Well, little Kyle was not sniper material in the end. The boy clearly put his all into trying to hit the fast-flying mosquitoes, but not only could they dodge projectiles quite nimbly, the boy was most often shooting way off target. After a couple of hours he got exhausted from mana loss despite not shooting that much, and at that moment he nearly hit one of the new crafter/fighters in the back. At that point we put an end to the whole thing.
Kyle was sullen at his failure, but many tried to cheer him up and talk him into trying with less hard targets first, to get some practice done and then try again. Some even promised to help him, but the boy was at the moment inconsolable.
We have a long road ahead, he’d have more opportunity to improve, and the tutorial would push his skill up even if he didn’t want it to. Now that I knew the effect of this place, it was actually quite easy to notice its effect. In two hours of trying Kyle went from shooting too late and way off target, to nearly grazing some of the mosquitoes, and given that the mosquitoes were level twenty-something and he was probably not even level ten and a child, it was a pretty good improvement for a couple of hours of work.
But the boy’s dismay didn’t stay in my mind for long. No, the thing that was on my mind was the monster that was nesting near here.
The map was drawn terribly, but it was showing a kind of scorpion with wings and it was written avoid beside it.
I wanted it, not for me, but for Alya. She was the only one not facing a Baron of some kind here. Quinn and Marcus already got one each while scouting ahead of us. Quinn got an Eldir Shaman, one that I never saw, the information came only yesterday, as we decided who had to fight some of the more powerful monsters for achievements, but with the way he said it, I would suspect that he didn’t find only the Baron back there, there was something he wasn’t telling me.
Marcus instead got a Gremlin Leader, a weak thing all things considered, but a Baron all the same.
“Hey Quinn, come here for a second,” I said to the teen busy distributing affection to his new flame.
Melissa looked quite displeased by the interruption, but didn’t comment on it.
“Thanks man, she was going to crack my lips if it went on a bit more,” he said in a low voice. I shook my head, teenagers, so eager.
“That’s what you wanted, no?”
“Yea, I suppose? It’s a tad too much honestly, but it beats not having it.” Well, I suppose you just summarized what a lot of men think about their wife most of the time.
“You’d get used to it, anyway, I wanted to speak to you about the Baron thing.”
He twitched a little at that.
“Emm, of course! Yea, what do you want to know?”
I stared at him without talking or looking in his eyes, I didn’t want to scare him, just to pressure him a little.
“I-I mean, what is there to say more, right?” He laughed nervously. “I found one that was walking with a small group in the forest, in our direction too! So I just snuck around and slit… his throat…”
I kept my silence for awhile longer.
“Ok man sorry, I found a-”
“Stop,” I told him while raising a hand.
He was looking down at his feet.
“Quinn, I don’t mind that you killed a Baron and got something for your trouble, it’s a pattern we already saw. Every time we killed one, we got some item, fruit, or magical thing that was worth a pretty penny, with the exception of the stupid mosquitoes. Actually there must be something in the place it came from, just it wasn’t worth it to go and retrieve it.”
“So?” he asked in an irate tone.
“Quinn, don’t antagonize me, I’m not your enemy, but don’t insult me either. Do I look like the kind that would steal your reward? Do I need it? Most of all, I knew you are strong, and got your own achievements already, but we need to know at least the range of our strength if we want to collaborate together, that was another reason why I disclosed my stats to everyone the other day. People need to know that they can count on me dealing with a big monster if needs be, and I need to know that I can count on you to scout ahead or perform whatever needs to be done with your skills. It’s a matter of trust, I don’t know why you are so reserved, and I won’t pry, but know that if you ever feel like unloading some burden, I’m available.”
I couldn’t see his eyes, but his fists were clenched tight. “Ok, yea thanks, maybe I’d take you up on your offer, but not today.”
“We need to reach the new safe zone today, but whenever you want.”
Tom’s voice sounded out again, the people got to their feet tiredly, the constant attacks from the giant mosquitoes were wearing us down pretty fast, but I was still intent on reaching the town tonight, the others too, nobody wanted to spend a night here, but I saw an incredible improvement in this little time, it was from the Guild buffs, Tom’s instruction, the curses I implanted, and the tutorial all together. In real time you could see people really improve by leaps and bounds, and there was a restless energy going through the whole group by now. Positive reinforcement.
I turned to Quinn again as I resumed my place at the center of the formation.
“Now, walk with me as we go, we need to talk about the Barons.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wanted to ask you what you think it takes to become one.”
“So that before was a trick question! You tricked me! Not cool man, not cool…”
I laughed a little. “Not my fault you fold so easily, but still it’s better this way, trust me. So, what do you think about it?”
“You don’t have a theory of your own? I thought you were pretty smart,” he said with a smirk.
“I have, but I want your personal opinion before discussing mine, so as to not influence your thoughts.”
“Mmm ok, so, we know that Barons are usually the strongest of the bunch, no? But they don’t really show super special abilities, they have different names, or classes, so a mutation is not really what makes them have that… how do you say?”
“Designation?”
“Yes! That, they are the ones that were proven the strongest, the ones that everyone follows, so a boss basically, like in videogames. What do you think?”
I thought about it, not anything new. “What I think is that there’s more, and you gave me a good hint yesterday.”
“I did?”
“Yes, I thought about it, and asked myself, why noble titles? Usually Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquess, Prince, and King are titles granted to the nobility, you can have more in between, but these are the main ones. A title like this speaks of authority over others, and we saw that the gorg was a chieftain, the eldir had a priestess, and a shaman, while the champion was only an elite monster. The spider broodmother me and Rhea found in the caves was like the queen of the hive, the serpent I killed was a Viscount, and he gave me the most hints about how all of this worked.”
“A Viscount! What did it give you?”
“Honestly, a fifteen percent to all stats, good, but not that good, I received better for killing one at five times my level, I saw what the System did there, the first time it gave me Defiance of Tiers, you know that one right?”
“Yes, I got it too.”
“Figures, anyway, it gave it to me because I killed the gorg chieftain before my first class evolution, now instead it gave it to me because the enemy was five times my level.”
“Ohh! So it’s not based on hard requirements, it calculates the difficulty and deems the action worthy of the achievement based on circumstances too… I wonder if it worked if you were the same level, but like, started the fight badly wounded or something…”
“I won’t test that,” I told him directly.
“Yea… me neither…”
“But in any case, the real hint was that the whole region was full of only reptile beasts, no others were allowed, and the serpent didn’t have more of his species to command. It commanded everyone else though, along with a number of other Barons.”
“Do you think that for raising in rank you need to command more of the same rank as you?”
“Exactly, right now, nobody is a Baron, but if our group, or our Guild, grows big enough, I think we can assume that as Guild Master I’d attain the title after a number of people join, I have no idea of the number though, at that point, if let’s say Tom commands enough fighters, he would become a Baron too, but being under me, I’d need more people like him and I would become a Viscount. So on and so forth.”
“Yea… that would explain why the Barons are not like, super special but just the strongest, you just need to be able to command the others to get the title, I wonder what it gives…”
“Me too, but we don’t know if there are some more requirements for it, we’d have to see. In any case what I’m curious about is the number of members we need to become recognized by the System.”
“You said the spiders were thousands, but the gorg had probably a hundred or so… honestly I have no idea.”
“I think I have one,” I snapped my fingers and a mosquito that came dangerously close to sting a woman between a gap in the shields exploded, my combo between Virulent Hex and Curse Detonation was still a blast, literally.
The little explosion made the mosquito splatter on the shields and some liquid went past, dirtying the people behind, well, better than getting stung.
I turned my attention to Quinn, “We saw the mosquitoes’ leader, or whatever it was called, as the only Baron around, and we are besieged by a million of the buggers, I think it’s related to the race.”
“Well, makes sense, but how many people do we require to become a Baron then?”
“That, my sneaky friend, is the Question.”