Anna
Several hours had passed as the group silently watched the fire burn away most of the forest’s underbrush. The predator that had killed the giant Rukhamen never returned after it died. Its corpse, now a smoldering husk, began withering away, much too quickly to be natural. It was as if the forest sped the process up, absorbing the giant, rather than waiting for it to crumble. The trees only took superficial damage from the heat of the flames, the outer bark of the trees already beginning to produce sticky sap to protect their exposed trunks.
The group had spread out around the cave, most dozing off after the adrenaline from the chase wore off. Greg and Helen were fast asleep leaning against one another, the packs providing support as pillows.
Other than Anna, Kalvin remained the only one awake. Hobbes sprawled out on the hard floor next to him, his head resting on Kalvin’s lap. The dwarf looked lost in his thoughts as he absently ran his fingers through his partner’s hair, massaging his scalp.
Anna herself was pretty distracted, staring at the new line in her status screen
Name: Anna Pand (Human)
Class: Forest Shaman
Vocation:
Path: Grove Druid
She’d chosen to absorb the Might Kapok Seed. At first, she thought of rejecting the offering. The idea of taking the soul of another creature made her feel like some sort of energy vampire. She was also afraid of it trying to take her over. It was Hobbes that changed her mind. He’d received an offering for a path as well, although it wasn’t from the Rukhamen, but the Phoenix that killed it.
“A path is an extremely rare gift.” Hobbes explained, “People would usually kill for the chance to get one back on our home world.”
“You already had the system in your old world?” Anna asked.
“Something like it. Although, it never spoke to us and there was no distinction between classes and vocations.”
“So, what’s a path?” Anna asked, setting aside the other questions she had circling her mind.
“Think of it like a calling. Something that allows you a greater degree of power than most others, as long as you follow it. Some people from my world had militaristic paths, like ‘Revered General,’ while others had paths that set them on a path to seek justice. It’s more than just a job, however, it’ll influence your Dharma and provide a narrower scope for your class.”
“Does it lock you into a specific role?”
“A path isn’t set in stone, you can start one, but ultimately reject it before completion. Paths often evolve as you do. Most people go through life without a path, but they’ll never be offered one either. My father explained it a bit like this, ‘Imagine building a road with no help and no tools. You have to create your own tools, flatten the dirt yourself, and pave the road on your own. A path is like getting the right tools from the start and being given an ox to help flatten the road. You’re still the architect of the road, you’ll choose where to go and where to build, but construction just became much easier.’ You should accept the offering.”
“So why did we get an offering and not the others?”
“That, no one knows.” Kalvin jumped in, “Maybe it’s because you have a class that’s similar to the path, or maybe you're just special.” He elbowed Hobbes as he said the last part.
“I can’t say for sure why we were offered the paths, but I do know that they provide a massive upside as you progress.” Hobbes grinned goofily as he rubbed his bicep where he was hit.
The others, listening in to Hobbes’ explanation, broke off into smaller conversations, offering their own conjectures to the idea of a path.
Anna spent the next hour poking and prodding the Seed. In the end, however, she learned nothing new. The Seed was totally inert, she could feel an earthy energy from it, but nothing else. Finally, she decided to simply take the plunge and accepted the offering. The first change was to her status window now informing her that her path was Grove Druid which itself offered a hint as to her new path. Accepting the offering also gave her 12 Karma, bringing her new total to 13.
The other change was much more direct. She felt a change in her soul membrane. Where she at first could only absorb life energy from the air, she now felt a connection to the same mottled brown energy that made up the seed.
‘Earth energy’ isn’t very original, but it’s probably the most appropriate name for now. Anna thought as she filled her soul with a mixture of life and earth energy. What now?
New Quest:
Help the forest!
Reward: Path growth.
Cool, that totally clears things up. Anna mentally rolled her eyes as she ended her meditation and laid back on the ground to rest.
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Anna woke to an epiphany as excitement coursed through her. She had an idea and needed to try it now. First, she opened up her menu and purchased her final skill, Seed Shot. Night had fallen and the luminescent light of the forest had taken over.
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The giant had completely withered away, bones and all, a large clearing of burnt shrubbery was the only evidence left of its former existence. Grabbing fistfuls of dirt, Anna created a small hole in the ground and cast Seed Shot. Rather than shoot out at max speed, she willed the seed to drop into the dirt. Here she encountered her first problem, the seed decayed and fell apart almost instantly.
She tried to will the seed into existence, change its shape, and even attach part of her soul to the seed to no avail. Alright, maybe I got a little ahead of myself.
Anna sat around for some time trying to come up with a solution to her problem. Do I need to create the plants myself? Or can I just use what’s here already? Moving over to a nearby orchid, Anna grabbed the stem and imagined moving her mana into the plant. The more energy she fed to the plant, the more she felt like she was on the brink of figuring something out.
All too soon, however, she felt the empty fatigue of being low on mana without seeing any actual results. Determined to make progress, she rested against a tree trunk to meditate and top off her core. As she prepared the funnel shaped vortex that connected her soul to her mana core, another realization hit her. The mana she had just spent was life energy with none of her new earth energy included. What is my earth mana like? Alright, let’s test some things.
Anna ran through a series of tests to experiment with her different energies. Her life energy she was somewhat familiar with. It filled her with vibrancy and the feeling of exponential growth. However, that growth was hollow, or perhaps ephemeral. Trying to define life energy was like trying to define life itself. It remained too metaphysical.
Her earthly energy was the opposite. It felt stubborn and solid, a physicality to it that created a stark duality with her life energy. The only abilities she was able to cast with the energy were Thorn Whip and Seed Shot. However, both of the abilities underwent changes. Her whip was sturdier, but was too rigid. Without the ability to bend, she created a lackluster stick that didn’t have the ability to grow thorns or shrink back.
Seed shot created a hard shelled seed, but when she used her sword to crack it open, it revealed itself to be all endocarp and no seed, making it more akin to a brittle rock. The only upside to the skill was the fact that the seed she produced no longer decayed.
Mixing the energies in her mana core produced only one interesting result. All of her abilities made no use of her earth energy except Seed Shot. The exterior became harder, and didn’t wither away. The actual seed also remained inside of the hard exterior. It seemed though, that her improved seed still didn’t solve her problem.
The seed was inert. Anna tried all of the same experiments over and over until she gave up in frustration, moving her attention to nearby orchids once again.
Here she succeeded. Mixing her two energies into a plant led to a growth spurt of the flower. Her life energy provided the necessary vitality, while her earth energy anchored that new growth to physical reality resulting in the stem and flower of the orchid to grow a few centimeters.
Buzzing from the high of her success, Anna broke the orchid seed capsule and grabbed a pinch of the tiny seeds. Digging a hole in the ground, she infused the seeds with the energy mixture before tossing them in and covering the hole.
After a few moments, small sprouts erupted from the earth. They were thin, and fragile, but she’d received her first indication that she was on the right path.
System Alert:
Take the first step of your path.
Dharma fulfilled, Karma increased by 1.
Anna pumped her fists near her head and quietly gritted through her teeth, “Yes! Let’s goooo!” Her quest hadn't been updated, but it didn’t matter, she knew what she had to do. A plan formed in her head as she ran back into the cave. She reached the pair of sleeping dwarves and gently shook one of them.
“Kalvin, I need your help. Wake up.” She said.
The dwarf woke slowly from his sleep, bleary eyes looking up at his human acquaintance. “What's going on? Are you alright?” He moved to wake up Hobbes, but Anna shook her head.
“It’s alright, we’re still safe, I just had an idea and I need your help to test it.” Anna moved to the cave entrance without waiting for a reply.
The dwarf gently moved his partner off of him and joined Anna as she grabbed seed capsules from one orchid after another.
Feeling more curious than annoyed at her antics, Kalvin quietly helped her gather dozens of the capsules before he finally asked, “So do you just want help picking plants?’
“Ah, sorry. I should have grabbed a bunch before I woke you up.” Anna replied, “Here’s the plan…”
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Kalvin knelt by several shallow trenches that he’d created waiting for Anna’s go ahead. Anna’s plan was to have him create a series of small trenches all over the swathes of scorched earth. Then after, she threw in the seeds, he’d close them up and they’d watch the sproutlings to take root.
At first, Kalvin had given Anna a few exasperated looks for being woken up and used as a glorified trowel. It took several attempts to make a trench to Anna’s liking, just shallow enough for the plants to be stable. After a few failed attempts, he started to really get into the whole process, seeing it as a great way to practice using his skills.
The biggest hurdle had been figuring out how to close the trenches. After several attempts and a whole lot of swearing, the others in the group came to see what they were up to.
Johanna was the first to speak up, “Is this necessary? The fires are out and we can return to camp to bury the dead.”
This led to a few minutes of arguing until Helen came up with the compromise, “We can return in the morning, it’s probably best not to go running around the forest at night.”
Johanna reluctantly agreed and the group returned to watching Kalvin experiment with closing trenches. Hobbes offered a few suggestions, which in turn, led to everyone chipping in with their own two-cents.
It was Collin that eventually came up with the winning idea of using another skill to fill the trenches. Kalvin created unstable rock pillars horizontally over the trenches, which crumbled immediately under their own weight and filled the gaps.
As the final sproutlings emerged, Anna received her quest notification.
Quest Updated:
Help the forest!
By speeding up the recovery of the forest, you have partially completed your quest!
Partial completion reward: Skill guidance: Seed Shot
Slay the kobolds poisoning the forest.
Reward: Path Growth
“Hey I got some Karma out of that!” Kalvin exclaimed.
“Congrats,” Anna cheerily replied with the others as she tried out her new Seed Shot.
Skill:
Seed Shot (Novice V):
Fire a small seed from your palm. Seeds created from knowledge of botany and dendrology can be grown.
Focusing on the orchid seeds she had become intimately familiar with over the last few hours, Anna cast the skill at the ground. Rather than the traditional acorn looking seed, a tiny orchid seed shot out of her palm. She only knew it worked from the connection that she slowly lost as the seed turned into a sproutling. The trade off was a higher mana cost of 1.5x the cost of the original.
I need bigger ammo. Anna thought as she began rummaging around the clearing for the large kapok seeds.