by J. J. Lorden
Closing her eyes now, she was transported back in time to that younger self, on her back in her favorite spot between a group of four towering trunks. A rush of wind whipped through the canopy, releasing a fresh wave of one-winged seeds to freedom.
Her fingers paused from their tracing of the stem veins in a bright yellow leaf, as the air filled with the beautiful chaos of hundreds of whirlybirds, all twisting like crazy. A gust grabbed the whole lot, and they surged together like a flock of sparrows.
Val sighed, holding onto the feeling of rightness those memories held. It would pass, but she’d enjoy it until then.
Earthly sycamore seeds typically fell as singles, the imbalance of heavy seed on one end and wing on the other being critical to their magical dance and part of nature’s design to spread the seeds wide and far.
However, they grew in pairs, seed pods back-to-back with wings spread like tiny gliders.
As a child, when she was up in the trees, Val imagined that some few of them were specially created for wingless fairies whose rite of passage was to brave the harrowing climb up the tree to claim their wings and win their freedom.
She had liked to make up fantasies like that. Sometimes, when her uncle Rick got drunk and angry, she’d imagined they were the only visible part of baby angels. Silently she’d called to them, hoping that the tiny angels would protect her and her sister from his violence.
Her sense of bliss crumbled. Val banished the thoughts that would follow that particular memory; the baby angels never came, and this was a different life.
These trees, however, had very different seeds. They were made of three equal, clove-shaped sections and were twice the size of a healthy walnut, somewhat akin to a head of garlic.
Casting her eyes from side to side, she took in its size. It was a genuinely titanic tree–healthy too, she realized. Huh, that’s odd. Why do I know that?
Somehow Val could sense the tree’s health, and that wasn’t all either. She also felt that it was benefitting from the reduced competition for full sunlight here on the forest edge as compared to the dense canopy other trees contended with deeper in the wood.
Beyond that, there was something beneficial about the soil here too, although that was less clear. She fumbled with what information the sensation contained for some time, struggling to pin it down.
Eventually, it crystalized; the soil here at the forest edge had a broader nutrient mix. That’s what she was picking up on. Val could also sense some other subtleties in the aura-like energy around the tree, but she couldn’t interpret what they meant.
Taking a sharp, deep breath, Val broke from the trancelike state she’d accidentally dropped into. Thaat, was amazing. How did I do that?
The mental state had a certain familiarity to it, and Val made the connection–it was similar to the relaxed state of heightened awareness she often experienced while racing. Despite the counterintuitive link between the two, the connection was clear. When she was right on the edge of control and screaming around corners in her VX supercar, she felt a lot like she’d just been feeling.
Thinking about her car felt like thinking about another life; one distant and removed from her current reality. Not useful here and now. Racecar-driver reflexes might be helpful in this game, but here, stuck up in a tree for the foreseeable future, they wouldn’t do her much good.
Might as well work on a skill, she thought and decided to try to hone the threat sense portion of Scout Pathfinding. Val enlarged the map to a semitransparent overlay of her entire field of view.
She was maybe a quarter of the way to the center of the threat warning circle. It was pulsing a bit faster, and it had turned orange but still hadn’t gotten any closer since she’d climbed the tree.
A thought struck Val; could she use her map to pull up an image of this predator?
If her subconscious had seen something, maybe she could somehow use Scout Pathfinding to dredge it up. Or perhaps there was some other skill that allowed short-range divination?
The idea seemed a bit far-fetched. It’s not like I’ve got anything else going on, she thought, then allowed her gaze to soften and attention to rest on the map’s missing details.
By focusing on the quiet spaces between each breath, her concentration deepened, and she began forming a full mental projection of the area around the tree. She aligned her memory of the space below with the overhead projection of the map, using it as a guide.
Glancing down occasionally to help clear up fuzzy memories, she slowly built a rendering of the forest. When she got a connection right, the map grabbed that element, leaving her free to focus on another area.
As she progressed the details came easier and easier and soon the whole area was clear. When it was, Val tentatively pulled on the perspective, attempting to rotate it into a three-dimensional image.
She wanted to walk around in a first-person view.
The map resisted. It felt as if she was tugging on something nailed to the floor. Frustrated, she bore down and pulled harder, exerting her fierce willpower.
Almost as soon as she did, Val recognized her mistake. The Kuoran interface didn’t like being forced. She’d learned this in character creation, and now as then, she was instructed.
The map winked out, and Val’s world tumbled.
Everything began to spin and flip about, and her body tried to compensate. Fortunately, the branch was wide, and Val had experienced this once already. So, she didn’t fight it.
Instead, with closed eyes, she focused on the pressure of her back against the trunk and let the feedback run its course.
And it did. Soon enough the world settled and she opened her eyes. Right. Let’s not do that again.
The rendered perspective was there, she somehow knew that, but it couldn’t be forced or pulled on. Val pulled the map back up. If the rendering won’t come to me, maybe I can go to it? she thought.
With that thought and a nudge, the image before her tipped back and fell away, her view filled with a misty overlay of the branches around her. Then, with eyes closed Val descended.
The feeling was like sliding out of her body. She didn’t resist it, allowing her ghostly self to drop away, fall, and land softly.
Within the digital map in her mind, Val roamed, taking in the clear details of surrounding brush and the enormous tree. Looking up see could she the branch her body was sitting on. Although, the branch blocked any view of herself.
She got to inspecting the threat circle, which appeared as an orange tinting on the ground, working her way to the epicenter, or at least where she thought it was, Val looked for any sign of her pursuer.
Circling the area, she probed the projection for more information on the threat; an image, a name, a level, anything. She moved slowly, taking different perspectives on the spot, nestled between a few bushes, where she thought the thing was waiting.
Some significant time passed, and she’d seen only a tiny distortion in the air a single time. The method felt spot on, but it wasn’t working.
With a slight push, she drifted upward, passing through branches and slipped back into her body. When her eyes opened, Val took in the thick bow on which she sat and expanse of foliage all around.
She smiled. That was amazing.
A small light flashed in her HUD.
Well done Valerie Breking, you have achieved a minor skill evolution.
Evolved Skill (Rare), Base: Scout Pathfinding—Soul Walker– Your body and spirit are both one and not one. Within places you have thoroughly mapped, you can access this subtle truth via your map interface, allowing your conscious spirit to move independent of your body in the immediate surroundings.
Use: Access your map of any well scouted area, in which you are physically present, then activate this skill to slip from corporeal to spiritual form to explore the area.
Skill Level: Primitive
Range: 100 feet
Experience gained: 1000
Bonus Experience for learning a Rare skill without a
trainer: 500
Valerie’s smile spread. She looked around, considering her predicament with new eyes. All around her the energy of the ancient tree now had a palpable density. There was something here, something deeper she’d been overlooking.
Her mind offered up an explanation. Excited, she pulled up her character data sheet. Where is that Affinity?
18
Carson
Carson materialized at his spawn point, swinging wildly at the air like an insane person. As soon as he had lungs, vocal cords, and lips, he was cursing.
“Fucking... bullshit-ass... fracked-up... no good... gauds-forsaken, motha-crackin, fuck-duckin... frack-lackin... spawn point!” As any good Irishman should, he bit off each curse, building in tone and ire, to a final shrill exclamation of the cursed object–his spawn point.
He was back... again. It was the same pond, in the same forest, with the same problem; he had no starting weapon–for the third time.
The pack of wolves had caught him again. This time just the lower half of his body short of getting to safety.
They were a vicious bunch of killers, and he could still feel their claws in his back and teeth biting into his neck. It had been terrifying.
His hands were shaking at the memory. He was definitely going to complain to Aus– no. Erramir. Whatever. He was going to complain to that asshole about the pain levels; presuming he ever managed to find his sadistic friend.
Frustrated, he wondered if his racial choices had been a mistake. The five races he managed to mix–Wood Elf, Dark Elf, Human, Dramogan, and a smidge of Aaverial–had activated a hidden character bonus called Silver Equilibrium. He took a moment to mentally call up his character sheet and review it.
Kuoran Avatar Data Summary
Name: Carson Stix
Race: Wood Elf–35%, Dark Elf–35%, Human (Pergothian)–13%, Dramogan–11%, Aaverial–6%
Avatar Equilibrium Bonus: Silver
Level: 1
Attributes:
Per level gain
Strength:
12
+0
Constitution:
13
+1
Agility:
13
+1
Twitch:
14
+1
Intelligence:
20
+1
Willpower:
15
+1
Charisma:
13
+1
Avatar Equilibrium Modifiers:
+30% resistance to elemental magic damage
+30% elemental damage done
+30% bonus to all magical skill gains
Racial Ability (Typical): Night Vision (passive)—Your Elven heritage allows you to pierce the darkness of night and see clearly. This ability may combine with others.
Effect: See 100% better in the dark.
General Trait (Very Rare): Intuitively Focused—Who needs a quiet environment to learn? Not you, that’s for sure. When you are learning or working to improve a skill, you can tune out the world and become nearly impossible to distract. Your hyper-focus boosts the speed by which skills are learned and improved. Additionally, you can leverage your focus and deep understanding to make non-apparent connections, improvise, and use your fundamental knowledge in new and creative ways.
Effect: Trait automatically activates when you are genuinely interested, increasing the speed of all skill gains by +50%.
Racial Ability (Rare; Blended): Enveloped—This ability is the result of two merged skills: The Wood Elf racial skill, Nature’s Champion, and the Dark Elf racial skill, Night Walker. Both of these skills are variations on the principle of leveraging the natural bond all elves have with their environment to share in its power for a limited time.
Effect: Activate to gain a +10% boost to Constitution, Agility, and Twitch for 15 minutes. If activated at night you will gain Basic Stealth and any noise made while moving will be partially muffled. Enveloped is canceled by exposure to direct sunlight.
Cooldown: 1 hour.
General Affinity (Very Rare): Attuned—Your body and mind exist at a resonant frequency that is directly adjacent to those of the essential elemental powers. Your close proximity to their vibrational range correlates to your possessing an innate flexibility with all elemental essences.
Effect: This affinity enables you to unlock all of the elemental essences.
Note: Attuned is the primary pre-requisite for the evolution of the Essence Manipulation, Channeling, and Weave Crafting abilities. Attuned is also the first of two foundational requirements for the most powerful elemental weavers. It must be possessed before the second, Conductor, can be acquired.
General Trait (Very Rare): Essential Density—Your powerful natural resonance with the elemental forces is due in part to your body having exceptionally dense essential energy channels. These channels, collectively referred to as your Itical system, flow along your nervous system. The Itical system is the internal network a spell weaver uses to draw and focus essential energy.
This trait represents only potential. To realize that potential your channel density must be converted into flow capacity by overloading them.
Effect 1: Use your soul essence to increase maximum conductance capacity by up to 45% for short periods. Spell weaves supplemented by your soul energy will have their power amplified by 1.5x the exceeded capacity. For example, a successfully cast weave that exceeds maximum channel capacity by 30% will gain a 1.5 x 30% amplification in base power. Equal to 45%, this is applied as a 1.45x multiplier to base power.
Effect 2: Temporarily dimmish channel capacity by twice the amount exceeded until the damage is repaired. In the above example channel capacity will be reduced by 60%. A single weave exceeding channel capacity by 30% or more will result in the cessation of all communication between brain and body until the Itical system is healed.
Note: As you have the Attuned Affinity your Essential Density Trait will evolve to the Conductor Ability when you have learned a spell weave in each of the four elemental powers. Of these four, two may be basic with a single element, one must be an apprentice weave, including a secondary element, and one must be a journeyman weave that includes two secondary elements.
Avatar Equilibrium Bonus: Silver—Your avatar genetics are an exceptional balance that reflects your personal truth. This has a multiplicative effect on your starting power and ongoing growth. Also, your blended race avatar has been awarded with more and higher rarity starting characteristics. As the path of the Equilibrium balanced grants greater power so too it requires greater effort from those that walk it.
Effect 1: +16% experience needed per level per race included in the equilibrium mix. Your avatar, with 5 genetic components, will need to gain +80% experience per level. After level 40, this effect is halved to +8% experience per level per race.
Effect 2: Gain the standard 6 attribute points per level plus 1.5 points per race included in the equilibrium mix (rounded up). With 5 genetic components, you gain an additional 8 attribute points per level, for a total of 14. Attribute points are distributed as follows: 5 are automatically allocated based upon genetics, 5 are based upon how the experience was gained, and 4 can be freely allocated. *
Effect 3: All of your base starting attributes have been increased from 10 to 12 and Intellect, your dominant attribute, has been increased to 14.
Effect 4: Your 10 freely assignable attribute points has been increased to 15 and system assigned. Due to the complexity of your racial mix these points cannot be changed.
*(Equilibrium bonus restriction: Free attribute points held in abeyance until level 10 or until additional requirements met.)
Carson’s second thoughts about the build vanished after reviewing it; he loved his avatar. Reviewing it now he couldn’t help but feel like a newborn dragon, brimming with the promise of one day becoming a devastating powerhouse.
He didn’t just think it would be so, he knew it like he knew water was wet.
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His eyes found the path out into the forest, and the patch of bloody dirt where he’d been ripped apart; Carson shivered and then irritation began to build. Right now, he was a toothless paper dragon, stuck in the middle of nowhere.
He had a non-melee build, with no defensive skills, no spells, and no weapons. And he was trapped in a bubble surrounded by wolves. Irritation built into anger and he growled as his thoughts started to turn dark.
Having just reviewed his avatar, he’d seen the one ability he had that might help. And he’d completely forgotten about it in his haste to explore–twice! He wanted to punch something.
Enveloped–it might grant him the edge he needed to escape the wolves. As long as he avoided direct sunlight. “What am I, a vampire? What kind of f’d up skill gets cancelled by sunlight.”
His annoyance drained, the forest was densely shaded, but sun still got through in areas. He’d have a hard time keeping Enveloped active when he was running for his life.
“But if I waited, then triggered it when I found the wolves…”
If he could find a good sharp stick–sneak attack had to be a thing. He could die fifty times and keep coming back, but the wolves would stay dead. He could level, trade his blood for experience.
A dangerous sneer revealed teeth and pushed deep folds into his cheeks. “Fuck those mindless, mangy dogs. I’ll kill em all.”
Carson was halfway to the trail before he managed to check himself–emotions were ruling his mind and clouding everything. It wasn’t a new feeling, Carson got like this sometimes and he’d done some bad things when the fury took him.
He also knew it wasn’t worth the darkness. The aftermath was messy, and it never filled the emptiness. That part of him was best left alone.
