Bubble Barrier - Level 1 Spell

Range: Touch (Reaction)

Cost: 8 MP

Encases an attacker inside of a giant bubble. Health of the bubble is equal to the sum of the caster's Intelligence and Wisdom. The bubble is immune to damage from the caster.

I was starting to lose it. I’d been stuck in the stupid bubble for, like, an hour, and the stupid pop-up box for the spell occupied the entire center of my vision, no matter how much I thought or screamed at it to go away. My stupid voice echoed strangely against the slippery walls of the bubble, giving me the impression that I was inside of a conch shell. Beyond the spell pop-up, I could see that the bubble was taking me to every corner of our neighborhood, despite the fact that I was seemingly only going in one direction.

I heard two muffled, but urgent voices from beneath me, and whipped my head around, distracted from my sulking. Chasing after me was a scrawny white guy with hair that kinda looked like broccoli, a headband the only thing keeping it out of his face, with a tie-dye sweater, and a larger, ethnically ambiguous dude with neatly cropped hair trailing behind him, wearing gym clothes and a red hoodie. They had nameplates over their heads, but I didn’t need to read them to recognize them.

“Shelby! Chris!” I shouted happily. They were getting closer, but I was still way higher than them.

“Pop the bubble!” I screamed, making wild gestures that I hoped represented “popping.” Chris made a face and asked Shelby a question that I couldn’t hear or read his lips. Shelby shrugged. I made a circle with my hands, made a popping sound with my mouth, and splayed my hands outward.

Shelby narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, but Chris’s eyes widened, and he materialized a black dagger from mid-air. He tossed the dagger, which fell about 8 feet short of reaching me. I gave Chris a flat look as he tried again, his second attempt even more pathetic. He gave me a sheepish smile as I floated away. My friends dematerialized as space shifted around me, I had reached the end of the street.

I immediately recognized the new street as Linwood, which was on the opposite side of a main road from Roosevelt. The bright green oldsmobile parked in front of Craig Witherspoon’s house was a dead giveaway. He was this local old money guy, I think maybe he had a great-grandpa who made, like, knives or something. He was in Florida for the holidays, in his second or third house, and every day we passed the car coming from or going to our friend Mallory’s, I considered stealing it. Now that I had magic, I was seriously weighing the consequences.

I looked up from the muscle car toward Mallory’s little blue house and yelped. An arrow was soaring through the air, heading right to my bubble. I stumbled backwards and fell down, the arrow popped the bubble, and then I fell again, right onto the oldsmobile. The arrow landed harmlessly on the ground behind me as my butt ached and the car alarm blared.

I groaned and turned my body so I could slide off the roof of the car. Right when my feet hit the ground, something wet wrapped around my ankle and pulled hard. For the third time in, like, ten seconds, I fell on my ass.

Under the car, a yellow, peanut-shaped, dog-sized insect with six legs, two large and curved upwards like a cricket’s jumping legs, had its long, purple tongue around my leg. The insect had two big compound eyes on its pentagonal face, with two more, smaller eyes on the top of its head, and a, y’know, standard, buggy mouth with a bunch of little mandibles and other grasping appendages. A nameplate above its head identified it as a level 1 Lanker.

“Ew ew ew, fuck! Ew! Arrgh!” I said, trying to wrestle my leg free, with little success. I felt a burning sensation from the tongue as my health started to tick down slowly, already down to half from the fall. The lanker started reeling me in, slowly dragging me under the car. I planted my free foot on the side of the oldsmobile, halting the bug’s progress, and pushed off of it. I was able to pull back a little bit of tongue, but the more I pushed my free leg, the tighter the lanker gripped my other leg.

“Okay, screw this,” I said, and made a gun with one hand. In the time since I cast the bubble spell around myself, I had only regenerated one MP, which was still enough to cast Fire Bolt. My pointer finger glowed with orange energy, slowly accumulating over an agonizing second, and then I loosed the spell.

It was a direct hit, hitting the lanker square in the jaw. It wasn’t enough to kill it, but it retracted its tongue in pain as the spell engulfed its head in flames. I scrambled backwards and onto my feet and looked around. Four more lankers had emerged from bushes, garages, and probably sewers grates, and were converging on my position. Outnumbered, and out of mana, I retreated toward Mallory’s house.

As I ran, two arrows whizzed past my ears, one on each side. I stopped in my tracks, skidding to a halt, and kinda dove sideways onto someone’s lawn. I looked back at the lankers, three were coming toward me, but one was dead, skewered by the arrows.

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“Come on, dumbass!” A voice shouted from the tree outside Mallory’s house. I watched dumbly as a lanker leaped forward, closing over half the distance I’d created with a single move. Determined to not piss my pants, I jumped to my feet and resumed running.

The tree shot a volley of arrows, killing the rest of the lankers before I could even get to Mallory’s. I panted, catching my breath, as a shape dropped from her tree. It took a second for me to process them as a person, they were covered head to toe in camouflage garb, with a bandanna wrapped around their head. I could see myself in the reflection of their goggles, and I looked rough.

“You’re not Mallory.” I pointed out. Mallory was small and a little wide, just like me, while this person was taller and of average build, I think.

“Duh,” they said. I blinked, gears turning in my head.

“Lizanne!” I realized, having forgotten that Mallory’s girlfriend had moved in with her a couple months ago. I should have looked at her nameplate earlier, she was a Level 2 Archer. Good for her.

Lizanne had been raised by crazy conspiracy theorists doomsday preppers who proved that black people can, in fact, be racist. She had cut them off, but retained much of her homeschool education, which was based around survivalism, agriculture, and questionable interpretations of the bible. She unwrapped her bandanna, confirming my suspicion.

“So, how’d you end up in a bubble?” She asked.

“Uh, I fought a wizard.” I said.

“Cool, did you win?” She asked.

“Yeah! I kicked his ass.” I said.

“From the bubble?” Her voice was skeptical.

“Uh, yes.” I lied.

“How?”

“Magic. See? I’m an arcanist.” I said, pointing above my head.

“Uh-huh. The same magic you used to kill all those bugs?” She asked.

“Hey, I was out of Mana.” I protested.

“Whatever, do you know what’s happening?”

“I think we’re in a video game.”

“I mean, I got that. Do you know why?” She asked. I thought back to the weird hole that appeared outside Brogley’s, and then how Bixbaf the wizard called me out for touching his hole.

“No idea.” I said, with a shrug.

“Okay, you’re useless.” She said and turned to go inside her house. Lizanne didn’t really like us, she was mostly mad at Shelby for breaking her fishing pole and not paying her back, and she didn’t have a lot of patience for us being the way that we are.

“Wait, um, where’s Mallory?” I asked.

“She’s taking a shower, and then we gotta figure out how to get all the blood out of her clothes.”

“Shit, is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. A bit shaken up. She had to kill someone today.”

“Me too…” I said, letting the thought linger. Lizanne put a hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s tough. It doesn’t get easier.”

Her words weren’t all that comforting, but they gave me the permission to cry the tears I didn’t even know I was holding back. Lizanne slowly retracted her hand while I stood there, weeping. She gave me a few minutes, and then reluctantly offered me a blunt.

“Thank you,” I said in between sobs, lighting it up with a 0-Mana Fire Bolt spell that turned my finger into a lighter. A little weed leaf popped up over my health bar.

“Yeah,” she grunted and took a hit.

Status Effect: Stoned (5 Minutes)

* -10% Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom

* +10% Charisma

* +15% Spell Power

* +5% MP Regeneration Rate

In the time it took us to finish the blunt, I had recovered another point of MP. I guess I exaggerated how long I was in the bubble, but in my defense, I was really bored up there. Despite the status effect timing out, I still felt high, which was a relief. I didn’t know if I would ever feel “normal” again.

“So, uh, do you and Mallory want to team up with me? I saw Chris and Shelby earlier, I’m gonna try to find a way toward them.” I asked.

“No.” She answered.

“What! Why?” I asked.

“You kinda suck, you can’t do shit.” She said.

“What the fuck?” I protested, “I have magic.”

“Magic you can’t fucking use,” she said, “it takes too long for you to be able to kill something. You bring very little to the table, and what you do bring, I don’t want.”

“Okay, fair, I guess, but what about this?” I asked, and pulled out a big bag of weed from my inventory. Lizanne blanched.

“Where’d you get that?” She asked reverently.

“Endrew’s. He dead now, by the way.”

She made a face, “eugh, his shit always makes me, like, super paranoid. You can keep it.”

“Jesus,” I said, frustrated, “nothing’s good enough for you, Lizanne.”

“Mallory is,” she said with a shrug.

“Whatever, dude. I’m gonna go find my roommates. Tell Mallory I said hi. See ya.” I said.

“Later,” she said, and went to open her front door. I walked away, a little dejectedly.

“Oh, hey, Evan,” she called from her doorway. I turned my head hopefully.

“Don’t die,” she continued, “Mallory would be sad.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“I know,” she said, and shut her door.