Thus, the saints grew stronger than any mortal man, and the Yeshuans realized that the saints were to be treated with reverence and great trust. A saint is a messenger from God, we must praise and empower the saints with wealth and awe. – Yeshuan scripture, Chapter 11 verses 7-9

We started walking. Jonar would go ahead and scout out the area and then come back to me periodically. We were heading north through the forest, hopefully to Sodom. Since Jonar had been there countless times, I felt relatively comfortable about this section of the trip. We were travelling on a small path- more like a game path. Jonar warned to keep our eyes open for monsters and bandits.

I started off being very vigilant and alert and we walked a few hours this way, deep into the night. When we felt we had put enough distance between us and the assassin, we camped out. Jonar would take the first half of the night shift, and I would take the second.

I laid down to sleep and looked at my character sheet. I had a total of 15 XP to spend, but I was really wanting a new tactic. Something that could change the tide of a battle or start off with an upper hand. Charge and Battle Cry both seemed to do this, and one cost 25 while the other cost 35 XP. I would just have to get more XP.

I slept well and had no dreams. I was awakened by Jonar as it was my shift. I got up and sat by the dying campfire for some warmth. I started to strategize. I needed gold, loot, and XP. That came from killing monsters, survival skills in the forest and periodic awards of XP for what seemed like accomplishments.

In stead of avoiding monsters, we would have to find them and attack them. Jonar would think I was crazy, however. Why would someone purposefully hunt a monster? He didn’t know about XP and raising stats and powers. I decided in the morning, I would have to tell him the truth, or at least some of it. He believed in ‘saints’ and maybe he could believe I was one. Sadly, I did not have any active powers to show off as proof. I would just have to be persuasive and honest. Jonar would have to do the rest.

As morning dawned, Jonar woke up naturally. He had dreams while he was sleeping, though, and I ignored his soft crying when he woke up and realized that his friends were dead all over again. His grieving seemed private and painful. I winced in commiseration though and I decided to be very gentle to him this morning. I decided to wait until I got an active power to show I was a saint, that way it would give him a little more time to grieve.

As he was sleeping, I did decide to analyze him to get a better sense of how much XP he had gained and spent naturally.

Jonar Harkan

Soul Believer Yeshuan

Total XP earned: 125

Status: Ally.

He had more than twice the XP than the mantrapper, and I hoped it was more than enough to survive in the wilds.

He had some pretty great survival skills. He had set up traps around where we slept, and we were lucky enough to catch a critter. It looked like a cross between a hedgehog and a raccoon. It had the bandit eyes and the black and gray tail of a racoon but also had spikes in its fur that looked like petting it would be uncomfortable. I had to analyze it to tell what it was. The skill told me it was a Spiked Ternafor, whatever that was. It only had 5 XP to his name. I killed it and got the minimum of 1 XP for the kill.

It ended up tasting good. Like a cross between chicken and beef, though it was very gamey. I secretly wanted to eat my Ambrosia, but I couldn’t share it with Jonar so I thought it would be rude to eat it. At the thought of Ambrosia, my mouth watered. I had 2 and a half rations of it left.

That day we ran into three monsters, each having only around 50 XP. That was the equivalent of a mantrapper. The fights seemed simple compared to the previous two fights I had been in, and we got to skin the animals as a reward. Jonar expertly killed skinned the creatures, and their deaths resulted in 15 XP total, bringing my total up to 25 XP.

That night, around the campfire, I bought the skill Charge.

Charge. For the cost of 1 willpower, empower all your allies to run at an enemy or enemy force with a 25% increased speed. The first attack given while charge is active receives a +.25 damage modifier. No matter how strong the enemy or the enemy type, the enemy will be hit and the damage modifier will be applied, though armor and defense can soak the damage as usual. This can only be used at the start of combat.

The was a couple of amazing things in there- first the speed modifier. I could pn;y imagine when I had calvary, how fast that attack would be. Even for infantry, that speed was nothing to laugh at. But what really got me was the fact of a guaranteed hit. That was huge. What if we were fighting ghosts or spirits? I got the sense that even those types of enemies would be hit during Charge. That was huge.

The buying of Charge opened two new tactics on the active tactics tree. Marked Enemy and Raise Agility. Marked Enemy would allow me to target a single enemy and every ally could clearly see the enemy, and unless they have a power to hide, no amount of sneaking would allow them to disappear. Further, everyone attacking the enemy got a damage boost. Raise Agility gave every ally a temporary boost of +3 agility, which was also enough to temporarily increase health by 1. The effect lasts 10 seconds. Both were powerful boosts, and both easily made my list of next purchases.

I decided after purchase, I would tell Jonar the truth. Jonar and I hadn’t talked much throughout the day, as he was scouting ahead. We did fight all the fights against the random monsters and we coordinated those attacks, but that was all we really had talked. Jonar was wrapped up in his grief. I wanted to let him experience that grief fully, so that he could heal the emotional wound. But I also needed him to be more willing to hunt down monsters, and to utilize the tactics fully and to the best of his ability. He would need to be aware of how much Against All Odds gave him in a tough battle, if only to know how tough the enemy is. And Charge would also be useful for him to know and utilize. Finally, I brought up the discussion around the campfire as dusk descended.

“Jonar, we have to have a talk,” I said, reluctantly. He noticed the seriousness of my tone and immediately looked up; curiosity bloomed on his face.

“Sure, Seth, I am happy to talk with you.”

“You know how your scripture discusses saints, and that they are from another realm and had access to powers?”

“Yes.” the curiosity grew on his face, he was interested in what I was saying.

“Jonar, I… I am a saint.” He looked incredulous at first, then laughed.

“No you are not, the saints came and left centuries ago,” Jonar replied, chuckling still after having had a good laugh. It made me happy to see him laugh for a moment, his grief forgotten.

“I arrive here late. I am weak, but I am still a saint.” His chuckling slowed and he realized I was serious.

“Prove it,” he said, he looked at me like I was insane. He wanted to like me, I could tell, but he was also a little scared.

“The fight with the assassin… I was killed. I am a saint, though, and death did not stop me.”

“You told me you escaped.”

“I did, by dying.”

“That is not proof.”

I sat and thought how I could prove it to him… then I realized an easy way to do it. I took out my sword and cut my hand in a smooth motion, putting away the sword as it had startled Jonar.

You have damaged yourself. .1 damage taken.

“Watch.” The blood started to flow, then after a minute the wound stopped bleeding and started to heal. A minute later the damage was gone.

His mouth dropped open in shock. He looked at me with fear in his eyes.

“I am not like the other saints… at least I hope I am not. I am here to protect Solom and get myself to enough strength to challenge the saints, because they are coming back. And their reappearance will not be a good thing at all.”

“The saints are all… evil. They were mad, powerful beings who made us slaves, essentially, and sent us into a dark age. If you are a saint…”

“I already said I am not like them. I am not power hungry or mad. I do not believe in slavery or want any tithing. What I want is to is to become ready to lead the Gar’shan to independence in Solom, and then free the enslaved Gar’shan. With or without help from the Yeshuans.”

“So, you can heal. That is amazing, but it’s a trick.”

“I am the type of saint called a General. My power is to lead my allies, all my allies, to victory. Did you notice during the fight with the assassin that you moved more quickly?”

He thought about it quietly, then nodded.

“I thought it was just the fear and anger I had, but I did move extremely fast, and ran away from the fight faster than I thought possible… but I was grief-stricken, and grief can do funny things.”

“Did you notice I kept the assassin focused on me during the fight? Even though his main target was you?”

“I did, but that was because you were insulting him, baiting him.” I sighed and changed tactics.

“When I died, I saw proof that you all have souls… I was in the afterlife and I saw thousands and thousands of souls.”

He looked at me sharply. “This isn’t funny. If you are messing with me because of my beliefs, I don’t think that-“

“- I am not messing with you, Jonar. I genuinely like you. I consider you a friend and ally- the only one I have in this world.”

I saw hope dawn on his face. If I was a saint and I could prove that all people have a soul, then his beliefs were real.

“If you are a saint, why did the others lie and say we didn’t have a soul?”

I thought for a moment how to tell him about his faith, that is was a faith in the other world, the real world. But I didn’t want to call him fake, or this world fake. For Jonar, and for all its AIs, this world was real- as real as mine was.

“In my world, we have a faith. They believe in God and in Yeshua, who was alive centuries ago… though we called him Jesus. And they believed that only people in our world have a soul… so when they came here, they believed you didn’t.”

“But if they died, like you did, and sw the souls in the afterlife, then why would they lie and say we had no souls.”

I sighed. This was not going to be easy.

“Because you had souls in this world, and in this afterlife. But to the saints, this world- all of it, even the afterlife- all this is fake and temporary. They don’t believe it is as real as our world.”

Confusion was written clearly on his face. He wanted to believe, but it just seemed too unreal. Magic was only a thing that some rare people had. Miracles were not often seen and were in the scriptures his people had and not in his ‘modern’ world.

“Ok, I am not saying I believe you… but I am not saying I don’t either. I have to see more proof.”

“Tomorrow, when we fight, I will yell ‘charge!’ Run at the enemy as fast as you can and hit it. You will see yourself run faster than you thought possible. And you will do more damage than you thought possible. And if I ever die in a fight, I will come back to the previous night’s campfire. Do not offer your life for mine. Do not be a hero and take damage when I can. I can die and come back, you cannot. I can heal quickly and you can’t. Oh, and I can rate an enemy a difficulty from 0-25. If it is a zero the fight might be tough, but we are equal to or stronger than the enemy. If I give it a number 1 through 25 the enemy is stronger than us and we should treat it accordingly. I would say anything above a 10, we should run.”

He thought about this and nodded slowly.

“Well, we will see tomorrow, Mr. Saint.”

“Hey that’s Mr. Freeman to you.”

He chuckled and looked at me with and inscrutable look. I wondered what he was thinking.

“You take the first shift. I will meditate and go to sleep.” I said in response to his look.

That night I meditated and received my second Zeal back. Then I fell asleep into a dreamless exhaustion.