NOVEL SIMPLE Book Four: Expansion - Chapter Twenty-One: Withstand and Overcome
With all the practice I’ve had of my various Skills, I’ve certainly seen results on my status screen. They have all made me stronger and more able to face the challenges ahead even if individually some don’t mean much. Pulling it up, I remind myself of them.
Name: Markus Wolfe
Race: Human
Class: Tamer
Level: 14
Energy to next level: 49%
Energy absorption rate: 40u/hr (+25)
Energy towards debt: 94% (241)
Intelligence
39+1 (+5%)
Mana: 600/600 (15u/IP)
Wisdom
40+2 (+5%)
Mana regeneration rate: 1050u/hr
Willpower
52+13 (+25%)
Health regeneration rate: 65u/hr
Constitution
22
Health: 330/330 (15u/CP)
Strength
20
Stamina: 120/120
Dexterity
20
Stamina regeneration rate: 200u/hr
Class skills
Dominate – Initiate 5
*Companion Bond
Tame – Initiate 7
Fade – Initiate 4
Inspect Fauna – Novice 9
Inspect Flora – Beginner 8
Inspect Environment – Beginner 9
Fire-Taming – Beginner 7
Non-Class skills
Flesh-Shaping – Journeyman 9
Stealth – Novice 3
Animal Empathy – Journeyman 5
Meditation – Journeyman 9
Energy Manipulation – Master 1
Sensation Management – Beginner 9
Spearmanship – Novice 3
Archery – Beginner 8
Blunt Weaponry – Novice 1
Short Blades – Beginner 9
Fire-Shaping – Beginner 8
As expected, Flesh-Shaping has increased, though it now seems to be stuck at the bottleneck of the leap from Journeyman to Master. If Energy Manipulation was anything to go by, I’m going to have to deepen my understanding of the Skill to be able to get it over the threshold.
Thinking about Energy Manipulation, that’s still only at the first level of Master. I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised: I haven’t actually been spending much time on discovering more about stamina, or how to make the conversion of Energy more efficient. Still, I thought that perhaps managing to turn some mana into Fire magic might have counted. Apparently not.
Most of my other Skills have increased by a few levels. Even my weapons Skills: I’ve managed to fit in a little bit of sparring every day with my new Bound, the exercise useful for me in learning both how to counter new styles and how they tend to fight. I won’t be taking everyone with me down to the samuran village, and the spars have helped me decide who should go and who should stay.
The biggest change was probably the rank up of Spearmanship. That happened a couple of days ago, and I’ve already been experimenting with its new effect.
Congratulations!
You have advanced a Skill from Beginner: Spearmanship is now Novice 1. You have taken further steps along the path to Spear Mastery. You are starting to display some understanding of technique, and how to more efficiently use your weapon. Continue practising techniques designed for the more efficient and effective use of a spear in order to advance this Skill. Gain 3% to the effects of Strength and 3% to the effects of Dexterity per level in this Skill when using a spear. When focussing on a target, you have a 5% chance per level in this Skill post Beginner to spot an area of particular vulnerability to a spear attack.
Close message? Y/N
It’s not as good an upgrade as Blunt Weaponry, not at first glance. But as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.
When I use a blunt weapon, I have a guaranteed chance of spotting an area which might be vulnerable to a blunt weapon, and the longer the fight goes on, the more obvious it becomes. At first glance, the effect Spearmanship gives is the same, only not a guaranteed chance.
However, in practice, the effect that Spearmanship offers is far more precise. Where Blunt Weaponry just gives an area, Spearmanship gives an exact spot. It also gives an idea of what kind of strike would be best: a straight thrust for the area? A sweep? The butt end of the spear first, followed by the point immediately after? It gives that information and more – a slight sense of how strong to make the strike itself to be most efficient.
It’s like my attempts to become more efficient and effective have been rewarded with an effect which offers just that. Par for the course from what I’ve seen of this System so far.
Once more, I get the feeling that I’m missing something, that Blunt Weaponry is the overarching Skill which should then be complemented by more specific Skills for the weapons I use. And equally, that I’m missing the overarching Skill that should complement Spearmanship.
Oh well, nothing I can do about it right now except to continue what I’m already doing: making better weapons and then trying to improve how I use them.
I’ve got several other Skills on the point of ranking up: Inspect Fauna, Inspect Environment, Sensation Management, and Short Blades, with Meditation also being on the cusp of crossing over into Master.
It’s a pity that I haven’t earned enough Energy to level up again. I hope that I will succeed before needing to face the other Pathwalkers and Warriors: if they’re all going to require me to defeat and Dominate them, then I’m definitely going to need more Willpower. While the Tame Bonds of the Unevolved haven’t added any more strain on me, I definitely sense that my capacity to create more Dominate Bonds is…limited.
Closing my status screen, I look at the sky. Dark, though getting lighter as the first moon rises above the forest. Should I explore the challenge that awaits me in my soul space? Or should I just go to sleep?
I hesitate for a long moment, weighing up the pros and cons. In the end, my curiosity wins out. I mean, as long as I leave tomorrow I’m still upholding my promise to Kalanthia, right?
It’s too tempting to resist. I’ve been holding off all this time because of other things that needed to be done; now they’re all done and I’m sitting here with little to do, I find myself without a way of saying ‘no’. Sure, there are other things I could do: there are always projects which need to be progressed. But what I really need right now is Willpower, and this offers me the possibility of just that. Or at least, I think it does.
But first, a little failsafe. Reaching out mentally, I touch Bastet’s mind. She’s asleep, but only lightly and rouses at the touch of my mind. I feel a bit guilty about that, but since she is awake now, I might as well continue.
I’m going to test something in my soul, I tell her. If I’m not awake by tomorrow, get Catch or River to tie me onto Trinity’s back and we’ll go regardless, OK? She sends me a sense of hesitant agreement.
You’re not trying to do something dangerous, are you? she asks dubiously.
No, I tell her. Well, it shouldn’t be, I admit as she sends a pointed questioning feel. Just, if I start bleeding from my eyes or nose or something again…don’t worry. Her questioning turns into alarm.
You’re not going to do the same thing as before when we couldn’t rouse you for three whole days, are you?!
No, not the same thing, I reassure her. I decide not to tell her that I’m going to do something else completely new instead. And I’m not intending on being out that long, but if I am, we might as well get going anyway. It’ll just have to be you giving the orders rather than me. We’ve discussed the plan, anyway.
As you wish, she agrees, a little reluctantly. But she doesn’t argue any further. I’ve given both River and Bastet the status of ‘managers of managers’ meaning that between them, they can order the whole lot of Bound in my name, if necessary. It’s a lot of trust, but they’ve earned it.
That sorted, I close my eyes by the fire. Then, thinking better, I push myself to my feet and slip into the alcove, avoiding Bastet’s gaze as I sneak in past my other sleeping Bound. Fade and Stealth are particularly useful for that. I’d rather not accidentally get hypothermia because I allowed myself to go insensate outside when it’s probably going to drop to five degrees or something. Much better to do it in my bed.
Accessing my soul space turns out to be pretty easy. I just have to sink…deeper into myself than normal to access my Core space. I somehow open my eyes and then I’m there, in the grey feature-less world which surrounds me.
And then there’s something floating in front of me, as it did once before.
Challenge initiated: level one
Commence challenge / Leave arena
“What challenge?” I ask again. Last time, this had led to an error. This time….
Challenge initiated: level one
Withstand and overcome.
Commence challenge / Leave arena
“Withstand,” I murmur to myself. “Withstand what? Overcome what?”
It doesn’t give me much more information than the first box did – three words only, in fact. But perhaps those two words tell me enough. I don’t have to kill anything, or build anything. I don’t have to go on some quest. What I have to do is withstand whatever is about to happen. And then somehow overcome it.
Once more I hesitate for a moment before shrugging. I’ve come this far, I might as well see what it’s all about, I decide. Besides, it’s only the level one challenge, how hard could it be?
The moment I think that, I feel like facepalming. Way to jinx fate, idiot, I reprimand myself.
Choosing to commence the challenge, I brace myself for anything. Perhaps a beast will come and I need to withstand its strikes. Or perhaps I will have to withstand pain. Or-
My thoughts are cut off by a light sense of pressure settling upon my shoulders. I look upwards automatically but see nothing there.
“Is this it?” I ask, baffled. It feels like there are hands loosely resting upon me; nothing more. Withstanding this will be easy. Though it still doesn’t clarify what the ‘overcome’ refers to.
After a few more moments, though, the challenge becomes clearer. The pressure upon me increases incrementally. The hands resting upon me start pushing, at first lightly, and then increasingly heavily. They go from resting to pushing in a relatively short period.
I can’t tell how time passes in this strange space, but I don’t think it’s that long until I have to shift my stance to better brace against the pressure. It’s even less time before I start gritting my teeth, the pressure becoming overbearing.
I suddenly realise what this reminds me of: a Battle of Wills. Yet it’s different because there, I normally experience two senses of pressure. One from the environment, one from my opponent. Here, my opponent is absent, leaving only the environmental pressure.
Maybe this isn’t about gaining Willpower; maybe this is designed to help Tamers better withstand the pressure in the Battle of Wills. Well, if it’s that, then surely a level one challenge can’t throw at me the same kind of pressure that Kalanthia did in the midst of her rage. And if I could cling on with my fingertips there, then I can stand tall here.
Gritting my teeth once more, I find my stubbornness rising. If all the heavens can throw at me is pressure, I’m determined not to let them see me collapse under their weight.