Frostbound

Chapter 272 - Campfire Stories

"Alright everyone. Great job!" I clapped to get everyone's attention. "Go get some rest!"

The time for preparing was over. What could be done was done, and only the Pure Crafters were left with last-minute touch-ups.

They weren't participating in the fighting the following day so they could afford to wear themselves out straight up until the timer hit zero.

Some were assigned to man the siege weapons, but there were far more builders than there were slots available for that.

The mood in the camp was tense. Everyone knew what tomorrow held, and that naturally raised tension levels. Most were sitting around fire pits chatting with friends, while others played games to distract themselves from the ticking clock.

One only had to look up at the alien obelisk to see it.

00:15:32:12

Fifteen and a half hours until the battle would begin.

As I walked through our camp, I spotted a few people sneaking drinks that they had stashed away to calm the nerves.

Beer, mead, and alcohol were all making a comeback now that the initial wave of food scarcity was evening out. We had allocated grain fields for exactly that back home in addition to the fields for food and animal feed.

Some took it upon themselves to make homemade brews or fermented wines and now that it was the night before, people were breaking open the stash.

If this was before the Change, leaders would throw a fit at the possibility of their army being hungover for a battle but that wasn't really a thing anymore. [Cleanse], anti-intoxication potions, and high Vitality all worked to flush the system of booze much faster than Before.

A Healer could cure both intoxication and the following hangover from being an issue so it was easy to let people do what they wished.

Everywhere I could see was doing it. The noise levels gradually rose as night descended and affairs began to get rowdier because of it. This would be their last night for some.

Their last chance to do anything.

Stop thinking negatively.

That was another thing that became more pronounced. My thoughts turned much darker as our time ran out. It was hard not to think about how many people we would have to bury tomorrow.

It brought back unwanted memories of the tutorial. Where we would all go to bed before a Wave wondering which of our family wouldn't be with us the next night.

The feelings were similar and it was hard to push them away.

Instead, I focused on the smells of campfire cooking. The sound of laughter as stories were exchanged. The good, instead of the bad.

My own family were sitting fireside. Austin was telling a story from his travels but without the kids here, he kept it mostly tame and less exaggerated. He was our source of the outside world as not many had gone out to see it.

Rachel took her turn to tell her story as well, and now that I had the time, I stuck around to listen.

"I wandered around mostly in search of a fire treasure," she began, "The map depicted something fire-related to the Southeast past old Toronto, so I headed there in hopes of finding it."

She shuddered for a moment, "What Austin described of the outside world didn't do it justice. People saw that I was alone and... well, the rest doesn't need to be described."

"Anyway," she brightened up, "I came across smaller towns and small hideouts trying to sustain a safe area to live and survive. Most were welcoming and friendly but there were some that got reduced to ashes.

"Bandits especially were more pronounced. That wasn't something I'd dealt with before but now I've grown sick of them. My trip wasn't all bad as the sights were out of this world..."

She stopped her story for a moment and her eyes were looking at sights long passed.

"Niagara Falls was beautiful and that doesn't even begin to describe the Great Lakes. They're more like Oceans now. They have waves that are nearly as tall!"

She settled back into the story, "Eventually, I came across what I was looking for but there was already a city set up around it. I wasn't the first that noticed the vibrant fire mana on the map and set out in search.

"That was when I found the Eternal Flame Faction. Turns out, there was actually an Eternal flame there before the terraforming."

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Austin cut in, "Wait a minute. Are you telling me there was a perpetual flame before magic?"

"That's what they said. I don't know that much about it but there were supposedly Nine Eternal Flames in the world before the Change. Something about Natural gas flowing up and keeping a fire sustained." She answered.

"So it wasn't magic, but ignited gas coming up from the ground," Austin said like it was less impressive.

"Yes, and there were times that it'd go out and have to be relit," Rachel said.

"Bah," Austin scoffed, "Eternal Flame my ass. It's not eternal if you have to relight it."

"Well, it's eternal now," Rachel said smugly. "It was changed to a continuous outpour of fire mana and the flame rages like a burning bonfire constantly. It was something to look at."

"I may have to come take a peek. It sucks it was already discovered but that's fine." Austin suggested.

"It's harder than it looks." Rachel said, "They're very protective over who can see it and get close."

"That's understandable," Abigail jumped in, "I know from Marcus's treasure. That feeling is indescribable."

I felt a little left out. Our family with the Water affinity got to experience it and now so did Rachel. I wouldn't be surprised if Vinny made the trip to do the same.

Those of us without those affinities were left only imagining such a feeling.

"I worked here and there for them. Taught what I knew. Killed the occasional wandering beast or rogue monster. The Dungeons they had were delved constantly so we didn't have to worry about any breaks.

"It took a while but they eventually let me in to see it. Forging my Core was difficult but not overly so. After I was done, word had already spread about the obelisk and I figured I'd meet you guys here so I hitched a ride with them."

"Wait a sec," Austin said, "You said before that their Faction is one built on strength. Could you have... barged in to see it if you wanted? Are you stronger than, uh, what's her name?"

"Vanessa, and no." Rachel shook her head, "By the time I got there she'd already formed her core. She was stronger than me. It also didn't help she was already a Baron."

"You know that for a fact?" I asked.

She nodded, "Yes, unless everyone I spoke to was lying, she's already a Baron."

Austin asked a different question, "Could you beat her now?"

Rachel thought about it for a second, "I'm not sure. Probably not but it would be close. Fighting someone with the same element is hard and the fact we're both mages doesn't make it easier. We're both heavily resistant to fire which makes gauging such a fight difficult.

"I have more control than she does but she has more explosiveness, if that makes sense." She said.

"But what about your Dragon Bloodline?" Austin asked.

"She actually has a Dragon Bloodline of her own." Rachel said, "And her Law is also Tier 2. She hasn't refined her Body that I know of so I have the advantage there but mages hardly rely on that."

"Fire types and your love for Dragons." Austin muttered, "Phoenixes are clearly better."

"If you guys are so similar, why do you say she would win?" Abigail asked and it was a thought I had myself. Austin's mutterings were ignored.

"A few reasons. Many of her skills are for high single-target damage while many of mine are spread out for more area. I still have a few that I can rely on, but she has more. I also think she has more stat points than me.

"Chef doesn't give the same amount of stat points as City Lord. Now that she upgraded to Baron, she'll get more than me anyway. Unless I can find a way to upgrade my Profession a few times in my next evolution, she'll have the edge there."

Rachel started out as a Cook and had since upgraded it to Chef over the years. It was a growing issue for her because she didn't like it very much. She picked it in the first place because it was something we needed during the tutorial.

Changing it was on her list of things to do but that was easier said than done. Usually, switching Professions was easy. Rip the old one out and plug the new one in.

It took away all the stat points achieved and was incredibly painful, but it was possible.

The problem was after you evolved once or twice. Professions didn't start at H-rank like our Classes did. They began at G-rank and evolved to F-rank at level 25. They evolved a second time at level 50 to E-rank.

Each evolution was a chance to guide your profession in a way you desired. Like how I went from Blacksmith to Runic Blacksmith to Runesmith.

Switching brought you back to the base of your Rank, not all the way back to the start. For people in the F-rank, that wasn't a big deal. They would only miss out on one evolution when there were plenty more to go.

For people in E-rank, the problem got bigger, but it wasn't that bad. One evolution and 6 skills weren't that bad to miss out on. Two evolutions and 12 skills was larger and harder to swallow.

The problem was Rachel was a bit of a perfectionist. If she was going to go through the process of switching, she wanted to do it right and go all the way back to the beginning.

The only problem with that was it would take a while to catch back up. We'd gone from one fight to the next with little time for reprieve. If she went back down to zero, it would take her a few years to level all the way back up to 100.

If she wanted to evolve both her Class and Profession at the same time, gaining the bonus, she'd be stuck at the peak of E-rank for a few extra years.

Plus, it required certain resources and a ritual to do. Or certain treasures instead.

Things we didn't have.

Her current plan was to push her Chef class to 100, evolve and gain the bonus, then remove it and start from scratch. That way, she'd be able to level in D-rank while also rebuilding her Profession.

The bonus applied to do what we called 'Perfect Evolutions' only mattered for the higher ranked of the two. Which in Rachel's case, was her Class. It was a whole different can of worms if the thing you wanted to change was your higher ranked of the two.

There was also risk involved. Removing that many stat points wasn't just painful, it was potentially fatal. That was another reason that treasures were required. They eased the burden on the body and made it less traumatic.

Most of that didn't matter to me because I liked my Profession. It wasn't something I had to go through.

Before Rachel could go on, a member of Hal's Scout Order came up to me.

"Sir, you have a visitor." The man said.

I had tried to get Order members to be less formal but I was realizing that it was an effort in futility. Hell, Sophia still called me my Lord. Sir was the best I could get them to go.

I was lucky bowing was easier to get rid of.

"Oh," I said surprised. Most of the Factions and already come by. This last one was relatively late to the punch. It was also annoying that it dragged me away from a relaxing night before our test.

"Did they give a name?" I asked.

"She did, sir. Tracy Strong and she said you know her." The man stated.

Tracy's here? She didn't strike me as someone to participate in this test.