Status:

  Name: Bran

  Class: [Grove Guard], LVL 2

  Attributes:

  Strength – 16 (+1)

  Dexterity – 11

  Constitution – 18 (+2)

  Endurance – 23

  Wisdom – 6

  Intelligence – 10 (+1)

  Aura – 7 (+1)

  Luck – 5

  Class Skills: (1/5)

  Beginner’s Hammer Art (1/10)

  General Skills: (1/3)

  The Willow’s Wrath (24/25)

  Mastered Skills:

  Beginner’s Shield Art

  I let the attribute increase flow through me. I did as my trainers taught me and focused on my body rather than the sensations that rampaged through me. Even the Touch of the Black Hand and the Howling Winds could do nothing to overcome the System.

  It was the greatest spell ever cast, but an ungentle tool. Every muscle fiber was awash with lactic acid, my organs churned as if poisoned, my skin tightened against my body pulled taught by my bones. The front of my skull pulsed with pain; my brain suddenly too large for my head.

  All of those sensations faded with time. My focus on my body allowed me to ignore some of the pain, if not the majority. As soon as I’d gotten the notification, I tried to add the free point to Luck. It’d saved my life plenty of times in the past and I wanted to increase the chances of that happening again in the future. However, no matter what mental commands I gave or how hard I focused on it, Nothing I did improved the attribute. So, I settled for increasing my Intelligence, and brought it up to the baseline average for a fully developed human.

  When I opened my eyes again, free from the notification, I saw the entire group within two meters of where I knelt. Nora and Mika grimaced and moaned at the pain of new attributes. Ruby and Maggie hovered over the pair and, in soft tones, guided them through the process. Ellen was in less visible pain, face clear, and took large meditative breaths to deal with it.

  The wood of my shield resounded against the metal of my armor as I slung it over my shoulder and placed my hammer back in the loop at my hip. The rest of the party still working to gather themselves.

  I hadn’t noticed it during the influx of attributes, but Iona’s grip on my neck was gone and the Howling Winds no longer roared within me. Pain raced to fill the space denied to it. A heartbeat of fire tore down my leg from my side and up into my shoulder.

  Gentle steps took me away from the killing field. Every step carefully considered, my actions slow and deliberate to not disturb the wound or rub the jagged metal of my torn armor against raw flesh. Still next to Nora, I saw Ruby glance at my wound, but Maggie was occupied with watching the [Mages’] reaction to their levels. Ruby’s eyes met mine with a raised eyebrow, but I waved her off.

  I would announce my wound once we were away from the site of the dead tusk’s killing. Let its spirit be unbothered by the tending of its killers’ wounds.

  “What do you think happened?” Nora asked. Her eyes reopened now that the pain faded. “One minute it seemed fine, and then it just fell over.”

  “Shock.” I deadpanned.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The pain got too much for it and it fainted. Ruby said it was little more than a child, right? Imagine how you would have fared if you had your jaw shattered, leg broken, back shredded, and another limb amputated within a few minutes. I’m shocked the beast stood as long as it did.”

  With each word Mika looked like he took a punch to the gut, his eyes locked on the still form of the beast. Mournfully, the man took a step towards it, but stopped and sighed.

  “I hadn’t thought of it like that before. Gruesome, what we did to it, eh?”

  “It’s the way of the world.” Ellen said, a comforting hand on Mika’s shoulder. “We didn’t put it through any more pain than it would have suffered if another animal got to it.”

  I agreed with her but said nothing. I could see it in their eyes that both of them were coming to terms with having brutalized a young animal, then putting it out of its misery. The pain we’d inflicted would have been horrifying done to another enlightened being, but this was the nature of the craft. Adventurers who could not handle the gruesome aspects of the job rarely lasted.

  I left the three of them to mourn both for the beast and their innocence and walked to join Maggie and Ruby, doing my best to conceal my limp.

  “That was a great first effort.” Maggie said with a smile. “What are they talking about?”

  “They’re coming to terms with what just happened.”

  Maggie frowned and studied the three of them for a moment. It was faint, but I felt a small pulse of aura from her as she did so. Like a light on the edge of my periphery, the feeling was gone before I could focus on it.

  “Any of them taking it badly?”

  I frowned at Maggie in turn before I decided that she deserved to know and it would do the group no favors if I withheld information from her.

  “Nora seems okay, if a little shocked. Ellen and Mika are taking it harder. When I left, his hands were still shaking.”

  “I’ll talk to them. Might have to book them appointments with Guild councilors, too.”

  “That could help.” I said, not sure what a councilor was in this context.

  Maggie put a hand on my shoulder and I fought to keep a wince down.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “How ‘bout you? How’re you holding up?” She asked, eyes focused on the patch of drying blood on my forehead.

  I turned and looked back over my shoulder at the corpse of the creature we’d just killed. During my years of training I’d seen, done, and felt worse, but no aspect of the Cycle by itself was something to be celebrated.

  “I’m fine.” I replied.

  Beside us, Ruby sighed.

  “No, he’s not. Look at his hip Mags.”

  Maggie did and spotted the gash across my side. With a sigh, she knelt and poked around the wound.

  “Divines Bran, when were you going to mention you got hurt?” Maggie tried to hide the note of accusation from her voice but failed.

  “Once we were away from here.” I said and took Maggie by the shoulders. Gently, I insisted she rise. My own arms not strong enough to lift her if she didn’t want to be lifted. “I will not sully the creature’s journey by tending my wound here.”

  “What journey?” Maggie asked, gracefully accepting my nudge.

  “The creature has begun its journey to its next incarnation. I will not sully that by taunting it.”

  Maggie considered me, weighing what I’d said against some scale before she sighed and pointed at my no longer bleeding wound.

  “Let me know when we’re far enough. I don’t want that getting infected.”

  ~~~***~~~

  Mana blades six inches long cut carefully through the tough scales and perfectly along the dead tusk’s hardened bones as Ruby worked to field dress the creature. She began as soon as the rest of the party joined us. The ease with which she maintained her blades and the control she exerted over them forced me to reconsider what Tier she was in.

  Originally, I’d thought her to at most be in the Third Tier, but the control she had over her mana and aura forced me to increase that estimate. Ruby handled the hide delicately, and although I’d been concerned she would spoil the meat or damage the hide, I had that fear no longer.

  “Would it be alright if I kept a couple purple scales?” I asked into the silence as all five of us watched her work.

  “I’m okay with it.” Mika said, his voice slightly hoarse. “What about you guys?”

  “Sure.”

  “What do you need them for?” Nora asked.

  “Purple is a holy color for my people.” I said and brought my shield around to point at the heraldry. My wound had completely stopped bleeding, but I still moved with care, careful not to disturb the crusted blood that sealed it.

  Split into three parts separated by gold borders. The top left contained the open palmed symbol of the Order of the Black Hand, and would be repainted if I ever joined another Order. In the top right was a purple tear drop, which represented my station within the faith. Only Ylena’s daughters and her chosen were allowed to have a purple tear. The bottom and largest section contained a willow branch curved to resemble a half-risen sun.

  I didn’t explain all the meaning behind the designs or that gold and purple were holy because Ylena’s true form held leaves of those colors. Instead, I kept the explanation to them being key colors in the religion and important to my people.

  “I’m okay with you keeping most purple things. Just ask. But I’m going to have to be more circumspect with gold.” Mika joked.

  I could tell Mika wanted to lighten the mood some, and it worked. We all laughed, and even though Nora and Ellen had to put effort into it, I could see some of the tension fall off their shoulders. Still, I felt I had to explain some more.

  “Gold is no issue. We grow a special strand of barley that turns into gold dye when boiled. We grow entire crops of it back home. It’s used to paint pretty much everything.”

  “Even the houses?” Nora asked.

  “Sort of. We paint our runes with it, along with other herbs. It’s a beautiful sight when they glow.”

  “They still glow. Must be pretty young then.”

  “Most of Twin Oak is around two centuries old, so most runes have settled. But we expanded recently and those homes still have their glow.”

  I was about to continue on about the runes, and how the village [Enchanter] had worked the rune series so that when they glowed at night, it took the shape of a great spruce tree, when out of the corner of my eye I saw the body of the dead tusk vanish. The skin, cuts of meat, and blood which soaked the ground all vanished with the body.

  “I wonder if it’s Ruby or Maggie with the spatial storage.” Ellen asked, as she studied the site of the vanished corpse.

  “I’m sorry, spatial storage?” I asked and tried to sound the word out. Ellen had said the last part of her sentence as one word, which I’d never heard before.

  “Yeah, they’re pretty common tools amongst the nobility. You put a little mana into whatever you want to store, and it vanishes from the material plane into a self-contained demi-plane within whatever piece they’ve enchanted.”

  “These spatial storage are something anyone with enough money can buy?” I asked, sounding the unfamiliar word out.

  “Its spatial storages, for the plural.” Nora corrected.

  “Yes and no.” Ellen said almost on top of her. “Sure, if you had enough money, you could buy one. But until you’re Tier Four or Five, the metaphysical weight of trying to move something through the planes of reality without a spell form would tear your soul apart and remove you from the cycle of reincarnation.”

  “Ylena’s Grace.” I muttered and imagined having my soul torn asunder because I picked up a random bag.

  ~~~***~~~

  Hours later, with the sun setting at our back, we walked into the fortified hamlet of Hearthome. As soon as we crested the ridgeline and the sight of the churned earth from our battle vanished, Maggie stopped and insisted we tend to my wound.

  Enough time had passed, and barely enough distance along with it, that I relented and took out a needle and suture kit from my bag. I was going to do it myself, but Maggie stopped me.

  The entire time she stitched me up, she muttered under her breath about being too far from a Guild Hall to go there instead. Maggie was good with the needle and thread. When she finished, the wound was clean enough that I doubted it would leave much of a scar.

  Inside the hamlet’s walls, Ruby led us to her home and insisted we stay outside while she grabbed something. When she came out again, it was with a bundle of sticks that she made into a large drying rack. Before she tied the hide there, she cut off a large purple scale about a hand span across and held the still wet flesh out to me.

  With my hand halfway out, and about to ask her if it wouldn’t have been better to cure the scale with the rest of the hide, Ruby activated a skill. The small piece of hide dried and cured instantly, droplets of blood and fat dripping between her fingers as she held it out to me.

  “It’s a neat trick, huh?” Ruby asked as she saw the look on my face. “It’d make my life a whole lot easier if I could do that to an entire hide but, you can’t always get what you want.”

  I took the scale from her with care and tried not to get any of the clinging blood on me as I laid it within a side pouch on my pack.

  “I should have the rest of the hide done within the next couple of weeks. Maggie tells me y’all are going to the Under Tunnels for your last mission. That should be plenty of time for me to get this done.” Ruby said and bounced her fist off the tensioned hide.

  ~~~***~~~

  We opened the inn door to the smell of a strong pepper sauce. To the right of the room, two tables were pushed together to join two families. Their kids running circles around the table while the parents laughed and joked together.

  A woman weaved past the kids and pulled up an empty chair at the communal table. Instantly accepted, she laughed at a joke by the burlier of the men and poured wine for everyone.

  Across the room, a couple of teenagers huddled around a table and cast furtive glances at the twenty-year olds by the bar. Each of them egged the others on to go talk to them, but none of them stood. Seated at the bar were a pair of craftspeople, their soot-stained leather aprons hung loose over the low-back chairs.

  Behind the bar, Emell’s father poured a woman a mug of ale and set it in front of her with a smile. Emell herself strode across the center of the room; a tray of plates held over her shoulder as she marched towards the family table.

  With a smile on her face, the girl turned to look at the entrance, only for her eyes to widen in delight. She almost dropped her tray to rush at us, but she caught herself at the last moment. All but running the last few steps to the table, she hurriedly set down the dishes; and said a few polite words to the group before she spun to face us.

  “Adventurers!” she squealed and rushed to us.

  Most of the eyes in the room turned to watch Emell as she dashed to us. None of the gazes held any malice. Instead, everyone watched us as if we were stage performers, about to take part in a beloved scene.

  Almost in unison, Nora and I crouched to get on the girl’s level. I stayed back a half step, however, as I knew children could find me intimidating. Big eyes stared at Nora as she bounced from foot to foot.

  “Did you kill it? Did you kill it?”

  Nora looked to me first, and I took the preserved scale from the dead tusk and held it out to her. Emell took it with fervent eagerness and held it up to the light on a nearby lamp. I watched in amusement as she moved the scale through the light and examined all the different ways it shone.

  Eventually, she gave it back to me, and Nora pulled out the true trophy from the hunt. A spiraled length of tusk the size of her forearm.

  Emell took the bone like a relic. Cleaned at Ruby’s house, she’d revealed a pattern of black spots hidden under a layer of mud and blood. Emell held the bone in her hand for a long moment, not moving. Her little arm shook with the effort to hold it aloft.

  “What’cha got there, sweetling?” The woman who’d joined the family table asked as she laid a hand on Emell’s shoulder.

  “Look mom! It’s from that monster!” Emell held out the tusk to her mother, who took it with a smile and flipped it over in her hands to examine it.

  “Wow! Honey that’s amazing! Did the adventurers tell you how they got it?”

  Emell gasped and turned to Nora. A barrage of questions tumbled from her lips on top of one another, Nora never getting the chance to even open her mouth. Not that she seemed to mind. Crouched there, Nora had on an amused smile the entire time the girl spoke.

  Slowly, Nora got a word in edge wise. After that, she spun a grand weave of a hunt far more exciting than it actually was. Nora made us out to be far better trackers than we were, and even in combat, Nora spun a weave of a brave sacrifice from me and a rallying of the party behind my injury.

  As she spun, I noticed Emell look at me with wide-eyed wonder. And Maggie, off to the side, opened up her book again to scribble down details.

  “C’mon Emell, I think these brave heroes deserve to be paid, don’t you?” Her mom asked after Nora was done.

  Emell beamed at us and her mom and raced behind the bar. Her dad had broken off his conversation with the [Smiths] in front of them and all three had turned to watch the conversation. With a hustle only childhood excitement can produce, Emell threw on her apron and hopped up on the stool meant for her.

  Now almost a height with her dad, Emell stood behind the bar and stared. Her face was solemn as the grave while she waited for us to approach. At the bar, Emell had us give her the tusk again so she could inspect it ‘for real this time’.

  She carried out her duties with a seriousness I suspected she inherited from her dad, and when she was done, the girl retrieved a small bag from below the counter.

  The leather bag clinked as it reached us, and with equal solemnity to the little girl, Nora opened the bag to confirm the price. The two of them shared a serious look before they nodded an understanding and Emmel raced out from behind the bar.

  Still in her apron, she took turns hugging us and thanking us for slaying the monster. Behind her, her dad beamed with a pride I could not wait to feel myself.

  As we left Hearthome that night, eager to make up lost miles, I couldn’t help but smile; not because of the coins, or the thrill of a successful hunt, but because I couldn’t wait to see who Helena would be when she was that old.