A Record of Ash & Ruin: The Grieving Lands

Book 2: Chapter 5: Experiments

The Contest of Saints is held every ten years in the exotic city of Al-Lazar. It is a great martial tournament where warriors from all over the land vie with each other to prove that they stand among the strongest in the world, to fight for the title of the Saint. No weapons are allowed in this most holy of competitions. The contestants, or pilgrims, fight to the death. Or until they yield. To walk on the sacred red marble of the temple’s arena is a holy offering to the gods.

- The Fanciful Travels by Beron de Laney 376 AC.

Overall, I judged that we had made a good showing. However, there was one hairy moment when one of the River Lurkers made a beeline for Patches and wounded our beast before we were able to hurriedly put it down. I was forced to use a Heal to stem the flow of blood from the Donkey’s haunches. Thankfully, apart from this, the culling of the river creatures passed mostly uneventfully. It was more a test of mental and physical endurance, as opposed to a trial that sorely tested us, and we didn’t even need to make use of our hastily prepared traps. We had become so efficient that we even ended the last few groups well before the tree line, with Kidu’s bow inflicting a bloody toll on their numbers.

Thanks to our efforts in reducing the local Lurker population, I was able to gain another two hundred and fifteen additional Experience points, which pushed me ever closer to my next level. I had even gained a single point in both Constitution and Dexterity, though none of my skills had gained a point naturally, which was a little disappointing.

We butchered the River Lurkers as quickly as we could. I even helped a little, as we were pressed for time. Surely, soon, the smell of blood would attract larger and more dangerous predators. We had far exceeded our quota of three hides and we were forced to discard the lion’s share of the meat and the more damaged hides in a hastily dug pit. I could only hope that we would be able to sell the extra hides somewhere in the city. However, Elwin seemed to be more excited at the prospect of having some new shoes made from the hides, no doubt to be used as a conversational point to impress.

Not wanting to get my equipment wet, or for that matter, drown, I unequipped my heavy arms and armor which had grown slick with blood and gore. Elwin and I waded into the cool, fast-flowing water, keeping an eye out for other threats. Kidu stood as a sentinel along the bank, with a serpent-swift arrow nocked to his yew longbow. The remaining juvenile River Lurkers had long fled, as even their reptilian brains could understand the threat that my group presented.

As instructed by Kidu, we felt our way down along the long stems of the River Root that anchored the plants to the bottom of the river. Then, with a sharp tug, as close to the base of the stem as possible, we harvested the herb, swiftly and methodically. My efforts even rewarded me with a new useless skill, a nominal amount of experience, and a much-welcomed attribute point.

5 experience gained You have gained 1 Wisdom

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I didn't much see myself as a picker of herbs and flowers, but the gain in Wisdom was definitely useful, as I knew that the attribute affected my overall Mana. How it affected my actual thought process, however, was still a mystery to me. I definitely didn’t feel much wiser. Besides, how exactly was Wisdom measured?

I shut down these thoughts as we hurriedly moved from the river. Such was our rush that we did not even take the time to wring out our clothes, let alone see to our armor. Elwin and I simply piled our gear onto Patches, which drew an annoyed bray from the beast. I fed the donkey a carrot, which seemed to mollify her somewhat, but she still looked at me in what I construed as equine indignation.

Once Kidu had judged that we were a suitable distance from the slaughter, we began to make camp as the sun began to set. I staked out Patches and helped place some Zajasite stones around the perimeter, extending the light of the campfire. We threw all pretense of stealth out of the window, deciding that it would serve us better to see our enemies if an attack came.

The painted colors of a soft pastel sunset gave way to the grays of twilight as the sun sank beneath the horizon. In time, the deeper darkness of true night claimed the sky.

The large silvery moon shone from the heavens with a myriad of stars as companions, and my party saw to the minutiae of our outdoor camp. Most pressing for us was stretching out the lizard hides before they curled and warped. I had no skill in these matters so I donned my armor once more and offered to patrol around the camp.

Alone, I wandered around the camp, visor up, to take in as much as I could. Guard duty allowed me to have a little time with my thoughts. Occasionally I would toss a knife into a tree trunk. With every practice throw, I would picture an enemy’s face, as some sort of punctuation to my patrol.

What were my goals? For the time being, I needed to get stronger in all senses of the word and needed to move out of Ansan to explore the greater world. I needed to know more of the powers that moved this world, especially of the goddess and the great primal force of Entropy.

Comparing my current health points to what they were when I had arrived here, It was clear to see how significantly stronger I had grown. This led me to think of all of my fights thus far, which in turn brought me back to my encounter with the elves. I shivered as the horrible memories rose to the fore of my mind. Perhaps I had not grown so powerful after all. Shuddering, I swiftly shifted my attention to something closer to the present.

If possible, I would see about hiring our group out to one of the many caravans that braved the trade routes. But in what direction? Choices, upon choices upon choices. Decisions that were not true decisions at all. I felt that something, or somethings, were pulling at me to go in a different direction, to do a different thing.

And of my choices, the most extreme were those when I had been forced to kill. I had killed, many times now, and not only monsters. To be absolutely honest with myself, I would probably kill them all over again without a second thought.

After all, their deaths gifted me with experience points. Killing had come to me easily, and bearing the cost, it seems, was not to be too great a burden. Also, I had lost one of the first few friends I had made in this new world during our bid for freedom. I had expected a wave of guilt and sadness to hit me at the regurgitated memory, but strangely I felt almost nothing - a strange sort of emptiness, now that every day was no longer simply a struggle to survive. For better or worse, whatever changes were taking in place in me - Stout Durhit the dwarf would not be forgotten.

I truly began to understand that things such as guilt, remorse, and other modern sensibilities would only be yet another handicap for me here. Only the privileged and those with advantages could afford to enjoy such luxuries. It was probably at this junction in my adventures that, in my deepest heart, the first seeds of my burgeoning desire for power took root. For with greater power came greater freedom to do whatever I wished in this brand-new world.

But with freedom came something else. These days, I felt more that I was without direction, but this also meant I was, for the first time in my life, truly free. It was ironic that it actually took a fantasy world to move me from my otherwise mediocre and railroaded life. The flames of rebellion stirred, my destiny would not be shackled by the divine. Neither the terrible goddess Avaria nor the void beast Entropy would reduce me to being a slave again.

A wafting smell caught my attention and interrupted my thoughts. There was a delicious aroma that brought to mind the scent of cedar wood spit-roasted chicken. The inviting notes played about in the evening air, drawing me back, a willing captive, to the campfire to investigate.

We sat down to enjoy our simple meal and passed the time in companionable silence. The silence was occasionally broken by a great belch from Kidu who offered not a word of apology for his lack of table manners. The meal was flavorful, and each chew brought a burst of flavor that melted across my palate. The meat was reminiscent of something a little between chicken and beef, with some kick from the herbs and spices that Elwin had added. The only complaint I had was that our meal consisted only of lizard meat and tough traveler’s bread. Some vegetables to round out the evening spread would have been most welcome.

Once we were finished, we discussed and reviewed our recent actions and the surprisingly ‘easy’ challenge of dealing with the quasi-alligators. We concluded that solid preparation and planning were still the keys to our success. Even though in the end we didn’t need to use them, we had no regrets that we had prepared a simple line of traps. After collecting our rewards from the Guild, we would find a caravan out of the city as soon as we could. There were also the Broomshead mushrooms that we had collected for the eccentric alchemist. Since we had collected a rather considerable number of them we could perhaps bargain for a little extra. Fighting the Karilla and the River Lurkers had completely pushed the matter out of my mind.

When it was time for me to continue my voluntary watch, I excused myself from my companions. I patrolled the environs around our camp, just a little outside the blue Zajasite light at the perimeter.

Alone with my thoughts, a memory rose, unbidden. A picture of a woman with golden trinkets in her hair filled the pit of my stomach with the beginnings of a new dread. We could not rely on our relative anonymity to shield us for long.

Wanting to keep myself occupied to stop myself from going down these dark avenues of thought and to whittle away the time, I practiced my knife-throwing skills. In a stroke of luck or skill, I was even able to pin a small six-legged lizard to a tree with my daggers. One of the blades had cut one of its rear limbs off cleanly and then embedded itself into the trunk of a tree. The other had pinned the reptile to the tree through its long meaty tail. The lizard had a long beautiful feathered crest, though I was unsure of its color due to the poor light. It was scrabbling furiously to get away, sensing that the source of its dread was approaching. I was about to put the poor thing out of its misery with another throw when a cruel flash of inspiration hit me.

I smiled a dark smile as I closed in on the little creature, causing it to further its futile escape efforts. Reaching up, I firmly plucked the small wriggling thing from the tree. It had completely stopped moving now, deciding that playing dead was the best course of action. Unfooled by such a basic ploy, I twisted at the area where my knife had pinned the beast, almost snapping off its tail but making sure that it was still attached by a few threads of flesh and skin. The animal positively scrambled to get away, furiously trying to escape from my grasp, but I just squeezed harder, stifling its pathetic attempts.

Warm energies flew through me, starting at my core, then flowing through my arms toward the struggling creature. My Heal spell went into the beast, and the warmth of the magic infused the small thing with curative energy. With the struggling reptile in hand, I walked back to one of the perimeter stones. I held up the animal to the Zajasite’s light. Before my very eyes, under the blue magical light, the damage I had inflicted with my knife and indifferent cruelty had healed. The long tail had reattached itself and aligned correctly with the rest of the vertebrae. The blood flowing from what was left of its left rear limb was now staunched.

Deciding to remove the tail completely, I snapped the tail clean off with a sudden twist and threw the wriggling appendage into the bushes. The limits of my magic would require further testing, and the key to experimentation was repetition.

The damn animal was bleeding on my gloves, a slow drip from its severed tail, and chirping in extreme panic and stress. It would have been kinder of me if I just snapped its neck there and then and ended its poor life. But I hardened my heart and prepared to continue my torturous experiments, casting another Heal. Using the divine energies to improve my knowledge of the world at the cost of extending another being’s suffering felt wrong, and the spell rebelled against my will at first. Nonetheless, I focused my intent, and once again, the warm healing magic flowed into the creature, its pathetic chirps stilling a little as the arcane energies flowed through its body. Its new wound scabbed over, forming a scar, and new scales and skin grew over the severed nub of its tail.

The whole thing fascinated me as I finally found a limit to my basic Heal spell. Though capable of restoring flesh, the spell could not regrow lost limbs.

Curiosity warred with self-disgust and, after a few long moments, curiosity finally won out. I stuffed the struggling reptilian into a small leather bag, sealing it tightly with the raw-hide strips.

The more powerful version of the spell, Greater Heal would require testing to see if it had similar limitations. I decided to wait until my Mana reached eleven or so points to avoid potential ‘Mana sickness’. Despite the effects of Mana sickness being far less debilitating, I thought it best not to push myself. There was the option to cast a Drain, but the trees here were mere shadows of the behemoths of the true Sainba forest and, most likely, had but a pittance of Mana in them. By my rough estimations, it would be a few more hours away, toward the end of my second watch, before I could cast Greater Heal.

I did a few more laps around the camp as the soft moonlight painted the world in silvers and grays. There was no stealth to my step, and the sounds of my passing through the undergrowth were quite audible over the night sounds of the forest. The whole environment was alive, a stark contrast to my own life, which seemed such a long time ago. Was it months? Weeks? I had simply lost track, that world and its memories were growing distant and fading out of recollection.

Trodding back, I woke up a complaining Elwin, who grumbled for grumbling’s sake before taking up watch. Like a monkey, the lithe man climbed one of the trees, surveying the night scene as I made to rest - too uncaring to remove my armor. Perhaps it was the skill, or just my own adaptable mind, but I had long since lost the initial feeling of weight and clumsiness that my suit of steel and iron had imposed. Not quite a second skin, but unless I consciously thought about it, I hardly noticed the difference.

This brought my mind to question the nature of Skills. Were they just a measure of skill? Or were they, in fact, a direct bonus that was added artificially? I would hazard a guess that it was the latter, but I was unwilling to spend one of my precious skill points on one of my more martial skills as an experiment. Also, what were the interactions between them? Like my Endure and Pain Nullification skill? My own, for instance, Silent Casting skill had a great unexpected synergy with Power Strike, allowing me to mimic the prowess of an experienced warrior.

As I prepared for rest, these thoughts and more weighed heavily on me, even as I tried to ignore the struggling bundle at my side.