It's a shorter trip than our first quest, about a day and a half of walking down the road this time, to reach a little farming village. We stop for rest once along the way, and I collapse in a tired heap while everyone laughs. How am I supposed to keep up with these people...?
After some food and rest, Keane helps me put on my leather armor. It's not much, just a chest piece, a couple arm and shin guards. Just enough protection to soften glancing blows. Will it even help against boars? Not to mention the chest piece feels kind of restricting so it's a bit harder to move in. Maybe it's not the best fit, or maybe that's just how armor is?
Passing through the little farming village, there are just a handful of fluffy altraska about. Some sort of goat or sheep type I think. There are so many different kinds... From what I understand, they all connect to the moon celestials, while mine is a sun celestial. With so many different races of altraska, I guess that explains why there are so many god damn moons.
There are actually other moon-races too. Pixies and faeries and stuff like that, though I've only caught a glimpse of one or two my whole time here. I don't think they're very common in Karshis. Maybe on the whole Plane of Tirneth. I'd love to get the chance to look around and explore more and find out, if only I could...
Trying to ignore the hate in the eyes of the villagers, I follow my party out to some fields where a farmer is standing. He raises a hand and the fox-woman greets him.
After exchanging some basic pleasantries, she assures the man that we'll clear up his boar problem. Then we set off, into wide open fields. The sun beats down and in a matter of minutes, I'm sweating my ass off. My leather armor and its straps rub uncomfortably despite the loose cloth shirt beneath it.
In my old life, I would have balked at the idea of any of this. But filth feels like my new natural state. I'm always sweaty and dirty and exhausted, but this is still better, right? I'm trapped again, a debt-slave, but I'll be free and clear soon enough. That's still a step up from dead in a gutter.
Out in the hot fields, we eventually spot a boar.
Oh. Oh. These are fantasy world boars, through and through. They're like six feet tall, with tusks the length of my arm. Like Keane said, I really don't want them getting anywhere near me.
Maybe I should have practiced my long-range magic after all?
“Alright, we're about to go, let's see how you did,” Keane says, coming up to tap me on the shoulder. “Slave Status.” I call up my Status window at the same time.
Yumi Slave Rank: 0 Race: Human Age: 22
Job: Offensive Magic Class: Synergist Style Finesse Focus: ?
Health: 74/74 Stamina: 36/72 Mana: 74/159
Status
Strength: 35 Vitality: 51 Stamina: 58 Agility: 28 Mind: 386 Magic: 24 Remaining Potential: 76
Skills
Speech: 66 Reading: 57 Math: 56 Logic: 62 Serving: 15 Cleaning: 11 Magic Casting: 6 Magic Weaving: 9 Mana Regen: 2 Mana Absorption: 3
“Whoo,” he whistles. “You developed your Magic that much in less than a month. You were right, it would have been a waste to use your free potential for that.” He ruffles my hair with a hand and I find myself grinning before I can help it. “Now let's see, how high should we push your Magic...?”
As he speaks, I note that the last parts aren't there, that included Traits and Slave Rating. They've never shown up since that first time Keane showed me my Status, so I guess they only appear when a slave owner pulls up the information? Just thinking about that makes my skin crawl a little, but Keane is calling over our group's other mage.
“What's up?” the snake-altra asks.
“What's your Magic rating? She has some free potential left, and I'm not sure how much to use for it.”
“Ahh, natural training, that's why you have her casting herself sick.” He makes an eerie, hissing chuckle. “Four hundred twelve, but my Attunement is thirty six, so it's not a great comparison.” I squint a little, doing some rough rounding and find that puts his magic per level somewhere around... eleven?
He's right, I don't really know how to make that comparison. I could, in theory, throw all my points into Magic and come to a full quarter of the power of a level thirty six? At level zero?
No, I still have no idea how many points I get when leveling up. Or how long it takes compared to other races. It might take years to level once, and I could get one point per level for all I know. I mean yeah, that's totally not going to happen, but I don't know for sure. I don't even know if my slave crest will screw up however many points I'm supposed to get per level.
I wish I had another human who could tell me these things!
Pushing those thoughts away, I say, “How about thirty five? That should make it passable, without going too high that it makes it too hard to grow more.”
For some reason, my suggestion makes the snake-man reel back with disgust. I didn't say anything wrong, did I? “You let her talk to you like that?!” Like... like what?
Keane scoffs. “Yes. Because it's a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Then he turns to me. “I'm going to go with forty though. Just passable isn't good enough.” His stern tone makes me nod immediately. I'm not too happy with him overruling me, but it's a pretty minor adjustment, and like he said, it could be important for not dying to the giant fantasy boar monsters.
“Alright. Distribute Slave Potential.” With a rush, I feel the changes and look back to the Status window, also taking note of my new maximum mana.
Health: 74/74 Stamina: 36/72 Mana: 92/239
Status
Strength: 35 Vitality: 51 Stamina: 58 Agility: 28 Mind: 386 Magic: 40 Remaining Potential: 60
“Looks good,” Keane notes, then calls to the rest of the group. “We're all set. Ready to go?”
Fighting the boars is night and day compared to the goblins. Thinking back on it, that very first goblin I attacked... I had literally one point of magic power at the time. Doesn't take a genius to guess why I couldn't do shit.
Now? Now I feel like a semi-badass. Well, still only sort of because despite my magical capacity increasing a hundredfold over the last few days of intense training and with the distribution of more of my free points...
Well, these boars don't seem to care that much. My significantly more impressive magic collides with them in enormous eruptions of elemental destruction that... still don't do any damage. I don't let myself get too discouraged though. The boars even take a couple good hits from the other members of the group to go down.
It's not that I'm too weak, I tell myself. It's just that these monsters are pretty strong.
We make our way through the field, fighting one at a time as we come across them. Thanks to the long sight lines in the open field, it's pretty easy, and goes quickly. Just like on my first quest, the tank and swordsman party leader stay up near the front, with the ranger and healer off to either side, while me and the snake mage bring up the rear.
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No need to worry about ambushes in a huge open field.
Even the tactics are pretty familiar, like a classic dungeon raid. The tank, a stocky ape-altra, maintains aggro from the monster while everyone else deals damage or otherwise does their job.
It's complicated a little by the boar monsters not having hardcoded aggro like video game monsters, but it's still pretty easy for the big man with the tower shield to keep its attention by slamming said shield into its face repeatedly.
Never really thought of it that way before...
It doesn't always work, but whenever things slip, the red fox-swordsman is there to catch the monster's attention. She has to dance around it some since she isn't built as sturdy as the tank, but she gets the job done until he can piss it off enough to focus on him again.
As for me, I just do my job and hit the boars with magic. Due to my magic's explosive nature that I still haven't learned to control, I end up firing off waves and waves of low power spells. They hardly do more than scorch the hide of the things, but the damage adds up... eventually. At least throwing three and four element spells costs practically no mana now that my magic power is stronger, so I feel like I could keep this up for a while.
Throughout the quest, it's the snake man beside me who proves the most effective. He seems to focus on poison and paralysis magic. I don't know if it's a race related thing, or just what he prefers, but his spells do wonders against the boars, not needing to get through their thick hide like my magic or most of the others' weapons do. The crippling poison and paralysis bring down one boar after another.
After the monsters disintegrate into the mana that makes them up, they tend to leave behind some parts. Usually a tusk or two. The other members of the party argue a bit, but for the most part, they split things up pretty evenly, except for me. I guess I don't count... I didn't get anything from the goblins either, but that was mostly because I was just dead-weight during the quest...
Trying not to think about that, I keep working. Just treat this like any dungeon raid, I tell myself. Keep doing my job, and we'll all head home a little richer.
So I do just that, and before I know it, we're done.
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“That really was faster,” I note to Keane on the trek back to Karshis. I keep my voice down, the other adventurers don't really like when I speak...
“Yeah, big open areas like this are a lot easier to sweep.”
The rest of the walk is pretty quiet, except for when I cast something. I've already pushed my magic well above my 'average adult' estimate of thirty, so I don't think it will grow naturally as fast as it did at first, but there's clearly still a ton of room for improvement.
As I've learned, I'm going to need every advantage I can make for myself to avoid death or enslavement in this world. The more I learn, the more right I realize Ethinmond was. This really is a dangerous world. Especially trying to live among people who are basically blood-sworn enemies of my race...
So I keep casting my magic, but now, I just use air magic, and aim it straight upward. Dumping my full mana pool gets me up to about fifty five elements at once now, and the magic is really pretty epic and destructive. Which is why aiming it anywhere on the ground nearby is a bad idea.
I really need to find a way to concentrate the effects into smaller areas. Thinking as much, I check my Focus options, since I still haven't chosen a Focus, but they all relate to strengthening certain types of magic, not actually controlling how the magic I use comes out.
With that out, I just keep looking into different ways of forming the magic together to see if there's some trick to it I haven't stumbled on yet.
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Then we make it back to town. The whole quest took just four days, and we're making five gold coins. That's way better than when I worked at the bar. On one hand, giant deadly boar monsters. On the other... damn that's a lot more money.
The party leader gets a a guild employee and after debriefing on the quest, she nods and goes off to get our reward. “Ahh, easy money,” the normally quiet ranger says, leaning back in his seat.
Then the fox-woman pats Keane on the shoulder. “Sorry, I misjudged you. You've got a good slave there. I'm sure she'll be a great asset once you train her up some more.”
I cringe. She's complimenting me, but... But she's complimenting me for being a good slave. Thankfully, the receptionist returns so I don't have to dwell on that any longer. She goes around to everyone, handing out the pay.
Uhh, what about me? With money in hand, everyone splits up.
What about my pay?
Keane comes over and gives me a gold coin.
Oh.
Oh.
That quest. Five members. And one slave.
I hang my head in regret. How could I be so stupid?
“Why didn't you tell me?” I ask. I know he could claim he thought I knew. I half expect him to, since there have already been so many things that have completely blindsided me.
“Didn't want you to be discouraged,” he answers. “That's to keep you going. The guild doesn't let adventurers sign their slaves up as another member because people would exploit it.”
Oh, duh. Guy goes on an easy quest for one gold each, brings a bunch of slaves along, makes way more than he should. It's really obvious when I think of it that way.
“They'll let me sign you up for quests. That money is yours to keep so you can pay me back. After the first one, I wanted to make sure you were ready to go questing on your own so you wouldn't die somewhere and I never get my money back.”
“Oh... Ok.” I gulp. Not all hope is lost. I can still go on quests and make money. I can still pay him back. It's not like I'm just going to be forced to work for no pay.
Still, I'm realizing over and over again how royally fucked I would be if Keane wasn't a decent person. He could lump more debt on me randomly. Or refuse to allow me to work. Bring me on quests with no pay. Any number of ways to ensure I never earn what I need to repay him...
They told me debt slavery was no big deal.
Maybe it is to them, when the person enslaving them isn't likely to be an evil racist with every intention of seeing them never escape their cage.
“Come on, I'll look for another quest for you. No reason to get depressed or anything.” He tugs my hand and I follow along quietly, over to a big crowd of adventurers.
But then he cuts short when a man from the crowd grabs his arm. I turn to see a lanky man with... some sort of scaly features I can't place at all. But more than that, he has a slave collar!
“Hey, here's your money,” he says loudly, over the noise of the crowd, and passes Keane a handful of coins. He glances at them before stuffing them into a pouch in his pack.
“Cool,” Keane responds, then tugs the slave collar on the scaly man's neck and it pops right off. That joins the coins in his bag. With a quick wave, the other man disappears into the crowd of adventurers.
Keane did say healers need to make people debt-slaves to make their money back. He... how many debt-slaves has he had? How many does he have right now?
“Come on,” his voice cuts through my wandering thoughts, and he pulls me into the crowd surrounding the quest board.
I've only ever seen the board from a distance since it's perpetually mobbed by adventurers looking it over, but now Keane pushes his way through. He's got a head on me, but he's still short for an altraska, so there are lots of others way taller than him. He has to get right up close to see the board.
When we finally push our way in, the board is nothing like I imagined. It's not so much a board as it is a sort of kiosk, a big circular thing with papers tacked all over it. That explains why the crowd comes at it from everywhich way...
Practically clinging to Keane's side so I don't get trampled by some of the much larger adventurers around us, we search the quest board until he points one out. It's a quest to clear out an abandoned mine shaft.
I go up on my toes to get a better look, and it sounds like the mine is inhabited by a mix of different monsters like goblins, ghosts, and other things I'm not familiar with by name. The pay is three gold coins. With what I have now, it's almost enough to pay off my debt.
I'm not sure if it's such a good idea though... My magic is really explosive and I don't know what might happen if I use too much in tight underground spaces like that. Maybe fantasy world mineshafts are a lot bigger than I'm imagining?
Once we break out of the crowd, we head up to the counter. I see Malic, but Keane just goes to the closest receptionist. I don't think I recognize this one as well as some others. “I'd like to sign her up for the abandoned mineshaft quest,” Keane says.
“Alright, sign here.” As he signs some papers, the receptionist eyes me for a moment, then explains, “There are a few others signing up for that quest already, so it shouldn't be long before we call you.”
“Sounds good.” He pushes the papers back across the counter, and the men nod to each other. As we leave the counter behind, Keane asks what I'm doing next.
“Well...” I start to rub my collar nervously before I flinch a little and stop again. “I was thinking about the practice field, but I'm worried about damaging things with my magic now...”
“Mm, it's fine. Just throw smaller spells,” he says, like it's no big deal. Except I haven't figured out how... Even so, I nod, and we part ways.
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My practice continues as I keep trying things. Different forms and ways of linking the elements into varying spells. How some combinations clash with other combinations, or how they synergize better for even larger effects.
I'm still not getting anywhere. As far as all of my tests have concluded: more elements=larger area of effect. I just can't find any way around that.
So I try something different. Like when we fought the boars, I can get smaller effects by using fewer elements. But how do I get a powerful spell that small?
Maybe I don't have to? I start off with single elements. Taking deep breaths, I focus, and summon individual fire elements one after another. I launch them as soon as they manifest, increasing my focus and speed over time. My casts come faster. Individual elements basically don't cost any mana, not when I summon them one at a time like this.
The limit is in my summoning speed. I can focus on conjuring a dozen elements just as easily as I can focus on them one at a time. It takes the same amount of time, but more mana, whereas this takes more time, but less mana by comparison.
As a test, I try manifesting a bunch of elements but leave them hanging, without combining them into a spell or casting them. Unfortunately, if left alone, they just fizzle after a few seconds.
Trying to strike a balance, I summon just a few elements at a time, flinging them all individually, rapid fire, while also focusing on calling the next round.
In search of a casting method that might work, I eventually step up from that, summoning eight at a time, and synergizing them into four two-element spells at the same time, and casting them one after another, while also summoning the next round.
It's pretty rough at first, attempting to multitask into three separate operations at once, and my accuracy beyond arms reach is atrocious. But once I get the rhythm down, it improves. Sure, I'm firing off shitty tickle spells, but as I get better and better at it, I increase my firing speed from a spell every four seconds, to every two seconds, then one every second.
If I could just conjure the elements faster, I wouldn't have to do eight at once, and the mana costs would be minimal. As it stands now, I don't exactly chew through mana, but I wouldn't be able to keep up a bombardment like this for much longer than a minute. At least the spells are small enough to use without blowing everything up.
Unfortunately, that's as far as I get before Keane shows up again, letting me know that my party is ready to go. Then he whaps me on the head with something and I flinch. After being stunned for a few seconds, I see that it's a big roll of dried bread.
“You're going to starve to death at this rate,” he tells me, and I realize I haven't eaten anything in... how long? I'm still wearing my armor since returning from our last quest. I gratefully take the bread, then he stuffs some things into my backpack. “Provisions for your trip.” He doesn't mention the exact price, but it's probably about a quarter of a gold. “Don't go dying before you pay me back. Actually, what do you have so far?”
“A little over four gold.”
He puts out his hand and says, “Give me four. Keep the last bit.”
Thinking of giving him most of my money makes me hesitate a little, but I pull it out and hand it over.
“Good, you're halfway there. Now, go do your quest, come back, and you'll almost be paid up.” I nod slowly. Halfway there...