“Someone with the Earth sphere, wall that breach!” I yelled.
Several goblins ran through the breach, but a wall of stone nine feet high rose up out of the ground, and a lot of goblins ran right into the thing and bounced back. I flinched as the goblins in front got crushed by the heedless charge of those in the back. It was a good thing, but it had to hurt.
Wynn ordered, “Let’s get the nine that made it in, leave the walls to the soldiers and scouts.”
I sighed, and nodded.
Wynn moved over to the ladder, and barely dodged a lunging sword strike. Apparently, the goblins were coming for us, and trying to get on the wall in melee range of the defenders.
I moved over to the side, and peeked over and down to the side. Three were on the ladder, but the other six had bows out and knocked to cover the first three climbing up. I ducked back, and a moment later an arrow passed through where my face was. I had enough mana now, sort of. It was just over a hundred.
A large fire blast left my hand as I peeked a second time, and immediately leaned back to avoid any arrows. The goblins were standing close together, again.
Hopefully, they’d never learn.
A billowing blast of fire rose up half the height of the wall and engulfed the six archers. They took between seventy and eighty damage, depending on where they stood within the maelstrom. That was probably only a third of their lives, but it was all I had. We were supposed to be conserving mana by this stage of the fight, it was going to take time, but these emergencies kept cropping up. It was war.
Wynn was fighting the goblin in the lead on the ladder, trying to keep him off the wall without exposing himself to the archers. It was somewhat of a stalemate for the moment, as their swords clanged together. Wynn couldn’t close to get a deadly blow, and the goblin was waiting for an opportunity to gain the wall. The goblin had very limited options as far as directions went, if he surged forward Wynn would get a free and clear shot.
Anlyth used what mana he’d recovered to finish the wall, one of the warriors had started to replace the splintered gate. There’d still been a gap between the top of the wall, and the walkway attached to the top of the palisades. It was a good plan, because we didn’t want any of them coming over the short wall, and there were a few goblins trying in that moment. At least the walls were once again secure.
The rest of the team used my fire blast explosion as cover, and leaned over to fire their own spells and weapons. Lyre’s arrow struck one of the archers, and was the center of another explosion, while Gwen’s cursed arrow struck the goblin on the top of the ladder.
The curse took effect, and the goblin lunged up and off the ladder, impaling himself on Wynn’s waiting sword. Wynn’s leg snapped up and kicked the goblin off his sword, and back onto the goblin behind him on the ladder, sending both to the ground.
“Has anyone killed that last shaman yet? Gwen’s curse won’t last forever,” I yelled to no one in particular.
I was worried, if the curse ran out the shaman would regain his head and be able to cast some more. We really didn’t want that.
One of the elven warriors yelled back, “I got the bastard.”
I leaned over and shot another explosive fire blast into the goblin archers, that one only did about fifty damage, I was seriously low on mana, but it was enough to finish them off.
The two goblins left, one of them was fighting Wynn at the top of the ladder, and the other was getting up off the ground. He died fast, as Lyre and Gwen hit him with arrows, Lyre’s arrow also hit him with fire damage that doubled over five seconds.
I hit him with a basic fire spell to finish him off. Just five mana, thirty-five damage.
Anlyth stepped forward with his staff to double team the last goblin within the walls on the ladder with Wynn. Lyre, Gwen, and I turned back toward the outer wall to take stock of the main battle. The elves had killed another third, leaving about two hundred, but not without cost. Many of the elves had arrows in them, and continued to fight as they bled, and three more of them were dead.
We also needed to be cautious, back toward the outer wall we’d made ourselves targets for arrows, and we ducked down to see where we could most help.
I said, “You guys have fun killing goblins, I’m going to heal.”
It wasn’t a game, and not fun at all. My heart was pounding, and I felt sick with the deaths and the risk to those I cared about. Not so much Gwen and myself, though that was there too, but the rest of them. Still, it was either break down under the stress, or joke about it.
Gwen smirked, “Good plan.”
I moved down the wall in a crouch, and started to pull out arrows and heal elves. Yes, I could probably end the battle quicker with my magic, but in my head it was better to keep down the lives lost during this last battle. The thirty-four elves remaining were doing a hell of a lot of damage, working in concert, and taking out five or six goblins every few seconds. The surge of adrenaline, my racing heart, the stress, and the scent of blood and death was surreal as I did my best to keep them alive.
Gwen, Anlyth, Wynn, and Lyre were doing a lot of damage as well.
The goblins set fire to the walls a few times, but a water or air spell put the fires out quickly, either drowning or starving the fire of oxygen. The battle felt like it might go on forever, until the goblins broke and ran for it. There may have been forty left in total.
I stared in disbelief at the retreat, as a few final goblins were taken down by arrows and spells before they got out of range. In total, despite my best efforts, we’d lost eight elves. We’d had better plans, tactics, and were defending, but losing eight to the goblin’s loss of over five hundred sixty, was incredible.
When the goblins disappeared from view around the curve of the forest, I was inundated with popups.
Congratulations! Six hundred and five goblins are dead or have quit the field. You have earned one hundred forty thousand Experience Points!
Congratulations! The goblin tribe has been defeated for another generation despite your bumbling approach. You have earned one million Experience Points!
You have leveled!
You have leveled!
You have leveled!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Fire sphere to level nine. You have earned ten Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Water sphere to initiate level nine. You have earned ten Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Life sphere to initiate level nine. You have earned ten Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Meditation skill to initiate level nine. You have earned ten Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Sneak skill to initiate level nine. You have earned ten Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Builder skill to initiate level nine. You have earned ten Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Hunter skill to initiate level nine. You have earned ten Experience Points!
The concepts flooded my mind in an intense rush, that passed rather quickly. I’d just leveled thrice to my shock, reached level eleven, but all my skills and spheres were at level nine. I’d have to master the final level of initiate before it would advance again. Fortunately, they would all advance before I leveled again. Soon, it wouldn’t take me long to master and incorporate the concepts, that would kick them all to level ten, and then eleven, I was pretty sure.
Status.
Name:
Jason
Classes:
None.
HP:
267
Regeneration 1.5%/sec.
Race:
Half-Elven / Half Human
Mana:
425
Regeneration 1.8 (2.3)%/sec.
Platinum:
0
Stamina:
292
Regeneration 1.3%/sec
Gold:
57
Level:
&
nbsp; 11
TNL: 765,920
Silver:
44
Strength:
15
Bronze:
42
Agility:
14
Intelligence:
18 (23)
Willpower
13
Wisdom:
17 (20)
Magical Spheres:
Fire:
Initiate level 9
Water:
Initiate level 9
Air:
Initiate level 1
Earth:
Initiate level 1
Light:
Initiate level 1
Darkness:
Initiate level 1
Life:
Initiate level 9
Death:
Initiate level 1
Skills (Combat)
Combat Skill Name
Description
Level
N/A
Skills (Non-Combat)
Skill name
Description
Level
Sneak
Allows you to move silently.
Initiate Level 9
Builder
You can build a fire and create crude shelters and buildings.
Initiate Level 9
Hunter
Your ability to track and hunt animals.
Initiate Level 9
Meditation
Calm and focus your mind.
Initiate Level 9
I turned as Gwen touched my arm.
“You okay?”
I took her into my arms.
I smiled, “Isn’t that my line? I’m good. It could have been a lot worse.”
Gwen nodded, “We need to clean up, meditate, and practice. I want my apprentice skills.”
I laughed, “Me too. Let’s get started.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
It took a lot of work to loot, and get it all straightened out. There was a long line of goblin corpses four miles long. The elves also had to repair the outpost.
In the end, when all was said and done, I was a hundred gold richer. Part of that was the elves generosity for our help with their goblin problem. The goblins wouldn’t be a threat again for another generation.
As I suspected, as soon as I meditated on the new concepts, fixed my spells, and then cast one, it kicked me up a level, and then another. Besides the very intense rush of new concepts, I learned gaining apprentice levels in spheres and skills gave a hundred experience instead of ten.
The biggest gain was doubling damage, but it was really more than that. My level at eleven, with twenty three intelligence meant my combat spells started with a base damage of sixty eight, without accounting for mana. So, a five-mana fire blast, would do a maximum of seventy-eight. My ranges doubled as well, detect life worked eighty feet in all directions. My fire blasts radius half that, but that was still huge. As a result, it lost ten percent effectiveness every four feet, instead of three. My elementals would also be twice as strong, and stay twice as long. Instead of only eleven minutes, one per level, they would stay for twenty-two. Healing was affected as well, me or my target would get back two life, for every mana spent. Control water would now work at one mana for two cubic feet per level per second, instead of one cubic foot.
Assess life gave me all the same stuff, but it also gave me exact amounts on hit points and mana now, which was the apprentice break through. There was still a lot left to mystery, such as active spell effects and enchantments, attributes, sphere and weapon levels, but I imagined I’d slowly get that stuff too later, with the other major jumps into journeyman, expert, master, and grandmaster levels.
Regardless, it was a huge jump in power and effectiveness.
There were also more minor concepts for each sphere, giving the caster greater control over the shape of spells. Such as ice spike for an example. I could cast a hail of hundreds of needles instead, or if I wanted more blunt damage, I could make it in the shape of something blunt. I could shape the fire explosions, to an irregular size, like a shaped charge. It wasn’t as diverse as control fires on normal fires, I couldn’t extend a hundred percent damage every second for instance, but I could shape and control battle magic fire to some extent. The minor concepts tied control fires and the fire blast concept together in a way.
Commune was still crude, but I could at that point communicate more complex ideas to animals. The steel oaks still ignored me, but I could sense their deep thoughts, like whispers I just couldn’t quite make out.
It would take me books to explain all the various options that just opened up to me, and I was merely an apprentice. It was mind boggling to think what I might be capable of when I reached grand master level. In truth, I couldn’t even conceive of it yet.
There were two new major concepts that were shared by all spheres.
The first was enchantment. Only some spells could be imbued, at least at my level. Ironically, I couldn’t do stat upgrades at all, that took the Light sphere, so I’d have to find and purchase those upgrades. Even if I was willing to risk it usurping a skill point from my chosen spheres, and going up a level by using those concepts for an enchantment, I simply couldn’t until it was apprentice level. The enchantment concepts tied into level eleven sub-concepts of the spheres. I couldn’t enchant anything without both my level, and the chosen sphere, being in at least the apprentice level one.
But, I had plans already to make jeweled bracers, earrings, and boots. The boots would have silence on them, to help me move silently. That one I’d have to get Gwen to do for me, since it was the darkness sphere. My bracers would have permanent detect life on them, so I wasn’t wasting my mana regen to maintain it. My earrings would have a heal spell in them. Just in case I desperately needed one and was low on mana at the time. An apprentice level enchantment and gem could regenerate one mana a second, and hold about two hundred mana. That meant I’d be able to cast a two hundred mana heal every three minutes and twenty seconds using the object. Of course, if I ever found stat improving boots, earrings, or bracers for sale, I’d dump those in a second for higher stats.
The second major shared concept was tied into both enchantment and all the gains in the spheres, for double damage, higher control, and all that. The concept was about raw mana itself. It was the fundamentals on where mana came from, how to better manipulate and manage it, and the governing concepts. I assumed the major concept of mana itself would expand again when I hit journeyman, which would account for three times damage, and in support of better enchanting concepts, but that was just a guess.
Mana was a force, like gravity it was emanating into the world from another place, be it a dimension or subspace layer in the universe. It was a force my body could extract for power. It was also a constant static field like gravity, so regenerating from the field didn’t lessen the field one little bit, much like jumping off a cliff and using gravity to reach the ground below, didn’t lessen gravity because I was using it.
It was a force my body could harness and store, to be used to control the four raw elements, along with life, death, light, and darkness. Among those concepts was how to harness it with my mind a lot more efficiently when I built my spells, making those spells more effective. There were no concepts to suggest the raw mana could be used directly outside of the body without a spell, but there were hints that such a thing was possible. Someday, maybe.
I wasn’t sure what was next yet. I wanted to create those enchantments, and probably make a few for the rest of the group as well. Maybe take a few days off to spend with Gwen and deepen our relationship, and see if that great race war was going to kick off. If things stayed static for too long, we’d probably head elsewhere to look for trouble, or maybe just a dungeon. Neither Gwen nor I wanted to stagnate again.
Gaia’s purpose was still a mystery. This world she’d created for us was rewarding, and ironically perhaps, I felt freer than I’d ever felt in that old world of perfection. But�
� it was also far harsher than it needed to be to keep our minds sane while we waited for the Earth to heal from the super volcano. The magic too, had no place in a real world, so why did we have it at all? Growth and advancement were necessary to the human condition, but why this game? Why such violence and brutality, and the evil races? I wasn’t sure, but I’d started to think that maybe Gaia wasn’t crazy, even if I couldn’t see the purpose in it.
Frankly, that scared me, perhaps even more than the idea that Gaia had gone off her rocker.
The door opened, and Gwen entered our cottage. She walked over and sat on the bed, and kissed me.
“Are you going to meditate another day away, you’re missing out on the celebration. Everyone else is done with their gains, and got tired of waiting for you.”
I smiled, and pulled her in for another kiss before I answered.
“No, my love, that sounds like fun.”
Time to push it all away and enjoy life, at least for a couple of days. The one thing we had plenty of, was time…
Afterword:
I hope you enjoyed the story. This was the first book in the Evolution Online series, and my take on LitRPG. It is unique in its starting point and major plot arc, which has barely even been alluded to yet. It is also unique in that I didn’t give the main character a cheat, or loophole advantage. That won’t change, his only advantage is his education and keen mind.
Gaia's Gambit: Evolution Online I (A LitRPG) Page 24