by Ryan Rimmel
Flipping through the other town menus, I didn’t see very much of interest. The castle was receiving the majority of our supplies presently, with enough left over to keep the town reconstruction and repair project running. With most of the crews over at the castle, though, the pace on those projects had diminished significantly.
Glancing through the menus of the buildings in town, I noticed that they were all either fully repaired or in the process of being fully repaired. . .except one. It was classified as damaged and appeared to be rapidly decreasing into ruins. Curious, I turned and headed south, toward the southeastern district. That was the magical district in town. It was also the only district that was currently unoccupied, as the only resident had decided to move into the central market. At least, it should have been.
Normally, someone would have to go to the location to see who was breaking an already broken building. I had the town map, so I just brought it up. I spotted Bashara in close proximity to the destruction.
“I think she’s gone plum loco,” I said. Shart raised an eyebrow at me.
“Why? She’s simply breaking stuff. You humans spend an inordinate amount of time doing just that,” replied the demon.
“It's what you love about us,” I chided.
“Well, yes,” replied Shart, smiling. “Destruction is chaos.” His smile was the thing nightmares were made of. With that, he poofed away.
I used my Shadow Walker perk, as well as my Stealth skill, to sneak up close to Bashara. I half expected her to be working out her frustrations on something. Instead, I found her methodically blasting away at a pillar with a bunch of lines and runes carved around it. As I watched, she hit it with blasts of fire, ice, acid, and electricity, all in quick succession.
Each blast chipped away at the pillar without doing any massive damage. As I watched, she threw a lightning ring around the column, similar to the spell she used on me before. Then, she began throwing additional rings of ice, fire, and acid. Bashara was visibly straining as she repeated the process, surrounding the pillar with eight rings in total.
She reached into her pouch, getting some other nasty trick ready, I’m sure. However, I was growing bored watching her kill rocks.
“What did that pillar ever do to you?” I asked, stepping out of the shadows.
Bashara’s hand flew from her pouch. She wheeled toward me, a look of shock on her face. An instant later, the rings started making some loud popping sounds. In a flash of blinding white light, all of the rings simultaneously cut out. That only served to increase Bashara’s look of horror, as the Mana feedback slammed into her.
“Oh, shit,” I exclaimed, rushing over to help her. Mana feedback happened whenever a spell ended in an uncontrolled fashion. Like when an unexpected idiot steps out behind you while you are controlling way too much energy.
Bashara was rolling around on the ground, screaming. In the several seconds before I got to her, I wondered how I should attempt to help her. As I crouched next to her, the Wizard’s eyes suddenly glowed blue. The screaming abruptly stopped.
“Jim, for what do I owe the pleasure of having you sneak up behind me like an assassin?” she asked in more of a polite growl than anything else.
I gave her my best, innocent, boy smile and said, “I was just checking to see who was blowing up my town.”
“I paid Mar for the right to do some light demolition work,” stated Bashara, sitting up. “I can’t exactly train with the men.”
“And this is training?” I asked, looking at the destroyed pillar. There were dozens of scorch marks running up and down the column, far worse than any of the spells could have individually caused.
“Yes?” answered Bashara questioningly. After a moment of my uncomprehending expression, she relented. “I’m trying to get ready for the dungeon. Causing Durability Damage is a good way to level up magical skills. It's not quite as effective as practicing against another spellcaster. . .”
She let that hang. Most people assumed I was some sort of Woodsman, due to Badgelor’s presence. However, Bashara had actually seen me cast spells. I sighed, “You want to practice?”
“Well, if you insist,” she said, making it sound like I was the one practically begging her to blast me. A few seconds later, I was standing right next to the pillar, my back against it. Bashara had taken one step back from her previous casting point.
“How are we going to do this? You cast, and I generate a barrier?” I asked.
“If that’s the best you can do,” she answered, shrugging. She grabbed a staff out of her bag. The rod shouldn’t have fit in the bag, but I was used to extradimensional spaces. Thanks, Shart. I just ignored her, causing her to frown slightly. She was trying to impress the yokel and apparently hadn’t noticed that I had my own extradimensional space.
“Well, what else can we do?” I asked, flicking up a Flameology barrier, followed by a Biological Aeromancy barrier. The orange barrier shifted to a sickly green, then back to orange, as I flipped through my magical cores. I had been running around in Sorcerer mode, and the paths to the cores were slightly different. This was completely due to the patch job Shart had performed on my Mana network. Given that Bashara was here, I’d probably need to flip over to Mage mode to prevent embarrassing myself.
I didn’t drop the barrier when I ‘flipped the switch’ and shifted my Mana network from Sorcerer to Mage. Those two magical networks were mutually incompatible. However, with some elbow grease and duct tape, Shart had managed to jury-rig my Mana network into handling one of them at a time. To get to the other, I had to mentally flip between them. As I did so, I realized I still had my bright orange barrier active.
The barrier flickered for an instant as two barriers simultaneously appeared, overlapping each other. My Sorcerer barrier was still active, and the Mage barrier was cramming itself on top of it. Oh, this is new. I wasn’t feeding any more power to the Sorcerer barrier, but it seemed to be holding together because of its overlap with the empowered Mage barrier.
“Shoot,” I yelled, and Bashara frowned.
“That’s not how you. . .” she began but trailed off. Shaking her head, Bashara leaned her staff against some debris and called out, “Arding.” A thick icicle formed and flew straight at my empowered barrier. Time seemed to slow as it got close, which was an aspect of spellcasting that only triggered when two casters were battling each other. The last time she had hit me with an icicle, it had nearly taken off my arm.
● Barrier Critically Blocked Strike: 89 Ice Damage vs 120 point barrier.
This one vaporized as it impacted my empowered barrier, leaving Bashara looking shocked for an instant. Then, she grabbed her staff. “Let me try that again.”
As she prepared her spell, I realized that the special empowerment of my barrier was gone. Bashara’s spell would not be nearly as easy to dismiss this time. I had gotten quite a bit better at flipping my Mana networks back and forth, but I wasn’t exactly used to doing it in combat-style conditions.
As time slowed, I held out both my hands. A much larger green barrier formed around me. Bashara took that moment to begin prepping her icicle. The frozen formation looked bigger, more powerful, and generally meaner than the ones I remembered her casting in the past.
Time seemed to stretch out forever. Meanwhile, the actual time between when she formed the spell and cast it could have been measured, by an outside observer, in seconds. The entire time, I was trying to repeat my past trick and failing. I simply could not flip my spellcasting from Mage mode to Sorcerer mode.
As the icicle rocketed toward my fragile barrier, I concentrated on making it the hottest, strongest barrier I could manage. I had the Hardened Barrier perk; maybe I could deflect the spell. The spell struck the barrier with a horrendous thunk.
● Block incompatible with spell attack
● Barrier Breached: 107 Ice Damage vs 60 point barrier.
The barrier slowed the icicle about as much as wet tissue paper would have deflected a bullet. I had used both my
hands to craft the barrier and, as such, had been facing the spell head on. The icicle didn’t go into my palm, but rather between my outstretched fingers. It was right on target to hit me square in the head.
By now, I could already make out the beginnings of a surprised expression on Bashara’s face. However, the slowed time made even that quick reaction take forever. It was going to impact my nose and go into my left eye, and there was nothing I could do about it.
● You have the Evasion perk. Would you like to dodge the spell?
I selected “Yes”, just as the first wave of coldness brushed my cheek. I felt my head start blasting to the side, as if I was being punched in the face. All the blood in my head suddenly pooled to the right side, as my head blurred out of the way of the projectile. The speed was so great, it should have knocked me unconscious. Magically, the Evasion perk made the whole thing work, and my head snapped back just as the icicle slammed into the pillar behind me.
“What the hell was that?” I yelled, glancing at the obvious dent the icicle had made.
“What the hell was that? What the hell did you just do?” screamed Bashara right back at me.
“That would have taken my head off,” I shouted.
“The first one I shot was an 80 pointer, and you deflected it like it was nothing,” she yelled back. “And you also have the Evasion perk! How do you have so many perks?”
“I’m the Mayor of Noobtown,” I growled at her.
“What the FUCK does that mean?” she screamed. “Mayors don’t get a bunch of class-locked combat perks. . .” She stopped screaming and looked at me. Whispering, she asked, “What is wrong with you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked defensively.
“You have all this power, and you treat everyone the same,” she stated. “You are one of the Chosen and you act like commoners mean something to you.”
“Commoners?” I asked.
“You can’t have lived this far in the sticks,” she growled, her voice raising again. “Professional people, professioned people! No one even uses that term anymore! We aren’t adventurers, we are Chosen! You were nearly in tears when a few of those rabble died fighting your battles.”
“They were fighting for the town,” I said. “They were fighting for their town. They sacrificed everything to preserve it.”
“Yes, and we mourn their loss,” sneered Bashara sarcastically. “Seriously, they are little more than pets. Yet, you treat them like they are important.”
“They are important,” I argued.
“If I have to mind my manners around your little blond toy again. . .” stated Bashara.
“Drop it,” I growled, a deadly edge of frost creeping into my voice.
● Intimidate vs Bashara. Your check has been successful. Bashara is intimidated for the next 30 seconds.
She paused for a moment, collecting herself. I could hear her muttering, “And you aren’t even sleeping with her, or me, or anyone. I am inclined to believe Dalton’s tale of a terrible groin injury, though my sources say it looks spectacular and unmaimed.”
“OttoSherman is not a good judge,” I replied.
“Granted, he seems to find everything attractive in some capacity,” replied Bashara.
“Have you seen how he behaves around EstherSasha?” I asked.
“Or MaGetty,” replied Bashara.
“I saw him eyeing Kappa once,” I added uncomfortably.
Bashara tried to work up a head of steam again, but she had been diverted. She didn’t have the energy to work herself back up again. “Look, I get this old school vibe you are trying to show here, but it's stupid. You are a Chosen. You need to act like one. You could be great, if you tried.”
“I refuse to treat people as if they are less than people,” I said.
“Which you clearly are not going to do,” she smiled, weighing her options, “So, would you like to get back to magical practice?”
I watched her for another long moment. “Sure.”
She turned around to return to her original spot only to find Badgelor, in War Form, directly behind her. He was sitting on her staff and shoving something resembling blue noodles into his mouth. She patted his head and continued walking over to her spot.
“Shall we begin?”
Chapter 10: Windfall Dockside
By the time we were finished blasting or being blasted by magic, I was ready to start practicing with Glorious Robert again. I bid Bashara farewell and left through the southern gate.
“Well, she seems dangerous,” stated Shart, reappearing on my shoulder now that we were away from Bashara.
“Yup,” I stated grumpily.
“I say we kill her,” stated Badgelor from my other shoulder.
“I thought you liked her,” I stated. “You were calling her “Pillow” just last week.
“She betrayed you. For that, she must die,” stated Badgelor. “No one crosses me or mine and lives to tell about it.”
“I’m sure we can manipulate this situation to our advantage,” cooed Shart, trying to ease the increasingly heated badger.
“The dungeon has one arcane lock on the outside,” I said, trying to change the subject. “You think Charles was in there at some point?”
“I’m sure of it,” answered Badgelor. Now that his mind was fully engaged with killing Charles, he was far less interested in Bashara.
“How likely is it that we are going to need Bashara at the dungeon?” I asked Shart.
“Odds are we will need her to open an arcane lock down there or something,” Shart said, as we continued walking. “It's a dungeon. We are going to run into a situation or two where we need a Wizard. Unfortunately, Bashara is the only one readily available. We don’t have time to find another one.”
“That is a problem,” I stated, as we turned and continued down another trail.
“It's against my better judgement,” stated Badgelor, but he relented. He was damn near immune to magic anyway. If ever there was a perfect tank against a spellcaster, it was Badgelor.
“But we don’t trust her,” stated Shart.
“Not one damn bit,” I said. “After the dungeon, I think I’ll ask her to leave the village.”
“Or we could murder her,” suggested Badgelor, grinning. “I mean, after we leave the dungeon, of course.”
“If you’d told me a month ago that I’d be contemplating heading into a very dangerous situation with someone I don’t trust, I’d have called you a liar,” I sighed.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” said Shart. “Isn’t that what you humans say?”
“Maybe she’ll die in the dungeon!” exclaimed Badgelor.
“I’d just as soon hope no one dies down there,” I replied, shaking my head. “We can always get rid of her later.”
“Ah, I get you,” replied Badgelor. “Say no more,” he added, winking at me.
“Wait, don’t murder her,” I groaned. “At least, not unless I tell you to.”
“You said too much,” chuckled Shart, taking in the notable gleam in the badger’s eye. “She just annoys me, waving around her magical stick, like it's super impressive. I’d like to show her what a real extradimensional space looks like.”
“I thought we already did?” I smirked.
The conversation petered out, as I arrived at the dock for more practice. Hansa was distracted with a system designed to allow water to flow into the drydock easily once the ship was finished. Margwal was sitting and chatting with Splendid Gloria.
“Hello, Mayor,” Margwal greeted in her high, sing-song voice. She was a natural soprano, and her vocal register was not something you’d normally hear from a person. She was still wearing her preferred wide-brimmed hat, but, in the shade of the kitchen, she had it tilted back. The chin strap was the only thing keeping it from falling off her head.
“Greetings, ladies,” I said, sitting down and looking at the drydock. “Do you need Badgelor to dig anything?”
“No,” answered Margwal,
which caused Badgelor to bolt toward the scraps behind the kitchen. She watched him leave, smiling fondly. Once he was fully engaged in guts, she turned to me and said, “He’s very good for the broad strokes of a project, but his digging isn’t so great for detailed work. I have Hansa working on that with Glorious Robert right now.”
I hadn’t really interacted with Margwal very much. She was the eldest of Sir Dalton’s daughters and the most mature, even more so than Ashe in my opinion. I couldn’t see her falling head over heels in love with a Mercenary Captain, for example. Margwal talked to Splendid Gloria like two women spoke together, rather than the more motherly attitude Splendid Gloria had with Hansa.
Suddenly, there was a small explosion. It sounded louder than a firecracker but smaller than a stick of dynamite. Debris erupted out of the trench in a cloud, as everyone ducked their heads for cover. I was half out of my seat when a smoking, soot-covered Glorious Robert stumbled out of the trench.
“Are you alright?” I shouted, noting that his hit points were nearly, but not quite, full.
Glorious Robert stood there for a moment before finally answering, “Trench is done.” Then, he stumbled off. Hansa bounced out of the trench and ran toward Margwal. When she saw me, she changed course. Rushing toward me, smoke streaming off her outfit, she grinned. Bits of earth continued to rain down over the boardwalk.
“Look at this stuff,” groaned Splendid Gloria.
“Isn’t it neat?” asked Hansa.
“It certainly looks like your collection is complete,” answered Margwal patiently.
“This girl has everything,” grinned Hansa, surveying the destruction. More men continued to stumble out of the blast zone. They all sported varying combinations of stunned and confused expressions. The explosion was apparently larger than anticipated.
“That’s what happens when you have gadgets and gizmos aplenty,” nodded Margwal.