After my bridge building conversation with Denu, which actually felt really nice, I went through messages, just scanning them.

Looks like my advanced Class defender was giving me 2 stat points a level, one goes automatically into Con, so I was up to 13 con now. Very nice. I dropped my 2 free points into Dex taking it to 17. I felt I still needed the speed. When Yamina got back I’d have to ask her why Shaper didn’t do that.

To my surprise Ramon answered [Because you had zero mana, your mage class added that instead].

“Ramon, did you take a mind reading skill?”

[Yes, I did, I heard your rant a while back about women wanting you to read their minds. It seemed a solid starter skill. Gives me an area effect scan too, so I can’t ever be surprised in combat.]

“You got a heal too, right kid?”

[Yamina is insisting Rene be her Paladin, so he’s got healing covered.]

“You keep a heal near the top of your buy list, you two will be duoing with no support at all. If he gets hurt too badly to heal himself, you’ve got to have a plan. Healing + unlimited access to blessed water is pretty much 90% of why Yamina and I haven’t died yet. Don’t count on resurrections to get you through, treat each life lie it’s your last. In other words, don’t emulate my actions with the Badgerbear.”

“Thanks Bill” The voice chirped, this time in my ears, not my head.

“Hey you’re here physically now?”

“Yep, Rene is down to just his private time thread with Yamina, his character generation is finished.”

“Well then get down here where I can see you, and I’ll invite you to our guild, so you get the Iron Skin passive and other bonuses.”

I added him to our guild and looked at our guild CP. We had enough for another couple upgrades. I added Regen 1, and Dermal shield:1. I was focused on defense. Sgt. Plum had offense well in. The Basic levels of both were not as good as our personal advanced ones, but people could train theirs up once they had it. Armor, plus an inner and an outer shield. Our folks would be tough to kill.

“Thanks Bill, that’s going to be a boost to our initial survivability.”

“What class did you pick? Ramon”

“I picked a Drake Race, and a Pyromancer advanced class. Going for that whole magical fire breathing dragon god thing. Seemed up Catalan’s alley, plus, to be honest it sounds like fun. When I evolve into a Demigod, I’ll get a Dragon form as well. I’ll be my own combat pet. You don’t want to worship me, do you?”

“I have a feeling that would not go over well with Yamina. You keep trying though. We’re doing pretty well her with rolling our Religion, Settlement and our Guild as one entity. We made joining give immediate benefit to members. Eventually those costs will get too big and we’ll have to spread them out like cartography. You should both get that as well, I can add one of you to our Guard group for now, but I’ll need you to get it yourself soon.”

“Gee thanks Bill, you are being very helpful.”

I looked about and we were still all alone in the market area,

“We’re founding the same Pantheon. Where most pantheons go off the rails is in-fighting. We need to help each other out, and share what we can. Firstly, we need to help get each other out of the low-level danger zone. Yamina and I are just getting out of the danger zone now at level 5-7. That’s why most folks get their first advanced class at 5. Iron skin and bubble shield will help, but if your con is as low as Yamina’s was, you’re going to need to pump that up to at least 10.”

I stood up, dusting off my pants.

“It’s been nice talking to you Ramon, I need to get working on building those Ballistae, those daemons took far too long to take down. If any of them could climb, or fly at speed, we’d have been in trouble.”

“Why don’t you ask Rene how his father solved that issue? Even if they are not farming them like you, they must have had defenses in mind.” chirped Ramon.

“Great Idea Ramon, Thanks.”