Blood Shaper

Book 2: Chapter 15

Kay checked the area around him again before sitting down on a convenient rock and starting to draw. The charcoal pencil was much more familiar in his hand after hours and hours of use. He hadn’t started as a great artist, but a combination of the Drawing Skill and actual dedicated work put into getting better had, to his great surprise, made him better. He glanced up from his paper to make sure he was getting the angle of the mountain right as he sketched it out. As he drew his charcoal maps, he was making other, more detailed sketches of specific areas. It was partially to record, partially to keep him accurate when he eventually transcribed the charcoal maps into a more permanent version, but mostly it was because he was enjoying it. He liked fighting, he liked training and growing stronger, but he’d also discovered that he liked drawing and making maps.

Kay finished the final touches on his sketch of the mountainside and put away his supplies. He glanced up at the sun to determine the time. “Around noon?” He muttered to himself. Looking down into the valley, he thought through his plans for the day. Just this…? Yeah, that’s all I remember. So… He grabbed his maps and perused through them. “The overhead maps aren’t bad…” He put them all away and grabbed a blank piece of paper. I’m probably just used to satellite imagery, but I’m not happy with how detailed these are. I guess I’ll just do a walk-through and do the best I can.

He started jogging towards the southern entrance to the valley. It took him about half an hour to get there, and when he did, he got his fresh piece of paper back out and started recording as much detail as possible as he walked down into the valley. I wonder if we have any ink? Or a big enough piece of paper to use to make the whole map. He grunted in annoyance as his thoughts started tracking towards the big problem he was mulling over. Fine, I’ll ponder the idea for a while, I guess.Where will we get supplies? The closest city I know of is Tumbling Rapids, which is a big trade center, so that’s good. It’s a fair bit of a trek to get there, though, so we’d have to plan ahead. We could use Eleniah’s spatial bag to carry a lot, and it’d be faster than trying to haul things with a cart like the dwarves did. They left months before we did, and we got into the area two days after them.

As he walked and drew, he kept thinking over issues and problems that could hinder the formation of a new settlement. He was searching for a deal-breaker, a reason why they couldn’t make a new place here. If it was impossible in the first place, he wouldn’t actually have to decide.

He couldn’t find that deal-breaker, though.

It would be challenging, but I’m pretty sure it would be possible. He admitted silently to himself. I’ll need to talk it over with Eleniah and maybe Meten since they have the experience to tell me if I’m wrong. He furrowed his brow. I think? Maybe they don’t? He shook his head. Whatever just have to ask.

He made it to the edge of the base a few hours later, having filled out another three pieces of paper with more detailed notes, drawings, and measurements for his map. He made a few more notations about the area around the base, noting how the available land narrowed as part of the lake jutted out and the shape of the cliff that rose above them.

He noticed his notification light flashing in the corner of his vision and pulled them up with a thought.

“…That’s a new one.” He muttered as he read them over. “I’m definitely asking about this before I decide.”

Eleniah was chatting with Meten and Ahthia in the ‘dining’ building, which was also serving as a gathering point.

“Hey!” Kay greeted them as he stepped inside. “Darten made some furniture?”

The three of them were sitting around a square table that jutted out from the floor, with their butts in small chairs that were literally just blocks of stone.

“Yeah, he threw this together before the others grabbed him to make them some rooms inside the cliff.” Ahthia pointed south. “He made them an opening in it, and they’re slowly burrowing their way in. Well, Darten is, with Senik and a couple others watching. Devon went with a few more to fell some trees for wood furniture.” She patted the stone table, “Stuff like this might work for those hill-down folks, but we’re hill-up, and I’d rather be comfortable.”

“What?”

“Oh right, sorry.” She blushed a little, “Hill-down are the folks that live underground back in Clan lands, hill-up are people like us who lived, or live, above ground.” She looked in the direction of where Darten was making rooms for them. “Senik says that digging some rooms into the cliff and having balconies will be the best of both worlds, but I’m not so sure about that. I like being able to look out multiple windows.”

“Well,” Kay took a seat in the fourth and last stone chair, “I can say that there were people in what is now part of my home nation that built their cities into the sides of cliffs, and as far as we can tell they did pretty well for themselves.”

Ahthia looked thoughtful as she digested that.

Eleniah nudged him with her elbow. “How was your walk?”

“It was good. Got some good drawing done, got a lot of detail of the southern portion of the valley. I’ll be going north next, checking out the parts none of us have been in.” He looked at Meten, “You two didn’t go much deeper past the trees, right?”

“Right. We made it about fifty or sixty feet past where you found us and set up camp there.”

Eleniah grasped his shoulder. “Be careful.”

“I will,” Kay reassured her. “I’m thinking about taking someone with me, but we’ll see. I’m feeling a little bit better about traipsing off alone, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Besides that, though, I hit level five in Cartography.”

They all grinned and congratulated him.

“Did you take the class?” Meten asked.

“That’s the thing; it’s offering me two of them.”

[~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~]

- Skill: Cartography has reached level five!

- New Class Available!

- Class: Novice Cartographer Available!

- New Class Available!

- Class: Novice Mapmaker Available!

*Please choose one Class. The other option will be lost until criteria are met again.

[~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~]

“It says I have to pick between Novice Mapmaker and Novice Cartographer.”

“Oh,” Eleniah leaned closer as if to see his screen. “Is Cartography one of those? I forgot about that.”

“ ’One of those’? What are you talking about?”

“Some Classes can share skills. Usually, you see that between different tiers of the same line, but Classes that are very similar but not of the same line share Skills. Very rarely, and it’s almost entirely non-combat Classes, there are Classes where the base Skill, the one that you need to get to unlock the Class, are the same. You can only pick one of the options for whatever reason and have to work to get the other one again. It’s weird, but…” Eleniah shrugged, “There’s a lot of things that can be described as weird.”

Kay stared at his notifications screen. “So I pick one if I want to. Then I level the Cartography skill and immediately get offered the other one again? That’s stupid. Why can’t I take both at once?”

“Some people think it’s because the World can’t impart the mana from both classes simultaneously,” Ahthia told him, joining the conversation. “They believe that whatever mechanic or natural law controls the bestowing of Classes can only function one at a time, so you have to trigger each one by themselves.”

“Most people who I know of that had the option for Classes like that ended up getting both of them since they work so well together. It gives you at least two classes that go really well together for fifth tier.” Eleniah added.

Kay mmm’d and stared at his screen some more, then shrugged.

[————————————————————]

Class: Novice Cartographer

- Maps are important tools for a variety of people. Traders and merchants need to know where to take their goods, rulers and leaders need to know what land they control, and soldiers and guards need to know what there is to protect. Cartographers are the people who explore the land, detail what there is and mark it down. A Novice Cartographer is a beginner at the trade of exploration and recording.

[————————————————————]

[————————————————————]

Class: Novice Mapmaker

- A good map is a work of art. Detailed, understandable, accurate, and most importantly, beautiful. Or at least, some think that way. Mapmakers are artists who take the hand-drawn sketches and not-to-scale outlines of areas and turn them into accurate maps and charts. A Novice Mapmaker is someone who is just starting in the discipline of map-making.

[————————————————————]

“It looks like Cartographer is more what I’ve been doing right now, and Mapmaker is what I want to do when I’m ready. Cartographers explore and record what they see and make quick maps; Mapmakers make detailed works of art that are more detailed.”

“So take Cartographer now and Mapmaker next,” Eleniah recommended.

“That’s two whole slots, though…” Kay muttered as he reread the descriptions.

“How many do you have left?” Meten asked.

Kay glanced at Eleniah for her recommendation, and she nodded with a small smile on her face.

“Four non-combat.”

“Oh, take them both for sure,” Meten said confidently. “That’s more than enough slots for future growth. Most people don’t get four non-combat slots total.”

Eleniah and Ahthia both nodded at him.

Kay took the advice of the more experienced people around him and took Novice Cartographer.

[~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~]

-New Class!

- Class: Novice Cartographer gained!

- New Skill!

- Skill: Spatial Determination gained!

- New Skill!

- Skill: Expanded Sight gained!

- New Skill!

- Skill: Sharpened Memory gained!

- New Skill!

- Skill: Stable Footing gained!

[~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~]

Kay blinked in shock. “I just got four new skills.”

“Oh, that’s a good Class, then.” Ahthia scratched at her face idly, “I haven’t actually talked to any Cartographers before.”

“Kay.” Eleniah placed her hand on top of his. “Do me a favor?”

“Yeah?”

“Go check out what’s north of us while there’s still daylight left.”

Kay narrowed his eyes at her silently.

She smiled. “We were having a bit of a talk about that decision you haven’t made.”

“That you don’t want me here for?”

She smiled wider. “I’m getting some more details before breaching the subject with you.”

“That doesn’t seem like a great start…” Kay slowly stood up from the table.

Eleniah chuckled. “Leaders of more than just a few people don’t usually have something immediately brought to their attention without pause. Things get brought to someone beneath them to see if it’s even worth bothering the leadership with. You just have to trust that the people doing that filtering have your best interests to heart.”

“I do trust you…”

Her smile became a wide grin. “Good. And thanks. Right now, it’s not that I think any of this isn’t worth your time; it’s that I want you to be able to make a real decision with all the facts. I’m pretty sure that right now, if you heard all the information with no structuring, you’d be influenced into a decision one way or the other. I’m trying to gather it all up and give it to you in a neutral way.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about that,” He grumbled while looking over the three of them. Meten and Ahthia just watched him quietly while Eleniah continued to grin.

“We can talk about it more later. For now, keep trusting me and go exploring.”

He opened his mouth, then slowly shut it. “Fine. I trust you.” He turned around and stepped off.

“Be safe.”

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