Watcher's Test

by Sean Oswald

  Now he knew how quickly he could cross the terrain, but that still didn’t address how quickly the creatures he would be fighting could travel it. He assumed that drey hounds or flame lynxes would be much faster than he was but wasn’t sure how that would work out with him pulling them. In fact, since he lacked any real ranged attack ability, he was distinctly worried about his ability to get the creatures back to the zone line alive. Of course, that was assuming that he could find any creatures at all. With the way that Aloysia had described the hordes of beasts they had fought, he had assumed he would be attacked almost instantly.

  With that, Dave decided it would be better not to keep Emily waiting and turned to walk back to the bridge. He had only spent an hour in the Merkwood so far, and it was too small of a sample size to be certain, but he was worried that his increased level was going to keep the beasts from attacking him. Of course, as is the way of things, as soon as he stopped looking for a beast, a beast found him. The flame lynx was one of the younger ones and was here as a scout of sorts. The beasts of the forest weren’t really that organized, but the treants, who considered themselves the guardians of the Merkwood, had benefited greatly from increased mana density when the elves had pushed so many of the beasts into this swath of the forest. Fifty years of increased mana had not only increased the levels of many of the treants but had also increased their intelligence. The same could be said of some of the other older beasts who lived deeper in the Merkwood. It was a mistake on Dave’s part to assume that the beasts he had seen were the extent of what this zone had to offer, but it is the nature of men to jump to conclusions with less than all the information.

  The young flame lynx had also been watching Dave for nearly half an hour and knew that he was alone. It was meant to report back if another group of loggers appeared to desecrate the forest but decided in its own mind that Dave by himself was just an easy meal. Despite Dave’s misgivings, the lesser beasts of the forest had no way to determine the relative power level of any target, and so this cat expected him to be easy prey as had the other humans it had seen.

  The cat was right in one regard, Dave didn’t realize he was being stalked and all the while that he was frustrated with the lack of beasts to fight, there had been one less than ten meters away. Then as Dave’s path crossed the point the lynx had picked out, it pounced. The Dave of only a few days ago would have been effortlessly slaughtered, caught completely off guard, but this Dave was not that same feeble earth being. He now had a number of options and was about to experience another aspect of Eloria. In the instant before he was attacked, Dave’s new increased Initiative score came into play. He sensed the attack even as the lynx was mid-leap. It would have been too late to do anything other than provide a warning if Dave hadn’t been carrying his sword in hand. As it was though, the early warning and improved reaction resulted in Dave bringing his sword around in a reactive slash just as he was hit by the extended claws of the leaping cat.

  The result was rather ineffective attacks by both cat and man. Dave’s high initiative allowed him to prevent the sneak attack. This still meant that the lynx’s sharp claws cut into Dave’s unprotected chest, causing (10) damage each. Equally, Dave’s slash was less effective because by the time he brought the blade around, the beast was already too close and so he couldn’t bring his strength to bear and only caused (17) damage. Numbers don’t properly convey, though, the feeling of having a cat that weighs more than you leap onto you, staggering you back. Dave cried out in pain as the claws cut into his skin. Although a part of his mind wondered why it didn’t hurt more, now was not the time to focus on such thoughts. Rather, Dave brought his sword back around in front of him, activating his offensive stance but opted not to use Minor Enlarge. He wanted to see if he could beat this beast without it. He felt both the rush of a life and death fight, and at the same time, the desire to see what he could do. His early successes may have given Dave an increased level of confidence, but he was still wary. Eloria may have game-like rules, but from what he had seen so far, death was very real, and he didn’t want to end up dying because he got cocky.

  The cat was surprised when its prey escaped from its well-timed pounce and was cautious enough to start to circle this opponent. Man and cat stared at one another, each taking a measure of the other separated only by the length of a sword. The circling and posturing seemed to drag on forever due to how the perception of time slowed during combat. Eventually, it was Dave who moved first. He could only maintain his Offensive Stance for 12 seconds until his stamina ran out. While watching for any ripple in the beast’s muscles to show it was moving forward, Dave quickly chanted the words of magic to cast Sure Strike and then lunged forward as the magic made the most vulnerable spot on the lynx visible to him. With his new greater Strength, it was almost too easy to push his blade into the beast’s chest. Landing a critical blow and dealing (255) damage, which was more than enough to kill his target as the blade drove all the way into the heart. The lynx had started to respond with a swipe of its claws as soon as Dave lunged forward, but a foot of steel through its heart put an end to the attack so that the paw fell weakly to the ground.

  You have defeated: Young Flame Lynx Level 6. XP: 36 x 2 (killing blow bonus) = 72 x 50% tier penalty = 36 x racial bonus 50% Net gain =54 XP

  You have 2 new character points. You have 38 character points available.

  Max and the rest of his squad made it through the night safely. None of the sentries had seen any sign of the wyverns and the general talk amongst them was that the remaining wyvern had probably given up. Despite the hopes of his squad, Max knew that it was no random attack. Wyverns were rare enough, and the camouflage wyverns were not indigenous to this part of the world. He had heard of them before, but what he knew of them suggested that they were more common in the cold northern mountains. The only dragonkin that he thought might be natural to this area would be much larger and less subtle forest drakes. Since they were not indigenous, it made it much more likely that someone had specifically sent them against his squad. While that raised all sorts of questions about who would know about their mission or why anyone would want to stop it, his current concern was just making sure that the rest of his squad made it safely to Eris’ Rise.

  After issuing orders to break camp, Max kept a close lookout. His eyes were constantly scanning the sky or looking at each of the others, running through a checklist repeatedly to make sure he didn’t overlook anyone. Even with all of his vigilance, he was still just as shocked as any of the others when he heard Leo scream from a spot in a nearby wheat field where the young warrior was squatting in for his morning business.

  Upon hearing the scream, Max took off running while smoothly drawing his sword. He used another Crimson Vanguard class skill, Enhanced Rush, to cross the ground at five times his normal speed. The hundred feet that separated them flashed by in a second and Max was able to lash out with his longsword as not one but two of the wyverns tried to take to the sky off of the seizing body of the fallen Defender. Max’s speed allowed him to make a shallow cut along the flank of one of the beasts as it took off but was not enough to knock it from the air.

  Max screamed in impotent rage at his inability to bring down the creatures that attacked his men, but once they disappeared into the sky with no apparent intent to swing back for another attack, he stopped caring about them and focused on Leo. As a Defender class, Leo was better than most at taking a hit, but he was only level 9, and two wyverns had just raked his face and arms with their claws and had both apparently managed to stab him with their venomous barbed tails. The spread of the venom was obvious as bulging green veins stood out on Leo’s skin and his body convulsed. It was a miracle that with this much damage he hadn’t been killed outright, but again that was probably the resilience of his class coming through. The rest of the squad all came running, each with a weapon of some sort drawn and ready but all equally focused on Leo when they arrived. None of them knew any magic that would cure the poison with their healer ha
ving been killed in the first round. Karl, their Ranger, had a spell to slow poison and started to casting as soon as he saw Leo’s condition, but it still looked grim. Leo’s wounds were large and gaping and the force with which he was seizing was requiring two of their stronger melee members to hold him still.

  It was incredibly trying on all of them to watch Leo suffer like that, so perhaps it was a small mercy that his muscles stopped contracting and he stopped jerking about a minute or so later. Of course, he only stopped seizing because his heart had given out and the poison had won the fight. Ahren, who had been helping to hold Leo’s upper body, still reached up gently with a hand and closed his eyes, which had been staring sightlessly up into the sky. All that they could do now was bury another fallen friend as each of them made their own private oaths about what they would do if the wyverns appeared again.

  Several hours after his battle with the flame lynx, Dave was again crossing into the Merkwood, this time with Emily and Mira with him. Much as he had expected, after returning from his morning hunt, he had a fight with Emily that was harder than the fight with the big cat. She was upset that he had left without them, upset that he had put himself at risk, and wasn’t really mollified by the fact that Dave’s fight had been so easy for him.

  Dave argued that it had been necessary for him to figure out how the plan would work. He pointed out that he had learned that without some sort of ranged weapon, he wasn’t going to be able to bring monsters back to the girls. They also discussed the possibility that the strategy might not work as they had discussed before since there didn’t seem to be the number of monsters that Dave had been expecting before. He was encouraged that he had been able to buy a bow and twenty arrows from one of the lumberjacks. He probably overpaid for it, spending eleven silvers, but it made the man happy. It was just a sturdy yew longbow. Nothing fancy about it, but he had taken a couple of practice shots with it and felt it worked very well. He was pleased that his Archery skill seemed to make him a decent shot, at least against a non-mobile target.

  One other shock had been Talvenicus’ insistence that he and Aloysia accompany them on this little hunting expedition. The mayor played it off as a curiosity and a desire to keep their new priestess safe, but Dave couldn’t shake the feeling that the man really was more interested in seeing what his new sheriff was capable of. He had at first argued that it would take far longer to get the necessary XP for Emily if their party consisted of four members rather than three, but in the end, he conceded. They were either going to get enough targets that it wouldn’t matter, or they were likely going to end up not getting any.

  As they reached the bridge, Talvenicus brought the wagon they were traveling on to a halt. Dave was riding up front while in the back, Emily, Aloysia, and all three of their kids were there. Even though they were going hunting, Emily had been unwilling to leave Jackson and Sara alone in the village. The people here seemed nice, but they were essentially still strangers. In her mind, it was okay to leave them with Mira who had proven she could defend herself, especially since she and Dave had both been in town the entire time. Eris’ Rise wasn’t exactly a sprawling metropolis. Now, however, they were going to be more than two miles from the town and so the nervous mother in her preferred to have them closer to her. Both the younger children were given instructions to stay on the town side of the zone border. Jackson specifically was told not to cross the zone line no matter what happened and that his sole priority was to protect Sara. Emily even elicited a solemn promise from Jackson that if anything happened to them, he would go back to the town and seek help from the townsfolk to find a place for him and Sara. Both parents knew it was a heavy burden to place on a thirteen-year-old, but there weren’t really any other options if they wanted to level Emily up further. With that, they left the vast majority of the coin with Jackson, just in case, and then the four adults and Mira crossed into the Merkwood.

  Dave had left the flame lynx’s carcass about two hundred feet from the zone line, hoping that it would attract some carnivores. He didn’t know what to expect exactly. Despite the notification he had received about the drey hounds leaving the zone, he had hoped to attract a pack of them or something like it. The best bet he thought to level Emily up would be to find a large number of low-level predators to fight at one time. He had initially not seen any animals around the carcass when they crossed the bridge, but as he got closer, he was thrilled to see that low to the ground a huge dire crocodile was lying in the sun next to the remains of his earlier kill. This one was even larger than the last one they had encountered. He cast his Assess Enemy spell and received back:

  Dire Crocodile. Level: 19. Health: 600.

  Wow, 600 HP, that was gonna be intense. Interestingly, the information about the monster flashed yellow rather than the red that the prior level fifteen croc had. From the innate knowledge he was granted by the spell, he knew that red was the highest warning and meant a challenge that was likely to result in death, while yellow meant a serious challenge with significant risk of death. Lower rankings of dark blue, light blue, and green respectively meant a normal risk, low risk, and nominal risk. Dave was about to trigger his attack skills when Talvenicus reminded him that they still needed to form a party.

  After letting the mayor refresh him about how to form a group, Dave sent the mental invitation, first to Emily, then Mira, Talvenicus, and Aloysia in order. He assigned himself as the tank, Mira as the ranged damager, Aloysia as a melee damager, and of course, Emily as the healer. The bonuses to damage and healing would clearly help, but he had been reluctant to take the tank role since it would cost him 50% of his damage. The only question was what to assign Talvenicus as, but until he had a better idea about the man’s capabilities, he would just leave him unassigned. From what he remembered, the previous dire crocodile had a devastating level of damage, and he didn’t want to take any chances. Besides, they needed to test the tank option at some point. He still didn’t understand how the defense score played much of a role since he had not had trouble hitting anything so far, but he did know that the extra 110 HP from being the tank was a nice boost. With Emily’s Minor Blessing buff and his ring, it took his total to 470 HP. Then they added on Mira’s conjured armor to increase Dave’s defense.

  They briefly discussed strategy, which mostly consisted of Dave shooting his bow to get the beast’s attention, then enlarging to attack it. He would aim to attack it about fifty feet away from the zone line to give the others room in case something happened to him. Aloysia, despite being a melee damager, was not to engage as her level 4 body would be snapped like a twig by one of the croc’s bites. Most of the damage was expected to come from Mira and Talvenicus with an occasional thrown knife from Aloysia. Dave wasn’t sure how much of a hit he would take to his damage from the tank but was expecting it to be significantly reduced. While discussing the strategy, Dave cast Assess Enemy again just on a whim and learned something interesting. When he had cast it before, it had been a yellow warning indicating that more likely than not the creature would kill him, but now it was only a dark blue warning which represents an average challenge. So apparently, the rating the spell gives him was affected by the fact that he was in a group and deemed the dire crocodile to be less of a threat to him now that he was in a team.

  Once everyone was on the same page, Dave moved forward and then shot his bow at the croc. As expected, its thick hide repelled the arrow without any damage, but apparently, it still didn’t like being shot because it turned with a loud snorting sound almost like a steam engine releasing excess pressure and charged forward as fast as its stubby legs would allow it to move. As soon as he had let the arrow fly, Dave had dropped the bow off to the side and pulled his sword while chanting the words of Minor Enlarge. Even so, the beast was almost upon him as he finished his spell and felt his body swell to nine feet. It was still such a rush to feel his bones thicken, muscles expand, and the undeniable surge of power he felt go through his body.

  Dave spun on the ball of his b
ack foot to avoid the lunging bite of the croc and then lashed out with a slashing blow of his sword. He knew that a thrust would be more effective at penetrating the thick skin of the beast but was wary of having his sword pulled out of his hand. The slashing blow driven by his nine-foot frame still opened a cut in the side of the croc, causing (48) damage. That gave him hope that they would be able to down this beast as he thought it would mostly be about him avoiding being hit. An instant later, flashes of light passed him and slammed into the croc, both the familiar spinning translucent blades created by Mira’s Ice Dagger spell and other white magical darts presumably from Talvenicus. Dave wanted to be able to look at the damage notifications but couldn’t spare the mental energy as he was trying to avoid the snapping jaws of the monstrosity in front of him. Even without seeing the notifications, Dave knew that the ice blades had a significant impact on the beast, and it seemed that her new level had increased the number of blades her spell produced, and he already knew that their reptilian foe was weak to cold. Everywhere that one of the spinning ice blades had struck the croc, a patch of white frost formed on its armor over a foot in diameter. These cold patches seemed to impair the beast as its movements became slower. Still, back and forth the dance went, Dave slashing out with his blade landing a hit for between (40) and (50) damage while also dodging snapping bites and even whips of the armored tail.

  Each of Dave’s sword slashes parted the armor and caused a wound, but none of them were deep or serious, yet combined with the magical attacks the beast had already taken, they were clearly adding up. He was guessing that the beast had lost half its health but without checking the notifications, he couldn’t be sure. So far, he had been able to avoid being hit even once. He had to credit the increased evasion from Emily’s spell. Then as he was thinking that this was going so easily, he felt his legs being swept out from underneath him by a slap of the tail. He activated his Dodge skill for 4 Stamina and somehow in the broken mechanics of Eloria, he was able to regain his balance and flip away from the tail swipe that had seemed so sure to send him to the ground. Dave couldn’t explain exactly how the Dodge skill worked but he just knew it was a last-ditch effort to save him and that he could only use it once per minute, so likely this fight would be long over before he could use it again. Then another wave of spinning ice blades slammed into the other side of the croc. Apparently, Mira’s spell had passed its cooldown, and she had moved to be able to broadside it opposite of where she had hit it before. Again, the blades caused circles of frosted scales to appear on the beast and as before, the frost seemed to impair its movement.