“Wraatcha doin.” Looking around frantically I can't find the source of the scratchy croaking voice.
“Ru-up ere human.”
Looking around at the trees all I can find is a raven.
“Where are you?” I say looking around a bit less frantically.
Then it hits me, the voice said human as if it wasn't one. Meaning either this is the world's best executed prank or the raven is speaking to me. I know I thought that it wouldn't be primates, but it still comes as a shock for a raven to know what it's saying.
“Are you the raven?”
“Yes, strupid human.”
“You asked what I was doing, and I have heard your kind like to trade. So tell me what you are doing here and I will tell you what I am doing here.”
“Wr-I noticed you using magic so I perched here to watch.”
“Not really using, more like experimenting.”
I chatted with the raven, which I learned was called darkness-that-sneaks-through-sky, a name I found quite appropriate, for about half an hour
Hnnn, hnnn
And there is my alarm to make sure that I am ready to pick up my daughter. Whelp time to go.
An hour later, at the school
"What do you mean Rosa’s not here?"
The school principal was the one to inform me "Because, she was caught using the system."
"What, when, how?"
"I am not at liberty to discuss."
.
.
.
"I'll be taking my leave now." I say
55 minutes later
So then life truly is meaningless without the requisite power to keep what is important to you and the only reasonable course of action in this unfair world is to make it unfair to your advantage.
That night, at the prison (graveyard shift)
“Hey are the comms down in this wing as well.” I see a technician talking to the bodyguard of my boss, the head chef and while his official title is “cafeteria manager” I prefer the term head chef.
“Yes”
In the meantime it’s time for me to check out.
“So what are your plans after work Walter?” a tomboy colleague, Sam, asks me
“sleep.”
Then suddenly the sirens blare, once.
.
.
.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
I hear howling, and what sounds like children laughing and screaming, and then a thing opens the cafeteria door. It is about 3 feet 2 inches tall, has emerald green skin, one inch claws and four spindly limbs attached to a bulbous body. It's teeth in it's infant-like head shaped like push knives.
I freeze in fear, I had expected to fight humans not, not goblins.
While I am still frozen in fear it attacks and kills the equally surprised technician and three more come through the door
It rushes us, snapping me out of my stupor. I then cast my earth wall in front of it. It slams into my earth wall, I hear the clattering of claws on tile. Then nothing, before I see the goblin run around the side of the wall, hurrying I cast my dark blast spell, and miss, creating a 12ft diameter sphere of darkness for half a second, then it gets into my sense mana range I notice that it’s mana is static and all in one place.
Ding!
Your sense mana skill has leveled up
Exp: 200/300
before I know it the goblin is upon us. Then, as if it were a daily occurrence for her, Sam takes the short chef's knife she always seems to have on him, dodges a clumsy swipe from the goblin, and plunges the knife right into one of its eyes, pulls it back out, then walks over to me like nothing happened
“What, how.”
“I got rogue” she replies as if it explains everything.
And quite frankly it did, at least for me.
Then we each hear a gurgling noise from what we had taken for a corpse. Before Sam even turns back around I cast my dark blast spell, finally getting the timing right, and hit. The corpse shrivels and starts rotting before the decomposition slows, then stops.
Ding!
Congratulations: you have killed a lesser goblin lvl.2.
You have gained 30 exp.
As you are of a higher level than your kill your exp has been reduced by 70%.
Exp: 230/300
“Did you get a message?” I ask
“Yes, it reads: congratulations, colon, you have helped to kill a lesser goblin lvl. 2, period, Enter, you have gained 100 exp, enter, as you are of a level lower than your kill your exp has been doubled. enter, enter, congratulations, colon, you have leveled up.”
“Mine reads: Congratulations: you have killed a lesser goblin lvl.2.
You have gained 30 exp.
As you are of a higher level than your kill your exp has been reduced by 70%.”
“So, tell me, how are you so familiar with this system?”
“I could ask you the same thing, but I play a lot of RPGs.”
“Well… for me, I read a lot of webnovels. Also, what's your class?”
“Well I'm a mage”
“Got any good spells?”
“Only the two you have seen so far”
“Status.”
I roll my eyes. “You know that you can just think status, right.”
“Status”
Name: Walter
Exp: 230/300
Lvl: 3
Class: archmage
Skills:
Sense mana [lvl.5]
Mana manipulation [lvl.3]
Health: 90/90
Stamina: 92/92
Mana: 70/120
Attributes:
Vig: 9
Str: 8
Dex: 10
End: 10
Wis: 12
Wil: 12
Inte: 12
Intu: 12
Free attribute points: 16
“No I didn't, thanks”
I decide that now is probably the best time to distribute my free attribute points.
Name: Walter
Exp: 230/300
Lvl: 3
Class: archmage
Skills:
Sense mana [lvl.5]
Mana manipulation [lvl.3]
Health: 130/130
Stamina: 102/102
Mana: 135/150
Attributes:
Vig: 13
Str: 8
Dex: 10
End: 10
Wis: 15
Wil: 15
Inte: 15
Intu: 15
Free attribute points: 0