Chapter 259: Holy Levels Batman!

The town was slow to wake the next morning. Most of the fighters were given the morning off to recover from the battle, but the rest were up and already at work by the time Ann’s brain kicked her awake. The last thing she remembered was Waheela’s smaller form clamping down on her calf.

Kat was doing her usual quiet contemplation. Her eye still stared up at the tent ceiling in the morning for a while. Ann hadn’t woken up before the princess in a while, so she didn’t know how long the woman even slept. She snuggled up, squishing Rosalyn between them.

“Morning.”

“Aye. Sleep alright?”

“Waheela was biting me, so I’m pretty sure I was zonked. Dunno if I’m ever going to get used to my dreams being as active as my time awake.”

“Heh. Maybe we’ll figure out how tae share dreams or whatever. Be a good change o’ pace fer me.”

“Still?” Ann didn’t need to ask specifically.

“Mhm.”

Ann hugged her tighter, forcing a snore from Rosalyn.

“Wish I could just take all of that away,” Ann mumbled.

“Me too. Not ‘ow this works, though. What was it Bren’s said? Struggle gives us purpose. Just that some o’ us ‘ave more struggle than others.” Her face was still blank, still staring.

“Yup. Feel terrible about Bones,” Ann said.

“It… happens. Never easy. Been since ye joined that we ‘aven’t had a death. Not since Artyom. Still cracks yer teeth like a boulder.”

Ann couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled up in her. “What?”

Kat finally broke her moody stare. “What, what?”

“Cracks your teeth like a boulder? The hell does that mean?”

“It hurts like a thorn in yer heel? Feckin’, idioms! What would you say?”

“I dunno, never gets easier? A stab to the heart?”

Kat gave Ann a confused sneer. “Ye don’t survive stabs tae the heart. Well, not most o’ the time.”

“Yeah, but it’d hurt! That’s the point, right? When the hell are you going to be munching on a boulder?”

“Don’t ask me. That’s a Bultrong sayin’. Just picked it up!” Kat huffed, stifling a chuckle.

“I’ve met plenty, and I cannot imagine any of them eating rocks. Sure that’s not some dragon phrase.”

Kat rolled her eye, then rolled her body over on top of Ann, Rosalyn yelping as the motion woke her up. “I’ll teach ye a dragon phrase,” Kat hummed as she leaned down for a kiss.

Rosalyn chose the perfect timing for mischief. Wriggling her curvy body, she popped up right in front of Kat’s face. She stole the kiss!

“Oh, you bitch!” Ann howled in mock outrage. She grabbed the woman’s horn and yanked her to the side. It broke the kiss, which she lunged in to reclaim.

“What? Kat was being all lovey, and I wanted some of that,” Rosalyn giggled. She squirmed her way out from between the two women as they made out. “You two are so serious in the mornings.”

Kat’s eye flicked over to her, and she broke the kiss, leaving Ann to make grumpy noises. “Wait, how often are ye awake?”

“Not all of the time, but sometimes. I am a farmer’s daughter. Early mornings are my thing! You just stole it, so I stole your thing.”

“Tha’… tha’ makes no bloody sense!”

“Does to me!” Rosalyn stuck out her tongue.

“Ann, Rosalyn’s bein’ a brat,” Kat whined.

“We’ll punish her later,” Ann laughed. “Think we’ve got other stuff to talk about this morning.”

“Oh, shite, right!”

Rosalyn’s eyes lit up as she bounced on the shoved-together beds. “How many did you all get?”

Ann sat up, but kept Kat in her lap. She wasn’t too much taller, but she knew that letting Kat be the smaller person for once was a thing the princess enjoyed. “I got six! Holy shit! And another Warped level!”

Kat nodded as if this were perfectly normal, but Ann could feel her body shaking with excitement. “I did too. Well, six o’ me levels. No Warped shite.”

“Then that makes all of us!” Rosalyn cheered. “I bet Bren and Lucia got the same, too! Wow, that’s so much experience! We did fight pretty darn hard, but I guess the double experience really came in for us there.”

“If we keep this up, we’re gonna explode in levels,” Kat hummed. “Maybe we should be pushin’ ourselves ‘arder.”

Ann shrugged. She wasn’t too keen on testing limits that could get them killed. “Maybe. Let’s table that for after Bren and Lucia get in here.”

“You think they got… busy last night?” Rosalyn asked with a glorious giggle.

“If we didn’t? I don’t think they did,” Ann said.

Just then, there was a knock at the tentpole. “Make yourselves decent!” Bren called.

After a quick scramble to get the bare minimum of clothes on, they called the pair in. Lucia and Bren looked as exhausted as Ann felt. Lucia was dragging her feet, and flopped on the bed before asking anyone.

“She will not sleep,” Bren sighed. “At least, I think so. Did you three have a pleasant morning?”

“Did you?” Rosalyn asked, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Far too tired for such activities. Now? I am far too distracted for such activities. You all received six levels, yes?”

“And a Warped level,” Ann said, raising her hand like a kid in class. “It’s all black and spooky!”

Bren rolled his eyes, but chuckled. “Good. Then let us get to it. I will disregard the levels obtained that are just skill points.”

Made sense. They all knew their Paths at this point. Ann just tossed her free skill points into Dexterity. More speed and flexibility, plus her damage, never hurt. She popped open her sheet to check what she was at. Before she could, she noticed a little purple sticky note attached to it. She hadn’t seen one of these since she’d chosen her Path.

Hey Sweetums,

Listen, I know I’ve been pushy and all over the damn place lately. I promise we’ll talk soon. I’ll also pretend that I don’t know why you’re mad at me, so you can vent all of that. My domain includes the mind. Sorry that I can’t really turn that off, but it’s part of my very being. Tell Rosalyn and everyone they’re always welcome to call on me if they need to chat. I’ll do my best.

Yours sluttily,

Orenous

P.S. Oh, I’m also adding a little thing in here. You had memories of online chats and all that? Gonna give you one of those for me. I might not be able to respond all of the time immediately, but it’ll help if I’m stuck elsewhere. If I can’t, you might get cryptic responses that the non focused part of my being responds with. Just try your best.

Later, chat puppy!

Ann stared at that last line. Orenous had just called her a Discord kitten. God damnit. Rolling her eyes, she dismissed the note, and saw the chat over on the right of her sheet. There wasn’t any way to type, so she just kinda willed it to be.

[Chosen Puppy]: Hello World

Of course…

A little typing indication popped up.

[Bestest Goddess]: Oh good! You saw! Hey, I’ve got a really important first meeting to supervise and make sure it goes well, but I’m glad you saw this. Promise I’ll pop in for a proper chat later.

[Chosen Puppy]: Can I at least change my name?

[Bestest Goddess]: What is a name, but sounds used to describe yourself? If you feel something different, that is what you are.

Great, so that was the type of cryptic response. Ann tried to will her name to change, but it didn’t happen.

Puppy! Waheela chortled in her head.

Hey, you call me pup all the time!

That’s why it’s so funny!

Ann ignored the wolf’s laughter and focused on her stats.

Annita Kronforst

Race: Lupine (Warped)

Primary Class: Warrior of Orenous (30)

Secondary Class: Warped (5)

Title: Champion of Orenous

Health: 450/450

Attributes

Strength: 14

Intellect: 10

Dexterity: 52

Faith: 25

Stamina: 20

Mind: 80/80

Endurance: 14

Resilience: 17

Libido: 153/250

Desire: 20/330

Well, that looked pretty good. She had a hella good Dex at this point. At least, she thought she did. Maybe putting more points into Strength? No, her Endurance was next.

Bren had naturally put his stats into Intellect and Mind evenly. Kat had split hers between Resilience, Strength, and Endurance. Rosalyn saw no point in investing in Mind with her skill that scaled off her Int, so she just boosted that. Bren did suggest that she put some points in defence soon. They were only going to fight tougher things. Lucia, meanwhile, had put her six points towards Strength and a single point of Endurance. That evened out her two damage stats, which she seemed very happy about.

“Alright, stats done, let’s do skills,” Ann clapped, bouncing on her knees on the sack of straw she used for a mattress. Everyone would have three choices to make, and she would have four. One that would change her body even further.

Everyone’s eyes unfocused, looking at windows hanging in midair.

“Eh, one’s just stat choices,” Kat grumbled. “Takin’ more Stamina. It’s got some interestin’ wordin’. Called “Scaled Stamina”. Figure that’ll be a precursor to somethin’ else.”

Kat’s other choices were more interesting. One, called Get the Fuck Up! let her command one of her allies who’d fallen prone to stand, recovering any disorientation. The other for that tier was Grindstone. It basically let her scrape a weapon across her shield to get an improved strike. It cost her five Tenacity to do so. While the first option would be really nice, Grindstone helped her dish out more damage and keep things on her. It also didn’t specify that it needed to be her weapon. She picked that one.

The next was far more interesting. Her level thirty skill choice made everyone break into discussion. The skills were Eye of the Dragon, and Draconic Breath. One was something that let her see farther. While that would be great on Lucia, it wasn’t great on Kat. That left her with Draconic Breath. It wasn’t really a breath? Not how Ann thought about it, at least. It was a cone of sound that’d do minor damage, but more importantly, disorient creatures in that cone for a couple of seconds. Even with Rosalyn and Lucia’s tangling spells, their team was sorely lacking crowd control on a wider scale. It cost twenty Mind per cast.

The discussion was mostly about the names. Kat hadn’t had any skills that related to her draconic transformation until now.

“I’m alright with it,” Kat shrugged, ending the conversation. “I’m gonna be a monster wit’ this skill. Coulda really helped with the fight yesterday. The Mind thing is a bitch, though. Four uses? Gonna need more Mind.”

“It might only be the start, too,” Bren pointed out. “Dragons are naturally magical. You may get more.”

Rosalyn had some great options as well. She’d finally gotten a defensive spell and was prancing around the room with excitement. Not only that, but a movement spell, too! They were called Windwall and Gusty Step, respectively. There really wasn’t any competition between those options and her other choices. She could now get herself blown twenty feet in any direction for thirty Mind. Windwall was more expensive, but a barrier that would deflect physical projectiles for three seconds was worth the fifty Mind cost. Now Rosalyn was debating whether to add more to her Mind. Her most powerful spells had been Storm Winds stuff, but now she had to manage both. Her last choice was a passive that just kept her more sure-footed while in combat. It paired nicely with Gusty Step, so she wouldn’t trip and tumble every time she blew around.

Up next, Bren had his first damaging spell! It even used his Absorption to do it. The thing wasn’t strong by any measure of the word, but he could magically defend himself, now. It created a square barrier that spun rapidly in the air. At his direction, it would fly out and cut into whatever it hit. It cost ten Absorption, but that was as much as his normal barriers. A trade between offence and defence seemed fair. Testing the spell, he cut a fine line into the stone about an inch deep. Thankfully, it didn’t bounce.

The next two were variations on healing. One was a burst heal, the other was a channelled heal. Both required physical touch, and he already had a ranged heal he could just spam. The channel, River of Restoration, cost five Mind per second, and healed for 120% of his Mind per second. It was technically more efficient than his remote healing spell, but having to be in the thick of it offset that efficiency. Still, he could do some good healing when they were done with a fight.

His last two were stats, or something that let him parse through a library more easily. While he desperately wanted the library skill, he had to agree that ten Intellect was far too good to pass up. Epiphany was chosen.

Lucia was next. She muttered out her list of skills available in as few words as possible. The first choice was between a faster shot, which made no sense at the moment, and a flaming shot. She’d already chosen the flaming one. Bren grumbled at her for not telling him, but she countered that it was her choice, and it was a clear choice. Faster shots would be better if she got bigger ammunition or secondary weapons. Fillianore was hers, but the Huntress was aware that different situations needed different weapons. A subsonic explosive would be devastating.

Her next was boring. It seemed like most of them had gotten some level of stat boost. Hers was to her Stamina or a mix of Strength or Dexterity. She wanted Stamina, so she was taking Stamina. Ann noticed a bit of a trend. The woman knew what she wanted and wouldn’t let others argue her out of it. Kinda like her and Bren. Kinda sweet, if she thought about it.

The last skill was more akin to her trapping skills. It allowed her to delay the trigger of one of her shots by planting the bullet in a specific point. Should something get close, the trap would trigger. It did not discriminate between friend, foe, or even Lucia herself. She would need to be careful not to set off the trigger condition if she needed to disarm the trap or trigger it remotely. Lucia was all smiles about this one. Apparently, she’d been looking for a reason to get more into the trapper side of being a Huntress, and this was exactly the type of skill for that.

Last up, Ann. Everyone gathered around to see what their centrepiece companion had received. Ann opted to check her Warped level first. Everything else would probably be easier after that.

Warping Increased!

You have absorbed a tiny portion of the corrupting forces affecting the Seeds of the Gods. This will allow mutability of the flesh. The more you absorb, the stronger the effects will be.

Minor Cosmetic Mutation (3): Adds the ability to change the elasticity of your skin. Limit: Only to natural levels at any age.

Minor Skeletal Restructuring (1): Manipulate your skeleton to a very slight extent. Costs 70 HP. The bones in your face may be modified to change their structure. The end result must still remain within human ranges.

Everyone sat quietly for a minute after she read that last one. It was probably the best out of the two, but it was also the most jarring.

“You could change your face?” Rosalyn asked quietly.

“For seventy health,” Ann nodded quietly. “Damnit, I don’t like that for the same reason I don’t like the skin colour option I got earlier, but this is bones. It’s also level one. I think this is the start of me getting some really wild stuff. If I can change my bones around, or even make more of them, the limits are nearly endless.”

“Yeah, but… I like your face,” Rosalyn pouted.

“Right, and so do I, cause it’s what you love. I also just like it. Hot wolf lady is hot.”

“Humble hag,” Lucia scoffed.

Ann shrugged, sticking out her tongue at the Thrundol still laying on the bed. “Not bragging if it’s the truth. Anyway, I’ll take it, but I’m making sure I can keep my face stored in my memory somewhere before I do anything. I don’t want to take me away from either of you.”

“Thanks, love,” Kat said, putting a hand on her shoulder and squeezing. “I like it as much as our Lamb.”

With that out of the way, Ann picked up her Path skills. Six options meant a good number of choices. She was already going down the path of a magical rogue sex freak. Ann grumbled again at Predatory Sensuality, then got a giggle in her chat from Orenous that cut through her annoyance.

Congratulations! Your Path has advanced!

Warrior of Orenous (26)

Please choose from one of the following:

Affability Aura:

Raise the spirits of those around you. Through song or spoken word, improve the moods of those who witness your beauty and creativity. You’re hot enough this would happen anyway, but this skill gives it a magical kick. Costs 5 Mind and scales with your Faith. The higher your Faith, the stronger the effect. If a witness is decidedly in a foul mood, this can be resisted. Effects are noticeable by those affected.

Wolf’s Howl:

Unleash the voice of your lupine ancestors! Raise your head high and howl your challenge to the world. Enemies who hear this may become frightened. Others may become enraged. This can be used once per day.

Congratulations! Your Path has advanced!

Warrior of Orenous (28)

Please choose from one of the following:

Shadowmeld:

Some ancient wolf has decided that you should be able to stalk your prey more effectively. This skill will allow you to blend into the shadows more effectively.

Distracting Glitz:

Become the centre of attention! Your beauty will distract others from what your hands are really doing. Don’t go breaking too many hearts! Cost: 20 Mind.

Congratulations! Your Path has advanced!

Warrior of Orenous (30)

Please choose from one of the following:

Toxic Love:

In addition to bleeds, you now possess the ability to poison your targets. Raking your claws through their flesh while expending 20 Desire will cause them to be poisoned for the next thirty minutes, reducing their overall health by ten percent.

Shot Through The Heart!:

You have a revolver. Use it! Expend 10 Desire to increase the bullet’s damage by 100% of your Faith. Can be stacked with your Smite, should you desire.

Congratulations! Your Chosen of Orenous has advanced!

Please choose from one of the following:

Paragon of Love (1):

You’re quite the heartthrob! Not only are you gathering more and more lovers, but even those not infatuated with you are starting to come to adore you. As a representitive of My presence on the World, keep it up! You’ll get increasing bonuses to your Faith dependant on your influence and adoration with the masses. For now, that’d be a +10, but will be far more at later levels. Those who commit their hearts to you and join your party as the Inlon has will be counted double towards these bonuses.

Paragon of Lust (1):

You, Annita, are very good at satisfying anyone in your bed. That wasn’t even a skill I gave you. I just gave you the stamina and volume to keep up with yourself. Maybe it’s the time you spent in the coma making you the most pent up woman in history? Your Princess is struggling with her own issues, so I don’t expect this to be an instant choice. The more you spread your insatiable libido, the more powerful you will become. Your current trio affords you more Faith, but that’ll increase as you spread out. I’m including Wendyl in this count, though. She deserves it.

Both of these choices will count as upgrades to your existing Chosen of Orenous Unique Skill.

Hey, Waheela? Am I reading this right? Did you give Orenous some input on my skills?

Ann heard the huffing laugh. It was my request of her. I can provide input on your growth. The Bitch has final say, but has promised to listen.

Well, I’m glad you’re at least talking now.

It’s infuriating to admit she has some alright ideas for your pack. Makes hating her infinitesimally more difficult.

Ann laughed and returned to her friends.

“I… holy shit!” Ann laughed nervously. Not four choices. Five! An upgrade to her unique skill was huge! The last time that changed was with Orenous’s direct intervention when Kat was having a panic attack.

Everyone else was just as shocked. Bren’s quill had stopped as he just stared at her. Kat and Rosalyn were blinking rapidly, trying to digest everything. The only one not visibly reacting was Lucia, but she was almost always stoic.

“So, uh, what do you guys think?”

No one responded for a long moment.