Interlude II
War and Magic
“War, that’s right you heard it here first. After a year of secret behind the scenes operations, the Legrand Empire has officially declared war on the tiny Maltese Empire to its border to the southwest. How will this fare for our Regressors on both sides, well first we should go over the basics. In war many of the skills and professions one has available to will change. To be born in a time of war is truly a great time, especially for those who have already been conducting operations behind enemy lines.” The Narrator said, explaining regional details of conflict.
While war was not uncommon, it was rare to conduct a war when many nations surrounding the two empires at war, were experiencing monster surges. While everything is safe for the moment, should the other nations fall, the monster surges would go straight to the door of each capital.
“A brief recap on certain skills and how they change during war time scenarios. Skills like Media Blackout become simultaneously more and less powerful. They are more powerful in that a king can declare certain missions to be part of Media Blackout, and everything from the people assigned to the mission, to the name of the operation will be withheld from us. They are less powerful in the fact that spies who are off duty, are no longer protected by the Media Blackout and can be viewed pretty much at all times.” The Narrator states.
“Also, classes and class evolutions are more abundant than ever during this time. Depending on how much you have contributed to the current status of your country, you can either get an increase to your Military Rank, granting you the status of an officer. Or you can have a special one time bonus offered to one of your special class perks. This is the true way that kings and queens get regressors to join. There are also the chances of titles and the like, but realistically those are so few and far between that people would be better off holding their breaths than waiting for those to come. Still there are titles that people who perform particularly well can achieve. Also, this is where the next round of nobility can be cemented. If you work hard enough to earn a last name, then you are automatically granted land and a title. Again, though these will often go to the leader of a particular military operation.”
“Also with a war, we should talk about safe zones. To put it succinctly there are no true safe zones, though guild offices should be considered semi-sacred. The Guild offices in each city have now become non-combat zones. Meaning anyone who enters so long as they were not in combat within the past twenty-four hours, will be granted temporary immunity for a length of time equal to the last time they were in combat. Also, when preparing to invade a city special consideration must be made to ensure the guild halls do not themselves get damaged, lest the invading forces lose right to host said guild within their empire.”
“For invading cities there are sets of rules that must be adhered to, no massive casualties or wide ranging spells, or artillery strikes that will result in civilian casualties. This means that fighting forces outside anyone can use everything at their disposal. The moment the war enters the city proper, the rules change and everything must be downgraded in scale and severity, lest you get charged with war crimes during and after the conflict, even if you are on the winning side. That said, plundering rights are open to everyone, if you find it in a city you are invading and you can take it, then it is yours. Of course, there are exceptions, but this is the time when raiding the Arch Mage’s home is not only acceptable but also encouraged. The only time the mage becomes off limits is of course when they enter their guild hall. The same holds true for the resources found at the Head Apothecary, Mechanic and Thieves Guild leader’s home. Their resources are freely available to anyone willing or foolish enough to try to assail their abodes and claim their riches for your own.”
“There are also the rules of capitals being conquered by invading armies and monsters. There are a lot of nuanced rules, but the long and short of it can be summarized in one of two ways. Should a capital fall to an invading army the land that has troops of the conquering army on it, will be annexed into the conquering kingdom’s borders. Should a capital fall to a monster infestation, then the lands regardless of troops will all be annexed by monsters and a new Behemoth class monster will be raised within the capital.”
“Sound confusing, that’s because it is. But you can read about all the rules and guidelines for the low low price of…”
Click.
Jackie Cruise waved her hand ending the feed on the rules for war. Taking a deep breath, she paused to pull up the screen that detailed her mother’s accomplishments and where she was before she went dark again. After the last time, Jackie went ahead and paid for the full year of premium service for her account, meaning she would get the feed fifteen minutes before everyone else did, when she came back.
Also, there was the little green light that shown brightly for her, letting her know that her feed candidate was still alive, even though they were in what was effectively a Media Blackout on her.
Since this was a premium account, she was allowed to go back and watch her past feeds.
Jackie watched as her mother’s feed picked up in the final days of her being labeled a child. At which point she entered the Tortoise Dragon Tower and immediately had her feed go dark.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
This was the problem with rogue types, which is what her mother clearly was going for, they always had ways of obfuscating their presence. In fact many of her mother’s skills that she had mastered over the years were ones that made it almost impossible to gain any kind of insight into what she had or what she did.
Name: Cassiopeia Race: Shade Touched Dark Elf Age: 13
In fact, pulling up her Bio read almost like her obituary. Then just as she started reading the text, new content appeared. Content that sent shivers down her spine as she had never seen such a combination of Class and Magical affinities before.
Class: Void Walker Level: 1 Magic Affinity(s): Spirit (Tier VIII), Shadow (Tier VII)
“Tier 8?” Jackie said, as the words hit her. The game had up to Tier IX, there were even talks about people making it up to Tier X as the game world got tougher. But to start off at Tier VIII, that was unheard of, unless she had done something legendary in the process, such a feat should not be possible.
Seeing the class, and the level of Spirit magic, Jackie began combing through resources. Only to find that there was no information on what a Void Walker was, or what Spirit magic entailed. That was by far the school of magic that was the least practiced as it rarely had any tangible benefits, but also one of the hardest to master. Even practicing the art could cause your meridians to boil and break.
Beep.
There was a flashing icon showing on her screen, as she looked to see that new footage was being streamed to her personal account favorites. With the stream going, she immediately clicked over and saw her mother. Well not her mother, but the avatar of her mother that she had grown so used to seeing over the past six years appear seemingly out of nowhere.
Whoosh!
Her appearing randomly was nothing new, as she often Teleported. What made this teleportation odd was the trail of black smoke that followed her. Smoke that people nearby began choking on almost immediately.
Scanning back her feed, Jackie tried to find where her mother was, only to find that she was at the entrance hall to Arcanarus, the Magical University of the entire world.
Striving forward, she knocked on the doors twice, then waited.
And waited.
The university didn’t open its doors for anyone, that was part of the mystique of the university, it was by invitation only. So, the fact that her mother was all but ignored was to be expected, as she was a level 1 nobody. Someone who had zero kills to their name and someone who would likely go on unnoticed lest she do something foolish like apply early.
That was the other thing, if you applied to the University and were rebuffed, you would never gain a chance to try to enter again. Of course the payoff was severe, graduating from the University often meant you could craft at least one unique spell, and many players who graduated from the school could make a living creating and selling off new and useful spells.
Finally after over an hour of waiting an elderly gentleman came to the door, opened it and took one look at Cass, shook his head and then spoke. “Too young.”
The man looked like he was about to leave, when Cass took her finger letting the tip glow brightly in an odd purple color that Jackie had never seen before for magic.
The old man also seemed to be impressed as he paused his momentary closing of the door and watched as Cass using her glowing finger ripped a hole in space and time, revealing a giant glowing monster.
“A truly remarkable summons, but not good enough.”
Cass shook her head. “Not a summons, but the real deal.”
Cass made a gesture, and with that the glowing monster slithered forward and appeared to be a Chinese Dragon, one of the long flowing dragons that had no wings but could still fly. Seeing the creature the mage looked unimpressed, then made a dismissive motion with his hand. Nothing happened.
“Bite his hand.” Cass said, with that the monster glided forward like a ghost.
The old man began casting spell after spell at the beast. At first it looked like dispelling magic, but when that didn’t work he resorted to flames, ice, even holy magic, nothing seemed particularly effective.
Then after a long slow climb up the steps, the monster went over and bit the old man.
“AH!” The elderly mage called out, as he looked at his hand with shock. Even from the feed, dark glowing veins could be seen appearing from the four small puncture wounds where the dragon bit.
“That is enough, you can go back. I will call upon you and your friends if another demonstration is needed.” Cass said, her voice cold as she gestured for the spirit dragon to leave. The dragon looked sad for the moment, bowing its head as it looked like it was being told to go into a crate. Then with that, the creature disappeared and almost immediately the glowing portal disappeared in a puff of black smoke.
“You, you poisoned me?”
Cass just shook her head. “That is Spirit mana, a highly concentrated form.”
Then holding out her hand, Cass called forth the black energy to make it appear like wisps before the man.
The man stared at the wisps of magic for a moment, but then paused as he turned to look at Cass for the first time.
“Reveal yourself.”
Still holding the mana in place, a task that was clearly a strain on Cass given the way she was sweating, but trying not to give away any sign of discomfort, she began removing her hood, then her goggles. Upon seeing her Shade Touched eyes, the old man let out a slight gasp, but only for a moment.
Taking a second to observe Cass, he then turned his attention to the floating ball of mana. Then reaching out his hand, he touched the floating mana and watching as it turned to slime within his hands. He looked at it in a contemplative manner for a moment, then thinking cast one last golden glowing Holy spell on the mass. This one was far brighter and more intense than the others. Everyone watched as the glowing light looked so bright that it might burn away water, only for the dark purple mana to remain, even after the Purification spell was cast. Seeing that the mana was still there, the man nodded to himself as he seemed to come to some sort of understanding.
“Perhaps I was too hasty with my judgement of you. Perhaps we do have a place for you after all.” The man said, waving his hand and gesturing for Cass to join him inside the University.
At that, Cass let out a breath, as a faint smile crested her lips. Then immediately upon entering the Arcanarus University, the doors closed behind her ending the visual feed of Jackie’s mother.
Still, this surely beat a country at war. Also wars were long and drawn out affairs that often took years to resolve. Odds were that even upon graduating, the war would still be ongoing in some level. Besides wars couldn’t get up to more than minor skirmishes between squads, until at least a year had passed. For now the war would be relegated to a few highly skilled teams conducting deep recon and espionage activities.
Still, there was something to that whole ordeal just now. What did her mother do? Was that true high end Spirit magic? Was it always so powerful? Also, what did it mean for the state of the world of Biprism as a whole?
Immediately Jackie clicked over to see what the talking heads thought of this, as anything new was always worth mentioning.