The Wanderer's Rebirth: Other Paths

The first opportunity presented itself a mere three impacts later when the door was partially pierced by what looked like a rounded log.

As soon as the chunk of lumber was tugged out, a green face came close enough to the hole that Joram could see its yellow, bloodshot eyes. Eyes that were just calling out for a bit of glam.

OK, bad joke, he mused as he released [Crystal Shard], aiming for said eyes.

If seemed as though fortune was on his side, because either the goblin hadn’t seen him just yet, or hadn’t had time to react. The high velocity chunk of crystal took the goblin in its right eye, causing an eruption of gore as the eye was pierced, then an explosion of more gore as the chunk of crystal exited the other side of its head, felling the goblin instantly.

One down, too many more to go, Joram thought as sudden silence overcame the scene for a few seconds. Then, the battle cries, and likely cries of outrage, resumed with a fervor that sent a slight chill down his spine. But instead of bolting like he wanted to, he stood his ground and prepared another [Crystal Shard] and waited as his heart continued to pound in his chest.

The improvised battering ram then continued its work of demolishing his door, both making it a bit easier for him to see the goblins, while also making it easier for them to see him. Which was a problem when the first arrow came whizzing through the hole in the door when the battering ram had been retracted.

Fortunately, the would-be assassin hadn’t had a good line on him, as the arrow just barely missed him on its way by. Unfortunately, it hit his bookshelf, burying itself into one of his books, causing him to see red.

“Oh, you bastards wanna make it personal, do ‘ya?!” Joram yelled as he tried to think of a power that would be more efficient in killing these damn pests.

Then, after the next impact of the battering ram, an arm reached through the door, groping about. He was so stunned that he didn’t immediately react as he watched the “brave” goblin as it first found the crossbar, then tried to lift it up and out of the way.

That snapped him out of his daze right quick. He then brought his katana up, then down in a vicious arc that resulted in a wailing goblin and a severed arm slowly leaking blood onto his floor. Once again, the goblins paused as the one wailed, but this time for only a second or two before the battering ram was put back to work. The hole was getting alarmingly large at this point, so he just threw caution to the wind.

‘Are you sure that you want to try that already?’ Avi suddenly asked, concern evident in her tone.

“Yeah, no,” he said, shaking his head. “But, I don’t think that I’ll get ‘em all before they start getting in,” he said, reviewing [Energy Ball], a 4th Level Power. Yes, he’d had difficulty with similarly-leveled powers before, and even now. But if he didn’t try something drastic, he really didn’t feel that he’d be making it out of there alive.

‘Any preference in element?’ she asked, choosing to go with it.

Joram thought about it briefly, considering the extra damage from using fire to how hard the damage would be to avoid if he used electricity to the benefits of sonic damage. But, in the end, he chose cold. Yes, it also provided bonus damage, but the part that appealed to him in his case was that it wasn’t something you could just jump out of the way of.

He really didn’t know if it would work like it did in the game manuals, but if he used cold, then instead of a reflex save, they’d have to rely on a fortitude save. And considering that goblins were all about being small and maneuverable, he didn’t like the chances of them avoiding a good deal of the damage if they managed to “make their saving throw”, as it were.

Sure, the hobs stood a better chance of succeeding, but at least he’d get rid of most of the warband.

Another impact of the battering ram managed to knock a larger chunk of the door aside, exposing him to an archer’s line of fire. Which it very happily took advantage of, sending an arrow straight into his chest, just below his clavicle.

As he fell back, his mind began comparing just how painful it was. All told, between being stabbed in the gut, thigh, and pelvis, he’d rank it 3rd on the list of his most recent injuries. About 9th, overall, though.

By the time he landed on his back, he could hear the cheers of victory coming from the goblins outside. In fact, they were so jubilant, that one stuck its head through the gaping hole in the door to have a look around. Such a perfect opportunity was, alas, wasted due to the inconvenience of having a bloody arrow in his chest!

Gritting his teeth, he rolled onto his left side and used his left arm to push himself up, causing the goblin to begin jabbering before it quickly retreated.

“Damn, and I was hoping it’d stay for tea,” he murmured around clenched teeth, now on his knees.

It wasn’t so bad if he didn’t try to move his torso much, but as soon as he tried to stand again, pain lanced through his shoulder, nearly dropping him to the floor again.

“Damn,” he said, his brain feeling a bit swoosh-y. “Now I really wish I had a psicrystal.”

Avi regarded him for a few seconds, seemingly ignoring the resumed battering of the door behind her. At length, she finally spoke.

‘Maybe you really should choose a Path. The added survivability that it would provide you would surely help see you through this crisis.’

Joram blinked at her for a moment, now surer than ever that she wasn’t just a V.I., for how could a V.I. look so damn concerned right then?

But then his stubborn pride kicked in, refusing to give in. Give in to what? Inevitability? Reality? A bunch of murdering goblins? Having to rely on a “System” to get through?

Did it really matter? He’d always been stubborn, to the point that it had caused him no few issues over the course of his life. From arrogant management to refusing to stay at home while sick to not asking for help when he truly needed it, his… pride, had gotten in the way. Yes, that’s what it was. It wasn’t just sheer stubbornness, it was pride. The “universal sin”, as it were.

Would he allow that pride to kill him today?

No, but.

He wasn’t out of the fight just yet.

Taking shallow breaths, he slowly made his way to his feet at the battering ram provided a background beat to work to. An ever-increasing beat that filled him with urgency, pushing him along, jaw clenched tightly to avoid doing something stupid like accidentally biting his tongue off.

After several more beats of the battering ram, Joram was once again on his feet, but leaning heavily against the wall, less than half a metre from the door.

I can do this. Just need to focus more, he thought as he watched the battering ram once again smash a larger hole into his door. Cold, cold, gold… wait. Cold! The absence of molecular motion…. Does it work that way in a fantasy world? Bah, who cares? Just focus on the coldest you’ve ever felt. Focus on what things looked like after being covered in liquid nitrogen. The mist, the frost quickly growing on the super-frozen item…

As he thought this, Joram pulled up [Energy Ball], focussing on cold, frost, ice. Absolute zero. Heat death.

Then, when the battering ram pulled way once more, he leaned forward slightly and focussed on a spot just six metres away from the door, right about centre of the raiding party, then spoke.

“[Energy BallA],” then fell back as a goblin archer let loose its arrow.

The arrow came through the door at the same time as a deathly silence fell upon the area. Joram was glad that the second arrow had missed, not wanting to go through the experience of being skewered again. But then the silence continued until a faint tinkling sound caught his attention, along with a notification box that he mentally shoved aside.

Once more gritting his teeth, Joram pushed off the wall to get a better look outside, then promptly goggled.

In cartoons and stuff, frozen things took on an icy look, as though they’d been carved out of ice the whole time. In reality, though, everything kept their colour.

The lumpy green skin of the goblins was still green, their eyes that same putrid yellow. Even the blood-soaked bandage on the goblin was still bright red. But all of it was slowly being covered with hoarfrost, obscuring everything underneath it.

But it wasn’t just the goblins that had been affected, but also the forest. The many ferns that covered the forest floor in front of his house had also frozen solid, their fronds feathery with frost. Everything.

Eyes wide, he shuffled a bit so that he could see better, then he finally stuck his head out the large hole, being very careful to not jostle the arrow still sticking out of his chest.

‘I would say that that was a successful use of [Energy Ball],’ Avi said, standing just outside the door as she, too, observed the eerily quiet scene.

“Good,” he said, then pulled back from the door and made his way to the comfy chair a couple of metres away.

As carefully as he could, he plonked down into the chair’s embrace and heaved a sigh of relief that then turned into a great grunt of pain.

Grumbling some more, he reached over with his left hand, then paused.

“Teeth,” he murmured, looking around for something close that would do the job… then sighed when he could only find one of those mega building blocks. Well, to be precise, the large bin of building blocks. So, he reached over with his left hand and dug around for a bit before finding one of those long ones that were only half as tall as the others.

Before he could awkwardly place it into his mouth, Avi floated a dish towel over to him, amusement plain on her face.

‘That’ll likely work better.’

Grunting his thanks, he rolled up the towel as fast as his one hand could manage before chomping down on it, very glad that it had been included whenever he’d cleaned up in the place.

After more hesitation than he cared to admit, Joram finally clamped down onto the arrow’s shaft with his left hand and gave a mighty pull.

Instantly, the experience reached his top 5 as he swooned in place, dazed for almost a minute as blood leaked from his chest.

‘Joram!’ Avi yelled at him, finally managing to snap him out of his dazed state.

“Yeah,” he croaked, the dish towel falling from his mouth.

Still in shock, the used the dish towel to staunch the flow of blood as he tried to concentrate on [Natural Healing]. It took him a few tries, and a bit of a headache, but he eventually managed to manifest the power, which then closed-up the wound nicely.

“Fuck goblins,” he finally got out, still slumped in the comfy chair. “What’s their problem anyways? Gotta kill everything around them?”

‘Depends on the tribe, I guess,’ Avi commented, earning herself a glare for her efforts.

“Well, these ones have gotta go,” he grated out. “I’m gonna find them, then end them,” he said, conviction strong in his voice.

‘And how, pray tell, do you plan to do that?’ Avi asked blandly. ‘You’ve already barely survived three encounters with them, all with a home advantage. If you go to their lair, settlement, or whatever, do you really think that you’ve stand a chance, all alone? You just may need to take your first Path just to get strong enough to handle them.’

Joram’s jaw clenched again, but this time it was due to him holding back. For as much as Altaea, and by extension Avi as well, had claimed to know him, perhaps they hadn’t known him that well.

Had his other self gone through something similar? Or had it just been one long training session with Altaea? How much had they truly conversed during their time together? How much, and of what, had they gone over? Had he shared his deep-rooted beliefs in the sanctity of the home? Of how, in his opinion, anyone breaking into his home had willfully signed away their life by doing so?

Not just that. But wasn’t Reldan’s village nearby? If the goblins were strong enough to sent out so many raiding parties, then were they strong enough to threaten his village? Threaten other people? Their families?

What if his-

Joram took a deep breath then, clearing away the emotional turmoil that had surged forth at that thought, then the shock of not having thought about them this whole time?

What was going on? Had Altaea changed him so much that he’d almost forgotten his daughters?

Joram quickly turned to Avi, ready to blast her when the expression on her face stopped him dead.

‘No, Joram,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Altaea may have somewhat eased the pain for you, but she certainly did not do anything that would make you forget them. Remember, you’ve been in a rather intense situation for the past couple of days. Reminiscing, however sweet it may be, isn’t something that you could have indulged in without risking your life,’ she finished, shaking her head.

That stopped him short… and made him think.

He’d always been… disdainful of people who always blamed others or situations for things that either happened to them, or that they’d done. Shit happens. Sometimes you made a mistake. But if you didn’t own up to the parts that you were responsible for, then you were just delusional.

And him not thinking about his daughters, well, that was on him. He was reasonably sure that Avi hadn’t been using any Telepath powers on him. No, he’d just been too caught up in the current situation to, as she called it, indulge in reminiscence.

So, to give him all the time in the world to do that later, he had to “PUT IN THE WORK!”, as Bob would have put it.

He smiled, wondering what Bob would think of the astral constructs that he was using. Not that it really mattered, as Summoning was inherently different that creating things from raw ectoplasm. No cute dinos with personality for him.

“Sorry,” Joram said, getting back to the here-and-now. “Stress sucks. But. I will kill every last one of those damn goblins,” he finished with a scowl.

‘In due time,’ Avi agreed/disagreed. ‘First, you need to train more. We’ll improve your defenses so that it will be easier to handle any other invaders in the future. In the meantime, I suggest fixing the door as soon as possible.’

Joram grunted at that, then pushed himself out of the comfy chair. He’d have more time to enjoy the chair after first attending to the issues of home security and safety.

- - -

It was just past noon, if his clocks were at all accurate on this planet, when he finished up the repairs. And improvements.

It had taken a bit of doing, but he’d managed to get enough of the door’s pieces together to use [Repair] on it. After that, he’d cleaned out the area in front of his house with an augmented [Cleanse], ridding himself of the thawing goblins, as well as all of the foliage that had been affected by the [Energy Ball].

He had felt a bit bad for the dead plants but, ultimately, he prioritized his own life above that of underbrush.

After having collected a whopping seven cores, he’d then gone and collected the various weapons left behind. After another moment’s thought, he’d also collected the various “clothing” that the goblins had worn. Who new when having a pile of random rags might come in handy?

At any rate, he’d used most of the metal weapons in reinforcing the door, turning the blades into horizontal bands. As he worked, though, he found that manipulating metals had slowly gotten easier than it had been. That wasn’t to say that his work was now a work of art, far from it, but it at least didn’t have that wet noodle look, or melted wax look that his other works had.

Considering the morning he’d had, Joram supposed that this wasn’t too bad. Sure, nearly dying again really sucked, but the notification that he’d gotten had certainly raised his mood when he’d eventually gotten around to reading it. Well, after dismissing his “kill” notifications in it.

Congratulations!

For your hard work, effort, and intent, you’ve gained the following Skill:

- Metalshaping

- Pain Resistance

For your hard work and effort, you’ve leveled the following Skill:

- Metalshaping 1 -> 2

- Pain Resistance 1 -> 2

Congratulations!

For your hard work and effort, you’ve gained the following attribute points:

- Constitution +1

- Intellect +1

- Spirit +1

- ??? +1

Congratulations!

You have now gained a new Title:

- Vivacious Survivor

For the Skills, he couldn’t be happier. He wasn’t sure just how effective [Pain Resistance] would be, but at this point, anything would be welcome. [Metalshaping] seemed pretty good, facilitating the ease in which he shaped metals. Which, really, probably explained his sudden progress with the door.

Then the attribute gains had been fantastic. Again, he really didn’t know if stats would be like MMOs where inflation made them pretty much meaningless, or like most tabletops where every stat point was a coveted thing. He still didn’t know what “???” represented, though.

Which bugged him more than a little bit.

As for [Vivacious Survivor]… he was a bit conflicted. Not due to the benefits…

Vivacious Survivor

- You have gone through three deadly attacks by yourself before gaining a Path. Not only that, but not a single one of your assailants lived to tell the tale. But you have.

- Benefit:

- Any Path that you choose will now provide an additional 2 HP and 2 ST per level. In addition to this, your regeneration rates for goth HP and ST are permanently increased by 1 each.

No, those were beyond fantastic for someone living in the woods all by themselves. It was the “Vivacious” part that irked him somewhat, as that particular adjective was pretty much only used to describe women.