NOURISHES-AND-CARES

Being the only one in all of Village-of-the-Oasis-of-swimming-flowers-that-is-the-source-of-the-river-that-feeds-a-million-mouths that had foundational butchery skills, it would be easy to assume that he relished in violence, but he didn’t. He tried to dispatch the snails and other animals quickly and without unnecessary suffering. The fact that he, as an obligate carnivore, was dependent on their flesh didn’t mean that he appreciated cruelty. It was his meticulousness in seeking a way to kill without causing pain and suffering and to make sure that all parts of the snail, including seemingly inedible ones like the shell, were put to use. Having to kill monsters who had the single-minded desire to cause violence was something Nourishes never experienced. And yet, to protect the village, he used his skill to use ephemeral spikes to attack the creatures. His skills in any of the systems provided him with awareness as to what the points in their bodies was that, if spiked, caused the least pain to the monster and, more important, accelerated the process of taking their lives. When the group of Scorpions-of-Tsanh had cleared the immediate vicinity of the village, he rested with his belly on the sand to have a moment of peace and relaxation. That was when he had to do a double-take: Shivers-in-Sunlight arrived with formidable speed from deep in the desert. He knew xir very well as xe was an excellent heliciculturist and the snails that he received from xir were plump, healthy and as happy as a snail could be. He did not imagine xir to run into the wilds that far. Until he realised that xir friend was Skips and so xe always kept Longstrider as a skill. “Nourishes-And-Cares,” Shivers-in-Sunlight shouted, “Please help us. There is a dungeon which spawns dangerous monsters until it is defeated. More dangerous than the monsters that were defeated around the village. Skips is currently fighting them off but she asked me to assemble strong people to defeat it.”

Nourishes looked at xir in concern and confusion: “And then, why do you come to old Nourishes-And-Cares?”

Shivers swivered xir tail and clicked embarrassedly: “You are the one who can sting through the carapace of a snail and attack its brain in one deft slash. So, I hoped that you could help?”

Nourishes paused for a moment, then he said: “The creatures that we fought were not as hard to pierce as a snail. And also, my skill can help others who are younger and whose body is studier than me. Age has hit my body like a sandstorm hits a tent.”

Shivers understood: “It is not the same now that the second system has arrived. Our foundational skills have become classes in the second, black system. This is why we profit from both sides with our foundational skills.”

“Oh.” Nourishes understood now how he could defeat the monsters, while not easily, slightly better than Persists-in-Weaving, Hungers-At-Noon and others. “In that case, I will come with you. Will you also ask Submerges-in-Water?”

Shivers looked confused for a moment: “I don’t think that we need swimming as a foundational skill. At least Skips had not mentioned that.”

Nourishes made a clicking sound indicating a No. “That never was xir foundational skill. Submerges’s foundational skill is Treeworker. Which involves felling them.”

SKIPS-ONE-STEP

The sandsharks had surrounded her momentarily and were about to pounce. Skips breathed in and feinted an escape to one direction, where the sandsharks were closest together. The two hit their gills together. There were sparks as the crystals hit each other. She feinted escape in a few more directions before she just ran for it in a completely different direction than before. Her spear struck the gills of a sandshark as she escaped. She did not do a lot of damage, but she didn’t need to. She could, at any time, run to the rocky terrain of the mountains to lose them. She was faster than them by far. The battle was merely tedious. And the primary goal was to keep the monsters away from any village. If she could defeat some, that would be good, but she didn’t expect to.

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She ran around a sandshark and stabbed its gills again. This time, there was a rain of sparks illuminating the night sky.

She then ran, avoided its backfin by making a generous curve around it and stabbed again. As a sand shark emerged from the desert ground in front of her, she quickly changed course and stabbed that one as well. This time missing the gills and doing negligible damage. However, the sandshark collapsed just as she did.

“What the crap‽ Did you attract all of these critters in the entire Kha Zha plain?” A scorpion-of-Tsanh, Nourishes-And-Cares, who drew back a magical spike from its left eye, shouted at her.

“Better here than in the village. Don’t you agree? I kept their attention… while,” She rushed towards Nourishes and pushed him out of the way of another sandshark, “Shivers brought you here!”

Shivers stabbed the attacking sandshark with a lance of magic, right into its gills.

Skips shouted: “The gills are easiest to attack. If they are damaged, the sandsharks cannot breathe!”

Nourishes looked as if he wanted to say something but then stopped.

They battled against the onslaught of monsters. The landsharks were defeated when the sun was about to rise. The entire group was tired and stopped near the entrance of the dungeon. They took a small break, then they entered.

CVETKA KRALJ

The three rushed towards the rest of the group, which still walked as if entranced into the direction of a nest of salamar. Crystal screamed at them to stop, but they seemed not to have noticed. Crystal asked Rush: “What made you snap out of this state?”

Rush looked embarrassed: “I fell on my face. Badly. I lost one HP.”

Crystal nodded and murmured: “I think we can make them take damage.”

Cvetka immediately slapped one of them, Igor, with the flat side of her iklwa. Igor looked at her, then the group and was confused: “What… what happened?”

Cvetka made a disgusted noise: “Mind affinity salamars. I am not affected because of my class. Crystal isn’t either, also because of my class. And Rush and you took damage. Help me with the rest of the group, can you?”

They hit the others and explained to them what happened, then, they attacked the salamar together. Only when the nest, including the younglings, was handled, did Igor approach her again. “Hey, Cvetka, you mentioned your class protected you, can you tell me more?”

Cvetka was not sure if she could trust him. “I chose one of the red ones. I know little about my skills. I cannot really tell you a lot.”

Igor shrugged: “Just wondered. Mental affinity salamar normally require a crazy-high resistance. Having that in an initial class sounds just broken.”

Cvetka made a vague gesture: “It comes with drawbacks. Long story.”

Rose heard the talk and looked at Igor and Cvetka: “The red classes are quite strange indeed. Muruguna also doesn’t feel like anything that the system would normally assign.”

Cvetka shrugged: “I am Level 3, what do I know? You, Rose?”

Rose smiled: “Level 4. Lots of salamar, lots of experience. Muruguna apparently is a class based on a weird weapon that I had never heard of. I can summon a magical version of it. But I basically can’t do damage with other weapons.”

A silvery sword-like contraption emerged from her right arm. Her forearm was covered by a metal protection. Rose explains: “It is used with punching movements. I have looked it up, it was used by the Sygia.”

Cvetka raised her eyebrows: “It seems interesting that the classes seem to be related to integrated races. My own one, Yanigal, is related to the Keani.”

Rose shrugged: “I guess you could ask the integrator about that one when we get out of here, can you?”

Cvetka nodded: “I planned to do just that. Just need to, hopefully, make it past the boss.”