demon Lord’s Fall even somewhat bearable for the strongest and most committed among the faithful.
Calaf did want to increase his level and his faith in the Holy Menu. But he also wanted to find Jelena. He also wanted a second round with that slovenly beast-man she’d sicced on him and Gorman back in the hot springs.
He knew the itinerary. The next stay on the route of the holy pilgrimage. A port floating on and around a fanning river delta. A city of cisterns and alleyways. There would be a lead to follow there should he be bold enough to pursue it. But first, they had to reach the fertile river delta.
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Calaf, Jorge, Gerard, and Isaac kicked at an enraged and rabid and drooling dire-badger, itself just a level below the Leggy Lizard they’d so valiantly felled a few days prior.
“It’s too small for us to get a proper swing at!” Gerard said, annoyed.
Indeed, the small stature of these beasts resulted in a -25% accuracy rating for all physical hits!
“There are…” Isaac swung his half-a-greatsword. “… three others just behind that hill over there.”
Calaf compelled the dire-beast to focus on him with a shield bash.
“Just don’t get in their way until we fell this one. Take on one at a time and we can do this, everyone. Think of the experience bonus!”
After five minutes of frenzied kicking, the beast was felled.
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Item Obtained:
Teeth of the Dire-Badger (x5)
Antidote (x3)
Gold x 70
Experience: 250 xp
Calaf felt the experience flow through him (and the gold flowing through his wallet). Even split five ways, the rewards from this standard dire-badger were comparable to legendary beasts back in Riverglen.
“Ahh. It bit me!” said Gerard. “I can feel the rabies coming on. Heal me. Heal me!”
Name:
Gerard
Status:
29/36 (Rabies!)
“Worry not. There are weeks before the symptoms take effect,” said Calaf. “The creature dropped the antidotes needed to remove the status. A standard healing spell will not.”
Even so, Calaf suggested that Sarah heal the team scout anyway. With his status back to (Normal) and his HP topped up, the group was ready to go once more.
Sarah had unlocked an area of effect healing spell at level 15. Mana consumption was inefficient until the cleric was north of level twenty. But should they all be low on health it was a good emergency pick-me-up.
Each individual enemy was a struggle on this far northern end of the plains. There was no manipulation of region levels at play here; it was a well-known area of relative difficulty. But as the party persevered through dire-badgers and dire-cockatrice and dire-deer, the topography gradually became swampier. Dire-mammals gave way to dire-amphibians. Creatures of the mid-30s gave way back to creatures in the mid to late 20s.
Where before the plains were easy to traverse despite being filled with individual beasts that inflicted poison and trample and rabies, now the creatures were relatively easy to dispatch but it was the land itself that slowed most progress.
Gerard’s scouting skillset was essential here. As a Trailblazer, he could easily make out the centuries-old footpaths between sinkholes and floodwaters that the Heroes of Yore would have crossed the delta on.
The outer band of delta fingers was narrow, anyone being able to cross over while barely getting their ankles wet. Miles past and the next finger was a modest river that required a handily-provided pontoon bridge in order to cross.
The third finger had a ferryman with an oar-based paddleboat waiting to ferry travelers across. Dire-piranhas stalked the waters, following in the boat’s wake.
Past this point, the level delta returned to the level thirty-plus base that the northern limits of the plains had possessed. At this point, though, the party was nearly caught up, and many a dire-gator emerged out of the rivers and marshes and were culled for experience and their craftable dire-gator hides.
A fourth finger of the delta was so wide its far shore could not even be seen. No boat awaited. But there was a sign, sunken down and listing in the loose soil, pointing west-south-west:
Delta: Pilgrimage Station
Thataway!
They were getting close!
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The path continued along the riverside. Foliage hung low over the road, quite the change of pace over the dry plains, nearly devoid of any plant life larger than shrubberies.
There weren’t a lot of other pilgrims on the road. Only the truly faithful continued on past the Plains Junction. And Calaf’s party was well ahead of peak pilgrimage season besides.
With the low-hanging greenish canopy, the next town on the itinerary largely snuck up on the group.
A squat wooden wall – half the size of the stone one around Riverglen – surrounded the town. Necessary to keep the dire-gators out of the market, Calaf supposed.
A portcullis awaited ahead of the group, open, with two guards at level 43 with halberds the likes of which Calaf could not yet even dream of welding barring the route. It was a journey of some days through the swamps, but they were finally here.
Faint culling of dire-gulls was heard in the distance. The air was thinner and saltier, here.
And on that day, the party’s levels were thus:
Name: Calaf
Level: 24
Name: Jorge
Level: 21
Name: Sarah
Level: 19
Name: Gerard
Level: 20
Name: Isaac
Level: 18
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