Chapter 35: 'As long as it works out, it was a good idea. If it does not work out, it was a good lesson.'

When we finally reached the Elder Oak little more than an hour after setting out with only three confrontations along the way, I greeted Sir Beryl and for the first time formally introduced my friends who were now all together. After several minutes of pleasantries, I told everyone to wake me up in four hours and then laid down to sleep.

Four hours later just before the sun had completely peaked in the top of the sky I was crudely kicked awake for two Health Points. The perpetrator was none other than Papi who seemed dissatisfied with the results. "It really is decent armor," he remarks in an offhand way while he walks away, wearing dusk and goblin armor just like the rest of us.

Coming over to where I quickly set to work preparing meats on spits to be roasted, Sir Beryl says, "Your friends are quite interesting, Hack, especially the halfling giant. I have a little of the hills in my blood, myself, so it was nice to see someone of the giant race. Fey are even more rare, especially one so smart and charming. The merchant, though… they're a merchant, I naturally don't like him."

"Despite their level and whatever you might think right now, they're one of the most skilled stealth assassins for both ranged kills and personal executions," I inform Sir Beryl seriously. "I think he chose the merchant class partly because of the weapons debuff challenging his skills and because he likes to sunbathe in a tub of money."

"I knew there was a reason why I did not like him," the old knight remarks without much care for the fact that I had my own assassin. Though, I technically had more than one. "What about the rest of your troupe?"

"Troupe? Like actors?" I ask dryly, bringing a slight smirk to the old knight's stubbly face. "Honestly, not much. Though they don't look it because she's an elf, she's actually the daughter of the guy who kicked me. They guy who kicked me knows three different martial arts with and without weapons. I've known the half-orc and his sister with the bow for most of my life, we grew up together. Everyone else I met later for various reasons. Hell, The big cat and the halfling summoner are adoptive siblings I met in Sierra who are… Travelers, like me."

Giving me a somewhat surprised look, Sir Beryl remains silent for a few moments as both Cweeper and I cook meet over the fire as though it were perfectly normal. Then, almost as if to himself, he murmurs, "I had heard stories about Travelers for a long time, but to finally see it is a strange thing indeed. You and most of your troupe, at least, are good people."

"I keep the merchant in line," I assure him quickly. "As for strange… let's agree to disagree. What you call weird is what I call naturally inclined to achieve. May I show off my information to you without it changing how you think of me?"

"No, but I still want to see," he says before barking out a short and rough laugh that draws the attention of everyone in the area. I did not even bother replying but asked Melpomene to display my Character page to Sir Beryl. When he saw the window open before his eyes, he stopped laughing and quickly focused on my information.

He actually touched the screen like I sometimes did whenever I did not think to do it simply by thought. Usually because I was using my inventories at the time.

After several minutes of skimming and reading, he says, "As a classless, your stats are too low for your level. For someone who fights like you do, your Agility at least should be fifty before you reach level twenty-five. This alone will save you a fair amount of trouble in the future. As for your titles, I'm very proud of you. Even if you did not tie yourself to Lady Mara and Ms. Lana your future would be full of options. The potential you show in such a short time is a great deal."

"It was not until last night that I even got my first Agility points outside of leveling, now I have this armor that gives me- well, you could see it," I say after remembering he has been able to see everything on my character at the time.

"Yes, I did, and it is really something to be proud of for one as young as yourself," he agrees. Then points out, "However, certain other materials could have been used in certain places that would have increased the overall durability as well enhancement of your armor."

Looking off to the side while trying not to be too proud, I say, "That's what Skooma's armorer friend said, but they still bought the rights to my designs to my seven-piece outfit for thousands of gold as well as promising us free use of their shop and free sets of their improved design. I was too short on materials to make coats for everyone but we still have six!"

"A suit of your armor would be around seven hundred gold, so the price you got was not the worst," Sir Beryl admits. "The armorer will take your high grade experiment and sell improved suits for over a thousand gold while investing less than what your suit is worth in the grand scheme of things."

Feeling as though I was being chastised, I say, "I have friends at the Golden Ferry Chamber of Commerce, one of their better clerks and their Grand Alchemist, I can use the two of them to help supply me with bulk materials from outside the region. With the mild exotic flavor as well as our previous history working together, I can make the armorer pay more on the next set to make up for anything I lost previously while still supplying my team with versions I let them improve."

Nodding calmly while getting up and looking over toward my friends gathered around the tunnel entrance to look inside, Sir Beryl says, "As long as it works out, it was a good idea. If it does not work out, it was a good lesson. Remember that, my young friend. Oi, it's dangerous to be so close," He calls out suddenly while walking away, making my comrades fearfully and respectfully retreat from the Elder Oak Passage."

Only ten minutes later the first wave of meat was done cooking and I called in my teammates to collect their shares of the thickened meat sticks that now healed twenty points apiece. Then I simply started on cooking the second wave after making sure everybody received ten pieces. That was about half of what I expected we would need even with our healer count.

When the second wave of meat was done I divided it up once again before feeding both Cweeper and Duck some food and walking away. "Time to drill our formations!" I call out, gathering everybody near the tunnel once again.

Placing Agnes and Lil on the same side of the tunnel, I place Oleander and Ivana on the other side while giving them the familiars they had in their possession. Merch and Stonewall, surprisingly, had not bothered to capture any animals yet even though Oleander made a point of nagging them about our overall potential firepower. Even she had a tree dragon.

In the very middle of our front line stood Stonewall with his enormous shield resting on the ground in front of him. To his left and right were heavily light armored Papi and Skooma followed by Merch and Go even further out to the sides. I was precariously perched at the very back of the top of the tunnel with my new bow and a large quiver of arrows at hand.

Thanks to the work of our exhibitionist- rather, our wonderful alchemist, everybody was now equipped with either a basic elder root longbow that did thirty damage or a recurve version that did eight more damage. This alone was pretty much half of a goblin's life but the arrows she provided while in the smithy dealt an additional thirteen damage apiece. Archers were usually a low damage class that relied on stealth, critical hits, and things like poisons or enchantments for an edge.

These bows were already over powered for our current levels and hunting grounds, but a critical with this combination was a certain kill with my new Elder Recurve Root.

As if adding insult to injury, Oleander had spent her spare time and money at the smithy collecting materials from everywhere to make random items and requests from the team after making the weapons I asked such as Ivana's new Gilded Elder Bokuto. The blades were encased in bronze with with bands that wrapped around the spine of the enhanced Elder Bokuto within. This gilding not only made the weapon more defensive against magical attacks but also increased the conductivity for mages while increased the weight and damage for everybody else.

A plain enhanced Elder Bokuto did twenty-five damage, but the bronze shell on Ivana's and Merch's secondary swords raised their damage to twenty-eight. As well, the other front liners and I all had Galvanized Elder Bokuto that were made with a copper-steel alloy for similar purposes but for thirty damage.

Go's new battleaxe only did a few more damage than the axes I made him but it was a lighter design than the previous giant wood ax for faster attack speeds and less stamina consumption. Papi's new hammer was the same design as before with the same weight but there were two pounds removed from the head and placed in the balance point of the shaft for increased attack speeds. Both of their weapons all exceeded thirty damage either by a few or by a lot.

Skooma was now equipped with a pair of Midnight Elder Fullers as his primary weapons with increased weights, giving the fifteen-pound swords thirty-six damage apiece while his ten-pound Bokuto were ready at his hips. Oleander and Lil worked together with Lil's hired apprentice to make a steel cored spear shaft from elder root wood to make a longer spear that performed the same damage as the Galvanized Elder Bokuto she requested.

Agnes spent her money shopping around some of the night shops near the smithy for materials and had a new staff made. Because it was made with green-gold electrum for metal it had a physical damage just above twenty with a large multi-crystalline head but its physical durability as a magic was comparable to a primitive weapon. Her magic damage output, though, had gone up by nearly half.

Stonewall, God bless his creepy heart, had already been using a macabre sidearm Oleander made for him using the spines and skulls of three goblins to make a large fused mace that was smiling in three directions. Now, though, the mace had been cored with elder root wood and the skulls were condensed to a smaller size with a greater density comparable to iron.

That way the skulls were proportionate to kriss-like blades sticking out of their mouths like tongues. The damage went up from eight to twenty-eight in just a few minutes of work. With some luck and forced effort, Oleander might soon be able to unlock new crafting abilities in her class such as proper enchantments.

The day would soon come when the entire front line was capable of unleashing AOE attacks just like our mages but without spending any of their own mana. As it was, we all meticulously plotted out our moves for the first few rounds. Taking advantage of the fact that each of us would be thrown one goblin at the start and most of us had at least one familiar, we would spend the first two or maybe even three goblin rounds directly feeding our familiars the killing blows.

When this became too dangerous around the fourth round we would return to holding the goblins inside the tunnel while wearing their numbers down. There were ten people in this party and that meant ten exponential goblins would be coming at us for every round. After we received more goblins than familiars, it was time to get greedy again.

This was what I intended, but from the very start Duck and Darkwing would drop from the tree on their own goblins and fly back up to deal with them high up and out of sight.