52. Trees and Shaman

The outline, if you can call it that, doesn't change as you approach. That's not to say it's form doesn't shift; as best as you can see it's like a two dimensional snapshot of a tree, taken from wherever you see it and then pasted into reality. The effect is somewhat uncanny, as if someone was taking something you were not equipped to see and simplifying it the bare minimum.

The effect only gets worse as you get closer and the three dimensional nature of the image ghost becomes apparent. It's as if several images have been pasted onto each other, but move at different speeds as you change where you look from.

It's Mercy who speaks first.

“It's...” but her voice trails off, dry. You reach for a suitable word to fill the gap.

“Beautiful?” you hazard. Mercy looks down at you and raises an eyebrow.

“Not what I was going to say, but whatever floats your boat Red. No, I was going to say... wrong? Maybe? It's hard to describe, isn't it?”

You nod. “Like something we're not meant to see.”

Mercy nods in response, and reaches out a hand, hesitant. Her fingers brush the tree's surface with the barest touch.

Both of you jump as the pop-up flickers into view, along with a small progress bar. Even with all her penalties, Mercy simple touch has filled an appreciable amount of the progress bar - maybe a full percent.

Mercy's face relaxes into slackjawed amazement.

“It... It's worked?”

You open your quest menu.

“Not yet; Maybe we need to finish it first?”

Mercy reaches out again, as if in a trance, and touches the silhouette again.

“Should I call a few of the goblins in to help?” you ask, not sure if you'll get a response. Mercy seems to have eyes only for the tree, a look of pure need on her face. She shakes her head.

“No. No I want to... It has to be me.”

You nod, and back away slowly, keeping half an eye on her. “Alrighty. You, uh, have fun?”

You take one last look at her progress, judging that it'll take her about a half hour of working like that unless she picks up the pace, and resolve to swing by in about twenty five minutes.

Which leaves you twenty five minutes to... tour your domain? Things seem to work pretty well without your input at this point, and you're low enough on materials that apart from planning there's not much expansion to be done. The only thing you have a lot of right now is Fame, which is sitting nicely at...

500

Nearly a hundred higher than when you last checked.

You really don't want to.

You really, really don't want to.

You open your fame menu.

You close your eyes and let out a long, slow breath.

Well, now we know what happens on the night of the full moon. And I know what I'm doing for the next twenty minutes.

You close your fame menu with as much force as you can apply to something that has no physical form, trying not to look at any of the purchase options, No tying someone's lifeforce to your own without asking, and go to find Feathers.

She is, perhaps unexpectedly, drilling herself in the arena, being watched by Sapphire and Amanda. It looks like she's running through a number of weapons and their uses to the bemused redhead.

“No, I've said. I don't have the right body for a weapon like that. I think I'll be staying with magic.”

“But magic stupid! You big! Use big hammer! Squish foes!”

You hop down into the pit, gliding over to them with your wings extended. Sapphire breaks away from the argument and walks up to you.

“Feathers has been like this since I brought her in on it. How'd things go with Tall, Broody and Unstable?”

You shoot an ember at her, making her leap back.

“Things went fine with Mercy. She's had quite a traumatic past. People hating her on sight for who she is, being forced to live on the edges of society, never being able to find somewhere she felt safe for long. You won't happen to know what that's like would you?”

Sapphire flushes, opening her mouth to reply and then shutting it again. You nudge her with your snout.

“Sorry, that was harsh of me. I know she can be grating. But give her a chance OK? She's just looking for somewhere to call home and people to call friends.”

After a few seconds of hesitation, Sapphire nods, and then fixes you with a glare. “But if she keeps threatening you, or I ever find out that she's used magic to ensnare you, I will kill her.”

You smile, forcing yourself not to think about both of you losing control in the forest. “Don't worry. There'll be plenty of violence to go around soon enough. Speaking of, I think we should probably intervene before someone draws blood.” you say, nodding towards where Feathers now has Amanda in a choke hold.

You're pretty sure that Feathers hasn't asked for permission from either Amanda or you, and you can't go around just choking out other people's subs without permission after all.

As soon as you approach, your goblin chieftness leaps backward.

“See? Arms better than magic. If I have knife, you dead. If sword, you dead. If hammer, you dead but painful!” she practically spits.

“Just in case it wasn't explained to you,” you begin, as Amanda wheezes breath back into her lungs, her face bright red, “Amanda currently has no access to magic, so that was hardly a fair test.”

Feathers looks down and toes at the sand. “Maybe was told. Maybe forgot.”

“Also,” you press on, “When she did have magic, it was healing and helping focused. Her job was to make other people use their swords better, and stay fighting longer.”

Feathers grunts, still not looking at you.

“Finally, since she used to be a player character, she has emotion traits. Specifically, ones that make her really really good at doing exactly that, but are just wasted if she uses a sword.”

For the second time in as many minutes, you're left with one of your oldest companions staring at the ground and unwilling to meet your eyes. Once again, you give her a nudge.

“Hey. Not everyone can be as good a fighter as you.”

Your gobliness shoves you away, but you catch a smile on her face. “You say stupid thing to make happy because we all like you too much to say you stupid. My job to say you stupid. You stupid.”

“Yep!” you say, popping the 'p'. “Does it work?”

She blows a raspberry at you.

“Good!” you say, just as chipper. “Well, I have some news, but it can wait until after we talk about Amanda's new class. Did any of you have any ideas?”

Feathers raises her hand and you look at her. “Ideas apart from 'Big hammer'?”

Feathers blows another raspberry at you, and Amanda gasps out a laugh. You take it as a victory as the three girls gather around you. Amanda is still rather red faced, but she also rubs her thighs together as she sits. A sniff is all you need to confirm that her redness isn't all from being choked.

Or rather, it is but not directly.

Or rather, you should probably have a conversation with Feathers about human mating rituals and what's OK and what isn't. Just in case.

Pushing that thought from your mind, because you know if you grow erect while surrounded by these three you'll never get anything done...

Pushing that thought from your head as well, you concede that maybe Mercy had a point when she called this dungeon horny.

Either way, Feathers still has a hand up, so you nod at her.

“Maybe like shaman?”

Amanda sits up straighter, and you presume that this wasn't something that came up while you were elsewhere.

“What kind of class is that?” she asks, confirming your suspicions. Feathers struggles to find the words for a few seconds and Sapphire steps in.

“I think it's meant to be a monster only class, but I don't think there's anything stopping anyone from learning it if they made their way to a willing shaman, in monster territory, without a class. It's pretty broad, from what I remember from the kobold's one at the top of the mountain. Some talking with spirits and borrowing their powers; especially of tribal heroes and family members. Some herb and alchemy based healing, some ability to help your allies with minor shape-shifting spells; we once managed to rout a hobgoblin warband because we got cat's eyes and attacked at night. Some nature magic, but there's a limit to how much of that you can do on top of a mountain. Mostly we just usually got rain when we needed it.”

You nod. That all seems to resonate with your still foggy memories of pre-update. Amanda sits back, picking up a handful of sand and letting it trickle through her fingers.

“That sounds very broad. What are the downsides?”

This time it's Feathers who speaks. “Lots of spells yes, but few in your head. Like... Maybe you know weather. Can rain, or thunder, or sunlight. But if you want talk to Krom, need long time, big fire, smelly plants, maybe kill dear but no eat. Or, always talk to Krom, but if want to end storm, then same thing. Big circle, long chant. And...”

Here, Feather's pauses, casting around for words. Amanda glances at Sapphire, who shrugs. Eventually the gobliness speaks again.

“And, maybe... always need give away a thing. Cat's eyes at night? Hope you have cat who you no like. Even if spell in head. Always someone lose something.”

Amanda nods, her eyes unfocused. “Yes, that makes sense. Tribal shamanism focused around balance, give and take for broad effects... It would mean each tribe would only really need one or two spellcasters to make their chance of survival much higher, but players wouldn't get overwhelmed by a dozen goblins working on concert to call down lightning.”

Feathers shrugs. “Maybe. Tribe only have one, long time ago. Never do much. No lightning ever.”

You look around the group. “Anything else?”

Sapphire shakes her head. “I know there's players who throw fire, ice, lightning. People who summon storms and command the trees. People who call up creatures from the forest or from big glowing portals. But I don't know how, or where you'd go to learn.”

“Where is easy,” Amanda says, “Or easy enough. I just need to get a class specific item I think. Re-classing is always a quest which starts with getting a class specific item. Guilds offer low level items from specific classes for large amounts of money. More for the classes you need to unlock somehow. You can make a fortune by stumbling into a rare class, re-classing, and selling all your class specific stuff. But that would mean I'd need to get to a big city and have a lot of money.”

You open your inventory. “I have... four hundred and sixty five gold coins?”

Amanda gapes at you. “Where..? No, never mind. That's a lot of money for someone at my level, but no where near enough for a re-class item. They run into the tens of thousands for the low level ones. The only players who re-class rather than inhabit someone new are desperate and the players selling know it. No, the next best option, for a normal person at least, is to find someone of the wanted class, and pay them to run a dungeon with you. They normally ask for something ridiculous like a thousand gold and all the loot in the dungeon and in return if they get a class specific item below a certain level they'll give it to you.”

“Well that seems... not much better, to be honest.”

“It's not. But because of you we're in a slightly better position.”

“Why?” asks Feathers.

Amanda gives a small, guilty smile. “We can just loot the bodies. I don't suppose you know of any spellcasters nearby we can bait into the dungeon?”

You smile back, but without mirth. “Well that leads into the news I mentioned earlier. You see-”

An echoing scream shoots through the room. It's unmistakably Mercy.

All four of you are up and running in a heartbeat.

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