Chapter 72 – Town Defense

  Everyone turned, expecting to see the small human among them, but instead one of the unconscious elves stood. It stared at them. Its eyes no longer gazed and unfocused but instead glowing with a golden silver light. A cruel grin spread across its face and when it spoke, Clayton’s voice came out.

  “Clever to hide your place in illusions,” Clayton said. “But I know now, and they won’t stop me for long. I hope you enjoyed that, because I will make all of you pay for what you did.”

  “Not the threat you think it is,” Savgar said. “All you will be doing is saving us the trouble of finding you.”

  “By all means,” Clayton said. “Come to me, save me the effort. You won’t catch by surprise again.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Jack said. All the while Clayton was using the elf to speak, Jack saw something strange happening. It was like there was a long red thread of Mana connecting the elf to something in the distance. Far in the distance. With a thought, he reached out and pulled on the Mana, snapping it. The connection broke instantly, and the elf fell limp on the ground, once again unconscious.

  Alzona ran over to help the elf. “What happened?” she asked.

  “I think I severed his connection,” Jack said.

  “You broke his control?” Daniel asked.

  “No, just whatever spell he was using to speak through him,” Jack said. “I don’t think I undid whatever he did to them.”

  “We should discuss that,” Daniel said. “I want to understand how you can do things like that.”

  “I’m not really sure myself,” Jack said. “It’s like an instinct.”

  “Worth exploring,” Daniel said. “We should…”

  “Let the boy rest for now,” Savgar interrupted. “It’s clear he needs it. We are all going to need some rest for the fight to come. No telling if Clayton was telling the truth. Might have less time than we hoped before he comes after us.”

  “Then we should prepare defenses,” Alzona said. “What are we working with here?”

  “Nothing,” Victor said. “Everything you see is all we have right now.”

  “I’ve set up a few traps,” Rayne said. “Ones to alert, and ones to slow them down. We can focus on making more of those.”

  “What about the Beast Lord?” Alzona asked.

  “Can not interfere in this conflict,” Reynard said, appearing nearby. “My normal illusions are all I can offer, but that will be little help against Clayton.”

  “If that is the case,” Jack said. “Then perhaps it would be better to remove the illusions. They will only hamper our ability to fight back. The elves don’t have the sight, but I’m pretty sure he was able to use it through that elf. He might be able to share it with others under his control.”

  “I can remove my illusions, but if I do, it will take some time to put them back up,” Reynard said. “The place will be vulnerable for a time.”

  “Better that then being the only ones dealing with the illusions,” Teresa said. “We can protect the place afterwards once we deal with this threat.”

  “Works for me,” Savgar said.

  “Then I will,” Reynard agreed. “It’ll take a day at least to remove.”

  “What should we do about Clayton?” Elizabeth asked. “Is he really going to come here.”

  “He might,” Teresa said. “I don’t think he will come in person or immediately. He might be angry, but I’m thinking he is also scared. Why else would he have wasted the time trying and scare us?”

  “If he wanted to, he could have just snuck up on us while we weren’t expecting it,” Zajowle acknowledged. “It was foolish for him to announce himself like that.”

  “Then what do you think he’s planning?” Reuf asked.

  “He is buying time,” Zajowle said. “He will need time to build back his strength. Perhaps he hopes to put us on the defensive to give him time to prepare? He also doesn’t know how much more of that hemotoxin we have. Getting close to him again won’t be easy now that he is on alert, but the more time he can get, the harder it will be. I think we should make our move soon.”

  “As far as I am concerned all he did was put a clock on it,” Savgar grunted. “If he doesn’t come after us, then we go after him. Earlier the better, but not until we are ready. A few days, no longer. Try and train up a little bit and improve our equipment as much as possible in that time. So long as we don’t take longer than that, he shouldn’t be able to recover enough. We can send a few to keep an eye on his actions as well, before we make our move.”

  “We will help,” Alzona said. “As much as we can.”

  “We need more ingredients to make more potions and poisons,” Elaine said.

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  “And more arrows,” Elizabeth added. “A lot more arrows and bows.”

  “We also need to repair our armor,” Teresa said.

  “So long as it’s leather, we should be able to help with that,” Alzona said.

  “We have to do something about those elites,” Jack said. “He is sure to have a bunch protecting him, and they don’t die easy.”

  Savgar nodded. “Defenses, armor, weapons. We start work on those immediately. Everyone not able to help in those areas can work on training their fighting abilities.”

  “Do we even have time to train everyone properly?” Elaine asked.

  “Every little bit helps,” Savgar said loudly, and then more quietly so only those nearest could hear. “Besides, it gives those that can’t contribute as much to the effort something to work on. Promotes a sense of unity.”

  “We should also assign a watch,” Jasper said. “Maybe three at a time for this area and a scout team watching the forest?”

  “A rotation,” Savgar suggested.

  They continued to make plans, and Jack left them to it. Ciao disappeared into the crowd probably to rest or read. They would all be busy soon enough, but he needed rest more than anything right now. It was getting harder and harder not to collapse where he was standing. He pulled himself up into one of the tree beds. Elaine joined him a few minutes later.

  “Are you actually ok?” Elaine asked checking him over.

  “Yeah, just tired,” Jack muttered. “I should be fine after some rest.”

  “You should have someone work on repairing your armor before you do,” Elaine suggested. “It’s starting to look like scraps.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. He pulled off his chest piece examining it. “Definitely seen better days. I meant to place a repair enchantment on it but didn’t get around to it. I’ll try that after I wake.”

  “If you can do that enchantment, I’m sure everyone will be happy about that,” Elaine said. “Best not to let Savgar know that you could have done that this whole time. Might blame you for his armor.”

  “He wouldn’t do that,” Jack said chuckling, but then stopped. “I met them by the way. The moon elves.”

  Elaine paused. “You saw them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  “They saved my life back there,” Jack said. “Made me agree to inviting them to the Settlement.”

  “You didn’t,” Elaine said.

  “I did,” Jack said. “There wasn’t much choice. Only a temporary invitation to talk. Nothing more.”

  “We’ll deal with it,” Elaine sighed. “Make sure you rest for now. Going to have a lot of work for everyone soon.” She left him there. Jack settled in to sleep, but before he did, he pulled up the messages he had waiting for him.

  *Level up! Human (Level 15)*

  +5 unallocated points

  *Level up! Akashic Champion (Level 11)*

  +1 Str./Dex./Con./Wis. +2 Int.

  Jack had to stop himself from groaning at the sight of this. He now had twenty-eight unallocated points. Points that might have made a huge difference just a few hours ago. He needed to make sure he was assigning these as he got them. Looking at his stats, he assigned four points to his strength, eleven points to his constitution, and thirteen points to his charisma. He spread out the points to help keep a balance amongst his stats.

  Name: Jack Masters Level: 15 Experience: 2%

  Class: Akashic Champion (Level 11)/Akashic Craftsman – 12 (level 1)/Seeker (level 3/20)     Path: Path of the Pinnacle Aspirant

  Health: 7600 Stamina: 10795 Mana: 11865

  Strength(Str): 43

  Dexterity(Dex): 61

  Constitution(Con): 45

  Intelligence(Int): 54

  Wisdom(Wis): 50

  Charisma(Char): 41

  Perception(Perc): 53

  Luck: 9

  Unallocated points: 0

  *Wisdom has reached the second threshold: trait gained Mana Immutability*

  Increased Mana stability when channeling Mana through rituals and spells. Strength of constructs summoned has increased.

  Jack was happy with the change. Now all his stats were at least in the forty range or higher. He could already feel his increased Constitution working to help him recover. The Mana Immutability was a nice addition, especially given how much he had started to incorporate the shield and net spells into his fighting. He might even have to start using it as a regular shield more.

  The changes made; he took the moment to look over his other notifications to see if anything else had changed recently.

  *Spell increased: Summon Net (Novice)*

  -The size and complexity of the net summoned has increased

  *Spell increased: Elemental Attunement (Novice)*

  -You can now attune your equipped armor with elemental Aspects you have affinities for. Attuning your armor in this way will offer some protection to that Elemental Affinity.

  *Spell increase: Barrier (Student)*

  -Your active Barrier will now regenerate by drawing on your Mana without the need to reactivate the spell. Spell can now be cast on self or others at increased Mana cost for each individual.

  *Skill Increase: Parkour (Student)*

  -You have an innate understanding of how to use the environment around you. All forms of travel are now a simple matter for you.

  -Increased natural base movement speed

  *Skill increase: Regenerate (Student)*

  -At the cost of Stamina, you can increase your natural regeneration rate for a time. With this method, lost of limb or organs can now be repaired or regrown within minutes

  *Spell increase: Shadow Shifting (Student)*

  You have started to become Familiar with the void. Now you can use this skill to open a portal for someone else to pass through. Portal created will cost extra Mana based on the person or object transported through it.

  *Quest complete: Exceptional Talent (2)*

  Bring five more skills to the Student Rank (5/5)

  Reward: Skill combination gem

  Combine two or more skills for the chance of creating a higher rarity skill. Skills used will be lost and have to be re-learned to regain the skill.

  There was a lot to take in from the last few skills. The increases to his Regenerate, Barrier, and Shadow Shifting skills alone were staggering. He would definitely have to test out the limits of those new abilities. Maybe not the regeneration skill. He wasn’t interested in testing that limit until he had to, but his Stamina was a largely under-utilized resource. If he could use it to heal mid battle, that would solve a lot of his problems.

  Then there was the skill combination gem. That was the second gem he had gained. The first being a skill upgrade gem. He still hadn’t used the first gem, and now he had a different one. It sounded like this could help him clean up some of the skills he didn’t care about anymore, like fishing, but it also sounded like whatever skill he used to combine with this gem was going to affect the skill he learned. He would need to think about which skills to combine and risk on an upgraded version.

  But that would have to wait until he woke up. Waving the screens close, he rolled over and immediately fell asleep.