Holy Blood 13

Morning everyone! I hope the week is going good for everyone!

Chapter 13

With that awkward situation taken care of, we took a break to decide what we wanted to do. We had a tent and enough supplies to last us several weeks. Even if we returned to the city, we might end up shooting ourselves in the foot. We both had unique classes. If we weren’t killed by jealous people, then we would be sought out by organizations to get us to join. 

“We should forgo heading back to the city. I saw a temple or some other ruin that I was going to check out to see if I could get some cool loot. We only need one tent with one of us keeping watch,” I said pulling some dried rations from my bag and taking a bite. 

“What about Wizard and the others?” Lulu asked worriedly. 

“He’ll understand. He knows more about games than most the people in here I bet. If anyone can succeed its him. The others, I trust them about as far as I can throw them.”

“You are the one in charge. I’ll do whatever you want me to,” Lulu said then blushed a few seconds later.

“Thinking about something interesting?” I asked with a grin. 

She flicked me off and turned around. With that discussion out of the way I turned to the north. If my mental image was correct that was the direction of the ruins. It looked close to the city, but when falling to the planet that might mean a few hours, or a few weeks. I would just hope for the first one. 

We did run into a complication about two hours into our journey. The monsters were getting stronger. I guess it was to be expected but it slowed our progress. We were able to defeat them with some time, but the minions weren’t as affective as they were at the beginning. The experience gain was nice with just the two of us splitting it. After two hours, I’d almost gained enough experience to level up. Lulu had actually managed to level up. 

“Maybe we should stay in this area for a while and grind levels?” Lulu asked when the shadow wolf we defeated fell to the ground. 

“You might be right. I don’t think any other players have gotten this far out yet. Not without a healer,” I said checking my astral energy. It was sitting at half. I could heal the minions, even Lulu’s skeleton, but it required more astral compared to a player. Though, it might just be that we were higher level than anyone I’d ever healed before.

“What do you think is going to happen in the city?” Lulu asked while I looted the wolf. I gained the skinning and butchering from harvesting materials from monsters. Thankfully, the game gave me the stats of food. I could find out if it was edible without a special skill. It was in no way delicious, but we wouldn’t starve by eating it. 

“Hard to tell. IF we can rally, they might be able to work to do something about the darkness that is threatening the barrier around the city. I’m sure by now the news should have gotten around. Not only do you have organizations of people working to gather information, but you have the people like us that are seeking out ways to gain more power.”

“With your power, wouldn’t people be inclined to listen to you? You are one of the few priests in the city,” she asked. 

“I am not a people person. I don’t like being in a position that someone might be able to kill me. When I head back to that city it will be because I have no other option.” 

“I see. If that’s how you feel I understand,” Lulu said with a nodded. Her long ears bobbed as she did so. 

“That still leaves me with a problem,” I mumbled to myself. Lulu looked at me with a tilt of her head but didn’t say anything. I bit my thumb as I thought about what to do. As Otris’s Herald, I need to spread her name. Now, as a game I’m sure that mainly meant NPCs, but I was sure players were included on in that list. 

It would be difficult to do that task without being near said entities. Then again, people wouldn’t listen to me without my power fueling my words. I don’t need to have the players worship her, but the NPCs believe in her as an actual Goddess. I could see having them switch to her sect would be beneficial for both of us. 

I heard a sound from the edge of the clearing we were standing in. I looked up and saw Lulu having her skeleton throw stones. It was pretty accurate, all things considered. 

“Alright. We’ll stick with the plan. Head to the ruins and hopefully get some boons that help grow our power. It would be nice if we could each be a one man, person army,” I said while walking over to her. 

“Sounds good to me. I really don’t want to go back to the city. I just wanted to know what you thought about it.” 

“We’ll probably have to head back eventually. I’m not sure how classes work in this game, but in one I played a long time ago, you had to upgrade it after you reached a certain threshold. If we don’t have to do that then that’s even better.” 

“Got it. I still have that book I got back in the library with me. It makes a lot more sense once my class changed.”

Thinking about the books from the library, I checked my inventory for the few I brought. While I was looking, I saw the loot from the boss zombie from yesterday. With the new class, I completely forgot about the items we got. There were mainly reagents but there was a staff and robe, more a dress really based on the image I was getting. I pulled both out and tossed the robe to Lulu, it was gender-locked, while I swapped out my staff. 

It possessed a black metal shaft that glistened in the light. A dark green stone topped it, with a few shards the floated freely around it. I moved it as quickly as I could, but they kept paced effortlessly. I grinned going through a few practice movements. It was lighter than the starter staff.

I glanced over to Lulu and saw she’d changed clothes while I was busy testing my new weapon. It was a black cloak that covered her well. Though her cleavage was almost falling out, and was barely being held back by the spiderweb of strings covering it. She saw me looking and proceeded to make a few poses. I laughed at her antics. 

“Looks like they were geared to necromancers,” I said examining the two items. 

-Deadless Staff

-Rare

-Level:20

-Gives a bonus to summoned minions up to five. Allows for one extra summoning, Astral consumption does not change.

“I agree. My robe buffs my summons by nearly fifteen percent. Might not be much now, but I don’t see a cap. We need to kill a few more bosses,” Lulu said with an evil grin.

“May I remind you that the last one managed to kill nearly thirty people in a matter of minutes,” I said with an eyeroll. 

“Yes. Because they weren’t getting healed. If we’d set up a proper response and had you heal, Hoop would have been able to handle him,” Lulu said.

“Something to test for in the future,” I said with a nod.

We finished our break then got to work grinding some Experience. The more familiar we got with the monsters in the area, the less time it took for us to defeat them. I could summon two of the Fallen now, but I would be left with chump change on astral energy. I put it off until I was a higher level. We were handling the monsters for now. 

The cats became the real treasure in the area. We managed to find the clue they drop before they attempt to strike. There was a hiss in the air that was almost inaudible, but Lulu’s skeleton managed to locate every time. It would throw a rock then my Fallen’s spear would come sailing with pinpoint accuracy at its head. It usually survived but was critically low on health by that point. 

“I just hit level twenty-five. Should we try moving deeper?” Lulu asked after two hours had passed.

I paused from butchering the shadow beast to look at the sky. It was about two in the afternoon. We had another few hours of hunting we could do, but we’d need to find a campsite soon. I pulled the compass, which was a random drop from one of the shadow cats, to check the direction. Turns out monsters can drop items. 

We needed to head north to find the ruins. If we hunted while we moved, we could cover a few kilometers. I nodded. “Yeah, let’s go ahead and move deeper. If we find a good defensible position, we should hunt in the area and rest there for the night.”

“Sounds like a plan.”