Chapter 43: A New Friend

Chapter 43: A New Friend

We ran for what felt like hours, keeping up the fastest speed we could manage for as long as we could. The Nymph we managed to save ran along with us gracefully, seeming barely tired from the gauntlet of hills to ascend and fallen logs to leap over. Its whip bounced against its thigh as it bounded through the forest with us. At first, I was impressed, but eventually, as my legs felt more and more hollow and powerless, I was just jealous of its seemingly endless Stamina.

The Nymph didn’t just run with us, though. It led us. As we fled from the Infernals we’d left behind us, it took a sudden turn to the left, toward what seemed to be a massive hill that’d be hell to climb up. But then it took us behind a tree, through a squeeze between two rocks, and into a tunnel that’d been bored through the hill long ago. Maybe it was a digging monster, or a Classer that used some Spell to bore through the hill, but the hole was still here. The Nymph led us through, and suddenly we were on the other side, moving straight through an obstacle that would’ve taken ten times as long to traverse otherwise.

And then we came across a massive ravine that split the earth in two. We’d have to go around it, I thought. A detour, but one the Demons would have to take, as well. It was too long to jump across, and too deep to go down and back up. But then the Nymph grabbed a vine that clung to a nearby tree and split it off, and used it to swing all the way across the ravine. We did the same, and suddenly we were that much further ahead.

Over and over, the Nymph used its seemingly-infinite mastery of the terrain and environment – knowledge of every tree and rock, of every monster territory, of every single shortcut that one could think of – to eke us further and further ahead. The constant movement and climbing and crawling and ducking under this and jumping over that only served to tire me more, though.

The exhausting sprint helped keep my mind off the sacrifice we’d made to escape, though. I couldn’t forgive myself for letting someone die there, right in front of me. Sure, I’d also left behind the citizens of Carth, but it was completely impossible for me to have stopped that invasion. The Supreme Hellion, the legions of Infernals – they were more of a force of nature than something I could have stopped. This time? I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I’d just been a bit stronger, gained one extra Level, I could’ve gotten out of that encounter with everyone alive in the end.

Maybe I’d chosen the wrong Spells and Talents. I’d raved to Erani about Recursive Growth’s infinite potential, but I sure as hells wasn’t feeling that power now. And her Angelic Shield hadn’t been very useful in that fight, either. I’d known it wouldn’t be very good for a while, and yet I still convinced her to take it. What was I thinking?

I set my jaw as we ran. There was no use in condemning myself for my past actions. At the end of the day, the reason we had to leave that Nymph behind was because the Demons decided to attack us in the first place. They were the ones to blame.

My legs screamed at me, begging me to lie down for even a moment. My ankles jolted in pain with every footfall, and my feet chafed and blistered from rubbing against my shoes. But I kept running. If the Infernals caught up to us, we’d be dead, and that Nymph’s sacrifice would have been for nothing.

But eventually, after pushing myself to a physical limit, past that limit, and then up to a second physical limit that I didn’t even know I had, I received a System notification.

Your Stamina has reached 1.

You can no longer physically exert yourself.

Immediately, I collapsed onto the ground as I felt all strength leave my legs. I gasped for air, suddenly realizing just how out of breath I was. It was as though all of my physical Stats had left my body.

“Shit, are you okay?!” Erani gasped. She crouched down and helped me sit back up.

“At one Stamina,” I managed to get out. “Need to rest.”

She looked around the area. We were still in the middle of the forest, but there weren’t any signs of Demons around us.

“I guess we should all rest,” Erani said, breathing heavily. “I don’t like being out in the open, but... Well, at least we have the Nymph with us to keep the nearby monsters calm.”

She collapsed against a tree. Both of us had sweat drenching our skin and dripping from our face.

The Nymph was still standing. I could tell it hadn’t entirely mentally recovered from the attack. I reached over and took its arm, pulling it down into a sitting position. It looked at me, but I couldn’t entirely parse what it was thinking. I knew Humans, but the emotions of monsters were another thing entirely. Its large white eyes stared into me, and its green skin, with its shifting vines and leaves, never quite seemed like it was still.

I closed my eyes while I continued gasping for air. Before long, without realizing it, I fell into an exhausted trance.

I didn’t know how long I rested, head laid against a tree trunk with my eyes closed, but eventually, I awoke to the noise of a snarl. I opened my eyes and saw a Panther charging out from the treeline at us. Its teeth were bared and its eyes had an unquenchable rage in them. Instinctively, I shot off a couple Rays of Frost, freezing and killing the enemy.

You have slain Level 2 Panther.

You earned 6 XP.

I looked at the Nymph. It was obviously stressed and traumatized. It didn’t even react to the attacking Panther. As things were, we probably wouldn’t get any rest; the Nymph’s empathy would automatically agitate any animals or monsters that came nearby, and it didn’t seem like it could turn that off.

Currently, the Nymph was sitting still, staring at nothing. Mustering as much energy as I could, I sat back up and leaned over to it. My Stamina was regenerating now that I was resting, but that didn’t make my exhaustion go away. Erani was still fully asleep on the ground next to us. It didn’t seem my scuffle with the Panther had woken her up.

“Are you okay?” I asked the Nymph. It didn’t respond or react to my words. I knew it wouldn’t understand, of course, but I hoped a calm tone and a little interaction with another person might help get its mind off things. I gently touched its arm. It flinched, but kept staring at the distant point in space. “I know it must be hard. Losing a friend, or a lover, or whatever it is that the other Nymph was to you, is always difficult to bear. And so is losing a home. I don’t know how attached Nymphs get to their homes, but we Humans care a lot about where we live. That’s where we put our lives.”

The Nymph seemed to realize I was speaking to it, and turned to look at me. Its eyes were empty of feeling.

“I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I knew I was being hunted, and I stayed with you and took advantage of your kindness anyway. And I’m sorry that I wasn’t strong enough to take responsibility for the consequences of those actions when the time came. I put you in danger. I didn’t realize... I wasn’t thinking about that in the moment. I’m sorry.”

The Nymph tilted its head. I wondered what it was thinking now. Could it at least understand the intentions of my words? It at least seemed a bit calmer, which was the point of all that. It looked down at the ground and began tracing its finger across the dirt, making lines in the soil. After a moment, I realized it was drawing the riverbed. The winding river cut through the ground, trees and rocks scattered along the side. Every detail was perfect, each bend in the stream and root of the trees in the exact place they were in reality.

The Nymph had a wistful look on its face, as though it were making a true attempt to bring itself back to its home. Every time I felt like it was done, it would only go back and add more detail to the perfect picture. A vine on a rock here, a patch of moss there, tiny dots in the dirt to represent pebbles scattered across the dirt. When its fingers were too large to draw the details, it would use a stick from the ground, and when the stick was too large, it would use the sharpened tip of its fingernail.

Eventually, it seemed to get to a point where it was satisfied with its drawing. Then, it put its finger to the area of the drawing that contained the makeshift table that it had been sitting at when Erani and I first arrived at the stream. It traced careful lines above the rock sitting next to the stump, and by the end, I recognized it to be the Nymph itself, sitting at the table, cheerfully laughing at an unsaid joke.

The Nymph put its finger to the rock on the opposite side of the stump. But it never drew its conversation partner. Its finger stood there, stuck in the dirt, shaking. I looked up to realize the Nymph was crying.

I wasn’t sure what I could even do. I gently lifted the Nymphs hand from the dirt, careful not to ruin the beautiful illustration, and turned the Nymph around so it was facing me. Then, I leaned over and began drawing a picture of my own in the dirt. I wasn’t sure what to draw at first. My room in the inn back in my village wasn’t very interesting, and I probably wouldn’t be able to draw it very accurately, anyway. I never really paid much attention to my material possessions.

Eventually, I settled on the landscape of Carth, from the top of the clock tower. I wasn’t sure if I could do it justice, but I’d do my best. I drew out the city streets and the boxy houses lining them, the distant market squares and the walls surrounding the city. The Nymph watched, intrigued. As a monster, it’d probably never seen anything like this before.

Once I was done with the larger picture of the grid-like roads, though, I had trouble with smaller details. I found my ‘people’ walking the streets were more like little blobs, and the lines I meant to be straight were instead shaky and slanted. When the Nymph noticed me struggling, it reached out and began helping me with my lines, detailing my scene more accurately than I ever could.

However, it seemed to misunderstand what it was I was trying to draw. Instead of the people I’d meant them to be, the Nymph detailed my blobs into tiny boulders peppering the streets. Instead of windows in the houses, it drew vines covering the square buildings. My roads were turned into gigantic roots protruding from the tree that it interpreted the clock tower to be. I guess it made sense; it’d only ever known the wilderness, so it wouldn’t be able to see anything else.

In the end, the picture looked like one straight out of the bard’s tales, a city taken over by roots and vines, rubble scattered in the streets. Even though it was a misunderstanding, it was strangely beautiful.

Eventually, the Nymph yawned, clearly tired. I understood the feeling. It glanced at me, and then lay down on the ground next to Erani, closing its eyes. I was glad I’d managed to help it. I leaned back, too, remembering my exhaustion, and closed my eyes.

Before I knew it, I fell into a slumber.

I awoke to a gentle stirring by Erani. It was dark out – I’d apparently slept through the rest of the day and all the way into midnight. The Nymph was still on the ground, sleeping soundly.

“You doing okay?” Erani asked me.

I checked my Status.

Name:

Arlan Nota

Age:

20

Strength:

12

Class:

Minute Mage

Level:

9

Endurance:

If you choose this option, your next Spell options will be:

Solar Blaze

Energy Bolt

Force of Will

Spiritual Guardian

School: Divine

Type: Passive

Cost: 10% of your Mana regeneration

—

All damage you take is reduced by 5%.

Intelligence information:

If you choose this option, your next Spell options will be:

Holy Day

Parasitic Bonds

Flashfreeze

Gravity Well

School: Arcane

Type: Toggle

Cost: 10 Mana/Second per Being Affected

—

While active, increase gravitational pull by 25% for any number of beings within 30 paces of you.

Intelligence information:

If you choose this option, your next Spell options will be:

Ethereal Armor

Abrupt Decay

Stasis

It wasn’t immediately obvious which one I should pick. Betrothed of Fire had obvious synergies with the Spells I’d been taking – it was basically a longer-ranged Noxious Grasp – but its damage left something to be desired, especially in situations where I only had one enemy in range. Spiritual Guardian would be interesting, simply consuming some of my Mana/Minute to reduce any damage I took. However, as a Passive Spell, I wouldn’t be able to ever turn it off, so that Mana/Minute consumption would be permanent. And Gravity Well seemed like a great Spell to control a battlefield and keep opponents weakened, but it would be expensive to use, and not always useful on smaller or lighter monsters.

I read them all out to Erani.

“Which do you think?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. I was honestly hoping you’d recognize one of those Intelligence Information Spells as something we desperately needed so I wouldn’t have to figure it out myself.”

“I don’t think I do,” she said thoughtfully. “But just from hearing all of their effects, I’d say Betrothed of Fire is the weakest.”

“I was thinking the same thing. If I’m up close with a monster, Noxious Grasp already does what it does, but better. The main situation it would be good in would be fighting a gigantic swarm of weak enemies, but I don’t see that happening soon, and your Explosive Firebolts handle situations like that just fine.”

“Right. So it’s between the other two, them?”

“Yeah. It’s hard to choose. Gravity Well would work very well with Crippling Chill and Ray of Frost’s Dexterity debuffing effects, but it’s Mana-intensive. It’ll be good against the slow and heavy Infernals, sure, but against any other smaller, more agile monsters, it doesn’t seem like it’d be as good.”

“Yes, but Spiritual Guardian’s lack of flexibility worries me. Since it’s a passive Spell, you can’t ever turn it off. So even if you desperately need the Mana for something else, you’ll have to always use up some of your Mana on the Spell.”

I nodded. “But it seems useful to have some sort of protection for me, right? It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen myself at full Health, and I need something to keep me safe.”

Erani hummed. “Well, from before, when you were picking your Talent. Recursive Growth came with the Intelligence Information that in your next Talent Choice at Level 10, you’ll be offered a Talent called ‘Regenerate,’ right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, I don’t know exactly what it will do, but judging from the name, it probably regains Health. So, if you know you’ll be offered some healing in the future, you know that you’ll get another option to fill that role of keeping you alive.”

I hadn’t even thought of that. “Yeah, you’re right. I guess if it’s still desperately needed at that point, I can always look into Regenerate. So Spiritual Guardian isn’t quite as unique in its effect, it seems. Still, think Gravity Well is better here?”

“I’m not sure. I mean, against an enemy like the Infernals, it’s obviously pretty useful, since they’re so heavy. Especially against something that jumps around like the Infernal Commander. But in the long-term, I could imagine you going up against all kinds of things that it’s borderline useless against.”

I pursed my lips. Did I really have the luxury to think in the long term right now? Gravity Well would be an immense help in keeping those massive Infernals off us, and that was exactly what I needed right now. If I kept taking things that would only work in the long term, I’d just die in the short term. So, while Spiritual Guardian would probably always be at least a little useful, it was also likely that it’d just get me killed here. “Gravity Well it is.”

You have learned the Spell Gravity Well.

Your next Spell options will be:

Ethereal Armor

Abrupt Decay

Stasis

I also went ahead and put my Stat Points into Conjuration. With the new high-cost Spell, I’d need that Mana more than ever.

You have used 3 Stat Points to increase Conjuration.

Your Conjuration value is now 51.

And with that, I was settled, a new Spell in my arsenal and some additional Stats to help use it.

“Now I’ve just got to get the damned thing to Rank 5 like the rest of them.”