Nate opened his inventory and took out his new pants, slipping them on.
Sackcloth Pants. Type: Clothing. Weight: 1 lb. Value: 1 iron piece. Ragged, poorly made pants.
“Better than nothing, I guess.”
A new section appeared next to his inventory list. Iron, Copper, Silver, Gold, and Platinum circles were stacked on top of each other, each with zeros next to them, except the gold which showed 10.
He pulled a single gold piece out. It looked like the smooth stones one might find in a mancala game. “What's the exchange rate?” A window popped into his view.
Help: Monetary Exchange Rate. One Platinum is 100 gold. One gold is 10 silver. One silver is 10 copper. One copper is 100 iron.
“A help function? Nice!”
The mirror and the cloud wall dissipated, revealing a larger circular room with seven runic circles spread throughout.
Another window appeared over the help window.
Quest: Intro to Magic
Objective: Choose your three starting spells.
Reward: Sackcloth Shirt, 10 gold pieces.
Quest cannot be declined.
Heads-Up Display updated.
In the upper left corner of his vision, three bars appeared with numbers on the right side. The first was a red bar. Health: 50/50. The second bar was green. Fatigue: 50/50. The final bar, of the most interest to Nate at the moment, was blue. Magic: 50/50.
“Simple enough,” Nate said. He ignored the circles on the ground and ran along the wall of the room. His fatigue bar drained as he ran, depleting fully when he returned to the opening.
“That tracks,” he puffed as he braced his hands to his knees. Nate had never been much of a runner.
He tried punching the wall to see the rate of damage to his health, but it was made of clouds as far as he could tell and reacted in kind.
“Okay,” Nate slapped his face with both hands, “time for some more choices.” Being prolific in his consumption of most things fantasy, it had always been a dream to get actual magic. A dream that was seemingly, finally coming true. Unless he was insane, of course.
He approached the first circle. They were arranged alphabetically. As he drew closer, a new window appeared.
Alteration magic manipulates objects in the physical realm and allows for the changing of said objects, including the creation of magical shielding.
Two options were listed below.
Mend.
Rank: Novice Alteration.
Cost: 10 MP per second.
Effect: Repairs broken physical objects. Larger objects require a longer time to fix. This spell cannot restore magical properties to broken magic items.
Lesser Shield.
Rank: Novice Alteration.
Cost: 25 MP.
Effect: Creates a shield around the caster that can absorb a Novice ranked attack before breaking.
He snagged the journal from his HUD and felt around instinctually for a pen. “Can I make notes in this?”
Help: Hero's Journal. This object documents your quests automatically, the back has a section for personal notes, which you need only think or speak to the journal.
“Great,” Nate added the spells listed to his journal. “Novice rank? So there are tiers of magic. Help?”
Help: Ranks. Spells, skills, magic items like your Sigil Stone, and monsters are all generally categorized by rank, which increases in power as follows: Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, Master. Some magic items can be Artifacts or ranks higher than Master.
“Like the Skyrim difficulty levels,” Nate said. “Got it.”
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Conjuration magic creates temporary objects, weapons, or armor.
Summon Dagger.
Rank: Novice Conjuration.
Cost: 30 MP.
Effect: Summons a dagger into whichever hand casts the spell. Dagger lasts for 2 minutes or until you dismiss it. Dagger's damage depends on your Light Melee skill level.
Multitool.
Rank: Novice Conjuration.
Cost: 50 MP.
Effect: Conjures a multitool that can be changed at will to any noncombat tool. Multitool lasts for 10 minutes or until dismissed. Multitool incapable of dealing direct damage.
“Damage but minimally useful, or no damage and quite useful, this may be a tougher choice than I thought.” Nate stepped to the next circle.
Divination magic enables the caster to learn secrets long forgotten, detect magic, and find hidden things or foil deceptive spells.
“Ooh, I bet these are good!”
Detect Magic.
Rank: Novice Divination.
Cost: 20 MP.
Effect: Allows you to see traces of magic commensurate with your rank. Detect Magic lasts for 1 minute or until dismissed.
Lore Dump.
Rank: Novice Divination.
Cost: 50 MP.
Effect: Learn additional, sometimes secret, information, about the person or object you are touching. Information can be stored into any magic object capable of doing so.
“I wasn’t wrong,” Nate said as he added these options to his journal.
Enchantment magic applies temporary effects to objects, weapons, and armor. Certain ingredients can be used to make enchantments permanent.
“Now we’re talking!”
Magic Weapon.
Rank: Novice Enchantment.
Cost: 20 MP.
Effect: Makes the mundane weapon you touch magical for the next minute. Magic weapons can bypass some creatures’ resistances.
Equipment Boost.
Rank: Novice Enchantment.
Cost: 30 MP.
Effect: Casting this spell on non-weapon equipment grants a random effect depending on the equipment enchanted. The enchantment lasts for 1 minute.
“How am I going to be able to pick just three of these? Interface, how do I learn more than the three spells I choose here?”
Help: Learning Spells. Additional spells are primarily learned through the use of Spellbooks, but tutelage under a person who knows a spell you do not can yield similar results.
“Maybe there's a magic school like Hogwarts!”
Evocation magic channels magical energy into elemental damage.
Elemental Bolt.
Rank: Novice Evocation.
Cost: 10 MP.
Effect: Fires a bolt of magical energy of your choice of fire, frost, or lightning damage. The bolt deals 5 damage of the chosen type and moves in a straight line until it either hits a creature or object or reaches the maximum range of 50 feet, at which point it fizzles.
Draconic Breath.
Rank: Novice Evocation.
Cost: 10 MP per second.
Effect: Release a 10-foot narrow cone of your choice of fire, frost, or lightning damage originating from your mouth. Anything caught in the blast takes 2 damage per second.
“Sacrifice range for increased damage spread. Nice.”
Illusion magic temporarily changes the way an object or person is perceived, altering visual, audible, and/or olfactory senses.
Camouflage.
Rank: Novice Illusion.
Cost: 50 MP.
Effect: Blend into your surroundings, reducing your chances of being detected. This effect lasts for 5 minutes or until you attack a foe or cast another spell.
Muffle.
Rank: Novice Illusion.
Cost: 25 MP.
Effect: Reduces the sounds made from movement. This effect lasts for 2 minutes.
Restoration magic restores health to living things and damages the undead.
Healing Touch.
Rank: Novice Restoration.
Cost: 2 MP per second.
Effect: Restore vitality to living and harms the undead at a rate of 1 Health per second. You must be touching the living or undead when casting this spell for it to take effect.
Cleanse.
Rank: Novice Restoration.
Cost: 30 MP.
Effect: Cleanse a target you touch of a Novice rank poison or disease.
‘They saved the best for last,” Nate walked out of the room to sit on the bed. He took his cloud pillow out for his head as he poured over his 14 options.
“Healing is going to be crucial without knowing the precise way that I heal naturally. Probably slow like I do now outside of the aid of magic. I'll try to track down the cleanse one as soon as I can. That leaves two choices.”
“What would you do, Cloud Pillow? Which would you pick?” He held the journal open to the pillow.
“Oh you're no fun anymore,” Nate playfully smacked the pillow. “Maybe I am going crazy.”
When he played video games with similar systems, Nate never played the glass cannon type, only using damaging spells to fill out his character, not as the focus. As such, he crossed the Evocation spells off his list until he had a better grasp on things.
Where he enjoyed himself the most was stealth. So he chose the Camouflage spell for his second choice.
“The enchantment description mentioned ingredients, so there is at least some form of crafting. Gathering ingredients is going to be important, and I'll likely need tools for that. Which unfortunately settles the final choice. Sorry, Equipment Boost, I'll get you as soon as I can.”
He stashed the pillow and returned to the Conjuration, Illusion, and Restoration circles, choosing the Multitool, Camouflage, and Healing Touch spells. As he selected each one, he felt a strong wind rush around him as his mind filled with the knowledge of how to cast spells.
“You're a wizard, Nate!” he chuckled to himself.
Quest: Intro to Magic complete. Quest rewards have been added to your inventory.