by Deck Davis
Think of it like this. Lifting weights would improve your bicep muscles incrementally. The only problem is, you wouldn’t see the numbers. The only time you’d know your muscles have grown is when you could either lift heavier weights, or someone complemented you on your muscles. Which I doubt has ever happened to you. Seeing your improvements in stat form allows you to train better.
“And I’m a blood mage? Sounds cool, but do you mind explaining what that is?”
A blood mage uses his own life force to wield the magic of the arcane. By sacrificing some of your HP, you can cast spells.
Accept the reality, Ash told himself. Figure it out now, and worry about potential insanity later. Panicking didn’t solve anything. Besides, maybe it was the inner gamer in him, but something about being a Blood Mage sounded cool.
He’d never realized it until now, but maybe wielding the powers of the arcane was a pretty awesome thing to do.
“So, what can I do? What kind of spells do I have?”
Let’s see…
Blood Mage Tier 1
Ignis (LVL 1) – A basic arcane attack. Blood is converted to an arcane fire ball that can scorch enemies.
Life Drain (LVL 1) – Drain lifeforce from the creatures you have killed to restore HP.
Transfusion (LVL 1) – Heal the HP of a creature by sacrificing an equivalent amount of your own HP.
Wow.
So, so many questions, and only a sassy voice inside his head to answer them. Could he really shoot fire balls out of his ass? And what were the ‘creatures’ he could drain life force from?
He needed to try this out. Only then could he accept that this was real. He walked away from the sphere, which was now completely dim, and passed his car. He found the injured Labrador not far away.
For a second, as he stood over the injured canine, the evil part of his mind told him to use Ignis. Scorch it, practice his spell, and earn easy EXP.
No way, he told himself. I’m not a monster.
Instead, he focused on the dog. FF had told him that he need only think about his stats for them to appear. Did his spells work the same way?
He raised his hands in the exaggerated way he imagined a wizard would.
No need to do that, this isn’t street theatre. Just think about the spell and the target, said FF.
He looked at the dog and cast Transfusion. His own HP was 350, so he decided to sacrifice a meagre 20HP to heal the animal. As he did, a purple glow burned in his palms. He fired it at the dog, hoping to God he hadn’t accidentally gotten this wrong and somehow cast Ignis.
Twenty HP left him and transferred to the Labrador. The wound on its side began to close, and its breathing became steadier. It slowly got to its feet. Now healed, the dog looked better, with its ears pricked up and its eyes alert. The collar around its neck jingled as it had a big shake. It stared at Ash for a while.
Ash smiled. He could get used to this.
“Who’s a good boy?” he said. “Eh? You, buddy. That’s who.”
He held his hands out to stoke it. Instead of accepting Ash’s affection, the Labrador turned and ran away.
“Hey!” shouted Ash.
It was no use; the dog ignored him, and it quickly became a dark blot on the horizon.
“Ungrateful mutt.”
Transfusion LVL 1 increased by 10%
20HP lost
It seemed that using his skills was how he’d level them. The most apparent problem here that was to wield them, he’d have to sacrifice his HP. At least it didn’t hurt when he used HP to cast a spell; that would have sucked.
His Life Drain skill meant that he’d be able to top up his life force, but he needed to kill something first. So…what was he supposed to kill? He supposed that he could go hunting for hares or something like that.
The answer came when he heard the sound of feet on the ground behind him. Had the mountain lions come back? He turned to look.
“Holy shit,” he said.
It wasn’t mountain lions, that was for damn sure. Stood just behind him, looking at his car as if it was some kind of mystical artifact, were four waist-high goblins. Their skin looked like leather that had been submerged in pond water and then dried out.
When they opened their mouths, he saw rows of sharp, yellow teeth. The four of them wore nothing but loin cloths, but it wasn’t their almost-naked appearance that worried him. It was the daggers they held in their hands.
Chapter Four
Pyromaniac
Don’t just stand there, you rat-brained asshole, do something!
FF was right. The creatures hadn’t come here to shoot the breeze, and Ash guessed he wouldn’t understand their language even if they had. He’d become an expert in reading people’s body language over the years, since his self-perseveration hinged on it. There was no need to look for subtle cues here though; four dagger-wielding goblins hadn’t come here to make friends.
The goblins moved away from Ash’s vehicle, but not before one of them had punched his wing mirror clean off. Ash felt a flicker of anger as he watched the green-skinned little bastards vandalize his car. This was replaced by nerves when he saw them running at him, brandishing brown-hilted daggers.
This is your first fight, Ash, said FF. They might not be trolls, but they won’t go down easily.
He’d never seen creatures as god- ugly as the green gimps running at him. They were a blight on the beautiful pastures of Pasture Downs. Well, not quite, since it was a shithole. But Ash considered himself an environmentalist, and he wasn’t going to let these beasts run amok. In most cases it would have been difficult to accept the appearance of creatures straight from a fantasy book 101, but it was a little easier to believe after having just learned that he was a blood mage.
He focused. Time to try out his new-found powers. In the same way he’d cast Transfusion, he concentrated on one of the goblins and sent a blast of Ignis fire at it. The purple flames hit it in the chest, scorching the curly hairs that poked through where its leather armor didn’t reach. The goblin squealed and dived on the floor to try and douse out the fire. One of the other goblins hopped to the side, protecting itself from the flames licking its friend’s body.
Casting Ignis had cost Ash 25HP, leaving him with 305. This was already taking a toll on him, and the damned thing wasn’t even dead. Being a Blood Mage wasn’t all fun and games, it seemed. He’d need to be careful about what he used.
The goblins approached him, one on each side and another coming at the center. It seemed they had the basics of a tactic, and he’d need to be careful.
One of them darted to his left. Ash launched an Ignis ball at its chest, but the sprightly goblin ducked under the blast. The purple flames shot passed it and into the distance, before fizzing out.
Looks like my spells can only carry a certain distance.
The goblin charged forward. It was so quick that it reached him before he could react and it sank a dagger into his waist. The pain ran hot across his skin as the goblin dagger tore through him.
20HP lost!
They’re too quick for you! When you level up, raise your intelligence to reduce your cast time, said FF.
He had barely enough time to recover before the other goblin was to his right. He side-stepped, but he was too slow. Another dagger pierced his soft, fleshy side just below his ribs, sending a sick well of agony through him.
“God damn it,” he said, grunting through the pain and forcing himself to keep a clear head.
20HP lost!
Damn, these things were fast. He backed away. He needed to put a little distance between him and the beasts and try and avoid their pincer movement.
The goblins screeched to one another, and he wondered if that was what passed for language to them. Were they conferring? Deciding on another tactic?
They advanced on him, daggers raised, cold metal dripping with his own blood.
He gathered an Ignis ball in his hand. Rather than shoot it at one of them and let it just duck out of the
way, he fired it at the ground in the center of all three. They weren’t expecting this, and each of them flinched and dived to the side. This scattered them a little, and bought him time to move further back.
With added distance, he had time to circle around them and get to his car. He climbed onto the roof. When he was up there, he felt safer. The goblins walked toward him, but there was no way for them to spring on him with their daggers. Instead they had to climb onto the car bonnet to get to him, and his gave Ash a clearer shot.
He scorched the first one that climbed onto the bonnet. The arcane fire hit it so powerfully that it knocked the goblin clean off the car. IT hit the ground with a thud.
The second beast didn’t seem worried about what it had seen happen to his friend. It hauled itself onto the bonnet.
Ash grew another Ignis ball.
The goblin snarled and walked toward him. The metal bonnet creaked.
Ash unleashed his fire, clipping the goblin on the shoulder. The fire spread across the hairs on its skin and onto its face, burning it with an arcane fury. The goblin slapped its own head and fell sideways on to the ground.
Two of them lay on the floor now, smoldering and lifeless with wisps of purple smoke drifting from their carcasses.
He had lost 50hp by scorching two of them until they lay on the floor, and that meant he was already down to 215. He was going to have to use his new-found powers wisely, and wisdom wasn’t exactly his forte.
EXP 20% Gained
Ignis LVL 1 increased by 20%
That left just one of them. A scrawny little git with a bulge underneath its loin cloth and a blade in its hand. It didn’t seem at all worried that its friends had just been burned alive.
This time, rather than blasting an Ignis flame at the remaining goblin’s ass, he waited until it had climbed the car bonnet and was closer to him.
Just as the goblin was about to stab him with its dagger, Ash delivered a knockout punch worthy of a heavyweight boxer. Dazed, the goblin stumbled back and then fell off the car and to the floor, unconscious. Finally, a little breathing room.
Ash rubbed his knuckles. He really wasn’t much of a fighter. He climbed down off his car. He looked at the unconscious goblin and wondered what to do about it.
“What happens when I level up a spell?” he asked.
What do you think, crap for brains? When you level a spell, it increases its power. In turn, levelling up spells contributes toward getting your next Blood Mage tier, which will unlock even more spells.
“Okay. First-things-fucking-first, I want to set up alerts. Can you tell me when my HP gets to 50%, then 25%?”
I live to serve, you dolt. Done.
He used Life Drain on the two dead goblins. Wielding this spell didn’t cost him HP. The point of life drain was to gain life force from things he’d killed, so a HP cost would have been pretty counterproductive.
HP increased by 50
Life Drain LVL1 increased by 20%
The goblins now resembled dried-out husks, which he presumed was because he’d sucked life force from them. Fifty HP was a pretty small haul, but he guessed that the bigger the creature, the more HP he’d get from them. Maybe it’d get better as he improved his spell level, too.
That gave him an idea. His misspent youth of beers and console RPGs had taught him the basics of this kind of thing; if you wanted to get strong, you needed to grind. That was why the early levels on most games were spent near the starting point, where weaker creatures surrendered their EXP without much of a fight. Normally, there wouldn’t be much grinding to do with a single unconscious goblin, but he wasn’t just a normal class, was he?
He waited for the last surviving goblin to wake up. After a few minutes the creature stirred, and then struggled to its feet. When it did, he blasted it with two Ignis flames, leaving its hp hovering barely over empty.
Ignis increased by 10%
With that done, he used Transfusion on the poor creature, restoring its HP using some of his own.
What the hell are you doing? Said FF.
He performed this ritual again and again, hurting and then healing the goblin until his own HP was just 125. By the end of it, his Ignis spell had risen to 70%, and Transfusion to 40%. Only then did he cast a final Ignis bolt, putting the goblin out of its misery. With that done, he used life drain on the creature to top up a jot of his own HP.
10% exp gained!
It wasn’t much of a grind, but it was a start. His Ignis wasn’t too far away from level two, and he’d made some progress with Transfusion.
You devious, cold-hearted orc-humper, said FF. I like it.
“Might as well take advantage while I can,” answered Ash. “I’m sure goblins won’t be the worst of it, right?
Your powers of perception are truly outstanding.
It was only then, with the dried-out corpses of three goblins in front of him and the adrenaline leaving his veins, that the horrible face of reality began to intrude on his thoughts.
“Just what the hell is going on, FF? Blood mages, goblins, annoying pulsating blue-ball little twats. Be honest with me; am I going mad?”
Multiverse theory states that many universes existed concurrently, yet are never supposed to meet. A guy named Dr. Aitken tore a hole in the ass of the dark matter fabric that shields Rapto from Earth. That’s why you don’t usually see goblins running around.
A bunch of mages called the Umbra discovered the new dark matter portal, and decided they’d like to use it. They weren’t able to figure out how to travel through it since it was created by a human, which meant that only human tissue could pass through.
They imprisoned Dr. Aitken and force him to modify it, but he wasn’t able to configure it enough to allow non-human living tissue through. He was, however, able to configure it enough to allow other solids to traverse it.
With that leap in technology, the Umbra sent red matter balls through, with the intention that humans would go near the balls and become infused with their energy, allowing the Umbra to use them as Duplis; puppets, in other words. Dr. Aitken had just enough time to send enough blue matter balls through to give humans a chance.
“There are more people like me, then? More guys who’ve become blood mages?”
Not blood mages. Classes are chosen according to your aptitude. You, Ash, think that the sun shines out of your own ass, so it’s only right that sacrificing your own blood grants you magical powers.
“I better warn people,” said Ash. “But the cops are going to think I’m out of my damn mind. Maybe I’ll drag one of these little bastards back to town.”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket, only to find that the screen was blank. He tried holding the power button, but it was no use; it was fried. Not only that, but his digital watch had suffered the same fate. He walked over to his car and found that it was dead too.
The problem centered around anything electrical, it seemed. Most cars used electronics so heavily that circuitry problems left them useless. His car had never been a treasure, but he wished he’d bought one of the really old models.
“What’s going on with the electronics? My phone’s dead, FF. Hang on – do you even know what a phone is?”
I told you, you dim-witted twatbagel, part of me is constructed from your own mind. I know what a damn phone is. It seems that anything electronic has been broken, possibly due to the atmospheric shift caused by two worlds colliding in the time continuum.
“That sounds like bullshit that you just made up on the spot.”
You know what they say; great minds think alike.
He leaned against the bonnet of his car. The last remnants of the blue flashing light had disappeared, leaving the sky uniformly black save the twinkling of a few stars. Other than the dried-out goblin corpses on the ground, there was nothing to suggest that it wasn’t just a normal night in the shithole that was Pasture Downs.
“I better get back to town and see if anyone knows what the hell is going on. It’s a long walk, so
I guess I better get going.”
Would you like me to sing a song for the journey?
“You know what, FF? I’d love that.”
Chapter Five
So’s Your Face
By the time he got back to town his feet ached and his head throbbed. Before setting out he had grabbed a half-full water bottle from his car, but he’d drained it dry hours ago.
He remembered the survival rule of three that his dad had once taught him when they took a camping trip; you can go three minutes without breathing, three days without drinking and three weeks without eating. Luckily the air was fine, but his body ached for water.
