We got back into it then, martial arts and archery. Time went by quickly. Everybody got the skills that hadn’t had them yet. It was good that Big Mike was there. He clearly knew his Krav Maga or the marine equivalent and, as it turned out, he used to bow hunt, so he was a pretty good archer. That time he’d mentioned when he was in the woods in June, turned out to be, ironically enough, squirrel bow hunting. I thought that the squirrels should have been yelling ‘Mike! Mike! Mike!’ instead of ‘Chuck!’. Mike also acquired the Teacher skill at Copper 4. Evidently training people to do their jobs both in the marines and after gave him some prior experience.

It was about 2 o’clock when we got finished with archery. I was starting to get hungry so I got out some of MY cheese and a bag of chips. The girls saw me snacking and demanded their share. Janet finally got her a Dr. Pepper. I hadn’t grabbed any diets, so she had to make do. She was ok with it though, given the amount of exercise were all getting, her new constitution, her slightly higher charisma, all the things we brought up and talked about while we were relaxing. We were all fascinated with the growth we were experiencing. Wondering if we had limits now?

After about 30 minutes or so, we got into the next part of our day, training the little girls on how to gain and use their spells. Right now, I didn’t know if the girls were limited in the number of spells or abilities they could have because of their lack of classes or not, so I wanted to make sure we gave them the ones they needed first and then allowed them to learn them in the order we’d decided on.

I brought up the list I’d made up last night: Force Bolt, Light Heal, Light, Create Water, Mend and Jade Lotus Touch and asked if anybody had any other ideas about what they should learn.

Consuelo immediately brought up three spells: Shield, Charm, and Clean.

Big Mike liked all three of those spells but liked the other ones that I’d suggested also.

After listening to us and talking it over with us, both Baila and Amada and their parents wanted it to be Force Bolt, Shield, Light Heal, Charm, but then Baila and Amada couldn’t agree on which spells they wanted to learn more after that. Amada wanted Clean more than Create Water and Light more than Mend but wasn’t clear on which she’d rather have first, Create Water or Light. While Baila wanted Sonic Boom, Acid Splash, Firebolt, and Earth Dart Burst. Big Mike did not really seem surprised by this.

Big Mike and Consuelo also had a long talk with the girls about the spells and how they were dangerous and not toys and should never, ever be cast against their sister or parents unless they wanted to be grounded until they were 20. And have their magic privileges taken away. However, they didn’t suggest that they’d never be cast against other people which I silently agreed with.

The two girls solemnly agreed to this.

Then Big Mike shared the blue screen of Force Bolt with the two girls and cast the spell in front of them a couple of times, then walked them through the process of how to gain the spell. 20 minutes later Amaya had gained the spell and about ten minutes after that, Baila had gained it as well.

“Mom,” said Baila. “I’m full.”

“What do you mean, Baila?” asked Consuelo.

“My head feels tight,” she said. “I don’t think I can learn another spell. Does that mean I can’t be a mage?”

“No baby,” she said, glancing at me.

“No,” I spoke up. “It just means that until you turn 13 and select your class or classes, you have some limits that people with magic classes don’t have. When you turn 13, I bet you that all of these limits disappear if you select mage or another magic type class. And Baila, this is very important. Don’t attempt to learn another spell until that feeling is gone. You understand?” I asked. “It might damage you if you try.”

She nodded her head and then asked, “Can Amada learn more spells?”

We all turned and looked at Amada who said, “I think so. I feel like I can learn another spell.”

“OK,” I said. “That’s a little tighter than I was thinking it would be. I was hoping that best case, kids or the un-classed could learn more spells. I have no idea if it is them being kids or them not having a class. But if I had to bet I’d say that it probably applies to Abilities too. Given the way those two have been gaining skills, it doesn’t look like skills are limited. The limits could be based on levels or stat points too. As they go up in levels or, if they get free stat points and apply them to the correct stats, then they might be able to get more spells. I’m guessing here, but it seems like it might be logical. It’s hard saying not knowing.”

Big Mike and Consuelo looked at each other, their faces a little worried.

“So which spell do you want Amada to try to learn next?” I asked.

They talked about it for a while before finally deciding to go ahead with Shield instead of Light Heal, they thought that there were enough people in the group that could heal, so hopefully, the Shield spell would be more valuable.

Big Mike shared the spell with Amada, cast the spell in front of her a couple of times and walked her through the process of how to learn spells again and about twenty minutes later, she got the spell.

“Amada,” her mom said, “You are not to share that spell with your sister. Period. Do you understand? Only your father or I will do that?”

Amada nodded.

Her mom continued, “Do you feel full now, or can you learn another spell?”

Amada thought about it for a second and then said, “Nope, I’m full now too. I’m pretty sure I can’t learn another spell either.”

I spoke up then and made sure that she knew not to try to learn more spells until that feeling went away. The last thing I wanted was the kid to get spell burn or something similar. Although, I’m not even sure if spell burn exists. But better safe than sorry.

“Consuelo,” I said. “Could you please share the ability ‘Alchemist’s Flame’ with me? With us? I want to see if I can learn it like I could spells.”

She shared her blue screen with everyone except the little girls and then gave us a demonstration of the flame and talked about how it felt to use the ability and what the ability could do while demonstrating it.

Ability:

Alchemist Fire

Elemental Sphere: Fire

Time: instantaneous, 2 sec per point.

Range: Touch or .5 meters per rank.

Duration: Until stopped.

Cool Down: none.

Spell Resistance: none

Qi Pts: Gives the ability to start, contain, stop and otherwise control a personal flame. A point used for every 2 seconds of first level flame. Add an additional point for each level’s flame. One point less consumed for each stage the user possesses. Each stage allows for an additional ingredient to be refined. Each rank reduces the ability cost by 5 points. Does damage to durability to non-living things, health to living.

I shared my Jade Lotus Touch ability screen with everyone except the little girls and then talked about how it had felt when I used it. Just before we sat down to attempt to learn them, I cautioned Big Mike, Tanya, and Janet to be sure they wanted to learn these abilities because who knew how many Qi abilities they could learn. Choosing these might prevent them from learning a cooler, more useful ability later. I was pretty sure between my titles and my monk class I could learn any Qi ability and I was also pretty sure that Consuelo could as well thanks to her Alchemist class. Big Mike’s knight class was maybe ok, but I figured that Janet’s Cleric and Tanya’s Mage classes were probably going to be limited. Of course, just before we started trying to see if we could get abilities the same way that we got spells, Janet brought up the kids. Did their parents want to have them try to learn an ability as well?

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Big Mike and Consuelo talked it over a bit and then decided that they wanted the little girls to have the Jade Lotus Touch ability, provided that they could get it. It made a lot of sense since neither of them were able to get the healing spell. I shared my screen of the ability with them and then went over what it felt like when I used the ability. Big Mike covered again how the spells were gained and then we all sat down and tried to gain the abilities. Consuelo and I just tried for the one that we didn’t have.

I focused on the information that I’d been given by Consuelo about ‘Alchemist’s Flame’ and thought about Consuelo’s demonstration. I thought about flame, I thought about the Qi I could feel inside me. I tried to merge them, tried to feel the flame inside me coming out. I tried to feel as if it were already mine, that I deserved it. Eventually, I succeeded and got the notification I was waiting for, Bronze Level 1, 2/24 and then waited for everyone else to finish or to give up. I hadn’t looked at the time before starting but I guessed it was about 20-25 minutes.

Consuelo finished second which probably meant that there was a pretty hefty penalty on what the System determined were non-Qi type classes given the difference between her starting stats and Janet and Tanya’s more advanced ones. She finished, again I’m just guessing about 40 minutes after me.

Tanya got it next, followed by Mike and Janet about the same time. Janet might have been a little faster. I’d guess about 10 minutes after Consuelo. And then, they all started to learn the next ability - whatever that was.

The little girls took about twice as long as Consuelo, probably a bit more since the three adults finished getting their second ability before them.

The meditation skill was amazing, almost magical. I can’t remember ever seeing a little girl sitting quietly for 2 hours, but these two did. Little troopers. It was amazing for me too. I can’t remember a time when I was waiting for someone else to finish something so patiently. Sure ten minutes or so, but an hour and a half, two hours. Yah, not happening, at least not without my iPhone or iPad.

I asked the little girls if they felt full if they could learn another ability. They both said they could, but their mom was not really on board with them learning the ‘Alchemist’s Fire’ ability. Can you say playing with matches? Little steps, I thought.

It was about 5:30 and dark by now. We passed out the potions to everyone, including Roxie, and the girls retreated from the mosquitoes again back into the teepee with Roxie and Consuelo. I was on the first watch, Big Mike on second, Tanya on third and Janet on the final one. I finally asked Janet what she did last night and she said she worked on Party Heal. Since it was just practice she put the minimum into the spell and cast it.

“Over and over and over again,” she said. “Oh my god! I thought I was going to die! But Bronze 6”

“Sweet and I know,” I said. “We all got to experience the joys of grinding.”

I also asked Big Mike what he and Consuelo did last night. “We both learned all the spells you gave us. It took us a while to do it, but we got them. Then we practiced the Shield spell. Just the basic, like Janet did, we were able to cast it a bunch of times, but not near the number of times that you all did. Smaller mana pools and less time. Learning the spells took us a while.”

“That’s alright,” I said. “That makes sense. What level did you all reach?”

“Bronze Level 4,” he answered. “We both got another level too!”

“Sweet! Not bad at all. Tonight, though, I think you all should practice Force Bolt. Shield is going to take a while to get up to the level that you can use it to protect your little girls. Third Rank before you can cast it on other people. That’s an awful lot of casts. If we all cast Force Bolt at once, I’m thinking that we should be able to wipe the floor with the rats. Judging by our last fight, they were about level 6 and had about 30 hit points each. With my new Force Bolt spell, I can do about 27 points of damage every 2 seconds. So can Tanya, Janet can do about 24 points. So, if we add you and Consuelo in doing about 18-23 points each, we ought to be able to kill at least 2 rats every two seconds. You would need to be rank four for that. If your daughters can practice up, they can do maybe 6-8 points of damage. They might even make a difference and help us kill three. Remember, Force Bolt doesn’t miss. It’s perfect for combat with inexperienced people.”

“You mean it’s perfect for my little girls,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I mean. Won’t you feel better knowing that they can protect themselves?”

“Yeah,” he said reluctantly, “I just think that two days ago I’d never heard of a giant rat. Now I’m planning on letting my little girls shoot them with spells.”

“I know,” I said. There wasn’t anything else I could say. Except, “Janet, practice Light Heal, OK” She nodded.

Once again it was a quiet night. I was starting to wonder what percentage chance we had of running into monsters. I wasn’t sure if two encounters in a day was normal or high or low. But since we hadn’t had any encounters today, I was hoping that meant that it was high, a fluke rather than what we could expect. Too small a sample really to tell, but I was a lot more optimistic than I was yesterday. After my watch, I did the same thing that I’d done yesterday. Lay down, stared at the moon and started grinding Force Bolt again. When morning came I could finally feel a bit of tiredness. Two days of no sleep, only brief segments of meditation, and I was finally starting to feel like I needed to sleep. But it was worth it.

I did my little trick. Cast the spell until I broke through to spell level 7, quickly spent six skill points which brought me to 9147 level points. I did the cast/mediate routine 12 more times and then just needed to cast the spell 27 times. I was sitting now on 9998 level points. I spent another skill point and the spell leveled to Copper - Level 7, 2498/3199.

It worked! Sweet, but now that I know how They calculate the points, I’m not sure if I’ll ever do it again. Seven skill points is a lot, even for me with my titles. It’s time to do yoga and then I’ll ask the girls what they think. Is it worth doing or not? We can figure it out.

However, the experience points were enough to bring me up to level 12, so there’s a nice bonus.

I took a look at my status sheet after I’d assigned the points. Not bad.

Status

Name

Maysoon Alacrity Seebring “Monsoon”, “Chief”

Level (Monk/Mage)

12/12

Class(es)

Monk/Mage

Attribute

Points

0

Skill Points

115

Strength

51

Intelligence

83

Dexterity

40

Wisdom

82

Agility

72

Perception

56

Constitution

54

Charisma

44

Vitality

58

Luck

24

AC

6

Health:

336

Mana:

285

Qi:

285

Stamina

320

Now when I cast the spell, I created 6 bolts, all of them doing + 16 points of damage. Wahoo! So, yeah, Vulture no more, rats no more. Of course, I could only target one rat, so about 114 points of damage to one target. Not bad. I would grind up a rat and make mincemeat out of it.

What I needed is control. Earth Bolt and Acid Splash and even Light Bolt had the capability to attack multiple targets at later ranks, I needed that ability in Force Bolt. How do I get it without risking my head exploding or at least a migraine-type headache that never ends? But in the meantime, while I wait on getting my question answered, I’ll keep on grinding on, Shield. I still have about two and a half hours left, so I keep working until Yoga time. By the time the girls were up and doing Yoga, I leveled the spell up to Bronze 5.