Ero Skill Tree

Chapter Forty-Two: Early Morning Fun With Altria

The next day I woke not long after dawn. I felt strangely refreshed, it was nice to have slept for the entire night without any interruptions. I dressed and quietly made my way downstairs to see if anyone else was already awake. It was quiet down there as I first made my way into the living room. No one was there, so I headed to the kitchen where I found Altria. She was quietly sat enjoying a cup of tea, so I pulled up a seat at the table and joined her.

"How are you feeling today?" I asked.

"Okay." She answered.

"What was that attack you used yesterday? The one that brought the ceiling down." I asked wanting to keep a conversation going.

"Oh that, it was the highest form of magic I possess, after the summoning technique that is."

"It looks pretty dangerous and draining."

"It is. One false move down there and we all would have died."

"No wonder Lillia seemed a little worried about you using that."

"Yeah. Well it turned out okay in the end."

"It did... I was pretty worried for a bit back then. I thought Serin had killed it, but then it threw her across the room like it was nothing."

"They are troublesome creatures. We were lucky that it was only one of them."

"Is it common to find more than one of them at a time?"

"It was just strange that it was there in the first place."

"How powerful is that creature? I mean are we likely to fight something that strong in the dungeon at Lintz?"

"The demon lord's officer will be considerably stronger than that creature."

"How will we be able to take them when we struggled with that ogre?"

"We'll manage, Serin was just unlucky that the ogre got an arm free when she was going in close like that. It shouldn't have happened. She's brought cave ogres down more than once. The problem with them is their healing ability and their power. In an enclosed space like that they're dangerous. It wasn't the blow that injured her, it was the impact with the wall."

"It's just after seeing Serin being injured like that I'm a little nervous. She's supposed to be an almost unrivalled swordswoman, but for a moment yesterday I thought she'd died."

"Don't let it get to you too much, she wasn't killed. But it should be a warning to you, no matter how powerful or skilled you are, it only takes a moments bad luck to end your life."

"I'll try not too... It doesn't normally go down like that though, does it?"

"No, no it doesn't. That was really unlucky, another couple of strikes and that creature would have gone down. You would have thought nothing more of it, perhaps it was better this way. The truth of being an adventure is like this. Most aren't killed by an adversary stronger than them, most are killed by a moments lapse of concentration or bad luck in a situation that they can normally handle. You should remember that."

"I will... You don't seem too worried."

"I still worry, but I've been an adventurer for a long time. I've just got better at not showing it."

"Hmm."

"But you did well yesterday. Considering what happened, I've seen veteran adventurers go to pot when something unexpected like that happens."

"Thanks... I didn't feel like it at the time."

"You kept your head. That's what you need to do in those situations."