Village of Noobtown: A LitRPG Adventure (Mayor of Noobtown Book 2)
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“What’s burning?” I asked, as we left the lair.
Chapter 52: More Walking
Shart was busily digesting the object, Badgelor was sleeping, and I was fully healed. We were able to easily and peacefully leave the forest. For some reason, the pumas left us alone. I wondered if they knew their mother was dead and were in mourning. It wouldn’t have been the craziest thing to happen on Ordinal. While I’d handled the infinite respawn of the pumas, there were literally hundreds of them remaining. However, now that they couldn’t quickly reproduce, it would take only a few days for the village to handle them.
I currently had a decision to reassess. Knowing more about the situation in this forest, it was possible that our trade route would be better here. It was the shorter route to Narwal, and it avoided the bandits. The road had become seriously overgrown in the time that the feckin pumas ruled, but that could all be cleared. On the downside, clearing the forest was still a project of days, and Windfall had only weeks before the entire economy crashed.
I knew that I should order the forest cleared of pumas and weeds, and then use it as the trade route. Yes, it would take time to do, but I thought we could probably make up the time with it being a shorter route. That was the sensible thing to do, and it was the thing that was best for the town. Then, I remembered the two pairs of little shoes in a shallow grave.
The dead adults bothered me, to an extent, but I’d seen dead adults before. When I was in my thirties, I had even found a relative dead. I could mentally process the fact that people died, and nothing I could do was going to change that.
Two pairs of little shoes.
I couldn’t accept that with children, though. What kind of monsters murdered children? The Puma Gang did. They were within my reach, if I wanted to go after them. Should I go after them? Should I take the Mercenaries and the villagers and rain hell down upon the Puma Gang? How many were there?
People would die. I didn’t care about the Puma Gang members or, sadly, the Mercenaries. They were criminals and hired killers. I did care about my villagers, though. I cared about SueLeeta and Fenris. Did I really want to risk them to avenge people we hadn’t even known? Did I really want to risk them to save people we didn’t know?
Did I?
In the abstract, I wanted to help people. Did that merit killing other people to do it? If it were just me, I’d go in there and try to save hostages. I’d done that before. I’d also lead people to save themselves. I’d done that before, too.
The other question was ‘Do I lie about it?’
Fenris and SueLeeta believed that the Feckin Puma Forest was impassable. I doubted that they would reconnoiter the forest any time soon. We would simply be sticking with the original plan. All I had to do was say nothing, and we’d proceed by going after the bandits. If I told the truth, that I knew how to completely clear this forest in a few days, would they still want to pursue the bandits?
If they did, could I take Durg?
Probably, I guessed. What kind of force did he have and what could they do? I hated being indecisive, but I could literally get everyone killed if we walked into that bandit camp and there were hundreds of bandits.
Are you certain on the number of bandits?” I asked Shart. “There really are only 50?”
“About 50,” he replied, thinking back. “Of course, there are more in the other camp.”
“Other camp?” I asked.
“Yes, it's further into the forest, probably another few miles away. There are lots more bandits there,” he replied.
“I’ve been trying to figure out how to deal with these bandits for hours, and you are only now telling me that there are a bunch more of them?” I growled.
“Yes, lots,” replied the demon. “They wouldn’t have been able to get to us before we escaped that forest, so I didn’t mention them.”
“You heard me discussing their numbers at the fortress! You heard me planning in the commander’s room,” I accused.
“You were serious about trying to wipe them out?” the demonic little dildo asked.
“I just killed a Super Puma so I could level and fight Durg. I just did all this to retake that road,” I growled.
You seriously need to ask more questions. Don’t you think Narwal could have handled a small group of 50 bandits on its own?”
“You no longer have mouth privileges,” I snarled.
“I...what?” the demon asked, confused.
I glanced at my skill prompts.
You have achieved rank: Journeyman in Swords. Please choose your Journeyman talent.
You have achieved rank: Journeyman in Mitigate. Please choose your Journeyman talent.
I flicked through the menus about my skills. Journeyman granted an individual a unique Journeyman talent in whatever skill they’d ranked up. This kind of talent was all a person normally got, but they were nearly on the same level as a Perk.
Journeyman Mitigate, choose one of the following: Reduce Stun, you can reduce a stun effect by spending Stamina, Armored Hide, your skin grants up to your Endurance rank in Slashing, Bludgeoning, and Piercing Defense, Improved Mitigation, the base cost of your Mitigate talent is reduced by one Stamina.
All three were interesting in different ways. Stun effects were the bane of every tank or pvper in an MMO, as they denied your ability to control your character for precious seconds. I wondered if this extended to magical effects, or if it was just for physical stuns. Armored Hide would also be good. While my Resistance perk allowed me to ignore quite a bit of non-typed damage, I was rapidly discovering that most damage had a type. Those types were painful. Having some naked resistance to that would be useful. Finally, reducing the cost of Mitigate would always be handy, but I seldom ran out of Stamina. Thus, I was leery of choosing that.
I was only considering Reduce Stun, which would be useful in a clinch, and Armored Hide, which would be more useful in general. The thought of being stuck immobile while an enemy walked up beside me and started hacking was enough to make that choice. I selected Reduce Stun.
The Journeyman Sword talents were similar.
Journeyman Sword, choose one of the following: Severing Strike, expend Stamina to improve damage type by one, costs scale, Twisting Strike, increases the cost of the enemy to parry your blows by the amount of Stamina you spent, Unavoidable Strike, you can use Force to unerringly strike your target.
I wondered if Twisting Strike was related to Unlimited Parry, so I switched back over to the Warrior tab on my character sheet. Right there, in black and white, was Unlimited Parry. I couldn’t select it, but I could look at the requirements. It didn’t list what level it required, but I could see that the Open Parry talent was a prerequisite. I was guessing that was from the Parry skill. That was new information; it meant that some perks were only available if you had a Journeyman talent.
Right next to it was a talent called Unavoidable Strike. While Twisting Strike was a passive ability; I could apply it to every single strike I made. Unavoidable Strike was an attack enhancement. It was similar to a special attack, like my Duelist Thrust, except that it could be applied to any attack.
Unavoidable Strike: Attack Enhancement, Cost 16 Stamina and 1 Force. Makes an attack unavoidable, except against an unlimited defense.
“Shart?” I began. I left menu time. I needed to get my bearings. I seriously never believed that I would be asking this question. “What’s the Force?”
“Oh, my dumb, precious Dum Dum, Force is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds and penetrates us. It binds creation together,” he stated.
I gaped at him. “You are shitting me,” I replied, after a time.
“Not presently,” he responded. I was again reminded that I still didn’t know how he was stuck to my shoulder on most days.
“That’s what it really is,” he added, defensively.
“We have that on Earth,” I replied.
“Earth got something right?” asked Shart, sounding honestly surprised.
“That’s amazing!”
“It's in a movie,” I continued, and Shart deflated.
“Yep, there it is. It’s always a letdown with you. I bet stupid fictional stories are what rotted so much of your brain,” Shart replied. “I really am much less impressed than I was a few moments ago. I mean, I’m still slightly impressed, which is better than where you started today.”
“How does it work here?” I asked. “Can I choke people?”
“Sure, just grab them by the throat,” stated the demon.
“No, can I choke them with the Force?” I clarified.
“What is the matter with you? I mean, I know what is the matter with you, but you’d think there would be a limit. No, that’s not how Force works,” replied Shart, honestly offended at this point. “Force allows you to exert your will onto the universe for more powerful attacks, defenses, spells and whatever. I guess, if you had a spell to choke someone, you could do that. What did you think? Did you see yourself using Force to shoot lightning or something?”
“Kind of,” I answered grumpily.
“Well, since you are saying it with capital letters, and since you are an idiot, I’m going to explain this. The Force is something made up from a movie. Force is a character trait that you can use to augment certain Force attacks, if you have available Force and an ability that uses it,” stated Shart.
“Thanks for pooping on my parade,” I said, tearing the demon free of my shoulder and tossing him at a nearby tree. I didn’t try all that hard; I was carrying Badgelor, after all. Shart managed to stop himself before he hit anything.
“I didn’t poop on your parade,” replied the too smug Shart, “I pooped on your shoulder.”
I attempted to chase the demon but he rapidly flew up to unreachable heights before vanishing.
Going back to menus, I scanned around. I didn’t see any Perks that were improved by my Journeyman Mitigate talent in Warrior, but when I went to Woodsman, I found one. It was a Warden and Hunter talent called Rugged Mitigate, which was an improvement of Reduce Stun. It allowed you to also apply your Reduce Stun against environmental effects, so you’d be calm and collected as you burned up or froze to death.
When I glanced back through the Duelist tree, I caught another lead coming from my Sword Master perk. Improved Severing Strike was listed. It doubled the effectiveness of Stamina spent on a Severing Strike.
Those were some good options, especially the improved versions. I could guess where the upgrade for Rapid Blade would come from on the chart; there was a branch of the Man-at-Arms tree that dealt with making faster general strikes. The fact that I didn’t currently have a path to the upgraded version wasn’t a deal breaker.
However, I didn’t have a free perk now and I needed to choose something. Did I want to go defense or offense? Did I want to choose a single powerful strike or lots of weaker ones? I squeezed my arm, remembering the cut I’d received. I hadn’t been able to cut through Durg’s defense.
If I was being truthful, I was trying to justify taking a Force ability. Being able to attack someone and guarantee a hit was amazing. After selecting Unavoidable Attack, I didn’t really notice a change. My character sheet now listed my Force Rank though. I had a Force of one.
We might still be able to clear the Northern Forest. Maybe we would need to go through the forest formerly known as Feckin Puma Forest, now that the puma numbers were manageable. I could sleep on it and make up my mind tomorrow morning.
I scratched my slumbering badger under his chin. Then, we walked the last part of the path toward the Western Gate Fortress.
Chapter 53: Appropriate Response
“I got exploded,” screamed Badgelor, as he climbed my side and dove toward Shart. The demon took to the air, hovering out of reach. We were in the courtyard of the Western Gate Fortress after being challenged by the gate guards. They let me in, of course, but all the yelling finally woke up Badgelor. He was more pissed than usual and had immediately started chasing Shart around.
“You possessed superior badger digging knowledge. Who was I to argue?” stated Shart flippantly. Badgelor leapt from a nearby crate, and the demon just barely managed to dodge.
“There was something in that wall that exploded me! I’m going to find what did it!” cried the badger, grabbing hold of Shart. Badgelor quickly jammed a paw into the extradimensional pocket in Shart’s belly.
Shart grinned. “Foolish badger, that sort of tickles.”
“It's in his mouth,” I stated. I was seated at the guard table, eating a second piece of bread.
“You treacherous...” began Shart, but Badgelor had changed positions and shoved his arm into Shart’s mouth.
I left them to it. There was no need for me to get involved. They would tire themselves out quickly enough, so I headed inside to find something else to eat. I stopped by the waiting smith, unceremoniously dumping my armor into his hands. He assured me the repairs wouldn’t take long. I was left wearing my small clothes and the padding for under my armor.
The padding was basically a thick cotton shirt that had sleeves that went all the way to my wrists. The material was thick enough to prevent the armor from pinching my skin. Even with my Resistance perk preventing Damage, that pinching could get nasty, causing cuts and blood blisters. Without the armor, I had the chance to examine my life energy tumors.
The spot on my elbow, where the concentrated blob had gone through my shield, had expanded into a hardened mass of tissue. The top of the mass felt like silly putty or play dough. I grabbed it and pulled. It came free with a wet plopping sound, leaving nearly unblemished skin underneath. All that remained was a small pink dot where the magic had struck me. With my demonic healing factor, that small patch had changed back to my normal skin tone within moments.
Examining myself, I still had 3 more of those little green tumors scattered over my body, plus, of course, the horror show that my taint had become. The largest bit had grown near my privates, because that was the center of my magical network. Shart found it continuously humorous to point out that my constant use of Biological Aeromancy had caused my taint to become my magical core. I hated Shart. The demonic dipshit had also told me that all the tumors would eventually pop, and then pop again several more times before fading. I wasn’t looking forward to it.
Entering the doorway and ascending the stairs, I was still surprised that the entire inside of the wall was full of rooms. Part of me wondered how much that weakened the structural integrity of the whole affair, but, then again, there were still many feet of stone on the outer edge. That probably helped keep the structure secure. Also, nothing else on Ordinal functioned normally, so why would architecture?
I walked through the guard room and into a small kitchen to grab a bowl of porridge with some leaves sprinkled on top. I didn’t know what the leaves tasted like. Considering what porridge tasted like, anything would have been an improvement.
As it was not mealtime, I had the small dining hall to myself. The hall was maybe 10 by 20 Earth feet and was crammed full of tables and chairs. There were even several small, horizontal slit windows in sections of the wall. I suspected they were for ventilation. Safety first. That’s the motto of all these fantasy realms and magical places.
With everyone else going about their business, the entire place was quiet and peaceful. I sat, simply enjoying the silence. Far too soon, I heard someone stomping up the stairs.
“Please put me down,” stated Badgelor.
“Good badger. Show me to your master,” replied a female voice that I instantly recognized.
“I will bite you,” grumbled the badger. I heard a grunt and the sound of many clawed feet landing on the ground. The skittering of claws on stone came closer, until Badgelor rushed into the room and cowered by my left leg. I reached down to scratch him, even as Jarra the Healer bounded into the room after him.
Jarra the Healer was a very proactive bl
ond woman. She was just a bit older than my eldest child, and she had the look of someone trying very hard to be as professional as possible. Of course, right now, her long hair was out of place. She looked like she’d just been wrestling with a badger.
“Mayor, here you are!” she exclaimed. Jarra never called me Jim. Jarra the Healer already had a Jim in her life. Her Jim was a small, white dog that liked to bark cutely. He would frequently attempt to nip the ankles of any man that got too close to her.
“I’m just enjoying this bowl of porridge,” I stated, gesturing down at the bowl with my hand. She frowned.
“I understood that you suffered an injury to your hand,” she stated. I only then realized that she had her healing bag with her. It contained most of the supplies that her profession required when out in the field. I’d gotten that bag for her. Kind of. Well, I had ordered GowenDoud to make it for her. Because I was the mayor, he had complied.
I had artificially reduced the experience points the quest had offered, because GowenDoud was a dick.
“Other hand,” she stated. With my heightened Perception skill, I caught the lilt in her voice as she said it. She had been confident she’d known which hand was injured.
I stopped scratching Badgelor and brought up my other hand. Badgelor growled and walked toward the kitchen. If he was lucky, there would be some scraps for him. Jarra examined both of my hands and frowned.
“Well, that bitch,” she muttered under her breath. Smiling the fake smile that young women everywhere use to cover up mistakes, she grew louder. “It seems that both of your hands are intact.”
“Funny story about that,” I started, gesturing to the seat in front of me. “Come sit, and I will regale you with The Tales of Jim.”
She chuckled.
“The Tales of Jim is already a thing, isn’t it?” I asked. She nodded.