I spent another hour fitting in planks to fill the far side of the cave mouth. When I was done, only a four-foot gap was left in the middle left of the cave. It was wide enough for Pachi to get in and out, though she’d need to furl her wings.
I filled in the top two feet of the cave with horizontal poles, so that my new Pachi-sized entry was a six-foot-tall, four-foot-wide hole. The only thing I needed now was a door.
I spent too much time wrestling with building a frame, then weaving the thin branches and pole tips into an approximation of a door. It was ugly, but after I lashed one side firmly in place with hide strips, it opened and closed well enough.
It was late afternoon when I was done with my toil, and I sat in a sweaty heap next to Pachi to catch my breath.
She asked me, in a dry tone, Are you done playing with sticks?
I laughed, my fatigue lending the moment a surreal texture. Watch it, girl, or I’ll have you sleep outside tonight.
I took another cold meal, this time sitting next to my napping friend, and admired the sprawling valley below me. It was weird, living in a postcard. Everywhere I looked there were mountains with trees marching up their steep slopes, and the waving grass of the glade in the center. We sure knew how to pick a place to live.
It occurred to me that before Pachi could fly, this place would’ve been impossible to stay at. Not only because it would’ve been difficult to reach, but the sheer necessity of occasionally traveling to a settlement made it impractical. Now, we just had to fly a few hours and we could find a town.
I wanted to do some more hunting, but we could always put that off till tomorrow. For right now, I had the two hides Quinn had asked for. That thought made me bring up the materials list that Quinn had given me. I’d gathered or turned in everything so far except for the twenty wyvern scales.
I thought about the pile we’d taken from Anwar, but those scales had been Legendary in quality. I doubted they qualified. Still, we were in the mountains to find the Sirrushi wyverns. I hoped they shed their scales. It would be preferable if they agreed to just give me twenty scales as a trade. Maybe when I found them, Pachi and I could hunt a few more deer and bring them as gifts.
I decided to check up on my class quest. I’d turned off all notifications awhile back to reduce distractions.
A level-up notice was nice, but my stats had only changed minimally. A major notification was flashing, and I was forced to stand up and fist pump several times before reading through it.
Class Rank Up: Pathfinder!
Pathfinder: Your path in the Hunter class tree has increased once again. You are one step closer on your journey to becoming one of the Doondane. All Class Skill-related tasks gain an efficiency bonus of 25%. This reduces time of completion, improves quality, or both, depending on the task at hand. Fine and Excellent quality items can be produced with Animal Harvesting, Herbalism, and Skinning.
As a Pathfinder, your focus will be on mastering the weapon systems you have chosen as well as improving your relationship with the environment and the factions you have allied with. Your next class rank increases will require you to move beyond the basics of survival and forestry. If you have the courage, your journey will lead you on to Forest Warden, Ranger, and finally Doondane!
Class Skill unlocked: Choose between one of three Passive skills:
Dead Eye (Passive): Your vision becomes more acute when you use your bow. Accuracy of all shots, including ones that rely on skills, is increased. Total range increased by 15% and chance of critical hit increased by 10%.
Bleed (Passive): All ranged attacks have a 30% chance of causing the Bleed effect. Bleed causes target to lose 5% of total HP every 5 seconds for a total of 30 seconds.
Ranger’s Reflex (Passive): All movement speed and reaction time during combat is increased by 15%.
I pondered my options for a few moments and told Pachi about each skill. She quickly agreed with me that Ranger’s Reflex was the best choice for now. Too many times, I’d taken a hit or missed a chance to bring down an enemy due to a lack of speed. Also, it benefitted both my bow and sword play.
I made the selection and moved on to another prompt.
Class Skill unlocked: Choose between one of three Active skills:
Penetrating Shot (Active): Increases the Armor Penetration of a ranged attack by 50%. Charge Time: 6 seconds. Cooldown: 2 minutes
Clarity of the Wild (Active): Calls upon the tranquility of living as one with the wilderness around you. Both player and companion gain +15% accuracy with attacks and +20% chance to land a critical blow. Duration: 2 minutes. Cooldown: 10 minutes.
Uncanny Sense (Active): 80% chance of detecting any creatures or enemies that are hidden or are using Stealth. Skill success diminishes if target has higher level by 10% per level. Cooldown: 30 minutes.
Pachi was more than happy to be included on my next skill decision, so we debated for a time.
Penetrating Shot was the first choice to be dismissed. It would no doubt help bring down armored foes, but considering the charge time, we both felt it was impractical.
Being able to sense a stealthed enemy would no doubt also come in handy, but the ratkin were not the type to do so, at least not now that their ranks and pride were swollen. It came to Clarity of the Wild, which I thought was
