Casting Magic Arrow was different from casting Mana Shield. Magic Arrow only required me to bark out a single word dramatically at the end of its casting, but more importantly, I actually had to aim it.

The game seemed to take care of this as well, however. Rather than spending any real thought or time lining up my shot, I just sort of went with instinct—a kind of, there, now, feeling that rose in me just as I loosed the spell.

My hands gathered a blue-white light that intensified as I cast the spell, then I brought them together, fusing the light into an orb-like missile that I sent straight at the Beamling.

It made no effort to dodge, and the arrow struck it with a flash. 18 damage according to the system, which meant it had a little resistances. A moment later the Beamling struck me back… for 4.

Its HP bar looked like it had two hits left—and these I was more than happy to deliver, closing out the battle of the nooblings first by deciding to cast another Magic Arrow, and then by following it up with a third Magic Arrow—as I judged the situation required.

Hey, it was level one. And while in a normal game I’d be eager to get away and get to the real stuff, the actual character customization as fast as possible, right now I could use the prototypical bland 1st level for what it’s meant for—learning how to do… basically everything.

My third Magic Arrow connected with the Beamling just below its neck and did probably twice the damage it needed to. Where it struck, the Beamling’s body seemed to shatter—as if the arrow had turned it fine glass or crystal just as it delivered an enormous concussive blow, sending bloody chunks and red dust into the air around it.

I watched it fall, satisfied and a little grossed out by the cavernous hole that my Magic Arrow had dug out of its body. Then, with a glow effect and a happy chime, I saw a message appear:

You have received experience points: 2.

The Beamling had given me 2 experience points, and after looking around awhile, I found my experience bar in my quest log—2/100.

“I hope you have 49 friends,” I said, walking closer to the dead Beamling. “And maybe they have like, 55 to 60 slightly larger, more threatening friends in a geographic location directly adjacent to this one.”

I knelt to inspect the body. First I poked it, then I tried to tag it the way I had tagged the Beamling when it was alive. This worked, though not the way I’d been hoping: I’d wanted a pane to pop up that I could interact with, something to give me a loot option. Instead a soft white highlight appeared around the corpse, and a pane appeared which read:

Common Item - Beamling Corpse

The dead body of a demon called a beamling. The demonology skill might tell you more about this, but it may not be very useful….

“Your loot is a dead beamling,” I said, smiling a little at a fond memory of D&D. But as I looked away from the body, I saw another small highlight around the red center of its grotesque metal flesh-flower of a head.

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Not that I really wanted to carry this thing around—but my inventory pane was made of little empty boxes. Surely I could just….

I poked the demon, and with a thought, it dematerialized, a 2-D representation of it appearing to occupy four of the boxes in my inventory—right next to my legendary card and the loot box I’d forgotten.

I saw a small red stone, faintly glowing, fall to the ground from where the beamling’s head had been—it had been the glowing object in the center of its face. I tagged it:

Common Item - Demon Stone

A stone that radiates demonic energy. The demonology skill might tell you more about this.

That seemed a little more useful than the corpse. Also useful was the knowledge that I could detach lootable objects from a body by looting the body itself—it might have gotten pretty ugly if I’d had to pull that stone free on my own. As it was, it had a bit of blood coating the lower half.

I looted the stone, then turned my attention to the chest I’d forgotten about while I was reading my abilities. With a simple effort of will I opened it, and one item became several:

Common Equipment - Simple Staff

A basic wooden staff. Simple runes carved along its length aid in spellcasting.

Weapon Level 1

Common Equipment - Simple Robes

A basic set of robes worn by mages.

Common Item – Healing Potion (2)

Restores 120 Hit Points.

Shares a 60 second cooldown with other Healing Potions

Common Item – Mana Potion (2)

Restores 120 Mana.

Shares a 60 second cooldown with other resource potions.

These were all deposited in my inventory, which still had plenty of slots left–it had 40 slots in all. I put the robes on—they were blue-white, much nicer looking than my roughspun tunic—and equipped the staff.

Then I engaged the tooltip for the weapon level:

Weapon Level is added to your own level for determining the effectiveness of your abilities.

So I guess my abilities would get stronger as I leveled, and not just from my power stat? Made enough sense to me.

I eyed my mana:

114/135

A few points had been taken to recharge my Mana Shield. Overall, my mana wasn’t regenerating very fast, so I brought up the tooltip:

Mana

Mana is a metaphysical energy used primarily by spellcasting characters to pay the costs of their spells. You regenerate mana at a steady pace: without modifiers, you will regenerate all your mana in two hours.

This pace increases if you are in a safe zone, and also increases if you are in a state of mental rest, such as if you are meditating, socially engaged, or affected by certain mind-altering substances.

Two hours meant about 1 point of mana every minute. No wonder Magic Arrow only cost 2—even without counting the initial 10 I’d spent on my Mana Shield, fighting the beamling had cost me almost 10 minutes of regeneration.

But the tooltip told me something else valuable, something other than the suggestion that I could get drunk to help fuel my spells, which is what I assumed that last part meant. Safe zones existed—maybe if I found one I could learn what the hell was going on?

I scanned the horizon, disappointed that I didn’t see any rising plumes of smoke that might lead to a cozy riverside village or something.

Oh well, I thought. The plan was simple enough: move down the mountain into the little valley and kill any demons I met.

I made my way downward with a little added pep in my step. With any luck, I was done just sifting through menus and game features for a while.