6.02

“Oh finally a chance to get a long rest!” - Adventurers who are seriously tired of the life-threatening shit they deal with daily.

Untamed plains bled away, leaving only the steadiness of the road as our group entered a forest. The stones of Bundiroc were the only things keeping the wild undergrowth from bleeding into the packed earth road.

I realise I’ve been getting more flowery in my descriptions lately, and I’m not quite sure why. More mental shenanigans with the different body, having significantly enhanced mental stats, or maybe the journey was boring me, it was difficult to tell. I was changing faster than my understanding of myself could keep up.

After a while, we sighted a large, fallen tree, blocking our path.

Tai sighed as she put down the reins, letting the bison-like creature pulling our cart slow to a stop.

“Gimme a moment,” she said, grabbing her blade and adjusting it around her belt, “I can deal with this.”

Tai closed her eyes, as she prepared to draw her sword.

It was Utoqa who noticed them first.

Glancing towards me, he nodded towards the forest, where dead leaves, branches and other debris covered the earth.

Then I opened my True Sight and noticed how the leaves shifted.

“Want to have dinner later today?” Noam casually asked.

“I dunno,” I answered, my body still casual while the eye rune darted around. “Maybe we should have it earlier at four?”

“Just eat dinner at dinner bell,” Tai snorted, “Ah fuck, broke my concentration.”

“Are we to have those humans hiding on the floor?” Utoqa asked.

Noam facepalmed.

Suddenly, seven spots around the cart jumped up, seven humans throwing off their makeshift camouflage as they drew weapons.

Huh, I missed three.

“No, you idiot! I was conveying that we had ambushers,” Noam told Utoqa, drawing his own weapon. “Like code and stuff.”

“Did anyone actually get the code?” Celine asked, her eyes warily scanning the surroundings as she pulled Johnny close.

“I WILL KEEP THIS NICE AND SIMPLE!” a man yelled, one of his eyes was covered by a bandana. “Drop all your valuables or else!”

“Yeah!” another bandit yelled.

“They look loaded.”

“Wait,” Tai interrupted, “are you… robbing us?”

The bandit leader actually looked taken aback. “Well, yeah, I felt like the whole jumping out from cover and drawing weapons on you was the self explan-atory.”

“Ooooh!” Tai giggled excitedly, “This is the first time I’m getting robbed!”

“Why are you getting excited about that?” I asked as Yellow slid down my arm and sneakily landed on the ground.

“It’s part of my Path,” she explained.

“Hey, I don’t appreciate you all not dropping all your money right now!”

Noam leapt off the cart and fly kicked the bandit leader in the face.

“Getting robbed is part of your Path?” Noam asked as he landed deftly behind the bandit leader.

“Git em!” one of the other bandits yelled.

“Yeah,” Tai answered, raising her still sheathed sword, in guard. “Grandma said that it builds character, so it’s part of the Path.”

Noam punched the bandit leader as he tried to get back up, “Your grandma sounds like an ass. And how does this build character when a healthy dollop of chilli doesn’t?”

Tai deftly sidestepped a blade as she slapped her sheathed sword onto the back of the bandit’s neck, knocking him out. “The chilli you put in that soup was abnormal.”

“Utoqa, stay back,” I told him. While I had little doubt he would be able to wreck shop here, both Tai and Noam looked like they wanted a non-lethal fight.

A bandit approaching the cart got sleep spored by me as both Tai and Noam continued their argument, bandits dropping down left, right and centre.

“I’m just saying that life is better when you have something to spice it up,” Noam told her as he held a bandit in a chokehold.

“And I agree to an extent,” Tai said as she drop-kicked another one, “but that level of chilli almost took out Celine!”

“Hi,” Celine said, waving her hand.

“Hey,” Noam replied, waving back. “Alright, that’s a good point, but that was no excuse to throw away perfectly good chilli soup…”

Five minutes later, we were tying up the seven unconscious bandits, while Noam and Celine were still arguing.

“... and that’s my dissertation on why you shouldn’t throw away half a million Scoville of chilli.”

“The fuck is a Scoville?”

Even when we hacked away the fallen tree trunk and continued our way, bandits in tow, they continued.

“... I tasted enough chilli yesterday to cover my entire lifespan! My entire lifespan!”

“Well, you must have a very boring life planned out for yourself…”

I never noticed how much Noam could just… talk, since I usually only nodded silently along as he ranted whatever he wanted, only participating when our interest on the subject intersected, and even then, this did not match it.

Tai was matching him in both volume and quantity. On the subject of vapid bullshit, both have found their equal.

“There should be an encampment further up,” I murmured to Celine, ignoring the arguing going on behind us. “It’s a Wayshard in the middle of the forest, there’s a merc guild there.”

“The name?” she asked.

“None, it’s just another admin branch,” I answered. One similar to the one Noam and I had gotten our licence from. “We can dump the bandits there and collect their bounty.”

“We do need the money,” Celine murmured, “the town gave us a lot of stuff but…”

It was mostly food and travel items, not much in terms of money or valuables, it would’ve been given if we had asked, but they needed all they could spare to rebuild the town, especially with its now greatly reduced population.

“Is splitting it two-way between you two ok for you guys?” I asked aloud, pausing both Noam and Tai in their argument.

“What are you talking about?” Tai asked, tapping her sheathed sword like a cane on the ground.

“Yeah?” Noam mirrored.

“We’re a group now at least, split if five-way.”

I paused slightly at her casual declaration. Tai turned back to Noam, now arguing about the appropriate level of adventure a person can have in their lifetime.

While I didn’t turn to Celine, she noticed the sudden scrutiny from my manavision, and she shrugged. Meanwhile, Utoqa quietly took the reins of the bison.

I suppose we were a group for now.

Further up, Noam’s pointing and exclamations informed me we were in sight of our destination. Risking a look, I opened up my True Sight, the one from Keep.

The guild outpost was a strange thing, a large tree that was grown into a house, the trunk hollow and its doors and windows opened, welcoming people coming, despite no others being around. A wall of thorns grew from the side and around it, encircling a large blue crystal behind the tree which I knew to be another Wayshard.

Checking, I had regained my use of status screens.

Noam and I could now respawn here now.

The system still considered me a level five, not counting Keeper of Secrets despite the fact it gave me an option to put a character level in it the next time I levelled up.

I ignored it since there was no point in restricting my Path with its alternate progression. I also received several new Feats I could purchase.

Hydra Slayer (9 SP): Once per day, you may expel a memetic poison that wipes the memories of the last few minutes equivalent to your character level of all caught in it. You heal for an amount increasing with the number of memories wiped. If you are killed, you may, once per day, resurrect yourself instantly from your corpse at full health at an elevated XP cost.

Second of Three Oracle (9 SP): You no longer fulfil the requirements to gain this Feat.

Oracle No Longer (6 SP): You gain +2 to any Mind stat of your choice. You can choose to actively disrupt all manners of future or fate reading on or related to yourself.

The Thrice Blinded (3 SP): The System recognises your right to a Title. Gain three +1s to any stat of your choice.

I paused.

That last one was basically free.

Better than free in fact, since the stat increases weren’t in Stat Points, it wouldn’t be affected by my negative racials. I could actually raise my Agility without paying five times the normal cost.

The questionable thing was what it meant by it recognising my right to a title.

“System Query,” I quietly muttered, “what does it mean to have a title recognised by the System?”

It answered quickly.

The Title will be displayed beside your character name and can be carried through to all your other characters.

Note: Only one Title can be allocated to each character.

Curious.

Too curious.

Was it worth my question to Dave to ascertain the nature of this?

Probably not, I dropped the idea for now, if only because taking Thrice Blinded would delay me by another level to gain the 9 SP required for Dimensional Gate.

Dimensional Gate (9 SP): You select from the Interweaved Dimensions Spell List and learn 2 Tier 2 and 1 Tier 3 Conjuration Spells of your choice. They do not take up existing spell slots.

I needed that Feat to gain the spell that allowed me to summon wisps, along with the Traveller Level 6 ding, it effectively gave me a massive power-up by the next level.

As our cart slowed to a halt, I gestured at Utoqa to watch our stuff and the prisoners. Plopping off the cart, I strode forward, sunlight filtering through the leaves but failing to pierce my barkskin.

Noam complained about his sore butt cheeks as he stretched tired legs, Tai’s blade rattled as she jumped off, asking Noam about his form as they stretched their bodies behind me.

Another difference between the myconid body and theirs was that I barely felt the sores of staying still for hours on end, to the point where I suspected I simply didn’t have any.

Striding through the entrance, I smelt the earthy tones of dirt and herbs. A single young man sat napping with his head on the desk, a stray ray of sunlight warming his body.

He felt of nature, and my eye saw he walked a Path related to protection, or perhaps preservation.

I closed my eyes before I could see more and politely knocked loudly on the wooden table, rousing the young man awake.

Blind now, I heard him stir, giving him some time to properly wake himself, I let my manavision guide me to a seat.

Yellow whispered to me that he was wiping a line of drool off his mouth and table when he noticed me.

“Ah, I didn’t see you- Sorry, welcome to the Gestrand Forest Guild base.”

I nodded towards the sound of his voice, “Hello, I am Dustin, my party was travelling along this road, and we apprehended some bandits, would you be able to hold them?”

“Erm bandits? We have a big cage at the back, but we’ll need an escort to bring them to a prison proper,” he answered. “I can send a message to another branch to send for someone, unless you want to take the mission?”

I drummed my fingers against the smooth wood table. Another problem with Wayshards, they weren’t exactly good at transporting prisoners or people against their will, since they were activated entirely by the person’s decision.

“I’ll have to talk with my party about that, but was there a reward or bounty for the bandits?”

Footsteps, the young man was walking towards me. “I’ll have to check their identities.”

A shuffling of paper, “If they’re on the bounties then you’ll get the bonus, otherwise it’ll just be normal rates, you have your Plate?”

I flashed the Bronze Plate around my neck in the direction his voice was coming from, he might’ve nodded, but he was yet out of range of my manavision so I just took his grunt of affirmation.

Standing up myself, I showed him outside, waving at everyone who was waiting.

No major bounties against these people, the seven were minor, not killing anyone in their stint as a bandit group. After taxes, we got three gold in total.

“Before we split it,” I began, “I propose we keep a combined fund to purchase supplies and stuff for the group. If we disband before it is all spent, we can split it as normal.”

Tai shrugged, “Sure, you want to be the one keeping it?”

“I wouldn’t mind, but if anyone else wants to take the role then they may.”

Tai tossed a few coins towards me, which Noam caught for me, “Add that to the party fund, I’m gonna trust you to keep it fairly, if you don’t I’ll stab you or something.”

Celine took her split with a slight hint of embarrassment, “Sorry, but I will keep my portion.”

“It is fair,” I agreed, “since you’ve already spent a lot of your money on making potions keeping the rest of us alive.”

Raising my voice slightly, I said, “Sharing the costs of your potions is actually one of the purposes of this, so I’m glad we could all agree to it.”

Nods all around, including from Utoqa of all people, which I found surprising.

“Well, other than that, what are your thoughts on escorting the prisoners?” Noam asked this time, head nodding towards the cage they were locked in.

“We can certainly do it,” I said, “but we would need to immediately move on from here, the nearest city with a prison is still days of travel away.”

Noam shrugged, “We’re on the way anyways, we can hurry up for a bit.”

“My ass still feels sore from sitting in the cart all day,” Tai bemoaned. “Let’s at least rest for the day.”

“Just walk.”

“The entire way?”

As Noam and Tai talked, I noticed Celine crouching down beside Johnny, talking to him quietly.

After a moment, she rose back up. “I think we should stay for a while,” she said.

“After everything that happened, we need time to rest and recover. Even if our physical wounds are gone…”

She left the last part unsaid, but I knew enough. “I agree,” I said, “some rest will do us all good.”

Three for staying, one to continue, with Utoqa abstaining.

Noam shrugged, “Fair ‘nuff.”

He waved down the guild member, “Hey! We’re stopping here for now, call someone else to escort them!”

Greenie relayed to me the nod he gave in response, far out of my manavision range.

I really needed a normal set of eyes.

True Sight gave me too much information, to the point it was dangerous for my Balance in extended uses, and Keep was too varied to be stuck on giving me nothing but a fancy pair of eyes.

Manavision was constantly active and I could sense everything in it, but it was limited heavily in range.

Greenie and Yellow were… helpful, but they were better as separate agents from me.

I needed to have my sight issue fixed by the next level, though blindness was a powerful drawback, it was not one I should keep for long. I may have to spend level six Traveller level up bonus for it, which I wouldn’t mind if it was packaged with something sufficiently powerful, I just had to also keep in mind my Balance.

It seems that the next level will be when I get better, when my build can truly be considered finished, rather than the disparate set of random abilities I have right now.

Until then, I just had to keep my Scales weighted away from me, so that this time, there were no monsters, no horrors to face when I gained power.

Gradually if necessary, slow but steadily.

That was the plan.