Book 2: Chapter 35: Breakthrough

Book 2: Chapter 35: Breakthrough

It is said that our forebears once hunted the sky lords, the dragons of yore. There was a being, of whom the old tales refer to simply as the ‘Hero,’ who taught us of the dragon lore. According to the stories, it was he who taught us how to kill them. But the price of making a great winged one fall was great, for with every dragon slain, countless human lives were lost.

- In Search of the Dragons, by Captain Fiorella Haldane.

I was struck with no small amount of astonishment to find that the Crows and Ravens had melded seamlessly together. A remarkable unity of purpose prevailed among them, and duties were shared with an admirable sense of fairness. The pragmatic and hardworking nature of these caravan people left little room for complaint or argument.

However, with a larger group now, the pace of the journey inevitably slowed down. Nevertheless, Laes steadfastly reassured me that we remained on schedule. Our next destination, the Rump, was a collection of hills that promised refuge from the merciless deluge of the Weeping. There we would wait out the rains before we would brave the treacherous expanse of the Whispering Wastes along the Green Road.

And so we continued on our journey. I devoted much of my free time to honing my magical and martial skills. Observing Kidu and Larynda's training, and occasionally joining in, I gleaned further knowledge on foot spear techniques, which resulted in an improvement of my Polearms skill.

The boy Dumuzi, Catalina’s get, would also sometimes come and observe. Kidu, if he was feeling particularly spiteful, would sometimes pit him against Larynda. I almost felt sorry for her at times, as the boy was quick and strong and would come in fresh.

Cordelia taught me the rudiments of swordsmanship, and though the Azag-Gishban differed from her magical longsword, the fundamental principles of wielding a long, sharp metal blade remained the same. Drilling me incessantly, she instilled in me the significance of proper footwork for sword and shield combat. This, I slowly began to understand, formed the foundation of nearly all martial skill disciplines. It felt like learning the first steps of a dance, in a way at least. Though not yet an expert, I felt I had gained greater insight into the complexities of combat and more importantly a new skill, Swords.

Practicing with my new weapon, I grew to appreciate the utility of the Sword-hammer. Though not magical, it was still well-crafted, and provided me with an answer for both armored and unarmored opponents. I would still, however, need to acquire better ranged weapons than my throwing daggers.

Apart from their limited range, equipping my new plate gauntlets would make them inordinately difficult to use.

Cordelia was pleasant on the eyes, and in the breaks, she would sit close to me. I would ask her about her life before she joined the Church and the Knightly Order of the Penitent Heart. If you could filter out her ramblings about her faith, she was actually rather pleasant to talk to. She spoke of her father’s land in Aranthia, and how she played with her doting brothers as a child. Her family had always known that the touch of the Goddess lay heavily upon her, and encouraged her in all things having to do with faith and spirituality.

When I sought out further details as to why I was being sought by the church, she deflected, instead telling me that she had always known that her highest calling was to serve me, the Herald of Avaria. No matter how hard I persisted, it was simply too difficult to wring out the details of the machinations of the Church. I concluded that she was either disinterested or simply ignorant of the organization’s inner workings.

Instead, she spoke of how, in recent years, she had grown to doubt herself, to doubt her faith, only to have it renewed when she witnessed my holy light. I was finally able to press the question, searching for the root of the matter.

The Kingdom of Aranthia held their holiest of rites, under the command of Cardinal Mauros, in an attempt to bring forth the Herald of Avaria into the world. The Herald was believed to be the harbinger of a new age of prosperity and peace for those who held the faith, or would come as a righteous judge to purge the world of evil.

From Cordelia's lips, I discovered that many in the Church viewed Cardinal Mauros as being too consumed with worldly and mundane affairs, neglecting many of his more-spiritual duties. This led Cordelia to suspect that the Cardinal had undertaken the summoning ritual for less than righteous reasons, resulting in the Herald being sent to a far-off land as punishment for his spiritual worldliness. In the woman’s eyes, I was divinity incarnate, and she was willing to do anything for me.

With that in mind, I extracted a solemn vow from her to keep my true identity a secret, convincing her that it was Avaria's will that I should experience the world as a mortal man, to understand their struggles and pass Her judgment accordingly. My ploy worked flawlessly, and the zealous Cordelia was now mine to command as I truly wished.

Not wanting to get caught up in the power struggles or the machinations of the church, I decided it best that I avoid Aranthia and other members of the Church for the time being.

From Ankhset, I learned a little more about the nature of magic. Certain people, and in some rare cases creatures, would have an affinity for certain elements. Unlike people, creatures with the gift of magic never suffered from the Call, the suicidal impulse that grew stronger as a magic user grew in power. Among the wise, it was said that this was because animals and monsters were closer to the elements, closer to their natural state. As a Water Mage, her element was a constant source of danger, as she struggled to control the insidious Call of her magic.

Over a cup of tea, while Larynda was busy juggling floating balls of water, the old woman explained to me that the mages of this world would often use magic staves or wands. These were either crafted by the mages themselves, or could be bought from purveyors of magical goods. As I understood, from her somewhat scattered explanation, the opening segment of a mage's spell repertoire would be inscribed onto these implements, thus serving as shortcuts for a magic user's incantations. From her description, the whole process seemed similar to what Larynda did with her Seals.

My fellow guards were respectful of me, and the bonds and camaraderie of shared battle and the campfire were not so easily changed by my new status as a sort of holy man. It is hard to view the man who has played a few hands of cards with you as an embodiment of divine will. Timur, who I had fought alongside, was very much in my camp, and would often be shouting my praises in a drunken voice.

They all still tried to get me to drink their poisonous brew, the fiery drink Arag, but as always, I refused. Elwin, on the other hand, was more than willing to drown out his sorrows, imbibing copious amounts of the acrid swill and singing at the top of his voice before passing out, unconscious. I suspected that this must have been how he dealt with his problems. Although he never talked about his time in the hands of his captors, in his unguarded moments, his eyes were a map of suffering.

Luckily, the guards still invited me to their games of cards, dice, and chance, for which I was grateful. My focus lay not in winning, but in honing my Luck attribute. This meant that I usually lost more money than I won, much to the delight of my fellows, as I sought to win against increasingly long odds. At least at dice. With cards, thanks to my Identify spell, I was able to recoup some of my losses. One evening, after a successful Hail Mary throw of the dice, I was able to gain a point in Luck, as well as break even.

This, it turned out, was also enough to finally get me over the threshold to level twelve. With so much time to think things over, I already had a general plan in mind on where I would put the bonus points. With the counter ticking down, I placed two attribute points in Dexterity to help offset the penalty of wearing plate gauntlets, and a single point in Constitution to make it a nice, rounded forty points. For my bonus point, it was a toss-up between Mana Regeneration and the Drain spell. I went with Drain, eager to see how the spell would evolve, which pleased the voices within.

My recent level-up gave me the courage to see if I could edit my user interface again. This time, instead of hiding a skill, I tried to fiddle with my experience display to get it to show only the experience required for the next level, and not my total experience.

Just before I willed the changes to come about, I drank a few gulps of Arag to help combat the pain I knew was coming, much to the cheers of my fellow gamblers. Luckily, they thought that my screams were ones of celebration, rather than of agonizing pain. I must say that I truly deserved a Charisma point for my quick thinking and splendid performance. The universe, however, was not so kind.

Daggers (lvl.4)

Throwing Weapons (lvl.2)

Double Throw (lvl.1) 5

Shield Bash (lvl.1)

Riding (lvl.2)

Dash (lvl.1)

Swords (lvl.1)

SPELLS & MAGIC

Heal (lvl.5) 5

Rust (lvl.3) 2

Identify (lvl.3) 1

Silent Casting (lvl.2)

Mana Regeneration (lvl.2)

Purify (lvl.2) 3

Greater Heal (lvl.2) 10

Holy Aura (lvl.2) 2

Decay (lvl.1) 1

Drain (lvl.5) 2

Entropic Aura (lvl.2) 2

GIFTS

Curse of Entropy: -20% to all starting attributes.

Mark of the Paladin: 10% resistance to Dark/Holy magic. 5% resistance to Physical.

Touch of the Void: 10% reduced resistance to Holy/Fire magic, 20% resistance to Mental Effects, 15% immunity to Mental Effects.

Experience to next level 7/891

Health316/321 Stamina47/65 Mana16/16

Confirming the changes, I found myself happy with the significant increase to my Health and Stamina pool. My Health had truly grown to be monstrous. Just a few more levels, and I would grow to be as tough as even the large Ruars that pulled the wagons. Generally pleased with my overall growth, I joined my fellows for a few more rounds at rolling the bones.