Chapter 11

Shop and Go

"You know, you elves are not supposed to enter an elfesses' wagon without permission, right?" said Tira.

"It was an accident," said Blue.

"We were just making sure everyone was okay," another lied, pleased that he had spoken to a princess.

"As you can see, everyone is alright; we were just leveling up Syran and Allliasaz," said Star, oblivious to the situation.

Blue blinked at his sheltered cousin. "I know you were sort of a homebody, but still. Are you sure you are second level?"

Star nodded and said, "I am actually almost at third level."

"Do you get experience for walking around the camp and going on dates and stuff?" asked the liar, not really expecting the princess to tell him.

"Just 10 for Ambrose, apparently our date counted for noble experience since I got him to change his mind to benefit me. I got 60 for Olier swearing himself to me, and I have gotten another 50 for various minor noble experiences like 1 for the first time each commoner who joined my party, impressing some villagers, small stuff like that. I also got some for the first time the heroes joined my party, 180 actually, just for the first time though. Plus the extra thousand I received during system day, 300 for the bugs, and 100 for the kidnapping attempt, I am only 300 short now," said Star while looking at her screen

"Wait, why don't I have some experience for that?" asked Raythiel.

"You are still innocent; you have to kill or fight with intent to get experience," said Tira. "You will level quickly now that you have chicken duty."

"What do you get at third level, Star?" asked Rathiel.

"I guess another general or marital ability, a will save bonus, an advancement to attack, six hit points, and ten skill points."

Tira said, "You will want a general ability; save your martial for fourth level for Dance of Spring. Blue, go call over Ambrose so he can fix the wagon door you broke. Since everyone is bored to tears with the rain now that we leveled up Syran and Allie, let's start your training. The boys can watch as they will be another distraction for you to train with."

"There is a natural skill called concentration that you will need to sword dance. Natural skills are not given by the system; you learn them with time and effort. Normally, you can learn it with the system, but you will never meet the prerequisites, so it will have to be the natural way. You will need it for the base dance, which gives you striking speed at the expense of accuracy. However, it also negates the accuracy with sword attunement, and it lets you do more damage as well.

"Normally, balance starts at fourth level to raise your defense without using armor. You will be a sword maiden able to use armor though since you can't cast spells, so you are lucky in that respect. You just need to learn how to dance in armor; it should be painful," grinned Tira.

"Speaking of armor and gear in general, Allie, you and Syran need to go shopping with Raire and Phenaquar, respectively. Now, let's let Twixia read and Zip sleep. Everyone out of the wagon."

Most of the group headed towards a covered eating area. Tira had the boys move all of the benches so she would have room to start training Star.

"You just had the elves come here to move benches, didn't you?" whispered Star to Tira.

"No, I mentioned distractions," said Tira.

Tira started by Star how to warm up. It was warm for her face, with most of the young elves in camp watching intently as she had to contort her body to get it ready for dancing. Star didn't have her armor yet, fortunately for her. She would take her shopping for it later. The basic forms of swordsmanship were actually pretty boring. You mostly just had to learn how to use leverage to swing effectively and with accuracy.

Tira practiced fancy sword twirling to show off and smacked Star's bottom with the sheathed flat of her sword whenever she lost concentration, or was doing something wrong, threatened to turn her over her knee, and so forth. just simple stuff handed down over time. There had to be more people than a baby criminal sage and a low-level magical goblin that would try for Star, right?

This was boring. She assumed that was the challenge—being prepared for when something did happen. She thought to herself, Please let it happen soon, though. Maybe that new rogue will try his inevitable betrayal soon. I might as well teach her some dancing now. Good thing there are plenty of young elves here to practice with. Naturally, her concentration slipped and the boys cheered as she got the spanking.

Alliasaz was going shopping with the mysterious Raire. Allie trembled when she thought about how this hero killed everything she came across out there in the woods while the rest of them were reading, whispering, or playing dolls during the day. She was going to die to let Raire get some experience, wasn't she? Trembling even more, Allie approached her doom. "Good morn, your greatness," said Allie.

Raire laughed, an unexpected silver bell like laugh, as she watched the system newborn take baby steps towards her. "I am not going to hurt our best cook, Allie; don't be afraid."

Cooking, she thought. With such a miraculous skill, she was saved! "Whew, safe," said Allie.

Raire spoke, "Well, we need to go to the apothecary, the clothes maker, the bowyer, the weapon smith, and the armorer for you."

Allie looked at Raire and spoke carefully. "You don't look like the other heroes. Why don't you have yellow hair and blue eyes too?"

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Raire touched her raven locks and peered at Allie with her steel-colored eyes. "Because I am not a member of the Lark clan. My clan wanted someone to go to the human lands to open up a trade route. I like traveling, so I volunteered. Plus, I know Tira needs someone calm to keep an eye on her. She likes to fight too much. She is always in a hurry to gain more power."

"What are your hero powers?" asks Allie.

"I just shoot a bow, but I can change its nature by magic to adapt to attack whatever I need it to. My other power sets allow me to hit targets better and shoot more arrows with more damage. We will pick you out a good bow to shoot from the wagons. You will be with Syran during the day from now on. Star elves are very domineering and charming, so a trip to the apothecary is a must, plus we need something for those allergies of yours.

"Sryan will be learning how to use the wards and wands. You will also travel some with me, as your farming ability and that seed you have will let you learn survival. It is a will skill as well, so you will help me hunt and learn how to track and so forth. You don't have increased run speed, so you will have to split your time to rest up. That baby fat you have will be gone in no time," smiled Raire.

She took Alliasaz to the alchemist and left her there for a while for the alchemist to teach her what she needed to know and prepare the medicines Aliie would need. Raire went to the bowyer as she would be the best at picking out a normal long bow, as Allie was quite tall and could use it effectively, a quiver of small broadheads for game, a quiver of swallowtails for large game and people or creatures that might attack them, and a quiver of flight arrows for target practice. Then she went back to grab Allie. She was complaining that Sryan was not her boyfriend and she didn't need this stuff. Knowing Star Elves, Raire knew she would, though. It turned out honey was good for her allergies, so the recipe was going to be easy enough for Ambrose "make" out in the woods. She bought a basic alchemy set for Ambrose. The clothing store was a terrible experience for Raire. Allie was enraged when she was given "fancy" boots. Something she'd need in the bush, but getting Allison to wear her underwear up top was a nightmare; they'd interfere with combat and bow shooting. Not to mention she'd be wearing chain and would need some soft padding under her gambeson; the store was all about lacy things, and Allie was adamantly opposed to them. She had to resort to using Presence on her. Tira was, um, elven in her size, so Raire knew it was up to her, but the squirming and trembling and passive resistance and brief murderous stares! "Just let me put it on you, Alliasaz!" she practically screamed at Allie.

They went to the weapon-smith next, and this time Allie was in better spirits, and she got a well-balanced, normal monster bone longword for her. Since she was a low-tier commoner, she couldn't wield steel or even bronze. Lastly, she took her to the armorer for some monster leather and a gambeson. She was normal size for a male elf, so they could just buy it off the wall, so to speak. Raire was going to run her ragged for the clothing store incident, though; she had it coming.

Phenaquar took the young Star elf shopping. He first took him to the magic shop and found a couple of things, Phenaquar bought him a common magic crown that would improve his magical device skill a bit, and a common ring to improve his wild empathy skill he learned from the dryad. Either Syran being a Star elf or his happy fun time with Brightbough had let him learn the rare skill. Rare skills had no specialties. They went up with level and you never had to spend more skill slots in them. This skill would let him calm down normal animals and even magical creatures at half skill level (Yes, that would include Raythiel and Blaze), so it made sense to spend some coins to boost it.

Phenaquar thought anything to stop the teen drama of the magical girls was worth it, as she was even giving him doe eyes, which would not be appropriate as she was his charge, plus he didn't really care for that kind of thing, plus having a monster baby or whole litter of them? Would be awkward, to say the least, for a heroic clan member. Maybe we should tie them up for the next month or so? No, he needed the scrolls, prolly litters of monster babies, ick.

Syran was happy to get his normal leather armor, bone sword, and short bow, so he could play at being a warrior. It was pretty weak equipment, but it made the most sense as he was a wagon driver, so a long bow would be hard to shoot, and he didn't have the light armor proficiency.

Then Phenaquar had "the talk" with Syran about High elfesses and how they were always very slightly fertile, except that they were more fertile with Star elves. He explained that High elves needed some fairly expensive medicine to have a good chance at having a child without medicine. He told Syran that they were giving Allie the medicine and that if he messed around with the other elfesses, it could make the six-month to a year journey even more uncomfortable. In particular, leave the Wood elf alone; they didn't need a monster baby, or babies if she laid eggs or something, to deal with.

High elves needed a different, even more expensive medicine to increase their chances of having a child with another High elf, which are very low without it. which was why Star elves were born and why they were always male. He was special, a much more driven elf, but he needed to try not to stand out as they journeyed. They didn't need more trouble than necessary, and he couldn't get a class until he trained at the human academy anyway, even if he leveled more.

The next day, Devoe was back, and the rain had ended. He told everyone that the Sandshield family had taken responsibility for Blaze, as they hadn't spent the time to explain what was inappropriate to her in their haste to get her out of their hair so they could publish their findings. Since they are taking responsibility, I gave them Blaze's money and returned here after a day. Now, if you will excuse me, I want a bit of alone time with Slyphianne and MistMoon before we head out.

Olier was glad his former mistress was going to be alright. After all, she was a nice goblin girl.

Not that I really like small girls like Lablanc; I prefer them busty (well, busty for elves, and tall, like Mistress and Allie. I'm thinking of Allie, she looks nice in that armor. Her face looks pretty good now as well, without the hives. as good as any of the silly girls that don't spend statistics on charisma anyway. If she had more muscles, like Mistress, that would be good. I like her green eyes and brown hair. Lady Star's blue eyes and that Lark hair are almost too much. Anyway, I will need to teach some of these young ones some skills during the day. I guess the ability to use their eyeballs is a good skill. But with their low will skills, I'm not sure it will do them much good, even with the race bonus!

The caravan left Appletown to moderate fanfare.

His students were a young Wagoneer named Blue and a magical creature named Raythiel. Wow, a Lark clan member and a monster girl! Not that I mind tall, red headed monster girls. I guess these two have the highest will scores—not that they are good; they were only slightly negative. I discovered Raythiel was friends with my mistress, who was doing everything she could to help the poor, in heat, monster girl after a couple hours of studying (really just getting them to use their eyeballs). I felt it was my duty to help her out.

"Look, Raythiel, let me give you some good advice," said Olier. "Until you raise your health, avoid men like they have the plague."

"Why is that?" questioned Raythiel.

"Health resets your body more towards civilized races, just like wisdom does for your mind. Having monster babies is a bad idea, you don't know what you will get."

"Oh no, I never even thought about that!" said Raythiel. "Thank you, Olier; that could have been bad; I'll level up in less than a week and can improve my health; however, staying that way for at least a month would be ideal."

"Glad to help my lady friends; I hope we can get along after a month or so," smirked Olier.

"Ah, well, I guess you understand things because of Blaze?" said Raythiel.

"You are not the only one with issues," said Olier. "Most would consider me to be shy more than a few trees in my forest, you know?"

The wagons rumbled on, ever westward, toward the strange creatures known as Hu-mans.