"So, people don't, like, I don't know, make mana crystal artificially?" Beth asked.
"Oh, sure, but then you don't have as much guarantee of the quality, no matter what they tell you. Plus, everybody knows that, so then you have to get even more people involved; extra inspectors and enchanters and so on," Trish explained.
"And more people mean even more money, which cancels out the savings," Beth nodded in understanding while Blood just flicked an ear.
"Not necessarily," said Trish. "Like I said a couple times, that shit is expeeeeeensive! Having a company that can reliably manufacture even moderate quality mana crystal is still likely to be worth all the extra steps in cost savings, even if it will likely be a little weaker than the natural stuff."
"How would that even work?" Beth asked. "I mean, the growing the crystals part."
"Hell if I know. You think I'd be working with these clowns if I knew how to grow mana crystal?" Trish responded, a mischievous glint in her eye.
"I think there's something in there about a pot and a kettle," Thom called back from the front, the others muttering a few choice insults themselves.
"Yeah, so if you ever find any of the stuff, or some lost technique that deals with the stuff, just know you've struck the motherlode. You can sell even a fist-sized chunk of the stuff for multiple platinums at bare minimum," Trish said once the general name-calling had died down.
"I've never even seen the stuff before, so I highly doubt I'll just stumble upon some of it," Beth responded with a shrug.
"Never hurts to keep your eyes peeled," said Trish.
They picked up the pace a bit after that, the team moving at what would likely be considered a light jog, though it seemed just slightly more strenuous for Dean. Beth and Blood had a rather easy time keeping up, not even having to tap into Swift at all for the current pace. They chatted just a bit more with Trish as they moved, but mainly took the time to look around them at the landscape passing by. It was a rather idyllic place, for all that it was outside the city walls, with the first two miles or so mainly being more housing and a few small businesses. After that, the land gave way to more industrial pursuits for a mile, things like tanneries and smelteries occupying this zone, before they hit land that was dedicated to farming and ranching.
"Keeping up okay?" Trish asked as they moved through the farms, picking up the pace just slightly more.
"We could go faster!" Blood replied eagerly.
"No," Trish said with a laugh right away, noting the heads of the others turning back towards them at Blood's exclamation. "Our pace right now is just fine; we're not looking to exhaust ourselves before we even get anywhere."
Blood and Beth exchanged a look at that which Trish caught from the side, asking, "What? What was that looked for?"
"It's just…" Beth started before glancing at Blood again. "It's just, kinda slow…"
"This pace really isn't bad," Trish disagreed. "We'll get there with plenty of time to investigate today and still return to the city center tonight. You have to remember we'll have a long day, and we don't want to have to rest outside the city, or even city center, tonight."
Beth and Blood shared another look and, just as Trish was opening her mouth to say something, Beth said, "Why don't you scout ahead for a bit, Blood?"
"That's not-" Dean started, but wasn't able to get any further before Blood had disappeared down the road in a crimson blur, dust whipping up in their faces. Beth just grunted as she trotted along with Trish at the back, but the others were coughing and cussing for a minute.
"She shouldn't run off like that," Dean said a little crossly, glaring back at Beth.
"She's a bonded companion," Beth replied with a shrug.
"What-" started Liz before Trish interrupted her.
"It means they can communicate mind-to-mind over long distances even without a Communicator," she explained. "So, as long as she doesn't run into something that takes her out instantly," Trish continued with a small glare at Beth, to which she gave a shrug, "she'll be able to tell Beth here what's going on and if she's in any real danger."
"Oh. I see," Liz said, apparently not having known about bonded companions.
"The other issue is stamina," Dean reminded, casting another warning glance back at Beth, which she just shrugged off.
"We've fought for more than twenty hours straight without rest, only taking a slightly long sleep afterwards. I don't think running up and down the road for an hour is going to be a problem," Beth said.
"A lot of people have been in long fights," Dean grumbled. "Just because you can handle a long rotation in a beast tide doesn't mean you should overestimate yourself."
Beth just laughed in response, earning a harder glare from Dean. "You don't get it," she said, her voice a little bit more forceful than normal, which got a surprised glance from Trish. "I'm not talking about us running a rotation in a beast tide. We stood on the field for twenty straight hours and fought. No breaks, no rest, just us and a tide for twenty hours."
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
"Oh, well, that's…different from what I had thought," Dean said, easing up. "You just have to understand, we haven't survived this long and pushed this far from being sloppy. Burning your energy wastefully, using mana when you don't need to, and even fighting when you can avoid it introduces unnecessary risk that a team like Dream Snake doesn't tolerate."
"Different methods," Beth replied with a shrug, ending the conversation.
They continued down the road for a time without seeing anything, even Blood, about an hour passing, moving through the farming land and out into the wilderness. The area that they entered first was a bit of open plains with low hills that never really developed into anything more rugged, eventually flattening back out while becoming heavily forested. The initial area of wildlands had beasts around level fifty to sixty, and nothing bothered the team as they passed through.
Things changed when they entered the forest, however, as the levels of the beasts shot up to the mid-eighties right away, only climbing further from there. Blood didn't reappear yet, but Beth wasn't worried about her, knowing that she could easily take care of herself. They weren't able to move very far in before they were attacked, several beasts leaping them at once. The team cut them down rather efficiently, the level eighty-five and eighty-six enemies not much of a threat. Beth took another look at Dream Snake just to see where exactly they were currently at.
Trish Baker, Level 105 Human Mage
Dean Rogers, Level 106 Human Fighter
Thomas N'Paen, Level 104 Elven Ranger
Natalie Rogers, Level 104 Human Cleric
Elizabeth Finn, Level 110 Angelus Mage
Beth raised an eyebrow at the last one, not seeing anything particularly angelic about Liz, other than her being a rather pretty blonde, but apparently, she wasn't human. The others weren't really a surprise, though Trish being labeled as just a mage instead of something more support-like was interesting. Dean and Natalie sharing a last name was also interesting, but whether they were relatives, a romantic couple, or just happened to share the name, she didn't know.
Liz glanced over at her as they moved forward and said, "Yes, I'm not human, nor is Thom."
"I was more interested in why Trish is a Mage?" Beth replied with a slight questioning lilt in her voice.
"Classes will evolve over time as you undergo rebirths," Dean replied from the front. "Trish is focused on support spells and magic, but hasn't gotten to an evolution point yet, so she still just a basic mage."
"But don't count us out," said Trish with a laugh. "Just because Liz and I are 'basic' mage classes, doesn't mean we don't pack a punch. I can dramatically increase the team's damage and moderately increase our survivability, while Liz can deal out more damage than anybody else here. At least, as long as we have mana; once that runs out, we're much less effective than we could be, though evolving our classes could help round us out."
"Round out how?" Beth asked. "Other than getting more mana, what could evolving your class do?"
"Well, more mana is only a minor thing that happens, though a class evolution can make some skills a little more efficient, so you can get some mana back there," Trish replied. "It also gives you more stat points per level and sometimes other benefits that increase your overall power."
"Well, I'm looking forward to it then," Beth responded with a grin.
"Right on," Trish grinned back.
They encountered more beasts shortly after, but the team was a rather well-oiled machine and dealt with the much lower-leveled beasts with ease. Beth barely had to do any work, but she didn't really mind, content to let the rest of the team take care of the weak enemies. She was much more looking forward to the monsters, ready for something that would be a true challenge.
Walking deeper into the forest, the beast attacks not only continued, they increased in frequency as time passed. The team was still handling it with aplomb, but the enemies were growing more numerous and higher in level, now breaching the nineties in level. Beth still participated only a small amount, content to let the team handle it, hearing from Blood that she was also mainly avoiding combat. So far, she hadn't been particularly impressed with Dream Snake's combat prowess; not that they were bad fighters, they just didn't seem to bring anything really special to the table.
"This is definitely unusual," commented Thom as they finished another group of enemies.
"Yeah, too many beasts, particularly on the road," Dean replied with a nod.
"Yeah, if we didn’t know there were monsters present coming in, it would really be a big tell," Thom said as he retrieved an arrow from the body of a large bear. While Dean used a sword and shield, Thom fought with a bow and what looked like mana steel tipped arrows. All three of the ladies of the team used staves, with Natalie most commonly using the staff itself as a weapon.
The team headed on deeper after regrouping, now a handful of miles into the thick forest. It was lucky there was a fairly well-maintained road cutting through the place, as navigating the dense underbrush and closely spaced trees without it would have been a bit of a nightmare. The only good part about it was, even though it made it difficult to see enemies coming, they could hear them from quite a way out. That, and the beasts had trouble leaving the woods as a group and tended to break free in ones and twos as they attacked, putting less pressure on the team.
Things changed when Beth got a mental message from Blood saying, 'There are enemies that Identify as phykes lying in wait for you. They're half a mile up the road from you right now.'
"Phykes ahead," Beth relayed to the group. "Half a mile, seems like they're waiting for us to get to them."
"Alright, get your companion back here and we'll get ready for them," Dean ordered, getting the team into position. Thom was sent a little ahead and to the side, moving through some of the lower branches of the trees. Beth moved up next to Dean while Trish and Liz moved a little back and just to the sides at the edge of the road. Natalie stood a handful of paces behind Beth and Dean, just enough that she wouldn't be caught up in the initial fighting, but close enough where she could still heal and support easily.
Blood appeared from the trees a minute later, popping out right next to Liz and giving her a fright, the mage just aborting casting a fireball from the surprise. Blood just snorted as she leapt across the road and up into the trees on the far side, mirroring Thom as she ranged slightly ahead through the lower branches. With everyone assembled, the group moved forward along the road, keeping to a moderate pace to let Blood and Thom keep to the front. Thom was the first one to signal, having come up on the phykes on his side of the road first. Blood moved ahead a little bit after that, positioning herself silently above one of the monsters before sending Beth a confirmation she was in place. Dean had slowed the main group just slightly, but kept them moving forward, and they now walked into the range of the monsters.
As they drew up to the first of the monsters, Blood silently fell, unleashing a Blood Queen's Claws at point blank range as she crashed into the back of the first phyke on the right. The monster's neck was shattered before it even understood what was happening, the splintering of its spine echoing out before it had a single second of staring at its own body, now corpse, falling to the ground before the light left the head's eyes. Thom shot two arrows into the first one on the right at the same time, the second arrow piercing through the monster's head far more rapidly than it should have, likely some kind of skill.
They were in the thick of it then, Beth darting forward and intercepting two of the bear-like monsters from the left. They didn't mindlessly charge forward as was typical of most beasts, but instead attacked in a staggered, calculated manner, backing each other up while not getting in the other's way. Still, for all that they weren't as mindless as beasts, they weren't exactly intelligent, and their skill in battle wasn't particularly high. They attacked with nothing but teeth and claw, their massive bodies unarmored and unarmed, but with enough power to deal some serious damage. A powerful swipe from one of the beasts Dean faced was enough to send him staggering two steps back even though he was braced behind his shield, showing just how strong the monsters were.
Beth had little trouble on her side, her whole shtick at this point still being her massive STR combined with high skill, which allowed her to easily overwhelm even two of the monsters. Both the enemies she faced were at level one hundred ten, and they both displayed a rather outsized power for their level, but it was nothing Beth couldn't handle. She was able to deflect their swipes rather easily, knocking the arm of the one on her left into the chest of the one on her right. She took the opportunity that she made with that opening, cleaving apart the monster on the left's arm with a quick, sharp downward swing. She followed that up as the monster reeled with a rapid backhand swing to the throat, followed further by a snap punch directly to its nose that tore its neck apart from the transferred force.
She then darted forward and to the side, slashing deeply across the second monster's side, causing it to stagger back with a roar of pain. As it was distracted with its wound, she slashed again and again, chopping the creature's torso apart even through its thick hide and muscle. The monster reacted differently than most beasts would have in that situation, not trying to attack her with everything it had but instead working to defend itself from her powerful strikes. In the end, it didn't matter at all, as she chopped the bear-like being apart in only a dozen seconds. She moved on immediately after, slashing the back of the legs of a monster that was part of a small group engaged with Blood as she passed, hamstringing the creature before she slammed into two more.