by Sean Oswald
“Well there is that,” Mira said in her best matter of fact voice before joining Jaselm in laughter. The comment about Duke Holstein however caused her mind to fly back to Eris’ Rise and everything that had happened in the last week since the battle.
At first, she had been torn up. She was scared for Sara and worried by how deeply it was affecting her mother, even though her logic said that the baby sister who had been all too annoying to her was likely dead and eaten by now, Mira couldn’t force herself to give up hope. Each of them processed in their own way, and for Mira, that meant staying as busy as she could. Her dad got to go out in search parties, her mom was called upon to help reorganize the town, but she didn’t have a lot to do, especially since mom practically insisted that she and Jackson should be on house arrest at the mayor’s ‘for their own safety.’
She made herself busy by processing her magical skills and learning as much as she could about her class. Olga, the former apprentice now mage of Max’s squad, turned out to have little information about the class but a fair amount regarding magic in general. The two spent hours talking and shared a number of spells with one another. Olga expressed again that this was not common practice in Eloria, but since both of them were young, Olga being twenty-two, they considered it a fair trade. They worked together to either share spells that one another knew or to decipher the spells from the books left by Hastert which were not technically the property of the new team mage. At first, Mira bluffed to get access to the spell books, but once Max saw the rapid progress the two of them were making working together, he ordered Olga to share as much as was appropriate. No one, not even the squad leader could force a mage to share more than he or she wanted. It just wasn’t done, but that didn’t stop Max from encouraging the mutual sharing.
The end result was that Mira had picked up a number of new spells from the Conjuration, Charm, and Divination schools. Mira felt the most lack in those and Essence magic but was pretty content that she had a good spread of Evocation spells. Hastert’s spell books didn’t contain any Essence magic, but they contained each of the other schools that Mira had learned as well as Shaping magic which she had not picked up yet. Something for her to consider sharing with her father if he ever stopped the search parties long enough to give any study. In total, she picked up eight new spells in only three days. Olga was amazed, but it probably had a lot to do with the fact that between her Tier 2 bonus and the class bonus to Intelligence, Mira ended up with an Intelligence score of forty-eight. It was no wonder that sometimes she felt overly cerebral and emotionally disconnected.
After the boost of XP she had received from earning a class, she had character points to burn. She ended up maxing out Evocation, Charm, Esoteric Sense, Essence Magic, Magic Focus: Evocation, Balance, Bluff, and her class skill Steal Spell. She also added 1 more point to Quicken Spells to allow it to affect tier 2 spells and added eleven points each into two other class skills: Mana Absorb and Shape Spell, which allowed her to boost both into the 2nd Tier.
Her allocation of points was methodical and systematic. She was beginning to understand what her dad and Jackson meant when they talked about a “build” for a character, but with her computer like mind, she was able to evaluate the best choices, at least as far as she saw it. Her Balance skill had not hit grandmaster level and was the first one to do so resulting in an exciting prompts:
Congratulations! You have obtained the level of Grandmaster in Balance. Only a precious few will ever reach these lofty heights. Yet, know that this is only the beginning of understanding in ways that you may not have even noticed before. As a special perk for obtaining your first Grandmaster level skill- you are awarded the Bonus Trait of Airwalker. You may spend 1 mana per minute to walk through the air as though it was solid ground. At your current level, you may only move 1 lbs/2 levels above your body weight with you. You also receive the standard Grandmaster Balance skill which is that you will treat your body as weighing only 10% of an ounce for all balance checks and are able to freely shift your momentum to change directions.
With this power as a grandmaster comes the responsibility to strive to forge balance within the conflict which is life in Eloria.
On the fourth day, as Mira stood next to her mother and brother along with Leyna awaiting Duke Holstein, she went through her character sheet to see the changes. She had reshaped it to remove the energy types such as Bravery and Fury which were now barred to her as a result of accepting her class. She further divided it into four separate tabs, one each for her basic stats/info, skills, spells, and equipment
respectively. She liked the way that it looked much better now, cleaner and more logical. The way that her mind worked now with her increased Intelligence made her feel better with things more precise. Her Intelligence score was up to forty-eight after being magnified by 20% for her Tier 2 stat upgrade and 30% for her class. It wasn’t lost on her that this was the equivalent of an IQ of 480 back home, something that had never been recorded if it was even possible. It was little wonder that everyone around her seemed to speak slowly and have trouble following her arguments. For a moment, she considered that her parent’s advice about balancing Intelligence and Wisdom might be right, but quickly disregarded it. She respected them in their own ways, but when it came to reasoning things out, they just couldn’t hope to keep up with her.
As they continued to wait for the duke to appear, Mira pulled up her redesigned character sheet page by page. First, she looked at the basic stats page:
Name: Miranda Nelson
Race: Half-Human/Half-Moon Elf
Age: 15
Class: Meta-Mage
Level: 17th
Alignment: +1
Factions:
Eris’ Rise +50
Murkwood +20
Moon Elves +5
Holstein -15
Albian +10
Movement: 46
Defense: 11 (5)
Attack: 10
Stats:
STRENGTH: 5
Bravery: 1.5
Regen Rate: .5/hour
Melee Damage: +10%
DEXTERITY: 12
Ranged Damage: +24%
Rogue Skills: +24%
AGILITY: 27
Movement Rate: +54%
Defense Rate: +135%
CONSTITUTION: 10
Health: 400 (100)
Regen Rate: 1/hour
Fury: 3
Regen Rate: 1/hour
Endurance: 10
Stamina: 3
Regen Rate: 1/hour
Needed Rest: -10%
INTELLIGENCE: 48
Mana: 780 (480)
Spell Damage: +96%
WISDOM: 13
Mana Regen Rate: 195/hour
Faith: 3.9
Regen Rate: 1.3/hour
CHARISMA: 29
Social Skills: +58%
Teamwork: 8.7
Regen Rate: 2.9/hour
LUCK: 7
+7% chance to avoid catastophroic effects
+7% improvement on chance of loot drops
+7% improvement on quality of loot drops
Total XP: 4840XP to Next: 220
Unspent Stat Points: 0
Unspent Character Points: 9
Traits:
Reborn
Air Walker
Tier 2: +20% Intelligence
She was content with her focus on Intelligence, Agility, and Charisma and believed that best fit how she viewed herself. After all the character points that she assigned, she was left with only 9 remaining. It wasn’t that she was saving them for something in particular, more that she just didn’t feel the need to put them into any of her new skills. One question she had was why her alignment now showed as +1 rather than zero as it has up until this point. She scanned her memories of the discussions that she had been involved in and even the ones that she hadn’t paid any attention to at the time between her dad and Talvenicus. It was a pleasant side effect of the increased Intelligence that she now had almost perfe
ct recall. She was still working out the kinks but it appeared to work even if she hadn’t really been focused at the time she saw or heard the information.
Next she pulled up her skill page.
Skills:
Running: 6
Speak Languages: 4
Bluff: 40
Concentration: 11
Balance: 100
Small Blades: 5
Esoteric Senses: 20
Quicken Spell: 11
Magic Focus- Evocation: 20
Steal Spell: 20
Shape Spell: 11
Charm Magic: 20
Daze
Minor Charm Enemy
Blending Camoflauge
Lesser Mesmerize
Lesser Fear
Illusion: Minotaur
Illusion: Giant Spider
Conjuration Magic: 20
Minor Webbing
Summon Basic Mount
Mage Armor: Chainmail
Gate
Lesser Earth Elementaling
Divination Magic: 20
Identify
Assess Enemy
Lesser Telepathic Detection
Extended Gaze
Essence Magic: 20
Minor Bleeding Wound
Minor Withering
Lesser Regeneration
Evocation Magic: 20
Minor Electric Shock
Ice Dagger
Flame Fan
Magic Missiles
Frost Wave
Rather than spreading out into new skills, she focused on maximizing a limited number of skills. Each of her five schools of magic were maximized as far as she could go at her level. She had increased her Esoteric senses skill to its maximum. The benefit of pushing it into Tier 2 was that it reduced the active costs of the skill by 20%. Given the astronomical costs of that particular skill that was an excellent benefit.
More so than even the increased Intelligence or the new Grandmaster skill, the part of her character sheet which made her most happy was the spells section of her character sheet. She had been able to add a number of new spells and felt like she was becoming very well rounded.
Neither Olga nor Hastert’s spell book had any Essence Magic, and according to the former apprentice, it was by far the rarest form of magic. Apparently, Evocation and Shaping magic were the most common. Then Abjuration, Enchantment, and Charm magic being less common but still well known in magical circles. Divination and Conjuration magic were uncommon for entirely different reasons. Divination because it was not thought to be as valuable, although upon learning that, Mira had shaken her head that anyone would turn down a way to learn secrets. Conjuration was uncommon because fewer people had an aptitude, and apparently, the consequences for losing control of it were worse than the other schools although Olga didn’t really know too many specifics. Finally, Essence magic was such that less than 1% of the population was able to learn even the simplest of the school’s spells.
Besides Essence Magic, she hadn’t learned any Evocation Magic but had added spells in each of her other three schools. For Divination, she added the spell Extended Gaze which allowed her to see 30% further per level for a relatively low cost. It wasn’t necessarily superior to her Esoteric Sense, simply cheaper and thus more sustainable.
For Charm Magic, she learned four new spells, one of them was first tier and the others were tier two. The first of those was Illusion: Giant Spider. It allowed her to create a fairly realistic illusion of a giant spider which she hoped she could use to scare off or distract certain enemies. The second illusion spell she learned was even more interesting though. Illusion: Minotaur allowed her either to make herself appear as a minotaur complete with visual, auditory, and olfactory components or to create a very lifelike image of a minotaur warrior. The final two charm spells were Lesser Fear and Lesser Mesmerize. Lesser Fear allowed her to generate an aura of overwhelming and irrational fear in a radius centered on herself, but she still hadn’t worked out if it could be shaped so as to allow her allies to be immune. Lesser Mesmerize was a super-fast cast spell with a reasonable mana cost, at least with the size of her mana pool, which was somewhere between her Daze and Minor Charm spells. It would distract a single target and keep them in a sort of daydreaming state unless they were attacked. Due to its speed, it would be a perfect way to do what her dad called crowd control.
Before Mira had time to pull up and look at her inventory screen, Duke Holstein made his appearance. She scoffed and rolled her eyes as he seemed to be going for a fear inducing presence, and while she objectively knew that he was dangerous, he seemed more buffoonish to her and wondered why the people of Eris’ Rise put up with this sort of treatment. For the next few minutes, Mira watched on as things went from bad to worse with their interaction with the Duke. She could feel the magical aura around Leyna as she had been speaking in dulcet tones. Had that been there before? Or did it signify a magical aspect to some class skill? Even as she saw the Duke assault Leyna and her mother leap to intervene, she couldn’t help but be intrigued. There was so much to learn in Eloria.
Then, as the duke’s knights cantered their horses forward to encircle four of them, she noticed him. There was another figure in a dark gray robe sitting thirty or so feet behind the duke astride a spotted horse. She couldn’t figure out how she had missed him before, if it was a him. The way the cowl was pulled forward to obscure any view of his face and his slender frame with slightly hunched shoulders could have marked him as either a short man or a tall woman. It wasn’t those mundane observations which truly caught her attention but rather how he practically glowed with a magical aura. She had been too new to her class to understand her now natural ability to detect magical energy when they fought the death knight, so she couldn’t compare the two, but whoever this figure was, they definitely had a stronger magical aura than anyone else she had seen by an order of power.
This observation prompted her to trigger her active Esoteric Sense, and while it didn’t really reveal anything more about the figure who seemed to be cloaked from her sense, it did reveal that there was a large group of men on horseback closing in on the town from the south.
While still trying to keep an eye on the figure in gray, she asked her mother to stall for time as the new men coming might somehow change the dynamics of the situation. When she heard one of the scouts say that the oncoming forces were flying the banner of the church of Shanelle, she thought that was either a very very good thing or a very very bad thing. If they recognized mom as one of their priestesses, then it would stand to reason that they would help her and smooth out things with the duke. On the other hand, if they thought she was a charlatan well...
For his part, the duke seemed very agitated by that news. “What are those sanctimonious fools doing on my land and this far away from any temple or shrine?” He bellowed out to no one in specific. Then, he turned his head back towards the gray robed figure while shouting, “Seimion, why didn’t you warn me,” but then his voice trailed off because where the gray robed figure had been moments before, now only a horse stood.
Duke Holstein spun around and began to stride in the direction of the riderless horse, shoving one of his men to the ground as he began barking orders. “Someone find that weasel for me,” and, “Belicus, take the three lovely ladies here and hold them in the lumber mill we saw to the east. If they behave themselves, then treat them with respect, but if they so much as say a word of magic you have my permission to truss them up as pigs for the slaughter.” After that, all they saw was the duke’s back as he started speaking softly to some of his other soldiers.
Belicus was apparently one of the knights on horseback around them because he started out barking orders and soon had half a dozen men following him. Two were assigned to carry the unconscious spy, and two others walked to the side and behind each of the Nelson girls with short swords drawn and pointed at their backs. For his part, Belicus ordered Jackson to come and sit up on his horse with him. Mira wasn’t sure why Jackson was be
ing treated differently than the rest of them. Maybe it was because he was still considered a child by these men or maybe it was some inherent sexist viewpoint. Either way, she didn’t have time for it. She kept looking around trying to take stock of the situation and looking for any openings to make a run for it. Unfortunately, the duke’s men were now busy dispersing the townsfolk, and Mira didn’t want to risk any of them being hurt, so escape would have to wait till later. Besides, as long as she was able to use magic, she would bet she could handle these guys.
Soon, the choice was taken out of her hands. Mom had argued the entire way to the lumber mill that she should be allowed to tend to Leyna’s wounds. So much so that by the time they got there after being repeatedly told to shut up, she began casting a healing spell. No sooner had the first syllables left her mouth then the pommel of a short sword hit her across the back of the head. Mira raised her hand and cast a quickened spell which sent spinning ice blades into the two men who were behind her mother’s now limp form. Three of the blades slammed into the man who had just struck her mother, and the other two into the one on the other side. The blades didn’t score critical hits, but coming in from behind like that, neither man had any chance to dodge or block, and both were hit for maximum damage from each blade which was now 61 damage per blade. The first man was instantly killed, and the second looked like he might die if he didn’t receive immediate medical attention.
