They spent two days following the river, taking the time to clear out any piranha folk they encountered, along with the occasional river monster and elemental. Not only were they good for practicing their skills, but the piranha folk were surprisingly tasty. Like a mixture of a rich salmon and something a bit more fatty.

Another delicious discovery was that skills like came with a knowledge dump when they reached certain thresholds. That included better ways to prepare the foods, some improved knife skills, as well as recipes that sprang to mind if one concentrated enough. Once they knew about it, they were able to search the System for more information on . That led to them spending more time researching other crafting and gathering skills, many of which they practiced along the way.

Looting was also something they were learning more about. Just like with Fantasy Quest Online, it appeared that creatures only dropped loot that might have been on them at the time. There were no random monsters carrying armor or weapons. Any animal parts had to be harvested, though they had read something in the System that spoke of a skill that was based on their gathering abilities. That seemed to have some promise.

Not that their adventure was all frantic fights against swarming fish people or cooking over the campfire. There were moments of levity as well.

Mathyx looked at the fine mist of blood and fur that was all that remained of the squirrel. He had tried to catch it with a , only to have the arrow explode the poor creature. Nothing was left that could be harvested. Certainly no meat. Marithra rolling on the forest floor laughing at him certainly hadn’t helped his self esteem either.

At least they had the system they were used to. The ability to store items in a dimensional space was probably the best thing they could have gotten. Especially considering how much stuff both of them collected.

Mathyx gathered samples of wood from the trees, branches on the grounds, animal parts from the things they hunted. Various remnants left from the elementals and other creatures that they were still learning about.

Marithra, on the other hand, had been exploring the various herbs and plants that and the System had said could be useful. She hadn’t had a chance to try or yet, but getting all the ingredients along the way seemed like a good plan. Once they were more safely ensconced somewhere, and hopefully not pursued by angry Nazi elves, they would look into making things.

Mathyx was rather looking forward to making a new bow. The one she had gotten for him was nice, but it was basic, and couldn’t quite handle some of the abilities that he was trying to use through it. He definitely outleveled the poor thing.

At least the skinning and butchering knives she’d gotten hold of were solid iron construction. They would last until they could find someone working in steel or maybe some type of magic material. Maybe there was some way to upgrade them? Something to look into in the System.

Something else he was going to look into was those tracking skills Marithra had teased him about. He wasn’t able to detect the piranha folk with anything other than experience. The telltale disruption of the water when one was about to breach the surface. The signs of their predation on the shorelines. Not all the piranha folk waited to get their prey back to the water before feeding.

However, he hoped to eventually learn some of the Scout abilities. There were tantalizing hints in the System notes that a person could multiclass or cross class abilities if they were willing to spend the time to learn them. Of course, the more skills a person had, the more time they had to spend practicing and leveling those abilities. But even a basic set of tracking and detection abilities would help, at least until they could get their own Scout.

Speaking of scouting.

Marithra faded back into sight, a slight frown on her lips. “There is a castle ahead, about fifteen minutes up the river. There are guarding it. They don’t look friendly.”

Mathyx frowned. Scorpionkin? He pulled up the System information on them.

A large warrior race with the main body of a scorpion and an upright torso. The upper torso has the large pincers, while the larger lower body has the manipulator limbs.

Huh. They sounded interesting. He spent the time approaching the castle discussing what she had observed of the guards.

There were two level 20s guarding the castle gate, with a level 37 on the parapets. She hadn’t seen any passive defenses but that didn’t mean there wasn’t some kind of magic in place.

As they neared the castle Mathyx noticed that there was less wildlife, though it was still more than had been around the elven castle. Did that mean the scorpionkin didn’t hunt as much or had a smaller population? The thought of encountering a hundred angry, intelligent, giant scorpions was terrifying.

Finally the forest thinned out enough that he was able to get some line of sight on the castle gates. let him see the guards for himself. They definitely matched the description in the System. They were different than he expected though. He had been thinking they would look like centaurs, only with a scorpion body.

The scorpionkin had that roughly centaur shape with a humanoid upper torso. However, that upper torso was just as armored as the rest of the body, with large pincer arms instead of regular arms. The regular arms were at the base of the torso. The Warriors had a type of wooden shield clasped in their hands, while the pincers were held at their sides. Rough leather helms adorned their heads and some type of wooden plates covered their upper bodies.

Switching his focus to the parapets, he spotted the . It held a regular bow in the lower arms, while the pincers seemed to be holding a truly massive crossbow like contraption that he couldn’t quite make out fully.

Leaning back into cover behind the trees, Mathyx looked over at Marithra. “What do you think? Should I focus on the archer up above or try and take out one of the warriors while you hit the other so there is no one to stop us from getting inside?”

Marithra tapped her cheek with one of her daggers. “I think we’d be better off taking the two at the gate. The archer will most likely get into some type of stupid ranged duel with you, leading to you easily taking care of it while I make my way inside.” Sheathing her dagger, she grinned at him. “Just try not to take too much damage before you rejoin me.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Watching as she faded away, Mathyx muttered, “No respect. I get no respect. Decades of being friends and I still get no respect.” Drawing his bow, he tried to use what low level skill he’d managed to learn from her over the last couple of days.

Flittering from tree to tree, he drew closer to the small cleared area surrounding the castle. It wasn’t nearly as extensive as the elven one, coming within a dozen feet of the gates. Peeking around one last tree, he pictured which one he would go after, then began powering up a .

Stepping around the tree, he loosed his shot, the magically empowered arrow smashing into the armor protecting the Scorpionkin’s torso. Wood chips flew and the Warrior staggered back, pincers wrapping protectively in front of itself. A half second later the other warrior screamed as Marithra landed on its back, daggers slamming into its neck. She was quick to pull them out and stab them into its back before kicking off, narrowly avoiding a stab herself from the tail.

A series of kept his target engaged, splashing against the pincers though doing little apparent damage. The one that slammed into its head, on the other hand, rocked the warrior back and staggered it, the scorpion legs wobbling before the thing tipped to the side. Taking a moment, he powered up another , this time managing to destroy the warrior’s head.

Meanwhile, Marithra was cleaning her blades on her target’s clothing, blowing one errant curl of red hair out of her face. “Well, that was invigorating. What happened with the archer?”

Mathyx shrugged. “No clue. It vanished soon after my first shot. I can only guess it’s going for reinforcements rather than fighting us. Keep your eyes open when we get through the gates.”

Rolling those eyes at him, she faded away.

***

Mathyx frowned as he made his way deeper into the castle. Where were all the guards? Where were the reinforcements that should have been summoned by the missing archer? He had been expecting something closer to a dungeon or raid in terms of difficulty just to access the castle, yet there had been no resistance once past the gates.

Turning a corner he grunted as something slammed into him, spearing through his torso and out his back with a level of pain he never imagined. The bow dropped from nerveless fingers and he looked down to see what looked like a javelin sticking from his belly. A low chuckle tried to escape him but he found it hard to breathe.

Looking up, he managed to catch sight of the he’d lost earlier, lowering that massive crossbow to make room for the bow and arrow in its lower limbs.

Growling, Mathyx forced himself through the pain, leaning down to grab his bow. Absently looking at his health bar, he saw he’d managed to lose nearly half his health in that one strike. Guess he wasn’t meant to take siege weapons.

A rage filled scream drew his attention back to the archer. Marithra had planted a dagger into its side and was in the middle of slashing its tail with the other. The scorpionkin tried frantically to get a bead on her with its bow, but she kept moving.

A bloody chuckle came to his lips as he took the time for a that caught the distracted archer in the side of the head, slapping it into the side of the corridor. A smashed into its side just as Marithra’s dagger jammed into the underside of its jaw.

There was a quiver from the tail before the scorpionkin sagged into a bunch of chitin.

Mathyx dropped the bow again and worked to pull the javelin free. Gritting his teeth, he tugged but couldn’t quite get the leverage through the pain. Marithra came over, hitting him with a before gripping his shoulder in one hand and pulling at javelin with the other.

Once the bloody wooden shaft was freed and tossed to the floor, Mathyx followed it, slumping down. “Okay… I know we’ve got a bunch of health and all…” he trailed off as he watched his health start to tick up. Looking down at his torso, he saw the wound start to slowly close. “But that hurt. It was like being in the accident all over again, only concentrated in my guts instead of my limbs.”

Marithra leaned down to place a gentle hand on his right forearm. “You’ve got new limbs now, according to Auxidon. And you would have died if that had happened to you back home. So let’s be thankful for the gifts we’ve been given here.”

“Says the woman who hasn’t actually taken any damage in the few days that we’ve been here.”

“Exactly. One of the other things I’m thankful for in regards to the gifts we’ve been given.”

“Oh fine. Just help me up. That can’t be the last one scorpionskin we have to deal with. It wouldn’t have been this deep within the castle without a reason. Other than an ambush.”

Marithra nodded. “I’m guessing it warned whoever was in the Throneroom, then came here hoping to eliminate us on its own.”

Mathyx frowned. “Why the Throneroom? Wouldn’t there be somewhere more defensible?”

Marithra sighed. “Did you not read the System notes about Castles? I told you we were near one for a reason.”

Reaching over to rub his right arm from elbow to wrist, he shook his head. “Why don’t you give me the highlights then?”

Rolling her eyes, she nodded. “Fine. Castles like this one and the elven one can be captured from the inhabitants if you can gain control of the Throneroom. You do that by eliminating anyone already in the Throneroom who might have been given control of the Castle. Then it’s basically King of the Hill. You stay in the Throneroom until you imprint on it. If you are uncontested for the right amount of time, you gain control of the Castle.

“There is a whole section about the benefits of the Castles and what you can do with them.”

Mathyx looked at her. “When did you have time to do all that reading?”

“I read while I walk.”

“Of course you do.”