The Way Ahead

Edwin mentally cursed as he ducked behind the ‘wall’ surrounding his kiln, trying to get cover from whatever assassin had been sent at him. He knew that his constant paranoia about the dwarves had to have been justified. How had he been tracked down now, though? It had been months since he’d been anywhere close to people.

His mind raced as it pulled on instincts he hadn’t had to use in months, struggling to get ready for fighting. Inion’s training didn’t exactly prepare him for this, but the required skills when combined with what he knew were similar.

Take in the surroundings, make a plan, take him out.

Edwin knew his clearing like the back of his hand- possibly even better given he’d never tried to memorize the latter- which put him at a serious home field advantage. He closed his eyes to try and think, but another quarrel coming from a totally different direction broke his concentration as it struck his left arm, pinning him by the bicep to the side of the earthenworks. It was immensely painful, but eminently manageable.

A concerted flex of will had the wooden shaft in his arm burst into flames, incinerating it in the blink of an eye and freeing him. He’d need a potion to fix the muscle damage to his bicep, but that was fine. A drop of very, very diluted knockout potion killed the pain in his arm, and he downed a tiny vial of experimental healing potion. Hopefully, the combination of his two emergency-healing potions would help keep him alive. He’d taken efforts to ensure he’d always have something on him after the panther attack, and it was finally paying off.

Before he got the chance to also eat a few talsanenris berries for the energy boost, he was forced to take cover again as another bolt flew at him from a new angle.

That made three shots coming from three different directions. Where was this guy? Other than the momentary tag with Identify, he hadn’t seen so much as a hint of his assailant. The rate of fire suggested a crossbow rather than a bow, and the class name suggested he might have something to do with darkness. Or it was just a Clan name. Probably the latter. Maybe both.

Straining his ears let Edwin hear a clunk coming from the side, near the top of his cliff, and while Edwin wasn’t fast enough to completely dodge the attack, his sudden movement meant it took him in his shoulder rather than his heart.

Any hopes he’d had of his left hand being of any use in this fight fled his mind, but at least he still had his right. That was enough to throw his bombs, though without the counterbalance, his accuracy would suffer.

To test his current aim, he grabbed and threw a rock from his surroundings towards where the last bolt had come from. A moment later, Edwin heard it clatter against stone. A miss, then. Whoever he was facing was smart and kept moving. Some kind of ambush specialist, most likely. Hopefully that meant they’d be weak close-up, but they’d probably at least have Health.

Running across open ground to try and get inside Obairlann was just inviting a quarrel in his back. He’d need a shield of some form, or some sort of obscuration. Smoke bombs sounded really nice about now, and he wished he had something that would help in that regard, but wishes wouldn’t help him survive this attack.

Another quarrel shot, and Edwin flinched, letting the quarrel strike his kiln, a good foot from his face and sending a spray of fired clay into his face. Was it just him, or was the hunter getting less accurate with each attack? Some sort of ambush bonus Skill, perhaps?

A thought flickered across Edwin’s mind, and he grimaced. It wasn’t ideal, but he’d take it over dying. What he needed was something big, loud, distracting, and that would produce a lot of smoke…

The sequence of events here wasn’t great. But it would accomplish his goals, and only had a high chance of killing him. It beat dodging crossbow bolts while pinned down in a pit, though.

…Maybe. He might also just blow himself up if he didn’t do this perfectly.

No, he’d blow himself up regardless. Edwin didn’t have long, didn’t have time to consider many alternatives. There was one thing he might be able to do to increase his odds of survival, but that in itself was a risk. But he was close enough to tiering up that even in the worst-case scenario for his first risk he wouldn’t be hurting himself that much. And right now? Right now he’d need all the help he could get.

I really hope you guys are right.

Edwin steeled himself and pulled up his Status, eyes skimming down its length. He flinched as another quarrel shot from the direction of the cliff, but it seemed like his current hiding spot would hold for the time being. Gah, this list was a mess. He’d been ignoring it for months, not that he blamed himself for that.

There it was. Just what he’d need to give him every edge in potentially surviving this. Worst-case scenario, it might… he didn’t even know. Give him a combat Skill that might be useful in this situation? He’d been lax before, putting long-term plans above all else. It wasn’t wrong, perhaps, but not the mindset he needed right now. Besides, this was already on his must-have list, it was just moving up the schedule a bit, and as it gave an Attribute, it might genuinely be useful, in contrast to a Skill which he’d need to figure out on the fly and wouldn’t even be that strong.

Another bolt whizzing overhead broke him out of his musings. No matter the accuracy or lack thereof of his assailant, who was probably just trying to keep him pinned anyway, he didn’t have time to waste.

You have completed the Warrior path!

Relentless training and a will to survive and thrive has gotten you far. You have and will face many obstacles in your way. As an alchemist, you know the value and power of blood both that of your own and that of your enemies. You tread a path of bloodshed, but will it be one of war or of medicine?

Come on, come on, stop waxing poetical at me. Are you going to give me what I need or not?

Class Change!

Hedge Alchemist → Sapper

Calculating Rewards…

Could this thing be any slower? He was never trying to complete a Path in the middle of a fight ever again. Shoot, that bolt seemed like it had a sharper angle than its predecessors. Was his attacker getting closer?

…

Done!

You have unlocked a new Attribute!

Health

Health level set to… 7

Edwin gasped as the change set into place. It wasn’t a major change, nothing like getting magic for the first time, but warmth blossomed across his body, seeming to anchor him to… something. The connection to his body became more pronounced, and for a few moments he was acutely aware of his blood spread out throughout his entire body. No wonder Zosiman had said Health was a vital (heh) component of becoming ‘real.’ Were all Attributes like this? Stamina had just bumped itself up his to-get list regardless.

A stick snapped on the soil nearby. Heh. Some assassin, if he couldn’t even avoid stepping on a stick… unless it was a decoy? Nope, not going down that rabbit hole. Edwin needed to do something, and fast, to avoid getting skewered… again. He’d almost forgotten the crossbow bolt sticking out of his shoulder in the glow of getting Health, but it was still definitely there.

This would take careful timing, and Edwin prepared himself. After each shot, there was about thirty seconds before the next one. That was still true, even as all the quarrels started coming from the same direction, trying to keep him pinned down.

One, two, three… Let the hunter shoot his bolt and… now.

Edwin had a fairly long stick within reach, and he grabbed it, used it to push himself out of the pit through what he felt was a stellar display of Athletics and Flexibility through the excruciating pain in his shoulder, and fed Mana Infusion in through it. It charged up quickly, and Edwin maneuvered the end of it so it was sticking in the kiln’s roaring fire.

He jumped, pushing Athletics as far as possible to let him leap across the open ground. He kept his foot barely touching his pole as he arced through the air. While mid-flight, his eyes were able to catch a glimpse of the next crossbow bolt hurtling straight towards him from an indistinct figure barely fifteen feet away from him. In the instant before he lost contact with his stick and the moment escaped him, he pulled his trigger.

Mana Infusion. Firestarting.

Edwin pushed as much mana as possible through the stick into the fire. The Skill did what it always did, and his connecting pole burst into flames. The fire beneath the kiln, though….

BOOM

Explosions were not what Hollywood liked to portray them as. Everyone knew that. There was much less fire and much more concussive force. However, even then, there was this idea that the force of an explosion could push you away from the explosion, like a massive fireball-powered leap.

That was wrong. While some might argue it was mere semantics, the shockwave did nothing to push away a person, not when it was traveling so fast through a person that it could rupture any part of them with gas in it. Instead, it was the air it pushed which might throw a person, and paradoxically, it was just as possible to be flung towards the epicenter of the explosion as away from it.

However, this close to a roaring kiln simultaneously catching on fire, every piece of charcoal igniting with a speed that would leave any pyrotechnic from Earth jealous, Edwin wasn’t worried about where the wind would blow him, midair or not. If it came to that, he was dead anyway, the blast wave tearing open his lungs, his digestive system, and his ears. He’d hoped there wouldn’t be much of a shockwave, but he’d been proven very definitely wrong.

All that to say, Edwin was very surprised to be alive.

The resulting explosion which had ripped through the clearing was massive. A fireball had risen into the air alongside shattered pieces of kiln and displaced dirt, pelting Edwin with debris. A crater had replaced much of the ground on that side of Obairlann, and the blast of wind originating from a rippling shockwave had snatched Edwin from the air, tossing him away like a floating leaf, and knocked the bolt aimed at him to places unknown.

When he’d come around to his senses, Edwin gulped, then winced at the pain accompanying the action. He wasn’t sure how he was still alive. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Being that close to such a large explosion, even larger than he had anticipated, would have killed him if he were still a normal human, and not magically augmented with his Athletics and Flexibility skills, and now Health. His ears rang, his ruptured eardrums bleeding slightly, and as his gulp turned into a cough, he felt wetness. The pressure wave had to have ruptured blood vessels in his lungs. Without magical healing, he was a dead man walking.

No.

No.

The Alchemist pulled himself to his feet, his sense of balance wholly shot. He’d make it through long enough to get potions, to get Inion, to get First Aid going. He was a bloody mess, the crossbow bolt in his shoulder shattered and wedging the tip even further inside his body, but that explosion would have been undoubtedly heard across the Verdant. Inion would be back soon. Once she came back, they’d have numbers on their side and then he’d be safe.

A figure stirred at the base of the cliff, similarly thrown by the explosion against the rocks. If not for the motion, the Hunter would have been indistinguishable from the stone around him.

Edwin narrowed his eyes.

Inion was on her way. All he needed to do was survive until she arrived. Once she showed up, then he could reassess and figure out what his options were.

He could probably manage that. Dust and smoke were sweeping across the area, obscuring everything and giving Edwin the cover he needed to make a break around Obairlann. He dashed around the edge, crossing the distance in an adrenaline-powered flash, half-slamming into the outer wall of his house before he was able to reorient himself and barrel his ‘door’ down. Behind him, he slammed it as best as he could and barricaded it with his table and chairs, now smeared with his blood. He couldn’t hear anything from outside, which meant…

Oh yeah. It meant he should probably heal his eardrums.

Now that he was inside, he had way more than just the random first aid potions he kept on him at all times, and he took full advantage of that. He gently pulled the crossbow bolt from his shoulder- did his left side have a magnet on it for arrows or something? Or did crossbows just lean towards the right when they shot?

He’d been through this song and dance before, so he wasn’t too worried. A few giant dollops of proper healing salve, some of his last, set his skin itching as it and muscle knit themselves back together. First Aid and Alchemy both cooperated when he used healing potions, and alongside the specialized human-only salve, he’d be up to about 70% capacity within a few minutes. Already, his hearing was just barely starting to return.

There was a knock at the door. Edwin grabbed his stick and his knockout potion as the knock rapidly turned into pounding, and then with a crack, the door broke in half, both halves flying across the room.

The dust cleared, and Edwin finally got a good look at his attacker. Well, not quite a clear look. Shadows wrapped around them, obscuring most of their features, but Edwin could still tell that he was dealing with something tall, large, and gangly.

Not a dwarf, then? He wondered, and ducked behind where his table had been knocked to with his assailant barging through the door.