One Moo'r Plow

Night ruled the skies above before we returned to the farm. Ishila tried to cheer me up, of course, but my mood remained pensive the entire ride. Raffnyk -and by extension me- had been played like a fiddle. Even if we had avoided crisis, that didn’t feel good. Ishila did her best, truly. The orc girl offered up plausible explanations, all of which I was too distracted to really appreciate.

“Well see,” She chewed on her lip as we rode along. “It makes sense, donit? The Verdant Dawn, being outsiders, wouldn’t have a specific Subject class. Being foreigners, they wouldn’t be informed of her death anyhow.”

I suspected this was a ploy to bolster my mood, but listened anyway.

“And what of all these other signs that should have been so obvious? The bells being tolled, the flag over every house?” I threw back half-heartedly. I myself had not been aware of these traditions, but I was not strictly from this place either.

“I dunno if they ever mentioned it, but the Verdant Dawn’s homeland, if it can be called such, isn’t a kingdom. Part of why Iroonmoor dislikes them, I suspect. It’s more of an elected council of people. Those rarely die in office, and the system doesn’t place any great stock on their deaths. Nor has this land, Urlath, had a monarch die in half a century now.”

“Ironmoor gambled on a simple lack of knowledge, and nearly succeeded.” I returned quietly. It was a chilling thought. A reminder that despite being massive, strong and -with Garek’s memories- experienced, I was not infallible. I had let myself get swept up in the rush and feel of danger, and nearly watched friends die.

We traveled the rest of the way in silence.

Ishila led the horses to pasture once we returned to the farmstead itself. For once, I was glad to hear Gol’s whines as the beast wandered over and peeked into the cart. With the jumbled mess of politics, relations, feuds and strife outside, there was something reassuring in his simple-minded hunger.

The cart could stay loaded tonight, I decided. The jars were covered anyhow, and everything else was sealed.

Le’rish seemed to appear almost in front of me, but I was too tired to be startled. We exchanged greetings, and tired as I was, I only half-heartedly invited her to stay for supper. She still accepted. Soon, we sat before a crackling campfire, me clumsily slicing meat and vegetables into a pot. Le’rish puffed away at her pipe, her face as a grimace as she inhaled the crystal smoke.

Ishila wandered over, bade us goodnight and walked off down the road.

“Unusual.” Le’rish remarked at the lass’s back.

“It was an long day.” I grunted. “Not a good one either?”

“Share?” She asked, and I did. She stayed quiet throughout, leaned back against a tree with her legs crossed and one arm behind her head. I didn’t downplay my own oversights and mistakes, but conveyed exactly what had happened to her as she occasionally nodded along. Supper was ready to serve by the time my story was done, and the huntress graciously accepted a bowl.

“People underestimate the snake. Iroonmoor.” She grunted and blew into her soup. “Man didn’t become baron by being stupid. Calculated gambles always go well for him. Too well. Think he has a Skill that sways outcomes in his favor. Can’t confirm. Knowledge like that is secret. Secrets that people die for. But I’ve seen people with it before. I suspect he has a few levels in Gambler.”

Eager to not be reminded of my own failures this day, I instead chose to chase down this path of conversation.

“Ishila mentioned this as well, a while back.” I questioned between sips of soup. “Why is it that having more Classes seems to be regarded as negative?”

“Mmm.” Le’rish shrugged. “The higher your level, the better your Skills. A single Skill in level thirty to forty is infinitely more useful than a dozen skills from one to twenty. Having multiple classes splits level growth as well. Already slow enough at higher levels, but with multiple Classes it becomes a drag.”

She hacked and coughed after speaking that long, and grimaced between inhalations of her crystal haze.

“Has to do with how levels grow.” She rasped. “Killing beings that are part of the System grants you growth. Depending on their own growth in the System. Universal way of advancement for every Class. Doing Class aligned tasks also brings growth. But that’s a down-trickle.”

“Elaborate.”

She did so, after a few more moments of silence and long pulls of her pipe.

“Your highest-leveled class will split its growth with the next highest class. But the reverse isn’t true. So while killing will split experience across all Classes, doing things in the highest class will feed the next highest.” She grunted. “It’s generally not worth it to have multiple Classes. Past level thirty, most Classes slow to a crawl. But every new Skill is massive potential.”

Garek’s memories contained none of this information. This being my first real look into the System, the information fascinated me.

“For instance, what would you suspect Baron Ironmoor’s level to be?” I asked.

Le’rish shrugged.

“Hard to tell. Wager he’s a higher level Warlord than Baron. Spent years on the northern campaigns. Plenty of experience killing. Suspect he has a few levels in Gambler. War’s a risky business, but things seem to go in his favor. Unless he found a way to consolidate his classes, I'd wager him to be mid-thirties in Warlord, mid-teens in Baron and mid-teens in Gambler. If he has it.”

“Class consolidation?” I asked, interested. “I have never heard that term.”

“Doesn’t happen much.” She grunted. “You need some massive feat. That uses both your Classes. Combines them into one. Most people already don’t take more than one Class.”

“Interesting.” I nodded.

“If you say so.” She grunted. “What now?’

“Your plans.” She elaborated a moment later.

I shrugged.

“Stay here. Farm. Do my damnest not to get mixed up in all this. I’m already in deeper than I like.” I tiredly grumbled. “I just want to grow my crops, experiment with my plants, raise livestock. But now I can’t even sell product because of my Tax Evader status.”

“Maybe not on Ironmoor’s land.” Le’rish suggested. “But you’re not far from his borders.”

She grabbed a loose stick and leaned forward. With a flourish, she drew a round oval in the dirt.

“Not accurate. But close. Think of this as Ironmoor’s lands inside the kingdom.” She stabbed at a part towards the middle. “This is Hullbretch. The edge of the settled lands.”

She moved the stick left and gestured at the empty space. “This over here has far more towns and villages, with the city of Koth on the border.”

With that, she brought the stick back and poked a dot past the halfway-point of Hullbretch and the border.

“This is where we are. Right on the slopes of Mount Redtip. Once you leave Ironnmoor’s lands, your Tax Evader status becomes nulled. Find towns not far from the border and sell your goods. I suppose.”

With that, she lapsed back into silence and began to eat her soup.

“Thank you, Le’rish.” I sighed. “This information is a large help.”

She shrugged and waved me off.

“Fuck Ironmoor.” She grimaced. “Enemy of him is friend of mine. Mostly.”

“You seem to have a past with him.” I remarked.

“Worked for him, long ago. Things went bad.” She gestured at her chest. “I have him thank for my torn lungs every morning.”

She lapsed into silence, and I didn’t ask further questions. After a time, she stood, thanked me for the meal, and walked off into the brush. Gol wandered in and flopped down in her place. A massive downgrade in company, I had to say. Still, I wasn’t in the mood to be angry with him today. For all his faults, the lazy beast wasn’t actively scheming my downfall. Was he?

I lay awake in bed a while later, unable to sleep. For all its flaws and fuckups, today had been an important day. Its events had closed doors for me, but also opened others. In spite of everything, I saw opportunity.

A camp of Raffnyk’s riders here on Redtip would need supplies, and I found myself in a prime position to offer some. Milk for one, and perhaps vegetables and wheat down the line. I still needed an alchemist to sell my goods to, but if that failed, I would have to find separate uses for them.

And so I turned restlessly long into the night. My mind whirled, thinking of new ideas and purposes for the deadly plants that grew in my fields.

The most relevant was that I could possibly make either acid or spore grenades. But that would require care and some ingenuity. Still, those could perhaps be a source of profit, and I would have potential buyers nearby.

What Le’rish had said about classes and levels gave me much to chew over. I effectively had three classes now, with Bloodstained Berserker, Farmer, and Mason. But it seemed I didn’t have to worry about any growth from Farmer bleeding down into Mason. And even if it did, it seemed that the class wouldn’t actually gain any levels unless I did tasks that related to it, given that Garek had such a disproportionate gap in his levels. Despite his memories indicating he had taken Mason at a young age.

There was a vague sense inside me that if I used the class and its skills just for a little while, it would level up. But I didn’t want that. I was close to the next level of Farmer and wanted to focus on that as much as possible.

And I would do just that. In the morning.

The time between sleep and awakening came far too quickly, and with a grumble, I stumbled out of bed. I had fed Gol yesterday’s leftover soup, and I didn’t trust him enough to leave any meat over the fire while I did chores. With a yawn, I stumbled outside, blinked as the dawn sunlight struck my eyes, and went off to visit the cows.

The mandrake incident had made them even more resistant to my approach. Something that Cloven Crash was forced to remedy. But soon, I had a field of frozen cattle behind me and a full pail of fresh milk. With a sigh, I heaved open the door of the storage shed where we had moved the milk to and stopped.

A cat-like creature sat on its hind legs, half a jug of empty milk in front of it as it blinked up at me with big round eyes.

That was officially when I decided to no longer take things well.

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