Chương 23: Trapped

You have defeated Shadow Wolf x53. You gain (21, 200/2) 10, 600 experience. That is just ridiculous. It's good, because it means that the fight is over and I'll start regenerating MP and Stamina back, and it's good because it means that I've gained a full level and most of the way to the next one. But the number of them that we fought is just ridiculous. At level fifteen, I get seven points of stats to spread out. I put 2 into agility, 3 into presence, and 2 into willpower. Then I look at what else has improved.

I've gained a point of strength, three levels of bow, a level of spellcraft, a level of sword, and a level of throwing. The stat points aren't the only thing I get for level fifteen. I also gain the triple damage sneak attack from my rogue roots, and, far more importantly, another talent. I'm sorely tempted to take the exemplar talent for agility, just to up my defense and the amount of damage I do with a bow. But that won't help me right now as much as I'd like it to. I don't have the ammunition.

Having the bonus on my defense will be one thing, but it's just one side of the benefit of increasing this stat. Regeneration or toughness might be good for this time around, but I'm not sure I want to spend my talent on those. I have to look at the others and see if there might be something better. Or something that will make surviving this experience more likely. Or maybe something that will let me die without resetting my level all the way. There actually is a talent for that.

It's called nine lives, and it delivers what it promises. Eight extra lives without death penalty. That would be a good one to take if I intended to die a lot, especially if it refreshes every time there is a death penalty. But I'm not looking to die all that often. And I don't want to die to escape this cave. I mean, even if that did work, it would only work for me. El would still be stuck here, and might end up dying.

Looking at the other talents, I find a few that are as appealing as the ones I looked at last time. There's polyglot, which would let me speak every language, arcane researcher which would help me learn spells, and there's a talent called skill savant that apparently just gives me a whole lot of skills. Like, a shit load of them. That could be good, but isn't going to help me right now. That's the problem. I want something that will help me right now and will also help me overall.

If I pick just for right now, that may come back to bite me, as I won't be in this situation forever. We won't be stuck in a cave filled with an infinite number of shadow wolves forever. But we are stuck here right now, and every little bit that helps me survive is appealing. But I have to keep in mind that it has to be something that will help me in the future. Polyglot is the most appealing of the new talents that I've seen.

It's always good to know what other people are saying, and I've always loved the idea of speaking other languages. I've never been good at speaking them, though I've always had a weird talent for understanding them. I think it's because so little of communication is what you actually say. Sixty percent of it is the nonverbal cues, like how you say it, your tone of voice, facial expression, body language, and all that stuff. Something like twenty percent is how you sound, like the intonation and the rhythm of it.

That only leaves twenty percent to be the actual words you use. So I'm good at understanding what people mean if I don't get what they're saying. But polyglot doesn't help at all with the current situation. What am I going to do, talk to the shadow wolves? Convince them that we're here by accident and that they don't need to worry about us, that they shouldn't kill us for some reason? No, I don't see that working. I think I'm going to need something more active than polyglot.

Arcane researcher doesn't provide me with any help right now either. Great, I'll be able to learn spells more quickly. That sounds like something Vinny is definitely going to want, but not like something that will help me with the shadow wolves. They aren't casting magic; they're just clawing and biting. So that one is out. The skill savant is tempting, but again, I don't see how it helps me right now. I might get a butt load of extra skills, but they aren't going to be combat skills.

If they are, if they boost my dodge and my sword by a huge margin, that will help. But I wouldn't feel like I'd earned my martial prowess, or my skills at all. I like training. I like earning my skills. So that one is out. Which leaves me to either keep looking through this pretty exhaustive list, eliminating things like gourmet chef or set maker or enchanter – enchanter lets me craft magical weapons, but I don't have my tools with me so I can't do it here – or I can go back to that first group that I found.

Exemplar will help now. Regeneration will help now. Survivor and toughness will help now. The question is which of them will help the most in the future. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Toughness, from what I can tell, doubles my hit points. That wouldn't be bad at all. It would put me at 750 base hit points, plus another 450 from my Shell. That's 1200 hit points, more than triple what the shadow wolves have.

Regeneration will let me heal during combat, but slowly. Faster than I otherwise would, but still on the slow side. Six points a minute instead of one, but during combat. I don't think that's going to make enough of a difference. Survivor is tempting. But it runs into the same problem as the skill savant. I wouldn't feel like I'd earned those skills. They would just be appearing randomly in me. And they probably wouldn't help with the current situation. The one that helps, I think, is exemplar.

It'll help more when I get more ammunition for my bow, but for now it will help with my defense, and that might be enough. I select exemplar as my talent, and select agility as the stat for it to increase. My agility immediately jumps up ten points to 42, putting my defense to 77. I look over at El, who has taken her hand away from me. She looks back at me. Clearly, she took the dark vision talent. That makes a lot of sense.

She was kind of jealous that I had it, and for our current circumstance it's the best option. She's level 15 as well, though not nearly as close to sixteen as I am. But we might both level up another time or two before the end of the day.

"So what do we do?" I ask.

"By now, there are at least sixty wolves in the cave. Sooner or later, they're going to find us."

"Let's aim for later," she says.

"We hide as long as we can, as near to the entrance as possible. When they range out to us, we kill them quickly and continue to hide." I'm kind of surprised. I have expected her to suggest that we charge back to the generator and see what we can do about destroying it. Wipe out the sixty wolves between us and it, and then see if my fire or any of my other magic can wipe out the shadow that produces the wolves. Maybe we need to hit it with weapons.

Maybe we could just fight in there for a while, whittle down the number of wolves there are, and then I could take the time to retrieve arrows. But she wants to hide. She wants to use stealth. I'm all for that.

"We don't want to fight them unless we have to," I say. She nods at me. I smile, and she smiles back. She must be enjoying the dark vision. So we find alcoves to hide in, and we wait. It's about ten in the morning, which means we have to survive in here for probably another ten hours. My stomach grumbles to remind me that we haven't eaten, and that I don't have anything to eat now. Well, one day of hunger isn't going to kill me.

But maybe I'll start carrying a pouch of trail mix with me at all times, in case this happens again. In case I'm stuck behind enemy lines with no hope of rescue and just my wits to protect me. Why does it feel like that sort of thing is going to happen again? The only problem with waiting is that it's incredibly boring. I do my best to hide, setting myself as sneaky as possible, and I mark time by watching my sneak skill increase. But it doesn't do that very often.

My alertness also increases, because I'm listening for movement, watching down the cave to see if any shadow wolves come padding our way. But that one doesn't increase fast enough either. I manage to wait for an hour before I start noticing how bored I am. I focus my mind and try to meditate again, focusing on the sound of wolves, or the lack of that sound, as my main meditative goal. I don't need the meditation for any of its side effects, but I get a better idea of the cave around me and just how deep it goes.

How many wolves will fit in here? Is there a point where the generator will stop pumping out more wolves? What point is that? Is it sixty? A hundred? The caves would get pretty tightly packed if there were more than a hundred wolves in here. How many were there last night? They produce three a minute; it won't take long to get to a hundred. We've been resting and hiding for over an hour. That's a hundred and eighty. I know there aren't that many; the cave would be way too crowded for that.

They'd have started ranging out and would have found us by now if they were still being produced. So there must be a limit. Logically, there's a limit, and we've reached it. If El and I just stay where we are, we'll get credit for stealthing around all the wolves, probably get another huge dump of XP, and won't have to worry about fighting for our lives. We just have to wait another seven hours. God that sounds awful. I'd rather fight. If we die, then we die.

I'll have less than nineteen hours to level my way back up, but I think I'll be able to get a few levels. I'll be able to go out tonight and hunt down a lot of monsters, especially with El backing me up. The two of us will be able to hunt all night long, and grind away at the experience we need to level back up. And my skills are already so high, I qualify for so many classes, that I'm bound to get that secret quest again. That'll help us level up. And if it doesn't, we'll go looking for more chests.

Those will help. And monsters will help. Everything will help. I look over at El. She doesn't look as bored as I feel, but I can tell she's tired of hiding.

"What do you say we move a bit closer," I whisper.

"Just until we find a good choke point."

"Wish I had a shield to bang," she says, happily climbing out of her alcove. We start moving forward, knowing that we're going to draw the attention of the wolves. And probably all of them. Which might mean a never ending fight. It might mean a fight we can't win. But I have full stamina, full MP, and full hit points. I'm ready to fight for a good long while.

I won't waste my stamina on bleeding strike, but if I can get where El and I are flanking the wolves, I'll be able to use my sneak attack to do some massive damage to them. I'll save my MP for Shell and Healing Hands.

"I'll let you know when I'm out of magic," I say as we creep down the hallway.

"When I am, we retreat back to the beginning and see if we can get the new ones to forget that we're here. Deal?" She swings her axe a bit, then nods.

"Deal."