A certain amount of time later, Will woke up, feeling an urge to go to the little joey’s room. He was feeling somewhat better than he’d been after the fight, but still tired and still sore. There was no pop-up informing him that he’d healed overnight.

I’m going to have to move soon. But I think I can hold on for a few more minutes. I’ve got some things to check on, preferably before I get thrown into another life-or-death battle.

He’d regenerated all of his mana, which meant that he’d been asleep for at least two hours. A quick check of his status screen showed Will that he had a minor wound on his left shoulder, a slight wound on his right, another slight on his back, and a bunch of other lesser and least wounds all over. Least Cure was back to functioning at level three, which meant that Will could reduce both slight wounds by two levels, down to least.

There was nothing he could do about the minor, unless he was willing to drink another potion, and he had no mana with which to deal with the least and lesser wounds. But he was getting close to the Grasslands again, which would reduce it to slight and let him start to heal it, so he chose to leave it as it is.

That’s as good as I can get things for now. I’m out of mana, but hopefully I’ll have some time to regenerate it before I need it again. Now, let’s see. That message after the fight said that I gained a skill directly, rather than getting a skill shard. Which is kind of a problem, since open skill slots are going to be important once I’m ready to start merging those resource pool skills. I really would have preferred it if I could keep the shard until I was ready to actually use it.

A look at his status sheet, however, told Will that his grumbling was unwarranted.

Name: William Jackson

Race: Wombat

XP: 215

Health: 73/115

Mana 18/132

Stamina 130/130

Innate abilities

Dice Roll (2)

Skills 9/11

Name

Type

Tier

Level

Unstoppable Lance Charge

Cavalry

Advanced

2

Harvester

Harvest

Expert

1

Claw Proficiency

Beast

Basic

3

Least Cure Wounds

Healer

Basic

2

Heavy Armor Proficiency

Defender

Basic

1

Mana Pool II

Resource

Basic

1

Stamina Pool I

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Resource

Basic

1

Thunder Ball

Mage

Advanced

2

Darkness Shield

Mage

Basic

2

Boosts

Dungeoneer

Special

Unique

1

Arena

Special

Unique

0/1/0/1

Attacks

Claws – minor (least) piercing damage, least armor piercing.

Bite – lesser piercing damage

Charge – Average (slight) piercing (bashing) damage (Slow aspect)

Equipment

Bronze claws (front claws)

Wombat Breastplate of Lesser Life

Horned Wombat Helmet of the Heavy Assault Unicorn

Wand of Vinegar Stream

Inventory

2 minor healing potion

1 Pickle Dead skill shard

1 Miner skill shard

1 Resistance skill shard

1 Air aspect shard

60 Bronze Arena Tokens

2 bottle of Wild Sage oil

2 Living Earth (good)

7 Chunk of Iron Ore (good)

1 Chunk of Silver Ore (good)

1 Sphere of Thunderglass (good)

4 Brass Cog (good)

24 Living Cloud (good)

4 Living Cloud (excellent)

1 Lightning Mane

1 Living Acid (good)

1 lump of Crystalized Cloud

1 Novelty T-shirt

15 piles of Bone Dust (good)

2 piles of Bone Dust (excellent)

8 piles of Red Reptile Scales (good)

1 pile of Red Reptile Scales (excellent)

Status effects

Wounds

Left shoulder: Minor, lesser, least

Right shoulder: Least, least

Back: Least

Butt: Lesser, least

Head: Least

Minions

Wait, nine out of eleven skills? Right, it did say something about my soul getting stronger and another skill slot, didn’t it? That’s going to be really useful. Especially since I should be able to reduce the Mage skills down to one slot fairly easily.

And it’s even already at level two! So that’s an extra hundred XP. Nice. The one downside is that it already has an aspect attached. On the other hand, it’s Darkness, which can merge with Shadow and then Thunder to reach expert, which means I can use Air on something else. I can probably work with that. Let’s check the skill itself out though.

Skill shard: Darkness (Mana) Shield

Tier: Basic

Type: Mage

Cost: variable

Level 2

XP 0/200

When activated, reduce up to 1 damage category per level. Cost to activate is an amount of mana equal to the damage prevented.

Glass cannon, now from reinforced glass!

Aspect: Darkness

Tier: Basic

Level 2

XP 0/100

Change skill to Darkness Shield. Gives a chance of 5% per level to absorb magical attacks, causing the skill to restore mana instead of spend it.

Not a bad skill, though I’m pretty sure I can afford to take the damage more than I can afford to lose the mana, most of the time. What else do I need to take care of? Oh, right. I got a new skill shard on the previous space. Resistance. Sounds promising.

Skill shard: Resistance

Tier: Basic

Type: Defender

Cost: NA

Level 1

XP 0/100

When exposed to an environmental hazard, increase the damage intervals by 20% per level

The cold never bothered me anyway. Nor did the heat, for that matter.

Jackpot! This’ll let me deal with the heat and cold zones a lot more easily. And I bet it’ll help even more if I can get heat or cold related aspects for it. And it’s a Defender skill, so it should merge with Heavy Armor Proficiency, which means it won’t take up a skill slot.

Going to make both more expensive to level up, but I think that’s a price I’m willing to pay.

Will used the Resistance skill shard, got the expected synergy message and dismissed it without bothering to actually read it. He was far more interested in the resulting advanced skill.

Skill shard: Passive Defense

Tier: Advanced

Type: Defender

Level 1

XP 0/200

Reduces the stamina and mana penalties for using skills while wearing heavy armor by 10% per level.

When exposed to an environmental hazard, increase the damage intervals by 20% per level.

I’d sing the Safety Dance, but you’re probably so heavily armored that you can’t dance.

And if you can’t dance than you’re no friend of mine.

Aspect: Rock

Tier: Basic

Level 2

XP 0/100

Mitigate all damage by one extra category, as long as the hit was on a part of the body covered by heavy armor.

Level 2: Mitigate all earth damage by one extra category, as long as the hit was on a part of the body covered by heavy armor.

Reduce all environmental earth damage by one category per level.

About what I’d expected. Not sure Rock is going to be useful on this, since I’ve only seen heat and cold hazards. Then again, I haven’t seen every Space yet, so who knows. I think this is a good time to level the skill up though. That’ll give me both another cast of Thunder Ball or Least Cure, and reduce the environmental damage by a bit more. And I do have the XP for it right now.

Will mentally chose to level up the skill, noting that nothing in its description changed, and no new abilities were unlocked.

Makes sense, I guess? Both of the skills already have level dependant effects, so there aren’t any surprises in their growth. Anyway, I think that’s about everything I need to take care of right now. Going to have to get to Fili to clear out my inventory soon.

Satisfied, at least for now, with his status sheet, Will gave in to nature’s urges and rolled his dice.