by Dakota Krout
“While that was fun, I seem to be out of stamina. Time for a snack, a rest, and then onward to destiny!” Jaxon folded his legs and plopped down to the ground, landing gently although he wasn’t trying to do so. He pulled over his damaged bag, reaching in for some travel rations and a sewing kit. He sewed the strap back to the bag, nodding when he pulled at the ugly work and it held.
Skill gained: Sewing-
“Don’t want it,” Jaxon loudly spoke even as the rest of the information began appearing. Then he waited with anticipation. This was a trick he had learned, the secret to his amazing success and the only way he knew of to get ahead in the game. This was the one thing he would never tell another person.
Are you sure you want to refuse learning the skill [Sewing]? If you refuse this skill, the only way to learn the first rank of skill [Sewing] will be to devote five skill points to learning it. Yes / No.
“Yes, refuse skill,” Jaxon subvocalized the words, never knowing who may be listening in.
You have refused the skill [Sewing]! Five free skill points have been added to your sheet!
“Excellent.” That put him at thirteen free skill points. Looking at his skills, he finally broke under the pressure and used three points to bring his two most-used skills to the next ranking. Even though he only had ten free points right now, the hope was that it would be enough to be beneficial to any skill he may gain during specialization.
Skill increase: Adjust (Master 0). Congratulations! You have reached mastery of your main class skill! Mastery reward: The base damage of ‘adjust’ has been doubled! Base damage is now 10, and each stack adds damage by 10X, where X=number of stacks. When healing, the penalty has been halved! Now only 0.5 points of damage are given when adjusting to help others!
Skill increase: Acupressure (Master 0). Congratulations! You have reached mastery of the application of pressure to the body. Mastery reward: Critical damage done to acupressure points has been doubled! Current critical hit bonus: 240%.
It had been a long time coming, but Jaxon was now a Master at his craft! He wanted to shout his glee to the world. Instead, he simply got to his feet and began skipping down the road with renewed vigor. His body moved in perfect sync with itself, and his head remained stable even as the rest of him shifted fluidly. There was a sharp pang as he overdid it; it looked like his constitution wasn’t high enough for him to avoid damage when he went just a little too far. He almost wanted to pick a fight with something or someone just to see the limits and benefits of his new threshold and skill levels! It seemed that all of the Wolfmen in the area had been mustered for war, however, and Jaxon didn’t see a single one of the race’s combatants anywhere.
He heard a bugle off to his left, followed by a series of rapid explosions. He must have caught up to where the army was waging their war! Jaxon slowed slightly, then shook his head and picked up the pace. If he left this path, he might never find it again! Specialization needed to come first. Besides, it wasn’t as if there was any real benefit for him in the war as it stood. The quest had been completed. Right now, it was a slaughter of a shattered race, and that was just genocide. Jaxon decided to do a few more flips. He was really enjoying the feel of his body! How tightly could he curl himself while in the air? Jaxon never saw the overturned earth or magic flowing in the ground under him; he was far too entranced with his body.
Luck +1!
“I agree, game! Doing flips at my age is oddly lucky!” Jaxon happily skipped, twirled, and pirouetted down the path, all the while somehow avoiding pitfalls, explosive traps, and patrols of both the human and Wolfman army. The signs of their passing or setup were obvious to those who knew what they were looking for, but Jaxon was only looking for the next landmark he had been told would be in his path. Hours passed, and he found no enemies, no monsters, and no signs of life whatsoever.
“Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jole~e~ne! I’m begging of you, please don’t take my life!” Jaxon had started singing to pass the time as he continued onward and was hoping that something interesting would happen as he sang. “All you’ve ever brought is pain and strife; your teeth are sharp, your mouth takes life; your claws rend flesh, there’s no escape… from the judgement of the eldritch one, Jolene!”
Would you like to change class to ‘Dark Bard’? Skills include summoning magics, debuffs for friends and allies, and self-sabotage. Yes / No.
“No thank you, game.” Jaxon furrowed his brow. “Perhaps I should be more careful of what I’m singing?”
His eyes lit up as the late afternoon heat began shifting to the chill of evening. In the distance, a tribal-style palisade was coming into view, and hulking sentries were watching him approach. Snarls and barking filled the air, warning to others that an invader was approaching. Jaxon clipped on his ‘Token of Appreciation’ and waved at the gate guards. He shifted to their language, and the nearest winced as he butchered their native tongue.
“Heelloo, fellow fist-punchers! I arrive here to go to Temple of Rewarding Tests! I pass through? You want chiropractic services?” The last few words were in English, as the Wolfmen simply didn’t have a translation for them. “I give good trade! You strong, me money getting! Democracy and peanut!”
The sentry was confused at a few of the words, but when he saw the token, he nodded and let down a rope. There was no need for gates around the town; only children needed ropes to get in and out, but Jaxon didn’t understand the insult and clambered up. “Ah! My grati-thanks! I can close eyes in peace and rest here?”
He smiled around at the Wolfmen who were now surrounding him. What an unexpectedly cordial welcome; they were smiling! Wait. Didn’t smiling mean something different to them?
Chapter Eight
“That man is insane.” Jessamyn disarmed yet another trap in the road, this one basically a landmine that would first shatter the armor of anyone standing on it, then explode. Her progress in tailing him had slowed significantly when she encountered the first trap. Unlike Jaxon, she couldn’t safely leap over the majority of them; she needed to carefully search for them and then either avoid or disarm them.
Jess had been following Jaxon ever since he had appeared screaming outside of a shrine. His gear looked really good, and the way everyone ran from him suggested that he had power and money. Why else would they have those looks of fear on their faces? The man had made what should have already been a fatal mistake; he was alone. Somehow, though, he kept making the strangest choices! Instead of attacking the Wolfmen, he had traveled with them for a day! She had been waiting for the red aura of a racial traitor to appear so she could rob and slay him worry-free, but it never showed up.
All of her carefully laid traps on the paths and roads he would have been using if he had gone back to where he started? Useless! Then… then! The deadly Asp she had lured to the area? It left because the man annoyed it away! That had taken hours of carefully placing prey and heating a small section of the road for it to digest its food on! That more than anything was causing her a headache. Now, on the deadliest stretch of road trapped by both Humans and Wolfmen, Jaxon had sped up. Jess had no idea where he was going, but it was sure to be a place with untold treasures. She had to find him, or when the rest of her team caught up, they would boot her from the party.
She shivered at that thought. She was trying to get into a very exclusive guild that planned on focusing on player-versus-player combat, and on the final mission before becoming a full member, she was failing! She had already been loaned a ‘Graverobber’s Kris’, which was the secret weapon of her guild. It allowed her to loot a random item from any player she killed, and she had originally planned to take out the Monk as soon as possible. Why had she listened to that stupid… right, the possibility of real treasure. She sighed, getting back to work on clearing a small path through the megatons of explosives this road contained.
JAXON
“Hello, big Chief Wolf!” Jaxon smiled winningly at the extra-large Wolfman he had been brought before. Once again, he didn’t know the
Wolfman word for something, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying, “You first patient?”
“I’m not a Chief,” the Wolfman replied in passable English. “Why are you here? Why should we not slaughter you and give our pups a taste for manflesh?”
Jaxon nodded along at his words. “I see, I see. You have hungry children and need a discount. I don’t think there are any rules on discounts for non-human sapients, so I won’t tell if you don’t. As to why I am here, an old Wolflady sent me this way and told me that you would give me directions to a temple that might help me specialize.”
“What if I said I didn’t believe you?” The Wolfman’s ear twitched back and forth lazily. “What if I said that you killed one of our people and took that token off their corpse?”
“Oh, right!” Jaxon snapped his fingers loudly, causing not a few weapons to be pulled from sheaths. “I was supposed to tell you a phrase if this came up… let me think… what was it…? Got it! Let me see if I can pronounce it in wolf-tongue properly. ‘You leave this one alone, or I will leave you shaking you like a poodle.”
The room went silent, and even the socially dense Jaxon noticed. “A-hem, yes, but she didn’t tell me what it meant, just made me memorize it perfectly.”
A strange chuffing sound came from the Wolfman, and Jaxon could have sworn that he saw a tail wag once or twice. The Wolfman was laughing? “You met O’Baba! My people, O’Baba lives!”
There was a moment of quiet, and then whispering broke out, what passed for whispers among their people anyway. “You bring us joyous news! But tell me, fist-puncher, why would O’Baba vouch for you?”
“Now, first off, I am uncertain if that was her name.” Jaxon held up his gloved hand to make sure that fact was known. “I was given this token after rescuing a pack of Wolfladies and puppies… err… I don’t know what you call children here. Then the elderly Wolflady made me travel with them for a day to learn some of your throat-damaging, guttural language.”
For some reason, his words were laughed at, and chuffing erupted in the area. “You… you saved O’Baba? Was the human King or Queen attacking her? What did you save The People’s most powerful shaman from?”
“She was being attacked by a group of humans that had bounties for kills.” Jaxon’s words brought another round of chuffing. “Even if she is as powerful as you say, since she was protecting others… I think the real reason I was given this token is that no one else got killed.”
The laughing stopped, and the Wolfmen shifted slightly on their feet, wanting nothing more than to have this human stop making them uncomfortable. His words made them realize that it was possible that a few pups may have been slain if he hadn’t intervened. Not-the-Chief huffed through his snout and spread his arms wide. “If the O’Baba gave you her personal token, who am I to refuse you? Now, you wanted to trade? What can you offer?”
“Offer?” Jaxon’s eyes lit up, and he needed to wipe a line of drool off his chin. For some reason, he couldn’t contain his excitement at being able to help a new race adjust. “Yes! I can adjust your bodies, allowing you to move correctly and be more powerful. While it is not a permanent effect initially, over the course of several sessions, your body will become far stronger! I can use myself as an example.”
Jaxon twisted around in a dizzying whirl; bending, twisting, and flipping to show his flexibility and strength. He was holding himself up with a single finger when the Wolfman stopped him, speaking with out of sync mouth movements, “Please, yes, you can stop. There is nothing I would like more than this buff you offer.”
“Then have it you shall!” Jaxon stepped forward and started driving his fingers into the various acupressure points he had been able to discover or learn about.
The third poke sent a needle into a nerve cluster, forcing the Wolfman to choke back his cry of rage at the sudden but somewhat expected assault. His eyes went wide as the human grasped his head and twisted, sure that this was the end for him. Instead, there was a *pop*, and his head was twisted another direction. *Pop*. The expected pain never arrived. Instead, relief began to flow through him. The human was suddenly on his back, grasping the armor on his shoulders and pressing down with his feet while leaning backward. *Crack*!
“Hyperkyphosis. Tsk, tsk. Your caste system is seriously impeding your body’s natural ability to stand erect.” Jaxon hopped down to the ground and stepped back. Wiping his hands off, he smiled as the Wolfman began moving again. The huge beast took a step forward and stood straight, the slouch he had always walked with removed for the first time in his life. He was suddenly standing over a foot taller, and his presence washed over the others like a physical blow. They averted their eyes and slouched lower; obviously, their leader had somehow just become an actual chief!
“I feel… amazing. You could have killed me, yet you didn’t…” The Wolfman growled deeply and moved with higher agility than he had ever been able to manage. “You also followed our rules, ensuring to inflict some pain with each touch so that my constitution could improve over time. This buff…! No! It lasts how long?”
Feat of honor performed! Your reputation with the Wolfmen has increased by 800! Current reputation is: 0 (forced neutral). Actual reputation is: -2200 (Hated).
“Should be about three days, but repeated usage increases the length.” Jaxon happily smiled as the Wolfmen around him began to murmur and shift closer. They had planned to attack him, but at their new Chieftain's words, they instead began vying for a closer position. His next words barely even gave them pause. “Now, Mr. Wolf, what would you say is a fair price for this treatment?”
Chapter Nine
“Skipping freak, vanishing along a road that I barely survived cautiously moving along!” Jess was covered in mud, blood, and her armor was scorched and charred from failed attempts to disarm traps. It had also just started to rain. Today was not her idea of fun times. “When I catch up to him, I don’t care what the others want; it’s stabbing time! I’ll get into the guild, get the recognition I deserve, and make giant barrels of money. Then-gah!”
Jess stopped short just as a sword whistled through the area her head should have been. She had forgotten to go into stealth and was now staring at a small pack of Wolfmen as they surrounded her. She screamed her frustration as she was forced to dodge another attack. “Well isn’t this just perfect! You suck!”
The world went dark for her as she was clubbed over the head from behind, and she found herself standing in her respawn room looking at a notification. When she finished reading it, she screamed in frustration.
You are unconscious! Warning: you are currently a prisoner of war!
In Eternia, a Wolfman had lifted her comatose body and carelessly tossed her over his shoulder. They started walking toward town in a good mood; they had a prisoner! One of three things would happen next. They would slay her before she awoke and use her body for various crafting components and food, give her to a Shaman, or… perhaps the strange human would trade some of his power-pain buffs for her life. At their loping speed, the pack reached town and brought the prisoner over to the small area the human had set up. He was surrounded by smoked meats, cured hides, and various other commodities that were either of low value to the wolves or something that they could go without.
“Step up right, wolf-friends!” Jaxon called in a terrible rendition of their proper tongue. “Strong making power-pain! Small cost, large gain!”
“We need to get you some more practice with our speech,” the leading Warrior jeered at Jaxon. The man in question simply stared back at him blankly, his artificial smile causing their hackles to rise.
“Thank you for interest, but words too big to catch. You want trade?” Jaxon was speaking slowly but still failing spectacularly at their tongue.
“I have woman!” the Wolfman Warrior called out in equally broken English. “I give to you, whole party gets pain-power!”
“Pain-power, that’s a cute name for Chiropractic care.” Jaxon chuckled lightly, obviously not understand
ing that he had been saying something similar. He looked at the lady in question, getting a nagging feeling that he had seen her before. Jaxon responded in their language, trying to haggle—badly, “Whew! Stinky! She worth whole friends getting pain-power?”
“Up to you.” The Wolfman flicked his ears, their version of shrugging. “Either that or we eat her and pay another way.”
Jaxon hesitated, then looked at the stack of goods he had collected. He looked back at the lady, then the goods, and shrugged helplessly. “I… suppose. Please get in line and lay on the table, there is far more I can do for your bodies on a proper surface.”
The Wolfmen chuffed, knowing they had gotten a good deal out of him. It was very likely that someone would cut down the female human when she was up and moving around again. It was unlikely that she had been coming toward them with good intentions, and the second she acted out or left Jaxon’s side… someone would pounce. Jaxon went fairly quickly with these adjustments; knowing that he was being taken advantage of made him work more forcefully than usual. Yipping and whining were common as he used his glove’s needles less accurately than he could have. Still, the Wolfmen were pleased by the outcome of their deal and left standing taller and straighter.
Jaxon glared at the still form of what he assumed was an assassin type, cracking his knuckles. She would need to pay him back for the rescue and the free care he had needed to give the Wolfmen. He sat down on his table, having no patients waiting, and stared at her as the rain started to pick up. He was under a lean-to and staying dry, but she was flopped awkwardly on the ground in a slowly growing puddle. Jaxon watched with interest as she regained consciousness. The process was very different in this world. Instead of slowly coming around and being confused, her eyes popped open and she hopped to her feet ready to fight. Jaxon saw her wince as what must be a horrible headache arrived.