Behold My Power was such a tricky skill to use. Having to decide the right time to use it was tough. When could they afford to lose ten percent of their health, and was the fight going to be long enough for him to use it twice? There was a lot to consider when casting the curse, but it was so close to the next rank that Tim would have to use it in his next fight.
Skill Increased: Healing Storm
Rank: Apprentice level one
Using a skill regularly is the fastest way to increase your proficiency with it. You’ve used this spell very efficiently. Congratulations on reaching the apprentice ranks. The base amount healed by Healing Storm has increased by ten percent, and the spell now also applies a heal over time component. Ten percent of the ordinal heal will be applied as HOT over the next six seconds.
It wasn’t a huge amount of additional healing, but any amount of free AOE healing was a welcome addition to the toolkit. The small heal over time component would be enough to take the edge off any nicks or bruises and let Tim apply his larger heals more judiciously.
Skill Increased: Way of the River
Rank: Apprentice level two
Use this stance more often to see greater results.
This stance was great for him when they were all taking damage, but it was highly situational. His first job would always be making sure Cassie stayed up. If the tank controlled the battle, the rest of the things would fall into place.
Skill Increased: Who Needs a Shield
Rank: Apprentice level three
This curse now applies an eleven percent reduction to an enemy’s damage for ten seconds and increases the entire party’s dodge chance by one percent.
Words couldn’t describe how fond Tim was of this spell. Reduced damage meant he could contribute a few offensive strikes to the fight. He was pretty sure this spell was also a big factor in how JaKobi survived their fight with the blacksmith.
Skill Increased: Way of the Boulder
Rank: Apprentice level four
Your tank must love you. Not every healer can provide a flat-out damage reduction buff to their main source of protection, but you can. Continue using this skill to reach the journeyman ranks.
Tim felt like this skill would get a decent boost at the journeyman ranks after getting a big fat pile of zip at the apprentice ranks. It was funny how Cassie’s class lined up with his. Her job was to avoid taking hits, but when she did, he reduced the damage by ten percent, twenty if he managed to cast Who Needs a Shield first.
It looked as though his Armor of Eternia and Attacks of the Faithful were both boosted to apprentice level four without much fanfare. He was interested to see if these skills would evolve over time or if they would become situational as they moved into new areas. One thing he knew, it didn’t cost him anything to cast or maintain the buffs so he’d keep them up, even if they weren’t effective.
Skill Increased: Curse of Giving
Rank: Apprentice level four
You must like this spell a lot. A LOT. That said, you use this curse with great efficiency. When isn’t the right time to damage your enemies all while healing your group? Never. You should be using this spell all the time. This curse now returns ten percent of the damage done to the recipient(s) of your stance.
Tim couldn’t help but agree.
This curse provided healing to his entire party if he slipped into his Way of the River stance. If he stayed in his main stance, it reduced the amount of attention he had to pay to Cassie, freeing him up to make calls to the raid. Curse of Giving was quickly becoming one of his favorite casts.
Skill Increased: Cleanse
Rank: Apprentice level eight
Hangover Spangover. Thankfully you’ve also used this spell for other things. Such as removing toxins and poisons from people’s wounds. You know, the stuff Cleanse should be used for.
Hey!
Some would argue that being able to cure a hangover was more important than reattaching an arm. Tim chuckled as he took another sip of his coffee. Not having to worry about waking up with the spins, and spending the day tied to the porcelain throne is what made life worth living. He could have always stopped drinking, but now he didn’t have to.
Skill Increased: Weaken Undead
Rank: Apprentice level eight
Dead things don’t like you, and you don’t like them. This is a perfect spell for getting rid of evil. Weaken Undead now lowers the resistances of the undead by twenty percent and all other creatures by ten percent.
It was a good skill to have, especially for undead boss monsters. The average dungeon boss had resistances that would make a normal MOB as jealous as Tim was of Ryan Reynolds’ abs.
Who in the fuck has abs like that anyway?
Ryan does, that’s who.
Skill Increased: Divine Light
Rank: Apprentice level nine
Crushing your enemy and seeing them flee before you, nope, you’d rather burn holes of holy fire through them. Divine Light does ten percent increased damage. The spell now also applies a DOT (damage over time) on the target for ten percent of the initial damage inflicted over five seconds.
If the spell didn’t cost so much he’d use it all the damn time. Who didn’t like shooting Ironman-like bolts of holy energy at people? Sure, Tim used a staff and not a super cool suit with a talking AI, but his thing was still cool as fuck. This was his default attack after Curse of Giving, and he was excited to see how it would change at the journeyman ranks.
Skill Increased: Healing Orb
Rank: Journeyman level four
Oh, the old tried and true. There’s a bet going on that you wouldn’t stop using this skill even if the developers made it suck. Not to worry, that kind of thing is totally unethical, and a developer would never dream of nerfing your favorite skill into oblivion.
;-)
This spell is thirty percent more effective than at base level and applies thirty-five percent of the initial heal as a heal over time.
Those bastards better leave my Healing Orb alone!
Tim would be so pissed if they nerfed his bread-and-butter ability. It wasn’t his fault that he used the heal so well in conjunction with his curses. Despite how effective his healing seemed to be, he was pretty sure he was in the middle of the road when it came to heals per second numbers. His class choice gave him a ton of utility while sacrificing pure healing numbers, so it was his ability to do more than heal that made his class shine.
With his curses applying damage to a lot of their targets, it shrank the workload on the DPS, or if his damage-dealing compatriots decided to push it, then he could ease off and focus on pure healing output. It was a near-perfect situation for Tim. Although they had come close to getting wiped out more times than he was willing to admit.
Living on the edge wasn’t his style.
Play it safe and have a plan was the way Tim liked to handle his business. If there was time for it, he also preferred not only to have a plan but a backup and a contingency as well. You never knew when your first couple of options would turn to shit, and you had to pull a rabbit out of your ass to survive. There was no reason to go through life flailing around when all you had to do was take a few moments to set yourself up for success.
“Hey, what are you still doing in the tub?” ShadowLily walked into the bathroom. “Get out and get dressed. Everyone is waiting for you. Again.”
“Damned ungrateful morning people is what you are.” Tim laughed. “I’m also not saying I’d hate you if you got me a little more of that coffee.”
ShadowLily stopped and stared at him. “Lucky I don’t pour the pot out on your big fat head.” Her tone softened. “If it gets you out of the tub faster, one cup of coffee coming right up.”
“Thank you!” Tim shouted as he pulled himself out of the cast-iron monstrosity of a tub.
It took him a second to figure out why she snapped at him, but then he realized his mistake. It was a good rule of thumb never to ask someone to do something for you that you could easily do yourself. It wa
s also polite when you got up from the table to ask if anyone needed anything, but he sucked at doing that too. Realizing the mistake was the first step to success.
Not repeating it was the second.
Little moments like this also reminded him to be thankful for the special people in his life. Sometimes you needed someone to give you a little reality check. It was always easy to get caught up in your hype. Every single thing he’d accomplished in this game wouldn’t have been possible without his friends. From Gaston the assassin up to the Goddess Eternia herself, there were many people responsible for his success. It wouldn’t hurt for Tim to tell them how much he appreciated them more often.
Maybe after another cup of joe.
He took a few moments to make sure he was dry before equipping his clothes. He’d made the mistake a few times of not completely drying off first, and there was no worse feeling than underwear sticking to your wet skin. Who wanted to spend the day like that?
So far, the best thing about the inventory system for him was that it didn’t matter how much gear you had. It could always be equipped in an instant as long as you were out of combat. Tim also found the ability to save items into sets incredibly helpful for when he wanted to change outfits in the market or simply go from using his assassination skills to his healing. All he had to do was think of which of his five active slots he wanted to activate, and the magic happened.
New clothes would appear on him instantly. It was the kind of thing that would make every runway model in the world jealous. Not to mention his clothes always smelled awesome when he put them on, as though he pulled them from the drier moments before.
ShadowLily was stomping her foot impatiently when Tim exited the bathroom. She pointed at the cup of steaming coffee on the table. “It’s grab and go time.”
Ignoring the cup of steamy hot perfection, Tim moved directly to the woman of his dreams and wrapped her in his arms. “I love you.” He kissed her. “And I couldn’t do any of this without you.”
“Don’t you forget it.” She shoved him away as she smirked. “We don’t have time for your sweet-talk right now. We have people waiting for us.”
Tim sighed dramatically. “If sweet-talking is out, I guess we should go.” He motioned for her to lead the way.
He followed ShadowLily for five steps before turning and running back for his coffee. Tim sipped the delightful liquid and hurried to catch up, cup in hand. The best part about the day was that whatever they faced, it would be new and exciting. The deserts of Naroosh awaited.
But not until there was more coffee.
A proper day of adventuring could never be accomplished without the requisite amount of caffeine.
Chapter Three
Breakfast was a meal of indulgence.
At least it could be when someone felt the urge to be a little naughty. Tim liked living on the wild side of the menu for brunch, especially after a long night out or in celebration of a recent accomplishment. Sometimes he wanted to pretend he was celebrating so no one could judge him for eating slices of pumpkin bread French toast with cream cheese frosting. Sometimes it was okay to give in to temptation, and eating something bad wouldn’t end up with him getting his balls cut off like a night with another girl would.
There was also something to be said about the power of a good Denver omelet when you paired it with hash browns and biscuits and gravy. If Tim felt like waddling home, he added a side of corned beef hash. It felt like there wasn’t a problem in the world that couldn’t be hashed out over a good breakfast. Whenever he had a big problem that didn’t solve itself in the shower, he figured it out with a fork in his hand.
Better than the guy who figured it out while pooping.
Not that being in college was all sunshine and daydreams. If you wanted to do well, you had to work your ass off. They told you about the credit hours upfront. What they didn’t tell you was that for each hour in the classroom, a student had triple those hours of work outside it. Toss in a part-time job and an active social life, and sleep became something of an indulgence, and full meals a weekly luxury.
On the weekends, Tim liked to knock out both of those activities at the same time. Eat enough food to feed a village followed by a nap that lasted late into the afternoon. Saturdays were a gift from the gods and should never be wasted with such idle things as working or catching up on chores.
Saturdays should be celebrated with an extra slice of carrot cake you brought home to give you that special kind of sugar rush upon rising from second napsies.
Sunday was when he caught up on all the things he’d put off during the week. A.K.A. panic and spend the entire day studying. Tim wasn’t amassing massive amounts of student loans so he could get C’s in class.
Imagine paying someone to be mediocre.
Michael Jordan didn’t show up to work every day thinking, you know if I just slack off a little today no one will notice. No sir, the guy invented insults and slights to keep himself motivated. While Tim was no MJ, when it came down to failing, he was only prepared to do it if he’d given it his all.
Tim picked business as his college major because numbers made more sense to him than words. Despite his best efforts, his coding skills stayed somewhere around the average fifth grader’s. Meaning he could create a half-assed blog or a forum, but that was about it.
So he took the safe route.
Right up until he met a girl named Sierra, and she planted the idea of going into The Etheric Coast in his head. Of course, he’d thought about it before, but it never seemed like a viable option until he sat down and did the math. It wasn’t as if the woman of his dreams influenced his decision at all.
The plan had been to enter the game and work as an apprentice to a blacksmith. Tim would have left the game with a huge chunk of his student debt erased and a little spending money. Somewhere along the way, he’d decided to lay all his dreams on the line and become an adventurer.
With the guild they had, it was worth the risk.
Although at the time it felt like Tim was taking a major leap of faith, now he had a streaming contract that erased most of his immediate worries. Tim didn’t even have to edit the videos. All he had to do was mentally hit record. It’d become so easy for him to do that he didn’t even think about it anymore. No one wanted to be bogged down with video editing and worrying about buttons when they were inside a new world and fighting to bring down the baddest creatures the developers could throw at them.
In a world of magic and monsters, what most players wanted to do was kick ass. The little intrusion streaming put on his life was easily outweighed by the benefits of having his POD fees covered and money going home to his parents. They deserved to be able to take it easy for a while. The money he was sending them wasn’t the kind of cold hard cheddar that would let them quit their jobs, but it was enough to take care of an unexpected expense or two, and who couldn’t do with a few less bills?
It wasn’t like Tim’s parents wanted to be millionaires and live in a big mansion. His folks were simple people. All they wanted was to give their kids the best opportunity to succeed they could. If that meant sacrificing things like new cars, or eating out so their children could have the best, then that was what they did. Tim realized how much he owed them the more he thought about it.
His folks were hard on him, but they were also the reason he was successful.
Without his parents taking such an active role in his life, Tim probably wouldn’t have gone to college. Most of the kids from his neighborhood didn’t. He remembered how they mocked him for caring about class, for actually doing his homework. Teased him for being scared of what his parents would do if he skipped school with his friends.
In the end, he’d made it to college, and now he was a graduate.
How fucking cool was that?
Tim knew his parents wouldn’t stop sacrificing things until they gave his brother and sister the same opportunities he had. The fact he could help out in some small way made him feel good. Family wa
s what made life worth living. Sure, sometimes those two brats were frustrating as hell, but at the end of the day, no one had your back like family.
Tim’s family bubble now extended to a few more people.
There was no other word that could better describe the members of the Blue Dagger Society than family. All of them would give everything they had for every member of the guild. Being in the guild was like moving into a neighborhood where your best friends owned all the other houses. Joe took the place of all of their fathers, making sure they were fed and looked after one another. JaKobi might as well have been his brother, and Cassie and Lorelei his sassy sisters.
Then there was ShadowLily.
The woman was quickly becoming the love of his life. If he had to describe how much she meant to him in one word it would be Buttercup. Although his princess was a whole lot more deadly, and he liked it that way. He tried to justify coming into the game rationally, but at the end of the day, all he really wanted was a chance to spend more time with her. It didn’t matter how much Tim tried to rationalize it. Facts were facts.
Risky, sure.
Unwise, some might think so.
For Tim, it was the best decision of his life.
“Pass me the pecan syrup.” JaKobi nudged Tim out of his daze.
Tim picked up the warm jug and handed it to him. “You know, with all the magic we have access to, you’d think one of us would have learned how to levitate things.”
“I like fire.” JaKobi poured steaming syrup over a mountain of pancakes. “Lifting things with your mind doesn’t seem nearly as useful.”
Tim snickered. “Only when you run out of toilet paper and that roll under the sink is just out of reach.”
Cassie slapped the healer on the shoulder. “No bathroom talk when we’re eating.”
“Yes, Mother.” Tim eyed her over the rim of his coffee cup, but Cassie ignored him and turned back to Lorelei, and started talking about Joe and Seraphina.
Not needing to know more about his girlfriend’s father’s dating life, Tim turned his attention to his plate of food. He didn’t know if he got hungry in the game or that he simply wanted to eat. Either way, the result was the same.
Deserts Of Naroosh Page 3