Early to bed, early to rise. It was spring heading towards summer, so the sun was peeking out earlier and earlier each day. I was the last one to show up at the gate, the rest of the team already ready and waiting. Garrus and George had on large backpacks, which I could only assume had enough stuff to get us out to the village on our two-day trek and enough to get us back.
“Alright, are we ready to go? Any last-minute things any of you need to take care of?” Garrus gave each of us a glance.
“Okay then, let’s head out.”
As we walked I glanced over my classes again,
Name: Alexander King
Ability Points: 86
Tier 1 Class - [Lightning Sorcerer] - Level 1
Ability - [Strike of Lightning]
Ability - [Paralyzing Blast]
Ability - [As Fast As Lighting - Passive]
Ability - [Wreathed In Lightning]
Ability - [Chain Lightning]
Tier 1 Class - [Enchanted Bladefighter] - Level 1
Ability - [Enchanted Perseverance - Passive]
Ability - [Mana Strike]
Ability - [Enchanted Redirection]
Ability - [Enchanted Accuracy]
Ability - [Mana Flurry]
Tier 1 Class - [Disciple of Nature] - Level 1
Ability - [Natures Protection]
Ability - [Healing Blossom]
Ability - [Elements of Nature - Passive]
Ability - [Natural Selection]
Ability - [Nature’s Touch]
Ability - [Barrier]
Ability -
General Skills -
[Identify] - Level 3
[Rest] - Level 1
[Mana Sense] - Level 1
[Electric Sense] - Level 1
[Sword Trainee] - Level 1
Status -
Vig - [363]
End - [322]
Str - [316]
Dex - [359]
Agi - [348]
Int - [347]
Wis - [341]
Health - 3630/3630
Stamina - 3220/3220
Mana - 3410/3410
I had a couple of new general skills. [Mana Sense] seemed to be pretty self-explanatory. If I focused hard enough I could feel small pricks of mana around me. Karif was by far the strongest source around me so he stuck out quite a bit while using the skill. I let it fade to the back of my mind but tried to keep it up. It would probably level pretty nicely over time if I tried to keep it running.
The next skill was [Electric Sense]. This one seemed a bit strange to me. I brought it up along with [Mana Sense] but I didn’t really notice anything that I wasn’t already seeing. I decided to go ahead and just drop [Mana Sense] for the moment and when I did I noticed the difference. I could feel the currents around me, electricity flowed through every living thing on the planet. This skill let me sense that current.
The ranges of both these skills were extremely limited at the moment. I was sure that if I leveled them they would be able to sense things pretty far. I was curious what the max level for general skills was.
“What’s the max level of general skills? Is it based on my level as well?”
“That’s correct.” Karif was the one who responded, Garrus and Penny engaged in idle conversation about the payout for the request.
“Some general skills are pretty hard to level so you’ll never really get them to catch up to match your levels until much much much later in life, being an elf you might eventually get skills like [Identify] to the 4th tiers and beyond if you live long enough. Others like Garrus’ [Sword Technique] or George’s [Shield Proficiency] practically level along the same rates as your classes. So killing high-level stuff while they’re low-level will make them catch up pretty quickly.”
So my [Sword Trainee] skill should level pretty quickly then. “And they tier up at the same levels as classes?”
“Yes, you’ll get it to level 10 and if you level it again it goes into the next tier. They usually evolve at that point as well. For example [Spark Magic] would evolve into [Flame Magic]. Usually just makes you more proficient at whatever you’re doing. General skills don’t really affect actual damage output in most capacities, that’s usually the domain of your class skills and your stat numbers.”
“So, if I’m understanding this correctly everything is capped by your highest class level, your class skills level along with your class so they don’t need to be leveled separately somehow and general skills are supplementary to what’s happening with your class or otherwise completely unrelated, they are leveled separately and tier up in the same places as classes and then the system auto-evolves them when you level them again upon which they potentially gain new benefits and make whatever it is you’re doing with them better etcetera etcetera?”
Karif stopped walking for a moment and stared at me.
“Yes. Are you sure you’re from a world that doesn’t have the system?”
“Positive.”
He resumed walking and nodded to himself muttering under his breath.
I wondered what skills I could pick up in the general sections. Would language fall under that? So far everyone I met had been speaking the same language as me, that didn’t mean something fucky wasn’t happening, but it was most definitely convenient. I wonder if I could get music proficiency as a general skill. I didn’t practice for 15 years across 4 instruments and vocal training to not get anything to show for it. I’d need to test that as soon as possible.
I also wondered what other skills I could potentially get. There was the staple parallel minds that showed up a lot in fiction and I wasn’t going to lie and say I didn’t want something like that. Being able to divvy tasks up amongst separate minds can boost combat efficiency to all new heights.
“Is parallel minds a skill you can get here?” I had a person with a wealth of knowledge here, better learn all I could before they somehow died as well.
That was a morbid thought, better stop thinking like that before it comes true.
“It is, lots of higher level people have it, although not all of them do. There seems to be some sort of weird condition involved with trying to get it or they just never bothered to try. Either way, if you figure it out I’d love to know as well, it’d make my life so much easier.”
“Will do, assuming you don’t figure it out before me.” I gave him a wink before falling back into my thoughts.
I had two whole days to think about my progression from here and someone to bounce ideas off of, better make use of it.
There was still one thing from my status that I hadn’t taken a look at.
I had 86 ability points sitting on my status, and if I remember correctly my ascension said something about ‘status functions unlocked.’ I focused on my ability points and it brought up a new menu with only two options available on it.
[Enhancement List]
[Upgrade Enhancement] (Cost: 1 Point)
Tier 1 Enhancements
Power Strike: Increase Strength by 2% reduce Dexterity and Agility by 1%. (Cost: 10 Points)
Weapon Proficiency: Select a weapon (This choice can be changed once per month), Dexterity with selected weapon is increased by 2%. (Cost: 10 Points)
Rogues Deftness: Increased Dexterity by 1% when you are disabling a trap, picking a lock, or picking a pocket. (Cost: 10 Points)
Point Blank: Hitting a target with a ranged attack within 10ft increases damage dealt by 1% (Cost: 10 Points)
Brawler: Increased Strength, Dexterity, and Agility by 1% when fighting bare-fisted. (Cost: 10 Points)
Battle Cry: Increase friendly morale within a 5 ft radius. (Cost: 10 Points)
Delayed Cast: Whenever you cast a ranged magic skill you can delay the cast on a timer or to activate on a keyword. (Cost: 10 Points)
Rage: Increased Strength and Agility by 2%, reduced Dexterity by 1%, and reduced rational thought. (Cost: 10 Points)
Quickness: Increased Agility by 1%. (Cost: 10 Points)
Iron Mind: Mind-affecting spells and effects have reduced efficacy and are easier to overcome. (Cost: 10 Points)
Interesting. So it looked like these were just quite literally enhancements to the way I chose to fight, helping both shape and supplement my combat style. A lot of these were really interesting, but not something I’d touch in a million years.
Rage? Looked strong on paper, but I didn’t very much like the idea of being controlled by my skills. It also just didn’t seem to be a good idea if I was going to be fighting with a group, the last thing I needed was to lose control and hurt a teammate.
Looking at the skills I could see a couple I was interested in to start with. Power strike looked like it just increased my damage with my physical weapons at the cost of being able to hit them and avoid attacks in turn. I wondered how many I could get in total as well. If I could get more than one I could balance out what I was doing.
There was also point blank. That one said ranged, but didn’t differentiate between magic ranged or physical ranged, so I assumed it had to be both. You know what? Screw it, I was just going to take that one to start and see what happened. I had 86 points, it wasn’t quite enough to get every single power on here but it was more than enough to mess around a bit to figure out how all this worked.
With those thoughts, I focused on point blank and purchased it for the ten-point cost.
Name: Alexander King
Ability Points: 76
Tier 1 Class - [Lightning Sorcerer] - Level 1
Tier 1 Class - [Enchanted Bladefighter] - Level 1
Tier 1 Class - [Disciple of Nature] - Level 1
Enhancements -
[Point Blank] (Level 0)
[]
[]
General Skills -
Status -
Vig - [363]
End - [322]
Str - [316]
Dex - [359]
Agi - [348]
Int - [347]
Wis - [341]
Health - 3630/3630
Stamina - 3220/3220
Mana - 3410/3410
Okay then. It looked like buying that opened up a new section on my status for enhancements, and it looked like I could have three in total. This meant if I really wanted to I could get power strike and the offset the penalties with something like weapon proficiency and the quickness enhancements.
Hmmm… There were several ways I could go with this. I liked point blank though, and honestly. My weapon did insane amounts of damage as it was already. Delayed cast had interesting connotations, but I just didn’t see a reasonable way I could make use of it. Surely there were ways to set magic traps that didn’t involve this enhancement.
No, I felt like I’d already made up my mind about how I wanted to roll with these. I liked point-blank, so I was going to stick with that. I also wanted weapon proficiency, to increase my ability to hit things with the sword. I was still lacking training in that regard, and while I could hit things I couldn’t hit things. There was a pretty big difference between the two that I was really starting to notice.
The last ability that I wanted was quickness. It increased my agility, that was it. Making it easier to dodge things means I take less damage which means I spend less mana on healing which means I can use more of it to deal damage instead. It was a three-birds-with-one-stone kind of situation.
I didn’t even really have to think twice about it, the rest of the enhancements just seemed to be for class setups that I didn’t have. Which was interesting. Normally it felt like stuff like this was usually designed to be hand-tailored for the individual in question, and yet it seemed like this list was pretty generalized.
Oh well, I wasn’t going to stress myself out over it. I went ahead and spent the twenty points needed to slot in the two new skills. There was only one other thing I had to look at from here. Upgrading enhancements. It only cost one point to do, and it seemed pretty self-explanatory. So I went ahead and just spent one point to upgrade one of my enhancements.
I spent the subsequent upgrade point on the first enhancement I had grabbed, point blank.
[Point Blank] (Level 1)
Hitting a target with a ranged attack within 10ft increases damage dealt by 2%
Wow. It was really that easy, huh? Just a flat straight bonus. I didn’t even really have to think twice about it, I didn’t want to blow off all of my points immediately on this, I was probably just being paranoid but I felt better just holding on to some of them for later as a ‘just in case’ sort of thing.
I did go ahead and spend another 14 points and upgraded all three of my enhancements to level 5 each.
“Hey Karif, I just grabbed some enhancements. Do they work the same as classes and skills in regards to levels?”
“Ah, you were buying your first enhancements then? They do use the same leveling style your classes and skills do with the marked difference in that they don’t tier up automatically. When you get to new tiers you’ll get the option to tier them up to uncap them, but otherwise, once they reach your tier level cap they’re done. And don’t feel too afraid to spend your points now, you’ll start getting them whenever you defeat an enemy in addition to big accomplishments. So you’ll always have some points to spend.”
Alright then, I was looking forward to seeing what else the system had in store for me.
“Are we almost there? We’ve been walking for a week. What’s even the point of going to this village in the middle of nowhere, does anyone even really care what happens out here? Surely the adventurers guild is already handling it, they’ll probably be done by the time we arrive. Seriously, this is a waste of time.”
“Will. You. Shut. Up?”
“Ugh, fine.”
“This is why I hate training the newbies, no respect and no sense of greater responsibility,” Warren muttered under his breath.
Warren had been an Investigator for 10 years. Not the longest, but longer than most people. Usually because they ended up dying. After all, investigators were usually expected to get involved with highly dangerous crimes. Anything from cults to psychotic murderers that had been taken over by their class and skills, most involved higher-level beings, and his office rarely had the levels to deal with the stronger criminals they came across. Hence why so many of them died.
Warren had been entrusted with the newest recruit Jalen. Jalen had just barely managed to make it in and Warren still wasn’t sure how, he was level 52 which passed the minimum threshold but he just didn’t have the attitude to make it far here. The kid seemed so disinterested in everything that was happening around him and even when they had been told something strange was happening in Muldren and villagers were disappearing left and right he still just didn’t seem to care. Warren wasn’t sure if the kid was just a sociopath or delusional about the problems in the world.
Well, correcting the kids' attitude wasn’t his problem, he just needed to get in, figure out the problem, fix it, and return. Nothing more, nothing less. Warren would do it with or without his help as well.
“We’re three days out kid, we should get there soon enough. Considering we came from the capital we’ve had a really good time, so stick with it a little longer.”
“I still don’t even see the point of going out to this village regardless. There’s, what, 10 people living in this town who cares if one of them went missing, just because there’s only a small number of them doesn’t mean one of them disappearing is a big deal.”
“The town has at least 100 people living there, and it hasn’t just been one person missing, many people are disappearing around Muldren as well. Straighten up before you become one of ‘em kid.”
Warren wasn’t so sure his patience was going to last the trip back with Jalen.
Early to bed, early to rise. It was spring heading towards summer, so the sun was peeking out earlier and earlier each day. I was the last one to show up at the gate, the rest of the team already ready and waiting. Garrus and George had on large backpacks, which I could only assume had enough stuff to get us out to the village on our two-day trek and enough to get us back.
“Alright, are we ready to go? Any last-minute things any of you need to take care of?” Garrus gave each of us a glance.
“Okay then, let’s head out.”
As we walked I glanced over my classes again,
Name: Alexander King
Ability Points: 86
Tier 1 Class - [Lightning Sorcerer] - Level 1
Ability - [Strike of Lightning]
Ability - [Paralyzing Blast]
Ability - [As Fast As Lighting - Passive]
Ability - [Wreathed In Lightning]
Ability - [Chain Lightning]
Tier 1 Class - [Enchanted Bladefighter] - Level 1
Ability - [Enchanted Perseverance - Passive]
Ability - [Mana Strike]
Ability - [Enchanted Redirection]
Ability - [Enchanted Accuracy]
Ability - [Mana Flurry]
Tier 1 Class - [Disciple of Nature] - Level 1
Ability - [Natures Protection]
Ability - [Healing Blossom]
Ability - [Elements of Nature - Passive]
Ability - [Natural Selection]
Ability - [Nature’s Touch]
Ability - [Barrier]
Ability -
General Skills -
[Identify] - Level 3
[Rest] - Level 1
[Mana Sense] - Level 1
[Electric Sense] - Level 1
[Sword Trainee] - Level 1
Status -
Vig - [363]
End - [322]
Str - [316]
Dex - [359]
Agi - [348]
Int - [347]
Wis - [341]
Health - 3630/3630
Stamina - 3220/3220
Mana - 3410/3410
I had a couple of new general skills. [Mana Sense] seemed to be pretty self-explanatory. If I focused hard enough I could feel small pricks of mana around me. Karif was by far the strongest source around me so he stuck out quite a bit while using the skill. I let it fade to the back of my mind but tried to keep it up. It would probably level pretty nicely over time if I tried to keep it running.
The next skill was [Electric Sense]. This one seemed a bit strange to me. I brought it up along with [Mana Sense] but I didn’t really notice anything that I wasn’t already seeing. I decided to go ahead and just drop [Mana Sense] for the moment and when I did I noticed the difference. I could feel the currents around me, electricity flowed through every living thing on the planet. This skill let me sense that current.
The ranges of both these skills were extremely limited at the moment. I was sure that if I leveled them they would be able to sense things pretty far. I was curious what the max level for general skills was.
“What’s the max level of general skills? Is it based on my level as well?”
“That’s correct.” Karif was the one who responded, Garrus and Penny engaged in idle conversation about the payout for the request.
“Some general skills are pretty hard to level so you’ll never really get them to catch up to match your levels until much much much later in life, being an elf you might eventually get skills like [Identify] to the 4th tiers and beyond if you live long enough. Others like Garrus’ [Sword Technique] or George’s [Shield Proficiency] practically level along the same rates as your classes. So killing high-level stuff while they’re low-level will make them catch up pretty quickly.”
So my [Sword Trainee] skill should level pretty quickly then. “And they tier up at the same levels as classes?”
“Yes, you’ll get it to level 10 and if you level it again it goes into the next tier. They usually evolve at that point as well. For example [Spark Magic] would evolve into [Flame Magic]. Usually just makes you more proficient at whatever you’re doing. General skills don’t really affect actual damage output in most capacities, that’s usually the domain of your class skills and your stat numbers.”
“So, if I’m understanding this correctly everything is capped by your highest class level, your class skills level along with your class so they don’t need to be leveled separately somehow and general skills are supplementary to what’s happening with your class or otherwise completely unrelated, they are leveled separately and tier up in the same places as classes and then the system auto-evolves them when you level them again upon which they potentially gain new benefits and make whatever it is you’re doing with them better etcetera etcetera?”
Karif stopped walking for a moment and stared at me.
“Yes. Are you sure you’re from a world that doesn’t have the system?”
“Positive.”
He resumed walking and nodded to himself muttering under his breath.
I wondered what skills I could pick up in the general sections. Would language fall under that? So far everyone I met had been speaking the same language as me, that didn’t mean something fucky wasn’t happening, but it was most definitely convenient. I wonder if I could get music proficiency as a general skill. I didn’t practice for 15 years across 4 instruments and vocal training to not get anything to show for it. I’d need to test that as soon as possible.
I also wondered what other skills I could potentially get. There was the staple parallel minds that showed up a lot in fiction and I wasn’t going to lie and say I didn’t want something like that. Being able to divvy tasks up amongst separate minds can boost combat efficiency to all new heights.
“Is parallel minds a skill you can get here?” I had a person with a wealth of knowledge here, better learn all I could before they somehow died as well.
That was a morbid thought, better stop thinking like that before it comes true.
“It is, lots of higher level people have it, although not all of them do. There seems to be some sort of weird condition involved with trying to get it or they just never bothered to try. Either way, if you figure it out I’d love to know as well, it’d make my life so much easier.”
“Will do, assuming you don’t figure it out before me.” I gave him a wink before falling back into my thoughts.
I had two whole days to think about my progression from here and someone to bounce ideas off of, better make use of it.
There was still one thing from my status that I hadn’t taken a look at.
I had 86 ability points sitting on my status, and if I remember correctly my ascension said something about ‘status functions unlocked.’ I focused on my ability points and it brought up a new menu with only two options available on it.
[Enhancement List]
[Upgrade Enhancement] (Cost: 1 Point)
Tier 1 Enhancements
Power Strike: Increase Strength by 2% reduce Dexterity and Agility by 1%. (Cost: 10 Points)
Weapon Proficiency: Select a weapon (This choice can be changed once per month), Dexterity with selected weapon is increased by 2%. (Cost: 10 Points)
Rogues Deftness: Increased Dexterity by 1% when you are disabling a trap, picking a lock, or picking a pocket. (Cost: 10 Points)
Point Blank: Hitting a target with a ranged attack within 10ft increases damage dealt by 1% (Cost: 10 Points)
Brawler: Increased Strength, Dexterity, and Agility by 1% when fighting bare-fisted. (Cost: 10 Points)
Battle Cry: Increase friendly morale within a 5 ft radius. (Cost: 10 Points)
Delayed Cast: Whenever you cast a ranged magic skill you can delay the cast on a timer or to activate on a keyword. (Cost: 10 Points)
Rage: Increased Strength and Agility by 2%, reduced Dexterity by 1%, and reduced rational thought. (Cost: 10 Points)
Quickness: Increased Agility by 1%. (Cost: 10 Points)
Iron Mind: Mind-affecting spells and effects have reduced efficacy and are easier to overcome. (Cost: 10 Points)
Interesting. So it looked like these were just quite literally enhancements to the way I chose to fight, helping both shape and supplement my combat style. A lot of these were really interesting, but not something I’d touch in a million years.
Rage? Looked strong on paper, but I didn’t very much like the idea of being controlled by my skills. It also just didn’t seem to be a good idea if I was going to be fighting with a group, the last thing I needed was to lose control and hurt a teammate.
Looking at the skills I could see a couple I was interested in to start with. Power strike looked like it just increased my damage with my physical weapons at the cost of being able to hit them and avoid attacks in turn. I wondered how many I could get in total as well. If I could get more than one I could balance out what I was doing.
There was also point blank. That one said ranged, but didn’t differentiate between magic ranged or physical ranged, so I assumed it had to be both. You know what? Screw it, I was just going to take that one to start and see what happened. I had 86 points, it wasn’t quite enough to get every single power on here but it was more than enough to mess around a bit to figure out how all this worked.
With those thoughts, I focused on point blank and purchased it for the ten-point cost.
Name: Alexander King
Ability Points: 76
Tier 1 Class - [Lightning Sorcerer] - Level 1
Tier 1 Class - [Enchanted Bladefighter] - Level 1
Tier 1 Class - [Disciple of Nature] - Level 1
Enhancements -
[Point Blank] (Level 0)
[]
[]
General Skills -
Status -
Vig - [363]
End - [322]
Str - [316]
Dex - [359]
Agi - [348]
Int - [347]
Wis - [341]
Health - 3630/3630
Stamina - 3220/3220
Mana - 3410/3410
Okay then. It looked like buying that opened up a new section on my status for enhancements, and it looked like I could have three in total. This meant if I really wanted to I could get power strike and the offset the penalties with something like weapon proficiency and the quickness enhancements.
Hmmm… There were several ways I could go with this. I liked point blank though, and honestly. My weapon did insane amounts of damage as it was already. Delayed cast had interesting connotations, but I just didn’t see a reasonable way I could make use of it. Surely there were ways to set magic traps that didn’t involve this enhancement.
No, I felt like I’d already made up my mind about how I wanted to roll with these. I liked point-blank, so I was going to stick with that. I also wanted weapon proficiency, to increase my ability to hit things with the sword. I was still lacking training in that regard, and while I could hit things I couldn’t hit things. There was a pretty big difference between the two that I was really starting to notice.
The last ability that I wanted was quickness. It increased my agility, that was it. Making it easier to dodge things means I take less damage which means I spend less mana on healing which means I can use more of it to deal damage instead. It was a three-birds-with-one-stone kind of situation.
I didn’t even really have to think twice about it, the rest of the enhancements just seemed to be for class setups that I didn’t have. Which was interesting. Normally it felt like stuff like this was usually designed to be hand-tailored for the individual in question, and yet it seemed like this list was pretty generalized.
Oh well, I wasn’t going to stress myself out over it. I went ahead and spent the twenty points needed to slot in the two new skills. There was only one other thing I had to look at from here. Upgrading enhancements. It only cost one point to do, and it seemed pretty self-explanatory. So I went ahead and just spent one point to upgrade one of my enhancements.
I spent the subsequent upgrade point on the first enhancement I had grabbed, point blank.
[Point Blank] (Level 1)
Hitting a target with a ranged attack within 10ft increases damage dealt by 2%
Wow. It was really that easy, huh? Just a flat straight bonus. I didn’t even really have to think twice about it, I didn’t want to blow off all of my points immediately on this, I was probably just being paranoid but I felt better just holding on to some of them for later as a ‘just in case’ sort of thing.
I did go ahead and spend another 14 points and upgraded all three of my enhancements to level 5 each.
“Hey Karif, I just grabbed some enhancements. Do they work the same as classes and skills in regards to levels?”
“Ah, you were buying your first enhancements then? They do use the same leveling style your classes and skills do with the marked difference in that they don’t tier up automatically. When you get to new tiers you’ll get the option to tier them up to uncap them, but otherwise, once they reach your tier level cap they’re done. And don’t feel too afraid to spend your points now, you’ll start getting them whenever you defeat an enemy in addition to big accomplishments. So you’ll always have some points to spend.”
Alright then, I was looking forward to seeing what else the system had in store for me.
“Are we almost there? We’ve been walking for a week. What’s even the point of going to this village in the middle of nowhere, does anyone even really care what happens out here? Surely the adventurers guild is already handling it, they’ll probably be done by the time we arrive. Seriously, this is a waste of time.”
“Will. You. Shut. Up?”
“Ugh, fine.”
“This is why I hate training the newbies, no respect and no sense of greater responsibility,” Warren muttered under his breath.
Warren had been an Investigator for 10 years. Not the longest, but longer than most people. Usually because they ended up dying. After all, investigators were usually expected to get involved with highly dangerous crimes. Anything from cults to psychotic murderers that had been taken over by their class and skills, most involved higher-level beings, and his office rarely had the levels to deal with the stronger criminals they came across. Hence why so many of them died.
Warren had been entrusted with the newest recruit Jalen. Jalen had just barely managed to make it in and Warren still wasn’t sure how, he was level 52 which passed the minimum threshold but he just didn’t have the attitude to make it far here. The kid seemed so disinterested in everything that was happening around him and even when they had been told something strange was happening in Muldren and villagers were disappearing left and right he still just didn’t seem to care. Warren wasn’t sure if the kid was just a sociopath or delusional about the problems in the world.
Well, correcting the kids' attitude wasn’t his problem, he just needed to get in, figure out the problem, fix it, and return. Nothing more, nothing less. Warren would do it with or without his help as well.
“We’re three days out kid, we should get there soon enough. Considering we came from the capital we’ve had a really good time, so stick with it a little longer.”
“I still don’t even see the point of going out to this village regardless. There’s, what, 10 people living in this town who cares if one of them went missing, just because there’s only a small number of them doesn’t mean one of them disappearing is a big deal.”
“The town has at least 100 people living there, and it hasn’t just been one person missing, many people are disappearing around Muldren as well. Straighten up before you become one of ‘em kid.”
Warren wasn’t so sure his patience was going to last the trip back with Jalen.
