O3 + M

Olivia winced as the Energy flowed through her channels to form the Icy Shards spell above her hand. She’d never cast so many in a row before, and she could feel her Energy running low. She couldn’t believe Morgan had dismounted and charged into the pack of boyii hounds like that. At first, it had looked like the pack would swarm him, but then he’d simply exploded - a ball of crackling blue fire expanding out from him, scorching the grass in a wide circle and throwing the charging hounds back, their fur ablaze with azure flames. Olivia and the herders had continued to hurl attacks at the remaining hounds as the big alpha squared off with Morgan. That’s when things had gone sideways.

The alpha had let loose a howl that seemed to contain all the rage and agony of its dead packmates. The sound had a physical impact on Morgan, hurling him head over heels, slamming him into the ground. Now, Olivia urged her mount forward, gathering as much Energy as she could into the Icy Shards. The alpha didn’t wait for her or for Morgan to get up; instead, it charged forward, grabbing him by the neck and shoulder in its fang-filled jaws. With an alarmed cry, Olivia hurled her spell at the alpha’s side, pleased to see the five separate shards all make contact, plunging into its exposed flank. Almost simultaneously, Teric shouted a word she didn’t recognize, and two long arrows pierced the hound’s other side, right behind its neck.

Between the two attacks, it was clear that something vital in the beast’s chest had been destroyed, and it shuddered and collapsed, Morgan still held in its jaws. Olivia jumped out of Blue’s saddle as she rode up, swaying a little with dizziness. Teric was already on the ground, trying to prise the boyii’s mouth open. She knelt to help, and they managed to free him. Morgan sat up weakly. Blood, flowing freely in little rivulets, began to soak his shirt and armor. Olivia pressed her hands against the worst-looking cuts, right on the side of his neck.

For some damn reason, Morgan smiled and somehow produced a potion directly into his hand. He quaffed it, and Olivia could feel the skin under her hand grow several degrees hotter. Carefully, she let up on the pressure and could see that, while the puncture was still there, it was half as wide as before, and the blood had slowed to a trickle. Olivia spared a glance for the rest of the pack but saw that they were either all dead or on the run, with herders giving chase. She stood up and was surprised as a stream of bright golden Energy motes hit her in the chest. Most of them were coming from the dead alpha, but several thin streams were also flowing from other corpses she’d wounded. She noticed similar streams flowing into Morgan and Teric.

***Congratulations! You’ve achieved level 8 base human. You have 10 attribute points to allocate.***

She was surprised to see the message indicating she’d gained two levels. She supposed the alpha had been worth a lot of Energy, and she might have been getting close to seven already. “Well, I leveled! Morgan, that was risky! You almost got your head ripped off!” She could see that his wounds had closed further from the Energy, already scabbed over. She smacked him on top of his head.

“Ouch! Yeah, I know; I didn’t know about that howl attack.” He started to struggle to his feet, and Olivia grabbed his thick arm, hoisting.

“You should always use caution when facing evolved beasts,” Teric chimed in, walking over. “They can develop abilities that are quite surprising.”

“That’s an understatement!” Olivia said, falling back and panting. “Damn, you’re heavy, Morgan.”

“You’re lucky you seem to have high vitality. I’ve seen alphas bite right through a roladii’s leg.” Teric started to whistle in a signal that Olivia now knew meant for the other herders to gather. Then he produced a long, sharp skinning knife and set to work on the boyii alpha. “This fur will fetch a good price. Those punctures should be easy to mend.” As he started working, Olivia walked away, back toward her roladii. She wasn’t squeamish, but she didn’t want to smell the hound’s innards when he pulled them, steaming from its belly. She noticed that the other herders were moving among the smaller hounds’ corpses, and Morgan watched Teric intently.

“Hey, girl,” Olivia said, stroking Blue’s neck. “Did those bad dogs scare you?” She hopped up into the saddle and rode a little ways toward the rest of the herd. She wanted a little peace to think about her attribute points. Earlier, Morgan had made an interesting point to her. He had indicated that some classes didn’t reward attribute points for every attribute. She had never considered that and, thus far, had just been stacking most of her points into intelligence because, in her mind, that was the most important attribute. She had to consider that her viewpoint might be dated and based on her old life back on Earth. She had just seen how vitality had saved Morgan’s life. She’d seen how vitality let him recover more quickly from what she’d considered grueling exercise.

This world was dangerous, and just having a lot of intelligence might not be the best long-term survival plan. She decided to take Morgan’s advice and put half her free attribute points into vitality. Thinking about resilience, she decided to put the other half into will; she didn’t like the idea that her mental stats had such a wide disparity. She didn’t know how it would affect her in the long run, but when she’d seen that beast use a sonic Energy attack on Morgan, it got her thinking: if a wolf could use Energy attacks, what other strange abilities might she encounter? After allocating her points, she looked at her status page:

Status

Name: Olivia Bennet

Race: Human - Base 1

Class: –

Level: 8

Core: Prisma Class - Base 2, Fire, Earth, Water, Air

Energy Affinity: 9.1, Fire 9.6, Earth 9.6, Water 9.6, Air 9.6

Energy: 445/590

Strength: 6

Vitality: 12

Dexterity: 8

Agility: 6

Intelligence: 35

Will: 20

Points Available: 0

Titles & Feats:

Skills: System Language Integration - Not Upgradeable, Animal Taming - Basic, Stealthy Maneuvers - Basic, Prisma Core Cultivation Drill - Basic, Orb Manipulation - Basic, Icy Shards - Basic, Fiery Burst - Basic

A feeling of well-being suffused her body and mind, and she took a deep breath, letting go of the stress of the battle. She wasn’t sure she could feel a measurable difference in herself with that attribute boost, other than the immediate euphoria she always experienced when allocating the points. Still, Olivia could have sworn her back felt straighter, and she had a feeling of sturdiness that was new to her.

It didn’t take long for the herdsmen to finish skinning the boyii hounds, and soon the group was riding with the herd, moving fast to make up lost time. Olivia was proud of her connection to Blue - she and the roladii were beginning to understand each other instinctually. When she wanted him to turn, she no longer had to pull on the reigns much at all, just nudging with her knees and giving a slight tug did the job. Conversely, Olivia could tell when he was getting tired or bored or simply wanted to run full tilt for a little while. She wasn’t sure how, but it seemed to be a combination of his gait, breathing, and head movements; they all added up to indicate to her something like an emotion the roladii was having.

They stopped that evening at another campground of the Ardeni herders. Olivia could see evidence of recent occupation - lots of roladii prints, trampled grass, and a firepit that still smelled like woodsmoke. “Do other herders use these camps?”

“Oh, aye,” Forn said after they’d all sat around the fire pit, watching Allender grill their dinner. “There’s gotta be thirty or forty herds out here this time of year. We all keep to different routes to avoid our herds eating the same grass, but the Sea is a big place, lots of room to wander.”

“Speaking of big places,” Morgan spoke up, “I can tell we’re about halfway to Tarn’s Crossing. How much farther is it to the Rill Catcher?”

“We’ll get there the day after tomorrow,” Teric replied. “Then you’ll need to follow it southeast ‘til you get to the village. It ain’t called Tarn’s Crossing for nothing - it’s situated right on the Rill Catcher and is home to the only bridge for a couple of hundred miles.”

“How far is Tarn’s from there?” Olivia chimed in.

“Just a bit more than a day’s quick ride on a roladii. There are even decent roads for most of the way, ‘cause that’s a trade-route,” Roylo answered, kicking his feet out and looking up at the stars with a sigh.

“How often do you guys get to go back home?” Morgan asked.

“Between drives, we usually get a month or so off. Sometimes we visit our homes, then,” Teric answered.

“Don’t you guys find it strange to meet us? People from another planet? I’m sorry; I just had to ask - you guys have been so welcoming to us and never once acted like our differences were any sort of problem.” Olivia flushed from embarrassment, but the strangeness of the situation had been on her mind a lot lately. Teric just shrugged, putting some yiil weed into his cheek, then spoke:

“It’s just our way. We welcome strangers to our hearth until they show they are not friends. Then we fight. You aren’t so different, anyway; you just have funny coloring. The roladii like you, so…” he shrugged and laughed.

After eating, Teric approached Morgan and asked him to see his sword. He said he hadn’t seen one of its design before and seemed impressed by its balance. Morgan asked him if he knew much about sword work, but Teric demurely called himself a novice. Even so, he asked Morgan to spar a bit and produced a couple of broad, wooden practice swords. Olivia watched them for a while but eventually grew bored. She turned away from the spectacle and began creating Energy beads with four attunements. She found the complexity of weaving all four of her affinities gratifying, and she grew ever more confident that it was improving her ability to manipulate and channel Energy.

After Olivia finished her first bead, Dranil gave a low whistle and asked to look at it. “I ain’t never seen one with four attunements before. It’s beautiful! Look, Beyli, see how the fire motes dance around the little ice flakes?” Beyli leaned close, watching for a while in silence.

“You have a rare gift, Olivia,” he said after a while in his low, quiet voice. “I don’t think I’ve met anyone with more than two affinities.” Olivia blushed at the attention and tried to make light of it, but his expression remained solemn. She decided, then, to make a four-affinity Energy bead for each of the herders before they parted.

This campsite didn’t have a longhouse, so they set up tents. Morgan and Olivia’s tent was three times the size of the herders’, and Teric and Roylo didn’t even use tents, just laying their bedrolls out under the stars. Olivia slept well at first but woke several times in the night. Each time she awoke, she tossed for a while, unable to go back to sleep. Her mind was full of ideas and thoughts; she wondered what was going on with the colony, and she kept imagining what she’d like to accomplish. She had ideas about redeveloping some of their lost tech and mixing it with Energy use. Could she power motors with Energy? Morgan had already shown her what was, basically, a battery for Energy.

With thoughts of the colony, her mind also wandered to Bronwyn and how she was doing. She missed hanging around with her, even though she was kind of a handful emotionally. She hoped Bronwyn was getting along okay in her scouting mission. She hoped she was letting things go from the past and focusing on the future as they’d talked about. Olivia tried to focus on happy thoughts, and her thoughts drifted to the first night Bronwyn had come back from the cave, and they’d gotten shitfaced at the tavern. She almost started laughing but caught herself before she woke Morgan.