Rexus ~ Chapter 25!

As the sun rose over the Wolfman outpost, Jess and Jaxon stumbled back into town with a heavy load of bloody pelts and raw meat being dragged behind them. Jaxon smiled up at the Wolfmen on the wall who were looking down with amusement, letting go of his burden to wave. “Give you both meat, five chunk, you help lift?”

His terrible accent and word pronunciation made the Wolfmen wince, but they agreed and helped bring in the sticky mass of loot. Jaxon was pleased with the choices he had made over the course of the night. Firstly, he had only assigned five of his available points. This had brought his Acupressure skill back up to the Master Rank and had given him a secondary benefit in the form of a notification.

Title upgraded: Power’s Cost II. You have given up skill levels, not to combine them but to gain something greater. Now, through dedicated effort, you have regained the lost Master ranking! +2 to each stat except Karmic Luck! (Does not stack with Power’s Cost rank I).

This had caused his constitution stat to hit the benchmark of fifty points, and he had fallen to the ground writhing in pain until his body had become denser and far heartier. Luckily for him, this transition had mostly closed the open wounds on his arm formed by his T-Rex hand, but since he hadn’t given Jess any warning, she thought that he was poisoned or some other effect. She had a minor panic attack before realizing what was going on.

Over the course of the night, they had continuously hunted the Primates. Their plans to come back to town halfway through the night had been thwarted by the sheer number of opponents, but they had become somewhat accustomed to the sleep deprivation and had powered through… to great effect. Jaxon looked at the accumulated notifications as they walked toward the tanner in the town.

Skill increased: Aerial acrobatics (Beginner VII).

Skill increased: Battle Meditation (Novice IX).

Skill increased: Body Compression (Novice V).

Skill increased: Cloth Armor Mastery (Beginner IX).

Skill increased: Contortionist’s Dodge (Apprentice III).

Skill increased: Intimidation (Journeyman VII).

Skill increased: Jump (Apprentice V).

Skill increased: Living Weapons (Novice IX).

Experience gained: 400 (25 * Trial Primate x16)

Experience gained (Living Weapon): 2,000 (25 * Trial Primate x80)

Your Living Weapons have reached level 3!

It had been a great night in terms of increasing skills, and he had found that Battle Meditation had been used near constantly. Also, once he had regained his Master rank in Acupressure, he was nearly salivating over the information he once again had access to. He had a nearly overwhelming desire to bring Adjust back into the Master ranks, but something kept holding him back from making the commitment.

Thanks to generous usage over the night, he had also come to understand his living weapons to a higher degree. Jaxon hadn’t been certain what it would mean for them to have their own stat sheet, but it seemed that it created an additive effect with his own abilities. So, if his T-Rex heads were at thirty points of strength and Jaxon was at fifty, he could let them attack on their own, or he could put his own strength behind blows. This would turn that ‘thirty’ and ‘fifty’ into eighty points of strength being behind an attack. 

Of course, it wasn’t a perfect conversion, but the damage he saw was about what he would expect to see at that level. In terms of growth, the passive skill had easily increased the most over the night, which was nice, but Jaxon was most excited over his T-Rex Head Hands almost getting to the next tier. Something fun would happen; he was sure of it. Jaxon wanted to just make it happen but once more decided against spending the points. 

“These… useless,” the Tanner was complaining about some of the pelts they had turned in, specifically the ones that had been savaged by the Living Weapons. “I won’t take them.”

“I’m certain that you didn’t mention that a pelt had to be at a specific quality.” Jaxon’s eyes glittered savagely, though he held his smile in place. “I’m sure you wouldn’t go back on a quest reward now, right?”

Contrary to expectations, the Wolfman only chuffed in reply. “Who offered a quest? I told you what my rates were for work. You have enough here of a good enough quality… I’ll give you six cured pelts for all of this or four for only the non-trash quality ones.”

“Done!” Jaxon cheerfully replied. The Tanner nodded and retrieved six pelts, handing them over with his ears forward and twitching, both of which were obvious signs of excitement and happiness.

“Are you kidding me?” Jess hissed at him. “We made three trips to get all these hides into the outpost! There are almost ninety of them, and you are trading them for six?”

“What?” Jaxon glanced at her with a confused expression. “I only needed five!”

She scoffed as they walked to the Leatherworker, who took Jaxon’s measurements and told him to come back in a few hours. Jaxon gifted him the additional hide as a tip to get the best quality work. Then they went over to the communal dining area of the Wolfmen and made sure that all of the meat had made its way into the building.

Reputation increase: You have given the Wolfmen enough food to last their entire outpost a week if properly rationed. In this time of war, where their fighters are away, this will help the outpost thrive! +1200 reputation. Current reputation with Wolfmen: 0 (forced neutral). Actual reputation: -1000 (Cautious).

“Pain-power man!” a pup called over to Jaxon in its high-pitched voice. “You smell like poop-pit! Go to river, rising sun side of town!”

“Thank you, puppy!” Jaxon called back in English, getting only a cocked head in response. The pup didn’t know any words except its own people’s. “Look at that, Jess! I got enough reputation that people will tell me that I stink and where to find a river!”

“If I knew where it was, I would have taken you there myself a long time ago,” Jess muttered. “Whatever, at least we have something to do except sleep while we wait for your boots and gloves that couldn’t possibly take more than two hides to make.

They left the outpost and went to the river, disrobing and getting into the water when they found a spot that allowed for a bit of privacy for the both of them. After they were clean, they started doing their best to wash their clothes, then they waited in the water for the clothes to dry. 

*Hiss…* Jaxon looked over to see a snake rearing its head out of the water and swimming closer to him. He slowly started waving his arms and doing his best to distract the creature. It slowed, then began following the movements of his arms and undulating body. “Jess? Hey, Jess!”

“What?” the reply came from behind a curtain of hanging vines and leaves. 

“I’m charming a snake over here. Want to come over and take a look?” Jaxon called carefully.

“Why are men so disgusting? I don’t want to hear about it, Jaxon!” Jess’s tone was scathing. “I have no interest in your ‘one-eyed snake’!”

Jaxon took a closer look at the serpent in the water. Indeed, it seemed that this snake had been in a fight that had caused its eye to be replaced with scar tissue. “Oh-ho-ho! Spying on my side, are you? I didn’t even see that until you pointed it out, naughty girl! Oh, careful! It’s floating toward you!”

The snake, now calm, was allowing the river currents to drag it downstream. Jess didn’t seem to understand what he was saying until a minute later when a scream reached Jaxon’s ears, “Snake!”

“Yeah, I told you about that basically forever ago!” Jaxon called back to her.

“I thought you were being disgusting!”

“Nope, there was a snake.”

“I can see that, Jaxon!” Jess got out of the water at that point and put on her still-damp clothes. “I don’t know what you did to it, but it totally ignored me, at least.”

“I already told you! I charmed it!” Jaxon laughed at the low sigh that traveled over the water. “I’m getting out now. Avert your eyes. I’m shy or something.”

They walked back into the outpost a few minutes later, deciding to get the new gear before going to sleep. They had to waste some time and so ate some food and rested a little, but soon enough, Jaxon was wearing an odd set of gloves and boots that fit very comfortably. The gloves went on his hands, then had extremely long strips of leather that wrapped around his arms almost all the way to his shoulder. The Leatherworker explained that gloves like this were used to help train their pups and had guessed that Jaxon needed something like this since he had bite scars all over his arms.

After they had finished taking a nap and relieving their fatigue, it was finally time to leave the outpost behind and finish their personal journey. Jaxon looked over at Jess and cracked his knuckles. “Are you ready to go and force a guild to leave you alone?”

“So ready,” Jess affirmed with a tight smile.

“Excellent.” Jaxon helped her over the wall, and they started walking away from the outpost. “So. Where are we going?”

“Not a clue.”

“Wait, what?”

“I only know where they go drinking and recruit people. I have no idea where they go to get the daggers.” Jess didn’t look directly at Jaxon as she spoke. “The rest I only know as rumors.”

“So… we’re going to go to a bar then?” Jaxon nodded at this thought; he could use a drink after this whole debacle. “How far away is this place?”

“Probably two days if we go really slowly, also accounting for the time that we will likely need in order to fight off creatures and the like.” Jess sped up a bit, trying to set a better pace.

“Look at that! Already planning out our route and setting us up for success!” Jaxon smiled happily as he matched her speed. “We’ll make a tactician out of you yet!”