I hadn’t spent any time fighting in an actual party before this little jaunt to Eastern Tear. I didn’t plan to spend much time fighting in a party after leaving Eastern Tear either, at least not for a while. However, I am sure that being in different roles in the party and being hard pressed to protect myself and my friends had pushed me in new ways. This was especially so while I was trying to control the seven different shield discs that I was using to transform myself into a poor man’s tank.

Keeping track of the swarms of ducks, the discs and my allies and then issuing commands to my team and my equipment involved a great deal of awareness and mental processing. I wasn’t in the type of danger that I had experienced when I learned my stealth skill, but I was still working to push myself beyond my limits and that seemed to be part of the secret sauce of skill generation. I wasn’t sure of all of the dimensions of the skill, but when I felt it click into place there were a few immediate differences.

I felt like I had a wider view of the situation. Like when you are playing a video game and you shift from first person perspective to third person perspective. It was easier to see how everything fit together, what was likely to happen in the next few moments and how I could react to those situations. It was so much easier to operate with this extra perspective and similarly much less stressful to fight like this. I felt like a weight had been lifted from my mind. I also gained what I would describe as seamless and intuitive control over my shield disks. They were just another part of this vast environment, but they accepted my intent to control them without the need for specific focus or direction. They were even more effective in protecting me following the development of this skill, almost effortlessly keeping the creatures charging at me at bay.

I wasn’t sure if this skill had a proper name or what its limitations might be, but it felt great. The stress of balancing so many things was gone. Not only were my shield discs more effective, but the team was as well. I was able to provide much better direction and coordinate our tactics and actions effectively, even while actively fending off a pack of angry bird-lizards and whatever pranks Queakers and Delirin cooked up. The skill really fit in the direction that I wanted to go and it was an unexpected benefit of working together with others in an actual team. I was sure that I’d have plenty of chances to explore and experiment with this new skill as we continued our march toward Eastern Tear.

***

Ror had recruited three additional Lupine beastkin assassins for her trip into the wild. They were all skilled in tracking and in stealth movement and they were all experienced in the wild. She wasn’t taking any chances after her quarry had, apparently, given her the slip in the Emerald Sea. The targets she was contracted to kill would be more exposed in the taiga and she had to finish this job, her first since arriving at the outpost. She couldn’t be known as someone who couldn’t eliminate a few fledgling tutorial participants. She wouldn’t suffer that shame and the loss of opportunities that such a hit to her reputation would certainly cause.

Unfortunately for Ror, her entire team were new arrivals to the area. None of them were particularly familiar with the local situation or their surroundings. It had been difficult to pick up any sort of trail, frustratingly so, but they eventually caught the odd sign of a group moving through and she was convinced that she and her team were gaining ground. The group that they were pursuing was moving relatively slowly from what she could tell, much more slowly than Ror and her associates. The lupine assassins could keep this pace for days with little rest, so she expected to catch them soon.

After a few days of hunting and tracking, the trail became much clearer to Ror and her associates. The group that they were following had apparently stopped trying to obscure their passage and had started fighting. As they forged ahead they saw that the plentiful fallen monsters had been expertly harvested. They caught the odd scavenger in with the corpses of the slain bird-lizards that appeared to call this area home, but they saw very few of these creatures alive. It seemed odd. The assassins slowed their pace and pressed forward with increased caution.

Ror and her companions were sure that they would come upon their quarry if they simply continued to follow the path of destruction through the forest. They were right. They saw the small white canine standing on top of a small, tree covered hill. Ror prepared to strike. Then the forest around her erupted with vines and plant monsters. There were suddenly flowers with hands with compressed petal claws dripping poison, large deer made from shrubs with giant antlers of hardened hawthorn-like barbs and tree golems with sturdy, blunt limbs attacking the group of assassins. They knew that the dog used nature magic, but Ror didn’t think that it was anything this potent and she wasn’t sure how the dog could attack her team like this while they remained stealthed.

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All of the plant monsters froze and a message board appeared before each of the lupines that read “Submit to me and join my cause or die.” Ror could see the white dog on the hill and she seemed to be looking in the direction of the other assassins. Sensing an opportunity, Ror turned and drew her bow in a fluid motion. She aimed to end the threat while the dog was distracted and get this mission back on track. The spear tore through her neck before she even knew what was happening. Her throat was gone and the blood loss was catastrophic. Ror perished moments later, but she lived long enough to see her companions dragged down by the suddenly reactivated plant monsters.

Queakers wasn’t too disappointed. She hadn’t been able to expand her pack, but she had helped protect her friends. She also got some good head scratches from Leirin as the elf carried her so that they could quickly catch up with the rest of the team. If they could get ahead of the team, maybe they could drop some tree monsters out of the trees on Harris. That would be a good prank, but lately nothing that she had come up had really been able to catch him off guard. Her and Leirin’s prank war on Harris was almost no fun at this point. Almost.

***

I knew that Leirin and Queakers were back for a few reasons. First off, I could detect them with my Heightened Awareness skill. Second, I could hear Leirin’s manic laughter echoing across the taiga. Third, there were plant monsters swarming me from all angles. They were dropping out of the trees and emerging from the ground and popping out of the small lake near where we had pitched their camp.

I was on KP duty that night and had been working on what I thought might turn into a rather fine duck stew when all hell broke loose. If there had been a real threat to my safety, it wouldn’t have been acceptable under any circumstances. Even though no one was likely to get hurt, attacking me while I was making dinner was way over the line. Camp was sacred ground and dinner was sacrosanct.

I had been too indulgent and I needed to have a serious conversation with Queakers after dinner. Queakers was young and going through was I sincerely hoped was a phase. It wasn’t. She has a weird sense of humor. Delirin was an adult and already many times my age. She absolutely had to know better. I had no solution for the wild elf. I could try to have a serious conversation with her as well, but at that point I hadn’t once succeeded in having a serious conversation elf. I could certainly threaten some sort of punishment, but I was pretty sure that she would just ignore me, or worse, that she would like it. She was a weird elf.

***

We arrived at Ghostlight falls on our sixth day in duck country. We were a very different group than the one that fled the Emerald Sea together. We had better teamwork, which is really to say that we had at least basic teamwork now. All of the party members that had actually gone through the tutorial training had gotten some much needed practical experience in adventuring and combat. I had put together a new skill that I felt like had a ton of runway and would be a great fit with the way that I wanted to progress. Sarah and Deldes also seemed to have progressed to be in an actual relationship instead of just “hanging out.”

We camped just where we had during my first trip to Ghostlight Falls. We all hiked over to take in the falls and explore the area a bit. We brought some food and wine and had a bit of a picnic dinner. This area was much safer than the stretch we had just fought our way through,so this was not a terrible way to get everyone some much needed relaxation after spending days running and fighting through the wilds. I don’t know if my presence had anything to do with it, but as soon as I touched the falls after sundown, the dream tender jellyfish briefly went through their pale rainbow light display before settling back into their normal iridescent blue sheen.

It was a beautiful sight and I was glad to be there enjoying it with my friends. The next day Delirin, Queakers and I were going to hike up the plateau and circle around the lake to Eastern Tear. We were planning to make our case to their leadership of the wild elf village regarding the team taking up residence there through the end of the tutorial. I expected it to be a challenging negotiation, but we had some things to offer and a few other things going for us. It sounded like both Delirin and Deldes had influential families in Eastern Tear that might potentially support our cause. Completing the rite of passage at Ghostlight Falls gave me the status necessary to get in the door and being an apprentice of a master brownie magic artificer was not nothing. We were also bringing Queakers because how was she not going to be a huge hit?