Chapter 19: The Incompetent Dreadscorch

Hima and Miro walked towards the hills and their alleged razorback lair in complete silence. It was a state of affairs that Hima seemed most comfortable with, and one Miro was not so intent to upset as he may have been with the riders that had initially taken him away from Bondook, an event that already seemed as distant as three lifetimes ago. There was one thing that had been needling him though; a question that kept coming to his lips and then retreating again. It had to do with the label underneath Hima’s health bar, the one that identified her as ‘Icewinder’.

Of all the mages he’d met, which admittedly were few in number, none had been deserving of any descriptor other than the word ‘mage’, not even one that identified their particular skill set. He hadn’t though, until Hima, met any mages whose level was higher than a single digit. Perhaps this was some kind of special moniker earned by mages when they reached a particular level of experience and one was in store for Miro if he ever got that far. He wondered what kind of designation he would be able to earn in the future, hopefully something epic and awe-inspiring like “Flamecharmer” or “Dreadscorch”. It was likely this vanity that truly drove the curiosity that made him crack and finally ask her.

“Hey Hima …” They’d been walking side by side, and her head made the barest of movements in his direction to show that she heard him. “What’s an ‘Icewinder’?”

“A what?”

“An Icewinder.”

“Never heard of it.”

Miro had not been prepared for this course of conversation and had nothing else to say. He used all two of his Intellect points as best as he could to discern whether Hima was trying to hide something from him but all he got was a sense that she was just bored with him.

“Look,” she said and pointed at the ground. They were standing at the bottom of a narrow shallow valley between two hills and the earth here was covered in the same kind of holes as the one that Sgobor had filled in earlier with his shovel, the one the razorback dug through to invade his farm. “We’re probably close.” Hima looked up and surveyed the hills ahead of them with narrowed eyes. It didn’t look to Miro like there was much to see, and all he could hear was the wind rustling through the dried grass. Hima crouched down and ran her hand along the ground for a minute before standing up and thrusting at him a handful of stones.

“These are rocks,” Miro said, looking at her open palm.

“Oh good, it’s nice to see you putting those two Intellect points to good use.”

He was, because he took the rocks from her even though he was still confused.

“What’s your mana level right now?” she asked.

“It’s maxed out,” he blurted out in a panic, bracing for a scolding.

“Good, you’ll need it. Try to hit them with your fireballs first, and when you’re out of mana, pelt as many of them as you can with these rocks. As long as you engage in some sort of combat with them, you’ll get partial experience for any of the ones I finish off.”

Partial experience. Finish off. The image of the bandit now stood in front of Miro in Hima’s place. Miro’s powers had given the raggedy man such a cold unfeeling label – “Mountain Bandit”. But had he not been flesh and blood and had a proper life before the universe forced them to meet? And then the bandit was converted to experience points, added to a nameless pool now occupied by mice, seagulls, an oxhawk and the open road and waters of a lake. At least the razorbacks should be easier, though that thought did nothing to alleviate the dizziness that came over him.

“If we’re lucky, you should level up during this, which will give you another round of fireballs,” Hima continued, seemingly oblivious to the look on Miro’s face. “And really, try not to die,” she said and turned in the direction of the hills. “Otherwise Nydra will be very upset with me.” He wondered if Hima had the same ability to see names and health bars, and whether her label for him was simply “Overvalued Meatbag”.

When the two of them cleared the ridge on the other side of the valley, a new expanse of planes opened before them, this one even more densely riddled with holes. Not too far below them, two razorbacks played tug-of-war over what looked like to be a former appendage of some sort.

“Only two? It’s a start, I guess,” Miro said, his hands suddenly itching to start on his fireball.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Hima answered, but also lifted her hand, which turned light blue with frost. The razorbacks were far too busy with their quarrel, and the wind was blowing in Miro and Hima’s faces, which allowed them to get close enough to hear the metallic jangling of the animals’ scales before Hima said, “There, try to hit them from here.”

He wasn’t just going to try hitting them, Miro decided, but also to time it just right that he’d hit between the two snarling beasts and hit them both with one shot, preserving his mana for when they found the others. The fireball left his hand, followed the slope of the hill and struck the ground significantly shy of the razorbacks, who perked up their heads and bristled their scales at the sound of the exploding fireball, catching quick sight of Miro and Hima.

Hima emitted a sound that was somewhere between a grunt and a groan. “Alright, next time, try it when you’re a little bit closer.” The two razorbacks now bared their teeth, growled and headed in their direction. “Oh good, here they come then.”

They were fast. Too fast for things that carried a natural suit of armour on their backs, and they were on them quicker than Miro expected. He fired two fireballs in rapid succession, and though his aim was better at this closer range, while he had aimed to hit the razorbacks’ snapping maws, he only got one in the side and the other in the paw. The first one stopped, looking dazed, while the other hardly lost a step and snapped at Miro before getting blasted in the side by an ice spear. Miro turned to Hima and saw that she was holding another such spear in her left hand, while her right aimed two fingers at the other razorback. It shook off its daze and was ready to strike, but before it got a chance to move, Hima sent a blue blot that shattered into snow against its muzzle, causing the creature to fall over completely still.

Like Hima predicted, despite him barely catching the razorbacks with his fireballs, Miro’s experience bar increased with their demise.

“They’re resistant against your fire attacks,” Hima said, bending down over one beast and tearing off some of its scales, “But something still needs to be done about your aim.”

Some abrupt movement caught Miro’s eye as Hima busied herself with the razorback carcass. He looked around and found more than a dozen ghostly red bars floating underneath their feet.

“Uh, Hima?” He hoped she would pick up on the tremor in his voice. “We’re about to get very busy.”