DD1 ASC - Chapter 12 - Stories

Arilla had always liked stories. From as far back as she cared to remember, she had been sneaking out from behind the relative safety of the orphanage's thick stone walls in pursuit of her one vicarious pleasure. Rhelea was a big town, dangerous to those who didn't know their way around it, but to her, it had always been a playground. A place where slinking into the various taverns and bars where bards could be found plying their trade was her own secret triumph. Each song a priceless treasure that offered her a glimpse at a better life where she didn’t have to scrape and kneel just to get by in threadbare clothes with a concave stomach.

She was sure that the nuns thought she was escaping to do something far worse, or at least that was the impression she got from the severe scoldings that left her with bruises far worse than the ones she received when irate innkeepers chased her out for grubbing up their establishments with her characteristic orphan stink. But as Arilla got older and didn’t end up getting pregnant from her numerous misadventures, the cantankerous old ladies in their starched cowls moved on to other more free-spirited children who learned to hate the firm hands of their ever-present guardians.

This particular moment reminded her of a handful of different stories. One where an unassuming young orphan was plucked from obscurity by a master mage and thrust wholly unprepared into a world they couldn’t possibly fathom. Of course, this would be the part in the story where the plucky orphan, usually with a distinguishing scar, birthmark or quirk, would be revealed to be anything but ordinary. Some great inner power would reveal itself, perhaps a magical bloodline or impressive System trait revealing itself from some hidden nook of their status, as she handily drew upon this mysterious legacy to defeat the seemingly overwhelming foe in front of her.

Name: Arilla Foundling

Species: Human

Age: 18

HP 20/20

SP 20/20

MP 0/0

Strength 4

Dexterity 1

Vitality 2

Intelligence 0

Willpower 0

Charisma 0

Class: Gutter Warrior Level 2

Heavy Blows level 2

Warriors Strength level 2

Heavy Blows level 2 - You may spend stamina to increase your effective strength score for the duration of a single blow. The increase to strength is determined by stamina spent + this skills level, with the maximum amount of stamina spent per blow capped by this skills level.

Warriors Strength level 2 - You may increase your effective strength score by the level of this skill.

“I suppose that would be too convenient.” She grumbled beneath her breath. Her mind imagining Typh smiling in response, the strange womans hearing uncannily good for someone lacking a perception skill.

Internally cursing her status’s failure to spontaneously generate some kind of unique advantage out of the ether, she swung her hammer with all her might. [Heavy Blows] thrumming in her chest as she could practically feel her gutter warrior class sing out in delight at the prospect of a real opponent. Her hammer hit the ogre's pale grey flesh and resulted in nothing besides from the isolated sound of a muffled impact to indicate that the beast had even been hit, let alone hurt. It was to be expected really; she knew who her parents were, a washerwoman who died during childbirth and a carpenter's apprentice who, for whatever reason, decided against trying to raise his daughter alone. If there were any great mages or magical legacies in her ancestry, then she supposed that her parents would likely have achieved a little more with their lives. Perhaps causing them to leave her with more than just a cheap copper amulet and a headful of unanswered questions.

Her hammer was already heavy in her hands. Her numerous complaints to Typh about its weight earning her the strange mages ire and eventually a spell that empowered her body, giving her the strength and speed to actually do battle with the fearsome creature before her. A part of her knew that the mage was at best a little odd, which if the stories were anything to go by was almost to be expected. Something about routinely bending Creation over your knee in order to give it a thorough spanking fundamentally altering your perspective on reality in ways that could be hard for the more mundane classers to relate to. She had been disappointed that the class stone in the Adventuring Guild hadn’t even given her the opportunity of learning magic, not that she would have been able to take it had it been an option. Mages needed training more than any other classers, and Arilla couldn’t even get a job cleaning tables, so she strongly doubted her ability to find a mage to mentor her even if she had the talent.

She dodged another flailing limb. Her thoughts interrupted as she ducked low to the ground at the last moment as the ogre’s fist ripped through the air above her. The monsters massive knuckles continuing on until they hit the dying willow tree. The aged wooden trunk shattering into a shower of sharp splinters that rained down upon them both. The ogre roared in a frustrated rage as she danced around it, her breath huffing loudly as she was careful not to trip or lose her footing as she traversed the field of increasingly churned up mud that sucked at her feet with every one of her frantic adrenaline fueled steps. She was terrified, or at least she was well aware that she was supposed to be. Her class filling her with a euphoric joy that dampened her fear and forced her to enjoy the knife's edge that was her desperate dance. Her constant evasive movements, the only thing preventing her from sharing the same fate as the now destroyed willow tree.

If there was one place in particular where the stories failed to measure up to reality, it was in the smell. When Riyoul stalked through the sewers of the Iron Lich's castle in order to murder him in his sleep. The story focused on how brave Riyoul was for sneaking past an army of the undead, how smart he was for finding a gap in the wards, and how charming his smile was when he looked death in the eye and laughed. Nowhere in the 32 stanzas off the Iron Lich's Lament does a bard even mention how foul the smell must have been when he crawled on his belly through four miles of raw sewage. If Arilla’s deeds were ever worthy of being recorded in song or story, then she would make damn well sure that her authors made a note of how much monsters stank.

The ogre she was facing had a distinct musk to it far worse than the stench of a tavern full of unwashed adventurers celebrating the simple joy of a well-deserved beer after weeks away in the wilderness. Every time it moved its powerful body, it let off a small spray of sweat that practically misted the air from its thick leathery limbs. These tiny beads of moisture full of its animalistic stink doing a far better job of hitting her in the face than its clumsy attacks ever could. And of course, all of that paled in comparison to the partially eaten goblin corpses piled chest high to the side of their life and death battle. Goblins stank at the best of times, but after being given three days to decompose underneath the hot summers sun, there just weren’t enough words in the Epherian language to describe how badly it stank. The overwhelming stench of decay threatening to make her weak at the knees in ways that her fear and exhaustion fell far short of.

She tried to put some distance between her and the massive creature while she thought of her next move, her hammer feeling woefully inadequate in the face of the giant beast. There was the added pressure of her time limit, which was not helping her think. Typh’s insistence that the spell she had cast had a soft time limit, a point where the minor side effects would get progressively less minor as she succumbed to something called manaburn. Her low levelled body simply unable to tolerate the high quantities of energising magic that at times felt like it was all that was keeping her failing body moving. How long was too long, Typh had been frustratingly vague on, but in her defence, there really hadn’t been that much time to explain things as she hastily cast her spells while the ogre barreled towards her.

There were a lot of stories about giants, but ogres, their lesser cousins, rarely caught the imagination of bards in quite the same way. Caeber, the Shining Knight, earned his fame for defeating marauding giants from the Frozen Wastes that sailed along the edges of Astresia looking for plunder, slaves and man-flesh. Arilla strongly doubted he would be as widely heralded as he was today if he replicated the same feat against the much more mundane ogres. It probably didn’t help that they were ugly and stupid, more closely resembling a tusked ape than a man, but for all their aesthetic inadequacies, they made up for it with their prolific ferocity and appetite. A fully grown ogre more than enough to singlehandedly decimate and eventually eat a sizeable village.

Fortunately for Arilla, this ogre was still young, the beast nearly reaching 10ft tall and just about as wide. All brawn and very little brain, it reminded her of the drunks and bullies from her youth as the monster physically loomed over her much in the same way that an adult did a child. It tried its very best to pound her into the uneven ground. Constantly screaming its anger and frustration to the setting sun as it flailed about blindly. Swinging its huge limbs at her while she used her superior spell enhanced reflexes to frantically dodge out of the way of its clumsy blows. Her strategy so far being nothing more than to keep the ogre turning, so long as she didn’t stand still it was on the back foot, forced to turn its lumbering body awkwardly on its stubby legs as it tried to finally face her. Its ugly pug face contorted with rage and confusion as it tried to blink away the blood that was continuously streaming down its face and into its eyes.

Arilla supposed that was another reason to thank Typh. That initial seemingly thoughtless manabolt had done a remarkable job at effectively blinding the creature. Tiny glints of bright golden light still occasionally peeking out from underneath all that blood where the remnants of the spell prevented the wound from closing. The ogre's naturally high regeneration stymied by the arcane flechettes still buried in its skull. If only it wasn’t quite so tall. A solid hammer blow on those would either end the spell prematurely or ram them deeper into whatever passed for the monster's brain. Which she belatedly realised was the best idea she had on how to end this before she was forced to deal with the consequences of the potent mana flowing through her veins.

An arm that more closely resembled a tree trunk swung through the air, the wind whistling around it as it passed. Arilla deftly sidestepped out of the way. Half stumbling, half falling as she evaded the blundering attack. Her ankle protesting loudly as it was forced into an unnatural angle when she braced herself against the loose soil and pushed herself forwards inside the massive creature's reach. She rolled along the muddy ground, dodging another swinging arm that shook the earth when it missed. Her mail coat jingling as it dragged her down, likely bruising her skin as the chain links pressed against her flesh through the thin material of her shirt as she quickly rose to her feet and swung her weapon once again at the blinded creature.

Again Arilla activated [Heavy Blows] as she swung, her class grinning with vicious approval as she spent her stamina to empower her strike. Her skill infused muscles straining against the weight of her weapon as she tried to do everything in her power to increase the percussive force behind her attack. The heavy metal head of her warhammer colliding with the side of the ogre's knee with a resounding thud. The blow sending shockwaves of painful numbness radiating up her arms as she grit her teeth and forced herself to move again before it could retaliate. Her successful strike maybe earning herself a heartbeat or two of respite from its attacks as this time the creature roared in pain rather than outrage. Its loud cries hurting her ears and scaring loose a flock of starlings from a distant tree.

Despite all this, the impact of her forged steel hammerhead was still minimal. The monster's thick leathery hide able to withstand the heavy strikes with little apparent difficulty. It was the first time that she had landed a solid hit against that knee, and Arilla knew before she had even swung her hammer that it would not be the last. Already Arilla was bone-weary, and try as she might to maintain her belief that this fight was winnable, every successful strike that failed to end the monster disheartened her; it was only by pouring a lifetime's worth of anger and frustrations into every step and strike, that she was able to overcome her bodies insistent demands that she stop and rest. An increasingly alluring prospect despite knowing how immediately lethal it would be.

As the fight dragged on, they both slowed. Their respective stamina pools circling the drain, but she knew this was a tradeoff that favoured the ogre over herself. Any one of the massive creatures strikes would likely take her out of the fight, whereas she needed to land several somewhere vital before she would be able to say the same. On and on they went. The ground where they fought had started out as relatively flat-packed earth, but with every one of the powerful creatures giant steps and missed swings, more and more of the ground was displaced as stones and soil were kicked up. As the long minutes stretched on, deep trenches grew steadily in the soil. The creature's blood continued to stream from its forehead, running down its broad body in great rivulets where it eventually mixed with the loose soil forming a slick surface of vile mud amidst all the disturbed dirt. Each step that Arilla took was harder than the last, each swing of her hammer more strenuous than the one before as her willpower flagged and she struggled to maintain her footing on the uneven ground. A difficulty that the ogre was largely able to ignore by the virtue of its much superior size. The monster effectively stabilising the ground beneath it as it compressed the muddy soil beneath its bestial cloven feet.

To the uneducated observer, Arillas' plight looked grim, but the ogre for all its might and fury had yet to land a single strike, and already it had taken countless hammer blows to its thick knees. Arilla’s gruelling practice with her weapon paying off as she stretched her limited spell enhanced stamina supply to keep herself moving and fighting when every inch of her body screamed at her to stop. While the creature's tough hide remained unbroken, each strike of the hammer bruised flesh and sent cracks running through the bones of its delicate knee joint. Her persistence finally paying off when a hammer blow was rewarded with a wet popping sound as the creature fell to one knee.

She smiled, for she knew that the fight was already over. As the creature roared in true anguish, for the first time she allowed herself a handful of heartbeats to catch her breath as she adjusted the heavy sweat-slick hammer in her hands. The ogre’s death was now just a matter of time. She stepped forwards, her arms screaming out in pain as she once again raised her hammer up in the air. She swung.

Some time passed.

*Congratulations on defeating a level 12 Adolescent Ogre, experience is awarded.*