by Sean Oswald
The shaman rematerialized from a shadowy cloud right on the southern side of where the bridge had been. It took him a moment to reorient himself. In part, this was due to the after-effects of the spell and in part because the bridge was not there. Looking around, he realized that the skeletons had destroyed the bridge. It had been torn apart by brute force and while part of each side of the bridge remained the middle was a wide span of open air.
“What have you done?” he screeched upon seeing the death knight.
“I might ask the same of you. I assume from your presence here that you and your people were unable to handle one little sleeping village,” came the response as cold as the grave.
“This is all your fault. You sent us out and then destroyed our escape route. You betrayed us, but you will pay.” There were probably many better ways that the goblin shaman could have played this, but he was a goblin after all. With that, he pointed his staff at the death knight and triggered its final spell charge to cast Magic Missiles. As the darts of force zipped across the intervening space to slam into his target (36) he tugged on the invisible threads of magic which connected him to his three animated skeletons. Ordering them to seize and hold Draznei’kai for even in his anger fuddled state he had no delusions about being able to beat the death knight in a straight-up fight. The skeletons moved from their posts to surround Draznei’kai who had already shrugged off the shaman’s initial magical attacks. A quick mental command sent fifty of his skeletons shambling toward the village. Skeletons were not slow as many expected them to be. The necromantic twisting of essence magic which empowered them gave them great strength. They could move very fast in a straight line but lacked the reflexes or Agility to make adjustments or fine movements. His swarm would be upon the village in a little more than five minutes, and that would be plenty of time for him to deal with this traitorous worm.
Max had woken up quickly. He was an early riser. It was a habit forged from a lifetime of being woken early first by his mother, then by the nuns, followed by his drill instructors, and then finally in the jungles. In his new life as a part of the Purple and Gold, he had actually had more opportunity to sleep in than ever before. Still, there were always demands on his time. It was the lot of a soldier to bleed and die for those who didn’t understand their sacrifice. When Karl woke him, he quickly took stock of what was going on. Orders were issued and the rest of the squad was woken up. As soon as they started to get up and shake off their sleepiness, he explained that he was going to travel to Eris’ Rise personally, but that he wanted the rest of the squad to travel as quickly as they were ready and make a loop around the perimeter of the town.
This might be nothing more than a fire, but it also might be an attack on the town and by extension the kingdom. He was duty-bound to investigate- so no day off. Beyond any duty though, he was more than a little curious to see why someone had gone to all the trouble that the drakes had to have been to try to stop his team. Once he did find out who had done that then no force on Eloria would stop him from wreaking his vengeance. He suspected it was all some series of chess moves in a political battle beyond his understanding, and he was tired of being a political pawn. It was something he had experienced everywhere he had lived.
As soon as he saw that the rest of the squad understood the orders and had started to carry them out, he activated his class ability, Forced March for a full third of his mana. He wasn’t worried about the mana expenditure now as he had very few skills that required mana and no spells. His class was more of a melee damager with some limited tanking abilities. The real specialty of a Crimson Vanguard was getting to the battle faster than anyone else. As he felt the power of his skill take hold, he burst forward with long strides that ate up the distance. Each stride part physical and part magical as they covered far more ground than would be normal. At this rate, he would be into the town in maybe five or six minutes. The rest of the squad would take a full twenty to thirty minutes depending on what they found around the perimeter because they would be unable to benefit from his movement enhancer.
Dave had to gather himself up after that fight. Looking around him he could see that the town hall was a lost cause. Even if they had fire trucks and other modern types of fire gear, it would have been too late. Some of the houses looked like they could still be saved though. The problem being that there wasn’t any readily available access to water in town. The only sizeable storage of water was at Conrad’s smithy. Otherwise, each home had a barrel for water storage but that would never be enough to put out any fire once it had spread. Something else was bothering him though. He still hadn’t gotten any XP notifications. Based upon the notification he had received before, the attack on Eris’ Rise was considered an event, and there would be no XP until after the event was over. That left him wondering if the goblin shaman had been the boss and the event couldn’t be ended unless they killed him. It would be unpleasant to have to try to track the little monster down, but that was actually better than the alternative. The only alternative that Dave could think of was that the goblins had only been the first wave of the attack.
Either way, he couldn’t do anything about it right now. There were people to help. He started to see groups of men running into the town to see what they could do to stop the spread of the fires. Watching them to see how he could best help, he noticed another group run by with a figure he recognized.
“There’s your mother, let’s go see if she needs our help.”
Mira didn’t bother to say anything, instead simply started to jog after her father as he chased Emily’s group.
As they started to run away Aloysia shouted out, “I’m going to find my father, good luck.”
Dave shouted back, “Good luck to you too,” but he wasn’t sure if she had even heard him as they were both running in opposite directions.
Within half a minute, Dave and Mira caught up to Emily’s group. They were stopped at a partially collapsed burning house. The fire hadn’t spread far and showed signs of someone having tried to put it out, but the center roof beam must have been damaged badly enough that it had fallen and pinned one of the loggers underneath the debris. As he got closer, Dave recognized the trapped man to be Tristan, one of the first three they had met. As one of the first people that they had met here, all of the Nelsons felt some emotional connection to Tristan. So, Dave rushed forward to see what he could do to help out. It turned out it was good timing because with his Strength he was as strong as two normal men and if he Enlarged, he would compare to the lifting power of seven or eight men.
The space inside the burning house was fairly cramped, but once Dave got on one side of the beam, he was able to lift it up with 3 men on the other side. As the pressure from the beam came off Tristan’s leg, he began to spurt blood, but Emily had been ready for that. A couple of seconds after the wood was pulled away her healing spell landed on him. With his relatively low health and her healing bonuses, even her Tier 1 healing spell was enough to bring him to full health. Dave didn’t think he would ever get used to watching flesh literally knit itself up before your very eyes. It was like some kind of miracle from a story, but he was living it now.
For her part, Mira didn’t have any magic to use to lift the beam, but she kept thinking about the fire and what she might be able to do with it. Perhaps it was because of her increased Intelligence score or perhaps because as someone who had never gamed, she didn’t think about the standard limitations, but for whatever reason, she held out her hands and began to slow and deliberately cast her Flame Fan spell at the remains of the house.
Dave heard her casting and realized he recognized that spell, even if for some reason Mira was repeating the same words more than she ever had before. The spell normally seemed to take something like three seconds, but she had already been casting it for at least twice that long. “Mira, wait. What are you doing?”
Mira seemed oblivious to her father’s shouted question as she struggled with the form of the magic before her. This time she w
asn’t trying to change the shape that the spell manifested in, but rather its elemental energy type. She remembered each step that had gotten her to this process. First the struggle to maintain the concentration of her spell while being attacked, then there had been the effort it had taken to reshape the fan shape into a narrower spray of flame, and finally, the time when she had learned she could break down a conjured spell form and absorb at least a portion of the mana back into herself. Whatever was different about this change was making it more of a challenge than any of the others. It was as though when she had shaped the form of her spell it was like changing chicken fingers into chicken bites. This time it was like she was trying to make her chicken bites out of beef instead. The tension built within her mind. Then just as she felt she couldn’t take the pain anymore, the energy formed into a new pattern and waves of ice and cold burst forth from her hands. As the ice washed over the remains of the burning home, the fire was extinguished. The pelting of the ice further damaged everything it hit even as steam rose from the burning remains. As the spell blasted off of her extended hands, Mira gasped upon feeling all of the mana remaining in her body expended in an instant, and she crumpled to the ground exhausted with two new notifications appearing in her mind.
Congratulations!
You have created your first new spell. Frost Wave (temporary name) Creates a 120 - degree spread of snow, ice and cold 20’+1’/level in length. Deals 18-36 cold dmg and 12-24 physical damage to all targets in area of effect. Has a chance to cause Chill debuff. Cooldown: 90 seconds-1 sec/level. Mana: 60. Tier: 2.
You may rename the spell anytime within the next 24-hour period. The spell may now be discovered by certain types of divination but otherwise can only be passed on by you or those that you teach it to. Creating a spell is an uncommon experience. Your new spell is a modified version of a spell you already knew so the level of difficulty was reduced by 50%. Current base chance to create a new spell: 1%. Creating a spell instantly drains you of all available mana upon casting it for the first time.
Bonus for creating first unique spell form: +3 Intelligence, +7 Luck.
Quest Update: Class Determination - you have previously found and met the qualifications to receive a class. (1. Surviving a concentration check in combat. 2. Shaping magic outside of its intended spell form. 3. Cancel a spell by reabsorbing the mana contained into yourself.) Now you have met a new requirement for a certain magic-using class. (4. Modify a spell sufficiently to result in the creation of a new spell form.) In Eloria, classes are not easily earned, all have significant benefits and equally weighty requirements. Each class has seven ranks known as tiers.
Class offered: Metamage (Rare) - Tier 1.
Class Benefits: +30% Intelligence. Mana cost of all spells reduced by 10%. Innate ability to sense magic.
Class Restrictions: May never learn stamina/bravery/fury/faith/teamwork skills. No melee/rogue skill may exceed 75% of lowest magic school level.
Class Purpose: Control and manipulation of mana and spell forms whatever their source.
Unmet Restrictions: 1 unmet restriction- unknown.
Both Dave and Emily saw Mira fall to the ground, clearly drained, but Emily was busy with Tristan and signaled Dave to go to her. Stepping over to her, Dave kneeled next to where she lay on the ground, now propped up on an elbow. She had that vacant look in her eyes that they had come to associate with someone reading a notification. Since she didn’t seem to be in any immediate distress, Dave just waited. Finally, as she blinked her eyes, she had a huge grin on her face and began to relate to him the notifications she had received.
“That’s amazing, sweetie. You are just rocking this. Who would have guessed that my game-hating daughter would turn out to be a master wizard?” Dave said, smiling with genuine pride and not a small amount of amusement.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m still not a nerd like Jackson, but I think I could learn to like this.” Then after a momentary pause, she added, “Well, at least when stuff isn’t trying to kill us. Oh, and I still miss Wi-Fi.”
The laughter became even more pronounced as father and daughter shared a moment. Before Dave asked her, “So have you given any thought to what that last requirement might be? Assuming of course that you even want to accept that class.”
“Totally, I think it would be so cool, but I’m not really sure what the last thing could be. I’m still pretty new to all of this. Even with the added brains, I still don’t know that much about game rules. I’m not sure what more I could do to modify any of my spells. Especially since each progressive requirement has been more demanding. I almost wasn’t able to create that new spell form.”
“Are you okay? Did it hurt you?” Dave asked with parental worry.
“No, no. I’m okay, but it was tense for a moment. I think it would have hurt a lot if I hadn’t been able to create the new spell form.”
“Well, if you are sure you are okay… Then I might have an idea about what the last requirement might be.” Dave’s smile turned sly.
“Don’t be like that, Dad. It’s like when you would tell me and Jackson bedtime stories when I was little. You would always purposely end it on a cliffhanger and make us wait until the next night. You even got Jackson to ask to go to bed some nights, just to hear the next part of your story.” Mira’s expression had that odd wistful look caused by a pleasant memory of the past that was never to be again.
“Okay, you don’t have to twist my arm. I certainly don’t want to make the wizard who can blast fire and ice from her hands angry with me.” Dave made an expression of mock fear as he responded. “I think you said that your quest notification said that a Metamage could control mana and spells whatever their source, or something like that.”
“That’s right. Isn’t that what I have been doing? Ohhhh, I get it. You mean that all the modifications I have been making have been to spells which I cast.”
“Exactly, maybe you have to try to modify a spell cast by someone else.”
“Hmm, well, we need to think of a safe way to try that.” Mira suddenly was all business.
Then their conversation was interrupted as Emily came and joined them. “So what are you two chattering about over here?”
Dave let Mira take the lead as she excitedly explained first about her notifications and then about the idea that they had for trying to meet the last requirement for her desired class.
“Well, before anything, you need a mana potion to start restoring your Strength.” Emily pronounced, ever the caregiver as she handed one over to her daughter.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Death, only, renders hope futile. —Edgar Rice Burroughs
Even as Mira downed the small vial of blue liquid, men from the town came running to their location. Many didn’t even stop but kept running toward the south. One man stopped briefly to first awkwardly bow toward Emily and then turn to Dave, “Sheriff, there are more monsters… the mayor and Jarvis are trying to stall them, but they already killed three men.”
Instantly alert Dave stood up, “More goblins?”
The logger shook his head vigorously, “No not goblins, some kind of walking skeletons. Please help the mayor if you can, but I’m going to go get my wife and run south. There are too many of them I think.” Then without even waiting, he continued to run toward the south.
In the meantime, a few men had stopped and offered to help Dave, saying that they wouldn’t be cowards. Dave raised a hand for silence before looking at Emily. “Oh great, it sounds like we have undead to deal with now, too.”
“You mean like the zombies from the movies that Jackson is always trying to get you to let him watch?”
“I have no idea other than it sounds like walking skeletons. And undead monsters are usually very hard to kill. I think maybe you and Mira should go back with the rest of the men and move the villagers further south while I see if there is anything that I can do.”
For her part, Emily didn’t know what was stirring her up so much, but she felt a bu
rning righteous indignation at the idea of undead creatures. She didn’t like the desecration of the dead, but this sentiment seemed to come from outside of her. Then she got a notification.
Undead are an abomination in the eyes of Shanelle and for that matter Her co-deities Mishpat and Karbanot. All servants of the true Gods are expected to battle the undead and their makers at every turn. The magic which creates them is a vile twisting of Essence Magic called necromancy. All anointed servants of a true God have 25%/class tier resistance to the abilities and damage of undead as well as causing 25%/class tier increased damage to undead. Go forth Daughter and end this blight.
Well, that explained it. Emily filled Dave and Mira in on what she had learned. This started a brief conversation wherein Dave tried to explain the likely differences between undead who were created by necromantic magic versus those created by some sort of virus as was popular in many tv shows and movies back home. His explanation was cut short though as a high-pitched wail sounded all around them.
