image [https://i.imgur.com/uxAovMm.png]

Cycle finished!

Gain 200 copper bits.

Calmness effect removed.

4 new Crankscouts created.

Crankscout camouflage improved.

All wounds improve by one category.

My dice roll ability says I’m moving clockwise. This message tells me a cycle is finished. I’m going around on some sort of game board, aren’t I? Will thought. I think some of the messages, or maybe one of the dwarves, even referred to “The Board”. Makes sense, I suppose. If we can’t go backwards, what’s the point of spaces getting more difficult when we finish quests? I really should have asked the dwarves some more questions…

Anyway, let’s see where I am now.

Green Forest

On entering the forest, a traveller is often struck by its beauty. The trees filter the sunlight, giving the scene a calm, green hue.

Green Forest, huh? Maybe connected to the Dark Forest I got on my first move, since I’ve just finished a full circle? I really wish I had a map of this place.

Main quest

Gather 5 Rhinobbit horns

Reward:

Space rank-up

50 XP

1 skill shard

What the hell is a rhinobbit? Please tell me it’s not the bastard love child of Bilbo Baggins and Rocksteady…

The answer to Will’s question showed up a mere five minutes after he swiped away the message. And it was not, in fact, half hobbit and half rhino.

It was, instead, part rabbit and part rhino. The combination lagomorph/pachyderm had the body of a large rabbit, about half a meter in length, and the two nose horns of a white rhinoceros. The rhinobbit’s fur was white, and had the wrinkled look of a rhinoceros’s hide. The beast was peacefully using its horn to dig at the roots of a tree, and seemed completely oblivious to Will’s presence.

I’m not sure I like the thought of attacking this guy. He’s sort of adorable. On the other hand, this place is bound to get more difficult, and I’m going to need the skill shard. And the XP, once I find out what It’s for. And for all I know, he looks soft and fluffy but is actually a vicious killer.

It’s not that Will didn’t realize that he was making excuses, but it still managed to get him feeling a bit better.

With the rhinobbit’s attention firmly on whatever it was it was rooting for, it didn’t notice Will charging at it until it was far too late, and Will slammed into it, knocking it down and savaging it with his bronze claws. The rhinobbit tried to gore Will with its horn, but from its prone position, Will could easily evade the clumsy attacks, before darting back in to attack.

It was Will’s easiest battle since he’d found himself on the Board, and it took less than a minute before the beast lay dead in front of him.

Rhinobbit slain!

Gained 5 XP

Yeah, figures this would be a five XP enemy. Also fits with the quest reward, I guess.

Before he could continue, however, another message screen appeared in front of him.

New achievement “Sneak Attack!”

You’ve attacked an enemy that wasn’t aware of your presence.

I must say, the words “sneaky” and “wombat” should never have shared the same sentence.

I’d suggest leaning into your strengths more in the future, but, well…

You’re a wombat. Your strengths are kind of nasty, you know.

Reward:

1 common rogue skill shard

Rude! You know, it’s not like I wanted to become a wombat!

There wasn’t any reply, of course, and Will opened his inventory to examine his new skill.

Skill shard: Backstab

Tier: Basic

Type: Rogue

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Cost: 10 stamina/attack

When using a physical attack against an enemy who isn’t aware of your presence, increase the damage of the attack by two categories.

To include attacks that have nothing to do with stabbing.

This could be useful. But I’m fairly sure it won’t work with what that other skill would classify as heavy armour. I really wish I knew more about how these things work. Can I remove skills after I’ve used them? Is the ten-skill limit hard, or can I increase it? I need to sit down with someone who knows how this whole system works and plan things out. I think I’ll wait with using any more skills shards, unless I really need them, and hope I can land on Kili and Fili’s again.

Dismissing the skill window, Will went to the dead Rhinobbit and activated his Hunter skill. Ten minutes later, the corpse vanished and Will was presented with a new window

Rhinobbit corpse harvested!

Gained 1 Rhinobbit pelt (poor)

Gained 1 Rhinobbit horn (Quest)

Still poor quality? I thought for sure the rhinobbit’s pelt would be better than the rats. It certainly looked a lot better…

Will’s musings were interrupted by an enraged scream. Turning in the direction the scream came for, Will had just enough time to notice a streak of white fur and anger before a second rhinobbit leaped at him, horn first.

There wasn’t nearly enough time for Will to dodge, and the beast’s front horn pierced deep into his shoulder. Fortunately, the rhinobbit didn’t seem to have the same inertia Will did when charging, and Will managed to stay on his feet. He was still dazed by the impact, and by the time he’d managed to shake it off, the rhinobbit had hopped away from him and turned around for another charge. Without the element of surprise, however, Will was quick enough to jump out of the beast’s way and slice at it with his claws.

It looked like the rhinobbit’s only method of attack was to charge and stab with its horn, and after the second exchange the battle devolved into a strange dance-like routine where the rhinobbit tried to get far enough away from Will to charge, and Will kept closing in and clawing at it. Without the advantage of starting the fight with his own charge, it took Will close to ten minutes to slowly wear the rhinobbit down, but he’d managed to do it without any further injury.

As soon as the beast was dead, Will checked to see how bad the horn gored him. A little bit of trial and error managed to call up his health and a list of injuries.

Health 73/100

Injuries:

Ear – least

Right flank – Lesser

Left shoulder - Minor

Ouch. If I’m right about least and lesser wounds, that rhinobbit hit me for twenty health with just that one charge. Can’t afford to take too many of those.

After a couple of minutes of consideration, Will took out his remaining bandage and used it on his left shoulder wound, reducing the severity to slight and restoring ten health.

I don’t think I can treat this like a game, where never use consumables and then I reach the final boss with ninety-nine of each.

Feeling a little bit better, Will used his Hunter skill on the second corpse, this time getting nothing but the pelt.

Damn. The horn isn’t a guaranteed drop? How does that even make sense?

Will continued exploring the forest, doing his best to pay attention to his surrounding to avoid getting gored again. Two hours later, he’d killed six more rhinobbits, harvested six pelts and three horns, and gotten gored once. Fortunately, the rhinobbit that got him attacked from behind, and Will’s armoured behind reduced the severity of the wound to slight.

About half of them drop the horns, which means the quest still needs me to kill around ten of them. Not really that big of a variance.

After some more exploration, Will caught sight of a rhinobbit that was obviously not quite the same as the others. it was made of brass, with whirring cogs and pumping pistons barely covered by plates of sheet metal. The ears were a pair of radar dishes, sweeping around with clockwork precision, and the rear horn was an antenna.

The crankscout, for that’s what it had to be, had a patch of white fur covering a metal plate on its back, which Will assumed must be related to the “Crankscout camouflage improved” message. He was not impressed.

Let’s hope this goes better than the last one I fought…

Will’s charge went a lot better than his attempt in the desert. The crankscout seemed to become aware of him as soon as he started running, and tried to leap away from him. Will, however, had the Slow aspect linked to his charge, and the clockwork beast seemed to move in slow motion. It moved enough to avoid being caught head-on, but Will’s shoulder clipped its leg just as it started to jump, causing it to spin out of control and land on its side.

Will stopped as soon as he could, and spun to get closer to the crankscout. Its leg plate got dented by Will’s charge, and the mechanisms inside couldn’t move freely enough to operate it properly, leading to the crankscout developing a limp.

Will closed in easily, and started to attack the metal beast with his claws, to very little effect. His claws slid off the brass plates covering the crankscout’s body, barely scratching the surface.

The crankscout, unlike the regular rhinobbits, wasn’t completely helpless in close combat, and a few seconds after Will started attacking, he started getting zapped every time he touched the monster’s metallic body.

Will broke away from the crankscout, opening up some distance and looking more closely at his enemy, now noticing small yellow electrical sparks running over its metal plates.

Is it just me, or is this one a lot tougher than the dust devil version? My claws are useless, but my charge can damage it. Just need to avoid that horn.

The crankscout still had trouble moving its dented leg, and Will circled until he was behind it, and charged again. Between the malfunctioning leg and Will’s slow effect, the crankscout couldn’t move fast enough to either avoid or counter the charge, and Will smashed into it, denting a few more plates and getting zapped in return.

Ten charges later, Will had singed fur, an aching head, and a dented scrapheap of metal that used to be a complex clockwork beast.

I really need a helmet, if I’m going to keep bashing my head on robots…

Before he turned away from the destroyed crankscout, a sparkle that didn’t seem to come from the metal itself caught Will’s eye, and he spent a few more minutes manually taking the pile of scrap apart before finding a small piece of crystal that must have been located deep within the creature.

Aspect shard: Electrical

Tier: Basic

Adds the Electrical aspect to a skill or piece of equipment. Effects vary according to the target.

Warning: aspect may have adverse effects on some targets.

Bzzzzzzzzt!

Not bad. Wonder what I can do with it.

Checking his options, Will found them to be somewhat lacklustre. Used on his bronze claws, Electrical would add an instant of Least lightning magical damage. Hunter would be switched to work on mana instead of stamina. Charge would have been the best target, since Electrical would have added a stun effect to anything it hit, but using it would destroy the Slow aspect.

One more for the inventory, for now. I’ll add it to the claws if I run into something like those dust devils again, since magical damage might hurt them. Now, I should finish the quest here, and search for any other crankscouts.

Two more hours later, Will was done with the quest, and fairly sure the crankscout was alone.

Rank up!

A main quest has been finished in this space.

Rank 1 enemies and elite rank 0 enemies may now appear.

Let’s see which skill I got this time.

Skill shard: Gatherer

Tier: Basic

Type: Harvesting

Cost: 10 stamina

Duration: 10 minutes

Identify and extract the useable parts of one non-monster plant

Warning: the Hunters will look down on you.

I’m going to need to use this one, or the FOMO will eat me alive…