Timothy sat back after reading his log file, astonished at how brash it was, “Screw you,” he said to the tablet and pushed it aside.
He decided to drop into a full meditation to regain his mana before he went to bed for the night. He sat on the floor and crossed his legs while closing his eyes, the actions of the day trying to push their way into his thoughts. After some trial and error, he was able to block out the thoughts and clear his mind, focusing on his mana. He could now feel the ambient mana in the air surrounding him, he gently guided it into and through his body. In total it took him a little more than thirty minutes to regenerate all his mana.
With that finished he thought about heading straight to bed, but then he got a whiff of himself, and decided he needed a bath. The bathroom was down the hall from his bedroom on the first floor, he opened the door and walked in. This room was exactly what you would expect it to be and nothing more, there were four tubs and a rack of towels. Only one of the other tubs was in use, he was an older man that looked to be in his forties with a bald head and an odd colored tint to his skin. It looked sort of yellow, but not enough to be obvious, maybe it was a trick of the lights in the room.
“Hey kid. New in town?” The man said.
Timothy thought for a moment, “Very,” he replied.
“I am Derick, Derick Ambersmith. You?” He asked.
“Timothy Marshal.”
“Nice to meet you Timothy,” he paused, “Um…are you just going to stand there or are you planning on taking a bath?”
Timothy shook his head to clear it, “Sorry. This is my first time in a public bath house. I was not expecting to see anyone else in here.”
“Where are you from? I have done a lot of traveling and this is how all but the most expensive inns supply baths. Are you nobility?”
“Me!?” Timothy chuckled, “God no.”
“So then where are you from?”
“A very long way from here,” Timothy replied suspiciously.
Derick put his hands up, “Sorry. I am a merchant and tend to talk a lot, probably more than I should, but I enjoy having conversations with people,” He waited for Timothy to say something, but when he remained silent, he continued, “If I am making you uncomfortable, I will leave,” he was cut short by Timothy.
“No, no, “Timothy repeated, “Please forgive me, I am the one being rude. You say you’re a merchant, huh?”
The two spoke for a while, Derick giving Timothy some information on the town. The name of the town was Yourso, Timothy didn’t have to ask for the name directly, Derick gave it up freely as they spoke. The town was a small town consisting of one main road through its center and a few small side roads. The population couldn’t be more than a hundred people, most being fisherman and farmers. Derick was passing through on his way to Slate, the dwarven city to the northeast. He did this trip about twice a year to pick up some gems and ore that he could turn into jewelry that he would then sell to the nobles in Hammilton, the capital of the province of Lockwood. The two finished their baths and went their separate ways, returning to their rooms. Timothy settled down for a, in his opinion, well deserved night’s sleep regardless of what his log file said.
Timothy sat up bolt straight in his bed, awoken by a blood curdling howl that sounded like a cross between a fox barking and a large wolf howling at the moon.
“What the hell is that!” he said to the empty room and threw off the covers.
He raced out of his bed, retrieved his staff and stepped out of the door to his room. The door to the room a few doors down the hall from his opened as well, “Nava, what was that?” Timothy asked.
“A Howler. It has been terrorizing the Dafro farm lately, but they are too strong for anyone in this town to do anything about.”
“Can the two of us take it?”
Nava thought for a moment, “Possibly.”
“Suit up,” Timothy said, smiling to himself, So this is what it is like to be a D&D character or a superhero. This is awesome!
Nava gave him a strange look at his choice of words, but she seemed to understand what he meant and ducked back into her room. It only took a minute for each of them to get dressed and gather their equipment. They met in the hallway again and ran for the stairs and out the front door. The air was cold, very cold, it was colder than Timothy had ever experienced back in Philly, it nearly took his breath away.
“What do you know about these Howlers?” Timothy questioned as he followed Nava through the streets of the small town. The road was paved with cobblestones and snow had been piled up against the sides of the buildings. The cold air was burning his lungs as they ran, Nava was slowing her pace, allowing Timothy to keep up.
Nava looked over her shoulder, “They look like a wolf and a rat had a baby. They stand about four feet tall on all four legs and are nasty, vicious creatures. Generally, they only go after livestock, but they are known to attacks small children and babies if given the opportunity.”
“How many can we expect?”
“They are not pack animals, so usually one. Unless it is a mother teaching her pups how to hunt. Then it can be the mother and two to four pups,” Nava explained.
“Any special attacks we need to watch out for?”
“Claws and bite, that’s it, but they do tend to try and go for the throat.” Nava finished, showing no signs that she was straining herself to talk and run in this cold.
When they reached the end of the main road, they took a hard right onto a dirt side street.
“The Dafro farm is down there,” she said, pointing at the farmhouse about three hundred yards down the street.
“Before we get there I want to cast a spell on you, so pause before we go into the yard,” Timothy told Nava.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Just then another ear-piercing howl came from the yard down the street. It was louder and sounded a bit crazed, if that was possible coming from a wolf-rat. Then there was a thump that sounded like a large animal smashing into a door, accompanied shortly afterwards by claws scratching wood.
They were just outside the yard when Nava stopped, “Now!” she commanded.
Timothy took a deep breath and opened himself up to the magic. He remembered back to reading the description of the spell.
Spell: Armor of the Cosmos
Spell Level: 1
Gem: Purple
Magic Type: Force
Effect: Covers the casters target in a translucent layer of force, shielding them from incoming damage. The amount of damage absorbed is equal to ½ the amount of mana used to create the spell.
Minimum mana: 2
Maximum mana: 20
Damage: None
Overcharge: Yes
Overcharge effect: Add half of the overcharge mana to the absorb damage total.
Timothy thought back to his character sheet. Force was his highest ranked magic type at five, which allowed him to put five mana into the spell. His overcharge capacity was a two, allowing him to put two extra mana into any spell. He decided to dump five mana into the spell and overcharge it by one for a total of six mana, he opened his hand and touched Nava’s arm.
“Primal forces of the universe, offer us your protection,” a semi-transparent haze shimmered over Nava before fading out and turning invisible, effectively giving Nava three extra health.
The thumping stopped and a tense silence filled the air while the two waited just outside the gate. Then they heard it, the crunching sound of howler walking on the snow. The sound emanating from the left side of the house, but the creature remained unseen in the dark, starless night. Then he saw it, red beady eyes rushing at him at blinding speed, with a Crunch, Crunch, Crunch in quick succession as the creature’s paws dug into the snow.
Timothy brought his staff up in front of him in a defensive position, the howler leaped at him, but he sidestepped using the staff to deflect its attack.
“Nava!” Timothy yelled.
Nava’s hand glowed with a brown light when she activated the gem in her glove. She brought her fist down at the beast’s head, but missed when the howler’s momentum carried it past her after the leap.
The snow slowed down the creature’s attempt to turn and face Nava after passing her by. Timothy prepared his first spell, “Bolt of force!” and held out his hand. The bolt shot out of his palm, curving around Nava and struck the howler on the flank.
It grunted and looked at Timothy. Nava used the moment of distraction to strike the howler on the same side that Timothy’s bolt hit it. Her hit landed true, but the creature moved with the hit, minimizing the damage and lining it up with Timothy.
Timothy prepared another spell, the creature was eyeing him up and looked ready to lunge at him, “Shield!” He could feel the magic from the invisible shield between him and the howler, he hoped that it was not able to feel it as well.
The howler leaped at him, claws out and smashed into the shield with a yip of pain, crumbling back to the ground. The shield took a massive amount of damage from the howler’s attack, but it still stood, barely.
Nava came down with a hammer fist on the creature’s back, slamming it into the ground again.
“Holy crap!” Timothy said, “It is still getting up.”
“I told you they were tough,” Nava said with a snarl, “Shut up and fight!”
The howler wrenched its body, contorting to the point where it was able to latch onto Nava’s leg with its maw. The armor of the cosmos spell absorbing most of the damage before fading. Then the beast proceeded to whip its head back and fourth, tearing her leather pants and the flesh underneath. Blood scattered across the white snow, turning the snow a light pink color wherever it landed. Nava grunted in pain.
Timothy saw the amount of blood spread around the two and believed that Nava was in worse shape than she was letting on, he had to get in there and distract the howler. He thought back to another spell.
Spell: Icicle
Spell Level: 1
Gem: Blue
Magic Type: Water
Effect: Creates a blade of ice in the caster’s hand. The strength and sharpness of the blade depends on the amount of mana used to create the blade.
Minimum mana: 1
Maximum mana: 20
Damage: Mana + spell level + strength
Overcharge: Yes
Overcharge effect: 5% chance per mana point to slow a living creature damaged by the blade.
Timothy used his water gem, “Blade of Waylen,” he said and summoned a blade of ice into his hand. He put the maximum amount of mana he could into the cast, two, without overcharging it. With his level and points allocation, he was not able to put any more than two mana into any water-based spell. He also figured that overcharging it was a waste at this level, he could only overcharge any spell with two mana, and a 10% chance was not worth the mana cost.
He stepped around his shield spell and sliced at the howler’s hind quarters. The creature took notice to him at the last second and pivoted away, releasing its grip on Nava.
Nava tried to kick the beast with her good leg, but the injured leg gave out a bit and threw her off balance. She missed.
The howler lunged at Timothy’s throat, but he was able to move his arm in the way and catch the maw with his forearm. The beast bit down, nearly to the bone, a little more pressure and he was sure the beast could have snapped it off. His mind raced when the pain hit him and he screamed, it took all his willpower to not pass out.
He gathered himself enough to realize that his arm with the ice blade was not the one that the howler was biting into. He attempted to plunge the blade into the side of the beast, but he was still dizzy with pain and his attack went high.
Suddenly the beast let go and slammed into the snow cover ground, little puffs of powder plumed out from around it. Nava hand hit it with a heavy blow on the spine, it looked worse for wear, but it was still getting up.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Timothy said with exasperation, “Can they die?”
It nipped at Timothy again, but he was already moving behind his shield spell and it missed.
“Yes,” Nava said. Timothy wasn’t sure if she was going to rip his head off or the howler’s, she was pissed.
Timothy wanted to cast his force bolt spell again, but his mana was running very low, and he wanted to save some mana for healing. He threw the blade at the beast from the safety of his shield. The ice blade flipped end over end toward the howler, straight for the space between the beast’s eyes, when it ducked. Yes, it ducked!
“No fucking way!” He said incredulously.
Nava’s fist smashed into the beast’s head while Timothy stood there dumfounded. Its lifeless body dropped to the ground.
She turned to look at Timothy, “Do you still have mana to heal us? We need to stop the bleeding.”
“Yes,” Timothy replied and started walking towards her.
“Heal yourself first.”
“Um…okay,” Timothy was shocked that she was concerned enough about him to let him heal himself before her. He thought back to his character sheet, he only had four health and it he was still alive he must have at least one hit point left. He then dropped into a short meditation to feel his mana, he was less than half but more than a quarter. He figured he had seven or eight mana points remaining and decided to use three on himself and the rest on Nava.
He chanted the quick healing incantation and his arm fully healed. It was strange to him, the amount of visible damage to his arm looked like it should be far more than three damage.
“D&D rules I guess,” he muttered to himself.
“What was that?” Nava asked.
“Eh, I thought the damage was worse than it was,” he replied and walked over to Nava and knelt down, “Let me see the ankle.”
He said the incantation again and dumped the rest of his mana into the healing spell. The wound healed, looking like one of the comic book characters that had a healing factor. When the healing finished there were a few scratches remaining but nothing to cause concern.
Nava rotated her ankle, testing and looked at Timothy, “Remember when I said you are good in a fight?”
Here it comes, he thought, “Ya,” he said sheepishly.
“You are not,” she said. To Timothy’s surprise she didn’t sound like she was being indignant about it, just direct.
She continued, “Was this your first monster?”
“It was.”
“That is your problem. Monsters, beasts and the like are different than normal people. They are tougher and more dangerous, you should stick behind me and use your spells,” it was as if she was trying to teach him, not admonish him, “Didn’t they teach you this at the college?”
“It’s complicated, but I didn’t attend a college,” just then the two heard the front door to the farmhouse open and a large silhouette encompass the doorway.
“Nava, is that you?” Said a woman’s voice, loud enough to be audible over the cold wind.