Chosi smirked. The woman had the gall to smirk, as if she had won some great victory. And honestly, maybe she did. Still, she left peacefully.
Zemira looked to me briefly as if hoping there was something I could do, but we both knew the truth. Her punishment was legal and final. There was nothing I could do.
Class Quest Alert: Justice for a Cheat’ah – Completed!
Chief Chosi has confessed to the crime of Slavery. See that she is properly punished according to the laws of the Endless Savanna Tribes.
Reward: +5,000-Experience, 2-Sigils of the Goddess Issara
It wasn’t much experience, but the Sigils were appreciated. Still, it left a bad taste in my mouth. I basically completed the quest by doing nothing.
Not long after Chosi was escorted out, Gofi was escorted in. Unlike Chosi, Gofi was shackled by the hands, feet, waist, neck, and horn. He wasn’t quite muzzled, but it wasn’t too far off. I didn’t need to look at Zemira to know that seeing her brother-in-law trussed up like that, hurt her.
“Gofi of the Rhinomen Tribe, you have confessed to taking part in the destruction of three member tribes of the Bazaar,” Zemira said, starting the proceeding and looking sick just saying the words. “Do you have anything to say for your actions?”
“I will not defend my actions. I was wrong. I let Leonidas sway me with honeyed words. I let him cloud my mind and judgment and because of that, I did something unforgivable. Whatever punishment this council chooses, I will cooperate with fully,” Gofi said, his eyes directed at the floor. They looked so vacant and full of regret. I wish, so very much, there was a way to reduce his sentence. But his actions warranted only two punishments. Life in the Deep Dark or death, though based on the way the Deep Dark had been talked about, death might have been the better alternative. I hoped I would never find out.
“Would anyone speak for the lost tribes?” Zemira asked, looking from one chief to the next. But she knew, no one would. They all felt the loss and Gofi’s words said enough.
“There are only two legal punishments,” Zemira said remorsefully. “Life in the Deep Dark or death. My brother is a good Rhinoman. He cares for his tribe so much. He was manipulated, it is true. But even he has said that he must take responsibility for his actions. I would ask that you allow him to live. As horrible as what he did was, he does not deserve to die for it.”
I couldn’t help but agree with her on some level. I still struggled with the idea that so many lives had been snuffed out, regardless of them equating to lines of code and ones and zeroes as part of a game.
Zemira asked each chief again what they believed would be the appropriate punishment. They all voted for life in the Deep Dark, even Tikka who I knew did not like Gofi in the slightest. I believed Gofi’s remorse to be genuine, I believe that was the reason the chiefs voted the same.
“Gofi of the Rhinomen Tribe, you have been sentenced to life in the Deep Dark. You will be held within the Bazaar Jail cells until transportation can be arranged,” Zemira stated, making it official. I think I may have seen her heart break when she handed down that final verdict. “Guards, please return Gofi to his cell.”
It took a minute for the guards to unshackle Gofi from the floor and escort him out.
“I want to thank all the chiefs for their time and hard work today,” Zemira said, taking a shuddering breath as the door closed behind the last guard escorting Gofi from the room.
The chiefs talked among themselves for a few minutes longer before they left as well.
“Thank you for sparing my sister that day,” Tikka said, surprising me.
“I had nothing to do with that,” I said, my eyes purposely glancing over to Zemira.
“I see,” Tikka said, looking down. Shame evident on her face. “I shall take my leave. If you ever need something from the Cheetahmen Tribe, you only ever need to ask.”
“Thank you, Chief Tikka,” I said.
Once Tikka was gone, Zemira approached and asked me bitterly, “Has justice been served?”
“Yes,” I answered honestly. There was no point in sugarcoating it.
Class Quest Alert: Three Tribes Lost – Completed!
Gofi of the Rhinomen tribe has committed a crime of indescribable evil. See that he is properly punished according to the laws of the Endless Savanna Tribes.
Reward: +5,000-Experience, 2-Sigils of the Goddess Issara
Zemira huffed in anger. “Your justice may have just doomed my tribe. Without Gofi, the Slavers will come, and we will have no way of defending ourselves.”
“I’m working on it,” I said. “My friends and I just took down a large slave caravan a few days ago. We are making steady progress.”
Zemira didn’t respond to that. “Well, if your justice is served, please leave.”
I understood she was in pain and suffering from the loss of her brother-in-law. I wished there was something I could do for her, but there was nothing.
Outside, I found both the Cheetahmen and Rhinomen tribes had long since departed. Only Rose remained, looking a little on the sleepy side of things. Considering I’d spent almost 12-hours inside the city center building, it was understandable that she was tired.
“Finally,” Rose said, perking up upon seeing me, she asked, “What took so long?”
I told her everything about the sentencing as we walked back to our campsite.
“Sounds like Gofi got what he deserved,” Rose said. “I get that he was manipulated, but still . . . children. He killed children, Jack. I don’t think I could ever forgive something like that. It doesn’t matter that this is a game, it is a real world to Gofi.”
“You should have seen him,” I said. “Gofi was . . . broken. He clearly felt such a deep remorse. I couldn’t help but feel for the guy. Life in the Deep Dark is enough.”
Rose reluctantly nodded. “I suppose.”
“In my opinion, Chosi got off way too easily,” I said. “Banishment,” I scoffed. “You should have seen the way she smirked when she was being escorted out.”
“Oh, I saw it when she was escorted out of town,” Rose said. “I get the feeling she’s going to be a problem for us later.”
“I thought the same,” I agreed. “Anyway, what happened to everyone else?”
“After the first four hours, we expected one of the verdicts to be handed down. Then one of the guards announced a tie and that there would be another four hours of discussion. Olaf said he was going to the forge to work on his blacksmithing. He checked in a little bit after Chosi was escorted away. When I told him about Chosi’s punishment, he decided to return to camp with Vision to make sure Chosi didn’t try anything. Baby ended up going with him,” Rose answered.
“What about Micaela?” I asked.
“She left about an hour before you finished up. Said she was going to go back to camp and start cooking, figuring you would be hungry once everything ended. Sooty and Nahid left just before sunset to pick up Loral and Marie,” Rose answered, also answering my question about Sooty and Nahid before I could even ask.
“Sounds like a boring day, what did you get up to while you were waiting?” I asked.
Rose pulled a book from her bag and showing me ‘The Hasty Enchanter’. It was the book she got last week while we were in Root City. “I figured I better finish this before it disappears back to the library.”
“Did you get the subskill you wanted?” I asked.
Rose nodded. “Yep.”
“How was the speed increase?” I asked.
“Just 0.20% per level, so at Rank II level 52, I have 3.40% increased enchanting speed. It’s not much but by Rank X, I should have a 20% increased enchanting speed,” Rose explained.
“That doesn’t sound too bad at all,” I said. “I wonder if I should look into speed writing of some kind?”
“Copycat,” Rose teased.
“Don’t you know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?” I asked, matching her teasing with my own.
Rose rolled her eyes. “Whatever
you say, Jack.”
We walked a little further in comfortable silence before Rose spoke again.
“What time do we need to be at the Hunter’s Union camp tomorrow?” Rose asked.
“Huntmaster Twill wants to be moving by sunrise,” I answered. I had stopped by their camp to pay for the expedition before returning to my own campsite the day before.
“And you’re sure you want to bring Harrison, Sooty, and Nahid with us?” Rose asked.
“It’s not a matter of what I want. Harrison made it clear he’s coming whether I want him to or not. Sooty is something of a scavenging savant according to the Hunter’s Union members. Thankfully, Sooty has at least agreed to remain in the rear with the gear. And Nahid seems determined to live in Sooty’s shadow,” I responded.
“Literally in his shadow,” Rose joked.
“Anyway, we should probably eat then call it an early night,” I said, approaching the edge of our camp. I was happy to see my friends, even the sour looking Olaf.
“Why does Olaf look so upset?” I asked Micaela.
“The chimera got him again,” Micaela answered.
“I thought Vision was supposed be helping with that?” I asked.
“Apparently, the chimera didn’t care this time. Ollie was able to shoot the chimera twice before it got him, but it just wasn’t enough damage to kill it and with none of us there to help him . . . well, you get the idea,” Micaela answered.
“Poor Olaf,” Rose commented, trying not to grin.
“It’s not funny,” I chided her.
“No, it’s not,” Rose said, still trying not to grin.
“Rose, stop,” I said.
“What? I agreed, it’s not funny,” Rose said, this time managing to keep a mostly straight face.
I could only shake my head.
Rose grinned and kissed me.
“Hey, Sooty, does the World Tree have something like catnip?” Rose shouted across the campfire, intentionally loud for Olaf to hear.
I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped, especially when Olaf glared at Rose, his eyes reflecting a desire to cause her untold amounts of pain. It didn’t last long as even he laughed at the notion . . . eventually.
Chapter 23
When they say the Endless Savanna is endless, I’m not sure, but they may have been underestimating the size of it. It took us two days to travel from the portal to the Bazaar when we first came to the province. I was able to run that same distance in just under a day. Generally, I would have thought the city in most provinces, would be near the center of the province. The Endless Savanna disproved that handily. Three days of traveling from sunrise to sunset made it clear that I severely underestimated the size of the province.
That said, it was three days of seeing the uniform landscape of scrub, tall grasses, and clusters of umbrella trees as far as the eye could see. This was only broken up by the rare rock formation and even rarer hill. It was about an hour into day four when we finally saw the silhouette of a mountain in the far distance. Not a range of mountains but a single solitary mountain surrounded by the same familiar landscape you saw everywhere else . . . at least, I think it was a mountain. There was no snowcap on it, but it certainly looked like a massive jagged rock you would expect to be a mountain.
A few hours later, we seemed to be getting closer to the mountain, which loomed larger in the distance. It was about then Twill called the caravan to a halt. “Alright, we are still about a half a day from the old Diamond Bazaar,” Twill announced, getting a combination of cheers and grumbles. “Scouts, as soon as we get there, I want the town swept and cleared out, last time we were here a nest of Giant Viper Spiders had taken up residence, who knows what’s moved in since we cleared them out. Everyone else, we’re going to set up camp around the old stables. I want a guard on the oxen at all times. Even losing one ox might mean losing a thousand or more gold in materials that would have been hauled away otherwise. Now, if there are no questions, let us get moving. Jackson, make sure that the ground under the stables is still solid rock, at least ten feet thick.”
I had a million questions, mostly about this Diamond Bazaar he mentioned. I was also curious why he was telling the Earth Mage, Jackson, to check the ground. Just what was he worried about burrowing up from below us? Sadly, it was clear he had no intention of entertaining questions at that moment in time.
Travelling the last few days had been interesting. We walked so much and for so long that I was able to gain enough points in Stamina and Endurance to reach my level caps on both. Dexterity also gained a few points from training in the evening. Strength did as well, but when my Strength stat crossed the two hundred mark, my ‘Body Control’ jumped to Rank II and gained an amazing passive effect.
Skill: Body Control
Rank: II
Level: 13
Experience: 84.11%
Description: Control of oneself is a necessary skill for any martial skill. Body Control is a step along that path and can be used to boost one's physical attributes.
Skill Effect (Passive): Increases your Strength Experience Gain by 1.30%. Increases your Stamina Experience Gain by 1.30%
Subskills:
Sudden Boost
Control the Stamina within your body to provide a sudden +2.13-Strength boost to a muscle group of your choice for 5-seconds at a cost of -21-SP per boost.
Pacing
Reduce the SP cost of all skills by 2.13%
Amped Up
Control the Stamina within the body to provide a steady +2.13-Strength throughout the body for 5-seconds at the cost of -21-SP per boost.
Sprint
Control the Stamina within the body to increase running speed by 20% for 5-seconds at the cost of -21-SP per boost.
Jump
Control the Stamina within the body to increase your maximum jump height by 12.50-feet per boost at the cost of -110-SP per boost.
Recoil
Control the Stamina within your body to reinforce yourself and reduce all physical damage taken by 30.00% for 5-seconds at the cost of -750-SP per boost.
Unfortunately, it also came with an increase to SP cost for every subskill that came with it, thankfully the costs didn’t double. In fact, they didn’t increase until level 10 of Rank two. Well, except for ‘Recoil’, it jumped by -250-SP from the start but didn’t increase at all at level 10. It really didn’t need to get more expensive, but that was more me being greedy and not wanting to spend more SP on the skill than it already required.
Other skills leveled up across the board from sparring with my friends and the other Hunters, but none of the skill levels meant as much as that one did. And that wasn’t the only thing. Most surprisingly, Baby came to me with a new subskill for ‘Perception’ called ‘Threat Sense’. Because of that, I spent my first two evenings getting whipped with a wooden switch by my friends, and some of the Hunters. After learning about it from Baby, as a group we decided it was a skill we all needed . . . no, required. Unfortunately, it was also decided, mostly by Baby and Rose, that I would be the one to learn it then put it into skill scrolls for everyone to use. After making sure each of my friends had the skill, I was approached by some of the Hunters asking if they could buy the skill from me. I asked Twill about the value, hoping he would give me an honest answer, to which he said the Hunter’s Union usually sold them to members for as low as 50-Gold when they got a large supply in. Unfortunately, they didn’t usually have many in stock making it difficult for the Hunters to get a copy. I asked why they didn’t train for it and the answer surprised me. Basically, it was that they couldn’t learn things as fast as adventurers. Like adventurers, they were able to learn a skill through training or books, but it could take years. And trainers weren’t guaranteed to be able to pass the skill on unless they were a master of the skill.
That explained a lot to me actually. Like, Marie was more than a hundred years old and yet she still went to practice in the forge, every day, as if she still working on leveling up her ‘Blacksmi
thing’ skill. With that many years of experience, in addition to formerly being a Goddess, I would have thought she was Rank X twice over. Not to mention how low her level was, which led to asking more questions from my NPC companions. At the end of our last dive, Marie and Sooty both gained a bunch of levels all at once, same as we did. The way Harrison and Sooty explained it, that was very unusual. They surmised it was because they were grouped with adventurers . . . that, or the God Ivaldi interfered somehow. Either way, the World Tree continued to surprise me.
In the end, I kept it cheap for them since they were helping us with the hunt, only 10-Gold each. Rose wasn’t happy I was practically ‘giving them away’ but after I pointed out that she got her copy for free, she was eerily silent.
Most evenings I worked on my ‘Runology’ by default after learning ‘Threat Sense’. Mostly, I was just mass-producing scrolls for it and selling them to the Hunters until everyone of them learned it, many of them borrowing from friends to be able to buy it while it was so cheap. I also made sure to dedicate a little time every evening to level up my ‘Cartography’ skill and build on my map of the province. Though, if you looked at it now, you would see the Bazaar and the local surroundings and a long spoke going off to the northwest of the Bazaar.
Anyway, I had a feeling tonight would be quite different now that we reached our destination. Plus, it gave me a chance to ask questions.
“Bye-bye,” Twill greeted, waving for Olaf and me to join him at his makeshift table that was setup near the camp’s bonfire.
“Evening, Huntmaster,” Olaf greeted formally.
“Hey, Twill,” I said informally. “What’s up?”
“Just want to make sure you and your people are set up for the evening?” Twill asked.
World Tree Online- the Endless Savanna- 3rd Dive Page 40