If my current situation was like a video game, it was more like a first person shooter than an RPG right now. The intermittent time that I had spent hunting with Deldes and Delirin and even in the workshop with Tanyl had done a lot for my conditioning and physical capabilities. I think that the internal changes that occurred due to magic particle absorption also had a fair amount to do with the speed with which I saw results, but the net effect was that my grinding had left me in a much better position to face the seventy mile gauntlet that was before me than I would have expected.
Unfortunately, much better than expected was still not good. I couldn’t fight my way through the volume of potential threats and I also couldn’t stay in one place for too long. The number of adds in each encounter could quickly spiral out of control. I needed to look at each situation objectively, determine my best odds and continuously adapt as I pushed through the unfamiliar terrain. I also needed to either set a pace that got me there before I collapsed from exhaustion or push forward in a way that would allow me opportunities to rest. Since I didn’t know exactly what awaited at Ghostlight Falls, I couldn’t really afford to arrive there without the energy to address the situation, so I needed to push forward in a way that supported rest.
After a “good” night’s sleep, I also felt that I had a handle on the clue that Delirin had provided: it was about breath. My theory from what I had read about stealth techniques and what I had when the wild elves used their stealth skills, was that the foundation of most stealth techniques was internal control over what essence one put into the environment. I expect that more advanced techniques must come with the ability to actively obscure, but the start really had to be leaving no trace that could be used to identify one’s presence.
From the books that I had found on basic tactics before the tutorial began, I knew that in broad strokes energy armor was compatible with stealth and that there were even armors that worked to amplify the effectiveness of some stealth skills. I also knew that stealth wasn’t that common because it was difficult to master, but that when stealth was mastered it was widely, if not continuously, utilized. That is to say, that stealth techniques didn’t draw enough resources from an individual to require them to be used sparingly.
I think that Delirin was saying that I needed to work to continuously suppress the essence of myself that I was putting into the environment. I was hoping that as I did this I would unlock and rapidly advance my own stealth skill. In this light, perhaps the approach of the wild elves made a bit more sense. My class situation, or lack thereof, made it difficult to know what specific stealth skills I could learn with any certainty. The best game plan to learn a skill might really be a crash course in the fundamentals. I was half tempted to pull up the Unified System interface, but there wasn’t really a way that it could tell me what I actually needed to know, which was part of my problem with the interface in the first place.
Most magic based techniques required some kind of visualization to shape the effect precisely. I thought about myself as a closed system and as a wisp moving through the forest without leaving a trace. With those images in mind, I set out, but not before disabling the training device that allowed me to experience the pain of the injuries that my energy armor blocked. Pain may teach, but it is hard to learn when you are dead. I had the luxury of operating in that way when I had support from experts that could help ensure that things didn’t get out of hand. Moving now on my own, I needed every advantage that I could get.
My main weapon was a magical rifle with a seven shot clip and a bayonet. This rifle was almost completely silent and it fired rounds that exploded on contact to release crystals the size of grains of sand that were highly charged with destructive magic particles. It was sighted with a scope that took the bayonet into account, so it was about as versatile as it could get. I had my magic particle gun hanging from some magically imbued steel cable fed into a retractable tool holder assembly on my belt. I carried a hunting knife with a magic circuit to improve its edge on my belt and a pistol in each holster. I also wore my darkvision goggles to help me see in low light that was penetrating the forest canopy as I set out with the dawn.
***
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The goal was to avoid as much conflict as possible on the way to the falls. I didn’t have infinite resources and there were effectively infinite ducks between me and my goal. Ducks dropping down from the trees, ducks leaping out of ponds and streams, ducks jumping out of the bushes, ducks hiding in the grass, ducks swooping out of the sky, ducks hiding in caves–there were ducks everywhere and they seemed to have no real difficulty in finding me. This made the first day of my solo trek slower going than I had hoped. I found a small cave a couple of hours before sunset and quickly cleared it out. I blocked the entrance with rocks and activated a small barrier device that I brought with me on our hunts for just such an occasion. I was wearing my sight assist goggles again and as I sat in the dark and went over the day’s gains.
There were basically no gains. I had made it twelve miles in thirteen hours of hiking. I would have been dead scores of times if it weren’t for the robust energy armor that I was sporting. I had made no progress that I could discern on the stealth front. I had a puncture wound on my right hip where horned lizard type duck had managed to punch through my armor and a laceration on my upper left arm where a had taken a slash from some kind of diving, gliding duck that had somehow managed to get past my energy armor with a high speed, razor sharp claw. Both wounds were shallow and were already healing thanks to my awakened physique, but they hurt and would limit my mobility somewhat for at least the next day.
I needed to find a way to make a change. At this rate it would take me twice as long to reach Ghostlight Falls and I doubted that I could survive that long in my current state. I had foregone the rifle and bayonet for the magic particle gun and the hunting knife. Nothing seemed to have any resistance or shielding that could deflect the magic particle gun’s beam. The rifle was very versatile, but if you never spotted the threats before they struck and they had significant numbers, only having seven shots was a bit of a liability. I dug into my cold rations and I thought about how to move forward.
***
I woke up perhaps an hour before dawn. I lay there and thought about how I could approach the day as I ate some more cold rations and prepared for my next round of hiking. When I focused on the images that I used as visualizations for stealth, they didn’t seem far off, but I refined them a bit as I thought of myself as out of phase with reality. With each breath I faded further into the background and disappeared. Those that saw me couldn’t focus on me properly and if they did they forgot me instantly. I was a phantom. I mean it sounded good to me, but what did I know?
In conjunction with this image, I was also planning on using a new tactic. Rather than trying to sneak through the forest and stopping to engage the ducks that appeared in my vicinity, I was just going to push through. My energy armor had proven very effective and I needed to get the most that I could out of that advantage. There were always adds as ducks picked up on my position while I was fighting and trying to clear an area wasn’t working. The ducks fought each other as readily as they fought me, so I was going to lean into the opportunity that represented. I’d run the ducks targeting me into more ducks that could target them and slip away in whatever chaos followed. Kind of a loose interpretation of the enemy of my enemy is my friend and the more of them that killed each other or forgot about me the better.
***
It was about noon on the fourth day since Deldes and Delirin left me to be hunted by the ducks when Ghostlight Falls came into view in the distance. There had been a few times on day two where I had nearly been overrun by dog sized bird-lizards. Even with my awakened physique and my recent physical conditioning, almost all of the ducks were faster than me. I dodged what I could, took the shots that I could with the magic particle gun and kept pushing. This tactic had mostly worked. I took hundreds if not thousands of strikes against my energy armor, but most of the strikes weren’t strong enough to penetrate and when I saw one coming that looked strong enough to pierce my defenses, I tried to position myself to take a glancing blow instead. Having ample opportunity to practice with my energy armor during this hunt, I had become quite adept at using it in this way.
Unfortunately, the strong attacks that I didn’t see coming and those that I couldn’t quite deflect had left their marks. My forearms were covered in small cuts and wounds. I had shallow claw marks on the back of my head and my right calf and a much deeper mark across my chest that burned a little when I breathed. I also had a full dental imprint from a particularly nasty bugger that latched onto my right elbow. I killed it with my knife and then had to use the flat of the blade to pry it off of my arm. I was dirty, bloody, dehydrated, sore and pretty well exhausted. So much for getting to Ghostlight Falls with some gas left in the tank, but I was thankful to get there at all.