The Witch Tamer, Book 1
Page 55
"No. Correction it should ONLY allow it in safe zones. And we were receiving messages from powerful people contacting Jay. It wasn't from our end on why we could get a signal in and out," Linz told her.
Mandy glared at her briefly.
The others are excited and all talking at once. They are all also opening their status screens to send and receive messages.
But for some reason Miguel also looks upset.
"What's wrong Miguel?" Melanie asked before I could.
"I-it seems my family has been involved in skirmishes while I was away! They are fighting with the demon lord clan!" he cried in anguish.
Oh shit.
Melanie and I glanced at each other warily. The others didn't see it, I hope.
This...
This is the worst thing that could happen!
If Miguel finds out Melanie, Shelly, and I are in that same clan he's fighting...
That will definitely bring trouble out!
We managed to mask our reactions.
"Sorry to hear that Miguel. But we can still try to find your missing family members here," Melanie told him.
But then I found out more how the mage mail tab in my status screen works. While in the dungeon it seems any messages sent to me from the outside aren't lost, but just are queued up to download whenever there's an opening.
Just now a whole bunch of texts showed up in my mage mail tab of the status screen!
4 days ago...
'Hey brother, are you still alive? Let us know. Mom and dad can be hard asses sometimes. But they just don't want you to shame the family. Don't be mad at them OK. I hope you get to level 10 soon. Try not to embarrass us,' sent by Ryan my brother.
3 days ago...
'Hey asshole. Why the fuck aren't you at level 10 yet?!' my other brother sent.
'Son, I know dungeoning is hard. But we're doing this for your own good. You are too soft. You won't survive the clan if we don't come down hard on you sometimes. I hope you understand. Its not easy to be in our clan. You need to be strong enough to survive without help. That's why this is tough love,' sent by Dad, the same day.
But after that I was surprised by the next message.
This one was a video mage message sent by mom.
When I opened it, it showed mom standing in a damaged dark building that's sort of shaking and has tons of noise in the background. The camera and the nearby building shook briefly also, as if something really big had caused a lot of damage nearby. Mom briefly looked up worried that the ceiling would fall on herself. She's also got ash and dirt on one side of her face like she's been trying to survive. She's not bloody, but her clothes and armor look banged up and scratched up also, yet still intact. Then she focused.
"Son. Listen, the great truce has ended. My advise is to not leave the dungeon at all now but to stay inside. Our enemies found out where we were hiding out and attacked today. Don't worry, your father and I are fine. So is your aunt and Melanie's family, and other clan members also. Yet our houses and office buildings were damaged...damaged a lot actually. We're fighting for our lives. But don't worry, we live for this. We can replace lost property also. Watch out for Shelly and Melanie for us OK? Don't come out of the dungeons. Just keep leveling up. At your current levels if you came out you wouldn't last long. Plus, you'd become a target. While in there you can't tell people your last name or that you are in the clan. You'll need to hide under an alias. My message should have a download chit, for a special status screen tab to hide your real name when people scan you. Don't reveal that you are in the clan. And watch out especially for the light allied clans hunting us. If they find out where or who you are they will never let you go. Also watch out that some of them have people your age or younger dungeon leveling around the same floors you are on. I'd avoid them at all costs. I will send a follow up message later with their..."
The message cut off when mom was attacked by a knight from the side with a glowy sword and armor. It briefly showed about 10 seconds of mom fighting this guy using magic and winning, but then cut off.
Great Truce?
I need to find out what that is.
Mom is too much of a pain in my life to die easily in a fight. Plus, she's evil, so I'm not as worried about her as I am the guy fighting her.
The next mage message is from 12 hours later, and shows 'people to avoid at all costs', sent from my mom's company secretary on her behalf.
There's 14 pics of people my age that will target me if they know who I am. It shows names, and jobs of many people.
Shit. There's something like this?!
But then it got worse...
And just my luck, Miguel is in that list! Wow! And so is his sister, the one that's missing! And the same one that he'd asked us to help find!
Wow. This is really complicated.
How did I end up in such a complicated situation?
My heart skipped a beat.
Uh oh.
Does that mean he's getting pics of me also at the same time?
Shit...
From where I am I can't see this. And luckily my status screen was in stealth mode, so that only I saw and heard the message from my parents.
The other mage messages were my parents reporting combat victories against the forces of light, bragging about how many they'd killed.
I was horrified by it and turned it off.
So outside of the dungeon, everyone is involved in a war that's starting right now.
I don't want to be involved. Hurting people isn't good.
I'll just act normal and act like nothing is wrong but stay alert around Miguel. I have to hope for the best and for a way to live without being an asshole villain type.
...
When I closed my status screen it was a few more minutes before the others finished. It seems also that even though I'm the mage here, the others get more communications than I do.
I guess that's reasonable. Girls talk to each other more, and are more connected. Plus, my family didn't think I was worth much until recently.
Miguel tells us we shouldn't go to the surface yet. He says its not safe, and something about a war going on.
Mandy tells us she'd also gotten warnings that skirmishes were happening in cities in Europe and America because of an underground murim war, per her friends. But she says her friends don't know who it was that were involved in it or why.
Shelly and Melanie won't dare let on much I expect, because it would reveal too much for them to do so, I thought.
And like I'd predicted Shelly said she heard there were skirmishes also, but only knows that some big cities like Los Angeles and New York City seem to be where almost all the skirmishes were.
Miguel is acting weird.
Uh oh.
Does he know something? Or maybe he just suspects something? If its the latter then I have time to figure this out.
"Well if there's a surface war going on we should stay in here where its safe," I told them.
"Safe? Heh, zombies are considered safe now," Shelly mocked.
"Well, hate between living people lasts longer than people realize. We wouldn't want to create any enemies. Staying in here is a good idea," Rita said.
The others debated what to do while we're in the lobby.
I tested the repair magic on the windows and glass doors, and it worked. It basically erased the breaks in the glass, only I didn't have enough mana to do more than just 2 or 3 doors. (Since this is a big building there are 8 glass doors total, in sets of 2. Or 4 sets. I'll have to do the others later.)
"Hey bro, can you enhance my bow?" Miguel asked me.
"Sure," I agreed.
Its getting harder to hide my skills.
I enhanced Miguel's bow to +2.
"Thanks!" he said. "It feels good when I flex it. Even more durable," he said.
"Your welcome."
We decided to map out and find out more about what's going on in our building. Plus this gives us a chance to level up Simone.
&nb
sp; I lost a bit of time enhancing Miguel's bow. And planning and going over what's going on in the surface also took time.
It ended up that it was nearly 10 AM by the time we went to go hunt.
"Should we just have an early lunch then?" Miguel joked.
"We can't. We have to be disciplined and find food," Linz argued.
"She's right. We can't miss any chance," Rita told him.
Looks like they are ready to go.
I wonder if we can get Simone to level 5 today?
...
We began to map things out better in the dungeon level zone.
We found out that one of the panels in the courtyard ambush spot isn't secure. You don't notice it unless you study the area carefully from the roof top, which Simone did.
Already having a ranger is proving useful.
We've figured out we can use this spot to get into a side alley and explore other buildings.
We move one by one covering each other now. And its working better with a ranger, that should at some point be able to do some range skills...right?
Simone frowned when I said that. She doesn't feel confident yet and is shaking her head no.
We came out of an alley and stunned 2 zombies and then killed a 3rd and then a fourth easily.
Using my detection enchant we've identified that the building next to ours, which has a damaged sign but is some kind of Pharmacy store with rental building units above it looks good to explore.
The other buildings near it are too flooded with zombies.
So we went back to our building to see what we'd missed and go up the stairs. We behave and move quietly, always assuming undead are close by.
Like this we moved up the stairs.
'Stun!' I barely activated it in time to knock an undead down the stairs that almost bit Rita. She blocked the next one. And then I got my umbrella shield up on the third and fourth one. The others peeled them off when I did another stun on one, and switched targets. By now they'd taken down the one I was blocking.
Wow that was close.
Then we retreated as we heard growling coming closer. Lots of growling that is...
We found out the building's (not the dungeon, the building we're in) level 5 floor does have too many zombies to even think about staying near it. Rita suggested we use a welding kit and torch to salvage metal and literally weld a cover over the stairs because that many could flood the lower levels of the buildings we're on.
"Wait, who would weld it though?" Miguel asked.
"I could do it," Rita said.
Surprisingly she's got a lot of skills. She had been experimenting with trying to make her own armors also, because she was sort of poor, but she used different words. It doesn't make her a master welder, however. She just knows how to tinker a bit.
We went to work.
I could simulate welding using mana sparking from my system. But that would mean having to have Rita hold my hand and guide me through how and what to weld.
Now Rita is holding my hand.
Wait, this would be crafting right? Will it work?
In 2 hours we found salvage metal in the ruined city. This part is easy.
But trimming and cutting the metal salvage was hard.
During the 2 hours zombie hunting, we got Simone to level 4.
"Yippee!" Simone cried.
We had a late lunch at 1 PM.
Spouse intimacy with Linz and Simone at 1:30 PM.
Melanie told me she's mad that she didn't get a turn. I could swear that Simone was drooling during 'wife intimacy'.
Name; Simone Mansfield
Race; Human
Magic job; Ranger
Level; 3 → 4
Health; 90/98 → 94/102
Mana; 24/24 → 29/29
Mana Regen; 2
Health regen; 4
Element affinities; Nature (weak)
Str; 28 → 30Agi; 46 → 47Con; 49
Int; 54 Wis; 44App; 94
Skills; athletics, jogging, defend +2, block, parry, evade +1, Search, spear proficiency, Forage +5, range efficiency(new!)(increases range weapon 'to hit' efficiency, but only by small amount; +1%)
Gear list;
Bikini top
Levis pants
Sneakers
Baseball bat +1
Buckler +3
Spear
...
We began to get worried however.
Our banging around on the fourth floor made the fifth floor start to wake up.
We had to work fast and weld the 'stair cover' shut quickly. Rita had to hold my arm like I was the torch also, because I didn't know how to weld, but only how to make my mana spark.
It somehow worked, and then I was surprised when a status screen notification tells me I'd earned a new skill!
['Mana Item Crafting' skill acquired! +1 to INT bonus stat]
We barely got the cover up in time when there's so many zombies you can't even see the air pressing against the fourth floor stairs!
We began stabbing them through the gaps in the cell bar structured cover using spears. But then we fell back because it looks like the thing might end up giving way.
"Um guys, we can't stay in this building. We need to get on the roof, or find another building. The weight of the zombies is too packed in there," Shelly argued.
"She's right," Linz said nervously.
(Miguel is still in the safe zone spot making more arrows and relaxing. He'd volunteered for it this time because it means he can rest without having to keep watch and take naps.)
By 4 PM, Simone has reached level 5. I'll ask her to show it to me later, probably when we have our couples time together.
(At this point, she should start to level up more slowly.)
Name; Simone Mansfield
Race; Human
Magic job; Ranger
Level; 4 → 5
Health; 97/102 → 101/106
Mana; 29/29 → 35/35
Mana Regen; 2
Health regen; 4
Element affinities; Nature (weak)
Str; 30 → 31Agi; 47 → 47Con; 49
Int; 54 Wis; 44 → 45App; 94
Skills; athletics, jogging, defend +2, block, parry, evade +1, Search, spear proficiency, Forage +5, range efficiency(new!)(increases range weapon 'to hit' efficiency, but only by small amount; +1%), quick draw (new!)(weapon speed skill)
Gear list;
Bikini top
Levis pants
ranger boots +2 (enchanted)
Baseball bat +1
Buckler +3
Spear
Quick draw?
That sounds interesting.
The others are getting more excited since Simone is gaining skills and levels.
How do I use her mana tank? Its not big, but is enough to help a bit. And after getting her new job its going up normally.
So the class change thing really does change the body inside! She's really growing a mana core!
...
By 4:31 PM, my status screen tells me my clan has fought over 37 skirmishes and 3 full scale large battles in the last week.
What...?
That's a lot of skirmishes!
And Melanie looked at me in horror at nearly the same time. She must have seen a similar message on her screen.
...
We continued to hunt in the dungeon map.
We saw survivors again today from the glass windows of this building. This often isn't the case. Often we don't get a chance to even look out the windows.
Where should we go next?
I want to help them, but they are in an area that looks too hard for us to get to.
"How horrible! That one just got eaten!" Simone noticed first.
"Huh? What was that?" Melanie asked.
"It was an undead," Rita said.
"It wasn't a zombie. It was...something else. It had red glowing eyes and no skin. It looked like a heavy skeleton," Miguel said.
"Heavy skeleton?" Simone asked.
> "That's right. Heavy. They are evil as fuck. Often black, but also come in dark grays, or even red boned in appearance. The red boned ones scare the shit out of you. They are the most evil undead ever and somewhat sentient," he explained.