by Jakob Tanner
Okay, let’s try the water skill. Healing mist. Somehow it was less intuitive than the fireball spell. I already had known how to do energy ball but how did you summon healing mist? When I stopped overthinking it, my shoulders stretched back and locked into place. I lifted my head and a moist wafting mist surrounded me, comforting my skin.
The lightning spell came easy like the fireball. An intense crackle of lighting emerged from my hands. It transformed into a cage and shot forth. Had an enemy been present, the cage would’ve locked it into place. Instead it crashed into the wall with a crackle and snap.
The ground rumbled. Something was coming. At the top of the stairs, a spider the size of a small child appeared. Except it wasn’t a normal spider. It was made of metal and silver and bright energy glowed out from the center of it. It was an artificial spider creation. It crawled down the steps. Easy peasy. Especially with my new abilities.
But then another spider appeared and then another until the whole staircase was a mass of metal spiders coming to attack me.
30
The spiders descended the stairs. I summoned a fireball and whipped it at one. The mechanical insect crackled in destruction. I formed another one and shot it out again. There were too many of them though for individual fireballs. I needed an AOE attack. Good thing I was about to test one out.
I ran up the stairs stepping over the jagged metal spider legs, surrounding myself by the treacherous creatures. Their claws dug into my legs causing me immense pain, but I ignored it. I thought to myself earthquake and my arms knew to stretch out and grip the air at the sides and pull upward as if dragging the ground beneath by a thick rope. The floor at my feet trembled, the floor ruptured and stones floated above me. The spiders at my feet all tripped over themselves and crackled as they lost their sense of gravity. All of the lights glowing from their centers faded away.
Nice. Earthquake was a sweet as fuck spell. I kicked the metal spiders as I hurried up the stairs. First part of the trial: completed. The trial must be all about testing my abilities with the different elements.
At the top of the stairs was a long stone foyer leading to a door. Easy. But when I got to the door it wouldn’t budge. I summoned a fireball and blasted it which did nothing. Brute strength wasn’t the way to go here. I noticed a small keyhole. But where was the key?
I peered at the mound of dead robot spiders littering the stairs. Did one of them hold the key as loot? I stepped down the staircase. Something giggled behind me. I spun around. A metal pixie floated in the air, its tiny hands clutching onto an old skeleton key.
“Hey, give that to me,” I said, snatching in the air, but the pixie flew out of reach.
Time for air magic. My hands crackled as I threw out my lightning cage spell, sending out a cube of electricity at the floating pixie, trapping it in my lightning cage. I pulled my hand back and the cage floated back to me. I summoned a fireball in my hand, intimidating the winged creature with my power.
“Give me the key or become barbequed pixie—your choice.”
The pixie lifted up the stone key to me and I snatched it out of its hands.
“Good decision,” I said. I went and put the key in the lock and twisted the door open.
A dim innocuous passageway stood in front of me. I took a step inside and felt a searing pain come from all directions. The hallway drained my health, my HP bar plummeting. I quickly retreated back to the entrance. Holy crap. How was I supposed to get through there? As I let my HP replenish back to full, I understood what I had to do. I stepped back inside the passage. The intense pain returned but I wasn’t nervous about it. I cast healing mist and felt my body relax, my HP bar replenish. The spell lasted about three seconds and then the pain came back. I kept moving through the hall, casting healing mist, to counteract the damage of the hallway’s painful air. I pushed through the passage, trudging forward as my HP boomeranged up and down.
Eventually I made it to the end, gasping for air as I took in the next room, a darkened chamber. Four pillars made up a platform where a fifth pillar stood, glowing a white light.
What was I supposed to do in here?
I cast fireball to illuminate the room, revealing unlit torches on the pillars. I went towards them, lighting them with fireball. When I lit the fourth and final pillar, the whole room came alight. Torches all throughout the ceiling lit up.
The white pillar in the middle glowed and out of nowhere a ghostly spirit appeared overtop. He was disembodied, only the upper half of his body floated in the air. His face and body was concealed by cloak. Uh oh. Would I have to fight this thing?
“Congratulations young pupil,” spoke the mystical being. “You have passed the trials of the apprentice mage. You now face a challenging choice. You must choose the element you find yourself most aligned with. Which one spoke to you the most? Choose wisely.”
Interesting. I guess I had to decide whether I wanted to be a fire mage or water mage or whatever else. I didn’t know which spells I liked the most though. I liked the Earth AOE but I enjoyed the control spells of air. The water healing spell was extremely useful and while I already had energy ball, fire ball was ten times cooler.
I didn’t know which one to choose. Every time I came to a decision, I would remember something else. I was about to pick Earth but then I recalled Theobold operating his balloon ship with wind magic. Did I really want to pass such an ability up?
Shit. This was a hard decision.
But hang on. This was a major game decision and it hadn’t appeared as a prompt in my HUD. I guess not every decision would, but this felt like the sort of thing where you’d get consulted with tables and charts. What if this wasn’t an actual decision but a test in and of itself?
“Every element compliments the other,” I said. “You can’t have one without the others. It’s foolish to choose one.”
The ghost mage nodded his head. “So you’ll forego even having mastery over one of them if you cannot have all? Is this your final answer?”
I wasn’t sure if the ghost was hinting at me to change my answer, but I stayed determined in my choice. “Yes.”
A withered smile appeared beneath the hood of the ghost mage. “A wise answer indeed. Clay Hopewell you have shown both true aptitude for magic and a wisdom to wield it responsibly. You are hereby granted the class: Apprentice Mage!”
A pop-up window appeared in my vision.
Class Unlocked: Apprentice Mage!
Hell yeah!
31
The ghost mage flickered away, revealing behind him a swirling portal. I stepped through and emerged back below the clouds in front of Theobold’s windmill home. The old Rorn mage was sweeping the ground in front of his doorway.
“So, you passed the trial, eh?”
The man kept his back to me as he said it. He stopped sweeping, leaving his broom against the wall of the house and went inside. He came back with a cool navy blue coat.
“Why don’t you throw this on, start looking like a real mage.”
I took the cloak in my hands and a prompt appeared in my HUD.
New Item Alert! Basic Mage Coat (DEF: 15. +10 MTKP. Durability 7/10)
Do you wish to equip (Yes/No)?
I equipped the coat and felt more powerful as I dawned it. I wanted to message Serena right then about completing the apprentice mage trials. But I’d hold off. She said she didn’t want to hear from me until tomorrow.
Arondale glittered in the setting sun. Rays reflecting off the glass of the aerodome and the church roof. But something wasn’t right. A cloud of black smoke billowed out from the city center. I took a few steps, wincing. What was happening down there?
A shadow of a giant creature loomed over Theobold and I. Spinning around, a magnificent yellow gryphon flapped its wings as it lowered itself to the ground. Riding the giant bird was none other than Kendara.
“Theobold—the Eldra Aeri of Forbidden Forest need your help.” She turned to me next. “We can use your assistance as well Clay. Som
ething attacked one of the mother raptors in our forest, sending it into a monstrous rage. We don’t know what happened to it exactly. But it’s since escaped our rangers and is attacking the township of Arondale. Only you can help us stop it.”
A quest prompt appeared in my HUD.
New Quest Alert: Save Arondale!
Arondale is under attack from a deadly creature. If it isn’t stopped (in 29:58 minutes) it will destroy parts of Arondale forever.
Quest Type: Unique
Quest Difficulty: Hard
Reward: 3000 EXP
Accept: Yes/No ?
It wasn’t a hard to decision in the least. I accepted the quest straightaway. I needed to help Arondale. No question. Another figure appeared in the distance, running across the apple orchard towards us. It was Shade.
“Clay—Arondale’s in trouble. Another one of those mutant things is attacking the town!”
Theobold interjected. “What are these mutant things?”
“Demons, foul creatures,” Shade explained. “They take over creatures right as they’re about to die and possess them from the inside.”
“Sounds like what happened to the mother raptor,” said Kendara.
Theobold’s eyes widened. Had he seen such horrors before?
“We must go to town at once,” he said. “Hurry. Let’s party up.”
Theobold Longstaff would like to join your party! Accept (Yes/No)?
I accepted the old mage and was overwhelmed when I saw his stats.
Theobold Longstaff
Level: 99
Race: Rorn
Class: Wizard of the Light
HP: 601
MP: 265
ATKP: 26
MTKP: 160
TGH: 26
SPIRIT: 161
LUCK: 24
Level 99—are you serious? The highest level in the game. I expected Theobold to be quite a high level but not the highest level possible. The old Rorn smirked at me.
Shade joined the party next along with Kendara. I sent a quick message via the HUD to Serena. I knew she’d want to be here to help us defeat this thing. We didn’t have time to wait for her. But if she got the message in time she would be able to fast travel and help us out.
The plume of black smoke got bigger and bigger around Arondale. Holy shit. Are we even ready to take this thing on? We still didn’t know how to defeat it. Was my new class and abilities going to be enough?
“There’s no time to waste,” yelled Kendara, hopping onto her mount. “Clay get on.”
I ran towards her gryphon. Kendara held out her hands to me and lifted me up onto the large bird.
“Wrap your hands around my waist,” she said.
I felt awkward but I knew there was no time for horny boy bullshit at the moment, so I did as I was told. I clasped my hands together around her waist.
The Aeri gripped her hands and massaged the neck of the gryphon. She bent over and whispered in its ear. “Fly us to Arondale so we can stop the mother raptor.”
The gryphon flapped its wings and we slowly took off into the air. The wind blew our hair back as we soared through the sky. We flew far above the apple orchard and beginner training zone with Arondale in our sights.
“Don’t forget us,” yelled Shade.
I turned around and saw Shade and Theobold were together in the hot air balloon. The old Rorn mage was casting wind spells, manipulating the currents of the air to propel their ship forward, sweeping through the sky right behind us.
The tall magnificent buildings of Arondale came into view as we flew right over the walls. Erupting like a black hole at the center of the town was a gigantic tyrannosaurus-rex. Godzilla sized. But like the Skren Bandit Leader and the Rorn Spirit Lord before it, this dinosaur was a bizarre amalgamation of all the creatures it had absorbed in its corruptive glitch-fueled state. Half of its rib cage had the blue spectral dust of the Rorn Spirit lord and where one of its raptor arms should be was a limply hanging Skren arm—grown to dinosaur scale—with black worms coursing through its patchy skin.
We flew through the clouds of smoke, moving closer and closer to the deadly creature. Kendara pulled the gryphon skyward to avoid being hit by the barrage of mana bullets being shot from below at the demonic dinosaur.
Next she swung down through the clouds directly at it. My stomach dropped as we got closer. Its head was ten times the size of Kendara and I, even including the gryphon. The creature’s caption popped into view above its forehead: [Gr8 M0th3r R^pt0r]. It stretched out its neck and opened its jaw to chomp us to bits. We were no longer fully in the air but rather in the shadows of the creature’s giant mouth. We zoomed through, passing the clutches of its pincer teeth, escaping their sharp sting.
“Do you plan on attacking or will I have to fly my gryphon and fight this creature as well?
I let go of my arms from Kendara’s waist and balanced myself. The gryphon swerved in the air, back in the direction of the giant t-rex. I powered up a fireball in my hands and shot at the creature’s head. HP knocked off it but the dino wasn’t bothered.
In the distance, on the side of the dinosaur’s snout was Shade and Theobold, strafing through the air in the hot air balloon. Shade was holding a mana pistol and was firing relentlessly. Theobold gripped his staff and waved his arms summoning a massive meteor from the sky which came crashing down like a galactic right hook into the creature’s face. Of course—Theobold had the supernova ability. And I bet it was one of his weaker moves.
I whipped another fireball at the creature’s eyeball, doing another pittance of damage. Kendara kept the gryphon swerving from one side of the dinosaur’s jaws to the other, keeping its head chasing after us. I threw another blast at it.
Despite all the damage raining down on the creature, its HP was hardly diminishing at all. It was resting comfortably at 80% of its HP and we had hit the twenty minute mark in the duration of our quest.
We needed to hit it with more than pure strength and damage. We needed critical hits. We needed to find its weak spot.
I had an idea.
“Kendara,” I said. “This sounds crazy but can you get us caught between its teeth again.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Trust me. I have an idea.”
Kendara shook her head and grinned at the madness of what she was about to do. She gripped the fur of the gryphon and angled him back towards the demonic dinosaur. We zoomed through the air directly towards the monster. It opened its jaws and wailed at us, baring the deep insides of its throat. Our final resting place if my plan didn’t work.
“Keep going,” I said.
We were right in the dino’s mouth. The teeth were closing in on us and all it would have to do was swallow and down we’d go.
I lifted both my arms and summoned earthquake from within the dino’s jaws. The whole inside of its mouth vibrated. Its teeth rattled. The pink fleshy gums rippled and bubbled as the energy of the spell attempted to wrench everything apart and collapse on itself.
I let a fireball form in the palm of my hands and whipped it down into the darkness of the corrupted dinosaur’s throat. The creature opened its mouth, whipping its head back and forth.
The gryphon flew out of the clutches of the creature’s sharp teeth. A dino claw swiped through the air right at us. It hit me right in the chest, knocking me off the gryphon. I fell through the air towards the toppled and destroyed ground of Arondale.
The corrupted amalgam turned its focus to the others fighting in the air. It was letting gravity finish me off. Was this it? Was I about to die?
The air rushed through me. My stomach lurched. I swirled in the air and power jumped, hoping to slow my fall. But I fell too fast to balance myself, so it only cushioned my fall for a second. I pivoted at an odd angle towards the approaching ground. I was low on MP—shit, shit, shit. I only had enough mana for one more power jump.
The ruptured pavement and broken houses rushed into view. I infused the bottom of my feet with my last bit of man
a and cushioned the fall. Except my depth perception was screwed up and I was still three storeys from the ground. I smashed into the wreckage like an asteroid.
My HP dropped to 5%. A horrible pain ripped through my body. My left leg was covered in blood with a bone poking out of the flesh.
Broken Leg (debuff): You’ve broken your leg! Your movement speed decreases by 90%.
Bleeding (heavy) (debuff): You have an open wound. You will lose 3 HP every ten seconds. You cannot regenerate health until you stop bleeding.
Shock (debuff): You’ve fallen into a state of shock. Symptoms include blurry vision, nausea, and panic.
Everything around me was out of focus. I wanted to throw up. I was going to be dead in a minute if I didn’t do something. Focus. I took a deep breath. I materialized an HP potion and guzzled it down. By the time I finished it, my vision was back and the shock debuff had disappeared. My leg was still broken and bleeding like crazy though.
I took note of the battle around me. Corpses of Arondale citizens laid crumpled on the ground. Soldiers—including the Royal Knights of Laergard—barked orders and marched down nearby roads in battle squads. All of these people sacrificing their lives to defeat this evil creature and many of them wouldn’t ever come back.
The corrupted dinosaur amalgam stared down at me from across the ruined street. It’s demonic Skren arm, full of shadows and dark worms, shot out in my direction. It stretched out across the destroyed taverns and houses, overtop the broken ground, the demonic arm mutating new bits of flesh to add to itself so it stretched further and further towards me.
Uh oh.