The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith (17 page)

Gladly.

“
Ohgod, not you
Midnight. I wouldn’t survive.”

True.

“
You two.. get
along.”

“
Hey… he’s
keeping me from having to walk. Right now, he’s my favorite
animal in all the worlds.” I leaned forward onto Denise as she
got on in front of me. Let the woman drive. “This is comfy. I’m
just gonna stay like this till I have the energy to do more than
complain.”

Denise laughed in front of
me. “There there, the big strong archer is here to protect
you.”

“
Good. I couldn’t
magick up a puppy right now.”

And with that, we set off
on Midnight towards the southwest. Thankfully, the wild dogs seemed
to remember us, and didn’t feel like attacking as we passed. “I
wonder what would happen if I fused two wolves… gotta test
that some time.”

Chapter
8

The next day, I called
Rusty again like I had said I would. It’s getting hard to
remember what time of day it is in the real world, but thankfully he
hadn’t logged off for breakfast yet. He told me that Kevin
would be heading for Coatin like we said, but it would take a week on
the other side for him to get there, thanks to his schedule. Since he
still has to attend classes, I can’t really blame him.

It figures, but as soon as
we were too far from Rosenheim to turn back, I started getting ideas
for new spells I wanted to try. I would have loved to make them
myself, but even my Spell Knowledge skill wouldn’t let me
create spells without some starting point. And since I’ve never
tried any enchantment or item creation magic, I was out of luck.

Hope Coatin has a
Mages’ College. Or at least a store where I can buy the books.
Denise and I had talked, and decided that we’d help out the
villages we passed along our way however we could. Even if we could
live off the land, that doesn’t give her an unlimited supply of
arrows, and we can’t rely just on my ability to solo
everything. As such, we needed money.

Woe be to the poor
adventurers. They have fallen on hard times. Well, I have. Denise
still has some money left from when she ran the inn, but it would be
nice not to have to rely on her for cash all the time.

As we drew nearer to the
village, the creatures we encountered grew steadily stronger. It
turns out, in the wilds the stronger creatures like Dire Wolves only
appear at night, but along our way we saw some large snakes, horned
rabbits, and overhead we saw giant eagles.

Due to our current lack of
experience, we wanted to wait to fight anything too dangerous looking
until we were more sure of ourselves. As far as we knew, we each only
had one life now, so we had to play it safe. In other words, we left
the big birds the hell alone.

Shortly after lunch, we
saw the next village in the distance, neighboring a vast forest
directly behind it. Hopefully we can learn a bit about the forest
from the village, because it would take far too long to go around.

The village itself was
small, with just a few wooden huts and a flimsy looking defensive
wall. When we got closer, we saw only a few villagers wandering
about, mostly tending to the fields to the east of the village.
There
aren’t even any guards… if I were to plan an invasion
event, I’d put it there. But it’s still too early in the
game to have any major plot events, unless a player initiates it.

And I had no plans of
starting any invasion events. This village was kind of nice, and I
thought it would be a shame to turn it into a battlefield. After we
entered past the wall, Denise and I got off Midnight, and walked a
ways until we found someone that looked like a village elder.

“
Good day, ma’am.”
I bowed politely as we approached her. “We are travelers
passing by, and were wondering if your village had anything that we
could assist with.”

The old woman turned to me
and raised her eyebrows. “Well.. why are you asking me? Go ask
the chief, you damned fools.” She pointed off towards the
center of the village, where who I would have guessed was a hunter
stood watch, facing the forest.

“
My apologies.”
I nodded to her and proceeded towards the indicated chief, having
thoroughly made a fool of myself. “Sir, are you the chief of
this village?”

When he nodded silently, I
continued. “Apologies for disturbing you, but we are travelers
passing through, and we were wondering if there was anything we could
do to help while we are here.”

Slowly, he turned his head
to look at me directly. “You are warriors, yes? Versed in
combat?” He looked back to Denise and nodded towards her bow.

“
We are adventurers,
yes. And we can hold our own in battle. I take it that there is
something we could do for you?”

He nodded, and returned
his gaze to the forest. “Our young hunters went into the forest
three days ago for their initiation hunt. They were meant to return
the next day. Older hunters left the next night, still not return.
The forest has taken them.”

I nodded to him, looking
back to the field.
That probably won’t
support their village too long. Is this a life or death quest for the
entire village? It’s a good thing a player came before it was
too late.

“
So, you want us to
go into the forest to find them?” After he nodded, a quest
window appeared.

“
I understand. Is it
alright if we leave our horse in the village while we do this? I
promise we will find your hunters and return them to you.” When
he nodded, a message appeared acknowledging the quest was accepted.
“Also, any information you could give us about what lives in
the forest would be helpful.”

“
Many things live in
the great woods. There are bears with stone armor, birds with steel
wings, and many hunter spirits. Young hunters are tasked with
entering the woods and killing one animal before returning. This is
to show that they are adults.”

“
I see. We’ll
find what happened to them. If the forest has done harm to them, then
we shall grant justice. If not, we will return them to you.”
The chief nodded, and we were off. Denise instructed Midnight to stay
near the village, and if we needed him I could summon him.

“
So.. armored bears…
steel birds… I’m starting to think we should have
trained on those eagles.” Denise smiled meekly next to me.

“
We’ll be
fine… we should be fine. So, ape or wolfman?”

“
We haven’t
tested the wolfman yet, so let’s go ape. Though, you should try
to grab some of these animals if you get the chance. They sound a bit
more useful.”

I nodded, and before we
went too far, I summoned my Forest Ape. He seemed happy to be back in
the woods, even though they were different woods. “I’ll
scan to see if I can find anything.” I focused my eyes and
activated my scanning spell.

As my vision turned a
light green, I saw the outlines of several animals in the distance,
hidden behind tree and brush. I also saw vague shapes moving among
the treetops, though they were too far away for me to zoom in and
identify them. My best target was a large animal about twenty meters
away, though I’d have to shoot around corners to get to it.
“Okay… found something. It’s a bit off, and hidden
behind stuff.” I looked to the ape. “I need you to draw
it out. Grab its attention and we’ll do the rest.”

The ape nodded, moving
around to the direction I pointed. With any luck, this should pull
the armored bear to where we could hit it. “Now… Time to
get ready.” I opened my book and began chanting my spell,
focusing on both Delay and Multi-cast. “Guardians of the earth,
bestow unto me your spear.” I recited the spell twice, and four
spears of earth formed next to me, Denise preparing an arrow.

Just as I finished
chanting the spell the second time, the ape charged into our field of
vision, followed by a large bear. Now, with the Scan spell, I can see
outlines and certain details if I focus. However, I was still
surprised when I saw that this bear was
actually
armored. Several stone plates grew out from its skin in various
places, and I had to aim for the unarmored joints as my spears flew
at it. Thankfully, two of them managed to hit their mark and cripple
the beast.

Denise was clearly waiting
for something, so I went ahead with my next spell. “Spirit of
wind and chaos, eyes which gaze upon the hearts of man, place the
mark upon this soul. Binding!” Only after the rune appeared on
the bear’s head did Denise unleash arrow after arrow into the
creature, finishing it off by striking its neck.

I waited a few moments,
and didn’t get any messages about succeeding in binding the
bear, so I sighed. “No good, that one didn’t stick.”

“
Well, let’s
try again. It was good practice, right?” I nodded, so she
retrieved her arrows.

Our next target was an
iron falcon. I wasn’t really sure how we were going to fight
that, so Denise let me handle it. After all, its feathers were as
strong as her arrows, so she couldn’t hit it. My first act was
to draw its attention with my Binding spell, fully chanted. Then, it
turned and quickly dove towards me.

“
Ohfuck, Summon
Aspect of the wolf!” I quickly jumped to the side, aided by the
wolf’s agility. “Guardians of the earth, bestow upon me
your spear!” I brushed my hand against the ground, and whipped
it out towards the retreating falcon. The spear hit its mark, but
might as well have been a club. All it managed was to knock the thing
down for a second.

Ohshit, need a
different spell. Why not, worked last time.
“Warriors of light and magic, bestow upon me your spear!”
I held the ball of magic in front of me for a moment, and prayed to
the spirits that this worked. “Become!” Using my original
spell, I placed the rune for lightning into the spell, and then shot
it off towards the falcon.

I’m not sure I had
ever been so happy to see a window appear as that moment. The ball of
magic I had been holding turned into a tiny lightning bolt,
immediately striking the falcon and bringing it down.

“
Yes!” I cried
out, laughing for a moment, letting my mana fill back up. Summon
Aspect used quite a bit it seemed.

“
Nice, I didn’t
know you knew any lightning magic.” Denise walked up to me,
smiling.

“
I don’t!”
I laughed again. “It looks like my mana bolt can be given
elemental qualities now. I got the idea from how I learned earth
spear. Though.. I doubt I’ll be able to use that spell normally
before I really learn lightning magic. I’ll just be stuck with
this method.” I gave it a try, aiming my hand out and
whispering
Spark Bolt.

I shook my head and
grinned. “Nope, can’t cast it. Well, looks like I
captured the falcon, though.”

“
Nice, now we just
need to grab a bear, and see if we can find any of those hunter
spirits.”

“
Yup.” I
looked at the ape, and summoned my new Iron Falcon, which perched
atop my shoulder. “He’s so much nicer when he’s on
our side. But… give me a minute, took a bit of mana to summon
this guy.”

Denise nodded, and we
waited for a few minutes while my mana climbed up. In the meantime, I
sent the falcon to scout the surrounding area. “I wonder what
would happen if I fused one of my creatures with that thing? Would
they gain its natural armor, or wings, or both?”

“
No clue. We can
find out once we’re on the other side of this forest.”
She nodded to me, and I stood up as the falcon flew back.

There is a single stone
bear to the south, and two to the west. The ones in the west are
being watched by the branch hunters.

“
Branch hunters?”
The falcon nodded its head. “Who are they?”

They are the branch
hunters.

“
...Thanks. Okay, he
says there is a lone bear to the south. That’ll be our best bet
for another binding, and we can see how this guy does in a fight.”
I turned my attention back to the falcon. “After I cast the
binding on him, I want you to attack. Denise and I will back you up,
but honestly I think your chances of surviving a hit are a lot better
than ours. That, and I doubt it could hit you if it wanted. Hell, I
barely could.”

The falcon preened as if
it were being praised, and flew off into the trees. Denise and I,
followed by the ape which was now in bodyguard mode, went to the
south until we saw the bear that the falcon had mentioned. “Alright…
let’s try this again. Spirit of wind and chaos, eyes which gaze
upon the hearts of man, place the mark upon this soul. Binding!”
As soon as the sigil appeared on the stone bear’s forehead,
there was a screech, causing it to lift its head up just as the
falcon dove.