The trip north was mostly uneventful. I say mostly because, holy shit, had the land changed. We flew near a lake that looked like blood. Massive tentacles squirmed within the liquid, just below the surface. Thankfully, I had spotted it before we flew directly overhead, who knew what creatures waited within.Another problem was a bright flash in the distance. Normally, I would have avoided that completely but the ominous mushroom cloud after made me decide to detour near the area. We needed to make sure it wasn’t something we had to worry about. Turns out someone had gotten ahold of a tactical nuke, leveling some small town on the east side of what was once northern Arkansas. After seeing what lay beyond, I couldn’t blame the people for setting the weapon off.The land for as far as you could see was dead. The radiation detector was blipping away and I chose to turn back toward the west. Fiona returned from scouting with news of what was on the ground.“Entarior locusts,” she said, loo

The lobby we were in was a blood bath. I lost count of the people we had killed to get to this point. None had been elites, or above level twelve. Still, they had numbers and we had to fight every inch.Martin’s summoned creature had done the majority of the work until it poofed away in a cloud of haze, the spell spent. Then we had to get dirty.I deflected a sword strike aimed at my neck, smashing my staff across the offender's face to the sound of shattering bone.It was easy to see how my additional ten stat points - from levels alone - had me head and shoulders above anyone under level twenty. Even the level sixteen Blade Guardian I was currently fighting was hard-pressed. His skill with a blade was far superior to my skill but he couldn’t match my speed or strength.My staff snapped out, tearing through the air with an audible crack as the warrior tried to deflect my strike with his buckler. Metal met metal and his buckler lost, caving in and snapping the man's arm. He cried out

We touched down in an old quarry I knew about. It wasn’t as big or as deep as I would like but it did the job of hiding the fortress.We were preparing to leave and I was getting a feel for my new hand when Frathsar’s reply arrived.Good tidings old friend. Much has changed in your absence but the city still stands and is safe to enter. Ask the gate guard to point you to Frathsar’s Fine Goods. I remain open until sundown. I hope to see you soon.Well, it's good to know he was still around and had apparently opened his own shop. I doubt he would expect us tonight though. I looked at the sky and estimated we had three or four hours until sundown.We approached the city by the same bridge we had used the last time Fiona and I had entered. I was riding Bella and Martin had purchased an Arabian horse. It was quite the equine, its mane was silver gold and it had a dappled hide to match the coloring. I would have mistaken it for a regular horse if it wasn’t for the blood-red eyes.[Abyssal T

With nothing left to do, I sold a few rune-crafted items to restore my funds and headed back to the hotel.I had a few hours to kill before dinner so I went over my books on runes. I didn’t glean any new knowledge from the books but it was nice to go over them every now and then. I also browsed my notes. They needed to be updated, some of my postulations were wildly inaccurate or just plain wrong. Most of that was on my attempts at enhancing my body. Something that I had put on the back burner due to current events.The fight had only heightened the fact that I still wasn’t strong enough. Sure I had won but I had a feeling fate stepped in to help on that after talking with Victoria.While the Black Dragon was effectively no more, there were still dangers out there. The Stygian Order, Lord Vik’t, and all these groups moving in from other worlds. Sure they weren’t directly opposed to me, but that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. I had also noticed that wildlife was growing stronger.

I could hear horns in the distance but they were moving away. It appeared that the orcs had finally realized something was happening. My guess was they would return to the village to protect the women and children.It wasn’t my goal to wipe out the orcs and I wasn’t going to go around killing non-combatants if I could help it.Seeing as our fight was concluded for the moment, Martin and I went in search of Ska and Fiona. I took the time to go over the skills I had taken.[Brute Strength: Enhance your musculature and grow your strength by 3 for the next 30 sec. Cost 100 Stamina. Cooldown 1min][Impact Arrow: Give your arrow three times the impact. Cost 25 Mana. Cooldown 20 sec][Kill Shot: Allow your arrow to strike the weakest point of your target. Cost 40 Mana. Cooldown 1 min]I read through the few others but nothing was even of note. Brute Strength was better than my own Giant Strength buff, but not even close to being as effective as Godly Might. I did try using them in tandem and