The next few weeks passed without many exciting things happening. Both Medera and Bjorn fell back into their routines. Bjorn worked on his paths, but also spent time exploring the woods around their home. Medera continued to do whatever she wanted to do. One day she took a knife to the back of the deer hide scraping off all of the fur. Another day was spent reading and relaxing. They were both productive, but spent less of their time working themselves into a frenzy.
Able to retrieve his arrow that went into the mauler, Medera spent an entire day teaching Bjorn how to turn wood into arrow shafts, reattach the arrow heads to the shaft and how to apply the fletching to the shaft. One thing she stressed was to try to make the arrow shafts as similar as he could. She started talking about how the arrows bend back and forth in flight. How an arrow once shot doesn’t fly straight it kind of wobbles back and forth in the air. Emphasizing how if the shafts aren’t the same stiffness and shape the flight path of each arrow will be different. Medera produced a bag of new arrowheads which had 24 in total, with the 1 broken arrow Bjorn spent the rest of that day and the next 2 making the arrows. Bringing his new total up to 30 arrows.
After that his days consisted of working on the paths in the morning, once his stamina started to bottom out, resting, while resting he would get lessons from Medera on language. Once his stamina recovered he would go out into the woods to explore, it wasn’t rare for him to find the odd small animal, using the opportunity he would stalk the animal. Trying to train his stealth ability. He would try to kill the animal once it became aware of Bjorn. Something he had mixed results with, about half the time the animal would get away, at the same time 30% of the animals would get aggressive and attack, so Bjorn didn’t care and padded his stats. The rest of the time Bjorn decided that hunting the creatures wasn't worth it. Afterwards he would head home and begin to practice with archery. He would shoot until his arms ached and couldn’t pull the bow or keep it steady. He and Medera would then work with language more while dinner was cooking, and then they’d head to bed.
The way that Medera treated Bjorn had also changed. Not by much, but by enough to be noticeable, she went from a cold distant harsh person, to a cold less distant less harsh person. Her attitude and demeanor change was nice. No longer feeling unwanted, some of their conversations actually strayed into the almost nice territory.
One day after breakfast Bjorn turned towards Medera and asked. “Can you teach me alchemy?”
“You don’t take half measures, do you?” Medera replied in retort.
“I was just thinking, you said you were going to make a painkiller with the deathwarts I brought back. Seeing how I was the one to bring them, I'd like to learn what can be done with them, and how to do it.”
After a few seconds of silence Medera replied. “Alright you make a fair point, but looking at my stores I'm still short 1 herb to make the painkiller, so I was going to make a poison out of the leaves first. If you want to learn how to do that, and if you finish the path from the shed to the well I'll teach you how it is done.”
“Alright deal.” Replied Bjorn, doing double time working on the path it took him 3 days to finish that section of path.
On the morning of the 4th day Medera said, “Well I wasn’t expecting you to get the path done quite so fast. Alright this morning let's go get a herb.” Leaving the cabin Medera grabbed a small shovel and took off in a direction Bjorn hadn’t explored yet. Most of his exploration happened to the north and east of the cabin, with the cliff and gorge off to the west, they went south.
After 15 minutes of walking they came to a small clearing. Inside the clearing was a bunch of plants with red and pink flowers, the head of each flower had 6 petals, each petal was red on the ends of the petal with it being pink at the base, the red had small veins going into the pink. The flowers were about 2 to 2 and a half feet tall.
“What are these?”
“These are arrowroot, and all we need out of them is the root.” Walking up to one of the flowers Medera used her shovel starting about a foot away from the plant she used the spade to loosen the dirt around the plant. After she loosened the soil she placed her hand at the base of the flower and softly pulled. It took about 3 minutes for the plant to start to move. Once it started it slid right out of the soil. “You have to be gentle with the arrowroot, if you pull too hard the stalk will break, or when you pull the plant out the roots will break, and that is what we are trying to save. Be patient. Now you try.”
Taking the shovel Bjorn repeated exactly what Medera did, and was easily able to retrieve the plant. They collected 5 of the plants in total. Looking at the clearing there were over 100 of them. The herb's root system were unusual. Each plant had 6 offshoots of roots, they were long and thin with the end of each root being an arrowhead.
“We only need this end bit, the rest of the plant is pretty much useless.” Pulling out a knife Medera cut the tips off the flower. Then using her shovel replanted the arrowroot. “Alright let’s head back.”
Once they made it back to camp they headed to the cabin. “First things first, I need that bag of deathwart leaves, go and grab it for me please. When you walk in the shed it’s on the selves to the right 3rd self.” Retrieving the bag. When Bjorn walked back into the cabin Medera had taken a small pot and put it over the fire, and it had water in it, which was starting to boil. Once the water was boiling she took the leaves out of the pouch and dropped them into the water.
Dropping them one at a time. When each new leaf touched the water it turned a different shade of orange, and the boiling water got more violent. The pot that they used was wide in the middle and narrow at the mouth. The design made it so that none of the water sloshed out from boiling, making it so none was wasted.
“We boil the leaves, the purpose is to get the orange powder off of the leaves. We will refresh the water again, and again, until the water doesn’t turn orange when the leaves are added. Using that pot we will save the water, we will need to boil the water off when we are done.”
Taking the pot off the fire Medera grabbed a small set of long tongs and fished each leaf out of the water, and then transferred the water into a larger pot which she set over the fire. With fresh water she started the process all over again. It took 5 iterations to get the water to stay clear when the leaves were added to the water.
“While we let that sit. We will begin to grind down the arrowroot. But as we grind the arrowroot we will also add in this.” Pulling down a long coil of a rope like plant. The plant was black in color. Its surface looked like boiling pitch, but when she set it down her hand was clean.
“This is called black tar ivy.” Cutting off 6 one inch sections. “As we grind down the arrowroot only grinding in clockwise patterns, we will be adding the black tar ivy. When the black tar ivy is added we will grind in a counter clockwise pattern. The ratio we will need is 5 arrowroot heads to 1 section of black tar ivy. When making this poison you have to use freshly cut arrowroot and dried black tar ivy. If you use either dried arrowroot or fresh ivy it will make the poison volatile when we add the paste we get from boiling down the orange residue. It will explode into a fine powder that will cover the entire room, if it is breathed in we will get enhanced effects of the paralyzing poison from the deathwart.”
Medera had Bjorn prepare the arrowroot and black tar ivy paste in a pestle and mortar. He ground the plant down until Medera told him that he could add the ivy. He ground it down until there were no large chucks left. After the ivy was added and ground down the paste from the arrowroot turned into a fine gray powder. Bjorn then transferred the powder to a small pouch and started the process all over again.
By the time Bjorn had gotten all of the arrowroot and tar ground down into the powder the pot of water had boiled down leaving an orange paste left in the bottom of the pot. Using a metal spoon Medera scraped the orange powder into a small bowl. “Next we need to grind down the stem part of the leaves. Then in this bowl we will mix the two.” The resulting sludge was a bright gold color.
“Next we mix the powder and the sludge together in our pot, and we will add 8 drops of this.” She held up a small vial of a clear liquid with small motes of blue light that were floating in it. The lights would be there one second and gone the next. “This here is taproot extract from a young hearth tree.”
The gray powder and the gold paste mixed together turning into a dull brown color. As each drop fell onto the mixture on the bottom of the pot, the mixture grew in size. Starting at the size of a strawberry it quickly grew to the size of a melon, if a melon was made out of a low density rubber, it kept a rough ball like shape but it just looked melted. As soon as the last drop fell on top it deflated coating the bottom of the pot with the dull brown color.
“We have been lucky so far, each part of this step has a chance to fail. If something has an unexpected result, the entire process up to this point and all the ingredients used will be wasted. For our very last step we will add a cup of water and bring it to a light simmer, once it cools down we will have made the poison and we can store it for later selling or use.”
All in all the entire process from start to finish took at least 6 hours. Talking to Medera Bjorn found out that each potion has a chance to fail, and that chance largely depends on the complexity of the recipe, the purity of components that go into the potion making process and one’s skill level in potion making. The entire process made 14 vials of a dark earthy brown looking liquid with a viscosity of oobleck.
With a smile Bjorn turned towards Medera, “So what other potions do you know how to make?”
“Now let’s not get too hasty young boy, that entire process took the better part of the day to make, why don’t we call it for the day, and we can pick this up later.”
“Boo!”
Bjorn stood, not realizing how cramped he actually was, he hadn’t moved much in the last 6 hours. He had to move. After a brief moment of hesitation Bjorn took off at a fast run into the woods.
Not 30 seconds later Medera her a smack resound through the camp and a loud, “FUCK!” Chuckling to herself she set to cleaning all the equipment used today, musing how fast her life had changed from living out here alone for years to all of a sudden not minding the weird scrawny human boy who now lived with her.
That night after Bjorn’s run he came back to camp exhausted, checking his prompts for the last few weeks.
Due to your excessive hard labor work your Strength has increased by 1.
You have gained the skill: Bowyering. One day someone decided that they didn’t like someone, but they were all the way over there, and so the noble art of bowyering was created. People well versed in this skill have gotten really good at hurting people they dont like from afar.
You have advanced your skill level in road building, reaching skill level 2. Roads and path that you build will increase movement speed along them by 2% and increase the durability of the road by 4%
You have advanced your skill level in construction, reaching skill level 2. Buildings you build will have 4% increased durability.
You have advanced your skill level in herb-lore, reaching skill level 2. The efficacy of plants and herbs you collect will increase by 6%.
You have gained the skill: Alchemy. You have started walking down the road of much wasted supplies and money. The saving grace of this endeavor is one day if you waste A LOT of money, maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to create a potion powerful enough to render the most powerful weak, or even bring someone back from the dead. (It is usually not pretty. Decomposition and such.)
Congratulations, due to the first thing you made with alchemy was a fairly hard potion to make for someone learning the craft you have made extra progress on this skill.
You have advanced your skill level in alchemy, reaching skill level 4. Potions you make will be 4% increased effect and 8% increased duration of effect.
With all of your hard work and dedication to your body you have put in during the last few weeks I guess it is time to give you some sort of reward. You have gained 1 point in endurance, and 1 point in agility.
Honestly, being satisfied with the progress he had made over the last few weeks Bjorn couldn’t help but do a little jump for joy, doing a heel click in the middle of the air.
Over the next month Medera started to come around to Bjorn, seeing his willingness to learn and listen and follow along with what she told him. During that time he made large leaps forward with his progress. His arrows rarely missed the tree he was aiming for, his movements became more fluid, making it so he didn’t have issues getting a new arrow and shooting it within 5 seconds of his last shot.
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Medera continued to work with him to learn language. He even got a prompt telling him he was now able to speak mountain dwarf to an acceptable level. Once he got that prompt she started to teach him a new language, Common. Apparently common is a language that the ruling classes of many of the enlightened species have agreed to teach their children. According to Medera many of the largest and most powerful cities in the world had a large number of different races living amongst them.
Medera also spent much of her and Bjorn’s time together either teaching him about various plants and potions she knew how to make. He learned how to make the standard health, mana, and stamina potions. These three potions had the usual effect to them; whenever one of the potions were to be taken, the embiber’s stat which was affected dropped by 10% of its maximum value for a day. For example, taking a stamina potion would drop Bjorn’s maximum stamina from 120 down to 118, and then the effect of the potion would begin to invigorate the user. These effects will continue to stack. Making for example the maximum number of potions taken would be in theory 10. Medera insisted that was a bad idea, as apparently if one of your maximum stat pools ever dropped to 0 you would die. With health your body would start to leak blood, with blood even leaking through the pores of your skin until you bled out. With stamina your heart will just stop working in your body. Your body wouldn’t have the energy to continue to run and all bodily functions would just stop. Lastly with mana your body enters a vegetable state not ever recovering from that effect. If your stats did not bottom out from too many potions, your body would begin to recover from the effects of the potions at a rate of 10% per day. If another potion was taken before the body had fully recovered there was a chance for the 10% decrease to become permanent, with ingesting the potion again it was damaging an already damaged body.
Medera also taught him how to make other useful potions and remedies, such as the healing ointment she used on him, the painkillers she had talked about, and a general cure potion used on plants to help them survive blights and many other useful potions.
Bjorn’s hunting and exploration excursions were starting to get farther and farther away from home. He started to, as Medera would put it, wisen up. When exploring he would walk as normal until he heard a noise, dropping into a crouch he would then start to sneak forward until he found what had made the noise. If it was a creature he knew, or looked like something that would be easy to fight he tried to do so. If it was a large or unknown creature he would back away and continue in another direction. As soon as he made it back to camp he would try to recite what the creature looked like to Medera, most of the time she was able to tell him what they were off of his description.
Due to this exploration and subsequent killing he also was able to gain 2 levels he put 2 of his points into strength, 2 into constitution, 1 into dexterity, and the last point into charisma. He also almost made it all the way to level 6. Bjorn had also found various points of interest. There were abandoned run down houses, large cave systems that looked to be occupied, and he even found the dilapidated remains of a small town.
It was one one of those excursions he decided to finally check out a cave near to their base camp. Entering stealth Bjorn began to slowly creep down the entrance. The cave itself was more of a tunnel so far, at 7 to 8 feet in diameter with a mostly flat section of ground to walk on it traveled downwards. Eventually the ground leveled out as the light level started to drop. Just ahead there was a distant light.
As Bjorn stealthed forwards the tunnel opened up into a cave, the cave was lit up by natural daylight coming from a hole in the ceiling. Inside the room there was a small waterfall coming through the hole in the ceiling which formed a small pool at the base of a ledge. The ledge was 5 feet above the ground of the cave, with a tunnel going onwards in the wall. The ground section he was standing on had stalagmites all over the place, with a few stalactites. On the other wall there was another tunnel that went off downwards.
Just as Bjorn was getting level with the cavern entrance there was a creak of old leather that sounded in the cavern. Slinking back he set up to wait and see what made that sound. Not long afterwards there was a skeleton that walked into view. As it panned around the room with its eyes Bjorn got a better look at the skeleton. In one hand it held a rusted sword. In the other it held a fist sized rock. Its eyes emitted a soft blue glow. The rest of it’s gear consisted of the remains of a simple rotten shirt, a leather belt around it’s waist, which was held up by it being caught on one of its hip bones, and the remains of a leather jerkin. Half of its rib cage was missing on its left side.
Bjorn upon finding the skeleton began to retreat. As he was about to round the corner out of sight he looked back and the skeleton was on its knees digging against the wall in the dirt with its hands. In a moment Bjorn changed his mind and turned around slinking back towards the skeleton. Once again back at the cavern entrance he tried to see what the skeleton was doing, but from where he was at he couldn’t get a clear view of what was happening.
Deciding that the skeleton had to die, otherwise he would never know Bjorn pulled his bow from his back, nocked an arrow and drew, took aim at the skeleton’s back and fired. The arrow slammed into the back of the skeleton sending it face forward into its hole. A hollow sound of its skull hitting wood reverberated through the room. As the skeleton scrambled to get itself out of the hole turned around and back on its feet. Bjorn didn’t waste his advantage this time, taking another shot as soon as it got back on its feet, knocking it back and staggering it before it came at it. He was able to get a 3rd shot off before the skeleton made it across the room. As soon as Bjorn loosed the 3rd arrow he dropped his bow, drawing his sword and stepping forward he raised his blade to meet the skeleton's overhand chop. Catching the swing with the edge of his blade the skeleton’s surprising strength overwhelmed him pushing his own blade back into his chest. Leaning to the side the skeleton’s sword slid across Bjorn’s blade as it stumbled forward with the resistance suddenly gone, the skeleton fell past him. On Bjorn’s end, with the skeleton’s back to him he raised his sword and did a sweep for its neck, severing its head from the rest of its body.
As the skeleton’s head toppled to the floor the rest of the skeleton flopped to the ground like a marinate with its strings cut. Breathing hard Bjorn took a seat, feeling his pulse with his shaking hands, it was racing. After a few minutes of deep breaths he started to calm down. Getting down on a knee he removed the mostly intact belt from the skeleton and retrieved his arrows. After walking to the hole he looked down, the hole was about a foot deep and at the bottom a faint bit of wood could be seen covered in dirt.
Assuming the same position as the skeleton was in he dug in the dirt with his hands soon revealing a small box. Pulling the box out he searched the outside finding a rusty clasp in the side of the box. Grabbing a hold of the clasp he yanked on the clasp, it swung free but as it did so a small needle which was hidden below one side of the clasp came free and pricked the meaty part of his hand.
You have been poisoned by diluted shriek snake venom. You will take 5 points of poison damage every 30 seconds for the next 6 minutes.
“Ouch.” Bjorn said, before reaching into a pouch at his belt, fumbling around until he found what he was looking for, a small vial. Pulling it out and uncorking it, he drank the contents of the potion.
You have taken a basic poison antidote potion. The damage from the diluted shriek snake venom will be significantly decreased. You will now take 1 point of poison damage every minute for the next 5 minutes.
“Thank goodness for Medera’s insistence that i carry that potion with me.” Thought Bjorn, “Without it i very well could have been in trouble here today.”
Kneeling over his box again he turned the box so that the lid was facing away from himself, just in case of another trap attached to the box, and slowly lifted the lid towards him. When nothing else jumped out at him he looked down into the box.
The box contained a book, a vial, and two small pouches. Looking inside the pouches he found coins. The larger of the two had copper coins in them, the smaller had silver. Counting them out the copper coins were 47 and the silver there were 12 of them. Opening up the book the very first page said. “Simple light.” as he read those words a prompt appeared in front of him.
Would you like to attempt to learn the level 1 light spell: Simple light. Yes/No
Of course he was going to try to learn the spell, what fool wouldn’t want to learn magic if given the change to? Clicking on yes the spell book flipped through its pages rapidly coming to a rest about a quarter way through the book on the last page filled with writing. As soon as it stopped a light arched out of the book and entered his eyes. Suddenly he just knew how to cast the spell. The words, the hand gestures, the positioning of his body that was needed to channel the mana into magic to cast the spell.
Spell: Simple Light
Cast time: 1 second
Components: Verble, Somatic
Range: 150 feet
Duration: 10 minutes
Effects: Produces a small light which will illuminate in a 20 foot radius around the ball of light produced. The light is able to be manipulated at the will of the caster while in contact with the caster. The ball of light will hover 3 inches over whatever object it is attached to, by default it is attached to the caster. The spell can travel up to 150 feet once it is detached from the caster. If the ball of light collides with any surface while it is traveling it will adhere to that surface for the duration of the spell.
With a giant smile on his face Bjorn didn't hesitate a second and cast his new spell. A small 3 inch across ball of light formed on the tip of his pointer finger. Moving his hand around the ball of light hovered 3 inches off of his pointer finger. With a flick of his fingers the ball of light shot away from his hand when it collided with the wall it stuck there. Also hanging 3 inches off of the wall.
Casting the spell once again, Bjorn let the light continue to float over his fingers, quickly learning that he could get the spell to hang over either of his hands. Grabbing his bow he slung it over his back. Moving onwards he took the way forward that was on top of the ledge.
Moving forward there was no natural light in the tunnel, thankfully with his new spell Bjorn could see easily for 20 feet, past that it was hard to tell what was ahead of him. This new tunnel traveled parallel for another 100 feet and there was another opening. Drawing his sword he flicked the spell and it went into the room. It traveled 150 feet not revealing much to see and stopped, floating in place. As soon as the first spell was on its way Bjorn cast his spell again. Once the light hit the end of its travel path he tried flicking this new light and casting again. Repeating this process 8 more times before the light stuck to something. This time as the light flew it struck a stelemite. Casting his spell one last time he started to move into the cavern.
Stepping into the cavern Bjorn got a feeling of unease. That feeling of being watched over took him. Pausing he got into a defensive stance and waited. Just as the feeling passed and he was starting to stand straight another skeleton shot out of the dark running towards him. This skeleton didn’t have a weapon, it slammed into Bjorn sending him to the ground.
Raising his foot to try to kick the skeleton back it lunged at him trying to wrap its hands around his throat. The skeleton pushed the kick aside and got on top of Bjorn. Surprised by the weight of the skeleton, dropping his sword, he grasped at its hands trying to stop the skeleton from getting ahold of his neck. His right hand found purchase, getting ahold of its forearm, stopping its momentum. The left on the other hand wasn’t quite as lucky, he did however, catch one of its fingers. With a snap the finger came loose and continued onwards to get ahold of his throat. The skeleton started to squeeze, and Bjorn’s vision started to go fuzzy.
In a panic Bjorn felt around on the ground with his left hand trying to find something to hit the skeleton with but to no avail. Closing his hand he threw a punch at the skeleton catching it on the side of the head. The pressure lessened on his neck for a split second before it bore down on him again. With a gamble he let go with his right hand and took both of his hands to the skeleton’s arm. Grabbing each bone of it’s forearm with each hand he pulled apart with all the strength he could muster. Another snap could be heard and the hand went limp as it was ripped away from his throat.
His moment of respite was short lived as the skeleton’s other hand that was being held back came crashing into his head, bouncing his head off of the ground. Bjorn’s vision swam, in a desperate attempt he kicked at the skeleton again. This time he caught something solid and the skeleton was flung away from Bjorn.
Quickly locating the skeleton Bjorn flicked his light spell at the skeleton, and it collided. With the light now affixed to the skeleton Bjorn grabbed his sword before it came at him again. This time as it lunged he got out of its way and swung at its leg severing it. With the skeleton’s mobility hindered he easily dispatched it.
Huffing Bjorn took a survey of the room he was in. That was when in the distance where the first light stopped he could see another skeleton rushing through the light right at him. Bjorn turned around and ran, the sounds of the new skeleton’s bones rattling behind him served as his hint that the creature was in pursuit. Making it back to the first room he came across the sounds behind him hadn’t diminished. Not taking any time to look at this room he took off for the exit. As he crossed the threshold of the exit door Bjorn took a look behind himself. Behind him there were 2 skeleton’s one had a hatchet in its hands, the other had a bow. The bow wielding one had an arrow nocked and was drawing on Bjorn.
With a yelp Bjorn dove forward trying to make the arrow miss. Luckily for him the arrow flew over his head, right where his chest had been a moment before. Scrambling back to his feet he fled as fast as he could. As he was running he cast his simple light spell again. Soon the sounds of pursuit were fading behind himself, but still Bjorn ran on, stopping for nothing. After 10 minutes of running he finally stopped and took stock of the situation.
He had lost over a third of his health in that brief fight. He had spent over three fourths of his stamina in the fight itself and his flight thereafter trying to save his life. And to top it off he had spent about half his mana casting his simple light spells. Having not lost any of his weapons or supplies Bjorn had gained a new belt, which had to count for something, right? The most important thing though was now he knew some magic, there was a reason for him to use his mana pool. The fact that Bjorn didn’t have a way to spend his mana pool was driving him crazy. Now that he knows a magic spell, it shouldn’t be hard for Medera to teach him some earth magic, in theory.
Completely ignoring the fact that he could have died, Bjorn happily started back to the cabin with a bit of pep in his step, and decided to check all of his prompts that have been piling up.
(If you don't really care about character growth you can now skip to the next chapter.)
You have advanced your skill level in cooking, reaching skill level 7. Your pathetic attempts to make an edible meal have increased by 14%.
You have advanced your skill level in archery, reaching skill level 3. Damage from arrows you shoot is increased by 9% over base damage.
You have advanced your skill level in herb-lore, reaching skill level 5. The efficacy of plants and herbs you collect will increase by 15%
You have advanced your skill level in alchemy, reaching skill level 7. Potions you make will be 7% increased effect and 14% increased duration of effect.
You have advanced your skill level in stealth, reaching skill level 3. You will now be 12% harder to spot while stealthing.
You have advanced your skill level in survival, reaching skill level 4. You are now more likely to see dangerous situations before you are in them.
.You have advanced your skill level in swordsmanship, reaching skill level 2. Your attacks with swords now deal 6% more damage over base value.
Congratulations you have gained your first magic school, light magic. As it is your first school you will gain a bonus. You will gain an additional 10% light resistance. With all things there has never been a consensus as to what the most effective school of magic is. Light magic has it’s own uniqueness, this school is more beneficial than just producing light, only through your exploration of the concept of light will you learn what those benefits are.
You have gained the skill, hand to hand combat. There is a saying in your world and this world that goes something like this. The pen is mightier than the sword. It doesn’t really matter if that statement is true or not, because the true power comes from the hand that is wielding either.
You have advanced in level again, reaching level 6! You have 3 stat points to distribute.
2 of those points went into intelligence, and 1 went into wisdom.