Return to Jorgaldur Volume I: the battle mage

End of battle

His stats had risen a little since the death of the third wolf, but they were still far from those of the beasts. His advantage was in the weapons, which gave him an attack bonus and had risen with his level, his spells and abilities, and, above all, in the use of the spring to hide and recover.

This time he decided not to delay, because the wolves were destroying one of the walls and seemed to want to flee with its wounded comrade, so he crossed the barrier, leaving a wall between him and the wolves. He tried to climb up the wall and attack from there, but one of the wolves was quicker to claim the advantage of the height, threatening him from above, but without deciding to attack alone.

He took the bow and started shooting, forcing it to retreat. Then, he took out the axe and, after saving bow and arrows, used Earthen Wall to go up quickly, nailing the axe on the wall to help him maintain his balance.

He met the wolf on the wall, but now both were at the same height, so he confronted him with the axe, fire and the weapon's skill, which allowed him to keep it at bay.

The other wolf climb up to help its companion, although the place was tight, making it difficult to attack together. Eldi took the opportunity to jump and finish off the badly injured wolf, whose life was barely 20 and which could not resist more than a Double Edge with fire damage, being unable to dodge either of the two blows.

The two remaining wolves jumped to protect their companion, but it was too late, and Eldi received them with the axe. Weakened as they were, unable to move easily in the tightened space and despite damaging their enemy several times, one of the wolves ended up succumbing to the axe and the fire, the one which was weaker and towards which he had concentrated his attacks. The other still had 80 hitpoints left, while he had barely enough energy left for the dodge skill.

Eldi decided to confront the wolf face to face, trusting that he could heal himself and escape if needed. He raised two walls, further restricting the movement of the wolf and his own, and attacked with the axe, a bit slow due to fatigue.

But the wolf was also tired and had no much room, so it was neither able to dodge all attacks nor counter with full force.

Eldi endured scratches and bites, while counterattacking and healing continuously, not realizing that his effort also consumed energy and could no longer use the skill to dodge. However, he wasn't the only one who got tired, and his adversary was more and more wounded. It died when Eldi was running out of mana and thinking about going back to the spring. His level raised to 5.

It was not until just before drinking from the spring that he was aware of the mistake in managing his energy, and that it could have been fatal if he had needed Feline Response. And, after drinking and recovering, he crouched by the water, trembling. Once the danger had disappeared and the adrenaline started to leave him, his feelings surfaced.

Covered in blood, he let fear invade him and tears ran down his cheeks. He stayed by the spring until he was able to calm down, with the memory of the dryad's smile as a balm.

Once he had regained his composure, he forced himself to get up and approached the bodies of the three wolves, wondering if, as in the game, there would be a way to extract the materials.

A strange fairy, of robotic appearance and the size of his fist, appeared and began to skin the wolf he was looking at, an unpleasant sight if you're not used to it, even after having fought a bloody battle with them.

Wondering how he was able to know and do it, he pointed to his assistant the other two wolves, then approached those which were close to the barrier and marked them too.

He wielded the axe and used the blessing and the skill of the rabbit on himself, in case something could get close, and went to the wolf that lay a little further, stopping to pick up the shield he had lost while trying to reach the spring. And as he approached, he was able to perceive that some plants were different and that, maybe, he could gather them. In fact, as he stared at them, his description and properties appeared in his mind. After all, he had maximized his gathering skills in the past.

A new assistant appeared, similar to the previous one, picking up the plants he marked and taking them to his inventory, grouping with the materials he already had. Meanwhile, his other assistant was bringing the pieces it had extracted from the wolves, skin, meat and teeth among others, although it might seem impossible for its size.

He soon returned to the security of the spring, stalked by the sounds of a forest that hid unexpected dangers. He sat exhausted, more mentally than physically, as he reviewed his parameters and verified that Steel Body had risen and was 5. Apparently, if the effect had to perform, it rose faster, something that had happened a lot during the fight. And so had Earthen Wall, which was a spell he had used little in the game and was now in 4. He never would have imagined that he would use it as an elevator.

Rabbit Spirit at 5 and Feline Response at 6 were the skills that increased compatibility, and even increased the current level considerably. He had squeezed them during his confrontation with the abyssal wolves.

He checked that he had unlocked, as expected, Exit Gate. It is a spell without compatibility and had no much use at that time, because all it does is create a mark on the ground that can be used with the Gate spell to travel to that point. But the latter was unavailable in the game until many levels later. However, it allows marking places to visit them in the future, when Portal will be available, as long as it is in protected places where the mark is not erased.

And he also now had the ability Javelin, which allows throwing the spear at about 10m distance at level 1, reaching 55m at level 10 compatibility. It was a useful skill in the game, although of punctual use and difficult to train, so he only had it at level 4. Unfortunately, it was convenient to have several spears available to make use of it efficiently, and he didn't even have one he could use.

Finally, he decided to spend the night there and explore the forest the next day, something he would have to do whether he wanted to or not. First he took off his tunic, stained and somewhat torn, and showered under the small waterfall that was falling from the spring. Then he put on the closest thing he had to a pajama, a bear suit with a hood with ears simulating the animal, which Gjaki had made for them as a joke and which he found quite embarrassing.

"At least nobody can see me like this."

He took the tunic out of the inventory to wash it, but to his surprise there was no trace of dirt or blood, although it was a bit ragged. He decided to do some experiments to find out exactly what had happened, but he would wait until the next day. So, he took out the tent, camped by the spring water and fell asleep as soon as his head brushed the pillow.