Don slipped no less than 5 times on his way back upstream. Each time he hit the rocky streambed he lost 2 or 3 HP but his effort didn’t go unrewarded.

+ END

He had finally gotten numb enough so the water didn’t bother him when Kat called out from overhead.

“You took so long my rabbit has probably gone bad.”

Don wordlessly climbed up the steep slope and pushed past the walls of vegetation running parallel to the stream. He was totally out of breath and his arms and legs felt like lead. His head felt like a bowling ball and he struggled to get his breath back. “Status”

Stats:

Vitals:

STR

10

HP

46/105

AGI

10

STA

12/45(60)

DEX

13

MANA

60/60

INT

12

EXP

15/50

WIS

12

Status Effects:

CON

21

Hungry (-20% end)

END

9(12)

Instead of regenerating, his stamina fell as Don climbed back upstream. He was also hit with a hungry effect. Don’s stomach growled loudly. The berries delayed the onset of his hunger but he would need to find more food in the coming days if he wanted to avoid getting hungry at inopportune moments. His stamina dropped below thirty percent too, causing him to feel fatigued. He hoped his increased END would stave off the side effects of exertion but his hunger sapped him of that advantage.

His HP had also taken a big hit. If he didn’t have such an inflated CON he might have died on the way back from his fight, if he could have moved at all.

His STA rose a point making it a bit easier to breathe. He moved towards the boulder hiding the entrance to the gob’s cave. He could rest after he was treated by Grey. Kat frowned, and ran along the tree branches before dropping down just before the cave and slipping into the crevice between boulder and hill. Don followed him, less gracefully. He let himself half-roll and half-slide down the slope just past the cave mouth. Gat and six of his followers were there standing just a few feet away. Gat stepped forward, arms crossed and head cocked back, a self-assured smile displaying his rotten teeth.

“We wanted to see how badly you would do but we didn’t expect you to come back empty-handed. You really are dumber than dirt.”

Don noticed the three rabbits and the small collection of plants held by Gat’s cronies. He grinned and pushed himself into a sitting position.

“Look how weak and tired you are. You should just give me your food tonight. We don’t need our dinner going to such a useless weakling.” Gat held his arms up to his sides, head cocked, talking more to the gobs assembled behind him than Don. As a result, he didn’t see what Don did that made his minions gape and glow green. Gat snapped his eyes back to Don in time to see him holding a single leaf of Silver Frond. He snorted.

“Did you hide that down your pants? That’s still hardly anyth-” He cut off as he saw green motes flow from Don’s hand and form another silver frond, and then another, followed by a petal from a Silkbell flower, and a strip of ironbark. In the shocked silence Don emptied his inventory, one item at a time, until he had a small pile, easily containing three times the gang’s haul.

Red motes flowed from Don’s hand and a fox pelt formed in the air. Gat shrieked and stumbled backward as the skin fell towards him. He bumped into his gang and kept going. The followers darted after him but a few lingered, looking at Don for a few seconds before running deeper into the cave. Don laughed but it was brief. He was still fighting for breath and he couldn’t handle more than a short chuckle. The look on his face, priceless.

A finger prodded his side. Grey was there and offered him a gourd. Don thanked her and downed the contents. His HP quickly rose and the open wounds on his body scabbed over before his eyes. Grey offered him another gourd and Don took it with gratitude. This one replenished his STA. It wasn’t long before Don was back to normal. He had to hand it to Grey, her potions were great. He would have been wheezing for minutes still if not for that stamina potion and it would have taken at least a day of rest for his wounds to heal on their own.

“It looks like you found something interesting.” Grey said examining the fox pelt, poking it with her spoon as if she didn’t trust it was totally dead.

“Yeah, it was going to attack Kat so I jumped on it. I don’t know what to do with this pelt though. It looks nice but can it be used for anything?” He asked

Satisfied with her investigation, Grey picked the fur up in her free claw.

“It can be used for looking nice” She said and wrapped it around her neck. The predominant red color of the fox covered her from neck to elbows, after that streaks of white and black hung in what used to be legs but were now a set of large tassels. She flipped the fox’s head over her own. Teeth hung down from her makeshift hood and the ears stood upright. Empty sockets stared back at Don.

You have completed the repeatable quest: Warlock’s Wardrobe

Grey will teach you one spell

It wasn’t exactly what you would call clothing but it was a definite step up from the leaves she had worn before. It did have a certain wild quality to it that suited Grey. It made her look more fierce than she had a moment ago.

“I didn’t think you would find clothes so quickly, or that they would be so red. I haven’t worn this color in years” She rubbed the soft fur fondly “What spell do you want to learn?”

Don hadn’t given this much thought. He didn’t expect the small fur to be accepted as clothing and had actually forgotten about the quest entirely after his struggle with the fox. He didn’t really know much about magic yet. Thinking back on his night in the forest he was most frustrated by his slow and clumsy movements when compared to Kat.

He asked, “Is there a magic that can make me faster and better at moving in the forest?”

Grey kept patting her new cloak absently as she replied “probably, but I don’t know it.”

“What about something to make me better at sneaking?” It was obvious that after general mobility in the forest, his biggest weakness was his sneaking. When Kat gave the signal to hunker down and be still, The gob looked like a stone in the woods. Don looked more like a boulder, a big red obvious boulder with arms, legs, and horns.

Grey thought for a moment before saying “It won’t help with all sneaking but I know something that could help you hide or confuse pursuers.”

“What do you mean by Confuse pursuers?”

“If something is chasing you, you can make it chase you in the wrong direction so it actually is running away” She said. That sounded perfect! Something like that could have let Don save Kat today without fighting the fox. That thought gave him pause. The only reason he was getting to learn magic was because he killed the fox. Should he go with some magic to help him kill more easily? He looked at Kat and remembered the look of fear when the fox snuck up on him. He decided to go with his instincts. He would defend first and attack when he had to.

“What is the spell called?” he asked

"The spell I can teach you is called manipulation. Its the most basic illusion spell. It starts out as a fairly useless party trick but you can make almost any illusion you can imagine if you have the wisdom needed to control the spell. It isn't any good for attacking and starts out fairly weak but it's the most flexible spell I know."

Don liked the idea of having a skill with flexibility and besides, he had all the time in the world if his ageless attribute was to be believed.

“That’s okay, I want to learn it, what do I need to do?”

“Just take a seat” Don obeyed her command and sat. She pressed a palm to each of Don’s temples. Her hands grew hot and one anticlimactic second later, it was over.

Congratulations!

You have learned Illusion Magic

The Illusion skill tree is now unlocked

You have learned: Manipulation basic 1

Cost: 1 Mana / 10 Seconds

Don balked at the mana cost. He would only be able to use the skill for ten minutes before his MANA was completely exhausted. He would only be able to get in five minutes before the side effects started in.

“Thank you, how does it work?” Don must have done a poor job of keeping the disappointment out of his voice because Grey laughed.

“Like this.” She extended a hand and the stone before her rose from the ground forming a rough copy of the old alchemist. The stone turned it’s blank face towards Don and lunged at him. Don protected his face but there was no need to. The stone goblin passed right through Don.

“Illusions can be seen but not touched. This magic lets you make illusions”

Don was suddenly more interested. If he could make fake copies of himself attack an animal, he could confuse it long enough to get away. He wanted to practice right away but Grey reminded him of his sorting duty with a sharp crack of her spoon. He enjoyed telling Sik about his day but Kat was sullen and didn’t join in the telling except to add details concerning how hopeless Don was in the forest.

When the dinner was ready, Don walked over and didn’t have to fight for a piece of food for once. Some of the gobs moved out of his way and Don plucked a rabbit from the fire, taking it back to a corner to eat. When he was about to chow down, he remembered the pained screams of the rabbit Kat had pounced on. His stomach rumbled, making a strong argument in its own way. In the end, pragmaticism won out. The hunger effect would only get worse over time and he might not get another chance to eat for another day. They might run across another berry bush but there was no guarantee of that and if Don was weakened enough by hunger, he might be killed by a fox or something worse. An almost reverential feeling overtook Don and he appreciated his meal more than ever before because of his new understanding of the sacrifice which was a part of it.

After dinner, Don went into the alcove, foregoing his usual discussions with Kat. He set to work immediately. He made a health potion quickly and set it aside. Next, he tried to make a stamina potion. He had seen Grey make several and knew the steps but he still failed three times before making a passable potion. He took the two potions and placed them in his inventory.

Health Potion

Strength: trash

1 dose Heals 5 hp over ten seconds

Quantity: 5 doses

Stamina Potion

Strength: trash

1 dose restores 5 STA over ten seconds

Quantity: 5 doses

+ DEX

Alchemy Apprentice 3 → 4

14% increased effects of potions

Don had never seen the information for his potions before. He didn’t like that they were classified as ‘trash’ but they would work fine. He would be able to heal almost all the wounds he got from the fox with the potion so he felt much better prepared for tomorrow.

He then moved back into the entrance chamber and settled down to test his new magic.

“Manipulate”

Nothing happened. Don’s MANA dropped by a point after ten seconds and the spell ended. He was clearly missing something. He thought back to Grey’s demonstration. She said he could make anything. It would make sense that he would have to have something in mind then. He had activated the skill expecting something to happen like when he used FocusSenses or Diagnose. Don decided to try and make a copy of himself like Grey had. He held his hand out and gave it a try.

“Manipulate”

A grey lump of clay was drawn from the floor. Before Don could shape it into something resembling a copy, his skill timed out and the illusion vanished like a bad dream. Getting the feeling that he was onto something he tried again.

“Manipulate” This time he kept the skill active after ten seconds and shaped the clay into a vague doll shape before a headache set in.

Manipulate Basic 1 → 2

Cost: 1 MANA / 15 seconds

+ WIS

He pushed for another twelve seconds and lost his concentration. The spell failed and it felt like he was hit in the head with a rock. “Status”

Vitals:

HP

95/105

MANA

19/60

His health had gone down. It looked like there was some danger to casting spells. Don spent the rest of the night switching from one heightened sense to the next, observing as much as he could in the enclosed space. He listened to gobs on the other side of the cave. Some were still talking about the pelt he had given to Grey and how he made plants out of light. He heard the whine of steam forcing its way out of the branches in the fire pit. He saw and smelled more than he wanted to. He also found that he could increase his sensitivity to touch. He felt when the slightest breeze passed, bending the small hairs he never noticed he had.

Focus senses Basic 4 → 5

9% increase to target sense

9% decrease to all others

Speaking of hairs, his head was covered in a dark, rough shadow. A few days unattended was enough for Don’s hair to start growing in. In the city, his auto wash kept his scalp clear but without anything to cut his hair with, he would just have to get used to it. He rubbed the short bristles, producing a rasping sound.

When his stamina dropped below half he started getting tired. When it dropped a few more points, so did Don.

Spoiler: Don's Stats and skills Stats: Vitals: STR 10 HP 95/105 AGI 10 STA 27/60 DEX 14 MANA 24/60 INT 12 EXP 15/50 WIS 13 Status Effects: CON 21 END 12 skill Rank Level Effect cost range duration Punching Bag Apprentice 7 16% unarmed resistance Training Dummy Apprentice 4 13% training increase Alchemy Apprentice 4 13% potion effectiveness Goblin Language Apprentice 6 Moderate complexity Night Vision Basic 5 9% increased light Diagnose Basic 4 assess the targets visible injuries 1 mana touch instant Focus Senses Basic 5 9% increase and derease 1 stamina self 1 minute Forage Basic 3 7% ease and effectivness of resources Stealth Basic 1 5% sneak and sneak attack Illusion Magic Manipulation Basic 2 Manipulate light to form intangible constructs 1 mana 2 yards 15 seconds