by J. J. Lorden
Cooldown: 1 hour
Base Stealth Level: Primitive. *
Level when active: Basic.
*Note: Stealth is a prerequisite of Predator’s steps. You have therefor gained the Stealth skill.
Skill Gained (Atypical): Stealth—You are able to avoid detection, sneak past foes, hide where you’d otherwise be discovered and strike with lethal effect from hiding. Remaining hidden is affected by lighting conditions, clothing, and focus. Just because you can be stealthy doesn’t mean you are.
Skill level: Primitive
Effect 1: Your presence will be hidden from those with a combined Agility and Willpower score lower than yours for 10 minutes. Effect can be cancelled by direct illumination, noise, odor, physical contact, or any action that draws undue attention.
Effect 2: Attacking from Stealth against an unaware foe does 2x damage.
“Well that’s a hell of a way to start a game. The cat was a level 5 Elite Forest Stalker and the kill gave me a bit more than 3700 experience. I got two levels from it. I also got a title, a couple of skills, and a vision quest from him.” Erramir paused as he recalled Tallimur’s death and the strange honor binding process.
Val ducked into the path she’d beaten through the briars and he followed, turning sideways to avoid getting pricked. Erramir smiled at the path. The environment doesn’t auto repair.
“What’s the quest?” Val asked.
“Oh right, sorry. I was just realizing the path is still here. It wouldn’t be in Novamen.”
“Oh yeah, you’re right.” He could hear Val’s smile. “I didn’t even think about it. This is just so much more–gritty. I didn’t even consider it.”
Erramir agreed. “Anyhow, that huge cat could talk, Val. Only, he didn’t start talking until he was basically dead, and even then, it seemed difficult for him.”
Val shot a glance back at him. “It could talk?”
“Yeah. It was bizarre. He called me a Child of the Ancients. Then he enacted some kind of ceremony by speaking a formal declaration. It was intense, like something you’d expect in a ritual. Even stranger, after he said his part, I suddenly knew how to respond. The hell if I can remember what I said, but in that moment, the words just came to me.”
Details about the fight trickled back as Erramir spoke–he couldn’t recall the words, but the image of Tallimur’s bloody teeth and soulful eyes was burned into his memory.
“When I completed the ceremony, this golden energy leaked from his body into mine, and I got the title, Honor Bound. He had a vision quest that transferred to me with the title, but the quest isn’t in the notification. I need to speak to the tribe shaman to learn about it.”
Valerie stopped just before the water. “That’s sounds promising. Bizarre, but it’s a place to start.” She turned and continued leading the way across the stream. “Congrats on the levels. After we find Carson, I say we focus on leveling–find a home base of some kind and grind up to six or seven at least. After that we can find your shaman.”
She paused, and then continued with the hint of smile in her words. “Hopefully the tribe won’t try and eat you when you show up to meet the shaman.”
“When I show up? Don’t you mean when we show up? I’m sure there will be a hell of chance to grind experience on a vision quest. Besides, you’re already bonded to the forest, and it was a forest stalker, so your bond might give us the inside edge we need to get away if things go badly.” Erramir decided not to mention his own Forest Sense racial.
They were approaching the top of the hill as she nodded in response. “That’s what I meant, obviously. And you’re right, Entiarch might be able to tell me about the Blood River Tribe before we go.”
He turned a roguish smile to her. “You might actually turn out to be more than just a pretty face and nice ass after all.”
Valerie just smiled. “Keep it up, tall, green, and homeless, and I’ll show you just how right you are.”
“How about a rain check?” Erramir replied. Val was acting more relaxed and confident about her body, and it was a refreshing change to not have that tension in their friendship. He crested the hill and looked around for his lost bag.
The skeletal remains of the big cat stood out immediately. He’d passed out before searching the cat for valuable items, so he walked over to it. “I didn’t get a chance to loot the cat.”
Erramir stood over the remains. There wasn’t a prompt or self-explanatory game interface for searching the corpse. “There’s no prompt,” he said, bending down to examine the skeleton more closely.
“Yeah, you need to poke at it a bit. At least that’s what I did with the deaver,” Val said.
Erramir ran his hands over the paws. The claws were off white, viciously sharp, and each was nearly as long as his thumb. They seemed valuable, so he tried to bend and twist one away. Easily enough, a few remaining strands of cartilage broke and the claw came free in his hand. A message notification flashed, and he opened it.
Congratulations, you have gained the skill Animal Salvage.
Skill (Typical): Animal Salvage—This skill allows you to remove useful and valuable parts from dead animals.
Holding the claw in his palm, he considered the other claws and was immediately struck by a feeling of wrongness in his gut. He released the skeletal paw and stood up. He looked over at Valerie, who was regarding him with raised brows. “I don’t think I should take anything else from this skeleton. It just feels–wrong.”
She nodded slowly but kept quiet. He looked at the one claw he’d wrenched free. Removing it hadn’t felt wrong. Quite the opposite, the claw felt purposeful and sacred. He told Valerie as much and then turned away from the skeleton to search for his bag.
He saw the leather satchel lying in the grass and retrieved it. The strap was shredded in the center where claws had almost completely destroyed it, but the flap was still tied shut and a brief look inside confirmed that everything was still there. He dropped the claw in and held it by the two strap ends.
The leather had been ripped unevenly by the cat’s claws, leaving a couple of thinner strips on both sides. Placing the bag on the ground, he used these to tie the two parts together. The knots held when he tugged firmly.
Unfortunately, when he tried to sling it across his body, the bag got stuck, smashing his arm up against his face and wouldn’t go any further. The repair had cost too much length in the strap.
Valerie thought it was hilarious and laughed out loud. He relegated himself to carrying the bag over one shoulder. This occupied one hand, which was definitely not as good for fighting.
Valerie was still smiling when he looked back up at her. She arched an eyebrow, silently questioning if he was done. “Okay, good enough. Let’s go,” Erramir said with a grin, bemused by his fumbling attempt. He strode toward Val.
In the middle of the trampled section of grass, Erramir stepped down and kept right on going. Pitching forward, his chest slammed into the rim of the pit trap. “Ouff!” He was struck with déjà vu.
Boom! Something slammed down behind him, echoing as if the hole was large and lined with stone.
Valerie spun and jumped to help, then slowed when she realized he didn’t appear to be falling any further. She proceeded with caution, testing each footfall for other traps before advancing. “You Okay?”
“Yeahhh, I think so,” He groaned.
“Good, just stay still, Err. There might be other traps. I’ll be right there.”
Erramir was at an awkward forward-leaning angle with his arms out in front of him and sunk to his armpits in the void. It was a position that didn’t offer much leverage. He also didn’t know how large the secure surface below his feet was, and he completely agreed with Val’s point, one trap could easily mean there were others.
Holding still, he listened.
A steady scraping-grinding noise, echoed from his left, as if the hole was much deeper on that side. It sounded heavy and was intermittently punctuated by a thud.
The soun
d grew fainter and withing moments, wound down and stopped. The mid-morning field returned to the noises of breeze in the grass and irregular insect chittering.
He looked up at Valerie, who’d crossed the remaining distance and stepped cautiously up to the edge of the hole. She was wide-eyed, her face painted with surprise.
“What?” he asked with concern.
“Hold on,” she replied, crouching down and bending her head around to look past him in the direction of the grinding noise.
“Am I safe to move?” He asked.
“Unhhh, yeah. I think you’re good. Looks like you’re standing on a landing of some kind. You’re leaning against a stone wall, that looks very old and very solid. I think it’s safe for you to climb out.
He quickly did, then knelt next to her. What he’d thought was a pit-trap was in fact a perfectly rectangular opening that revealed a stone-paved underground room with a low ceiling. A moment’s inspection showed Val was right, it was actually a landing at the top of a ramp sloping down to the right.
The whole of the underground space was actually much larger than the rectangular opening. The hole was a bit bigger than a full sheet of plywood, maybe five feet by ten feet with the larger part of the opening above the ramp.
Fortunately, he’d managed to step on the corner close to the wall and furthest from the ramp. Had he stepped on the other edge, over the ramp portion, he might have ridden the slab to the bottom. Or worse, fallen in front of it.
Where Erramir was kneeling, he was facing the forest. The field in that direction was flat and extended maybe fifty feet before it sloped down into the vale.
Erramir laid on his belly and craned his neck into the hole. The landing extended left into darkness and his eyes could not see an end to it. In front of him, the other side of the landing was visible and looked to be another three slabs away. In the darkness he could see a faint glow emanating from the bottom of the stone slabs that were closest.
“Hey, check this out,” he said to Val. She lay beside him and craned her neck as he was. “Can you see those glowing spots?” He asked while pointing at the closest one, then at several others. “On the far edges of the next few cover stones.”
She squinted and looked where he pointed, then left and right at other spots. It took her several moments to respond. “I don’t see anything,” Val finally said. “What color is it?”
Erramir looked away from her back into the hole. He hadn’t noticed a particular color.
“It’s warm, yellowish, like candlelight.”
“No, I don’t see that. Do you have some ability to see magic?”
“Damn. That’s right, I do.” He had completely forgotten about the skill he’d gained from his varied racial heritages. It was odd that he could see the glow even without it activated and she couldn’t. Erramir focused on his desire to see magic, in the same way he did to activate DrakkenWood Skin.
An icon of an eye surrounded by a circle of stars popped into view under his misted-out health bar. The entire underside of the false ground came to life, glowing with the same warm yellow light.
He flinched back from the opening and sudden brightness.
“What’s wrong?” Valerie leapt to a crouch. Her staff sprang from the ground into her hands instantly. The sound of the wood hitting her palms smacked like a fastball striking a catcher’s mitt.
“I don’t have anything dangerous on my map,” she said, turning in a slow circle, legs bent, coiled defensively.
Erramir rolled to the side, now doubly surprised. “No, it’s okay, relax,” he said, holding up a calming hand. “It’s just this skill I have, True Vision. When I activated it, the whole area lit up like the sun. I wasn’t ready for that, it just startled me.”
Val relaxed and sank back to her knees, placing her staff back on the ground next to her
“Great reflexes though, you’re like a coiled viper,” he said, then looked at her meaningfully, his eyes glancing at the weapon. “What did you just do with your staff?”
Valerie blushed a bit and looked down at Virginwood, putting her hand back on it. She was silent for a moment, then held her hand at shoulder height and looked at him.
“I can call it.”
The staff rose off the ground into her extended hand. It moved more slowly than before, without the smack of wood on skin.
Erramir looked from the weapon to his friend with a huge grin. “Nice. You’re like Thor, just with a stick instead of a hammer.”
“I am nothing like Thor, he’s a pompous ass. And VirginWood isn’t some stupid meat-head’s hammer, it’s an elegant weapon.” She smirked.
Erramir held up a hand in submission. “Right on, I won’t belittle your noble weapon again. Seriously though, that’s great, Val. I’ll bet it’ll be crazy useful in a fight.”
Possible tactical uses spun through his mind, and Erramir found himself both a bit jealous and acutely aware that he still had nothing but his claws.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” Val said. Placing the staff back on the ground next to her. “It’s a part of me in a way I’ve never known, like a part of my soul is outside my body. It’s amazing, but it’s hard to talk about.”
Her expression held concern. “I guess I’m also a little scared it’s too good to be true. This whole world is so alive, and I haven’t had hardly a moment to consider it. I’m so alive here and I feel like… well, it feels a little scary.” She looked down, hand resting gently on the staff and eyes contemplative.
Erramir understood what she meant; his whole body felt alive. Even when he was lying on the ground, he could feel the circulation of energy through his feet as if connecting him to the land. It was invigorating and he hadn’t had more than a few moments to consider it either.
“I know what you mean. Don’t sweat it, but don’t be pissed when I pull some crazy trump ability in the middle of a fight.”
Her eyes narrowed and she smirked, “You–” she started, but cut herself off. “Wait, do you hear that?”
Erramir did hear something–it sounded like someone was angry. “It sounds like someone’s really pissed off.” He spun about, looking for the source.
Together, they both homed in on the sky above the forest. Maybe a hundred feet above the trees, the dark shape of a person was moving rapidly toward them.
They were instantly on their feet and alert, Erramir’s True Vision was still active, and he could see that the figure glowed with power. “It’s magical, I can see a glow.”
The figure raced toward them at an angle as if getting ready to land. It was moving faster than Erramir had initially realized and in just a few seconds, had closed the distance by half. He could see the person had shifted position in flight and was now coming at them feet first.
“Looookkkk ouuuutt belllooooww!”
Erramir and Valerie dodged in opposite directions. The figure streaked between them and slammed into the ground, carving two deep rents in the earth before pitching forward and tumbling to a stop, face down.
It was a man wearing green woodland garb. To Erramir, there was something familiar about the inept landing and shouted warning. He glanced at Val, but her eyes were fixed on the figure and she continued to hold her staff at the ready.
The man began groaning as he pushed himself up onto all fours. Erramir relaxed–his brother in all but birth had a certain unmistakable way about him.
“Unnnghhh. Jesus, that hurt. Screw that sadistic dick and his fucked-up training.”
The voice was unmistakable to both of them. Erramir glanced at Val with a nod and a smile which she returned, letting her guard down.
The man knelt up, facing away from them, and continuing to groan quietly as he brushed off his green leather armor. It was slightly disarrayed from the landing but looked to be high quality.
For a split second Erramir wondered if he’d been wrong, maybe this wasn’t his friend. Carson couldn’t have armor like that, could he?
Then the man stood and turned to face
them. A huge grin split the familiar but now distinctively Elven face.
Carson’s gear was finely made green leather armor with patches that accented elbows, shoulders, and knees as well as trimming the cuffs and stitched in diagonal slashes on the thighs. In a triangular breast panel, there was a white tree emblem.
Carson took in his friends’ disheveled appearance and wrinkled his nose as if in disgust. Then he enthusiastically greeted them.
“Man, you guys look like shit!”
22
The Ruins
Erramir embraced his friend, lifting the smaller man off his feet in a bone-grinding bear hug. It was part welcome and part repayment for the irreverent mage’s crass greeting. Erramir was several inches taller and significantly broader than the wiry elf. That, combined with catching him off guard, left Carson totally helpless to resist the good-natured attack.
“Umph! God, you’re crushing me!” Carson choked out, arching back against Erramir’s grip. “Enough. Enough, ya stupid lunk.” Erramir just grinned. “Dude, come on! You’re gonna break something.”
Erramir relented and put him down. “Good to see you, man. We were worried about you.” He lifted a hand, indicating Carson’s armor. “But look at you, all decked out in fancy gear. You’re doing better than we are.”
Valerie came over and, with a smile, gave him a hug. “You look good, Carson.”
“Thanks, Val.” Carson broke the embrace and finally got a clear look at her. “Damn!” he said, appraising her with wide eyes. “You’re smoking!”
She stepped back from him with a satisfied smirk.
“You’ve got a kick-ass Amazonian thing going on. Woahh, yeah... if you’re looking for a job, I’d recommend fantasy pin-up.”
Val took in the praise for what it was, a friend’s honesty.
His evaluation passed from Val and alit on her weapon. “Hey, nice staff!”
Valerie twirled the staff once, acknowledging his compliment. “Thanks. I created it.”