PART 2/2
While the interrogation went on, Erani just sat back and went over her own Status. She’d gone up to Level 20 from the previous fight, herself, with the help of the absolutely massive Bond she had with Ainash. That meant she had a Talent Choice, and her third ever Spell Choice. But she just…wasn’t in the space to think all of that over. She hadn’t even opened them up. But still, glancing over the numbers gave her something to do as she sat in the chair, gazing at nothing.
Name:
Erani Wos
Age:
23
Strength:
50 (10 + 40)
Class:
SorcererLevel:
20
Endurance:
50 (10 + 40)
Class Type:
Magic
XP:
91/3.0k
Dexterity:
50 (10 + 40)
Health:
327/500
Health/Minute:
0.21
Conjuration:
126
Stamina:
291/300
Stamina/Minute:
1.8
Mana:
1.89k/1.89k
Mana/Minute:
22.68
Spells:
Talents:
Titles:
[Spell Choice Available]
[Talent Choice Available]
Devastator
Angelic Shield 9 - XP 355/355
Signature Magic
Firebolt 19 (10) - XP 112/461
+Explosive Firebolt
Primal Might
Expanded Capacity
Numbers, numbers, numbers. At least they’d gone up.
She’d gotten three Levels from that Xhag’duul Demon dying, which had given her the Devastator Title. Arlan had gotten exactly that a while back, when they’d blown up the barricade back in the forest. It apparently raised all XP gained from kills she contributed to by 25%. The theorist in her wanted to do tests on whether that was additive or multiplicative with Arlan’s duplicate Title, or whether it even stacked at all, but she just couldn’t muster up the energy right now. She hadn’t even mentioned getting the Title to anyone, yet.
Erani even had one last free Rank she could assign to one of her Spells from getting to the most recent even Level—20—but she didn’t have any place to put it. Sorcerers got them every 2 Levels, making up for their relative lack of utility with extreme specialization, but with both Angelic Shield and Firebolt at their respective limits, Erani would need a Spell Crystal to advance further. Though Firebolt at least had some more room for extra Spell XP. That was where she’d put all of her previous free Ranks, so the Spell’s Rank in terms of XP cost was still only 10, whereas the thing already had the power of a Rank 19 Spell.
Firebolt Rank 19
+Explosive Firebolt
School: Fire
Type: Activated
Cost: 58.7 Mana
—
Shoots a small ball of fire that travels up to 75.5 paces, exploding when it collides with something. Deals up to 198 damage, depending on where it hits, on a direct collision with a being.
Firebolt explodes upon impact, damaging and knocking back all beings within 5 paces, with severity depending on how close they are to the source of the explosion.
As she looked over her Status sheet, she was extremely careful to avoid looking at one specific part of it.
You are dismembered.
No. No. Absolutely not. Do not think about it.
“Hey, uh, lady,” a voice said, and Erani instantly jumped on the opportunity to break herself out of her thoughts, looking up at the speaker—the Paladin of the three, Jannin. He continued, “want some water or something? You look thirsty.”
“Y-yes,” she nodded, blinking and taking a breath in an attempt to clear her mind.
Jannin walked over to the kitchen area, where Ainash was still exploring the various foods and utensils there. Currently, she was looking at her reflection in a metal spoon, turning it around and watching how her face warped in the steel. He turned to squeeze past the monster that stood a head taller than him, clearly extremely cautious of the spiked whip and flaming embers floating up from her eyes—a reaction to the cute little thing that Erani felt was extremely unjustified. How could anyone really find her scary, when she was acting like that? It was adorable.
“You good with created water?” Jannin asked, reaching into a cabinet that contained a few large pitchers of clear liquid. “I know some people think it’s gross.”
“No, no, created is fine. Did you make it yourself?”
“Hm?” He looked up from the mug he was pouring the water into.
“That healing Spell you used on Ar, Annor was Apostle’s Blessing, right?” She stuttered for a second over Arlan’s fake name, but Jannin didn’t seem to notice, instead seeming to just be surprised Erani somehow knew the Spell he cast. “Paladins get it at Level…5? And from that path I’m pretty sure depending on your Level 10 Spell, your Level 15 Spell can be Waterwhirl, right? And even if you don’t pick that, there are other paths you can go down that offer Hydroblast and Hydrosurge—or maybe it was Hydrolash? I’m not sure, I really do need to get to a library and remind myself. A-anyway, I just assumed you may have had one of those, and were using it to create the water.”
“Wow. Uh…you really do your homework, huh?” Jannin laughed awkwardly. “...Why do you know such a weird amount about my Class?”
Erani frowned. “It’s not about you. I’m just prepared.”
“Uh huh.” He continued pouring the water. “Well, no, I didn’t create it. I don’t have those Spells. We get it sent to us from that nearby town. It’s apparently, like, a day’s trip or something, but I guess they can spare sending some sub-Level-5 Wizards out here to make us our water ration every week.”
“Huh,” Erani mused. “Feels like it’d be pretty useful to have out here, and you may as well pick it up if you’re getting to the 25s, maybe 30s, anyway. Do you have a specific build in mind? Most Paladins I’ve heard from say Apostle’s Blessing is a pretty popular path to go down, did you go with Angel’s Mercy for the full half-Cleric, half-Melee-Type sort of build? I know that’s a common option. And then Destroy Evil is obviously also a solid choice.”
“...Listen, I’m just gonna get you some water,” Jannin said.
Why was he avoiding her questions? Was he hiding something? Maybe he was planning on betraying them, and so he wanted to keep her in the dark about what Spells he had. But then why wouldn’t he just lie and give her deliberately incorrect information to throw her off? Maybe—
Erani stopped herself. No. These were normal people, he was just getting her some water. She was the one being weird with her interrogating this random guy about his Class. Maybe he was just private with that sort of thing. She was obviously still in a bit of a survival mindset. Mentally, she reminded herself, these are not enemies.
Jannin walked over and held out the mug of water for her. “Here.”
Erani reached out with her dominant left hand to take it and—
She stopped short when the limb that ended in a stump came into view. She froze.
After a numb moment, she was brought out of her stupor when she heard a strange sound. Looking up, she saw that Jannin was laughing. Not a loud, boisterous laugh, but a hidden chuckle. He stopped when she looked up at him.
Saying nothing, Erani awkwardly put her left hand—left arm—down and reached up with her right to grab the mug, feeling strange holding it in the wrong hand.
You are dismembered.
No.
Erani sipped from the mug, the cold water sliding down her throat. It felt nice. Almost nice enough to distract herself from the fact that she was still holding the mug in her non-dominant hand.
“Alright,” Bon said, and Erani looked over.
She’d somewhat lost focus of the ongoing interrogation, but it seemed like Arlan had gotten through without tripping the Truth Stone once. He sighed and leaned back—an action that could be simply attributed to him wanting to rest after having to lean forward with the truth stone presented in his hand in the middle of the table for so long, but Erani knew him well enough to tell it was more than likely out of a feeling of relief that his plan had actually gone smoothly.
Bon looked over at Erani and nodded his head over toward an open seat. “Okay, you’re next. Just wanna get your name and basic information, I won’t make you go through the whole explanation again.”
Unfortunately, Arlan’s plan was one that only actually worked for him. He got through this interrogation just fine with it, but Erani would have to do something different. Something that was definitely a bit riskier.
Erani nodded curtly and stood. Time for a test of her own.