A Jaded Life

Filling the new bag, or any of our bags, turned out to be a lot harder than expected. While the Dungeon hadn’t displaced us all that far, just a few hundred kilometres, the location we had been displaced to was a little problematic. Unless I completely missed my estimations and the Change had altered the world far more than I thought, we were now in the Rocky Mountains, somewhere in the southern part from what I could tell. Normally, we would have looked for a store or two and tried to find something inside that we could loot but without stores, there was nothing to loot.

Sure, we could hunt, so meat was, amusingly, not that much of a problem, but a diet solely composed of meat wasn’t all that pleasant. There might be people who enjoyed to sustain themself on nothing but meat, but I needed my vegetables, my fruits and grains. Part of that need was psychological but there was a clear physical component to my need, as my guts told me repeatedly.

Finding wild vegetables helped but looking for them took a lot of time and effort, meaning we hadn’t been able to make progress on our journey, instead we had stuck around the area the Dungeon had deposited us in, venturing out to hunt and forage from here.

The one positive thing about our location was that, curiously, the animals in the mountains had a much higher average level than their counterparts in the forests and plains we had wandered through before. There were exceptions, or rather, there had been some exceptionally powerful and troublesome creatures in the forests and plains, but here, the average deer was around level fifty to sixty, while we had come across a few wolves above level sixty and even seen a bear that was pushing level seventy. Maybe not enough to provide a true challenge but it was far closer to one than what we had come across recently, other than the Dungeon.

Once again, it made me wonder how the levelling for animals and similar simple creatures worked, as I was quite confident that it wasn’t just the simple paradigm of ‘kill foes to become stronger’ that humanoids operated under. Granted, even humanoids didn’t solely operate under that paradigm, I was an excellent example of somebody who could gain EXP by teaching magic to other people, but the mechanism involved wasn’t one I actually understood. It might simply be that Lady Hecate wanted magic to be taught so she donated EXP in some way, or it might be that I was somehow chosen to be a magic teacher by the system. Maybe I would have gained EXP by teaching while on Mundus, but I wasn’t sure as I had barely tried. Just a little with Rai, but there, the teaching had primarily focused on martial arts, with only a little bit of magic thrown in before letting him explore his magic on his own.

In hindsight, there were so many things I wanted to have tried on Mundus, with the confidence that death would only be a momentary setback, but as they said, hindsight was 20/20. Now, every risky experiment was performed with my single, unique life on the line, making me just a little more cautious, at least most of the time.

“There’s smoke rising further down the mountain,” Luna told me, her words bringing a grin to my face. Silva and Luna had been out and about during the early evening, enjoying some sun and exploring in the light of day, something they were uniquely suited for in our group. Sure, I could move during the day but I always needed to protect myself from the Sun, occupying some of my attention and draining some of my resources while the two of them could simply enjoy. Granted, Lia and Alex were even worse of than I was, but they, too, were used to it now.

“Was there now?” I asked with a grin, knowing that Fire, especially small fires, generally meant humanoid involvement, outside of a few fairly special circumstances. Sure, it was possible that the fire was caused by some sort of salamander or another elementally biased creature but it was a lot less likely. Such creatures were more likely to simply start burning down the landscape wholesale or made their lair in areas that were already burned or biased towards their element. No, a simple, apparently fairly small, fire was likely man-made.

“We should investigate once the Sun has fully set, those people might need help, or we might be able to trade with them,” I suggested, getting agreement all around. Hopefully, we’d be able to trade some simple, enchanted items for some supplies, so we could continue on our journey. Though, I’d have to make sure that the trade was done in a way that didn’t put any large risks on my group. I had no doubt that any large and organised group would love to have an enchanter at their disposal, be it for the Shadow Bags I was currently trying to perfect or the basic, enchanted items I was experimenting with, either would be a massive boon to any group.

I had no illusions about the possible measures ruthless groups would take to get access to such a boon, Hel, I was fairly confident that there were quite a few people out there who’d do anything they could to have it. No matter how vile, no matter how ruthless, if it allowed them to protect themself and their loved ones in this dangerous, new world, they would use any way they could.

Maybe I should look into possibilities of protecting myself from hostile Mind Magic, from illusions and such. That sort of thing sounded like the easiest way to ensnare the unwilling while keeping them predisposed to work for you. Otherwise, the classical ploys of bribery and seduction sprang to mind but I had my own purpose, a goal that I was pursuing.

But that was assuming they didn’t resort to simple, brute force or threats of it. Threatening Lia or Luna to motivate me, trying to keep them captive, there were various ways to menace somebody and while I was quite confident that I would ultimately win in a confrontation of brute force and violence, I couldn’t be confident about the collateral damage. So, vigilance and caution were the watchwords and to be employed constantly.

We set out shortly after the Sun had fully set, letting Luna and Silva lead the way as the two of them had seen the smoke and could estimate where the corresponding fire was. Sadly, that estimation was easier said than done, the terrain wasn’t particularly friendly or simple to traverse and instead of the hour I originally estimated by Luna’s description, it took us closer to five hours to cover the distance.

Crags, narrow valleys and even a small river had to be overcome on our way. Nothing we couldn’t deal with but every obstacle took time and concentration, or one might end up like Lia, who stepped on a small, loose pebble and found herself stumbling, barely managing to keep upright thanks to her high attributes. It was just a little amusing to us all that the one with the highest agility was the one who almost landed on her face but sometimes chance was just that, random.

Either way, we managed to cover the distance without any serious incident, reaching a ridge to look down into the valley the smoke had come from. We had been able to smell the fire for quite some time, giving us another datapoint to pursue and now, we could even see the group that had made it.

Looking down at them allowed us to see quite a bit of detail about them, it was a group of five, all of them male and all of them looking quite rugged. They all had some equipment from before the Change, the sleeping bags were quite obvious, but their weapons and, from what I could tell, their armour were all made after the Change.

What surprised me was the apparent quality, worked leather was one thing but these people had actual metal weapons, something Alex had only managed to create thanks to the Charland and its endless supply of magical fire. Without that, I doubted they’d have been able to craft something like my Athame, to say nothing of the spears and blades we could see on the people in the valley.

A part of me wanted to retreat outright, knowing that the further a group was advanced, the bigger their interest and incentive to get an enchanter under their control but at the same time, I was aware that a bigger group would have more supplies and would be more likely to trade some of them. There were risks but now, I had to figure out whether the risks were worth the potential reward. And to do that, the first necessary step was to find out how powerful these people actually were.