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Chapter 76: Welcome to the Outlaws: Figuring Things Out
🕑 Added 2023-01-06 13:00:04 +0000 UTCErani walked through the greenery of a hot, humid forest. She, Arlan, and the newly-communicative Dryad had recently gotten up from their brief rest and headed off once again, eager to get further away from the destroyed barricade. She was still reeling from the Dryad’s sudden ability to speak. Or, not ‘speak’, really, but rather telepathize. To be able to communicate with a previously-unknown creature was amazing.
There was just one problem with that communication.
“So, how much Health do you have, exactly? Do you have any Talents? Or Martial Arts?”
“What is ‘Health’? What is ‘Talents’? What is ‘Martial Arts’?”
It seemed that, for the Dryad, her System was formatted differently than it was for a Human. Things had different names, were arranged in different ways, and some aspects seemed to be missing or replaced altogether. This made it very difficult to figure out anything about her capabilities.
Erani absent-mindedly opened up her own Status.
She’d gone through most of the different terms the System used, asking the Dryad about each to try and find some sort of baseline from which they could figure out the rest, but had no luck.
She couldn’t help but feel proud at the extreme growth that was shown on her Status window. Over the first three-and-a-half years she’d had her Class, she got to Level 9. And now, she’d grown by almost 50%, up to Level 13. Most people slowed down as they got higher in Level, but for her, things only seemed to be speeding up.
Of course, that speed wasn’t exactly random. And it wasn’t free, either. The time she’d spent on the run from Demons and out in the wilderness was a series of some of the hardest days of her life. And really, she didn’t consider that struggle to be worth it in terms of the few extra Levels she’d gained. At least, she would’ve rather just done it the slow and easy way.
But what had happened had happened, so now she’d just have to roll with the punches. She still somewhat lamented her picking of Angelic Shield. It was definitely the right choice – she probably would’ve died a few times without it – but that didn’t mean she was happy it was the right choice.
Not only did Angelic Shield drop off in usefulness the moment you joined up with a party that contained a high-Endurance Melee-Type to protect you from the monsters, but giving up on the other two options for her second Spell – Ray of Frost and Mana Geyser – meant giving up on so many other options in the future.
She could’ve taken Ray of Frost, and then for her next Spell, taken Fire Covenant, and gone with Elemental Mastery for her Level 15 Talent. Classic elemental-School DPS build. She could’ve gone for Mana Geyser into Essence Capture for a more support-oriented build. Hells, she could’ve even gone with Mana Geyser and Flusterstorm. Sure, it wasn’t like any of them were objectively better than what she had with Angelic Shield, but it would’ve been nice to have options.
It was also nice to have research, and Angelic Shield was the least common Level-10 pick, meaning it also had the least amount of research done into its future options. Not that she could even access that research in her current circumstances.
So far, she’d at least stuck with her planned Talents – taking Primal Might at 10 was pretty standard – but for her next choice coming up at 15, she had no idea what she was going to take. Damned Demons, mucking up all her plans.
Still, it wasn’t totally unbearable for her. Arlan was a good motivator, with his borderline obsession with growing stronger. She still felt like he took it too far at points, but seeing him do something still made it a hell of a lot easier for her to convince herself to do it. The extensive Spell training, the killing of extra monsters for their XP, even the basic plan of fleeing from the kingdom, she wasn’t sure if she’d have been able to push herself to do it all if she hadn’t had someone else to help her along.
And she supposed his company was nice, as well.
Speaking of company, she needed to get back to talking to the Dryad. She’d gotten distracted. “So, when you got access to your communication, was it a choice between three options? Or did you get it without having to choose?”
There was a pause. “Choose.”
Okay, Erani thought. So that meant it was either a Spell or a Talent. Or maybe some other thing was offered to Dryads as a choice that Humans didn’t get. “Do Dryads get this type of choice very often?”
“Unknown to me. I have been a Dryad for short time.”
Ah, right, Erani thought. “What about for Nymphs?”
“Have also been a Nymph for short time.”
Wait, what? Nymphs weren’t an evolution of anything – they were born as Nymphs. “What were you before you were a Nymph?”
“Not alive.”
Okay, so it was a translation error. She just meant she hadn’t been alive for much time. “How long have you been alive?”
There was a new sensation sent to Erani’s head – not one she could immediately decipher as words. It seemed to be the concept of passing time – the sun and moon flying by overhead, seasons changing. It made sense that the Dryad would have to communicate this in a more abstract way – they probably didn’t keep track of time in the same way Humans did.
But, when she worked to figure out how long the Dryad meant with her message, Erani felt like she must’ve gotten something wrong. If she’d translated that correctly… no, that couldn’t have been true. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that? How old are you?”
The same message came in again, and Erani pursed her lips incredulously. It seemed like the Dryad kept track of time in terms of the passing seasons, with each one that passed making her one season older. And the number she gave just felt… wrong. “So, then, what stage of life are you in, as your species?”
“I am child. I am nine seasons old.”
She was only a bit over two years old. Sure, maybe Nymphs matured more quickly than Humans, but it couldn’t be that fast. Even the Dryad admitted she was only a child, by her species’ standards. “So, then, when we first met you, was the other Nymph with you–”
“What is ‘Nymph’?”
Ah, right. Pretty much anything with a name couldn’t be translated through the link between them. At least, it wouldn’t retain any meaning if you tried. So Erani had to explain any named word she intended to use. It had proven quite difficult to do – Arlan had tried to explain a few definitions to the Dryad before, but quickly resigned himself to ‘not being a teacher’ and gave up. It was the first time she’d actually seen him give up at something.
Originally, Erani had assumed this difficulty in explaining things was simply due to their method of communication – things must have been getting garbled in translation, or there was some difference in culture that made things not carry over properly – but now she understood things a bit better. Maybe there were still some translation errors, but she suspected the main problem was that they were explaining things in the same way they would to an adult, rather than to a kid.
She was obviously smarter than a Human two-year-old, but the age still put a good number of things in context. The Dryad had always seemed a bit childish, but it also explained why she would become so attached to Erani and Arlan in the first place. Wanting to stick around so she could help kill all the Demons was a pretty naive way of thinking to begin with, and Erani suspected that wasn’t all of it. At her current age, the Dryad probably desperately needed some form of companionship in lieu of parents, and even if the Dryad didn’t realize it, she was grasping for someone who could take care of her in some way.
“You are thinking about me?” Erani was startled by a sudden message in her head. She looked over at the Dryad, who was staring at her expectantly. She’d always known the Dryad had her empathy that could detect the emotions in other monsters, but it was still strange to see it at work.
She’d always assumed it didn’t work on Humans – or, at least, worked at a very diminished intensity – since she never felt her own emotions changing from the two-way empathy. But it seemed like, even if it didn’t work as much in the direction that affected her, it still worked just as well in the direction that affected the Dryad.
“Yes, I’m thinking about you,” Erani responded. “Um, to answer your question about what ‘Nymph’ means, you know how I told you that what you are right now is a Dryad? What you were before you were a Dryad was a Nymph. When we went into the village with the other people and the sludge monsters, where you learned to heal, that was when you stopped being a Nymph and started being a Dryad.”
Erani could feel a general aura of fear and disgust come from the Dryad the moment she mentioned ‘sludge monsters’. It also made sense that the Dryad was so irrationally afraid of those. Even if she was obviously powerful, kids were scared of random things, sometimes.
“Okay,” the Dryad responded. “What you were asking?”
“Right,” Erani got herself back on track. “I was asking whether that other Nymph that was with you when we first met – the one who’s… gone, now – was she your mother?”
There was a moment of silence, before the Dryad sent a saddened “yes.”
Erani nodded somberly, before remembering that the Dryad didn’t know what a nod meant. At least the Dryad would probably be able to sense her solemnity. “I’m sorry that happened. Arlan and I will do our best to help you as much as we can. If you ever want to talk to anyone, or–”
“Just want to kill bad guys.”
Erani blinked. “Oh, sure. We can do that, too.”
“Will kill all bad guys. All of them.”
Erani took a breath.
One day, she thought. One day we can do that. Because I sure as hells want to see them dead, too.
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Erani’s fully-expanded character sheet, as of now:
Comments
What I am really looking forward to is the spell crystals and subsequent evolutions they get from leveling up their spells I am really enjoying the story keep up the good work don't listen to all the haters
Josh Cothran
Nothing has happened for 3 chapters. In fact, they’re still sitting on the same tree I would imagine
