On the fourth day they entered another town, but this time Ted decided not to go out and enjoy the nightlife that was on offer; he’d had enough of that for now. In some ways the weird mix of familiarity and difference made him sad and nostalgic for the past, whilst also making him feel more lost than ever before. In any case, staying with Cam seemed like the better choice, for his frame of mind, and his wallet, which was now bulging with nearly a thousand Centrals. He barely remembered what he’d spent his cash on in Brookfields, but he’d certainly had nothing left when he woke up the next day.

The four days on the road had left him feeling much more confident in himself and in his knowledge of the world, and while he still thought that a lot of his current situation didn’t make sense, he’d stopped himself questioning it unless it felt particularly outrageous. Many of the questions were answered with ‘You’ll see.’ in any case, so the frustrated questions rarely got him anywhere.

He was starting to feel more accomplished and able, and this was borne out in his Skills, which he’d started to realise were incredibly satisfying to level up. Back on Earth it was all well and good to say you could do something well, but having a Level in the skill would have made it an undeniable fact; seeing it increase a satisfying, tangible reward for having practised it. He now looked at his stats with some pride.

____________________________________________________________________________

* Stats -

Name: Ted Phillips Oxday 1720

Race: Human (Earth)

Level: 1

Rank: Recruit

Class: GateKeeper, Level 1

Health: 100/100

Magic: 100/100

Strength: 5

Intelligence: 5

Agility: 5

Spirit: 5

Skills and Techniques:

Spear Mastery - Basic - Level 12

Stand Your Ground - Level 5

Charge - Level 5

Fire Spike - Level 3

Staff Mastery - Basic - Level 8

None

Shield Mastery - Basic - Level 8

None

Throwing Weapons - Spear - Basic - Level 5

None

Basic Magic - Level 12

Light - Level 10

Magic Sensing - Level 8

Identify - Level 8

Aura Sensing - Level 5

Fire Magic - Level 1

None

Timing - Level 10

None

Looting - Level 1

Animal Harvesting - Level 1

Agile Manoeuvres - Level 12

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Dash - Level 12

Drift - Level 10

Break-Fall - Level 9

Dodge - Level 9

Jump - Level 5

Stealthy Manoeuvres - Level 3

______________________________________________________________________

He was seeing significant improvements in all his Skills, whether it was simply lasting longer in sparring with Cam, or being able to control and utilise his Techniques and spells more efficiently and effectively. He found he could use his Charge Technique in a fight without having to prepare it or spend time setting up, and he could even combine it with Fire Spike, though at the cost of significant drain on his mana; if the charge missed then he could smoothly slide out of it with a curved Drift that would take him out of danger and then back into the fight, even pivoting on trees or rocks.

In short, he was starting to feel like a real warrior. His only complaints were around the lack of real spells, and lack of Techniques in Fire Magic and Timing; the latter of which he struggled to understand what could come of it anyway.

With regards to Fire Magic, Cam had told him that he could pay for training in a particular Spell Technique in a large town, though it would not likely be cheap; or he could try and work out how to use the magic form himself. Doing so would likely lead to a more nuanced, individualised Technique that Ted could advance more quickly.

Ted had spent several of the afternoons trying to do just that, but it felt like someone had given him a given him a pen knife and told him to build a statue. He could kind of see what was being asked of him, and that there was a route to get there, but he had no idea where to start. His Magic Sensing continued to rise while he tried however, so he didn’t complain too much.

The Timing Skill was one that Cam was even less helpful on.

‘There aren’t many Techniques for it, that I’m aware of.’ he’d said, when Ted has asked. ‘I don’t really know many people who have it at all; I never met a GateKeeper when I was in the army. There aren’t many of you lot around. I’m sure you’ll find out. Did you consult the help on the CPS?’

‘I did, but it wasn’t helpful. Just stuff about finding the right moment, and understanding the passage of time.’ Ted had replied.

‘Well there you go. It’s some reaction style Skill that will probably work in support of the Time Magic you’ll get access to.’ Cam had responded. ‘It’ll become clear in time, my friend.’

‘So, Time Magic; is that time travel?’ Ted had asked, switching topic.

‘More like manipulation, I think.’ Cam had said. ‘When it was used against me it was used to slow or increase my experience of time, which they then combined with other attacks. It’s supposedly very, very tricky to use. It’s one of the reasons why GateKeepers are so rare, and generally relatively low level - it takes a lot of work to improve the Skill and get any good at it. I don’t know any other Class other than the Time Thief that gets it, and it’s an impossible Skill to learn without the affinity of the Class. Time Thief gets basically no other useful Skills, so GateKeeper is basically the better of the two though.’

‘Does this mean I’ll not level any of my attributes then? Won’t I be weaker than everyone else with a simple Class to level up?’ Ted had asked. So far, he’d been told that the only way to improve attributes was to level up your Class.

‘Well, to a certain extent, yes. But also, no. Firstly, your boost to stats for levelling up your GateKeeper Class is much larger than some others; a simple Swordsman Class will only get plus one to a couple of attributes every other level or so. But it is true that it’s easier to become a Level 30 Swordsman than a Level 15 GateKeeper.’ Cam shrugged. ‘It’s about balance, I believe, my friend. Maybe you won’t be stronger than that Level 30 Swordsman, but you’ll be able to bend Time so that you’re much, much faster than him.

‘That’s probably why you don’t find many Swordsmen around anymore.’ he had added.

‘You don’t?’ Ted had asked.

‘No, not really. They’re a sturdy class, and they were relied upon heavily in the early days, from what I understand. But it became a little bit like the game rock, paper, scissors. Swordsmen could be trained quickly, but they were weak to spell casters, who themselves were slightly more difficult to train, but not by much. They were easily beaten by those with stealth based Skills like the Assassin, who in turn couldn’t do much against heavily armoured brutes. Eventually more complex Classes were developed and popularised, so that there were no clear weaknesses. Harder to train, but fewer easily identified weaknesses.’ Cam had explained.

‘Instead of trying to counter, they just started making uncounterable units?’ Ted had asked.

‘Pretty much. Or tried to. Now we’re all more Jack of All Trades really.’ Cam had agreed.

After a late finish on that fourth day in the town of Eastlake, they found an inn and, after dropping their bags, sat down at a table for some food. The inn was serving a basic, but hearty stew; slightly out of season considering the warm weather, but still very tasty. It was made with a meat that seemed similar to beef; Ted just shrugged it off these days, unless it sounded particularly disgusting. At least they were unlikely to be eating slugs or snails, in a world where there were human sized slug people.

Not that he’d seen one of those yet. He wondered idly if that was a joke that Cam was pulling on him, though he had vague memories of the Greeter mentioning them to him on his first day. Those memories were already a bit of a blur.

‘So, my friend.’ Cam said, sitting down at the table with his own bowl of stew. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘I’ve been saying for a while you should do more of that.’ Ted said, grinning up from his bowl. ‘I shouldn’t have to be the only one.’

Cam ignored the jab. ‘This small town isn’t so big that I can’t handle a day or two here. I was thinking that we could put your new Skills to the test. What do you think?’

‘How?’ Ted said, after swallowing a particularly tough piece of meat in the stew. ‘Is there a local arena where I can work my way up to the top?’

‘No.’ Cam said. ‘I was speaking to the innkeeper and he’s said that there have been some sightings of lizaloths near the lake. The local guards would normally sort them out, but I thought we could have an explore ourselves, see what’s out there.’

‘Interesting. It won’t mess up your timings?’ Ted asked. ‘And more importantly, you haven’t had any visions of us dying?’

Since the day with the Burner Stag, Cam hadn’t brought up his Sight ability at all, and Ted hadn’t raised it either.

‘I definitely haven’t seen me dying.’ Cam said. Ted gave him a flat look.

‘No, I haven’t had any visions since your fight with the Burner. They’re pretty rare these days. The visions, I mean, not the Burners. And no, our schedule will be fine; we’re in no rush.’

Cam, it had turned out, was bringing drugs to the Front. Performing enhancing ones that were too unstable to bring through Portals or even go too close to magic; they were stored in a sealed container in the wagon, dampened against external magic. When Ted had raised questions about drugs and making habits on them, Cam had shrugged, and told him that it was just a word with a bad reputation.

‘Think of it as alchemical powders and potions, if you like. It’s all sanctioned, don’t worry.’

‘Government sanctioned drug dealing, eh?’ Ted joked.

‘Well, what do you think potions are?’ Cam had asked. It was, Ted had to concede, quite a good point.

That had been that. Ted had assumed that there would at least be a rush around getting there, having heard the range of things the drugs provided, but apparently Cam had been given a lot of lee-way in his delivery time.

‘Well, in that case, I’m in. Let’s go hunt some lizow-sloths!’ Ted said enthusiastically. ‘What are they?’

*New Mission Received*