Michael’s perspective:
Mom and Dad found me a one room house just down the road from Gabriel’s. A little over a week later, on our day off, we loaded everything I owned into a wagon and brought it to my house. I was now officially moved out, and because of that I insisted that I didn’t need their help moving my things into my cabin.
Several hours later, however, Gabriel showed up with his pregnant wife as I was restacking my bricks from the cart to the front of my house. It was getting colder now, and the main Harvest just happened, so I would probably start stacking firewood on the other side of the door and move it too. “Hey, Gabe.” I said, waving at him before grabbing another ten bricks to stack.
Gabe and his wife, Sara, walked over. “Mom told me you got a job helping dad at the castle, and moved in here, so I decided to stop by.”
“Well, I don’t need any help, but thanks.” Why else would he stop by?
“Oh, ok.” he said. He probably wanted to help, since moving heavy things was fun, but I wanted to move as much as possible so that I could get stronger.
They stood there as I finished with the last seventeen bricks, then I walked over. “Hello, Sara, you’re looking really pretty today.” I said. I had learned that women liked it when you complimented their appearance, though I didn’t understand why.
“Thank you.” she said.
Seeing as it was working, I continued. “After all, your boobs are way bigger, probably because of the baby.” Her face turned bright red and she turned around.
“You should have left out that last part.” Gabriel said rubbing his face with his hand.
“Why? I was complimenting her.”
“Women don’t like men talking about that.” he replied quietly.
“But the guys at the pub talk about how big women’s boobs are all the time, and even tell the waitresses that. They also compliment their butts, but I don’t know why.”
He rubbed his face again. “That’s different. Some women are okay with it, and the kind that work in pubs tend to be that kind, at least if they are paid well enough.”
This was very confusing, but I nodded. “Anyway.” said Gabriel in a normal voice, “We actually came over to see if you wanted to come over to eat to celebrate moving out. Sara is a really good cook.” I didn’t really see why we were celebrating, but I was a terrible cook, and would probably have to spend money to eat at the pub if I wanted good food, so I agreed and locked up my house before going with them.
After that I got into a pattern. At work I was having plenty of fun moving and stacking lumber and stones when I wasn’t on the crane, so I didn’t need to move my bricks anymore. Instead, every night I practice reading and math. I could now do subtraction with no problem and was starting to understand multiplication after a guy at work showed me the end of a five-by-six stack of wood and told me that he knew there were thirty boards there because five times six was thirty. I was also up to the same reading level as a ten year old, and would probably be returning the school book I borrowed from the library in a day or two to get the eleven year old book. I only needed to sleep every two or three days as long as I ate enough, so I had an extra eight hours every night to study, even if I did have to spend a lot of my money on lamp oil.
The town hall, which was also the Mayor’s house for some reason, had a room full of useful books, though mother had often complained that they only covered how to do basic things and skills that the Lord thought were useful. She wanted to get me an Adventure book when I was sixteen, to see if that made it easier to read, but the only adventure stories they had were in books meant to teach school children how to read. I realized that many people in town called me stupid because I couldn’t do many things that adults normally could, like read on an adult level, but I tried to ignore them.
I worked five days a week and studied seven days a week until the time spring got here. By then Gabriel’s baby boy had been born, so he couldn’t go to the pub with me any more, but he agreed to teach me how to fight with a spear and shield so that he could stay near his house in case Sara needed him. I always liked learning new things, so I agreed. Gabriel had joined the town guard, and they had taught him how to fight, so on weekends he taught me.
I practiced the moves he showed me every other night, continuing my reading and math practice on the other days, and even got a skill out of it; Studying. That helped me learn about the world much faster and let me learn to do simple division.
Still, physical work was more fun, so I practiced my spearmanship and shield work until I got the skills for both, even if they weren’t very high. In the summer, when he heard that I had the Spearmanship skill, a man at work asked me to go hunting with him on our day off, and we ended up bringing back a wild boar. He looked afraid of it, as it was able to breath fire, but I don’t know why. It probably just ate some of the peppers that grew around here. Those wild things are way too spicy. The boar was bigger than he was, so I carried it back. It was a bit heavy, but I managed to push myself and we got back to town by sunset.
We brought it to the butcher so he could give us the meat, and that night at the pub several men bought me drinks and thanked me for killing a monster. I thought about it and remembered that some of the stories I had read mentioned giant boars and called them Monsters, though I don’t think any could breath fire. Maybe that’s what they were talking about?
The next afternoon the mayor sent someone to the castle to talk to me. They wanted to know where I found the wild boar. Obviously they were interested in hunting there themselves, as it had a lot of meat, so I told them where it was. They said that some adventurers should be here in the next few days to look into the situation and asked if I could help them. I explained that I couldn’t take off of work just to help some adventurers hunt, but they said they would talk to the site supervisor and get me the time off to do it if I agreed. I wasn’t sure if hunting or working would be more fun, but when the adventurers arrived one of them offered me five silver if I helped them.
I knelt down and started writing in the dirt. I wasn’t good enough with division to do it in my head yet. Let’s see, five silver at twelve copper per silver was sixty copper. I made eight copper a day. So that was…seven days plus four copper. So more than a week worth of earnings for being gone a few days helping some adventurers on a hunting trip. If they could get permission for me to be gone for those few days, I would do it.
It was a little strange that the adventurers were willing to pay me that much to help them bag some game on their vacation. After all, if they could pay that much, they must be rich, and rich people hunted for fun and on vacation, like the Lord did, unlike poor people who hunted to eat.
An hour later the adventurer had gotten clearance from the Site Foreman for me to take the last day and a half off, and took me buy some gear he said I would need. I already had a Boar spear and a wooden shield, so I didn’t know what else I needed. I had never camped in the woods before, but he explained to me that we would be out there for two or three days so I needed a backpack, sleeping roll, and tent at a minimum, and should probably bring a canteen and some rations as well. I wasn’t sure why we couldn’t just kill some squirrels or rabbits, or pick wild plants and eat them if we got hungry, but apparently Adventurers didn’t do that. That used up three of my silver coins, but he promised me extra money if what he thought was out there was there. He must be hoping for a big one.
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When I had went to the butcher to pick up all of my meat from the boar, I was given a tiny blue pebble that the butcher said he found inside the boar. I had read in the stories that sometimes monsters protected jewels, but I had never heard of a monster swallowing one. I put it in my money pouch, and took Mother and Sara a good bit of my share of the meat. The meat was packed in salt and sealed in tiny barrels, so that it could cure and not go bad for months. Mother used to buy meat like this for winter storage. Even with as much as I was eating though, the meat would go bad before I could eat it all if I didn’t give most of it away.
The next morning I met the adventurers outside the town gates and they handed me a pouch with five round and clear sugar candies in it. They told me not to eat them, though, even if they changed. Now that I thought about it, these candies reminded me of the Talent crystals the merchant would sometimes bring by. They explained to me that they were Talent crystals, they were just empty. If I killed a monster, sometimes one of the crystals would absorb a talent from the dead monster. They said it was a five per-cent chance from a ‘humanoid’, a three percent chance from a ‘humanoid monster’, and a one percent chance from a normal monster. I wasn’t sure what they meant by ‘per-cent’, but the smart one with a fancy walking stick they called a ‘staff’ explained that ‘per-cent’ meant ‘out of one hundred’. So five times out of every one hundred times I killed a person I would get a talent, three times out of one hundred that I killed a person-like monster like an Orc or a Goblin I would get a talent, and one out of one hundred times when I killed any other monster, like that boar, I would get a talent. It was so rare that it didn’t matter that I didn’t have the Talent candy on me when I killed that boar, but adventurers always carried them just in case they killed a monster and got lucky.
I wasn’t going to kill people, either, but they explained that that fact just meant that bandit hunting missions were always taken quickly, as every decent group of bandits meant that you would get two or three talents that could be sold for extra money or kept for yourself.
I showed them the pretty stone that was found in the boar, and asked if it was worth anything, and they were surprised and a bit concerned. They started muttering about ‘dungeons’, but they were quiet enough that I couldn’t here what they were saying. After they were done, they offered me five copper for it. I told them I would think about it. It was worth less than a day’s wages, after all, and mother’s fortieth birthday was in a few weeks, so it might make a good present for her.
As my backpack wasn’t that heavy, I asked if they wanted me to carry theirs as well. “Are you even strong enough to be a porter?” the staff woman with pointy ears asked.
“Show Status to Adventurers” I said, and a few seconds later they stood their staring at my status.
Name: Michael, son of Brin Mason
Race: Human
Age: 18
Common Talents
Strength: Petty
Endurance: Major
Dexterity: Petty
Intelligence: Petty
Willpower: Average
Wisdom: Petty
Charisma: Petty
Personality: Major
Perception: Minor
Stats
Strength: 17
Endurance: 24
Dexterity: 12
Intelligence: 6
Willpower: 15
Wisdom: 5
Charisma: 2
Personality: 27
Perception: 8
Monster Talents
Average Troll Regeneration
Skills
Workout: 5
Study: 3
Spearmanship: 2
Shield: 4
“You don’t have to show us your status if you don’t want.” said the staff woman before reading it. They started whispering to each other. Something about a ‘good find’ and ‘worth more’. Again, I didn’t know what they were talking about. When they were done, however, they handed me their backpacks and, while it was a little bit lighter than what I would normally carry to work out, it was better.
“So, can we go?” I asked, and they nodded and we left.
We got to the hunting place at around noon, and decided to cook something. Once they were done eating, they left me at the camp to look around the area. It wasn’t how you would normally hunt, but maybe they were setting traps. I had heard about people that did that, but never learned to do it myself. After all, I wasn’t strong enough to hunt until a few months ago. A few hours after eating, the woman with a bow came back to camp with some news. She looked like an actual hunter so she must have found some tracks. She said she had found ‘one of them’ a kilometer away, so we packed up everything and I carried it to the new location.
There we found a cave, but the entrance felt weird, like I wanted to look at it, but it made my stomach do loops and I couldn’t see through it. That was a weird darkness in the mouth of the cave. Still, there weren’t many things that were worth hunting in a cave. Maybe they were going to keep the village safe by killing wolves or bears that lived there? Maybe the weird feeling was because there was a monster in the cave?
They told me that they had to go in there but, depending on how big it was, it could take us days to clear it. I wasn’t sure how a cave could take more than a few hours to explore, as according to the books I read there weren’t any big cave systems around here and no abandoned mines that big either. I agreed to follow them inside, though. That was why they were paying me, after all.
I equipped my spear and shield and followed the four of them inside. Just as I stepped into the weird darkness a message that looked a lot like my status screen appeared.
Just as I was about to ask how she could tell, I heard a boar grunt and saw its eyes appear in the darkness. It ran at the staff woman, and she shot a ball of light at its eyes which seemed to blind it. It stumbled slightly as it continued charging, and just as it got to her the man with a sword jumped in front of her and blocked it. I quickly stabbed it in the side with my spear, pulled the spear out, and stabbed it again. It squealed in pain, stumbled and bit, then collapsed from blood loss.
“Thanks.” said the sword man, and when another animal didn’t attack for a few seconds he cut open its chest and reached inside. After a few seconds of digging around looking for something, he pulled out a blue stone slightly smaller than the one I had.
“Do all monsters keep jewels inside of them?” I asked, and they looked at each other for a few seconds before telling me they would explain later. “In that case, do you want me to carry the boar too? I’ll probably have to give you your bags back, but I can do it.” It wasn’t as big as the other boar, after all.
“No, we don’t need it.” the man said. That was weird. Why would they come here to hunt, but not take home the body of the first thing they killed? That was just wasteful.
Still, it was their money they were wasting, so I followed them as they went deeper. They killed wolves, angry jackalopes, which I didn’t know lived around here, and several deer that must have been rabid as they attacked us instead of running away when they saw us. I warned them that the deer might be rabid when they cut open its chest, but they just laughed, saying they knew it wasn’t. We walked for several kilometers, killing even more animals including foxes and squirrels, before coming to another cave. They told me to lay down the luggage and get my gear out, so I did.
Once everyone was ready and their wounds bandaged, we entered the cave. It was one big room with a giant grizzly bear in the middle. Ten other grizzlies slept around the cave, probably part of its family. It seemed like a bad idea to fight so many of them at once, but they were the bosses, and I didn’t argue with my bosses.
The bow woman pulled out a bottle with a purple liquid in it and dipped three arrows in it before holding the shafts of the arrows in her mouth and putting the bottle back in a pouch. I knew that some hunters poisoned their arrows when they hunted larger game, but had only read about it, not seen it. The man in black leather armor pulled out his daggers and I saw that they looked very sharp and made of some sort of steel with black wavy lines in it. The staff woman held her staff out, and the sword man held out his sword. I joined them by pointing my spear at one of the nearby bears and the bow woman fired an arrow at the big sleeping bear.
It immediately woke up and growled loudly, and its family woke up as well. The hunter quickly fired her two remaining poison arrows at it before stepping back and switching to using normal arrows on the other bears.
As she, the knife man, and I dealt with the smaller bears, the swordsman and the staff woman attacked the big bear. Their strategy appeared to be to have the sword man get in its face and hit it whenever it looked away as the staff woman shot beams and balls of light at it, burning it, blinding it, and causing it pain.
As I took the attack of the bear that ran at me on my shield, I brought my spear forward and stabbed it in the stomach. It started pouring blood and stumbled backwards, so I put all of my strength into stabbing it in the chest. It collapsed, so I attacked another bear, one with two arrows in its face.
The bears were coming at us too quickly, so I started hitting them with my shield, in some cases hearing bones crack. This made them back off enough to give me room to move. As I did this, though, I heard a loud thud as the big grizzly collapsed on the ground and the other two people each started helping on a side. As one of the bears with a cracked skull jumped at me I knelt and braced my spear against the ground. It impelled itself on my spear and a wave of...something went through me and into the pouch at my waste. I was pretty sure it wasn’t just the vibration of the spear shaft. I pulled it up to stab another bear, but the shaft was cracked, so I hard to use it like a short spear. I stabbed one more, and soon we were able to finish off the last of the bears. The hunter, knife guy, and swordsman got to work cutting the blue jewels out of the chests of the bears and the staff woman sat down and held her head.
“You okay?” I asked, walking over to her. “If you want I can see if there’s a spotted toad mushroom outside.” Everyone around here kept a few of the green and bumpy things around to treat pain.
“No, I’m fine.” she said. “It wouldn’t help with mana depletion anyway.”
“Mana depletion?” I asked, confused.
“Yeah, mages like me only have a limited amount of mana to use and I overdid it a bit. That’s why I didn’t just use Lightbeam on the bear every time. It takes too much mana.”
“You’re a mage?” I asked. I had read about them in story books but had never seen one before.
“You didn’t figure it out? I thought the staff and spells gave it away.”
“Oh, those were spells? I’ve never seen one before.”
“Oh, that explains it.” She said, staring at me.
“So, what kind of mage are you?”
“Oh, I have a Minor talent for light magic and Average Willpower.”
“So, you shoot light? How does that work?”
“It’s...complicated. Maybe I can teach you later, but my head hurts too much to explain it now.”
I nodded and went to check on the others. They were all busy digging around in the chests of bears, but after a few minutes they finished pulling out the crystals and regrouped. “So, do we check the core room now or keep hunting?” asked the knife man.