The party set out at dawn. As they walked, Vultressant looked at his stat sheet to determine where to allocate his growing number of points. He had assigned points when he attained level two, and his racial bonus had dropped a point into his Intellect automatically every time he gained a level, but he still had 20 points to spend. His stats were currently Charisma: 14, Dexterity: 13, Fate: 14, Intellect: 38, Psyche: 16, Strength: 11, Vitality: 15, Health Points: 150, Mana Points: 380. He believed that his three most important stats were Intellect, Psyche, and Vitality, and he currently couldn’t see any reason to use any points on the other attributes. He could make a case for upping his Dexterity, but his spells were far more useful than his bow, so he ruled that stat out for now. Intellect was his primary stat, but it increased every level since he was a Gnome, and he could increase it greatly if he could learn more languages. His Koraken was up to rank eight, and he needed to work more on his Elvish, which he had only gotten to rank five—he had been speaking with Vanya in Elvish sometimes when they traveled, but it went up very slowly, certainly compared to Anuran and Koraken. He had gained six points in Intellect when he made rank ten in the Anuran language, and he assumed that that would be the case for all languages. It also made sense to focus on Psyche, which would increase his mana regeneration as well as help with his essence extraction skill since that was the stat listed in the loot options for it. He also needed to put something into Vitality. He already regained his mana points twice as fast as normal due to the passive ability of his enhanced mana regen ability, so any increase that he got would be doubled. Vultressant had avoided harm thus far, but he wanted more health just to be safe.

Eventually he opted for a 15-to-5 split, giving the lion’s share to Psyche and the lesser amount to Vitality. He vowed to himself not to hoard points in the future until they were in a position that was more secure, since he didn’t want the loss of a battle or the life of a party member to be caused by his lack of attributes.

His next task was to choose his new spells. He looked through those now available to him, and he checked out the new fire spells first. The first was conflagration. This spell did a medium amount of damage and had a high probability of setting the target on fire. The cooldown on the spell was two minutes, so he wouldn’t be able to spam this spell. It was also a mana hog, costing 130 MP, but it did 40–50 base damage and lasted ten seconds. The spell would be more distracting to an opponent than his bolt of fire spell, but the range and cooldown time were not as good. The next spell was flaming missile. It treated arrows with an explosive element, which caused additional damage. Vultressant thought that it could be useful, but he had the bolt of fire spell to do a similar thing, so he checked the third option, called blazing retribution. It was a spell that was triggered when he was hit by an enemy. When struck, he could spend 70 MP to send a wave of heat at the attacker, causing 25–30 base damage. The cooldown was a minute, so this would not happen very often, but it might keep him alive or at least be a deterrent for monsters.

Vultressant then checked the wind spell options; there were only two. The first, frost spray, cost 40 mana and had a base damage of 25. The spell was similar to his bolt of fire spell but dealt cold damage instead of fire. The new spell had some advantages compared to his fire spell: first, it was cheaper, costing ten mana less than the fire equivalent, and it also had higher base damage—the base damage for bolt of fire was 10–20 HP. The downside was that it only had a 15-foot range. If he took this spell, he could alternate between the fire and air spells to mitigate the cooldown times, provided that he was close to the enemies. His other option was a buff. Enhanced speed had a cost of 60 MP, and the spell would increase a target’s Dexterity and movement rate for five minutes. Initially, it could only be active on one person. He would have to wait until rank II if he wanted to cast the spell on an additional target.

The best of the fire spells was conflagration, but the high mana cost and long cooldown time turned Vultressant off, so he decided upon the two wind spells. Being able to alternate between the bolt of fire and frost spray spells could be huge, and while he had to be closer to the action to use it, it could really make the difference in a tough battle. The wind buff, enhanced speed, just seemed to be the best all-around choice.

Vultressant was walking with Vanya, and they spoke in Elvish for most of the morning. He was frustrated with the slow progress. He reminded himself that no one else had even achieved rank one in Elvish—or learned any new language for that matter—but the process was still slower than what he wanted. He had learned Anuran far more quickly, but he had received language instruction from Tollaisa. Vanya basically just told him stories of her life, and most of the stories were from her high school days and centered on sports and cheerleading. She spoke a bit about her accident and the years that followed. It obviously had a profound effect on her development into adulthood. She lost the ability to walk, and it upended her entire world. She had quickly grown out of her self-centered high school life. He didn’t think that he could have handled tragedy like that nearly as well as she had.

“It sucks that Elvish is taking me so long to learn,” he lamented between stories.

Vanya gave him a sideways glance. “You got someplace else you want to be?” she asked with a hint of irritation.

Vultressant, unsure why she was annoyed, tried to backpedal. “N-no,” he said quickly, holding up his hands defensively. “I just mean it has gone significantly slower than either Anuran or Koraken, and I don’t know why.”

Vanya appeared somewhat mollified by his explanation. “Elvish is an ancient language that has evolved over millennia. It’s far more complex than the languages of this age. It’s also weird that there are no contractions in Elvish, but I’m not sure if that makes it easier or harder to learn.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“This age?” he asked. “How do you know that?

She shrugged. “I just do.”

“What are you guys fighting about?” Ewtain asked. While he normally scouted ahead with Taloc, today he walked with the rest of the group. He wanted to recover more fully from the injuries he had sustained the previous day.

“Vult doesn’t want to spend time with me,” Vanya teased, switching back to Common.

“That’s not true,” he said quickly and defensively.

Ewtain laughed. “Sure, he doesn’t,” he said sarcastically. “If you want people to believe that, then you two should try not to be thick as thieves.”

“Hey, are you feeling any better today?” Vultressant asked, trying to change the subject.

Ewtain shrugged and said, “Sure?”

“You don’t sound too confident about that,” Vanya commented.

Ewtain nodded once towards her. “Well, my health points are all back, but I’m really sore, and my head is still pretty foggy. I played football in high school, and I was concussed once. It feels a bit like that.”

“What position?” Vultressant asked.

“Hmm? Oh, I was a wideout. Our quarterback had a tendency to throw high, so I got upended more than a few times after jumping up for a ball.”

“That’ll do it.” Vultressant said as he nodded knowingly. He had not played himself, but he was a big fan of the sport and had seen numerous plays similar to what Ewtain had described. “Weren’t you pretty short for a wideout?”

Ewtain shrugged. “I was fast, and I could jump higher than anyone on the team.”

That made sense, and it was high school; college would have been a different matter. “Hey, I noticed you doing a lot of different things when you attack. The others just sort of stick and move unless they activate a special ability, but you dance around and look like you know what you are doing. Did you have any fighting experience in real life?”

“Not at all,” Ewtain said, shaking his head. “I just had the knowledge, and apparently the muscle memory, to do that stuff when I rolled my character. I mean, I knew the basics before, like the pointy end goes in the soft parts and so forth, but the knowledge of how to actually move and use the weapons came from this place.” He waved his hand around, motioning to the sky. “Did you know how to cast spells in real life?”

Vultressant rolled his eyes. “I see your point,” he said. “I just thought that it might be different for the weapon stuff. The only skill that I have relating to a mundane weapon is bow, and I already knew how to use a bow prior to this world.”

“I didn’t know that you hunted,” Ewtain said.

“Oh, I didn’t. I just used targets. I was pretty good with it, but it was a compound bow, and this one is much harder to use.” Vultressant motioned to the bow slung over his shoulder. “The target reticle that appears helps, but I had to adapt from aiming in the real world.”

“Well, as my skills and stats go up, I get better,” Ewtain said, and then he considered for a moment. “Although it could be the other way around.”

“I had never shot a bow before, but I knew how to use one in the same way that I knew how to cast my spells,” Vanya said. “Also, when I gain a level, my spells get more effective. I think that the experience gives us more ability and not the other way around.”

“I guess it really doesn’t matter,” Ewtain said. “I went for a Dex build, so I’ve put every attribute point towards it, along with the 20 points from drinking the fountain water.” He paused and waved a pointing hand at the two of them. “Oh, and you’re welcome, by the way—I told you that fountain would be magical. Anyway, I want to see what I can do now. I also got a speed perk, or quickness or something, but I don’t know how that will play into my fighting yet. My skills are increasing steadily. Well, the roguish ones have, but nothing has jumped up like Isla’s persuasion did.” He turned his head. “Hey, Isla,” Ewtain called.

Isla was up ahead with Maroftis. The two of them stopped and waited for the others to catch up. “I thought that you were supposed to be the stealthy one of us.” Isla chastised him quietly when they were close enough to be heard.

Ewtain shrugged. “It’s my day off.” She scowled at him. “What? I probably have brain damage.” Her features smoothed at this revelation. “Anyway, how are your skills doing? I have a couple at six, but I was wondering if you had any big jumps like you made with the frogs.”

“Uh, sorry. I do hope that you feel better. Other than the persuasion skill, my best one is at eight.” Isla projected her skill sheet for them all to see. She had abilities that remained at level 1, butchering, throw weapon, perform, and bluff, but with the exception of throw weapon, these were all non-combat skills. Her long blades skill was indeed at level 8. The other fighting skills had all leveled as well: dodge was at 7, shield 5, bow 6, marksman 4, fencing 3, and gymnastics was at 2.

“Your skills look in line with mine; they’re just a bit higher,” Ewtain remarked. “I wonder why your persuasion went up as much as it did.”

Vanya raised her hand above her shoulder as if requesting to speak. “Maybe the Anurans were somehow much tougher than us. Most games reward players for succeeding against superior opponents.”

Ewtain looked skeptical. “You think that the elder frogs were that tough? I mean, sure, they are probably tougher than the peasant frogs, but they looked pretty fragile.”

“Haw, haw!” Maroftis exclaimed in what must have been a laugh. “Any one of three could have done us out whenever, maybe still could.”

Vanya had been visibly startled by the abrupt laugh, but she composed herself enough to ask, “Why do you say that? And what rank is your Common at? That was pretty good.”

They were all looking at Maroftis. “My assess other skill just give information sometime. It triggered at meeting, and they all much tougher than we. None other Anuran were match for me, but those three... The women were casters of something, and the yellow dude must have fighting ability, because I feel he deadly in melee. My Common is now at rank four. It be easiest of languages to learn, probably why it so common.” He laughed again.

“You should probably let us know when we are outclassed in the future,” Isla admonished.

Maroftis tilted his head to one side and gave a quizzical look, which looked more like he was focusing on her neck and about to strike. Isla retreated a step, wary of a possible attack from her party member. After a tense moment, Maroftis said, “Relax. We not going to attack them, and I could almost not understand what was said in first place. I did warn about ape though.”

Isla nodded, but she still seemed ill-at-ease. After increasing in size by thirty percent or more, Maroftis was now even more imposing.

Vanya nodded. “You did, but I just assumed that it was because of the size of the thing. I had forgotten about your ability. I’ll try to remember in the future.”

Maroftis, who didn’t seem to register that he had caused any sort of tension at all, shrugged and replied in his gravelly growling voice, “It’s cool.”