Jaken got another enmity ability that drew in a creature of his choice and kept that creature attacking him until one of them was dead. So either Jaken and the rest of us whooped that ass, or he was hurting. Then he got another healing spell that gave a regenerative buff and improved regen out of combat.
Yohsuke gained the ability to dual wield his weapons and an area of effect—AoE as we would typically call it—spell called Star Burst that sounded interesting. He could lob a magical attack that went off like a grenade. He also got a buff that upped his defense.
I took a spell called Nature’s Hidden Path that let me move from one tree to another up to five hundred feet away in any direction and another that allowed me to summon a large sphere of water to trap my enemies.
After some discussion of a semblance of a plan of attack in certain situations, we set out to see who—or what—we could hunt down.
With the Bog being as treacherous as it was, we couldn’t use our mounts, so the going was slow. Luckily, Bokaj made the trip at least a little easier by finding better paths through the quagmire. The scent of decay and death coated us as we walked further in. Trees littered the area still, but they looked to be in a more decayed and deadened state. You could smell the rot and grossness easily. Another unfortunate side effect of being a Kitsune was that my nose didn’t die when I was around a scent for too long. I kept getting those same disgusting whiffs of yuck.
Great.
After a circuit of the area to the south of us, about two hours of travel, we found a raiding party sleeping in a small copse of trees. They either must have thought themselves the baddest in the area, or they had a lookout somewhere. Bokaj held up six fingers and mouthed that two weren’t there. Maybe it was a small party? Maybe two had wandered off to scout or were hidden? Either way, we had our work cut out for us. Each one was level 13. If these were an indicator as to what they could afford to have roaming, the harder enemies were likely near the chieftain. That’s what I would do, consolidate my power base and send the weakest out to roam and pillage to get stronger.
When I got to thinking about what I would do, I started thinking about our predicament. Almost any normal person would probably be freaking out right now.
Here I am, stuck in this world that is based around a favorite pastime of mine, for gods know how long, and the fate of our world hinges on the safety of this one. Sounds pretty mind breaking to me—any sane or reasonable person might have a hard time coping, or at least it would be an issue if I hadn’t been so used to having to adapt quickly and keep myself focused on the mission—it could have me fucked up, too.
Sure, there were fun times to be had here, but we all had reasons to go back home: loved ones, children, family, friends, and so much more that we could call upon to help us fight for what we believed in. Whether they knew it or not, they were counting on us to step up here. They couldn’t afford for us to let the situation cripple us in fear. Through all of our fantasy-ridden adventures together, you could probably say that the whole group had been conditioned for this while we played our games, constantly questing to save some new world from countless enemies and monsters.
How was this really any different?
I’m certain that my friends all felt the same, but we would need to have that talk later. It was time to get stronger now.
The Lizardmen were what you might expect, although they resembled alligators in the faces. Huge maws hung open in sleep, showing rows of sharp teeth. The creatures all had muscular builds and carried primitively made spears in their hands while sleeping. The heads of the spears looked to be some kind of black stone, probably obsidian.
We backed up to a safer distance away and tried to plot our attack. Bokaj had the better idea, so we went with his. He would climb the tree we used as cover and look at the area, then give us a better idea of the best approach. After climbing back down, he let us know that the waters near the islet they were using looked to be deep and dangerous. Probably why they felt they could sleep there without much fear.
Knowing that, we decided to test our new spells. Balmur would stealth and walk where Bokaj told him using the Mental Message spell. Slowly—in increments of a few feet—our Rogue moved forward, dodging sinkholes and deep water with the guidance or our Ranger. It took about half an hour for Balmur to get into position from the one hundred feet away that we had been. He stopped just outside the circle of trees and back another ten feet to the rear of them, facing toward us.
It was time to bring out the big guns. I’d only used this ability once, but this was the perfect opportunity to use it to full advantage. I activated my charge spell and held on to Fireball.
Fireball – The caster shoots a beam of red fire at a target of his choosing and once struck, erupts in a 20 ft sphere of flame. Deals 100 damage at the focus point and 10 less for every other creature hit for a minimum of 50 damage. Cost: 100 mana. Cool down: 5 minutes.
The spell’s area of effect wouldn’t change, but it would increase the damage. That mana expenditure made it a hellish drain, though. Oh well. This would help us kill them quickly, I hoped.
After five seconds, I felt the first pulse of mana, then the second and unleashed the spell at the center of the group. Unfortunately, not one of the sleeping bastards had the common courtesy to make my job easier by sleeping closer together but oh well. The resulting detonation was devastating. A crater formed where my beam hit, and it was one hell of a wake up call. The flames bit into each of the Lizardmen and drained their health to about seventy percent each. They were up and agitated.
They started to call out to each other, and I had no doubt the boom from the blast might cause more to come investigate. We needed to try and make quick work of them here. Bokaj focused his fire on the slowest Lizardman to the right side, with Yohsuke joining him. For this fight, Jaken had to be closer to them to use his enmity collecting abilities, so he just tried to line himself up and make noise so they might throw their spears at him.
Balmur did what he did best and royally dismantled the one who was calling to the others the loudest. He hit hard and fast, and the guy went down quickly. Bokaj and Yoh had moved on to the next one, and two were on the way toward us. The fuckers were walking on top of the water like it was solid earth. Shit!
Jaken was ready for them, and as soon as they were in range, he began to glow red and shouted wordlessly at them. The two Lizardmen turned on him and started to sprint forward. Balmur began to fight the last one in earnest, weaving and dodging as the Lizardman jabbed at him with his spear. One of the attacks landed and grazed the top of his thigh as he whirled to try and dodge. He grunted and unloaded on the poor bastard. I threw a Frozen Dagger at the creature to distract him for a moment then turned toward the two on Jaken.
One had managed to get past the great sword he was now wielding and stabbed him in the stomach. I cast Regrowth on Jaken and brought my great axe to bare on the offending Lizardman. I was a good ten feet away, so I activated Cleave and used Wind Scythe to throw my axe at the scaly thing.
It hit with a meaty thud and chopped off a good fifteen percent of its life, dropping it to a little over half. I leapt to the side as it threw its spear in retaliation but got grazed myself. It knocked off about ten percent of my own HP. They hit hard. Jaken used my distraction to chop down with his sword, cleaving through the injured creature and dealing critical damage that killed it.
He took another stab for it and was starting to look a little rough. He glowed golden for a second, and I watched as his HP climbed back up above sixty percent. I yanked my axe out of the dead creature and tore into the next one. By the time all the creatures were dead, those of us at level 11 were more than a quarter of the way to the next level. We rested up and healed ourselves while we could. Once we got the chance, we moved on, heading further south at a decent pace.
We didn’t make it too far when we stumbled upon another patrol heading our way. They had seen us already and were sprinting at us. These ones weren’t walking on water s
o far. That must have been a spell from a shaman maybe? Did they have shamans?
They must have had some type of shamans.
I readied my great axe and activated my Cleave and Wind Scythe combo, throwing the beastly axe at the center Lizardman. There were eight this time. We were in for one hell of a fight. Kayda took wing and zapped the one I had hit. He went down hard and stayed there with a lightning shaped mark next to his HP bar.
Paralyzed? Yes!
I didn’t look into it too much at the moment. I was bum rushed by two more of the downed Lizardman’s buddies and shape shifted into my bear form. I roared at them and slapped the one on my right with my massive paw and sent him sprawling to the ground. I took my left paw and drove my claws up into the soft under chin of the creature attacking me. The claws pierced flesh slightly, and it sent him off balance into the Rogue waiting behind him.
I turned back to the paralyzed enemy before me and dropped on him with a fury. Tooth and claw stole his HP swiftly. He never got to stand again. I turned about to see that Jaken was, once more, the focus of attention and that Yoh had summoned his skeletal pirate Bonzer to assist us. Two more of the Lizardmen had died, and three were engaging with our tank. Jaken had switched to his sword and shield for this one, and he seemed to be lasting a little longer but not by much. I lumbered into the three focused on him and received a jab at my flank while passing too close to one of the enemies. It hurt, taking about fifteen percent of my HP away. I was still looking good, but that would suck with another few hits. I asked Kayda to stun another one, but she couldn’t. That skill was on cool down, I guess.
Soon, she thought at me.
I bear hugged the closest one and turned with him in my paws, meaning to throw him down. As soon as I had completed the turn, Bokaj sent three arrows into the scaly beast and took him down to fifty percent. I pushed him down, feeling another slice go across my back; this one dropped my health by twenty-five percent.
Then came the Feral Rage. I turned on the offending bastard and grabbed him by his jaw when he hissed at me in defiance. He tried to bite me, and I thrust my claws into his mouth and then thrust my right paw and his bottom jaw down. A sickening pop came, and the jaw hung loose. I thrust my right paw into the injured Lizardman’s throat and lifted while lowering my body weight. The poor humanoid tried to scream, but I just threw him and roared at the opponents around me.
There were only five now; the one I had thrown made a most excellent battering ram as it careened into two of its friends. I fell on those two, stomping and growling, using my claws to tear out their throats and just generally make a mess of them. Of the last two left, one had fallen.
Yohsuke joined my rampage. His skin glowing—changing before my eyes and becoming red and rough—he grew small, demon-like horns from his forehead and fought beside me. The enemies rallied and attempted to flee, but Balmur and Bokaj kept them from going far. The rage left slowly, as it had the first time. I shifted and helped heal myself and everyone who had been hurt. I guess there had been a ninth enemy because Tmont came strutting back to us with something else’s blood on her fur. Awesome.
“Hey, man, what gives on the new look?” I asked Yohsuke as we started to loot the bodies.
“Infernal Body,” he said. “It’s the self buff I was talking about earlier that increases defense by an additional fifteen percent plus your armor. Lasts thirty minutes and only costs fifty mana. Cool down is the same as the duration, though, so if it were to be dispelled, I could be in trouble.”
He grinned and said, “If I was a little bitch!” We both laughed pretty hard at that.
“What the hell was up with you, though?” he asked.
“Feral Rage,” I explained. “If I’m dealt more than twenty percent of my HP in damage in a single attack while in animal form, I fall into a murderous rage. Halves the damage I take and increases damage dealt by half. Cool down is an hour. I’m going to have to see if there’s an update to it, though.”
“Holy shit, man,” he awed in a low tone. “You fucked them up. That shit was brutal. And why is that?”
“Because I lose control of myself to my anger. I attack the enemy, sure, but I’m not sure if that’s going to affect party play or not. If I attack one of you guys… I don’t know what might happen.”
“You won’t attack one of us, man,” he said, his voice dripping with surety, and he clapped me on the back, “cause I’ll fuck you up if you come at me incorrectly, son.”
We laughed at his stupid joke and bumped fists. We looted the corpses—there wasn’t all that much on the bodies; they ran slick—but the obsidian tips off the spears were cool, so Bokaj collected the them.
We spent the rest of the day finding and destroying patrols. Once we had traveled a good distance away from where we had previously camped, we moved into the forest line to camp again. Another Dryad offered us refuge near her tree in support of our quest, which let us know we might be going in the right direction. At least, in my mind it did. We slept and then hunted again the next day for some food. Our travels took us a little further into the forest line where we found some wild boars.
We killed two of them and made our breakfast before moving back out into the boggy lands. Yohsuke cured some of the meat from our kills so we didn’t have to kill as much and take away from our grinding time too much either. Grinding being the thing most gamers either love or hate, it’s the process of killing monsters or enemies with the sole purpose of getting stronger in mind.
Usually, that whole process was a mind-numbing pain for me. I hated having to grind in some games. Here, with it being real? I saw the necessity of it—hell, I even welcomed it.
Jaken, Bokaj, and I had leveled up once and were well on our way to leveling up again. Kayda had also leveled up three times. Kind of like adding water to a large pool with a group of friends. Not just the person who puts the most amount of water in, gets to swim, everyone gets to. In this case, as long as she was providing some damage and doing what she could with her paralyzingly ability, she got a portion of the experience. The experience per kill and fifty percent extra from my kills seemed to be doing her some real good.
Sure, it made my leveling a little slower, but she was worth it. The little badass flew over my shoulder. She had grown again; now she was a little bigger than an adult eagle. The feathers on the sides of her head had started to turn a sort of teal-green and lengthened to stand out like little horns reaching back toward her back. It was so cute and mildly terrifying. She had almost as much of a reaction from our enemies as our Bokaj’s house cat did. They about crapped themselves when Tmont pounced at them, and they would try to duck when Kayda flew by.
I could have smacked myself right then. What if we had gotten into a fight? She could have died, and it would have been on me. I checked her stats out and looked to see if I could glean any more information. Her wisdom seemed to be attached to her ability cool downs, so she could use her lightning attacks more often with more wisdom it seemed. Although, lately, it looked attractive to have her be able to physically attack some things while her cool downs were active. I had nine points to play with here, so I decided to try and figure out what would work best.
Obviously, she needed more HP, no brainer there—four points into Constitution. A little extra muscle wouldn’t hurt, either—three points into Strength. Finally, I put two points into Wisdom to hopefully help with her cool downs. Her three natural points had gone one into Strength and two into Dexterity, leaving her status page looking pretty nice.
Name: Kayda
Race: Lightning Roc
Level: 5
Strength: 4
Dexterity: 10
Constitution: 10
Intelligence: 4
Wisdom: 3
Charisma: 5
Unspent Attribute Points: 0
I had to say, the increases in strength seemed to have beefed her up a little. She looked healthier overall, and I was excited to see how she would do in battle.
As for
my own stats, I felt I needed to change up. See, we had our physical damage dealers: Balmur, Bokaj, and Tmont—plus Yohsuke who attacked with his spell sword. Yohsuke could also act as a caster to a lesser degree, but only because his ranged spells seemed to be a little less powerful than his sword. I did well in the damage area so far, but I had been focusing on my own physical damage output. I nodded to myself and opted to drop three points into Intelligence and two points into Wisdom. Time to start slinging spells a bit more seriously.
After heading south for about another hour, we had almost decided to take another direction when Bokaj and Tmont spotted a cave off to the west a bit. We had been approaching a mountain range—maybe a continuation of the range that I had explored to get Kayda. We headed toward the cave’s entrance and discovered something that none of us were expecting.
Snoring off in the corner was a humanoid-shaped sleeping bag. Bokaj nocked an arrow, while Tmont and Balmur dropped into stealth and crept closer. I nodded to Yohsuke, and he held a hand up to cast if needed. My darkvision activated after a moment in the darkness of the cave, and the pitch black became grey. I could see almost as if in twilight.
“Hey!” I shouted. The snoring stopped, and the person shot up into the open, into a battle stance.
If I were in Bokaj’s position, I’d have shot him up. Luckily, I wasn’t, so the poor guy didn’t get an arrow in his chest. Yet. Although, I did almost throw a Frozen Dagger.
The black skinned Elf turned his golden, reptilian eyes onto all of the people he could see and smiled, baring sharpened teeth at us.
“You guys got here quickly,” the figure’s voice sounded familiar.
His sharp features seemed to come into focus a bit more because Balmer had dropped his stealth and cast light. It took me a second to adjust to it. Tears streamed from my eyes as I closed them to reduce the strain. I was going to have a chat with him about using light spells like that unannounced.
“How did you know we were coming?” Jaken’s voice held a note of cautionary suspicion.
Into the Light (Axe Druid Book 1) Page 17