Gina wasn't at the HEMA club. "She works late on Wednesday." A gruff man who looked like King Arthur crossed with Santa Claus, "just find a place in one of the rows and try to follow along as best you can."
After the warm-up, we spent three hours with Arthur Claus demonstrating an attack. He had us do the same blow repeatedly as he walked up and down the rows correcting form and posture.
Occasionally Santa Arthur would demonstrate a parry and have us practice it repeatedly. Then pair us up with a partner, with one person making the attack we had just learned and the other doing the parry. The class did this slowly, emphasizing form and control rather than speed.
I left with my [Learn: Basic Long Sword - HEMA Style] at 22%. My [Learn: Basic Parry - HEMA Style] at 5%. And surprisingly, I had [Learn: Increase Healing Rate - Intermediate] at 9% and [Learn: Shock - Intermediate] at 7%. I could only assume the second two came from my time in the dungeon.
The night before, I'd left my car at Fitz's. After combat class, I headed over there for dinner and a beer. Mostly I hoped I could catch a friend to shoot the shit with. I found it cool that I knew something epic they would kill to know, but I had no plans to tell them. So what? I may be an asshole, but I'm an incredible asshole. Sue me.
While waiting for my food, I sorted out the brochures I'd picked up yesterday. Most of them were bog average. Learn basket weaving, take archery lessons, fencing lessons, and horseback riding. A few classes stood out.
One class promised wanna-be adventurers would be taken out into the woods. There they would be taught survival techniques like tracking, trapping, how to: spot edible plants, make and shoot a bow and arrow, butchering game and cooking the fucks out of it, make a shelter from twigs, and light a fire without matches. That sort of thing. The class was three months long and cost a whopping $12,000. This was the class Sid was probably planning to take. I hope Sidney hadn't mortgaged his house without telling his wife.
An ex-Army Medic and a couple of EMTs taught another class. It was a four-week class which you could take either morning or evening. The course involved how to intubate, perform CPR, trauma victim best practices, the principles of battlefield medicine, and essential life support. The pamphlet emphasized that you wouldn't be qualified to be an EMT but might be able to save someone's life. They blew up a goat; you had to save it in order to graduate. If you failed, presumably, they cooked the goat and made roti.
An "Adventurer Basics" class offered to teach many simple skills for future Delvers. Skills include basic first aid, map making, looking for traps, spotting hidden objects, what to bring with you, combat decision-making, elementary knife fighting, and class/skill/spell theory crafting.
Usually, I would have thought this would be a perfect class for posers, but almost dying to a slime after stepping in a trap really fucked with my mental equilibrium. It was a weekend class and only cost $300. I pulled out my phone and signed up for an opening that weekend. If Sid showed up at Fitz's tonight, I'd invite him.
Sid, however, didn't show up.
After Fitz's I went home and spent the rest of the night doing the same dive over and over. Killed the first three goblins with my sword practicing the new blocks and strikes I had learned in my HEMA class. Flushed the two slimes down the toilet. Killed the two goblins in the bedroom. Smashed the Pentium I. Went down the stairs, stepped over the trapped third step (I had checked all the other steps, and they were fine), and blasted the slime at the bottom of the stairs from afar with [Shock].
Then I left my dungeon, crashed out in front of the TV, or read the forums for a while before returning. It was slow, tedious work, but every run at the start got me between 56-63 experience. I made 9 runs before I called it a night and went to sleep. Then I slept for 6 hours and did the whole thing again 19 more times on Thursday and 20 times on Friday.
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I noticed early on that as I got tired, my stamina would go down. After my third run, I picked up [Increase Stamina Recovery]. That spell was like mainlining Monster Energy Drink without the calories or jitters. Casting [Increase Stamina Recovery] let me sit on my ass on the couch in my downtime and channel Mana to refresh myself.
Also, I quickly noticed that the forum gossip about it taking a full hour for a dungeon to repopulate was wrong. For my short runs, I only needed to wait twenty minutes. Whether this was due to my not clearing the dungeon or some other freakish serendipity, who knew. But who was I to look side eye at a happy accident.
The amount of experience I got dwindled the more times I did those four rooms. By the 38th run, I was down to 15-20 xp. Over three intense days, I picked up the following:
[Summon Everything Bagel]
[Toast Object]
[Summon Cream Cheese]
[Summon Bacon]
[Summon Smoked Salmon]
[Basic Dodge]
[Basic Parry]
[Basic Dagger]
[Basic Longsword]
[Basic Cure Wound]
[Stabilize]
[Increase Mana Recovery]
[Increase Stamina Recovery]
[Cause Flatulence]
[Grow Hair]
[Cure Hangover]
[Ignite]
[Moisten]
[Breeze]
[Basic Dig]
[Basic Summon Water]
[Basic Light]
[Basic Sense Trap]
[Sense North]
[Meditate]
[Basic Sense Life]
[Basic Clean]
[Basic Mend]
[Basic Sharpen]
And after that, I still had 341 experience. It was time to increase my level. 50 points got me to level 1, 100 points to level 2, 175 points to Level 3, and 16 experience left over.
Beyond [Increased Stamina Recovery], some other interesting pickups were
[Increase Mana Recovery] cost 10 MP to cast. Still, for 10 minutes afterward, my Mana recovery rate increased by 3 points a minute as long as I was stationary. It combined well with [Basic Meditate] and both the increased [Health] and [Stamina] recovery spells.
[Basic Clean] was another spell with only moderate utility. I could cast on something, and after about a minute or two, that item would become clean. Or I could continuously channel-cast it on someone. Over nearly ten minutes, all the grime, shit, and muck would disappear, leaving the person as if they had taken a shower and put on clean, freshly pressed clothes. The spell even left a faint smell of sandalwood and pine.
My high hopes for [Basic Sense Life] were dashed. If I sat and meditated, I would slowly begin to sense the life around me. The longer I cast, the further out my life senses went at about a foot every minute. I once drained my Mana and channeled the spell for 48 minutes, but the spell's range never exceeded 20 feet. The magic gave me a feeling of direction, location, and intensity in life. But the sense was vague and prone to error.
While the earthworms in the gardens had life, my Karen neighbor Marigold had no life. I almost went over and slew her. But a quote from the most incredible show ever -- the TV show which had revealed to the world the brilliance of Cartman — rang through my head. "How can you kill that which has no life?" And so I left her alone.
As an experiment every time I cast [Summon Everything Bagel] I concentrated on a Jalapeño Cheddar Bagel instead and after 18 casts I received notice [Learn: Summon Cheddar Jalapeño Bagel] at 1%.
As an adventurer with no class, I got a single attribute point at every level. The issue I ran into most often was running out of Mana, so all three points went into Will Power, bringing my Will Power to 16 and my Mana up to 160.
When my Will Power hit 16, a pop-up in my HUD informed me that I had met the required minimums to pick a class. This was a surprise. The consensus on the forums was that you could only choose to specialize at level 10. People kept too many secrets, and the posers made up too much bullshit.
The list I'd qualified for was paltry, and none of the classes interested me, but they were fun to look at.
Would you like to choose a Class? (Yes / No)
Available choices:
1. Apprentice Hedge Witch
2. Apprentice Witch Doctor
3. Apprentice Hex Dancer
4. Enhanced Coffee Shop Employee
5. Prison Nurse's Aide
6. Zombie Fluffer
Out of curiosity, I looked up Zombie Fluffer in the Wiki. There was no information, so I added the following text to the encyclopedia. Hopefully, someone who knew something would change the information later.
Zombie Fluffer
Someone who fluffs zombies. An excellent choice for the discerning beginner necromancer.
I laughed and then went out to my car; it was almost time for my beginning adventurer class.