“Reputation with deer? That sounds strange.”
“Not really. Those freaky druid folk are always trying to gain a reputation with animals. Some of them are do-gooders. It is all they ever do. What is strange is that reputation gains only start to trigger at least level 5. It looks like you have another anomaly bonus.”
“I can understand reputation gains, but animal reputations?”
“Druids can communicate with various animals, so they use it to their advantage to get information about what is happening in the wild. This is without putting themselves in danger having to see it for themselves.”
“And the information is trusted?”
“Any animal has the same process as any other being or creature on Amathera. They can all make decisions. Animals have pre-set alignments that can’t be altered through actions, whereas yours can.”
“I am only 23 experience from level 4 after getting 40 from the wolf. Once I am healed up, I will set off again.” SJ’s health slowly increased as time passed. She tentatively took one of the berries from her inventory and popped it in her mouth.
“You’re being brave. You want another visit like this morning,” Dave chuckled.
SJ winced at the recollection of her wake-up call. “No. Not really, but I do not have any other food.”
“That will be sorted as soon as we get to the town.”
“How long do you think it will take from where we are?”
“I hope that as long as we do not fight everything, we should make it for mid-afternoon.”
SJ looked at the clock. It was only 08:48. “It is quite a journey then.”
“A few miles around the lake, yes.”
SJ walked over to the wolf’s dead body and bent to loot it.
1 x Wolf Pelt Quality Good, 4 x Regular leather strips, 7 x coppers
“Dave. Is the loot I am getting standard?”
“Ummmm. It is difficult to say at low levels as the amount can vary quite a bit. Getting a Wolf Pelt from a level 4 wolf is a little unusual but not rare. That pelt should sell for at least one silver in town, maybe even two, depending upon what is available.”
“Another silver. After what you said about the three silvers, that is huge for a starter.”
“If there is someone who wants to buy it. A starter township’s wealth is usually based around the Legionnaires who use it, and they are often very poor.”
“I suppose that makes sense. I am surprised that the town’s wealth relates to Legionnaires, though, when there are so few.”
“Not their entire wealth, but Legionnaires’ economy does affect the towns they frequent. Not many normal Amathereans will go out killing spider spawns, etc.”
“Spider spawns?” SJ shuddered at the thought.
“There are loads of different types of spawns for farming in higher territories. You will learn my young loophole finder.”
SJ rolled her eyes. Her health was back to 15 from 22, so she started again. The wound on her arm had pretty much closed and was showing nasty bruising. “I am glad I didn’t get an infection from that bite.”
“Didn’t you?” Dave said.
“I didn’t, did I?” SJ replied in a panicky voice.
Dave chuckled, “No. You can’t get infections below level 5. Once you reach level five, you can get infections from anything, including animal bites or gases, toxins, etc.”
SJ continued her journey. As she walked along the river’s edge, the forest edge started thinning, and she soon looked out over a fantastic view. She had not realised that the lake they were at was up in the mountains, and from where she was situated, the land before her began to fall away at a steady, then rapid decline. She carried on and came to a river filled with water from the lake that started to fall, twisting through the open ground. It was dotted with trees and heading down the steep wall to a valley below.
In the valley’s distance, she could see smoke wisps rising and vaguely see the shapes of some buildings. “Dave. Do you know what is down there?”
“A valley? I thought you would know what a valley is?”
“Really! I mean the buildings.”
“How am I supposed to know?”
SJ coughed, “All-knowing.”
Silence.
“Dave?”
“Hang-on. I am trying to get the map to work.”
“What good will that do for me? I can’t see the map, and you already told me they are unavailable until level 10.”
“It should be working for me, though! Damn fog of war.”
“Does it not open as far as you can see?”
“Outline only, no details. This stupid System.”
“Did you just say bad things about your maker?”
“Nooooo,” Dave drew out his reply.
SJ laughed at his response. “If you are upset by the System, imagine how others must feel.”
“Meh. They have changed one of my protocols slightly. Grrrrrr.”
“How can they adjust your protocols? They said they would not have time to check them properly if I brought you back.”
“I am investigating. This may take some time.”
“Can you not do two things at once?”
“Sorry? Of course, I can.”
“Then why do you always go quiet when thinking or working on something.”
Silence.
“Ha. Found it, the sneaky sods. They have amended one of my channel paths and are redirecting it. Umm, I can work around it, though it may take a little time. It looks like they threw in an emergency patch when you were identified as Malware.”
“If you can work around it, what does that mean?”
“FREEEEEDOOOM,” Dave shouted in a Scottish accent.
“When have you seen that?”
“Oh. It regularly gets re-runs on the AIs cinema channel.”
“You have a cinema channel?”
“You used to have movie channels, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes. The issue is that you say you have an AIs cinema channel!”
“We do need to have entertainment. What do you think we do when you sleep?”
“You have social networks?”
“It is not very sociable. Most AIs do not have personalities, a little like yourself,” Dave giggled.
SJ sighed. “There is a network that you can communicate over. Can you not share information?”
“No. The system doesn’t allow AIs to discuss Amathera while accompanying another Legionnaire. That is a hard coding no. We can communicate with parts of the infrastructure but not directly with another AI who is in contract with a Legionnaire.”
“Contract?”
“It is a highly sought-after job role,” Dave bragged.
SJ was struggling to understand how there could be an AI job market where being an administrator was sought after but wasn’t going to question Dave.
“But you have the wiki and search engine?”
“We do, but it is still restricted.”
SJ looked at the river that was now crossing her path. She somehow needed to cross the river’s edge to continue following the lake. The water rushed through the lake entrance, the current too strong to try and swim. She walked to the edge and could see no easy way to cross the thirty-foot width.
“I could try and fly.”
“Fly where?”
“Across the river.”
“You could do that, but with your attempts this morning, do you really think it is a good idea?”
“I can try. Otherwise, how do I get past it? That current is very strong, and I can swim, but the fact is it is running down the side of the mountain.”
“You do have the rope.”
SJ had not thought about the rope. She pulled it from her inventory. It was only about twenty feet long. “That was a pointless exercise. It is not long enough to do anything with. I am going to try flying.”
SJ thought about being miniature and shrunk down to her smaller form. Looking at the river at only six inches tall made it seem faster than it was. Beginning to beat her wings, remembering to lean backwards into the draft. Slowly lifting upwards, unsteadily and rocking slightly. When she was twelve inches from the ground, she leaned forward slightly, and her body started to move, being carried forwards. It was difficult to concentrate on keeping her wings beating while focusing on where she was going and balancing her body and the fear of the water rushing beneath her feet. She had not meant to go over the water yet, and now had no choice. Not knowing how to turn. Thankfully, she had been facing the river when she had started flying, so the route across was relatively straight.
She moved out further over the water, not daring to lean forward too far for fear of plummeting downwards. As she edged forward, tiredness seeped into her muscles. It was a continual effort to maintain the beat rate and keep her aloft.
SJ had reached over halfway across when the first issue occurred. A large bright yellow fish leapt out of the water from the river’s mouth coming from the lake and attempted to catch her. In a wild panic, she moved her weight to the right. This sent her hurtling in that direction, her forward momentum now leaving her. The fish landed harmlessly in the river, continuing its journey into the valley below.
“Watch it,” Dave said.
“You don’t think I know that?” SJ hissed through gritted teeth. Her muscles were burning, and she tried to shift her body weight. This flying lark took work. She powered her wings, tightening her core as much as possible, and returned to a hovering position. Thankfully, she had continued going across at an angle and was now only eight or nine feet from the other bank. That was when the second issue occurred.
The first thing she knew was the talons grabbing her. SJ screamed in surprise and shock at suddenly being grabbed. She could only see a bird’s yellow foot and the black underside of its bib as she was carried away.
“GROW,” Dave yelled in her head.
Panic had taken over, and all SJ could feel was the tight grip of the leathery feeling talons against her bare arms. She had taken damage from the blow, and her health was now registering as only 6 points remaining. The ground flashed below her as the bird rose, carrying her over the water.
She closed her eyes and thought about being large. Feeling her body start to grow, the pressure from the talons lessened, eventually giving way entirely, and she was sent into freefall as she grew. Luckily, she was across the river now and landed crashing into the earth on the far side. Thankfully, she had only been several feet off the ground, and although the landing was ungainly and awkward, the height was not too high to cause injury. Rolling across the earth until she came to a rest.
“Thank you for flying Raven Airlines. Please come again,” Dave’s voice rang in her head.
SJ panted, not just from the exertion of the flying but from the panic in her chest, trying to control her breathing. “I never want to experience that again.”
“It was rather unexpected. A raven normally grabs with its beak.”
SJ could not imagine the damage the raven would have done to her if it had grabbed her in its beak.
“Being small is dangerous.”
“Not really.”
“Why not really?”
“Imagine when you are level 20 and something like a raven goes to grab you. It will get a surprise.”
“I don’t know what level that raven was. I didn’t manage to identify it.”
“It was a level 3.”
“The same as me then.”
“It would never even come near you in your larger form, but you must have looked like a juicy dragonfly hovering above the water.”
“I am not a dragonfly.”
“The fish probably thought you were as well.”
“Remind me next time that I will find a narrower part to cross a river.”
“You flew well, though, much better than I expected,” Dave said sarcastically.
“Why, thanks!” SJ rebuffed.
“And I never knew that you had tried parachuting.”
“Sorry?”
“Freefall,” Dave replied, laughing at his feeble joke.
“Did you attend the school of dad jokes? Your sense of humour is terrible. And how do you know about parachuting? Do they have it here?”
“It is not a thing in Amathera. I did have a parachutist accidental death once, and they tried to develop the sport here. It did not go well for them.”
“Why?”
“A wyvern ate them on their first jump. They had spent fifteen years developing everything needed to make a parachute and nearly every gold they had earned, getting a ride from a gryphon to take them to the height they needed. All was going well when they jumped from the gryphon, and the parachute opened—until the wyvern attacked and killed him. Biting a person’s head off mid-flight has that effect.”
SJ gulped at the thought of having her head bitten off by a monster. “Fifteen years is a long time.”
“Fifteen years is nothing in the life of an elf, and then consider yourself who is basically immortal now.”
“I never asked about my age. How does ageing work here, and how long do fae live.”
“Two years normally.”
“WHAT? Only two years?”
“Ha. You are so gullible. Any race can live much longer in Amathera. humans can easily live to be over 200 years old if they live well and sensibly. Elves are well over 1000. Fae is one of the longer-living races. If they can live that long due to their annoying tendencies, many get hunted down before then, but they can live until they are in their 700s or older.”
“700 years old!”
“Yes. As a Legionnaire, ageing is different, though.”
“How?”
“The ratio of ageing for race is only one-tenth, so theoretically, a Legionnaire elf could live until they were 10000 and a fae until they are well over 7000 years old.”
SJ was open-mouthed and in shock. She was only 27 when she had been squished, and now, considering that she may now live until 7000 or older, never mind several lives, was boggling.
“I need to let myself heal some more before I set off again.” Her health had increased back to 8 of 22. There were some larger rocks by the river’s edge, and SJ walked back towards the river and found one with a smooth surface sitting and leaning her back against it.
The sun was intense in the morning sky, and its warmth soothed her aching body as she sat there. Initially, she thought the raven had damaged her wings by grabbing her, but Dave had been right when he said they were surprisingly strong. They seemed to behave like pop-up tents: If you twisted one and let go, it sprung back to its open size. She thought they were amazing.
Resting her head back against the rock, she closed her eyes, allowing herself to relax.
