Sure enough, I was level sixteen now. I’d gotten a point each in my strength, vitality, wisdom, and charisma, while my intelligence went up by two, increasing my maximum mana pool a bit as well.

  My last level up, I’d only gotten a point in Dexterity and Wisdom.

  Name: Elmerina Farmer

  Age: 18

  Status: Peasant

  Level: 16

  Health: 102/180

  Mana: 360

  Attributes:

  Strength: 10

  Dexterity: 12

  Vitality: 9

  Intelligence: 18

  Wisdom: 16

  Charisma: 20

  Leveling up wasn’t really something that peasants did in Enora. It happened naturally, due to pretty much anything, which was why I’d been level 14 when I’d first encountered the war troll.

  Combat would almost always lead to level ups, but the benefits, and improvements involved with general level ups were not predictable. There wasn’t an experience bar that needed to be filled, or any quantifiable way to gauge how close you were to another level.

  And if skills became hard to earn as they approached 100, levels might as well have been like planning for a tornado. You could be reasonably sure when one might show up, but you could never be certain.

  Career soldiers might die with a level in the high thirties, while some peasants might never even reach level ten. I suspected I was actually one of the higher-leveled members of Pemolar’s Hill due to all of my experiments at my lab.

  Still, two levels within two weeks was quite shocking.

  Levels only determined the base stats with which one could apply their skills. So, a person who had 40 strength would certainly be better able to apply his One-Handed Weapons skill than someone with only ten, like me. Even that couldn’t be planned for, because no one got to choose what stats improved when they leveled up.

  I suspected that the things done between level-ups affected which stats improved. Which explained why my intelligence, charisma, and wisdom were higher, but my strength and dexterity were minimal. I spent most of my time talking to people, learning, and discovering.

  Though these past few weeks, I had been spending a lot of time in the fields helping with the harvest. That might’ve contributed to the strength boost.

  High levels could be achieved, but before the existence of the rift, anyone who had reached higher than level forty had usually bathed in the blood of their enemies. Which was disgusting.

  The rift had actually increased the average level of everyone in the five nations by a few levels. The existence of monsters that no one had to feel guilty over killing had finally led to Tacuria’s first level fifty. It had been a big deal. Town criers came to the village to announce it when I was about eight or nine years old.

  “I bet that level fifty never did anything that stupid…” I breathed.

  I wouldn’t be doing anything like that again. I’d harbored dreams of holding onto my free points until I could drop them into a crafting skill or maybe masonry or something to help me invent all of the luxuries I knew could exist if only I had the time to make them. That was a privilege of the past.

  A few short weeks ago, I might’ve been safe to pursue all of those desires and more. Now I needed to be able to defend myself, and I didn’t think all the fancy pepper spray in the world would make up for my sheer lack of physical conditioning. It was time to learn how to fight.

  None of that was important at all, besides the all-consuming agony in my arm and shoulder. I apparently got introspective when desperately trying to make sure that my arm wasn’t going to fall off.

  “M-Mera…?” Came Elsee’s scratchy voice. “A-Are you okay?”

  “Fuuck!” Finally, after breathing for another few seconds, I gasped, “I… am hurt, but the goblins are dead.”

  “Oh, Divines…” the girl breathed, and then started sobbing.

  “H-here now. Don’t start all that, girlie.”

  “How can you say that!? Your leg–!”

  “Fuckin, calm your racket! I did not save you just to hear you bitchin’ and moanin’!” Burnom snapped, his Rechin accent sharp in my ears. “Oy! You getting in here or what? I can’t walk, and the girls aren’t doin’ much better!”

  “Give me a minute, jackass! You… owe me a beer!” I shouted back, through gasps of air.

  “Aye, I do, but I’ll not be able to get one for you if you don’t get someone over here to patch up this leg,” he said. “Fuck fuck fuck, that hurts!”

  I slowly dragged myself to my feet with my good arm, feeling unbelievably lucky. The pepper spray had worked, but I’d underestimated how incapacitated the goblins would be. The war troll had been knocked on its ass, blubbering like it had literally been stabbed in the face. I’d anticipated the same reaction from goblins, but it seemed they were more resistant to the stuff. That could’ve gotten me killed.

  But it hadn’t. As I looked over my shoulder, trying hard to see the cut, I realized that it wasn’t too deep. It was bleeding plenty, but I didn’t think he’d hit anything vital.

  I’d learn from this. No more hoarding free points, but I also wouldn’t waste them on talents lower than thirty. I needed to get a weapon skill, and knifefighting wasn’t going to cut it.

  “Is Eysee okay?” I asked as I gingerly rounded the corner, trying to avoid jostling my arm. When I stood in the entrance, I took in the alcove once more.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  Elsee was crouched over her sister protectively, her bow now discarded. Burnom hadn’t moved from his firepit in the middle of the Alcove. The crossbow remained cocked, and by its nature, it would always be loaded.

  Endless Oak Crossbow.

  Effect 1: Whenever cocked, this crossbow automatically generates a bolt.

  So… Elsee and Eysee hadn’t actually been the ones who needed the crossbow or the leather jacket. Instead, they’d needed Burnom to wear them.

  I shuddered to think what might’ve happened to the girls if he hadn’t been here, but I still didn’t understand how this had come about.

  Then again, I didn’t really have to. Priorities.

  “She took a nasty blow to the head. She tripped on old shoes, I think running into the cave, but she’s breathing okay,” Elsee said softly. “I… don’t know beyond that. She’s been moaning and grumbling.”

  “That’s a good sign,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief.

  I took in the three of them and was surprised to notice that the twins' new needs were available. I could craft for them again. That hadn’t happened for Dad.

  Elsee… needed a… huh. Metal strings and spruce wood. Metal for dials… if I didn’t know better, I’d say her need was a guitar. She needed it to invigorate her allies. No mention of war trolls for once, but Eysee and Burnom were different stories.

  Eysee was dazedly waking up. She now needed a weapon for war trolls. Predictable, but very simple. In fact, I almost had the supplies for it right here in Burnom’s little hideout. Metal, leather, string. Not a lot of metal either, but with my talent, that might mean anything between a knife and a machine gun turret.

  Thus far, my belief had been that people’s needs were based on their own perceptions. Yes, a leather jerkin had managed to keep Burnom safe enough that he’d been able to save Eysee, apparently, but had he known about Kevlar, he might’ve needed that instead.

  Come to think of it, would Kevlar actually be useful against swords and knives? Arrows? I didn’t know.

  Burnom needed… a tool? A whole lot of wood, stone, bone, and dried apricots of all things. I didn’t know him well enough that the craft would be easy. I got the distinct impression that he needed it to help him, but it was much harder to figure out why, for once. It was something he needed to fight… himself?

  Weird.

  I put the thought aside. I was wasting time trying to figure out what they needed crafted when what they all actually needed was a healer. Myself included.

  “Burnom… I don’t think we’re going to be able to get you to Normuran. Fuck, I can walk, but I’m not sure I should,” I said, gesturing at the injured arm.

  “Right… I’m tempted to ask ye to take out this damn dirk, but I’m afraid it might be what’s holdin’ my life-liquids in, see? Might be better to run fetch the healer, or at least a few lads to get me to him, ey? HP is in the low yellow. Seventy-nine out of six hundred, but it’s tricklin’ down.”

  “Okay… Okay, I’m going to see what I can do for Eye. Elsee, can you make it back to town?”

  She nodded. “I just got scrapes and bruises. I should be okay.”

  She was shaking a little. Still scared. Brave though. “Thank you, Mera… and…”

  She turned shyly to Burnom. The old man was bleeding from a wound on his arm, and covered in sweat. There was a very small dagger sticking out of his leg, which was clearly a lot more dangerous than my arm wound.

  He was somewhat disgusting before whatever he’d gone through saving the twins, and now he looked even worse.

  She knelt down beside him and kissed his cheek, with more affection than I’d ever seen from the girl.

  She hopped to her feet before looking back at me. “Keep an eye on Eysee, okay?”

  I nodded gravely.

  She turned to Burnom, who seemed to be blushing a little himself, and smiled before she turned and fled out of the alcove at a full sprint.

  I hope she hurried. My arm was killing me, and Burnom’s leg might literally be killing him.

  Still walking gingerly, I sat down on the other side of the firepit, so I could watch Eysee. She had a big, swollen bump on her head, but beyond the scrapes and bruises that mirrored her sisters, she seemed okay, but that became less and less true the longer she remained unconscious.

  “What… what happened?” I asked.

  He chuckled.

  “Girls were screaming up a storm as I was walking home. Could hear them halfway down the beach. Ran out to find out what was going on, only to see the goblins and trolls chasing them. Must’ve slipped through the patrols,” he said.

  “Ah. And the crossbow, and jacket?”

  “Found them in the sand. Figured I’d be more use chasing after them with a weapon than without. They were running back towards my little home away from home here after all. Still… this crossbow. Haven’t seen anything like it since the wars down in Berumetat. Talent crafted weapons that never run out of arrows. How the hell did the goblins get something like this…?”

  “They didn’t,” I said. “I made this for Elsee. My talent lets me know what someone needs most. Apparently, the thing she needed was for you to have this at the right moment. Same with the jacket.”

  “That right? Gods. What a talent. Masterful rank? Or higher? I bet it’s higher.”

  “Elite.”

  He snorted.

  “It is!” I insisted.

  “Sure, sure,” he waved it away.

  I growled, and he chuckled. “Don’t you worry, I’m not gonna tell anyone. Even if I did, who’d believe me, eh? Still. Elite talents don’t predict the future, lass.”

  “And what the hell would you know about elite talents?” I asked.

  “My Jaenie… Hers was elite.”

  “Oh…” I said. He’d never mentioned a girl, but I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d always seemed like a man trying to forget.

  I was a little shocked at the name. There was an odd naming convention in Tacuria. All women’s names seemed to start and end with vowels, while men’s started and ended with consonants. It had been a long time since I’d heard a full name that bucked that trend, but Rechin Amut was another country after all.

  Besides, it wasn’t like half the town didn’t shorten my name to Mera anyway.

  “Thing that surprises me the most is that you didn’t get something related to your stories. You… do tell wonderful stories, girl. Take a man away for a while,” he said wistfully.

  “It’s girl, now, is it? Not ‘storybitch’?” I asked.

  “Give a man a break, girl!” He jibed.

  I laughed. “It kind of is.”

  “What?”

  “My talent. It kind of is about stories. The better I get to know someone, the easier it is for me to make what they need,” I said, remembering the tagline on my talent’s screen. “Everyone has a story, right?”

  “What, you want mine?”

  I shrugged. “Not much better to do. I could use a distraction. My arm is killing me.”

  “No, thanks,” he said.

  I nodded. He’d never wanted to talk about his past before, and I didn’t think a near-death experience would change that.

  “Fair. Answer a quick question for me, though,” I asked, genuinely curious. “Do dried apricots mean anything to you?” I asked.

  His eyes widened, and he stared at me, shocked.

  Eysee suddenly moaned and opened her eyes, drawing both of our attention. She immediately closed them and curled into a ball, grabbing her head.

  “What… what happened?” she asked. “Elle?”

  I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that if she’d stayed unconscious much longer, it might’ve been really bad. As it was, it still might be.

  “It’s okay, Eye. You hit your head pretty bad, but the goblins are gone. You’re safe.”

  “M-Mera?”

  “Yeah. It’s me.”

  “Oh… Wanted to tell you… The vest you made me doesn’t fit…”

  I laughed through my throbbing arm. Burnom did too.

  The RS Run is over. Alas! Iz sad to watch the patrons go... Oh well! It's okay! I've got more story for you. Also! I've signed with Mango, so expect this book on Kindle and Amazon in the near future. Audible is unfortunately still up in the air. Will keep you updated when the stub is coming but I prooobbably need to finish the book first. ;)

  MB