Ooh. I think the question of which skill I want to transfer to the Mana Beast has just been answered. And with it being boosted to level three, it won’t even cost me any XP.

Skill shard: Power Attack

Tier: Basic

Type: Warrior

Cost: 8 stamina/attack

Level 3(1)

XP 0/100

Increase the damage of one melee weapon attack by 1 damage category

Level 2: attack gains 10% per level to cause Crushing Blow, reducing the target’s armor by 1 level

Level 3: Reduce stamina cost by 20%

Finesse? We don’t need no stinking finesse!

Not bad. I don’t think I should add in Medium Armor Proficiency, since I don’t actually have any medium armor for it. If the Mana Beast can even use armor. Better to keep the skill at basic tier in case I can find Rapid Attack to merge with it.

The next group of Kobolds met Will at the halfway point. This time, the standard ten Kobolds were reinforced by a group of four giant rats. The beasts looked similar to the ones Will had fought in the Ruins, but looked better fed and less diseased. One of the bigger, elite Kobolds seemed to be in control of the rats, screeching orders at the beasts.

Not that the orders were anything more complicated than “Catch the delicious food!”

The other elite Kobold held a crude looking spear. And as soon as it’d gotten close enough to Will, it threw the weapon at him. With surprising accuracy. Will didn’t even get the chance to dodge before the weapon hit him, piercing through his armor with relative ease and lodging itself in his shoulder.

And then, the spear just vanished into thin air and reappeared in the Kobold’s hand, reinforcing Will’s assumption that the elite was using some sort of skill.

None of which helped the Kobolds. Will started the fight with a Thunder Volley, launching three bolts at the Shaman and three at the spear elite. The Shaman died instantly, leaving the rest of the Kobolds with no protection against Will’s follow up Thunder Cone.

Somewhat surprisingly, the rats actually managed to survive the skill, being sturdier than the regular Kobolds. But the Mana Mandrill leaped at their master, using its new Power Attack to dispatch the elite Kobold as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, Will had to use the Shield part of his Mage skill to block another thrown spear. The spear still managed to wound Will, but between the skill and his armor, he’d managed to bring it down to a lesser wound, instead of the minor wound the first spear throw dealt.

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Wanting to avoid another throw, Will charged at the spearkobold. The monster, which had its spear back, set it on the ground and pointed it at Will, using the weapon like a pike. Unable to stop in time, Will had to use his Shield again. This time, the spear wasn’t empowered by whatever skill the Kobold used to throw it, and couldn’t penetrate Will’s armor. Instead, the weapon shattered into pieces when Will’s mass slammed into it.

Thanks to Unstoppable Lance Charge, Will wasn’t even slowed by the spear, and crashed into the Kobold at full speed.

Knocked down and disarmed, the Kobold didn’t last long against Will.

By the time Will was done, the Mana Mandrill was just finishing up with the second elite, after slaying its rat minions, and the battle was finished.

There was no skill shard drop this time, which Will wasn’t that upset about. He couldn’t use the spear skill anyway, and a mischief of rats wasn’t something he wanted following him around. The XP and copper bits would definitely be useful though.

Will had to pause for a while, in order to replenish his mana and stamina, and to heal and fill up the stamina for his Mana Beast.

Predictably, the next group of Kobolds was located at the three quarters mark. This one had an elite Kobold wearing leather armor, which vanished into the shadows of the cave as soon as Will had been detected, and one which riding a very large bat.

Which was, in Will’s opinion, both utterly ridiculous and incredibly ineffective, seeing as the cave’s ceiling wasn’t even close to high enough for the bat to actually fly.

Especially with the added weight of the Kobold sitting on its back.

But even if it could fly, Will was ready with a Thunder Volley, and with the rogue Kobold out of sight, the three bolts that weren’t used to kill the Shaman went for the bat.

Stunned bats, it turned out, tended to crash into the ground. At which point Will blasted it and its rider again, this time with a Thunder Cone.

The rogue Kobold didn’t fare much better. It may have been hidden from Will’s sight, but it was definitely not protected from the area of effect skill. And once it got the disorient debuff, it couldn’t even maintain its stealth skill, and was immediately set upon by a translucent blue monkey.

The group didn’t have any special loot for Will, and after resting for a bit, wombat and monkey continued their way towards the presumed Kobold village.

There weren’t any more surprises along the way, and about half an hour after the last fight, the tunnel opened up into the largest cavern Will had even seen. It must have been a full kilometer across, and three hundred meters wide, with a ceiling a hundred meters high. And it was absolutely filled with cooking fires. Will counter twelve of them before his sight was blocked by a message screen.

Quest complete!

Kobold Village located.

Reward:

100 XP.

Mastery shard

Thanks, Mr. Message. Never would I have guessed that this is the Kobold village. What’s next then?

Rank up!

A main quest has been finished in this space.

Rank 2 enemies, elite rank 1 enemies and champion rank 0 enemies may now appear.

Champion enemies, huh? That’s certainly a new one. But it’ll wait until the next time I’m in this Space. For now, let’s see what this mastery shard is all about.

Mastery Shard

Increase the tier of 1 skill by one level.

Can be used on skills of expert or lower tier.

Can be combined with two other Mastery Shards into a Grandmastery Shard

I’m… not at all sure how this helps me, actually. I mean, as far as I can tell, higher tier just means more XP per level. Well, that and more room for aspects, but I’m not sure that’s worth the increased cost. I’m probably missing something here, since this came from the third quest in the chain. So it should be a good reward.

I think I’ll just hold on to this until I can ask one of the merchants about it. Speaking of, it’s time for me to go to the little dice roller’s room.