The Runesmith

On the way, the new party visited the crash site, or what remained from it. Roland was hoping that they might find some provisions.

To his dismay the only thing he found there was scrap metal and wood, along with more goblins that they luckily cleared out without that much of a problem.

While here, Roland looked up to the mountain above them. He could not see the path from which they fell down. There was also a thick fog right in the middle of the mountain range that limited his vision.

His new party members explained that they were the only survivors that remained. They had buried some of the other slaves that didn’t survive the fall along with some dead guards.

Roland could still see some blood and gory bits scattered around. Most of it was gone, probably down in the goblin bellies. There was nothing else to do here so they continued on their merry way.

The place where they were in was deep down inside a gorge. The rocky walls were quite smooth and would be hard to climb. The further up you went the more you had to contend with that blasted fog. Going up was out of the question.

Luckily there was a path next to a river down here that they could follow. The biggest downside of this path was that there were a lot of monsters living here. It was also a path that stretched around the mountain and would take them a lot more time to cross.

This was also the reason why the caravan owners decided on going over the mountain as it cut the travel time down by a couple of days.

The scenery down here was composed mostly of trees and bushes. It was over a kilometer in width and the river in the middle was the cause of many monsters living here. Just like any other animals, monsters flocked to areas with a water source. The humanoid mountain goat-like monsters were just one of the many types that roamed this landscape.

The hastily put together quartet of people had now traversed a couple of kilometers through this monster-filled land. Roland was now looking at one of his wands that had run out of charges after a couple of encounters.

He looked at the male moon elf swordsman examining the lady elf. The man was like a nanny that somehow wasn’t able to take more than one step away from her. He was like a tick that wouldn’t go away.

The other major fighting force that was the half-orc always ran into battle with a smile on his face. He constantly broke formation and caused Roland to overuse his spells. He was running on a limited budget of charges and was afraid that he would run out of juice soon.

He didn’t say anything at first, thinking that they would get a grip on the situation. Instead, they just continued with this strategy, maybe they thought that he would pick up the slack with his spell-slinging. They might have not realized that his mana pool and gear usage were limited.

“Hey… are you being serious now?”

Roland’s face twitched as he looked at Logon examining Aredhel for the hundredth time. Golgrim was right next to them getting healed by the acolyte. He had, even more bite and claw marks on his body than usual.

“What do you mean?”

Logon replied while Aredhel scooted to the side, the woman looked a bit fed up with how he was treating her as well.

“Do you two want to get us all killed or something?”

Roland crossed his arms over one another while glaring at the moon elf and green skin.

“Will she go up in flames if you leave her alone for a second?”

Logon turned around to face Roland, the youth was squinting his eyes in his direction and certainly looked annoyed.

“With all due respect Mr. Carmine. I am thankful for your help but I can not abandon lady Aredhel. What if some creature sneaks up on the defenseless lady! I could not live with myself if anything happened to her! I promised to protect her with my life! I need to return her safely to her family!”

Roland flinched slightly as the man started unloading a monologue towards him. His eyes were bloodshot and it looked like he was close to blowing a fuse. Maybe the shock of not being able to protect this elven lady had been too much for this guy. It looked like he was getting paranoid.

“Oh, will you be quiet!”

Before Roland could think about a good retort to stop this babbling idiot of a swordsman. Aredhel moved in from behind and gave Logon an open hand smack to the back of the head.

“M...M’lady?”

The man was stunned while also stopping with his rambling shouts. He slowly turned around to see Aredhel with both her hands on her hips. She had her face slightly raised and her eyebrows were furrowed.

“Stop causing trouble for Mr. Carmine. He was caring enough to rid us of those slave collars and even saved us twice!”

Roland just took a step back while the silver-haired elven woman was now the one shouting. She started reprimanding her bodyguard while mostly bringing up Roland’s previous deeds. Mostly implying that the three of them would be already dead if he didn’t intervene.

The first time being where he threw mana shields out when he was falling. The other one when he took care of the hobgoblin when Logon got wounded.

“I… I’m sorry… This was a severe and continuous lapse in my judgment. Please accept my sincere apology, Mr. Carmine.”

The man did a quick 180 and started to apologize. He took his lady's words to heart almost instantly. Roland realized that it would probably be better to just talk to Aredhel instead if he wanted to get things done. The woman apparently had this man wrapped around her finger, she was even the one that could control that half-orc.

Roland wasn’t sure but he had an idea why this was the case. When he was removing the slave color he did analyze Aredhel’s stats. She had a high charisma stat above twenty points.

Charisma was counted differently than other stats. It didn’t reach that high of a number compared to it. Ten to fourteen was the average number a person’s charisma would reach. Anything above that indicated someone with some type of charm. This woman’s Charisma rating was 24 and even he noticed its effects.

It might have been some kind of trait but he found the elven lady quite bewitching. Luckily Roland had a high willpower stat to counteract this. He had read up that a person with really high charisma could affect people in strange ways. It was as if they were casting a mind control spell, if the person was susceptible to it they would perform tasks that they wouldn’t normally do.

There were also some classes that used this to their advantage. Bards were one type of class that relied on it, some could even enchant people with their voices. There were also monsters like an Incubus or a Succubus that led adventurers astray. Someone with a high enough charm could topple kingdoms and empires. They could affect people in power to the point of mad devotion.

The girl here wasn’t quite at that level though, at most she could slightly affect these two.

“It’s fine if you understand but I’ll need you to take a more active part in the coming fights. You don’t need to stick to your friend so closely. I’ll protect her if something happens, that’s why I’m back here.”

Roland was mostly ticked off by Logon letting too many monsters into the party formation. Aredhel could easily back away on her own while he contended with the monsters in battle. He would then support him from the back with some magical attacks.

He was a person with a lot of firepower but his fighting style was limited to his magical items. Without them, he would be weaker than a regular mage or a regular warrior. The only thing above those was his high mana pool. He also suffered from a limited array of spells.

The regular mana versions of spells showed a decline against tier 2 monsters. They also traveled at a slower speed then the more advanced spells and were easier to doge by enemies with high agility.

“But how can I trus…”

Before Logon could pose that question he received another smack to the back of his head. While Roland looked at this comedic routine Golgrim was to the side just sniggering. The half-orc apparently thought that it was funny to see a grown man be abused by a smaller woman.

“Little Logon did bad not like Golgrim!”

Roland eyed the smirking green skin, he just wanted to go over there and give the big idiot a smack of his own.

“Golgrim, you’re not doing any better than him. How about you stop running after every monster you see?”

He proclaimed while looking at the half-orc sternly. He felt like he was a teacher in kindergarten and Aredhel was his assistant. The moment he reprimanded the half-orc he began to sulk. He sat down on the ground and started poking one of the dead monster bodies with a stick.

“C-could you…”

Roland turned to the elven woman who in turn walked over to the large male.

“It’s okay Golgrim, Mr. Carmine didn’t mean it. He just needs you to listen to him from now on…”

Aredhel tried to calm the large beast of a half-orc down. Even though physically he outranked everyone here his mind was of a child's. Luckily the female moon elf was good at talking to kids so she somehow managed to get him to co-operate. Maybe from now on, they could move along more proficiently.

“Okay, let's try this again...Golgrim and Logon you two stay side by side and try not to break formation from now on… Me and Aredhel will stay in the back and support you with spells…”

The two knuckleheads nodded at the plan of action but if they would follow the instructions remained to be seen. For now, the party removed the mana stones from the monster corpses and tredded forward. They needed to find shelter in the next couple of hours before nightfall.

The moment of truth came quite fast as after an hour of walking they met another type of monster. It was only two this time around and they looked like a giant praying mantis.

Greater Mantodea [ L 57 ]

Roland’s identification skill was finally at a level that he could use it for fights. These monsters were of the tier 2 variety. They were above human-sized and quite long. Their raptorial forelegs were their calling card, the razor-sharp blades those had could even cut through metal. Luckily insectoid monsters were susceptible to fire type magic.

“Golgrim, Logon. Please distract them but don’t break formation, I’ll finish them off with a fire spell.”

He gave out the order while preparing for the right moment to strike. He could see the half-orc moving forward while holding his club.

“Golgrim understand!”

This time instead of charging forward like a bull he started smacking the club on a nearby boulder. The monster’s attention was brought to the commotion and to the person that was responsible.

The two insectoid monsters charged forward, their blade appendages raised high in the air.

The moon elf glanced back for a moment and noticed that Aredhel was chanting a spell.

“Holy light of the moon, which gently illuminates the night, let all things be filled with your pure essence...”

Logon’s body shone in a dark color as he felt his speed being increased. If he looked at his status screen he would notice an increase in his agility by some points. Roland had seen her cast this buffing spell before but not on him. He was curious if such a buffing spell increased your stats by a flat number or by a percentage.

Logon took the chance that Golgrim gave him and attempted a flanking maneuver while the two insect monsters concentrated on another target.

Even though these two were slightly more coordinated it didn’t mean that this would be an easy fight. Golgrim swung his large wooden club at the monster which received the attack with its razor-sharp appendage.

It was debatable which of these two had more raw power but one thing was certain. A sharp weapon as the mantis scythes far outperformed a simple wooden club. It got sliced in half just in one swing and caused the half-orc to lose balance.

He was lucky that there was enough force in the clash to cause the monster’s attack to slow down immensely. It couldn’t benefit from the exchange but its ally was not far behind. A bolt of energy traveled towards it to give Golgrim enough time to counterattack.

While the half-orc engaged his enemy in hand to hand combat, Logon used the chance to strike the beast’s side. He managed to swiftly slice off two legs from the side before dodging a sickle-blade that was aiming for his neck.

Roland gave the two some range support with his regular mage spells. He was rusty with his incantations a bit but he wasn’t aiming for a kill on the second creature, just to stall it.

He saved his tier 2 spell for when the monster was immobile. Logon continued to remove more of the insect’s legs until it was stationary enough to deliver a finishing blow. A condensed ball of flame energy slammed into the monster setting it ablaze. The heat was enough to cause critical damage and almost finish it off in one hit.

The finishing touch on the huge mantis looking monster would be Golgrim’s large fists. The second monster wouldn’t just wait there for the party of people to kill him. He noticed the two spell slingers in the back and charged at them with its sickle arms raised.

At least that is what it was trying to do, instead, it received a mana arrow to the face. The monster was fast enough to dodge to the side but killing it with that spell wasn’t the thing Roland was aiming at.

The remaining Mantodea got one of its legs sliced off by Logon that quickly returned to keep the backline safe. With him bothering it from close range it was only a matter of time till the beast was also killed.

At the end of the battle, Roland was rewarded with two common grade mana stones. They had a nice green tint to it and could even be mistaken for emeralds.

One of his party members was also quite happy about the spoils. Roland saw Golgrim leaning down and after some crunching sounds, he removed one of the large sickle appendages.

In his hand, the insect’s appendage looked like a large machete. He started swinging it around, he even chopped up the monster’s body with it.“Golgrim now even stronger!”

He cheered while removing the other weapon appendage. Roland now had a dual-wielding half-orc on his team, though the brute certainly had zero finesse with how he was swinging those around. Roland took a mental note to not get too close to the half-orc when he was swinging those around. There was no option to turn off friendly fire in this world.

“Well, that wasn’t that bad, this time around…”

Roland commented while Aredhel smiled at him. Logon wasn’t far behind as after defeating the monster he swooped in to see if his mistress was okay. It was a bit funny to look at him searching for wounds, he was really acting like the girl’s nanny.

“I think we should move, the blood will only attract more monsters.”

“I agree, we should also find shelter for the night.”

Roland and Aredhel exchanged some words. The sun was starting to go down and they probably had about two hours till sundown. They needed to either find a cave to rest at or build a fire and camp out in the open.

The first option would be the saver one but in caves, some monsters lurked. They might have to clear out any previous tenants before resting.

The first day out in the gorge was drawing to an end. After some bumps along the road, the party was slowly shaping up. Roland could already see them actually making it to the village in one piece, that is if nothing out of the ordinary happened along the way...