Karsten didn’t hesitate, immediately casting Bardic Inspiration on Henry.
As Henry’s body tensed from the shock of seeing the Boss monster descend from the Heavens, Karsten slapped the back of his shoulder hard, proclaiming;
Go forth, my Sentinel! Glory awaits!
The moment Karsten had spoken the last word, Henry felt an energy like pure inspiration filling his body and suffuse his mind. His grip on his spear tightened, and hi snack straightened slightly.
He didn’t hesitate after that. Leaning forward, eyes locked on the beast, he kicked off from the ground and entered into a sprint.
Step by step his speed increased, and soon, he had closed the distance.
The monstrous bat hadn’t been still either, however. It shot through the air like a projectile, aimed directly at Henry’s head.
Karsten recognized the tactic, as it was the one all the other smaller bat monsters had employed.
Running to the side at the moment he’d finished using his Skill, he circled around the bat. He didn’t get far before Henry and the bat nearly were upon each other, though, and he was forced to run towards them so that he would be within range to cast spells.
As Henry and the Bat met, Karsten cast his first spell in the fight.
With only a second to act, he cast vicious mockery, feeling electric energy gravitating towards his throat. As he spoke, he felt his words were laced with a mocking, viscous intent.
You’re the most boring-looking Boss monster I’ve ever had the misfortune of laying eyes upon! Seriously, are you cosplaying as a lump of mud?
The words boomed out, hitting the bat monster and causing it to stagger at a vital moment. It could feel it’s strength veins sapped away, and was helplessly stunned in the air for a short moment.
Henry capitalized on the moment beautifully. He raised his spear with his dominant arm, and shoved the blade of it into the creatures eye socket. The big, beady eye popped, causing translucent juices to flow down Henry’s spear and onto his hand.
The spearman didn’t seem to notice, though, as he pulled his weapon back out violently.
Grabbing onto the bats gigantic right ear, he jammed the spear back in, this time puncturing the monster’s eardrum. The Boss monster screeched loudly, so loudly that Henry had to take a few steps back so his own eardrums wouldn’t puncture.
He yelled in Karstens direction, “Thanks!”
Karsten yelled back, “You’re welcome! Its strength is 20% lowered for a minute! Punch it, or something!”
He didn’t hear Henry’s response, already having started running toward a nearby high-point - a small hill around 40 meters away from Henry and the Beast, a place with good visibility.
The eldritch eye of doom had been much more efficient than Karsten had anticipated. He’d had to re-cast the spell hourly when the duration ended, but it was such a small expense that he’d always regained what he’d lost when the time for re-casting came.
When his small party had entered the Boss area, however, it’s light was lacking. He’d been forced to feed it with more magica to make it emit more light. Though it was manageable at the moment, he still worried about unnecessarily wasting magica.
Gripping his nameless sword, he already noticed a small amount of magica trickling into his body from it, refilling his reservoir. Still, it was coming in at a slower pace than Karsten had hoped, not really being a big enough boon to make much of a difference in the fight.
He tried to think of what he should do next. He was too far away from the Boss to cast Thunderwave, and Prestidigitation couldn't cause any real damage.
Seeing the monster readying itself to pounce on Henry, Karsten opened his mouth yet again.
You don’t even understand what I’m saying, do you? D’you know a bat’s brain is the size of a pea? Huh?
Seeing that the cantrip had seemed to be effective against the bat Boss monster, Karsten relaxed somewhat.
That was before the gigantic bat snapped its gnarled head in his direction.
“SKREEEEEE!!!”
“...”
~~~
What transpired next was the most violent game of tag Karsten had ever taken part in. Karsten was entirely certain that he had never before in his life run faster than he had at this moment. He wasn’t even certain if Bards generally could go this fast, but that was not something his could afford to dwell on at the moment
Even though he was a lot more adept at dodging attacks than he’d ever been as a normal human, the opponent was a Boss. There was simply no way he was going to come out of the fight spotless, to his chagrin, and gradually he gained nick after nick, and many scratches at various places on his body.
He was running in the front of a short, angry train. In the middle was the bat Boss, pissed beyond reason, pursuing Karsten with a personal vendetta. Last was Henry, running after the two, trying his best to cut off the beast’s wings. Essentially, he was flailing his spear in the air like a madman, trying to hit something.
While Karsten thought this situation probably looked hilarious, he acknowledged that this was very much not the time for quips.
Tensing his legs, he suddenly rolled to the side, simultaneously casting Thunderwave.
A wave of lightning and a force like thunder shot out from his body in all directions, hitting the bat monster directly in the face, causing some internal damage.
Fortunately, Henry’s previous hits had done a number on the beast, and though Viscous Mockery’s weakening effect had worn off, it was still sluggish, and it had clearly suffered a certain amount of brain damage.
As the electrical currents from the spell reverberated through its body and skull, frying nerves and hairs alike, it slumped slightly, locked in static shock.
Henry almost face-planted into the thing, as abruptly as it had stopped, and was only barely capable of positioning his spear at the monster’s back.
With a sickening crunch, the spear broke through the creature’s spine, snapping it in two.
Wincing, Henry pulled the spear free, and let the bat fall to the ground.
It was not dead, however, as the two could hear growling and chittering noises as well as gurgling noises from its throat.
The two Adventurers looked at each other in part disgust at the smell of burnt grime and part disbelief that the monster was still alive.
Simultaneously raising their weapons, they stabbed the monster numerous times until it finally lay there; Defeated.
Karsten waited in suspense for a moment, waiting for a notification that he’d leveled up, or maybe a ‘Great Foe Felled’ Pop-up, or something, but nothing happened.
He was about to sigh in disappointment when he saw Henry closing his eyes, seemingly meditating.
“Huh…? Oh! Right,” Slapping his forehead, Karsten sat down.
Entering a meditative state to the best of his abilities, trying not to think about the aches in his body and scratches on his skin, he turned his focus inward.
He whispered softly, “Status.”
Then he opened his eyes, and beheld his status screen for the first time in a while. Reading though it, he noted the changes.
NAME: Karsten Myhr
RACE: Human - Otherworlder
CLASS AND LEVEL: Bard // Level 2
HEALTH: 54/65
MAGICA: 2/35
STAMINA: 4/50
EXPERIENCE POINTS: 26/100
ABILITIES:
STRENGTH: 13
DEXTERITY: 14
CONSTITUTION: 13
INTELLIGENCE: 9
WISDOM: 10
CHARISMA: 17
PERCEPTION: 10
ABILITY POINTS REMAINING: 3
UNIQUE TRAITS: Otherworlder. You can speak, read and write every language. You have your own personal dimensional subspace.
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 novice).
PROFICIENCY POINTS REMAINING: 2
SKILLS: Bardic inspiration, Song of rest
SPELLS:
4/5 [See available spells]
CANTRIPS:
2/2 [See Cantrips]
‘Hmm… So I have more health, magica and stamina. That’s good. Also, Jeesus Christ my magica and stamina went low. I almost fainted from magica exhaustion in the middle of the fight…’
He reminded himself to be more careful of his magica output in the future.
‘The required XP went from 50 to 100… That’s alright. The Boss monster pushed me a fourth of the way, so I’m not very far from the next level. The next dungeon will give even more XP, so I think I'll be able to level up again there.’
‘I have some points to assign to my abilities. What should I choose?’
Karsten reminisced on the fight he’d just been through, and asked himself, ‘what is the one thing that would have made winning easier?’
The first thing he thought of was Strength. It was straightforward, and would be undoubtedly be beneficial to him, making him capable of hitting harder. It would also make him more muscular, but that was totally not the reason why he wanted to choose it…
Then, he thought of Charisma. For a Bard, this was the most important factor that directly made all his Bardic spells more powerful. In addition it made him more charismatic and convincing. Obviously.
What held him back from choosing Charisma immediately, though, was the importance of balance. To have a balanced build was absolutely the cornerstone of being a Jack-of-all-trades, and he would inevitably fall behind in other areas were he to boost only his hotness - no, his Charisma.
The one he at least wanted to put one point in, however, was Dexterity. He had painfully noticed how important it is for him, as a weaker guy, to be able to dodge. He would have been capable of felling the Boss a lot quicker if he had been more dexterous, he felt.
He mulled over multiple possibilities in his mind before finally deciding on putting one point each in Dexterity, Constitution and Perception.
The reason why he chose to put a point in Constitution was rather straightforward: He wanted to live, and Constitution gave him more Health Points directly. It was an easy choice.
He ended up choosing Perception as the final ability to strengthen because it was directly tied in with both Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. With regards to Dexterity, it would allow him to see blows coming a lot more effectively. Also, it would naturally help him notice his enemies before they notice him.
As for Intelligence, it was his ability to remember different things that would be boosted by Perception. Essentially, Perception working with Intelligence would allow him to perceive more pieces of information, and then analyze them from there - the two would boost each other.
When talking about memory, however, perhaps the most important ability was Wisdom. Wisdom was directly tied to how good your memory is, so Perception would boost the ability much like how it boosted Intelligence.
Finally, it boosted Charisma. In conversations, if Karsten was capable of noticing finer signs from the other person’s body language and speech, it would be a tremendous, tremendous boost to his ability to manipulate different situations. He didn't really enjoy the thought of having to manipulate people, but as he was now a Bard, a class literally centered around manipulations of the masses, he would have to shift his perception at some point.
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Therefore, choosing to add a point to Perception wasn’t even really a choice, but an absolute necessity.
He locked in his choices, and moved on to Proficiencies.
'Proficiency points weren’t here last time I looked. Proficiencies don’t really have numbers on them, so I wonder what they do.’
Looking through the list, he decided to add both points to his Shortsword proficiency.
His sword had played a pivotal role throughout the day, so he wasn’t hesitant at all, locking in his choice.
Moving down his status, he noticed something that subconsciously made him perk up where he sat.
‘I have a new skill!’
Karsten had felt that his status was just one long list of other long lists, but his Skills list had always been very barren. He only started out with a single skill, after all - Bardic inspiration.
In action, he had no idea how exactly the skill worked. He couldn’t tell any specific moments where the 10% luck boost went into play during the fight, so it was difficult to even measure its real usefulness. Still, he had enough spells and cantrips to make up for it, so he hadn’t really felt too bummed out.
Still, he hungered for more skills.
‘Also, Bardic inspiration can only be used once a day… Wait, did that change with the level up?’
Focusing in mentally on the skill, he read through its description again.
‘It’s the same… Oh well.’
Shifting his focus, he viewed his new skill;
Song of Rest
You can revitalize any wounded ally through your music or voice outside of combat. Rate of recovery increases level to level. Both you and friendly creatures around you who can hear your music or voice regain an extra 5 Health Points at the end of your performance.
Karsten’s eyes widened more and more as he read through the skills description.
‘This… It’s like an audible health potion! This’ll save me so much money… I wonder if it could help Medoly fix her knee. Probably not - I’m way too underleveled…’
Feeling like he was a more rounded Adventurer now that he had a real healing ability, he went on to the next matter at hand.
“Spells!” He whispered gleefully. Henry glanced at him for a second, but he didn’t even sigh. He simply went right back to his own scroll.
‘I wonder what juicy skills he got? Also, I bet he’s put all his points into strength…’
‘Ah, Spells… My love, my life.’
He focused his mind and willed his Status scroll to show him the available spells for level 2.
As he read through the list, he swooned.
Aid
Animal Messenger
Blindness/Deafness
Borrowed knowledge
Calm Emotions
Cloud of Daggers
Crown of Madness
Detect Thoughts
Enhance Ability
Enlarge/Reduce
Enthrall
Gift of Gab
Heat Metal
Hold Person
Invisibility
Kinetic Jaunt
Knock
Lesser Restoration
Locate Animals or Plants
Locate Object
Magic Mouth
Mirror Image
Nethair’s Mischief
Phantasmal Force
Pyrotechnics
See Invisibility
Shatter
Silence
Skywrite
Spray of Cards
Suggestion
Warding Wind
Zone of Truth
‘...’
A single tear formed in the corner of his eye as he looked at the list. It might as well have been glowing with golden light.
There were many Spells that were very straight forward, like Calm Emotions, Heat Metal, or Enthrall, so he only skimmed past their descriptions before zoning in on the ones he thought had more ambiguous names.
He focused on them one by one, reading their descriptions and analysing which ones he thought would be useful or not.
He started with Aid.
Aid
CASTING TIME
10 seconds
RANGE
10 meters
DURATION
8 hours
SCHOOL
Abjuration
MAGICA COST
10
Your spell bolsters your allies with toughness and resolve. Choose up to three creatures within range. Each targets Health Point maximum and current Health Points are increased by 5 dor the duration.
AT HIGHER LEVELS
Depending on your level, as well as the amount of magica used, the amount of Health Points provided increase.
‘So, it’s basically the quintessential buffing spell. The utility of this is obvious.’
Borrowed Knowledge
CASTING TIME
10 seconds
RANGE
Self
DURATION
1 hour
SCHOOL
Divination
MAGICA COST
8
You draw on knowledge from spirits of the past. Choose one skill in which you lack proficiency. For the Spell’s duration, you have proficiency in the chosen skill. You can only have one proficiency chosen at a time.
‘I see a lot of uses for this. Let’s say I lose my sword, and only have a club near me or something, then I can simply make myself proficient with it. Do I already have a proficiency with greatclubs? Who knows, there are so many things in my Status that it’s a bit difficult to remember them all. I imagine I’ll only really use the sword, though, so I guess it’s fine. Anyway, this Spell is honestly such a fucking cheat… I really want to choose it.’
Crown of Madness
CASTING TIME
10 seconds
RANGE
50 meters
DURATION
1 minute
SCHOOL
Enchantment
MAGICA COST
8
One humanoid of your choice that you can see within range that has a lower Wisdom ability than you becomes charmed.
While the target is charmed, a twisted crown of jagged iron appears on its head, and madness glows in its eyes.
The charmed target will attack any creature you mentally choose. The target will act normally when not actively fulfilling a command.
If the target is disturbed too much during the duration, they will snap out of the enchantment and be aware that they were charmed.
‘This… This is extremely ethically questionable. I don’t know if this is for me. But it sounds so cool… I mean, a crown of thorns? I can create an Anti-Christ for a minute? But it also comes with a lot of risk - if they’re snapped out of it, they’ll very likely find me. Also, if I make them attack someone, then obviously they would be attacked back, or something, and they would snap out of it. Then they’d yell ‘I was charmed!’ and all Hell would break loose as everyone tried to find me… It’s too risky. I’ll pass.’
Gift of Gab
CASTING TIME
5 seconds
RANGE
Self
DURATION
Instantaneous
SCHOOL
Enchantment
MAGICA COST
10
When you cast this spell, you skillfully reshape the memories of each creature of your choice within 2 meters so they forget everything you have said within the last 6 seconds. The creatures that have their memory wiped will remember that you cast the spell, but only that.
‘A memory-wipe spell. It seems like the kind of spell that would only really be useful in extremely specific circumstances. Either way, I’d prefer a Spell I can use in a fight, ‘cause I’m gonna be grinding levels.’
Nethair’s Mischief
CASTING TIME
5 seconds
RANGE
20 meters
DURATION
Based on concentration, upto 1 minute
SCHOOL
Illusion
MAGICA COST
Choose a destination you can see within range where you create an invisible, 5 meter cube. The cube is filled with fey and draconic magic. Within the cube, a randomized magical effect is produced.
Possible magical effects:
* The smell of apple pie fills the air. The creatures in the cube that have a Wisdom ability lower than the caster will be charmed by the caster for the duration.
* Bouquets of flowers appear all around. The creatures in the cube that have a Dexterity ability lower than the caster will be blinded for the duration, the flowers in the bouquets spraying water in their faces.
* Each creature in the cube that has a Wisdom ability lower than the caster begins giggling uncontrollably and becomes incapacitated. Any Skill, Spell or Cantrip cast by the creatures within the cube for the duration will be cast in a randomized direction. The effects of the Skills, Spells and Cantrips cast can leave the cube unobstructed.
* Drops of molasses fill the cube, making it a difficult terrain for the duration.
Karsten took a breather, stretching his neck and massaging his back.
‘That seems like a heck of a chaotic spell. First of all, it’s randomized, so I almost automatically view it as a no-go. The effects are hilarious, but I don’t know whether they will really help a fight that much or not… Either way, this spell isn’t a good choice for me. Most of the magical effects are mashed on me having a high Wisdom stat, and I just don’t. So it would be a huge gamble every time I used it.’
“Are you done yet?” Henry asked, apparently done leveling up. “How much is there even to go though, anyway.”
Karsten chuckled. “A lot. I’m not even done yet.”
Henry whistled, “The most difficult time to be an all-rounder is during the level-ups, I’ve heard.”
Karsten laughed, “Yeah, I feel that. But I have a lot of fun choices. You have ‘Hit Hard’, ‘Hit Fast’ and ‘Hit Good’. I have Prestidigitation. It’s the way things’re meant to be.”
Henry simply shrugged and gestured for Karsten to hand over his sword.
“Why do you need my trusty blade?” Karsten asked.
“Gonne see if there’s a magica stone in the Boss’ body.” He answered simply
“Oh? Sure, here,” Karsten threw the sword at his party member, who caught it smoothly.
After doing some more stretches, he dove back into the Status scroll.
He read through the next few ones and deemed that they weren’t really a good fit for him.
‘See Invisibility is a pretty good choice down the line, I guess. Right now it doesn’t really serve me well, though. I don’t think there are many monster on my level can turn invisible. I can’t really see any good uses for Skywrite either. Writing words in the scy using clouds sure doesn't sound very effective at fighting monsters. What could I do? Write ‘Fuck off?’ Who knows, maybe they’ll think I’m God, or something, and actually fuck off. That would actually be quite fully, now that I think about it…’
Moving on, he read the description of Spray of Cards. the more he read, the more interested he became.
Spray of Cards
CASTING TIME
Instantaneous
RANGE
Self, spread outward in a 5 meter cone.
DURATION
Instantaneous
SCHOOL
Conjuration
MAGICA COST
8
You spray a 5 meter long cone of spectral cards. The cards’ appearance is decided by the caster, and does not affect the spell. Every creature in the area affected by the cone must have a Dexterity ability higher than the caster, if not, they will take 10 points of damage each and are blinded for 5 seconds. If the creature has a Dexterity ability higher than that of the caster, they take 5 damage and are not blinded.
AT HIGHER LEVELS
You can infuse the Spell with more Magica to increase the damage. 1 extra point of damage per 1 infused point of Magica. Amount of Magica that can be infused depends on the casters level. for every 1 level, you have 1 extra Magica point to infuse.
Karsten grinned. This was the type of thing he had hoped for. Not only is it objectively flashy, but incredibly powerful.
‘Every creature taking 10 points of damage is insane. Actually insane. I would almost be able to one-shot a whole swarm of bats by throwing cards at them. Also, the fact that I’m able to change the card’s appearance is a nice touch. I kinda want to make them look like Tarot cards… It would be like in Lord of The Mysteries when you see something you shouldn’t. My fanboy dreams would be fulfilled…’
Karsten was in deep thought. Henry looked up at him to ask if he was done yet, but held his words when he saw that his party member obviously was thinking about something extremely serious.
‘Either that or Yu-Gi-Oh cards.’
Rapping his fingers on his knee, he kept reading through the spells.
‘Suggestion is pretty good. You can make any creature that has lower Wisdom than me follow a suggestion of mine as long as I word it correctly. Instead of asking it to ‘stab itself on my sword’, I could simply ask it to ‘jump forward’ and hold my sword out. I don’t know…’
As he mentally recounted all the new spells he had access to, his mind kept going back to the Spray of Cards. Not only was it aesthetically pleasing, but also the one with perhaps the most effect during battle.
In the end, however, he gave in to his chunibyo self, and his logic, of course, and locked in the Spell.
‘I can’t wait to use it.’ He felt like his inner 15-year-old self was grinning ear to ear.
Henry saw Karstens grin, and felt a bad premonition.
Finally done, Karsten stretched and looked over his new Status scroll.
NAME: Karsten Myhr
RACE: Human - Otherworlder
CLASS AND LEVEL: Bard // Level 2
HEALTH: 60/70
MAGICA: 8/35
STAMINA: 30/50
EXPERIENCE POINTS: 26/100
ABILITIES:
STRENGTH: 13
DEXTERITY: 15
CONSTITUTION: 14
INTELLIGENCE: 9
WISDOM: 10
CHARISMA: 17
PERCEPTION: 11
ABILITY POINTS REMAINING: 0
UNIQUE TRAITS: Otherworlder. You can speak, read and write every language. You have your own personal dimensional subspace.
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).
SKILLS: Bardic inspiration, Song of rest
SPELLS:
5/5 [See spells]
CANTRIPS:
2/2 [See Cantrips]
With a satisfied sigh, and a jovial smile, he got up and joined his cousin dismembering a corpse.