Hawk answered before John could. “Maybe two hours, though we're going faster than normal.”
“I’m going to slow down in another fifteen minutes to normal speed,” added John. “I don’t want to stress the crystals.”
“I’m gonna head to the back and experiment with the crystal shards. You can take my seat," I said to Hawk.
Hawk shook his head. “It isn’t all about the leveling, but I will take a break, thanks.”
“I’ll turn the lights on super low back there, but I don’t like to leave them on while flying,” added John. “There should be a crystal light in that cargo crate. It’s roundish.”
“Sounds good.” I unhooked the harness and stood up, stretching before heading to the cargo area. It wasn’t far. The cargo crate I needed was outside the vision line of both Doc and Hawk. I opened the lid and unwrapped the crystals, grabbing a single shard before spotting the round crystal that looked ball-like. Then I quickly wrapped everything else up.
“Got the light.”
The dim lights shut off and I touched the crystal ball, though it was flat on one side, so not exactly a ball. It glowed softly. From there, I took a seat on the ground, making sure no one could see me. Then I pulled out one of the pterosaur hearts, and shoved the whole thing in my mouth, chewing as fast as I could.
Blueberries. It tasted like Blueberries.
[You have devoured a Pterosaur and gained insight into Heightened Senses.]
I let that sit for a moment before wondering if I dared eat the next one. My stomach felt okay, but I didn’t want anyone to catch me eating raw meat. The shuttle slowed down, and I went for it. This one was a little smaller for some reason, but I didn’t care.
[You have devoured a Pterosaur and gained insight into Heightened Senses.]
On my stat sheet, I’d gained two asterisks next to Heightened Senses. I made sure to clean up any juices that had escaped, and then focused on the crystal shard.
It was time to figure out what Crystal Singing and Attunement could really do. First, I whistled and the crystal glowed, which was nifty, but not super useful. Next, I decided to try to make it into a ring using the same technique as I’d used earlier to fix my spear.
#
Time passed as sweat dripped down my forehead and I made slow progress. My head hurt, and the pain forced me to take a water break more than once. The once pointed crystal now resembled a bumpy ball, but I felt drained. I leaned back against the wall, wondering what I was doing wrong. Again, my stomach growled, and I tapped my fingers in frustration on the crystal. Yet again, I needed food. I cut off pieces of Carnitor meat and ate a few slices, until my stomach settled.
I’d missed something.
This time, I hummed while trying to mold the crystal into a ball shape. It glowed and moved easier, and I smoothed out several of the bumps. I stopped humming with a smile, holding something that was pretty close to a perfectly round ball of crystal.
“I got this,” I whispered to myself, as I focused on making it into a thick flattened ring.
The sound of footsteps caused me to pause as Hawk approached. “We're getting close.” His eyes locked on the crystal in my hands. “Are you bending that?”
“Yeah, working on leveling up my crystal attunement.” One more push to get it how I wanted for now.
[You have leveled up your Profession.]
The notification made me pause, but I ignored it for the moment to focus on Hawk, who hovered.
He nodded slowly, like he was confused, but I didn’t clarify. “I’m jealous you can use that spear tip of yours. Though, I guess arrows wouldn’t work.”
“No, I need to remain in contact to keep it glowing.” It was the downside of using crystals, and why John needed wire running from the crystals on the shuttle to the pilot's chair to make the crystal wing tips work. The crystals running the shuttle were more complex, but still required someone with attunement to get them in the air. Once in the air, they stayed running, somehow. “But you do have a nice ranged attack.”
“Yeah, it does help.”
A cough caused both of us to turn toward the cot on the other side of the cargo hold. Hawk got there first. “Denver, nice to have you back.”
“Water…”
Hawk dug around under the cot and brought out a canteen. He helped the guy take a few sips.
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I climbed to my feet, moving slowly. It didn’t take long for me to put the light away. My mind raced, wondering how long Denver had been awake, and if he’d seen me eat the hearts or raw meat. Right now was not the time to ask, clearly, so I headed to the front, keeping quiet. I looped the crystal ring through my belt to keep it in place. I wished I could toss it in my inventory crystal, but that didn’t work.
I took my empty seat and hooked myself in, only hearing mumbling from the back. Maybe the guy hadn’t seen anything. I just didn’t know. The notification caught my eye again and I opened my character sheet to figure out what had changed.
Now I knew how professions interacted with stats. I still earned my stats for Jack-of-all-trades and for Lucky, but instead of the stats for my Devourer class, I only earned the stats for my profession. Titles and Achievements were massively overpowered, but I wasn’t going to complain. Also, I’d earned 1 stat point in both Fortitude and Willpower, so that question was answered. My skill level in my profession didn’t add to my total skill level, instead my level took the greatest of the two. No wonder folks focused on one or the other.
My 15 free stat points mocked me, and I decided to allocate those across strength, quickness, flexibility, and constitution. The last 2 I tossed into charisma, because a little more of that wouldn’t hurt, surely.
Name: Alex
Level: 16
Race: Human
Traits: Survivability, Adaptation, Hangry
Class: Devourer, level 16
Profession: Crystal Singer, level 1
Stats:
STR: 47(50)
DEX:
>QUICK*: 66(70)
>FLEX: 57(60)
CON/TOUGH: 48(55)
INT: 45(47)
WIS:
>FORT: 45(47)
>WILL: 45(47)
CHA: 40(43)
FREE: 0
Monstrosity: 4%
Titles & Achievements:
Jack-of-all-Trades
Lucky Stars
Badass
Skill: 9/10
Improved Body**
Crystal Singing and Attunement
Insight
Heightened Senses**
Stealthy Camouflage
Blades and Polearms
Free Spirit
Venomous Bite
Claw Strike
Skills Categories: +
Hawk came back up front with a small smile on his face. “Doc, Denver woke up, though he’s resting again. He drank some more water and ate a few bites of a ration bar.”
Doc’s face brightened immediately. “That’s really good news.”
“Yeah, hopefully he’s back on his feet sooner rather than later.” Hawk's eyes traced over Jimmy and Doc. “You both are going to take longer, with the broken bones.”
I kept my curiosity in check and resisted asking how long the bones took to heal, but Doc caught my eye.
“If we take it easy, it shouldn’t be more than a week, unless they have a mender.”
“A week is still a long time,” replied Hawk. “I want to take care of that flier before then. We don’t need it leveling up.”
“We’re almost there,” said John. He pointed toward the mountain in front of us.
I leaned forward to get a better look. A wide cavern stretched across the front, and then a light blinked twice.
“Perfect, the barrier is down,” said John. He aimed the shuttle toward the wide cavern, and as we flew closer several lights glowed inside the mouth. Our shuttle slowed down to a crawl as we approached, then slowly flew into the mouth of the cave. The space wasn’t large, and the shuttle set down maybe ten feet inside the opening. The lights inside the cavern shut off as soon as the shuttle touched the rock.
Shadows moved around in the cavern, but the light had killed my dark vision. “What are you waiting for?” I asked.
“The all clear that the barrier is back up. We don’t need a ton of lights to help other things find the cavern.”
“I thought fliers roosted at night.” Though, the one near the compound had tried to come after us in the dark.
Hawk answered me first. “Other things come out at night, from inside the mountains. This whole thing is to protect the cavern from them.”
My mouth closed, even though I wanted to ask more questions. A knock came from the back of the shuttle and John hit the ramp button. Soft lights came on in the back and I unhooked my seat belt.
Hawk marched toward the back and met an older man who climbed the ramp, wearing overalls and what looked like a crystal head lamp. “Hello, Mars.” He held out a hand.
“Hawk, what are you doing here?” He ignored the hand and hugged Hawk before pulling back when he caught sight of the cot. “That’s not good.”
“Doc and Jimmy are also in bad shape. Broken bones, both.”
“It’s been rough for everyone,” muttered Mars. He turned and hollered out the back. “We need help with three wounded!” Two more people climbed into the cargo bay, one man and one woman. They both headed toward the cot. “Get him down to the mender's home,” Mars said.
John finally stood up and I followed him toward Mars. “Sorry we're late, it’s been a week.”
“I bet you have a story to tell.”
“We do,” said John with a sad look. “Let’s get Doc and Jimmy settled, then we can all get caught up.”
Hawk, John, and I, along with Mars, helped Doc and Jimmy out of the shuttle. Jimmy woke up and hobbled along with help from John and I.
I only got a quick look at the cavern, which wasn’t much bigger than the shuttle, before we turned down a tunnel leading deeper into the mountain. John knew the way through a few twists and turns, along with what had to be a gate, before we entered a different, brighter cavern. Three cots lined one wall, and Denver was already in place. We helped Jimmy to a different one.
Mars and Hawk set Doc down on the other, before both left. A young guy around John's age entered the room with a soft grin, dark hair sticking up all over the place like a porcupine. “John, good to see you.”
“David, you became a mender?” asked John.
“Unlocked it during the last incident. Decided that was better than mining.” He hurried toward Jimmy. “I hope to eventually become a healer, but who knows.”
“We’ll catch up later.” John pointed toward the door. “We need to keep up with them.”
As I followed John out the door, I heard Doc start to talk to David about medicine.
“That’s a lucky break,” muttered John. “He was skilled in first aid, and wanted to go in that direction.”
“I guess sometimes things work out. The system is weird after all. What’s next?”
“I need to catch Mars up on what happened with the crash, and Greg… and then we figure out our next move. The original plan of heading to the scientist settlement is hardly a given at this point."