Lazarus

  Primordial limit.

  Primordial 1.

  Paragon luck.

  Paragon strength 4.

  Presence detection 6.

  Regeneration 13.

  Centaur riding 5.

  Sex 10.

  Sword mastery 1.

  Blink 4.

  Resistance 7.

  Acid resistance 2.

  Poison resistance 1.

  Fire resistance 3.

  Centaur pleaser 11.

  Forging 1.

  Copycat 1 (-------)

  Primordial blessing 1.

  Limitless Primordial 1.

  Primordial Pantheon (presence detection 6)

  [Willows devotion] 2.

  Skill points - 0

  "So I'm pretty sure I met Vataria, and also the god she use to serve." I expined dismissing my give. "Turns out she's some type of sea creature. Like a big dragon with tentacles that light up instead of wings."

  "Leviathan." Kayalett offered.

  "Yeah that sounds about right. So now we have leviathans to deal with, not like the harpies and elves were enough." I growled feeling anger swell within.

  Arath noticed an pced her hand on my shoulder. "Hey my love. It's okay."

  "How Arath? The whole deck is stacked against us right now." I sighed falling onto my ass and leaning against the tree I'd just attacked.

  Arath pulled her legs in and joined me. "What do you want to do my love? We will follow you."

  "That's easy. We need to do this dungeon and everything else we can to get stronger, or I do. I'm just.... I'm scared. I've always found a way to do something, some way of beating the odds. You didn't see that thing, if it wanted me dead and was capable of getting to me there ain't crap I could do to stop it."

  Arath pulled me into a hug that I tried to return, it was nice. Not just because she was so very soft.

  Kayalett gave a snicker that she tried to hide behind her hand and when we both looked at her she gave us a long look.

  "I don't mean to offend it's just with how you talk around Rayna I was expecting you not to know any fear. It's kind of refreshing to know something does scare you as much as that woman scares me."

  I smiled at that. I suppose it was strange from her point of view just how I act. That's actually a good point, would Rayna be able to beat that thing? What's the difference between Paragons and gods in terms of strength? Something to ask her ter.

  "I got a skill point!" Willow let out a happy yell pulling us all from our moment.

  "That's great." I said jumping at the opportunity to focus on something else. Don't get me wrong it was nice to have a moment with the girls but I hate feeling weak. Would much rather do something about it than mope around. "What skill are you going to get?"

  "I was hoping you could tell me. Sabet use to say what I needed most." The brown centaur replied as she retrieved her arrows.

  "And deprive you of making your own build?"

  Willow let out a sad smile. "I don't know what we need or want I can actually be."

  I gave Arath a gnce. "How do you guys normally build yourselves when you just start?"

  My red head had gotten back to her feet and was currently brushing the dirt off herself. "Well normally we're told to focus on two or three skills as it's better to have higher levels than lots of low ones."

  That made sense. Not that I'd agree as diversity in a build would normally give better results in multiple situations. It's why in video games most try to switch load outs based on what your fighting. But if you couldn't I could see why it's done like this. Maybe we could do something in the middle?

  "How about this Willow. Find five different skills with at least two of them being passive skills and two of them consuming a reasoure like mana then when you get four more skill points buy them all. From then on upgrade the one that you think benefits you the most." It should give her a good range of skills for the limited points she could get. This also expined why the other girls had so little skills compared to me. Where I just bought a lot willy nilly they had to focus what they wanted.

  "Okay. Do you want me to give you options that I should choose from?"

  "No I want you to pick what you want."

  She gave me a nod and her eyes gzed over in the way I understood meant she was looking through her skills.

  "Five skills is an awful lot Lazarus." Kayalett said coming up besides me. "I didn't even get my fourth before I had my shop. It'll be hard for her to get them all to a decent level that would actually provide anything to us."

  "But." I counted. "The start is always the hardest part. If she picks two really bad skills and only levels them up it will be even worse for her in the long run. This way she can experience a few skills first and decide what she wants from there. If we weren't already heading to the dungeon I'd ask her to pick ten just so she can make a better choice. There's no rules to say you can't have a lot of weak ones to try before you start dedicating what you actually want especially when they only cost a single skill point as oppose to the price of upgrading them."

  Kayalett almost looked like she wanted to argue but seemed to see the truth in my statement.

  "I'm not saying your wrong Kayalett as I do believe your right about making sure you have one or two really powerful skills but wasting points on a skill you won't make the most out of is way more wasteful than spending an extra ten skill points on random skills to see how they work. I mean look at me I regretted presence detection when I bought it and wouldn't have upgraded it without my auto upgrade skill but without it I wouldn't be alive right now."

  Arath was listening in and gave a thoughtful grunt. "You think so strangely my lord. Very different to how we're all taught."

  "It might just be the advantage we need though." Kayalett relented. "There are times I wish I'd gotten a different skill for a situation but never had enough to buy it afterwards. Although I agree with Willow, I'm jealous of that skill of yours."

  "Yeah it is kinda a cheat isn't it?"

  "I've picked one." Willow interrupted bringing us all back to the start of our conversation.

  "Owww what did you pick." I asked greedily.

  "I'll show you." Willows smile was contagious as she ran a good distance away from the target and notched an arrow. With a breath she sent the arrow flying in an arc that even I knew wouldn't hit the target.

  Yet just as it reached the apex a soft yellow glow surrounded the tip and it's trajectory changed slightly but just enough to hit the target. It wasn't a bullseye but it was dam near better than if nothing had happened.

  "It uses mana so I can't do that a lot but it should make up for my ck of skill a little bit." Willow proudly said coming back over to us.

  "It's a good skill I agree but don't focus on it just yet." I returned.

  "Yes get four more." There was a chipperness to her voice that hadn't been there before. Then again she's never had much control of her css before.

  "Before we get to distracted. Let's have dinner." Arath interjected opening one of her bags that had been put besides the tarp. She then pulled out a few sticks of what I could only assume was jerky and a pot that had previously been filled with water somewhere. Looks like stew is on the menu tonight.

  "Oooh I've got that Arath. My cooking skill is level twenty eight." Willow said taking over for my red head and began to add other ingredients from the bag that didn't look all that familiar to me.

  "Is that a normal level for a head mare?" I quietly asked Arath as Willow hummed to herself while stirring the pot.

  "No. Usually in a herd it's one of the other mares that upgrades cooking and other homily skills so the head mare can focus on other tasks that benefit the family." Arath answered seeming to be disappointed that Willows skills were that high when she use to be a head mare herself.

  "So my fantasy of seeing you cooking in nothing but an apron is not going to happen?" I asked with a cheeky smile.

  Arath gave me a tempting wink. "No it will and if I have a say in it we shall all be naked with our tails raised ready for you."

  And with that she left my side to begin setting up some sleeping matt's for us all. That girl knew how to make an exit but then again it wasn't an empty promise and we all knew that. Just one more reason to hurry up with this dungeon.

  The face of the leviathan fshed in my mind again.

  It still sent a shock though my spine but I had time. Time to improve myself and my girls.

  Skill points acquired 8 (Zemelly)

  Skill points acquired 1 (Vataria)

  And while part of me might disagree with accepting Vataria there was another part of me that knew I'd do it again. It was a good thing the second part was the loudest.