PenguinKills
patreon
Chapter 159 - First Marker
🕑 Added 2024-10-18 20:40:44 +0000 UTCThe rest of the dungeon was a bit of a wash. Gabriel got to fight on the lower levels and he did pretty well in my opinion. He could fight up quite a few levels and only got stumped on the fifth floor.
He had a good fight against the fourth-floor guardian which was a level 50 E-ranked ape-like creature but stalled out not long after.
The roving monsters of the fifth floor that grouped together we too hard for him to take down alone. Singular monsters that high level were fine for him but the groups were too much.
When he focused on controlling and killing one monster, the others charged at him and disrupted his flow. I had the feeling he could have won with a few injuries but it wasn't worth it to let it go that far.
We still had an hours-long ride to catch up to the caravan after this and doing it injured would make things harder.
I stepped in to play the front liner for him and held back significantly. This was for him to get back into fighting shape, not for me to pummel the monsters into oblivion.
Fighting with my brother was an odd thing. We were both so used to fighting alone that it caused some major mishaps we had to work through.
If I didn't have the Fortitude I did, multiple wounds would have arisen because of our miscommunication.
Gabriel had fought with other mages before, most of the time with our mother, but fighting with me was different as we both tried to control the same thing.
For months, my fighting style was to sling Ice around in arcs around me while using [Shatter] occasionally. [Sweeping Snow] now took the place of my revolving snowflakes and I still turned the area into the Arctic with [Permafrost] and [Desolate Blizzard].
I could do it even better now with my upgraded affinity as well.
The problems arose when I tried to have pieces of ice go one way and Gabriel tried to go the other. Or coordination wasn't great and us fighting over the ice caused it to go where neither of us wanted.
It was frustrating on my part. It was so ingrained in my fighting style to fight one specific way that altering that was harder than anticipated. Gabriel felt the frustration as well based on the swear words I could hear from behind me.
We were still only on the fifth floor and the monsters were only early E-rank, but it still didn't feel good to get beaten around because of a miscommunication.
It took us longer to work things out than it did to fight the whole floor.
Other than us vying for control, I had to learn a different aspect of fighting. One I had little experience in.
Protecting someone.
During the first waves of the tutorial, we fought in groups where there were more set roles like this but that was so long ago it was hard to remember. Most of the time I tried to kill things as fast as possible so none got by me.
While that would work, it defeated the purpose of holding back and letting Gabriel level up.
I had to use my skills much more defensively and control the fight in a completely different manner. It was a novel experience to do and it was enjoyable to fight in a new way.
While it wasn't the same as a good brawl, it was novel enough to be enjoyable.
[Icy Bastion] was my staple skill while playing the front liner instead of my more destructive skills, and I stymied my aggressive blows for more controlled ones. It worked to both control where the beasts would go and cut them off completely from getting around me.
If any tried to bypass me and get to Gabriel behind me, they quickly found themselves face-first with a wall of Ice.
Skills weren't the only adjustment I had to make either. Using my hammer would have ended the fight just as quickly and I had to adjust there as well.
Because of my high Fortitude and [Frost Armor], I usually took an aggressive approach with my hammer. More heavy swings meant to deal damage rather than defensive ones were a staple.
I had to change that now.
While the hammer wasn't made to be a defensive weapon, it still could be used as such. The shaft of my weapon got a workout deflecting all of the different attacks and different swings had the same effect.
While the new style was new and exciting, it didn't beat the old way I did things. There was a certain feeling of primal destruction and fury it made me feel that defensively warding off enemies was lacking.
We pushed on like that, me fighting up front and Gabriel supporting from behind for the next few floors. After reaching the seventh floor, Gabriel's help started to drop off and I had to take up more of the slack.
By that point, we stopped tripping over each other and began to work together more seamlessly. Not perfect, but no more stupid mistakes.
We could even compliment each other, or at least we started to. His [Spreading Ice] was the perfect casing to use [Shatter] on and my [Frostbite] helped it build much faster using the Ice mana pervading its flesh.
It started to get a touch fun by the end of the last floor and my heart started to pump faster and I got into the feeling I missed from the tutorial.
Gabriel got increasingly nervous as we delved deeper and it was obvious he wanted to stop on the last floor, but we pushed through. The seventh-floor guardian was even strong enough to leave some lasting wounds and draw blood.
It was a shame it ended, but even if there was another floor, we wouldn't have had time for it. We were already running late delving as deep as we had and we would have to make good time getting back to catch up before morning.
The last prize we got from the dungeon was a large chunk of unidentifiable metal that glowed to my senses. I didn't know exactly what it was, but it was higher grade of metal than normal.
[Metallurgy] helped distinguish different metals but it didn't have the same ability as [Material Analysis]. Its failure to identify the metal meant it had to be a rare alloy or magical material.
Vinny's [Material Analysis] would be better to confirm. It made me regret skipping the skill but it didn't make sense for both of us to have it.
Our return trip was uneventful and we were on the road again. I felt like I had been saying that a lot. On the road again.
I was ready for this trip to be over but we were still a few months out. While the horses helped, I wanted to sleep in an actual bed in a house that was more than a bolt of cloth and leather held up with sticks.
I was also antsy to start construction. So many ideas and plans flowed through my mind and I wanted to get a look at where we would be building. Would it have large cliffs supporting waterfalls? Would it be at the end of a large plateau?
The closer we came, the more excited I got.
I may have driven the caravan a bit harder in my rush to finally get there but the lack of complaining only made me go faster.
The time we made was even better than before, reaching the border of what we thought was Canada right as fall began in full swing.
The sight of the leaves changing color and falling to the ground was almost enough to make up for our fatigue from traveling.
It was beautiful.
Looking out over a sea of reds, oranges, and yellows rolling in the wind with the occasional splash of color dancing through the sky was as breathtaking as it was nostalgic.
Fall from before didn't have the sheer beauty that the Northern forests did, but it was nice to see some things didn't change. Leaves still turned and seasons were still a thing.
As we made ground into what used to be Canada, it got increasingly colder. It was usually a good few weeks between the the leaves turning and the first snow of the year but it happened back to back up here.
Before the last leaves were on the ground, flakes were falling from the sky. Temperatures dropped so low at night that fire pits had to be incorporated and tents redesigned for smoke.
I slept great regardless, but it was too cold at night to sleep without a form of heat for others.
The Leatherworkers started producing heavier clothes and furs became common attire as time wore on. Heavy cloaks for warmth and furs wrapped tightly around to keep heat in and moisture out.
My attire didn't have to change, I could walk around shirtless and be fine, but I followed suit. It was partially for practicality, but mostly because I liked it. The heavy layers and fur were soft and comfortable and they were much better than the scratchy cloth from before.
Professions could do a lot, but making the softness of cotton and silk out of plant fibers was not in their repertoire.
Snowfall started to hinder our progress but we pushed on. Anything more than a few inches caused our progress to stall nearly completely which was something I was not going to let happen.
Not when we were close.
Remi refused to not be at the front which put us in the perfect position to forge a path. [Ice Manipulation] and my growing skills without relying on the system were the plow guiding us forward.
Pushing snow out of the way, while trivial, was a constant wear to do for over 10 hours a day. After a few hours, the strain was enough to cause a migraine from sustained use.
Gabriel and I had to split our travel into shifts to keep it a sustainable practice, otherwise I wouldn't be able to do it all day every day.
The third and final thing that began to hinder us, was sunlight. While the cold and snow were hindrances we could work through, sunlight was not. It wasn't as bad without clocks, but the days were still noticeably shorter.
Waking with the sun and driving through the day until sundown gave us less and less time every day for travel and our pace suffered for it.
With those three things to fight against, people's moods plummeted. They did not like the cold, they did not like the snow, and they did not like the dark, which we had in spades.
While it was frustrating for me to feel great, invigorated, and loving the cold, only for everyone else to be moody because of it, I got used to it. People would adapt. That or they would leave.
Fortitude helped against the temperature but that wasn't a stone-clad rule. We didn't have a thermometer, but I would bet money it was colder than before.
We couldn't even use water freezing to compare the temperature against. The new magical nature of it made the freezing point change based on the mana level and we established that early on during our travels.
All of it rolled together for a grumpy few weeks better left unmentioned. People were snippy and quick to frustrated during the change and only mellowed out after getting used to it.
Other people were scarce, but we did run into a few stragglers traveling about. People dropped back at their homes only for them to turn into the wilderness we now traveled through quickly had to adapt or die.
The scarcity came from them either dying or leaving before we came through but there were still a few still trying to carve out a living.
Some joined us and others didn't. We received a decent sized influx of people from the remnants of a town we passed through all joined up with us and they were more knowledgeable of the area. They were able to point out the different areas on the map with greater precision and we could finally put a city name to our first marker.
Just North of what used to be Winnipeg sat our first marker and we were closing in after months of travel. I didn't hold out hope to find the spot after our first stop but others did.
It sat near the shore of what the natives called Lake Winnipeg and two dungeons weren't far away off the Northeast and west a short distance away from the lake. Austin couldn't tell anything from his skills yet because we weren't close enough but we would soon set eyes on our first potential building spot.
I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited.
Comments
Alexander C Hyde
People were snippy and quick to (become) frustrated during the change and only mellowed out after getting used to it.
Demonlord
TFTC π
James Faulkner
Tftcβ
PWeygandt
Totally agree. As much as I love combat, I am excited to see how the city building goes. I also just love to see new characters so I am really hoping that they c9nnect with other citystates and there are fun badass characters
BelligerentGnu
Nah, I want some base building and connection making.
Arrogant Savant
Been slow for a while, hope we get back to violence soon!
PWeygandt
Woooo, first real stop! I am hoping that if they don't officially settle at the first marker, that they will make an outpost there. Some ppl stay and make a town while others continue to make the real city further north.
