The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith

by Justin Miller

  Once the door was free to open, I could hear a low grumbling from the other side as it opened. “You know how long I was trying to push this door open? What, did you fall asleep in front of it?”

  “Nice to see you too Denise.” I smirked to her, moving back to sit on the bed. “Sorry, ran here to get away from the mob celebration. Ran out of energy at the door.”

  “Celebration? I thought it looked like people were happier just now. So.. it worked?”

  “Seems like it. We won’t know for sure until a demon goes out and checks.”

  “You mean, even after all of this, someone’s got to be bait to see if the plan worked?” Her eyebrows came together and she muttered something under her breath.

  “So, since you didn’t know about the ritual being done. You here for something else?”

  “Oh, not particularly. My instructor wanted to take a break for a little while. I had wondered why, but I guess he didn’t want to miss the party.”

  “Oh god, I hope they aren’t really throwing a party.”

  Denise grinned to me at that. “Oh come on~! Just think about it, you can be the center of attention at the innermost circle of Hell!”

  “I think that sounds more fun than the reality of it.”

  “Face it, Jin. You do the deed, and people are going to want to thank you for it.”

  “No good deed goes unpunished?”

  “Punishment? Didn’t Lilith make you into a totally cheat character for all of this?” Denise tilted her head back and laughed after asking this.

  “Yeah, and now she’s letting me personally summon her whenever I want, as long as I make it a flashy entrance.” I let out a sigh, shaking my head. “Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that I helped them. Just never been good at parties.”

  “You prefer to receive your thanks in private, eh?” There was a suggestive tone to her words, and she winked at me.

  “All innuendos aside, yeah. The great and powerful mage is terrified of being the center of attention for a big crowd. Ironic, ain't it?”

  “Hey, at least that means you aren’t perfect! You’re human just like the rest of us. You are still human, right? No extra demony bits?”

  “To the best of my knowledge, still human.”

  “Good. So, we’ve still got a few days before your friend makes it to town. What do you plan to do until then?”

  “I planned to train a few abilities. If I’m going to be hiding that I’m a full mage, I’ll need a second skillset to fall back on.”

  “Like what?” She tilted her head to the side, looking to me curiously.

  “I was thinking of taking up archery, if you’d give me some pointers. Even though I can use the weapon just by making it, it’d still be nice if I knew what I was doing.”

  “So, you want to be…”

  “An arcane archer, of sorts. I can make the gear with my lesser creation, and I should even be able to make the arrows that way, and pass it off as a magic bow. I’ll just need to test how much mana it uses to fire an arrow, since I won’t likely be able to get that mana back like I do with held objects.”

  “Well, why don’t we go test it? Also~ I had an idea for you.” Denise looks at me with a playful smile.

  “Oh? What is it?”

  “Strip.”

  “Eh?”

  “Oh come on, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” She laughs before reaching into her bag and pulling out a very simple outfit, which looked suspiciously like my beginner’s commoner outfit. “Get into these.”

  “We went through all that trouble to get me out of those…” I sighed as I dutifully stripped out of my robes, and changed into the cheaper outfit.

  “I know, I know. Hear me out. Now, with that outfit on, you can use that creation skill to create weapons, armor, or… even a robe, right?”

  “Well, yeah… ah, I see what you’re getting at.” I nodded, and channeled my mana through my clothes, triggering the creation skill. Within moments, I was wearing leather armor similar to Denise’s. “I can just use those clothes and supply my armor with my creation skill, right?”

  “Exactly! Though, it’d be nice if you could create magical objects like that…”

  “Can’t be helped. The ability was called lesser creation, so maybe if we find another magical race like the demons, the ability will upgrade?”

  “True. Oh, I got you something else, too!” Denise smiled to me and pulled a bracelet out of her bag. “One of the shops gave me a really good deal on it. Probably your fault. According to them, you can store weapons in it to retrieve at a moment’s notice. Any magical effects, whether good or bad, stay active constantly while stored in it as well when you wear it.”

  I nodded, “Sounds good. I’ll need to have a tracker spell put on it though. Wouldn’t it suck if some thief thought the bracelet looked valuable, so he stole it? And wound up with my grimoire and staff..”

  Denise nodded. “Yeah, hadn’t thought about that. Still, it’s a good idea, right?” She smiled over to me, holding out the bracelet.

  I laughed as I accepted it. “Yeah, it is. I can get a tracker easily enough from Lilith. But, it’s safe enough to use while we are in this city. Nobody here would want to rob me while I’m on her good side. Hell… I’m not even sure it’d be possible.”

  Pulling out my staff, I held it up to the bracelet. The staff’s form became blurred, and then faded into the bracelet like a cloud of smoke. Checking to make sure I did indeed keep the buffs from the staff, I did the same thing with my grimoire. “This’ll make it easier to keep the secret. Thanks. Now, about that training?”

  “Oh, right! Uhm… there should be an archery range near where I do my sword training. But how are you going to get there without being noticed?”

  “...Dammit. Well, I guess there’s no helping it. We can’t shoot a bow in here…” I paused as a thought came to me. “Hey, Denise..?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is there an explosive powder in this world? Not magical, just a mix of different ingredients that causes a small explosion.”

  “Oh, you mean black powder? Yeah, some people use them for bombs. Why?”

  I grinned widely, looking to her. “Can you find out how to make it?”

  “Uh…. sure. You’re wanting to use explosive arrows?”

  “Something like that. But I need to be able to produce it myself with my creation skill, or else it won’t work.”

  “Alright. Well, you want to go find a book on it?”

  “Uh…” I looked to the door, imagining the horde of people likely to be waiting on the other side. “Could.. could you?”

  Denise looked at me, and then shook her head with a smile. “This time. But afterwards, you and I are going out for practice. Agreed?”

  “Yeah… yeah. Got to face them sooner or later, right?”

  “Exactly. I take it you’ll still be here when I get back?”

  “Either I will, or there will be signs of a struggle.”

  “Okay… well, it shouldn’t take me more than an hour, assuming I can find the library.”

  “Alright, I’ve got some stuff to practice until you get back.” I smiled to her and nodded as she left, immediately reactivating my Scan spell and getting to work. Even if it took a bit longer, I wanted to start creating more complex shapes. Starting with a web, I gradually moved on to moving parts. It was hard to tell if it worked, so I had to materialize it.

  What I created was a simple steel ring wrapped around a rod. For my test, I spun the ring to make sure it worked, and then grinned when it did. “It should be ready by the time we leave here…”

  After Denise returned with the book, I grudgingly followed her out to the archery range, far too many demons thanking us as we walked. Denise took it a lot better than I did. She was smiling and welcoming each one, while I was trying to hide my face in my improvised leather armor.

  Once we got to the area she was training at, I naturally kept walking. She didn’t know the exact direction, but now that
I was here I spotted one area on my mental map that looked like an archery range. “Would you stop doing that? It gets a bit freaky when you know your way around parts of a town you’ve never been in.”

  “Sorry… was in a bit of a hurry.” I mumbled under my breath as we came up to the range. There were practice bows and arrows, and targets at varying distances. “Okay… I should be able to use it right away, so which target?”

  Denise looked at them, thinking for a bit. “The third one. Looks about twenty meters away?”

  Nodding, I extended my hand, focusing my skill to create a bow. I poured about the same amount of magic into it as I would for a good sword, about three hundred. Adding onto that the four hundred for my armor and I was down to just under two thirds of my mana. Nevertheless, the result was a bow that looked similar to Denise’s elven bow. Given how good her’s was, I knew it would be a good bow to use.

  “Alright… now for an arrow.” I held out my other hand and focused just a single point of mana into it. A slender piece of wood formed with a sharpened tip, looking about the same as the training arrows. At two points, it become firmer, and at three grew feathers at the base. At five mana, a stone arrowhead appeared at the tip. “Okay.. Let’s try this then.”

  I put the stone arrow on the bowstring and pulled back easily, taking aim at the target. When I released, the arrow flew straight to where I was looking, hitting just off center from the bullseye. “Damn…” Within moments of hitting, the arrow shattered into shards of blue light and vanished. I couldn’t really tell if I got the mana back or not, since the cost of the arrow was less than my passive mana regeneration.

  “Hey, that was a pretty good shot for your first time. Keep going! Next one, thirty meters.” At Denise’s words, I moved a bit over until I was in front of a target that was another ten meters beyond the first. This time, I put twenty mana into the arrow. What I got was a black arrow with a steel tip. Looks like ten or fifteen would be a good place to keep for my arrows.

  The next shot flew straight as well, not even slowing down despite my relatively low strength. Speaking of which I should modify Denise’s bow again since she increased her strength. With my mind distracted, the arrow shattered just before hitting the target. “Fuck, got distracted. Guess the arrows don’t stick around unless I pay attention.”

  Quickly, I created and fired an identical arrow at the same target, focusing on the bullseye. Sure enough, the arrow sailed true and struck exactly where I was focusing. Denise grumbled beside me. “Cheat. You’re a cheat. It took me weeks to get this good with a bow, you know? And you’re not even using a real bow! You know what, next target, one hundred meters!”

  Although I thought that was a bit much, I shrugged and went to the farthest target. It looked like a small board in the distance, and I couldn’t even clearly see the bullseye. “Huh… I won’t get it in the center unless I use a spell..”

  “No spells!” Denise immediately retorted. If I had to guess, she just wanted to see me mess up once to save her pride.

  I nodded, making another twenty mana arrow, and firing it straight to the target. Again, even though I didn’t take gravity into account and adjust my aim, the arrow flew perfectly straight. That said, the target was a bit too far to see the bullseye clearly, and I hit one of the outer rings. “Okay, I think I know how this works now… Rather than my aim being good, it looks like the arrow itself is guided to where I focus as I release it. As long as I keep focused on the arrow, it won’t disappear. That means that I can hit any target I can clearly see, as long as it doesn’t move. I doubt this would let me hit a moving target so easily.”

  “Thank Lilith for small favors.” Denise let out with a sigh. “Okay, how much damage do you think you’ll be able to do with it?”

  “If the bow is using normal rules, not that much. But assuming I am indeed a cheat character and it is based on my magical ability, it should be about as strong as my mana bolt.”

  “Let’s assume that you’re a cheat then. Especially since the ability comes from your spellbook.”

  “Right. I’d need something better than this to test it on though.”

  “I understand. Well, this time shoot again, and use your magic. Let’s see if you really can hit the bullseye.”

  I nodded, “Scan.” My vision zoomed in on the target, and I could see it clearly. In my right hand, an arrow formed. Firing it as I had before, I kept my focus on the arrow heading for its target. Sure enough, with the spell enhancing my vision, the arrow struck dead center in the target.

  “Yup. You’re a cheat.” Denise was staring at the target in the distance. “Okay, so the story is that that is a magical bow. I guess we should add increased accuracy to the list of abilities as well.”

  “Yeah. You’re still way better at this than me. You could probably hit one of these targets with your eyes closed. If I even looked away, I’m pretty sure I’d miss the broad side of a dragon.”

  “True enough, but I’ve been working at this for a while. You just picked it up. I’m sure you’ll get some neat tricks soon.”

  “Probably.” I nocked another arrow and fired at the target, repeating this a few times. Each time I fired a new arrow, the one I previously shot would shatter. Looks like I can’t do rapid fire.

  Just as I was thinking that, and firing off one mana arrow after another, I got a much welcomed popup.

  New Talent Unlocked!

  Arcane Marksman -- Having delved into the secrets of magic with ranged weapons, you are able to empower your projectiles with certain abilities.

  “...You froze… it happened, didn’t it?” Denise hung her head after I got the message, and I nodded.

  “New ability, Arcane Marksman.” I took a quick glance at my skills list to see what it gave me. “Alright, looks like this is what it lets me do.” I created another arrow this time. Though the arrow itself was only worth fifteen mana, I added another five to engrave the rune for Fire into it.

  Runescript has increased to 3

  When I nocked the arrow, the tip glowed slightly. Upon release, it was immediately wrapped in flame, shooting like a needle of fire at the target and burning a hole through the center. As an afterthought, I noticed that shooting the arrow to activate the ability cost me another ten mana. So, thirty mana for a pretty good elemental arrow. Most people would have to carve them individually, so the efficiency to fire them is needed I guess.

  “I give up… you are such a cheat.” Denise dropped to the ground and sighed, shaking her head from side to side. “Is it limited to fire, at least..?” She looked up to me, hopeful.

  “Uhm.. any element I can cast…” I turned my eyes away from her, embarrassed a bit.

  I almost thought I heard her growling at me. “And.. with nature magic… you can use all the basic ones. Probably hellfire too now, right? How is any of this fair?”

  “I’m pretty sure that I still wouldn’t be able to hit anyone as fast as you, even if I used a lightning arrow. Unless my eyes can track you, I can’t lock on. And my eyes aren’t as good as yours. So, you’re still the much better combatant. Especially if we ever get into a situation where I can’t use magic. Then I’m screwed.”

  “You’re trying to comfort me, aren’t you?” She glared up to me.

  “Uhm.. maybe..? Is it working?”

  “A bit. But yeah, if we hit an area that negates magic, you’d be no different from a commoner really.”