Fight. Level. Survive.

There are many ways to build power. Two of the most common ways are to be a specialist or a generalist. Specialists tend to spend the majority of their points on a specific stat and rely on their overwhelming power in that one particular area to win their fights.

Specialists will find that in some situations, they are almost unbeatable but will struggle far more in other situations.

Generalists are the jack of all trades build. They tend to spread out their points, keeping all their stats at a similar level.

They do well in most situations but find themselves struggling to utilise all their stats to the best of their ability.

- Excerpt from ‘The Trials’ Chapter 9, Builds

Chapter 31 - Thunderbirds are go!

13 Trolls. 13 big, ugly fucking Trolls. He was going to have a chat with the Mayor when- if he got back to Sparkford, about providing all necessary information when sending someone out on a quest.

He had been running towards where he knew the bandit camp to be, carrying the Trunk on his back. Knowing he was getting close to his destination, he activated invisibility.

He kept running, getting close enough to the camp that he could hear voices. Not quite able to understand what they were saying, he ventured closer, figuring his Invisibility would be more than enough to hide him from some bandits.

His plan, as it were, was he would sneak through the camp, see how many bandits there were and what kind of weapons they had, and then he would stop somewhere to let Mayry out so they could make a plan.

Mason made it 3 steps into the camp when several things happened all at once. First, he noticed that these bandits all seemed to be very big, very grey and very not human.

Second, every head turned in his direction, all staring directly at him despite his being invisible. No, they all seemed to be looking at his bac- oh, yeah, he was dumb. He would not be telling Mayry about this. The last thing that happened was several of the huge, grey, not humans started running at him, eager to see what the magical floating trunk was.

Getting away from them was easy enough. They were big, strong and surprisingly fast, but Mason was faster. He noticed only half the monstrous bandits had given chase. The others, Mason assumed, had stayed behind to guard the camp.

He managed to evade them several times, and each time, it only took them a few minutes to track him down, even with him invisible.

One of those times, after hiding the Trunk In a nearby bush, Mason had squeezed himself into the middle of a particularly thick canopy of trees. Just as he was getting his heart rate under control, he heard thumping footsteps and a whole lot of sniffing. The biggest of them had his nose to the ground, sniffing in and out like a bloodhound hunting down its prey.

Gla - Troll Level 23

Troll like smash, Troll like meat, Troll nose good. You fucked.

Ah, Trolls, lovely. As the sniffing stopped, Gla pushed his head into the group of trees where Mason was hiding. Gla could smell Mason, but as he was invisible, the Troll couldn’t see him. Its face was mere inches away from Mason’s. Each time the thing breathed, Mason, felt himself inching closer to throwing up. The smell was so putrid that Mason was getting worried he would get an affliction from noxious fumes. Unable to bear it any longer, Mason took his dagger and stabbed it into the ugly fuckers face, directly into its forehead. It drew back, squealing in shock and pain. Soon enough, the pained noises faded.

Slipping out of his hiding place, Mason expected to see the thing on the floor dead. Instead, what he saw was the skin around the wound closing, healing itself around the dagger, leaving the handle poking out of its head, making the Troll look like it was wearing the ugliest unicorn cosplay in existence.

He was so fucking screwed.

He managed to get away again. Judging from the last few times, he reckoned he had maybe five minutes before they caught up to him. Just enough time to pop into his Trunk and deliver the good news to Mayry. He really hoped she had a way to put these things down because stabbing them in the face didn’t seem to work, and he really didn’t want to lose that dagger.

=================

Having finished his summoning, Mason was beyond disappointed. The summons had taken almost 200 MP, so he was understandably expecting a pretty fucking substantial help. Instead, he got a tweety bird wannabe.

Looking at the tiny creature that had shot out of the summoning hole, it looked like a cross between a baseball and a budgie. It flew around his head, buzzing like a bee.

Monster - Pygmy Thunderbird Level 25

Don’t underestimate this mean little shit. Thunderbirds are the Apex predators of their world. Small and fast, the Thunderbirds pack a mean zap. Think flying bird taser.

Looking at the bird flying around his head, “Huh, maybe you aren’t as shit as I thought.”

The Thunderbird landed on Mason’s shoulder, speaking fast, “HeyIaintshityourshiti’llshowyouyabastard.”

He felt a pulse of electricity shoot through him, causing him to yelp and all his muscles to tense. When he recovered a few seconds later, he tried to swat the bird off his shoulder, but it expertly dodged. “You’re supposed to fight for me, you little shit!”

As this was happening, the Trolls came lumbering into the clearing. Mason, not noticing the new arrivals, continued to try and smack his new companion as it flew through the air.

“Um, Mason”, Mayry tried.

“One sec… I. Oh.” Turning around, he saw the six Trolls standing there looking confused.

“Hey Pyg,” he said, looking up at the Thunderbird. “They’re who you are supposed to be fighting.

Flying around his head again, it replied, “Imnotapigdumbassimabird.” Zapping Mason again before shooting in the direction of the Trolls.

“Dammit!”

Three of the Trolls headed towards Mayry; two were busy being zapped by the Thunderbird, which left Mason fighting Gla, the wannabe Unicorn.

It squared off with him as it approached. “I Gla. I kill. You meat. You die.” It held a club in its hand and waved it menacingly as it spoke.

“Gla, was that poetry? It was beautiful! You are wasting your life as a bandit.”

*DING*

“Shit,” the notification noise had only distracted him for a moment, but that was all the opening the Gla needed. The Troll lunged surprisingly fast at Mason. He moved out of the way taking his sword from his inventory, using it to slash at Gla’s back. The tiny cut he had made healed almost instantly, leaving Mason to wonder how the fuck he was going to kill this thing. He had a single Flash Fire potion left, but he doubted that was going to be enough.

From his inventory, he took out his flash fire potion and one of the Living Logs he had looted from the Arboroth.

He had been hoping to sell these to Viv as a peace offering, as the woman was still angry at him for collapsing her favourite ingredient spot.

Item - Living Logs (Uncommon)

Living Logs can come from a variety of sentient trees and are most often used in Alchemy. When exposed to fire, the remnant Chaos Magic in them cause them to ignite fast and burn extremely hot for a short amount of time.

He had the two items he needed but wasn’t sure how he was going to use them to kill Gla.

The Troll turned to face him, a club in hand. It laughed, “I heal. When I squish you, you no heal.”

It swung its club at Mason, who attempted to dodge. He was partially successful. The club missed the head it was aimed at but did manage to slam into his chest, sending him flying to the floor.

The Troll moved to strike him while he was down. As it lifted its club, Mason shot an overpowered Magic Missile into its face. It hit, exploding and sending bits of Troll face all over the place. Mason stood. Gla’s face was already starting to reform. He stepped toward it and rescued his dagger, ripping it from the Trolls forehead.

Still temporarily blinded due to not currently having a face, Gla roared and attacked the air where it thought Mason was. Mason easily avoided it and swung his sword at its neck, attempting to behead the ugly motherfucker. Unfortunately, his sword did not possess the same Magic his dagger did and barely cut into the thing’s thick skin.

Gla’s face had been healing rapidly, and now Troll could see again. It let out a loud roar and charged at him like a raging bull. Mason was too close and didn’t have time to react. The full weight of the troll slammed into him, he felt his ribs crack, and he went flying through the air. Landing on the dirt floor after his brief flight, he struggled to move. The Monstrous thing stood over him with a twisted smile on its face. It lifted its huge foot and brought it down hard on Mason’s head.

It lifted its foot again, ready to repeat the attack. Mason, dazed and confused but somehow still conscious, managed to activate his invisibility and roll out of the way of the squishing attempt. He flung his fire potion at the Troll, the bottle shattered against the creature, causing it to go up in flames. Knowing it wouldn't last long, Mason held one of the living logs in his hand and shot a weak Magic Missile into it, turning it into a projectile. The log shot like an arrow into the Trolls chest and immediately ignited into blue flames.

Mason, who was in an enormous amount of pain from several broken ribs, and probably a few broken face bones, took a health potion and chugged the contents. It was incredibly painful to break a rib, and as it turned out, using a health potion to unbreak ribs also didn’t feel great.

After a few minutes, he felt less like he was dying. He stood up and saw Gla also getting to its feet. It was horribly scarred, with burns all over its body and the living log still sticking out of its chest.

Mason knew he was fucked. He had no more fire and couldn’t think of another way of killing the creature.

Despite the fact that it was burned half to death and kind of smelled like bacon, Gla was grinning at him. It took two steps towards him then its head exploded.

Mayry stood behind it, hands glowing with fire.

“I’m sorry you were just taking so long. I finished my three off ages ago. Even your little bird thing killed its two…” she said, looking sheepish.

“Damn it, Mayry, I was just about to make my move!”