Watcher's Test

by Sean Oswald

  Following his time with Emily, Dave had been a man on a mission. It felt good to have a plan, even if it was only roughed out. He did catch himself falling back into a bad habit of thinking that his only value was based upon what he could do for his family and spent a little time eating a midday meal with the kids to help him refocus. It was important to accomplish the goals and even to feel good about it without making it be all about his identity.

  While having lunch with the kids, he noticed something strange. Three different times in an hour, young men from the town came by to ask the mayor’s daughter to introduce them to her guests. Dave noticed that while Aloysia seemed more and more annoyed with each man that came by, that each of the men, while being polite to Jackson and Sara, all seemed to be focused on speaking to Mira. Then upon finding out that he was Mira’s father, they all suddenly wanted to be his best friend, asking him polite questions one might ask a stranger while offering not only their hand in a firm shake but various information about themselves. He had never expected to hear so much about the work experience of young serfs turned lumberjacks. Nor for that matter did he initially understand why they were telling him all these things, but as time passed, he started to realize that they were trying to impress him with an eye toward Mira. Outrage was his first emotion when he finally realized it, and the young man who was speaking to him when it dawned on him nearly soiled himself as Dave stood up from the table and roared for the man to leave.

  When Emily finally arrived back at the mayor’s home for what she had intended as a quick break and meal in her healing efforts, Dave was fuming and greeted her rather abruptly as she walked in.

  “We have a serious problem, Emily.” Seeing the surprised look on her face, he continued, “Do you have any idea how many men are trying to get at Mira?”

  “Dad, don’t make such a big deal about it. It’s kinda flattering.”

  “Wait, Dave. So, men are propositioning Mira?” Emily asked, still confused.

  “No, nothing like that, but they are giving me their resumes all the while staring at her like she is a side of beef.”

  Both Emily and Mira looked at each other and laughed. They both always thought it was funny how overprotective Dave was when it came to Mira and boys. He would let her fight monsters with him but the idea of a man looking at her and suddenly he was red-faced and up in arms.

  With a completely confused expression on her face and more nerve than common sense, Aloysia asked, “Don’t young men talk to the fathers of women they wish to court where you come from?”

  With that, all three of the Nelsons who were present turned to stare at the village girl. Jackson and Sara had already left the room as soon as their dad had gotten so upset.

  Dave sputtered out, “What do you mean, women they wish to court? Mira is just a teenager.”

  “Teen-ager? What does that mean?” Aloysia looked even more confused now.

  Emily placed her hand on Dave’s chest saying to him, “Remember we already discussed, when in Rome…” She left the rest of the expression unsaid as her voice trailed off and turned to Aloysia. “In our culture, Mira is still a child and while it might be expected that she would have a bit of flirting and such with boys her own age, she won’t be an adult until she is eighteen. Even then, most young women in our age don’t seriously consider marriage until they are in their mid-twenties.”

  Dave got control of himself and managed to sit back down while Emily and Aloysia discussed male-female relations in their different cultures with an occasional comment from Mira. Aloysia seemed very interested to hear that “where they came from” it was perfectly acceptable for women to wait until thirty to marry and even more so that women decide for themselves who they would marry rather than their fathers. For her part, Emily was relieved when Talvenicus showed up and provided a distraction. She nudged Dave again, whispering to him to ask, didn’t he have something to talk to the mayor about?

  This led to the men leaving and walking over to the town hall for their discussion. Neither of the men returned home until after moonrise. They were able to reach an agreement that Dave was actually quite pleased with. He couldn’t help but wonder if the increase in his Diplomacy skill had come into play but wasn’t really certain how social skills worked in Eloria as it didn’t seem like skills increased from usage as much as from spending character points. The deal they agreed upon was that the village would grant a plot of land to Emily as a representative of the Church of Shanelle in exchange for free healing. The plot granted was along one side of the rise and was equal in size to the land used by the rest of the buildings in the town center already, so Dave was very pleased, feeling like it would give room for a church and more depending upon what was needed for the future. At the same time, Talvenicus was thrilled that his proposal of free healing for the townsfolk was agreed to, given that healing was normally very costly for anyone seeking aid from the temples. Of course, Dave would still have to figure out how to pay for the materials and labor to build the church, but the rest of the deal offered a means to do that.

  For a spot for their home, they agreed upon the space next to the mayor’s home and Dave bought it for a single gold coin. Even better though, Dave found a job for himself. He really didn’t want to be a lumberjack or craftsman, not in his dream world of swords and sorcery. Equally, the town didn’t really need more lumberjacks, they needed a way to keep their lumberjacks safe. So Dave accepted the position of sheriff in the town. He would be responsible for maintaining the peace and protecting the population and, in recompense, the town would build his family a home immediately. Once the home was built, they would provide him with a salary of ten silver per fortnight. Moreover, Dave would be allowed to keep the pelts and any other materials that he got from the forest creatures that he killed. Both men were sure that they had gotten the better of the other, but it's often been said that a fair deal is one in which both sides walk away from the table happy.

  After dark that night while all the villagers were sleeping soundly in their bed, completely oblivious to the danger on their doorstep, Draznei’kai led the remaining goblins in a raid upon the logging village. He had split the goblins up with the scouts and one of the rogues in one group, and each of the other of the six remaining goblin rogues with two skirmishers. The final group was made up of the goblin shaman and his animated skeletons. Each party of goblins snuck into one of the homes, the people so confident that their doors didn’t even have locks. The rogues quickly did their grisly work, finding the men in each home and, for the most part, killing them with quick coup de grace blows in the form of a knife pulled across the neck. They didn’t stop there though, as the goblins slaughtered every man, woman, and child. Duke Holstein had not even afforded the four guardsmen that Duke Oppenheim had provided for the first village they had attacked, and the animal attacks had already demoralized the people here so that the number of villagers was less than fifty when the attack commenced. When the attack ended, only six women survived, and the gods know that their fate would have been much happier if they had died with the rest instead of being left alive as playthings for the goblins.

  Draznei’kai was pleased as he had not lost a single skeleton or goblin and none of the villagers had escaped to warn anyone else. The plan was progressing just as laid out. Two of the three villages had been slaughtered. Now he would wait a few days before traveling the final fifty miles or so to the last village, Eris’ Rise. He even felt confident that his wyverns would deal with or so delay the squad sent from the capital. Once the last town fell, he would be free of these goblins and able to move onto phase two of the plan. The only uncertainty in his mind was the continued absence of the last goblin scout.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “So, you want to go dungeon delving do you? You’ve survived a war, fought a few monsters, found some loot and now you think you are an adventurer, do you? If only it were that simple then adventurers long in the tooth would be sitting in every tavern sharing the stories of their vi
ctories. Ask yourself not if you are ready for a dungeon, ask rather this, ‘If dungeons are so easy then where are all the successful dungeon delvers?” —Memoir of Jayfen Tarzen, former Chapter Head of the Theriot Adventurers' Guild.

  Morning came to Eris’ Rise as the first sun started to peek over the horizon, and both the Nelsons and all the villagers were oblivious to what had happened just fifty miles to the west while they slept. Dave, Emily, and children had once again slept in the mayor’s home as they would likely be obliged to do for the next two months while a home was built for them. Today, the mayor planned to announce Dave’s new position as sheriff as well as the plans for building a church. The people of Eris’ Rise could use some good news. Dave was more worried about his plans for the day though. Today, he was going to try zone line pulling as a way of leveling up Emily and Mira with the hope that tier 2 would give Emily the ability to heal the two remaining lumberjacks. He had already woken and eaten, and the rest of the family was still sleeping. The extra points he had put into Endurance were really showing up. At 20 now, his Endurance was double the rest of the family, and it, of course, meant that he could run longer and exert himself more, but the pleasant unexpected side effect was that he needed less sleep. He fully expected that he would have two hours before the family was up and probably three hours before they were ready to go.

  The thought crossed his mind that he had time to cross over into the Merkwood and see just how well the zone line pulling strategy would work. He wasn’t afraid of the monsters there as he felt at his new level, he would be able to handle any of them, even the dire crocodile. Of course, some of that may have been him getting carried away by gamer bravado and some might have been a real desire to determine how safe this plan would be for his family. He didn’t actually spend the emotional energy that would have been required for him to sort that out. The next thought he had was to wonder how he could leave a message for Emily explaining where he went in the event that she woke up before he got back. Dave chuckled at himself because just when he thought he had fully adapted to the idea of Eloria being his permanent home, he was missing his cell phone. He used to joke about it being an electronic shackle making him work twenty-four-seven, but now he just missed the ease of sending a quick text to Emily. Oh well. He looked around and couldn’t even find anything to write a note with. In the end, he decided to go outside and find someone he could pay to stay as a messenger. From what he had seen, the wealth that he had was a fortune to the villagers.

  Once outside, he started to walk toward the road to Merkwood. As he neared the edge of town, he saw a boy probably around ten years old walking back into town hauling water from the river. “Boy, do you know where the mayor’s house is?”

  Ten-year-old Vogt was caught by surprise, but the serfs of Albia had been raised from birth to obey commanding tones, and he recognized that in Dave’s question. Setting his water down, he answered, “Yes, sir.”

  “Then I need you to go and wait outside until the people inside wake up and deliver a message for me. Can you do that for me?” Seeing uncertainty in the boy’s eyes, Dave quickly added, “I will give you this silver coin if you do as I ask.”

  Vogt had never seen a silver coin before, but he knew that it was a lot of money. More money than his papa had made in a whole day’s work even when there had been work. And this man was offering it to him for just delivering a message. It was a simple decision for the practical boy. “What is the message, sir?” After all, even if he was late completing his chores, his mother would forgive him after he brought home a whole silver coin.

  Dave explained the details of the message. Then he pulled out a silver coin from his pack and handed it to the boy. “I’m paying you in advance, so make sure you complete the job.”

  Vogt rapidly assured him that he would and then picked up the water buckets and started back to town as quickly as possible, spilling far more water than he should but not really caring. Dave watched him go and grinned. It was always fun to be able to so completely make someone’s day.

  With that, Dave took off at a trot. His increased Endurance would allow him to jog at a steady pace, even with his pack and sword for hours on end. He had opted not to wear the scale mail. It was damaged, and he wasn’t sure how much protection it added anyway. So while he could magically mend it, he decided to see how well he did without it. At his rapid trot, it only took him just over a quarter-hour to cover the two miles to the bridge. When he reached the bridge, he stopped, sat down, and drank some water before stretching and making sure he was fully prepared for stepping back into a dangerous zone. From what Talvenicus and Aloysia had explained to him, the creatures of the forest seemed to converge much more densely near the bridge, presumably hoping to find more loggers. He even took a minute to examine his character sheet since he hadn’t looked at it for a while.

  Name: David Nelson

  Race: Human

  Age: 40

  Level:13

  Movement: 49

  Alignment: 0

  5

  Guild:

  Stats

  Core Attributes

  Regen Rates:

  STRENGTH: 31

  Health: 220 (300)

  2.2/hour

  DEXTERITY: 8

  Mana: 170

  150/hour

  AGILITY: 14

  Stamina: 4

  1.4/hour

  CONSTITUTION: 22

  Fury: 6.6

  2.2/hour

  ENDURANCE: 20

  Teamwork: 3

  1/hour

  INTELLIGENCE: 17

  Bravery: 6.6

  2.2/hour

  WISDOM: 10

  Faith: 3

  1/hour

  CHARISMA: 10

  Base Defense: 5

  LUCK: 5

  Base Attack: 10

  Total XP: 1774

  Unspent Stat Points:

  Total CP:454

  XP to Next: 144

  Unspent CP: 36

  Skills

  Running:3

  Unarmed Combat: 30

  Spell: 0

  Sense Motives:10

  Archery: 10

  Identify

  Speak Languages:14

  Long Blade: 10

  Assess Enemy

  Diplomacy:30

  Weapon Spec: 20

  Sure Strike

  Know-Research: 50

  Shaping Magic: 20

  Minor Binding

  Knowledge- Law: 3

  Divination Magic: 10

  Minor Mending

  Survival- Forest: 5

  Dodge: 1

  Minor Enlarge

  Survival-Desert: 7

  Taunt: 1

  Heavy Armor: 1

  Traits:

  Where the Mind Leads the Body will Follow

  Tier 2: Strength +20%

  After resting a few minutes and stretching out, he crossed the zone line with a grin on his face, “Today the monsters would find him.” He was immediately greeted with a message.

  Warning! You are about to cross into the Merkwood Zone. This is a monster zone and is not safe. If so, please note if you want to receive future warnings.

  Dave mentally clicked yes and left the notifications on in the future, then stepped forward. It didn’t feel any different, but he knew that the monsters couldn’t cross that line. He still didn’t understand why and silently vowed that he would figure this riddle of Eloria out someday, but for now, he was just focused on testing out his theory. Oh, and maybe gaining some XP. Now that he felt strong enough, he was positive he would enjoy this experience.

  He first checked out the riverbank, looking for any evidence of either the horned bullfrogs or the dire crocodile they had encountered before. He didn’t see any signs of anything living in the water or near it. As he scanned the water, he noticed that it was moving much faster and seemed to be shallower at the bridge than it had been at the section of the river they had first visited a few miles to the east. It sorta made sense that if the riv
er got deeper at a section further downstream that it would result in the water moving more slowly and therefore being more hospitable to amphibious creatures. That was a relief because the last thing he wanted was to be pulling creatures back to the zone line only to have adds creep up on his family while he was away.

  Once he was confident in his observations, he started to cross the large patch of ground between the riverbank and the tree line. He took note of the terrain and saw that it was similar to the spot they had first fought the boar. Within a few hundred feet of the riverbank, there were tree stumps everywhere, indicating the success of the initial logging efforts made by Eris’ Rise. The closer he got to the tree line the more excited he became, his pulse quickening. Stepping into the woods, it was instantly cooler as the morning sun was blocked. After a few steps into the forest though, he turned and practiced running back to the bridge. He wanted to time himself to see how fast he could make it, but without a stopwatch, which he realized almost certainly didn’t exist in Eloria, he was forced to use the highly technical one-Mississippi standard. What he found shocked him so much that he walked back into the tree line and tested it again. Sure enough, he was able to run the distance of what he believed to be almost a quarter-mile in about forty seconds or Mississippis. That would be an Olympic qualifying time back home, and he was doing it with a pack on his back and a sword in his hand. Dang, he could really get to like this increased Strength and Endurance. Heck, even the Agility undoubtedly helped.