Chapter 27: Chapter 26. Feygrove

Chapter 26. Feygrove

If the ropes connecting my party hadn’t been taut, they each would have fallen off the back.

I activated Tempo again by increasing the pace of my drumming. A new haste buff appeared over my portrait.

The fish jumped out of the water toward the platform, trying to swallow the melee fighters. Each dodged out of the way like, tumbling to the side of the platform.

Ned saw the opportunity and cranked the line. The fish’s head was now up on the platform, unable to get away. It thrashed back and forth.

Rowan jumped into the air and thrust her spear through the gills, pinning the fish against the platform. She left the spear embedded in the fish. She took out her axe and began chopping at the head of the fish.

Henry took a few swings of his staff and Cassandra stabbed the fish over and over again. In seconds, it was dead.

You defeated Monster Catfish.

You earned 63 Experience Points.

You earned 30 Job Points as a Musician.

I breathed a deep sigh of relief until I saw the crew of the other boat swimming toward us. Their boat had split, nearly in half, and they had taken to the water. They looked as angry as fans who had been thrown out of a concert. As angry as my manager looked at the factory when the Green Team didn’t make quota.

“Ned, you can’t just let ‘em drown,” Norma said.

“I’m sure as shit not gonna let ‘em board,” Ned said. “Somebody help me with these ropes. Norma, get us out of here.”

I hustled over to the side of the boat. Ned lay over the side, releasing a row boat that was tied up. We untethered the thing and let it drop into the water. It floated away, behind our craft, toward the people who swam toward us. Or, rather, we floated away. Norma had steered us back down-river. The sails and current carried us away from our pursuers.

The captain of the other boat grabbed the row boat first and hoisted himself up, one leg at a time. The others caught up, throwing legs over the side.

“Don’t leave us out here!” Captain Fin called.

“You’re fine,” Ned called back. “Serves you right. And you owe me a rowboat.”

“You owe me a fishing boat!” Fin shot back.

The captain took to the oars and started pulling them toward shore. The guards stared at us as we disappeared down the river. We stared back at them.

“What did we get?” Cassandra asked, stepping toward the sparkly remains where we had killed the Giant Catfish.

“You mean what did I get,” Ned said, looting the fish.

“Hey!” Cassandra said. “We did all the work.”

Henry pulled her back. Then typed into the party chat. I have an idea. That gave us pretty good experience. Why don’t we ask them to take us all the way to Feygrove or even further. We can continue to kill big fish along the way, level up while we’re doing it, and get a free ride?

With no loot at all? Cassandra typed.

I’m open to it , Rowan typed. It’d save us a bunch of time.

Me too , I added. I’m getting mad Job points. I’ll be able to buy a Skill soon.

But try to get a portion of the loot , Cassandra added.

I’ll do what I can , Henry said.

“We have an idea,” Henry said to Ned and Norma.

Several minutes later, Henry had struck us a deal. We would fight every large fish that Ned could pull out of the water. In exchange, Ned and Norma would sail us first to Feygrove, then up the river toward Spectre Academy. In addition, Ned promised us a quarter of the loot. Specifically, anything that we could equip or craft into gear.

The trip to Feygrove took us the better part of the day. We didn’t arrive until the sun was setting, around 6 p.m. The grind was wildly successful, and several of us leveled up. Although Henry was knocked off the boat twice and Rowan took a nasty shock from a Giant Eel. We fought Monster Catfish, River Sharks, and Giant Eels. Each provided a different challenge, but our party did well and nobody died. Before I leveled up, I was able to purchase Tempo for 200 Job Points. Just in time to switch my Job to “Instructor” and still be able to use Tempo during the fight when I actually achieved the level. I leveled again right before we got to Feygrove, switching again to my Instructor Job to ding, then back to my Musician Job afterwards to keep acquiring Musician Job Points. It required micromanagement, but every stat point mattered, and I noticed that each successive level required almost twice as many experience points as the previous level. Which meant that the levels would come slower and slower. As Feygrove came into view, I checked my prompts.

You defeated Monster Catfish x 5.

‎ You defeated River Shark x 4.

‎ You defeated Giant Eel x 6.

‎ You received 945 Experience Points.

‎ You leveled up as an Instructor x 2.

‎ You gained 8 Constitution, 4 Dexterity, 8 Intelligence, 8 Wisdom, 0 Strength, and 8 Perception.

‎ You gained 390 Job Points for the Musician Job.

‎ You gained 40 Job Points f or the Instructor Job.

The forty Job points that I had earned as an Instructor were from using Tempo, which was quite amazing. The Job Points were pretty much useless in the Instructor Job because there weren’t any good in-combat skills or passives in that Job. However, this little discovery meant that I had a way to gain Job Points in any Job just by using Tempo. Now that I owned the skill, all I had to do was switch Jobs, then add Tempo to my loadout. It was a cheap, useful skill that provided tenJob Points with every use to whatever Job I was using. It meant that, at long last, I could start getting Job Points as a Mystic if I wanted to.

I used my remaining Job points to purchase Rhythm as well, so I could use it outside of the Musician Job, then I switched to Mystic. There was nothing useful left to buy in the Musician Job, and I might as well start racking up some Mystic JP (Job Points).

Current Loadout:

● Job: Mystic

● Passive 1: Rhythm - your party has a 10% boost to coordination and timing. Cost to maintain: 1 stamina/second.

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● Passive 2: Spiritual Connection 1. Cost to maintain: 1 stamina/second

● Skill 1: Talk to Spirits - You enter a trance where you can receive messages with local Spirits. Cost to Cast: free. Can only be used once daily. Cost to Buy: 300 Job Points.

● Skill 2: Tempo: Increase the pace of the song, granting your party 10% haste. Cost to cast: 5 Stamina.

● Skill 3: Lightning Strike - Call Lightning from the sky that deals 35 damage and stuns all targets within a 3 yard area for 2.5 seconds. Cost: 20 Mana. Cost to Buy: 100 Job Points.

My loadout was coming together.

I looked around the group, and the others seemed to be messing with their loadouts as well.

“You got a new Job?” I asked Rowan.

“Yeah!” she said. “Janica encouraged me to get both my spear Expertise and my shield Expertise up to level forty. She couldn’t tell me why. But I just hit level 40 in both, and this Job became available. And it’s about time. I’ve been getting terrible level-up bonuses and Squire basically has no useful skills that you can buy. Spartan is awesome. Here, let me link the codex:

Codex: Spartan Job

‎ Job: Spartan, Tier 2 Job Class

‎ Description: For Spartaaaa!

‎ Passive 1: 10% less damage taken for you and your party. Cost to maintain 1 stamina/second. Cost to buy: 200 Job Points

‎ Passive 2: None

‎ Skill 1: Shield Bash: Smash enemies with your shield causing damage based on Strength and stunning for 1 second. Cost to cast: 10 stamina. Cost to buy: 200 Job Points.

‎ Skill 2: Phalanx. Lock with another shield-bearer to reduce damage taken by 90% for you and everyone behind you for 5 seconds. Can only be used with two or more shield-bearers. Cooldown 5 minutes. Cost to Cast: 30 stamina. Cost to buy: 300 Job Points.

‎ Skill 3: Spear throw. Hurl your spear at an enemy doing damage based on Dexterity. Cost to cast: 10 stamina. Cost to buy: 100 Job Points.

‎ On Level Up: 3 Constitution, 3 Dexterity, 0 Intelligence, 0 Wisdom, 3 Strength, 2 Perception

“That’s fantastic,” I said. “Good for you.”

“Thanks,” she said, smiling. “I don’t know what to save up to buy first. Maybe the passive? Phalanx would be so good in a boss fight if we had another person with a shield.” She looked at me, eyebrows raised. “So, what do you think? Want to start using a shield in combat?”

“I umm... kinda like staying out of the melee,” I said. “But if we have no other options? Sure. I could throw on a shield when we need it in boss fights. Would I have to train it up?”

“Not sure,” she said. “We’d have to test it out.”

“What about you, Henry?” I asked. “You get any good upgrades?”

“Not for combat,” he said. “I’m kinda stuck for now. I need to spend time in Feygrove leveling up Alchemy so I can unlock the Potionmancer Job. It takes level 40 in Alchemy.”

Cassandra jumped in. “I got a ton of Job Points for Rogue,” she said. “But I can’t decide between traps or better attack skills.”

“It would be nice to have some crowd control,” Rowan said.

“Definitely bigger attacks,” Janica said at the same time.

They looked at each other and laughed. It seemed like Rowan and Janica had become friends already. How was it that people just made friends? I definitely wasn’t at the level where I was laughing at inside jokes with any of these people, and I was an actual human. Janica was an NPC.

I glanced over at Henry, who was talking with Ned. Maybe he and I could be friends. He was sort of socially awkward and definitely serious, but I liked him.

“Okay, well, I’ll think about it,” Cassandra said.

“You’ll what?” Rowan said, taken aback.

“I’ll consider my options,” Cassandra said.

“Umm… who are you?” Rowan asked. “Are you okay?” She put the back of her hand to her sister’s forehead. “You don’t feel sick.”

“Hey,” Cassandra said, pushing her sister. “I think about things sometimes.”

Henry returned. “I got our cut of the loot. Some interesting stuff here.” He linked it in the chat.

Shark Skin x4

‎ Item Class: Crafting Material

‎ Item Quality: Uncommon

Shark Sinew x 8

‎ Item Class: Crafting Material

‎ Item Quality: Uncommon

Eel glands x 6

‎ Item Class: Crafting Material

‎ Item Quality: Common

Catfish Eggs

‎ Item Class: Crafting Material

‎ Item Quality: Common

He handed me the Shark Skins and the Shark Sinew. “Warren, I’m giving you these because I think that you can use them for Leatherworking. I assume that you’re into that.”

I accepted them. “Great,” I said. “And yeah, I think it’s time I improved our gear. I wish I had more skins though. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to make.”

“I would love some gear,” Cassandra said. “Can you make me some stuff?”

“Same,” Rowan said. “It sounds like you and Henry need to do some crafting in Feygrove. Maybe Cassandra and I can go out and hunt some more rabbits for you while you’re working on that.”

“Perfect,” I said.

I could see the entirety of Feygrove as we approached. The docks, with no more than a dozen boats, led into a commercial district. From there, the town extended only so far in each direction that you could walk from one end of it to the other in under an hour. The landscape was wooded with an unusual amount of ferns and trees with long vines. The Northeastern edge of town, opposite the river, appeared to be a wall of jungle. It was almost as if the forest was trying to swallow the town whole.

We docked, bid Ned and Norma good luck with a promise to return within the morning, and headed into town. The first order of business was to find Ilrune and get some guidance. The most jarring part of arriving was that my mana bar had begun to fill up, very slowly. In theory, I had -47.8 mana regeneration per second and a maximum of 53 mana. By the time we asked a few people where we could find Ilrune, and then tracked him down at a park, my mana bar said 1/53 mana. I looked at my advanced statistics, which had updated to read that I had .022 mana regeneration per second.

“Wait,” I said. “Do you all see what I see?”

“What?” said Rowan, a hand moving to her spear.

“No, no,” I said. “Look at your resources.”

“Holy hell,” Cassandra said.

“Mana!” Henry said. “It’s for real.”