{Records requested. Query: “Continue.”}
{Continuing report.}
December 21, 9:19 AM
Cloud Sector, Plane: Earth
“I won’t hurt you.” He said. “Don’t even know if I can, honestly.”
“Okay.”
The man leaned his sword against the counter, walking to one of the shelves. Wincing, he grabbed a Gatorade and drank half of it in a single gulp. He reached out for another, tossing it over to Claire. “I really won’t. Trust me.”
Hands shaking, she let go of her spellbook, which floated in the air, to open the drink. Fruit punch spilled across her tongue, the best flavor of sports drink wetting the back of her throat and making Claire feel just a little bit better.
He didn’t look as evil anymore without the sword now, either. Claire glanced at her spellbook, which had appeared to gain the ability to levitate, before addressing him more clearly this time. “What… what do you want?”
“Oh, it’s pretty simple,” He replied. “I could hear you and that rogue fighting from outside. You must have killed him, cause its only you here now, but the thing is, you look a lot less hurt than someone who just fought a sadistic poison-user.”
“You want me to heal you? Just because I can heal myself doesn’t mean I can do it to you. And… tell me why I should.”
The man moved back to the entrance of the store, finishing his drink and throwing it over Claire’s shoulder into the fire rising behind her. “Well, there’s only one door. You do this little thing for me, and you can go home, alright?”
Her eyes hardened. “Don’t talk to me like that.”
“Oh, calm down. You better make up your mind quick, girl. That fire must be pretty hot, huh?”
Claire looked behind her, seeing that the [Spark]s she’d released on Lucas had turned into a fire that was currently devouring the back side of the store. “I’ll do it, then.”
He smiled. “Now that wasn’t too hard now, was it? Come here.”
“Yeah, screw that.” She flipped through her spellbook. “Throw your sword out the door and get down on the ground on your stomach.”
He gave her a weird look, but complied. “I might be into that, babe.”
“Fuck off, I’m barely twenty.” She walked closer, casting a [Blade Ward] with her free hands as she did. The barrier of blue energy surrounded her, and her back grew slightly more comfortable as some of the fire’s heat was stopped by the spell. “Put your hands behind your head.”
He did so, and Claire stepped over his back, seeing deep cuts all over. Reading the incantation for a [Minor Healing] spell, she manually cast the spell, controlling her flow of energy so she would still have mana left over. A group of the most serious wounds sealed shut and his bleeding slowed immensely, after which Claire immediately grabbed her bag from the counter and ran out of the building.
Spell Leveled!
Due to forming the runes of the First Circle spell, Minor Healing, manually for the first time, Minor Healing has greatly increased in level! 1 → 5
As she slowed down, Claire opened up her spellbook, which levitated in her sight to the side. Ignoring system boxes, which she swept to the side to deal with later, she studied the runic construction of her cantrips. They were free and immensely useful, especially if she could level them and get capstone abilities, judging by how [Blade Ward] had worked.
The streets were quiet, and the few people she saw all carried some kind of weapon. She saw a person battering down a door with an axe, an old man lying on the steps of a home impaled by a spear, and shows of past violence wherever she looked. They left her alone, though, the combination of obviously-magical runes and a floating spellbook deterrent enough.
When Claire got back to her apartment she set her goods on the desk and took a big metal pot out. She wanted to practice her cantrips, and obviously there was nobody living around to practice on, she’d resigned herself to shooting [Spark]s into a pot of water, playing around with the runes to level it up faster.
She opened her spellbook up to the page detailing the cantrip.
Lvl. 2 Spark
- You conjure and project a mote of fire from an extended finger. Damage and range is determined by Intelligence and Wizard levels. Components: Verbal, Somatic.
The page had a circular spell glyph underneath it, which was what Claire’s hand traced in the air whenever she cast it. Underneath the glyph was a set of words— the verbal component.
Rolling the syllables off of her tongue, Claire tested out the incantation without attempting to cast the spell. When they came fluidly, she switched over to drawing the set of three runes in the air with her hand.
Feeling like she had the hang of it, Claire let the system take over, sending [Spark] after [Spark] into the pot of water. She focused on the fingers that drew the runes, and the drawing sensation that existed for a moment whenever the spell formed. It was mana, she could tell. Just like how her [Shield] and [Minor Healing] drew mana from her, these weaker spells seemed to do so too, just on a scale so small they felt negligible.
She closed her eyes, drawing the runes and saying the incantation. Each word she said made the fire burn just a little brighter as it floated an inch or so away from her fingertips. Her fingers traced tiny lines of gray and red in the air, shooting little burning balls into the water pot target.
Claire realized soon that each of the three runes of the spell did seperate things. By trying to slow down the flow of mana by drawing the spell glyph slower, she saw that the first rune summoned a mote of fire, which grew in size and heat with the second rune, and was finally launched forwards with the third.
Spell Leveled!
Due to forming the runes of Spark manually many times, Spark has reached maximum level! 6 → 10
Choose capstone?
Improved Heat
- And now, Spark is hotter than ever. Intelligence and Wizard levels are considered doubled when determining the strength of the spell.
Improved Speed
- And now, the Spark is faster than ever. Intelligence level is considered doubled when determining spell range and speed.
The options were simpler this time around. More damage and more range, it seemed. While Claire was curious as to how the spell would change with a more damaging spell, she figured that [Spark] obviously had a bigger brother, Fireball, which would cover all of her damage needs when she unlocked it. Also, seeing how the speed and range changed would probably be more beneficial.
Her hunch that the Speed upgrade would change the last rune, the one in charge of projecting the fire, turned out to be correct as the level up rewrote the last rune. It was more complex now, but not much so.
She cast the older spark, the simpler force rune still in her memory. Then, to see the difference, she let the new spell fly out, which hit the surface of the water in her pot, making a large splash that almost got Claire wet.
Satisfied with the performance, she grabbed the biggest bag she owned and began cleaning out her room for things to take. Trying to keep the… event… in the store out of her mind had failed, and she had decided that the safest thing to do would be to head into the more loosely populated suburbs, and maybe even farther into the woods and mountains.
Sitting down in the driver’s seat of her rented car, she turned the key, hoping that the old machine would turn on. To her dismay, it began starting, but she heard a sound reminiscent of a lightning bolt from the hood. Getting out of it, she opened the hood of the car, seeing black smoke rising, accompanied by a terrible stench. Sighing, she left it how it was, pausing to grab her emergency money and car-issue first aid kit fromt he glovebox.
Claire walked through the streets, overstuffed bag on her back, and anything she couldn’t fit inside it strapped to the side. Her spellbook floated to her left, and she practiced forming the glyphs for her cantrips as she walked. The [Spark]s would pass through her ward, but it seemed like every time it did, the time remaining for the ward dropped significantly.
By this time of day, more people were up and moving, acclimatizing to the System and all the things it did. Everybody got a starting weapon of their class, Claire noted, seeing a kid she faintly recognized recoil in shock as a giant halberd appeared out of thin air, dropping on him. She idly wondered where these things came from, and if it really was the best idea to give everybody weapons. Probably not, she thought. The police and officials would not be having a good time, especially when idiots inevitably realized that they finally could fight back against established authority.
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Thinking upon the System, Claire recalled the message that she’d first seen. Hello, aspirant! The System is a mechanism granted as an aid to mastering the energies of the universe. It was certainly interesting, particularly the bit about being an aid. Maybe the system’s abilities could be replicated without using the system itself? Realizing that that’s what she’d been doing with her spells the whole time, Claire shrugged in her head.
When I say the spell’s name with the intent to cast it, the System must take over for me for the rest of the spell. Just thinking of casting my Blade Ward lets the system move the mana into the spell glyph for me, I guess. But it doesn’t do that for Spark, I need to actually say it verbally— probably because it has verbal components.
But why does the System exist? It has to be expensive to help everybody master the energies of the universe. It has to get something out of this, whether now or later, to make all of this effort worth its while.
Casting the thought aside, Claire decided she’d had enough of spell practice and opened her Quest menu, then using her stored spell item. Quest rewards would stay with the system, it seemed.
Quests Active: 1 Paths to Power (II)
- Cantrip total level is greater than ten. (🗸)
- Have six prepared First Circle Spells of your class. (3/6)
- First Circle Spell total level is greater than five.
Rewards: 1 Wizard level, School of Magic feature, 1x Random Class Spell (1st Circle) Consumable: 1x Random Class Spell (1st Circle)
Item consumed, Spell gained. Ice Shard
You freeze and project a small shard of ice, dealing damage to an enemy on a hit. Regardless if it hits or misses, the shard then explodes, launching specks of ice outwards in a sphere. Shard damage is determined by Intelligence level, Wizard level, and quality of the material consumed. Radius is determined by Spirit level. Components: Somatic, Material (a few drops of water or a piece of ice)
The spell seemed nifty, and Claire was excited because all of her other First Circle spells were defense or healing related— having something that could reliably do damage at range would be useful. The material component would get annoying, though. Needing some water or ice to cast the spell made sense, because this was actually throwing something physical, but it having to have water or ice always ready might be a pain.
She was a bit confused about the quest’s requirement to have six prepared spells. Right now Claire had four, and so far only quests and level-ups had given her more spells. If she relied only on level-ups, she would be missing out on whatever a School of Magic was, but potentially would level up faster in the long run because of the guaranteed Wizard level upon quest completion. On the other hand, she might be able to milk more out of a School of Magic if she leveled up earlier.
Claire slowed down, seeing a group of about ten people standing in the street in front. They were mainly physical classes, most holding some variant of sword or spear, but there were a few archers and a single rogue. She let her wards drop to not make too much of a scene, and saw quickly that the reason for the gathering was that there were two people, a man and a woman, holding weapons that looked far more dangerous than their usual variety.
The woman had a chainmail shirt on, the first piece of armor Claire saw. She would think that the women had some kind of defense-based class, but she had a giant sword she held with two hands that had faint glowing runes running down the blade. The man was wearing a robe, also with glowing runes, and he had a book very similar to Claire’s own. He had to hold it, Claire noted. Which meant that, all things considered, she was cooler than him!
The woman noticed Claire show up, noticing her floating spellbook. She elbowed the man, gesturing to the magical device.
“I’m gonna say the same thing I said to all of these people,” she said, addressing Claire. “Give us all of your stuff, the new things this System gave you, and you can get on to wherever you’re going.” Seeing Claire’s hesitance, she continued. “Or don’t. But I think my friend here might insist you hand that book over.”
“She’s right. You wanna hand it over nice?” He asked, flipping a page in his own book, then forming a spell glyph that Claire did not recognize. “We can play the hard way too.”
The woman cut in, pointing to a small pile of corpses to the side. “You can be next.”
Claire, frustrated that she had gotten herself into another fight when all she was trying to do was avoid them, didn’t reply to them. Making a thinking pose, she subtly formed the runes for a ward around her with her other hand behind her back. It sprung to life, after which the other wizard immediately finished casting his spell.
The crowd looked a lot smaller than when she was far away, some having left and the others scattering out of the street. They could probably beat the two alone despite the obvious level and gear gap, but it seemed they wouldn’t get involved so long as there wasn’t a clear winner. It was nice seeing that so many people had confidence in her survival skills, but less nice when it was her that they’d left alone to fight the pair.
Two bolts of force punched a hole through her ward, the spell slowing the enemy magic considerably. One of them flew right by Claire, but the other hit her on the hip with the force of a heavy punch, bruising the area and forcing her to take a step back.
The woman raised her sword in the air, shooting forward at lightning speed. She swung the blade twice in quick succession, which made the ward dim significantly, but it didn’t fail. Taking a step back, she seemed to channel some kind of energy which made the runes on the blade light up.
Thinking this was the perfect time to test out her new spell, Claire grabbed a bottle of water from her pack, discarding the rest of her heavy things on the ground behind her. She opened the lid and poured it out, simultaneously casting her [Ice Shard] spell.
Mana drained from her core, flash freezing all of the water that was outside of the plastic container. It hovered for a moment as light blue lines inlaid itself on the newly-made ice, then Claire pointed her finger at the caster who send the force bolts at her. It shot forward quickly, bouncing off a hastily-cast spell that she recognized as [Shield]. The shard of ice then exploded, the shards making it around the defensive spell. A few shot towards the woman with the sword, but they only left shallow cuts, barely drawing blood.
Taking the opportunity that the attack had brought her, she steeled her mind in preparation of a mental attack. Forming the glyph for [Mind Spike] in her head, she made eye contact with the woman holding the sword before letting the spike rip deep into her consciousness.
She finished charging the runes on her sword, which glowed red. The sword took on a similar hue when she swung it horizontally, sending a line of energy outwards. Claire’s ward stopped the attack, but the wave still managed to push her backwards a few feet. The ward’s integrity quickly drained until it shattered completely— but the woman staggered, spitting blood out of her mouth. Looking upwards, she glared at Claire, preparing to take advantage of the downed ward by rushing into melee range.
The other wizard had finished casting another spell. He had backed up quite a bit, currently taking cover behind a stopped car in the middle of the street. All of a sudden, Claire felt a crushing sensation, her knees growing weak before they crumpled to the ground. The warrior charged her with sword raised high, as Claire struggled to lift her hands through the overpowering pressure. The gravity-enhancing spell ended just in time, allowing Claire to raise a [Shield] in between her and the giant sword coming down. It failed to break through the barrier, thankfully, and Claire stood up, making a pushing motion with the barrier that shoved the other woman outside of melee range.
The barrier stayed between her and Claire, the latter’s left hand moving to control the defensive spell from a distance as her other hand renewed her personal wards. The [Shield]’s mana exhausted by the movements and the continued battering with an enchanted sword, Claire spoke out the incantation for her [Spark] cantrip, attempting to form the runes with both hands. One succeeded, following her pointed finger and shooting at the woman’s head like a bullet. The other formed much slower, the weaker attack dodged by the warrior.
She almost dropped her sword as the fiery bullet hit her, knocking her head sideways and also lighting a fire in her hair that quickly grew. She patted it out, yelling in pain as the magical flame burned her scalp and her palm. “I’m going to kill you for that!” She shouted.
Worrying much more about the threat on her life than the woman’s new smoking hot haircare routine, Claire ran away from her, angling herself so she would have better line of sight on the wizard who had hid behind the car. She didn’t expect him to jump out and rush her, incanting a spell as he ran. When he was about ten feet away, he raised both hands, palms facing Claire, expelling misty silver crystals and a blast of cold air. The spell formed ice crystals on the ground as it approached her, and her whole body grew numb as the attack chilling her to the bone.
When Claire tried to run back, she almost fell as her stiff joints didn’t want to respond to her. Staying in place, she let loose a series of [Mind Spike]s at the woman, watching her stagger and fall, dropping her weapon as she hit the pavement head-first. Claire formed the spell again for good measure, forming a connection between the two brains. She ripped and tore at the woman’s mind with her own magically-enhanced one, watching the prone woman’s attempts at standing up get more and more jerky.
Seizing the opportunity, a man holding a longsword jumped over a car and into the street, plunging his blade through her chain mail into her back. A second later, two arrows struck her on the head. She was bleeding profusely, but she leapt into the air, having recovered her sword. Her body glowed red, sunrise red. Coming down, a wave of energy split the opportunistic warrior clean in half. She turned towards Claire, about to use her last breath to charge her, but a dozen arrows from all around slipped through her forsaken defense. A thrown knife sailed towards her eye, and Claire averted her eyes.
The other wizard was being forced away from the cover he’d found again by some of the bystanders from before. They had weapons out, and the spellcaster was exchanging blows with those he had terrorized just a few minutes before. His robe deflected many attacks, but ultimately he was facing too many— and his robe could not defend his skull nearly as well as he could defend his body. Claire walked over as he hit the ground, a mace having crushed his skull to pick up his spellbook.
Looking behind her to see people looting the corpse of the warrior, where a big axe-wielding man had took her chainmail which had adjusted to fit his hulking form. A few people were fighting about the enchanted sword, so Claire turned away to focus on the downed wizard.
The people were looking at her expectantly, but she didn’t say a word. With a dead look in her eyes, she picked up his spellbook and undid the clasp of his magic robe. Some trinkets spilled out of the pockets as she lifted it over his head: some earrings, a necklace and a ring. She took the earrings and necklace, leaving the ring which was snatched up immediately. She glanced at his hands, which had more rings on them, but only a few seemed like they had runes on them.
Not enthusiastic about prying rings off of a dead man’s finger, Claire folded the robe, tucking the jewelry into her own pocket. Finding her pack untouched, she stored the robe and spellbook, intending to take a look at them when she was somewhere quieter. She would need to address the system prompts that had accumulated over the battle, too.
Silently, with a pensive expression on her face, she took slow steps away from the people crowding around the two corpses. People argued and fought over who should get what, but Claire couldn’t find it within her to care.
She took one step after another until she could no longer smell the blood, until she could no longer hear the voices, until she could no longer remember those that had just died.
Why do we do this to each other?