Silver Spoon Series

As Alan made his way back to his little hovel, he thought about what he had just done. In less than twelve hours he had run more than a 50K, with a large portion of that spent fighting off a horde or violent animals. The time itself wasn't amazing, an elite runner could finish most of that in around two hours, but they had rest stops, running outfits, and nipple tape. Alan had furry things trying to eat him, heavy armor, and a nipple ring.

He actually had needed to take a few rest stops. One of his talents was Fury, which helped him keep his stamina up if he was angry. While anger was normally a given in combat, he hadn't really been able to muster much emotion for the beasts who were just doing what their natures told them to do. It also didn't help that they weren't really a threat. That meant his stamina was constantly being drained while he was fighting.

The first time it happened, Alan had started to panic. Luckily that wasn't an uncommon emotion for him, so he was able to act and think, even as his endocrine system was trying to take over. While his stamina was low, his mana was doing just fine. He put a stone wall at his back, and then two more on his sides. Then, after an energetic burst of killing in front of him, Alan placed a fourth wall that blocked him in.

Against something like the owlbear he had recently fought, this wouldn't have done anything. It could have broken through or jumped over. Against these smaller threats, it was a fairly effective deterrent. The squirrels were still an issue, as well as a few determined beasts who managed to get over the wall, but it slowed the pace enough that he could start recovering his stamina. Once it was back to full, he reabsorbed the mana for the walls and continued his trip. He had to repeat that trick multiple times before the animals had thinned enough to allow him to move more normally.

After that little reminiscence, he turned his thoughts to what lay ahead. Two Socks should still be asleep, but Alan knew that the wolf would wake up when he got close to the house and would manage to be waiting for him somewhere in the grassland. It had happened many times before. Just once, Alan wanted to get the drop on his friend.

The first thing to consider was how Two Socks knew he was coming. The only thing he could think of was the connection that his identify skill had referenced last time. It was possible the wolf had truly insanely sensitive ears, but that seemed less likely than some magical method of detection. Alan had a high aura reading skill, as well as an inquirer talent for sensitivity. While letting his eyes watch where his feet were going, Alan's mystical senses scanned his aura. There wasn't anything there he could find, but then he caught something when he glanced at his soul.

There he found a tiny little blip, and when he studied it more, he noticed it led not toward Two Socks and his house, but to his aura. He wasn't sure what to make of it, until he noticed two more, even smaller strands connecting his soul and his aura. A little more thinking and he decided these had to do with the three things he had so far connected with, the egg, the dungeon core, and his friend.

A quick check with Tamee proved that she had no idea what he was talking about. She did not have a spirit class and knew very little about the soul or bonds. Confirmation would have been nice, but Alan decided to go with his gut. One of these connections was Two Socks, and it was probably the strongest one. It was possible that either the egg or core was stronger since they had been in an attunement array for a while, but he and the wolf had been through a lot together.

Now that he had a place to look, Alan focused in on the thicker strand. There wasn't any kind of energy being transferred one way or the other, but somehow it was connecting his soul and aura. The more he studied it, the more he started to get some sensations. There was a stillness that he assumed had to do with the wolf currently sleeping, but also a sense of the distance between them. It wasn't an exact measurement, but he could feel the distance growing shorter as he ran.

This must be how Two Socks always knew to look for him. It was also possible that he was more sensitive to this connection than Alan was, and could read more into it. If he wanted to sneak up on the wolf, he was going to have to somehow suppress the information this strand contained. Luckily for Alan, he had another seeker based talent, this one was called soul block. He had to be careful because he didn't want to sever their connection, he just wanted to dampen the information it carried.

Not wanting to alert his friend that something might be going on, Alan didn't stop running, but he did slow down. Hopefully he could figure this out before he got close enough that Two Socks sensed him nearing and woke up. The first thing he tried to do was send his own energy purposely into the link. It was an aggressive start, but he wasn't sure what else to try.

Energy moved from his aura toward the link, and did nothing. It flowed past as if there was nothing there. Next he tried sending energy from his soul side. If he had tried this when he first arrived on the tutorial disk, the very concept would have left him stumped. After months of cultivating his energy pathways, however, manipulating his soul energy was no big deal. As a matter of fact, he noticed that it seemed even easier than before. Perhaps this was due to his new merged skill, Energy Handling. It had come from merging his vita and mana handling skills, but the name of it suggested that it might be tied into other types of energy.

Whether that was true or not, there was a change to the link from his test. The energy flooded the link, and it seemed Two Socks could sense it. Alan felt the wolf's mind start to stir and he instantly removed the excess energy. After a minute it seemed everything had returned to the way it was before. So, soul energy was the key to effecting the link. Now to figure out the proper way to cloak himself.

For his next experiment, Alan attempted not to add energy, but to screen it. He didn't want to block the link completely, that could potentially either sever it, or at least alert Two Socks that something was up. What he was trying to build now was more of a sifter. It would let the energy flow naturally into the link, but only after it had been stripped of any excess information.

That was a very vague concept, but Alan couldn't think of how to refine his understanding until he tried it. Perhaps he should add a pamphlet on soul energy to his shopping list. Even though Alan was ready for it to fail, his attempt to partially block the link worked. Energy wasn't quite flowing as well as before, but what did pass through seemed to be quieter. It was a good thing he wasn't trying to explain what he was sensing to anyone else, because he just didn't have the words to make sense of it.

Now that he was confident that Two Socks couldn't track him (confident was probably too strong a word for how he felt, but he was going to assume and push through), he increased his pace again. The sun had yet to rise when Alan laid eyes on his farm. No furry wolf-horse had pounced on him yet, so he thought it must be working.

Once he was actually at the farm, he made his steps as quiet as possible. Even if his friend couldn't sense his presence through the link anymore, he would probably wake up if Alan started clomping around. There was also the she-wolf to consider. Rather than trying to surprise Two Socks in his bed, Alan decided to simply wait for him to emerge after he awoke naturally, and then tease him for not detecting him earlier.

With that decided, Alan started to do a Tai Chi routine. It was a good way to focus on his aura as he cultivated, and allowed him to limber up his muscles. To begin, Alan started with Lifting Water, and then transitioned into Brush knee, Push Palm. As he moved, he also pushed his soul to flood his aura with energy. The idea was to cause his pathways to strain so that they would expand, allowing them to hold an ever greater flow. It was a little tricky because he also was trying to prevent the excess energy from interacting with his link to Two Socks. Moving into Heel Kick, Alan felt the wolf wake naturally.

He couldn't hear anything from inside the house, but the newly discovered link was vibrating in a way he associated with consciousness. Alan also noticed one of the other links was vibrating as well. Not wanting to give up the game yet, he continued into Grasping the Sparrow's Tail. In the second position of the latest move, Alan started to roll back, and sensed something strange.

For a moment it was almost as if he could sense a connection, not between himself and anything, but between Two Socks and something else. It was a struggle to concentrate on what he was doing, and what he was sensing, but he feared that breaking his movements would also sever his perception of whatever he was detecting. It almost seemed as if the wolf was talking to someone else, the she-wolf perhaps.

As Grasping the Sparrow's Tail ended, he moved into Cloud Hands and whatever he had stumbled upon seemed to vanish. Shortly after that, the door opened and as Alan turned with his hands waving in front of him, a large furry face came out of the door and the eyes widened as it froze. Alan concluded his exercise with Embrace the Tiger, Return to Mountain, and ended up bowing to his surprised friend.

"What, not expecting to see me?" Alan said with a smile, removing the construct he had formed to dampen their link.

Two Socks burst from the doorway and knocked him down. Some things were never going to change. As the thick, rough tongue rubbed Alan's face, he felt something brush against his thoughts. It only lasted a second and faded as the wolf stepped off of him. Standing once more, Alan rubbed his friends back.

"I have to get back to Elstree tonight, but I thought you and I could do some hunting today, what do you say?"

Again there was an itching feeling in his brain, but Alan couldn't tell anything more about it. The wolf made his feelings known, however, literally jumping up and down. He first took a moment to nuzzle the red she-wolf who had also exited the house, but then he led Alan out into the grasslands. As far as Alan had been able to tell, wildlife was still relatively rare, so he had no idea where to go to search for targets. Fortunately, Two Socks seemed to have a way of figuring out where monsters were encroaching on his domain.

The first creatures the wolf led them to were a pair of ettercaps. These creatures look like a spider in human form, and they share many of the same attacks that a giant spider would have. They were about the same size as Alan, and looked terrified when they saw Two Socks. The fight wasn't much to talk about.

The major advantage the ettercaps had was their speed and webbing. Alan negated both of those by being even faster and accurate enough to shoot their webbing out the air with his flame bolts. When the two met there would be a small explosion of fire as the flammable webs burned up. Two Socks was fairly quick himself and was able to shrug off the attacks that did get through with his large size and resilient natural armor. The webbing was more of an issue for him, but he was able to muscle through enough not to get bogged down.

The fight lasted only a couple of minutes, and the two invaders were left broken. Alan didn't really want anything to do with the creatures, they caused too many memories of a particularly nasty spider dungeon to pop up. Two Socks, however, was insistent that they take the bodies, he wanted to share them with his mate. In the end, Alan gave in and took the corpses. They went in one of the storage rings he had gotten off the Nivex.

The second fight was an entertaining one. A small group of leprechauns was trying to create a colony in the area. Each was between thirty and forty centimeters tall and looked thin enough to snap in your bare hands. There were around fifteen of them who were in the process of creating a mound to make home. Alan was inclined to let them stay until they took out wooden spears and attacked.

Identify had told Alan that they didn't pose a real threat, so he and Two Socks made a competition out of it. The wolf limited himself to death by pouncing and Alan took out his new club from Lyonel. It resembled a baseball bat, but he used it more as a golf club. By the time they had crushed the pesky creatures the score was six to four. Five of the creatures had chosen to live for another day and they both let them go. They would provide a target for another day.

Two Socks developed quite the strut as he reveled in his victory. Pouncing had proven a much superior method of killing as the time it took to wind up for a swing of Alan's club gave the little creatures time to get out of the way. The wolf's victory lap didn't last long, however. Soon his nostrils started twitching and his ears curled, while the hair on his back stood up.

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Alan gave his friend a moment, not wanting to interrupt him from figuring out what was going on. Soon enough he had his answer. Two Socks managed to tell him that there was something dangerous that had passed nearby. It wasn't missed on Alan how ironic it was that he, the pretend mute, was now having to divine the silent wolf's meaning. Together they carefully followed the scent until they both spotted a track.

Whatever it was, it was big. It had a type of hooved foot that was the size of Alan's head. The stride was also larger than Two Socks'. Glancing around, even with their incredible Network granted vision, neither caught sight of the beast, meaning it had moved on from the area.

"What do you think, is it worth going after this thing?" Alan asked.

The big wolf had always shown a reluctance to leave the area around their ramshackle home. This creature seemed to have left and hopefully wouldn't return, but this looked to be the kind of challenge that they had been looking for. The only question was if their desire was enough to overcome Two Socks' aversion to travel.

With a determined glint in his eyes, the wolf led the way as they followed the prints. Alan continued to study the tracks to see if he could glean any more information out of them. There wasn't much to gain, but after following them for ten minutes, Two Socks started acting funny. Apparently something didn't smell right. A few minutes later, Alan's own nose was complaining. Whatever they were following was leaving an extremely foul stench behind it. Just a whiff of that had been enough to alert Two Socks, but now they were getting a real dose of it. It took another hour before they finally caught a glimpse of their quarry.

Monstrosity: Catoblepas (epic) level 12, threat: high. A swamp based creature that is best described as a mix between a warthog, giraffe, and an ankylosaurus. It is believed to be the result of an ancient experiment gone wrong and has a heavy death attunement.

The level wasn't that high, well below Two Sock's own, but his skill was rating it as more dangerous. From here Alan couldn't tell what the issue was, so it was most likely related to a skill or special attack. Physically, it was about half again the size of Two Socks, and that wasn't including its exceptionally long neck. It wasn't as long as a real giraffe's, but it was close. That thin neck had to support a warthog's head complete with tusks. Even though the rest of its body was covered in shaggy hair, its tail was a scaled ball, reminiscent of the boss Alan and the wolf had fought together.

Two Socks must have noticed the tail as well, because he gave a small whimper. The wolf had taken a serious wound in that fight, but Alan had been able to heal him. With their prey in sight, Alan loaded the two of them up with spells. The wolf got tagged by Healer's Mark and then minor regeneration. Unfortunately Alan couldn't mark himself, so he just got the regeneration spell. It would last a while and would work to heal any injuries they took. The mark would boost any healing Alan used on Two Socks, including that first spell.

Having fought together a few times, Alan and Two Socks had a plan to maximize their own abilities. As durable as Two Socks was, the wolf was also a large target. This meant that it was Alan's job to grab the beast's attention first, and then Two Socks could charge while it was distracted. Because he was leery of unknown abilities, Alan chose to go with his spewn and a shield.

The large creature didn't seem to be particularly observant, and most likely couldn't smell them over its own stench. Rather than trying to hit it at range, Alan was going to try and land a decisive blow to start the combat. Thinking back to how Two Socks was able to sense Alan, even before their link was established, he attempted to dampen his aura and soul emanations. He thought of a thick wet blanket wrapped around both and hoped for the best.

Next, he quickly slinked through the grass using all the knowledge of stealth he had gained from the military and his phantom class to remain undetected. Everything Alan did was good enough, because he managed to approach within a few meters of the back end of the monster without it noticing.

Back in a dungeon in tier two, Alan had learned that his weapon had a reservoir for mana. It used this to empower its own attacks with extra fire damage. It usually wasn't much, but Alan had been learning how to boost that bonus. By sending some of his own fire mana into his spewn it encouraged the weapon to commit more of its own energy. In the few tests he had been able to do, it added a good amount to the damage his slicing attacks did.

The thing was large enough, and a high enough level, that he didn't think he could take it out with one blow. Perhaps a strike at its long and slender neck, but it would have noticed Alan if he tried to approach that close to its head. Instead, Alan was going to go with a debilitating strike. Using all of his prodigious strength, and the many bonuses he received from talents like back stab, critical hit, and slash, he swung his spewn horizontally into the Catoblepas' hind leg.

The blade entered the front of the leg first, severing tendons and muscles with ease. It hit the bone and cut a chunk out, but was unable to cleave through it completely. Rather than catching on the femur, Alan pulled and the spewn slid out and sliced though some of the back of the leg before exiting. The flesh was blackened and burned from contact with the fire enhanced blade. It would reduce the amount of blood flowing from the wound, but it would also make it more painful, and harder to heal.

Alan had found that the higher-level monsters he was fighting these days were more able to deal with blood loss, and that their natural healing had been a problem at times. Even as he was pulling away to avoid any counterattack, he watched the wound to see if it showed any signs of closing. It appeared the burning blade had done its job because if anything, the wound got worse.

The beast didn't collapse with the injury to its leg, most of the muscles and tendons that supported it were behind the leg bone. All of the tissue Alan had cut through on the front was involved with extending the leg, so when it went to take a step, the wounded appendage didn't move and the creature stumbled. That caused the leg to collapse and blood really started flowing.

Whatever this creature had going for it, intelligence wasn't it. That's not to say it was dumb, but in response to being attacked and collapsing on its leg, it tried to hit Alan with its tail. It was a nice tail, great even for warding off attackers. One hit with that thing would cause someone to have just a terrible day. Unfortunately, with the closest leg to Alan no longer working so well, it wasn't easy to get the tail moving the right way. Instead, it ended up causing the beast to half roll over.

Two Socks chose that as the moment to rush in. An exposed belly is like ambrosia to predators. This turned out to be a mistake, because most of what the catoblepas had done so far was instinct. Now it was getting more involved in the fight and its eyes were scanning around. Before this it kept its head low to the ground, almost like it was a burden to lift. With it searching for threats it quickly locked onto the one-point-five-tonne-furry-menace running full speed at it.

Alan always had his aura reading skill running these days, but he paid special attention to it in combat. He was paying extra special attention to this creature, too, because he was worried about unknown abilities. Because of that, he saw the surge of energy that started in the creature's body, travel up its neck and into its head. The energy then blasted out of its eyes and became more difficult to track. At that point though, he didn't really need his skill, because he saw the effects on Two Socks.

On a section of the wolf's chest almost a meter wide, the hair turned white and fell off, and the muscle underneath suddenly looked emaciated. Whatever that attack had done, it was enough to cause the wolf to stumble and fall as well. Through the small link Alan had previously discovered, he could feel the agony his friend was in. He had to keep his head though. The attack, while devastating, didn't seem immediately fatal. Two Socks also had some healing energy from the regeneration spell that should already be working on the damage. The best thing Alan could do, would be to prevent the creature from using that attack again.

Since the shaggy monster had overlooked Alan to focus on the giant wolf, he decided to go back in and try for a chest wound. The thing was still lying half on its back, so its undamaged side was facing him. Going for maximum penetration, Alan straightened his right arm and lined up his spewn so that together they made a solid spear. At a full sprint he stabbed as deep into the beast as he could.

It was just bad luck that he immediately hit a rib bone. The spewn still penetrated, but most of the force had been absorbed by its thick skeleton and the blade only penetrated halfway to the hilt. Pulling back out, Alan looked up and found himself staring into the creature's pain filled eyes. He had just enough time to realize that was not a good thing and to start to run, before it fired off another blast of energy with its gaze.

Thanks to that little shift, rather than taking the attack to his head, it hit his left shoulder. It was hard to describe how it felt. It wasn't pain, it was more agony. It was the feeling of every muscle in his shoulder atrophying, the skin thinning and then separating, and the tendons shriveling to the point that his arm almost fell off. The left hand was completely useless now and the shield fell from his nerveless fingers.

Alan wasn't going to die, he just wanted to. His vita energy was already moving to the scene and he mentally encouraged it to go faster. Knowing it wasn't going to be enough since that section of his Network silhouette was black, not red, black, he also cast minor healing as he continued to run. He did so in a serpentine pattern to try and prevent another hit.

The vita (which was what Alan had learned healing energy was called) regeneration energy reached the injury first which was good. Because so much of the tissue was simply gone, normal vita energy wouldn't have had anything to work with. The regeneration spell could replace missing limbs, so it was also able to restore some of the missing muscle and flesh. Then the regular vita energy flowed in and built on what had just been recreated.

Part of Alan's brain was monitoring that situation, but most of his focus was on the monster with the death ray eyes. It had managed to roll back over so that its belly wasn't exposed, but it was having trouble standing. A smaller creature with an injured leg could have stood on three limbs, but this thing was overweight even for its original four. Alan's first reaction was to cast a stone wall.

He focused more on height than length and placed a barrier between the catoblepas and Two Socks. Hopefully if it couldn't see the wolf it couldn't blast the wolf. Alan was also counting on his friend recovering some from the regeneration spell, but after seeing how little that did for him, he figured Two Socks was going to be out of the fight until he could hit him with another heal.

The next thing Alan did was to go full mage. If he tried to get in close enough to engage this thing with his spewn, it would have little trouble seeing him and then hitting again with that death blast. It could have a limited number of shots, but Alan wasn't going to count on that. Instead, he was going to use his mana.

Mana lode got activated, and then Alan put up another wall between him and the beast. Now it would hopefully be unable to use its gaze attack. Then it was time for his most damaging attack, meteor. Alan's plan was to send meteor after meteor into this thing until it was a flaming heap of unrecognizable charcoal.

The first rock dropped, and Alan was reminded of the fact that he wasn't really a mage, it was more like a hobby for him. The meteor hit and from the sounds of pain from the beast it was effective. However, that spell came with a secondary AOE effect that severely damaged the walls around it. Another meteor would blast them apart, exposing them to its attacks again.

While Alan wasn't a real mage, he was flexible. Using up another large chunk of mana, he summoned a wall closer to him and another in front of where he thought Two Socks was. The catoblepas couldn't really move, so the walls didn't need to hold it in, only block its sight. While this would allow him to cast his meteor spell without destroying the walls protecting them, it did also blow through a large portion of his remaining mana. Even absorbing what was left of his two damaged walls didn't give him enough for another meteor yet.

Fortunately the monstrosity wasn't going anywhere, and mana lode worked fast. Another thirty seconds had a meteor landing on the beast again to more screams, and two minutes after that another. The meteor after that was met with silence, but he waited another two minutes to cast a hopefully final meteor before checking things out. He could tell through his link with Two Socks that the wolf was doing okay, but after making sure the beast was dead he wanted to check in on him.

Rather than dropping the wall, Alan peeked out around it. As his second grade teacher Ms. Wing used to say, safety first! He was greeted with just the sight he had been hoping for. His repeated castings had left a lump of burned flesh that could only vaguely be considered a corpse if you kinda squinted at it. With the confirmation on the kill, Alan dropped the two walls and rushed over to his friend.

Two Socks was mostly fine. He was sitting up with his tongue hanging happily out of his mouth. It seemed that whatever special attack the thing had used, Two Socks was able to resist it better than Alan had. Not only that, but because of healer's mark, the regeneration spell had done more healing. To finish it off, Alan used a spell that he almost never got to, healing waters. Taking out his canteen, he poured the water inside it into his friend's mouth. The spell converted the water into a rather effective healing potion. Now the wolf was healthy and hydrated.

Other than a quick check to see if there was any provided loot, the two didn't bother with the body. Wild creatures didn't turn into lootnados, and usually their corpses were the treasure. Occasionally the Network might throw something extra in, but that was rare. Both warriors felt that they had accomplished their mission for the day and that it was time to return home. Neither admitted how shook up they were from the fight, but both took rather shaky steps for the first few hundred meters.

When Alan had left Two Socks behind to travel to tier three, he had been confident that the wolf could handle things here. That last encounter showed him how wrong he was. If Alan hadn't been there, Two Socks would have probably fallen after the first attack. Something had changed, and he needed to figure out what. Fortunately, he had a phone-a-friend lifeline.