On the long, boring walk back to the city of Cerdansk, the party members of the newly formed Overkill chatted with each other about nothing in particular.
Though his fellow members weren’t talking about things of much importance, their inputs and casual remarks were invaluable to Karsten. The amount of information he got from it was enough that he barely said anything the entire walk, only listening as they talked.
Mostly, it was Haressy and Henry who did the talking, Malek walking in an unintentionally imposing silence as always.
As she had always lived on a farm in the forest with her brother and their grandfather, Haressy asked a lot of questions about the country, region and other random things she was curious about. This was greatly beneficial to Karsten, because he was even more of a stranger to this world than the two country-bumpkin Goliaths that had spent their entire lives isolated on their farm in the forest.
Henry, surprisingly, gave her detailed answers and explained things properly, behaving nothing like how he did when talking to Karsten.
Karsten sighed. He supposed it was only natural, when he reflected on it.
‘I have always been the handsome one, after all… Poor chap. The jealousy must have really been gnawing at him. Better buy him a goose when we get to the city.’
As they started closing in on the city, Karsten reflected on the things he’d gleaned from their conversation.
As it turned out, the country Karsten had been Teleported into, Camarillon, was a monarchy, ruled by the King and Queen Kerth and Ribell Camarillon. According to Henry, the farther you went up the ladder of power in the country, the more it became like ‘ a cesspit of bureaucracy and gossip’, in Henry’s own words.
As Karsten listened to his ‘cousin’s’ description, he couldn’t help but think back to a certain description of a certain Bard Subclass.
Many other Bards hate the College of Whispers, viewing it as a parasite that uses a Bard’s reputation to acquire wealth and power. For this reason, members of this college rarely reveal their true nature. They typically claim to follow some other college, or they keep their actual calling secret in order to infiltrate and exploit royal courts and other settings of power.
Karsten decided to assume there was a Bard of Whispers in the court of Camarillon, and in a high position, at that. Even if there wasn’t even a more normal Bard there - which was very unlikely - If he ever went there without preparing for the worst case scenario, he’d be flamed.
’...’
As he started thinking of what he would do if he were to face another Bard, Karsten realized there was very little he could do if the opposing Bard was of a higher level than himself.
Basically all Bard Spells were based on having a higher Ability score than the opposing person.
For example, the level 14 Spell Shadow Lore of the College of Whispers.
The way the Spell worked was that, as long as the Bard of Whispers’ Wisdom Ability was higher than the enemy’s, they could charm the person so they heard crazy ravings and followed nearly any commands of the caster. The only exception was, you couldn’t make the target hurt themselves or others if they weren’t already inclined to do so.
Here was the catch, though; The higher your Charisma stat, the more sway you had with others. Therefore, as long as the Bard of Whispers manipulated the person beforehand so they would already see them as a close friend, or comrade, they would be able to make the person do anything at all.
Even more terrifyingly, if someone somehow had a Charisma stat of 30, Karsten figured that they wouldn’t even need a spell. They could just speak, draw on their natural Charisma, and play with people like toys…
And this got him thinking. How was the world not in utter turmoil? If Bards were given free reign - which it seemed they were, given Karstens ability to move about as he pleased - then what kept Bards in line?
He had no idea.
‘Wait, no… There are lots of Classes with high Perception stats. While they may not be immune to being charmed themselves, they would be able to tell immediately if another person was being charmed. I see… So it was like this. Fighters have high Perceptions, right? That’s probably a major reason why Knights are a thing here - to keep the Bards in check.’
Feeling a deeper understanding of this world’s chemistry, Karsten and his party arrived in Cerdansk.
~~~
“Wow! Brother, look at this!”
As they walked around the marketplace, Haressy moved from stall to stall like the quintessential country bumpkin she was. Pointing at everything she found interesting, she dragged her mountain of a brother along to try all the different fruits, pastries and juices she hadn’t seen before.
Malek followed her around obediently, his mouth full of foreign foods his sister had practically shoved into his mouth.
“He’s a good brother. You should take a page out of his book.”
“I’m not your brother.”
“No, but you are my cousin.”
“No one says ‘cousins’ have to like each other.”
“Fair point. Still, I think looking like you’ve stubbed your toe everytime you look at me isn’t exactly helping our cover.”
“...Fair point.”
Henry looked around at the different stalls, then walked over to one with particularly cheap apples. He bought two and returned to Karsten, offering one of the apples to him.
“Want one, ‘cousin’?”
Karsten rolled his eyes. “Come on, you can do better than that. Try to say it more naturally, not like you’re saying the name of some terminal disease.”
“That’s asking for a lot.”
“It really isn’t.”
Henry shrugged and bit into his apple.
“We don’t really have to act, though. Everyone already believes we’re brothers. Or clones.”
Karsten had to agree. While they took the Goliath siblings on a tour of a part of the city, they’d overheard a lot of whispers about there being a ‘second troublemaker’ and so on. There were even some who said they’d seen the two being kicked out of a Tavern a few night ago, drunk and causing havoc.
They were referring to the day Karsten had found Henry passed out in a popular Tavern, and had to practically carry the man out of there.
Karsten had to admit, the things the ignorant people around them were saying left a sour taste in his mouth.
Still, having rumours flying around about the new scandalous ‘Kerdans’ wasn’t something that bothered the ‘cousins’ all that much. They kept their eyes on the dungeons, and filtered everything else out.
After the Goliath tourists were sated, they started looking for a vendor to sell the Soul Gem to.
If they were going to buy armour, they’d need all the gold they could get.
They soon found one that specializes in buying and selling dungeon loot, and Karsten hyped himself up for the first bartering session of his life as a Bard.
~~~
“1 gold, take it or leave it.”
“...”
“I told you it'd be best if you stayed outside," Henry sighed.
“Isn’t that a little… little?”
Karsten whispered.
Henry nodded.
“Yeah. But you shouldn't expect anything different when you're a Bard.”
For some unknown reason that Karten didn’t fully understand, the shopkeep was able to tell he was a Bard from the moment he’d set foot into his shop, and, apparently, immediately decided that he wouldn't even let the poor Saber open his mouth.
He’d said he ‘wouldn’t barter with a Bard’. The moment he said it, Karsten realized that that only made sense.
After all, if they did, then every shop would go out of business because of lack of income.
Therefore, he currently stood dejectedly in the corner of the shop, face against the wall. If he even so much as moved his head, the shopkeeper would threaten to throw him out of the shop.
Thus, Henry had taken over negotiations. Like the last time Karsten had witnessed him barter, the man was now showcasing his conversation skills that had been drilled into him by his father since he was young.
“I can give you two gold for it, but you guys will have to get the hell out of my shop.” The shopkeeper finally concluded, his tone inviting no counterargument.
Karsten beamed, turning around from where he stood in the corner, “Why, of course! I will never forget this favor, good si-”
“Shut up.”
“Yep…” He promptly turned back to the corner of Bardic shame.
“Thank you, sir. I won’t forget this favour. You’ve done me and my party a great service. And I apologize for my cousin, he’s odd in the head - Please do not fault him for it.”
The shopkeeper grunted, but said no more. He accepted the Soul Gem and handed the spearman two golden coins.
Careful not to look in the shopkeeper's direction, Karsten left the store, the others followed after him.
“He was really rude…” Haressy remarked when they’d re-entered the bustling street.
“He’s not unique,” Henry commented, “Every shopkeep is like that when they see a Bard.”
“How could he tell that I was a Bard, though?” Karsten asked, genuinely curious.
Henry looked at Karsten flatly.
“That’s because the second you entered the shop, Karsten, you conjured up that tacky ass top-hat and bowed like you were starting a theatre play. How was he supposed to believe that you weren’t a Bard? It was probably the most ‘Bard’ shit he’d ever seen.”
“...But he didn’t even let me say a single word.”
“I wouldn’t have let you either, if I was the shopkeeper. What if you infused a charming spell into your words?”
“But I don’t even have a Charming Spell...”
“And how is he supposed to know that? Does he know you?”
“No…”
Henry sighed.
“Just leave bartering to me, you can wait outside of the shop from now on.”
Karsten answered in mock-offence, “What? Like some dog?”
“I don’t know what a ‘dog’ is, but no. Like a Bard.”
“Why do you make it sound worse? Also, what?”
“What ‘what’?”
“Oh… nothing. It’s just… I shouldn’t have expected to be dogs here, but it just dawned on me. I’m living in a world that doesn’t have any puppies. Wait, then why do you have geese?”
“What kind of question is that? How am I supposed to know?”
“Kittens?”
“No?”
“Damn… Hamsters?”
“Nope.”
“Horses?”
“What’re those?”
Karsten sighed grieveously, “Stick insects?”
“Oh, we have those actually,” Haressy answered. “Our grandfather taught us it’s a type of monster. They’re very rare, and very weak, apparently. He fought one once, he said.”
“So you have stick insects, but not puppies? This world is cursed…”
Haressy laughed, “They’re not so bad. Our grandfather said it had a cute, tiny little voice as it screamed!”
“...How… cute?”
“Yeah!” She giggled. “I always wanted to meet one.”
“Right.” Karsten said a silent prayer for all stick insect monsters…
“So, what do we do now?” The Druid of Spores asked.
Henry answered, stating, “It would be best if we buy some armor for me and Karsten. You two don’t really need it, right?”
The Goliaths both nodded.
“We have an innate Trait called Stone Skin. For dungeons of a lower level than ourselves, armour likely won’t be necessary. Either way, I am a Monk and gain a number of advantages if I don’t wear armour. My sister is a Druid, so she won’t be needing it either, as it would impose on her Wild Shape,” Malek explained.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Wild shape?”
“Oh, you didn’t know? All Druids can turn into some kind of wild beast. Personally, I can turn into an Eiran.”
Karsten asked what an Eiran was, and from Harssy’s description, it seemed like a type of sky-blue, eagle-like bird.
“That works out pretty well, though,” Karsten nodded. “We didn’t get all that much for the Soul Gem, so the fewer pieces we have to buy, the better.”
“Soul Gem?” Malek asked.
“Oh, yeah. It’s an item from a gam- a scripture… I read. I thought ‘Magica Stone’ sounded a bit boring, so I dubbed it as a ‘Soul Gem’, because the two look very similar.”
“Soul Gem… It definitely sounds better.” Haressy said thoughtfully.
“Either way,” Henry interrupted. “I think we should get to an Armour Shop before they all close for the day.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”
They had to walk around for a while to find an Armour Shop that wasn’t closed, but when they were just about to give up and wait until the day after, they found one at the end of a street that was quite a bit away from the Wolf District.
The store looked rather worn down, but the party decided to check it out anyway.
For the sake of blending in, Karsten dejectedly removed his blue coat, placing it in the party’s common bag of holding. He also made a visible effort to not cast any form of Prestidigitation while inside.
As they stepped in, Karsten couldn’t help but feel giddy.
In the few Dungeons & Dragons campaigns he’d been a part of, he had always made it a point to enter an Armour Shop just to see what the DM would conjure up. He had always had an interest in armour in general too; Smithing was always the first thing he leveled when he played Skyrim as a result of that.
What met him when he entered the shabby store wasn’t the grand, pristine armour collection Karsten had secretly hoped for, but rather a narrow, yet uniquely cozy room with a few different armour types on display.
“Welcome!” Came from behind the counter, where an older, rugged gnome sat, polishing an iron bracer.
“Hello!” Karsten greeted simply, not adding any ‘Bardic flair’ to his voice at all. It made him feel like he was selling his soul, but he managed.
Looking around the store, he tried to find an armour piece that could cover his entire back.
He didn not want to almost get Truck-kun’ed by a giant monster ant ever again.
As there wasn’t much on display, Karsten didn’t expect finding anything of interest here, but was pleasantly surprised when he saw a light amour set made up of a breast plate, some cuisses and a pair of light leather-and-cloth gauntlets. What stood out about it, though, was that the cloth underneath it was of a noble blue colour, going well with his cloak.
Although he could tell it was cheap, it was also quite striking, and well made though it was made with common ingredients.
“How much for this one?” Karsten asked the shopkeeper.
“Oh! Great choice. It’s 7 gold for the whole set, but for you, my friend, we’ll say 5!”
Karsten winced.
“Is it possible to only buy the cuirass?”
“Only the cuirass, eh? Hmm…”
The shopkeep grumbled, “Mm, I typically don’t sell the sets separately… hm… Well… I suppose I could sell it to you. How does 2 gold for the chest piece sound?”
“...Could you go lower?” Karsten asked, trying to not sound poor. He thought back to his income and expenses the last few days, and calculated he had about 2 Gold, 2 Silver left in total.
The old Gnome grumbled some more. “Mm… M-well… I suppose we could say 1 gold, 10 Silver? But I really can’t go lower than that, it’s already dirt-cheap for such a fine armour.”
Karsten immediately presented his hand to the Gnome, exclaiming, “Deal!” and they shook on it.
Putting his hand into his pocket, he realized he had the same issue as last time: His Inventory had gotten exponentially larger since the last level-up, and was now so large he couldn’t easily reach the walls of the subspace without having it eat up his entire shoulder. The problem he was facing now was one of not actually being able to reach his money to pay the shopkeep.
Karsten frowned as he fished around in his pocket absentmindedly. The Gnome looked at him with some concern, but Karsten didn’t notice.
‘This doesn’t make any sense… Why do I even have an Inventory if I can’t even reach what’s inside?’
He thought there must be an answer to this.
Suddenly, he had an idea. He mentally intended for a Gold coin and 10 Silver to appear in his hand that was inside the Inventory, just like when he used his Status scroll. Not even a second passed, and he felt his hand fill with a handful of cold, metal coins.
Karsten handed the payment to the shopkeep, and the Gnome raised himself with a groan from his chair, going around the counter to help Karsten put on the armour piece.
At the same time, Henry had found two iron gauntlets that would help against getting blisters from his spear. They were much cheaper than the cuirass, at only 12 Silver.
The Gnome armourer showed Karsten step-by-step how to put on the breastplate, as well as how to perform upkeep on the leather strips and how to keep it from rusting. After the short ‘tutorial’, he wore the armour piece and gave a contented sigh.
“Why, you look dapper!” The Gnome laughed heartily. “I can reserve the rest of the set for you, so you can come back and buy the rest when you’ve got enough funds. Sound good?”
“Absolutely! We’re heading out to Hemistos’ Bath tomorrow, so-”
Karsten was interrupted by the old Gnomes uproarious laughter. The man slapped his hand on the counter, and said, “Ha! Is this you guys’ first time in the slime dungeon?”
“Yeah… It is.”
The Gnome laughed some more.
“Ho, ho, you’ll have fun! Everyone has to go through it at some point, ain’t a proper Adventurer without a coupla’ those under your belt! Ho, ho, ho.”
Karsten had already been unenthused at the thought of entering the slime dungeon after what he’d heard from Medoly, and the Gnomes words didn’t exactly fill him with much more confidence… Still, he had no plan to alter their course. As Medoly and the shopkeep had said, it was necessary to have a broad spectrum of experiences if he wanted to be a successful Adventurer - which he had to be, if he wanted to become powerful enough to return home.
After all was done, the party left the Armour Shop and walked along the now quieter streets of Cerdansk, taking in the view of the city during nighttime.
“I’d like to visit Medoly before we go,” Karsten suddenly said. “I think my Song of Rest should be able to heal her knee.”
“I think it’d be better to wait until tomorrow day, to be honest,” Henry stated. “If we go back now, my dad might just kill you.”
“Really? Why?”
Henry sighed. “I know I said I wanted you to piss off my father, but in all honesty, there is a non-zero chance he might flip. He wouldn’t do it himself, obviously, he’s weaker than a single ant monster. But he is good friends with certain pools of scum from the Peace District. He’d probably send someone after you if he knows who you are.”
“Does he? Know who I am, I mean?”
“No,” the spearman shook his head. “Or, he shouldn’t, anyway. I don’t think my sister’s given him many details about you, and I haven’t met him for a while, so he’s heard nothing from me. You should be fine, but better safe than sorry. We can go after the raid tomorrow, and you can perform the Skill when we’re all together.”
“Your dad’s a real piece of work.”
“He is,” Henry agreed heavily.
Having decided on a course of action, the party found a cheap Inn and each rented their own room, which Karsten paid for, spending another 4 Silver coins. It was never bad to make a good impression on people, after all.
~~~
Karsten entered his tiny, musky rented room, and sat down on the small, definitely not human-sized bed that cracked beneath him when he sat.
When he first sat down to level up in the Boss area of the A2 ant dungeon, he had been entirely distracted by the Subclass selection that he had forgotten all else. Now, however, it was time to finally complete his level-up.
Without the need to get into a meditative state, Karsten simply took a deep, calming breath and opened his Status, going over the things he’d missed.
NAME: Karsten Myhr
RACE: Human - Otherworlder
CLASS AND LEVEL: Bard // Level 4
HEALTH: 150/150
MAGICA: 70/70
STAMINA: 80/80
EXPERIENCE POINTS: 2/400
ABILITIES:
STRENGTH: 13
DEXTERITY: 15
CONSTITUTION: 15
INTELLIGENCE: 9
WISDOM: 10
CHARISMA: 18
PERCEPTION: 11
ABILITY POINTS REMAINING: 0
UNIQUE TRAITS: Otherworlder. You can speak, read and write every language. You have your own personal dimensional subspace.
SUBCLASS: College of Swords [See pending choices]
PROFICIENCIES: Musical instruments (advanced novice), light armor (advanced novice), simple weapons (advanced novice), hand crossbows (advanced novice), longswords (advanced novice), rapiers (advanced novice), shortswords (advanced journeyman), scimitar (advanced novice), medium armour (advanced novice)
PROFICIENCY POINTS REMAINING: 2
EXPERTISE POINTS REMAINING: 1
SKILLS: Bardic inspiration, Song of rest
SPELLS:
5/7 [See available spells]
CANTRIPS:
2/3 [See available Cantrips]
As he’d already decided on a Fighting Style, Karsten immediately locked in Dual-Wielding.
He chose Dual-wielding partly because of Henry’s recommendation; While the two pretend cousins might not be the closest of people, Karsten still trusted Henry to give honest advice when it came to things that had to do with dungeon-delving. What style of fighting Karsten chose would directly play into his whole party’s survival, after all, so the advice he had given was genuine.
While Dual-Wielding was the most difficult to get far with out of the two with regards to potential damage output, it was also the one that had the potential. It was a style that was heavily dependent on having a solid foundation in technique, and Karsten knew he wouldn’t get away with only relying on his Proficiencies. He’d have to train.
Still, Karsten didn’t see this as a bad thing. As he’d come to find out, there was a truly stupendous amounts of dungeons in this world, It was unlike anything he would have expected of a fantasy world. Almost every city had around two dungeons nearby, and just counting the amount of smaller cities spotted here and there, it was a colossal number.
Karsten felt it made sense, then, that the ant dungeon wasn’t packed constantly.
When him and his party exited the and dungeon, he couldn’t believe that the place wasn’t teeming with Adventurers hoping for an easy level-up, but now, it only made sense.
‘The Adventurers here are really fed with a golden spoon… No, I suppose that isn’t right. The dungeons might be everywhere, but the monsters in them are ridiculously strong. Well, the Bosses, anyway.’
Sighing, he moved on to Proficiencies.
‘‘Expertise points’... What’s that?’
Focusing in on the word with his mind, he read the description.
EXPERTISE POINTS
Increase a Proficiency with one major step.
‘... A step? What’s that?’
Focusing in further, this time on the word ‘Proficiency’, Karsten read a description he felt like he should have read long ago.
PROFICIENCY
A Proficiency refers to an item you have proficiency with. These items include weapons, armour and musical instruments.
Proficiencies are separated into three minor steps, and six major steps.
Minor steps
Minor steps are levels within major steps. The three minor steps are: Beginner, learned and advanced.
Major steps
Major steps refer to the major steps you take in your advancement of a skill. The six major steps are: Novice, journeyman, adept, expert, master and legendary.
“Okay,” Karsten nodded in understanding. “So an Expertise point increases a skill by an entire major step…” Karsten grinned, and immediately wanted to put the point into his Shortsword Proficiency.
He managed to calm down after a few breaths, though, and thought about it some more,
‘If I’m gonna be using shortswords, then I’m going to be moving around a lot… Medium armour is a bit clanky, so although I have some Proficiency with it, I should definitely put one of them in there so I don’t just roll around… I see, so some of the Proficiencies are connected like this.’
Feeling stupid that he hadn’t thought about this earlier, Karsten put the Expertice point in medium armour, making it go from advanced novice to advanced journeyman.
He then one Proficiency point each in shortswords and medium armour, pushing them both into the next major step.
Then… Then, he moved on to the Spells.
Karsten grinned.
‘I’m becoming more and more mystical every level-up… Magicians have nothing on me.’
Not waiting a single second longer, he opened up the list of available Spells.
The scroll promptly fell through the floor, filled with Spells Karsten could ever want and their descriptions.
“Spells…. My precious…”
Karsten was becoming more like Gollum by the day, at this point.
Reading through them all, Karsten couldn’t believe he had access to such powerful spells so early on. He was only level 4, yet Spells like Dimension Door - which was a literal Teleportation Spell - and Mass Healing Word - which was exactly what it sounded like. It allowed him to heal all his party members simultaneously.
Karsten had to admit, though, that although nearly all the other Spells were amazingly useful, Dimension Door and Mass Healing Word were the two he believed he would get the most use out of.
As the party didn’t have a dedicated healer, the role fell to the all-rounder, the Bard.
Karsten felt that he couldn’t call himself a good party member if he didn’t choose the Spell. The others were trusting him with their lives, and if he didn’t have the capability to meet their trust, he didn’t know what he’d do.
Grieving at not being able to choose the Charm Monster Spell, he locked in Mass Healing Word and Dimension Door.
Why Dimension Door? There was no way he wasn’t choosing the Teleportation Spell. The second he’d seen it, his heart was set. The utility of the Spell was obvious.
He moved on to Cantrips.
AVAILABLE CANTRIPS
Blade Ward
Dancing Lights
Friends
Light
Mage Hand
Mending
Message
Minor Illusion
Thunderclap
True strike
‘Hmm… Blade Ward is pretty straight forward. Same with Dancing Lights, Light, and so on. The ones I’m curious about are Friends, Mending, Thunderclap and True Strike, I think.’
After reading the descriptions, Karsten decided on the one he felt would have the best utility.
Finally, he looked over his chosen Spells and Cantrip.
Dimension Door
CASTING TIME
5 seconds
RANGE
200 meters
DURATION
Instantaneous
SCHOOL
Conjuration
MAGICA COST
15
You teleport yourself from your current location to any other spot within range. You arrive at exactly the spot desired. It can be a place you can see, one you can visualize, or one you can describe by stating distance and direction, such as "50 meters straight downward" or "upward to the northwest at a 45-degree angle, 150 meters".
You can bring along objects as long as their weight doesn’t exceed what you can carry. You can also bring one willing creature of your size or smaller who is carrying gear up to its carrying capacity. The creature must be within 1 meter of you when you cast this Spell.
If you would arrive in a place already occupied by an object or a creature, you and any creature traveling with you each take 25 damage, and the spell fails to teleport you.
Mass Healing Word
CASTING TIME
Instantaneously
RANGE
20 meters
DURATION
Instantaneous
SCHOOL
Evocation
MAGICA COST
10
As you call out words of restoration, up to six creatures of your choice that you can see within range regain 25 Health points. This spell has no effect on undead or constructs.
The healing granted from this Spell increases by 5 for each level gained.
Current amount of bonus Health points granted: 15
True Strike
CASTING TIME
Instantaneous
RANGE
10 meters
DURATION
Instantaneous
SCHOOL
Divination
MAGICA COST
3
You point a finger at a target within range. Your magic grants you brief insight into the targets defenses. On your first attack directed at the target, you have a 25% increase in likeness to hit the target accurately.
Feeling like a million bucks, Karsten went to sleep on his dirty mattress.