I would definitely class the previous day as a little dramatic. Very scary as well, and more than a little painful. Doesn’t sound like a good mix of experiences to be honest, but after waking the next morning and beginning to pack up our small camp, I did find myself in many ways glad for how things had gone down.
Don’t get me wrong, the day itself was fucking dreadful, but I felt a new sense of comradery with my companions that I had been missing, unconsciously perhaps, but keenly nonetheless. Nothing was strictly different about this morning from all the others we had shared – no additional banter, no extra boasts or inside jokes, nothing tangible….I just felt different.
An invisible string tied me to each of them, and over the course of the last few days, that had strengthened into a solid rope. It might be that it was finally sinking in that these three had dropped everything and crossed an entire country just to save me, or the unburdening of various secrets between us all. Either way, we were closer because of it, and the world around me seemed to agree.
Bright beams of sunlight caressed our faces and warmed our backs as we went about the tasks of packing down a camp and removing as much of our presence as possible from the wilderness we had inhabited. It was a beautiful morning, and after a light breakfast of dried fruit, nuts and a few strips of jerky, we began to move off.
Jorge set a leisurely pace, allowing us to simply move through the world and let our minds run wild. We talked, joked, laughed and occasionally shared some companiable silence. After the sun had taken residence directly above us and began to beat down with intensity, our rambling conversation turned towards the future, and our current plan.
It was now clear to all of us, given the information Francis had provided, that something big was going on in the Sunset Kingdoms. I was leaning towards just leaving it alone. Not our problem. I was kidnapped as a random event more than anything.
Sure, I’d have to be careful around any Crimson Lions in the future, but their information network was focused locally in and around the Sunsets, besides their minor presence around the Copper Canyons. We could return to the Panyera like we’d originally planned, although now we’d likely miss the Sabayan, so that plan may need some revision.
But the point was, that for me at least, our dealings with the Crimson Lions could be at an end. I knew they had some means of locating God-Touched, but the way Francis had spoken about that, it sounded more like a Seer’s prediction of where new God-Touched would appear, rather than a definitive way to track them afterwards.
However, Vera was concerned. ‘Failed revolutionary’ I may have dubbed her in the sanctity of my own mind – I’d never call her that to her face, I wasn’t suicidal! – but she clearly still felt a strong connection to her homeland and wasn’t thrilled with the idea of Duke Ryonic gaining further power.
I wondered if this was a dangerous road to go back down considering how things had ended last time, and Nathlan – bless his courageous scholarly soul – had actually put that question to the berserker. She had calmly explained though that it was a cost calculation and this new information changed everything.
For her, the costs of trying to oust Duke Ryonic were prohibitive in terms of the lives of her people that would be destroyed in the process. Add to that the fact that the other principalities, principally but not exclusively the Sultanate, seemed unwilling to tolerate a more revolutionary kingdom on their boarders, and the cost became pointless. Even were they successful in driving off the Duke and taking control, they would be swiftly overwhelmed when their neighbours marshalled their forces.
Better to tolerate the indignity and hope for things to change. She could have more of a positive effect elsewhere in the meantime. I’m sure a large amount of trauma and feelings of betrayal and grief were also keeping her away from her old homeland as well, but it was a sensible argument.
However, the Ashkanian ruins changed all of that. If Duke Ryonic was able to plunder such an ancient ruin, he would rise in power dramatically. Both personally and politically, he would become untouchable, able to reinforce his draconian policies over generations if not longer.
In other words, the costs of intervening were as high as ever, but the costs of doing nothing had risen sharply. Jorge had agreed. I suspected that the meeting with the Subakir had shaken his faith in a way, and that its ‘meddling in mortal affairs’ had encouraged him to be more involved as well. Either that or he just really hated the Lions at this point.
I had a sneaking suspicion that there was more to the wait and see approach Vera had previously been taking than was said aloud. I didn’t know exactly how strong she was, but I suspected that she had been growing in power for the last decade rather than just learning to control her class. If she managed to reach the 4th tier, I had no doubt she would swoop into the Western Marchlands and take control relatively unopposed, making any retaliation from other kingdoms completely moot – nobody wanted to make an enemy of a 4th tier.
Nathlan had no dog in this fight, so to say, and neither did I to be honest. However, I was pretty angry at my treatment, and my own sense of injustice roared to life when I considered the plight of the people who would suffer if the Duke got his way. Just imagining a legion of Francis D’Sware lookalikes swaggering around a country, harassing farmers and peasants with no repercussions, protected by powerful artifacts from an ancient civilisation did set my blood pumping.
Suffice it to say, it didn’t take much to get me onboard. Nathlan likewise hated noble subterfuge – to a fairly surprising degree given what I knew of his background – and so hopped on the bandwagon quickly once Vera gave details on how the Western Marchlands were actually run.
In many ways, that was the easy bit – deciding that we were going to intervene. The hard bit came afterwards, when we contemplated how the four of us planned to overturn the plans of a powerful Duke ruling over a vast territory, hundreds of guards and soldiers under his command and a veteran mercenary company within his employ.
That was something for the others though, I was far too inexperienced to offer much more than light comic relief and a soundboard for picking holes in proposed plans. Most of it sounded extremely vague to me anyway, but when I voiced that concern, I was assured that all plans began this way, with details added over time.
Jorge eventually gave me a task to distract me anyway. In his words; ‘Look Lamb, you’re not being helpful here anymore. Go and catch us some dinner, and we’ll update you when you get back.’ The harsh words would have stung me when I’d first arrived on this world, but after months living, training and fighting side by side with Jorge, I’d come to appreciate his often-blunt communication style.
Hard days without food, of recovering from near-deadly wounds, and balancing my life on the edge of a blade had sheared away some of the ego I once had. I was no monk or holy man with my ego completely subsumed by a higher power or anything like that, but I could take some light criticism without feeling too put out.
He was right, I wasn’t helping here. I didn’t consider myself a great general or strategist, and what I knew about the Sunsets, or a destabilisation campaign against a state for that matter, could fit inside a thimble. Why should I be upset when someone stated I wasn’t helping with something I couldn’t help with?
Plus…hunting was fun.
As Jorge had predicted, our plan had started vague, and gained more detail as we progressed. We were crossing the DragonSpine Mountains – not the deepest parts admittedly, that would require 3rd tier skills at the least – and it would take weeks on its own. Then it was a multi-week trek to reach a port city on the other side of the mountain range, before catching a ship to take us along the Burning Coast and up-river into the Sunset Kingdoms themselves.
A trip of months would leave plenty of time for planning after all. More importantly though, it would leave plenty of time for training, for refinement, for progression. I now had my first taste of real magic, and I was practically salivating at the thought of growing that power.
I was moving through the mountains after all, what better opportunity was there to practice my control over stone?
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3 root-damned weeks. That’s all it took.
I’d spent a large part of my captivity pining after my companions. The only friends in the world I had. Other than Sally the Tinkerer I guess, but I doubt she thought of us as such. Just another customer I suppose. It was more significant to me though – she was one of the few people I knew by name!
There were others of course. We’d met a few traders and shared food and wine with them on our lonely trek from the Iona Chasm to the Copper Canyons. Pleasant evenings all considered.
I was getting side-tracked though. 3 weeks was all it took for me to get thoroughly sick of their shit.
It had been building for a few days now between all of us. Something in the air maybe, but jokes had stopped landing, compliments for food were missing, each of us was getting visibly more frustrated with the normal jobs of setting up and packing down camp each night. Minor bickering became arguments, and we were in danger of breaking out into a true disagreement.
Stolen story; please report.
Nothing personal as far as I could tell, but we were all just a bit sick of each other by now. Constant companionship will do that to a group through, and we’d been in a non-stop stressful situation for a few days now.
So yeah, I was on my own, scouting ahead and trying to give my companions some slack within my own mind. Nathlan had retreated back into himself and was acting like an angsty teenager, but honestly, I could sympathise. Vera was also being a bit of an ass, way too prickly at every comment and seeming on the verge of eruption at any moment. Pretty sure I’d seen her hair smoking after one particularly annoying barb from Jorge.
Jorge though was the worst. Rather than his usual calming influence, he was quiet. We all understood to a certain degree – he was still reeling from whatever private revelations he was having about his – religion? Cult? – I wasn’t sure really. Either way, I tried to be forgiving but damn, he was being so sulky!
So I’d slipped away, nobody commenting about my decision to go scouting. We were being followed by the vultures still, and getting an advanced view of the path ahead was a good idea in context. We’d picked them up about 3 days ago, but they’d stayed on our tail since, circling in the evenings and growing ever bolder as time passed.
I eyed the giant winged creatures warily from the bluff I perched upon, their massive stature and long beaks reminding me somewhat of the titanic eagles I had seen battling so long ago. That wasn’t a fun thought, and I quickly reassured myself that their scale, in comparison to the trees below them, was not in the same realm as those god-like beings.
None of those vultures would be casually dropping a cow on me at any rate. While I had some reservations about fighting them, especially considering my weakness at range, I was pretty confident we’d be able to lose them in a forest environment.
Jorge had further reassured me that they were not particularly dangerous predators for anyone of a similar level. Nathlan and myself were likely a dozen or so levels beneath them, but we could punch up against wild animals fairly reliably, and Jorge and Vera were far above them.
He’d then destroyed any of the calmness he’d instilled in me with his next sentence; “It’s what follows them that you should fear…”
Suffice it to say, I’d chosen to scout ahead rather than behind us.
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Time passed, and with its passage my strength grew. 1 level, then 3, then 4 and swiftly 5. I had gained 25 attributes to spend in less than as many days, and as we moved through deep valleys and winding gorges, I could feel the power coursing through my body. I’d been tempted to hold off on ‘spending’ the bounty of my levels so that I could increase all at once. Ostensibly to ‘maximise gains’ or something, but really, I think I just wanted to experience the rush of power all at once.
If I was particularly sneaky I could maybe surprise Vera with extra attributes that she hadn’t calibrated for and beat her in a spar. Jorge shot that idea down mercilessly. I needed more time to get used to my enhanced body, and hording attributes would only hinder that pursuit. Stupid, practical Jorge.
In any case, I was stronger than ever, and the myriad wounds I’d sustained had fixed themselves up. Jorge reassured me that while he could have fixed me up in an emergency, it would be better to let my natural regeneration deal with this. Improved vitality would handle most of the small niggles within the day, and the cracked ribs would set themselves back properly following Vera’s careful bandaging of my torso. It conserved resources, and also gave me an idea of how long it took me to heal.
It was tempting to think he was just being an ass, but I had to acknowledge that it was actually a fair point. Experience is the greatest teacher after all, and the way I seemed to be living my life – dangerously – involved trading minor injuries to impart greater ones on my opponents. I wasn’t some ‘eye for an eye’ berserker or anything, but I did tend to get hurt in small ways in many of my fights. Add to that my outside of combat experiences – climbing, running and otherwise flinging myself around the mountains like I was in a giant playground – also gave me my share of scrapes.
I made calculated risks, and so I needed to have a firm grasp on what the realistic consequence of each action was. I’d only get that by experiencing the downtime and recovery of my actions, rather than relying on some magical potion plucked from the void by my high-level mentor.
Anyway! Happier thoughts could be thought now, as I had healed up completely, just some minor scars still marring my form. And I was stronger than ever. Level 35 was a rush. I was delving into the secrets of Faultline every day, and with guidance from most notably Nathlan, I was growing by leaps and bounds.
I could climb up almost any stone surface now, widening existing minute cracks within the rock to form gaps big enough to use as hand and footholds. I couldn’t yet do much more than widen and pressure existing faults within a stone structure, but I was gaining more control each day. I could now channel the direction I wanted the fracture to move in, and even link up small fault lines within rock, assuming they were close enough together. Nathlan seemed impressed by the latter use of the skill, pushing me to try and carve patterns within rock with the aim of one day forming runic circles or warding patterns invisibly through the microstructure of stone below my enemy’s feet.
The problem was, I knew nothing of runecraft and the underlying magical theory behind it, and had no real desire to learn. Sure, it was interesting in an abstract sense but I knew myself well by this point. I didn’t have the dedication to work at something so theoretically dense; I preferred to use my body, or see the immediate effect on the world around me, and that progression would drive me forwards. Burying myself in books for a few years to achieve an arguably greater level of power and versatility was not something that excited me when I had other viable paths to follow.
While his enthusiasm for raw magic wasn’t something I could quite keep up with, his knowledge was profound, and his guidance did help push me far further and faster than if I were alone. Visualisation exercises, ‘dexterity’ exercises – by which he meant the ability to make fine adjustments with my magic rather than body – and other small tests and games to expand the way I used the skill were incredibly effective.
I was now at the point where I could sense stone easily and naturally. My domain for the stone-sense was roughly 20 or so meters in a sphere around myself, but I could double that distance if I pushed in one single direction. The further my sense moved away from my body, the weaker and less precise it became.
My control over the stone itself became more precise too. I could sculpt it more fluidly than to begin with and was gaining some measure of delicacy over the way I manipulated the material. I was still no sculptor, but I could create rough cracks and lines quickly and under duress. I was even experimenting with creating divots and holes under my opponent’s feet while fighting, and that seemed to be a promising line of advancement if I could keep working at it.
Obviously, the skill was heavily dependent on the environment, as it only worked on stone, and most effectively on stone that was heterogeneous, lit through with twisting cracks and broken lattices. In the high mountains, where scree slopes were plentiful and the earth was filled with sediment and minerals, I was in my element.
It was unlikely I would have such control in arable farmland. There were technicalities around what counted as stone that I’d not yet dived into. Could I manipulate sand one day? Coral? Crystal? Probably not. I was no scholar or mage, and I had little hope of expanding my current skill use into true understanding. I would be happy to simply control and manipulate the environment I spent time in. Simply control the mountains – what a thought!
Shaking off the thought, I reviewed the recent gains I’d made.
Ancestry: Human (unevolved)
Level: 35
Class: Blood of the Hills
Titles: God-touched
Attribute allocation:
Strength: 30
Agility: 30
Endurance: 30
Perception: 30
Cognition: 40
Available attributes: 0
Current skills:
Guerrilla Warfare: Level 9. Passive.
Wilderness Endurance Hunter: Level 11. Passive.
Heart of the Hills: Level 9. Active.
Check Step: Level 9. Active.
Indomitable Prey: Level 9. Active.
Skirmisher of Antiquity: Level 9. Passive.
Mountain-Born: Level 11. Passive
Minor Stone-Shaping: Level 7. Active.
I’d decided to pump up my cognition in order to get the most out of Nathlan’s lessons. I knew it didn’t make me smarter per se, but I did find myself able to retain and access the knowledge I learned a little easier, and the ability to concentrate harder and for longer was definitely a nice bonus.
I’d then rounded out the rest of my attributes to an even 30 because I liked the symmetry. Yes, it was a petty reason, but honestly, I wanted to keep an even spread for now. Cognition could jump ahead, and then I’d probably invest more in strength, but in general I wanted to be more of a jack of all trades than a master of one.
Also, Jorge had hinted that attribute allocation could influence what options you were given on classing up a tier. I wanted to keep a varied approach, and specialising too heavily would skew things in certain directions. Besides, with my rare combat class I had the spare attributes to chuck around.
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*Days later*
The hunt was on.
My blood sang as I rushed through the pine forest cloaking the steep valley, mounds of earth and fallen logs unable to bar my path as I leaped and ducked above, around and beneath them, all the while feeling the wind push against me as I kept my speed up.
I could hear my friend lowing with excitement as she sprinted alongside me, separated by half a mile of open air on the other side of the valley, but keeping pace effortlessly. I could barely see her, only the occasional and bizarre coughing grunts reassuring me she was near, and the rare flash of silver I sometimes saw through the trunks and canopy normally obscuring my view.
My stone-sense could pick up the reliable thumping of heavy paws as our quarry fled in panic. The fact that I still couldn’t catch even a glimpse of the massive creature was a bit of a worry given how it was lighting up in my new sense so dramatically.
It implied that the creature was bigger than I’d expected, even considering the advice Jorge had given me before I set off on this hunt. ‘Don’t back them into a corner and don’t get too close until they’re nearly done – they can twist at a moment’s notice and are far too strong for you to stand toe to hoof with.’
I was taking his words to heart and closing in slowly with the giant herbivore. I was almost tempted to believe that the lack of predatory instincts might make this animal less dangerous, but thankfully, the months in the wild had wiped away some of that naivete.
Ferns whipped past my legs as I ran after the thumping creature ahead, still just out of sight. As I began to close in though, I started to see the signs of its passage more clearly; splashes of water dripping from bushes, tiny icicles rapidly melting on the bottom of overhanging leaves, frost littering the ground in little clumps where pine needles had adhered to one another as if to ward off the chill.
The rhythmic thumping in my stone-sense suddenly shifted, and I looked up in time to see a wall of bristling ice spikes pointing my way as I failed to slow myself down before impact.