Zalia finished off the last undead with a quick step back to avoid a blow and a simultaneous downwards strike that neatly bisected her enemy. Looking around for any remaining enemies and seeing none, she stabbed her sword into the ground and collapsed against the wall, sliding down to a seated position. She let out a long slow groan, stretching her aching muscles as her healing took care of the remaining wounds. She had been stabbed in the side by a particularly sneaky undead Bathar with a dagger, the point managing to penetrate her icy armour and heirloom armour. She had also received a strongly worded fist to the head at one point and had needed to quickly retreat to recover from the ringing in her ears.
Despite it all she had managed to win the fight, only one more Bronze ranked Bathar coming out of the horde to challenge her. After that it was just a cleanup of the lower ranked enemies, most taken down in one or two strikes. While they might have been of similar ranks, they definitely were not as powerful as even a normal person of their rank, let alone a match for Zalia. She had noticed these Bronze rankers were less powerful than Juniper had been as well, a result of their long slumber maybe.
Still, she had managed to accrue various scratches and bruises over the course of the fight, though those were negligible at the moment. Her healing usually would have been able to take care of all of that almost as soon as it happened but the constant fight it needed to put up against the corruption severely impeded it. She checked over the other side of the clearing where Boreal was cleaning the undead muck off of herself. Seeing that she was alright she looked around for Delphi. Zalia had put him on top of a nearby roof to watch the fight and only now thought to check if he was alright.
Her question was answered when the nimble little frog landed on her knee and inspected her.
“You’re injured,” Delphi stated.
“What gave it away, was it the blood?” Zalia replied sarcastically.
“Yes, the collective has no memories of your kind but I believe the red substance is meant to stay in your body,” Delphi replied, no sarcasm noticeable in his voice.
“Do you not have blood?” Zalia asked.
“No, we have no need,” Delphi said.
“Good for you,” Zalia said.
She ignored Delphi for a moment, checking her ability level ups from the fight.
Congratulations! Kill shot has gained two levels reaching Iron 13.
Congratulations! Hunter’s mark has gained two levels reaching Iron 13.
Congratulations! Fight or Flight has gained three levels reaching Iron 12
Congratulations! Hunter’s sight has reached Iron 11.
Congratulations! Hunter class has gained two levels reaching Iron 11
Congratulations! Flora identification has reached Iron 9.
Congratulations! Stasis has reached Iron 9.
Congratulations! Herbal magic has gained two levels reaching Iron 19.
Congratulations! Herbalist class has reached Iron 9.
Congratulations! Nature’s wrath has gained three levels reaching Iron 11.
Congratulations! Protection of the wilds has gained three levels reaching Iron 9.
Congratulations! Druid class has gained three levels reaching Iron 9.
Congratulations! Mobility has reached Iron 20.
Congratulations! Mobility has reached Bronze 1.
This ability will gain no further levels until all classes have reached Bronze 1.
Mobility - passive
Tin - Your speed is increased. Your stamina is less affected by movement.
Iron - You may step on air one time before stepping on a solid surface once more.
Bronze - You are able to step on air three times before resetting this ability. Additionally, you may perform a short range teleport with a long cooldown. Finally, when travelling long distances, you are able to maintain a fast pace while maintaining your stamina indefinitely.
Congratulations! Weapon proficiency - Bow has gained two levels reaching Iron 17.
Congratulations! Weapon proficiency - Sword has gained three levels reaching Iron 12.
She eyed the Mobility rank up ability, a little surprised by the extensive upgrade it had received. Most of her other passives had only small additions or increases but mobility appeared to be different. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that a lot of her other passives were from the Survivalist ability. Was there such a thing as minor and major passives? She didn't really know but would find out eventually.
“-ay you stepped back to follow through at the end was a particularly impressive display,” Delphi was saying.
“Thanks,” Zalia said.
“The collective shall enjoy inspecting these memories, I’m certain of it. It is something much outside of our experience despite the many cycles of memories we have,” Delphi explained.
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“I hope they do,” Zalia replied.
She was having a hard time gathering the energy to hold proper conversation and Delphi must have finally caught on to it because he fell silent. Looking to the air above, Zalia could see the crow flying in a wide circle, keeping an eye out.
“What about Benjamin,” Zalia said.
“What?” Delphi asked.
“Benjamin. We could call the crow Benjamin or Benji for short,” Zalia explained.
“If you wish,” Delphi said.
“You don’t think it’s a good name?” Zalia asked.
“The collective is not used to… names,” Delphi replied.
“Right, forgot about that. Boreal, what do you think about calling our friend Benjamin?” Zalia called out.
“Mreow?” Boreal said, looking up from her cleaning.
“Yeah, then we can call him Benji for short,” Zalia added.
Boreal looked at Zalia flatly.
“Alright, not Benji then,” Zalia grumbled.
“What about… Ro-ak?” Delphi asked.
“I thought you didn’t do names,” Zalia said.
“It isn’t a name, it’s my best translation to your language of seer or one with sight,” Delphi said.
“Ro-ak. Ro for short?” Zalia said.
“That’s not how our lan-” Delphi started.
“What do you think Boreal?” Zalia asked.
“Mow,” Boreal replied.
“-ks, you can’t just shorten words,” Delphi finished.
“It’s decided,” Zalia announced.
“Decided,” Boreal agreed.
“Alright,” Zalia said with a groan as she stood up.
She stretched, ignoring the pang in her shoulder.
“Want to go round two with some undead or something else?” Zalia asked.
“New memories are always sought,” Delphi replied.
“I’m gonna take that as a yes,” Zalia said.
So she set off with her small group of animal friends looking for a new place to set up.
⪼ ⪢ ℋ 𝒶𝓃𝒹 ℋ ⪡ ⪻
Many hours and a few fights later, Zalia lay on a rooftop exhausted. After each fight she recovered slowly but the constant fighting over the course of the day drained her mentally too. That, unfortunately, was not something she could quite heal yet.
During the fights however, she managed to push two of her abilities to Bronze.
Congratulations! Kill shot has gained two levels reaching Iron 15.
Congratulations! Hunter’s mark has gained two levels reaching Iron 15.
Congratulations! Fight or Flight has gained two levels reaching Iron 14
Congratulations! Herbal magic has reached Iron 20.
Congratulations! Herbal magic has reached Bronze 1.
Herbal magic will not gain further levels until all classes reach Bronze 1.
Herbal magic - passive
Tin - Minor herbal based rituals are a keystone of magical herbalists. You gain an instinctual understanding of herbal rituals of your rank or lower. Herbal magic you use of your rank and lower has slightly increased potency.
Iron - you may emulate the effects of herbs you have used in rituals of a rank lower than this ability.
Bronze - When applying a Herbal ritual effect to a target marked by Hunter’s mark, all other marked targets are also affected. In addition, you are able to combine certain herbs to gain a new base effect.
Congratulations! Nature’s wrath has gained two levels reaching Iron 13.
Congratulations! Protection of the wilds has reached Iron 10.
Congratulations! Druid class has reached Iron 10.
Congratulations! Weapon proficiency - Bow has gained three levels reaching Iron 20.
Congratulations! Weapon proficiency - Bow has reached Bronze 1.
Weapon proficiency - Bow will not gain further levels until all classes reach Bronze 1.
Bow - Weapon proficiency
Tin - Arrows shot from a bow you are using have increased speed based on rank and level of this skill.
Iron - Arrows shot from a bow you are using have increased penetrative power based on the rank and level of this skill.
Bronze - Bows you use will now shoot entirely silently. Additionally, when you draw the string back, you will gain insights into the weak points of your target.
Congratulations! Weapon proficiency - Sword has gained four levels reaching Iron 16.
Over the most recent fight she had definitely noticed the now silence of her bow and the effect it gave her. She hadn’t noticed, however, that her Herbal magic could now affect each enemy that was marked by casting a ritual on only one of them. That would be cause for a lot of testing, especially around being able to apply a mark to a creature when tracking them. That would mean she could theoretically cast a ritual on someone hundreds of kilometres away, kind of like a curse.
She kind of loved the idea.
It would also push her to make more use of her Herbal magic in combat where usually she only used it much in the set up before a fight. She had also tested out her short range teleport during the fights, being able to reposition herself out of danger was another small increase to her survival here. She was also having ideas for how she could use it in a more utility based way, maybe to get past those Silver ranked guards blocking her way forwards. She had yet to test how exactly that worked with her intangibility but was quite keen to try.
She watched as Boreal pounced across the room again and checked the ability description for her pounce, thinking it may have levelled up by some of the new effects she saw
Tin - When charged, pouncing on something will cause it to be coated with a layer of ice and snow.
Iron - When charged, your pounce will have greatly increased strength and weight behind it.
Bronze - When charged, your pounce will now grant you a body tight magical icy shield that will protect you from one attack, no matter its strength. This can only trigger once every so often.
“Wow, Boreal. You have your own extra defences now too!” Zalia said.
She was over the moon that Boreal had gotten something that would make her more durable. She often almost had a heart attack when Boreal pounced into the middle of a bunch of enemies.
“Maybe we can have another try at that keep, wanna see it Delphi?” Zalia asked.
“New memories are always sought,” Delphi replied.
Zalia rolled her eyes.
“I should have known you’d say that,” Zalia replied, a bright smile on her face.