Meager Power

The next week was one of rest and relaxation, for the most part. We'd returned midmorning, so with plenty of time in the rest of the day, we used that daylight to do jack shit. Rachel returned to her egg and set down for a nap almost immediately, and while I wanted to join her in rest immediately, instead I staggered my way into the Lens room. I was eager to find out just how much power I'd gained over the course of that last run. We'd been in a ton of fights, more than I'd ever experienced in the Labyrinth in one go before. I would have been vibrating with excitement if pain weren't my constant companion at that point.

And, voila! I was graced with the wonderful result I'd been hoping for - four level [again, sic] pending. That meant two skills, two attribute upgrades, and whatever happened at level 15. The skill choices I was given were actually pretty pleasing to me, and I had a bit of a hard time choosing, but I ended up with some very nice additions.

That by itself was huge, honestly. Being able to administer Spark through a weapon, or my boots, it opened up a lot of options for me in a fight. Having to slap my enemies to stun them was a big problem, especially if I continued using something like the spear (which I planned to replace as soon as possible). Range increases were going to be important. After my level 12 skill, I'd dumped my level 13 attribute bonus into Resilience to allow for myself to get beat up a little more during these fights. If I was going to be super mobile, I needed to be able to at least take some glancing blows here and there, though some armor at some point would be real nice.

Level 14 had been a tougher choice, all good options, but I ended up selecting something to help bolster my regular endurance. If those stairs had been good for anything, it would be this one.

I could keep working on muscularity but a big assist from the Aether would assist me now when things were most dangerous. I needed to stay on my feet and moving to keep supporting Rachel's tanking.

At level 15, I was offered an increase of an ability by 10, which I dumped into Mana. With a better option to deliver Spark, I wanted to be able to actually use it. That wasn't the highlight, no, that honor went to my Class upgrade.

Obviously, this would have repercussions down the line, but honestly, I knew my choice immediately. Trickster could be useful, but Roving was closer to what I was specializing towards. I selected it, and was surprised to see an actual popup this time. I couldn't recall Mageblade having done that.

It seemed Class upgrades would be very big, bigger than just a designation change. The obvious was not lost on me, as well. That meant someone at level 15 was moderately more powerful than someone at level 14. How big was the difference at 25? 35? I had to imagine it only got more significant. Those breakpoints would be good indicators of how strong someone was, past just having a higher number.

That was it, though, the last of my levelups. I was pleased and ready to go to my own little nap, but took a simple moment to do one final check.

Honestly, not bad. I'd come a long way, and I only had upward to go. The question, of course, is how strong is that compared to a natural denizen of Avare, but no point in asking it to the air around me. Other unknowns were still there. What were Affiliations? What was that little tick next to my class? I had kind of expected it to fill with the "roving" part of my class, but apparently not. Something else would end up there.

With my levelups complete, despite the increases to my Resilience, I still felt like utter shit. I left the Lens room with less energy than I'd entered, and with a wave at Rachel (who ignored it, because she was asleep), I laid down for a nice, nice nap.

I'm not sure how long I had slept, but by the time I woke back up, the pain had downgraded to a heavy soreness, and Rachel had clearly moved around at some point. She was no longer sitting at her egg, but I figured since she'd let me sleep, there was no emergency. Eventually, she returned, apparently having gone to just walk around outside. She'd also checked on her labyrinth entrance, finding it was gone as well. The first day we did nothing, and had a simple dinner.

The second day, we prepared a feast, as least as much as we could. We got out both the mystery meat and the mimic meat, and some potatoes, and a portion of the carrots. We got a pot simmering with the veggies and tried to add in the meat later on in the evening, hoping to get as much flavor from it as possible. During the day, I selected one of the mid-size axes that we had and spent some time familiarizing myself with its movements. It didn't fit at all with my fighting style, so I eventually gave up and switched to the biggest dagger we had. It wasn't much better, but better it was indeed. I got into a kind of flow, and using my muscles like that made the pain a little more bearable. We still ended up not doing much, even really talking much. Both of us were completely tuckered out.

The stew turned out pretty well, probably the best thing we'd eaten here. It had an actual depth of flavor, even though some of the veggies had definitely lost some of their oomph from being frozen. It didn't matter, success was absolutely the best spice. Of course, we kept our eyes open for threats, but nothing came.

The third day we started to work on getting ready for travel, though not with urgency yet. The biggest two questions were water and food, in that order. We were both still healing, so no scouting for sources of water yet, so we focused instead on getting our gear together and deciding what we'd bring. It would have been great to have backpacks instead of just the shoulder bags and cloaks, but we'd have to make do with what we had. Extra clothing was kept for both clothing reasons and for binding wounds. There was no telling if our faster healing was because of the labyrinth or it was just a fact of life, but wounding one of us to test it would have just been ridiculous. We had the Scrubstone but it needed a source of water, which meant finding a river to follow.

That, of course, would serve multiple purposes. Cleanliness, source of water, and a higher chance of finding civilization were good. Animals also would frequent a river, increasing the chances of us successfully hunting some food. Really, we had no way around finding a river. It was necessary for survival, and our first priority above all else. If we failed to find water, we failed altogether.

The fact that we were in the mountains might be a good signifier of that. If we simply headed down, the chances of us finding a river of some sort were very high. With that in mind, we'd glug up before we left and fill our waterskins, and seek whatever water we could. It would have been nice if there were snowcaps or something, we could find water flows from that, but either this place was too temperate, or the elevation wasn't high enough or whatever. Geology or whatever wasn't my focus.

Water decided, we started to work on the concept of food. Rachel suggested drying much of the meat and eating the veggies we had until they went bad, and I concurred. We could eat well here, but we needed to ration once we left. Preserving meat was simple, even I knew we had to either dry it or smoke it. Veggies were a different matter. Freezing was all we knew for that, so eating it first would be essential.

We shared information about our abilities as well. I related my new abilities, and my class, Roving Mageblade. Rachel was simply a Bulwark, which honestly, I thought was really fucking cool. Roving Mageblade was fancy but Bulwark really brought out "You cannot fuck with me" vibes. Cool as fuck. Really fucking cool.

We didn't discuss him, but Nathan was always on the edge of our minds when we spoke of our plans. It was always "if we get attacked, if something happens, if we get in combat." Sure, we meant if predators or something attacked us, but we both knew that the attempted murderer was on the edge of our worry. Always.

We started working on keeping the food, preserved. We fucked up a few times at first, but we built up a routine that let us work through the rest of the meat. It took us the fourth day as well, but we managed to get a huge amount of meat, enough to fill up two bags entirely. We stuck them back in the freezer while we waited, but that was off of our minds. The rest of the time, we spent resting and exercising, chit-chatting here or there.

We'd hoped the egg would hatch, but no dice. We'd have to carry it with us. Waiting on it to pop open was a waste of time. It could be tomorrow, it could be three months from now, she might be lugging the thing around for the next five years. We had no way to know.

The books that had survived on Rachel's side weren't really useful, either. All fiction books, with parts missing and not much use. Honestly, they had the most use as portable kindling. Burning books as an idea pissed me the hell off, but we couldn't take risks. No, a couple fiction books would have to be the fuel with which we kept ourselves warm out there. Weather was a concern, too. We had plenty of clothing but nothing that would really wick the water off of us, so if the rain came, we had to find a way to make do with whatever shelter we could find.

What other concerns were there? Terrain would always be an issue. Animals, monsters, whatever, there was no way to prepare. We'd take some of the extra weapons, but not all of them. Two axes, a few daggers, Rachel's sword. We'd get what food we could on the way, but ultimately, we needed, needed to find water. We'd take the cooking pot as well, both to boil any water we find as well as cook any meat we came across. Finding civilization would hopefully come sooner than the kind of nutrition issues that would crop up from no greens. That was already a concern, honestly.

The last few days were spent resting and preparing, making sure we wouldn't head out injured. Somewhere in there we hit one month, 28 days on Avare, in this new world. My day ticker in the Sanctuary was slightly off, so either time was weird in the labyrinth, or some other thing was off. Didn't matter - as long as the Lens was accurate, we'd be good to go.

We tried to take the Lens with us as well, but there was no way to get it outside the Lens room. If it ever left its pillar, the door disappeared without fail. It was annoying, but something so integral to life here had to be scattered throughout the lands, enough to keep our power-ups coming.

Gear gathered. Weapons checked. Food preserved. Water maximized. Nathan had never shown, so we hoped he was long gone. We gathered the special things we found from the labyrinth, stuffing them in with our other goods. We were prepared. We were ready. Tomorrow, we would set off down the mountainside.

Of course, that evening, a storm struck, and we were forced to stay in. The eighth day after clearing the labyrinth was wasted, howling winds and thunder keeping us from starting our travel. The ninth day, we hoped would improve, but the storm only abated a bit. Anxiety was everpresent, at least in my mind. I worried that we were being kept here for some reason.

At the end of the ninth day, however, something broke our peace. Rachel and I had been preparing to rest up for the night, hoping yet again that the storm would stall overnight, but before we could undress and get comfortable, a noise rang out. Several noises, punctuated by the clash of thunder. Yelling, screeching, from multiple voices. We both armed ourselves quickly and moved into positions, but as we moved toward the exit from the Sanctuary, a body burst in front of the door, flung by some kind of force, landing hard against the wall. A man with short, gray hair lolled his head for a moment, before casting his eyes about. The gaze was glassy, clearly concussed, but he saw us.

"Help!"