by Alston Sleet
With a slow chuckle, Mennen walked up to me as he noticed my appraisal of the village defenders now revealed.
“Walk with me and we’ll talk,” he said as he continued in the direction we had been going. Somehow I don’t think Mennen just ‘happened’ to be the one closest to me when I decided to chat. It looks like I had been played in moments and assessed as not a risk.
“Look boy-o, I don’t know how you’re level one. I don’t know how you are a level one wizard, I can’t even conceive of how a grown man could get to be your age and not be missed by your wizard master-” Mennen said, gesturing gently as we ambled along “-but your status says you are level one, that you are a wizard, not an apprentice wizard, and definitely not indentured in some way. So far you have said nothing that wasn’t the truth as weird as that could be”.
I felt like I was getting another ‘infant’ chat. Again, I could feel my anger simmering under the surface but I had to bite it back, I was ignorant of everything around me. I was an infant in all but age.
“I can provide some basic assistance, and I will since even having,” with a light snicker he continued, “a level one wizard would be useful to my village here, but I got to be sure you understand where I’m coming from here. Winter will be coming soon and we will need everything we can work with. Will you hang around long enough to make babysitting you worthwhile?”
I grumped a bit but agreed to assist the town, even till after winter. What did I care? I was going to be here for years most likely. This was just as good a place to stay as any, and getting this same talk from another, perhaps a less kindly villager in a different village, didn’t seem like a smart play.
Mennen, who turned out to be what was essentially a default mayor of the town, informed me that since I was big enough and strong enough to do things myself, I would hunt the rabbits outside town. His instructions were simple. Kill them how ever. Collect the pelts. Don’t die.
“Thanks, I’ll try not to die to the rabbits,” I said with a bit of a head shake. Rabbits? Seriously? Dying to rabbits? I mean I knew I was level one. But still, seriously? Infant talk strikes again.
With a grunt, I slowly walked out towards the edge of town and into the cleared area which surrounded the village. It was obvious that this village was in a glen which had been further cleared back of trees to leave open ground between the pine forest surrounding it and the rest of the village. Stumps of cut away trees littered part of the way between the village and the forest. The rutted dirt road that passed through the town like an ax cleave was straight and true through both the village and the forest beyond.
In the cleared area I could see a few bunnies bouncing around. Moving carefully and keeping me in sight. I was momentarily disconcerted to see these bunnies with little white horns on their heads. Right, horned rabbits. Typical level one tutorial fantasy game fodder. Now comes the question. How do I take one out? I hadn’t thought of it before, but a ‘Ball of Heat’ isn’t exactly a dangerous exploding fireball.
With a bit of experimentation, I discovered my ‘Ball of Heat’ was even worse than I had originally thought. It was apparently just as I had envisioned it while creating the spell. A small ball of heat in my hand. Nothing more, nothing less. I had assumed that I could eventually turn it into a giant fireball which I could rocket towards my target. Nope, it was exactly as I had tried to create it from the start and nothing more.
What was worse, when I tried to imagine a fireball, or ice lance, or just a big gust of force flying from me I was rewarded with a computerized *blump* sound which then stated that ‘at my current abilities I had access to only one spell’. Wonderful. I could light a campfire, but I was unable to defeat a bunny with spells. Ah, the joys of being low level.
All I could do I guess was grab a stick and see if I could wail away at a bunny. I understood that bunny hunting was basically a task a kid performed here, the pelts, horn, and meat would augment the village’s stores for winter but wouldn’t be enough to hold alone. I was basically doing a task that teenagers would look down upon. Beggars can’t be choosers, and frankly, this was something I was familiar with from video games. Kill the small fries and level up, put away your pride. You will win through soon enough.
With a bit of wood for a make shift club, I started to slowly amble over to a bunny. I could tell the bunny was aware of me and was patiently waiting for me, cleaning his face and nibbling on some local grass. As I moved closer staring at him a small panel slowly faded into view above the bunnies head.
Horned Rabbit.
Level 1.
Mildly Dangerous.
Mildly dangerous? Are you kidding? It’s a bunny. OK, a bunny in a fantasy world with a horn on its head. But it’s still a bunny. It’s even the same level as me!
With a contemptuous sneer, I stomped forward. I was prepared for this bunny to either jump at me and try to spear me or run away. I was making every effort to try and avoid underestimating this bunny. Digitals had built this system, and those panels provided information from Digital systems. They might mislead me through my misunderstanding or because I lacked all the information, but they wouldn’t lie.
If it says ‘mildly dangerous’ then it would be ‘mildly dangerous’.
The bunny crouched and with a snarl and high pitched squeak it’s little red eyes seemed to brighten, it fluffed it’s white fur and unbunched in a savage lunge from at least ten feet away. I had been right, the bunny was more of a threat than I had initially considered, but my make shift club swatted him out of the air well enough.
The *crack* as the bunny was swatted out of the air and to the ground was loud. I hadn’t killed him with one swing, but he wouldn’t be lunging away or after me either. I stepped forward and prepared myself to end the cute little fluff balls life. I would need to harden my heart to harmless little critters in the future. I needed to level up and this seemed to be the way to do it.
Before I could deliver the coup de grace I heard something which caused mental sirens to go off…I heard high pitched squeaks coming from everywhere around me. In front and to the sides of me were at least five other horned bunnies, bunching and preparing to lunge. I knew exactly how this was going to play out. I understood video games well enough. This was the part where the lowbie noob got his ass kicked because he didn’t know the mobs around him had a decent agro radius and would assist each other.
Without a second thought, I hopped back, luckily dodging one lunge from the side, and began running towards the village while bunnies started to chase after me. Turning and running, I started screaming “Train!”, not knowing if that nomenclature would be understood by the villagers I continued with, “HEEEELP!”
The sounds of arrows and slings nailing bunnies behind me and then the sound of unbridled laughter alerted me to the fact that at least five of the villagers who I thought had moved on to their own business had been following me out of my sight somehow.
With a chuckle, Mennen ambled around the corner of the closest cottage with his arms behind his back. “Appears you really, truly, are level one sir wizard. I was convinced that someone had figured out how to fake a panel, despite everything and against all appearances…you really are level one”.
I could feel my face flush and my shoulders slumped over as my fists tightened. The games being played with me where getting old fast. I had spent three months pretending to be a Digital bigot. I could shoulder this and continue as I had before, but I didn’t like it and I was starting to lose my cool.
My solitary confinement had blown through my emotional control completely, I had been used to managers insulting and taking credit for my work. I hope that my normal cynical but easy going demeanor would eventually return, these mood swings had me feeling off balance.
I think Mennen could see that I was starting to lose it. I doubt he was frightened of me, despite my size I was still level one, and that told the people pretty clearly that they could handle me just fine. But with a gentle head shake he tried to calm me down.
“Lo
ok at it from our point of view boy-o, no one has ever been level one after the age of about three. You’re what thirty? Also a wizard? No wizards live in these parts, heck no wizard would bother to talk to anyone in a village like this. But a level one wizard? The combination makes no sense. It was more likely you were planning to play some scam on us and we just couldn’t afford to either be scammed or insult a wizard. If you were what you said then no harm no foul, we could help. But otherwise…”
With a gentle pat on my slowly loosening up shoulders Mennen continued on, “go on, go kill that rabbit. I’ll keep one of the kids over here with a sling to watch and make sure you don’t pull another train and cause a ruckus,” Apparently common video game terms applied here. A ‘train’ was when someone dragged a bunch of upset mobs, a video game term for creatures, back to another group. In some games it was both the death cry of the newbie and the war cry of an annoyed group which was planning to return some anger on said newbie for his train.
This brought up another thought, why did everyone speak English? Sure, an oddly accented one but still English. How had the Digitals caused that if this world had been running for hundreds of thousands of years? Yet More questions about the capabilities of Digitals, with no answers in sight.
It felt rather anti-climatic returning to my downed bunny to whack him upside the head to gain my first kill. But the fact that I only earned two experience for my effort and some bunny meat and pelt said clearly that I was going to be at this for a while.
Chapter 4
The White Death!
Once I got into the swing of things I started to slay bunnies at a ferocious rate. I began to make an effort to aim for bunny heads and necks and not just center mass. I took a few bunny spike injuries but even then unless I was knocked down and swarmed I was basically safe. I had a cycling group of helpers for this process.
Unfortunately more of my time was spent collecting rabbit pelts, meat, and horns, ferrying them back to the village general store, and finding a single or duo bunny than I did actually killing them. Me and my grumpy teenage assistant, Reos, could have handled three or even four, but when I mentioned it Reos gave me a look like I was an idiot and then explained, “If you go into a fight where you might not win, eventually you won’t”.
His comment had the ring of something that had been said to him repeatedly. A bit of wisdom so common that it had become a folk saying. It was another bit of difference between me and the villagers. They die, and they actually die. That was one of my greatest advantages. I didn’t viscerally believe that my death would be temporary yet, though I acknowledged at least in the abstract that it would be something that happened to me…a lot. Eventually.
Moments like those kept happening to me. The realization that certain things would be happening to me. No matter how wonderful or horrible, I would probably experience it. Eventually. Probably multiple times. The range of human experience that I’m going take part in is probably not nearly wide enough considering grand swath of time I’m going to experience.
My mental wool-gathering resulted in another bunny slamming into my arm in my distraction. Their little horns are not very sharp, and their jumps, while impressive, don’t exactly have a huge amount of mass behind them. Still, a half inch of blunt horn stuck in your body, even in a relatively benign location is unpleasant.
“Pay attention idiot,” Reos said as he flicked his sling out and nailed his bunny.
Reos was my most common assistant, I could tell he hated his ‘village idiot watch’ as I heard him call it once. I was not exactly a fan either. Most of my other assistants just laughed at my antics and told me in a good-natured voice what I was doing wrong. Reos seemed to be personally insulted that he had to deal with me. Like he had something more important to be doing. Considering I could see other kids in teams out killing bunnies for half the day as well, I had to assume it was just the fact that he had to do it with me.
That’s how my days went for the next week. Wake up. Eat a small meal of some grain and cooked bunny meat, make a backup in the town square where my first was, find my assistant for the day, hunt bunnies, eat dinner, clean up, off to the small bed in the inn. Repeat daily.
I understood the situation well enough. I wasn’t useful for anything really at the moment. They were banking on the idea that I would eventually be able to help with the more taxing problems they had. Hunting monsters for defense, monsters for food, monsters for equipment. I was sensing a pattern. Right now they were just trying to get me up in level a bit so I wouldn’t be a tasty snack for even the weak problems they were dealing with.
Eventually, the day came I had been striving for. Bunnies dead in scores, the blood of the vanquished splashing upon me while I posed in a conquering stance. Mwahaha! Level two!
The last bunny had been one of the rare ones which only gave one experience instead of two. This was something that had ticked me off when I discovered that not all mobs of the same type afforded the same amount of experience. Really though, getting a thousand experience and leveling up didn’t matter if it went over or hit on the dot. I was level two and I wasn’t entirely a noob any longer. Admittedly still a noob by even the teenager’s assessment, but not entirely which was a small bit of comfort I was going to take.
I didn’t get an option to pick a new upgrade, which In retrospect I could understand. I wasn’t really using the concentration upgrade I already had. I hadn’t exactly improved mentally since I had gotten here. I needed to use it before I could move on. I still felt short-changed, though.
Next, I tried to imagine that fireball I wanted. Visualizing a giant ball of fire flying from my hand and slamming into my target then exploding in a burst of violent flame. I kept picturing it over and over again. Mentally rehearsing everything I wanted my fireball spell to do.
*ding*
Spell: Ball of Heat modified and expanded to Fireball.
OK, that hadn’t been my goal, but the idea my dinky ball of heat spell had expanded into a fireball was awesome. With a quick test I tried to create a small ball of heat in my hand and sure enough, it still worked.
Then with a smirk for Reos I pointed out at a relatively close bunny, concentrated, and sent out a fireball that exploded sending flames and bunny parts in every direction.
I grinned as I turned back to Reos only to see him give me an angry and upset look. I didn’t get it. I had just created a fireball, it was awesome man!
“Idiot. Now we don’t have a bunny horn, or bunny meat, or a bunny pelt, and we have to put out that fire,” Reos said with an annoyed sneer.
I felt my face flush red. I got it now. I had built the equivalent of siege weaponry when they needed anti-personnel weaponry. It took a few minutes to stomp out the flames, and a round of annoyed condemnation from Mennen before I finally blew up at him.
“Well, what spell should I create next? I’m just going by stupid stereotypes from my world. I don’t know how magic is supposed to be used in this world!” I grumped with an annoyed glare at Mennen.
It wasn’t until I noticed Mennen freeze up that I realized my mistake. I hadn’t explained beyond my name who I was or where I came from. Within a couple days I had gotten the idea that everyone had been very carefully not asking in case they then needed to pass that same information on to someone else. In their minds I was a golden goose, if they found out I was a criminal or running from someone or something else they would have to take action and then, well, there goes those golden eggs.
With that one outburst, I had given up the game and told Mennen that I wasn’t from this world an idea he might take in any number of ways.
Mennen stared at me fixedly for a while, I could almost see the gears whirling, it was clear that Mennen was far smarter than your average villager and trickier to go with it. Seeming to come to some conclusion Mennen slowly nodded and motioned me away from the village for a discussion. He glanced around subtly a few times to make sure no one had heard my outburst, and luckily this seemed to be the case.
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“OK, I’m going to just ignore the ‘not from the world’ bit since it’s a can of worms I don’t want to open at the moment. You seem harmless so far. Do you intend me or mine any harm?” Mennen said while giving me a searching look.
“At the moment, as long as no one attacks me or harms me in some other way, my only goals are to level up and have some fun. I also have an agreement with the village to stay here till after winter as long I’m given some basic assistance leveling up.”
I had tagged on the last bit about our agreement in case failing to mention it as a ‘goal’ counted as a lie to the Digital’s system. It still wasn’t clear to what extent something would be considered a lie or not, but losing my abilities seemed like a bad thing no matter what.
Nodding slowly Mennen continued while giving me an even more piercing look, “OK then. What exactly did you mean by ‘what spell should I create next?’. Magic is learned through the study of one of the spell stones of old. I had assumed that you had a spell stone on you and used it to learn your new fireball spell.”
My only thought was ‘gulp!’ apparently, everyone else needed rare spell stones to learn spells, and even then it was no promise they would be able to learn the spell contained within them. I could just ‘will’ spells into being. This was a power more priceless than anything else to Mennen.
When Mennen oh so casually asked if I could summon gold into being, I felt a figurative rope tightening around my neck. I could imagine myself locked in a cage forever summoning gold coins. I quickly disabused him of that idea. I made it clear that not only was I not able to summon gold, a truth since I didn’t have such a spell currently, but even if I could, I wouldn’t since it would quickly break the world.
I could see Mennen mulling over the idea that too much of a rare resource made it essentially useless. I’m not sure I convinced him of the last point, but the idea that it wasn’t possible at all seemed to calm him down anyways. I was still in dire need here so I figured I should fan the flames of his greed a bit still.
