Watcher's Test Page 22

Na-nak leapt to his feet. “I did nothing wrong. I have fulfilled the will of Bal Zar.”

  Sighing, the First had expected this, but it didn’t make it any easier. It never was when religious authority ran into conflict with the power of the crown.

  Krinnk continued to travel along the riverbank of the Seinna toward the east. He had traveled all night and kept going even as the first sun rose in the sky. He never understood why the suns had to be so bright but remembered the tales his broodmother had told him and all his broodmates about how the sun was a punishment levied by a vengeful god jealous of the ingenuity of the goblins. In other tales, it was not a punishment but a test of their worthiness. Either way, Krinnk knew that he hated the suns, yet he wanted to get back as soon as possible to the raiding party so that hopefully he would be able to partake of some of the spoils. Only so much hurrying could be done in the heat, and he could only go into the water to cool off when absolutely necessary as he had had to dodge out of the way of the snapping jaws of a dire crocodile twice so far. He was about to start looking for a spot to rest when he noticed an assortment of horned bullfrog corpses a short distance from the water. Who would waste all that good meat? This was a strange thing and strange things were often worth investigating.

  Keeping as low a profile as possible, Krinnk scurried from one set of remains to the next, often moving more in a rolling front knuckle to foot fashion than in a strictly upright manner. Eventually, as he got several hundred feet away from the water, his keen sense of smell picked up the coppery tang in the air of recently spilled blood. His right hand slid down to the belt holding his loincloth up and he pulled loose the sling while his left hand reached into his stone pouch and pulled forth a flat stone to slip into the pocket of his sling. A sense of caution continued to rise in him, but he proceeded forward guided as much by his nose as by his eyes. Finally, he reached the tree line and saw more dead horned drey wolves than he had fingers. He even had to use one of his thumbs to be able to count them. They appeared to have been killed by an assortment of magic and swords. This most likely meant that there were more humans around. That realization caused fear to seize Krinnk, but he needed to find out more information if he was going to report back. It had been painfully drilled into the scouts that incomplete information was as likely to get them a beating as no information, and the bone man had definitely continued that rule.

  Then he heard them, voices. Krinnk wasn’t a very good judge of the differences in humans but he at least knew how to distinguish males from females. He snickered as he thought about their females. Sure, some goblins favored human females for an assortment of lusts, but to Krinnk they were incredibly ugly, all soft and smooth skin with way too much flesh on their bones, none of the gray mottled skin loosely hanging on a bony frame, the way the goblalinas looked. Hearing voices though, he could tell that there was at least one male and one female, so he became even more careful, slipping into the underbrush and moving slowly toward them. He saw two of them, one a human male, apparently a warrior judging from the armor he wore and the other a moon elf female. Or at least that is what Krinnk assumed she was, as he had never seen a moon elf, but only heard tales of when they unjustly drove the goblins from the places of comfort they had found in the Chenhou Forest. Upon seeing the moon elf, he found that a certain level of racial hatred rose up in him. Goblins might not like orcs or humans, but elves and dwarves were their blood enemies with an enmity passed down from generation to generation.

  The two were standing at the base of a large ironwood tree, and watching them, he saw that they were also speaking with some others who were up in the tree. It took his eyes quite a while to be able to find the ones up in the tree, not so much because of the density of the foliage, but because it was hard on goblin eyes to look up toward sunlight even with the trees reducing the glare. Again, he didn’t know much about humans and even less about elves, but he would almost swear that the three he saw up in the tree were some blend of human and elf. What caught his eye more than anything though was the littlest one. She had a pretty shiny thing hanging around her neck. She looked soft and likely would make a succulent meal.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Luck is a fickle mistress and best not relied upon, but oh the splendors of her favor.” —Quote from a biography of Tan Al’Stanam, 1st Thane of the Northern Dwarven Kingdom

  Emily stepped back from Dave, giggling at the red flush in his face and the wide-eyed stare he was giving her. “Oh, you are too easy to get. I always know the simplest way to get you distracted from any problem.”

  With that, she took a better look at him. They may have defeated the pack of horned drey hounds, but it had not been an easy fight, at least for Dave. His armor was practically hanging on him, torn in many different spots across his legs, forearms, and as she walked around him, his back underneath all those tears, the exposed skin was bleeding, and he was going to need some significant scrubbing to get himself clean. That was, after he was healed up properly. With that thought in mind and noting that the fifty-second cooldown on her healing spell had expired, she was now able to cast it again. Holding out her hand to him, she placed it on his shoulder. It wasn’t that physical contact was required for the spell to work or even that it improved its efficacy, but rather that it made her feel more connected to him. She felt the mana surge out of her and into him as right before her eyes the smaller wounds started to close and disappear entirely, leaving only bloodstained but smooth skin behind. The largest of the wounds only stopped bleeding but remained, indicating just how serious his wounds were that her healing spell had only taken care of the lesser injuries. She knew that Dave had a far higher pool of health than she did but even still, one of her healing spells would have taken her from death’s door to full health.

  As the wave of positive energy swept over his body, restoring the equilibrium in his body at least in part, he felt the many points of pain that had been diffusely spread over his body start to resolve into three key areas. One was a piercing wound in his left shoulder, a second was a bite wound on his left calf that had at least partially torn the muscle away from the bone, and the final was an abdominal puncture wound. He would have been hard-pressed to say which hurt the worst and in some ways, the removal of the smaller distracting injuries seemed to make the larger wounds hurt even more. They certainly were throbbing at a faster pace now. A part of Dave wondered if he would ever get used to this kind of pain. Certainly, as a marine he had felt some pain, but his combat experience had been very limited, and it had been many years ago. He had never been shot or stabbed before, and those were the only sort of injuries that he could compare to what the hounds had done to him. He knew that within a few minutes that Emily would have him fully healed and then they would climb up into the safety of the tree at least for a bit, so it wasn’t that he was really worried. Instead, as he examined his feelings on the battles, he had experience in Eloria, including the pain and the struggles and the fear of death, he had to say that he had never felt as alive. Once worry for his family was removed from the equation, he wasn’t afraid to go back into battle again and instead was sorta looking forward to it. He wondered if that made him an adrenaline junky or if it meant that there was something more deeply wrong with him emotionally that he would court this sort of pain, and it was excruciating, simply for the sake of XP. As much as that bothered him, he decided it was a question for another time because he couldn’t seem to focus much past the off-handed question Emily had asked him. He was red-faced and knew he probably looked silly. He could do nothing but appreciate a private moment of self-deprecating humor as he realized just how gullible he was for comments like that. Across the universe on an alien world filled with things that wanted to eat him, struggling to protect his family and one little comment made him stop thinking with his brain and start lusting after his wife. Freak, he was such a simpleton. Of course, he likely wouldn’t have been the only guy to fall for that, and he just had to take the fact that it was hardwired into him as consolation
as well as proof that Eloria hadn’t changed who he was at his core.

  He was lifted out of those thoughts when another wave of healing washed over him and the wounds in his shoulder and calf both seemed to be almost completely better, while the wound in his abdomen visibly closed and left only a small puckering half-healed wound. He could still feel the pain inside his gut, but it was definitely better. Taking turns rotating his arm to test his shoulder and bouncing on the balls of his feet to test out the repaired calf muscle, he was able to feel a sharp stabbing pain in his insides with each motion that wasn’t too extreme. Back home, this sort of pain would have had him on his way to the ER, but here it just made him grit his teeth and bear it.

  “Thanks, hun. Still a little bit more inside but one more heal should do it. Now let’s take a look at the XP notifications. I assume that you got some too, but I just minimized all my notifications as I was in too much pain to worry about it.”

  “Sounds good. I already looked at mine. I got full XP for the one that I killed with the dagger and partial XP for each of the others. The big one was worth a bit more than the rest, but I also got a message about not getting XP for any foes that flee.” Emily spoke absentmindedly as she was still obviously looking at her notifications.

  “Doh, I just realized something. Hold on a sec.”

  You have helped defeat 2 Horned Drey Hounds Lvl 4- Each: XP: 24 x 4.1 (numerical bonus + pack bonus) /3 + 50% racial bonus = Net XP: 98.

  You have helped defeat 1 Horned Drey Hound Alpha Lvl 6: XP: 24 x 4.1 (numerical bonus + pack bonus) /3 + 50% racial bonus = Net XP: 73.

  You have defeated 6 Horned Drey Hounds Lvl 4- Each: XP: 24 x 4.1 (numerical bonus + pack bonus) /3 x2 (killing blow bonus) + 50% racial bonus = Net XP: 590.

  Congratulations!

  Ding!

  You have gained enough XP to reach level 8.

  You have gained 8 stat points.

  You have gained 38 character points.

  Warning!

  New Blood Feud gained. You are now in a blood feud with Horned Drey Hounds (Merkwood Zone) All Horned Drey Hounds in Merkwood will go out of their way, even risking their own lives to try to kill you. All Drey Hounds of all variants in all zones now have a status of Hatred with you. Damage against Horned Drey Hounds: +25%, Damage taken from Horned Drey Hounds: +25%.

  First thought after the level up was that the rush of healing and the restoration of his stamina made him feel like a new man while at the same time making him feel stupid. Apparently, the healing from leveling up was suspended if you suspended the notification. Anyway, lesson learned and more importantly: Woohoo. Dave was thrilled he had finally caught up to Emily, or had he? He didn’t know how much XP she had gained so he had to ask her before he let his exuberance break out. “So did you get a level up, hun?”

  Emily broke away from looking at her character sheet and looked at Dave. He thought he was so smooth, like she wouldn’t notice that he was just dying to catch up to her. She internally chuckled but didn’t let any of it show on her face. “Yeah, I did,” she said calmly, acting almost disinterested.

  With a feigned excitement, Dave said, “Great hun, so we are both level 8 now, I got four levels.”

  Struggling to keep the laughter inside, Emily said, “Well, not quite Dave.”

  “What?” Then as realization dawned on Dave; he couldn’t hide his crestfallen look. “Oh, you got two levels, didn’t you?” After a pause, he added, “What’s your XP total now?”

  No longer able to contain her laughter, Emily burst out, “Oh, your face is priceless. You so thought you were gonna catch up, didn’t you? Well, if you must know I now have 1457 XP but now I need 463 XP to get level 10.”

  Dave whistled at that, “Wow, I guess level 10 must be when you break into tier 2. At least, I hope that is the explanation for the huge increase in XP cost.” Seeing Emily’s look of partial confusion, he tried to explain a little more completely his theory that breaking into the 2nd tier would allow them to increase skills above 10 and would add other unknown benefits. After that, they yelled up to Mira, who used her flying ring to come down and pick them up one at a time.

  Once at the top of the platform, they found out that Mira had also leveled after gaining 488 XP and had reached level 6. To say that they were all pleased would have been an understatement. Jackson still vented a bit that he didn’t get to level up and Dave actually had some ideas about how to help Jackson level up, but he still wasn’t sure how willing he was to let his son use the mace to bash stuff to death. Even if he was absolutely certain that he could keep Jackson safe, he was still hesitant to subject him to more insidious if no less real trauma that would come with asking his thirteen-year-old to bash in the brains of some monster that Dave was holding still for him, all in an effort to give him the killing blow bonus. Jackson should be worried about swinging his bat at a baseball, not a mace at a monster’s skull. Yet, wishing for something different wouldn’t make it so, and he might be doing his son more of a disservice by not allowing him to adapt to this new world. It was okay for the moment, though. They had enough on their plate just trying to get leveled up themselves and could save this moral dilemma for another day.

  It was shocking to think that they had changed this much in only an hour, but here it was, all three of them had at least 4 stat points and a good number of character points to spend. They talked back and forth and tried to give Mira a say in things but, in the end, decided that spending the stat points now made the most sense as there seemed to be little benefit to hoarding them. The character points were where they argued a bit, although honestly it wasn’t like any of them could force another to spend or not spend the points as they wished. This was one of those moments for liberated parenting, trying to guide Mira to the right decisions but being willing to let her make bad decisions if she wanted to. Mira wanted to spend her points right away on opening another school of magic, and it was clear she wasn’t going to be dissuaded, so all Dave did was try to guide her decision-making process. She at least agreed to open up a type of magic that none of them had opened yet with the idea that they might find new and useful functions. He tried to explain, at least in game terms, how each type of magic probably functioned. Then they looked at the various options, Enchantment, Abjuration or Conjuration. After his explanation about the likely costs associated with making permanent enchantments, they ruled that out and that left only two options. Dave figured either might have good options, and so he didn’t press her in either direction, but once he explained that someday the Conjuration magic might give her the option of teleportation or other similar instantaneous transportation, he saw her eyes light up and knew the decision was made even if she didn’t say it yet.

  Freedom, the ability to move around at will, that was what her dad’s description of the possibilities in Conjuration magic meant for Mira. Sure, he said that might come a long way down the road, and he talked a bunch about creating objects out of nothing or having creatures that she summoned to obey her, but what her mind latched onto was the idea of movement. With that in mind, it only took her teenage mind an instant to decide and then assign the character point.

  Conjuration Magic: this is the magic that controls the very dimensions of reality. A conjurer can both call forth items from the very aether of the universe and beckon forth beings from other places or even other planes of existence. With this magic, you will never be without. Determines the highest tier of Conjuration spells available to you as well as increasing the effectiveness of those spells by 5%/level. 3x first-tier spells gained.

  Minor Webbing: Summons a glob of extremely sticking and elastic webbing which can be projected at high speed up to 50’+2’/level. Upon impact, the webbing affects a 5’ diameter centered on the point of impact. The webbing has strength equal to Intelligence of caster x4. Any target stuck in the webbing has its movement reduced by 90% and attack rate by 50%. The webbing is immune to blunt damage and takes half damage from slashing or piercing physical damage but double d
amage from fire. Webbing has health equal to 10+1/level and 1 health per tick evaporates as webbing dries out. Cooldown: 30 seconds - 1 sec/level. Mana: 20.

  Summon Basic Mount: Summons an average horse for 2 hours/level. Will obey any non-suicidal command from caster but cannot be used for combat. Mana: 100.

  Mage Armor-Chainmail: Summons armor which is the equivalent of masterwork chainmail armor (Base Defense +12) for 1 hour/level. Armor is weightless and does not require any armor proficiency or movement penalty. Mana: 75.

  Well, she wasn’t sure what to think of that. It wasn’t quite what she had expected, but the horse was cool, and she supposed the armor and webbing could help protect everyone, but she wasn’t sure about the really high mana cost of some of the spells. It wouldn’t be something she could do at a moment’s notice. She would need to plan ahead of time for those. Excitedly, she told the family about the new spells she had gotten, and Sara started jumping up and down and demanding that Mira give her a “pet” horse that instant.

  After calming Sara down, Emily reminded Mira that they had decided to assign their stat points before their character points. Mira didn’t take the rebuke very well, responding with a typical, “Whatever,” and Dave, not wanting an argument right now, jumped right into explaining how he was going to assign his stat points. He explained that he was going to sink one point into Strength to round it out, and two into both Constitution and Endurance to keep those climbing. He added that the last 3 points he was going to put two into Intelligence to try to up his mana pool and one into Agility because he was afraid that at some point, if he had too much strength and not enough agility, he would become a clumsy unwieldy fighter.