98 - Training Quests
Alexandra and Willow stood at the entrance of the woods. The same ones where the Troll Cave dungeon was located. Willow was in her usual white robes, representing her Silver rank, while Alexandra wore her brand-new orange robes. The woman in charge of the inventory had been shocked at the state of her grey robes when she’d returned them.
“Did you even wash them once?” she’d asked.
Of course she didn’t.
Alexandra shook her head and peered into the forest. It was the second half of the afternoon yet the trees already cast their shadows into the woods, covering them in darkness.
“Let’s be careful. I don’t want to fall into another trap.”
Willow nodded. “I’m with you, don’t worry.”
“If I’m right, Sera is watching over us too.” Alexandra scanned the surroundings. Hills, treetops, the last fields behind them, there was nothing special. “I know you’re there.”
“Let’s just go,” Willow said, pulling Alexandra by the hand.
They came here right after Alexandra’s advancement to Bronze, intending to test out her new Training Quests.
Unfortunately, the only skills they shared were Mana Manipulation and Reading. Even then, Willow had already upgraded her skills to uncommon, so it wasn’t exactly the same. Alexandra tried generating a quest for the latter first and ended up with something that couldn’t be cleared before nightfall.
Reading Training Quest: Read ten thousand pages (0/10000).
Alexandra was too restless for that. She tried the former.
Mana Manipulation Training Quest: Learn a new spell (0/1).
Once again, she had too much energy coursing through her body to sit down and study. Alexandra needed to move. She settled for Mace Mastery. This skill was among those she should be prioritizing for her future skill merge.
Mace Mastery Training Quest: Kill an opponent of your rank with a mace (0/1).
Out of curiosity, she tried generating more quests for her other weapon skills. The requirements scaled with the skill level. Sword Mastery and Spear Mastery asked for five kills, while Axe Mastery asked for three. She also tried Sickle Mastery and ended up with a quest asking for ten kills and a warning that she couldn’t level that skill further, so she wouldn’t get any reward.
She thought it strange that she could still generate the quest. Until she remembered Adventuring Party. Presumably, her party members could still benefit from the quest if they had Sickle Mastery unlocked.
When she tried generating a quest from Willow’s skills, it didn’t work.
The path in was familiar. The same she’d taken to get to the dungeon. The canopy thickened quickly past the tree line, and the afternoon light dropped.
Alexandra had the mace in hand. The grip was worn leather over a steel core. It was heavy, even with her increased strength. That was the whole point of a mace, Kashin had emphasized during one of their training sessions. She was strong, but her opponents would also have attribute points, sometimes more than she did. Equipment adequate to the situation was always important.
"Somewhere on the hills, I'd guess," Willow said. “We won’t find anything on the path.”
They climbed for a few minutes. The undergrowth scraped against their boots. At some point, a branch snapped uphill. Willow raised her hand. She didn’t need to. Alexandra was already moving in the direction of the noise.
The sound of something large working through the brush. The boar crashed into the open ahead of them. It was larger than Earth boars by a third, with black fur and short tusks.
Alexandra moved toward it.
She let it charge her as it wanted, then stepped left at the last moment and swung her mace. It connected across the jaw. The animal's own momentum folded it sideways, and it hit the ground shoulder-first, skidding through the dirt until a root stopped it.
The legs twitched against the ground. Then nothing.
"Clean," Willow said.
Alexandra looked at the animal. "It was too weak." She checked her journal and nodded. “Iron rank. Let’s find something else.”
They found it an hour later, higher on the slope where the trees thinned, and the ground turned rocky.
A wolf, though calling it that felt insufficient. It stood at the shoulder of a large man, grey-black coat. It had been watching them from the moment they'd crested the rise.
"There we go," Willow said softly behind her.
Alexandra rolled her shoulders. The weight of the mace settled differently now than it had the day before. Not quite lighter. She didn’t think it would ever feel light. But less like a burden and more like a weapon.
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The wolf moved first. It came fast across the slope, sure-footed where a person would have stumbled. Alexandra waited for the beast to close the distance.
At five meters it feinted left.
She didn't bite. She watched the head, not the shoulders, and when it corrected and came right, she moved with it.
The mace caught it mid-lunge across the side of the skull. The impact traveled up her arm to the elbow.
The wolf hit the ground and rolled, came up bleeding from one ear, and shook itself.
Still alive.
She’d expected that from a Bronze.
It circled. She let it. She could feel the difference between this and the boar. It was looking for the same thing she was. An opening.
It lunged again and this time went for her mace arm.
She turned her body and avoided the bite. She brought the mace down across the back of its neck.
It dropped.
“I expected to win,” she said. “But that was too easy. Was this really a Bronze?”
She checked her journal.
Mace Mastery Training Quest: Kill an opponent of your rank with a mace (1/1).
Mace Mastery 3 -> 4
She frowned. “Weird.”
“It's rank suppression. You’re not feeling it from Bronze ranks anymore,” Willow said, stepping closer to her.
“But I already have a skill that reduces rank suppression.”
“Ridiculous.” She paused. “Well, it wasn’t completely removing it, I guess.”
Alexandra nodded. That was the most logical conclusion. That, combined with her increase in skill, attributes, and the fact that the wolf was on the weaker end of the Bronze spectrum.
“Did you get the skill?” she asked.
Willow shook her head. “As we expected.”
“Maybe it will work for Mana Manipulation or Reading.”
“I doubt it,” Willow said. “My uncommon skills came from those. But since they evolved, they are not the same skill anymore. We’ll figure it out soon enough.”
Alexandra generated another quest for Mace Mastery.
Mace Mastery Training Quest: Kill three opponents of your rank with a mace (0/3).
Yeah, that’s broken.
Maybe it was as Willow said. Perks evolved depending on her situation or desires. She had too many skills to work on all of them, and now she was handed a way to solve that issue. At least, it gave her some hope that Adventuring Party would one day be useful.
“It’s getting late,” Willow said. “Do you want to keep training?”
Alexandra looked at the sky. They didn’t have much time left before nightfall. Two hours at most.
“I wouldn’t mind looking for a few more beasts.”
They were about to set out when they heard a shout echo through the forest.
The shout came from down the slope, back the way they'd come.
Alexandra was already moving. Willow kept pace behind her.
The slope was steep and the light poor under the canopy. She didn't slow. She picked her footing by instinct and let Sure Footing do the rest.
She heard the fight. The crack of impact, a snarl, a shriek, a groan. Then she broke through a line of brush and saw the clearing.
The girl stood with her back to a boulder. Orange robes, torn at the shoulder. A mace in her right hand, shorter than Alexandra's, with a flanged head. She was bleeding from somewhere above the eye.
She recognized her. “Haste!”
Five wererats surrounded her. They stood upright, or nearly so. Long-limbed, hunched, grey-brown fur. Muzzles full of teeth. One held a rusted short sword. The others used their hands.
Haste looked her way and recognized her. She made to speak but stopped when she saw Willow behind her.
Alexandra moved. She came in fast behind the closest wererat and swung her mace right at its skull.
It turned at the last moment. She hit it across the side of the jaw instead. The impact spun it, and it dropped to one knee. She followed up immediately, driving the mace down on its neck before it could recover.
It didn’t get up.
The other four reacted faster than she would have liked.
Two broke toward her. One stayed on Haste. One hesitated.
The one with the sword came first. It was quicker than the wolf had been. She gave ground and let it overcommit, then stepped inside its swing and drove the mace head into its ribs. It let the mace connect but followed the momentum and avoided most of the damage. At the same time, it slashed its sword. The blade ran on her forearm, opening a line through her sleeve.
The woman at the inventory would hate her.
The second one hit her before she was set. A shoulder into her side, claws raking across her back. She staggered two steps, then turned the stumble into a pivot, and brought the mace around. It caught the rat across the chest. It screamed, and she hit it again across the temple while it was distracted by the pain.
That was two.
She looked up. Haste had dropped another.
Alexandra cast Inflict Weakness on the last two and was tempted to follow up with Drain Life and Aggressive Assimilation. Not sure if she wanted the lifeforce of those things, she restrained herself.
With a swift feint, she slammed her mace on the sword-wielding rat. Then she shared a look with Haste, who had defeated hers.
The two of them were trapping the last one, who had hesitated, between them. It was trying to run. Haste cut it off, and Alexandra swung from behind.
It was over.
Mace Mastery Training Quest: Kill three opponents of your rank with a mace (3/3).
Mace Mastery 4 -> 5
Alexandra stood still for a moment. The cut on her forearm was bleeding steadily, and her back stung where the claws had gone through the fabric. It was nothing compared to the mind-numbing headache she got from sickness of empathy.
I really gotta get rid of this stupid curse.
She turned. Willow was at the edge of the clearing.
"I was about to—"
"I know," Alexandra said. "Thank you for not intervening. I needed the kills."
Alexandra turned to the orange-robed girl. She was pressing the heel of her palm against the cut above her eye, mace still in the other hand.
“Haste.”
The girl looked at her. “Alexandra.” Then she looked at Willow. “Willow.”
Alexandra blinked. “You two know each other?”
Willow stepped closer. “Of course we do. We’re from the same hometown.”
Alexandra looked between the two, trying to suppress the growing paranoia in her chest.