by Dakota Krout
“Good, I guess? I’d like to learn it; the spell sounds useful,” Joe stated in a straightforward manner. “If you think I was able to survive a wave of fiery death by having that spell, I would really like to know what it does and how to make it work.”
“Fine,” Cel spat while passing over an orb. “Go ahead and register your request to be ‘taught’ the spell, Joe. Go ahead. Pay me for knowledge you already have.” Joe didn’t appreciate the sarcasm but still touched the orb and watched a notification appear.
Register to be taught spell ‘Mage Armor’ by Journeyman Cel? Tuition price reduced: Instructor is not a Master of the spell, additionally your 90% discount has been applied. Price of spell: 1 gold. Accept instruction? Yes / No
Joe accepted, and the orb flashed blue. Cel groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine, you insufferable… why did I ask to teach you? Let’s talk about Mage Armor. As you undoubtedly know, the heavier armor is, the more it impedes your movements. This means that it is harder to cast spells unless you have high strength and dexterity. Obviously, those are typically stats that aren’t invested in by Mages to a great degree.”
“Makes perfect sense.” Joe nodded along.
“I bet it does,” Cel grumbled, obviously not believing that Joe didn’t know the spell. “Mage Armor is a spell that frees the awakened amongst us from the need to wear heavy armor in battle. We create ‘armor’ from our mana and coat our bodies in this power. The armor acts like a solid and a fluid at the same time, allowing air and slow-moving objects to come through so we can still grasp things, but it stops anything moving above a certain speed.”
“So it acts like a non-Newtonian fluid?” Joe muttered to himself as he scratched at his ear.
“What now?”
Joe shook his head. “Just rephrasing it in better terms for myself.”
“Mmhm. Almost like you know… whatever. Well, the armor is doubly effective against spells, but this, unfortunately, means all spells. Healing spells from outside sources will be blocked just as much as damaging spells. Let’s focus on the requirements for a moment, though. At the first rank of this spell, you can put any amount of your mana into Mage Armor, and it will block that amount of damage from spells and half that from physical impacts. However much you put in, ten percent of that will be reserved from your mana pool to maintain a connection to the spell as well as maintaining the armor itself.” Cel paused to let the information sink in.
“Add two hundred mana, and you lose access to twenty mana until the armor is gone?” Joe questioned, showing he was paying attention. “That investment of two hundred mana will block one hundred damage from a sword?”
“Exactly.” Cel thought a moment before grouchily muttering, “Not that most beginners with this spell can simply toss two hundred mana at it…”
“Don’t worry about that. Can we work on actually casting it?” Joe impatiently demanded. He was excited to learn this spell; it would effectively double or triple his health.
“Alright.” Cel started talking, “First, you imagine a layer of mana over your body, like a bubble but held tight against your skin. Let your mana flow into that shape, filling all the space between your skin and the bubble. It is harder than it sounds because the mana will want to fly off into the air when you release it.”
It took quite a while–and annoyed instruction from Cel–before Joe was able to keep the mana around him and not let it just dissipate into the room. It was a struggle, but as soon as he gained the first rank in the spell it became infinitely easier to create the armor. The lost vapor-like mana was sucked back into shape around him, and his new Mage Armor solidified. Luckily, the armor turned transparent, and there was no distortion around him thanks to how close the spell was to his skin. At that point, he practiced dispelling the armor and remaking it under Cel’s watchful eye.
Spell gained: Mage Armor (Novice V). Being taught the proper way to do things from the very beginning tends to have better results than bashing your head against a problem until it is solved. Now, you can bash your head against anything and not feel it! Please do try it a few dozen times. Effect: For every point of mana devoted to this spell, negate one point of damage from primary sources of magic and half a point from primary sources of physical damage. Increase conversion by .025n where ‘n’ equals skill level.
“Huh.” Joe read over the notification again, really looking at the details. “Huh.”
“What?” Cel was pleasantly surprised; his teaching skill had increased, meaning that Joe really hadn’t known the spell. He was feeling a bit sheepish about his condescending words now.
“The description on this one is pretty different from any of my other skills…” Joe trailed off. “Increases conversion?”
“Oh, that.” Cel nodded at Joe’s words. “It means that every point you add will block more damage. Easier to see in practice than to explain.”
“Great, thanks. How do I rank up in the skill?” Joe wanted to put the armor on, but if there was a trick to it, he didn’t want to miss out.
“Two ways, but they are both kind of the same. Your armor has to take damage,” Cel explained easily. “You can increase your rank faster if you work the armor in specific ways, like thickening it around vital areas. There isn’t a direct rank gain, but the more of the armor that is devoted to blocking an attack, the faster its levels increase. Passive damage reduction is difficult to directly explain.”
“Play with the shape of the armor, take damage,” Joe cut out all the fluff, and Cel nodded after a moment.
“That about covers it,” Cel admitted, a bit frustrated. He was trying to increase his teaching skill, blast it!
Quest updated: Playing your fake role II. Learn three Mage spells 3/3. Get one Mage-type skill to the Beginner ranks 0/1. Kill five enemies within ten seconds by using spells 0/1.
Joe thanked Cel, chatted a short while, and left the College. As soon as he stepped out, he remembered that he had forgotten to ask about skill rarity! He almost went back in, but decided that he had spent too much time indoors recently and it would be a good idea to go train. Before he went further, he activated his Mage Armor, dumping all eight hundred and eighty-eight points of mana into its activation. That should stop just about four hundred and forty points of physical damage! The only unfortunate part of the skill was the fact that spell efficiency didn’t work to decrease the mana requirement. Ah well. Can’t have everything.
Joe smiled an evil smile and decided to… go for a walk. Today was a Monday in the real world, so a good amount of people that played the game were offline for now. From Joe’s perspective, they wouldn’t be logging in until tomorrow; so it was the perfect time to start branching out with his training.
~ Chapter Nine ~
*Thud*. *Thud*. Joe ignored the impacts that barely shifted him, focusing intently on sharpening another quill in preparation for his next class session. He had already mixed three jars of ink, and- *Thud*. Joe turned his head and glared at the rabbit that was doing its best to kill him. It glared right back at him and jumped once again, slamming its horn into his side.
The rabbits had ignored him for a good long time, frightened away by his level. To get around this, Joe had simply taken a relaxed position by sitting down. Technically, he was considered a ‘helpless’ target, and the rabbits that saw him couldn’t not attack him. That said, he didn’t want a swarm of rabbits around him full-time, so whenever a new one started attacking him, a shadow spike would devastate whichever rabbit had been attacking him the longest. Joe needed fresh attackers to build his shields, not exhausted fluffballs.
This rabbit though… maybe it was the last one in the area because it had lasted a lot longer than most of them had to this point. It was also a little bigger; did this count as a boss monster for the angry rabbits? It was possible. The rabbit stood out a bit for the simple fact that it had a pointed horn instead of a rounded nub, but there was nothing otherwise that screamed ‘boss monster’ at him. Joe went back to ignoring th
e rabbit and started going through his reams of paper. Thanks to his recent instruction, he was able to discern which of the sheets could potentially be upgraded to contain mana and which were going to have to remain as doodle paper. He could- *Thud*. “Ow!”
Joe jumped to his feet, frantically looking around to find what could have hurt him. The rabbit jumped at him again, smacking against his Mage armor and falling to the ground. Not seeing anything else in the area, Joe opened his combat log and scrolled down past the scores of ‘rabbit does damage to armor’ messages, finally finding what he was looking for.
Angry Bunnicorn deals 3 damage (Armor penetration).
“You must be kidding me.” Joe looked down at the animal that was gearing up to attack him once again and decided to study it instead of killing it outright. He rolled his eyes as he read the information he was able to glean with his perception check.
Perception check success! Angry Bunnicorn (level 3). The Bunnicorn, much like the Unicorn, is largely regarded as a myth. They are pure and gentle creatures, unlike their racial enemy, the ‘Chic-chic-boom chicken’. It is widely known that killing a Bunnicorn will stain your soul, permanently increasing the aggressiveness of all rabbits toward you.
“So I can’t kill you or rabbits will attack me again whenever I step outside the gates? You are the worst kind of enemy. You make weak creatures attack strong ones.” Joe chided the rabbit, which had fluffed up indignantly as soon as Joe started speaking aloud. The rabbit jumped at him again, and Joe watched as the sharp horn reached the edge of his armor and skidded off. “Need either a perfect attack or a certain amount of strength to get through the armor, hmm? Well, I should really thank you. I hadn’t even thought about armor penetration… in fact, I am sure there is a way to cut right through Mage armor, isn’t there? As thanks, I won’t skewer you.”
Joe decided to get going; he wasn’t going to get much more done right now unless he wanted to kill the Bunnicorn, and he had no desire to fight off rabbits all the time. As he walked away, the Bunnicorn squealed at a pitch that made Joe’s ears hurt. He turned around angrily, but just then a notification appeared.
Bunnicorn has called for reinforcements! Prepare for a swarm!
“You have got to be kidding me!” Joe groaned, picking up speed as he broke into his strange skip-shuffle walk. It looked exceptionally odd but boosted his walking speed by sixty-two percent since he was technically adding his jump skill modifier to his movement speed. His increased pace wasn’t going to allow him to escape though; he could already see a carpet of bouncing rabbits closing in on him. If he didn’t clear a path, he was going to be in serious trouble. Spellcasting while moving wasn’t exactly an easy task, nor a safe one, but he really had no choice. He began casting weak acid spray with each hand, releasing a cone of acid from two locations as the rabbits got close.
There was a collective scream of pain from over a dozen rabbits as they were caught in the acid and it began melting them. The spell did five points of damage over a few seconds, and most rabbits had an average of four health. By the time the first among them reached him, nearly all of the affected rabbits had fallen to the ground and begun dissolving fully. Joe had a clear path now, but… he glanced around and saw dozens more rabbits. His armor started taking hits, but he figured that he had time to finish this group off. He dual cast acid spray once again, intentionally keeping the Bunnicorn out of the area of effect.
Over the next two seconds, almost all of the rabbits that had joined in the fray were turning into puddles. Joe finished off the rest with targeted shadow spikes, happy that he had set his class as ‘Mage’ today. He might have run out of mana in this battle otherwise! Ten seconds later, only he and the Bunnicorn were still alive. It was trembling in fear and anger but continued to attack him. Joe reached down and grabbed the animal by the scruff of its neck, surprised when it stopped moving just like a cat would when grabbed like this.
Joe shrugged and started walking back to the city. Blinking notifications caught his attention, and he read them as he walked.
Quest updated: Playing your fake role II. Learn three Mage spells 3/3. Get one Mage-type skill to the beginner ranks 0/1. Kill five enemies within ten seconds by using spells 1/1.
Skill increase: Weak Acid Spray (Novice VII). Nothing quite like melting down helpless animals to give you a clear picture of what acid does to flesh!
Skill increase: Dual Casting (Novice II) Spells? Lots of spells! Spells everywhere! Who needs to be careful not to destroy the landscape? Not you! Cast, cast, cast!
A swarm has been destroyed by you; finish off the instigating agent to complete the event!
“Yeah, I’m not killing this thing,” Joe muttered as he picked up the pace. The Bunnicorn struggled a bit, but he ignored it and kept walking. As he approached the city gate, a guard stopped him by stepping into his path.
“You can’t bring a live monster inside the city without a permit.” The guard was looking at Joe with sad eyes like he should know better than to do stupid things.
“Look, this is a Bunnicorn. If you want to kill it, be my guest, but I’m not doing it. I have no plans to get another curse on myself. I was gonna see if I can sell it to a pet shop or something.” Joe sighed as the guard looked at him skeptically.
“A Bunnicorn? You’re messing with…” The guard seemed to sag as he inspected the rabbit. “I can never let my daughter know about this. I can see her searching for one and getting skewered trying to hug it.”
“Makes sense,” the other guard chipped in. “If she takes after you, that’s exactly what would happen. Better hope she gets her brain from her momma.”
“You know what-” the first guard started, reaching for his spear.
“Can I go in? It’ll keep attacking me until I can get it in a cage or something.” Joe tapped his foot impatiently as the guards began bantering. The rabbit was squirming again, and holding it was getting more difficult. Strength was his weakness, and the rabbit was getting heavy.
“Well… exception?” the first guard asked the other, who nodded. The guard turned back to Joe. “Go on through, but try not to make anything like this a common occurrence.”
“Thanks.” Joe walked into the city, and the Bunnicorn began to squeal. Joe’s face turned red as the animal continued to wail especially loudly around any women they passed. He had to ask directions from disapproving passerby–having never been to a pet store–but he eventually found the small building attached to a warehouse.
The pet shop owner offered to buy the Bunnicorn, but Joe waved away all the offers and tried to simply leave the creature there. The ecstatic shopkeeper was insistent that he take something, so Joe pointed at a bestiary and asked if he could have a copy of the book. It was only after seeing the hesitation on the man’s face that Joe remembered how expensive paper was and, therefore, how expensive books were. He tried to back out of the deal, but the man had already handed him the book and wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. It seemed that the Bunnicorn was even rarer–and therefore more expensive–than he had expected.
Joe left the store without the Bunnicorn, much to his relief. He almost walked right into a person who was waiting at the door but was luckily able to stop himself in time. “Excuse me. Sorry about that!”
“Are you Joe of The Wanderer’s guild?” Her voice was strong but oddly stilted, like she had been rehearsing this phrase.
“…Yes?” Joe was on the defensive now; she must have been following him.
She nodded and took a deep breath and said her next words in such a rush that Joe almost couldn’t understand them. “I-need-a-team-and-a-guild-and-I-suck-at-talking-to-people-please-let-me-be-in-yours!”
Staring at the furiously blushing woman, Joe almost couldn’t think of a response. “I, uh, what’s your class and what position do you want? We need a ranged person for sure, and a rogue if possible…” he trailed off as her face got even redder.
“I range! I can be range!” She slapped her hands on her face. “I suc
k so much! I’m so sorry, I’ll just go.”
“Please wait, you came all this way… at least make your case!” Joe called as she started to run.
She slowed, stopped, and then came back to him while staring at the ground. She mumbled a few things and nodded at him, clearly thinking he could hear what she had just said. Seeing his lack of comprehension, she tried again, “I’m Alexis. Um. I use poison and crossbows.”
“Great! What’s your class and level?” Joe patiently prodded. Even if she wasn’t a good fit for the team, there wasn’t exactly a long line of people looking to join him. A single willing spirit was worth a dozen forced helpers.
“I’m level ten, and I’m an Aromatic Artificer!” Alexis spoke boldly, swallowing hard when she realized she had practically shouted at him. “I’m so sorry, I have so much trouble with my voice when I get nervous, and then it makes me worse and I-”
“It’s fine! It’s all good!” Joe stopped her before she could self-destruct. “An Artificer? Do you make weapons or trinkets?”
“No, I m-make weapon augments for ranged weapons. I can upgrade them, and well, yes, I can make weapons. No one else can use the weapons without the requisite skill though, or they… kinda die? It’ll shatter in their hands and backlash on them.”
“Have you made your own weapons?” Joe was really having fun right now; he remembered when he had been considered an awkward introvert. He had increased his social ability by quite a bit and now he was just called ‘strange’. When she nodded, Joe looked at the clock and noticed that they only had a few hours of light left. “Perfect. Can you meet me tomorrow morning at the east gate? Nine in the morning game time? The other guys on the team will join us, and we can see if we work well together.”
“That’s-great-thanks-bye!” Alexis turned and scampered away.
“…See you then?” Joe called after her in confusion. What a strange day. He went to his room and worked on his puzzle cube for an hour then worked to study, optimize, and memorize more information from his book on rituals. Deciding to go to bed early for once to appease his burning eyes and throbbing head, he returned to the nearby inn and went to sleep. Joe checked his notifications with a smile right before closing his eyes.