Nora and I get up when the last watch ends. This is the most likely time of an attack, so we would rather be awake just in case. The sun is just starting to rise and several others are also up, probably for the same reason. I think we are all a little jumpy after all the ambushes.

This will be the last day of travel before we arrive at the Capital. I can’t wait to get there. With how sore my legs are from riding I should be showing some damage in my combat log. This has been an interesting trip. Nora and I have increased our skills a lot and the XP from the dungeon got me close to unlocking the Deck of Fate early. Our party is awake and we talk in party chat while eating.

Tom: If everyone is ok, I will talk to some of the caravan merchants about buying some of the items we gathered from the dungeon. They will have spare inventory space in their wagons and many of these items will sell well in the Capital. I feel we will get a good price with the merchants we know instead of having to haggle with the ones in the Capital.

Everyone agrees, so Tom will work on that today.

Tom: Another question for everyone is are we going to stay a party? I am planning on heading south back to the city states.

Justin: Me to, I want to visit some family and then hit some dungeons in the south now that I am higher level.

Frank: I will be going with Justin.

Nora: George and I have commitments here in the Empire. If you won’t mind splitting the cost of a communication crystal it would be nice to stay in touch. We all worked very well together.

Everyone agreed to splitting a pair of communication crystals after I displayed my ignorance as to what they were.

Nora: Communication crystals are magical items paired with each other that allow long distance communication. You hold one crystal and invest mana in it. The further they are apart the more mana needed. If they are in the southern city states I will probably take 100 mana to activate and then ten mana per minute to maintain. After you hold and invest the mana it will pulse the other crystal. If someone is holding it or has it in their inventory, they will be aware someone is trying to talk to them. The downside is that anyone can use them and you never know who is on the other end. We will come up with some code words to verify we are talking to each other.

George: That sounds very useful.

With that settled we all do our part to break camp and get ready to hit the road. We decide to stay in our party and join the war party for the caravan. The guards are fine with Nora and I moving back and to the left to be near the wagons Tom, Justin, and Frank are riding in. Justin relays the conversations between the merchants and Tom. He is an expert and manages to trade for gold or in a few cases some small gem stones that we split. By the time we stop for lunch almost everything is sold except for a few items Tom and Justin want as gifts for their relatives. One of the merchants even has a pair of communications crystals they are willing to throw in the deal.

Lunch is uneventful and after watering the mounts we are back on the road. To pass the time Tom tells us some stories.

One that I find interesting is about a young dwarf. Apparently, the dwarves claim the mountains to the west along the border of the Domain of Water and Air with the ocean. Dwarves live for several hundred years, so they are considered young for a much longer time than humans. The tale starts 120 years ago.

✽✽✽

Hyo woke to the sound of hammering, which was nothing new. His father was a master smith like his father before him. The sound annoyed Hyo because he wanted nothing to do with smithing much to his father’s chagrin. Hyo got up and after washing up went down to fix breakfast for his father and himself. His mother had died giving birth to Hyo from some rare complications. His father had some paintings of his mother, so he knew what she looked like. He often wondered if things would have turned out differently had his mother been around. Breakfast was a simple affair of eggs, biscuits, and thick slices of salted pork. He took a plate to his father and gathered up the dinner plate while dropping off breakfast. His father didn’t even look up as he dropped the food off. After eating his own breakfast in the kitchen, he cleaned everything and got ready for his day.

He was only fifty-four years old, so he still attended school. Schooling was very different from what we heard the humans did. For a dwarf, hands on training was the only way to do it, not sitting in some classroom reading books. So, after dressing in loose fitting armor with a helmet and putting several picks and bags in his inventory he made his way to the mine tunnel entrance. There were five other students. Today was supposed to be more interesting. They were going to go into one of the deeper shafts and would get to see some low-grade silver ore, which was the most valuable metal they have handled so far. Their teacher arrived carrying a huge double headed pick axe. After making sure we were all equipped and had light crystals attached to our helmets they headed into the tunnel.

Our teacher, weapon master Ko, never tired of explaining how dwarves were superior to the other races. Just take the light crystals we used for example. Dwarves can see in the dark using the heat present in every object. The light crystals sent out beams of low-level heat that reflected off the tunnel walls. This allowed us to see even further in the dark without giving off any light a surface dweller could use. I find these devices much more interesting than smithing weapons and armor. Unfortunately, very few dwarves work as engineers making devices.

Ko leads through the tunnels to the lower levels. Every time we run into an ore deposit or a change in the rock formations that make up the tunnel’s walls, he would quiz us. Sometimes he would make us close our eyes and just use our other senses to feel, smell, and even taste the rock. Whenever we approached a support beam, he would inspect it carefully. Then he would have us do it and discuss different ways it could fail. Finally, on the lowest level we found what we came for, some old low yielding silver ore that was not worth the time of the clans seasoned miners. It was great for training us in mining though.

We just unlimbered our picks to take turns at the ore when the stone rippled, knocking all of us off our feet except for Ko. The stone above our heads cracked and we lay there helpless as the stone continued to ripple and shutter. Ko staggered to the nearest two students and grabbed one in each hand and threw them across the room back into the main tunnel. He grabbed two more and was throwing them when the roof gave way. I could not stand, so I had started rolling toward the tunnel and made it about half the distance when a cloud of dust covered everything and the rock stopped moving. I could hear coughing and groaning down the tunnel. I felt around in the dust filled gloom. There was a small boulder not one foot from my head.

I called out for Ko and heard no response, so I carefully crawled until I came to a pile of stone where I found Ko. He was partially crushed under a large flat stone that separated from the tunnel ceiling. It must have broken his ribs and was preventing him from even drawing a breath. I was thinking desperately how to save him. Unlike humans, dwarves don’t respawn at a safe place they are bound too. When we die, we respawn back in the last place we died, so if we die somewhere that can kill us again, we will keep dying in an endless cycle until final death. I could see his arms straining to try to push the stone. If his strength could not move it what chance did, I have, but I couldn’t just sit there and watch him die. I pulled two picks from me inventory and wedged the heads under the stone and pushed on the handles to lever the stone up. I called for the others to help, but just heard confused voices and groans in response.

I focused on pushing on the handles with everything I had, leaning my whole weight on the handles. These picks were crafted by my father and had extremely high durability. I even started jumping up and leaning into the handles bruising my ribs. At the time I didn’t consciously think about it, but I just wanted to add more weight. If I just had more weight, I could lever the stone up and then it happened. I jumped up to push down on the handles when I felt a draining sensation becoming slightly light headed. More importantly the handles bowed and the stone lifted several inches. I could hear Ko suck in a breath as I reached down and grabbed his arm. He did most of the work then pulling himself out. Then as quick as it came the draining sensation stopped and I was thrown off the handles a good fifteen feet. I heard the double crack of the picks snapping as I lay on the ground stunned to look up and see Ko ripping off his crushed armor and downing a high-level healing potion.

He walked over and lifted me to my feet.

“I don’t know how you did that boy, but I owe you a full life debt.” Ko says.

I am stunned. That is a very serious burden for a young dwarf like myself to carry. Unlike other races dwarfs feel a life debt is carried by the receiver rather than the giver, because the receiver is the one who took responsibility for the life that is given.

“Come let’s gather the others and see if the passage is open back to the clan.”

We slowly made our way back and had to dig out in two places. It took us five hours to travel what should only take two, but we made it. The clan had sustained damage, but despite some deaths everyone was able to respawn without dying again. Everyone naturally helped with the rebuilding, contributing time, and money to repair the buildings, smiths, and mines. It was about two weeks later when the major repairs were complete when the clan heads Ja and Ko both showed up. I was sure they were here for my father, but they said they were here for me. We sit at the kitchen table and Ko said they wanted to discuss Ko’s life debt. Ko suspects I used an ability in the tunnels and wants to train me himself, but before that is discussed they need to see what ability Hyo has.

Dwarves cannot access their character information until they have a class, which puts them at a disadvantage at lower levels compared to most of the other races. Dwarves have worked around this with a skill their clan leader has. The skill allows them to view a dwarf’s stats and abilities. I am interest myself, so I hold out my hand and Ja pulls a stone dagger which he uses to cut open my hand. He then cuts his own hand and clasps mine. I feel a strange sensation, almost like the pins and needles you get when you sleep on your arm wrong and cut off circulation. Ja has his eyes closed as he focuses on his skill and then starts chuckling. He releases my hand and there is no trace of any blood and only a small scar as a reminder.

“You have an interesting ability young one. You can make things heavier including your own body, which is what I am sure you did in the tunnel based on Ko’s description. It uses mana, which is a rare type of skill for a dwarf. Most of our skills are based on stamina.”

“What use is that ability other than of course what I did to save Ko?” I stamper.

Ja looks as Ko, who replies. “Offhand I can think of a few things. If you made your pick heavier right before you strike it will hit harder. The same with a weapon I imagine. If you can make an opponent’s weapon heavier so they can’t hold it or their shield that would be useful. Making loose dirt heavier to pack it down would also be useful. If you ever become an adventurer being able to make the floor in front of you heavy can set off traps before you trigger them yourself.”

I sit there stunned, thinking of the possibilities and start to smile. This is the perfect ability to train, which will open so many more paths than smithing.

✽✽✽

“Good story, what ever happened to Hyo after that?” George asks.

“Well that is a tale for another time, maybe when you buy me a beer or two.” Tom says.

George laughs and says. “It sounds worth it.” We split back up and swap with some of the other guards to give them a break. I decide to level my air shaping some more. I still want to be able to run through air. I hand off my mount to another guard and start jogging along with the wagons. I focus creating a step in the air and jump on it. I create another barely in time to take another step. Over the next two hours I end up supplying quite a bit of entertainment to everyone in the wagons. I would make it up in the air thirty, forty, and sometimes fifty feet before I either missed a step or couldn’t form one in time. It hurts falling fifty feet on hard packed dirt. I learned to cast shield to help break my fall. After two hours in the middle of the air I get an awesome notification.

Congratulations

You have learned the advanced skill Air Jump. Awarded 100 XP.

You have created a new level 2 spell Air Step. Awarded 100 XP.

Unfortunately, this happens while in midair, which distracts me, so I have plenty of time to stare at it as I fall to the ground. I here a few cheers from the wagons and I swear Tom is taking bets. I stagger to my feet and grab my left arm with my right and jerk it back in its socket before casting minor heal. I learned the hard way you don’t want the spell to pop your arm back in its socket. It really hurts and causes you to fail while casting. Then you suffer from backlash as well as a dislocated shoulder. I was about to look at my new skill and spell when trumpets sounded and golden letters wrote themselves across the sky.

System Event Update

The Deck of Fate is now soul bound to its owner.

Crap, I forgot how close I was to completing the binding of the Deck of Fate. I look around and everyone is excitedly chatting, but no one is paying attention to me even Nora. I don’t look at my notification in more detail now, not wanting anyone to make any connection to my getting them at the same time as the System Event. As I get back up on my mount, I take some good-natured ribbing and Tom seems very happy. Maybe I should ask for a split of the proceeds. I take my place back with the guards and the rest of the ride is uneventful.

We make camp about an hour before sunset. We will be setting extra guards tonight. With this being the last camp before reaching the Capital we want to take no chances that we will be attacked unaware. Nora and I have first watch and setup in a tall oak to the south of the camp that gives us a great view. We switch the direction we are watching every thirty minutes to stay awake and focused. It is a relief when the next shift of guards arrives and we hand of guard duty to them. Both Nora and I are tired and immediately hit our bedrolls despite being excited about almost reaching the Capital. Before falling to sleep I look at my new skill and spell.

Air Jump (Basic 1)

This skill allows the user to jump between two surfaces composed of mana infused air. The jump distance is strength times skill tier. This is considered an advanced skill because stamina can be used to increase the jump distance by one foot per five points of stamina used times the skill tier.

Air Step Level 2 (Basic 1)

This spell allows the user to create a small pad of air to support their weight. Up to one pad per limb can be summoned at the same time.

Distance: 10 feet plus skill level in feet

Casting Time: Instantaneous

Mana Cost: 5 mana plus 1 mana per minute to maintain

Duration: 1 minute

I haven’t been focusing on building up my strength, but even with a strength of twenty-four I can jump twenty-four feet with no stamina cost. I will just have to level up Air Step to match that distance and I should be able to really move. Doing some math in my head. I can jog at about eight miles an hour now for a long time without depleting my stamina, which is about 400 steps per minute. That’s with a stride of about two feet, so if I can increase my stride to twenty-four feet, I will be moving twelve times as fast. I am sure it won’t work out that easy, but I can’t wait to try. For right now I want to keep a low profile until we leave the caravan, so I will have to wait to experiment. I turn on my side and feel a lot better about Nora and my chances. This should really help improve our survivability.