“It feels rather pleasant on the skin, err, scales.” Zethus commented as he stepped closer to the tree.
“It does,” Helix admitted after a slight delay, causing the other Arakssi to move a step closer to the tree. “Hmmmm.”
“Have all of you seen Shelia yet?” I asked, looking at Freya and Thorne while indicating the rest of the Arakssi in their group. “Has she bound you to Aldford?”
Thorne nodded jerking a thumb backwards from where they had just come. “Just a moment ago, by the Town Hall.”
“So what’s the plan now, Lyrian?” Freya asked, nodding her head at Halcyon. “Halcyon said that you sent someone named Amaranth to go scouting for Graves?”
“Ah, yeah.” I nodded. “Amaranth is my familiar actually, a puma that I accidentally bonded to the other day.”
“Wait, familiar? Puma?” Freya frowned, looking at me with confusion. “Are we talking about the same thing? The way Halcyon explained it made him sound like a person.”
“How do you accidentally bind a familiar anyway?” Thorne added.
“He kind of is a person…” I sighed, not really knowing where to start. “…and that’s a bit of a long story.”
“Before that, what are you?” Freya waved her hand dismissing her earlier question. “All of you already have to have your Base Classes by now, right?”
“We all are,” I replied with a nod. “And I’m a Spellsword, a magic based, melee fighter with high mobility.”
“And I’m a Mage,” Halcyon said before helpfully explaining the rest of the party’s class choices.
“Damn, we are so far behind.” Freya shook her head. “Even with a bit of hunting today, Thorne and I are only level 6.”
“We are all fairly close to level seven,” Helix chimed in, indicating the rest of the Thunder Lizards. “But our sskills are greatly lacking. Our greatest skills are all Unarmed combat, with some Stealth and Perception.”
“Zethus and I have some magic sskills too, but we are sorely undertrained as a whole.” Theia motioned towards the smaller Lizardman.
“You two are magic users?” Halcyon said with surprise.
“Hoping to be,” Zethus answered with a shrug. “I wish to become a Necromancer, while Thelia aimss to become a Shaman.”
“Awesome!” Halcyon looked exceptionally happy to have other spellcasters around. “How about the rest of you? Any thoughts to what you want to do class wise?”
“Rogue or Scout for me,” Thorne replied with a bit of hesitation. “Haven’t quite made up my mind at this point.”
“Warrior mosst likely on my part.” Abaddon shrugged his massive shoulders as if it was an obvious choice.
“I rather enjoy using my fissts and claws,” Cadmus said as he cracked the knuckles in his hands. “I plan to take the Brawler classss.”
“Scout,” Myr replied simply, then looked towards Helix.
“How about you, Helix?” I replied looking at the giant Lizardman, who had yet to answer.
“I am consssidering becoming a Disciple,” Helix said slowly as if embarrassed of his choice. “I would very much like to end up as a Paladin or Warpriest.”
“A Lizardman Paladin or Warpriest?” I was a bit surprised at the combination, but then I smiled and nodded empathetically to Helix’s obvious relief. “That would be cool!”
“Have you thought about a class choice, Freya?” I turned to look at the woman, who simply shrugged at me.
“I don’t know, to be honest.” Freya looked conflicted as she spoke. “I’m not really sure what I like so far. Part of me wants to be a Warrior, to be able to stand up and fight anything. While another part of me wants to be a Rogue or a Scout, so I can sneak and finesse my way through things.”
“You can always do an agility based warrior build,” Halcyon suggested, then pointed to himself. “Certain classes may have higher preferences for certain skills and a particular way of playing, but I can still train my stealth skills as a Mage. Hell, our Warlock, Caius, just spent the last day training his Unarmed and Staff combat skills to help keep up when fighting things. There’s more than one way to play.”
“Really?” Halcyon’s words went a long way to alleviating whatever concerns Freya’s may have had about her choice. She nodded to herself as if making up her mind. “I think I may go Warrior then and see where it takes me.”
We all looked at one another in silence as we mulled over one another’s class choices.
“If we are to go after Gravesss, we must start training, and work towards our Base Classes,” Helix declared, his eyes focusing on me. “You offered us training before. We wish to take advantage of it before we go out hunting once more.”
“Yeah.” Freya nodded. “We have a hell of a long way to catch up, but any pointers or skills you can get us started on would be super helpful, hopefully we can catch up in a day or two without Graves trying anything on the village.”
I shook my head. I can’t wait that long. The party and I have to log off come Wednesday morning. I can’t afford leaving Graves in the wind while we’re logged out.
“What if I told you I had an idea how we could catch you guys up faster?” I asked the group, as I reached into my pack to pull out a piece of armor that I had crafted earlier in the day. “I warn you though, it’s going to hurt a lot and you may die, on top of likely spending the rest of the day covered in blood and shit.”
“Well, when you put it that way…” Freya replied, her eyes lighting up as she saw the armor. “…tell us more.”
***
Lightning flashed through the night, illuminating the Wolverine’s bloody maw as it reeled backwards from Freya’s desperate thrust.
Thunder crashed down from the sky, drowning out the creature’s wounded cry as Cadmus leaped on the creature’s back, claws sinking deep into flesh.
Rain splashed into red pools of blood, streaming down from the creature’s fur, as Helix’s gleaming ax buried itself deep into the side of the creature’s skull.
The Wolverine fell.
“Next!” My voice pierced the air, quickly followed by a flare of magic nearby. A white-haired dark elf shot past me, a snarling roar not far behind. Gracefully, he leaped over a large puddle, vanishing in between two massive Arakssi.
“Wait! Lyrian!” I heard a voice call out. “Just a quick breather.”
“After this one!” I called back as I leaned back into my hiding spot, hearing cursing as my answer reached their ears.
A second Wolverine thundered past me, wildly chasing after Caius. It didn’t even pause in its stride as it saw the dark elf vanish, wildly charging forward. It splashed through the rain, intent on barreling straight through the two Lizardmen.
Its foot came down on the puddle Caius had cleared and promptly fell forward with a splash as the ground disappeared under it. Lightning flashed through the sky once again as a trio of weapons descended on the creature carving wicked wounds in its tough hide. As it struggled to stand, twin flares of magic slammed into its face sending it reeling wildly as it instinctively tried to defend its eyes.
The massive form of Cadmus leaped on the creature’s back once again, this time grabbing hold of the beast’s raging claws. Leaning his weight backwards, Cadmus yanked the Wolverine upwards, exposing its vulnerable throat.
Without hesitation, a blade shot out, stabbing deep into the creature’s gullet, a spray of blood shooting out before disappearing into the rain.
Slumping forward lifelessly, Cadmus let the creature fall, its body splashing into the deceptively deep puddle.
“Good work everyone,” I said, stepping out of my hiding spot and into the torrential downpour, looking at a small circle of illumination that Freya and the others stood in. “We can take a break.”
“Is this what you all did?” Freya asked while panting, water running off of her armor and weapon as the thunderstorm raged above. “Just fight and kill non-stop for hours on end?”
“Sort of.” Caius had to speak up over the sound of the falli
ng rain. “Except it was a shit ton of spiders.”
“Lovely,” Freya replied with a sigh.
“At least the rain is warm.” Thorne offered cheerfully, despite looking like a drowned cat.
“At least you all can see.” Freya shook her head, stifling a yelp as fresh water ran down her back. Out of our group, she was the only one that didn’t have any sort of night vision and was completely dependent on the feeble Light spell that Zethus cast on himself.
With the allure of a new set of equipment and a chance to quickly catch up on levels while training their skills, Freya and the rest of her party were more than willing to try out a power leveling plan that I hoped would bring them up to speed quickly and allow us to go after Graves before our forced log out time Wednesday morning.
After giving Freya and the group their new gear, I conscripted Aldwin, Constantine, Drace and Halcyon to help me whip them into shape. I was intent on giving them enough confidence and skill levels so they would survive once we set off into the wild.
Over the course of the next few hours, we barely let any of them rest for any longer than it took for Shelia or Theia to cast a healing spell, brutally passing down the lessons that we had painstaking learned for ourselves as we sparred with barely any restraint.
Eager to make up for lost time, Freya, Thorne and the rest of the Thunder Lizards rose up to our challenge. Never deigning to quit as their skill slowly improved against ours. Tempers flared, and harsh words were exchanged more than once as we trained, but we pushed through it, intent on preparing them for the realities of combat as we had experienced ourselves. We didn’t want them ending up like Graves’s followers, flinching at the first moment of pain.
Once I felt that their skills had improved enough, we left Aldford, taking only Caius with us as we traveled to the southern hunting grounds that had only recently become overrun with higher leveled creatures I had warned the other Adventurers about.
Now here we were, late into the evening, the rain that had been threatening all day having finally broken into a colossal summer thunderstorm. Water was everywhere, falling faster than it could drain into the ground, turning the soft dirt to mud. It was impossible to tell what was safe footing and what concealed a hole or patch of ground ready to swallow your ankle, if not your entire body.
As the wolverine had just painfully found out.
Hopefully, no one gets struck by lightning, I mused to myself, looking up into the sky and frowning. I also hope that Amaranth found some trace of Graves before this rain washed all of it away.
“How’s everyone doing?” I asked, watching Freya and Thorne both huddle close to the Arakssi in an attempt to keep themselves out of the rain, while Helix and the others seemed completely content being wet. “How’s your progress now?”
“Little more than halfway through level eight,” Abaddon answered cheerfully as if he were on a sunny beach.
“Almost exactly half way through eight here,” Freya answered with markedly less enthusiasm.
“Good!” I clapped my hands in a spray of water as I stepped backwards into my hiding spot, checking my own experience bar that had been steadily building, despite doing little to help. “Just a few more then we can start heading back.”
This little hide hole is doing wonders for my stealth skill. I smiled to myself, seeing that it had risen three levels tonight, just having reached level five. As well as my regular experience too. Not bad for just standing out of sight in case something goes wrong for most of the time.
“Alright, here we go again,” I called out to Caius, who had been more than happy to help pull creatures for us. Not to mention that it was a good opportunity for him to work on his situational awareness and learn to move under pressure.
“Incoming!” Caius shouted as something roared in the distance.
Just a little bit longer, then we can go home to rest.
Chapter 40
It was late by the time we returned to Aldford. The raging storm more than doubling the time it took us to return from our hunting grounds as we made our way back. We slogged our way through the rain and mud stoically, guided by Caius and my Party Sense so that we didn’t lose our way in the storm.
As we made our way closer to Aldford I sensed that Amaranth was still far towards the east, out of range of our mental link. It worried me slightly that he hadn’t returned, but at the same time, I knew that the cat would be loath to travel through a raging storm and get itself wet unless it absolutely had to. Hopefully, once the rain broke, he would begin making his way home with some news to share.
Crossing into Aldford, we were greeted by pair of a Militiamen, along with a pair of dwarven Adventurers that had agreed to take a night watch. Both Adventurers seemed enraptured by the summer storm, content to watch the lightning play across the sky as they maintained their vigil, ensuring no one snuck into Aldford using the cover of the storm.
Eager to reach the Town Hall and finally take off our waterlogged armor, we sped through the sleepy village, quickly pushing open the heavy doors and taking shelter inside. Heated voices and murmuring greeted our ears as we stepped inside, the slam of the door catching everyone’s attention.
“What’s going on?” I called out, seeing dozens of eyes upon me, a wide range of emotion between each of them. The majority that looked at me were torn between concern and anger.
What the hell happened while I was out? It seemed like nearly all of the Adventurers had taken our offer to join Aldford and now found themselves huddling inside the Town Hall to keep away from the storm.
“Lyrian!” I heard Constantine’s voice call out from the other side of the crowd. “Come on everyone, let him through!”
The crowd of Adventurers pushed away from one another, giving me some space to walk towards the other side of the room where the rest of the party waited. I noted a pale elf, dressed in a ragged thread sack sitting on a chair, looking out at everyone with concern. Another half-elf Adventurer I hadn’t met before stood idly by to one side, with his arms crossed over his chest, an angry expression on his face.
That’s one of Graves’s scouts in the chair. I frowned, as I moved my dripping self across the room, trailing a small puddle behind me.
Walking up to Constantine, I nodded to him in greeting. “So… uh. Catch me up?”
Constantine sighed before starting, shaking his head with frustration. “Two separate problems, kind of.”
“Of course there are, why would I assume things start being simple now?” I muttered sarcastically before thumbing my wet hand towards the half-elf. “How about we start with that angry looking Adventurer with the crossed arms.”
“His name is Cerril,” Constantine spoke as he waved the Adventurer over. “He and a few of his friends were among the first to join Aldford this morning and immediately went out hunting. He just spawned back here a couple of hours ago and started telling us that his friends had been captured by goblins and Graves’s Adventurers working together.”
“Fuck,” I hissed to myself, turning to acknowledge Cerril as he approached. “Okay Cerril, Constantine just gave me an outline of what happened. Walk me through it.”
“S-sure,” Cerril stuttered, speaking hesitantly as he looked me over. Whatever attitude the half-elf seemed to have earlier had quickly burnt away now that he was talking to me. “W-where should I start?”
“Where ever is best,” I replied softly, trying not to consciously intimidate the Adventurer but also wanting him to hurry up. “Constantine said you left Aldford this morning after being soulbound here, did you go straight east?”
“N-no, well, not at first. The four of us actually went north, towards Crater Lake.” Cerril paused for a moment to take a deep breath, before continuing. “We were pretty excited to be free this morning and we wanted to make up for lost leveling time.”
I nodded, completely understanding that motivation. “Okay.”
“We hunted for a bit through Crater Lake and after reaching level six, we decided to try out
the Webwood.” Cerril continued, glancing up at the Webwood Queen’s skull on the wall. “We got a fair amount of experience hunting the spiders, but after hitting level seven, we were tired of their poison and decided to go exploring for a better hunting place.”
“We had gone pretty far northwest by that point and knew we’d have to take the roundabout route to get to a higher elevation,” Cerril explained with a shrug. “So we decided to make our way east, out of the crater, then angle back towards Aldford.”
“Is that when you ran into the goblins?” I asked with a frown. Based on what Cerril had told me so far, they hadn’t really gone that far from Aldford, nor that far east if they hugged the edges of Crater Lake.
“N-No,” Cerril said hesitantly. “That was still fairly early in the day and the storm hadn’t started yet.”
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