by Sean Oswald
After the slaughter of Blaz, none of the lumberjacks would cross the bridge in groups of less than ten at a time, but something seemed to have changed. Perhaps at first, the beasts had been wary of the humans, unsure of their abilities or power levels, but now it seemed that word was spreading that the humans of Eris’ Rise were easy pickings. Oddly enough, the spread of this wasn’t just limited to predatory species. Before, the herds of large boars, which would avoid the area being cleared by the humans, no longer seemed to feel any need to do so. Worse, the walking trees started to appear in number. They seemed to serve some purpose by clearing the forest of dead wood and even of bones picked clean by predators, and now it would seem that humans had been added to the list of waste which needed to be removed from the forest.
The council and mayor had their hands full just keeping a mass exodus from happening. The primary appeal that worked for them was to play upon the stubbornness of the citizens. After all, one doesn’t uproot their family from a comfortable if somewhat poor life to travel into the unknown if they don’t have a root of tenacity within them. So, now a month after the death of Blaz, the logging efforts had ground to a halt. The amount of wood they were able to ship out had been reduced to a trickle and that was only with the loss of three more lumberjacks. Talvenicus, Conrad, Jarvis, and perhaps even Gertrude could find ways to defeat any but the most powerful of the commonly sighted beasts in a one-on-one battle, but most of the villagers were hard-pressed to hold their own and certainly not without injuries or even casualties. While Gertrude’s potions and poultices could provide fairly effective healing, she was no priest with healing magic, and even her herbal skills were limited by the inability of the villagers to collect enough of the needed herbs which were only found further into the forest.
The result was that more and more of the beasts of the forest would congregate in the Merkwood near the bridge across the Seinna. Little did the Nelsons know that it was only this very fact that helped to thin out the animals in the portion of the forest they were in, some thirty miles to the east, which allowed them to survive those first few hours. Of course, in that moment, neither Dave nor Emily could think of the issue of survival. Their eyes only focused on two bloody puncture wounds in Mira’s chest. Later, they would swear that they stood staring at Mira for an hour when, in reality, it was less than two seconds. Two mere seconds, but enough time for them to discover another principle of Eloria, for as they watched, Mira’s body began to pulse with waves of bright silver light. Again, it lasted for no more than an instant, but in that instant, the two garish wounds in her chest along with every other cut, scrape, and even broken ribs were all instantly healed. Mira’s health was restored to its full 60 points, her mana was restored back to a full 150, and as Mira sat up opening her eyes, she was dog-piled by her mother and father both wanting to hug her while Jackson and Sara fought to find a space to reach her as well.
Tears were shed and even Dave’s eyes were wet, both parents thanking God and anyone who would listen. Dave mumbled repeatedly something about his precious little girl and Emily finally said, “How? I saw you die. Those horns pierced your chest, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I was so scared when the boar attacked Jackson and when the frog grabbed Sara, but there was something different about seeing those horns pierce your chest. It was as if time slowed down for me and I had to keep reliving that instant again and again, unable to reach you. I just knew you were dead. No one could survive something like that.”
Jackson was actually the one to chime in. “Mom, Eloria isn’t like back home. Who knows what is possible here?”
Both Dave and Emily stared at him, knowing that he was right but still stuck balancing on a knife’s edge between full tearful meltdown and shout-out-loud boisterous joy.
Sara distilled the matter down to its most basic thought. “Who cares? Mira is okay.” For once, Mira didn’t correct her little sister for using the pet name she had used as a child for her older sister.
Mira did, however, say, “I think I can explain. I got a couple of notifications.”
You have defeated: Average Horned Bullfrog Level 5. XP: 30 xTier Penalty of 50% x 2 (killing blow bonus) x racial bonus +25%= 37 XP
You have 2 new character points. You have 6 unused character points.
Congratulations!
Ding!
You have gained sufficient XP to reach level 2.
You have gained 2 stat points.
She explained first the notification that told about her leveling up, then about a more mysterious second notification.
Congratulations!
You have unlocked the hidden trait: Reborn.
You gained sufficient XP to level up just as you died and every time you level up, your health and mana are fully restored. As a result of unlocking this hidden trait and the means by which you did so, you have gained the following individual perks: Resistance to Piercing Attacks: Your body now automatically negates the first 3 points of any piercing attack. Subject to further improvement: means unknown.
Diehard: you have proven to be very difficult to kill and have gained the ability to continue fighting even after you reach zero health. You may now fight until you reach negative 50% of your maximum health. Once done fighting, you must be healed within one minute or you will still die.
XP Gained for unlocking Reborn: 200. Congratulations. Ding! You have gained sufficient XP to reach level 3.
You have gained 2 stat points. You have 4 unspent stat points.
You have gained 10 character points. You have 16 unspent character points.
Everyone had their own reaction to Mira’s revelation about her notifications and the gains she had made. Sara just kept hugging her. Jackson high-fived her saying, “That is so cool! Leveling up totally recharges you!”
For her part, Emily said, “I don’t care how it happened, I’m just thanking God that you are still alive. I don’t think I could bear to lose any of you.” She turned to Dave and started with, “We have to find a way to protect the kids. Heck, look at you. We have to find a way to protect ourselves.”
Then she noticed though that Dave seemed listless, almost staring off into space. Immediately, she began to worry that he was going into shock from loss of blood. “Dave, are you okay? Can you hear me? Say something.”
Dave turned his head to her, and it was clear that he had heard her, but yet he didn’t respond. Assuming the worst, Emily cast her Minor Healing spell and watched as the wound in Dave’s side instantly closed up. It was a little difficult to tell if there was any residual wound because all the blood that had already been lost was still covering his side and the hole in his armor.
Seeing as he still didn’t respond, Emily was afraid that he had lost too much blood. She didn’t know exactly how healing worked. Maybe it only closed up the wound but didn’t replace the lost blood. Starting to panic, she grabbed Dave's face in her hands and started to peer into his eyes, almost as though she could see into his head that way. Suddenly, Dave came out of it. He shook his head bitterly and said, “I’m okay. I was just stunned to see Mira literally come back from the dead.”
“Dave, what’s really wrong? You aren’t saying something. Stop acting like this. You are scaring me.”
Now seeing what had all the trimmings of a classic Mom vs Dad fight, all three of the kids had their eyes focused on their parents. Sara’s lower lip quivered, and Jackson had that look of hesitancy about him. Surprisingly, it was Mira who spoke up. Normally, Mira was the one who provoked situations that she hoped would lead to her mom and dad fighting. She had found that to be the best way to get what she wanted, but now something had changed inside of her. She didn’t want to see her parents fighting. Maybe it wouldn’t last, but at least for the moment, she had seen what real conflict was about and she didn’t want any version of it around her parents. “Mom, Dad, don’t fight, please. Whatever is wrong, we can face it. Remember, Dad, we are Nelsons.”
Dave smiled at hearing his trademark slogan repeated
back to him, especially from Mira who would usually be the last one to say anything like that. So, he responded back with more cheer than he felt. “That’s right. We are Nelsons and nothing can stop us, not overgrown frogs, or upset pigs, not even a little thing like death can keep a Nelson down.”
He spoke words of encouragement to the kids and they all cheered. The family huddled together and once again basked in a closeness that is only brought about by shared trauma. All the while, Emily held a practiced smile on her face, because while the kids might be buying the act, she had seen the look that Dave had given her. There was more to talk about.
Chapter Eleven
“Passion and skill make for great warriors, structure and obedience make for great armies the irony being that which makes the parts strong can make the whole fragile.” —Expression attributed to orcish general Ganbaatar, the Steel Fist.
The moment of awkward tension between everyone was broken when Sara chimed in with her usual chipper voice, "Can we keep him?"
Everyone turned to look at her and then at the remaining frog beast that was sitting on its back legs staring at Mira, like a twisted Elorian version of a golden retriever waiting on its master's attention. Dave and Emily were both sorta shocked that they hadn't noticed that there was a frog left, but it isn't too odd considering they had literally watched their child die and come back to life in a span of seconds.
"Mira, what exactly is that frog doing?" asked Emily with her best stern mother voice.
After a moment of being flustered, Mira went on to explain how she had charmed the frog, and it had saved her from one of the attacking beasts. She even described how she got all of the XP when her charmed pet killed the other frog.
Dave started to pepper her with questions about how the charm worked, what she could make her pet do, and how long it lasted. Mira answered as best as she could but didn't have much specific information other than to try to explain the link that she felt in her mind between herself and the pet. The one question she could answer with any certainty was that the spell lasted for ten minutes but would be broken if she or any of her allies directly caused harm to it. Once they determined that there was still over five minutes left on the time, it hit them all just how frantic a pace combat can have, so that it seems like it stretches on for far longer than it actually does.
After getting as much information as possible about the charmed frog, Dave asked the rest of them to move a good distance away and said that he wanted to fight it by himself. Emily insisted that it was stupidly dangerous of him to fight the beast by himself, but he kept saying that was how it needed to be. As their discussion intensified again, Dave placed his hand on Emily's arm more firmly than he had meant to in an attempt to pull her to the side for a private conversation.
Seeing her eyes flare with anger at his unintended roughness, Dave pulled his hand back and said, "I'm sorry, but can we go over here and talk about this?"
Emily swallowed the sharp retort that came to her mind about his carelessness and simply mumbled, "Okay."
As they walked a few feet away from the kids, Emily’s short-lived patience ran out. “So what's going on? Why are you acting so weird? We don’t have time for this, and we certainly can’t stand around talking while that monster is with the kids, charm spell or no charm spell.”
Dave seemed to struggle to answer, shifting his weight from foot to foot and looking anywhere other than at Emily. Back on Earth, Emily would have been used to this. They had even gone to a marriage counselor at one point who helped her to understand that Dave had a difficult time expressing his emotions. She remembered all the exercises that they had tried to help Dave to have a normal conversation with her. Ask Dave about his cases, or his games, or his kids, heck even ask him about how she looked and he never had a shortage of words, but ask him how he felt about anything that was the least bit controversial or that required any introspection, and he clammed up faster than Jackson could eat a slice of pizza.
“Dave, I know something is bothering you, but we really don't have time for this now.”
“Emily, you don’t understand, you will never understand. You are so good at everything. I struggle to fulfill my duties; I’ve always struggled with it. I forget about taking out the trash. I miss one of the kid’s games. No matter that I work late enough most nights to miss family dinner, I still will never make enough to pay for all the kids’ college. And when I do take time for myself to play a game, it seems like I’m letting everyone down by needing personal time. Not that any of this matters now because we are stranded here, away from everything that any of us has ever known. Now here we are in a world that I should have the best idea about and I’m completely clueless and lost. Dammit, it's a man’s job to protect his wife and kids, but time and again you all are saving me. At this rate, pretty soon I’m gonna need one of those necklaces that Sara has just so I don’t get in your way.” It all erupted out of Dave in one burst so fast that he didn’t even take time to breathe, and by the end was sounding like he had just run some wind sprints.
Emily just stood there staring at him for a few seconds. “Is that what you really think?” Then without giving him time to answer, “You are placing all of that on yourself. I love you. I’ve always loved you, and your kids love you. You aren’t failing any of us. If it weren’t for your calm, I would have lost my mind here. If you are jealous because I got a class and gained some levels, well, that is just numbers. We are all still depending on you.”
“But that’s just it, Emily. It isn’t just numbers. Here, our reality can be quantified by numbers in a little screen that pops up in your mind. No guessing necessary. And what those numbers are saying right now is that I can’t protect our family.”
Dave and Emily had had their fair share of fights over the years, times of hot and times of cold, but what had always made them work so well was something their marriage counselor had commented on. When one of them was in crisis, the other one always stepped up, and somehow, they seemed to manage not to ever both be in meltdown mode at the same time. Emily wanted nothing more than to cry now, but just like Dave had held her earlier when she needed him, she wanted to be there for him now. This didn’t mean that she didn’t think he was being stupid. It just meant that she was gonna put that on the back burner and be there for him now. “You will figure it out. Just tell me what we need to do, and I will do my best to help you.”
There was nothing magical about her words. It was just something in her tone and the look in her eyes, that brought healing to Dave’s soul just as much as her newfound magical abilities had brought healing to his body. Her soft reply took the wind out of his sails and stopped him from continuing down a destructive path. He grabbed her close and whispered in her ear, “Thank you.” Two little words, but Emily knew that it meant more than just thank you. It meant, ‘I’m glad to have you here with me.’ It meant, ‘I love you.’ More than anything it meant that Dave was gonna focus on a solution instead of wallowing in his feelings of helplessness, something which they all needed to do in this untenable position.
Their embrace was short-lived as Dave pulled back and said, “I guess it all depends on how much you trust me.” Even as he said it, Dave realized it was an emotionally manipulative statement, even if he didn’t mean it that way.
The dark glint that passed Emily’s now almond-shaped eyes told Dave that she recognized the baited nature of his statement, but the almost immediate softening of her face told him that she was going to go with it. “I trust you completely. That doesn’t mean I think you are always right, but I do trust you.”
Dave smiled at her words. “Well, it looks like the sun, or the second sun,” he chuckled at that, “has about three hours until it sets and since another sun hasn’t come up, I’m going to assume it will be nighttime after this sun sets. That doesn’t leave us much time but we need to grind a bit before dark and then find a tree to sleep in because obviously neither the forest nor the river are safe but at least up in some of those big tree
s none of the really big stuff can get at us.”
“Grind? What does that mean?”
“Well, this is the part that you aren’t going to like.” Dave was giving her his most winsome smile, the one he gave her when he was about to propose something he was sure she would disagree with. “Grinding is a gaming term for going out and finding monsters that we can kill on purpose so that we can gain XP.”
It was all Emily could do not to explode at that statement and recognizing this, Dave went on to explain his reasoning before she could shoot him down. “Think about it, we have barely survived five different fights and part of that is because we were unprepared and part of it was because we didn’t have enough power. The way to get more power here is to level up.”
