They had been walking for days. The group was growing increasingly tired of the pace, but broke up the monotony with Gorpling murders. During this period, they killed any Gorpling camps they came across and tapped any associated Mana Nodes. While Boyd was hopeful there would be some piece of useful for gear for him, there was not. Gorpling armor wasn’t useable by humans, and he retched at the smell of it, so he certainly wasn’t going to push the issue.
Boyd tried repeatedly to explain his version of things to the Foray, but he never made any progress. Every time he tried to explain that they could just walk around and kill everything without triggering the ambush, they all just spaced out and asked when the ambush would happen. Eventually he gave up, and just watched from the sidelines.
He gained a small amount of experience from watching his fellow Combatants kill a large number of Gorplings, but the trip was largely full of very long periods of walking. Boyd tried to use this time to learn about the Maze and his new existence, but his companions were less than interested and not always forthcoming. Moreover, they had no use for him. What he could get done in an hour, they could get done in an instant.
“I got a question. If I got all this Mana, how come we don’t just use that. How come we gotta get all these Mana Nodes.”
“They are very different in nature Friend Boyd. You can think of it like this, the Mana that you use is inherent to your body. It is a reflection of your ability to interact with inherent magical forces. The Mana Nodes we are seeking are representative entities. You can think of them as a marker for a concentrated ball of Mana. They are untapped potential. If you have ten Mana for your personal use, each Mana Node would be like having 10,000,000 Mana for communal use.”
“Gotcha. That makes sense.” Boyd didn’t understand what they were saying but Fleon always got cross when he didn’t understand things. “Hey, I got another question, how come you all have such cool ass classes and I am stuck as Monk (Unassigned)?” Boyd asked the group.
Fleon answered, and was typically the only person who would, “All of us a have base Class. We have evolved these Classes based on our actions and accumulation of Experience. My base class is Paladin, but because of my superior commitment to Ioer, I was named High Paladin by my people. Jellybean Jenkins is a Fighter, but became Wolf-Lord when he conquered one of the Seven Plains.
Jellybean merely snorted.
“Salia is an Engineer. The VMR is a Ranger though. The result is their combined Class is Mechanized Ranger. Because the Venian Mechanized Ranger is the premier entity of this type in the known Universe, her Class is Venian Mechanized Ranger.”
Salia, via the VMR, gave a small bow.
"Gmol doesn’t actually have a Class. He is a physical manifestation of Lomg. Because this power is Divine in nature he is most similar to a Cleric and fills that role.”
Boyd saw an opening. “So Salia multi-classed?”
Salia said, “Not exactly. My only class is Engineer, but since the VMR is a Ranger, I am a hybrid.”
“Is Paladin a multi-class?”-
Fleon answered, “No, Paladin is a class in and of itself that combines aspect of Fighter and aspects of Cleric.”
"What’s the difference then?”
“Multi-classing gives you only the Ranks in that class that you invest your experience in. It’s usually a bad idea as Ranking up becomes extremely difficult over time and you want to specialize if you can. Hybrids gain all of the abilities of a single class, but have a mix of skills, and are less likely to have failures. We aren’t as specialized in one aspect of combat, but we are confident and capable at what we can do. Multi-classing is usually done to combine two sets of skills, or combine a minor ability from one Class with the majority being invested in another.”
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“Since I am a Monk (Unassigned) should I multi-class?”
The group paused for a second, then answered in their standard order of Fleon, Salia and then Jellybean Jenkins (with occasional input from Gmol).
“Yea.”
“Probably.”
Gmol’s rune in his chest projected a thumbs’ up.
“Nothing will save you from the inevitability of my maw, human. Use any Class you want, your destiny is within my jaws.”
It was a group consensus of yes.
"So what should I be instead?” Boyd asked.
“Most of us who ever enter The Maze have trained extensively before we choose these things. In fact, most who enter The Maze are from magically attuned societies who long since chose their Class. You’ll need more basic stat points which you get from Ranking up to have access to most of the better classes. I have no idea what you want to do, but with your current Strength and your previous points in Monk, there are a number of Fighter Classes that should open up to you.”
“I want a gun.”
Salia laughed, “You’d need to raise your Intelligence to at least 6 to pick any class that use guns, and that’s a ways away for you. Not to mention there is no fucking way in hell I am letting you hold a gun around me. You’ll shoot one of us in the ass on Day 1.”
“I’m a crack shot. I took a 12 point buck last season.”
“What’s is that?”
Jellybean scoffed, “It’s a form of chattel. It stands still while the humans shoot it with pitiful chunks of metal fired from a tube. It has no defenses, no knowledge and no combat experience. It is non-aggressive. It is essentially a target that you can eat. They are delicious and stupid,”
“So you have no practical combat experience with guns then?”
“I shot the deer.”
“Right, so you can hit larger objects standing still. What about small objects running towards you with a dagger in their hand hellbent on stabbing you in the face? Any experience there? Didn’t think so. No guns.”
Boyd thought for a minute, “What about magic spells?”
Gmol’s rune projected a laughing face into the sky. This was met with general laughter from the rest of the group.
“Why can’t I use magic?”
“You’re dumb. Also you are from a non-magical society and have no training. Also no one will teach you because you’re incompetent. And also you’re dumb,” Salia said.
“So, someone can train me to use magic?”
Salia tossed him a rolled up piece of paper. “That’s the closest you are ever going to get.”
“What’s this?”
“A scroll – through a small miracle of magic, Monks are allowed to use scrolls even without a deity as long as the magic isn’t necromancy or directly an affront to their God. You don’t have a God because no one likes you, so you can do anything but Necromancy. You have to have a scroll though.”
“What’s this one?”
“It’s called Summon Food.”
“What’s it do?”
“Take a wild guess.”
“And I just read it?”
“Can you read it?”
Despite the fact it wasn’t written in English, Boyd realized he could read it. He had no idea what the syllables meant, or what syllables were, but he understood them. When he finished reading the words, the scroll glowed and he felt a surge of energy leave his body. Suddenly a small feast appeared before him. It contained an array of what appeared to be fruits, preserved cuts of meat, stalks of what he assumed were vegetables and other assorted dry goods and breads. He beamed at this good works and started clapping his hands. He began feasting on the foods which were surprisingly edible, better than most of what he had eaten thus far.
“Dig in you guys! Hey why haven’t we been doing this for the whole time? Hey do we have more of these? What other Scrolls can I do?”
The rest of the team continued walking.
“You guys? You guys wait up. Don’t you want to try this?”
“We are here on a mission Sir Boyd. We eat once a day, and this is not that once. Do as you will but if you aren’t caught up within a minute, we will continue on without you at our maximum pace,” Fleon said.
Boyd grabbed an armful of food and ran up to the group. “This is the first useful thing I’ve learned. If I did Multi-classing, can I still use scrolls?”
They nodded affirmatively.
“Any recommendations on what I should Multi-class into? What would help the team the most?”
Salia said, “Right now, what would help the team is you shutting the fuck up, and then learning to move a lot faster. See if you can multi-class into ‘Horse’ or ‘Wheels’ or just figure out a way to be useful other than making food we don’t need.”
Boyd took this as a time to be quiet. He’d gotten everything he needed anyway.