The Tracker: Book 1 of the King's Hand Series Page 2
Her eyes were green and a perfect smile of white teeth. He had no idea how old she was. The one time he asked he was notified that was a forbidden question. Later his father told him that a man should never ask a woman what her age was. According to his father she would live hundreds of years. It was also probably likely that Roland would live a lot longer than humans do.
He went out back skinned the animals and rubbed them down with some salt. Roland walked into the house and went up to the loft where his bed was. He gave the command as he had heard his father and mother do when they looked that their panels. “Open Status Panel.” There it was his blue status panel.
Status Panel
Level
1
Age
14
Health
100
Title:
N/A
Mana
115
Heath Regen
0.001/Second
Stamina
105
Mana Regen
0.0005/Second
Vitality
10
Stamina Regen
0.01/Second
Strength
9
Race
Half-Elven
Endurance
12
Bonus
Dexterity +2 per level
Dexterity
28
Wisdom:
10
Active Status Conditions
Intelligence
13
N/A
Charisma
6
Available Points
5
Life was good. All the hard work his parents put him through had paid off in his status. Charisma needed help but living out in the middle of nowhere that couldn’t be helped. His Dexterity was huge. His mother told him that for every year he would gain 2 dexterity growing up. When he started getting levels he would automatically get 2 points in dexterity because he was a half elf. He knew from what his parents had told him that there would be points available to place where he wanted. He then opened up his skills panel.
Skill Panel
Tracking
Beginner 9
Archery
Beginner 9
Herbalism
Beginner 7
Toughness
Beginner 5
Roland wasn’t too surprised at the skills panel. His parents had been training him in everything listed except toughness. They were probably helping him with toughness too, he just didn’t realize it. He decided to open up “Tracking.”
Tracking
You gather details of the world around you. You distinguish what has gone before you.
Passive Abilities
Detection +10%
Active Abilities
N/A
Roland looked at his Active Abilities and wondered what those could be? He spent the next half hour looking through his skills. This was the beginning of a new era for Roland. His parents had said that the day he could open his status panel he would be able to begin training with mana. This must be where the active abilities happen.
As he was surveying the rest of his skills his father walked into the cabin. “Son, come on down and let’s talk. I would love to talk to you about your skill panel but the goblins take priority. If they get a toe hold in this forest, we will never get them out unless an army shows up. Let me hear what happened.”
They spent the next hour going over everything that happened. His father asked about what the ears and what they had pierced them with. Seems different tribes did different things to their ears. Who knew you could tell what tribe they were from. When his father was satisfied he knew all that was to know he began packing up for an expedition to find the goblins. “I want you to stay here with your mom. Now that you have access to your mana we want you to learn illusion. It will be the best skill we can teach you for now. When I get back I will teach you Shadow meld. It is the first active tracking ability you can learn. Your mother and I will make sure you are as prepared for this world as we can get you. I’m proud of you son. I would have found an easier target to open up your skill panel but since you have done it we will rejoice. Not only did you survive but you did extremely well.” John put on his small pack, picked up his bow, looked back at his son, ruffled his hair and gave a huge smile and exited the cabin. For Roland he would cherish this moment.
Saryn came in as his father was leaving. “Ok have a seat. Now that you have access to your mana we can teach you illusion. Your father and I want to start you out with this skill because it will be very useful. Because your half human and half elf people will treat you poorly. It’s not fair but life is what it is. The first skill of an illusionist is to change your look. You can make yourself look human or elf. Most humans will never be able to tell you carry an illusion with you. An elf illusionist will be able to see through it. That can’t be helped and some elves are very prejudiced. So the better your illusion the better you can avoid being treated badly.”
“The second thing you can do with the illusion when casting change look is to camouflage yourself. You can give yourself the color of the bark of a tree, the fur of an animal, or the stripes and color of grass your kneeling in. As a tracker this will be very helpful. The prey should be seen but the hunter should never be seen.”
“Now take a seat close to me. I am going to cast Change on myself. If you sit close you should feel me using my mana. You need to remember the feeling. As you get older and stronger at casting you should be able to tell when someone is cast a spell by feeling the mana move near you. When you cast the spell Change you need to picture in your mind exactly what you want to look like. We will use this mirror to help you see what you’ve done. Because this will be your first spell It might not come out the way you want. You need to be confident in what you want to look like. Watch.” Saryn gave the command “Change” and she slowly changed her appearance. She now looked like his father.
Roland was shocked. His mom looked exactly like his father. She might have been a little shorter but that was it. The big question he had at the moment was how many times had he been talking to his father when it was actually his mother. Oh this wasn’t good.
His mother who now looked like his father gave the command “Stop.” She turned back into his mother. “When you give the command to stop you need to command the mana to stop. If you say stop it is not going to stop the illusion. You need to think what you want and control the mana. This is done by your will to control the mana. Now it’s your turn. The chant for the first time you will do this is this. By my command of illusion of sight change my appearance to the world around.”
I focused on what I wanted to look like I looked into the mirror. I could see a young boy with weird brown hair. My nose was small and lips were red not full but not thin either. My eyes were spread apart the cheek bones were high. The chin was pointed and the ears pointed but not as much as his mothers. “By my command of illusion of sight change my appearance to the world around.” My hair turned dark, my nose grew a lump as if broken. The chin became more square the cheek bones lower and behold a three-day old beard.
My mother just laughed. “It was a good first try. However, no one is going to believe a young boy can grow a beard. That will have to wait a few years. Remember you want others to believe what they see is real. You want to blend in not stand out. Try it again but this time just change your ears, the hair color and make the eyes a bit rounder. This is what I’ve been doing to you and if you go to town looking different people will know something is amiss.”
I looked back into the mirror thought about what I should look like if I were a human and not a Half-Elven. I had it pictured in my mind and gave the command “Change”. My appearance changed into my human self.
I opened up my skills panel to see what happened.
Illusion - Beginner 1
You seek to change the appearance of the world around you.
Passive Abilities
> Detect Illusions 10%
Active Abilities
Change Appearance (20 Mana)
My mother spoke up before I could comment. “Illusions on yourself doesn’t use much mana. The bigger the illusion the more mana it costs. Your mana regeneration is very slow and you will not have a lot of mana to use. The next thing we need to work on is meditation. This will help you to restore your mana quicker. You will need to do this in a safe place. You will be vulnerable when meditating. The world around you will fade away while you meditate so you could be easy prey for someone. Camouflaging yourself before meditation helps you. If you’re with someone make sure they know where you are so if they need you they can get you out of your meditation. So I want to sit and practice your meditation. This should open up another skill for you.”
I sat down and began to meditate. Sure enough the world around me seemed to slip out of focus. It was me and my thoughts. Mother tapped on my shoulder. “Check your panel now. You have been meditating for quite a while now.”
Meditation - Beginner 1
Harnessing the mana, you control its flows and movements within you. Your peace and tranquility enables you to increase its flow.
Passive Abilities
N/A
Active Abilities
Meditate (Can't move) (+.001 Regen)
My mother was all smiles. “Now I want you to take the mirror with you and go into the storage room and camouflage yourself with the coloring of a deer. That is a very good camouflage in the woods. You will need to practice a few times every day to get used to getting what you want and to see what camouflage works best for you.”
I went into the back storage room where we kept the hides we were saving to sell in town. The first thing I was thinking about was the hide from a forest cat. His father had tracked it down last month after it had killed some goats outside of town. It had subtle spotted marking on it. He liked that camouflage better. He was amazed as his appearance changed. His face was still there it was just covered with the hide of a forest cat. He walked out to the main room where his mother waited.
“Oh you prefer the cats camouflage do you? As you continue to practice illusion you will gain experience. If you are to get better and improve upon this skill you will need either intelligence or wisdom. Either way this will increase your mana pool. Because of your archery ability you will also need to improve your dexterity. Because of your elf heritage you will be given a bonus in dexterity. So put most of your points in either wisdom or intelligence. Use the extra for dexterity.”
Roland opened up his panel and placed 3 of the bonus points in wisdom and 2 in dexterity.
Status Panel
Level
1
Age
14
Health
100/100
Title:
N/A
Mana
110/130
Heath Regen
0.001/Second
Stamina
105/105
Mana Regen
0.0005/Second
Vitality
10
Stamina Regen
0.01/Second
Strength
9
Race
Half Elf
Endurance
12
Bonus
Dexterity +5 per level
Dexterity
30
Wisdom:
13
Active Status Conditions
Intelligence
13
N/A
Charisma
6
Available Points
0
“Now open up your skill for herbalism. When you make elixirs, poultices or poisons with your herbs place some mana in them. This will give them added potencies. Yours will be small at first but as you progress they will get better.”
The next few hours were spent skinning and stretching his hides. He then spent time practicing with his bow. His father had him moving and shooting from different distances. It was practice and more practice. He did this all while in his forest cat camouflaged. How much better could life get?
His mother called him in for supper. She sat him down with a look Roland wasn’t used to seeing on his mother. “Roland we need to do some more talking. I’ve never talked much about where I’ve come from. Just know I left because of politics and I wanted to live life the way I wanted to live it. I know this doesn’t make much sense but it might someday. Know that you the most important thing in my life. With your Half-elf race you are special in more ways than one. I am hoping you will continue to develop skills that few elves have but that a half-elf has a better chance of developing.”
“Your skill with tracking, illusion and hopefully another helpful skill is going to make you a man who others will flock to for help. More than likely you will have three skills that will make you unique. Use those skills for your benefit. You are going to live a long life. Be patient develop as many skills as possible.”
“I fled to the forest to escape politics. I can only stay here for so long and those things I have fled from will eventually find me here. Hopefully not till your father passes away. Living a long life makes living in a political word inevitable. Pick your allies carefully. If things get bad you can always disappear in some remote part of the world till things blow over. That is unless it is politics with the elves. We can’t outlive them. Stay away from the elves at all possible costs, and never let them know I’m your mother. It wouldn’t help you.”
Late that night his father came home. His mother had left John some supper. It was cold but Roland was sure his father didn’t care. His father tried to be quiet but Roland had been too excited to sleep. It was some time after his father went to bed that Roland finally fell asleep.
Chapter 2
The Ambush
The next morning his father woke him up early. “We need to get to town early son. You will also need to look like a human. That cat camouflage isn’t going to help you in town.” His father laughed and wen back down to the table for breakfast. Roland had enjoyed his camouflage so much he hated to change into his human illusion.
The goblins had set up a small camp about a half days walk away from the town of Halfway. There were enough of them that his father needed help to eradicate them from the forest. The Duke paid his father to keep track of what was happening in the forest. He would deal with it if he could but when the need arose he could get help from the small contingent of soldiers stationed in Halfway. Halfway got its name from the local joke that it was halfway to nowhere.
He and his father made it to town by mid-morning. They had run the entire way. His father wasn’t even breathing hard but it was everything Roland could do to keep up. Both had their bows in hand, a quiver of arrows on their right hips and one quiver on their back. The also had knives on their left hips.
Halfway was more like a fort than it was a town. There was a wooden palisade around the town about 15 feet high. They had a tower overlooking the front gate and one overlooking the back gate. At night they kept the gates closed. They had to build the palisade several years ago because of a raid by some orcs. They had almost destroyed the entire town. The soldiers stationed there had made all the difference.
In the town they had the usual establishments. There was the general store that sold and purchased products. The blacksmith, tavern and inn, and the biggest building the lumber company and its saw mill. The barracks was the first building leading into town and that is where they went straight way to.
John spoke with the commander of the outpost. There were about 40 goblins and they were half a day’s walk from town. It was agreed that they would head out that afternoon. They would set up short of the goblins camp and attack first thing the next morning. The soldiers would assault first through the camp. John with Roland would circle around the back side and they were responsible for any goblins that escaped the assault. The commander didn’t like the idea of Roland going but when he found out t
hat he had opened up his skills panel by killing some goblins he couldn’t say too much.
It took the soldiers forever to get ready. They were similarly equipped. They all had on leather armor, short swords with a shield. They all had the same type of boots, pants, shirts and helms. The shields were small bucklers. They were round, hardened leather on the front with oak boards behind the leather. They also had a rim of metal around the outside. They were small but they looked like they were still heavy.
The group finally formed up with small packs. They carried enough food to last them while they were gone. They all had bed rolls, canteens, and small medical pouches. The medical pouches reminded Roland this wasn’t a hunting trip. This would be a battle. It would be a small battle but to Roland this was his first and it seemed like a huge battle. The tough part for the soldiers would be the wargs. They were a type of wolf the goblins domesticated. They used them to carry equipment, carry them in battle or to take part in battle. They were normally bigger than most wolves but they also were less attentive to the world around them.
The expedition left the town in good spirits. They had twenty-four soldiers and one officer. John and Roland would act as scouts and as a blocking force, albeit a small blocking force. The soldiers made enough noise Roland thought the goblins might have already heard them as they were leaving town. His dad reminded the soldiers to keep the noise to a minimum. It helped but not much.