NOVEL SIMPLE Ch.43 – A Matter of Interpretation
POV: Tamara
The leader of the dwarf party had told Helen and Luchael to hide her before the freed prisoners were rounded up; Tamara, still shocked both by the speed with which all the events had unfolded and by the emotions she had felt in killing another being capable of human thought, had accepted without protest, returning to her monstrous form and walking away to hide in the vegetation, from where she followed the group back to the caravan camp.
For that day, Tamara more than willingly accepted that solitude to remain with herself, to question herself about what she had done and the future that awaited her.
I've become a killer, she thought, keeping her head down, the thin branches of some bushes flapping against her muzzle as she walked a few tree lines beyond the path the adventuring party and prisoners were following. A fucking killer.
It's not... it's not like that! That croconoid left me no choice! Tamara squinted, I had to intervene, otherwise he would have killed Luchael and Helen! It's his fault! Not mine!
She knew it was the truth, but that didn't mean she was able to stop herself from torturing herself with all sorts of thoughts: she could have done it differently, maybe after having destroyed his weapon she could have aimed at his legs to incapacitate him instead of killing him, only that at that moment she didn't had thought about it and now it was too late to try anything different.
The procession of freed prisoners was silent, many of them had expressions still empty from the hunger and deprivation they had suffered.
Maybe I can at least be happy that I saved them? She thought, not smiling only because her face wasn't capable of shaping that facial expression, even though they'd probably start screaming and running away if I let them see me once more...
As if I would ever want to eat them. Their levels are so low that they would not be worth the time spent digesting them…
…
“Status,” she hissed softly.
___
[Tamara Parker][Salmadrer][Monster (lv.16)]
[Health: 78/90][Mana: 19/50]
[TRAITS MODIFIERS]
Nourished
[TRAITS]
► Dexterity: 16
► Faith: 11
► Knowledge: 10
► Resilience: 18
► Speed: 13
► Strength: 13
[FEATS]
► Acid Spit 1
► Devourer
► Flying Membrane I
► Greater Reach II
► Growth (Lesser) I
► Humanoid Form (Minor)
► Obsidian Defense I
► Scale Armor (Lesser) I
► Scratch I
___
This time it will be easy, Tamara thought as she looked at the three points she had to give out and then her current Traits score. Two more points in Faith and one more in Knowledge, I can bypass the problem of my weak physical attacks by relying on [Acid Spit] and [Obsidian Defense], Faith will take care of my mental barriers.
She was about to proceed and close her status window when she noticed something rather important that she hadn't thought about until then: she had reached the sixteenth level, but if one excluded [Greater Reach], all the Feats were still stopped at the first level. Tamara couldn't help but think of her brother… she remembered him often telling her while playing Planet of Battlecraft that character level was only important up to a certain point, because it was the various active and passive abilities that made the difference.
At that point if their father was around and overheard them, he would interject with something like 'did you know that girls aren't attracted to the level of a character in a video game?', to which her brother would have often responded with, 'that should I do with a girlfriend if we can't fight a guild war together?', at which their father would sigh dejectedly and walk away grumbling that he would never become a grandad.
Those memories made her sad and happy at the same time: she was happy to still remember her humanity, but she was sad because she hadn't even been able to say goodbye to them. Tamara felt the weight in her heart drag her towards the ground, all the beautiful things that reminded her of who she really was beyond that monstrous appearance and the new instincts she had obtained were also terrible precisely because they reminded her of having become a monster, a monster that walked on a thin thread stretched over the abyss of primordial violence.
You killed him, Tam, you killed him and you liked it.
Tamara shook her head vigorously as if those dark thoughts were but raindrops on her slimy, scaly body. From now on I will try to increase the level of Feats instead of obtaining new ones, I will do as my big brother always said.
SYSTEM: [2] Trait Points have been distributed on [Faith]. Your maximum [Faith] score is increased to [13].
SYSTEM: [1] Trait Points have been distributed on [Knowledge]. Your maximum [Knowledge] score is increased to [11].
That blood will never leave my hands again...
- - -
POV: Helen
The templar was massaging the bandage in which she had wrapped her entire left hand up to the middle of her forearm; she had drunk an Accelerated Recovery preparation and knew that although the magical properties of the alchemical preparations were inferior to the real magical potions created by the [Healers], she had seen that in the long run they could heal even a part of the body that had been almost completely amputated.
The problem was that of all the people she had seen healed in that way, only a small fraction completely recovered the use of that part of the body, which often remained numb and not as responsive as it normally should have been. A recovery done in that way required more time and the daily intake of an Accelerate Recovery potion for at least twenty days, and Helen had only taken with her about ten vials when she left Stanbroodge.
The problem isn't even that I don't have enough vials, Helen thought, glancing at Luchael, knowing that he was capable of producing more if they found the right raw materials, rather, it's that I won't be able to fight for these twenty days.
Helen wondered how many levels the leporan had gained from fighting the croconoid: even if in the end neither of them had managed to even make a scratch on it, the fact that they had tried and had been injured had been enough for the system to give them some EXP too after Aradra killed him. She had risen to the ninth level, Luchael had probably risen to the seventh or almost eighth level.
So for the next twenty days it would only be Luchael and Aradra on the front line, while she would have to stay behind, with the leporan and its monstrous friend risking their life for her... unacceptable, she is a devotee of the God of Heroes, she should always be on the front line, even if she were mortally wounded.
I won't be as helpful as I am now if I lose the use of my hand, she admitted, gritting her teeth and forcing herself to swallow her pride for the greater good of remaining able to hold a shield and a sword at the same time.
"Lass?" Volgrom called her back, breaking her from that vicious circle of thoughts, “you seem nervous. Is it about your injury?”
Helen nodded a few times, "yes, master dwarf," she whispered back, "my god dictates me to stand in the forefront against evil, but rather than talk about myself," the templar eyed him carefully, "why you and your comrades have… you know...”
“Why do you think a little monster who has shown it doesn't want to hurt you is a menace?” Volgrom asked softly, avoiding drawing the attention of any of the prisoners they had saved on them.
“Have you dwarves never heard the Nightmare Tyrant's prophecy within your underground strongholds?” She asked in the same tone, careful not to be overheard since the official story they had given to the prisoners – who continued to fear Aradra even after she had freed them – was that the monster had escaped before they could manage to kill it.
“Of course: its shadow will extend across the world to the point where its wings will rob us of the sky, and other things like that…” he replied, chuckling and rubbing his silver beard.
Helen glared at him, “don't you believe the prophecy sent to us by the gods?”
The dwarf shook his head in response, "there are many ways in which a prophecy can be incorrect: perhaps the person who received the message was unable to interpret it properly, or it could be that the message was distorted through word of mouth, or is it correct but is being taken too literally…”
Helen remained silent, it was clear that the dwarf had not yet finished his explanations.
“You assume that that salmadrer is Nightmare Tyrant because you decided in the beginning that we are talking about a monster,” Volgrom said, “in reality anyone can start from the bottom and cast a shadow on the world, even the greatest dwarf king at one point in the past was a small child unable to hold an ax before becoming a king and extending his dominion over hundreds of strongholds.”
“Are you saying that Nightmare Tyrant isn't a monster?”
“I'm saying that the prophecy doesn't say that Nightmare Tyrant is a monster in the literal sense of the word,” the dwarf snorted, “lass, I've got over a century under my belt, I've seen a lot of things in my life, a lot of things that seemed obvious in reality they were not.”
Helen understood what Volgrom was trying to tell her, and found herself without a ready answer: she knew that the dwarf had not said something wrong, however, she also did not want to admit that she had been too hasty in her conclusions, too young and too proud to admit it.
“You're still young, lass!” Volgrom gave her a few loud pats on the back and laughed, "when you get to be my age..." the dwarf looked at her, "you won't even be alive anymore, but you will die much more wiser than you are now!"
Helen wrinkled her nose, “very funny, really…”
Volgrom nodded, “give that monster a chance, it saved your life.” The dwarf brought his hand to his beard again, which was smoothed for the umpteenth time even though there wasn't even a hair out of place, "rather... that Ring of Evasion that the croconoid was using, did you keep it?"
"Yeah, why?"
“Nothing, I wanted to advise you to use it. Giving it to your friend wouldn't do much good as it's well known that leporans tend not to reach high levels and are generally not a threat, so hiding data about you from others' inspection might be a better method of deterrence. Just like that salmadrer traveling with you,” Volgrom explained, “the enemy you faced was a victim of hesitation and an inability to correctly determine how threatening the salmadrer was to him... probably, things would have turned out harder if that monster decided to attack in its beast form.”
Now that I think about it… who knows where Aradra got that ring… Helen thought, probably in the dungeon, does that mean she managed to kill the core guardian and reached the Sleepy Swamp core room?
“Yes, I think we'll do that… thanks for the advice,” Helen said, nodding.
“With that said, I leave you to your thoughts… with an invitation,” the dwarf looked around, “should you ever need me, come find me in the dwarven citadel of Kharna Mora. I have the feeling that you three are in for an adventure worthy of the Ancestors!”
Helen fluttered her eyelashes as she watched the dwarf return to his stocky, bearded traveling companions… a great adventure? If the risk of losing her left hand was the beginning, to Helen that seemed more like the beginning of a tragedy than the beginning of a great adventure...