When they woke up at their Plaza encampment as the first rays of the sun came over the hills, the first thing that Jonas did was to check on Alton and Jonathan. Alton’s Sacrifice status had more than halved in severity, but Jonathan’s own was still highly debilitating.

“How are you feeling?”

Jonathan Bennett Gilbert

Health: 123/123

Mind: 116/116

Endurance: 136/136

Aether: 147/147

Effective level: 10

Level 10 Watcher

Experience: 4646/9091

Strength: 11

Dexterity: 11

Agility: 13 (12)

Constitution: 11

Stamina: 11

Wisdom: 11

Focus: 12

Presence: 12

Fortitude: 11

Intellect: 11

Defence rating: 9

10% faster levelling

Lingering Death (37%, 37 hours)

Milestones: Adjustment II

Skills: Notice Attack (0), Point Out (0), Interest (0), Prepare (0)

Equipment: Light Burlap Band, Light Leather Tunic, Flimsy Fingerless Leathers, Adjusted Leather Belt, Simple Leather Trousers, Basic Leather Footgear, Small Curved Sword, Flimsy Leather Bag

“Not good. It’s like whooping cough without the cough. My head’s full of wool, and I ache everywhere.”

“Alton felt it too,” Jonas said.

“Not that bad though,” the precision came.

The Pointer came and sat next to the two.

“But you definitively feel the drop in Potential and your vitals.”

“I’m about as hard as wet porridge and shuffling like I have weights on my legs,” Jonathan replied.

“Speaking of porridge, made some using the last roots. That marble is good for grinding stuff,” Alton said.

Guss came up and led Jonathan to the campfire for breakfast. Jonas contemplated the fact that they had nothing remotely looking like tea. Or, to be honest, anything that could be used to brew some. Even the gruel paste was kind of hard to make, and they only had it because Alton kept a lot of implements in his pockets.

The last of the boar meat had been made into strips. They didn’t taste like bacon, but you could imagine from the smell it was proper meat. With this morning’s feast, the last food from the Virman Swamp would be gone, but he felt confident. They always found something.

Jonas sat, took his meat strips and gruel bits and started to masticate. But before long, he saw that everyone was looking toward Jonathan.

“I say we take it easy for a couple of days. Alton will be ok by this evening, but it seems it will take longer for Jonathan. And that’s not the right time to do anything risky.”

“Why? I mean… apparently, we can get back from the dead in the Labyrinth,” Laura asked.

“You know, it kinda makes sense now,” Guss said. “Cousin Luther was always boasting ‘I almost died’ here and there, and I wondered why he always had such a casual attitude regarding death.”

“It turns out it’s not a big deal.”

“It feels like one,” Jonathan interjected.

“Yea, but… are we immortal? If we can’t die?” she asked.

“Not a chance. There was an obituary two years ago, about a Professional who died. He’d retired after a decade, saying the Labyrinth was something for the younger and none of his grandkids were Professionals,” Ira said.

“So, maybe it’s only within the Labyrinth?”

“Once we’re back in London, I am definitively… not testing that,” Ira laughed.

Even Jonathan got a smile at the joke. But Jonas felt he had to bring back a serious concern.

“Even if it happens within the Labyrinth… if Ira dies, who has enough health to bring him back? Or two or three of us? I mean… it’s 10 minutes. Maybe it’s only because we’re level 10, or maybe that’s all the time we have. If Guss dies, can we get enough health back in time? Think about it,” he said.

“Oh.”

“So we need to be careful. Keeping Ira alive is the priority. But meanwhile, Jonathan can’t really afford a fight like the one we had. We need to wait until his status is gone, and we really need more levels. Then maybe we tackle our second lair.”

“Got another percent up five minutes ago. Not much, but it’s a couple of vitals still. It’s handy, having a time until everything’s okay,” the Watcher added.

“So? What’s the plan then?” Alton asked.

“Explore more, avoid anything that looks like a lair for a couple of days. Well, maybe the elite bits if they’re low level. I mean, the elite hyena dogs were not hard at all, just that elder dog patriarch. And getting better Professional equipment would be good.”

Laura laughed.

“Speaking of which, you look like a little kid in that robe.”

“I might look ridiculous, but it’s a very good Aetherist robe. That skill rank is useful. I went from 5 feet to 6 on my pushback.”

Air Burst

Aether/Offense

Rank 1: Push back an opponent by 6 feet. Causes slight hesitation in the next attack. Costs: (0.99 aether/level of opponent).

“Yea, Skill ranks are very good,” confirmed Guss. “We haven’t encountered poison, but my Boar Staff raises the ‘level’ of poisons I can cleanse by some amount as well.”

Cleanse Poison

Aether/Support

Rank 1: Remove 1 minute 10 seconds duration from a poison of level 11 (55% of highest of Focus or Wisdom). Costs: (0.99 aether/poison level)

Jonas turned toward Guss.

“Any cousin Luther advice on ranks?”

“You improve them to get better. Sorry, that’s all I remember,” Guss replied, making a grimace.

“Well, we know at least that some equipment does improve your skills ranks,” Laura said.

“We’ll probably figure out how that works at one point,” Jonas answered.

They cleared their fire and started their day by killing the small cat that had come back to the usual spot near the brook. The minion was quickly dispatched, and both Jonathan and Alton confirmed that, despite their general reduction residue, their experience gain seemed normal. At least for such a small critter.

Jonas pointed out a direction to the side of the valley.

“We’ve followed the river both ways and checked the other side where you have that badger cellar. So let’s see what’s on that side this time.”

The hill wasn’t too hard to climb, despite lacking a clear path to use, and they killed a couple of cats on their way up. When they reached the hilltop, they saw that there was not much in the way of hills to that side. A range of hills stretched beside the ridge they were on, but it seemed like the hills fell quickly behind.

At noon, they were finally out of the hills. The plains had more tree clumps than the plains where they’d found the hyena dogs, but this side of the Flat Plains – that’s how the location descriptor unoriginally named these – had cats rather than hyenas. While they were named slightly differently and had a much darker pelt, they were not especially harder than anything they had faced before.

Young Plains Ocelot

Level 9

Health: 157

Mind: 68

Endurance: 187

Aether: 0

The tree clumps held slightly higher levels of cats or the occasional veteran or higher crow, similar to the one they’d fought in the hills.

Longfeather Carrion Crow

Level 13 elite

Health: 587

Mind: 252

Endurance: 389

Aether: 76

“Finally, an elite,” Ira noted.

“Jonathan, stay clear,” Jonas said.

“I’m weak, not impotent. I’ll be careful,” he replied.

The bird rose slightly in the air upon spotting the incoming team and dive-bombed toward them. Despite Ira’s presence, the crow unerringly aimed for Jonathan, talons extended. It did a bit of damage before getting its feathers ruffled by the swing of Ira’s Iron Defender sword.

Crow rakes you: 31 (32-1) damage (9 defence)

Seeing as the bird was coming back for a second attack, Jonas didn’t hesitate and threw all of his spells in succession, Air Burst, Ice Dart and Flame Bolt. The Earth Grasp failed to connect, leaving no notification nor aether spent, probably because the bird was still flying and not on the ground. But the burst had really angered the bird, who turned toward Jonas in annoyance, trying to rake him with his talons.

Crow rakes you: 32 damage (4 defence)

Carrion Stench affects you: -1 mind every 4s.

“Bleh, another stinker,” Jonas said, as the smell began to reach the team.

Ira’s powerful swings finally angered the crow who turned back toward the Defender and screeched.

Crow Screech sounds across the area: -32 mind, -2 to one potential.

Crow Screech noticed and avoided.

“Yikes. That’s a bad attack!” Laura yelled.

“Got 2 less in Fortitude,” Guss indicated.

“Same here,” Alton confirmed.

Of all the team, only Ira and Jonathan had resisted the effects. But the crow was no longer flying all around, and hammer, knives and swords started to land from all sides.

Crow Screech sounds across the area: -32 mind, -2 to one potential.

“Again???” Laura yelled.

“We need to finish it. Jonathan resisted one, but if it does that too often, we’ll get down to zero mind at one point,” Ira said between swings.

“Keep watch on the aether. It looks like he uses it to screech as soon as he goes above 60,” Jonas noticed.

“I’ll try to smash him to silence him. If I can,” Laura replied.

“Does it work?”

“Focus people,” Ira cut.

The crow had almost 59 aether when it got hit by Alton’s Backstab and his health dropped to zero. All of the team immediately shook their heads, trying to clear the “Tinnitus” effect that had one of their stats lowered.

Longfeather Carrion Crow: 933XP/6 contributors = 187XP

“11 minutes to clear that status. Guss? Anything to help?”

“Doesn’t seem to have a skill. That’s definitively not a poison. I got 13 minutes here, I think we just have to wait until it goes away.”

Laura knelt and turned over the crow’s corpse, looking under the 5-feet wide wingspan. Her dutiful checking got rewarded.

Flat-head Hammer

One-hand

Common equipment

Requires: Level 8

Provides: 6 physical base damage (+12% STR), +1 STR

“Lucky you,” Jonas said.

Laura moved her old hammer to her left hand and shook both, comparing the weights and grip.

“I think… I’ll try to use two. Maybe I can do more damage that way.”

“It is the way to do it,” Alton confirmed.

She mimed bringing both hammers together to slam something between. Ira raised his thumb in approval.

“What was that worry, though?” Jonathan asked Jonas.

“I don’t know. But I suspect that if you die when your health goes to zero, something bad happens if your mind reaches zero as well.”

Jonathan seemed doubtful.

“You definitively feel it when you’re wounded and lose health. No such thing with ‘mind’ loss. Do you feel any different?”

Jonas stopped.

“No. Not really. But I’m not going to try and find out.”

The campfire for the evening was started by the usual careful application of a Flame Bolt at a range.

“So, level 12 today. We’re making progress,” Jonas commented.

“I noticed that the critters are giving us slightly less XP,” Ira remarked.

“Yes. And the amount required grows instead,” Laura confirmed.

“We’ll try to find higher levels. The non-elite won’t give us more problems if they’re level 15 rather than 10.”

Guss raised his hand to add his contribution.

“Even the elite. I probably need only one or two heals more if we were to fight level 15 rather than a 10 or 12. The only problems come if we have multiple critters at the same time.”

“And I’m better. I should be back to normal by tomorrow evening,” Jonathan said.

“My Sacrifice just ended during that last fight,” Alton added.

“So. Tomorrow, let’s keep see if we make it to the zone border and see what we find on the way,” Jonas agreed.