Better Than One - Chapter 7 Better Than One.

It was either a nervous twitch, or the young kobold was winking at me. Regardless, he was paying a lot of attention to Estra and I. He was the chief of the Izro clan, the ones we’re supposed to face in the arena tomorrow. Estra had great confidence that we’d [Fireball] and [Kinetic Spike] the hell out of these puny kobolds, and I would agree.

At the square table were the eight chiefs. To my surprise, nobody questioned our leadership position of the Ozo clan. The only thing they wanted to know was how to call ‘us’ and not individually, but as a whole. While I wanted to go with Bob, after some back and forth with Estra, we settled on Esketravin.

Across from us was a muscled orc with a multitude of scars on his face. He was drooling, and it created a stain down his studded leather jerkin to the point of rusting the studs all the way to his belt. This orc was at the apex of the kobold hierarchy here, in charge of the Bashag clan. If this was a prison, he’d be the one to beat up on the first day.

Sitting next to him was the young kobold, looking nervous, ready to jump out of his scaly skin. When not paying attention to us, the youngster was wearily eyeing the ebony skinned troll sitting around the corner of the table next to him. The troll was periodically grunting, or maybe that’s just how he breathed.

The other four chiefs were kobolds of mid to late years. The discussion involved current events, and specifically the human intrusion from the north into the mining tunnels – opposite from our clan’s position in the mountain. The humans were expanding, building towns and villages ever closer to the mountain. The clan chiefs who were directly affected were advocating for a full intervention by all the clans, while everyone else was downplaying the threat.

While most kobolds were cowards, they were also known to be also cunning, especially the chiefs. They probably figured they’d let the humans weaken their competition before swooping in for a takeover, or maybe they just didn’t want to spend their own resources for someone else’s problem. It was the second time the topic was brought up, and the discussion was going absolutely nowhere. I didn’t know how much more I could take of this, and these meetings were a weekly occurrence!

Estra had stopped paying attention, when suddenly her eyes lit up, looking shocked. She stared to a space in front of her.

“Quick, let me see your status screen.” She whispered to me urgently. I didn’t understand what this was all about. I looked it over myself and noticed what she was on about. Down towards the bottom of the status screen in the Perks section I had two new entries:

Perks: Darksight, Tough Skin, Immortal, Better than one.

The [Inspect] skill also had a subtle addition of ‘+’ sign.

Skills: Inspect+

I wasn’t certain, but I bet this had to do with the old man we met yesterday. Estra was aware of eight gods in this world, and the old man was one of them. She knew little else about him aside from his name – Gustav, and that he was the architect of the System. He was also known as the Peacemaker, a god of neutrality with a small cult following.

The Lou individual that he mentioned was also one of the eight. Petros is the god that she was most familiar with, as he was patron god of humanity with a large religious following in the human regions. She even bragged about seeing Petros in person.

“Enough!” The orc garbled out, like his mouth was thoroughly numbed by a dentist. Everyone went quiet and was looking at him. “Where is the food?!” He said while looking at us. He wasn’t sure which of us two he was supposed to be glaring at, so he just did it turn, which made it less threatening. What food? I didn’t get that memo.

“What food?” Estra replied meekly.

“FOOD!” He bellowed. “Where. IS IT?!” He stood up over the table and smashed his fists repeatedly, like a petulant child.

“Why are you expecting food from us?” I asked once he stopped making a racket.

“I’m the top chief, you bring tribute, you bring me food.” He said in a more controlled manner, and that’s when I noticed the crates and sacks lined up against the wall behind him. I looked back at Zoey, but she simply shrugged.

“No tribute.” I said and Estra looked at me with a mixture of shock, and ‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’ We had mouths to feed of our own, and if we’re going to take over this mountain, paying tribute is the wrong way about it.

I could hear his angry breathing from across the table, and his peeled back lips revealed an gnashing array of sharp teeth. “ARGH!!” he erupted in deafening roar, causing spitle to fly out over the table, and his clawed hands dug into the tabletop. “You pay, or you die!” he yelled.

I felt that it was too late to have second thoughts, I was committed. Besides, I had confidence in Estra’s [Fireballs]. And if that fails, there’s the new [Immortal] perk; it had a strangely short description, but one that was to the point, “Set Resurrectable = True.” If there’s one thing that’s common in video games, and I have played many, is that when you die, you come back. I hoped it was that way here too; after all, the first death proved that it wasn’t final, so there’s a very good chance the next one won’t be too.

I stood up to face him on equal eye level, and firmly said “No.”

“You die tomorrow!” he growled and immediately left. His kobold attendants picked up the tributes of food and followed after him. It was a long minute before any of the remaining chiefs at the table spoke up. If I thought that the orc was the extent of our troubles, then I was wrong.

“The dungeon is becoming active again, it’s spewing out slimes everyday now, and they are getting stronger and more numerous” said one of the older kobold chiefs. This slime dungeon was around the corner from us, past the hot springs.

“The spirits say that this coming winter will be colder than the last.” Another added.

“Zeeld owed us four crates of iron ore. Bring it tomorrow.” The troll chief said, and I wasn’t about to start arguing. We already had too much on our plate for tomorrow, maybe we can delay it for later. The rest of the time was spent talking about the humans, and the meeting ended without any agreement. The three chiefs that were the closest to the human encroachment went off together, still talking about the problem.

Cold winter, orc, troll, human, and slime trouble were coming our way. Estra and I had some planning to do for our fight tomorrow. We needed to pick out five kobolds for the Arena battle, and then figure out some tactics to use on the orc chief. We might be able to use Globba, she’s been following us everywhere, maybe she’d follow us into battle. It was doubtful we’d get any sleep tonight.

On the way back to our territory, Estra shared her status screen with me. Just like me she had [Immortal] and [Better than one] perks, but instead of the upgraded [Inspect+] she received a third perk. I felt a little better after I read the description for it. We had an ace up our sleeve for tomorrow, we just needed to get a little lucky.

My new and improved [Inspect+] skill was incredible. Whereas the generic version gave minimal amount of information, this upgraded version gave too much information: weight, material composition, extensive description, the works. It was like having a ‘Wikipedia Lite’ at my fingertips. Though, it wasn’t quite as detailed and was lacking a lot of context, it did however have ‘links’ in the description to related topics. This skill would be extremely useful for me if I’m going to modernize this place.

[Better than one] was a [Rare], yet potentially powerful perk, but it came with a number downsides.

“Requirements: both allies must have the [Better than one] perk. The benefits increase with time spent together (within 20 yards), resets if ever apart, even for a second.”

Benefits:

[Shared Knowledge] Can automatically learn spells from each other, at a rate of one spell every 1-10 days (depends on time spent together), the time is multiplied by spell tier. Spell learning is cancelled if the [Better than one] perk is reset. All spells learned this way are removed if the [Better than one] perk is reset. Currently learning: [Entangle] 9 days remaining.

[Redundancy] Accumulate stat points towards the higher value of a stat that your ally has, at a rate of 1 stat / day. All stats gained this way are removed if the [Better than one] perk is reset.

[Life Bond] HP, MP and Stamina are linked and shared. Percent increases from 25%, by 1% per day until 100%. The shared percent is restarted if the [Better than one] perk is reset.

These downsides would have been difficult and annoying for anyone else. First, the two would need to have the same [Rare] perk, and be willing to spend some extensive time together. Second, it resets if the two are even an inch past 20 yards for more than a second, which can easily happen in heat of a battle, or if someone goes off to the bathroom. Third, when it resets, all the benefits gained are also removed. However, for a two-headed ogre, barring a surgery to cut us in half, these downsides don’t apply.

[Shared Knowledge] allowed me to learn Ball of Light and Candle Flame instantly, due to their spell tier being zero. With [Redundancy] stat purchases would become twice as effective, but would also need to be coordinated between the two of us. [Life Bond] was only partly utilized, because we already had HP and Stamina linked 100%. Still, adding MP to the link would come in handy.

“The orc chief of the Bashag clan didn’t look like a spellcaster to me. Though he didn’t bring any visible weapons to the meeting that I could see, I bet he’s a strong melee type. What would be needed is to keep him at bay while we pummel him with spells, and if he got close enough, we’d need a sturdier shield to block his attacks.” I said to Estra.

“You control the legs and the shield, while I concentrate on casting with my hand. If you can keep him away from us, I’ll melt him.” She said. This was the reason I started learning [Entangle], it would be 8 days too late, but in the future it would come in handy. For now, I needed to turn this door of a shield into something that could withstand some serious assault. I tested my [Inspect+] skill on the same wrought iron bar from before, but now I was graced with more information.

Wrought Iron Bar, low [carbon] [iron] with fibrous slag.

Weight: 0.96lb

Material composition: Iron 98%, fibrous slag 1%, carbon 0.08%

This reminded me about my material science class, it had something to do with iron and steel. In order to obtain steel from iron a certain amount of carbon needed to be added, and that’s about all I could recall. It also made me wonder about the technological era of the [System] of this place. Might it be vastly more advanced than this world was showing?

There wasn’t much wrought iron to work with, but I had the blacksmiths keep adding reinforcement around the edges and across the shield. By the time they were done, the shield was nearly twice as heavy as before. Estra would need her left hand to cast spells, while I held the shield in the right. It was four feet tall by three feet wide.

Next, we had a large piece of bigfoot leather fashioned with two holes at one end for our heads, and a belt across the middle, to hold it from flapping around. It left our back and shins exposed, and we’d be barefoot, but it was better than nothing.

Past midnight I received another point of Luck from [Redundancy] – we’ll need every point tomorrow.

=====================================

Name: Kevin

Race: Two-Headed Ogre, Male [Evolve]

Age: 17; 6’2″; 270 lbs

Essence: 32 [27,841]

Encumbrance: 13 / 62.5lb

Regen: 4.66 / minute

[HP: 1300] [MP: 1120] [Stamina: 1300]

Strength: 125 [shared]

Int: 103

Agi: 67 [shared]

Con: 130 [shared]

Spirit: 112

Luck: 92 [90]

Skills: Inspect+

Spells: Ball of Light, Candle Flame, Kinetic Spike

Professions: n/a

Perks: Darksight; Tough Skin; Immortal; Better than one (Shared knowledge: learning [Entangle], 8 days remaining; Redundancy: Luck +2; Life bond: 27%)

Name: Estra

Race: Two-Headed Ogre, Female, Fire Mage [Tier 3]

Age: 17; 6’2″; 270 lbs

Essence: 2,682 [38,546]

Encumbrance: 13 / 62.5lb

Regen: 4.3 / minute

[HP: 1300] [MP: 1050] [Stamina: 1300]

Strength: 125 [shared]

Int: 117

Agi: 67 [shared]

Con: 130 [shared]

Spirit: 105 [103]

Luck: 120

Skills: Inspect, Mana Manipulation, Meditation

Spells: Ball of Light, Candle Flame, Entangle, Heal, Fireball, Flame Burst, Fire Manipulation

Professions: Aristocrat, Herbalist, Alchemist

Perks: Darksight; Tough Skin; Immortal; Better lucky than good; Better than one (Shared knowledge: learning [Kinetic Spike], 8 days remaining; Redundancy: Spirit +2; Life bond: 27%)