Path of Dragons

“We can’t thank you enough,” said Tömörbaatar, passing Elijah a cup.

One whiff was all it took for him to identify the milky, white liquid as something alcoholic, but it was unlike anything Elijah had ever seen before. So, he asked, “What’s this?”

“Airag. Fermented mare’s milk,” the short leader of the hunters said. He’d been one of Eliijah’s first patients, and though he’d received the most healing, he still had a long scar across his face. There was another one that stretched from his right shoulder to his left hip, though that was hidden beneath his rough tunic. Tömörbaatar had been the most injured among the survivors, but three men and one woman had died in the battle.

Six horses – including Tömörbaatar’s own mount – had fallen as well. Not wanting the animals’ sacrifice to go to waste, the remaining hunters had quickly processed the beasts, and Elijah had already eaten some of their flesh. Consuming horsemeat had never been on his bucket list, but he’d expected that if he’d refused, it would have been considered rude.

The meat itself wasn’t terrible. A little like extremely lean beef, though with a bit of a sweet undercurrent. Elijah had expected the Mongolian group to accompany the meal with some sort of ceremony – they practically revered their horses – but nothing of the sort happened. They mourned the loss of their companions – both bestial and human – but they hadn’t attached any extra significance to consuming the meat of their mounts. It was just another meal.

Elijah brought the cup to his lips and took a sip. The first thing he noticed was the texture, which was surprisingly fizzy. And when it hit his tongue, he was immediately reminded of yoghurt, though with a slight sweetness to it. He could also taste the alcohol, though it wasn’t overwhelming. There was a sourness to it as well, but as with the alcohol, it wasn’t enough to overpower the rest of the flavor.

In short, it was unlike anything he’d ever had, and after taking another sip, Elijah decided it would certainly never make it on his list of favorite beverages. It wasn’t bad, but it definitely wasn’t something he intended to seek out in the future.

“Good,” he lied.

Tömörbaatar laughed heartily, then slapped Elijah’s shoulder. The blow was much more solid than the small man should’ve been capable of producing, which told Elijah that the hunter was a little higher level than most. He’d checked, and Tömörbaatar wasn’t on the power rankings, but Elijah expected that he wasn’t far off.

The other hunters gathered around the fire weren’t much lower, either, which meant that the team had been quite a formidable one. And yet, they hadn’t stood a chance against the boar. If Elijah had needed a reminder of just how dangerous the world was, the existence of the boar definitely satisfied that requirement.

“It’s a bit of an acquired taste,” admitted Tömörbaatar, echoing Elijah’s sentiments concerning the beverage.

“It’s not bad. Just…different,” Elijah maintained, forcing himself to take another sip. It was worse than the first, and he nearly choked on the stuff. He gave his new friend a thumbs up. “Tasty. But I don’t want to take it all for myself…”

Tömörbaatar laughed again as Elijah offered to return the cup. Then, the hunter downed the entire thing in one huge gulp. It stained his voluminous mustache white. Elijah chuckled as well, resting his forearms on his knees as he glanced at the fire. The camp wasn’t large, but it was protected by one of Tömörbaatar’s skills. The hunter hadn’t revealed the ability’s name, but he had described its effects, which were similar to the one Lars had used to enchant Elijah’s new tent. The basic idea was that it would discourage the wildlife from coming within range of the camp, much like the array around Ironshore that did the same.

The difference was that Tömörbaatar’s skill was completely mobile. If he could build a fire, then he was mostly protected, at least from anything within a certain attribute range. The array around Ironshore was stronger and less dependent on attributes, but it was also stationary.

Regardless, the Mongolian hunter seemed to take its efficacy for granted, so Elijah chose to follow his lead. It wasn’t as if he had much to fear from the wilderness, anyway. Over the past few years, he’d slept outdoors more often than he’d had a roof over his head, and he’d had few difficulties.

He glanced around at the surviving hunters. Only a couple had been uninjured by the fight, so Elijah had had his work cut out for him when it came to healing. Luckily, Soothe and Healing Rain were both incredibly efficient, and Touch of Nature was good at filling in the gaps. However, he couldn’t help once again notice that his healing spells were far less effective than they’d once been. It took more casts to get the same results he’d once taken for granted.

Hopefully, he would get an upgrade sometime soon.

If he got the chance to enlist the services of a Librarian, he fully intended to get a full spell list for his class. It would be useless after he reached the first threshold, but for now, it would be nice to know what he could expect. Would he get the chance to upgrade his spells like he had with Ancestral Circle? Or would he just keep getting more abilities? He already struggled to use all the spells he had available, so even if he wanted new toys with which to play, he recognized that more wasn’t necessarily better. It would probably be more beneficial to focus on the spells he already had, empowering them so that they were even more useful.

Even if he didn’t receive the opportunity to evolve his spells, Elijah still had another chance to strengthen them. His ongoing Core cultivation had continued to show results, and he suspected that it would only be a couple more months before he reached the point where he would need to make the final push. For that, he had his cultivation cave which, according to his locus, had grown even stronger than before he’d progressed to the Novice tier of Soul cultivation.

Still, even as he sat by that campfire, sharing small talk with Tömörbaatar, Elijah continued to cycle his core, pushing his boundaries with every rotation.

Eventually, though, the others retired for the night. In the morning, they would trek back to Khotont and report their failure. For his part, Elijah couldn’t sleep. He was tired, but with his high attributes – and the addition of one of his berries – he had no trouble staying awake. Instead, as he watched over the camp, he continued to cycle his core. More importantly, he thought about the boar.

It was a guardian.

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He was certain of that much. However, when he asked the hunters about natural treasures, he’d gotten no information. There was a clear link between the power of a guardian and its treasure, and if something strong enough to need the protection of something like the unstoppable boar had been found, then the hunters would have heard about it.

So, there was likely a third party at work, though that information didn’t help Elijah solve the problem. More, it brought to mind his judgement of the hunters who’d killed the bear near Norcastle. At the time, he’d considered it pointlessly cruel to have slaughtered the guardian. However, after seeing what had happened to the boar, he wasn’t so sure. Would the bear have gone mad if he’d awoken to find his treasure gone? Perhaps. And in that case, maybe it was mercy to have killed him.

In a perfect world, both would have been left alone, but Elijah knew that wasn’t realistic. People craved power. In a lot of cases, they needed it to survive. And they would leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of that strength. It was human nature.

Elijah didn’t know the solution. His instincts told him to protect natural treasures and their guardians, but he couldn’t blame people for looking after their own needs. Perhaps the answer was that there was no one-size-fits-all solution and that he’d need to take each situation as it came.

For most of the night, he pondered the questions plaguing him, but by dawn, nothing had changed. So, he boiled some water before making some coffee. Using his newly enchanted French press for the first time yielded significant results:

You have consumed a Complex-Grade beverage. The following benefits will be applied: +5 Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Ethera. +10 Regeneration. Duration: 37.1 Hours

At first, Elijah thought it was the same notification he’d received each time he drank a cup of his coffee. However, when his focus settled on the last line, he saw the benefit of Lars’ work. The duration had increased to more than thirty-seven hours, which was half-again as long as it had been before. So, while the benefits were the same – at least in terms of attributes – the fact that they lasted so much longer would be a great boon, especially in the Trial, where he knew he would have to make his supplies stretch a little further than normal.

By the time the hunters arose, Elijah had already finished his coffee and was breaking his fast on some rations he’d brought with him from Argos. The dried meat was tough and gamey, but it had been prepared by a real Cook, so it tasted better than most of what he could prepare for himself. Certainly, it was better than leftover horse.

After the sun rose, Tömörbaatar and the hunters efficiently broke camp, so only an hour later, they were already on their way back to the city. Most rode the remaining horses, but Elijah had no issues keeping up on foot. So, by mid-afternoon, they found themselves striding back into Khotont.

At first, people looked at them with no small degree of expectation. However, it only took a glance before they realized that the hunt had been unsuccessful. For his part, Tömörbaatar took the attention stoically, asking Eliijah to accompany him to the town hall, which Tömörbaatar referred to as the zahiral ger. As it turned out, the building looked little different from any of the others in the city, save that it was slightly larger and stood at five stories tall.

It was there that the hunter reported the results of their expedition to a council made up of three women and two men. They took the news calmly, but when Tömörbaatar explained that he didn’t think it was possible to kill the boar, they showed some desperation.

That’s when Elijah spoke up. He said, “I think I might have a solution, but I’m not sure if it’ll work or not.”

That much was true. Elijah had pondered the issue for hours, and though he thought his plan would work, there were no guarantees that he’d read the situation correctly. Still, as he laid out the details of his idea, it was met with some degree of enthusiasm. He ended the explanation with, “And that’s pretty much it. I think it will work, but there are no guarantees.”

“Do you truly believe you can do this? An Explorer?” one of the women asked. She was old. Probably close to seventy, if Elijah had to guess, with white hair and a face creased with wrinkles.

“Oh. Sorry,” Elijah said, remembering he’d left his Ring of Anonymity active. The moment he’d chosen to heal the hunters, he’d thrown aside any notion of keeping his disguise. So, he deactivated it. “My real name is Elijah Hart, and I’m a Druid. You might see my name on the power rankings. Sorry about the deception, but I’ve found that it’s a lot easier to keep my identity secret when I’m traveling.”

There was a gasp, but after a couple of them used their skills to identify him, they accepted that his identity was genuine. It helped that Tömörbaatar vouched for his abilities, recounting how he’d already saved lives with his healing spells.

In the end, though, Elijah didn’t need their permission or help. His plan only relied on his own abilities. Finally, he asked if there was anyone in town that needed healing. He had ethera to spare, and he’d chosen to balance some of the terrible things he’d done with helping people. And it was rare that nobody needed healing.

“Khotont has been blessed with a number of Healers, but if you would like to take some of that burden, you may do so in our jail,” she said. “There are a few dursamj there that most of our people avoid.”

Elijiah interpreted that word as outcast, but there seemed to be other connotations there as well. However, the translation feature that came with the system sometimes lacked nuance, so it didn’t give him a firm idea of what to expect. Given that she had used the word to refer to prisoners connected some dots, though.

In any case, Elijah didn’t care about social status. So, he agreed to heal the prisoners and was quickly escorted to another nearby building. There, he found a few strong-looking guards who let him and Tömörbaatar inside.

The first thing Elijah noticed was the antiseptic smell. It reminded him of a hospital, where all sorts of horrible odors were covered up by harsh cleaners. The floors were cheap, white tile, and the walls were made of painted cinder blocks. But at least everything was clean.

If he was honest with himself, Elijah had expected much worse conditions, but maybe that was his bias showing itself. Regardless, he was soon led down a hall and to the first holding cell. There, he announced his intentions before summoning Healing Rain that covered the entire cell. The prisoners were morose, but they didn’t look as if they’d been ill-treated, though quite a few seemed to be suffering from one ailment or another. Elijah’s spell took care of that, and when it completed, he moved on to the next, where he repeated the cast.

Finally, he came to the third and final cell, which only held one prisoner. And unlike the majority of people in the Mongolian town, this man was pale-skinned, with thin blonde hair and a short, slender frame. That’s when Elijah remembered being told about another stranger that had come to town and racked up a gambling debt.

“Oh! Did the Conclave send you to rescue me?” the man asked, his voice brimming with hope. Elijah also heard a German accent. “I assure you, I have executed my duties faithfully! This is just a little hiccup, I swear it.”

“Conclave? What’s that?” Elijah asked. “And what’s your name?”

The man deflated. “Ah. I see. Just leave me here to rot, then. I’ll not be bullied!” he said.

“I’m not here to bully you. I’m here to heal you.”

“I have no ailments,” he said. “But my name is Wilhelm. Perhaps we can come to some accommodation? I can guarantee that if you help me, the Conclave will pay you back tenfold!”

“Wilhelm, huh?” Elijah echoed. “Well, Will – I’ve got a lot on my plate, here. But if you’re still around when I get done with my current task, I just might take you up on that.”

Having said what he needed to say, Elijah let the guard escort him back outside. As much as the mention of a Conclave intrigued him, he had no intention of letting himself get distracted. He had a boar to deal with, after all.

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