It would usually have been a good nine-day journey between Whitdale and Bewly Manor, the sight of our new contract, but we were in a bit of a hurry, so we did it in eight. Fifteen years earlier, a minor war had broken out upon the death of its previous lord, the childless Sir Malcolm Duchen. It had been a relatively bloody affair between his two great nephews, Stevin and Martin, which had ended with the death of the latter.
For the past fifteen years, Sir Stevin Duchen had been ruling his manor with no problems until recently that is. A few months ago it had been beset by bandits for a few days. While they hadn’t killed anyone they had burned down several small farms and attempted to extort money from him in exchange for leaving his lands alone.
He had pretended to go along with it while hiring mercenaries to deal with the bandits. They had done so but this was only the beginning of his problems. A caravan of goods produced in his manor had been attacked while they were on their way to be sold elsewhere. A small detachment of his guards were attacked while patrolling his borders, some of his peasants had mysteriously vanished. It had all culminated in the seizure of his Manor House by a large group of bandits and we had been hired to take it back from them.
On the morning of the sixth day of our journey while we were camped just outside the village of Jarlath I awoke on my birthday and received the customary system message.
Congratulations Niel Ryder for having survived another year upon Telondia, now for your rewards.
Initialising Aging progress reward sub system…
Increased Agility reward winner… Bab Helin
Increased Charisma reward winner… Michael Paris
Increased Constitution reward winner… Kyle Dickon Warner
Increased Dexterity reward winner… Tharman Ratham
Increase Endurance reward winner… Berke Hulak
Increased Intelligence reward winner… Jennifer Rani
Increased Luck winner reward… Steph Randel
Increased Perception reward winner… Niel Hulagi
Increased Strength reward winner… Paula Cecile Watts
Increased Wisdom reward winner… Silvia J Barnes
Random Skill reward winner… Alvin Hsien Ghee
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Random Class Skill reward winner… Levan Budvina
Random Professional Skill reward winner… Lou Ojed
Random Title winner… Gerald Ortega
Title (Overall Daily 25th Birthday Winner) Winner… Alvin Hsien Ghee
Yearly Personal Skill advancement (Basic=>Apprentice) gift… Farming
Additional Basic Skill advancement (Basic) gift… 75%
Terminating Aging progress rewards sub-system
Farming (Basic) => Farming (Apprentice)
Another year without any additional rewards, not unexpected since I only know one person who has ever received one, my sister Holly. She received one on her seventeenth birthday, the first year after she had gained the system on her previous birthday. She had received an extra stat point in Luck and the Title, Overall Daily 17th Birthday Winner. I didn’t begrudge her having received either of the rewards, especially considering at that point I already had two titles of my own. Still, I always hoped to receive something but it wasn’t to be, this year at least.
The only real thing I had to decide after receiving the system message was which of my basic level skills I would use the 75% skill advancement on. After my farming skill was automatically chosen to advance to apprentice I still had thirteen other skills to choose from, one Free Skills, five Skills, four Class Skills and three Professional Skills. Of these all but two of them would advance to the apprentice level if I used it on them and for this reason, they weren’t in contention. Another one was close to breaking through to apprentice without needing a helping hand and I didn’t really see myself ever using two others again so they were also out.
That left eight in contention, Animal Calls, Heat Resistance, Pain Tolerance, Muscle Memory, Unseat Rider, Long March, Siegecraft and Screening. Since the weather in the areas we mainly operated in was usually quite mild I quickly dismissed Heat resistance, As for the rest I felt it best to only go for a skill that was likely to be of use in the upcoming contract so Animal Calls, Pain Tolerance, Long March and Screening were out as well. I knew that there were members of the company with a higher level of siegecraft than I was ever likely to have who also possessed other related skills so that was out as well. Of the two remaining I wasn’t sure which would see the most use so I flipped a gold coin and so ended up going with Muscle Memory.
Muscle Memory (Basic) => Muscle Memory (Apprentice)
My birthday was a low-key event with as far as I was aware only one of my fellow mercenaries knowing about it, though I couldn’t dismiss the possibility that Captain Walker might also know. Private Richard Barncastle of the Scouts was my only real friend and while we weren’t as close as we once were we still occasionally spent some time together. Richard managed to discreetly wish me a happy birthday at morning chow but we weren’t in the habit of exchanging gifts or anything like that.