To say that Rowan wasn’t amused would have been an understatement.

This whole time, while he was putting his life on the line and in danger of getting poisoned, corrupted, or otherwise tainted, he had been assured that the gods were favoring him. After all, Aristaeus had blessed him.

Now, he was being told that his blessing was only half-activated this whole time because it required him to assemble a full party?

“Rowan?” Olivia’s concerned voice rang out.

What if I never met Kayden? What if I had been forced to fight solo? Most of all, why in the name of all that was holy or unholy didn't the dang thing come with an instruction manual?

Rowan’s eye twitched, and he reread the notification. Then he did it again.

A soft hand landed on his shoulder, lightly shaking him. He still couldn’t force his eyes away from the status screen. “Rowan, are you alright?”

“I’m going —” Rowan’s rage session was cut short when icy cold water slapped him in the face. “What in all that is good in the world was that for?”

“Sorry.” Marcus placed his mug down and raised his hands in surrender. “You were out of it. We do that back in my hometown. It was instinct.”

“Thank you, Marcus. Please ignore Rowan’s grouchiness. Now, what actually happened back there? They joined the party and you just shut down,” Olivia asked, genuine concern in her voice.

Rowan opened his mouth to explain, then quickly changed his mind. He trusted Olivia, especially everything that had happened recently. However, the twins were still very much an unknown quantity.

“Sorry, I got lost in thought.” Rowan turned towards the twins. “Marcus and Milena, right? Thank you for trusting me. Do you mind if we call it a day, though? I’m still a little tired from everything that happened with the demon.”

“Of course. Plenty of time to get to know each other tomorrow. Maybe we can go out and hunt a little. We’ve been cooped up in here for a bit too long.” Marcus offered, earning a smile from Rowan.

“Thanks, and that sounds great. Olivia, how about we go visit Bron before retiring for today? I haven’t seen him since the last fight, and I’d feel a lot better if we could do a quick check,” Rowan said.

Olivia narrowed her eyes slightly, but nodded. “Sure. And thanks, Marcus and Milena. You two have been a great help. Know that you can count on House Sutton in the future. We honor our debts.”

—

Before they reached Bron’s house, Rowan pulled Olivia aside.

Awakened Blessing of the Stalwart Hero

From Aristaeus, The God of Soldiers and Rural Craft

Grade: Unique

Description: You are the determined champion of the people.

Effects:

* When fighting with allies nearby, the whole group receives full experience values of every slain enemy.

* When fighting with allies nearby, your chance to receive rare drop items is doubled, and your chance to get more than one drop item per downed enemy is three times higher.

* When fighting with allies nearby, your damage resistance is two times more effective than what your stats suggest.

* When fighting alone, you’ll be more likely to encounter streaks of bad luck.

* When fighting alone, your experience gain rate and loot drop rates will be halved.

* Believers of God Aristaeus are more likely to provide aid and help in any way they can, provided it doesn’t interfere with their personal goals.

“What’s wrong?” Olivia asked. “You were acting weird back there.”

Rowan took a deep breath. It was time to take a leap of faith. “Here, take a look at this.”

He sent over the blessing screen to Olivia. For a few seconds, the baron’s daughter stood as still as a statue. Then, out came a barrage of curses. When she was done, she collapsed onto a nearby wall.

“Did this mess up your build?” Olivia asked.

Hearing that question, Rowan knew that he had made the right choice by trusting Olivia. Anyone who first thinks of other people can’t be that bad.

“Why would it mess with my build? It’s not like I’m going around fighting solo these days,” Rowan said.

“You numb-skull. The damage resistance part. Did you always have that?” Olivia asked.

“No? That part’s new. It used to be that I’d get bad luck fighting alone and that I got more experience and loot when fighting in a party,” Rowan answered.

“But if you’d known about that before, you could have gone for a more defense-oriented build. Do you know what tanks would give to have a blessing like that? Every stat you spend on vitality pretty much doubles in effectiveness. Did you have a defensive class option?” Olivia asked in her Rowan’s-definitely-done-something-stupid voice.

“No, not really. [Reckless Spear] was still the best option. There was one class called [Spear Wall] or something like that, which sounded pretty defensive. But I couldn’t have taken that one anyway. I can’t use a shield, so unless I’m counting on the spear to block everything, it was a dead end.”

“Right. Your heart card,” Olivia muttered. “I guess it’s fine then. If anything, I suppose this will patch over the class penalty you took on at least a little. I just can’t believe we missed something like that.”

Rowan grimaced, crossing his arms. “And imagine if we never got around to picking up more team members. Then I’d have never unlocked the full blessing.”

“I’m sorry.” Oddly enough, Olivia really did sound remorseful, like it was all somehow her fault. “We didn’t know. There’s not a lot publicly discussed about hero blessings. We know most if not all of the blessings boost experience and loot gain, but that’s about it.”

“Hey, I’m not blaming you,” Rowan said quickly, suddenly realizing how she might feel self-conscious. “Your family’s only been good to me so far.”

Olivia nodded tightly, but Rowan could see something was still bothering her.

“Have you seen Bron yet?” Rowan tried to change the subject.

“No.” There was something about the way that Olivia said the word that told Rowan that he’d hit another wall.

“We should,” Rowan said, forging on through the wall. “He’d appreciate it. I think it’d be good for us too.”

Olivia looked Rowan in the eye and saw that he wasn’t about to back down. Finally, she nodded and the two of them made their way into Bron’s room.

It was a rather small room. Clean, but spartan. There was only a single bed and a small window. On the bed was Bron.

Thankfully, the officer looked like he was simply sleeping. He was lying on his back and as much as Rowan could tell at a glance, hadn’t moved an inch since the fight with the demon. His face and upper body also seemed to be in good condition, even if clothes got in the way of gauging that.

His arms, however, definitely weren’t.

They were wrapped in thick bandages, and he could easily spot places where blood had seeped through, leaving ugly, dark red patches. The bandages themselves were also soaked in some kind of green substance that shimmered under the light.

“How is he doing?” Rowan asked quietly, afraid to talk too loudly

“He’s fine. He’ll make it. I think,” Olivia said, facing Bron herself. “Problem is we can’t use potions on him. His body is already suffering from the effects of one, after all.”

“Then what’s up with the bandages?” Rowan pointed out, taking a closer look at those again. The closer he got, the more apparent the herbal scent became.

“Those are soaked in herbal juice. The plants have some healing properties even when they’re not processed. Under those bandages is a special medicinal paste, too. It will protect him from infections and enhance his healing,” Olivia said. “That’s why we haven’t removed them to change the bandages yet.”

“I guess fighting a demon isn’t exactly the easiest thing to go through.” Rowan pulled back. “Is it odd that I kind of miss him? He spent most of his time shouting at us and I still feel that way.”

Olivia’s smile was small and hesitant, but it was still there. “I don’t think it’s odd. He was… is nice. I just want him to wake up already so he can take over command.” She sighed, absent-mindedly combing her fingers through her hair to untangle it.

“Things going that badly?” Rowan asked. “I know things weren’t great when I stole you away, but I really thought they wouldn’t give too much trouble to their baron’s daughter.”

“It’s not that they want to make trouble. They’re all just upset and worried,” Olivia confided as she paced around the room. “And I don’t have a single way to reassure them.”

“Hey, we took down a demon together. Isn’t that a lot of reassurance, right there?”

“Exactly the problem, actually. What happens if there’s worse beast waves? Is another demon going to show up? Can we stop it, especially without Bron? Everyone’s panicking and asking questions like that,” Olivia sighed. “Now that everyone knows what the worst case might be, they’re all asking questions.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Rowan tapped his foot, looking at the floor. “And you can’t really say anything to reassure them? Like reinforcements are coming?”

“Without scouts, I can’t say anything for certain. If I promise reinforcements and they don’t come, then we’re in a world of trouble. We’re blind right now. I don’t know if…”

“Kayden will be fine,” Rowan said, finally wising up for once. “If there’s one thing about your father that I know, it’s that he’s smart. He’ll find a way to solve the situation and be here before we know it.”

Olivia managed a small smile again and Rowan cheered internally at how Olivia’s mood was lifting. “It’s not like there’s anything else we can do right now.”

“What about another unique potion?” Rowan asked. “We don’t need to use it but just knowing that it’s there would help everyone calm down.”

“I wish,” Olivia sighed. “Unique potions are called unique for a reason. I’m pretty sure we can no longer afford the base ingredients as a barony with this demon invasion. Let alone the special item to really make the potion unique.”

“Then, I guess we pray that a demon doesn’t show up. Or if it does, then we hope that it’s weaker. And if it’s not, then we trust that reinforcements come in time.”

“Unless you’ve been holding out on me and are secretly a legendary tier [Spearman]?” Olivia teased.

“No such luck, I wish.”

—

Venturing outside the walls without Olivia felt wrong.

The twins weren’t bad company. For starters, they exuded an aura of strength. They were talkative, friendly, and their stories about places they’d visited were also vivid and fantastical.

But they weren’t Olivia.

There was also the fact that the official mission they were on was scouting and culling nearby beasts, while Rowan’s actual motivation to venture outside of the walls was to test out his blessing as surreptitiously as he could. He still didn’t know how he would do that.

“You don’t need to be so stiff, boss,” Marcus grinned, offering Rowan a flash of his fangs and thumping a fist against his shield. “I know that I might not look all that reliable, but I guarantee that nothing’s gonna break through my defenses today.”

After getting to know Marcus better, all of Rowan’s stereotypes about tanky defenders came crashing down. For starters, the man was built more like a dwarf than beast folk. But he was also as goofy as they came. There was nothing that Marcus wouldn’t laugh about, and especially after this morning, Rowan was surprised to see a smile still on the man’s face.

“Sorry, I want to ask one more time. You’re sure that you’re fine with the loot distribution rules?” Rowan asked.

“Yep. It would be kind of rude of us to push for more. I mean, we’re technically being paid by the baron by defending the village. And he sent out a barony-wide recruitment notice for people to join your party as soon as you arrived,” Marcus said. “We were actually on our way when we got stuck in Felton’s Mill. In some ways, that was actually a stroke of good luck.”

“Still, if you do end up changing your minds about that, do tell,” Rowan said. The current loot distribution was heavily in favor of him and Olivia. The twins would only take cards that were useful to either of them. And even then, they’d only take the cards if neither Rowan nor Olivia needed them. “It’s very generous but I don’t mind something more fair.”

“We're happy with how things are,” the sister, Milena, chimed in. Despite her smile, Rowan was still slightly afraid of her.

It was a lot of different things. Her black miasma made her seem like some kind of death mage and there was something about a big wolf-like lady that made him afraid of getting eaten.

Overall, the party was off to a good start. Whether that was because the twins were doing this because they were inherently kind or if they were being purposeful, it was a still a positive tone to the relationship. And Rowan didn’t care much either way.

He only had one secret, which was his blessing.

Rowan didn’t say anything in front of Olivia before, but a part of him wondered how much of the blame for blessing information scarcity had to do with typical nobility machinations and how much of it was down to the secrecy of heroes themselves.

Although he didn’t regret sharing the details of his blessing with Olivia, Rowan had a pang of doubt creep into his mind soon afterwards. Like he had done something wrong. Like he had exposed a crucial part of himself to an enemy’s dagger.

The sensation felt more like a subconscious compulsion than any sort of logical reasoning. And the feelings could only have one source: the blessing itself.

Is this some kind of default thing? Or does Aristaeus have a reason for why he wanted to keep things hidden? Maybe he just doesn’t like the kingdom that threw him away in favor of a greater god?

“Okay, I know this is going to sound weird,” Rowan said, turning around and addressing the twins. “But I just got my new class and a new card to cover up a class penalty. I need to test it. So, I’m going to stand here and I need you to punch me while slowly upping the strength of your blows. You in?”

He was apparently a little too heavy-handed because the twins froze like deer in headlights. Finally, though, Marcus smiled and nodded, while his sister started chuckling.

When Rowan arched a brow in her direction, Milena just laughed harder. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just thought for a moment you were like one of those weird nobles we come across occasionally.”

Rowan frowned. It was his turn to be confused. “I’m not following.”

“Oh come on.” Milena grinned at him roguishly. “You left behind your special lady friend, led a pair of wolfkin twins into the woods, and then said you have a weird request.”

When Rowan started sputtering and blushing furiously, the beast folk just laughed harder.

“Okay, well, when you put it like that.” Rowan shook his head in exasperation. It was really looking like he would have to give up on ever getting normal party members, even temporary ones. First Olivia, now Marcus and Milena. Perhaps no one in this world is truly normal.

“You know, all of that still applies,” Marcus mused, stroking his chin slyly. “He is asking me to punch him. We don’t know what humans like.”

“I’d be plenty happy to punch you, if you want to test your defense auras,” Rowan offered, trying to emulate Olivia’s sickly sweet voice that she took up whenever he did something particularly stupid.

“No thanks, I’m really not into that,” Marcus quipped. Even while grinning, he took up a proper punching stance. “How hard do you want me to start?”

“Light. I’m really entirely unsure of how effective this card is,” Rowan admitted. The good news was that he could feel the blessing working. It was like some kind of thin film covered his entire body, only observed by his mind and nothing else. He couldn’t feel it and even Olivia had no way of proving that it was there.

As far as he could tell, the protective shield might or might not be real, but it only existed in his weird, intuition-like sense.

Marcus nodded, paused, then threw a punch. The strike was light and even a little slow, letting Rowan track everything fully.

About a quarter of an inch before the fist impacted Rowan’s shoulder, the thin protective film stopped it, making the strike rebound slightly.

Marcus frowned, shaking out his hand. “That felt weird. It’s the card effect, right?” Before Rowan could respond, the shield bearer got back into a punching stance. “Let’s ramp things up then. Let me know when to stop.”

The results of their test were interesting. Rowan was almost entirely unaffected by anything under level five. From there, things got a bit more complicated.

First, the film, even when ‘destroyed’ by an attack, had a blunting influence. Second, from what Rowan could tell, it regenerated nearly instantly. And finally, it had about as much ‘defense’ to it as Rowan’s own body could withstand before sustaining damage.

It was better than nothing, but there wasn’t much that Rowan learned about how it’d perform in a real combat scenario. In fact, most of Rowan’s fights so far had been with monsters that probably would have ripped him in half if he didn’t dodge their blows. That was true of the demon, the maulers, and even the hounds to some extent.

With the test done, the party got back to culling and scouting.

Culling was easy. It was basically just wandering around and taking down whatever unfortunate corrupted beast happened to think of them as prey. In fact, both Marcus and Milena took care of most of the small fry before Rowan even had to work.

Scouting was less easy. None of them could really contribute in a way that mattered. They could see that the forest had a lot of footprints, but none of them had any clue if that was there from the previous monster horde or if there was a new horde brewing.

At least, those were his thoughts before Milena declared she was going to perform a ritual.

“What, exactly, do you mean by that?” Rowan asked. There was something more than a little ominous about hearing someone make that proclamation, especially when they carried around a skull staff.

“I’m a spell casting class, but not like you might think. [Shamans] work best when given the time to prepare and set up. That’s why you don’t see me slinging around a ton of different spells in combat,” Milena explained.

“Just watch and see,” Marcus assured Rowan, smile again on his face. Honestly, Rowan wondered if he ever frowned at all. The man was eternally cheerful. “It’s worth the wait.”

In spite of her proclamation, Milena didn’t start straight away. Instead, she paced around the small clearing she stopped them in, muttering something to herself before finally using her staff’s pointy end to carve a large circle into the ground.

A smaller circle followed, just large enough for her to sit inside. Then, she pulled out various items and scrolls from her robe’s many pockets, arraying them around the circle in some order that made no sense to Rowan.

Her initial preparations didn’t keep her busy enough to stop her from talking.

“You see, [Shamans] are much closer to [Acolytes], [Diviners], and even [Warlocks] in the way we perform magic. We’re pretty far from [Mages], [Wizards], and the like. We can use curses on the fly with the right staff, but if you want to do bigger stuff right, you have to do it slow.”

“I mean no offense, but this feels like a lot of work.” Rowan motioned at the circles she was busy fussing over. “Does this happen every time?”

Milena was adjusting one of the many crystals, and as far as he could tell, she was just nudging it left and right.

“Not every time. But to do it right requires patience,” Milena supplied, finally happy with that one piece and immediately moving onto the next. “When it works, we end up doing a lot more with a lot less mana. Most of the mana that our spells consume comes from the items we use or the natural mana of a place.”

“Right and I can see how that’d be useful for a non-combat situation. But wouldn’t whatever you cast be easier to prevent or avoid in a fight, considering the time and exactness your spells demand?” Rowan countered.

“Yes and no. Once it gets started, the effects of rituals typically need to be dispelled or overpowered. There’s simply no way to outright avoid them. Meaning, you need a strong curse breaker to do it. And they need to supply sufficient mana at once to succeed.” Milena patted the animal skull she was handling. Rowan shivered.

“So if you do pull off a ritual, then it’s pretty much game over? That sounds powerful but what about the setup time?” It had been a couple of minutes since they stopped for the ritual.

“That’s why we have [Defenders] and the like. To protect the ritual circle even on a battlefield and buy time. Anyway, I’m ready to get started.” Milena took her seat, crossed her arms, and closed her eyes. A quiet chanting slowly took over all sound in the clearing.

Rowan felt goosebumps break out all over his body, especially when the various items started to react to her chanting. One of the scrolls she had put out unfurled on its own, blood-red ink glistening like it was still wet and ready to roll off the paper. The eyes of some kind of rodent skull lit up, and its jaws started clattering. Crystals of all kinds were now glowing, and some even seemed to grow, while others were suddenly flaking out of existence.

Most disturbingly of all, as Milena continued to chant, various forest critters slowly found their way into the clearing. A couple of squirrels and a singular fox, at first, but soon the branches above them were filled with all kinds of birds.

Rowan almost started swinging, but Marcus stopped him, motioning to wait. Rowan figured it out a couple of moment later when he took a proper look at the animals.

They weren’t corrupted.

Somehow, that surprised him. He thought there would be extremely few, if any, regular animals left. But apparently, even though the corrupted beasts were plentiful, there still seemed to be some smart animals that managed to stay out of trouble.

After what seemed like a small eternity but was really just a few minutes, Milena’s voice fell for the last time. Her eyes snapped open, glowing a sickly purple, and the same light ignited in the eyes of every gathered animal too.

Then the moment broke and all of the animals took flight, some literally and some by speeding away through the bushes.

“That was, intense,” Rowan said quietly, and with a newfound respect for Milena’s class.

“Why thank you!” Milena said in a sweet tone. Rowan got the feeling that she learned that particular voice from Olivia. “And now, we have all the scouts we need. Until the next sunrise, at least. I can recast that ritual if we want them to stick around.”

“Uh, quick question. What does the ritual do? It looks cool and all but what just happened?” Rowan asked.

“A temporary bond with the animals drawn to her ritual,” Marcus answered.

“Shush, my ritual, my explanations,” Milena said, cutting her brother off. “Anyways, I can feel the emotions of the animals. So I’ll know if any of them feel distress or something similar. I’m a [Shaman] so I can also give them simple orders or directly possess their senses for a short time.”

All Rowan could do was blink.

“Why were you not in charge of scouting before?”

“Because the spell is expensive and takes a lot of mana,” Milena replied with a little sigh, though it was gone quickly. “Keeping the connection going and peering through their eyes is costly, you know?”

“How long can you keep it going?” Rowan asked. “Or what do you need?”

“The only reason I’m doing this now is because I know Miss Sutton is an alchemist,” Milena said, proud of herself in spite of openly stating she was after Olivia’s supplies. “As long as she shares one or two strong potions with me a day, I can more or less keep it up indefinitely. It won’t be as good as a real scout, but it’ll give us some early warning when we need it.”

Rowan felt like the word “strong” was doing a lot of work there. But that was a different problem for a different time. He readied his spear again. It was time to blow off some steam.

The corrupted beasts in the forest had a very bad time that day.