Aidan

The Realms

Fourthday, 3rd week of the 7th month, Godless Age 597

Morning

Mistvale Highlands, near Ceallach Macht

After spending a little longer kissing and cuddling, Brighid and Aidan managed to pull themselves away from each other long enough to dress, armor themselves, and pack up camp. The dressing and armoring involved more "helping" hands on skin and fur than usual, but neither of them were about to complain about the extra attention. Still, the sun was entirely above the horizon when they finally set out on what Brighid assured Aidan would be their last day of travel.

Aidan picked up practicing his Fire Magic where he left off the previous night with the addition of his new Burning Barrage spell. That proved to be somewhat troublesome, since he couldn't aim it at Brighid due to the explosions, which would extend past her armor and scorch her skin and fur. Eventually, he settled on using it to train himself to maintain concentration on one spell while casting a different one; Brighid approved since an experienced mage was likely to have to concentrate on several different magics at once. When they passed a large boulder or another suitably fireproof target, Aidan unleashed all seven of the glowing motes, guiding each of them to strike precise points.

The strain of splitting his concentration seven ways was enormous. The first time he tried, he collapsed halfway through and lost control of the motes. Instead of striking the rock, they veered randomly, exploding all over the side of a hill. After that, he worked himself up more gradually, at first directing only two at a time, then adding another when he grew comfortable with two, and so on.

While he trained, Brighid did her best to teach him the intricacies of the Skill system and how Skills were affected by stats. She had him examine the description of each of his Skills and explained what each part meant. Aidan hadn't thought to look at the Skill descriptions since the ones he had were mostly self-explanatory, and to his embarrassment, there was a considerable amount of information given.

Fire Magic (Level: 10.36; +10 spell power with Fire Magic spells. Rank: Initiate. Affinity: 100%)

Associated Attribute: Charisma; +16 spell power with Fire Magic spells.

Fire Magic bends the most chaotic and rapacious of the natural elements to your command. It is the magic of passion, hunger, chaos, and destruction. Masters of this Skill can burn entire battlefields to nothing but ash and cinders.

Due to your Novice rank in Fire Magic, you have a slight resistance to fire damage.

Due to your Initiate rank in Fire Magic, your Fire Magic spells have their cast times and cooldowns reduced based on the difference between your Skill level and the Skill level required to cast them.

Each Skill was associated with one or more Attributes, which gave bonuses to performing that Skill. In the case of magic school Skills, that bonus came in the form of spell power, which increased the various effects of spells from that school—damage, health restored, the magnitude of buffs, and so on. Other Skills had different effects from their Associated Attributes, and they were not always the same as that given by the level of the Skill, as it was with magic. Light Armor Skill levels, for example, reduced the encumbrance and increased the protection of worn light armor. However, his Endurance, its Associated Attribute, instead gave him a chance to take no damage from light hits against his armor. In the case of a Skill with multiple Associated Attributes, they were averaged together.

Brighid also explained the generally-accepted wisdom regarding stat builds in the Realms. "Mostly, people take one of three overall strategies. Some focus on a few very narrow stats and spend all of their points there to enhance their best or most lucrative Skills. Others place points out into stats that are used by the Skills and areas they are weakest in, hoping to fill in their weaknesses. Finally, some spread everything evenly, with only a slight emphasis on certain stats which have high synergy with their Skills." She glanced at him, then tentatively said, "Given your affinity with Fire Magic, I would suggest the first strategy. You have the potential to be a legendarily strong mage, and my class and build complement that. As long as we are together, I can cover for your lower physical stats."

Aidan smirked at Brighid and teased, "We aren't even a couple for half a day yet, and here you are, already trying to make me dependent on you." Brighid's eyes widened and she opened her mouth, but before she could assure him that wasn't her intent, Aidan laughed and said, "As if I wasn't already, and happy with the situation. I was thinking the same thing, anyway. All I have to do is keep you happy and ... well-pampered, shall we say, and I am free to concentrate on my firepower. Pun intended." Brighid smacked his shoulder lightly, but she was blushing, and Aidan noted that she didn't correct him.

"I think I'll still invest some into Toughness, though. Being able to scorch an entire battlefield is all well and good—until I catch a stray arrow and die. That's something I think we'd both prefer not to happen, so I'll avoid being a complete glass cannon." At her confused look, he explained. "Sorry, that's an idiom from Earth. The quick version is that it means something with immense destructive power at the cost of being excessively fragile. I wouldn't mind the first so much, but the second is a deal-breaker."

"Yes, it is." Brighid agreed, her eyes taking on a fierce aspect.

"Alright, so that's two points into Charisma and one in Willpower, added to the automatic one point in each from being Helltouched. Then another point each in Intuition—for my Vivimancy—and Toughness. That leaves one. Any more advice?"

Instead of answering, Brighid stopped and turned to face him, her face a mix of confusion and caution. "That adds up to six points, Aidan. Humans only receive five each level, and being Helltouched subtracts one in exchange for the bonuses it gives. You should only have four Attribute points to distribute. What aren't you telling me?"

Shit. Me and my big mouth. Aidan grimaced. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. "I still have a few secrets. In this case, I actually have a hidden ... let's call it a subrace because that's where it shows up on my status screen, although I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. Either way, I'm something called a Chosen, and one of the benefits is that I get an extra two stat points per level."

"Chosen?" Brighid pondered. "Chosen by whom? Or by what?"

"I'm ... not entirely sure. The description mentions a Patron, but I don't know who that is. I think I met them in a dream that first morning—just before I met you, actually—but it was very confusing."

"Explain." Brighid's voice was like steel, and Aidan looked at her in surprise. Her expression softened somewhat, and she explained, "This is a clue about who brought you to our territory and why. I need to know. I am sorry, Aidan, but I must insist."

He could see the conflict in her, torn between their new relationship and her loyalty to her tribe. He nodded and thought back to the dream, trying to explain it as best he could. "Like I said, it was a dream I had while sleeping in that storage hut in your village. I 'woke up' in a huge, fluffy bed, and there was a beautiful woman with me. The tricky thing is that I absolutely cannot describe her. Everything specific about her is just a blur in my memory. It's like she was many different women all overlayed on top of each other. I couldn't even swear that she was entirely humanoid, now that I think of it.

"Anyway, she told me that she was my Patron and that she had brought me to her Realm to explain what that meant. Oh, that's another weird thing. She spoke in Divine Speech, and whenever she used a pronoun, it was somehow both singular and plural, like she was a single entity and multiple entities at once."

Brighid stopped him there. "You say she spoke to you in Divine Speech? How do you know that?"

Aidan shrugged. "You know I have a Trait which allows me to learn any language I hear; that's how we're talking in your language. When I woke up, I had a prompt telling me that I had learned Divine Speech. That's what convinced me that it was more than just a weird dream."

Brighid's eyes widened, and she started to ask another question, but then just motioned for him to continue. "She told me that I was her only Chosen, her champion, but that I was not the only Chosen in the Realms. Other people were Chosen by other entities, and if one of them found out I was a Chosen and who my Patron was, they might try to kill me because of it. She didn't explain why. She implied that she was an immortal—or at least different from normal mortals—and that it was Forbidden for her to interfere directly in mortal affairs. Since I'm her Chosen champion, however, apparently she can bend the rules a little and exert some influence on events around me. Personally, I think that's the point of the whole thing; I think us Chosen are catspaws for the Gods or their equivalents. The problem is that I have no idea which Goddess she was. She really didn't give me any hints in that direction."

Brighid was chewing on her bottom lip as she listened to his description of the dream. "Do you remember anything about the room you were in aside from your bed—or bedmate?"

Aidan blushed, but replied, "Not much. It was opulent, like something from a palace. The only thing I really remember is that there were lit braziers all along the edges of the room."

Brighid nodded. She turned back to the north and resumed walking. After a long enough silence that Aidan began his magic training again, she finally said, "Thank you, Aidan, for telling me that. I won't hold your secrets against you if they are as dangerous as that one was. I have my suspicions about your Patron, but I want to think longer and pray on it before I share them, if that is alright with you. I will say that, if I am correct about their identity, you have nothing to fear from the Starchasers." Her tail swished extravagantly behind her. "In fact, you would be owed an even more extensive apology than you are already."

Aidan was curious about her conclusion but had no objection to waiting until she was ready to share. Instead, he prompted her, "So, any thoughts about that last stat point?"

Brighid's tail swished again. "Well, there is Attractiveness for the obvious, Agility to make your hands even more magic, Endurance to make sure you can keep going all night, Might for better massages..." She giggled, and Aidan would have swatted her on the rump except that she wouldn't even notice it through her barding.

"How about Luck, because the one point I have isn't nearly enough to have paid for the luck I had meeting you?" She gave him a brilliant smile over her shoulder, and that decided the question for him. Sure, maybe it’s a little frivolous, but I’m flying high right now. "Okay, that's that. Now, any advice about the bonus Skill experience? I forgot to assign the bonus from level 2, and it got randomly assigned. I'm not even sure where it went. I'd like to spend this one a little more fruitfully."

"The common wisdom is to either raise a low-affinity Skill or increase a Skill that would advance to a new rank for the experience. I would strongly advise against your Fire Magic in any case; that will improve very quickly at this point regardless of what you do."

"Hmmm," Aidan mused. All of my Skills are 100% affinity, and I don't have anything that would be pushed over into a new rank. Evasion is close, though. "I guess that's Evasion, then. 25% extra won't quite push it to Initiate, but it'll be very close, and I'm sure you can figure out some way to take it from 9.77 to 10.00 tonight."

"Aww," Brighid cooed. "You almost just asked me to help you train your defenses! I will make a warrior out of you yet."

Aidan

The Realms

Fourthday, 3rd week of the 7th month, Godless Age 597

Late Afternoon

Mistvale Highlands, near Ceallach Macht

They stopped early that evening; the sun was still several fingers' width from the mountains when Brighid called the halt. "Ceallach Macht is just over that hill. It is late enough now that I would rather camp here for the night and enter the city tomorrow morning. I would rather not be in that place after dark. I cannot say that it will be any safer during the day, but at least we will be able to see where we are going somewhat easier."

Aidan nodded. "That seems sound. Shall we set up camp and then get to torturing—I mean, training me?" Brighid smirked at him.

The training consisted of Brighid drawing a roughly one-yard circle in the ground with the butt of her glaive. "Stand inside and do not step outside of it," were the only instructions she gave him as she backed off and limbered up. The next hour and a half consisted of her attacking him from any and every conceivable angle, chasing him around the circle, and Aidan desperately scrambling to keep from being pushed out. She lashed out with both the butt and the flat of her glaive and even charged bodily through the ring, which Aidan found particularly unfair; her body left him no room inside the lines.

When he expressed his discontentment to her, though, Brighid just snorted and asked, "Do you think those Trows were concerned about being fair? Your enemies will break every rule they know of to get at you. Do not let them. Instead of complaining, find a way to turn it to your advantage."

She spent the next ten minutes repeating the charge, until, finally, he grabbed onto her waist as she came and swung himself clumsily up onto her back, clinging on for dear life as she immediately began to buck and leap. When she, at last, came to a shuddering stop, Aidan refused to climb down from until she walked over to the circle.

"I didn't step foot outside the circle," he told her when she glowered at him. "And you were the one who told me to break the rules and turn them to my advantage." She stared at him, then burst into laughter.

"So I did!" She crowed. "Alright, I call that a victory for you. Well done!" Then she wagged her finger at him. "Do not think that, because you did it once, you can do it again, though."

"You don't have to worry about that, not while you're wearing your armor, at least," Aidan admitted with a groan. "I think you genuinely bruised my balls, bouncing me around like that. I'm down fifteen Health from before I tried that stunt."

"Oohhh, poor baby," Brighid simpered. "Do you want me to kiss them better?"

Aidan eyed her appraisingly, then winced and said, "I think I'll stick with Vivimancy tonight. This really hurts. Maybe we can try that later, though?"

She stuck her tongue out at him, then shook her head. "Not tonight, anyway. As eager as I am to explore further with you, it truly is not safe this close to Ceallach Macht. I am going to be setting an additional ward tonight, and even then, I do not know how much I will sleep."

"I'm not sure I will, either," Aidan agreed with a frown. He was looking towards the east; the sun was nearly fully set behind the mountains, and the eastern sky was almost pitch-black. "Where are all the stars?"

Brighid followed his gaze. "You are right. It is still light enough to mask the stars overhead, but the brightest should be visible to the east. This is not good at all. The city is warded still; Mother would know if they had failed. Nothing should be able to leak through and have this kind of effect."

"Let's turn in early and start early tomorrow," Aidan suggested. "If we can get there as dawn breaks, that gives us the most sunlight possible. Whatever is causing this clearly has a grudge against the light, so we should make as much use of it as possible."

Brighid nodded, eyes still fixed to the east. "Yes, you are correct. I think that is a wise plan, indeed."

They hurried back to camp with a new-found sense of urgency. Both opted to keep their armor on, fearing another night attack, and neither had much appetite for the trail rations. As he settled his back against Brighid's armored flank, Aidan quickly examined his waiting prompts, then closed his eyes and tried his best to sleep.

Congratulations! You have reached level 10 in Evasion.

You are now an Initiate of Evasion; successful dodges reduce your balance by a smaller amount. Congratulations! You have reached levels 11 through 12 in Fire Magic. Congratulations! You have reached level 1 in Parrying.

Why dodge when you can just make your opponent miss instead? Parrying involves re-directing an opponent’s attack so that it will not strike you, usually but not always with your own weapon. A master of Parrying is untouchable with a weapon in their hand, and can turn every attack against them into an opening to strike.

You are now Unskilled in Parrying. Congratulations! You have reached level 1 in Riding.

How to ride a mount and not fall off as soon as it starts moving. Also serves to reduce discomfort caused by bounding around in a saddle all day. A master of this Skill is perfectly in tune with their mount, able to pull off feats while mounted that mere mortals wouldn’t even consider while walking.

You are now Unskilled in Riding. Congratulations! You have reached level 1 in Centaurback Riding.

An exceedingly rare Skill, for few ever have the opportunity to practice it—and fewer still live to repeat the performance. Nonetheless, a centaur-mounted master of Centaurback Riding is a force to be reckoned with, as both partners work in perfect harmony.

You are now Unskilled in Centaurback Riding.

Centaurback Riding is a Subskill of Riding. You have earned 250 experience points for advancing a Skill to Initiate rank.