Frozen Stars Over Wonderland - Chapter 9 (Patreon)

They traveled several more days, fighting every encounter they came across as they went, before arriving at their destination. It looked very much like an old, abandoned, overgrown farm. The farmhouse was in a state of disrepair, its paint pealing, it’s shudders falling off, and several of its windows were cracked or outright broken. 

“I think I prefer our tent,” Spica muttered as they approached. 

“It’s not as bad on the inside,” Elias said. “At least, that’s what Ren told me.” 

Indeed, the farmhouse was far less disastrous on the inside. True, there was a thick layer of dust over everything, and the floorboards creaked noisily as they entered, but it reminded Alfre much of her little cottage. 

“There’s a water pump and a large, metal tub outside,” Izo informed them after poking his head out the back door. “I bet if we really wanted a bath, we could light a fire and heat the water that way.” 

“Not sure how I feel about taking a bath in the open air,” Alfre admitted.

“Oh, it’s wonderful darling,” Spica insisted. “Think of it like skinny dipping.”

“Never done that, either.”

“What a boring life you must have led.” 

“Thanks…”

“There’s only two rooms upstairs with beds,” Elias said. “Izo will take the single bed in the guest room. Spica and Alfre can share the master bed. I’ll take the couch down here. Sound fair?”

“Fair enough,” Izo agreed. “What should we do first?” 

“Got any wind spells that can clear the dust out of here?” Spica asked, wiping a finger along the edge of an end table and wrinkling her nose in disgust at the layer of dust that stuck to it. 

“I have one,” Izo answered. “It’s not very powerful, but it might do the trick. Open some doors and windows for me. Then you might want to get out.”

Alfre, Elias, and Spica rushed around the farmhouse, opening windows gently and throwing open doors. Then they high tailed it out into the front yard and waited. 

“Liten Vind!” Izo called.

A burst of crisp, sweetly scented air burst from the house, bringing with it a cloud of dust. A loud sneeze sounded from inside the house. Followed by two more in quick succession. 

“You alright, Izo?” Alfre shouted through the open door.

“Peachy,” Izo replied, stepping into her line of sight. “I think most of the dust is gone…a good chunk of it up my nose, but that’s neither here nor there.”

“Wonderful,” Spica crooned, striding past them. “Now this place is actually livable.”

Alfre rolled her eyes. 

The next morning they rose early to eat a quick breakfast before heading out into the farmland. They wouldn’t find many goblins, according to Ren, but they would find lots of wild boars, monstrous rats, and small, ferret like creatures with plant and flowerlike growths on them called florrets. Those were the tricky buggers, as they had pollen attacks that caused status effects like poison or paralysis that were a pain to deal with, especially for lower level players. 

Boars were easy to deal with, because their attack pattern was just to charge in a straight line and then stand still for a minute or two and then turn and charge in a straight line in a different direction. Boars were child’s play. Even Izo could deal damage to a boar once it entered its cool down period. 

The rats were a little trickier, but even they were fairly easy to deal with. Their attacks were more random and harder to predict than the boar, but they didn’t deal much damage when they landed a hit and were quickly disposed by long ranged attacks. Alfre only had her one distance attack, and the cool down period for it was too long to make it viable save for a finishing move, but Izo, Elias, and Spica had plenty of low level, long ranged attacks that could be fired off one after another. 

At the end of the day, they would hunker down in the abandoned farmhouse, because no one wanted to deal with the stuff that came out at night. Night was dangerous in Wonderland, every monster that appeared was higher leveled then the creatures that came out during the day. Higher leveled, and just plain nuts when it came to attack patterns and status conditions they could inflict. No, they were not dealing with the nighttime monsters, not for a while.

At one point, Elias showed Izo and Alfre how to allocate the skill points they earned during level ups. Every stat gained a few points during the level up process, but each player also earned a handful of points they could allocate to different stats to customize their playing style. He had plenty of advice for Izo, who needed lots of defense and wisdom if he wanted to last on the battle field and have plenty of magic points to cast spells as necessary. Alfre, however, was on her own. She was the first of her class he’d ever met, the only one in the city of Spade. No one knew the best way to play a Winter Blade. Alfre knew two things: she wanted to be strong, and she wanted to be fast. So the majority of her skill points went into her attack and speed stat. Spica warned her that being a glass cannon was only useful when you had tanks or healers to back you up. Izo suggested that it wouldn’t really matter that she was fragile if nothing could hit her in the first place. Elias ended the argument saying it was Alfre’s choice, and Alfre’s choice alone how she built her character. Spica obviously wasn’t convinced, but she didn’t argue. 

Both Alfre and Izo earned new skills during their time at the farmhouse. He learned new, more powerful healing spells, some of which also came with buffs, and a few offensive techniques, mostly having to do with plants or wind. Alfre’s techniques just seemed like variations on the first: either shooting a larger spear of ice at a monster or shooting lots of little spears of ice at a monster. It wasn’t until she reached level fifteen that she got something a little different. By jamming her sword into the ground, she could cast what Elias called an ‘area of effect’ spell that froze the ground and not only damaged any enemies caught within the circle, but slowed them as well. ‘Talamh Reòta’ it was called. Frozen Ground. The game developers weren’t very creative with their names. 

She felt a little bad that neither Spica nor Elias was gaining much experience during their training. Sure they got the same amount of experience points as she and Izo did, but it didn’t mean nearly as much to them, given their higher levels. Where she and Izo had already gained three levels each within the first few days, Spica took a week to gain one, and that was even with her being about half way to the next level before they even started. She did gain a new ability with her level up, a higher-level poison that did far more damage and lasted much longer than the poison she had before. True it didn’t come with any special debuffs like lots of her lower level poisons, but if she wanted to deal damage, she now had a better way to do it. 

As much of a good experience it was, Alfre quickly got bored of fighting the same three monsters every day. Especially since the farmland was teeming with monsters at all hours of the day. She was starting to miss the goblins. And even the Ursa Major. Just a little. But was she going to go off on her own and try to take on the nasties that haunted the Wilds? No! Of course not! She was bored, not stupid. Besides, Elias had promised they’d take on a dungeon on their way back to the city. That should more than make up for any boredom she was dealing with. 

Her and Izo’s levels rose steadily over the several weeks she and her mentors stayed at the farmhouse. By the time they left, she was twice as strong as she had been the day they arrived. Izo, who had come at a lower level than her, was almost just as strong. Elias lent him a higher level staff the druid could use until they got back to the city and bought him a proper druid staff that would last him a little longer than the starting item. Alfre was in need of a new weapon as well. Her damage output exceeded the maximum damage her rapier could inflict upon an opponent. It was frustrating to see her knocking off twenty five hit points each strike when she knew her spells should be dealing twice that damage at least. But unlike Izo, no one else in the party used the same weapon class as she did. Elias and Izo used staves, and Spica relied on what were known as ‘hidden weapons’. So Alfre was left with her pathetic little starting rapier until they could get back. Unless they found some particularly good loot in the dungeon that is.  

Alfre marked the location of their little farmhouse on her map before they left, just like she did with her little cottage. It would be nice, she thought, to come back to this place and renovate it into an actual, official training camp. Or maybe it’d be nice just to have a little farmhouse to go to every now and then.   

The trip back was less of a march and more of a casual stroll. They didn’t need to fight every random encounter that came their way anymore, but they certainly didn’t complain about the extra experience points. It was nice to see the goblins again, after going so long without fighting them. 

“If we keep going this way, we’ll pass by the Briarwood Thorns dungeon,” Elias mentioned, staring at his map as they continued their trek through the woods. “It’s the lowest level dungeon that Canus’ controls. Mostly level fifteen to twenty enemies. Might be just the right amount of challenge for you.”

“I suppose you did tell him we’d stop by,” Spica said thoughtfully. “I haven’t done one of his dungeons in months, years even. I wonder how much easier the Briarwood Howler is now that I’m not a newbie anymore.”

“Briarwood Howler?” Alfre repeated, looking over her shoulder at her two friends.

“That’s the dungeon boss,” Elias clarified. “All of the dungeons run by Canus have a wolf boss at the end of them. They give pretty good loot. I bet it’s changed since the expansion pack.” 

“You might find a new sword, Alfre!” Izo encouraged, clutching at the alder staff Elias had lent him. 

Alfre perked up at that. “How far until the dungeon, Elias?”

“We’ll probably get there late morning tomorrow,” he replied. “Midmorning if we’re fast.”

Alfre grinned. “Then let’s go fast!”

“Alfre, wait!”

“Ah…” Spica muttered. “She’s gone. Told you we should have encouraged her to hold off on boosting her speed so much.”