The following day it was time to push on. I was in a melancholy mood. The dream was still messing with me. One that I felt no shame or anything being in the bathhouse the way I was and that it was perfectly normal to strip down in front of the girl that I liked and let her give me a bath. That was odd enough for me as we just didn’t do baths that way in the US.

Then there was the processing of the feelings. The dream me was working hard on not crying, remembering Lorrie, and also feeling the loss of Miyuki. He seemed to be resigned to death, which wasn’t an odd feeling for him, but rather, it hit like he hadn’t thought of it for a while.

No the thing that was ticking me off and messing with my feelings was I could read in the dream. You couldn’t read in dreams, or so I was always told. Yet, not only did I read, but I also inscribed a scroll. I did all the workings of an enchanter in my dream, and I still can’t now. I even pulled up my stats to check and make sure.

Current Experience: Held

Total Experience: Redacted

Level:0

——

Name: Arn

Race: Wild Human Shaman [5]

HP:30 (

SP:48

MP:40

Defense:1

(Equipment bonuses)

—

Titles

Dungeoneer (Team)

+1 Vitality every Primary Class level +1 Wisdom every 5th level of Secondary Class

Dungeon Master

Owner access to owned dungeon. Unaging in all dungeons. Neutral standing in all other dungeons that are not owned. Dungeon sense Passive: feel a draw towards dungeons within 10 miles Active: See through dungeon misdirections 5 mana per hour

—-

Primary Class: Enchanter*

Secondary Class: Linguist* (Ancient Languages)

—

Strength: 17*

Dexterity: 17*

Intelligence: 8

Willpower: 19

Vigor: 16

Vitality: 15

Wild Humans have a plus 3 to strength Wild Humans have a plus 2 to dexterity Wild Humans have a plus 2 to all survivalist and warrior class skills Wild Humans have a negative 3 to all Language skills and can not start as the linguist class Wild Humans have a negative 1 to all Magic class skills due to low intelligence and cannot start as a enchanter class because of linguist issues Wild Humans are all illiterate

—

Abilities

Poison Resistance 0

—

Racial skills

Spear** 7 Locked

Survivalist** 7 Locked

Tracking** 6 Locked

Goblin Death Dance 8

Gremlin Death Dance 16

Skeleton Death Dance 14

Primitive Runes 16

Ritualistic spell casting 17

Ritualistic healing 9

Animal empathy 20

Plant empathy 14

Ritual Cleansing 5

Ritual Prayer 5

Ritual Fire 5

Ritual Remembrance 5

Primary Class

Enchanting 15

Script* 0

Ink making 14

Etching 16

Power imbuing 17

Socketing 15

Secondary Class

Ancient languages* 0

Non class skills

Hiking** 20

Climbing** 17

Primitive tool** 12

Natural Shelter** 14

Spear Fishing 18

Primitive cooking 15

Herbalism 16

Stone Knapping 12

Staff 19

Taekwondo 18

Running 16

Fitness Training 17

Tumbling 16

Rope making 17

Basket weaving 10

Primitive Tailoring 8

Trap 17

Conditioning 15

Escrama 15

Iaido 9

Nunchaku 5

Ki Focus 15

Swimming 7

Pole fishing 2

Net fishing 2

Mathematics 18

Throwing Knife 16

Paddling 9

Archery 16

Over Imbueing 15

Short sword 18

Combat Acrobatics 9

Redacted 75

Redacted 75

Dungeon Lore 0

Spear throwing 15

Long Spear 15

Short Spear 15

Dual Wielding Dagger 15

Dagger 15

Off-Handed short sword 0

Living Runes 0

Tree Climbing 0

*due to Wild Human starting restrictions of being illiterate this skill can not advance until Intelligence is higher then 12

** Racial Bonus for Wild Human, effect levels of all Survivalist class and warrior class skills plus 2

Racial skills of Wild Human that are not part of your racial class are now locked. Further racial class change may unlock these skills for progression in the future.

Spell/Level/Mana cost/ Cast time

Communication spells

Beseech a greater knowledge** 1/50/45 seconds

**Once per day powered by sunlight

Healing spells

Minor healing 1/8/5 seconds

Fire Spells

Fire Fist 1/2-20/.5 seconds

Shaman magic

Stone to dirt 1/20/5

Start fire 1/20/5

Call rain* 1/20/5

Growth 1/20/5

Lay to rest 1/40/5

Fire Fist 1/2-20/5

*works only if there are clouds in the sky. The closer the clouds the stronger the rain.

Necromancy Spell

Raise Skeleton 1/5 per 100 pounds/4 seconds

Turn Zombie 1/3 per 50 pounds/7 seconds

Steal Health 1/3 per health pt/3 second

Festering Wound 1/2-10/1 second

Drain Mana 1/2/3 second

Claim Undead 1/1 per level of target/4 seconds

Familial Contracts

Lannah Dreamweaver

HP 56/60

MP 282/294

Familial Contract: (Lannah Dreamweaver)

Lannah Darkweaver offers access to her full mana pool and all duties of a Familial Contract per custom for the following:

Your Family name once found or earned to be hers and those of her children

Protection granted as able from all who wish her harm per custom

1 blank core from The Necklace of Cores per month of contract

4% of all earned experience until you reach level 10

.5% of all experience earned after you reach level 10

So yeah, even though I got to dream about reading and using script, I still didn’t have those skills. Which overall made me kind of angry. It wasn’t like anger that I would do something about but rather mad at the world. Along with the way I was feeling after being told that I would be separated from the girl I loved.

I hated dreams here. They were too real…

As I was cooking breakfast, I was thinking about how to deal quickly with the giant skeletons. I had some of the game on my skillet when it dawned on me.

Grandma’s Skillet

This is a master-crafted cast iron skillet of 12 inches in size. It appears to be well taken care of and seasoned properly

This skillet was enchanted by an aged enchantress who was tired of lip from the neighborhood kids.

Damage: None, magically removed.

Abilities: Swing force multiplied by 4x

Random Debuff

Debuff time multiplied by 4x

No heat handle

Cooking skill plus 4

My dear Grandma’s Skillet could likely knock the bones out of the magic that kept the skeleton upright. Even if it didn’t damage the skeleton. It might would let me keep the bigger ones out of the fight for long enough for me to take out the others. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone made a skill by using something that wasn’t a weapon as a weapon. I also doubted that I was the only one that would have gotten the frying pan combat as a weapon skill seeing how the goblin I took it from was using it as a weapon.

So my skillet went from my pack to my hip, and then I realized as I walked to the door that it just wasn’t going to work. This wasn’t some game where I could keep every weapon I might need out. I was already carrying with ready access my sword, dagger, throwing spikes, and bow. So now I wanted to put the skillet on my hip just in case and still carry my standard in my right hand with my totem hanging from my pack and the other stave strapped up there as well.

Nope, this wasn’t going to work at all, and I just needed to get over it. So I dumped my pack and loaded my skillet back into the pack. Next, I moved the totem off my back and to my shoulder by using a piece of rope. I then put my bow on first, then my pack, then my totem. I needed to simplify the weapons I was carrying if I wanted to have any actual use and not keep adding more.

Sadly the best way to simplify my combat load would be to get a team of people working with me so that we could each have our own roles. This would be great in that I would have people that I could trust. The problem, of course, was first finding people and then finding out who would travel with me. Of course, that was if I was still traveling.

I sighed and headed back out with my new arrangement, ready to finish my trip to the Kingdom of Cloudia and find Lannah. Once I found her, then I could learn who all I could trust and move on with learning to read or, as she suggested working on other skills until we were ready for me to move on. If I could, I would level some super hard skills before I got class levels.

I looked over at my lizard friend, “Ready to roll?”

Blink looked over at me and slowly closed her great big eye. Then I saw her take a slow breath in and let it all out. It seemed like as she sighed, her legs gave out a little, and she lowered herself close to the ground. Then ever so slowly, she shook her head. “Roll?” was all she sent to me.

I sighed, understanding that she didn’t get what I was trying to say, “let’s go.”

She nodded and then went trotting off in the direction we were heading before. My hope was to break through this forest today and then tomorrow make it into Cloudia. The problem with my hope was I didn’t have a clue how big this forest was. I also had been heading downriver and might have already missed the edge of the kingdom for all I knew. Yet I had the direction that I was going and a hope that I would get there soon.

We headed downriver again, moving faster. Once we were clear of the dead town, Blink vanished. We were pressing hard so that we would get back to the carved tree and, from there, be able to go on. We had cleared out this area, and so my thought was that we could move with less caution.

I was wrong.

* * *