All allies within the AoE have their debuffs reversed at a rate of 1 per 15 seconds, starting with the least potent.

  AoE: 20’ radius +1’/level above P-20. Extra mana may be spent to increase the AoE. Range: 100’ + 5’/level above P-20. Cast Time: 4 seconds. Cool Down: 2 minutes. Duration: 1 minute + 1 second/level above P-20. Mana: 400+2 mana/level above P-20.

  The second aspect of my study of mana was more hit-and-miss. Most days, I would insta-build something. Usually just a small building, but enough for me to see how the mana was used. I felt like the secret was just as the tip of my fingers, but I couldn’t quite seem to reach it. During one of her more lucid moments, Ainsley told me it was an exercise in patience to build my character.

  After cooking and magic practice, I tried to spend time with each of my friends each day, certainly some more than others. Violet was frustrated with her ability to learn the Artificer crafting recipes for many of the items she had paid real-world cash for. If I thought I was impatient, then I don’t know what to call the little gnome.

  More than once I had walked into her shop to find the ogre artificer cowering in the corner. It was the very incongruity of the image which made it so funny. They had managed to come up with one recipe so far, or rather, they had managed to master one well enough that it could be plugged into the Assembly. Instead of the smaller personal blunderbuss she was going for, Violet managed to craft and master the design for a cannon.

  What was so funny about this was that some of the ogres were strong enough to carry it, but the kick always seemed to rip it out of their hands. We had a full dozen of them already, and the Assembly was capable of making as many as four per day with our current set-up.

  The cannons were a perfect example of the different crafts working together. They were an artificer’s construct, but smiths were involved in the preparation, alchemists had to come up with the formula for black powder, and even the leather workers were in the process of trying to develop a harness which could turn an ogre warrior into a literal tank.

  Robert and Tauri were hitting it off much better, just don’t tell her that. As it was, I’d say he’d have her resistance worn down in another couple of months. She had managed to come up with two different poison recipes so far. One which acted to decay flesh and another which simply made the victim so sick that they wished they were dead.

  The paladin-turned-blacksmith didn’t like her putting her poisons on his weapons, but I was all about practicality, so I fully encouraged it. As long as she could teach the ogres how not to poison themselves. To that end she was trying to get Violet and Robert to craft weapons with internal injection systems for the poison. So far, that was still just a dream.

  Robert, on the hand, managed to master four different recipes. He crafted a large triangular shield. It provided reasonable coverage, but with the strength of the ogres, it could be used as a weapon for driving the pointed tip into some of the larger beasts we had to fight. He also created a recipe for an axe, a spear, and a metal breastplate.

  His recipes kept the Assembly busy, and we now had enough to equip 100 warriors with quality gear. It also made a priority of making more miners, smiths, and even finding more resources before our current supply of iron dried up. We also had to add leather workers in an effort to get the parts done necessary to make full sets of armor. Their work was necessary as both padding and straps for the breastplates, as well as for greaves, bracers, and helms. We simply didn’t have enough metal yet, so we focused on breastplates with leather for the other parts.

  Shemi’s alchemy had also borne fruit. She managed to craft both HP and Mana potions. Even if they weren’t high quality yet,it was still promising. Like all the craftsmen, she had to spend a portion of each day leveling up, as we found the higher their level, the more success they had with crafting.

  Speaking of leveling, each day, after all my other tasks, I would regularly go into the forest to hunt. Sometimes, the entire team of players would come with me, but most of the time, it was only me, Violet, and Ainsley. We often made it all the way to the Rising Mountains. Often, we heard the screams of whatever monster was terrifying the lesser beasts. It sounded oddly familiar but somehow different. I knew that soon we would have to make a concerted effort to find it in the mountains.

  There was one creature which had clearly taken up dominance of the Deep Forest. At first, I hadn’t been certain, but now I knew for sure, it was the draco-griff which I had saved when I first met Gregor. It made a point of letting me seeing it almost every time I went hunting. A couple of times it even dropped off kills for me to see, much like a house cat leaving a dead mouse to show off its prowess. Up to this point, though, it had never let me get close enough to touch it, but I felt like it was warming up to me.

  Speaking of Gregor, he had arrived yesterday. His visit was most welcome, since he as an engineer. As soon as he joined POP, I immediately promoted him to be the city engineer. He tried to argue that it wasn’t the same type of engineering, but I just told him it has the same word in it and he should just be happy we didn’t have a train, because I’d make him drive it.

  He quickly got along with the other players. I gave them permission to start filling him in on what an HI was. I was looking forward to the shock in his eyes once he realized this wasn’t just a game. The news that he brought was just as welcome. We hadn’t heard from Belchor. It was a blessing that I appreciated, even as it made me worry. The dwarven cleric was able to explain what was going on.

  It turns out that he had gotten so caught up in his work in the human capital that he might not have come to join us for months, but then war came. The gray elves were offended by the conduct of the human prince towards their princess, or some such thing. That and the fact that the promised gift to welcome her had never arrived. I couldn’t help but laugh at our role in that.

  If Gregor was right, then we wouldn’t have to worry about the humans intruding for a while. The more I thought about that news, the more I felt it was the time to move to the north and deal with whatever the threat there was. While one border was busy, we could use the time to secure the other.

  The final impetus came on the day after Gregor arrived. I had just finished building another smelter add-on to the second forge, when a ruckus went through the village like a wave. I came rushing out to hear what all the shouting was about. Ogres were so loud to begin with it, was a true cacophony when they got worked up.

  Tulbat was reporting to Chief Kerkek. “I swearz. It was the winged demon. Hez haz fallen. Wez should strike now.”

  Kerkek replied, “Must ask big boss. Hez is liking winged demon.”

  “Ask me what?” I said as I walked up.

  Tulbat gave me the slight bow which had become customary. I really liked this ring. “Boss, winged demon is hurt. Wez should finish it now.”

  “I will go and see this for myself.”

  “Tulbat showz boss.”

  Since I preferred to adventure with just my team, I said, “Tulbat should protect village while boss is gone. Tulbat is strong. It is the ogre way.” They ate that crap up even if it was hard for me to keep a straight face at times. Truthfully, Tulbat had almost caught up to me in levels. He was level 39 now. Shemi and Kerkek had already reached Champion at level 40.

  It was a complicating factor, because I really wanted enough XP to hit level 50 before I leveled up again, but I might have to level up just to keep their respect. I got enough XP for a level for about every four days of hunting. The lower level of the monsters made it slower-going for me now. I couldn’t even imagine how bad it would be if I had accepted the XP now.

  The other thing was that I really didn’t want to accept the XP until we had 1000 ogres, because then I could try for the racial evolution to oni. Of course, if I said anything about that to Shemi she would have tried to get me to bump ooglies, as she put it with the ogresses.

  Maybe I was just being stubborn, but I didn’t like feeling that the AI was trying to manipulate me into creating a new breed of ogres. It couldn’t be that simple, but till I knew more, I was going to avoid doing what it wanted. Unless, of course, that was exactly what it was trying to make me think. It felt a bit like going in against a Sicilian when death was on the line.

  I went around to gather the rest of my team, but apparently Elgar had logged out. I couldn’t blame him. Enchanting was proving to be the hardest of the crafting arts. He had made little progress and was probably busy researching any information he could get about it on the game boards. Robert and Tauri were already out hunting. So that left just Violet and Ainsley to go with me. Honestly, that was my favorite set up anyway.

  Just as we were leaving, I heard a thick dwarven voice call out, “Got room for one more? I’m only 4 feet tall, so I don’t take up much room.”

  I frowned. Gregor was good people, but I valued my time with those I knew better. Still, I would never get to know him if I didn’t spend more time with him.

  “Sure, who doesn’t want a cleric. I won’t have to do any healing, then.”

  “Healing? Me? Bah, I’m a dwarf. I’m good for smashing things.”

  I laughed then. “Careful, or Violet will think you’re trying to take her job.”

  Then it was Gregor’s turn to laugh. It was a deep belly laugh, which made it hard not to like him. “Who, that wee little bit over there. I thought she was your pet, lawn furniture.”

  I immediately put my hand on Violet’s shoulder before she could do something she would regret. Scratch that, before she could do something which I would regret. Violet wasn’t the type to feel bad about the things she did. She lived in the moment and rarely looked back. I think she had once said that if her life were an old-fashioned car, she would have torn the rearview mirror off. The only things she cared about were the present, and to a lesser extent, the future.

  Ainsley, however couldn’t let the moment pass. “See, see. I told you. I’m not the only one.” Then she looked over at Gregor. “She does look like his pet, doesn’t she?”

  I whispered, “Let it go.”

  Then when Violet just shrugged and turned around, it was me who was shocked. If she was holding it in, then I wouldn’t want to be Gregor later on.

  Chapter 28- Ticking Crocodiles

  We followed Tulbat’s directions, but the closer we got, the easier it was for me to feel the direction we needed to go. With practice, I could home in on specific monsters. This was the only draco-griff I had seen, so it made it all that much easier. He wasn’t moving, which gave credence to the story that he had been injured.

  When we reached the spot, it was obvious that he had crashed. I assessed him to just to be sure.

  Draco-Griffin Level: 49

  HP: 203/3189 Debuffs: Grounded, multiple broken

  limbs, concussed, panicked,

  despair.

  He was in bad shape. Even worse than when I had encountered him before. I tried to walk out into the clearing, but when I got with ten feet of him, he squawked at me. His voice was shrill and full of pain. It lacked the normal almost roar-like tone he had most of the time.

  I tried to speak soothingly, “Whoa, it’s okay, big boy. I’m here to help. If you let me, I can heal you.”

  I tried, but truthfully, a nine-foot-tall ogre trying to speak to you like you were a cute puppy probably didn’t come out right. So, I stepped back and asked the others what they thought I should do.

  “You could try healing it again, but not sure if those broken bones can be fixed,” Gregor said.

  “I have a spell which can fix debuffs like broken bones.”

  Violet shook her head. “Nah, that won’t work. He would have to be your ally. You should just put it out of its misery.”

  I frowned, but I knew she was correct.

  Ainsley said, “You’ve been putting it off long enough. You should just sing to it.” She danced from foot to foot as she stared at the ground, then started humming a contagious song from some children’s holo.

  Gregor and Violet both laughed, which caused them to look at each other and then laugh even more. “An ogre choir boy. Now, I’d pay good credits to see that,” Gregor said.

  His slip up about credits didn’t even register with me, because I knew what Ainsley was talking about. I had gotten the ability a while back and not used it. I pulled the spell up because I wanted to be sure before trying it.

  Spirit Song: This spell creates a song woven of sound and spirit to entrance the mind of a beast. It may be used on creatures up to level 60 (currently), but the level difference between the caster and target increases or decreases the relative power of the spell by 2%.

  Effect: Attempts to cause one monster with both Will and Mind scores lower than the caster to become the caster’s friend. The spell only creates an initial reaction. The treatment the creature receives from caster will either enhance or weaken the effect.

  Duration: Variable from one hour to permanent, based upon the relationship between the caster and target.

  I read it a couple times over. I was fairly sensitive about usurping the will of another creature. Being on the receiving end definitely made it a sore subject. But this spell would only last for an hour, unless we developed a natural relationship. If that was what it took to save this majestic creature, then I could live with that. Of course, my interest had nothing to do with the daydreams I had about flying on its back. Ogres from above. No one would expect it.

  “Step back, everyone. I’m going to try a spell on it. If it doesn’t work, we will have to put it out of its misery.” Then I took the plunge. I would only get one chance at this. If I was going to do it, I should give it the best chance to work. I bit the bullet and accepted enough XP to raise me to level 58.

  I shook as the changes came over me. Eighteen more Strength and Constitution was still a big change. The 36 Will didn’t feel so significant, but I knew the impact it would have on my mana. I left the 36 free stat points unassigned. If worst came to worst and I died, I would at least have those as a consolation prize after I respawned.

  Then I cleared my throat. Something about the fact this spell was a song made it feel different. I had never played a bard. I scooted in closer, and right before I began casting, I said, “I promise, I won’t use it to seduce you.”

  Then I let the mana flow through me. My increased understanding of mana made casting an entirely new experience. It was like I could push my spells to a new level. Tendrils of power came out and began to entangle the draco-griff. I blocked out the laughing behind me and jokes about screeching cats.

  The draco-griff shook his head. He snorted like something funny had landed on his nose. But little by little, the magic took hold. I felt a connection building between us. Then in an instant, his mind was open to me. I won’t go so far as to say I could read his mind, but I was able to send him emotions and general impressions. This was whatever telepathy would be called, if it was all based on emotions.

  He evidently could do the same thing, because I felt his feelings of pain, and terror flood my mind. I fell to my knees. In a second, Violet and Ainsley were on either side of me with their weapons drawn. I was lucky to have such good companions.

  I put my fingers to my temples and massaged them slowly. “It’s okay. I’m just feeling his pain and fear.”

  Underneath, it I felt a small bud of hope, but I could tell that he was afraid to nurture it. He was going to need a name, but that could wait. I sent back feelings of reassurance and tried to project my plan to aid him. He snorted and I felt his doubt. It wasn’t hostile, but simply that he didn’t think anyone could help him.

  Then I cast Status Reversal and poured the extra mana into it to reverse the myriad of injuries he had. He started to grow stronger, bit by bit. His wings, which had been broken, straightened and became more durable. His mind began to clear. Then remarkably, his panic became unbridled joy, and his despair became complete faith in me.

  As the concussion cleared up, there was a clear, gleaming look in his eyes. He knew I was saving him. His pain was still there, but it was being pulled away. Then I channeled mana into Moderate Healing until it was eight times as powerful as normal. Regeneration would have done the same thing for far less mana, albeit much slower. But this felt right. It felt like I was justifying his faith in me.

  He stood up and stretched his wings. Then reached out to me. I stroked his beak and felt the just how luxurious his feathers were. He began preening, and I got the sense he was trying to show off. Although, I couldn’t tell if it was for me or if he was trying to show off for Violet and Ainsley. They were both taken with him right away.

  “Okay, I was wrong. He is gorgeous. I’m glad you were able to save him. But I call dibs,” Violet said.