Chapter 16

The five orphans, trailed by two veteran Rimwall guards, advanced slowly through the forest again. This time they were determined to stick together and to fight only the smaller groups. They moved slowly, carefully picking their way around trees without making too much noise. Complete silence was impossible, there were too many dried leaves, twigs and other miscellaneous crunchy things underfoot for a group of children to avoid. Twice they had to almost double back when the trees became so densely packed together, with branches woven together preventing all passage to anything larger than an insect.

They heard their next foes before they saw them. Rhythmic chanting in a strange, high pitched and warbling voice, followed by more guttural single-syllable grunts. The party stopped at Silah’s signal before breaking the tree line and seeing the source of the noise.

“Imps,” whispered Silah. “A tribe of them. A [Forest Imp Shaman] and four or five of the others. Probably two [Forest Imp Defender]s and two or three [Forest Imp Warrior]s. The most important is to blitz the shaman down, which will prevent any buffs to the enemies and remove all of their ranged power. Then it will be an easy fight against the other imps.”

“I’ll take the shaman, I want to try [Leaping Strike], to see whether it is worth the mana,” Jane whispered back.

Silah frowned slightly before nodding. He stood up straight, shield and spear ready, and gestured to everybody to begin. Jane rolled her shoulders and swung her hammer in front of herself to limber up.

“I’m going to circle round slightly, that way when I leap in that will distract them and you can all get them from the flank.”

Jane got herself into Akaisha mode as she stepped away from the group. As she moved into position she thought about how weird everything was here, and yet she had adapted so easily. She had been a student her whole life really, always having something to learn, a paper to write. Intellectual things mainly, the sciences and things closely related to them. Sure, she had done some fun stuff, she had a pilot's licence, she had done white water rafting and was a “qualified” reiki healer, for what that was worth. She had done so much and yet so little with her previous life, never going anywhere. And she had definitely never fought anyone, not even in a self-defence class. And yet, here she was. Voluntarily going into a place just to fight. And it was the most alive she had ever felt. Who knew that living in an orphanage at nearly fifty could be so much fun. Weirdly fun, even. It was strange how different she felt since she had met a god.

She had made about a quarter turn around the source of the chanting and began moving in towards it. As she passed through the tree line she saw exactly what she expected. A capering [Forest Imp Shaman] dancing wildly around a large campfire, its long droopy ears flailing around as it stomped and spun in time to its chanting. Akaisha grinned and activated [Leaping Strike]. She rocketed forwards, surprising even herself. She felt herself lift the hammer and bring it crashing down onto the shaman. Just after landing she felt the skill release her and she had control of her own body. The forest imp screamed as it took a smash to the face and was thrown into the bonfire. It writhed in pain as the flames licked around it. Akaisha quickly knocked it out of the fire with a golf swing, before hammering down on its throat. It took two more before she heard the shaman's neck snap and she could turn to fight the warriors and defenders.

As she turned she suddenly coughed up blood, as a stone blade ripped into her stomach. She gripped the [Forest Imp Warrior]s wrist, holding the blade in her stomach in place. She dropped the sledgehammer and pulled out a dagger. She slashed as hard as she could at the imp's elbow. She took a heavy punch to the face but managed to chop the skinny arm off. Still holding the blade wedged into her midriff she kicked her now one-armed opponent over and retreated slowly. Wincing from the pain as every step jostled the stone sword she moved carefully towards Chirembo for healing. She could tell that she wasn’t close to dying, despite the lump of barely sharp rock in her guts and the blood flowing freely over her hand. In fact, she thought that even pulling it out would probably not kill her, especially if she could get some dungeon food. That was insane, she wasn’t even a high level, not even a high enough level to be considered an adult, and yet she could survive a disembowelling if she had a ham sandwich handy.

Akaisha ducked back between the trees to where Chirembo was covering Nyika just in time to see Silah finish off her downed, armless imp with a stab to the chest from his spear. This fight had gone far better and it seemed that nobody had received more than a few scrapes, other than Akaisha. Chirembo took one look at the blade that she was still holding in place and helped her to lie down on a convenient mossy patch. With one hand on the blade's handle and the other, already glowing with the soft white light of his healing magic, he pulled the blade out and pressed the other hand to the wound. Akaisha screamed this time, the pain of the blade being ripped out of her far worse than being stabbed in the first place. The pain faded almost instantly though, Chirembo’s healing magic working swiftly to mend her innards. Akaisha grinned as she felt her intestines finish closing up and her health nearly top off. She sat up but before she could stand a large meaty fist clapped her on the shoulder, pinning her in place.

“You aren’t.” rumbled the owner of the hand, [Guardsman] Chiratizo.

“Aren’t what?” asked a confused Akaisha.

“I know that look, the look you had as you came back to get healed. You just realised that you are basically invincible. I assume you thought that you could survive just about anything and then heal it with a potion or a spell.”

Akaisha opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again. That had more or less been her chain of thought. She had taken a stone blade to the gut, leaving a ragged hole in her intestines, the sort of injury that would either kill you from shock or kill you slowly from blood loss or septicemia. Even in a modern hospital survival wasn’t guaranteed yet she had walked over to get healed and was fine in seconds. Who wouldn’t assume that they are immortal, short of instant decapitation or something like that?

“I was thinking that I’d need a sandwich.”

“That just isn’t how Health works, Akaisha,” the large guard explained patiently. “You have a warrior build, front line fighter, and so have a good amount of Endurance and Health. You are also fighting enemies at around your Tier, enemies that will have similar stats to you. A blow like that would have dropped Chirembo and Nyika, possibly even killed Nyika outright. Even Munodo, as a more Agility focused build would be low on Health. The only reason that you can survive is that the enemies are close to your level.” Chiratzo looked over her head to General Nui. “Permission to give an example sir? I’ve got a big one for after.”

“It’s a teachable moment, go ahead.”

Chiratzo grinned at Akaisha. With a slow, deliberate movement he drew his standard-issue sword and made a small incision across Akaisha’s palm. Pain beyond anything she had ever felt flashed up her arm and across her entire body. She felt as if every nerve in her arm was on fire at the same time, and the rest of her body wasn’t far behind. Strong hands pushed her down as she thrashed in pain. She had almost blacked out from the pain when liquid ice dripped into her mouth, ripping through the inferno in her body, cooling everything as it went. As the potion finished working on her she calmed down, panting heavily from the ordeal. Chiratzo helped her sit up, offering her a water skin as well. She took it and drank deeply. The water was refreshing and helped push away the lingering phantom pain.

“What the fuck was that!” Akaisha exclaimed.

“Tier difference, stat difference.” Chiratzo shrugged. “I have nearly capped my Tier three, you are low tier two. The power gap between us is just too large. A tiny slice from me dropped you below half Health and inflicted crippling pain whereas a blade to the stomach at tier didn’t even knock you down half and barely hurt.”

“That's crazy, how don’t you accidentally kill everyone around you?”

“Mostly by not hitting them with swords…” Chiratzo replied. “My [Weapon: Guardsman's Standard] Skill is at a very high level, that increases the damage done too.”

“That is really weird. Well, thanks for the lesson I suppose, even if I could have done without the pain.”

“Pain is a great teacher, young one,” Nui added sagely.

[Shatterer] level increased to 10.

Strength + 1

Dexterity + 1

Agility + 1

Endurance + 1

Perception + 1

Intelligence + 1

Willpower + 0

Sociability + 1

Without warning Chiratzo slashed his blade across Akaisha’s hand in the same place as previously. She snatched her hand back to her chest, prepared for the pain that never came. She looked at her hand, then at the guardsman in confusion.

“You’ll learn, don’t worry.” He told her, trying to be mysterious and wise.

Akaisha rolled her eyes and looked over at her fellow orphans.

“Shall we move on? I could do with a few less “teachable moments”,” she asked, glancing at Tianaro Nui.

Everybody agreed and they formed up to move out. Barely a hundred metres further in the trees began to change. Smooth, silvery barked birch-like trees gradually gave way to rougher, fatter trees with dark brown bark and almost golden highlights. As they moved between the new trees silver gave way to gold, and the gold became more prominent on each tree.

“I am now certain that the boss lies ahead. You can always find it in the golden zone of the forest. Are we ready for it, or should we scour the rest of the forest for more groups first?” Silah proposed.

Akaisha thought about it for a moment before deciding that she needed more levels, more Skill levels and more combat experience before taking on the [Floor Boss]. Unfortunately by the time she had decided everyone else had called for the boss fight. She shrugged and went along with the others.

“There are two possible [Floor Boss]es here, to go with the two types of enemies. A [Sanguine Champion] and a swarm boss of forest imps.”

“What’s a swarm boss?” Akaisha asked, even though she had an idea.

“Lots of small enemies rather than a single powerful enemy. There are also summoner bosses and party bosses. The former is a single powerful enemy that either has a group of less powerful minions or can call more to its aid, and the latter are groups of two to six less powerful enemies that function like a group of delvers. In this case, various imps will attack continuously until we have defeated fifty, ten per person shared between us. Only two will be present, to begin with, and over time they will appear faster and faster until we win or are overrun. A swarm boss will be trickier than the common or garden variety champion because our escort must keep much further back to not cause us to have to defeat seventy enemies.” Silah explained as everyone checked their Stats and equipment.

Once everyone was at around full Health and Mana the group forged forwards through the forest. The trees were nearly entirely gold and far more spread out when they saw shamanic totems in the low branches. Silah groaned audibly as Akaisha laughed quietly.

“I'll deal with the shamans as fast as I can, you all keep them off me if you can.” Akaisha took charge before Silah could say anything. “Nyika, try to make a defensive position, a low wall of spikes maybe, with only a single entrance that Silah can hold. Munodo you cover Silah’s shield side but keep back behind the spikes if you can. Ok?”

“We can’t be so defensively minded here, or we will be overrun in no time, they come at us faster and faster, so there will be more and more as we can’t kill them off fast enough.” Chirembo countered.

“Don’t worry, I’ll funnel them to you and take out the shamans. And if we need to we can always foray out.”

“A barricade of spikes isn’t a castle, Akaisha.” pointed out a slightly exasperated Silah.

“You know what I mean, don’t be pedantic. Come on, it’ll be fine.”

“We have only beaten this [Floor Boss] once before, and that was the [Sanguine Champion]. And it left us too low in resources to carry on, we had to take the blue portal to get back.”

“Sure, but there is one more of us and you’re all stronger now! We can do it!” Akaisha still sounded enthusiastic but Silah was getting on her nerves with his defeatist attitude.

“Look, you are doing really well so far, but we are all what, thirty levels higher than you? That's between ten and forty Stat points more depending on each person's Stat growth distribution. Even if your class has slightly better Stat growth than ours you just can’t measure up yet. We can’t afford to let you run around so far from us, you will force us to abandon the delve when you get into too much danger.” Silah was struggling to keep his voice under control by the end of his rant. Nyika placed her hand on his arm as he visibly blew out, stifling his anger. He made to apologise, to try and salvage the situation but Akaisha raised her hand before he could speak.

“I won’t presume to think myself better informed, strategically speaking. I recognise that you have all fought longer and harder to get here, that you have run this [Dungeon] many times, and that you know what you are doing.” Akaisha said in a subdued voice. Seeing that Silah wanted to reply she hurriedly carried on. “But I don’t think that the gap is as large as you think, I think that I can hold my own. And if I can’t then I can leap out, back to a safe base. Look, I know that people generally keep these things secret but I’m going to tell you my Stats. In order, they are ninety-five, forty-six, sixty-three, forty-one, sixty-three, seventy-four, thirty-eight and forty-three.” Akaisha listed her Stats in a low voice, she didn’t really know why but she didn’t want the Guardsmen to hear.

Silence greeted Akaishas revelations. Then everybody began talking at once.

“What? That’s impossible!”

“Even I only have eighty Intelligence, and that’s my best Stat!”

“Most people only get one hundred as they Cap their tier two!”

“How?”

Akaisha hushed them before the second round of shouting began, and the four looked at each other before Chirembo was silently nominated to speak first.

“I am the closest to the cap here, at [Healer] 44 now, and [Healer] is a class that gives very good, balanced Stat growth, an F in Intelligence, a D in Sociability and C everywhere else. I have one Stat at eighty, one at sixty and everything else below forty. What kind of insane class is [Shatterer] that you have such over the top Stats in less than fifteen levels?”

“Other than my highest growth being a G I don’t think anything else is particularly over the top, although despite having an A in Intelligence at tier one, and now a B, I seem to get a lot. No, it’s my titles, I have nearly times three everywhere. From a first clear and a few other things.”

If the orphans were shocked by her Stats it was nothing compared to her title multiplier.