A hundred trees in 60 minutes. I’ll have about 30 seconds per tree at the start, tops. I’ll slow down over the course of the hour for sure. And if I fail, how long are the trees gonna last me? Limited attempts. The quest said I wasn’t allowed to touch the actual treeline, so what, I'm supposed to only clear the trees surrounding the mills?
What had appeared to be an easy task at first glance was quickly turning into a chore. Damon’s primary weapon was ineffective, since kicking a fully grown tree to take it down was just stupid. That was precisely the sort of trauma they were built to withstand. Even with his tremendous Strength, the method was far too inefficient. That left his dormant daggers, and they were a puny sort of blade for taking on one tree, let alone a hundred within such a tight deadline.
But for right now, that's the best option available. Damon checked the edges and noticed how they could use a sharpening already. By the time they were done here, he wouldn’t be surprised if both knives got worn down to their nubs.
This was also an opportunity, however. Damon needed to practice handling his new blades as much as he’d used to practice his kicking. The variety of ways you could move your body to improve the power of a strike were nearly limitless, and there was no doubt he was only scratching the surface of his Class so far.
If I handle them correctly, they should last me at least until we get back to the goblin village, then we can get one of their blacksmiths or something to take a look.
Before beginning he checked in on his other active quest:
Prowess Progression - Progress - (260/10,000)
Wow, what the hell. That’s like more hours completed than there’s been hours in the day, have I really been learning that many new abilities? I wish I could get a list or something, to track what it is I’ve been progressing in.
Damon was suddenly very pleased with their activities since coming to the forest, and he began fantasizing about what the System might be reckoning he was currently learning. Ridiculous suggestions like venom resistance, camouflage spotting and pylon guardian negotiating springing to mind, but it seemed just as likely that it might be specific techniques he’d been pulling off, or even the fauna he’d been learning how to identify from Berry.
Whatever the case, I’m making headway a lot faster than I expected, gotta call that a win.
Damon approached the tree and ignited the Mana in his belly, feeling the energy responding swifter than usual, stoked by this fuelling sense of progression, erupting from a calmly empowering smolder to a sustaining ember—making Damon feel urged to rush ahead and get a head start on the pylonquest right away, and to hell with any further planning. He needed to embrace this challenge to the fullest extent of his abilities in the moment to get a feel for his new techniques, not waste his time figuring out what had already been learned previously.
Only one task mattered for right now, and no matter when he started the timer, Damon figured he would just need to fell a hundred trees within the span of 60 minutes, from some point to another. Even if he failed in the first hour, he decided then he would just keep going and keep on trying to build his momentum somehow. I just hope there’s enough trees, and that I won’t be bothering the rest of the local denizens too badly.
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They were hours in by this point.
Blåberry saw Damon trying out this new thing, where he was taking on three trees placed in decent proximity all at once—starting out by running alongside all three and getting his short blades to scrape around the full circumference at their very bottoms, right above the roots—cutting through the tough outer layer of bark, dramatically dropping the total tensile strength—until he could crack the first tree right by its base, causing it to topple its weight towards the other two. He was acting like a possessed, weeding gardener who’d been shrunk down to half the size of the encroaching plant life, and yet refused to stop weeding the giant stalks that had been a near impossible challenge even afore his shrinkage.
Berry pitied the hardworking, poor bastard. This was certainly no challenge that Berry was ever gonna complete, nor did she see any need to. The reward looked like shite, to her eyes. Meanwhile a tree was a ridiculously tough organism to challenge to a strength contest, its roots were going to beat you every time. Unless you were Human, apparently.
Damon wasn’t giving up.
He started out trying to use his daggers like axes, basically just working out how to put as much force behind the blades as possible without damaging them unduly.
That method did not last. Soon enough Damon opted for something entirely different, after the first ten trees took him over half an hour.
He'd started weakening several of the bunches in key spots, then unbalanced the first one in a row and tried to use it falling onto the others, which were weakened in turn, to hopefully cause a chain reaction that he was partially a part of, every step of the way as he ran alongside and facilitated the force of each felling into the next.
Didn’t count, said the pylon quest.
He'd spent hours with the only result being Blåberry laughing herself shitless, while she kept clearing the path of the slime viper vermin for him all the while, busy trying to catch up in levels while he did labor which his typical brute body was so well-suited for, despite the surprising grace of some of his techniques.
He was looking plenty scruffy already and was going to become a fully bearded, bastard lumberjack before they were done here, if something didn’t change soon.
All the while Damon’s fighting technique with his enhanced body really was improving, and his prowess quest was certainly progressing. But it wasn’t enough. Not nearly. By the time dusk fell, they were still struggling to make any headway, and Damon had only been getting more and more exhausted past hour six. His weapons were getting worse for wear too, and there was still no solution in sight. Without inspiration or hope, Damon's spirit was flagging.
That evening she slew another [Weaverbat Boomslang Slime] lying in ambush for her companion, and thus Blåberry completed the 2nd Class quest she’d been working on. (250/250).
She slept like a snory princess in Damon’s hood that night.
Come morning, all her meticulous preparations were complete. The guardian was slain, the bark ready to be collected, her 2nd Skillquest completed. Now she just needed Damon to finish up, and then they were out of here, and she could put the final phase of her plan into play.
When Damon woke, she told him to get ready for another go right away, as soon as he’d completed his rather interesting series of morning stretches, then she endowed him with her [Herculean Impetus].
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Damon barely noticed how every tree was regrown overnight, as part of the pylon’s quest function. He had no time, his body was already in motion, so he went with it and simply charged ahead.
He’d been awake for less than fifteen seconds before Berry announced that it was go-time, and they didn’t have all day. Apparently she’d figured something out, which didn’t surprise him by that point. When she flushed and started vibrating on the spot—before hitting him on the neck with a sudden slap—Damon had been happily surprised. He’d thought he was gonna have to endure another tirade at first, and with the way she was winding up like an alarm clock, it was looking to be a big one.
Instead it turned out that this was how she transferred the new energy of her Skill, and what a tremendous amount of energy that was. Damon felt every muscle in his body swell with power, while somehow contracting, prepared to explode into motion.
As he launched himself at the first tree, Damon dragged both his daggers down under the largest root like he was digging for turnips, or tearing the sewers out of a city street made soft as jello. His daggers were merely the spearheads of huge strikes that ripped at- and shredded every tree’s previously so solid base, as the Human [Specular Duelist] acted completely crazed, chopping and cleaving as if his silent, stoic opponents hid the only remaining sliver of flesh that could ever still his burgeoning hunger, hidden deep amongst their roots.
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The first mighty trunk toppled in fifteen seconds, and the crazy Human refused to slow down. The question soon became if he was gonna be able to keep it up, because the intensity he was charging at looked downright exhausting. After half an hour Blåberry was still standing awestruck, and somehow Damon still kept going. What did I do? How long does it last?
Neither of them knew, and Damon was filled with a sensation telling him that if he slowed for even a second then they were about to find out, so, Damon simply refused to. He’d spent too many hours yesterday struggling, trying to build on some sort of momentum that just wasn’t there. Each tree sapped him of his will, not to mention the power in his limbs, and by the end he was a panting mess rather than the athletic warrior who’d first started out.
He wasn’t gonna let that repeat again, not today. Not for as long as there was a different option. Empowered like this, he could really do something about the challenge, do what none of his raging and frustration managed to accomplish yesterday. All he needed was the will to force his body to keep moving, to endure the pain and exertion while staying fully zeroed in on his goal.
He wasn’t sure what Blåberry had done to his body, but he knew he loved the empowering feeling and wanted more. The sensation didn’t feel chemical, or like she’d borrowed from his reserves. Rather it felt more like she’d given him a fuelling spark of turbo, almost like some fuel rarer than oxygen or calories, something truly special.
Oh. And an abundance of brute Strength. Can’t forget about Strength.
When he finished the 100th tree, only 45 minutes had passed, and the only reason he’d slowed by the end was because he refused to stick to the smaller specimens, instead going for larger and larger targets from among the heavy trunks impeding his path all around the mills.
He was still building momentum by the end.
[1st Pylonquest of Doc Forest: Felling ‘Round the Mill. Progress - (100/100)]
[Pylonquest completed. Collect your reward at the System Pylon.]
“Whoo!” Damon dropped to his belly before flipping over onto his back, and raising his hands in the air, finally letting the remaining nubs of his daggers drop out of his death-locked hands. “Yeah, that's how you fucking do it!” He shouted in a hoarse voice, barely able to gather the breath, meanwhile he heard Blåberry catching up, still zipping amongst the branches.
“That was truly amazing, you wrecked that challenge!”
“Hell… yea… that was all us, baby. Now, what the hell was that you gave me?”
“Hah, it’s my new Skill, ya like it? I can use it twice a day, for now. You’re gonna be begging me for it, when we go up against the Rootmother,” She bragged heartily.
He couldn’t help but laugh at the little goblin’s audacity. “You bet, that was like being roided up on a lighting bolt from Zeus. I want that shit in my veins every day, just to train with. Once I can move like that from sheer levels, the world better watch out!”
She alighted on his shoulder with a beaming smile and said what they were both thinking. “Let’s go grab that reward!”
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Once the two of them returned to the main house they were faced with the same dusty basement where they’d killed the Hiisi, whose inanimate, broken mask was now lying still and lifeless, looking just like it could have never been anything else. It made Damon curious, so he fired off another [Identify], and was rewarded with a surprising result.
[Late Antlered Venerer Hiisi - Level 79 — Defeated by Damon Bishop - Level 31.]
Huh, wonder if everyone gets to see that? Damon wasn't sure whether he wanted that or not.
But the corpse couldn't keep them distracted for long, not with the enchanted axe still hovering above the pylon, just like they’d expected.
What they weren’t expecting was for Damon to be presented with three options when he walked back up to the pylon after having finished the objective set out for him.
[Pylon Reward unlocked: Item Subsumption - Item Bonding - Item Consumption.]
Item Subsumption - Awaken or enchant a weapon of your choice, gaining 50% of the available Ratings with an additional 50% chance of subsuming the item’s traits.
Item Bonding - Add a new item to your arsenal, bonding it to your person and gaining the ability to locate it forevermore. The weapon will long for its master’s hand.
Item Consumption - Have the reward item consumed, absorbing its Ratings but assuring the craft put in so lovingly goes to waste - yet satisfy your belly for a day more.
[Item Reward - Lumberjack’s Primal Hatchet - Rare quality, heavy - Rating: +30 Str +10 Mana. Trait: Cleave]
Wow. Not bad. “The choice seems rather obvious, right?” Damon had read it all out loud for Berry’s benefit, and she seemed to agree.
“Yeah, even with 50% odds, gaining a cleave effect on those daggers would be the bomb, and you don’t want to move away from your Class, trust me. Even if it helps your current situation, in the long run you’re always better off finding a solution focused within your own skill set,” She nodded seriously, like that had been a hard-taught personal lesson of hers.
“Yeah, alright. Fair enough.”
Damon kept running into this Path of Consumption, having first seen it among his own Class options, and it was making him a bit worried for the future. He could all too well imagine a psycho getting lucky and going down that path, only to end up becoming an unbreakable monster from all the passive stat boosts he’d collected along the way. And it wasn't like you could wield 10 weapons at once to compensate in turn. Those on such Paths might be able to stand in a crowd, wearing everyday clothes, and be the most dangerous person in the city without using a single active Skill.
That was a scary thought, how were such individuals even going to move at the higher levels? Like speed demons.
Damon shuddered. I just need to stay further ahead, it’s the only way of staying remotely safe in this insane world. Just got to keep throwing ourselves into gradually worsening dangers, hah. What a way to stay alive.
When he picked option one, the pylon started glowing in a bright teal light and the daggers at his hips suddenly floated up into the air, looking like they were being drawn towards the insubstantial floating axe.
Rather than whatever half-baked fantasy Damon’s mind had been expecting, the daggers simply disappeared into the axe, while the weapon itself gathered so much of the teal energy that it seemed to melt into a nebulous cloud—until the energy finally faded, leaving his old familiar daggers behind, looking fully restored. Except both of them were wholly changed, including the materials used. Where before the metal had been a dull gray and completely worn down from all the logging; now Damon was finally able to see the enchanted version of Abi’s creations.
[Tanto-tipped Bowies - Awakening Rare pair - Stats: +15 Strength +5 Mana. Trait: Cleave]