Mageblood

by Christopher Johns

  “Quick slotting.” Gage walked out of the circle and drew the longsword at his hip. “Your main weapon belongs in one slot, your other weapon in the secondary slot.”

  He swung his sword in an overhead chop, took a deep breath, then reached his free hand behind his back and drew a greatsword that hadn’t been there before. The long sword had vanished in a gray blur the second the other weapon had appeared.

  “That’s amazing!” Mona clapped her hands enthusiastically as she eyed him. “How do we do that.”

  “It should be in your status screen.” Gage stabbed the large black sword into the ground before him like a surfer might a surfboard and stepped around it. “In the equipment section, I think?”

  I hadn’t needed to use it in a while, so I had almost forgotten. I selected the tab and saw two weapons tabs on the side next to the outline of my body. I put the short sword in the first slot, then the first portion of the glaive in. I tried putting the second in, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Quick slotting only works with a single weapon,” Gage explained, motioning to the sword on his hip and the one in the ground. “If you plan to dual-wield those, you will need to be proficient in breaking them down quickly and efficiently in order to use this skill effectively.”

  “Why not show ‘em, boss?” Thea made her way into the back yard through Gage’s house. “You up for a little one on one?”

  Her grin showed she was confident in her abilities, and her wink at me as she walked by meant she was willing to show off.

  “Educating the wanderers?” Gage raised an uncertain brow. “Or showing off for someone?”

  “Yes?” She chuckled throatily and sauntered into the training circle. “Come on, Gage. I doubt you aren’t already limbered up this morning, so let’s let loose a bit!”

  “You insolent little…” Gage snorted and snatched his greatsword out of the ground, digging up a patch of dirt and stomped into the circle.

  Mona and Sundar guffawed loudly while Albarth and I merely glanced at each other knowingly. Sundar had been with him this morning too. She must really like him.

  Thea stood ready, knees slightly bent, and her bo staff in a loose grip on the right side of the training circle. As soon as Gage stepped into the ring, he brought his long sword out of the sheathe with a metallic hiss.

  “Someone wanna call it?” Thea widened her stance and brought her bo staff straight out behind her back so that it was parallel with the ground, her grip in the center of the staff.

  “Delighted!” Albarth stood next to the ring, then barked, “Begin!”

  Thea pounced on the Minotaur with her bo staff rocketing at his cranium, but he bounced it off his left horn. Gage thrust his sword through the swiftly closing gap between them, the light from the afternoon sun shimmering off the blade as it moved.

  Thea grunted as she took the staff in both hands and shoved herself, still in the air somehow, out of the way of the blade by digging the staff into the ground.

  Once his target was outside his current reach, Gage’s longsword blurred, and he whipped the greatsword toward the nimble woman. She laughed as the weapon whistled over her head, having dropped onto her back to avoid the horizontal slash. While Gage tried to change the trajectory of his attack to meet her, Thea thrust the staff into his inner thigh, making the bull-man snarl angrily.

  Before the larger weapon could impale her, Thea’s legs twisted in the air as if she were attempting to breakdance with the weapon, the momentum of her twirling limbs assisting her in escaping the brutal attack. Her bo staff flew into Gage’s face, just missing his left eye, then clattered to the ground.

  “Raaaaaargh!” Thea growled as she brought a fairly normal-looking axe into play, the weapon slicing through the air toward Gage’s greatsword and outstretched hand.

  The savage attack forced the larger man to give ground or have the appendage severed, but he used the back step to draw his longsword in a backhanded grip stopping the head of the axe from coming too close. Thea choked up on the axe and shot it forward, using the flat of the head like a pool shark might a pool cue.

  She tried to strike mainly at his knees, forcing her larger opponent back a step at a time, then spun about to lash out with her right foot when he tried to grab her weapon.

  Gage grasped her ankle and pulled her from her feet, bodily lifting her from the ground with his left hand and leveling his blade at her throat with his right.

  “Yield,” He ordered menacingly.

  “You know I won’t, Sarge.” She laughed, bringing her axe over her head—under her nearest the ground—and brought it up toward Gage’s chin.

  The Minotaur stepped back, bucking his head out of the way of the wild strike, only to step onto the forgotten bo staff and pitch backward. They both landed with grunts of pain and broke into a full-on bare-knuckle brawl. Punching and kicking, fighting to gain the upper hand.

  “Stop.” Ünbin’s command, punctuated by an arrow grazing Gage’s horn and Thea’s cheek. Dirt caked their sweaty bodies all over, their clothes dirty and torn in places where they had fought to gain some sort of advantage.

  They looked to the Kin man sourly, then at each other with scowls that melted into hysterical laughter.

  “Seems we got a bit carried away.” Thea snorted, it was pretty funny if I was honest.

  “We do tend to lose ourselves in the midst of a good bout,” Gage admitted bashfully as he stood and dusted himself off before helping Thea up. “Cleverly done with the ‘discarded’ weapon. I’ve forgotten how bad it can be to have you as an enemy.”

  “It was once, and I was genuinely as confused as you were to be in that alleyway.” Thea’s smile seemed genuine but somehow frail.

  “Training.” Ünbin grunted and pointed to a stand and hay target that stood near Gage’s back door.

  “Quite.” Gage snorted and waved me into the circle. With his and Thea’s help, I was able to gain initiate level with the sword after an hour and a half.

  It was nearing time for us to try streaming, but I had one question, “And what does mastery of a weapon do?”

  “Aside from making you more dangerous?” Thea tilted her head to the side, baring her pointed ears. “Mastery doubles the base damage of a weapon and can make critical strikes easier. It can also lower the durability cost of using a weapon you’re a master of. Not to mention higher tier weapons, which you likely learned.”

  “That’s great, but are there bonuses to being an initiate?” Sundar frowned over her notification screen.

  “You’ll be on your way to the next level of mastery, basic level,” Gage explained, holding a hand up to count on starting with his pinky. “Initiate, basic, skilled, expert, and master.”

  “Is there a level higher than master?” Albarth asked.

  “Grandmaster,” Ünbin stated, then motioned for him to pick up his bow, before turning toward the target near the fence.

  “What he likely doesn’t want to tell you is that, in order to gain the grandmaster rank, you need to defeat ten other masters of that same weapon in a duel,” Thea explained, taking a position close to me as we watched Albarth. “From what Gage told me, Albarth could beat the pants off of Cälaos if he were a higher level. Though masters of the rapier are rare in these parts.”

  She fell silent as the mute-by-choice Kin bow-master showed Albarth how to stand with a longbow at ease. He would point to his feet, aligned with the target at first, then turned so that the target faced his non-dominant side, and his feet faced parallel. Ünbin waited patiently as Albarth did the same thing but tapped his legs when the wood nymph’s stance seemed a bit too wide.

  Ünbin frowned just before tapping the center of Albarth’s head, pointing to himself, then took a deep breath before letting it rush from his body stilling it.

  He was too tense.

  Hmm, maybe his twin wouldn’t be needed to translate after all.

  Ünbin turned his back to Albarth and took his shirt off so that the lean muscles in his back was bare
and clearly visible. Albarth raised an eyebrow in surprise but said nothing. The archer raised his bow with practiced ease, an arrow nocked to the bowstring already. The arm holding the weapon was bent, but as he drew the string back, his left arm straightened with the barest hint of strain though he did it so slowly that it had to be hard.

  All the while, the muscle in Ünbin’s back contracted like a well-oiled machine, bunching under the strain of the large weapon.

  He glanced back at Albarth, waiting until he had his pupil’s attention, then took another deep breath, a slow inhale as he lined up his shot, then a slow exhale. When the air emptied from his body, that perfect lull between breaths, he released. The bound tension in the bowstring snapped the arrow forward, the projectile piercing the center red portion of the target.

  I found myself clapping at the display along with Monami and Sundar.

  Ünbin grunted, seeming unconcerned with the rest of us being there, but lifted his chin at Albarth as if to signal his turn.

  Albarth had taken the time to sling the quiver of ten arrows over his shoulder as if he were some kind of Robin Hood character. He reached his hand over his shoulder, trying to find an arrow to grasp, but the wooden things simply evaded his grip.

  “Stupid,” Ünbin muttered, then lifted his own quiver from the ground and shoved it into Albarth’s face. “Fools shoulder a quiver. Makes the arm tired, searching for ammunition for too long. Vulnerable. Soon dead. Lazy way is the best way. Watch.”

  He undid his belt a couple loops and fed it through a small slit in the leather of the quiver, then put it back loosely. Then, the strap that held fast to the bottom of the bag looped once around the inner thigh, the outside of the quiver through another small slit, then fed back up through the belt where it cinched with a strap that currently held the quiver to Albarth’s shoulder.

  Ünbin tightened his belt the rest of the way as Albarth mimicked his teacher’s example, stopping to allow Ünbin to make small adjustments.

  “It seems so odd,” Albarth admitted as he walked around with the quiver attached to his leg.

  “Odd because it is not what you expected?” Thea asked sagely. “Sometimes, real fighting can lull us into a false sense of security where our expectations are concerned. If it feels natural—sometimes—it’s likely wrong unless you’re some kind of genius. Even then, learning is hardly ever comfortable, and the right way is likely never the most endearing. Fighting is hard, brutal, and about taking the best of your skill and putting it forth. Discomfort now makes for comfort and ease in the future. Keep that in mind.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Albarth smiled despite the gentle rebuff, and I saw the elven woman smirk in return.

  Ünbin, arms crossed over his chest, watched the exchange mutely, seemingly uncaring. When Albarth lagged in returning his attention to him, Ünbin whipped his longbow under the other man’s legs and pulled his right leg out from beneath him. Albarth yelped in surprise and fell to the ground.

  “Distractions can kill,” Ünbin’s emotionless tone caught the embarrassed man’s attention at last. “Stand.”

  This time, Albarth drew an arrow and nocked it to a small point between two points of hard, painted resin. He motioned for Albarth to draw the string and press the bow forward at the same time, and when he failed, Ünbin went to his back and tapped his pupils back muscles for emphasis.

  “Breath.” Ünbin pressed again. “Always breath.”

  Albarth tried again, his limbs shaking a little from the strain, but he managed to draw the arrow most of the way back with a grunt of effort. Then Ünbin flicked his pinky finger, and Albarth loosed the arrow accidentally, sending it much higher than he had been aiming. Luckily the arrow thunked into the wood of the fence about three inches from the top.

  Ünbin motioned to his own hand, where his pinky curled into his palm, and his three other fingers held an arrow, as an example. He nodded down at the bow once more, and they went through the motions of the drawing without the arrow, though Ünbin refused to allow Albarth to dry fire the weapon, punching him in the chest angrily when he did it on accident.

  “Maybe I should have tried the short bow?” He sighed during a break after a half an hour of Ünbin’s cruel ministrations. “Or the atlatl, maybe?”

  No sooner had the words left his mouth than an arrow pierced the ground in front of his left thigh. We all looked up to Ünbin, motioning for Albarth to stand and pick up his bow that the Kin man had forced him to leave in the training circle.

  This time, Albarth attempted to fire the weapon in truth, the arrow just missing the top of the target’s outer ring.

  When Albarth drew the weapon, a little shaky but much more smoothly than his previous attempts, Ünbin pushed Albarth’s elbow up until it was parallel with his ear.

  The arrow shot forward and stabbed the target’s outer ring.

  “Yes!” Albarth whooped as the rest of us called out.

  “What’d I miss?” Monami sprinted over, wild-eyed and curious.

  “Terrible aim.” Ünbin sighed, looking down. “Fire on a natural respiratory pause and focus on the tip of the arrow, leaving the target blurry. Where that tip is, the arrow will follow, but if your breathing and release are off, so is the shot. Again.”

  It took a few more tries for him to get the hang of it, but after his third shot came even closer to the center of the target, but never truly there.

  “Stop anticipating,” Sundar shouted, just before Albarth nocked another arrow.

  Ünbin glanced her way, then motioned for her to step over.

  “What?” Albarth looked uncertain and more than a little irritated.

  “You’re anticipating the shot, and since you expect it to happen, you’re jerking your left hand to the side to try and avoid some of the pain of the shot.” She motioned to his forearm, where welts already formed. “I can heal you, and we can get you something to protect your forearms. Pony up and own this weapon so we can go.”

  He sighed, straightened his back, and drew the bow nearly perfectly this time. As Ünbin stepped forward to correct Albarth’s elbow, the nymph adjusted it himself before taking a deep breath.

  After emptying his lungs, he loosed the arrow, and it soared true. Not dead center by any means, and an inch or so out of the bullseye, but he was so close!

  “Almost a bullseye!” I hollered happily, an indignant snort sounded behind me, and a muttered apology from Sundar saw my accidental snafu quelled with the man-bull. Oops.

  “And initiate level!” Albarth beamed at us proudly. “Thank you Ünbin, I appreciate your time.”

  He held out his hand for the longbow, and Albarth relinquished it.

  “Go get a real bow.” Ünbin grunted as he tossed the one he held into his inventory. “Earth Square, tell them I spoke to you about the place.”

  He slung his other bow over his shoulder in a practiced motion and turned to walk away, then stopped and paced back with his eyes on Albarth and Albarth alone.

  He stopped a foot away and ran his eyes over the other man, then spoke quietly, “You really beat Cälaos with the rapier?”

  Albarth nodded once, and Ünbin grinned like a child. “Tell them I said to ask about the special.”

  He turned and sprinted away, leaping high enough that he could grasp the top of the fence and vault over it.

  “Use the gate!” Gage roared as he chased the smaller man along the fence with a raised sword. “Those damned twins!”

  “Come on you guys, I’ll take you to the Earth Square.” Thea sounded like she dreaded it, but looking at her, I could see she was excited.

  “We don’t really have the time.” Albarth sighed, then looked to us. “It’s time for our audience to tune in.”

  “No go, guys,” Monami whispered and waved us toward Gage’s garden. We joined her, her grim visage foreshadowing dark tidings. “Streaming has been shut down due to someone trying to leak ‘sensitive’ information. Until they find the violator, they’ve disabled it. From the message, it happe
ned twenty minutes ago.”

  “The hell is sensitive information?” Albarth growled. “It’s just a game, and it’s been out long enough for most players who can afford the portals to be through the tutorial portion of the game.”

  “I don’t know, but when I tried to link up and stream you learning the bow, I got the error message, then an admin message,” Mona explained. “Do you need to see the message?”

  “I believe you, Mo.” Sundar sighed. “I guess that leaves us open to the quest. With no one to see it, we have a chance to get stronger, then be on our way. In the good graces of the Graces, feel me?”

  “Then we can join the guild and head to Belgonna’s Hold,” I frowned. “How can the starter city not have access to all the magics?”

  “Because it’s just a city,” Albarth shrugged. “Maybe it’s like a server choice? Who knows, but whatever it is, we need to head there. May as well gear up and get some dungeon crawling in.”

  “Gage.” Sundar waved the Minotaur over to us and grinned, “We’ll take that quest. Let us go get geared up, then we will return and go.”

  He smiled and offered us the quest again.

  QUEST RECEIVED – Prince Klemond deems you fit to fight in the crypts beneath his home. Find the cursed item at the end of the dungeon and bring it out of the crypts to nullify the curse. Reward: Negotiable, 400 EXP and potential future dealings with the crown of Iradellum. Failure: Loss of reputation with the crown, loss of dungeon privileges.

  Do you accept? Yes / No?

  This time I selected yes and Thea sauntered over to us. “We going shopping?”

  “We’d appreciate the guidance, yeah.” Mona nodded at the other woman, though she seemed a bit angry for some reason.

  It was hard to read her at the moment, and thinking about her, and her feelings just wasn’t what I wanted to do. So, the pretty elven woman got to come with us.

  She strutted in front of us for a few minutes, leading our group forward, when I felt a tug on my shirt.

  Albarth spoke in a low tone as the girls chatted about the weapons training, “Have you spoken to her?”