Spring had finally arrived in the mountains.
After a long winter cooped up inside the longhouse, she understood why people counted age here based on how many winters a person had endured. Though being honest, she’d enjoyed spending time with Ethel and her family. However, she hadn’t enjoyed waking up with frost on her eyebrows most mornings.
The sound of a boot scuffing on hard-packed earth made Piper roll her eyes. A second later, a stick jabbed her in her ribs. In response, she bonked Ophelia on the head with her tail. She’d kept the bump gentle, but her friend still cried out, mostly from surprise.
Turning around, she saw Ophelia rubbing her forehead. “It’s not fair that you have a tail.”
“Everything is fair in love and war,” she replied, remembering a quote from her dad.
“What does that even mean?” Her friend’s face quickly transformed into a grin. “I still got you, vile demon.”
“You really did.”
“Want to go exploring with me later?”
Piper shook her head. “Your dad wants me to go looking for that tomb again.”
“He’s obsessed with that,” Ophelia said with a sigh. “All for a few aetherstones.”
“Those could buy you some armor to become a real adventurer,” Piper pointed out. Then she mentally added, And a farm for me.
“In that case, why don’t I come with you?”
“That’s a great idea,” Piper said, brightening. “You could help us search the ruins.”
“Great!” Ophelia cried out. “I’ll be right back!” She sprinted away, most likely to find another stick to bring along as a weapon. Alfred might not be happy, as he’d have to watch over his daughter now. But she doubted he would mind too much.
A few minutes later, Alfred trudged around the building. He had a longbow in his hand, a quiver on his belt, and a pack over his shoulder. They usually spent the entire day of rest searching for the tomb.
“Ready to go?” he rumbled. “Where’s all your stuff?”
“I just need to grab it,” Piper said quickly. “And I hope you don’t mind, but I invited Ophelia along.”
His face darkened. “It’s too dangerous up in the mountains for her until she awakens. You know that.”
“But she needs more deeds before she awakens,” Piper countered. “Wouldn’t a trip to the ruins help her with that?”
“Not until she awakens,” Alfred repeated firmly. “I won’t risk her life.” The sound of a stick dropping made him turn around to see his daughter standing behind him. She looked devastated before she turned and fled. “By Infernus’s beard…”
Piper grimaced as she watched her friend dart away. She really hadn’t meant to cause problems with her invitation. But now, based on Alfred’s stormy expression, she was going to have to deal with him in a foul mood all day. And usually, the trips to the ruins were the highlights of his month.
When Alfred turned to glower at her, she wilted and immediately took off to grab her bow. There was no way she was sticking around to take the brunt of his annoyance.
She jogged to the longhouse and pulled up her character sheet.
Piper Ashcroft
Race: Shadeling, Level 10
Class: Deceiver, Level 5 (Epic)
Attributes
Strength – 6
Dexterity – 4
Stamina - 3
Vitality – 6
Perception – 3
Swiftness - 2
Magic - 2
Mana - 95
Mana Regeneration – 95
Free Attribute Points - 98
Racial Skills (4/10)
- Demonic Blood, Level 5
- Demonic Intellect, Level 6
- Quick Claw, Level 7
- Tail Strike, Level 8
Skills (10/10)
- Ambush Detection, Level 4
- Animal Caretaking, Level 5
- Archery, Level 3
- Cooking, Level 6
- Enduring Casting, Level 8
- Gardening, Level 1
- Identify, Level 1
- Running, Level 10
- Stick Wielding, Level 1
- Subterfuge, Level 2
Spells (3/10)
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- False Face, Level 2
- Truth Shroud, Level 1
- Veil of Lies, Level 3
For the last few months, she’d had a ton of points sitting in Free Attributes. The only points she’d assigned so far were for her Mana and Mana Regeneration.
She’d added 15 attribute points to Mana, and 17 points to Mana Regeneration, bringing them roughly in line. Strangely, each point she added gave her 5 points in each attribute, but she was sure there was a reason for that.
Now, she could keep [Enduring Casting] active on [False Face] without ever running out of mana. However, she had no idea what to do with the rest of her points.
She frowned as she reached the part of her character sheet with the spells. The Holy System rarely granted levels unless you were struggling in some way. Alfred said the most levels he’d ever gained were during a drought, when he’d been scratching a meagre harvest of crops out of the dusty ground.
Clearly, hiding her face from Ethel and her family wasn’t seen as worthy for gaining levels from the system. Now that it was spring, maybe she could start travelling to Alderwick more often. That had to count for putting herself at risk. Hopefully then the system would start granting her some levels in her class spells.
While her character sheet was open, she looked over the rest of her skills. While she hadn’t been able to level any of her racial skills or spells since their battle with the lion, she’d been making steady progress with her other skills.
Piper was pretty happy with her [Cooking] and [Animal Caretaking] levels. Though she hadn’t been able to level her [Gardening] skill since there was no planting to be done during the winter. Now that spring was around the corner, it should shoot right up.
The only other one she wanted to level up was [Running]. She wasn’t sure if it was from her skill or increased attributes, but she was a lot faster recently. She wanted to continue leveling up [Running] to see how fast she could go.
After years of being stuck in bed, being able to run again felt amazing. If she had any place to go other than the farm, she would have run everywhere. Maybe she could start training with Ophelia when she awakened. It wouldn’t be long now, with her friend’s 13th birthday just around the corner.
Piper hurried into the longhouse and grabbed her short bow as she continued to agonize over her free attribute points. She knew her class was basically a caster, but every battle she’d been involved in so far had involved hand-to-hand combat. Which made her want to dump a lot of points into Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, and Vitality.
At the very least, she should add some points to her Magic attribute. According to Ethel, it improved the power of her spells. And she didn’t want anyone seeing through her illusions.
After a minute, she closed her character sheet in frustration. It was so difficult to decide. While this seemed like a video game, there was no way to reset her stats if she made a mistake. If she placed them in the wrong attribute, she would never get a chance to redo them.
But at least she had more wiggle room than someone with a poor quality class. Right now, she had a total of 162 attribute points from her race and class. Since most humans only got 1 point per level for their race and two points per level for a poor quality class, she was already significantly stronger than many of the residents of Alderwick.
In theory, once she allocated her points, she should be able to stand against someone who was level 75 in their race, level 50 in their first class, and level 25 in their second. But that was ignoring all of their skills and spells.
Shaking her head, she left the longhouse and trotted outside. Her quiver bumped against her thigh with each step, and she had to reach down to hold it steady. Once again, she was obsessing over numbers. It wasn’t like she was going to have to fight someone from Alderwick.
When she returned to Alfred, it didn’t look like his mood had improved. If anything, his brow was even more deeply furrowed. This wasn’t going to be a fun trip like usual.
The big man headed out toward the foothills without a word, setting a brutal pace. After a few steps, she had to run to keep up. They passed through the edge of the forest and headed up the steep trail in silence.
Piper kept a wary eye out as they climbed into the foothills. While none of the scouts from the village had sighted anything dangerous in the region lately, that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything out there. None of them had noticed the awakened lion either. And that had almost ended in disaster.
She also hoped she could see a mammoth again. When she first arrived, she’d been too frightened to enjoy the sight of something so amazing. Now that she knew they were generally friendly, she desperately wanted to find them again. How cool would it be to pet a baby mammoth?
She paused and uncorked the waterskin hanging from her shoulder. After taking a swig, she offered it to Alfred. “Would you like some?”
The big man only grunted in reply.
She winced at his reaction. He was really angry that she’d invited Ophelia. But she’d only wanted her friend to get some deeds for her upcoming awakening. What was the problem with that?
“I was only trying to help,” she said, starting to feel annoyed with Alfred. “We’ve never even seen aspect beast footprints in the ruins before.”
“What if we do encounter one?” Alfred asked in a clipped tone.
Piper stopped, walked and frowned. “Then we’d beat it.”
“And what if Ophelia receives a warrior class for fighting a monster? What then?”
A sudden realization dawned on Piper. Alfred was terrified his daughter was going to be offered a combat class for her awakening. And she was probably headstrong enough to take it. That would make life almost impossible for her in the Bloodveil Empire. At best, they’d have to hide Ophelia for the rest of her life. At worst, she might be imprisoned for her class.
“I… didn’t think about that.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Piper chewed on her lip, not knowing what to say. Alfred and Ethel hadn’t made a big deal about her receiving a combat class, but then again, she’d had an illusionist-type class. They must have believed she would be able to hide it someday, which she’d succeeded in doing. But a young woman couldn’t hide the fact that she was a warrior.
Feeling a bit dumb, she slung the waterskin over her shoulder and followed Alfred up a steep incline. With each step, her foot set a cascade of pebbles bouncing down behind her. After a few more minutes of climbing, they arrived at a clearing that looked incredibly familiar.
Piper glanced around, noting a hole in the ground not far from them. “Wait!” she called out as Alfred continued to march forward. “I think this is the place.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder, his brow rising slightly. “Really?”
She nodded quickly. This was where she had first emerged from the tomb. She was sure of it.
“Thank Infernus,” Alfred said. His dark mood vanished like storm clouds parting for the sunshine. A big grin split his face as he hurried over to the tomb entrance. But only a few paces from the hole, he slowed to a stop and shielded his eyes from the sun.
Piper turned around to see what Alfred was looking at. As she did, she was greeted by the sight of a rising column of black smoke. It was coming from the farm.
“Oh no,” Alfred muttered. “No, no, no…”
“Maybe Ethel is just burning some brush?” Piper offered, not really believing it. That was a lot of smoke.
“We need to get home now!” The tomb forgotten, Alfred dashed across the clearing and back into the forest. He didn’t slow when he reached the incline, and half slid, half fell down it.
Piper ignored her rising worry and raced after him. Something terrible had happened on the farm. And Ethel and Ophelia were all alone there.
by D. N. Newyn
All Severa Montreal ever wanted was to become the greatest dungeoneer alive. Instead, she got to manage other dungeoneers.
a bit of a spoiled brat. How dare she demand respect when she was only the youngest prodigy in the history of the Synod of Thaumaturgic Studies and the youngest ever to solo a Tier II dungeon?
other dungeoneers as well. Complete, moronic beginners. She would have to face her worst enemy: socializing. But if tolerating other people was what it would take to become the best dungeoneer manager, so be it.