As the caravan arrived at the cut-off to the abandoned mine, where they would be making camp, Lance got to see his first major exhibition of magic in this world. While the rest of the caravan stopped, Grimble drove his wagon up to the front and turned off into the trees. As he did so, the trees and bushes seemed to come alive and move to the side, through the ground as smoothly as pushing a stick through water. Once into the trees he swung a wide circle, close to 100 meters in diameter, allowing ample room for all 15 wagons plus Lance’s truck to fit in a circle around the perimeter. The trees that had moved out of the clearing made a nigh impenetrable wall all the way around and short green shoots of grass grew up to cover the entire clearing. As the caravan wagons drove in and circled around, Lance followed behind with his pickup. Once everyone was staged, Grimble closed off the entrance with a wall of saplings and bushes. As the members of the caravan unhitched and tended to their livestock, Lance climbed in the back of his camper, opened the box of chips and placed 3 packages of hamburger buns inside with the chips. Closed the top, and ‘Duplicated’ it. “Score one point for cheating”, he thought as another identical box of food appeared. Climbing back out of the camper, Lance saw Bj?rn walk to the center of the clearing. Expecting some kind of meeting or announcement, Lance wandered over, only to be surprised by another round of magic as Bj?rn laid his hand upon the ground and raised a 10 foot diameter stone circle about six inches out of the ground. He then went around raising benches about 3 feet out from the circle. In the space of about 10 minutes, he had created an entire fire pit and seating area.
As the individual members of the caravan finished with their wagons and animals and moved toward the center, Bj?rn took a moment to visit with each, and then call Lance over and introduce him. Many thanked him for his intervention in the bandit attack. He replied to each with some variation of “It was the right thing to do” or “Only doing what anyone would do”.
Lance saw Grimble moving amongst the livestock in a roped off area designated for them, and headed his way. When he arrived, he saw Grimble moving from animal to animal and caressing and speaking to each one. As he finished and moved on to the next, Lance could see the animal stand a little taller and look a little cleaner. Asking the tufte about it, he told Lance that it was a magic of his race. The tufte were a different kind of people, they were a physical form of a guardian spirit. Dedicated to the preservation of the forests and fields, when they chose to live amongst the other races, they usually took jobs as gardeners, farmers, stablehands, and the like. Due to his nature, Grimble had magic that communed well with the natural world. As he finished ministering to all the animals, he walked back to his wagon and dropped the tailgate. Jumping up in the back, he grabbed a bucket and wrestled with one of the grain sacks to fill it up. Lance asked if he could help, and Grimble pointed him at two other buckets and asked him to fill them from one of the water barrels. Hopping up in the wagon himself, Lance wrestled the lid off of the water barrel and dunked each of the buckets in to fill them up. He set the buckets down on the tailgate and hopped down. Grabbing both buckets, he followed Grimble back over to the makeshift corral where Bj?rn had been busy once again creating a couple of makeshift stone feed troughs, and a rectangular water basin. Grimble spread the grain in both of the troughs, while directing Lance to empty the water buckets into the basin.
With the livestock cared for, they headed back to the fire pit where it looked like most of the rest of the caravan had gathered. Grimble moved amongst those who had been injured in the attack, checking on them, and offering his minor gift of healing to those still in need. There were a couple of people who had received some fairly deep lacerations, and even though Grimbles’ ministrations were healing them, they were still tender and painful. Seeing this, Lance walked back over to his truck and grabbed his assault pack out of the cab. Walking back over to Grimble, he pulled out the vial of anesthetic he had gotten from the drop spider, and asked him if it would help those still suffering from the pain. Explaining to him that it was a dilution of the venom from a drop spider, Grimble agreed that a small amount applied directly to the wound would probably do wonders. He called Bj?rn over and explained to him what Lance had offered. Bj?rn turned to Lance, thanking him and telling him that he would pay him whatever the going rate was in the alchemy shops in the city. Lance explained to Bj?rn that this didn’t cost him anything, he had gotten it as a loot drop from the drop spider and if it would help these people, they could have it. After handing the vial off to Grimble, Lance remembered he was going to tell Bj?rn about the enchanted sword. Explaining his ‘Analyze’ and ‘Identify’ skills once again, Lance explained about seeing the sword in the pile of collected weapons. Bj?rn led them over to one of the wagons where the scavenged weapons were collected. Lance was pretty sure he could remember what the weapon looked like, and pulled one out and ‘Identified’ it. He was right, this was the one. He handed it to Bj?rn, telling him that it had the sharpness enchantment. Bj?rn looked it over while telling Lance that any enchanted item he had ever encountered had visible runes on it, as he handed it back to him. Lance couldn’t see any runes, but he knew the sword was enchanted. Staring closely at it, something looked off to him about the fuller of the sword. The color and grain of the metal was slightly off. Taking his multitool out of the case on his belt, he flipped out the file/hacksaw blade, and proceeded to gently scrape along the fuller. After a little bit of work at it, a thumbnail sized piece of metal flaked off. Hidden underneath was part of a rune. “DING”
Skill ‘FIND HIDDEN’ has been obtained at Level 1.
Task completed, he handed the sword back to Bj?rn and told him he needed to go to his camper to get stuff set up to fix supper for the caravan. Bj?rn tried to dissuade him, telling him that they had plenty and would be getting things started soon, but Lance convinced Bj?rn to let him treat the caravan for allowing him to join them in their travels and in trade for future information. Climbing up into the camper, he opened up the freezer and grabbed the 12 pound box of ? pound frozen beef patties. Firing off a quick ‘Duplicate’ he now had a box of 36 that he could fix for the evening and still have an unopened box. Climbing out of the camper, he opened up one of the compartments at the back of the camper and pulled out his travel flat top grill and hooked it up to the propane line. Given a little more time to do some duplication, he would have used the charcoal barbecue, but this would have to do. Grabbing his prep table out of the storage compartment, he set it up next to the grill, went back into the camper and carried the boxes of food out and set them on the table, reentered and grabbed some salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder, and fired up the grill.
While waiting for the grill to heat up, Lance considered where he wanted to place his free attribute points. Looking over his status, he noticed the increases his levels and previous attribute points had granted to his resources. His Health, Stamina, and Magic pool maximums were now up to 162, 228, and 462 respectively, with his Magic currently sitting at 438. Trying to run some mental mathematical gymnastics, he decided/guessed that he was burning 2 magic point per pound of material duplicated. He would have to start paying more attention to his resources. He had to make some time to sit down with Bj?rn and Grimble, and maybe some of the human members of the caravan and see if he could get a baseline number for his stats. Ultimately he decided to bring his lower numbers up, to continue to round himself out as a generalist, adding one point each to Dexterity, Agility, and Vitality, bringing them each up to 12 making that the baseline across his Body Stats except for the 14 in endurance. The increase in vitality also raised his health pool to 174. Finished with his stats, he focused on his new profession skill.
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Profession Skill: Steady Hand - Similar to ‘Steady Under
Pressure’, this passive skill affects the physiology, but
instead of moderating and redirecting chemical, cardiac,
and mental/emotional functions, it eliminates undesired
muscle twitches in the hands, arms, and torso, and
compensates for external forces that would affect aim or
control.
Lance had always been an excellent marksman, but there was no way he would turn down a passive skill that made his aim steadier, and on top of that appeared that it would affect things like writing, drawing, and other peripheral motor skills (fine and gross). All that he had left to do for now, was check out this latest skill.
Skill ‘Find Hidden’ - Just as it says, this passive/active skill
gives a sense of needing to search when something is
hidden nearby. ;) The active form uses Magic to function
like a locator (sonar, radar, metal detector) giving a better
sense of direction and distance. Higher levels increases
distance and accuracy.
“Straightforward enough”, Lance thought.
The grill was hot, and it was time to start fixing burgers. Lance spent the next 45 minutes grilling burgers. He had to jump back into the camper once to grab a couple of baking sheets to stack the burgers and toasted buns on. By the time he was finished, he had a few people hanging around enjoying the smell of his cooking. There were two youngsters, probably about 12 years old, that Lance assumed were apprentices or such, and he sent them of to inform the rest of the camp that supper (or evening meal as they called it) was ready. As everyone filtered through to get something to eat, he demonstrated how to stack the meat on the buns, open a bag of chips, and handed out a cold beverage to each (demonstrating how to pop the tab). He had grabbed a couple of colas from the fridge after sending the youngsters off to gather everyone up. There probably weren’t any minor in possession laws here, but Lance wasn’t going to take the chance. It turned out that a box of 36 was just enough for all the adults to have 2 beef patties, although he was short on buns, so many ate a double, or had one with no bread, while the two boys each had one. Lance made sure they got a second bag of chips just to even things out. Everyone was pleased with the hamburgers, quite familiar with various types of sandwiches, but the real hit were the chips and beverages. Lance had to promise to go duplicate a case of cola as soon as his cooldown was over, the boys had shared a taste with a few of the adults. Everyone was in awe of the aluminum cans. They were familiar with metal drinking cups, but a sealed container of beer was a big hit, and something that Bj?rn wanted to discuss to work out a trade. Lance decided he would duplicate the 30 pack he had stashed under the counter twice tonight before he went to bed, and then again tomorrow after their trip to the mine. Thinking of the mine, Lance realized that he had been so busy, he hadn’t thought about their prisoner since they left the site of the attack. Checking with Grimble, he found out that the young man (almost a boy really), had been secured inside one of the enclosed wagons after being given some water and a block of the blork that Lance had passed on to Grimble after his looting spree. He cleaned up his grill and workstation, and put everything away, grabbed a case of Lightning Dew and duplicated it, and headed over to the fire pit in the center of the clearing.
Passing a drink out to everyone, he sat down in a conspicuously empty seat next to Bj?rn, and was tickled to watch one of the apprentices drop his soda and pick it up and pop it open before Lance could warn him. Of course there were shouts and curses as the spray hit those sitting around him. Bj?rn cracked open his soda, took a drink, and widened his eyes. “Perhaps we should discuss trade on this beverage instead of the beer”, he said. “Beer and ale are available aplenty in the inns and taverns along the route, but this sweet elixir is completely new.” Lance waved him off saying “I’m sure we can come to an equitable agreement. What I would like to do right now, if you are agreeable, is ask you some questions to try and get my bearings in this world”. “Certainly”, he replied. “What would you like me to answer? I’m sure if I don’t know the answer, our dear Grimble will.” Working to sort and settle his thoughts, Lance asked the first thing that came to mind. “What is that crazy swirling light show up in the sky?” Bj?rn laughed, “That is the World Energy. Let me defer any additional comment to Grimble here”. Grimble spoke up at that point saying, “Exactly so. Our best sages and researchers believe that a great portion of the Energy created by our sun is trapped in the atmosphere and drawn into the world through the poles, working its way through the core, while being refined somehow, finally being released in smaller amounts across the surface of the world. Places where there is a greater concentration of this Energy have greater growth, more monsters, and often develop Aether Crystals. The Energy that is absorbed by plants, wildlife, monsters, and people fuels their growth, and when they die, that Energy is released back into the atmosphere to begin the cycle again. They refer to it as the ‘Cycle of Upkeep for Energy and Growth’.”
“DING” Quest Complete ‘Gain an understanding of the World Energy (Weird Lightshow ;D ). Energy gained - 20.
“Well, that answers that”, Lance thought to himself. If that information was good enough for a quest completion, it had to be pretty close to right. That was the last open quest that he had. Once things calmed down a bit, it might be a good idea to start compiling another list. Moving on, Lance said that he now knew the name of this world was Hearth, but wondered about the geography of the world and its countries or kingdoms. Bj?rn answered that to the best of everyone’s knowledge, they had a single landmass that was called Heillj?re (which Omniglot was telling him was equivalent to Earth’s theoretical Pangea) and some scattered islands. The continent was divided up into several countries by natural borders like mountain ranges, inland seas, and rivers. They were currently in the country of Skallheim, Except for a one river cut pass in both the east and west, they were basically a fortress nation surrounded by nigh impenetrable mountain peaks. The road they were on, was the main thoroughfare from east to west, and crossed the meandering river twice as it passed through the country. They had an elective monarchy form of government with their king elected by a council governors that were in turn appointed by the city, town, and village elders during a moot. The king or queen could rule until death, or could be replaced when any one of the governors called for an election that he or she lost. Unlike what Lance had expected with the Nordic references he had encountered, public office and leadership were not only for men. This was no patriarchy. Finally Lance asked about the system and attributes, class skills, professions, and the like. He was shocked to find out that the natives of this world didn’t get free attribute points to assign, the experience they received was automatically directed toward the attributes they used the most during that level. They had no personal status, and had to use a reader at one of the temples in the towns and cities. Their classes seemed to be assigned relative to the task they completed before their full awakening at the age of 14. Before then, they could gain natural stats from hard work and study, and they could develop skills that would be held in abeyance until awakening. Bj?rn and Grimble along with those sitting closely were just as shocked finding out that if Lance hadn’t been unconscious, he could have selected his class and profession, and that he still had an open sub-class and secondary profession that he apparently would be able to choose. Lance idly wondered if his ‘Missionary of Systema’ Title would allow natives to unlock more of the system if he was able to sway them to Faith in Systema. It was getting late, and tomorrow was looking to be another long day, so as others began excusing themselves from the area, Lance stood also and declared his intentions of heading to dreamland. Climbing up into the camper, he grabbed the case of Lightning Dew and ‘Duplicated’ it again before placing both under the counter. He then stripped down and used some wet wipes to clean up again before setting a 2 hour alarm and climbing into bed.
