7. Horses and Haircuts
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+500 Health per second, (30 seconds)
I glanced at my health bar, which was recovering from dipping below twenty five percent. If I hadn’t loaded up on recovery items before I’d left, I would have had to head back by now. I’d already burned through two thirds of the level appropriate items in my inventory. I’d heard Phil complain before how annoying it was to wait between fights when he didn’t have a healer keeping his health topped off, but I’d never appreciated it before experiencing it for myself.
The Darkspawn I was facing was weaker than what I was used to facing in groups. When I faced groups, they had lower health pools, took more damage, and dealt less. Solo enemies were about the same strength as me and required a bit of skill to put down, but as long as I timed my abilities correctly they weren’t very difficult.
Unfortunately, I was forced to decide between allowing them to hit me to generate Anger, or killing them entirely with my Energy pool, which regenerated slowly. The abilities powered by Anger were significantly more damaging, with a much higher chance of scoring a critical hit. I had tried both methods and found them both frustrating.
The fastest method I’d found was to build up my anger on one enemy, then charge between groups dealing high critical damage with chained Furious Strikes. This only worked when the enemies were located close together, however, as while Anger had no upper limit, it dissipated quickly when it wasn’t being actively generated.
I pulled up my quest log to confirm that the last group had accomplished my goal for this particular area.
Quest:
Bounty: Dragonling Infiltrators
Levels 15-20 solo
A small group of Dragonlings have managed to bypass the patrols and are raiding the nearby settlements. While of little threat to the populace, they are a nuisance, and a stain on the local guard’s reputation.
A bounty has been issued for their demise.
Goal:
Kill the following targets:
Dragonling Mastermind
1/1
Draconid
30/30
Draconid Wrangler
10/10
Dragonling Scout
5/5
Rewards:
Reputation with local guard
42 Silver
Experience
While I had been grinding on the low level Dragonlings (how had such a weak group managed to make it so far into the Heartlands to begin with?), I had also been gathering Draconid Teeth for a second quest that offered about the same rewards. That was great, since the Draconids – large grey lizards that swarmed in packs of two to five – were impossible to avoid, even after I’d hit the target number for the primary quest. The reward of the quest for their teeth, however, seemed to scale with however many I turned in.
The Dragonling Mastermind had left behind a note after he had puffed into black mist, and when I had picked it up I had gotten another quest to turn it in. Likewise the Draconid Wranglers had dropped whips that I was meant to collect for another quest, and the Dragonling Scouts, the hardest to find of all of the lizard-like humanoids, had dropped a flint knife which completed its own quest. Unfortunately, the knife had been rather hard to find, and I’d had to send fifteen scouts back to the Adversary before I managed to find one.
Satisfied that I had completed all of my objectives, I left the infiltrator’s camp behind me, returning to the city with Fast Travel. Killing the objectives for the quests hadn’t given me as much experience as grinding in a group would have, but it had still pushed me into level seventeen. When I turned in the quest at the Adventurer’s Guild, I gained another level. Feeling rather pleased with myself, I decided it was time to get some sleep.
I had to ask the street children where to find an inn, as none of the Travelers seemed to know, and it wasn’t a service that the Adventurer’s guild provided. I suppose that made sense, since Travelers had to return to Earth to sleep. I was exhausted, and while I could have returned to the lobby and slept in the copy of my childhood room that resided there, I decided to stay on Lagrea while I rested.
I unequipped my gear directly by putting it into my inventory, put on my nightclothes, and crawled into bed, perfectly unaware of the trouble that I had just caused.
After clearing out four more encampments similar to the Dragonling Infiltrators the next day, I reached level twenty. I made two decisions simultaneously. One was that I was done with solo questing for a while. It was an efficient way to level, but I preferred Lairs or Dungeons.
The second decision was to reunite with Shadow, whom I promptly summoned before I’d even finished regenerating my health from the fight which had pushed me over the precipice and into level twenty. The midnight-black stallion emerged from my shadow, reared and whinnied his frustration at having been cooped up for so long.
“Easy, Shadow,” I said, “I might be a tank now, but I’m still not eager to take a horseshoe to the forehead.”
The horse calmed himself and stepped closer to me, nudging my hand for a treat. I laughed and pulled a sugar cube from my inventory to feed him while rubbing his head affectionately.
I had learned that Shadow did not exactly reside inside my shadow, as I’d initially thought. Rather, my shadow was simply the conduit through which I could summon him. When he wasn’t present, he was in my stable in North Shire, being cared for by my stable boy, Irvine.
Irvine was also in training by my old guild to be my master of ceremony (while getting all of the details completely wrong). He was quite good with horses, however, as I had witnessed myself, and Shadow was as groomed as ever. Unsaddled and unbridled, for Irvine would have had no warning that I’d be reclaiming my ability to ride today, I took a few minutes of simply marveling in the muscular beast’s perfect … horsiness. I don’t know. He was a hell of horse and I was proud that he was mine.
I told him as much as I fed him carrots and sugar cubes before mounting him and riding him at a gallop through the arid steppe. I didn’t have a destination in mind, I simply rode for the joy of it for close to two hours. That’s not to say that my time was completely wasted simply riding; I did travel to the local fortress towns and attune to their nexus points so that I could Fast Travel back to them if the need should ever occur. And I also took the time to turn in my completed quests, which were enough to give me another half a level’s worth of experience.
Additionally, riding Shadow through the rough terrain for so long was enough to finally push my [Animal Handling] skill to level twenty, allowing me to attune a second mount. I chose to attune Shalasmir, the trapped spirit of a shadow drake that my father had once slain. He had ridden it for years before bequeathing it to me.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t ride the drake yet. Not until level eighty. He would simply sit in my list of mounts until that day came. I could move either one of them to my inactive mounts list at any time, and I could have many inactive mounts, just like a traveler, but I chose not to fill up the list because I already had the best ground mount and the best aerial mount in the world. There was simply no point in searching further.
I grew hungry towards the evening, and stopped in one of the fortress towns to eat. Simply being human was enough to get me through the gates, but it took some convincing for the locals to feed me and give me a place to sleep overnight. That was, apparently, not a service they offered Travelers very often.
In the morning, I returned to the Lobby. It was the third day since I had spoken to Daemon and asked him to begin the preparations for me to hold court, which made today the day. I had a few hours to prepare.
I began by leveling [Lord] and [Mage] both to level twenty with the free experience I had gained as a warrior. I traveled to Prowlhaven, capital of Eolstree, to do some shopping. I hadn’t been certain what level I would wind up as, but I wanted to look my best while presiding over my court.
I purchased a [Tailored Silk Suit], a number of accessories including a new broach and a pair of cufflinks, and I visited a barber shop to have my hair cut for the first time in a while. The barber gave a slight start when I lowered my illusion so that he could actually perform his job adequately, but he recovered quickly.
Though my new items were completely unsuitable for combat, they increased my Charisma score by 23 points. I figured that might be important, as some of my abilities as a [Lord] seemed to scale off that value. I hoped they did, at least, as that would make my high natural score in that category useful for once. The Charisma on [Blade of Eclipse] was a large part of that overall score, providing twelve points. Most of the other accessories I found were selling for very cheap, and had various other stats on them which I doubted would matter.
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After all, if I was about to be facing open combat, then something had gone very wrong. I would be relying on Tarisha and my other guardians to keep me safe while I found a safe place to return to the lobby. But at least that if someone did kill me, I wouldn’t be that put out. I’d even be able to immediately return Lord back to level 20 with my banked free experience. I still had some leftover which I could only spend on my [Placeholder] class, but not enough to unlock a new slot, so it wasn’t worth spending.
I watched the barber do his job as I examined my status screen, scrutinizing the new class closely.
Name
Hail Jeoran
Level
20
Guild
None
Strength
26
Health
8560/8560
Dexterity
48
Mana
9680/9680
Vitality
43
Energy
448/448
Endurance
28
Experience
0/8000
Intelligence
48
Age
15
Wisdom
36
Race
Human (blood of the travelers)
Charisma
84
Class
Lord
Armor
6
Rank
Earl
Attack Power
75
Titles
Dungeon Master I
Critical Damage
2.12
Veteran of Mooncrest Manor
Spell Power
12
Veteran of The Battle for North Shire
Weapon Damage Rating
C-
I sighed. It was simply no good. Compared to [Mage], which presently had a Spell Power of 53, and Warrior, which had an Attack Power of 153, Lord was trailing too far behind. I could try fighting again by re-equiping some of the gear that I’d used when I’d been a [Child] spellblade and see if that made a difference, but without [Magic in Motion] to buff my Spell Power, I doubt it was worth casting magic in this class at all.
It might be worthwhile to use my weapon imbues and fight that way. I would have to try it. However, there was the lingering fact that my experience gain from combat was limited to thirty percent of normal in this class. The only reason I could think of to try to do so was nostalgia.
Soon, I would unlock [Duelist]. I just had to get [Warrior] to level thirty and complete one of the many quests to transform the class. Anger would transform into Skill, my active skills would change significantly, and a significant number of other things would change as well. Then, thirty levels after that, I would be eligible for a quest to change [Duelist] (or [Mage]) into [Spellblade].
As I thought about it, however, I began to wonder if I was really looking forward to losing access to my [Warrior] class. I had been spending most of my time in it because I had thought it would be the fastest class to level between [Lord], [Mage], and [Warrior], and while I found its lack of ranged options frustrating sometimes, there was sometimes something simply cathartic about smashing something with a mace as hard as I could.
Especially when that something turns into black mist afterward.
“Is something wrong, My Lord?” the barber asked as he was finishing up.
“Everything is wrong,” I told him. “I am Yuikonese, if you cannot tell, and my nation is in a state of woe. Nial Kingslayer and his guild
“I see,” the barber said. “I just cut hair. Can’t help you with anything else. But you ever need another good haircut, you come on back.”
He finished up a few moments later, casting a quick cantrip to make the trimmings vanish without messing my clothes. I thanked and tipped him before pulling up my Fast Travel menu and choosing the Nexus Point in Ebbyvale, the seat of North Shire, where I was to hold court within the hour.