Writathon project: Duskbound Chapters 35-37

Chapter 35

Velik was three hours out from town and well away from the deep wood when he finally got that level up he’d been waiting for. It came from killing a group of worgs that he’d specifically targeted as practice for [Phalanx].

[You have slain a bristle fur worg (level 12).]

[You have been awarded 1 decarma.]

[You have advanced to level 31. +2 Physical, +1 Mental, +2 free points.]

For the first time in the last few years, he hesitated over where to slot those two free points. With his new skill, mental had suddenly become much more important, but he was confident that he could manage three of the ghostly spears with his current stats and a bit of practice. Increasing the skill’s rank would help as well. What he wasn’t sure of was whether he could ever form more than three spears at a time without increasing his mystic, or if they’d get more durable as the skill grew.

Much to his annoyance, he’d found that the skill-crafted spears couldn’t do more than distract high-level opponents. They just weren’t strong enough to pierce the hides and scales of deep wood monsters, which was an unexpected problem. It didn’t make [Phalanx] worthless, but it did sharply limit its viability as an offensive skill if it couldn’t actually hurt the monsters he needed to use it against.

So, with some trepidation, Velik put the two free points into mystic and reviewed his status.

[Name: Velik]

[Race: Human (Duskbound)]

[Class: The Black Fang]

[Level: 31]

[Physical: 99(+8)]

[Mental: 54(+2)]

[Mystical: 24]

[Free Points: 0]

[Decarma: 1247]

[Skills:]

[Apex Predator (Rank 1)]

[Spear Warden (Rank 6)]

[Kinetic Chare (Rank 3)]

[Phalanx (Rank 1)]

[Gear:]

[Blood Seeker(+5Ph)]

[Hunter’s Cowl(+2Me)]

[Stalker’s Boots(+3Ph)]

[Champion’s Seed (Balzarinth)]

[Champion’s Seed (Ultgith)]

He’d always regretted the points he’d put into mystic, but now, they no longer felt wasted. If anything, he wished he’d put a few more into the stat over the last few months when the monster population had exploded and he’d started rapidly gaining levels. He was still hopeful that enough practice and a few ranks with the new skill would fix the issue, but some extra points in mystic certainly wouldn’t hurt.

The sun was just peaking over the tops of the trees when Velik walked into the Raven’s Nest. He’d spotted signs that Torwin and his apprentice had returned south a few days ago, and, lacking a better idea of where to find them, had decided to return to the inn where he’d last run into the man. If nothing else, he could probably leave a message that he wanted to talk with the innkeeper.

Fortune was with him once again. Torwin was sitting at a table, shoveling his breakfast into his mouth and washing it down with a mug of some sort of beer. Next to him, Jensen was slumped over with his head on his arms and his eyes closed. He let out a soft groan when a shaft of sunlight passed across his face from the open door.

“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Black Fang himself,” Torwin said. “Didn’t think I’d be seeing you again so soon.”

“Things didn’t go according to plan,” Velik admitted.

“Couldn’t get the compass to work?”

“No.” He fished it out of his pocket and set it down on the table. “Broke it fighting a champion elite.”

“No, you didn’t,” Jensen said, raising his head to scowl at Velik. “Maybe running away from a champion elite. That I’d believe.”

Velik regarded him silently for a moment, then turned his attention back to Torwin. “I was hoping you knew a way to fix it”

The old man laughed. “Me? No. I’m good at finding things and killing them. Jensen would have a better idea than me.”

Jensen leaned forward and scooped the compass up to examine it. A single look was all it took to have him shaking his head. “Well outside my skill set. Even if it was something you bought from an artificer instead of the system store, I still wouldn’t be able to help. I’d guess a professional restoration would probably run you two to three thousand decarmas.”

That was still cheaper than buying a new one, but Velik had no idea where to even find someone with the ability to repair it. More importantly, he didn’t have nearly that much money, nor did he want to waste however long it would take to travel to wherever he needed to go and wait for the work to be done. It would probably be faster to just resume killing monsters in the deep wood, though it was fairly obvious that he needed to spend another week or so around the frontier’s border thinning the monster populations back down before he went north again.

Maybe I can salvage something from this though. These two will go back to wherever they came from eventually. They could probably turn a profit on this thing once it’s repaired, and I could use the decarmas today.

“I don’t have the time to get it repaired now,” he said. “Would you be interested in buying it cheap? Once you get it repaired, it’d be a steal.”

“How cheap are we talking?” Torwin asked.

“I paid ten thousand from the system store. If you bought it for two and it cost three to fix, you’d effectively be getting it at half off just for the hassle of taking it with you when you leave.”

“I already have one,” Jensen said. He pulled a duplicate of Velik’s damaged mana compass out and set it on the table. “Exact same one, actually.”

“And I don’t need one. I’ve got a skill for it, though admittedly the range is rather limited compared to what the compass can do. If I’m ever doing a job where I do need one, I can just sign one out of the guild armory, anyway.”

“Well,” Velik said with an unhappy sigh. “I guess I wasted your time. Sorry.”

“No, I wouldn’t say it was wasted,” Torwin said. “How about having a seat and getting a meal? I’d like to ask you a bit about what you found out there, if you don’t mind.”

“I have work to do.”

“I’m sure it can wait twenty minutes. You’ve got to eat sometime anyway.”

“I really don’t—”

“Did you really break this thing fighting a champion on your own?” Jensen interrupted.

Why does it matter? “Yes.”

“And it wasn’t in the dungeon? I mean, we were there, and besides, the dungeon’s dead, anyway. So, it was a wild champion elite.”

“I… guess so.” I’ve never even heard of a wild champion elite.

“Those are supposed to take whole teams to kill,” Jensen said. “Maybe Torwin could do it by himself because he’s a high level with a rare class, but for you to do it… Well, there’s an easy way to tell. If you killed it, you’d have the champion seed.”

“What’s your point?”

“Obviously, that champion seeds are valuable. If you have one, you could sell it. If it’s a high enough level, it might be worth more than the compass itself.”

Do I need this thing? I’ve got two of them anyway, and besides, they were only important because they had Chalin’s name on them. They don’t even say that anymore, so they’re not doing anything but sitting in a pouch now. But still… something about this…

“What are they used for?” Velik asked.

“You mean, besides to grow a new champion?”

“I doubt anyone wants to make more monsters.”

“You’d be surprised,” Torwin said dryly. “But no, he means that champion seeds have other uses. Alchemists love them. Enchanters sometimes use them for their mana holding properties. Certain classes can even consume them directly to gain permanent power increases, mostly along the druid lines.”

Velik’s mind immediately went to Sildra. What would happen if she took one of these? He pushed that thought aside and said, “I’ve got a level 35 and 33 seed. How much are those worth?”

“Enough to trade for a mana compass,” Jensen said eagerly. He started to push the compass across the table, but stopped when Torwin’s hand came down on his arm.

“Let’s not cheat the boy just because he doesn’t know the value of what he’s selling. Either of those seeds is worth thirty or forty thousand decarmas to the right buyer, neither of which is us. However, I need to return to Cravel for a few days. I expect to be gone for about a week with travel time, and I would be willing to take one or both seeds with me, along with your broken compass. I’ll sell them for you, get the compass fixed, and bring it back, provided you trust me to do so.”

It wasn’t a difficult decision. As it currently stood, none of those things were useful to him. He could run down to the city himself, maybe even make it as fast as Torwin himself implied he’d travel, but when he got there, he wouldn’t have the first clue who to talk to about fencing the seeds or repairing the compass.

If Torwin cheated him, he would be out a huge amount of theoretical decarmas, but wouldn’t actually be any worse off in the real world. It would also be a good test of the two hunters’ ethics. If Velik was going to be dealing with them while they were here, he’d prefer to know where they all stood with each other. Torwin seemed trustworthy, but there was no telling what was really going on in his head.

Decision made, Velik pulled the two seeds out of the leather pouch that hung off his belt and set them on the table next to the broken compass. Then he gestured to the intact one and said, “I’d like to borrow this while you’re gone, if that’s alright with you.”

“A bit of collateral, huh?” Torwin muttered. “Fair enough.”

Jensen, who’d been staring slack-jawed at the two seeds, snapped his head around to look at his master. “Being a bit free with things that aren’t yours, aren’t you?”

“You weren’t using it anyway,” Torwin said unrepentantly. “Besides, we both know it’s barely pocket change for you.”

Pocket change? It was ten thousand decarmas. There’s no way a guy that weak collected so much that it was bought on a whim.

Jensen snorted. “Fine, he can take it. But in return, I am going to sleep in.”

Chapter 36

The Hunters Guild spread throughout the north and west borders of Ghastel, with headquarters in every major city on that side of the country. Monster attacks were a frontier problem, with few exceptions. And since killing monsters was the job, there wasn’t much reason to keep a guildhall in the south where the nearest monster was a thousand miles away.

Cravel was still a bit farther from the action than Torwin liked, but the simple fact of the matter was that there wasn’t a city closer to the borderlands here, so he sucked it up and ran the whole way. Hours and miles went by, and by the time the sun went back down, he was more than halfway there.

Going back early hadn’t been the plan, but he was eager to forge a working relationship with the local hunter. It wasn’t often he met someone with a unique class, let alone one of the same type as his own. Torwin was hoping to convince the kid to sign up as a monster hunter once the crisis near his home was resolved.

Even if the Black Fang refused, Torwin still wanted to help him. The kid was involved in all of this in a way even he didn’t understand, and that made him the most likely path to resolving the monster infestation. Besides that, it was painfully obvious that he was entirely self-taught and had grown up in almost total isolation. The holes in his working knowledge were atrocious.

Every time he recalled the expression on the Black Fang’s face when he’d learned that alchemists could and did make potions at a fraction of the price the system store charged, Torwin laughed. Everything the local hunter used was purchased with decarmas directly from the system itself, at prices so ruinous that even Jensen had boggled at the expenses. And it was all because the kid just didn’t know anybody. Nobody in the frontier had classes with the skills to manufacture essential magical equipment, so the Black Fang had resorted to years and years of monster hunting to purchase a few pieces of gear himself.

They’d had a discussion about how to spend all the decarmas the Black Fang had coming his way, and if all went well, he’d be bringing back a whole host of supplies and gear, though the only thing that was absolutely essential was the repaired mana compass. If Torwin couldn’t find someone to fix that—at least not in a short enough timeframe—then the Black Fang was just going to buy a new one.

Though Torwin hated not getting at least a few hours of sleep each night, he didn’t stop running when the sun went down. By the time it rose again, he was only about fifty miles from Cravel. If he’d been fresh, he could have cleared the last leg in an hour or two, but after twenty-six hours of non-stop running, even he was starting to hit his limits.

He passed through the gates three hours later, and as much as he wanted to turn into the nearest inn, drop a fulmite or two on the counter, and dive face-first into the nearest bed, he forced himself to keep moving. There was a tinkerer’s shop a quarter-mile past the north gate, and Torwin had yet to come across anything the old woman who owned it couldn’t fix. He doubted this would be the broken trinket that ended a two-decade long undefeated streak.

“Beltha? You still alive, you old bag?” he called out as he came through the shop’s front door.

“Who’re you calling old, you mangy, leather-faced dog!” a querulous voice yelled back.

At four and a half feet tall and maybe seventy pounds, Beltha could have been mistaken for a child if not for her thin, gray hair and a face so covered in wrinkles that Torwin sometimes joked that the only reason she wore goggles was to keep her eyebrows from sagging over her vision. She looked frail enough that an errant breeze would knock her over, but she was an even higher level than Torwin, and those dainty fingers could dent steel if she squeezed.

She emerged from behind a workbench, stopping only to scowl and hip check the heavy wood when her toolbelt got snagged on it. It skidded a few inches from the casual bump, and everything on its surface jumped in place before it stopped moving. Beltha tottered past it and came to a stop in front of Torwin.

“All done playing in the trees already?” she asked. “I thought you said you were expecting it to be at least a month, maybe two.”

“Not done at all,” Torwin said. “I left my apprentice up there to get some practice, but I had to come back down to the city to get some supplies. Things are… strange. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. But here, take a look at this.”

He fished the broken compass out and handed it to Beltha, who peered at it owlishly. “A mana compass?” she asked. She turned it over and snorted. “Someone step on it?”

“It got dropped during a fight,” Torwin explained.

“Hmm. Amplifier lens is cracked. That’ll need to be replaced. Doesn’t look like any of the runes are damaged, though. I’ll need to open it up to make sure the collection array is still in one piece.”

Torwin nodded along like he knew what even half of the rambling meant. He’d long since found it was best to humor Beltha and not ask distracting questions. She was more than happy to be pulled off on rambling tangents and easily offended by attempts to steer the conversation back to pertinent topics. So, instead of asking what she was talking about, he simply said, “I need to know how quickly it can be repaired and how much it’ll cost.”

“If the array is intact, twelve-hundred decarmas and three days. Eighteen-hundred if you want a rush on it. If the array is damaged, three thousand for same-day, twenty-five by the end of the week.”

That… actually isn’t too far off what Jensen predicted. Too bad Beltha won’t take an apprentice. [Manalight Artificer] might actually be a good class for him.

“I need it by tomorrow morning,” Torwin said. “I’m only going to be in Cravel long enough to get a few hours of sleep and pick up supplies.”

“You’re too old to be hurrying like that. Don’t come whining to me when you break a hip running around like you’re still in your twenties.”

“Please. The only way I’d break a hip is if I let you get your claws on it.”

Beltha threw back her head and cackled. “And don’t you forget it! Alright, I’ll get this thing opened up and start working on it. Whatever’s wrong with it, I’ll fix or replace. Pay upfront.”

“You wouldn’t be trying to cheat me, would you?” Torwin asked, his voice heavy with suspicion. “I seem to recall the last time I paid upfront, it conveniently took every last decarma to buy the parts.”

“I gave you a discount, you ungrateful sack of mulch! Knocked two hundred decarmas off my labor fees to match the deposit.”

“Mmhmm. Beltha, I have known you for way too long to fall for that. We both know you’re so greedy you could make a dragon blush.”

“You want it done or not?”

The two glared at each other, but Torwin knew she had him. He needed this done immediately and even with the rush fee, it was still far cheaper than buying a new one. Besides, it technically wasn’t his money anyway. “Fine! You win!”

She cackled in the background while he started materializing stacks of hundred-decarma coins on her counter.

  *

The seeds were sold through a guild intermediary, one who would undoubtedly get a better price for them than Torwin could negotiate himself. He had no idea what their actual value was, or who would be willing to pay that much for them, so it was a task better left to a professional.

His last task before he found a bed and claimed it for at least ten hours was to deliver the mysterious fractured orb that had supposedly granted the Black Fang his unique class to the guild archivist, a thin, pasty man named Andel Thett. Andel rarely left the stacks, where he spent his time reading and cataloging information.

“Fascinating,” he said after Torwin presented him with the two halves and explained what he’d learned. “You’re right, of course. For one thing, if this was a class orb, it’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen. That’s disregarding the fact that a class orb doesn’t give two people classes at the same time, nor does it alter race. Nor does it tend to break in half after it’s been used.”

“I know,” Torwin said. “So what is it, then?”

“I have an idea, but I’ll need to look a few things up. That room you found at the top of the dungeon core is definitely a mana regulation chamber, though. It shouldn’t have any connection to the ‘class orb,’ if that’s what we want to call it for now. Give me a few hours and I think I’ll have a few answers for you.”

“That sounds perfect,” Torwin told the archivist. “I need to get some sleep. I’ve been running for over three hundred miles non-stop to get this here as quickly as possible, but I’ll check in after I wake up?”

Andel nodded, but he was already so distracted examining the broken orb that Torwin wasn’t sure he was really listening. The archivist strode away, and several books flew off the shelves in his wake, chasing after him like paper birds with fluttering pages.

Good enough for now. Time to find a bed.

Chapter 37

Things weren’t as bad as Velik thought they’d be. There were plenty of monsters, but their levels hadn’t improved much and the town watch was still holding their own. Beldrit had fended off a small invasion headed by a level 19 elite three days before Velik had returned, but they’d done it without a single casualty.

Could have been a lot worse, but it’s still going to take days to get back on top of this, he thought to himself as he roamed through the forest. He’d killed hundreds of monsters just in the last few hours, mostly through the efforts of [Phalanx]. The skill was more awkward than he’d initially expected, but he was slowly improving his control. For the moment, the focus of his efforts was on increasing his accuracy. For these weaker monsters, it didn’t make much difference if the tip of the magical spears struck an inch or two off from center mass, but he wanted to be able to hunt the deep wood, where pin-point precision was a basic requirement.

Normally, he didn’t see many people out in the forest at night. Anybody without a high enough mental stat to see in the dark or some class-specific skill—or in Velik’s case, a racial skill—was at too much of a disadvantage to the monsters that stalked the trees. Even lanterns and torches could only do so much to counteract the problem. So, Velik was used to running across the occasional woodsmen in the afternoon and evening, then having the run of the forest to himself after the sun went down.

That was why he was so surprised that he kept running into Sildra. Whatever her new class did, she also seemed to prefer working at night. Considering the ritual he’d overseen when a literal god had blessed her with a new class, he supposed that made sense. Less comforting, however, was the fact that she couldn’t be any stronger than level 5 or 6, and maybe not that. It was rare to see a monster weaker than that, but ones at level 15 or higher were disturbingly common.

Sildra was going to get herself killed if she wasn’t careful, or maybe even if she was. Her bodyguard was nowhere to be found, and he knew firsthand how hard it was to survive in the woods solo. Back when he’d been her level, the monsters had been much weaker, too. She wasn’t a child, however, and he wasn’t responsible for her choices.

If all the strong monsters in the area she was hunting in happened to die, leaving her with only targets closer to her own level, well, that was just her good luck. He’d spoken with Jensen after he’d spotted her the first time, and the apprentice monster hunter had agreed to focus primarily on killing monsters over level 10, though he’d claimed it was just good sense to leave the weaklings to the locals who could safely dispose of them while he focused his efforts where he could have the most impact.

It'd be less suspicious if he’d agreed before he found out who we were trying to help.

Velik might not have spent much time in civilization in the last decade, but he was still aware of how often young men made foolish decisions to impress pretty girls. Since it actually got Jensen to do what he wanted, he was willing to overlook that in this case. With any luck, the apprentice monster hunter’s days would be too full from doing his job for things to go any further, unless Sildra decided she wanted it to. Whatever. That’s not my problem.

He spent four days in a cycle of sleep, hunt, eat, hunt, and sleep. The owner of the Raven’s Nest didn’t seem to mind him taking meals there, and Velik found that he quite enjoyed eating food that was properly cooked. The price was negligible, so he made it part of his routine to stop there early in the evening before the sun went down completely and the real work started.

Unfortunately, while the Raven’s Nest itself might tolerate his presence, other townsfolk were less understanding. There was a simple reason Velik had stayed away over the years. Deshir was the worst, but the other frontier towns held plenty of people who also blamed him for the rise in monster populations. Even those who’d previously been indifferent to his presence were starting to shift their stances over the last few months.

It was enough to make Velik long to retreat back to the comfortable solitude of the forest, but since he was still waiting for Torwin to return with his repaired compass and the promised upgrades, he tolerated the state of things.

He’d just finished some lamb's meat grilled on a stick and a thick slice of fresh, buttered bread for dinner when things came to a head. Less than a hundred feet from the inn, a group of six loggers intercepted him. Three circled around behind him to cut off his escape, not that he thought for even a moment that they could stop him. [Apex Predator] was practically laughing in his head.

“Listen here, Black Tooth or whatever it is you call yourself,” the one who appeared to be the leader said.

“Uh, it’s Black Fang, boss,” the one next to him said.

“Shut it, Travir! I’m busy here!”

“Sorry, boss.”

Velik waited patiently, arms crossed as he watched. He itched to shape his spear into a combat form, but pulling it now would probably set the logging crew off and he would be forced to hurt them. If he was lucky, this would just be verbal harassment and not an attempt at giving him a beating to get their point across.

That had happened several times in the early years, even successfully once or twice. Someone had even chased him out into the forest and tried to murder him with a boar-hunting spear one night. That had been when Velik had sworn off ever setting foot in Deshir again, not in the least because he assumed the town would just hate him more when they discovered that guy’s body the next day.

“Ahem. As I was saying, Black Tooth. We don’t need you skulking around town, scaring honest, decent people and stealing things. Take your scrawny ass back into the trees and fall down a monster’s gullet, why don’t you?”

“I was leaving town when you stopped me,” Velik said.

“Uh… Well… Good! And make sure you don’t come back. We catch you here again, you won’t live to regret it!”

“I’m afraid I have business in this town. I’ll be back tomorrow at the same time.”

“Maybe you don’t understand. I said leave and don’t come back,” the logger snarled, spit flying from his lips as he took an aggressive step forward and puffed out his chest. “I’ve got a physical of 42. You don’t want to screw with me.”

That was probably an impressive amount for his level, but if that logger was higher than level 20, Velik would be surprised. When the man jabbed a finger into Velik’s chest, he just stood there, unmoving. The logger poked him harder, then pressed his hand flat and shoved. Velik continued to stand there, unmoving.

“I think you should know three things,” he told the group. “First, my physical is over 100, so you’ll forgive me if I’m not impressed. Second, I don’t really like killing people. I prefer to spend my time hunting monsters. Third, I often find myself doing things I don’t like.”

“The hell it is,” the logger said. No longer making any pretense at subtlety, he put both hands on Velik and tried to shove him again.

“It would be inconvenient to have to hurt all of you,” Velik said. “This is the last time I’m going to ask you to walk away.”

“Uh, boss,” Travir said from behind him. “[Identify] can’t get a read on him. I think he’s over level 25.”

The logging crew traded nervous looks with each other and backed up a step, leaving just their boss in Velik’s face. Before he could decide whether to take a swing or run off, a hand reached out of nowhere and grabbed him by the back of his neck. “What’s wrong with you, idiot? Don’t pick fights with people twice your level,” Torwin said.

He jerked the logger backward and threw him to land on his back. The others scrambled to help their boss up, and wordlessly, they all retreated while giving the two hunters murderous looks.

“That wasn’t necessary,” Velik said.

“Figured it’d be better if you didn’t have to kill anyone. Besides, I’ve got all sorts of stuff for you and I’ve been carrying it around long enough. Let’s head back inside so I can pass it over and tell you what I learned."

"Will it take long?" Velik asked. He wanted out of the town as quickly as possible and was more than happy to sort through everything out in the forest.

“A bit,” Torwin said. “Some of the things I found out… Well, I’ve got a few questions I’m hoping you can answer. It might help fill in a few holes and confirm what happened to you when you were a kid.”

What’s there to fill in? It’s obvious at this point that the monster I saw was Chalin. The class orb changed his race, too. I guess there’s only one way to find out.

“Alright,” Velik said. “Let’s find somewhere private to talk though. I don’t want everyone overhearing this.”

“Induar’s got a private parlor I’m sure he’ll let us use,” Torwin said. He walked past Velik and toward the Raven’s Nest.

Who’s Induar?