New Achievement!
You have held a monster and kept it completely restrained with your shaping while an ally killed it. It is one thing to trap a foe, but holding them restrained the entire time is a feat of strength that should be rewarded!
Reward; Medium Level Progress
They moved more quickly after the first ambush. Now that they were in the danger area, the conversation ended and everyone was on high alert as they either tried to locate threats on their own or they waited for Matt to locate the danger, which he did several more times.
The next stalker they found was killed by Karrn. Matt trapped the creature like he did previously, and the swordsman sped forward so fast Matt had trouble keeping track, blazing with dark green energy. When Karrn stopped moving he was already sheathing his sword. He had attacked twice in quick succession, bisecting the creature and bush twice in an ‘x’ pattern. The bush fell apart and the tangled bits of monster and foliage dropped to the floor as Karrn returned to the group, smirking a bit as he took amusement in Matt's awestruck expression. Karrn killed three stalkers.
The third stalker they found was taken care of by Drost. Unlike Karrn who sped forward and very quickly took care of the threat, Drost ran forward at a normal speed that Matt could match and he was able to track as the dwarf raised their axe high above their head, and with a burst of amber aura, they slammed the axe down with their entire body and cleaved the bush into two halves. As the blade slammed into the ground, Matt felt the impact in the ground beneath him as earth flew up around Drost. Stepping out of the dust cloud, Drost dusted the dirt off of him and shouldered their weapon, completely fine without a scratch. Drost killed two stalkers.
Florven did not possess any offensive ability, so he did not kill any stalkers. However, Janica did kill several more. In fact, at a whopping five killed stalkers, she had the most kills and took pride in that fact. And every single one of the stalkers she killed she did so by burning them, and every single time Matt grew slightly more scared of her.
Even Matt killed one of the stalkers, and it was quite impressive. As they passed under a tree, Matt felt too late the tree stalker swoop down and fling itself for Florvens back. Bat in hand, he quickly got into the familiar position and hit the flying projectile with perfect form, both protecting the healer in the group and sending the monster's stunned body into a bush that Matt bonded to and trapped it within while he followed and cracked its wooden skull with one more good swing. That earned him a lot of respect with the two knights, and some gratitude from the healer that made Matt feel incredibly good.
While Janica turned every monster they found into charcoal, the six stalkers the melee members of the party killed were otherwise intact, and the most important part of their core was also in good condition. None of the party were interested in harvesting the stalkers since the job payout was more than enough for them, so they let Matt have the cores which he gratefully made good use of by adding them to the wood of his bat, increasing its responsiveness even further. It still wasn’t anywhere close to the active response of just the lone core, but it was much easier than before.
And as the sun started to set, Karrn halted the group and asked Florven to check their position. They all had some variety of luggage, and Florven had an old fashioned side bag made of several side by side pouches that grew smaller the further out they were. Reaching into one of the smaller bags near his chest, he took out three things; A map, a compass and what looked like a pocket watch.
As Florven was doing the math for how far they were, Matt looked over his shoulder and looked at the equipment, firstly the map. It looked to just be a map of the forest, and he saw it was split into four ring sections, with the map getting darker the further inwards the section was. There was a marked ‘x’ on the map in a part of the forest that was still part of the outermost section but close to the border of the next ring in, and was about halfway from the edge of the forest closest to the town and the edge furthest away.
The compass was the same as the one Matt recently purchased, four points with the needle always pointing north. That was not interesting, however the watch was very interesting. In all things considered, it was the same as a pocket watch from earth; however instead of having twelve hour sections, it only had ten. Matt didn’t notice the time difference yet, but he probably would have if he spent enough time here.
After a while Florven pointed to a spot that was remarkably close to the mark but still had a bit of space between the finger and the x.
“We are here, about two hours away from the target.” Florven told Karrn, causing the swordsman to nod and look in thought for a moment before coming to a conclusion.
“Okay, we set up camp in the area and after resting for the night, we leave our gear here and head straight for the wood fiend. Drost and Matt, go chop a tree and get some firewood and logs to rest on. Janica, we’re going to start getting dinner ready while Florven sets up the barrier. Got it?” He asked while looking around, getting various levels of acknowledgement. “Great, break!” He declared as the various members moved to take care of their tasks.
Drost started moving away while Matt stood still for a moment longer in slight indecision as he watched everyone move with confidence before following after the dwarf. Drost kept going, looking at the various trees before seeming to choose one and heading for it. It was one of the smaller trees, only around ten feet tall and thin enough that Matt could wrap his arms around it and grab the opposite wrist. Drost examined it for a few more moments before grabbing their axe and getting ready to swing before Matt stopped him.
“Oh, uh, hold on! I can take care of it.” Matt offered nervously, looking back and forth between Drosts weapon and the tree. Drost seemed surprised for a moment before nodding with a smile and setting their axe aside. Matt breathed a sigh of relief, remembering how destructive it was when swung at monsters.
Standing up the tree, Matt bent down and formed a bond with the wood near the base, and breathed his wish of separation into the Material. Feeling the change happen, Matt quickly stood up and applied pressure to the trunk and started pushing away from him and Drost.
Both with his shoving and the slanted cut he made, the tree started to groan and topple over, landing with a decent smack into the ground.
“Good job kid.” Drost said as they moved past Matt and patted him on the arm, going to look over the wood. Smiling, Matt followed and Drost instructed him where to sever the trunk from the rest of the tree about halfway up the trunk. Matt split the area as instructed, and as the rest of the tree shifted under its own weight but before he could do anything else, Drost bent down, started to glow slightly with aura, and picked up the log with one motion and held it over their shoulder.
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Matt had to quickly duck out of the way as Drost turned around and as the dwarf chuckled at Matt's expense, they started walking back to the others. Matt just sighed and laughed a bit to himself before following. Getting back to the clearing that had never left eyesight, Drost set the large log down and looked over to Florven who seemed to be waiting.
Janica and Karrn had set up what looked like a fire pit made of stones and portable cooking surface over it that was a metal grate with legs, as well as a small pot that they were filling with water and other ingredients. They had eaten some of their rations on the walk here a few hours into the journey, but that had been several hours ago so Matt was excited to eat something, but it seemed like the parties healer had something before then,
“Alright, I can set up the barrier now. Oh, Matt, do please stand as still as possible while I do this, yes?” Florven asked and after a hesitant nod of agreement from Matt, the elf smiled and took hold of his staff.
Standing up straight, Florven held out his hand and staff in a similar way that Janica did when she cast spells, but a little differently. He had his free hand extended out the same way, but instead of holding a wand sideways he had his staff straight in front of pointed straight up with his free hand pressing against the staff.
Florven took a deep breath before he summoned a glowing circle just like Janica, however instead of bright orange this was a soft yellowish white. “Persisting Zone Life Barrier” Florven called out with that strange reverberance in his voice that mages had when casting spells. Much like Janicas spells, each word caused the spell circle to change in the shape and symbols.
However, while the shape was the same and Matt even got to see a new shape, a four sided star similar to the main ‘NWSE’ parts of a compass rose, the symbols were different. Instead of little pictograms that represented the word of power, the symbols in each part of the star was some kind of squiggly script that Matt could not read. However, the spell was otherwise similar to Janicas.
With the glyph finished, Florven then quickly pulled his staff back, pulling it backwards through the circle until the staffs end with all the crystals passed through the circle and like when Janicas wand passed through the spell, the glyph disappeared and the big crystal started to glow with a little halo of light wrapped around it.
Sweeping the staff through the motion, Florven took the staff into both hands and slammed the staff's end into the ground. The little halo shook for a second before it started falling and kept going down the length of the staff before it impacted the ground. Hitting the ground, the halo started to expand outwards rapidly and bathe the area within the circle with the same yellowish white light, and as it passed by Matt he froze and stood as still as possible until he saw the other adventurers move and snicker slightly at him.
Frowning, Matt turned around to where the circle ended and he watched as the slight tint of light faded away from the area, leaving only a lightly glowing circle twenty feet away from Florven in all directions.
“All right, there we go. Matt, the spell I just cast will cause other living creatures besides us to avoid the barrier, and make it difficult to pass. They can of course push through with effort, but weaker monsters like tree stalkers and other things in the outer ring will be discouraged.”
“Oh, wow. I haven’t gotten to see a lot of magic like that. What other monsters are supposed to be in the outer ring?” Matt asked as he joined the group and Drost started instructing him on where to split the big log into smaller sections. Matt cut the five foot long trunk into six sections, and then cut the sixth into several smaller chunks to use in the firepit, which Janica quickly lit with a small bit of magic. The other logs were set up to be used as seats.
Sitting down, Florven answered Matt's question. “In the outer ring, the only monsters you will find are different types of dire rodent, some dire fish in the river and some slimes scattered about. But because of the wood fiend, a lot of those have been forced to the west. Once we take care of it, the stalkers will be forced back to the inner circle and everything else will balance out.”
“That makes sense.” Matt agreed as he also took one of the logs and sat down, trying to get comfortable as he looked over to Karrn and Janica who were now actually cooking since they had wood to set on fire. It looks like they had some vegetables in their bag they had chopped and various seasonings that they were mixing together.
The log was better than just sitting on the ground but it wasn’t the best, but that wasn’t an issue for Matt since it was made of wood. Standing up, Matt bonded with the log and started to split it into several parts. The first thing he did was make a flat rectangle to be his seat, then he made four legs and finally a smaller rectangle and two more poles to be the chairs back.
Kicking the leftover wood to the side, Matt took a seat in his much taller and comfier chair, Matt let out a content sigh before looking back up and seeing that the other members of the party were looking at him with interest and various levels of excitement. Matt just sighed before he nodded and gestured for them to bring the other logs.
After making chairs for the rest of the party, the sun had fully set and the night sky was out in full. It was incredibly beautiful, the stars were incredibly visible and the moon was very clear. Well, the moons. Sitting up in the sky were two moons, both much bigger than how earth's moon looks and both very bright.
The bigger of the two moons looked like it was recently full but it was starting to wane, and while it looked like a regular moon in almost every way, it glowed a deep red color that was unusual. And the biggest thing that made the color unusual was the other moon was a different color!
The smaller of the moons was a waxing crescent that glowed softly in an amber or golden color. It was a little smaller, maybe eighty percent the size of the red moon, but there was something about the color that just took Matt's breath away and drew his eye to it more than the red moon did.
Shaking him out of his distraction, Karrn came over and brought Matt a bowel of the soup they had been making. Seeing what Matt was looking at, the swordsman looked up and smiled. “Ah, looks like Connection has joined Aura in the sky tonight. That is a good omen for us tomorrow having you tag along, yeah?” Karrn asked as he handed over the bowel and returned to his seat. Matt obviously didn’t know what Karrn was talking about but before he could think of a way to ask without sounding like an idiot Janica thankfully saved him with her lack of subtlety or tact.
“Oh wow, you look confused. Do they not teach the name of the moons in the holdouts or something?” She asked while still chewing on a mouthful of cooked vegetables, which Florven who was standing next to her as he served himself a bowel elbowed Janica to not talk with her mouth full. Despite that, Matt was grateful. Reaching a hand to scratch the back of his neck nervously, only some of which was faked, and laughed a little with similar energy.
“I don’t know what the rest of the people were taught but I was kind of sheltered and didn’t learn much other than life skills. The moons are named after the types of energy?” Florven shook his head as he sat down and settled into his chair.
“No, the other way around. The moons are where the gods of energy watch over the world, and we take the name of our abilities from them. The red moon is Auras domain, and the gold moon is Connections domain. The blue moon is, as you can guess, Manas domain, but it is not out right now.” Okay, there is a third moon as well. Cool.
“Oh, that's good to know, thank you. Why is it a good omen for Connection to be out?” He asked, trying to get a bit more information. Surprisingly, it was Janica that spoke up.
“It’s always a good omen for those under one of the wandering moons whenever they show up out of season. Since we have a Shaper on our team while we are going to hunt a monster tomorrow, seeing Connection is a sign of good luck. I was hoping for Mana but Connection is good enough.” She said with a smug expression before Karrn flicked a pebble or something at her forward and started laughing loudly as she started to yell and complain at him. The conversation soon died after that as the other two members joined in the teasing and the group fell into an obviously common routine of talking about anything over dinner lit by campfire, and Matt felt satisfied chiming in occasionally but mostly just watching. This is what an adventure should be, and it is just going to get better tomorrow as they set off to slay a dangerous beast.