Chapter 11
Tom P.O.V
The two weeks trip to the small village Open Caves did
a lot of good. I was still a little worked up from what had happened but at least most of my anger had bled out and I was only left with a lot of restless energy from just sitting in a cart.
Technically I was here for protection so when the fog ca in a bit denser I went to the head of the caravan, to lead the way even though I knew the chances of sothing happening this close to the village were close to 0. All my thoughts changed when I got the distinct feeling that I was being watched.
It wasn’t sothing new to , after all as a guard in the city patrolling the street you always have a few people keeping their eye on you to act as an alarm system for people doing the shady business. The problem was here there was nobody to watch , everyone was either talking amongst themselves or on watch duty themselves and looking at the forest.
I only had this feeling one ti before in my life, at the end of my first year as a mber of the guard I took the optional posting of joining the Hunting guard, you need to have 10 cycles of experience before you can sign up and the money is good for going out into the forest to protect a couple of nobles while they hunt for sport. I still get nightmares from the lvl 19 wolf that jumped on my back that day.
That incident is what marked my decision to remain as a normal patrolman and focus on honing my skill through dedication, hard work and ti instead of going for the faster thod of levelling by putting yourself at risk. After all, experience earned was a result of 3 things : first how demanding is the activity, do you have to spend every resource you have or can you keep doing it for days on end with no issues. Second how difficult is the activity for you, taking on an evenly matched opponent will give less experience than if you take on that sa opponent with no mana or better yet a craftsn making a knife he made a lot of tis before levels from his last one, the one he makes after with increased stats will be worth less experience since it was easier to get that result. The last one is risk, and its pretty self explanatory the higher the danger the more experience. You fight an opponent in a spar or to the death the experience will reflect that.
My small brush with danger made it clear to
I was not built to be able to take the danger, so a steady long road was the way for . I was now on edge, I hadn’t taken those assignnts before specifically because I didn’t want to go through that again and now that feeling of being watched ca back. I was looking through the fog but couldn’t tell where I was being watched from.
All of a sudden sothing moves from the tree to my left. I hear the crack of a twig and I swing my shield feeling a solid contact. I look at who I hit and I see a young kid that seems strangely familiar.
“Alzinoth” Kate says from behind
casting a healing spell on the kid I just flattened. “Tom, why would you shield bash a kid who just called you big brother?” she asks with a mix of confusion and anger.
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Then I processed her words, he called
what? I take another look at him and yeah he does resemble Ajax, a profound sense of guilt cos over
as I pick him up and start carrying him towards the village thinking of the best way to explain this to my parents and Ajax himself. Still I swear if this kid doesn’t have a stealth skill I’ll eat my left boot.
Ajax P.O.V. :
My head was pounding as I started to shift, finding myself in my own bed. The last thing I rember is seeing my brother's shield coming towards
and hearing a strange word afterwards. So I tried sitting up, finding surprisingly that while I still had a pounding headache I didn’t feel any pain from the actual hit I took and my health now said 70/70.
“Good you’re awake” I hear in a soft sweet voice. I look up and I start to consider just how hard my brother hit . Standing on a chair next to my bed reading a scroll is a blonde young woman, with cat ears and tail. I know that beastkin are a part of this world, sa as dwarves and elves but knowing sothing exists and seeing it are two very different things.
“How are you feeling, does your head still hurt?” she asks while she moves up to check on
.
“Who are you?’
“Kate, I’m your - “ that’s as far as she got as my mom ca in through the door, looking worried and a little out of breath.
“Ajax, how are you feeling? Does your head hurt? Can you rember what happened?” And the questions just kept coming, this has to be the first ti I have seen my mother distressed, ever the composed calm rchant, this new attitude threw
through a loop. After about a minute of non stop questions she pauses to take breath so I see my chance.
“Yes mom I’m fine, I think Tom hit
with his shield I’m not sure what happened after that” I quickly threw my brother under the bus, after all I haven’t seen him in almost 4 years and the first thing he does is try to brain .
“I was just teaching you not to sneak up on soone in a fogged up forest.” Tom said from the doorway with his trademark smirk though so concern for
still showed in his eyes. “Just kidding” he quickly puts up his hands as my mothers attention switches from
and she turns on him. “How is he Kate? He gonna make it?”
“Yeah he’ll be just fine”
“So, why did you take it upon yourself to see if my head is hard enough?” I ask my brother, a small smile working its way onto my face.
“Small hang up from a run in with a wolf in the fog a few years back, you should probably not use your stealth skill within arm reach of .” he tries to brush it off but from the look in his eyes I think it might be a bit more than a small hang incident he makes it out to be.
“What stealth skill?” mom asks, looking from my brother to , confusion clear on her face.
“Sa one he’s been using since I was looking after him before I left, I wasn’t sure back then if he had one but seeing him get so close to
without anyone in the caravan noticing is a dead giveaway.” He calmly digs my grave, completely oblivious to the look of “for the love of god shut the fuck up”. That Kate catches but only gives
a look of pity as if telling
she can’t help.
“So you’ve got a stealth skill do you?” mom asks, and I find a sudden interest in inspecting my feet. “Is that why I can never find you when I want to deliver sothing to Mrs. Olena”
“It’s not that I don’t want to help you deliver, it’s the 30 minute revelation of how I remind her of her son, that she gives
every ti” I murmur under my breath, Lucky enough she doesn’t catch that and seems to have regained her composure.
“No matter, we can add that to the list of things we need to talk about , right now dinner's getting cold let's all go eat.” She nods towards the door and herds
out after Kate and Tom into the kitchen where dad and Judy are setting the table for 6, it seems that Jonny won’t be joining us this ti, which I am glad for. The last thing I want is that gossip getting wind of
having a stealth skill.
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