"Smart? Oh yes, smarter than most, smarter than you, maybe! Ha-ha! I see the things others don’t, hear the whispers no one else catches. That’s the trick, you see—knowing before anyone else does! While they stumble around, blind as bats, I’m two steps ahead. Always thinking, always watching." Parroting the Wise.
We ended up staying the night close by. Everybody needed rest, and with the Tangle Vine dead, there shouldn’t be high-level monsters around for a while. We had a relatively peaceful night.
Tāwai was introduced to everyone, and they all got to know him, which would reduce the chances of him being targeted by accident. He played the simple parrot with a limited vocabulary. More accurately, he played the cheeky, inquisitive parrot and had his beak in a lot of places.
Alistern wasn’t fooled, and I am pretty sure Suda also suspected he was more. I think Alistern gave him a pass, as Suda’s advanced class was the reason he had bought these guardsmen out here. This was what they all needed. This was the power they needed to challenge the Immortals.
Myantha and Tāwai trained their Air Manipulation together. I am sure Myantha saw through Tāwai’s facade. She trained intelligently, and he responded. He was using his Gusts to manoeuvre better in the air, and he was helping her with finer uses of Air Manipulation.
I listened in on them.
“Air transmits a lot of things. Pollen, poisons, even sound. I am trying to create a sound barrier, but I haven’t been able to yet.”
“Squawk, Arrows. Arrows.”
“Yes, there are arrows as well, but they are a lot heavier and move at speed. It takes a lot more effort over a bigger area to divert arrows.”
“Chirp, Chirp,” Tāwai hopped in a circle and then did something that caused the leaves to move in a circle.
“Create a whirlwind?” Myantha asked. “That would upset arrows. It would make aiming difficult anyway. We should try it.”
It was pretty obvious that Tāwai was intelligent, even if he didn’t know the words for things yet. They spent a lot of time trying to create a whirlwind that was bigger than the other person’s. They were trying to create a skill, or maybe a spell. That is the main advantage of learning manipulation Skills; they open up all sorts of possibilities for an element that you couldn’t do before. Nobody can create a whirlwind skill if you can’t manipulate the air. You have to wait for a skill stone or a class skill.
That reminds me that I was investigating my Shadow Manipulation skill.
I am an Idiot… again, but I am not going to tell Tāwai that. Seriously, the clue is right there in the name. Lightreaver. What reaves light? Shadow does. Conversely, Shadowbane. What is the bane of shadows? Light is. I have already used light manipulation to enhance them, and they work better with light than other skills. Lightreaver specialises in shadow, and Shadowbane specialises in light.
I get Lightreaver out. I use Shadow Manipulation to cover the blade. It is easier than the cutting light I used to use. I am almost certain that if I use this in a fight, I will get Shadow Strike. I will do that tomorrow. I am very surprised I haven’t got Light Strike yet, but I will do the same with Shadowbane tomorrow.
That is not enough for me, though. Shadow Strike will add damage, but Umbral Cold and Shadow Phase have shown me there is so much more to shadows. I use Shadow Manipulation to open the gate, and the temperature around Lightreaver drops. Then Lightreaver phases into shadow, which is not what I want. Well, it might be useful, like the bark phasing back into reality in another object, but it is not my primary aim at the moment.
I spent most of the night healing and experimenting.
The next day, we moved on. There were some small fights, which Rob, Tāwai and I stayed out of. I discovered one big difference between Rob and Tāwai. I don’t share my XP with Rob, yet Tāwai takes half. I get my share of XP from the Party distribution, and then it is split with Tāwai.
“You had better help me earn double,” I whispered to him.
His head bobbed up and down, which I took as a yes. It is also in his interest for us to level up; he is smart enough to know that. He is a bit like me, and combat is not our primary focus. Combat, for us, is a means to an end. Our focus is to “find shinies,” and combat is a necessary skill.
Tāwai and I joined in on the last fight of the day as we needed to learn to work together.
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“Tāwai,” I said exasperated, “if you blind them, how will they see my amazing images?”
All I got in reply was a mocking laugh, “Too slow, too slow.”
We will see who is too slow. I Light Sped to the next one and got a squawk of surprise in response.
They were a species of squirrel with their own type of mocking laugh. They were not a danger to us, and our heavy hitters stayed out of it to give the others some experience. They were annoying.
I did add Shadow Strike and Radiant Strike to my status. I had considered buying Radiant Strike at one point, but that would have been a mistake.
I didn’t necessarily want more skills. I needed to level the ones I had. However, it didn’t make sense to be so strong in Light and Shadow and not get skills that work with my strengths. The fight didn’t last long enough to work on a more complicated Shadow skill, but we will get there.
That night, we had to chase away another powerful challenger. The fact we had a defensible position and demonstrated we were too tough to be taken easily meant it moved on to easier prey.
We made good time the next day, probably because the way was cleared for us by the Night Prowler. I started experimenting with Feather Fall. I would make small leaps as we travelled and see how far it would let me drift. It was a weight reduction thing, and it was an 8-9% reduction, so when I maxed it out, there would be an 80-90% reduction. By the end of the day it levelled and the stamina cost also reduced.
That night, Alistern walked in with Zeek, our professional explorer, and said, “The other group is two days travel away, or a day each to meet in the middle. Zeek has a way of sharing his map with others with the map skill, and he has found a spot to camp. Suda and Marvin, if you would.”
I went forward, and Zeek immediately looked suspiciously at Tāwai but didn’t say anything. I didn’t do anything to share the map info; he simply touched my shoulder, and my map was updated. It had a cross where he thought a camp would be. Those were neat skills. I wonder how you get them. Maybe they came from his Explorer Profession. Zeek then disappeared out into the night. He didn’t seem worried about the nightlife around here.
I examined my updated map. Zeek had made several trips to the forest floor and very high up, I would assume, to the top of the canopy. He is definitely an explorer. Then, I noticed that what he had shared with us was truncated. He had gone further, but it was not shared.
That got my Seekers Intuition twitching. Not all shiny things are gold. When I raided the keep of the Lands of the Undying Lord, I came away with many valuable things—skills and abilities, metals, armour, etc. This trial has to have things to raid.
I need to get back to basics. Trials are out to kill me. Therefore, I am going to Pilfer everything I can from them. I am not going to be satisfied with the meagre handouts it gives as rewards. I am going to alter my motto specifically for Trials. It will change from “Take what you can, leave no trace,” to “Take everything you can, full-stop.” I have a Pilferer class to level and a bond to whom I promised Shinies.
I might want to strip this trial clean, but I am not suicidal. I need some backup. I approached Myantha. “After we meet the other group, I want to do some exploring. Are you interested in joining me?”
“The last time I joined you, we changed a trial,” she said.
I grinned and winked, “No promises.”
“Absolutely, I will join you. The lieutenant wants time for his guards to level so he will not hurry to the exit. We will have some time. Who else were you thinking?”
“I am thinking the Explorer Zeek.”
She raised her eyebrows.
I explained my reasoning, “He has already explored further than the rest of us. He knows how to travel to avoid fights, including at night. Even though he is a professional and not a classer, he knows how to fight. I bet he has at least an advanced fighting class.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “We can ask.”
The day went reasonably smoothly. I bought a half dozen cores.
I continued to work on my Shadows with Lightreaver. We encountered a number of slime creatures. We could have just gone around, but in the Lieutenant's eyes, it is all experience. He paired his people off, and I chose one for myself. I got out Lightreaver and cast Umbral Cold. It didn’t like the cold, and it shrunk in on itself. I poked it with Lightreaver, and the outer layer stiffened against the cold.
Tāwai just watched from the top of Rob's head and refused to take part.
This also meant it couldn’t attack me easily. Others were dealing with squirts of slime, but the stiff surface meant mine couldn’t do that. While the others were using long spears to try and reach the core to kill the slime, I got out my dagger, Lightreaver and started slicing, trying different combinations of Shadows.
I was only halfway through when I hit on a good combination, and Frostshade Rend was added to my skills list. It had the freezing power of Umbral Cold condensed into the blade, and the cutting power was closer than anything else I had to Cutting Light. The damage was well above Shadow Strike, which told me the Strike-type skills were the base-level skills.
I tried the Frostshade Rend on Shadowbane, and it worked, but the cost was higher. It is most efficient on Lightreaver. There has got to be an equivalent light skill for Shadowbane, which will be the next project.
I carved out the core, and the slime died. I looked around for another one and saw a small one close by. I started to consider what light was in the same way shadows had depths, but I realised now was not the time. Now was the time to practice and level Frostshade Rend.
I didn’t bother with Umbral Cold, and I started hacking. I got a face full of acid slime for my trouble. Idiot. Tāwai thought so, too, and I heard the chirping laughter. The bastard. He will pay for that. I guess this is part of the experience Alistern wants us to learn.