by TJ Reynolds
A level-up notice was nice, but my stats had only changed minimally. A major notification was flashing, and I was forced to stand up and fist pump several times before reading through it.
Class Rank Up: Pathfinder!
Pathfinder: Your path in the Hunter class tree has increased once again. You are one step closer on your journey to becoming one of the Doondane. All Class Skill-related tasks gain an efficiency bonus of 25%. This reduces time of completion, improves quality, or both, depending on the task at hand. Fine and Excellent quality items can be produced with Animal Harvesting, Herbalism, and Skinning.
As a Pathfinder, your focus will be on mastering the weapon systems you have chosen as well as improving your relationship with the environment and the factions you have allied with. Your next class rank increases will require you to move beyond the basics of survival and forestry. If you have the courage, your journey will lead you on to Forest Warden, Ranger, and finally Doondane!
Class Skill unlocked: Choose between one of three Passive skills:
Dead Eye (Passive): Your vision becomes more acute when you use your bow. Accuracy of all shots, including ones that rely on skills, is increased. Total range increased by 15% and chance of critical hit increased by 10%.
Bleed (Passive): All ranged attacks have a 30% chance of causing the Bleed effect. Bleed causes target to lose 5% of total HP every 5 seconds for a total of 30 seconds.
Ranger’s Reflex (Passive): All movement speed and reaction time during combat is increased by 15%.
I pondered my options for a few moments and told Pachi about each skill. She quickly agreed with me that Ranger’s Reflex was the best choice for now. Too many times, I’d taken a hit or missed a chance to bring down an enemy due to a lack of speed. Also, it benefitted both my bow and sword play.
I made the selection and moved on to another prompt.
Class Skill unlocked: Choose between one of three Active skills:
Penetrating Shot (Active): Increases the Armor Penetration of a ranged attack by 50%. Charge Time: 6 seconds. Cooldown: 2 minutes
Clarity of the Wild (Active): Calls upon the tranquility of living as one with the wilderness around you. Both player and companion gain +15% accuracy with attacks and +20% chance to land a critical blow. Duration: 2 minutes. Cooldown: 10 minutes.
Uncanny Sense (Active): 80% chance of detecting any creatures or enemies that are hidden or are using Stealth. Skill success diminishes if target has higher level by 10% per level. Cooldown: 30 minutes.
Pachi was more than happy to be included on my next skill decision, so we debated for a time.
Penetrating Shot was the first choice to be dismissed. It would no doubt help bring down armored foes, but considering the charge time, we both felt it was impractical.
Being able to sense a stealthed enemy would no doubt also come in handy, but the ratkin were not the type to do so, at least not now that their ranks and pride were swollen. It came to Clarity of the Wild, which I thought was awesome, because for the first time, I could buff Pachi.
I made the choice, feeling a surge of excitement at the prospect of using the skill as soon as possible.
Before I turned off my interface again, I explored the requirements needed for the Forest Warden class rank.
Avatar Level: 24 out of 35
Ranged Weapon: Level 10 out of 20
Sword Mastery: Level 12 out of 20
Pet Bond: Level 3 out of 4
Forest Atunement: Level 2 out of 5
Mountain Atunement: Level 4 out of 5
Battle Tactics: Level 3 out of 5
Advanced Tracking: Level 2 out of 5
Allied with Sirrushi Rangers: 750 out of 3000 Reputation
Companion Affinity: Level 2 out of 4
Reviewing the daunting list, it was apparent I would not be attaining the next class rank any time soon.
I need to gain six levels to start, not to mention polish my bow and sword skills. Yet those didn’t seem to be the ones that would take the longest to acquire. I hadn’t even known that Battle Tactics was a skill, as I’d been ignoring the growing list of minor skills. It was now firmly on my radar, though, and so was Advanced Tracking.
It was interesting to see that Pachi’s Affinity affected me so greatly. I’d need to ask her more about what she needed to gain favor with Citlali, the divinity she’d chosen.
But the showstopper, the piece to this puzzle that would no doubt halt my progression, was the Alliance. I’d worked with Selna and met with the rangers at their convocation, then agreed to help them. That had been worth 750 reputation points. I was worried to think about what it would take to earn the rest of the 3000 needed to gain full Alliance status.
I couldn’t do a thing about it now, so I dismissed the screen from my vision.
Hey, Pachi, I said as I stood and brushed myself off. I have some food but would love to have venison. Care to take down another deer with me?
No need my friend, the enfield said. Reaching around beside herself, she set a sticky haunch of venison before me. I saved this for you. I ate until it hurt.
I laughed and thanked her. The meat didn’t look very good now, but a quick rinse in the stream and roasting it over the fire would change that.
As the sun fell behind a ridge of mountain peaks, and the wind grew impatient and pestered the grove of trees, I set about my dinner.
I chatted with Pachi while the meat cooked. She had questions about every type of meat that I’d tried. Rabbit was tied with boar in her opinion. Having tried lamb once, I mentioned it to her, and she agreed that it sounded good.
I too ate until it hurt, and as the coals died down, I left the meat over the fire to dry out. It would make for good travel rations.
We slept that night cozy as we’d ever been, and when I woke, Pachi didn’t have any complaints about either my snoring or the rising sun. The wood screen that blocked off our cave made the morning rays mild and enjoyable, so we both woke soon after sunup, but with much less urgency than before.
And as our new home filled with the gold of a new day, I couldn’t help but think that my mother would have loved this. Only once, when I was very young, had we driven up into the Sierra Nevada mountains and gone camping.
Reservations were insanely expensive, and my dad had purchased the space over a year in advance. When we’d gotten got there, after dark and tired from the long drive, we had barely been able to assemble our tent. We climbed inside and passed out, happy to be done with the day. But the next morning, the sun pierced our flimsy tent with such untamed beauty that we all lay in our sleeping bags, chatting away in the golden light, until it was too warm to suffer.
So it was with thoughts of the best years in my family’s history that I decided to snuggle up with Pachi, indulging in a slow morning free of restrictions.
When we felt good and ready, we explored the mountains around us.
We found the head of the river that ran down past Judas’ hut, a pool of sapphire-blue water churning from the three snowmelt streams that fed it. In another mountain pass, I spotted a scaled goat with horns that shimmered gold in the sunlight. Pachi asked to descend and confront it in valiant battle, but I dissuaded her. It looked to be nearly as large as Tejón and it was not alone.
Pachi suggested we lunch on a cliff face that overlooked the ocean, our flight having pulled us west again before we turned back south for the day. So I ate venison and Pachi crunched on a stray sheep we’d found, and we looked out over the mountains and hillocks that descended below us, the azure shelf of the ocean shimmering beyond.
Returning before sunset, having found little but awe and beauty abound, we relaxed together and fell asleep early.
I woke Pachi earlier than she appreciated when the morning came. A day spent meandering was pleasant, but if we didn’t find the wyverns soon, trouble might befall our allies.
What exactly we were to look for, I still had no idea. Judas hadn’t either when he told me to seek them out, only that they lived so
mewhere in the peaks of the Sirrushi Mountains.
We flew three hours or so, heading south and following the mountain range from above. Even in the full light of day, the altitude chilled me to the bone the entire flight.
Setting down in a glade similar to our own for a break, I spent more time stretching out my sore muscles and running in place to warm up than I did eating or resting.
I told Pachi my plan for the next leg of exploration as I worked on a stiff hamstring, Let’s fly east before turning north again. That is, if you don’t think you’ll get lost.
Pachi snorted below me and sent me a barrage of annoyance. As if one of the vardeen could get lost. While the sun still rises and the sea continues to…
I interrupted her self-righteous rebuke. I get it. You’re amazing. Nothing like a fox bird to navigate the skies. My teasing was enough to make me smile, but earned me a surprise that didn’t feel like a fair trade. Pachi suddenly folded her wings and plummeted a hundred feet before finally popping them open again.
My unrestrained scream echoed off the stone of the mountain below, and Pachi shook with laughter.
As I recovered, I noticed something new. A small lake sat cupped in the tip of a mountain, towers of steam rising off of its turquoise surface. I pointed it out, and Pachi flew closer.
In our horseplay, we had discovered a sky-high hot spring. I told Pachi to take us down, and she did so with pleasure.
We walked around the beautiful water and marveled at the sight. On one side of the lake, a small mound rose up, capped by a broken stone archway.
Pachi abandoned the ruins to my curiosity and, after testing the water with a paw, plunged into the hot spring shamelessly. You must come in, sister. The water is most refreshing! Pachi bobbed back up to the surface, paddling around happily. She was a sight to see. If you could ignore her size and the wings folded on her back, it was obvious that she swam just like a dog.
I thought about telling her but chose not to ruffle her feathers. She needed this reprieve. Instead, I walked up to the tall archway, admiring the images scored into its columns. They had defied time itself and, astonishingly, remained clear in their depictions.
Dwarves, stout and bearded, stood around a fire and an anvil. Elves with lean figures and leaves in their hair walked beside dragons. I studied the latter, sleek and long creatures whose scales almost seemed to shimmer in the pale stone they were carved in.
My mind drifted to Anwar and I realized that these might not be dragons. They certainly weren’t as large as what Judas had described. These were wyverns.
A thread of excitement ran through my body and I scanned around, reading more pictographs of what I could only describe as a gathering of many races. Orcs, men, even one image of an enfield, or, as Pachi would say, a vardeen warrior, with its wings spread wide and head bowed in respect to another wyvern.
I ran up on top of a wide dais that stood below the broken archway. Looking all around me, I saw that the ruins stood in the rough shape of a rectangle. Fragments of other columns lay about, the clean edges of cut stone all around. Their haphazard arrangement—and the shattering they had endured—made them harder to notice, but now that my eye had picked up on the distinctions, I realized I was standing in the midst of a vast ruin.
Pachi! I think I found something. We should fly again overhead and see if we can notice anything specific.
She dove in the water again and surged up with her head steaming in the mountain air. Certainly, but I would prefer a good deal of this first.
I relented, wanting her to enjoy herself for once, and even entertained the idea of joining her. But then a strained squeal of pain caught my attention.
I turned toward the source of the sound yet saw only a depression in the side of the mountain.
Another squeal confirmed my suspicions. Something was being attacked, and it was nearby. I froze, unsure of exactly where the scream had come from, but Pachi charged out of the water with steam coming off her body in waves.
The scream came from that direction, Pachi called to me mentally as she shook the water from her body. Come, let us see what is afoot. If it wasn’t for the urgency of the cry of pain, I’d have laughed again. Just like a dog.
I jumped up into the saddle and we ran across the top of the mountain and down its slope. The depression I’d seen earlier continued to fall away, and as we reached the base of a taller mountain that stretched above, I saw a cave.
At first, it seemed like little more than an overhang, but as we approached, the depth of the cave became obvious, a black maw glaring at us ominously.
Before I could ask Pachi if she was sure of the sound’s origin, another scream issued from the cave, filled with fright.
She plunged forward and we entered the cave, which was taller than it looked. In fact, after we had gone a few dozen feet, it opened up into a wide cavern. I gasped at the unexpected beauty of it. More of the turquoise water bubbled in shallow pools around the cavern, and it was lit with a blue glow that made the walls and ceiling glitter. As I looked closer, I noticed that the walls were covered in tiny crystals.
What is this place? I said to Pachi. It’s so beautiful.
She peered around in the low lighting, searching for trouble. It is, and yet something is in pain. Let me know if you see anything.
I dismounted and we crept forward, not wanting to rush into an ambush.
The cavern turned and wound its way down into the mountain, and yet as far as I could see, blue light filled the air, and steam from bubbling pools floated in clouds. Then, as we began to descend a path into a deeper chamber, another squeal pierced the air.
It sounded like a creature being wounded this time, and the noise was followed by a skittering of feet or maybe talons over rock. As I was about to ask Pachi what she thought it might be, the air shook with the guttural roar of something massive and angry.
We hunkered down, wincing from the intensity of the roar. I glanced over at my nervous friend and saw my fear reflected in her eyes. It was very clear that whatever creature was being attacked was in serious trouble.
6: “Battle is a mirror. What you see of yourself in its pristine surface is often more frightening than the bloody bits.”
— Wardahl Sevenhalls
MADI
I rocked that bath until I was half prune. Tejón managed to put away most of the meat that had been delivered and was making the curtain shudder with his snoring.
It was tempting to crash then and there, but the noise from the common room piqued my attention. Raucous laughter and the thumping of feet and fists finally made me pull on my clothes, which had been cleaned, and head out.
Though I’d eaten what seemed like half a pound of cheese and a plate of fruit, I decided I’d order a steak as well. Why not eat my fill of something good before I headed back out into the world of biscuits and jerky?
Tables were spread around the room, shabby things that were little more than a slab of wood placed on top of empty wine barrels. The room was filled, and a bard strummed a crude and predictable song, but the joy the lyrics produced was infectious.
I found myself tapping my foot and laughing.
My food came and I ordered an ale. Though the game mechanics in EO removed the effects of alcohol for anyone under eighteen, there were no restrictions on drinking.
By the sound of it, most of the rest of the patrons were of legal age, and their banter rose from merry to rowdy. I was finishing my meal and had just tossed back the rest of the dark ale in my mug when I overhead an interesting conversation.
A man hollered over the noise of the room, most likely thinking himself discreet, “That’s him. I’d know ‘im if I saw the man in a crowd.”
One of his table mates responded, “Bull. No way. He’s just another pointy-eared bastard. They’re everywhere these days.”
“No, James. You are dead wrong. That’s him. In fact, why don’t we step on over and say hello.”
The second man continued to deny his friend. �
�There’s no way Teegan Shadespar is in some podunk town like Bridgerun. He’s the champion of the capital’s arena.”
I looked over and saw a burly man with a tangled beard stand up at a nearby table and approach the bar. “And the champion of Bridgerun. You know what? Just sit there on your drunk butt and I’ll prove it.” He walked over to a man who sat at the bar a few stools away from me. Without invitation, he clapped the man on the shoulder. “Oy! Can you please tell my friends that you are the one and only Teegan Shadespar?”
I watched as the elf turned and gave a simple nod, not even meeting the man’s gaze.
“See that?” the man bellowed to his mates. “It’s him. Hell. We’re practically friends now.” He turned back to Teegan and tugged on his arm. “Come on, man. Come and drink with us! I want to buy the champion a beer!”
The elf looked up at the man and said in a quiet but clear voice, “I’m sorry. Thank you, but I’m having a quiet night.”
“See then, Berron,” James said. “He doesn’t like you. Must have some sense in his head.” The players at the table fell into a fit of laughter
Berron’s face turned red and anger stole over his features. “What’s your problem? I just wanted to buy you a beer, okay? Come over and meet my friends.”
Teegan reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold coin. “Here. Why don’t you all have a few drinks on me? I don’t want any trouble, okay?”
The man stared at the coin as another of his mates teased, “Now’s your chance, Berron. We all told you that you had enough of a figure to walk the streets. I think he’s overpaying, though.”
The sound of twenty people laughing at once smashed into Berron’s fragile ego.
He snatched the coin from Teegan’s hand and threw it at the far wall. It crashed through a window, and the tinkle of glass made the room go quiet. “You know what? I think what they say about you is shite. I think I could kick your skinny rear, Shadespar.”