[Class Aspirant Detected: Druid. Touch of Chaos. Yes/No?]
Yes.
When Harold chose yes it felt like taking a giant step forward, and then he blacked out. When he came back to his senses, he was still standing, and had a vague recollection of rushing winds, primeval storms and images of life finding a way despite the great forces all around.
Is that how it feels for everybody? What he saw next distracted him from properly analysing the memory of those strange sensations.
[Class granted: Chaos Druid]
[Skill granted: Roar of the Wild]
[Spell granted: Nourishing Remains]
[Passive granted: Nature’s Resistance]
[Skill granted: Regenerating Form]
[Spell granted: Ruptured Earth]
[Skill granted: Bond of the Forest]
[Spell granted: Spore of Dreams]
[Domain granted: Primal Domain]
[Spell granted: Touch of Chaos]
[Spell granted: Voidthorn’s Grasp]
It was the strangest thing he had ever seen, and his drunkenness added a surreal quality to the experience.
The digital white text was floating in front of Harold, but Kalle clearly didn’t see it. Neither did Harold if he looked at a white cloud too close to the sun, but if he closed his eyes it was still there in the darkness, clear as day.
Eventually the text faded, but Harold knew deeply that the words would stay with him forever. What the devil is a Voidthorn?
“Okay, I have the Class,” He hesitated before blurting it out. “Touch of Chaos is the 9th Skill.”
His wide-eyed look was mirrored by Kalle.
“Damn, [Wailing Bolt] was only my 5th, I reckoned that might make me a king eventually, but then what the hell would that make you?” Kalle grinned widely after they both had a second to consider how the news felt.
Harold laughed loudly, for the first time in what felt like ages. “The Great Spirit of your kingdom obviously!” He raised his arms and picked up the pace into town.
“Hah, as long as you are prepared to be the Great Spirit of a bunch of [Heretics].” Kalle bantered.
“Never that, blasphemers will be bound by the [Bond of the Forest] and assailed for the rest of their short lives by the [Spore of Dreams]!” This strange pronouncement was met by Kalle giving him a queer look. “Are those your new Spells?”
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And of course, that was when Harold ran ahead shouting. “Wouldn’t you like to know!”
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Yes. They ended up getting laughed out of town. Showing up, half-drunk off their asses and looking to make a business deal because of some vague new Classes they were unwilling to share, had resulted in a very predictably failed venture, with hindsight.
Kalle even forgot to activate his bangle, and realised too late how many people had already seen him come into town together with Harold. Too many to get changed after the fact. They still made a go of it, but it was clearly doomed from the start.
The lads retreated back to the Hare’s Retreat.
“Listen, they are not wrong about us being ill prepared, but remember what I said,”
When the still sobering Harold did not react with much more than a raised brow Kalle added importantly: “Momentum.”
“Right…” Harold looked around his old home. “We did not lose it, after all?”
“No man, the plan is still on, and I know you are not having regrets already, we just missed a few steps thas’ all, the plan is still on,” He was still slurring slightly, but he was absolutely right.
Harold had lost none of his determined look, even if the earlier artificially enhanced exuberance was starting to fade.
Kalle went on: “We should make one thing clear, right now. Either we just travel together for the first few legs or we actually do this whole thing together. I mean, I do get it if you are not sure yet, but I believe we will be safer from day one if we actually trust each other,”
That was sort of hard to object to, even if it was not so easy before they had proper time together, but Harold was on board. “That includes sharing all the details of our Skills and Classes, and figuring out any new ones later on, together. The whole jazz,”
When Harold just looked happy, and nodded his affirmative, Kalle kept going. “Since we’ve both still got a lot of growing to do, we might as well grow together,” Harold had been nodding along the whole way, right up until that last sentence, which made him unable to suppress a mocking smile; immediately making Kalle feel self-conscious.
“Yeah, yeah, okay. Alright. I live with old folks, what can I tell you... I might have let them rub off on me a bit much,” He said the words but Harold caught Kalle's fond smile before he started heading out the door.
“I’ll go let them know, all that is going on, and see what I can get to help us out on the road, you do whatever you need to prepare. I’ll swing by first thing in the morning and we will plan it out more and make a proper go of selling this place. Alright?”
All of the hesitations that had cropped up when they got ejected were gone, the more Harold thought about it the more he could picture himself in Kalle’s same mindset, searching desperately for opportunity, a year or so on.
Especially with the way things had been going lately.
Now Harold just needed to start packing, and see what he could figure out about all his new Spells.
Oh, and break the news to his little brother.