[Notice: You’re ready to level up]
Isabelle and Tahsi stood in the tent, looking to Sir Jingles and then to the prince of Sharithlond, both of whom were bound by ropes.
Isabelle was confused. “What in the hell is Sharithlond?”
“The Kingdom of Sharithlond is the closest nation to the Protectorate of Ozi,” said Tahsi. “And this elf is the prince of it. Apparently.”
[Notice: You’re ready to level up]
“Yes, that’s true,” said the elf.
“Well, what are you doing here?” asked Isabelle. “And why were those assholes I just slaughtered outside holding you captive?”
“They were holding me for ransom,” said the elf. “Surprisingly enough, a prince is worth a lot of money. Even when you’re essentially just a figurehead for the Overlord.”
Isabelle didn’t know how she felt about this elf prince. He seemed rather full of himself. “Why don’t you go into a little more detail?” she asked.
“I can do that,” said the elf. “But please, do cut these ropes off me first before I give you the down low. They’re awfully harsh on my soft, uncalloused wrists.”
Isabele rolled her eyes. Did wrists normally get calloused? Regardless, Isabelle walked over to the prince and cut him loose.
“Why’d you let him free first?” asked Sir Jingles sadly.
“I would ask that same question myself, if I weren’t going to run the hell out of here!” said the prince. He then dashed for the exit to the tent, pushing past Isabelle and darting through the woods.
Actually, Isabelle herself was wondering why she’d let the elf free of his ropes so quickly.
[Clarification: You failed a persuasion check against him. Increasing your wis and int stats, as well as leveling up your speechcraft, can lessen your chances of such failure in the future.]
[Notice: You’re ready to level up]
“Shit,” said Isabelle. She looked to her party members, noticing Sir Jingles was still bound. She walked to him and cut his ropes loose. “What a little twerp of an elf prince. If he even is a prince. Should we try and catch him? That prince might have a higher speechcraft than me, but we’ve got horses.”
“He’s rich and powerful, Isabelle,” said Sir Jingles. “If he wasn’t lying about all that, that is. I say we go get him.”
“I agree,” said Tahsi. “Mainly because it’ll distract me from how scared of you I am, Isabelle.”
“Alright, I’ll call the horses,” said Isabelle. She thought, ‘Come here, horses.’
With a flurry of hoofing, whinnines and neighs, two horses burst into the tent, knocking its fabric walls to the side.
“Wait a second,” said Isabelle. “Where’s Stefano?”
“The bandits you slaughtered had him tied to that tree, Isabelle,” said
Sir Jingles, pointing at a nearby tree with a torn rope tied around its trunk.
The party looked around for the bright white horse, seeing not a sign of him anywhere.
“Oh my gods,” said Tahsi. “I bet the runaway prince took Stefano. The bastard.”
Isabelle wondered if that was even possible. Somehow, she’d thought the system would keep her horses from being stolen, or that if they were, that her horse mind-commands would cancel it out.
[Clarification: Yes, your horses can be stolen. When they are mounted by someone other than you, they will not listen to your mind-commands, as horses’ int scores are generally very low and the whole experience is very disorienting to them.]
[Notice: You’re ready to level up]
Shit. Would Isabelle and her party have to track Stefano’s hoofprints, like she and Tahsi had to find the bandit encampment in the first place?
[Clarification: As long as your are in posession of a horse’s title, you can use the system to track your horse’s location. To activate this feature, think ‘Track Horse (Name of Horse)’.]
[Notice: You’re ready to level up]
Isabelle wanted to level up, and she appreciated the system giving her notice to remind her that it was time, but she felt like she ought to go ahead and catch that prince first. Isabelle thought ‘Track Horse Stefano.’
A small green arrow appeared up in the top of Isabelle’s vision that spun and twirled like a compass, just like the arrow that had directed her through the dungeon when she snuck out of Cloud Reach’s prison except for the fact that there was a small horse shoe emblem on it.
“Alright, everyone follow me,” said Isabelle. She mounted Lugano, preparing to run through the forest in the arrow’s direction.
“Hey, wait a second,” said Sir Jingles. “I don’t have a horse now!”
“Doug has plenty of room, Sir Jingles,” said Tahsi. “He is quite a husky boy.” Tahsi patted the horse on the top of the head and equipped a loaf of bread. “Would you like some bread in this trying time?”
“I’m carnivorous,” said Sir Jingles. “Thanks, though.”
“Is everyone ready to go?” asked Isabelle. She was feeling impatient.
“Yes,” said Tahsi and Sir Jingles in unison.
[Notice: You’re ready to level up]
Isabelle smiled and squeezed on Lugano with her legs. The muscly horse dashed forward through the forest in the direction of the system’s arrow. Isabelle could hear Doug’s hooves pounding behind her as Lugano wove through the trees. Lugano was definitely worth an amethyst, Isabelle thought at that moment.
It was not long before Isabelle could see Stefano running ahead of her in the distance, with the prince on his back. Unfortunately, the prince noticed her, and immediately spurred Stefano onward faster and faster. Isabelle was getting nervous about all three horses’ energy levels, and wanted this to end as soon as possible. But what could she do?
[Clarification: You can equip weapons while riding a horse. You can also enter combat mode while riding a horse, and even use your horse as a weapon in some situations.]
That was awesome. Isabelle opened her inventory.
Inventory: Isabelle
Carrying capacity: 85.5/91
Item
Traits
Orcish Longbow
+5 damage, +1 dx, +1.5 carry weight
Standard Arrow x3
n/a
Abbreviated list based on prior use. Focus to see more items…
[Orcish Longbow equipped]
[+5 damage]
[+1 dx]
[Standard Arrow x3 equipped]
[Combat mode activated]
[Notice: You’re ready to level up]
Isabelle readied her arrow as Lugano ran forward, gaining on Stefano. Part of Isabelle wished she could just cast shoot lightning at the prince, but she didn’t want to risk killing him, and she also didn’t want to hurt Stefano, because regardless of this situation he was a good horse who didn’t deserve to be hurt. Frustratingly enough, however, Isabelle was having a lot of trouble aiming her arrow while riding horseback.
[Notice: use stamina for extra battle focus?]
[Y/N]
Isabelle thought yes.
[Extra focus activated]
[Stamina 90%]
Much better. Isabelle could almost feel each bump and jostling of her horse as a wave shaking through the air, and realized that she could use it to improve her aim. Isabelle decided she’d aim right for the small of the prince’s back. That would probably not kill him, but she did have a feeling it might stop him from getting much further.
[Stamina 85%]
Isabelle fired her arrow. She watched in slow motion as it shot through the air and stabbed into the prince’s back. In an instant, he sputtered and fell off the side of Stefano, hitting his head on a root.
[Critical hit]
[504 damage dealt]
[‘Prince of Sharithlond’ is stunned]
[‘Prince of Sharithlond’ is unconscious]
[Stamina 72%]
[Combat mode deactivated]
[Archery increased to level 5]
[Achievement Unlocked: Enter combat mode while riding a horse]
[Achievement Unlocked: Fire an arrow while riding a horse]
[Achievement Unlocked: Stun an enemy in combat]
[Notice: You’re ready to level up]
Isabelle rolled her eyes. She knew well enough she needed to level up! She just needed to deal with this prince first. Isabelle rode up to the prince and to Stefano, who was standing there and chewing on his lip absentmindedly.
Isabelle dismounted Lugano and looked at the prince.
[Loot ‘Prince of Sharithlond’?]
[Notice: You’re ready to level up]
Shit. Isabelle could loot him while he was unconscious? It made sense, and yet it still seemed like a sweet surprise to Isabelle. Still, seeing as the prince was unconscious, Isabelle figured she ought to go ahead an level up already. So, Isabelle shrugged.
[Notice: You’ve reached level 13!]
[Notice: You have attribute and skill points to spend]
[Would you like to spend your points now?]
[Y/N]
Isabelle thought yes.
Attribute Points to Spend: 9
Hp:
44
H-Regen:
3/50sec
Mana:
25
M-Regen:
2/min
Stm:
30
S-Regen:
0.5/sec
Isabelle had to add to her mana points this time. She decided five to mana was a fair choice. That left four points. Isabelle figured putting two points to hp and two to stm was a fair move.
Skill Points to Spend: 9
Str:
17
Int:
15
Dx:
17
Wis:
18
Const:
18
Char:
17
Isabelle decided she needed more int and wis as soon as possible, seeing as she’d been tricked by this prince into letting him run away from them. Isabelle figured three points to int and three to wis was a good choice. That left three points to spend. Isabelle decided to put all three into char, because why the hell not? She’d been doing a lot of talking lately, and not as much fighting.
[Congratulations, you’ve finished leveling up!]
Character Status
Name:
Isabelle
Gender:
Female
Level:
13
Class:
Undefined
Race:
Human
Alignment:
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Neutral-Neutral
Attributes
Hp:
46
H-Regen:
3/50sec
Mana:
30
M-Regen:
2/min
Stm:
32
S-Regen:
0.5/sec
Skill Points
Str:
17
Int:
21
Dx:
17
Wis:
21
Const:
18
Char:
20
Magic Ability Levels
Enchant:
0
Summon:
0
Heal:
0
Destroy:
3
Transmute:
0
Confuse:
0
Normal Ability Levels
Crafting:
4
Sneak:
6
Archery:
5
Lockpick:
0
Armed Combat:
5
Melee Combat:
3
Speechcraft:
5
Sleight Of Hand:
3
Nice. Isabelle still wanted to level up her other magic abilities, but she also didn’t know where in Beaubinte she’d even run into a situation where she could do that. Maybe following that necromancy quest she’d received back in the dungeon would get her trained up as far as magic went.
Thinking about magic made Isabelle realize she actually hadn’t used her spell tome yet. Isabelle looked at the prince. He wasn’t going anywhere. With that in mind, she decided to equip her spell tome.
[Spell Tome of Minor Destroying Magic equipped]
[Would you like to learn a spell?]
[Y/N]
Isabelle thought yes.
[Please select a spell]
Isabelle couldn’t remember what spells were available in the tome, so she thought ‘Get Spells List.’
[Spells: Draw Flame, Ice Blast, Flame Blast, Shoot Lightning]
[Please select a spell]
Hmm. Flame Blast, or Ice Blast? Isabelle could look at the description for both, but she also knew she had already learned Draw Flame, and it felt like learning Ice Blast would make Isabelle a little more well-rounded. Still, Isabelle wanted to know more about the spell before she learned it. So, Isabelle thought ‘Learn More About Ice Blast.’
Spell: Ice Blast
Cost: 6 mana
Description: A barrage of ice shards fire from your hand, dealing +3 damage and +2 frost damage. If your opponent has a weakness to cold, there is a small chance that you may freeze them in place.
That sounded awesome. Isabelle thought ‘Choose Spell Ice Blast.’
[Learn Spell: Ice Blast?]
[Y/N]
Isabelle thought yes.
[Learning Spell Ice Blast]
[…]
[…]
[…]
[Spell Ice Blast Learned]
[You’ve already learned a spell today. Unequip ‘Spell Tome of Minor Destroying Magic’?]
[Y/N]
Isabelle thought yes.
[Spell Tome of Minor Destroying Magic unequipped]
Now it was time to loot this unconscious prince. Isabelle focused back on his limp body.
[Loot ‘Prince of Sharithlond’?]
Isabelle thought yes.
Inventory: Prince of Sharithlond
Item
Traits
Noble Robes
+6 char, +2 carry weight
Noble Boots
+4 dx, +4 carry weight
Necklace of Greater Speechcraft
+10 speechcraft, +0.5 carry weight
Gold (405)
n/a
Holy shit. No wonder this jerk had managed to out speechcraft Isabelle, he’d been wearing noble robes and a necklace that upped his char and speechcraft levels immensely! Isabelle was fairly surprised a supposed noble was carrying less gold than she was, but Isabelle was happy to take it all off his hands, along with all of those other nice invetory items.
Inventory: Prince of Sharithlond
Item
Traits
n/a
n/a
[Notice: You’re over encumbered. Please check your inventory.]
Seriously? What a pain in the ass. Isabelle opened her inventory, intending to see some items that she could hopefully discard without much consequence.
Inventory: Isabelle
Carrying capacity: 92/91
Item
Traits
Gold Locket
+0.5 carry weight
Toadblossom x30
+0.1 carry weight
Daggerbud Berries x30
+3 poison, +2 stun, +0.1 carry weight
Poison Spider Fangs x8
+1 carry weight
Necklace of Clam Husbandry
+0.5 carry weight
Abbreviated list based on prior use. Focus to see more items…
Wow, she was only one carry weight over encumbered. Still, out of all of those things, Isabelle felt the poison spider fangs were taking up the most space with the least reward. Isabelle hated being over encumbered, and decided to go ahead and discard all of the poison spider fangs and clear her inventory up a little bit.
Isabelle looked at the prince and snorted in laughter. He was naked, save for a small pair of cloth underwear. She wondered if she could unequip those, but didn’t feel immediately tempted. His elf body was lanky and had slightly odd proportions, and it somewhat gave him the appearance of a jaundiced human crossed with a vampire. It wasn’t necessarily a bad look, but it was unique. And, at this moment, pretty funny to Isabelle.
“Did you kill him, Isabelle?” asked Tahsi as he munched a loaf of bread nervously.
“No,” said Isabelle. “He’s just unconscious.”
“That’s good,” said Tahsi. “I don’t know if he’s really the prince or not, but if he was, and we killed him…let’s just say we don’t want to find out what would happen to us if we killed him. Especially considering he works for the Overlord. Hell, the Overlord’s probably already doing everything he can to find you, Isabelle. Best to not give him any more motivation.”
“Can I get a little bit more background on who this Overlord guy is, Tahsi? Everyone keeps mentioning him, but I honestly haven’t a damned idea who he is,” said Isabelle. “Everybody’s already trying to kill me, anyways. I don’t see what the big deal is with this Overlord guy.”
“Let’s talk about it when we go see Lute Pluck,” said Tahsi. “You’ll want to hear it from him, he won’t get any of the words wrong.”
Sir Jingles chuckled.
“What? What’s so funny?” Isabelle asked.
“Don’t worry about it, Isabelle,” said Tahsi. “You look stressed. Would you like some bread?”
“I’m good, thanks,” said Isabelle. “Now that we’ve caught this prince, what are we going to do?”
“Let’s tie him back up all nice and tight and lug him around with us,” said Sir Jingles. “I’ve got some good rope in my inventory, don’t worry.”
Isabelle and Tahsi watched as Sir Jingles equipped some black rope and tied up the naked prince artfully so that neither his arms or legs could move much at all. With a flourish, Sir Jingles equipped a silk sash and stuffed it in the unconscious prince’s mouth.
“You look like you do that a lot,” said Tahsi.
“You’re not wrong,” said Sir Jingles.
The party decided to move forward towards Wheatstar in hopes to complete Isabelle’s chosen quest of getting revenge on Oglo and reclaiming her stolen loot. At first, they were concerned that they’d have difficulty finding their way again, but Tahsi noticed that the sun was starting to sink lower in the sky and used it as a marker to direct them to the northeast.
However, the longer the party trekked on horseback, the clearer it became that they might not be able to make it through the woods and out to Wheatstar before it was nighttime, which was terribly inconvenient for a number of reasons. One of which was that Tahsi, being a kobold, was growing more and more irritable and tired.
It didn’t help that Isabelle felt like she was getting some sort of terrible horse saddle rash from all the inexperienced horseback riding she’d been doing, though she had a feeling she ought to be able to craft something with some of the plants she’d foraged that could clear her discomfort a little. Of course, that was an idea for another time, for the party had just reached a wide, flowing river of green, bubbling water.
“What the fuck do we do here, Tahsi?” asked Isabelle. “How are we supposed to cross this river?”
“I don’t fucking know!” Tahsi said back. He equipped some bread and chewed it ferociously. “Gods damnit, I’m so tired.”
“Guys, I don’t think this is a normal river,” said Sir Jingles. He equipped a small rock and tossed it into the green water. It immediately sizzled and disintegrated. “It seems to be made out of some sort of acid.”
“Ah, shit,” said Tahsi. “We’ve gone too far to the north. We’re at the Iris Canal!”
“The Iris Canal?” asked Isabelle. “That’s a weird name.”
“It’s named that because if you look at it too closely, it can burn your irises,” said Sir Jingles. “You know, because it’s so acidic.”
“Well fuck,” said Isabelle.
“I was just kidding,” said Sir Jingles. “You must’ve failed an int check or something.”
Failed an int check? How could Isabelle have failed an int check?
[Clarification: You currently have the physical state of ‘Exhaustion,’ which raises your regen times and lowers your int, wis, and char points proportionally to the amount of exhaustion you’re experiencing. Currently, you’re experiencing 25% exhaustion.]
Fuck. What a pain in the ass.
“And here, you’ll see the Iris Canal,” said a far away voice. “We’re planning on constructing a bridge over it, once we can hire on a mage that can enchant the wood so that it doesn’t melt away while we build it over the bridge.”
“Who is that?” Isabelle asked, her eyes darting around suspiciously.
“It’s just some peasant land developers, Isabelle,” said Tahsi, gesturing to the two kobolds standing about twenty feet away holding bundles of long scrolls. “They’re just doing their job, as long as we don’t do anything suspicious we have nothing to worry about.”
“Okay. Whew,” said Isabelle, sighing in relief.
“Uh, guys, I got some bad news,” said Sir Jingles.
“What?!” asked Tahsi, equipping another loaf of bread and shoving half of it down his throat in an angry gulp.
“The prince got away,” said Sir Jingles.
Isabelle and Tahsi watched as the near-naked prince ran towards the two kobolds. His arms were still bound, his mouth was still gagged (which muffled his screams), but his legs were wild and running.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” said Isabelle.
“Who?” Tahsi and Sir Jingles asked in unison.