by Ryan Rimmel
He seemed to deflate, “Really?”
“Yes. We Mayors need strong healthy citizens in our decrepit ruined towns,” I smiled as he started to sniffle. All the courage he’d gathered poured out of him now that the need was gone. He had believed me when I initially told him about the town, and he believed me now. Apparently, I was able to convince children easily. Adults, on the other hand...
Mental note: Bump Charisma stat.
A note has been generated to “Bump Charisma Stat”
Oh, more notes. This place is weird.
“So, have you made breakfast?” I asked and AvaSophia nodded stiffly, then invited me onto her property.
After a breakfast of beans and what I prayed was the equivalent of pork, AvaSophia walked me around her home. The glass was all gone from the windows and several were shuttered, though the shutters themselves had gaps and holes. The second story was actually still usable. The roof was in pretty good condition with no apparent leaks, despite the passage of time. The house was essentially a slightly modified A frame with a few rooms cut into it. A porch completely wound around from front to back.
“Thank you for giving me the house,” she said, after we completed the tour of “the fields.”
“Well, I’m happy to have helped,” I replied, “Do you have the proper tools to work the fields?”
She shrugged, “Mostly. We are missing a plow horse, which is going to make plowing the fields difficult,” she stated, “but with enough effort we will manage.”
You have been offered a quest: Find a Draft Animal for AvaSophia.
I selected “yes”, of course.
I left the family and walked to the center of town again. AvaSophia had some supplies and some seed. Fortunately, she had her Farming skill up to a high enough degree that she could technically get the plowing done. Eventually. According to the farming tab in the town’s menu, year round planting and fertile soil had earned the town an excellent rating in agriculture.
Apparently planting certain crops at certain times was better for the crops and soil. Who knew? Farmers, probably, of which I am not.
With that out of the way I tried to figure out what the rest of my day looked like. I had several items to analyze and I was tossing around the idea of making myself some proper armor. I wondered if there was any kind of draft animal that could be used for farming. I considered my options for protecting the town. There was quite a bit on my mind. I also briefly wondered where my little demon atrocity was but decided quickly that I didn’t care enough to locate him.
Bringing up the quest menu, I noticed that there was a mental tug towards something north of town, where we’d entered. It was reasonably strong, so it must be close. I walked back to my shop turned campsite, and gathered up my belongings, including the magical staff and amulet.
Staff of Frost: 3-12 Frost Damage, Requires Mana, Charge 2/10.
I held the staff in one hand, then both, trying to use it. Shaking it didn’t work, neither did yelling at it. Finally, I just held it and concentrated, focusing on the staff like I’d focused on the demonic bond. Feeling that tenuous connection, I carefully tried to give it just a bit of mana.
It sucked away 8 of my 20 mana and I recoiled as if someone had thrown a bucket of water into my face. I waited for the headache to start, but after a few seconds, I felt the sensation of my mana topping off and I realized that I’d done this task properly, at least. That was something. It still felt like pouring myself into an invisible container, but at least I didn’t end up on my knees this time.
Once again, I had to focus on the staff like I did with the bond. Then, it was just point and think about blasting stuff. An icicle the size of a finger formed and blasted forwards into a nearby tree. The ice shattered on the trunk, but not before knocking out a pretty large divot in the wood.
Checking, the charge had dropped by one. Made sense, I got ten shots with it before having to recharge. I took aim at something farther away and fired again. It hit but did much less damage. It seemed that distance reduced the damage of spells, or at least this spell.
Unfortunately, the staff was a goblin staff. That meant it was just slightly longer than a baseball bat, but only about as think as a broomstick. Covering the staff from top to bottom were black runes; I had never seen anything like them before. I had no chance at being able to read them. To finish off the garish item, it was adorned by several electric rodent skulls, limiting where one could grab it. It was too short for a walking stick and too contorted for a cane. Also, despite being baseball bat sized, the staff didn’t look sturdy enough to be used as a melee weapon. The cherry on top was that it just looked evil and ugly.
I focused and fired out spells as quickly as I could into the trees at the center of town. The results were not terrible, but they weren’t great, either. I could only fire once about every 3 seconds, which was about the same speed as my bow. Worse, my bow seemed to do more damage, probably because my archery skill had advanced. If I kept firing, maybe my staff skill would increase and I could fire this faster or more powerfully. For the moment, the staff was a poor second choice weapon. Setting the staff aside, I vowed to figure out what to do with it later.
Checking my prompts, I saw I had a bunch of skill notifications, but I wanted to look at the amulet first.
Amulet: Properties unknown
I’d played too many RPGs to just put on an unidentified amulet. It felt warm when I ran my fingers over it. As I held my fingers on it, I recognized that it wasn’t true warmth, but a magical power contained in the amulet.
Now, I might actually need some help or, at the very least, some information. Who did I know that knew about curses and magic in this realm? I mean, yeah, I knew Shart. To my utter chagrin, that was all. I didn’t really believe AvaSophia or the kids would be any help. Shart would have to do. I didn’t know where he was, though. I wondered if there was a way to use the bond between us to contact him.
“Help me, Shart. You’re my only hope.” I called. To my complete surprise, he appeared in my field of vision rather quickly, flying from somewhere behind me.
“You called?” Shart drolled. He seemed cranky and I wondered what I had pulled him from. I was too curious about the amulet to tease him about being at my beck and call. I did find it amusing, though, until I considered the possibility that it might be a two way street. Then, it turned slightly horrifying.
“Shart,” I asked, “Can you identify a magical item?”
“Identify an item? It’s a freaking amulet,” replied the ever helpful demon.
“No, I mean analyze its magical properties?”
“Analyze? It’s not a plant,” he replied, “Oh… you mean Scan. Yes, I can Scan items. I forget you don’t know what you’re talking about most of the time.”
Calm.
“Can you Scan this for me?” I asked, holding up the amulet.
“No. I have 5 mana left and that’s not enough to Scan anything,” replied the demon testily.
“I gave you ten yesterday,” I responded, “and you had at least one before that.”
“I had three and I used all three, plus five of the mana you gave me, to search for bad guys so you weren’t killed,” he growled.
“We were ambushed right outside the town,” I growled.
“They were magically concealed. You gave me only a trickle of mana and I couldn’t do very much. If I’d had more, I’d have been able to help you more.”
“Fine, I’ll give you more.”
“Woah,” stated the demon as I started to focus, “You suck at this. Try to only give me a little mana this time.”
“I thought you wanted more mana,” I replied frustrated.
“Yes, but if you give it to me all at once, you get a headache. Then, I can’t get what I want from you, anymore,” replied the demon. “I have needs and if you keep getting headaches, I can’t get fulfilled.”
I stared at him blankly for a second, “Fine, I’ll focus on giving you only a little mana this time and
we’ll see how that goes
Calming myself and feeling around mystically until I’d grabbed the bond, I carefully pressed on it as lightly as I could. After a few seconds, I felt a single spurt of mana flow away. I immediately cut the contact. My mana meter dropped by 2, but half of that was lost to the bond. All that effort had only granted Shart one point of mana.
“How much do you need to Scan the item?” I asked.
“Looks like that’s a pretty rare item, so I would say 50.”
Giving Shart that much mana took over an hour of careful poking and prodding at the bond. After the tenth time, it got easier; I was able to start handing off more mana at once. First, five points. Then, ten. Finally, at the very end, I could feel the link much more solidly. I was able to hold onto my own mana better. That let me hand off man right up to the point where I’d fall below the 25% margin. I’d describe it as the slightest raised mark on a page and I could just feel it if I tried really hard.
Mechanically, each time I used the skill, I got better at it. What had originally been nearly a 100% failure rate, eventually dwindled to about a 60% failure chance, after ten tries. Further, if I went slowly, it was easier to find the ‘grooves’ in my mana pool to stop at. By the time I had done it 20 times, the failure chance had dwindled to 20% and there was a 5% chance of a better result.
What that equated to after 20 tries was that I had a 20% chance to fail. That cost me mana but gave no benefit. I had a 75% chance to get an unskilled result, which gave Shart 7 points of mana and cost me 14 mana. Then, I had a 5% chance to get an Amateur result, which gave Shart 10 points of mana and only cost me 15 mana. When the skill actually activated, you could feel it working and tell how much mana to dump into it. The problem was that failures seemed to eat up about 10 mana each time, despite my efforts to the contrary.
All this I determined after the fact. I initially had not intended to spend as much time on giving myself a headache, but Shart had other ideas.
“Fifty mana,” I said, proud of myself, about an hour after noon.
“Now fifty more,” demanded the demon, “I’m not running myself down to 5 again just so you can see what your trinket does.”
I glared at him from my sitting position, “That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“There was no deal. You asked if I could do something for you. I can, but I’m not doing it for free. The deal is you give me 100 mana and I cast Scan for you.”
Sighing, I agreed, I didn’t have any leverage over the demon right now. Furthermore, Shart having extra mana might improve my odds of survival. He was going to kill me after I got the demon door open, not before.
The whole process took hours, primarily because it took around 3 minutes to get my mana pool back to full after each donation and the process to donate wasn’t instantaneous. It also required a bunch of concentration. I basically spent 4 hours trying to focus my mind enough to pour my magical essence into an ungrateful demon.
I spent quite a few breaks here and there, reviewing my character sheet.
Skills:
Improved Lore: Amateur: You are granted the ability to see Health, Stamina and Mana bars on all non-obfuscated creatures. You gain a bonus to all Lore checks.
Demon Lore Amateur: You know more about demons and their race.
Goblin Lore
Animal Lore:
Unarmored: Amateur: You are skilled in fighting unarmored, clothing and robes are considered unarmored.
Light Armor Novice:
Medium Armor Amateur: You are skilled at wearing medium armor without penalty.
Armor Skills:
Dodge Amateur:
Mitigate Novice:
Parry Amateur:
Shields Amateur: You can defend yourself with shields
Martial Weapons Amateur: You can use any martial weapons you find.
Swords: Amateur: You know which end of a sword to point at an enemy.
Bows: Novice: You know how to target an enemy’s vital spots. Focused aiming will bring up an aiming guide.
Simple Weapons Amateur: You are a violent person at heart. You get a bonus to hit with all simple weapons.
Staff Amateur
Powerful Blow: You can utilize a powerful blow, expending 4 Stamina for 4 extra Damage.
Small Blades Novice:
Puncture Rank 2: Your attacks ignore 6 points of Defense, doubled during a sneak attack.
Rupture Rank 2: You attacks cause bleed, based on attack damage, 50% additional bleed over 6 seconds.
Wounding Rank 0:
Two Weapon Fighting Novice: You gain +2 points of damage on your primary weapon
Twin Weapon Amateur: You gain +2 points of Damage, when fighting with the same weapon type.
Hiking Novice:
Jumping: Unskilled, you know how to jump and put some force behind it. Practice makes perfect.
Stealth Novice: You are quite sneaky. When holding still in shadow you become almost invisible.
Skinning Amateur: You can skin and prepare animal hide.
Cooking unskilled: You can cook and prepare simple dishes without burning them.
Perception Amateur: You are far more aware of the world around you.
Crafting: Amateur: You are able to craft items that you need.
Leatherworking Unskilled: You can make very simple leather goods.
Woodworking Unskilled: You can make very simple wooden goods.
Bowyer Amateur
Improvised Tools: Amateur: You can improvise to build almost anything. Items created from Improvised tools will have a durability penalty.
Magical Skills
Infuse Amateur: You can grant mana to willing targets. For every 2 mana spent, they will recover one mana.
Empowerment Unskilled;
Mana Control unskilled: You have learned the basics of manipulating your mana pool. You can attempt to resist with Stamina any efforts to over drain your mana.
Magical Blast unskilled:
Well, that was a lot and several things interested me.
The rank ups in Goblin and Animal Lore were nice. Animal Lore was at 88/100 SP for another rank up. I was due to go into Novice soon, which would tell me what Novice meant for all the other Lore skills as well. I moderately disliked having to look into the individual skills to see their total skill points, but there were just so many numbers otherwise.
Light armor had also increased. The Dodge, as if unarmored, was handy because that 25% increase to my Dodge costs was problematic. Of course, that meant I’d leveled up light armor while wearing the least amount of light armor physically possible. I’d have to correct my armor, and hopefully before the next battle.
Dodge and Mitigate had both ranked up since I’d last looked at the skill sheet. I already knew that. Their improvements were helpful. The cost to dodge against the
Shadow Goblin had been 8 per dodge, as opposed to my usual two. They hadn’t been nearly as effective. If I’d had a normal Stamina pool, I’d have run out quickly.
Parry was another useful skill, but glancing at my parry percentage, it was too low to be useful with daggers. Or, at the very least, with the daggers I was currently using. I trusted them; they were helping me earn experience for 3 classes. I just felt that if I’d been fighting with a sword, I could have parried and dodged attacks much more efficiently. Also, the parrying cost with daggers was much higher than with a larger weapon, so it was really not well suited to the task.
My bow now had focus aiming. I took up my bow and readied an arrow but didn’t notice any difference. I concentrated or, I guess, focused, on a target. As I did so, a small circle appeared in front of me. I drew an arrow back and the circle narrowed into a much smaller circle. I fired 5 arrows, each one landing within the circle. This made it effectively a crosshair for my bow. I found that the aiming point got smaller if I held the bow more correctly, to my eye instead of just shooting from the hip. It got bigger when I moved and very big when I attempted to run. So big, it was almost rendered useless.
I could see the targeting circle being very handy, but it just told me where the arrow would hit. There was no predicting where the target would move; a long shot would still be a combination of aiming and intuition. It was still very useful, however.
Simple Bow Damage 10-14, Durability 7/25 (durability -10 due to Improvised Tools)