[You have stabbed an aberrant tribesman for 278 damage.]
[You have stabbed an aberrant tribesman for 261 damage. An aberrant tribesman has been slain.]
[You have gained 525 experience! EXP until next level 4,746/6,380]
Cline left his impact on nearly every tribesman by aiming precise, crippling arrows which reduced the speed and ferocity of the foes. Saden moved from tribesman to tribesman suppressing each one with a barrier while its adversaries recovered. Other exorcists mimicked his actions to a noticeably lesser effect—unable to outright stop a beast at full sprint, they could at least slow it down. After realizing that some anti-spirit magic was being employed to great effect, a group of exorcists banded together to attempt exorcising a tribesman. The process took time and concentration, but four combined exorcists managed to remove the spirit from a larger, lumbering tribesman—reverting it to its man-like state where others could easily handle it.
Though the expeditionary force had lost another six combatants, they had managed to take down eight of the 11 tribesmen. The victory of numbers was a panacea to the force’s fatigue and restlessness. They had shown that they could face the tribesmen and come out on top. The exorcists and shamans played pivotal roles in reducing the damage sustained from the fight, and now the former knew that they could extract the ancestor spirits from an already transformed tribesman. The resurgence of success, purpose, and drive was almost palpable.
In truth, no one knew if the tribesmen had simply underestimated the force—thus bringing far fewer warriors to the fight than were necessary. When three had been so successful beforehand, surely an extra eight would seem a great plenty. After 11 had failed, it was then possible that they would return in much greater numbers. Still, the expeditionary force consoled themselves with their victory and the hope that, given their direction of travel, maybe the Tribe would realize it wasn’t their home villages which the force was marching toward.
When night fell, circles around campfires reformed, each group huddling much closer to the others than on the first night. The force needed to be ready in the event of a nighttime raid.
Saden shared a drink with the other exorcists as they discussed strategy for the upcoming battle. Zelle tried to facilitate a similar discussion with the remaining shamans, but each appeared to be overconfident in their abilities. Their egos were no doubt bolstered by their effective anti-air attack earlier in the day.
Sift, Cline, and Dakkon sat near a fire where the old man from the previous night was preparing yet another pot of stew and regaling a hungry audience with stories from his glory days. Dakkon knew that the stew’s preparation only took around five minutes from the last night, but apparently an extra 10 and 15 minutes of stirring as the old man held a captive audience wouldn’t overcook the meal. The gap-toothed chef thanked Arstak for his narrow escape from a rather sticky situation in his youth involving an unexpectedly married barmaid and her displeased, doting husband when Cline appeared to tense up.
“What’s up, Cline?” asked Dakkon. “That a situation you can empathize with?”
“No, nothing like that,” said Cline.
“Arstak then?” guessed Dakkon.
Cline stiffened slightly at the name.
“Wait, who’s Arstak?” Dakkon asked. The name sounded somehow familiar.
Sift answered in Cline’s stead. “He is god of chance, good and bad.”
“Oh,” said Dakkon. “He’s the deity of that forgotten temple we found.”
Sift looked surprised. “I do not know of any such place,” he said. “May I ask what it is you saw there?”
Dakkon shrugged. “The temple collapsed but it had been mostly cleared out long before we set foot inside.”
“I see,” said Sift. “That is too bad. It is rumored that lost temples may contain artifacts crafted by the gods themselves.”
Dakkon’s mouth tugged into a thin line and Cline stared deeply into the fire.
“As a monk, you learn about the gods, right?” asked Dakkon. “Are they real entities in this world or just a part of the backstory?”
“I have a little understanding—though most instruction has been on ancestor spirits,” Sift replied. “To answer your query, yes. They may walk among men when they deign to.”
“You don’t suppose finding a god’s relic and smashing it would piss off said god, do you?” Dakkon inquired with poorly feigned disinterest.
While Sift weighed his response, a cleric waiting—bowl in hand—for the old man to produce stew took the presented opportunity to speak on a matter he had some knowledge of.
“That depends upon the god, I’d say,” said the cleric. “The name’s Barnaby, by the by.”
“Dakkon,” Dakkon said. “What if the relic was created by Daenara?”
“The god of growth, healing, and nurturing who’s generally associated with good deeds? I doubt you’d have anything to worry about,” replied Barnaby.
“What if the relic was a centerpiece in Arstak’s temple?” asked Dakkon.
“… err.” The question seemed to throw the cleric off stride. “Arstak is a tricky one. Well, he’s the trickster god of chance and fortune. He’s one of the more frequently thanked and cursed gods. I’d guess that breaking his thing would likely piss him off pretty good and thorough, though.”
“Peachy,” said Dakkon wryly. “If one had a god angry at them through whatever means, what could he—or she—do?” Dakkon’s tone was airy and unconcerned.
“Whatever the god wants to do, it’ll do,” said Barnaby. “They’re gods. They control the machinations of the world here.”
“How do you mean, exactly?” asked Dakkon. He could vaguely remember learning a bit about the roles of gods in the past, but he wanted to know more. “They have an actual role in Chronicle?”
“Well, yes. A big one,” said Barnaby. “Each god is the ultimate authority on the mechanics it governs. The way I understand it—to use Arstak as an example—whenever random decisions are required, the game’s lower-order AI automatically makes the millions of necessary calls instantly. If some decision is too complex, it goes to the next order of chance-determining AI to be instantly and automatically determined. This is how everything runs so smoothly despite the overwhelming complexity of it all. Supposedly, when that higher rung of AI is unable to decide on the appropriate outcome, the decision is made by Arstak himself.” Barnaby scratched his scruffy beard and shot a glance toward the old man who was still preparing the stew. “To have the final authority of decision making, the gods were given personalities which the lower and upper AI both lack.”
“So, gods are basically the tie-breakers for basic decision making?” asked Dakkon.
“Essentially,” replied Barnaby. “But, supposedly, the two levels of AI are so effective that the gods rarely ever have anything to deliberate. I’ve heard that according to their whims, gods can influence, change, or outright decide outcomes related to their respective domain, though. I guess you could say that Arstak would always be able to decide how a pair of dice rolled.”
“Don’t gamble against the God of Luck. I think I can remember that one,” said Dakkon.
“Not if there’s any chance of losing,” corrected Sift.
“Oh,” said Barnaby. “Yes. Well said.”
“All right,” said Dakkon. “The God of Chance controlling random events seems pretty straightforward, but life and death are fairly similar concepts with a murky gray middle ground, so which god does what?”
“The in-game teachings don’t expressly answer mechanical questions like that outright, so it takes a bit of inferring to really get anywhere, but I’d guess that Daenara controls when NPCs are born, monsters spawn, how living things are healed, and the like. Syvil, the God of Death, then controls when mobs die, corpses despawn, and how things are damaged.”