Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

Artemis vanished before we all went to sleep, and reappeared the next morning, doing her absolute best to eat us out of house and home. Given that we generally didn’t store a ton of food, it was a very serious risk. Artemis and I left the house, and took a walk to the park.

“Alright, now that we’re alone, we can start.” I looked at her puzzled. Artemis snorted at me. “I grew up with Julia. I know exactly how she thinks, and what she did with her skills. I can guess what she’s done with you and your skills. So, what skills do you actually have?”

“Identify, Knives, Vigilant, First Aid, Anatomy, Running, and Learning” I quickly rattled off.

“Elaine.” Artemis looked at me.

“Yes?” I said, all innocence.

“I can count. Come on, spit it out, what’s your last skill?”

I looked down, slightly embarrassed. What would the fierce ranger Artemis think if she knew I took [Pretty]? She probably didn’t have anything like that. I wringed my hands together as I shifted from foot to foot. Anyone else I would be fine with telling. Anyone else I would be happy to tell. But this was ARTEMIS. She glared at me, foot tapping impatiently. I couldn’t bear the look.

“[Pretty].” I said, as quietly as I could. Artemis eyed me. Oh god here it was

“Solid. Yeah, I can see that. Good pick!” she said. I was confused. Artemis didn’t laugh at me for it? She thought it was a good pick? “Oh, don’t look so confused. I have a similar skill.”

“Oh? Which one?” I could believe it.

“Not telling! Nyeah” she replied, sticking her tongue out at me.

“Alright, lets head back, I need to pick some things up from your place.”

We headed back, where Artemis and mom did some running around, getting some strange things together. Some bandages I understood. What were the leather scraps for? Why were we bringing some thick woolen socks with us? And what was the comb for? This felt like a bad interrogation movie – “Won’t talk eh? Bring me a comb, a used wool sock, and an old boot.” “No! Not the boot! Anything but the boot!” I was dead curious, but Artemis had a gleam of mischief in her eyes – it was clear she wouldn’t tell me anything. We wandered out of town, into a clear-cut field around the walls.

“Why here?” Thinking about it, I had spent nearly my entire life inside of the walls of Aquiliea. I hadn’t left. There just wasn’t a reason to leave, everything we needed could be found inside of the walls of the town. Oh sure, merchants, sailors, and farmers were constantly in and out – it wasn’t like everyone just lived inside – but for some reason, we just never had a reason to leave.

“Ok, quick review time. Class, level, mana regen, and levels of each of your general skills.”

I gave a quick rundown, snapping out each point as quickly as I could.

“What on Pallos is [Child of Earth]?” Artemis eyed me suspiciously. Crap. This wasn’t good. I started to sweat – literally, it was already fairly warm, it didn’t take much more for me to start. Err Err Err…

“I have no idea” I said, very convincingly. Artemis didn’t look convinced. By Edor’s rusty trident, I was doomed. I looked down to the ground, pretending to be fascinated by the grass and ferns. Why was this field so short? The grass and ferns and other misc. plants should be growing as tall as possible should they not?

“Eh. Whatever. Congratulations on level 8. Sounds like you haven’t allocated any free stats yet, right?”

“Right.”

“Ok. Don’t allocate anything into the physical stats. You’re still growing, you can get quite a few more naturally. You probably won’t get anything more in Speed though, since you have [Running]. I’m not completely sure, but it seems like if you have a skill relating to a stat, you’ll level the skill instead of the stat. I have no idea how to level the magical stats naturally. I’ve heard of it, no idea. Glad that [Learning] is at level 8. No idea how I’d level that one either. Ok, to start, let’s dump enough stats into your magic stats to get everything to 10. Quite a few entry-level classes I’ve heard of ask for that.”

That made sense. Let me see. My magic stats were currently:


[Mana: 2]

[Mana Regeneration: 2]

[Magic Power: 2]

[Magic Control: 10]