Your Self Defense Skill has expanded to add the sub-category Danger Sense.
Tim caught Jil to halt her next step. “It’s close.”
“Alright,” she whispered back. “Dagger ready. Use one of those bushes as a shield. It won’t stop its antlers, but you can deflect its tongue.”
He stuffed the extra bush in his pouch, glad to let the magic suck it in so he could focus on a bigger threat. His danger sense amplified the tracking wisdom in his hearing, slowing him to narrow the direction to a confident fifteen feet from target. With Jil being a ranger-fighter he wanted to make sure she had a safe but clean shot. The forest’s trees with bulbous exposed roots gave way to an opening congested with shoulder height saplings. He pointed her along the back of the tree line. “I’ll draw it into the open, but don’t shoot me, okay?”
“Don’t get in my way,” she said with humor sharp enough to make him wonder what would happen if he did.
Is the reason I only sense one because of distance? He thought to Dryfu as he crept on.
Your tracking sense in the favored habitat allows you to know the number, but when you’re in immediate danger, the threat will pronounce louder. Level up this sense to better see the field when a loud threat is near.
Tim already had several threats pinging his awareness, but most were hiding among the foliage or underground. They too knew the frung’suq was near. He kept his head low, fighting the ache in his back to walk with a hunch. The frung’suq’s antlers scraped the underside of a bough. It stopped on the far edge of the clearing, snorted. Peering after its prey. Anything you can do here, Dryfu? This knife is feeling awfully small right now.
Frung’suq night vision is a lethal combo with its horn thrusts. I couldn’t attack it directly.
That wasn’t what I was thinking. Tim sent an image of what he had in mind.
I’ve seen people die trying worse.
Thanks. That’s very encouraging.
You remember the part you’re sending me to play, right? His back legs are two points stronger than the front.
Stop your yapping, okay? Tim joked. I’m about to try and avoid that list of dead level ones.
Dryfu swept his arms back and took off in a short burst of green. Enough to catch the frung’suq’s attention. The beast snorted and swung its head into line of sight yet held still in practiced discipline. Tim’s plan sent Dryfu on a wide arch. As Tim suspected—better, feared—the larger beast didn’t fully take the bait. Feared because that meant now was Tim’s turn to play the bait. With the frung’suq creeping straight ahead into the prairie, Tim clocked in for his shift. Jil needed more time to climb. The prairie had its own saplings to provide cover on a low shot, so Tim had to draw it closer.
A puddle surrounding one of those saplings forced Tim to skirt into the clearing more than he’d like. The beast dipped its head to gaze down on Tim. Nostrils flared. If Tim broke, it would too. Those muscular legs looked like they could curb stomp a gun safe.
Nevertheless, Jil and Dryfu needed more time to get into position. If Tim retreated or stopped, it could trigger the predator to spring. Instead, he moseyed closer, yet slightly off track from the frung’suq. Tim strafed to put a sapling between him and the creature.
Once Tim made it to the other side, the frung’suq roared and burst into its charge. Saplings cracked and flattened with frightening ease. Tim’s knife felt like a toothpick compared to branches of death mounted on the thing’s head. He held his ground. Heart racing. Inhaling cool air through his nostrils. Waiting for the tongue. Shrub behind his back, he presented as defenseless and terrified. Only one of those was 100% accurate. A quick glance to the short space and bush between saplings confirmed what he already knew. He waited another few gallops, saw Jil climbing her tree, but not yet in position. Dryfu closed in from behind. The frung’suq lowered its head. Apparently, it didn’t want to waste the tongue on easy prey it could simply impale.
This is where my Dexterity comes in, Tim prayed, putting faith in one side of the equation while the other looked like it was ready to pulverize. His straight-line dash put the beast on its heels for a fraction, then it burst into the same, maybe thinking, Oh, this’ll be easy. Or, look at this daft bugger thinking he can take on me with that little bush?
Tim didn’t have time to get much speed, just enough to get the frung’suq into more than it could handle when I do this! Tim juked right, gambling on its burly form failing to adjust in time for the sudden sideways move. Hand to hand, he switched the bush to his right. The tongue lashed out and wrapped into the tangles. Knife in his left hand, he stabbed into the beast’s underbelly. He dragged it down as far as he could before it jerked loose. The beast sprung sideways. Snarled and yanked its tongue back. Tim held as long as he could; it stripped lashes and splinters into his palm. Flying free. Tim hit his back and rolled over the bush, absorbing its cushion and found his feet. Dexterity earned a high five for helping keep him balanced and able to dash between saplings while the beast’s hoofs pounded chase.
An eternity of waiting for help made the distance between him and the tree line stretch on into a hopeless fate. The beast grunted precious few feet behind him. Tim cut and dove for the side of a tree. A slope forced him to duck and roll. He slid through a prickly wet bush, thinking, here I go again…
The frung’suq roared in pain, signaling good news! It hadn’t made it to the tree or the slope. Tim almost shouted “Jil!” in celebration but saved that for a better view. An arrow lanced from high above to pierce the side of the beast’s head. It dropped with a heavy thud not far from the slope where Tim climbed.
“Nice hustle,” Jil said with a dash of sarcasm.
“What took you so long?” he asked with a smile. Still heaving from his expended energy.
“Sorry, I wanted to see Dryfu get some XP too. You can bag the prize. Better XP for you as a thanks for sticking your neck out like that. I had your back.”
The result had Tim with a successful hunt and absent of any critical injuries. You better get used to this, he told himself, and chose thankfulness over worry. He was alive and breathing in a wild unknown world. I ran headfirst into a battle of chicken with a mutant elk. That story beat Linda’s tales of this year’s State Fair or how many badges to make for the afternoon rush of sales agents.
Tim tested out thinking Loot, and six green blocks lit over the creature. Tim accepted the offering silently. The corpse blinked away, and a tingling feeling of possession took over. It weighed enough to prevent him from sprinting, but he could still run, and it was compact inside the pack. His dagger also appeared in his hand, dripping with blood and entrails. “Okay, so that part could have been better.”
Dryfu flew up out of the grass to land on his stomach, his pace a mix of stops and starts covered in exhaustion.
“Where’ve you been?” Tim asked with mock ignorance.
“Shut up,” Dryfu gasped. His flight swung back and forth as he panted and exerted the last bit of a grunt to land on Tim’s arm. “Next time, … get closer.” Dryfu wheezed.
“Well, we won. Thank you,” Tim said. “Are you gonna be okay?”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this again. I am practically starting over with my stats.”
“Did you get good XP on that one?” Tim asked. Jil was climbing back down and his Danger Sense hovered in a safe state for now, so they could both catch a little air and chat quietly for a bit.
“As your guide, I’m obligated to help you. Inform you. Protect you. Technically, the plan had merit, so while hitting the creature in its cock and berries wasn’t the worst idea…
Tim’s nasal laughter bubbled out. “You got it?”
Dryfu scoffed. “Psh. I eat ca—”
Tim snorted. “You eat what?” he asked, hearing the rest in Dryfu’s head about what he eats for breakfast.
“No…” Dryfu growled in playful disgust. “Your stupid vernacular. I mean no big deal. Comprehend? Capiche?”
Tim curbed his laughter. “Capiche. Stykiller ought to be Dick killer.”
“My enemies will know my terror.” Dryfu said, warming up to the well-meaning ribbing.
Tim chuckled. “Yes, they will.”
Jil capped her quiet jog to catch her breath at their side.
“Quite the snipe job there, D,” Jil said, hands on her hips and ready for work. “Sorry, Tim. I was so impressed with the effort I had to see if it would work.” She punched his arm. What was with this world, acting cool on Earth and when hunting demon beasts?
Part of that is light-hearted mockery of our gatewalker friends. We don’t get many, but all hunters have studied your world’s cultures.
“You did well though,” she said. “Used your top attribute and found a way to make it work. The plan was alright, too, though Dryfu will need time to build up his endurance. He can do that while we go plant some traps. I don’t want to chance losing them to the night. We’re not the only hunters out here.”
“Sure. I’m too amped to sleep.”
Right, we’ll go with that, Dryfu teased silently. And not that you think she’s cute and want to look cool.
“That’ll change soon,” Jil said, referring to his amp output and not the cool part.
That’ll never change. Let’s—
Shut up, D.
“—Keep moving and we’ll make it back before you sleep like a baby,” Jil finished. “Forage for some ointment for your cuts.”
Tim agreed and spread his Danger Sense so they could leave this alcove. “How does XP work?” He asked as they journeyed through the moonlit forest. “The guy who gave us our classes didn’t tell us much.”
“What type of class greeted you?”
“A, uh, wanderer.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Tim said, now sure, but unsure if that was a good thing of not. “Why?”
“Ten years ago, it would have been rare to have a gatewalker like yourself be greeted by a Wanderer. They prefer to watch from afar. The last few years, we’ve heard rumors of a hunt on their class by some shady folk who think they’re trying to meddle where they don’t belong. Not my words, theirs.”
“Why do you think one showed up for me and Chris?”
“Aside from ensuring the two of you started with those classes… It isn’t as much what they say as what they give you. It’s up to you to figure out how best to use them.”
“He gave me a coin and a gotr bone dagger,” Tim said, equipping one to each hand to show her.
She whistled at the blade. “Those specialize in aura storage and transfer. Aura is like your spirit’s magic.” She squeezed a fist like a heart to show a concentrated power in the core. “We’ll keep an eye on that more as your powers develop. For now, use it as a ranger would and stay alive until we find a leveling inn. Follow the class instincts like you would wield the knife or coin. We’re gonna need you, level one be damned.”
Tim reflected on the free feeling he sensed when using ranger skills. It was more than just power, wasn’t it? Like a path or a map route that sometimes halts and at other times pulls him. “I’ll listen,” he said.
She nodded.
“Should I save my coin for the inn?”
Jil shook her head. “No. That’s for more than currency. You’ll have to figure that out too. Heaven will reward you more if spent well.”
“Thank you. I’ll take that to heart.” Did she say Heaven?
Her people and many here have a similar paradise vision as part of their faith. In her Childockian tongue, Uthanq is their term for Heaven. The Whisper helps you communicate, but you’ll have to study to catch details like that when it matters.
Tim took that in as they walked in the hum of insects abuzz with life and a collective purpose shared by the masses hearing their tune. The mosquito looking bugs had long snout tentacles, sometimes as many as three, and as long as a fingernail. Tim pushed his Danger Sense out like a bubble surrounding him and Jil and listened to the Whisper’s inclination that he sow a seam of Protection along the perimeter.
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In a moment of surprising clarity, Tim pushed the bravest of the bugs away and into the otherwise invisible ceiling of their brethren.
“Good,” Jil said. “I hate those things.”
Once he thought he could maintain the archway and chew gum at the same time, he asked Jil, “Sylve did mention a Leveling Jewel and that we’re in Wendalces on the first month of the Hunt.”
“Did he mention the six pillars?”
“Yeah, but that’s pretty much it, that they’re here to win the jewel, and they’re not the only threat on its way.”
“To your first question, XP is gained by performing some basic tasks, but more so is collected in tasks related to your class.”
“Okay, yeah. I’ve opened some skills and sub-category skills so far. My UI said XP earned in these areas will now be stored for the leveling jewel. What does that mean?”
“The standard method of XP growth comes through an XP zone earned by the country winning that year’s hunt. Whichever pillar nation wins the Hunt is granted the stone and the nivelador of their choosing to wield it, granted they’re an ally, or are willing to become one. They alone are granted the knowledge and ability to put someone into a sleeping trance while they use the stone to gather your XP. You pay for a night at their leveling inn, then their nivelador or an acolyte casts a spell through the jewel to evolve your XP into class, character and skill growth.
“For an extra charge, they can apply the growth to companions as well. Tonight I’d wage you earned XP in Small Blades, Hunting, Tracking… Healing. You might even have a knack for “Ally Maker,” a rare skill worth trying to evolve.”
“What’s that?” Tim asked. They were getting close to the first trapped frung’suq. He smelled its anger and the open wounds it earned in trying to get out. Not that he could read animals’ minds, but his habitat sense differentiated between more than just threat and non-threat. With this one, he could tell it was fighting to get free. He didn’t know how yet, and he couldn’t hear it, but he felt its tenacity to not be bested by its prey.
“Ally Maker is a skill granted to those who have shown aptitude in making allies. Not everyone who joins a party earns it. More likely, it evolves from potential leaders. I haven’t ever met a gatewalker, but if you can evolve that—”
“How do you explain skill evolution?”
“Only the Whisper knows. Sometimes skills evolve through your spirit’s longing for more. The Leveling Jewel blessed our corner of the world, though not everyone. We can’t gain levels without its power, but sometimes the… this part is up to debate, but some think the XP we gain feeds our spirit, and if directed in a path congruent with a skill your class can evolve, sometimes we do.”
“Okay. So keep trying. See what happens.”
“Yep. In this world, ‘see what happens,’—especially during the hunt—means do everything you can to survive the day.
“And then do it again?” Tim asked, thinking of a tagline from Earth and how his world used to care about new book releases. No social media here, or discounts to store books with. Here, he was the book, and each step, the line he wrote.
“Yes.” Jil smiled. Like a good teacher. She could work with him. “You won’t get a formal notification until we join parties, but I can see that happening. It’ll boost your charisma with a focus toward anything you try and do to make allies. Some kings have a high grade in that skill. What did you get for charisma?”
Tim thought for a moment on if he should hand that information out so freely. All he knew about Jil was her name and the mystery behind her badges. Well, a few more things he wasn’t complaining about either. He tried not thinking about that since Rachel died.
“I’m not asking for your hand,” Jil said, one eyebrow cropped high. “I’ll be able to see your stats if we join parties. I was going to wait until the morning when Thron is back with us so the invitation is voted. We got interrupted earlier.”
“What does joining a party… mean?” he asked, unsure how to phrase it. It was kind of weird speaking game terms as though this weren’t one. Any second he half-expected to wake back up on Earth to find his brother never showed up and he’d dreamt this whole thing.
The frung’suq’s daggers glare through the netting offered a reminder of how real this place felt.
“We’ll get into that in the morning as we give our terms.”
Tim wondered if he should have formal terms too. He might have to treat this place more like a live or die business and less like a weekend adventure he could safely escape. This place didn’t pay him by the hour to be a live body. If he didn’t take what he could, he’d get nothing.
Jil raised a hand to slow his approach. “It can still get you with its tongue. That’s how you’ll get it. Those box traps are basic, and it’s a big one. You might only get one shot to lure its tongue out and catch it.”
Tim caught a throaty snort a second too late. “Sorry. No prob.” He cleared his throat. “Should I use the fresh shrub in my pouch?”
“That could work,” she said. “Sometimes a good stick’ll do, if you can loop it around fast enough to catch it.” She mimicked the movement as though wrapping a fishing line around the rod. “I liked your trick to hide the shrub. Try that again. I’ll stay back with my crossbow on the sly. I’m guessing your dexterity is high. Use that.”
The frung’suq dug its front hoof into the dirt and lowered its head as though ready to charge. Tim wanted to get within range of its tongue before it threatened the integrity of the trap. It already had wobbled sections and torn cross-stitching. Threads tied taut around trees kept it in place, but he didn’t want the thing testing that with renewed ferocity.
“Hey buddy.” Tim raised a placating hand while accepting the shrub into his hand behind his back. This realm didn’t require reaching into the pouch to retrieve objects, so that was a bonus. The beast didn’t sound like it was buying anything he was selling about not being a threat.
“Fine!” Tim shouted. He ducked his head into the shout as though trying to make the beast flinch. At the same time he brought the shrub around. The frung’suq’s tongue snapped him in the neck and retracted before he could snatch it. Poison seeped into his skin. Wrank smoke filled his nostrils. 12 HP dropped from his total. It burned so badly, his reaction to the next tongue attack failed to catch it. The tongue lapped around his forearm. Skin burning poison eroded skin and muscle as the tongue constricted too easily.
Your Healing Skill evolved to add the ability: Poison Resistance.
Yippie! How about getting it off then!
“Tim!” Jil shot an arrow through the cage, but the beast’s downward yank made the arrow skip off its head.
Dryfu darted inside, flying for his name’s sake.
Tim fell to his knees. If he survived this, he’d have to laugh at his dykiller assassin. For now, the pain was so great, he barely managed to release his knife and shrub. He picked up the knife with his good hand and stabbed it up at the tongue. Missed. The rope around his arm tightened and the frung’suq pulled him off his knees.
“Tim!”
He pulled back against the tugging beast, burning the tongue deeper into his forearm muscle. His HP sank into the high twenties. It made him heavy, as though reaching zero would mean collapsing into a hole without hope of finding his way out, even if the injuries that took him there didn’t hit a vital spot.
The beast sank to its hunches, collapsing where Dryfu had been a second ago. Tim grabbed the shrub and swatted down on the tongue. It retracted and he flicked his wrist to loop the shrub around it before the tip slipped through. The slippery sucker escaped. It launched a tongue strike. Tim deflected it high with the shrub and twisted to catch it around the center stem. He lowered the shrub and stomped on the tongue.
Big mistake.
The beast rammed its antlers into his thigh. Dammit! Sharp pain seized his leg not far from the already sore area from the last thigh shot.
Tim equipped his dagger and stabbed it in the forehead like he frickin’ deserved it. The eerie glow in its eyes faded and absorbed into his handle. XP tingled pop rocks into his flesh and deeper to plant something new.
Right now, he could use a few new limbs, but he didn’t think that’s where the power was being stored.
“Hey,” Jil said softly, emerging from the background. She examined the entry of antler to thigh and helped him carve his way out.
“Did you steal its aura?” Jil asked, nodding at his dagger and the white glow thrumming like a charging battery throughout the handle.
“I sure did.” Tim spit, rolling with it like a pro. “Welcome to my house.”
Jil gave him an unimpressed eye roll and returned to his thigh. Not much you could do with the angles and razor-sharp bone. Sharp bursts of pain lanced through him and once free, his leg felt inflamed from the inside out. He charged his densest Healing yet and cast it into the worst of it. A brief respite from the pain failed to quell the blood flow and soon the pain ebbed like a torturous pulse once again. He tried charging Healing again, but a cooldown grayed it out with a timer of thirty minutes.
“I’ll get you a tourniquet,” Jil said.
The corpse blinked away and a nearly flattened Dryfu staggered out of the mud.
“Dryfu!” Tim shouted gleefully. This place and the adrenaline mixed with the magic of his Healing spell had him a bit out of sorts. Seeing his guide safe produced a little more of that euphoria.
The guide’s wings failed him when he tried to fly, so Tim picked him up with his dagger blade until he was out of the cage and could rest on his belt. “Are you okay?” Tim asked.
“Nothing a month at Sonne River wouldn’t cure.”
Tim didn’t doubt it. His armored exoskeleton was worked over pretty good. Barely half an inch was free of dents, cracks and chips exposing sand colored flesh.
Jil took out a long cloth and wrapped Tim’s leg. “We could all use a vacation after this.” She carefully wrapped a cloth around his thigh. A blue glow pulsed brighter with the absorption of blood. His HP reached 9 before its magic made it to the wound and reversed course. The cool sensation helped Tim relax.
“Thank you,” he told Jil.
She smiled. “Sorry about the tough XP.”
He shrugged. “First time I got to use my Healing skill. Not that it did much. At this level my cooldown is thirty minutes, and I can’t use Poison Resistance either.”
“Technically both are at work,” Dryfu said. “On a low dose regen.”
“Which at this point is negated by the poison in your arm,” Jil said. “Low level healers rely on supplements.”
“And foraging,” Tim finished.
“Exactly,” Jil said. “This area could have ollow weed for your arm. We’ll want as much as we can carry. Roz can teach your brother to make something stronger than ingestion or direct application. Let’s go.”
Tim agreed. Jil let him walk through his limp. He appreciated her concern from afar, not coddling him, yet showing interest in his well-being and survival. She was good people, and so far it seemed the same for her friends.
Every step sent stingers up and down his thigh, but he didn’t complain. He didn’t want to fail the test with either of them.
You asked for this when you chose a low constitution.
Dryfu’s scolding had the light touch of a simple reminder.
Thank you. I know. Right now, he was paying for it, as low constitution severely limited even basic maneuvers. In a way, it was good to see how his body responded to battle. This is where he has lived a long time with his spinal degeneration symptoms. Not having that here was nearly fair trade.
Tim burned through the pain to Forage as quickly as possible. Sweat dripped from his brow onto a green blade from an ollow weed. A wave of nausea swept through him, forcing a pause. Insects chattered with the busyness of a rush hour intersection, and he was in the middle. Not dying. His HP was still in the mid teens, though it trickled in slowly greater numbers from the poison debuff burning in his veins.
He snapped out of it and stabbed his dagger into the earth. Not his earth, yet still a place of bounty if he worked hard enough. XP coursed through him with every plant and into Healing and Poison Resistance as he applied the leaf-wrapped buds into the tender gashes with the thickest ooze from the poison.
After clearing a hefty patch of ollow weed, he also Foraged four handfuls of arcus weed before reaching camp.
He was so happy to see his brother warming his hands over the fire, he strode over to give him a hug.
“Hey,” Chris said, giving him a warm greeting back, then shifted Tim away from the fire. “Lie down over here. This is going to hurt, I guess.”
“You guess,” Tim said, chuckling.
Chris shrugged. “Low level blues. Do you want me to heal you?”
“I guess.”
Chris rolled his eyes. “Hilarious. Remember when you cried about getting your shots. Consider this my warning. Sorry I don’t have any GI Joes to distract you.”
“Dude, I stabbed a demon elk between the eyes, then stole his soul. Do your worst,” Tim said playfully, lying on the blanket they laid under him.
Chris set his staff upon his arm. “You stole its soul?”
“Or aura. My gotr blade actually absorbed,” Tim started to explain. “I don’t think I’m a high enough level to access it. I’m trying to guide it toward a defensive…”
“Shhh.” Chris rested a soft hand on Tim’s sweat matted head. “Tell me all about it later. We’ll figure it out. Focus on your healing.” A black veined storm cloud permeated Chris’s eyes. Roots grew from Chris’s staff, encircled Tim’s arm and embedded inside the raw flesh.
Boom shaka laka, that hurt. Like, why not stab him in the eye while he was at it?
Hours later, the heat finally died, allowing Tim to quit humming hymns. This is my story, this is my song, repeated in his mind ever since the adrenaline of the fight wore off and the red hot agony set its teeth. He’d hummed the same song when their baby died, and again twenty six minutes later when his wife passed… pretty much whenever the waters of sorrow passed over his breakers of defenses. The lyrics “death could not hold you” had routinely broken him. Here, he wondered if he had made a mistake my delaying their reunion.
“Are you good?” Jil asked, apparently recognizing the silence in his humming.
“Yeah. It’s getting a little better.”
“Good. Do you think you’re up to casting Protection and getting some sleep? It shouldn’t take long,” she said, helping him up. “You’ll need your best weapon and a poem.”
He loosed his dagger from its sheath and followed her, wondering if he’d caught her smile when she dropped the poem bomb on him. “Am I here for your amusement?” he asked with a playful tone.
“If you wanted to hide that soft soul of yours you should have hummed that tune a little quieter.”
“That hurt,” he stage whispered. He didn’t sense any dangerous creatures on the cusp of being a threat, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t change if aerated by his noise.
She stopped a few paces from the uprooted end of the tree, still wearing her crap eating grin with no intent of wiping it off anytime soon. “I know. I’ve felt it before.” She untucked her shirt to show off a ragged scar on her toned abs.
“Ouch. Okay. But soft soul?”
“It’s alright. Cute even. One of the best rangers I trained with was the same. It fits with being in tune with the forest and her many creatures. As long as you’re sharp when you need to be, it’s all flush.”
She yawned. “Sorry. Anyway, the poem. That was Mado’s method for creating his protection spells. And how he leveled his skill high enough to guard a company of over a thousand for nearly a week.”
So she wasn’t joking. Crap. Tim didn’t know any poems… and then he remembered the post he made when his daughter died.
Use that, Dryfu thought to him.
Dragon’s breath escaped his throat into the chill air. He didn’t want to remember that time so clearly.
Jil studied him as though to say she’d follow him down that tunnel if he wanted. Then, “My demons don’t make yours any smaller. But the sooner you realize battling them and coming out the victor has made you stronger, the sooner you can use that strength. And whatever those demons took from you, your use of that strength will prove what you lost wasn’t lost in vain.”
Quarter sized eyes reflecting the moon watched from a perch along a tree bough behind her. She wasn’t wrong. He just didn’t prefer to live in that skin. Like his false grins, he’d found a way to separate himself from that man and his scars.
No, you haven’t, Dryfu told him. I’m two inches tall and even I can see that.
Thanks. I know. It was just a metaphor or whatever. I’ve tried for a long time—
“You hearing me?” Jil asked. Tough love held in her eyes, but love nonetheless.
“Yeah. My familiar called me out on something. I was telling him I’ve tried for a long time to exist without that strength. It feels more like an infection I need to root out than embrace and live through.”
“Okay. I hear you. But that’s like saying you’re better off cutting yourself in half and learning how to walk on one leg. Learn to balance with what the creator gave you. You may find it’s there for a reason.”
Wow, he thought. He wasn’t expecting to learn that tonight.
“Mado said his poems took that wrestling match in his soul and reformed it in a tangible power he could use for good. It also helps if it comes from something you care deeply about because it’ll be easier to remember and use again. Whatever your charisma score is, I can tell it’s not a one. Now’s your time to use it.”
Tim swallowed. A bit of pride went down with the snot. His wife would’ve said the same. But it had been too many years since she had. “Alright. Do I have to say it out loud or write it somewhere?”
Jil shook her head. “Nope. Just walk the perimeter with your weapon in hand and channel your ranger’s purpose to protect us from any threat that would disturb our rest. You can say the poem out loud or to yourself in your head.”
Tears brimmed in his eyes as the skin he’d hid from for so long slid back into its home.
“Do you want me to walk with you?” she asked, squeezing his elbow with a tender grip. Close enough to let the moonlight breathe on her freckled cheeks.
He smiled but shook his head. “I’ll be fine, thank you. Anything else I should know?”
She pointed. Just about this far out from the tree is fine. You’re level one so we don’t want to risk overdoing it. A high enough level hunter could still break it if they happened upon us. This is for everything else.”
Tim got it. He ran his thumb along the grooves of the carved bone handle. Energy welled up with heat and foreign life. I knew of a precious life… Tim started and spoke this poem to his daughter.
Seven times around the perimeter of their camp Tim repeated the words of Lia’s First Song.
There are many things only you could have taught me;
The first, though we never met, I know you’ll always love me.
If you hear me, know I love you right back.
Forever won’t be enough to tell you the same.
from the seed of your life with me,
I’ll rise, rejoicing to see you roaming free.
What you must think, watching me struggle on;
I know you have faith in me; If I’m honest, I fear failing most of all;
But I know your care through the fall.
your support means so much to me;
What I do, Will prove… you are enough. I can succeed.
Your strength is in me, the whole world soon will see.
The pain of being apart won’t break us in vain.
Tim slowed at the end of his seventh purposed lap so his final word would land with his step. A footprint of strength hardened the dirt at his sole.
Your Self Defense Skill has expanded to add the sub-category Protection Spell.
He thumbed a tear and walked for his bed. “It’s done.”
She reached to console him but he drifted off, content to be finished with this mourning.