Intimancer

“So… what now?”  Rick asked

“Um, this may be kind of personal, but what are your levels?”  Lilie said.  She still had a slight shell shocked look in her eyes, but Rick thought the distraction would probably help get her out of her head for the moment.

“A good question.  Let me check.”  He said, then checked and read aloud his status.

 

 

“Seventeen luck?!”  Lilie cried.  “Did you pour all your bonus stat points into that?  Why would you even do that?”

Rick could only scratch his cheek in embarrassment.  “I, uh, actually only put a single point into luck.  We did have a lucky find on the last hunt, so we all gained a point then.  With this new level up, I think I got three free points to spend.”

He had to admit, he had improved quite a bit with all the training and fighting he had been doing lately.  He was faster, stronger, and could even manipulate the mana in his body with greater speed and accuracy.  He briefly wondered if he would have studied harder or gone to the gym more if he could see his stats improve like this in his old world.

“Wait, you’ve only spent a single stat point?  Who does that?!”

Sade chuckled.  “We do.  It was my idea actually.”  She adjusted herself to better shift to teacher mode.

I swear I'm going to get her those glasses.  Rick thought once again.  She really would be sexy as fuck with a pair.

“I figured that raising a person’s stats by training gets consecutively harder the higher the score.  So why not train at the lower levels and then use the points when you have reached as far as you can go?”

“That… that sounds like a good idea actually.”  Lilie admitted.  “Why hasn’t anyone ever thought of that before?”

“Oh, I have no doubt that someone has.”  Sade laughed.  “But training anything to over 15 is quite the achievement.”

“And why train so hard when ya can kill a few beasties and get a point in only a few days?”  Tyr cut in.

“So… you're saying that people are lazy and short sighted?”  Lilie guessed.

“If my understanding of history and politics is correct, that has almost always been the case.”  Rick laughed.  “Few people ever look for the best long term solution, especially if the short term gains are nearly as good as the harder road.”

“Then why do it at all?”

Sade leaned in close, her eyes taking on a predatory light.  “Because, we do not want to be just good, we want to be the best.  If that means we work ten times harder than the next best group, then we will do it.  I will use every skill and advantage we can find in order to improve ourselves.”  She looked to Rick, then Tyr.  “Well… most advantages.”

Tyr nodded.  She had made her stance of using coital energy to gain extra strength painfully clear.  It was an option, but not one they should ever solely rely on.

“That’s, wow, just wow.”  Lilie turned to Rick.  “And you are on board with this?”

Rick looked at his hand.  It was rough with calluses from holding his weapons for so long.  The small and smooth hands he had before falling into the forest were no longer there.  “When I left home, I wanted to find my own way, to forge for myself a life worth living.”  He closed his fist, reveling in the strength he felt behind such a simple action.  “For the first time in my life, I feel in control.  I’m not afraid of the hard road ahead.  For the chance to be the best possible version of myself?  I say bring it on!”

Both Lilie and Sade looked surprised at his answer.  Tyr only cheered.  “And you?”  Lilie asked the elf.

Tyr shrugged.  “Eh, why not?”

Sade gaped at her answer, as if she couldn’t not believe what just came out of her mouth.  “Don’t look at me like that!  Ya know full well I’ll still be here when yer grandchildren have pups of their own.  And then fer many long years after that.”  She leaned in closer to the rest of the group, her smile growing wide, sharp teeth flashing in the early morning sun.  “But ‘till then.  Ta be by these two numbskulls when they achieve greatness.  When they become so strong that they shake the very ground with their presence.  I don’t know any proper elf who would pass up the chance for some fun like that.”

It figured that Tyr would look at the world differently than the two humans she hung around with, Rick supposed.  “Why don't we continue sharing our levels and make a plan as a group on what to do next?”

Sade coughed to center herself after listening to the elf’s reasoning.  “Yes, I think that is a good idea.”

 

Rick silently noted that Sade opted to leave out her vocation.  She had still refused to tell him or Tyr what it was, only that it was a magical vocation, and that it suited her perfectly.  He decided it wasn’t really worth the effort to push the issue, Sade had his trust, she could keep a few secrets.

Shifting focus back to her stat sheet, it seemed that Sade’s attunement training was paying off.  She could now hold three separate spells at once.  Not that Sade couldn’t switch between spells with crazy speed already.  He had seen her practice drawing and redrawing the mana pathways through her body over and over.  She was not exaggerating when she said she would work ten times harder than anyone.

“I-I… Just, wow.”  Lilie said, awestruck.  Perhaps if Sade wasn’t such a magical powerhouse, she would have commented on what Sade left unsaid.

“Yep.  She’s as smart as I am lucky.”  Rick chuckled at the over the top reaction to Sade’s intelligence.  Especially considering any stat over thirteen without level boosts was considered extraordinary.  And stats between fifteen to twenty was considered the limit of what was possible for sentient life to achieve without magical aid.

“And you haven't spent any points from leveling in anything?”  Lilie said to Sade.

“Well… I did add a point to wisdom after I leveled up for the first time.”  She replied, with just a touch of embarrassment.

“Whoo! My turn!”  Tyr cheered and shared with the group.

 

 

It had been a while since Rick had seen Tyr’s stats.  She had always been a beast of the physical realm, but to have over ten more points than either Rick or Sade while only being one level higher was just insane.

“I guess that explains how you were able to murder those crabs so easily.”  Lilie said nervously.  “Are all wood elves like you?”

Tyr’s smile grew wider at her question.  Before she could give her answer, Rick decided to head her off at the pass.  “Aside from having a cock, Tyr.”

She stuck out her tongue in a way that totally showed off how mature she was as the physically oldest member of the party.  “Spoilsport.”  She grumbled then sighed.  “Yea, most of me kin have similar stats.  There’s some variation when it comes ta mages and the like, but otherwise this is what a wood elf ranger looks like.”

“You never mentioned your skills you got from being a ranger.  Care to explain them a bit?”  Rick wanted to distract himself from the lingering horror brought on by the fact that Tyr, easily one of the strongest people he knew, was in no way exceptional among her race.

She shrugged again.  “Eh, sure.  The enhanced senses is simple enough.  Sight, smell, taste, touch, all of it more improved than it already was.”

“So you get super hearing on top of your superior elven ears?”  Rick guessed.

Tyr grinned.  “Yep!  So ya had no chance of getting away with that little sneak fuck ya two did that second night on the road.”  She giggled at Rick and Sade’s embarrassed reaction to her comment.  “Forest walk lets me be fast and super sneaky while moving through the trees.  Rugged navigation just makes it easier for me ta find a path through difficult spots, even outside of a forest.”

“Those are all quite useful.”  Sade commented.  “But you should have at least one more skill.  Did you pick one already?”

“Not yet.  I wanted ta wait until we all talked about it.”  She looked at Rick bashfully.  “Plus, I feel kinda bad about forcing ya ta take yer first skill for me selfish wish.  So I thought mine would be yers ta pick.”

Rick was touched.  Tyr rarely showed her more vulnerable side, and for her to offer something so personal made Rick feel a great heat blooming in his chest.  “I would be honored.”  He said softly with a smile.

“Um… I guess I’ll join in on the sharing circle.”  Lilie said shyly.

 

 

Lilie seemed to struggle with her words as she slowly read out her most personal information.  Her face looked almost stunned when the final word finally left her lips.

“That is fairly impressive.  You must have worked really hard to get so strong.”  Rick said.  He meant every word.  While none of her individual stats was as high as each of their strongest attributes, she had several skills slightly above average in strength.  Her resistance was also fairly surprising, as Rick hadn’t seen anyone who had more than ten in the stat.

“W-w… WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!”

Everyone, even Tyr jumped at Lilie’s exclamation.  She looked stunned, confused.  Like what she read out loud was wildly different from her own expectations.  She turned her ruby gaze in Rick’s direction.  An accusatory glint forming in her eyes.

“What the fuck did your magic do to me?”

Rick gulped.  “I… don’t know?”

“What happened?”  Sade asked the woman with her usual stoic calm.

“It’s my stats!  They’ve changed.”  She ran her fingers through her dark hair, until they collided with her considerably more prominent horns.  “How is this possible?”

“Please,”  Sade asked softly.  She maneuvered so that she was sitting on Lilie’s other side, a hand resting on her armored thighs.  “Explain what changed so we can help you figure it out, together.”

Lilie sucked in a great breath then blew it out slowly.  She did this two more times before she looked at Sade and nodded.  “It’s my constitution.  It was at seven before.”

Sade raised her brows at the revelation.  “That is surprisingly low.  Did you not try to raise it after leveling?”

“Of course I did!”  Lilie shot back.  “It was the first thing I tried to change.  But I couldn’t!  It was like the magic refused to stick, I tried so many times, and every level I gained since.  All just to see if this time, this level, would finally be when my curse ends.”

“Wait… Yer constitution couldn’t be raised.  Then ya suck his dick and all of a sudden it jumps three points?”  Tyr asked in disbelief.

“YES!”  Lilie shouted.  “And my luck also bumped up by one for some reason.  Like, what the fuck?”

Rick had a sneaking suspicion on where that extra luck came from.  More specifically, what event caused it to bump up.  He really had to wonder just what kind of effect his best stat had on those around him.

Sade bit her lip, as if the thing she was about to ask was not something the healer would prefer to hear at the moment.  “Lilie, there is something I would like to confirm.  You just leveled up and have a free point to spend, correct?”

The healer nodded.  Sade took her own great breath to settle her nerves.

“I know there is probably something more important to improve.”  She said in a very soft and diplomatic tone.  “But I would like to test and see if you can finally raise your constitution.”

Lilie paused, unsure how to answer Sade’s request.  Rick could only imagine the emotional roller coaster these last few days had been for her.  And to ask for her to spend a precious stat point to test something?  Rick had no idea what he would have done in her situation.

Finally, Lilie nodded her head once.  She closed her eyes in concentration then froze.  “I… I did it.  It went up.  It went UP!”  Her eyes shot open and she had the purest expression of joy Rick had ever seen.  “I can raise it!  Whatever was wrong with me is gone.  It’s gone!  FUCK YEAH!”

She gripped Sade in a fierce hug that made the dark skinned mage gasp and start tapping Lilie’s arm in surrender.  Lilie let go with a faint blush to her pale cheeks.  “Sorry!  Sorry.  I’m just so happy and overwhelmed.”  She reached an arm around Rick’s neck and kissed him on the cheek with a quick peck.  “I’m super glad I talked to you at the library.”

Rick smiled warmly and hugged the woman right back.  “I am too.”

“This mean we got another person for our nightly orgies?”  Tyr asked, wiggling her auburn brows suggestively.

“You know what, fuck it!  If it means I can find out what happened to me and have some fun along the way, let’s fucking go!”  Lilie cheered.

“Are you sure?”  Rick asked, surprised at how little resistance Lilie had to joining them in a more intimate form.

She just turned her ruby gaze in his direction and scoffed.  “Rick, last night was probably the most pleasurable experience I’ve had in my entire life.  And all I did was suck your dick.  If sex with a… sex magician-”

“Intimancer”  Sade corrected.

“-Intimancer, yeah that!  If having sex with an intimancer is half as good as last night, I’d be a fool to turn it down.”  She smiled brightly.  “Plus you guys are hands down the nicest and most capable group of novice hunters I’ve ever met.  No way am I working with a bunch of rando’s after finally finding you guys.”

Rick chuckled and held out his hand and Lilie grasped it firmly.  “Then welcome to the team!”