218. Preparation: Wiremu

We picked up fresh supplies in Odla and moved on after two days. Tabitha would neither confirm nor deny whether she took over a criminal gang in that time. We travelled at night for the first two days until we left the farming areas. There was a main road, but we paved our own way through the wilderness.

Once we were well away from everyone, I called a meeting to discuss our preparation for the Empire.

I started things. “I have been reminded recently that my major Skills are for use in the wilderness, but when we get to the empire, we will largely operate in the cities. Our key opposition will come from the Imperial Inquisitors. Tabitha and I have tangled with one before, and they are largely perception and investigative-based. We need to practice combatting perception skills, including Status blocks.”

Tabitha added, “The Inquisitor will be surrounded by Specialised troops at all times. Fighting is not their major area, so they are protected.”

I continued, “The Lore Society didn’t have a lot on the Inquisitor Specialisation, but it comes from the city patroller classes. So the Inquisitor will have basic combat and restraint skills, along with investigative skills. Truth Sensing or similar is common, along with evidence location skills and interrogation techniques. Sometimes torture techniques. The Inquisitor class itself almost always gives a specialised Perception or Status Interrogation Skill.”

“The way I see it,” Tabitha said with a small smirk, “Is the person here closest to the Inquisitor Class is Kelda with her Observer Class.”

“I have recent experience against Imperial Troopers,” Ruku said.

“My Sense Treasure and Truth Sensing can test the ability to hide and deceive. Tabitha has the strongest ability to get into someone's status,” I added. “However, the biggest thing we are going to rely on is our disguises. My Veneer, Role Play, Tabitha’s Body Image and Mimic, and our Status Protections will need to be the strongest.”

So we set a plan for training and some loose roles. Kelda was going to be our lookout or Watchman. Watchman may be an actual specialisation she might get, but her role was to watch for anomalies and sneak attacks. To level her Skills she was to practice against Tabitha and Nyx’s shadows and images.

Tabitha’s main role was to get us, and particularly Težka and Cōmpēṟi, to be where we needed to be. She was also our main stealth assassin. I think Kelda was highly motivated to unravel Tabitha’s shadows. Tabitha has never had a lot of fighting classes. She is good with blades and dual wielding, but her only fighting class is Shadow Predator. Her Classes are all about making coins.

Ruku, Modrica, Runa and I were all capable of taking on an Imperial Trooper solo and prevailing. Those of us with affinities could do more than one. However, Imperial Troopers don’t come in singles but in squads and companies. Ruku was going to work with Rodion and us so we could comfortably take on a squad and get used to group tactics. Astrid would work with us as the healer.

I was the most versatile one. I was the primary ranged attacker, backed up by Kelda. I was a backup assassin and primary scout. I was also the backup for the front-line fighters.

Rodion was the most manoeuvrable, so he was the primary backup for everybody, especially Kelda and Astrid.

Mayakku would take part in the exercises to strengthen her skills, but Cōmpēṟi was her main defender. Mayakku’s main job was enchanting. This was not just around classes but also all our equipment. Enchanted gear was going to lift all of us up several notches. With that amount of enchanting in front of her, we would need a lot of Spiritual material, so finding monsters to kill was even more important.

So we set up a routine every morning. The day would start before light with individual Skills training. Ruku got a bit of flack for that from Tabitha and Astrid, but the ex-military people were used to it. This didn’t just include your current Skills but learning new Skills. For example, Mayakku and Cōmpēṟi didn’t have Tough Hide. Ruku’s Tough Hide was at the mid-journeyman level, and he was a qualified military trainer. Astrid and Trassig also got in on that training. Increasing our survivability was the number one priority. When Tabitha heard about it, she and Dusk also got in on it. They wanted Armoured Skin from Modrica, but nobody had the Attributes or the Class to support it. Some Skills were Class-specific. Some Skills, like Regeneration, were not worth the pain to learn outside the Class.

Ruku was very smart. He taught Mayakku and Cōmpēṟi Piercing Strike, which matched ideally with their affinity. I had Rodion teach me Sprint to enhance my manoeuvrability. Kelda already knew that, so I could train by trying to catch her. I wasn’t very successful even though my motivation was high. I would also tutor Kelda in levelling the Bow.

After individual training, we had breakfast. Then it was mental training. This focus was on our statuses, Perceptions and deceptions. Tabitha was working on her images to counter some of the weaknesses. Her images were weak to Thermal Sensing, and both Kelda and I had that. To strengthen Kelda’s perception, she would try to see through Tabitha’s shadows. Her shadows were Spiritual and needed Spiritual Perception to pierce. Then Kelda had an inspiration that her fire should pierce through the shadows. She tried various fire skills with limited success. Then I suggested she focus her fire through her eyes. She was very reluctant as she is not comfortable with her affinity, but when she did, she felt a Skill becoming available. It cost her all her free attribute points in Spiritual Perception, but she got Eyes of Fire. It was a perception Skill to see through illusions and other visually disrupting mediums, like smoke and water. Her eyes would change to a fiery red when she used the skill. Her Novice Skill couldn’t see far into Tabitha’s high Journeyman level Shadows, but it would level.

This even twigged me onto why we were having so much success in learning Skills. Ruku had his Inspiring Aura running for every session. It was making a difference.

After Mental training, we had group training. Ruku had us practising group manoeuvring and were would form teams and practice. Often Ruku, Tabitha and I would take on the others. Ruku and I would engage, and Tabitha would attempt sneak attacks. This did wonders for my Warrior Class. This squad-on-squad training was the normal way for the army to train new Warriors.

My Shield work improved a lot from Runa. Runa also had the Journeyman-level Heavy Armour Skill. She got the Skill from her Heavy Infantry Specialisation, but there seemed no reason I couldn’t learn it. My Granite Armour was defiantly Heavy. I would strip to the buff and equip my Granite Armour, and she would bash me around or try to make me catch her. The Heavy Armour Skill was based on Physical Strength and Agility Attributes. I had plenty of both of those. The Skill gave defence and movement bonuses while in Heavy Armour. At level 1, with my attributes, I got a 6% increase in the armour blocking attacks, and I could move 4% easier and faster. By the time the Skill got to Journeyman level, it was 60% and 40%. That was huge. It only applied to heavy armour, though.

There didn’t seem to be anything I could teach Runa in exchange up until she learned I had the Hammer Skill. I kept ignoring that skill because of the connotations of the quarry. Runa had been wanting to learn the War Hammer for a while, so I was happy to teach her.

We would then be on the road by mid or sometimes late-morning, and we would keep moving until sunset. Then we would repeat.

When we hit the trail, I would mostly go out with Kelda and Rodion and teach them to scout. Kelda sometimes stayed with Tabitha to learn the Riding Class. Rodion didn’t have a basic class leading to the Scout Specialisation, but it was good for him to learn, and might be another Specilaisation available. He was keen to look for packs of wild dogs.

We were all levelling under Ruku’s Inspiring Aura, but Kelda was doubly inspired. She had the Sharp Mind Skill, which boosted Mental Agility. After using her fire in her eyes and learning it couldn’t hurt her, she started using her fire with different Skills and different parts of her body. Some were failures. She stripped nude and tried to channel her flames to her skin to create something like Tough hide with fire. It didn’t work.

What did work was combining fire with Sprint. It was Liten that got it first, as she used Sprint a lot as she flitted around. Liten combined fire and Sprint and created Wings of Fire, which was explosively fast over short distances. It looked like Litens wings were on fire. Kelda Learned it through their bond, and she could also blast around. It was only short distances, but it didn’t need the ground. She could essentially fly for short distances explosively fast. It was not a discrete skill. She left an afterimage of fire. Astrid had to heal her after she ran out of energy too high above the ground. She would get the hang of it. At level 1, with her attribute of Spiritual Strength, she could only use it for 2 seconds. At apprentice, it would be ten seconds and at journeyman, twenty seconds. I can see her spare attributes will be put into Spiritual Strength. The Skill had a recharge time equivalent to its use. What I like is that she is finally getting some enjoyment from her fire affinity.