I was no warrior, and I knew that.

I might be a nerd, but I wasn’t the nerdiest of them. Sure, I’d played plenty of videogames, but my gaming had really fallen off sometime after I’d got out of college. Books I’d stuck harder to—but still, it was hard to find the time to read.

But my experience as a nerd was still enough for me to know exactly what to do.

I did the same thing that any player of Pokemon has done hundreds of times, the same move Luke Skywalker uses against Darth Vader at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, the very same act for which Brave Sir Robin was immortalized in song:

I ran the fuck away as fast as possible.

Call you back when I have a class, I thought, doing my best to high-tail it down a steep slope without pitching forward and tumbling to my death. I felt another beam strike me in the back of the leg—it hurt, but not much. Still, I took 5 more damage and went down to 41 / 50.

Not good: not when I had no offensive or defensive anything. I ducked into the nearby trees, slowing my pace in the underbrush but hopefully getting a little cover. Another beam shot past me, missed me—and struck a thin sprig of needles at the end of a tree-branch, which promptly burst into flame.

I kept running. I ran until the trees ended at a slope so steep and rocky it would have to be climbed down, grabbing a nearby tree-trunk to stop myself from going over the edge.

I looked around for a new path away from the monster, then tried to spot it in the woods.

I couldn’t see it. I waited a few more moments, but it seemed it was gone. I spent another minute just looking around at my surroundings, but all I saw was wilderness: no more wild dogs with nightmare heads that wanted to kill me.

It hurt the tree more than it hurt me, I thought, picturing the branch that had burst into flames. I examined my legs: the cloth of my roughspun breeches hadn’t been damaged in the slightest, but a faint line of red like a sunburn had been drawn across my ankles, as if the beam had passed harmlessly through my clothing. Were my Hit Points protecting me from real injury?

“Time to choose a class,” I muttered to myself.

And I opened up the class selection pane:

Martial Classes

Martial classes are those which focus on fighting using weaponry and non magical abilities called techniques, which cost stamina. Martial classes gain 3 prowess a level, with higher prowess allowing them to learn more techniques.

Rogue

Rogues are a pure martial class that focuses on damage, control and overall versatility. Rogues have powerful evasion abilities, gain access to a limited number of spells, and gain more skill points each level than any other common class except the professional.

Shifter

Shifters are a pure martial class that shapeshift into powerful hybrid animal forms that give them the most mobility out of all common classes. They focus on damage, tanking, and overall versatility. They gain limited access to spells, and combine their stamina and mana into a resource called Energy that can be spent as either.

Warrior

Warriors function as the premier tank among common classes, though they also perform well in the roles of dealing damage and controlling enemies. Warriors gain extra hit points and additional passive abilities as they level.

Spellcaster Classes

Spellcasters are those classes which fight using spells and wield magical implements instead of weapons. Spellcaster classes gain 3 spellcraft a level, with higher spellcraft allowing them to learn more spells.

Mage

Mages are the premier spellcasters among common classes, and offer a balanced assortment of support, control, and damage while also having the ability to focus in any category. They gain extra spell and spell augment slots as they level up, and gain extra mana each level.

Priest

Priests are the premier healers among common classes, and also excel in the support role. They gain access to miracles, extremely powerful spells whose use is limited per day. They also gain access to blessings, the most powerful beneficial abilities in the game.

Psychic

Psychics are the premier controllers among common classes, and excel at taking the initiative to quickly turn combat in their favor. They are the most physically-oriented pure casters, combining mana and stamina into a new resource called energy that can be spent as either, and they gain limited access to techniques.

Hybrid Classes

Hybrid classes are those which fight using a combination of weapons and magic, using both spells and techniques. They gain a mixture of prowess and spellcraft a level, typically alternating between +2 / +1 and +1 / +2.

Their generalized access to both spells and techniques means that hybrid classes can sometimes even specialize better than pure martials or pure casters by stacking effects from both ability pools, but all hybrid classes require careful resource management to function.

Battlemind

Battleminds are psychic fighters who excel in the support and control roles. They gain a bonus to the effects of shouts, commands, and mind-affecting spells which allows them to bolster their allies while hindering their enemies in combat.

Pilgrim

Pilgrims are divine fighters who excel in the tank and healer roles. They gain the ability to weave a limited selection of beneficial spells into their weapon attacks, casting a spell instantaneously when enough attacks have been made. They also gain access to blessings, which are some of the most powerful beneficial abilities in the game.

Spellsword

Spellswords are magical fighters who excel in the damage role more than any other common class. They gain the ability to weave their spellcasting into their weapon attacks, casting a spell instantaneously when enough attacks have been made.

Professional

Professional is not a martial, spellcaster, or hybrid class. Professionals choose whether to gain spellcraft or prowess each level, but gain a reduced amount of either as compared to other classes. Professionals also gain fewer abilities overall, and the abilities they do gain are typically passives with a focus on skills. Professionals gain the most skill points of any common class each time they level.

I read these over, but from the very start I was interested in playing a caster. Mages seemed the most versatile, given that they could specialize into one of three roles, and so I brought up their extended description:

Mage

Mages are the premier spellcasters among common classes, and offer a balanced assortment of support, control, and damage while also having the ability to focus in any category. They gain extra spell and spell augment slots as they level up, and gain extra mana each level.

Each level grants:

30 HP

70 Mana

3 Spellcraft

3 General Skill Points

3 Mage Skill Points. Mage Skill Points can be spent on [Magic] and [Lore] skills.

Do I really need to explain? Mages cast spells. In fact, the description made it explicit that mages cast the most spells.

Also, the promise of three different roles that could be specialized in made the class broad enough that I wasn’t committing to anything yet, which I suppose might have influenced my decision.

Sure, 30 HP per level was the lowest out of all the listed classes, but surely there were spells to help with that.

I chose Mage, then got a prompt:

Are you sure? Reversing this decision later can cost experience points.

And said yes.

Congratulations, you are now a level 1 Mage!

You have gained a new Fixed Iconic Passive: Mage Class

You have gained a new Iconic Spell Slot and the Iconic Spell: Mana Shield

You have gained a new Spell Slot and the Spell: Magic Arrow

You have gained a new Spell / Spell Augment slot. Open your Ability Selection pane to choose a new Spell / Spell Augment

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Your Hit Points have increased by 30 and your Mana has increased by 70.

Human Adaptability increases each of your Strength, Agility, Focus, and Spirit by 1. You have 1 stat point to distribute.

You receive item: Common Chest - Mage Starting Gear

Ah, right: my human-ness meant I got extra stats. Something told me I’d be putting the remainder in Focus.

“Okay,” I muttered to myself, moving through the menus again. I wanted to get through this new stuff fast, in case another monster found me. I opened up a new pane to look at my abilities first, starting with the very basic-sounding Magic Arrow:

Spell - Magic Arrow

Cost: 2 Mana

Cast Time: 2.7 Seconds

Damage: 23

This spell creates an arrow of energy that travels through the air to strike your target, dealing moderate damage.

Okay, simple as can be. There was also a little plus sign near the spell’s name, and so I engaged it, thinking that maybe this was how I’d cast the spell.

Instead I got a much longer description:

Spell – Magic Arrow

[Destruction]

Requires 2 Spellcraft, Magic Affinity

Oral: Command

Movement: 1 Hand

Mental: Focus

Cost: 2 Mana

Cast Time: 2.7 Seconds (down from 3)

Range: 20 Meters

Effect: 23 Damage (up from 20)

This spell creates an arrow of energy that travels through the air to strike your target, dealing moderate damage.

Which… okay. Most of that seemed to make sense, though I wasn’t sure what the Requires: Magic Affinity meant. I assumed it was something I got from my class or starting gear?

I opened up the passive I had gotten, the one that was simply called Mage Class:

Fixed Iconic Passive – Mage Class

You gain an extra 20 mana per level. This is included in your class listing.

You gain a Spell / Spell Augment Slot at 1st level, 7th level, and every 7 levels thereafter.

You gain 1 Innate Magic Affinity.

You can focus momentarily to sense the magical auras that emanate from spells, enchantments, items, and more. A variety of sensations exist corresponding to the different subtypes of magic. Sensing through material, such as wood or stone, will reduce the range at which you can sense objects.

Again, it mostly felt self-explanatory, even if I wasn’t quite sure how to use the abilities in question. The part about the Innate Magic Affinity was, I guessed, the thing that would let me cast Magic Arrow.

In fact… I opened up my character sheet.

Alatar – Level 1

Hit Points: 90 / 90

Stamina: 60 / 60

Mana: 130 / 130

Elemental Affinity: Magic

Primary Stats

Agility 6 +

Strength 6 +

Focus 6 +

Spirit 6 +

Secondary Stats

Prowess: 0

Spellcraft: 3

Precision: 6

Haste: 6

Might: 6

Celerity: 6

Power: 6

Defenses

Defense Rating: 7

Divine Resistance: 6

Physical Resistance: 6

Psychic Resistance: 6

Magic Resistance: 6

So my class had given me the Elemental Affinity. Everything seemed familiar enough to me, but even so I tried to find some way of learning more info about the stats. Sure enough, concentrating on the words alone brought up tooltips, which I read.

To summarize:

Agility increased Defense Rating, was added to Haste, and increased Stamina by 5 points per point of Agility.

Strength was added to Might, Physical Resistance, and increased Hit Points by 10 and Stamina by 5 per point of Strength.

Focus was added to Celerity and Psychic Resistance, and increased Mana by 5 per point of Focus.

Spirit was added to Power, Divine Resistance, and Magic Resistance, and increased Mana by 5 per point of Spirit.

The others were basically no-brainers: Haste was for attack speed and cooldowns on techniques, Might was for attack damage and increasing the effect of techniques, and Celerity and Power were the same, but for spells.

The only exception between the secondary stats was that Celerity also reduced costs, something Haste didn’t do—an imbalance that maybe adjusted for the fact that Focus did a little less than the other stats?

Spellcraft straightforwardly told me it was a requirement to learn stronger and stronger spells. Precision was the stat that determined hit and crit chance for both spells and techniques. Defense Rating was just the combined chance for attacks to do nothing by being avoided or deflected. Resistances… they were resistances. They lowered damage and reduced the effects of debuffs.

Simple enough so far. I took a look at the other two abilities I’d been granted:

Iconic Spell – Mana Shield

Cost: 9 Mana

Cast Time: 5.4 Seconds

Range: 10 Meters

Effect: Absorbs 28 Damage

This spell creates a defensive field of energy which absorbs damage that would reduce your HP. When you haven’t taken damage for 10 seconds, the barrier will regenerate 5% of its total absorption per second until it is at full strength again, draining your Mana to do so.

If the Mana Shield reaches 0 absorption, the effect is lost and this spell must be cast again to regain it.

Well hello there, renewable HP. Just what I needed, once I figured out how to actually cast it. Remembering that I still had a point to spend in terms of stats, I put it into Spirit, reasoning that making Mana Shield shield stronger was a better increase than making it cast faster—since I’d hopefully be casting it out of combat.

I had one more thing to consider before I started figuring out how to cast these spells of mine, and that was the system message that had said:

You have gained a new Spell / Spell Augment slot. Open your Ability Selection pane to choose a new Spell / Spell Augment

I opened my Abilities pane to be confronted with an obvious message:

Ability Selection

Choose a new spell or Spell Augment to learn. You may replace this ability with any other spell or Spell Augment you are eligible to learn by consuming its Spell Card or using a Spell Book.

Spell Augment – Far-Striking Spell

Spellcraft Multiplier: Add 50%

Cost: Add 50%

The modified spell has its range increased by 20 meters.

Spell – Reactive Armor

Cost: 5 Mana

Cast Time: Instantaneous

Range: 0 Meters; Self

Effect: Defense Rating equal to (Spirit + Focus - 10) / 3, rounded down, Special (see below)

This spell sheathes your body in a hardened enchantment, providing passive Defense Rating.

When you are struck by an attack or ability, the Defense Rating provided by this armor spell increases by 34%, rounded up, then lowers to 67% of its initial value, rounded down, over 10 seconds. After it reaches this point, it rises to its initial value over the next 10 seconds, at which point this feature can trigger again.

When first cast, Reactive Armor will have its lowest possible armor value. The temporary penalty to Defense Rating persists if you cancel this spell’s effect. This spell cannot be dispelled.

“Huh,” I said. So apparently I got to pick one ability. Both of them just seemed like ways to take fewer damage, ultimately—the range increase by adding a little time for a melee creature to reach me when I attacked them, and the buff spell by giving me a little more defenses in combat.

I took the second, though it was nice to see what a Spell Augment was, I suppose: Magic Arrow required only 2 Spellcraft, and so I assumed that the “Add 50%” portion just meant that I’d need 3 to cast it as a Far-Striking Spell.

With all that out of the way, it was time to figure out how to cast these.

“Okay,” I muttered. I stood straighter, then called out: “Mana Shield!”

The effect was immediate: I looked and felt like a jackass.

So you didn’t call out the names of your abilities to use them, anime-style.

I took a deep breath, tried to focus: cast Mana Shield, I thought.

Then… it was as if the game had started playing me and not the other way around. I knew exactly what to do even though I’d never done it before, and I executed the whole thing like a well-rehearsed dance routine, moving one hand through a sequence of gestures while I spoke a long string of words at a volume just above that of a normal conversation. My mind focused on a series of sensations and figures, as if I was following a mathematical process that I knew quite well.

Then I finished with a decisive gesture, a ripple traveling outward from my hand and seeming to envelop me before becoming completely invisible.

“First spell,” I said, grinning.

Then I started walking back up the mountain, keeping my eyes out for the monster—the Beamling—that had burned me before.

It saw me before I saw it—I felt the faintest brush of heat against my back, and the text along the bottom of my field of view springing up to say that I had taken 4 damage as a little white bar that had overlaid my HP when I’d cast my Mana Shield was cut down by about a quarter.

I turned and saw the same metal-headed dog as before, head charging up another beam. I smiled.

Somehow my money wasn’t on the level 1 monster, here.