Chapter 2: Status
Ash woke early, light was just starting to filter over the trees, leaving it still to dark to move around without tripping over everyone in the crowded main hall. She stared up at the reed covered ceiling, wondering just what her next steps should be.
Well, I may as well see where I am at to start with. Ash thought, and brought up her status page.
She was pleased to see good progress in all her combat stats, finally gaining a second point in her ability with fire magic, and a few points in great-hammers, frost touch, and arcane conduit.
She did some calculations with help from the in-game damage calculator and found out she could potentially now hit with 14 base damage, + 8 with help from flame burst, + 17 ice damage with ice strike, all totalling for a hefty 39 damage. That was still more than her entire health pool, though would not be enough to one-shot someone with full constitution like Hestia. Plus, against undead, she could even add glow for a whopping 52 damage attack!
Ash deflated when she realised that had all been calculated with her large club, which was now a splintered mess back in the ant hive. She was weaponless so, thanks to her curse, she could currently achieve a whole 0 damage against anything.
Okay, so priority number 1, get a new weapon, Ash determined. I left the heavy club back at the ruin, so I can pick that up, but I should take Jori up on his offer to help me improve it. Plus, my crafting skills are lagging behind so that could help improve them. Great. That’s settled. I’ll pick it up on my morning jog, then talk to him over breakfast. It will be a pain to jog without Tyra’s food buff, but I doubt she’s even started cooking this early.
With a weary sigh, Ash stood. Standing didn’t make her feel much better. In-fact it just made her notice all the grime coating her body. She sighed. New priority, have a bath. I suppose I’ll jog to the waterfall pool after the ruin and have a good wash. I must stink! I hope Scholar and Spear’s sense of smell isn’t super strong or something.
She grimaced, eyeing the pair sleeping to the left of her. Then she used the burgeoning light to carefully pick her way out of the main hall. She waved farewell to Tyra, who was actually already up and preparing to cook, and set out to prepare for her own day.
By the time she returned, panting as her stamina nearly bottomed out once again, most of village was up and being served breakfast. Still, she was now gloriously clean and lugging her unwieldy heavy club on her shoulder. Ash joined the queue for food then spoke to Jori, who quickly agreed to helping her out.
“I actually have a few things to sort in the crafting hut, so I’ll meet you there.” He replied “It’s nice to not have full time guard duty again, now that the other combat specialists aren’t preoccupied searching for a hive. I can actually get back to helping build up the village!” He grinned then scraped up the last of his breakfast and hurried off to get started.
She next checked in on Scholar and Spear, letting them know her plans for the day. Scholar informed her that they would be happy to just follow her about for the time being. It was his goal to raise his Common language skill as high as possible, so he could impart some basic understanding of common to Spear, like he had to her before. He would have to wait another day for the cooldown of that ability to reset, but doubted he’d be high enough level yet.
Ash asked him about the ability, and he said it actually came from his Teaching Utility skill specialty. He could impart understanding to an apprentice level, level 10, with a skill he was at least level 20 in. Apparently, that meant he could teach others in the village basic Saurian in the future, which would remove some of the dependence on Ash for communication. He could also impart understanding of a few of his other skills like scribe, though he explained that it was often faster just to teach a group manually than wating for that long 2-day cooldown.
“Apprentice skill level is not hard to reach” he hissed merrily, “If you have good teacher!”
