Malika When Malika woke, she found herself in an unfamiliar dark room and it took more than a few moments to remember she was still in the guild hall. Ali y beside her on the couch tucked under a soft moss-green woolen b, and by the sound of her soft, steady breathing, she could tell she was fast asleep. Malika sat up carefully, her eyes sing the room. In the gloom, she could make out the forms of many sleeping adventurers, curled up on couches, chairs, or even just sprawled out on the floor.
The guild was never really closed, but iermath of the Goblin siege, everyone must have been exhausted.
Ali stirred as she sat up.
“Where are the boys?” Malika asked, pitg her voice low to avoid waking the people sleeping around them.
“The Guildmaster hem to scout the Goblin dungeon so that they ehis doesn’t happen again,” Ali said, rubbing her eyes and sitting up. “They said they’d be gone for a few days. Do you want to go back down to the shrine?”
“Yes, let’s do that,” Malika answered. The guild itself was retively safe, but Malika had little desire to push her luck. The less time she spent in Myrin’s Keep, the less likely it was that she would run into the Watch’s thugs.
She got up, and Ali gestured for her remaining Kobolds to follow as they quietly snuck out of the guild hall and into the night. The cool breeze after the warmth of the guild hearth gave her a brief shiver, and she gnced up at the clear night sky and the sparkling stars shining down. A good day for mischief, she thought soberly, noting the darkness and the absence of the moon.
Malika shook her head slowly. That was a different life, she reminded herself, putting such depressing thoughts away. She was an adventurer now and had spent all day yesterday fag down monsters in defense of the town. She had healed many people who might have otherwise died. This is who I want to be. Somehow, despite the indelible brand of her title prog her as a Street Rat to ah Identify, she had still earned several grudging nods of respect from the guards who had withe battle.
Ali’s two Kobues shifted in the shadows and vanished from her sight as soon as they were oreet. The moderately terrifying Fire Mage kept pace with them as she took a shortcut between several mert buildings to the sewer entrance.
She moved quickly, foing any chatter, her old habits making her anxious to be out oreets after dark.
They were no more than a block away from the sewer entrance when her instincts prickled. Instantly, she froze, sing the street up ahead, eyes searg for the dahat surely lurked there.
What was that? Everything seemed quiet, and nobody was out.
Suddenly, she caught a twitch – the ti of movements. A small bundle y on the sidewalk. It took a moment before it moved again, and Malika saw a shock of pink, and a small hand reag out toward the open door of the nearby shop.
Is that blood? Ruse or real?
In a fsh, Malika assessed the situation and then crossed the distance, burning stamina to accelerate her run. Lying crumpled iter like so much discarded trash was a Gnome. She had been severely beaten and bled profusely from a nasty gash across her face caused by the shattered gss of her broken goggles. Malika immediately released healing into the stri figure, p her stamina into her skill in a bright fsh of blue-white light.
Shards of gss ked against stone as they were pushed out of the rapidly closiions by Malika’s Healing Mantra, falling one by oo the pavement.
“The Watch…” The Gnome managed, her hand still reag toward the dark doorway. Malika’s eyes snapped up at the sound of gss g under a heavy boot, seeing the open doorway and the shattered window for the first time.
“What have we here? Our little rat has returo py?”
Edrik! The sadistic timbre of his voice sent an ice-cold surge of fear rag down Malika’s spihe two familiar, identical faces of the Watforcers emerged from the dark doorway and into the starlit street.
“Edrik, Mori has no more use for her, so you have your fun. But I want the Fae, she is worth something on the market,” Adrik said.
“Suit yourself,” the reed.
Ali! Amid the chaotic jumble of thoughts unleashed upon her by the sudden surge of fear, one fact stood out clearly in her mind. Not only was she in danger, but they would capture and sell Ali as soon as they finished with her. Her little friend had hung ba the shadows – wisely, as it turned out.
“Ali, run!” Malika shouted as she stepped forward. She had already oten all her friends into terrifying trouble with these thugs because of her past, and she would not let it happen again.
“Ooh! The rat thinks she fight!” Adrik ughed, ptuously.
“I think she needs a fresh reminder of her p life,” Edrik said, crag all his knuckles with a sound like snapping bones.
Malika charged her Diviep and accelerated across the cobbled storeet, leaving the Gnome she had healed to her own devices. Her kick blurred through the air toward Edrik’s face, and just as it was about to nd, he drew his sword and sshed across her ihigh with a strike so fast she could barely react.
Shit! In all the shakedowns she had endured, Edrik had never once drawn a on on her, preferring a much more hands-on approach. The bde drew a shallow slice across her leg as Soul Armor provided resistance against the sharpness of the sword. Her kick still nded, and Soul Strike fshed as she ected – and with it, the familiar trickle of health returned from the magical drain.
She guarded against the bad sweeping strike and punched Edrik i, stealing another small trickle of his health that was quickly repairing the sword ssh, staung the flow of blood leaking down the inside of her leg.
Edrik roared, ing at her with a brutal overhead strike, and Malika used her Enlightened Evasion to dodge the telegraphed attack.
I do this! She could tell she had gotten a lot stronger, but the fact that she was holding her own against Edrik for the first time in her life still seemed somehow shog.
Just as she felt a touch of fidence pool like warm liquid in her gut, Adrik’s sword plunged deep into her back, passiween her ribs and puncturing her left lung. At precisely the same moment, Edrik’s knee came up smming her in the face as her body jerked forward. She saw stars and tasted blood welling up in her mouth as she coughed, blinking back the pain. The cold cobblestones cracked painfully into her forehead as she struck the ground. Immediately Edrik’s boot smmed down on her hand, snapping several bones with a grinding twist of his heel.
She had just enough presenind to use her Healing Mantra before another brutal kick, this time from Adrik, ected with the wound in her back. She healed again, struggling to move her body.
Fuck. I fot about Adrik. The other twin had always stood around and watched while Edrik beat her up, and she had simply gotteo their pattern, assuming she was fighting just Edrik. Stupid, stupid…
A powerful hand hauled her up by her hair, smming her into the wall, and then gripped her by the throat, her feet dangling about a foot above the pavement. She healed again, and slowly the stars in her swimming vision began to fade as she struggled to breathe against Edrik’s chokehold. In her hazy vision, she saw Ali still standing at the end of the street, one hand raised, palm out as if askio wait.
Ali! Run! Why didn’t you run?
Edrik’s powerful fist smashed into Malika’s face, rog her head painfully off the wall. In the distahrough eyes already swelling shut, she saw Ali bend one finger closed. Beside the Fae, an angry red dang light sprung ience, h above the gleaming cws of her Kobold mage.
What?
Her head bounced off the wall again in respoo the follow-up bad that she was so familiar with.
Ali withdrew a sed finger.
Three. Malika’s dazed mind produced the number matg Ali’s fingers. Three what? She pulsed a little more healing and her mind cleared.
The Kobold lurking in the darkness poured mana into the votile red ball of fme dang above his hand and it began to bze with the fury of a furnace fueled by a bellows.
Three!
With a hiss of exertion that might have been a scream were she not being choked, Malika grabbed Edrik’s hand by the thumb and yanked outward, twisting, and briefly breaking his chokehold, overing his enormous strength with the simple advantage of leverage. She smmed her forehead into the bridge of his nose, pulsing Soul Strike into his fad rog him bato his heels.
Two!
With the urgent speed borne of desperation, she stepped on Edrik’s thigh, using Diviep and Soul Strike in tao her surprise, Soul Strike triggered as if her step were a melee attack, even though she had not put any force behind it. She pushed off his left shoulder with her arm, driving her body upward, and kicked out, hitting Adrik in the neck, once again using Diviep to accelerate her upward momentum.
One!
She stepped off Edrik’s head, twisting to face the wall, and took tid steps running straight up the sheer stone surfad leapt high, arg over backward in full yout.
There was a swift sizzling whoosh, and suddenly the world below her exploded in a r yellow inferno. The shockwave smmed into her back tossing her body high into the air. For a moment, she y suspended on a billowing pillow of fme with the beautiful stars twinkling in the dark sky overhead. Malika healed her rapidly burning skin and arched her neck backward as her flip pleted.
Momentarily suspended upside down, at the apex of her trajectory, she sighted the burnt form of Edrik, face down on the ground, struggling to recolden shards tumbled end over end around her – the glowing remnants of one of Ali’s barriers. She must have cast that to protect my head from the Fireball. It robably the only reasoill had hair – or was scious. Gauging the distance, she tucked her ko her chest, accelerating her plummeting fall. At the st possible moment, she thrust her right knee downward and triggered Soul Strike to augment her Martial Arts. Her krike smmed heavily into the back of Edrik’s neck with the fsh of her magic. The loud crack of snapping bone drowned out the soft sound of her notification chime.
Oh, sweet Aors, it’s done.
Malika rolled to the side, healing her shattered kneecap as she scrambled to her feet. Edrik y unmoving, his head twisted grotesquely to the side.
With an i roar, Adrik surged to his feet, his face a mess of burnt flesh. However, it was too te. Malika punished his unguarded rush with a jab of stiffened fio his throat. As he choked, trying to recover, two of Ali’s rogues appeared out of thin air, burying their daggers in his back. A few seds ter a stream of golden magical bolts smmed into his head and neck. He crashed down onto the dirty street beside his brother.
Yroup has defeated Bruiser – Human – level 23 x2.
As the blue-white text appeared in her mind, she felt several notifications and the distinct sensation of growing stronger. Realizing she had been far too exhausted to check yesterday, she watched in surprise as the text unfolded before her mind’s eye.
Soul Monk has reached level 16 (+5).+50 attribute points.
Soul Strike has reached level 12 (+2).Healing Mantra has reached level 9 (+3).Perfect Body has reached level 9.Soul Armor has reached level 10 (+3).Enlightened Evasion has reached level 9.Diviep has reached level 6 (+5).
Meditation has reached level 6 (+2).Appraise has reached level 8.
“Malika, are you… ok?” Ali asked, rushing over to her.
“Ali, why… why didn’t you run?” Malika was breathing heavily after the short, but brutal, fight. Her stamina was low, but already regeing, so she pulsed her Healing Mantra one more time to repair the remainder of the burns she had sustained while riding the huge ball of fire.
“I couldn’t leave you to face them by yourself.”
Malika gaped at Ali for a long moment, at a plete loss for what to say. Adrik and Edrik were dangerous and violent, and Ali had put herself at great risk by getting involved. Mortal risk. An unfamiliar and strangely unfortable warmth rose in the ter of her chest, and the more she thought about Ali ing to her aid with the Fireball, the more an embarrassiness welled up in her eyes.
She looked away. Ali had ged so much. “What happeo the scared little Fae I met underground?” She said it softly, not expeg an answer.
“She’s still right here, just as scared,” Ali whispered back. “But I’m here for you, whenever you hat’s what friends are, right?”
Malika may actually have cried right then, but she was soon interrupted by another voice.
“You killed them! You really killed them!”
The little Gnome she had healed earlier was on her feet, standing nearby, hands on her hips, shog pink hair all awry, staring down at the two corpses.
But before Malika could worry, the Gnome spat on Edrik and kicked his leg. Then she unched into an unbroken string of what had to be profanity in several different nguages, none of which Malika uood.
After a minute, and the tirade showed no signs of stopping, Malika gnced over at Ali. Seeing her raised eyebrow, she simply shrugged. Eventually, the feisty Gnome slowed dowirade of iive petering out.
“Thank you for saving me and my shop. You have dohe eown a great service by ridding the world of these two thugs. My name is Morwynne Fizzlebang, and I owy Powerful Potions.” She indicated the shop with the broken window. “If there is anything you two ever need, please don’t hesitate to stop by.”
“You’re wele,” Malika offered, not quite knowing how to take the highly eic person.
Morwynne quickly retreated into her store, and soon sounds of banging emanated from within and some boards appeared blog the broken window.
“Do you mind if I destruct them?” Ali asked, her eyes still on the charred corpses of Adrik and Edrik.
Malika just nodded, still struggling to process the torrent of feelings surging within her. One way to up the se of the crime – the not-crime… Strangely, it was the sight of the bodies turning into mana and slowly dissipating into the cool night air that finally calmed her heart. She had hated these two for as long as she could remember. So many times she had wished for someoo e save her, for an unnatural disaster to befall them, or for someoo simply kill them for all the pain aru they had caused. But in the end, she had do herself, with the help of a friend she never imagined she could have.
Now, watg the motes of golden mana drifting away, she finally felt free.
***
Name: MalikaRace: HumanTitles: Street Rat
Active Buffs: Perfect Body, Soul Armor, Enlightened Evasion
Css: Soul Monk – level 16- Martial Artist – level 9- Soul Strike – level 12- Healing Mantra – level 9- Perfect Body – level 9- Soul Armor – level 10- Enlightened Evasion – level 9- Diviep – level 6- [Locked]- [Locked]- [Locked]
General Skills- Meditation – level 6- Dang – level 4- Calligraphy – level 3- Lockpig – level 5- Appraise – level 8
Aptitudes- Languages: on- Bloodline (Ahn Khen): Dormant- Mana (Affinity): Soul- Relentless (Css): +100% to Stamina Regeioless (Css): You pay for any abilities with stamina instead of manaAttributes- Vitality: 35- Strength: 10- Endurance: 73 (+25)- Dexterity: 95 (+33)- Perception: 15- Intelligence: 17- Wisdom: 65 (+22)
Equipment- Ring: Bronze Guild Ring – level 10
Armor: 70Physical Damage Redu: 13.51%Evasion: 63Dodge: 12.32%
Health: 350/350Stamina: 657/730 (73 Reserved)Mana: 455/650 (195 Reserved)
Aliandra Ali stepped out of her tent, relishing the sight of her forest and sav the crisp springiness of the Verdant Moss squishing dowh her feet. The mana of her domain had a calm, gentle pulsing flow, no longer being drawn into the shrine now that it was fully recharged.
She turo look out across the broad expanse of the trees she had pnted along the southern half of the cavern and paused in surprise, wrinkling her the whiff of an unpleasant odor. Before she had goo bed, she had left her Kobolds with instrus to scour the battlefield during the night for anything useful. She stared, fbbergasted, at the gigantic pile of Goblin bodies, armor, ons, arrows, and whatever else the Kobolds had gotten their cws on.
Perhaps I should have been more specific, she thought, w how the Kobolds had ma something as rge as a Bugbear or a Hobgoblin in full gear all the way underground to this pile. Much of the equipment looked damaged or broken – or just pin terrible – and it was clear that what she thought of as ‘useful’ did not quite match her Kobolds’ criteria.
With a simple mental and, she halted her Kobolds’ colle efforts, returning them to the shrine, while she examihe pile, rag her brain as to what to do.
Bodies first.
Ali began destrug the corpses. They weren’t useful for anything other than filling out the remainder of her Goblinoid imprint, and they would begin to stink if she just left them. Stink more, she thought, correg herself and wrinkling her nose. Goblins already reeked. She couldn’t imagihe smell if she let them rot. Besides, she would need Malika’s input to sort the rest of the gear anyway.
It took ages to work her way through the pile, and every now and then, her Grimoire flipped through its own pages to i small updates to the glowing runes ad the jured part. Before she was done, she had to enlist the aid of her Kobolds to move the loose armor and ons so she could reach the bodies at the bottom of the pile, but eventually, she pleted the chore and put her Grimoire away.
She had no idea what was valuable or worthless in the pile of items that remained, and Malika wasn’t awake yet. So, she instructed her Kobolds to sort the pile, of what robably mostly junk, into categories, which she took care to specify properly. While they toiled over the mound of gear, she sat in front of her tent on the mossy ground to study her runes until her friend woke.
While she had not gained any formal skill or notifications for her efforts practig meditation, she still took a couple of deep breaths, assuming the same cross-legged pose Malika favored. She calmed her mind for a moment, settling in, and followed the advice Malika had given her. She had no idea if she was doing it right, but the breathing exercises did seem to improve her focus a little. Then she opened her Grimoire and began to study its intricate inscriptions.
Sometime ter, Malika stirred, emerging from her tent. “Wow, that’s a lot of stuff.”
Ali looked up from her Grimoire to find Malika standing beside her staring at the nhly sorted piles of armor, swords, daggers, bows, and various other items.
“I thought I’d wait for you to see if there’s anything valuable in here.”
“It’ll take a while,” Malika answered, raising her eyebrow. “Why don’t we do a little, and then head up to the guild and turn in oblierminatios?”
“Oh yes, that’s a good idea.” Ali had fotten they had taken a kill quest prior to the Goblin horde showing up, and now they would be able to turn it in for money. With a good night’s sleep between her and the battle, Ali was able to even feel excited at the prospect.
***
The guild hall had returo a sembnce of normalcy by the time they arrived, albeit somewhat quiet because it was still early. Mieriel looked up from her desk as they walked in.
“Oh, hi again Aliandra, Malika, good to see you.”
The Elven guild administrator wore a brand-new, elegant outfit this m. Is she going to singlehandedly keep Lydia in business?
“ we turn in the Gobli?” Ali asked as she stepped up on the small barriers she created to raise herself to the level of the desk.
“Of course! I take care of that right away.”
“How does it work? I don’t think I killed all these Goblins on my own.”
Bronze Guild Ring – level 1 signifying bronze-level membership with the Adventurers Guild.Owner: Aliandra AmarielQuests: Eliminate hostile Kobolds in and around Myrin’s Keep – 0 Eliminate hostile Goblins in and around Myrin’s Keep – 137 Mana: Store or retrieve an item. Capacity: 7.5 / 25kgCreated by Giddy Clicksprocket.Ring
Her ring listed the crazy total of one hundred and thirty-seven Goblins killed. While the battle had spanned a rge portion of the day, and she had fought without pause, she knew many of the Goblins had been killed by the group, often with supp arrows and spells from the defenders otlements. Or sometimes, Serendipity’s waterspouts. The battlefield had been utter chaos.
“gratutions!” Mieriel excimed. “And thank you for helping to defend the town.”
She pulled out the magical panel again.
“The ring records the type and level of the monster, and how much experience you earned for shared kills. We run it through this panel which has been ented with an advanced Analyze spell. It will calcute your tribution and how much to award you for your share in pleting the quest,” Mieriel expined.
It all seemed pretty sophisticated, but Ali was excited to study advanced magi a. As soon as Mieriel pced the panel in front of her, she pressed her ring to it. Her normal senses registered almost nothing, but with her mana sight, she saw a delicate and plex magical formation pop up briefly, twisting and rotating in curious and inexplicable dires before it faded. After a moment, it dinged and dispyed a result.
3 gold 27 silver.
“Nice work!” Mieriel plimented her, while she deftly ted out three gold s, e, one medium, and two small silver pieces, and pced them in front of Ali. “The guild cut has already been processed and will go towards the price of y.”
“Thank you,” Ali said, colleg her s and st them before stepping down to let Malika have her turn. Her ring, she noticed, still recorded the quest, but the kill t had bee back to zero.
“Is this a lot of money?” Ali whispered to Malika after they were both done.
“It’s pretty good for our level, I think. More than I ever got my hands on,” Malika answered. Then, she made a curious fad asked, “I guess you don’t know how much money is really worth?”
Ali nodded. It had beehree thousand years. While they still used gold and silver s for currency, the s themselves were unfamiliar and the prices of things didn’t make much sense. Initially, she had assumed there had been a simple inftion, but she had quickly been proved wrong. The cost of magical items seemed unreasonable, while the priundane bor was far cheaper than she recalled.
“Five coppers will get you a simple meal. One silver will buy you a room at an inn, or a set of basic clothes. Five silver bought us one of those daggers. It’s a hundred copper to one silver, and so on. Things get a lot more expensive if they’re magical or designed for wealthy people.” Malika expined. “Like our fancy clothes.”
“How much are books?”
“Books are quite expehe cheapest around twenty-five silver. Anything with magic is a gold or more. A lot higher for advauff.”
Ali frowned. Malika had mentiohat books were expensive, but if that was true, her funds wouldn’t go very far, even if she included all the money she had earned making arrows for the garrison supply quest.
“Why so expensive?” She was sure that books in Dal’mohra hadn’t been nearly that pricy, iive terms, but she had also not o buy many books with the enormous library avaible for free whenever she wao read anything. And if the Grand Library Ara didn’t have a book for something, likely it did.
“Books, especially magical books, are status symbols for the wealthy. Besides being rare, having access to good magical books enhaneone’s power substantially because they help guide skill growth and unlock advas. That’s why they’re hoarded. I didn’t mind as much when I was forced to steal books from some of the wealthy people.”
The st admission seemed to make Malika unfortable, and she shifted in pce awkwardly, but then she brightened. “Hey, there’s a good bookstore just nearby, why don’t we go check it out together?”
“Oh! we?”
timewalk
