Looking down at my new toy, I read the description again, hoping it might provide some kind of answer for me.
“You have received Wizards Spell Storage Staff. This weapon is an arcane focus for magical spells. Weapon Information: Melee, 1d6 damage +4, 1d4 poison damage. Rarity: Uncommon. Quality: Good, Magical. Durability: 152 = 150 base materials + 2 rune bonus. Total Spell Slots: 5 = 2 rune bonus and base materials + 3 spell storage crystal. Hardness: 11 = 10 base materials + 1 rune bonus.
Additional information: This staff has been enchanted with runes, Steel +3 damage, melee. Mersary, 1d4 poison damage over an equal number of seconds, does not stack, melee. Urtasium, + 1 hardness, durability, and melee damage. Eithercite, +2 spell enchantment slots, +2 to the skill check of casting all spell types. ”
“This is going to be awesome once I get some spells stored in it, but that will take time. I really don’t have that right now.” I said to myself, as I turned back to my spell list. “Just sucks that her adding that crystal and upgrading my storage slots removed the spells I had.”
Sighing, I did something I didn’t want to do. The world went into a red haze as I blinked, and I sat down in the lotus position. I pushed nearly all of the mana I had been able to recoup up to this point down into the earth in search of what I wanted. It took me a bit, and in that time I heard Tol’geth and Ailsa engage the enemy, but I kept searching. No, not it. Nope, that's an earth version, aaaaaaaaaand, yes!
I opened my eyes, and the red haze in my vision sturred and spun into a single spinning disk. It was a portal into another realm “Come forth elemental. I have paid the price in magic, and I require your service.” I said in the ancient tongue of the realm of fire, a hissing popping and cracking sound that hurt my throat to mimic. A tiny creature made of pure flame with a single piece of coal at its center appeared, and I analyzed it.
“Name: *crack*-hsssss*crack-pop*
Race: Lesser Fire Elemental
Class: Elemental Guard
Level: 1
Height: 4’3
Skin Color: Fire
Hair: Fire
Heritage: N/A
Affiliation: Summoner, Elemental Plane of Fire
Religion: Pyros, Titan of Elemental Fire
Alignment: Lawful, Instinctive
Material Characteristics
TOTALS
MODIFIERS
GENERAL
10
0
Strength
13
1.5
Dexterity
15
2.5
Constitution
12
1
Physical Attraction
0
0
Immaterial Characteristics
TOTALS
MODIFIERS
GENERAL
8.8
-0.6
Inteligence
7
-1.5
Emotional Stability
7
-1.5
Sensativity
0
-5
Perception
15
2.5
Luck
15
2.5
Special Abilities
Fire Breath: 1d10 + summoners fire magic skill level damage in a 15-foot cone. 1/day.
On Fire: Can set anything easily flammable aflame with only a touch. Touch deals 1d6 damage per second.”
What’s a Titan? I thought to myself before hearing a great crash and screams. I should focus. The creature I had summoned stood in front of me waiting for my commands. It's not very strong, but it is literally on fire. Before I did anything, I re-read the spell description.
Summon Lesser Fire Elemental
School/Type
Cost
Casting Time / Durration
Cool Down
Type: Fire. School, Summoning.
500 mana summon, + 15 mana per minute of possession
30 seconds / 15 min
30 min
Effect
REQUIRED: Access to an elemental fire lay line or node. Summons 1 Lesser Fire Elemental from the elemental plane of fire that you can give 1 simple command. You can choose instead to "possess" the creature, allowing you to do much more complex actions.
I closed the screen and looked at my summoned creature square in the flame pits it had for eyes.
“Do you want to possess your summoned creature, rather than issue one simple command? Yes / No”
I selected the Yes option, and my vision went black. I couldn’t feel anything but burning, and fire. But, that fire, the burning, felt… good. It felt normal, like the soft breeze of the wind on my old bodies skin before I changed.
I opened my eyes, and I understood the world as two different truths. Fire, and fuel. I looked over at my body and saw something different, fuel that was also me. Which was a strange feeling. After a moment of introspection, I remembered my goal was to save some fuel-creatures and to burn other fuel-creatures. Understanding my goals, I turned and ran after them.
----
I ran on all fours, not that I had four distinct limbs, just solid fire that I could change the form of and manipulate with impunity. Four limbs was just familiar and was a form that suited my mobility needs. The first of the fuels that I knew I wanted to burn, was strangely chewing on another piece of fuel that other moving pieces of fuel where hiding behind. I jumped on the goal-fuel and it caught fire.
I consumed it slowly, not fast enough. I realized that there was a hardened fuel that was burning slow, and stopping the fire from getting at the quick-to-burn fuel. I grabbed the hard not-quick-to-burn fuel and pulled. The goal-fuel screamed in pain, something I understood before the change was generally a bad thing, but that I wanted this fuel-creature to feel. I pulled again at the slow-burning fuel that was acting like… armor. Yes that was the term, armor. I burned the straps that held the thick leather armor together. Once those where gone, I pulled them off, and the goal-fuel burned a lot more easily.
I repeated this process a number of times, and each time I left the goal-fuel, and the fuel that the goal-fuel was traveling on in burning heaps. Looking back on my work, I felt a sense of pride and satisfaction.
Eventually, while the latest goal-fuel was burning, and I had just finished removing its armor, I felt a call back home. I felt myself being pulled in two directions. First, towards the outcropping of fuel-trees where my original body was sitting, and second into the oddly shaped disk that had just appeared next to me that felt warm. I stared into that disk, and my mind split apart.
----
“AHG!” I screamed as my mind burned with pain. Notification after notification hit me and joined the few from the previous battle that I had yet to address. The pain swiftly subsided, but it took me longer to recover my faculties enough to think. Even then it was a slow and arduous process. I felt cold, and I looked at my mana bar, it was nearly gone, it read 3.75 / 44,671. The few point increases I’ve gained over the last couple of days in light magic really helped.
My body shivered, and I realized I was experiencing the beginnings of what Ailsa had felt just days ago, Mana Exhaustion. I must have dipped into the negative on my mana pool while holding onto the possession, I thought. Luckily I don’t need to do anything immediately. That should give my mana time to regenerate. I only get about 145 mana a minute back, but that should be enough to defend myself if a goblin comes calling.
It took me a minute to realize that I should probably look in on the battle. When I finally did, I saw Ailsa, and Tol’geth walking back towards me, and fires raged behind them. The caravan was beginning to move on in their journey, now with a destination in mind, winters quarters, as I was sure Ailsa had told them about the place. Once we had the first couple of blocks finished, I was going to go out and search for people myself, after I got back from the south and helping Tol’geth anyway. Maybe we can use some of the people who arrived at Winters Quarters to do that instead.
&nb
sp; By the time my two companions got back to the trees that had sheltered my body, I was thinking clearly and was finally warm. My mana pool was near the 500 mark, and I was ready to go. “What was that?” Tol’geth asked, pointing at the field of fire behind him. “You almost killed me. Twice.”
“Yeah” Ailsa said slowly as she landed on my shoulder. “I thought we all agreed that you shouldn’t do a summoning after you lit the hill overlooking the construction site on fire when you told your first summoned elemental to dance.” I rolled my eyes at my companion's complaints.
“Look, I didn’t have anything I could have done to help you okay? I was at less than half my mana pool when we started that first fight, I had virtually nothing after this one. So when I summoned the little fire imp guy and thought I would try possession out. It worked like a freaking charm.”
“What's your mana at now?” Ailsa asked, concerned.
“A little over five hundred mana. The device requires a minimum of three hundred mana per person, so I'm going to have to rest a bit unless you think you can power it?” I said holding the pebble encased in glass and ringed with iron out to her.
“No, I'm almost in the same situation as you are.” And so we sat and watched the fire burn down to coals. While we did that, I addressed my prompts.
“You have killed Warg Rider Level 5. + 50 XP.
“You have killed Warg Rider Level 3. +25 XP.
“You have killed Warg Rider Level 6. +60 XP.
“You have killed Warg, Rider Level 3. +28 XP.”
Before I went any further I asked Ailsa why I got different levels of XP for kills of the same type, and the same level.
“Experience is essentially a way for Ethria to reward you for doing things that are noteworthy, for them. Kill a goblin, or fulfill a short term or relatively easy contract? Less experience than doing something harder like surviving a ten-story fall over a deadly cliff.”
“That's, oddly specific.”
“Happened to a friend once, she got a thousand XP for it! Anyway, you do that same minor thing in a new and innovative way for you? More experience, greater reward.”
“That's what I thought, thanks Ailsa,” I said and I went back to reading the prompts.
“You killed goblin Bodyguard, lv 7. +38 XP.”
You killed goblin Bodyguard, lv 5. +18 XP”
“You killed goblin Shaman, lv 15. Professed mage. +59 XP +12xp for killing a professed mage.”
“You have killed Warg, Rider Level 3. +22 XP.”
“You have killed Warg, Rider Level 7. +48 XP.”
“You have killed Warg, Level 3. +15 XP.”
“You have killed Warg, Level 3. +14 XP.”
“You have killed Warg, Level 3. +11 XP.”
“You have killed Warg, Level 4. +15 XP.”
“You have killed Warg, Level 3. +9 XP.”
At the end of both fights I had gained a total of 424 experience points. When I told the others they both patted me on the back and congratulated me, but it didn’t seem that big of a deal to them. “Why does this seem so anti-climatic?” I asked.
“Because you’re not level ten yet. At level ten you can take a class and a profession, though most people don’t take the profession until they are at least level fifteen or twenty. Also, at level ten it becomes more difficult to gain experience, double that difficulty once you take a profession.” Ailsa’s explanation left me both sad and intrigued about the whole thing, but I had more prompts to finish.
I had leveled up four different times. It's about time I get some actual leveling done, all this skills grinding is nice, but until I get some real numbers I’m going to keep being a glass cannon. I thought about where to put the 12 points I had. I asked my friends, but they both told me that it was a private, deeply personal thing to choose where to allocate your characteristic points.
For some people it was a sacred right, and interfering or even making kind suggestions was considered nigh unto blasphemy. Forcing someone's hand to make a certain choice was seen by many as akin to violations and crimes like rape, or even murder.
“Look, if you really need help with it, I’d be willing to explain it all later tonight. Right now? Let's focus on getting back into the fight yeah?” Ailsa asked.
“I think I'll probably just work on it now. If I have questions I'll ask.” Both Ailsa and Tol’geth eased slightly, much more comfortable with answering questions than offering suggestions for my character building. I will keep that in mind, I thought to myself as my attention turned back to my interface.
I considered everything I had experienced, and what I needed most with my combat style so far. I needed to be able to get closer to people, to be able to take a little bit of a hit, and to keep on ticking, which strongly suggested an investment in constitution. I also needed to increase my ability to deal damage and stay under control, which suggested intelligence and emotional stability.
Coming to a final decision, and what I thought was the best mix for how I was living in this world I inputted my decisions and hit the accept button. I had put 4 points into constitution, bringing it up to 14, and my health points jumped from 70, where it was after the level ups, to 84. I put 4 points into intelligence, as that seemed to be the most highly used magical characteristic across all of my spells bringing it up to 22.
I invested the next four points separately. The first one went into physical attraction because I'm a little vain. Second, a single point into emotional stability, bringing it up to 21, and the last two points I dumped into perception and luck. They have both proven handy so far here on Ethria, brief as it has been.
When I was done, I looked at my mana bar, it was getting close to the 1.5k mark, it had taken me only about ten minutes to go through everything, assign the points, and discuss things with my team. I stood up, pulled the glass construct out of my pocket, and said to both of them “Time to go.”
Chapter 11: The Battle of Laketown
“All War Is Deception.” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Laketown, Frega, 33rd, 2987 AoR
We came through the portal into a large circular plaza of white cobblestone, fenced in by red brick waist-high walls meant more for decoration then defense, two-story shops, and houses beyond them only a short distance. Sparks was in my hand and I held a force bolt in my hand as I surveyed the area. Dead goblins littered the cobblestones like scattered rice, in and among them I could see the occasional human corpse.
“Looks like today was market day,” Ailsa said, hovering next to me, her tone worried. The portal cleared away as Tol’geth game through.
After Tol’geth got his bearings he kneeled down to one of the human corpses and pushed it over. The old man had been run through with a sword as he had fled. “Bakers, fishmongers, wheelwrights, and docksmen. These were not warriors, yet they felled many a foe. There was much honor earned here by man, none by goblin.” I let him brood for a moment while I surveyed the now visible other half of the plaza.
The main plaza ran up against the river and the docks there. The main dock was made of stone and brick, its smaller wooden mimics were nearly all ablaze on both sides running north-west, and south-east alongside the waterfront.
“Tol’geth!” I said and pointed towards a small group of still-living men circled together in defense against a warg and six or seven of the larger goblin cousin. What did Salina call them? Hobgoblins? The Militia was comprised of fishermen, brandishing harpoons as speers. One from the gaggle of barely armed men wore armor, and held a proper sword in one hand, while the other arm rested in a sling, wrapped tightly in a bandage.
The barbarian simply nodded at me and charged in their direction. The fight was taking place at the intersection of a small wooden dock, at the mouth of one of the smaller roads that lead away from the district to the north-west. The dock was one of the few that was not alight, and women and children desperately packed it, waiting for their turn on one of the three small skiffs that was sailing as many as they could as fast as they could acro
ss the river to the shelter of a small outcropping of rocky hills, where a good number of people were already gathering.
Ailsa shot after Tol’geth casting force bolts and other spells at a larger than average Warg. The beast had just grabbed a man from the ragged defensive line. The man screamed as the beast began savaging him, ignoring Ailsa's spells as if they were so much rain. A few seconds later a loud cracking sound echoed across the nearly empty courtyard and the man's screams were silenced.
I walked briskly towards the fight, releasing a standard force bolt at the w|Warg to accompany Ailsa’s barrage, as I pulled up my spell list. Fire’s not really an option, the fighting is too close I might set the dock on fire and hurt bystanders. I released another standard force bolt and kept thinking. My Cure Light Wounds spell will be helpful after the fight is over, I can help heal the wounded. But Light Ball is just useless right now.
I let loose another force bolt into the beast as it turned towards Tol’geth, muzzle bloody, teeth bared. To his credit my large friend didn’t even flinch, raising his two-handed sword and charging the creature with a wordless battle cry that taunted the creature just as he had done with the bandits. The warg was nearly twice the size of the ones we just faced not half an hour ago, was it bigger now than a few seconds ago? It seemed to be only growing as the fight wore on.
The Goblins turned on my friend, affected by his ability. The single soldier among the hastily constituted fishermen militia saw his momentary advantage and took it, pressing forward with the harpoon wielding lake folk. The sturdy and exhausted commoners bellowing their own wordless cries of desperation and anger felled five of the six creatures.
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