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Protagonist: The Whims of Gods
B4 C42: Into the Woods

B4 C42: Into the Woods

The suggestion to brave another region wasn’t overly surprising. It was, after all, kind of the point if we ever wanted to get out of here. To do so without Cal, however, was significantly less expected.

More than that, it was less appealing, too. As the only one of us who could somehow go completely without sleep or food, Cal was a godsend when it came to keeping us safe during longer trips. Considering that Verin couldn’t deal direct damage, either, Cal’s absence would force me to fight all the harder.

Expecting the questions and concerns, Cal elaborated without prompting.

“Hear me out. We only have four uncleared biomes that we know about right now: the lake, the forest, the mountains, and the jungle. Jungle is out until we level up a bit. Lake is out until we grow gills. That pretty much leaves two options. If we do the mountains, then Verin shouldn’t come. If we do the forest, then I shouldn’t.”

That much, I had to agree with. All three of us had grown by leaps and bounds since coming here, but we still had various weaknesses. For Verin, the gryphons were her natural enemy.

Carrying her around in “backpack mode” wasn’t going to work. To start, it would hinder my mobility, especially in the skies. More importantly, her ice had to be very thin for that strategy to work, and the gryphons would have no trouble cracking her skill open.

On the flip side, her Advancing Glacier skill took a while to form. If she just walked alongside us and summoned it as needed, then she would be vulnerable to ambushes. Worse yet, I was fairly certain that some of our feathery foes would be able to pick her up, glacier and all. With her new hair ornament from Tal’Ket, she wouldn’t die from fall damage, but once she was properly in the sky, she’d be at the gryphons’ mercy.

We could probably keep her safe 99% of the time, but all it would take was one mistake for her to be gone for good. It was a risk I saw no reason to take.

Despite her stealth, Cal had a similar problem with the forest. Even in backpack mode, Verin would be more than safe from the relatively lackluster claws of the Vitality Panthers. Cal, on the other hand, had next to no real defense, relying exclusively on her Apex Shroud to avoid strikes outright. As it was, we’d yet to find proper armor for her that covered the entirety of her neck and head.

Until she could keep her skill up continuously, though, there would be periods of time when she’d be open to attack. With the panthers’ stealth and speed, they could easily tear through her before we got a chance to intervene.

Not to gloat, but I, of course, would be fine in both regions.

“While I understand your logic in part,” Verin responded, “is there a reason that you wish for us to traverse the forest instead of you two climbing the mountains? I do not see why one would be vastly preferable to the other.”

Cal beamed, as if hoping Verin would ask exactly that. “Are you going to tell me that if Tess and I left you alone for a few weeks, we wouldn’t come back to find you half-dead from food poisoning and starvation?”

The air grew icy as Verin tried and failed to target Cal with her spells. Before she could resort to more drastic measures, Cal hastily amended herself. “Real answer, though, is that I think that would suck for you. If we leave you by yourself, you can fight some scorpions every few days, but otherwise, you’ll be bored out of your mind. If I go solo, I can try and find the boss of the mountains region. I can also take Tal’Ket for a joy ride and try to do some scouting to see if there are other biomes that are better suited for us.”

At least partly mollified, Verin refrained from impaling the princess atop an ice wall. Instead, after careful consideration, she responded with a resolute nod.

“Very well, then. When do we depart?”

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The answer, as it turned out, was “not now.” Under the guise of wanting more time to consolidate our gains from our previous trip, all three of us decided to stick around in the cabin for a tad longer.

Even with my spotty record of interpreting social cues these days, I could easily discern the true reason: We wanted a bit more time to relax. That wasn’t to say that we didn’t train or fight in the coming weeks, but there was a certain psychic weight that came with spending too much time in hostile territory. Sleeping safely in our own beds was a luxury that even the sleepless Cal was reluctant to give up.

If perhaps we extended our vacation by a full month, then where was the harm? With the time dilation, that was less than a week back home in any case. And regardless, we were putting our break to good use.

Case in point, presently, I was trying to answer two very important questions: How much water could sand absorb, and how wet did sand need to be before giant scorpions had trouble walking over it?

As a great mass of claw and chitin closed in on me while screeching with fury and bloodlust, I continued my experiment.

Spatial Step. Right as the hellish arachnid would have split me in twain, I teleported away. Like a bull narrowly missing a matador, it barreled onwards, its momentum forcing it forward. Its many claws dug into the damp sand, finding purchase without any issue.

Damn. I’d been at it for a good twenty minutes at this point, and I was worried the scorpion was going to tire out before I succeeded. Still, that was no reason to stop now.

Dampen. Dampen. Dampen. I chained the spell rapidly in succession while also firing off a few overcharged water arrows. Even as I did so, I was also channeling water mana into my eyes, armor, feet, and gloves, trying to maximize my skill growth. As I watched, the stretch of desert I’d been focusing on momentarily turned a bit soupy before the sand greedily sucked up the moisture.

Three more times, I led the scorpion into the slowly forming oasis, and three more times, it charged through without issue. On the fourth time, though, I had high hopes. The section of desert I’d been focusing on was practically quicksand by now, a sandy morass that even I would have trouble navigating without my movement skills.

The first of the beast’s claws sank into the sand, slowing it, but not ultimately holding it in place. Giant clumps of soggy sand flew into the sky as it ripped its limbs from my makeshift trap. With each new leg that entered, however, its movements grew more stilted and erratic, until it at last lost its bearings, crashing to the ground.

I cheered, only to realize that my celebrations were premature. Mana erupted from the scorpion’s carapace, and as I watched, the wet sand ripped itself from the ground. If somewhat less gracefully than usual, it flowed over the monster’s body, forming a thick armor. The ground, previously drenched and waterlogged, was now completely dry once more.

I sighed.

Guess we do this the normal way.

Summoning up my hammer, I began to funnel as much water mana as I could into the weapon.

Less than a minute later, a great crunch filled the desert air.

You have defeated a Sand-encrusted Scorpion!

Hammers has reached level 17!

Water Magic has reached level 20!

I allowed myself a small grin as the expected quest completion notification rolled in, along with a new augment.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Volumetric Augment

All water effects which directly conjure water can now conjure greater amounts at no additional cost.

It wasn’t overly flashy, but especially if it applied to the Conjure Liquid variant of my Conjure Water cantrip, it was a welcome upgrade. I assumed it would also work on Dampen, though it wouldn’t help with any of the water variants of my class skills.

Done reading, I spared a glance at my surroundings. A small crater had formed from the force of the blow, with both me and the scorpion sitting at the bottom.

Or, at least what was left of the scorpion. Having been struck with the force with the full brunt of my fully upgraded Overload Weapon class skill, it wasn’t in the best of states. Chunks of its body had flown off, liberally coating the inside of the crater, limbs poking out from the newly dampened sand.

Even having achieved my goal, I gave the scene a slight frown.

“Probably can’t use this one for dinner, can I?”

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The rest of my break thankfully involved far fewer crushed scorpion carcasses. While Water Magic ended up being the only spell class I managed to push over the edge, I made solid progress on all the others. Without exception, the rest of my basic schools of magic were now either at 18 or 19. With any luck, only another month or two of training stood between me and a new influx of class points.

For a while, things continued much in the same fashion as they had before. I gardened. I brewed some more poisons. With how much time I’d had to amass cloth from the necrolord’s bandages, I did a bit more clothworking. I even carved up another two board games, shamelessly stealing from my memories of Earth. Somehow, I doubted I’d be getting into any trademark or copyright issues here in the dungeon.

As all breaks do, however, our relaxation time came to an end in what felt like a blink of an eye. There wasn’t even a discussion to end it. One day, we all made eye contact, and by silent agreement, we knew it was time.

After a hefty breakfast containing a bit of nearly everything I had stored away, we left our cabin behind. With Cal heading off to the mountains, we said our goodbyes, knowing that we wouldn’t be seeing her for some time. I left Tal’Ket’s summoning disk with her, and at the very minimum, if she used it, she’d be gone for two weeks.

A part of me worried about sending her off alone, but in truth, Cal was probably the one I should have been the least worried about. After all, she was mostly scouting and fighting standard enemies. Verin and I were hoping to clear an entire region.

Having made the trek from the cabin to the start of the forest, the two of us stared up at the treetops and into the dense woodlands. With little fanfare, Verin climbed onto my back, wrapping her arms in mine before activating her Advancing Glacier.

Thus prepared, we advanced into the woods.

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Trying to discover something hidden in a forest was, unfortunately, no small feat.

Was the boss hiding in the canopy? Were we dealing with some sort of dryad, residing within a tree? Should we be looking for a cave, or was there somewhere we needed to dig down, searching beneath the soil?

Ultimately, there was no way to be certain, which left us aimlessly wandering, keeping our eyes peeled.

And by “us,” in this case, I mostly meant me. While Verin did have more Perception than most, her class had nothing on mine and its many vision skills. By and large, I switched between all of Arcane Vision’s variants as we walked, although I gave precedence to Tremor Sight in hopes of finding anything below us.

It would have been nice to say that after walking for a few hours, I magically spotted some grand secret, but the truth was the exact opposite. The first day was a slog of slow-going travel coupled with battling panthers. As was the second day. And the third.

On the few occasions that we felt secure enough for Verin to leave her glacier, she expressed that she did not enjoy being on my back as I lurched around fighting the life-infused felines, but such was life. Despite her presence limiting my mobility and disabling my Spatial Step, Verin was a large boon in fighting the frenetically fast foes, her skills drastically slowing them down.

After the third day, we decided that we needed to switch things up. Our initial hope had been that the dungeon would help us out as long as we strayed far enough into the woods. After all, it had pushed us towards regions’ bosses before -- I doubted we would have ever found the desert crypt without the dungeon springing the sandstorm on us, and its traps had forced me into a confrontation with the forsaken seer. It wasn’t unreasonable to think it would engineer another encounter this time around.

Without any signs of dungeon meddling this time around, however, our optimism was rapidly dwindling. On one of her rare breaks from her icy shell, Verin decided to switch things up.

“Barring us continuing on and simply hoping to stumble upon something, perhaps we should move forward with a greater intentionality, so to speak. As we’ve yet to find any notable landmarks or waterways, might I suggest we make for the center of the forest?”

The alternative would be to slowly canvas the entire woods in a snake pattern, a venture that could very well take months if it worked at all. Truth be told, I vastly preferred walking through the forest to our time in the other biomes, but that preference still had its limits. I would gladly exhaust all of our easier options before we took that path.

“I don’t know where the center is,” I admitted. “Backpack. Let’s check.”

Seeming to understand my intentions, Verin was initially reluctant to return to her position on my back. Rather than be left on her own, though, she climbed on and formed her glacier.

Immediately, I Jet Stepped, shooting through the canopy and taking to the skies.

In general, I tried not to fly too much in the dungeon. If the goal was to explore a region, then it was often counterproductive. Case in point, I couldn’t see much with the dense blanket of leaves blocking my view of the forest floor.

If the goal was to bypass a region, then I tried to do so even less. For starters, I’d never had enough mana to fly over an entire biome without landing -- especially if I was carrying either of my party members -- and dropping myself off in the middle of a region while low on mana was a recipe for disaster.

More importantly, the skies weren’t always safe themselves. Had I tried to fly through the air region, for example, I likely would have stumbled upon Din’Ket mid-flight. Barring a quick descent into the clouds, that would have been a death sentence.

With all that said, this still felt like the time to put my flight skills to good use. With my new anklet reducing Jet Step’s mana costs, I wasn’t concerned about running out, and given that I hadn’t seen any aerial enemies in the forest, I doubted anything would attack us.

That thankfully proved to be true as the forest shrank and shrank beneath me. Before I could get too high, however, I noticed something rather strange. Namely, the prairie. We’d left the region a solid three days prior, but from the air, it looked as though we were only a stone’s throw away.

Did we get turned around at some point? It wasn’t impossible, but it was at least highly unlikely. With my Perception, it wasn’t that difficult to reliably travel in a straight line. Then again, I liked to think that my Perception would make me resistant to any disorientation magic or any other possible reason for getting lost, too.

Doesn’t matter. As long as I could see from the air, I wouldn’t get tripped up again. For extra measure, I took out our compass, moving directly “north” to ensure we traveled in a straight line.

This time, I was glad to see the prairie vanish behind us as I quickly covered more distance than we had in days of traveling. After using up a quarter of my mana, I then drifted downwards for a brief pit stop. I descended to the forest floor, only resting long enough for my mana to fill before returning to the skies.

It was something of a shock, then, when I scanned my surroundings, only to find the prairie directly behind us once more.

How… Was it a disorientation effect? Mental magic? Some illusion not even I could break through? My existing skills should have made all three of those unlikely, but there I was, somehow right back where I’d started even after flying deep in the forest.

Could be teleportation, maybe? Then again, I’d never been teleported without noticing it before.

In the end, though, the exact how of it wasn’t relevant. More important was what we were going to do about it.

I dropped back to the ground, securing the area and gesturing for Verin to create a few ice walls to protect us from any particularly ambitious panthers. Once we were fully fenced in, I motioned for her to come out from her glacier, catching her up on the situation in case she hadn’t noticed what I’d seen.

“The forest is keeping us from moving forward,” I began.

That was, however, as far as I got in my explanation. As if waiting for me to say exactly that, the system interrupted. Abruptly, a notification popped up.

You have been offered a quest!