Chapter 8: Parents Past (Part 2)
Two move wolves emerged, one from either side.
"Of course, my cohorts and I were nearly pissing our pants at this point." - Keelin
"But right as the first wolf lunged for us, an arrow sprouted from its eye."
"Luckily for your mother, she was right near my camp, and I couldn't get to sleep due to the racket of it all." - Connor
"Yes, you were very gallant dear, right until you fell from the tree." my mother said, smiling.
My dad just sighed and continued the story, not that there was much left.
His 'fall' from the tree, was according to him, a jump onto one of the wolves.
He managed to stab it in the head, and ready his bow before the last wolf got it's bearings.
Another well placed arrow ended the whole ordeal, and 3 scared children were thanking him profusely in crying voices.
"He was quite harsh at that time, he called us snot nosed brats and told us to bugger off back to the village." - Keelin
"Obviously, I've trained him quite a bit since then." mom said, as dad just stared slack-jawed while muttering "I knew it!"
"In the end, I still had to lead them back to the village since they were hopelessly lost at that point." dad said, after he recovered.
"From that point on, my parents pulled him to the house for supper every chance they got." - Keelin
"After a few months, it became habit for me, and I'd just head over whenever I came to trade." - Connor
And so the story went, as we slowly rolled down the road in the shaky carriage.
After we made camp that evening, dad decided to take me hunting with him, saying "I need more experience facing monsters after that gobby."
He netted a couple of rabbits with his bow before flushing out a small boar.
A couple of arrows were sent into its hind quarters, near its hips, to slow it down, and he let me finish it off.
Though it was unexpected, apparently I can absorb the souls from animals too.
I got a much better look at it this time, but the only visual representation was some barely perceivable dark mist, that left from the body and swirled at my legs before being absorbed.
I've got to say, it's pretty sad, I got more Soul Essence from the young boar than I did from the goblin, just how weak was that thing?
So now with the 2 from the goblin and the 5 from the boar, I'm at 7 Soul Essence.
The Soul Knowledge I got from the boar appears to be a rush attack called Charge, that buffs my speed slightly while reducing the stamina used to run; and it costs 30 Soul Essence to absorb it.
It looks like it's going to be a while before I can get any useful abilities from this, oh well, it'll come in time.
Back on the road again, the stories from my parents continued.
Apparently, after a year or so, life started coming back into dad's eyes; and not long after, he left.
He traveled to a nearby town and, again, took up as an adventurer, only solo.
Dad told me he was still scared that he'd lose more people if he tried to press for bigger rewards.
It took another two years before he was finally talked into joining another team, this time correctly balanced.
The team consisted of 2 women, the mage and quick melee attacker, and 3 men, the tanker, priest, and heavy melee attacker, not including himself.
He told me that, if I ever signed up as an adventurer, that I should make sure to be in a balanced party like this, or pay the extra to form a squad.
Not that he really needed to stress the point, I knew the importance of a balanced party from playing D&D, nice to see it applies here though.
Come to think of it, I wonder if it would sell here if I made it...might be a little too close to reality for this world.
Not long after he joined the party, mom showed up in town, and apprenticed to the healer, not that dad knew it at the time.
A few years went by pretty normally, and mom was on the brink of becoming a full-fledged magic healer.
And then, everything went to hell, as an adult dragon rampaged through her home village, burning it to the ground.
The adventurers guild enlisted all available personnel to team up with an armed dispatch from the capital to go subjugate it.
The healers had to stay on stand by in the town for their return, or mom probably would have run off to die, since she couldn't fight very well at that point in time.
According to father, his team ended up pretty luck in the encounter with the dragon.
When they arrived at the village, it was a smoldering ruin.
The army had the adventurers integrate into the army's formation.
The mages were at the back protected by a line of blockers and a hand full of archers.
The rest of the tank style adventurers were behind the armies front line, and ordered to fill any gaps.
Grouped behind the flanks of the front line, was the heavy attackers, and in the middle was the rest of the archers, including dad.
Behind the archers were the quick melee attackers followed by the healers.
That sandwiched the healers between the guards for the mages and the mid field archers and quick melee attackers for protection.
Injured combatants were to fall back to the healers, or be pulled to them by the quick attackers if unable to walk, before returning to their spots.
Not that all the organization of the troops ended up helping much in the end.
Shortly after arriving at the village, some army scouts were sent to do what they do, scout.
Unfortunately for the subjugation force, the dragon returned before the scouts, from the back.
It flew out from the forest without so much as a sound, other than the wind buffing the spread wings.
By the time those at the back noticed, it was too late, the dragon opened its maw and sent a gout of fire at the force as it flew overhead.
With the dragons first pass, half of the back lines and a third of the middle, turned into bad-smelling burnt marshmallows.
When the fire ended, it descended in a low swoop over the front lines, grabbing a soldier in each hind claw as it flew off over the village.
The remaining mages of the back line, not frantically trying to put out burning robes or sobbing uncontrollably in terror, managed to help each other out by soaking the battlefield in water.
The healers buffed everyone's fire defense, and the archers nocked their arrows, with the remaining mages preparing piercing spells.
On the dragons return flight, it used the soldiers in its hind claws as rocks to toss at the mass of archers in the middle.
The arrows in return, didn't seem to do much as the majority just bounced off its tough scales.
The mages projectiles had better luck, as a few managed to pierce a couple of holes in its wings instead of shattering against its scaled hide.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
But it still wasn't enough to bring it down, as it just continued its flight over the forest, before turning a wide bank that put it in line with the heavy defenders in the front.
Most, through what my dad considered stupidity, just hunkered down behind their shields instead of getting out of its path.
Which caused most of them to die, as the dragon let out another breath while flying over their heads.
Only a couple of hand fulls of the front line survived the onslaught of dragon fire, mostly the adventurers who had the sence to run when the dragon opened its mouth.
On its next return path, they finally got it to the ground, with the aid of another barrage of spells to its wings membrane.
I couldn't help but think, "Sure, why wouldn't you get it down after most the defenders are roasted other white meat."
Even on the ground, a dragon is still dangerous, it took them hours to finally get bring it down.
The casualties kept piling up as the dragon trashed around biting, clawing, and tail slamming any of the fighters that came to deter it.
Unfortunately, it was either keep sending people to be eaten as a distraction, or sit back and let it roast everyone, so people kept coming.
Finally the mages managed to put an end to it by sending elemental magics into its open mouth, guess it's not as tough inside as outside.
In the end, the force of over 300 that came to confront it, was whittled down to less than a hundred.
Dad considered his team lucky because they only lost two of their members to the dragon, when most teams lost most of them, if they weren't completely wiped out.
Their front line defender got eaten after they got it down, and their heavy hitter got hit heavily with a much bigger tail.
The quick attacker lost a hand to a claw, but was still alive; and dad got quite a few cuts from flying debris and weapons flying from broken attackers.
Due to the lack of defenders when the dragon was downed, the healers were forced to ranged cast, which takes more magic, so there were very little heals to go around.
Those who weren't dying were ordered back to town to be healed there.
That's how dad got carried back, only to be reunited with mother in the healers office.
The town was in a mixture of relief and grief, as the dragon was no longer a threat, but many had lost family or friends.
Mom only found out that dad had gone after the dragon after he was gone, so she was quite relieved when he came back alive, despite the injuries.
Due to the heavy load on the healers in town, all healers were helping out, and she got to tend to Connor.
Due to all the cuts leaving his clothes in tatters, she had to strip and clean him to keep fabric from being healed into the wounds.
She told me that was when her feeling for him first started to change from familial to romantic.
It was the first time she had seen any male, not actually of her family, in the nude, so it made a big impact on her...aside from the embarrassment.
After the fall out from the incident, as he was the only person she considered family left alive, she decided to travel with him.
That took some time however, since he didn't want her in harm's way, and they already had a healer.
She basically stalked him for 3 months, never letting him go anywhere alone, much to his annoyance and his party's chargrin.
Finally, with some help from the other members of his party, he folded and she was able to join his party.
Since both the heavy melee and the defender position were vacant, she got trained for both.
The party's thought was, it would be easier if they could still fill either position by moving her around.
Not to mention, it was a boon to have a hybrid that could fulfill defender, damage dealer, and emergency healer in the party...if she could survive all the training.
Mom was determined though, and in a couple of years time, not only had she learned both of the roles, she excelled at them.
Once they filled the party slots, and her training was done, it didn't take much longer for their team to rank up again.
They never did advance past Blackthorn though, as a few party members decided to retire.
Even though they recruited more and continued to press on for a while, it was never as good as that team.
So in the end, the party split, and mom and dad just roamed from town to town together.
The more time they spent alone together, the closer they got; and even dad, who thought of her only as a brat most the time, began to have feelings for her as a woman.
A few years after they started their travels they decided to settle down, and that's how they ended up in the little village I was born in.
They told other stories to fill the time, but none of them were all that exciting.
It was more like they were bragging about how in love they were, or stories that mostly consisted of them flirting.
I had to stop them a few times when they started to get carried away, I really didn't want to hear about any of their night-time adventures.
No matter what world you're in, it's uncomfortable to hear about your parent's sex lives.
The only viable information that came up in the rest of the conversations was about dungeons.
Apparently, that's where mom got her chainmail from during their second year adventuring together.
Dungeons are almost like they are in games on Earth, the only difference being that the creatures travel to them instead of being born from them.
The condensed magic in the area draws in various creatures, who then build homes, that given time, connect into a dungeon.
If it's been around long enough, some of the items nabbed by the critters, or dropped by people can collect magic and become magical equipment.
The types of creatures vary, but none are just normal, they have to be able to feed off the magic collected there, or they would kill each other off or starve.
It seems the usual is undead and magic beasts, though sometimes you can run into abominations or magically created beings and mutations.
Abominations are born that way, usually through negative energies or mistakes of magical experimentation.
While mutations, come about due to the influence of high concentrations of any form of energy or deliberate changes through experimentation.
Nothing else of interest came out before the towns stone walls came into view.
This place is a lot bigger than the village, and we had to wait in line for about an hour before we got through the gates.
Once inside, a bustling and lively town unfolded in front of my eyes.
People were everywhere, some running, some walking, others standing at stalls shouting prices.
Mom told me that the last time they were in this town it boasted 5000 people, and it looked to have doubled since then.
So this town has 100 times the people of our tiny little village huh?
Great, that means I'm going to find a whole lot of idiots...