132. New Class: Gwaed.

I didn’t want to spend too long with all these carcasses. They will attract scavengers. I don’t want to bond with adult vultures. I do still have a bond connection available for a vulture. I can have my normal bond, and then I get another bond for every five levels of the Druid Class. So I get a Bond for Novice, Apprentice and Journeyman levels. So that is four total, and being an Elf, it is easier to get more based on my Mental Attributes, but the more bonds I have, the more complicated everything gets.

Time to look at my status. I first noticed that Throw Weapons had bumped to Journeyman Level. It must have been on the verge of levelling. My new class was there. Sentinel Druid. It is a full five-point Class with one point assigned to each of the Physical Attributes, one point to Spiritual Perception, and one free point. Finally, a class that gives me a point in Physical Strenght. My Ninjutsu Class gave me points in Physical Agility and Perception as well as Mental Perception, but none of my classes gave me Physical Strength. I sunk a lot of free points into that to try to keep up.

The Skill that Sentinel Druid gave me was interesting. A druid is someone who watches over and cares for the forest. A sentinel is also someone who watches or stands as if watching or on guard. The Skill is called Scry and is based on Mental and Spiritual Perception. If I have an object with a Spiritual connection to someone, I can generate a vision of where they are. It uses Mental and Spiritual Energy, so I would tire quickly. It wouldn't tell me much if I used it on a Death Assassin, through their blood, and she was asleep in a bedroom. But if she was out and about, I might see key features of her position. It uses my highest Sense first, which is Nightsight for me. As it levels, the costs reduce, but more senses become available in the vision, in order of their level. For me, this is Nightsight, Sense Blood, Sense Spiritual, Olfaction, Echolocation, Tasty, and Infrared Vision. I see Pybyr has Hearing Aid, so I will learn that soon so I can hear what is going on. Tasty will be useless, but all the others can add value. As the skill levels, it adds one Sense to every level, and once all the senses are engaged, it increases their power, so I will see more and smell more etc. I can choose not to have some senses included, so I exclude Tasty straight away. Once I get Hearing Aid, I will be able to have a three-dimensional view with all the senses involved. The longer I hold it, the more costly it becomes. The fact I had Spiritual Sensitivity means even the smallest spiritual link should be available to me. Spiritual links fade with time, even in the blood, but they can be preserved the same way I preserve blood for my alchemy.

I decide to test the skill, so I go over to where the coyote who ran off was and collect some of his blood. I use my Sense Spiritual to find the link and engage Scry 1. I get a dark image of the coyote curled up and licking his wounds. He must be in his den, which means it is not far away. There is no sign of my throwing star, so it must have fallen out somewhere. I have to drop the image after about ten seconds, but that is enough. I will be able to hold it longer as it levels. My recovery rate for Mental and Spiritual energy is pretty good, so I will be able to use the skill again in about four hours. I will look forward to the cost reductions.

I looked at the other dead Coyotes in the area, and all their pelts had scorch marks. I had no skinning skills and didn’t want to lug around unnecessary weight, so we just left them. I had Pybyr track his ex pack mate to try to find my throwing star, but Merch or I could have tracked him just as easily with our Olfaction Skill. The star was lying on the ground only five minutes away. Pybyr was limping but could keep up with our jog with only three legs, so we set off again.

We jogged through the night. About two hours before dawn, we stopped for a power nap. I left Sugnwr on watch, and we had a quick nap. Pybyr was nice to sleep against. We had cold meat for breakfast, and I made a nice place for Sugnwr to sleep in my pack during the day. We are basically at the breeding grounds, so the day will be locating nests and seeing if I can form a bond.

It took two hours to find the first nest, and it was empty. It is going to be a long day. We had checked four nests by lunchtime. Three were empty. The fourth has three nearly adult chicks. They had very little down left on them, so they were almost ready to fly away. They were squawking and attacking each other, and I didn’t have a good feeling about this, so I just stealthily backed away.

We sat on an outcrop and had jerky for lunch. As we sat, I watched the sky, looking for vultures coming and going. I didn’t have Farsight, so I was restricted to just using my Physical Perception attribute. Then I saw a big black bird take off from the next mountain over. That was a Condor. I think it was a Kirghiz Condor. Kirghiz Condors are the largest land bird on this continent. Some sea birds are larger, e.g. the albatross, but very few. The wing span grows to well over three meters, and they weigh up to 15kg. Condors are the largest type of vulture and are very rare, almost extinct. The main difference between them and other vultures is their feet. They don’t have claws on their feet, which means they are more adapted to walking than their relatives. Their feet are, therefore, not useful as weapons, and their only attack is their beak. They are scavengers, so they rarely attack things. They are nicer looking birds than their cousins, with their black feathers. They are soaring birds, so they can stay in the air for hours with little effort. I think it is worth the hike to see if there is a nest, even though It might take about three hours or more at our jogging rate.

It was a tough climb, especially as I had to carry Pybyr for the last part of it. Bloody dog. At least Sugnwr is small and light. The nest didn’t have a chick. It had a young adult. I had forgotten Condor chicks stayed with their parents for up to two years before getting kicked out by the next chicks. This fellow was thin to the point of starvation, and when he extended his wings, one of them was crooked. It had been broken and obviously healed wrong. He had the typical bald head and black plumage. I tossed him some jerky, and he gobbled it up quickly. I held out some more as I eased myself onto the ledge with the nest. He snatched it from my hand, almost taking a finger with it.

I tried to form a mental bond with it, talking softly while holding out more jerky. This is made simpler because he can’t just fly away. “Do you want to come with me, boy? I can fix the wing as we can see the world.” Ok, so I was exaggerating. He had not had his intelligence boost yet, so he couldn’t tell. I had the bond form, but there was a lot of mental shuffling going on here. I have four very different bonds. It was getting crowded in my mental space. I had three spare attribute points, so I put two into Mental Strenght and one into Mental Agility and helped things settle. It was going to take a lot of getting used to. Two bonds in a day was incredibly stupid. I usually have years between new bonds.

First things first, let's get some food into the bird. I pulled out the remains of the fox that I had kept safe from Pybyr, the greedy guts. I fed it to the Condor. We need a name, and we need to fix the wing so it can start healing right. Esgyn is a good name for s soarer. I am going to need to carry both Esgyn and Pybyr down from this ledge. That is going to mean two trips. Esgyn first, Pybyr will be fine here for a half hour or so. I left Esgyn with a sleepy Sugnwr and Merch and my pack while I went up to collect Pybyr. He was barking away at mum and dad Condor, who had returned to the nest. Bloody nuisance dog. I need to stop calling him a dog. He is a coyote. He is still a bloody nuisance, though.

When we were all gathered at the edge of the forest, I went looking for something to use as a splint for Esgyn’s wing. The sooner we get it re-broken and set properly then, the sooner it will heal. I sent Pybyr and Merch out to look for something for Esgyn to eat. I was really just letting Merch have a runaround and do his business. I carved a stick into the right shape and sat down beside Esgyn. I talked him through the process and then broke his wing. I stitched the splint to his bone with my Level 9 Sewing, gave him a healing potion to drink and used Blood Infusion to inject Blood Rejuvenation. I am starting to feel like a Vet in a bloody animal hospital.

The wing wouldn’t fully close with the splint. I would be carrying him out. He is a bloody hefty bird. This certainly wasn’t going as planned. I guess I will have to call it good bonding time. Pybyr, the stupid animal, didn’t lead us to carrion to feed but herded a deer to us. I grabbed my staff and was able to break a leg, and then I slit its throat with my knife. I guess if he is a greedy guts, he at least got enough for everyone. It made me scramble, though. Luckily I had finished with Esgyn’s wing. I decided we had enough time to cook my venison, so I started a small fire, and we rested for a while. Esgyn certainly gorged himself. The skin was tough for his beak, so he waited until Pybyr ripped open an area and dug in. Then I came in with a knife and cut off a leg to roast. I sliced the deer right open, so the guts spilt out, and everybody ate their fill.

I sat there looking at my small fire and thinking about the fire fox and the Beast core in my pack, and it suddenly occurred to me what an idiot I was. I had spent the last three weeks trying to concoct a potion to counter the Death Assassins’ strength instead of attacking their weakness. Rotten things burn, as shown by the sticks in my fire. I need to learn a different speciality of Alchemy and create a formula that will stick to her and just keep burning. Pyro Alchemy or fire Alchemy. I will need different ingredients. Oils and fats. My Alchemy Class has the basic knowledge. Now I need to specialise.

I got up with a new purpose and direction. The sun was setting, so I put out the fire and gathered Esgyn in a makeshift sling, Merch in my bosom and sent Sugnwr and Pybyr out scouting. I packed a slab of venison for later and left the rest for the other scavengers. Now all I have to do is convince the Captian to let me on the ship with two more bonds. Big ones at that.