Chương 16: A Featherweight Battle

The chase began much in the same way the journey had. That was to say, with silence and inaction. An hour, maybe two. It was nigh impossible for Jordan to keep track of time. But he knew the situation had gone on much longer than he'd expected without any outcome one way or another. He sidled next to Canyon and watched as the carriage rolled through a seemingly unchanging scenery. He listened intently as the hoofbeats grew louder, receded into the background, then grew louder again.

Such was a human's capacity to acclimate that Jordan found himself, incredibly, having to fend off sleep. Keeping eyes and ears peeled for a constant threat was taxing work, and the apparent monotony of the chase had killed off the initial fearful excitement. The adrenaline had long drained away, leaving him with only aching muscles and heavy eyelids. And just when those eyelids almost broke through his resistance… Grandelope A cast: Featherweight Gallop. Wham!

The cabin shook violently from a heavy impact in the rear.

'Featherweight' my ass! Jordan flew off his seat, very nearly becoming one of those 'wear your seatbelt' PSAs. He was saved by Canyon holding him by the back of his collar with a surprisingly firm grip. He mumbled a shaky "thanks", but the woman ignored him, choosing instead to poke her head out of the window." Pathfinder!" she yelled into the wind, still managing to sound snobbish despite the circumstance.

"What do you need me to do?"" Glad you asked, Miss Chronicler! Do you know [Copy Spell] by any chance?"" Yes."" Nice. I'm going to cast [Perfect Driving] right now. You [Copy] it and take over the reins, got it? Just keep going straight at the same speed until I say otherwise."" Understood." [Copy Spell]? That was definitely new to the expansion ([Perfect Driving], believe it or not, wasn't). But the fact that Foxhill knew about it must mean that Canyon's Chronicler wasn't as unique a class as initially assumed.

Even as an Earthling newcomer mused on the finer points of Vesselia the game, two of its seasoned spellcasters put plan into action. First, Canyon squeezed her slender frame out of the window and disappeared from Jordan's view. FOXHILL of SANDY QUARRY cast: Perfect Driving. CANYON of AMBER LAKE cast: Copy Spell. Target: Perfect Driving. CANYON of AMBER LAKE cast: Perfect Driving. From the increasing discomfort of the cabin seats, Jordan's situational awareness was severely limited.

The system notifications helped somewhat, and so did the auditory cues. Thud! The next impact came from the roof, dislodging a bit of sawdust to fall on top of Jordan's head. Even a clueless newcomer like him understood that wasn't from a Grandelope. FOXHILL of SANDY QUARRY cast: Energy Arrow. The tell-tale sound of an arrow being nocked then loosed. Except said arrow gave off a strange, almost lightsaber -esque'vwoom!' as it flew. Not a second later, the system spoke to the outcome of the [Energy Arrow].

Grandelope A lost: 36 HP. Apparently not enough to kill a Grandelope outright, but 36 was respectable damage in Vesselia no matter which way you cut it. This I've got to see. Pushing down fear as well as the absurd sense that he could be breaking some kind of etiquette, Jordan inched closer to the window until… He came face to face with a slobbering beast! Twisted horns. Crazed, bloodshot eyes. Furry, angular head almost big enough to fill the whole window. Again,'Featherweight' my ass!

<Monster Sheet> Name: Grandelope Class: Sprinter, Lv. 7 Vessel: Gland of Rushing Steppe Jordan jerked his head back instinctively. Not a moment too soon, as the beast snapped at him with jaws lined top to bottom with jagged teeth. Aren't you guys supposed to be herbivores?? Jordan's face was now wet with viscous spittle, but at least it was still intact. For now. Not if [Grandelope A] had anything to say about it, as it squeezed its whole head into the cabin and tried to take another bite.

FOXHILL of SANDY QUARRY cast: Energy Arrow. Another warbling'vwoom!' This time, Jordan got to see the spell in action. Well, partially at least. The Grandelope jolted as though it'd been tased. As the beast slid back out through the window, Jordan saw it: an [Energy Arrow] sticking out of the base of its neck. It really was like the blade of a lightsaber! Even down to its shiny blue color. I guess this confirms that Foxhill is a Jedi rather than a Sith … Grandelope A lost: 29 HP. Grandelope A has died.

With one enemy down, the combat encounter was in full swing. At the driver's seat, Canyon continued to [Copy] the Pathfinder's steady pair of hands. Foxhill became a 'fiddler' on the roof, picking out Grandelope necks from his vantage point. As for Jordan, he screwed up the courage once more to stick his neck out… and not much more than that. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. FOXHILL of SANDY QUARRY cast: Energy Arrow. Grandelope B lost: 35 HP.

The loop was simple. Nor did it need to be complicated. Foxhill continued to fire away with reliable aim and respectable damage, two-shotting each individual Grandelope before one could reach the carriage… along with the occasional: Critical hit! Grandelope D lost: 68 HP. Grandelope D has died. Jordan couldn't see everything, but just the knowledge of what was happening was exhilarating enough. Text-based Vesselia recreated in ultra high definition (can't be more high-def than reality itself!), starring a Pathfinder who hunted monsters perhaps even better than he carried a tune. At the same time, Jordan felt a stab of annoyance. At himself. He'd come into the game with OP stats and likely the most OP Vessel in all the land. Yet here he was inside the cabin's relative safety, a passenger in every sense of the word. My first'real' battle in Vesselia, and I'm going to spend it just reading the combat logs… Strength DC 11: success Zhurong:"Pathetic! Cowardly and spineless!

Have you always let life slip you by while you sucked your thumb like an infant?" Always? No. Lately though? The last several years had been the textbook definition of letting life slip by until the sense of hopelessness only deepened and festered. Asshole basketball coach was right. Jordan had to do something. Even if he couldn't really do anything. He had to do something, if for nothing else than to resurrect his belief in himself. Slowly. Painfully. One action at a time.

Fate and fortune sometimes worked in strange ways. Perhaps especially true inside a video game. For as soon as Jordan Yu resolved to act, the universe presented him with an opportunity to do just that. Grandelope K cast: Featherweight Gallop. Grandelope L cast: Featherweight Gallop. Grandelope M cast: Featherweight Gallop. The Grandelopes had put their monster brains together and figured something out.

A [Galloping] trio came at the carriage from three different directions, daring the rooftop Pathfinder to deal with multiple threats at once. This is what Foxhill was afraid of earlier, when he decided not to engage the Grandelopes at the camp, Jordan understood implicitly, even as he twisted this way and that to get a better view of the situation. One came in from the rear, catching up to the carriage with a magical burst of speed.

This Foxhill dispatched with another critical [Energy Arrow], allowing him to turn his attention to a [Grandelope L]. Jordan couldn't see this one, which meant it must be on the windowless side of the carriage. Which still left… The third beast attacked from the front, having rounded the carriage until it was in line with the horses and their driver. The thinking was simple yet perhaps rather elevated for a group of monsters: take out the 'engine', grind the whole contraption to a halt.

[Grandelope M] made its approach undisturbed. Either Foxhill was still busy dealing with [Grandelope L], or he simply hadn't seen it—hadn't expected to find the threat so close to his driver! As for the driver herself, nothing showed up on the combat logs to indicate what she might be up to. Was Canyon cooking up a spell of her own? Or was she hoping for rescue from the more combat-oriented spellcaster? Jordan didn't wait to find out. He slid the door open on his side and climbed out.

He was immediately struck by the sheer speed they were traveling at, hard to appreciate from inside the cabin. The realization hit him with another jolt of fear, but he ignored it. No time to think, now. Only time to act. Well, that and to 'systemify' said act. A Grandelope approaches, threatening to ram the driver of the carriage. Will you … 1) Hold on for dear life. You've already bitten off more than you can chew. At this point, you can only hope to survive the encounter with minimal damage.

Always time to lick your wounds after the fact. 2) [Strength DC 16 (Hard)] What is there even to think about? Stop being a passenger and act. Act. Attack. Jump. [Favorable: STR modifier (+2). You're inspired by your party members (+2). You're irrationally confident this is the right move (+2).] [Adverse: [Doom Spiral (Lv. 1)] (-1).] The 'world' stopped for Jordan to make his decision, but it didn't really need to. He took but a fraction of a second to lock it in, as he prepared to… 2) Jump.

Strength DC 16 Roll: 3 Final: 8 Result: failure Wait, what? Too late. The die had been cast, and Jordan had to live with his decision. He kicked off the side of the cabin and leapt into the air. The last time he'd done something like this must've been at a sleepover in elementary school, 'practicing' wrestling moves on some unfortunate friend. Well, he certainly action-hero-jumped like someone who hadn't done it in twenty-odd years.

He made contact with the back of [Grandelope M], but with a hard bounce rather than a soft landing. He reached out desperately for anything to hold onto, finding one of the monster's twisted horns. How poetically appropriate would it have been? If Jordan managed to avert disaster by grabbing life by the Grandelope horns? Alas, a roll of 8 couldn't quite elevate his mishap into a miraculous success. His grip on the horn slipped just as soon as he'd found it, barely slowing him down as he tumbled onto the salt flat.

JORDAN YU lost: 55 HP. A quarter of his HP gone, just like that! Jordan knew things could've been infinitely worse were it not for his 'cheat' of starting out at Lv. 30. Though, to be fair, things were already bad enough—especially the pain. Oh, I definitely broke something. Jordan winced as he came to a rolling stop. Hoofbeats traveled along the ground, thundering against his already badly ringing ear. Somewhere, a horse neighed in alarm. I can't just lie here feeling sorry for myself.

He looked up, just in time to see the carriage make a wide U-turn. [Grandelope M] snapped at the driver's seat, sufficiently spooking one of the horses. Canyon herself held onto the reins, expression unreadable inside her cloth-bound rectangle. More importantly, Foxhill had spun around up on the roof, now aiming his next lightsaber arrow at the last threat remaining. FOXHILL of SANDY QUARRY cast: Energy Arrow. Grandelope M lost: 34 HP. No critical. Not enough for a one-shot.

But the hit managed to momentarily stun the pesky monster, allowing Canyon to… CANYON of AMBER LAKE cast: Copy Spell. Target: Energy Arrow. CANYON of AMBER LAKE cast: Energy Arrow. The Chronicler carried no bow with which to nock the shining-blue arrow. No matter. She simply gripped it in her bare hand and stabbed the monster in the neck! Grandelope M lost: 18 HP. Grandelope M has died.