I looked over my existing abilities, not just because I was going to show each to Cuby, but because I needed to figure out which spell to replace with Auditory Illusion.

Abilities

Fixed Iconic Passives [2]

Psychic Class

Mage Class

Passive Slots [2]

Evasive Insight

Farcaster

Iconic Spell Slots [4]

Devour Magic

Psychic Parasite

Mana Shield

Moment of Mastery

Iconic Spell Augment Slots [2]

Supercharged Spell

Fragmented Spell

Spell Slots [8]

Elemental Aegis

Elemental Weaponry

False Identity

Haste

Hex of Chains

Magic Arrow

Mighty Leap

Rousing Command

Spell / Spell Augment Slots [3]

Charm of Gliding

Hardlight Construct

Reactive Armor

Granted Spells [1]

Implosive Missile

Virtue Boons [3]

Gift of Mercy

Gift of Resistance

Gift of Empyreal Might

As Cuby read these over, one by one, I examined the whole list with frustration. I had more than 20 abilities, total. I also had nothing in any of the spell-capable slots that I wanted to replace. Hex of Chains was at least something I could replace—I had the materials to make the new card now. Reactive Armor I had a card for—but I didn’t want to put a spell in one of the only two slots I had that could hold spell augments.

I had almost settled on choosing Hex of Chains and hopefully making a new card for it out in the wilderness when I realized that I was being a fool. The obvious choice, which I overlooked because it felt so… wrong, was Magic Arrow.

It wasn’t a bad spell, not at all—it had a longer range than Implosive Missile, and almost as much damage throughput. But it was obviously the easiest thing to lose.

Wow! Cuby said from where she lay beside me. I need a Rousing Command card.

I agree, I said.

Also, said Cuby. You ought to get more Defense Rating increases. I know they’re tough to come by, but Evasive Insights seems really strong for a passive.

Yeah, I said, looking at the ability again:

Passive – Evasive Insights

When you successfully negate an attack against you due to your Defense Rating, you gain a bonus to your Defense Rating against the next attack that creature makes against you. The bonus equals half your level, rounded down. This ability can’t trigger from the effected attack.

It’s basically going to turn every one miss into two, I said. “Half your level” is actually just my level for me. Actually, I was thinking about this just after we fought Haroshi, but I forgot.

About Defense Rating?

Yeah, I said. Psychic Parasite is one of those spells that’s broken with Supercharged Spell.

Cuby covered her mouth to suppress a laugh. One of? Isn’t that all of them?

It’s a swing of 8 Precision both ways, I said. I can’t see how anyone could successfully fight me with that debuff on—and Evasive Insights makes it worse. They’ll miss half the time and I’ll crit half the time.

True, said Cuby. But everyone has tricks, too—ways to wipe the debuff, ways to stall you out, ways to boost their own Precision so it’s not as effective.

Yeah, I said. So what if… I stopped and thought a moment. Look, Haroshi had these blessing spells. I could read them because of Psychic Parasite. He had one for Precision and one for Defense Rating, they gave four each.

You can’t supercharge a miracle or a blessing, if that’s what you’re thinking, said Cuby.

Huh? I asked. It doesn’t say that….

It doesn’t? Cuby asked dubiously. Maybe I’m wrong, then, she said. Maybe they changed it. But I did my research before I got here, and I know most of the common classes well enough—Mage / Priest isn’t a good combination because they don’t synergize. And you can kind of see why it’s like that—Supercharged spell would triple the nonexistent mana cost and double the nonexistent cast time of a miracle to make it twice as effective. It would just double the effect of the strongest spells in the game, outright, at no cost.

I’m okay with this.

And the blessings are the same way, said Cuby, ignoring me. They’re very strong—I don’t think you can get permanent Precision and Defense Rating bonuses from spells normally. Except the armor spells, which are just making up for your lack of armor.

I still think I should be keeping my eye out for more Precision and Defense, I said. If we can stack them even more, we’ll essentially become invincible. Mine are both higher than a non-chosen already—if we can increase them enough, non-chosen won’t be able to meaningfully damage us. I bet Haroshi was already partly there, with both his buffs.

Probably, said Cuby. It’s strange. I don’t think he’s very good at this, but that only matter so much. He clearly took his character build from the Archivect, because it’s kind of excellent. You’re right about stacking Precision and Defense Rating—it’s very strong. And he had both those blessings from his priest class, plus the miracle that removes crowd-control and heals a huge slab of health.

I balked. Wait, those are the same miracle?

I told you, Cuby said. They’re the most powerful spells in the game. Anyway, Reflect Spell is obviously a strong PvP ability, combining the spellsword’s attack-cast Iconic Spell Augment with heal spells makes it impossible to just fight it out with him, and whatever else he’s got going makes him hit… just so hard.

I noticed that.

We got lucky, said Cuby. Or I guess rewarded because you know enough to take Devour Magic. I can’t even remember what the alternative for that one is, but you essentially punished him severely just for playing his class.

If we fight him again, I just need to play around Spell Reflection, I said. Get him to waste it on a normal Implosive Missile, or just Supercharge and Fragment something that can’t be reflected, like Haste or Hardlight Construct.

Hardlight Construct is lovely, Cuby said, her voice sounding serene. My mind momentarily flashed to the image of Cuby shredding Morene, the warrior, to pieces, both lit starkly by the harsh glow of the imprisoning cube.

I agree.

Here, said Cuby. I’ll show you my stuff and then there’s some more stuff I want to talk about.

Okay, I said.

And she linked me many panes:

Fixed Iconic Passive – Rogue Class

Gain 1 Innate Physical Affinity.

Gain 2 extra General Skill Points a level.

You add your level to your spellcraft for the purpose of learning any spells that have the Artifice, Divination, Kinesis, and Illusion subtypes, as long as the spell in question has no subtypes not listed here, and you can learn these spells using your technique slots. Spells you qualify for in this manner will use your martial stats, not your spellcasting stats, and you may spend 2 Stamina in place of 1 Mana when paying their costs.

Iconic Technique – Spectacular Acrobatics

Cost: 6 Stamina

Cooldown: 15 Seconds

You perform any kind of acrobatic movement. This can range from a simple lunge to a complex set of cartwheels, but the effect is to rapidly reposition yourself. While you perform this maneuver, your Defense Rating is increased against the first attack you receive.

Technique – Murderous Strike

Cost: 2 Stamina

Strike Cooldown: 10 Seconds

You strike your target and deal normal attack damage. If your target drops below 20% Hit Points, either as a result of this strike or within 3 seconds of being struck, the total strike cooldown triggered by this ability is halved.

[Note: Strike cooldown is a cooldown that triggers for all your [Strike] abilities each time a [Strike] is used. It is reduced by using faster weapons, and further reduced for each [Strike] ability you know. More powerful [Strike] abilities trigger a longer strike cooldown.]

Technique – Thrown Strike

Cost: 2 Stamina

Strike Cooldown: 6 Seconds

You throw your weapon to strike your target at range, dealing normal attack damage. The range of this ability is dependant on the weight of your weapon. Whether this ability hits or misses your target, your weapon will warp back to your hand at its conclusion.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

While this ability is a Strike, it does not trigger the normal 6-second cooldown on all Strike abilities when used.

Technique – Blinding Strike

Cost: 6 Stamina

Cooldown: 20 Seconds

Strike Cooldown: 14 Seconds

This strike causes a bright flash of light that temporarily blinds your target and deals a small amount of damage. A target struck by this attack has increased resistance against it for the rest of the day.

Iconic Technique Augment – Favored Technique

Cooldown: Special (see below)

You halve the cooldown of the augmented technique as you use it. If the augmented technique’s cooldown is lower than 20 seconds, you instead reduce it by 10 seconds, potentially reducing it to 0.

This ability’s cooldown is equal to the longer of either 300% the time it reduced or 1 minute.

Passive - Fast Hands

You triple the rate at which you can stow and materialize items from your inventory into your hands.

Iconic Technique – Flurry of Steel

Cooldown: 30 Seconds (Special)

Effect: Flurry of Steel for 3.0 Seconds

For the duration, you add 100% to your attack speed and your techniques count 2 seconds of cooldown for each 1 second that passes.

This technique’s cooldown is not affected by these bonuses.

Technique – Drop Strike

Cost: 2 Stamina

You can only use this strike when you fall onto a target from vertical distance of greater than 3 meters. This strike deals extra damage based on the distance you fell, to a maximum of 20 meters.

You may use this strike in conjunction with another strike, adding its effect to this one’s.

Technique – Opportunistic Strike

Cost: 2 Stamina

Strike Cooldown: 10 Seconds

This strike deals 150% of your normal weapon damage to a target who currently has their ability to control their character impaired. Movement speed reductions alone don’t fulfill this condition.

Special: you can use this ability even when your Strike Cooldown is active. When you do, its cooldown is added to your existing Strike Cooldown.

Iconic Passive – Spectacular Acrobat

You gain the Spectacular Acrobatics ability. If you already have the Spectacular Acrobatics ability, you gain a copy of it.

[A copy of an ability differs from an extra use of that ability in that both can cooldown simultaneously]

Strike Cooldown is… different, I said, reading the note on Murderous Strike twice.

Mine is just over 3 seconds for most of them, said Cuby. The strikes with a Strike Cooldown of ten seconds get reduced to 6 because I’m wielding light weapons, then it goes down from my Haste… then it gets reduced even more because I took a lot of strikes.

I’ll say.

Well, you were around, Cuby explained. So I keep increasing the damage output because you handle the crowd control, shield me, buff my resistances, buff my damage, distract enemies… you know, support. You even have a really strong dispel magic ability, now.

It’s all so straightforward, I said. I wasn’t envious in the least—I loved spells. But still….

Everything is instantaneous, I said. All of it.

That’s techniques for you, said Cuby. Happen instantly, but they all have cooldowns.

Speaking of, I said. That favored technique is, uh, pretty powerful.

It’s absurd, said Cuby. Ridiculous. I just always get more of my most effective ability in any situation. Haven’t you noticed how I always use either two blinds or two dodges every combat?

Honestly, not really, I said. Wait, does that mean you have three dodges, now? Three uses of Spectacular Acrobatics?

Yup!

You know Cuby, I think rogue is pretty good.

I picked it because it’s the best, or I thought it was. Now I’m not so sure.

Feeling some mage envy, are we?

Mage is mediocre.

I looked over, somewhat hurt. It was hard to gauge her expression in the dark, but she had sounded serious.

Well, look: it’s bad on its own. It’s a great pick for chosen, but not for anything you’ve got yet.

Uh, what?

Supercharged spell is good for two reasons, right—one, I’m around to make use of all your buffs by building my character around your damage increases. And two, you have Fragmented Spell. Fragmented Spell is the real winner here.

You wound me.

This is working out perfectly, though, said Cuby. We go well together, and you lucked out and got a great counter for Haroshi. But I mean, you saw him: his damage, his heals, his superior Precision and Defense Rating. You couldn’t take him alone if he had all his miracles and knew not to feed your Devour Magic. He’ll have four health bars and out-damages you besides. Psychic Parasite won’t make up the difference.

I sighed. She was right and I knew it. I’d picked my class the only way I could’ve—I just went with what sounded good. But Haroshi, a taxin el, had known exactly what to take.

Guy was playing a net deck and I was playing tribal angels.

God, I hated tribal angels.

Okay, I said. Maybe you’re right. But you said it was a great pick for chosen. Why?

Because it’s the only common class that leads to wizard, one of the strongest classes for chosen in almost every ladder season. The uncommon and rarer classes shift around and get changed between seasons much more than the common ones, so we’ll have to check once we find where the cards are whether it still works like it did.

Come on, Cuby, I said, filling my mental voice with mock-impatience. You can’t tell me that the wizard class is in its rightful place, then not tell me what it does.

Beside me, Cuby sighed in a way that was almost wistful. They get something called a spellbook, she said. It’s like an ability book, but they can automatically write spells they know into it, along with every single spell that could go into their iconic slots. And it holds a bunch of spells, not just one. So they can swap out their iconics for all the iconics across both their classes—you could easily switch your Mana Shield for a psychic ability, for example. But that’s not what’s strong about them. I mean, it’s strong, but not the whole story.

Do continue.

The first wizard iconic you get is called Pagemaster. It lets you cast a spell from your spellbook, not your abilities. You can always pick one of the iconic spells that you haven’t prepared, that you didn’t take—the best one to suit any given situation—and add it to a combat.

Okay, that sounds pretty absurd.

It’s great! said Cuby. But it’s not what makes them so strong that I know all of this. The reason they’re good for chosen, specifically, is because some of the chosen boons interact with the spellbook. There’s boons for ability subtypes—illusion, warp, that sort of thing.

I remember.

Good, said Cuby. Do you remember that they gave an ability slot?

Yes.

And that the ability slot could be used to prepare an iconic from any class, as long as it was of the right subtype?

Oh.

You get it! Cuby said, sounding like she wanted to clap her hands. So the way it worked two seasons ago was that you’d get the ability, and the game would pick five iconic abilities that you could learn from a curated list, and you’d get to pick one. Except if you’re a wizard, you can write all five of the abilities that the game gave you into your spellbook!

…And then cast a second iconic spell from another class’s spell list using the Pagemaster ability.

That’s right! said Cuby.

And both abilities count as five levels higher and also come with a unique bonus specific to their subtype, I said.

Something like that, said Cuby. I mean, I trust you if you say that’s what it is. But yeah, wizard goes from strong to stupid-strong.

Good. Wizards deserve it.

If you say so, said Cuby. Anyway, last season it was only 3 abilities that you got to choose between when you took the boon, so it got weaker.

Ah, I said. Worried it might’ve been nerfed again?

What? What does that mean?

Oh, I said, realizing that Cuby definitely had no experience with foam dart guns. I mean, worried that they made it weaker again?

We’ll just have to check. But remember: you need another chosen boon to really get the most out of the wizard class. Free dungeons give them as rewards… but there’s only two of us, and we’re not exactly built for dungeoneering. Maybe if we kill Haroshi before we get there, and then I’m chosen….

That’s the plan, I said, looking out at the camp again. There weren’t as many shadows moving around, and I could no longer hear voices. We’d talked long enough to get them to sleep. We just need to turn them into sleep zombies, first.

You think they’ll leave their camp if everything works? Cuby asked. Try and find a different spot?

They can’t, I said. Set Camp has a huge cooldown, and it only starts when the old camp is dismantled. The place they’re in right now is the only place they have to rejuvenate their adventuring clocks. If they don’t sleep here, they’ll run out of experience to gain. Even we will need to rest in—I checked my clock—eight hours.

Oh, said Cuby. When she spoke again, her voice was filled with emphasis: “Oh, Alatar—it’s brilliant! I thought we’d only deprive them of sleep, not experience! They have to stay under your illusion in order to gain any! If they try to find a safe zone, we can get ahead of their group and just warn the town using our bounty quest as proof!

I hadn’t thought of that last part, I said, impressed. If the plan worked, we’d really mess them up. The best option they would have would be to stay in their tents and lose sleep but recharge their adventuring clock—or at least, that’s what it would seem like. Anyway, I’m getting impatient and their camp is looking fairly asleep. Ready to go?

One more thing, said Cuby.

What is it?

When I take his card, I want to choose warrior as my second class. From what I’ve seen, it’s stronger than even I guessed it would be.

I considered this, then nodded. Repositions, heavy attacks, area-effect interrupts like the shout we’d seen, crowd-control like the knockdown we’d seen, more room for strikes to reduce her Strike Cooldown, and all with probably the best perk, the highest Hit Points per level in the game so far.

It seems like a very strong class, I said.

Great! said Cuby. But if I do, the uncommon class that you take that isn’t wizard needs to have heals. Deal?

Okay, deal.

Really? That easy?

What’s wrong with healing?

Uh, nothing. A noble and important task.

I don’t mind playing support, Cuby—but, say: are there common class cards? Can I somehow just upgrade my class with the priest class?

Yes, she said. But I don’t think you should, said Cuby.

Why not?

It’ll give us the blessings you want, she said. And the miracles are strong. But what you get from other classes will be strong, too. Nothing from priest combines with your best abilities, Supercharged Spell and Fragmented Spell. What’s more, divine abilities scale a bit based on how much Grace you have—and you get Grace from having divine abilities. That’s why Haroshi’s blessings can target four people, and he can cast four miracles a day.

Four?!

Four, Cuby confirmed grimly. And he’s going to get them back at sunrise.

Are you… sure this is a bad class for me?

No, she confessed. Maybe it’ll be perfect. But there will be other healing options that might give things you can use better. But there are a lot of uncommon classes—at least a few dozen. One of them will do a better job of improving your character.

All right, I said. But I gotta say, it still seems like a good idea to me, synergies be damned.

We’ll see, said Cuby. Shall we go?

Yes, I said. I feel like we’ve been here all night already. Though….

I looked over at her. Cuby was the only thing in this world keeping me from being alone, and I realized that this was something I desperately needed. I had to look past her, at the darkened shapes of mountains, and wonder at what might be going on far beyond them—at how many innocents might be dying just like the dwarves of Oromar’s Bastion.

I’m glad I’ve got you to talk to, I said lamely, snapping my attention back to the moment at hand. The game… it feels easy to think of the game. Fun, even.

It’s supposed to be, Alatar, said Cuby. It’s a game.

I thought to myself: people are literally dying for this game. But instead I simply turned to the mountain behind us. All right, I said, let’s get around this thing, get some elevation while out of sight of Haroshi’s camp, and attack.