“That troll was nearly cut in half when it landed halfway up the hill.” The mercenary motioned across his belly with the meaty bone as if it was a sword. “But the dang thing stood up, scooped up its guts and shoved them back inside. The wound was already closing as the beast re-emboweled himself.”
Throm tore a bite of meat from the bone, juice running down his chin, then continued talking and gesticulating with his dinner. “I started firing crossbow bolts again, but the monster just pulled them out and tossed them to the ground.”
“Crossbows don’t do much against trolls,” Nyx said.
“I know!” the mercenary roared in agreement. “That’s why I grabbed my war hammer and charged down the hill.”
The man was loud, boisterous, and completely full of himself. He also had a high opinion of his own abilities that didn’t necessarily match up with reality.
Flynn was starting to like the man.
“That was an even worse idea.” Nyx shook her head but had a smile on her face.
“Yeah it was.” The mercenary nodded solemnly then immediately brightened. “That hawk of yours came to my rescue, though. He blasted the beast in the face while I smashed its legs. It took some time, but we eventually took it down.”
Things had gone bad after that, though, Flynn knew. He hadn’t been able to help the mercenary himself during the battle, but Nyx had saved the man’s life at the end of the battle.
Flynn cut a piece of meat from the pork chop on his plate and took a bite. It wasn’t as good as some of the food Khalor had served him, but it was better than what he usually ate.
Name: Bone-in Pork Chop
Rank: Advanced
A pork chop harvested from a wild boar. Meat was procured, stored, and prepared using an Advanced rank Camp Quartermaster card. Nutrients have been preserved and enhanced by the storage and cooking method, and consuming the meat provides a moderate restorative effect.
Both Flynn and Nyx had been surprised and impressed when Throm summoned three huge pork chops from the dimensional storage attached to his Camp Quartermaster card. That had been the final piece that convinced Flynn that having the mercenary in their party was the right choice. He didn’t admit that to Nyx, but the smirk she gave him as the sound of sizzling meat and smell of aromatic smoke filled the camp said “I told you so” as loud as any words.
Throm smiled as he watched his companions enjoy his cooking. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m glad we’re on this little journey together.”
He pulled out the Advanced rank card he’d looted from a pouch on his belt and held it up. “This Shattered Earth card is going to be a perfect add-on for my War Hammer card.”
“Don’t you want to start out at Basic rank so you can get a special ability when you level up?” Flynn asked.
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Throm waved away the suggestion. “Nah. Special abilities are nice, but I just need something that is going to make my war hammer more powerful.”
“That’s what special abilities do,” the younger man pointed out.
“Maybe in a perfect world, I’d do that,” the mercenary said, “but I have no idea how many more monsters we’re going to battle before I get somewhere that I could trade this in. Besides, not everyone is as rich as you appear to be. It’s pretty expensive to rank up a card.”
Flynn frowned. It was the short-sighted type of decision Khalor had warned him against. He turned to Nyx, hoping she would help persuade Throm to wait, but she shrugged
“Sometimes you have to focus on short-term gains,” the woman said. “What he really needs to do is to level up one of his existing Advanced rank cards. Right now, that’s the most important thing to use his cards and fragments on.”
The mercenary nodded emphatically at the validation. “After I use this one, I’ll focus on ranking up my War Hammer card.”
Nyx waved her pork chop which was little more than the bone now. “You could always level up your cooking card. A good dinner at the end of the day is pretty important too.”
“I can’t cook your dinner if I get killed by a monster,” Throm pointed out.
The blue-haired woman laughed. “That’s a risk that might be worth taking.”
“Nobody needs to risk their lives any more than necessary,” Flynn said. “This food is already better than I figured we’d be eating.”
Throm raised an eyebrow. “You could always give me your share of the loot, and I can work on ranking up both cards.”
“I think we can wait to level up your cooking skills until after you reach Elite,” Flynn said with a smile. “Just make sure you keep your dimensional storage full of good food.”
“Will do,” Throm said. “When we get to Khalreth, I’ll make sure to pick up some steaks.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” Flynn agreed. “Maybe you can show me where to get a crossbow like yours, too.”
The mercenary summoned his crossbow and laid it across his knees. He pointed engraved runes on the arms of the crossbow. “The enchantments give the weapon Elite level power. It’s really the only way to get that kind of power. Natural materials just aren’t that strong.”
Throm tapped the latch. “This has tiny magical glyphs carved into it that pulls the string into position to fire.”
He then ran a finger down the groove where the bolts sat before being fired. “There are tiny runes etched inside the track that create a link to a quiver in my dimensional storage. It automatically summons crossbow bolts.”
The mercenary picked the crossbow up and turned it upside down before putting it back on his lap. Larger runes could be seen carved into the wood along the entire length of the weapon. “And these are the runes that allow someone of Advanced rank to use the Elite rank weapon.”
Flynn whistled. “That truly is impressive. How do you activate the runes to summon the crossbow bolts and pull the string? Does it work with mental commands?”
“I wish,” Throm answered, shaking his head. “Enchantments like that were too expensive for my budget. This has triple trigger functionality.”
“What’s that?”
“The runes work sequentially. The first pull draws the string. The second summons a bolt. The third fires.”
“So, three pulls for each time you want to fire,” Flynn said with a nod. “Doesn’t that slow you down.”
Throm shrugged. “I suppose it does a little, but it’s still way faster than doing it manually.”
“I bet I could it all happen automatically,” Nyx chimed in. “It would keep firing until you ran out of crossbow bolts.”
“Sounds like a good way to shoot some things I didn’t mean to shoot.”
“Just watch where you point it.”
“I’m with Throm on that idea,” Flynn said. “Especially since he will usually be behind us. I don’t want to get shot in the back in the middle of a battle.”
Nyx shrugged. “Suit yourself, but sometimes you gotta risk it to get the biscuit.”
Flynn shook his head. “I don’t need biscuits that bad.”
Throm chuckled and added, “I can make you biscuits after the battle.”
“Speaking of the battle,” Flynn said, “let’s talk about what we can do better.”
“I think everything was fine,” Nyx replied. “Nobody died.”
“Yeah, but we might not be so lucky next time,” Flynn countered.
The blue-haired woman shrugged. “As long as I’m around, we should be able to handle anything we come across, for the most part.”
Flynn gave her a disapproving look.
She sighed. “Okay, okay. Let’s talk about how we can do better. Not because I’m worried, mind you, but it doesn’t hurt to kill things faster.”
“Alright then, let’s talk about how to kill monsters faster.”
They talked about various strategies that mostly revolved around doing damage from afar with Throm’s crossbow and taking out the most powerful monsters first. It wasn’t exactly what Flynn had hoped for, but he was forced to accept the fact that it would take time to achieve the kind of synergy he and Thunderbough had.
Fortunately, he was certain they would have many more chances to improve their coordination before they reached Khalreth.
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