The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith

by Justin Miller

  Something about how he said immersed made me think of Denise. Dammit, just how much do they know about me?

  “Alright… so basically, you are paying me to.. play the game more. Right?”

  “Incorrect. We are paying you to live the game. In order to uncover the hidden truths, you will have to make yourself a vital part of that world. If you wish, you may drop out of your college classes, and all expenses will be paid for.”

  “So, I just come out for the bare minimum? That’s what you’re asking?” My first thought about all of this was that Denise would be positively thrilled.

  “That is correct.”

  “Is there anything else I need to know about this? Some contract that I have to sign or something?”

  “These positions are all unofficial. If an electronic inquiry is made into our documents, this task force does not exist. Your only contact will be with this number. If you choose to mail your report in, the return address of the letter we sent you is valid.”

  “Alright… I’m in. But this seems way too suspicious for me to trust you at your word. I won’t drop out of college until I have some proof that this is real.”

  Chapter 6

  The strange voice on the phone agreed to my demand, so I got ready to head back. When I returned to the game, a little over an hour had passed, and I could see the difference. A quick check told me that my alarm spell wasn’t up anymore, so it probably ended when I logged out.

  Denise was waiting for me while standing watch, her bow out and an arrow drawn in case of danger. When she saw me, she visibly relaxed. “So, how’d it go? Did you take the job?”

  “Uh.. yeah. It was weird.”

  She frowned a bit, “So, you won’t be able to spend as much time here anymore?” She had encouraged me to go for it, but the thought of me leaving more clearly upset her.

  “Well, actually, no. That was the weird thing. The job was to spend as much time here as I could.” At her quite apparent confusion, I explained to her what I could translate into appropriate terms. “Apparently, the method of entering this realm is shrouded in secrecy. The people that contacted me want me to investigate on this end, because no information was available from my side.”

  I could almost hear the lightbulb dinging as I finished my explanation and she perked up. “So… You’ll be here more often, not less?”

  I nodded, “For a couple weeks it should be the same as it had been, but after that I won’t have to go as often.”

  She squealed out a yay and jumped up into the air. “Great! I was afraid you’d be leaving me all alone more often!”

  I smiled to her and shook my head, “Nope, you better get used to me being here for a while yet.”

  “But.. is this going to get in the way of our adventure?”

  “It shouldn’t. My assignment is to find the truth of this world. That sounds like a pretty big adventure to me!”

  “Heheh.. it does.”

  Maybe becoming the Archmage will give me a hint? “Well, let’s get packed up. We’re wasting daylight!” She nodded quickly and helped me pack up the campsite. Before we left, I decided to test out a different spell. “Sorry, just a second… Raging ghosts of battles past, lend your aid in this time of need. Calling of the wolf.”

  A blue circle appeared on the grass in front of me, and a bright light momentarily enveloped it. When the light faded, one of the Angry Wolves we had fought the night before was standing in front of us. Though it seemed noticeably less aggressive now that it was under my spell. “Aha, it worked! Let’s go boy.” I waved to the wolf, and he followed me and Denise as we walked north again. The forest appeared only a few hours away at this point, and having the Wolf on our side was a big help. I had him run up to draw the aggro of a mob, and then me and Denise would finish them off from a distance safely.

  “I should mark all the enemies we fight. Never know, it could come in handy.”

  “That’s true. Besides… he’s kinda cute when he’s nice, isn’t he?” Denise reached down to pet the Wolf, who stood there and let her.

  “Yeah, a lot less bitey now.” I joined in the petting, and the wolf seemed to appreciate it.

  Calling has risen to Intermediate.

  Creatures you call possess more intelligence, and can thus perform more complicated commands.

  “Huh.” I said to myself as the window appeared, and then promptly closed it. “Let’s get going. We should arrive in the forest soon.”

  “Yeah.. wonder if we’ll see any elves after all?” Denise seemed to be enjoying the adventure whether or not we met any.

  As soon as we entered into the forest, the quality of monster changed. Often I didn’t even have time to cast a Binding before we had to either retreat or finish it off. There were giant spiders the size of wolves, venomous snakes, and large monkeys. If it weren’t for the wolf, we would have been defeated several times over.

  Denise was still enjoying herself, shooting her arrows at anything that twitched in our direction. Wouldn’t it just be funny if some of these things weren’t naturally hostile?

  I kept that thought to myself and tried to support her, casting Binding when I got the chance, and following up with either Earth Spear or Mana Bolt. Between the densely packed trees, there wasn’t any time for chants, so I had to go with the basics. The spam was still enough to level up Binding to Intermediate, even if it didn’t give me any more minions.

  After a particularly nasty encounter with a large snake, I decided to call it. “Okay, let’s rest for a minute. This is getting kind of ridiculous.” Though I said that, we had leveled up several times since starting on our journey. Part of me wanted to use this as an excuse to spend my points in peace.

  “Aww, and it was just getting fun..” Denise complained, but she was as out of breath as I was. Obediently, she sat down next to me at the base of a tree and kept a look out while I pulled up my character window.

  Name: Jin

  Race: Human

  Title: Mage

  Fame: 170

  Gild: 10

  Level: 45

  Health: 125

  Mana: 920+25

  Strength: 20

  Agility: 35

  Endurance: 15

  Wisdom: 60+5

  Intelligence: 144+5

  Luck: 6

  Attack: 10 + 10

  Defense: 10 + 20.25

  Talents: Magical Talent 10, Magical Knowledge 20, Navigation 3, Earth Magic 6, Summoning Magic 5, Runescript 1

  Title Bonuses: +2 Int/Wis, +200 Mana

  Equipment bonuses: +5 Int/Wis

  Points available: 25

  Damn, five levels already. I debated how to spend the points. In the end, I split them between Agility and Endurance, because I didn’t have near enough health. Even the wolves could take out half my health with a good hit, and what we were fighting now put them to shame.

  “Okay… before we go any further… Gotta call the wolf back. Like it or not, we need the backup.”

  Denise nodded, accepting the fact that we couldn’t last long out here alone, and I summoned the wolf. Given the momentary safety, I included the full chant to boost the effect.

  When the wolf appeared this time, it felt.. different. I saw his HP bar join mine and Denise’s at the corner of my vision, where before I had simply guessed it.

  You have called me, Master.

  Okay, that was not my thought. “Uh.. hello?”

  Hello. You did call me, right?

  “Yeah… just didn’t expect you to speak.”

  Denise glanced to me, and then the wolf. “What are you talking about? I don’t hear anything.”

  “Oh. I guess only I can hear him. Still, that’s convenient. I guess that is the next step in intelligence, communication.”

  The wolf nodded its confirmation, and Denise gasped briefly
as she seemed to realize that I was in fact not crazy, and that this wolf really was speaking to me. “So, you’ll be able to talk to anything you summon now?”

  “Seems so. But let’s get moving.” I hesitated for a second. “In my eyes, all things are one. Scan.” My eyes began to glow green and my vision zoomed in on… everything. It was rather dizzying. I could see the various animals in the forest, and all the different plants. At least, any of them in my field of vision, out to about 40m? Even if there was something blocking it, which made it quite a useful ability. “Okay, there’s an ape over there on the other side of that big tree. It looks like it’s waiting for us.”

  I looked to my wolf. “You go circle around and chase it out. Once we have a shot, me and Denise will take care of it.” The wolf nodded and ran off into the woods, vanishing into the bush. But I was still aware of him, and could track him circling the area, like a hazy outline approaching the ape. And when it saw him, the thing charged out from behind the tree. I fired my mana bolt as Denise launched an arrow, and that was enough to make it turn towards us.

  “Okay… here it comes… Spirit of wind and chaos, eyes which gaze upon the hearts of man, place the mark upon this soul. Binding! Earth spear!” Just as the sigil of Binding appeared on the ape’s chest, a spear of stone rose up beneath it and jammed into its leg. After that it was just a matter of letting Denise fire on it until the thing finally gave in.

  You have succeeded in binding the Forest Ape

  Summoning Magic has increased to 6

  “Nice. Okay.. Raging ghosts of battles past, lend your aid in this time of need. Calling of the ape!” I was in a hurry to summon the stronger ape to replace the wolf, but nothing happened at first.

  You have reached your maximum amount of summons. Do you wish to dismiss Angry Wolf?

  I sighed, and mentally agreed, and THEN the ape appeared where the wolf had been, looking just as it had before we had encountered it.

  “Hmm… he’s not as cute. Do we have to keep him?” Denise asked teasingly.

  “That not nice to say.” Strangely enough.. it was the ape that answered. “Why call?”

  “Well… I guess this one speaks verbally. We need a guide through the forest.”

  “Where going?”

  “We’re looking for a tribe of elves that might be living in these woods.” My hopes that the ape knew what an elf was were quickly trampled.

  “What elf?”

  “...Like us, but with pointy ears?”

  The ape thought for a second. “No elves.”

  I sighed, looking to Denise. “Well, it was worth a shot. We could stay here to train or move on. Your choice.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think it’d be a good idea to camp in this forest. We can find somewhere else to train, right?”

  I nodded, and together with the ape we fought our way out of the forest just in time to make lunch. “Damn, I was really looking forward to meeting an elf. I guess it was too much to hope that they would have a tribe so close to the capital.”

  Denise put a hand on my arm to comfort me. “Hey, it was worth a shot. Besides, it was kind of fun, and you got a new summon out of it. Not a total loss.” After we left the forest, I had switched back to the wolf, because he was actually smarter than the ape and easier to put up with.

  “Yeah. I wonder if they will get stronger as we do, or if they are stuck at the level they were when I bound them?”

  “Who knows… we can’t really test it yet, right? I mean it wasn’t that long ago that we were struggling with the wolves.”

  I nodded to her, and sat down next to her so that we could eat our lunch together. Denise even set out a piece of meat for the wolf, though I wasn’t sure that he’d need to eat it given he was already dead once. Oddly enough, the wolf did eat the meat without reservation. Wouldn’t it be funny if that meat came from the wolf before it was killed?

  “Okay. Onto the next area. How far is it to the nearest big city?”

  “Well.. there are a few villages within a day’s walk, but we’ll have to walk for at least a week at our pace to reach Coatin. It’s a trade city to the southwest.” I figured when she said ‘our’ pace, she meant with me having to log out for a day at a time for class.

  “Alright. We’ll start heading that way then, and stop at the first village to do some work and grab a horse. That should speed things up.”

  “Heheh, if we’re lucky, we can find a wild horse that you can bind. Would save on the expenses.”

  “That.. is true. Don’t suppose you know where around here one can find a wild ride?”

  The innuendo was not lost on her, and got me a playful grin. “Well, you can usually find some feral horses roaming the grasslands. If we search a while we might get lucky. Of course, we’d still need to buy a saddle… maybe we can just grab a horse from Rosenheim?”

  “Yeah.. either way we’re going to have to go back into the city. Well, let’s get started, we should be back there sometime tomorrow..” I gazed off towards the south, not able to even see the city at this distance.

  Making our way back was a lot easier than it had been coming to the forest. With the help of the wolf, we managed to either avoid or eliminate any of the enemies that were in our way, and made it a little over halfway back before we had to make camp. If it weren’t for me needing to go back to make supper for my real body, we might have been able to make it all the way..

  During the walk, I had spent most of the time spamming my Scan spell to increase its level, and focusing on mana bolt in battle. Since we already had a wolf, I didn’t need to worry about binding. But I was able to get a few levels from the repetitive spellcasting, which was a help.

  After eating a hearty meal--sometimes I think Denise makes dinner especially good to remind me that the food is better here--I said my usual ‘I’ll be back’s, and closed my eyes to send the command to log out.

  My world was engulfed in darkness, but something was odd. Or, not odd, but flat out wrong. I couldn’t feel the Link capsule around my head, or the bed under me. In fact, I could still feel the soft ground that my character Jin was sitting on. I tried sending the command with more force behind the thought, but still nothing happened.

  “Denise..”

  “Yeah?” She asked, sensing the near-panic in my voice.

  “We have a problem.”

  “What, did you forget something?”

  “No… I mean a big problem. It’s not working.” I opened my eyes, and was indeed still sitting on the open grassland with Denise.

  “What isn’t?” She asked, though the look on her face told me that she was figuring it out.

  “I can’t go back..”

  She shifted a little, nervously. “Uhm… is that really such a bad thing…?” Her tone was innocent, like she honestly didn’t understand the problem.

  “Yeah… if I can’t go back… I can’t take care of my body on the other side. And if something happens there… I don’t know, I might disappear for good..”

  Well, if she wasn’t worried before, she was now. “No! That can’t happen! We’ll fix it..” Though it was clear neither of us knew how we were going to manage that. I lowered my head and thought about what I could do. My call function wasn’t working, so it looked like I couldn’t access any features outside of the working of the game. “I’ve.. got an idea. It won’t get me home, but it might be enough to get someone to take care of my body for me. I just hope he picks up the damn phone.”