“Yes, I did.”
“Can you show me Nature’s Wrath?” Master Proth asked, “You can cast it toward that stone wall in front of us. It won’t damage the wall.”
The request confused Atlas, but he did as commanded. He lifted his staff and followed the hand motions. The staff made it more difficult to move in the precise pattern, but he got it close enough for the cast to complete.
“New to the staff?” Master Proth asked.
“Yeah. Bought it recently and had minimal fighting with it.”
“No problem. How about Entangle? Target this,” the druid said and walked to the side of the building and picked up a solitary stone. He tossed it toward the middle of the clearing.
Once again Atlas cast his spell and, as before, it resolved and vines rose from the ground to wrap around the rock. Master Proth asked him to demonstrate his Nurture spell as well. This one was new, and he hadn’t tried it out yet.
Atlas targeted himself and began the casting. A tingling sensation flooded his arms as he followed the motions. The spell consisted of wide, flowing motions with his arms and reminded him of someone doing Tai Chi. The last motion of the move required him to run both of his hands across each other on the palms but in opposite directions as his arms came back to center. The magic coalesced and the cloud of energy soaked into him.
“Well done. You can cast all three,” Master Proth said as he began walking around Atlas and looking him up and down.
“I assume you picked up leatherworking by the appearance of your armor. I’ll say I’m impressed at how far you’ve advanced in it already. Your staff is an excellent choice for combat, but you use it terribly inefficiently. We can work on that later, but I can see by how you hold it you use it as more of a club than anything else.”
Well, he’s not wrong.
“You’re definitely in better shape than most of the druids I am sent. I don’t train just anyone, though. You must complete a quest first to see if you’re worthy of advancing among the druids.”
A quest? They gatekeep the class training between trainers with quests? Well, not the craziest thing I’ve seen in a game.
“What’s the quest?”
The druid flicked his wrist toward Atlas and a box appeared.
Quest - Druidic Ritual
Requirements
• Level 5
Quest Rarity: Common
Quest Reward: 110 experience, 50 copper coins.
Description: Venture to The Standing Stones and meditate upon the central platform to confront yourself.
Do you wish to accept this quest? Yes/No.
Atlas accepted the quest and turned to Master Proth, “Where are The Standing Stones?”
“You can find them northwest of the city. It’s about a mile from here. I’ll mark the general area on your map.”
“I’ll be back soon then.”
Atlas trudged back through the house and exited through the front door. Checking his minimap, he could see the layout of the entire place. He followed the main thoroughfare north to the gate in the wall. The size of the city made it difficult for him to maneuver, and it took much longer than he expected to exit.
When he finally left the confines of the city, a sprawling field of green greeted him. A narrow road led north and ran into the forest ahead.
Looks like The Standing Stones are somewhere near that road.
With the map confirming the location, he followed the road. The smooth, hard-packed dirt made for quick travel and he reached the tree line in thirty minutes. The path was clean cut, and no underbrush dotted the road. The canopy of the trees intertwined above the road and shaded the path as it wound deeper into the forest.
Atlas followed the trail and kept an eye out for dangers. He discovered pretty quickly that his leveling would be rough. During his travel, he found four animals to fight. Two of them were level 5 foxes, one was a level 5 coyote, and the last was a level 5 badger.
Defeating all four wasn’t terrible, but it took a while for each. His damage wasn’t very high in melee combat with his staff. He finished the fights without too much difficulty, but the time it took meant he’d be grinding here for a long while to get the experience he needed.
You gained 90 experience.
It also netted him more meat and four more hides to work with. I should really find someone to teach me cooking. That or sell off these bundles of meat I keep getting.
A large stone structure near the road interrupted his musings. He followed a game trail through the trees toward the rock face. When he stumbled through the last shrub, he stood in a large clearing with what looked like a miniature version of Stonehenge in it. Large rectangular bricks stood in a circle, arranged in an indiscernible pattern. Atlas walked up to the nearest one and ran his hand along the surface. The stone felt coarse and almost had a sandy feel to it as his skin drug against the surface.
In the center of the monument was a large stone disc with a swirling Celtic knot. Atlas cautiously approached the symbol and looked around. This is a quest, after all. There has to be something here to fight or some puzzle to solve.
After carefully circling the ring of stone and not spotting anything, Atlas sat and meditated as the quest told him. He dropped into a cross leg position and laid his arms on his knees. It took him some time to drown out his surrounding noise. The chirp of birds and the rustle of leaves on the wind drew his attention away and continually disrupted his focus.
Eventually, his mind calmed and the turmoil of his surroundings faded. He felt adrift on the wind as his mind hovered in peaceful serenity. The feeling didn’t last long because a voice broke him out of his reverie.
“You’re
