As they continued on their way to the river, Orcette's stomach growled and after a good amount of teasing, another question formed in Orcette's mind.
"How are you not hungry? We ran all that way and it's been a long couple of hours."
"Well maybe I don't need to eat, can't imagine an angel fighting on the frontlines of some immortal war calling time out for tea time."
Orcette made it clear she knew he was messing with her, but went on to say that it did actually make a good amount of sense in spite of that, but quickly changed the subject from whether or not Jonah can get hungry to how they would satisfy Orcette's.
"I'll fish at the river, or you just have to wait until we get back. No surprise we forgot about supplies, we were in too much of a rush, but we'll know for next time."
Orcette was curious how he intended to fish without a rod, but decided it was better to remain silent and move quicker than talk and wait longer to see it.
This side of the fifth ring there was a stretch of forest that flanked the path on the left side, which had been lumbered back four-hundred feet from the outer boundary and a plateau that ran south towards the river which was now in sight.
They didn't head immediately south however, they wanted to be well out of sight of the city limits, it would be bad enough for them to see Orcette potentially make a fool of herself and yet that would be nothing compared to Jonah making a fool of himself.
It wasn't a matter of pride or vanity, but something told Jonah that seeming weak could have greater consequences than he knew. That niggling voice in the back of Jonah's head however had earned Orcette's displeasure as her stomach's rumbling grew louder and louder.
"Hey, check it out. If we didn't follow the path this far, we wouldn't have struck gold..." Jonah's exclamation came as he approached some berries. "...I can cure poisons so this is either a snack for you or a learning experience."
Orcette glared at him, albeit with a smile and followed after him. Without hesitation she put one in her mouth, then very quickly pulled a leather pouch from her leather cuirass, chuckling as Jonah averted her eyes.
"You really are an angel aren't you..." She winked as she gathered the berries in the pouch, then stored it in her inventory. "...Thank god that worked, you nearly gave yourself whiplash, you turned your head so fast."
"Laugh it up harlot, take a handful to eat on our way, let me know if you start to feel sick or anything. If they do end up being poisonous, we can use them for traps and the alchemist might know some uses as well."
She nodded and agreed that all sounded good as she filled one of her hands and they started walking.
As Orcette filled her hand with berries, she noticed Jonah gather a small bundle of sticks and twigs and place them in his inventory, turning to keep walking only to stop Orcette getting too far ahead.
The moment they saw the slimes, they slowed their pace, carefully making sure that they weren't going to be surrounded. It was then they realised that that was not a concern, the slimes absolutely refused to be near them.
"What the hell!? I figured they'd be at least a little aggressive." Orcette was quickly frustrated by the situation.
"They should be..." Jonah said, who unlike his companion started reading the "Slime" entry on his interface. "...Looks like I might be the problem, so you'll have to practice on these while I prep lunch."
Orcette grumbled as she looked at the same entry...
Slimes
Amorphous, hyper-evolutionary lifeform
Slimes are the single most adaptable species in existence and range from basic slimes found at rivers and lakes up to the Primordial ooze that is said to be the origin of many mortal species.
The creatures spontaneously evolve depending on diet and community experiences. As a result, mass culling of slime-species is strictly prohibited in most places, instead populations are depleted by capture to avoid the entire community of slimes evolving immunities to common means of attack and becoming more territorial.
Whilst every nation has their own limits, it is advised to never attack more than ten slimes in a colony the same way as anymore has the potential to evolve said resistances.
Contrary to popular belief, slimes are not actually immune to slashing attacks and cannot multiply from such things, however the only way to kill a slime is to destroy the core visible through the translucent mass of their body.
"Great, so I can only kill ten?" Jonah rolled his eyes at the latest round of grumbling and picked up a rock and juggled it.
"Wha-" Before she even finished the first word, Jonah launched the rock at one and shattered the core inside. "...Holy-. Where did you learn to throw like that?"
"It's natural, if you tell yourself I want to throw this with everything I got, then you probably will. The important thing is form, since bad form will see you mess yourself up." Orcette was nodding, being truly attentive to what he was saying for the first time.
"Right, so just throw the rock."
"Nine hits left with rocks, make them count." Jonah started gathering rocks, which Orcette thought were for her at first until he turned away and headed for the river.
'Is he going to fish by throwing rocks? I think this guy might be insane the way he just keeps going.' Orcette thought to herself as she watched Jonah scan the river looking for fish, then turned as she began to feel a little awkward and started looking for her own rocks.
The first one she threw was a wasted shot, plenty of power but it missed the core, so the damage it caused was quick to repair.
The second went wide, the stone burying itself into the ground next to it, then she heard the heavy splash of something impacting water with a good amount of force and turned to see Jonah rolling up the legs of his jeans and then wading into the water.
He bent down for a sec then turned, noticing she was looking at him. She grew flushed with the realisation she was staring again and being caught this time, but then Jonah held up a fish by the tail.
She watched as he walked back and laid the twigs to make a bed for the fish, then turned back and grabbed another rock. This time she watched him properly, eager to gleam some kind of clue as to how he throws accurately.
"Stop overthinking it! Your brain will do the thinking, just stare at one point and be ready to throw the moment what you hit is where you're staring!"
"Sure... Easy... No... Biggie or anything." She found herself following his instructions even as she mocked them to herself, but then the first time a slime core moved to that line of sight, she threw the rock almost entirely lacking conscious thought and the core exploded a split second later.
"You owe me a "sorry" for mocking me in your head by the way!" Jonah shouted.
"How did you know!? No reading my mind Perv!"
"Hey! I didn't, my sister used to do the same thing!"
'Tch, gonna have to remind him that I'm not his sister.' She thought to herself, before shaking the thought from her head.
She managed to kill the last eight using the reflexive throw that Jonah taught her, deciding to gather up the cores that were bizarrely intact despite the fact that breaking them was how she killed the slimes.
When she had gathered the nine she got from projectile attacks she walked towards where Jonah had set up a little fire ringed with damp stones from the river bed and was rubbing the fish down lightly with a rougher dry stone.
"How do you know how to do that?" Orcette asked with both curiosity and a hint of admiration.
"Dad took me fishing a couple of times. I always complained and he always said, "you'll be grateful for this one day" and I always grumbled. Guess he gets the last laugh."
"Well, I'm certainly grateful to him." Orcette spoke respectfully, knowing it is a tender topic, but Jonah was too absorbed to pay her much attention.
She decided to let him have his moment and put the cores down next to him before walking back towards the slimes, which moved away from her at first, but then suddenly stopped and became more confident.
Orcette realised then, that they had been unsure which of them was the one they perceived as a danger, but distancing herself from Jonah made her seem more manageable.
She removed her weapon from her inventory, a strange staff-like item which was heavy and sturdy enough to be used as a club, with a pointed tip that might work as a short spear and also had another function that she didn't have the understanding to utilise yet.
"I want to trust him, so I'll tell him about my class while I eat, but I don't know how to use the shaman skills yet anyway." As she spoke, a slime lunged towards her and she swung the weapon with all her might.
She felt a muscle strain in her side and gasped, but luckily she connected with the core and the slime fell away as it was sent flying into another slime and smashing that one's core by pure chance.
The coincidence made her laugh, but she was unsure if that counted as a projectile attack and decided to be more careful.
While she was distracted, another slime had lunged towards her exposed knee which burnt lightly. Taken by surprise her body's reflexes kicked in and she twirled the weapon and stabbed the slime's core, then in quick succession she moved to another and swung it into a club.
As the fourth slime liquified, another lashed at her with some kind of tendril which she batted away with her new buckler and it released a pulse of light that travelled down the makeshift appendage and destroyed the core.
She was happy how effective it was, but at the same time, a little worried that it meant she could only block ten attacks.
"Hold on, if we can only destroy ten in one go, then why did Dubio say they made good training dummies? I think that's enough for one day, we need to confer with him and find something more efficient."
She gathered up the five additional cores and returned to Jonah, sharing her thoughts on continuing to use them for training.
Jonah stared at her knee, the weapon and the way her hand was holding her side. "Sit, let's see if I can heal you."
"No, it's fine, I can already feel my body healing the damage. We should save that for something that needs it." Orcette said, shaking her head lightly.
Jonah gestured that she had won and then again for her to sit as he admitted that without any seasonings or knowledge on the fish, he wasn't sure what the fish would taste like.
What Jonah was oblivious of though, was that orcs could and would eat any kind of meat or fish and they weren't even particularly fussed about the state of preparation. Orcette was having to restrain herself from devouring it prematurely, stubbornly refusing to relinquish her dignity to her stomach's demands.
Only when Jonah inspected one and gave her the okay did she pluck the stick from the ground and take a bite, entirely unaware that she was eating it, bones and all.
"You aren't human anymore, I won't judge you for eating differently..." Jonah said as he plucked a fish-on-a-stick from the ground himself. "...I'm not even sure I can eat this, it smells disgusting to me."
"I wasn't holding back for your sake, I just want to be who I want to be, that means sometimes I'll have to ignore this new body's nature and instincts. That said, the bones do give it a satisfying crunch." She chuckled with the last bit as Jonah worked up the courage to take a nibble and spit it out immediately.
"That is vile... Ugh, I hope I'm not a vegetarian, steak is the only thing that got me as far as I got."
When Orcette finished her first, she swiped the one Jonah was swinging about as he insulted its flavour and devoured that one as well, falling back and holding her stomach as she beamed with satisfaction.
As she bathed in the post-meal bliss, he doused the fire, threw the leftovers to the slimes.
"I was going to talk to you while we ate..." Orcette had adopted a tone that bore a hint of guilt, but only piqued Jonah's interest rather than plant suspicion. "...I multi-classed, shaman and Hunter. I hid my weapon to conceal it, I guess I was a bit big-headed and didn't want people to target me for it."
"I see, but then you started hanging with an angel and felt silly..." Jonah chuckled, going to his interface to read the entries for those classes. He had a good idea what they were, but wanted to be sure.
Hunter Class
Generic
Hunters are a general class that can be identified in most sentient races.
They have a good sense of direction, keen senses and can achieve proficiency with most weapon types.
Not afraid to use indirect means to capture and kill their prey, many hunters utilise traps to do so, whether synthetic or fashioned from the environment.
The longer they spend in an environment the more comfortable they feel and they quite often prefer to live in that environment rather than in civilised areas.
Shaman class
Mage Class
Orc and Goblin Specific
Shamans channel the primordial magic that the unique lineages of Orcs and Goblins grants them access to.
Using special totems to manipulate those ancient energies with more precision.
Many shamans begin their journey by learning to manipulate nature and simple creatures around them, but ultimately their abilities can touch anything they see as a vessel of those primordial energies.
"...Very cool Orcette, sounds like you'll be able to do just about anything you want with practice. Well maybe you should display your weapon, you can't afford to be caught unprepared and if anyone does pick a fight, I'm interested to see what the guards would do since they all call me "Lord"."
Orcette nodded then pulled out her berries and started munching on those too, making Jonah laugh.
When she had finished Jonah suggested they get a move on, as the sun was quite high in the sky. It hadn't taken them long to get where they had gotten, but they had no idea what time of day it was, how long each one was, or even how quickly night descended.
When Orcette had gathered up her slime cores, and equipped her weapon again, they started heading back at a light jog.
As they were approaching the fifth ring however, they saw masses of people heading out of the city and judging by the directions assumed they were leaving from the North, East and South gates for sure and were probably also the West gate, but couldn't be certain since it was on the far side of the city.
As a point of caution, they stopped with the guards at the fifth ring and watched the mass of people approach, asking what had happened.
"Oh it's you two! Just so you know, the captain is waiting at the East gate of the fourth, apparently you gave the early warning that let them mobilise in time. Lots of people could have gotten hurt if not for you, but he's also hoping you know what caused the sudden madness."
"Why are they all leaving? Have they been exiled?" Jonah was shocked that things went that far if it were the case and that shock could be heard in his voice, which was enough to panic the guard.
"No Lord, promise. In fact, they sent orders by runner a short while ago..." Deciding it would be quicker than explaining, the guard handed over his orders to Jonah.
Attention all militia and city guards.
You are hereby ordered to stand watch and keep vigil.
The madness that descended, has left our guests defeated.
Their spirits are broken by whatever addles their minds.
Disaster was avoided thanks to forewarning.
Any who see an Angel and Orc, should send them to me.
I will wait at the East gate until midnight.
Escort them to the barracks anytime after.
"Sorry, my sense of time is warped by longevity, do you know how long until nightfall? We have business to attend to and we must find lodging, not to be rude, but my charge is my priority."
"Of course Lord, I'm sure The Captain would respect that, but you should explain it to him directly."
"Of course..." Jonah repeated as he considered options, possibilities and potential consequences of avoiding that meeting to prioritise their business.