1. Hagi
“Hagi, watch out!” Serina called, but I had already raised my shield to catch the thrown stone axe. I didn’t turn around to look at the gnoll that had thrown it, I was focused on the three that I was tanking. The [Mage] should have kept that other one [Polymorphed], but the timer had run out and it had gotten loose for a few seconds. Fortunately it had still been targeted on me and not the healer. Although, then again, we were only level fifteen, so it’s not like she couldn’t take a hit or two.
I was operating incognito. I guess Hagl means Hail? It was a pseudonym someone suggested for me a while back. I didn’t quite like that, but it gave me the idea for Hagi. Between the pseudonym, the fact that I was a Warrior now (at least temporarily), and the illusion magic making me look like an average blond teenager from Earth, it was very unlikely that my new friends had any idea who I was.
“Azarath, get that jerk back under control,” Lyle, our leader, shouted. Azarath mumbled the spell for [polymorph], flubbing it, but the system was forgiving at this level and the stone-thrower gnoll turned into a platypus.
I would have never let that happen , I thought to myself. But I don’t have magic in this class .
The mace and shield were unfamiliar in my grip. Not heavy. My strength in this class, with my [Hauberk of Strength] (+3 Strength), Mace of Skullsplitting (+4) and Gloves of Minor Strength (+3), totaled up to 41, with the majority of it being just my baseline stats. I was dressed like a scrub, wearing gear that was mostly uncommon. Not even rare. And some of it was left over from level five.
That didn’t matter. I crushed the skull of one of the Gnoll Hunters that I was tanking, but the Trickster took the opportunity to try to sneak away. I turned, stunning it for a second with a [Shield Bash] before using Furious Strike three times in a row, burning through two thirds of my anger but dealing critical damage each time. The Gnoll Shanker shanked me, but between my high armor rating and health pool (at least compared to when I had been a spellblade), he didn’t do nearly enough damage to threaten me.
I used [Crushing Impact], fueled by Energy instead of Anger to finish off the wounded Trickster. The Shanker kept cutting me, but the Hunter had run off to try to line up a bowshot and I [Charged] him, leaving the Shanker to chase after me. He never made it to me, as the damage from Lyle’s spear, Azarath’s lightning, and the damage I had caused it earlier caused it to puff into black smoke.
Turning the [Charge] into a [Shield Bash], I stunned the Hunter and finished him off, draining the last of my Anger with repeated [Crushing Impacts]. It, too, vanished. Everything except for the stone thrower was dead, so I [Charged] that next, breaking the [Polymorph], but not doing too much damage to it. I was low on Energy and Anger. Anger I could generate almost infinitely while being attacked, assuming I didn’t die, but Energy refilled slowly based on my Endurance stat.
Fortunately I didn’t need to keep aggro long, as the other four members of the group, including our healer, Samara, smote it into mist seconds later.
“You’ve got to get better at timing your polymorphs, Az,” Lyle scolded. “That one got free for way too long.”
“Whatever. We didn’t need to CC anything in the first place. It was a waste of time,” Azarath argued.
“I’m very new to tanking,” I reminded them. “I don’t feel comfortable being responsible for more than three at a time.”
“Yeah, well, get better then,” Az suggested.
“Want to trade jobs?” I asked.
“Please. I’ll never be a meathead. Magic is where the fun happens.”
I smiled, because he was right. Unfortunately, I was stuck leveling [Warrior] until level thirty due to the mechanics of my [Placeholder] class. Or rather, that was one of the many paths which I had decided on for myself.
Besides, it was interesting to learn how the system worked for other classes. I’d never known that Warriors all had two resources they needed to balance. One that started high, regenerating slowly (Energy), and another that you generated constantly throughout the fight (in my current case, Anger). I’d always thought that they just hit stuff as soon as their abilities came off cooldown, but it was both more complicated and simpler than that.
I stepped over to the lair stone that the gnolls had been guarding. I reached out and, for a moment, I considered touching it. Just out of curiosity. But no. That would be bad. I was incognito in enemy territory, and they wouldn’t be too happy if I started modifying or destroying their lairs without permission. Especially when the last Lair I’d destroyed had resulted in a stable portal to the Deadlands.
“Hagi? Is something wrong?” Serina asked when I’d been tuned out of the conversation for a moment.
“Hm? Oh, nothing.”
“Oh crap. My mom just tapped the wakeup button. I’ve got like two minutes before I’m pulled out of game,” Azarath complained. “Sorry guys, I’ll try to stick around longer next time.”
“It’s fine, we’ll just replace you,” Lyle said, his voice completely even. Serina had explained that Lyle was autistic, and probably wouldn’t even realize that Az might be offended.
“Oh fuck you man,” Az said, and he started to go on a tirade, but then he was pulled out of game in a flash of blue lights.
“What did I say?” Lyle asked, genuinely curious.
“I’ll explain it later,” Serina promised. “Anyway, I should get going too. My boyfriend is bringing home sushi tonight, and we need to argue about what movie we’re going to watch before he gets here.”
“If everyone’s leaving, then I’m going to log out,” I said.
“No, wait,” Lyle argued, “We have you and Wren, a tank and healer. We can replace our DPS easily. Let’s keep grinding, we just have to pop into LFM for a minute.”
“My target was to hit level fifteen,” I informed him. “I’ve done that. I’m going to log out now. It was fun playing with you, Lyle. I’ve got you guys starred on my contacts list. Sorry that it doesn’t go the other way, my mom is super paranoid about people finding out who I really am.”
“Mkay then, it’s been fun,” Wren said, and she logged out too. I was a moment behind her, entering the space between worlds. Or the lobby. Whichever you want to call it.
“Display class status,” I called, and the new menu popped up.
Name
Hail Jeoran
Active Classes
Age
15
Class
Level
Race
Human (blood of the travelers)
Lord
9
Class
Placeholder level 5
Acolyte
4
Experience
0/500,000
Mage
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
7
Job
Earl
Warrior
15
Titles
Dungeon Master I
Archer
4
Veteran of Mooncrest Manor
Free Points
Veteran of The Battle for North Shire
Experience
67,842
Stats
23
Skills
7
I had gained about fifty thousand free experience leveling [Warrior] from level one to level fifteen, thanks to [Rebirth Resonance], which I had gained after my death at the hands of Nial Kingslayer. I had been furious, at the time, when my level was reset to one and my [Spellblade] class was locked.
Now, I am just angry that nothing was explained until afterward.
Placeholder isn’t a class on Lagrea. Instead, it forces me to choose to make one of the many basic classes available to me active before returning to my world. I started with only one slot, which was occupied by level 1 Lord. However, I had a whole ton of experience, which Thomas the Administrator explained was being given to me as compensation for taking away my [Spellblade] class. Which, he explained, was really my [Child] class with restrictions applied. Unfortunately, the only thing I could do with all of that experience was level [Placeholder] to level five.
I could apply free experience to any of my other classes, and it was the only way to level [Placeholder] itself. I was frustrated about starting over, but having access to multiple classes was almost enough to justify it.
I still don’t understand why it was necessary to set me back so far, and I’m at the point where thinking about it just makes me angry, so I try not to think about it too much. I’m just trying to make my new system work for me. The administrators have promised me that they’re not going to do this to me again, although I have my suspicions about the veracity of their word.
Lord was automatically selected as my first class without my input. I had chosen acolyte as a disguise, as I didn’t think anyone would look at a healer and think “Oh, there’s Hail Jeoran.” And I was right. But now I regret wasting one of those precious slots, because it will take me half a million free experience to level [Placeholder] again to earn another.
I sighed, assigning the maximum amount of free experience that I could to [Lord] and [Mage] with a sense of defeat. With [Rebirth Resonance], I gain normal experience on the class that I’m active in at the moment, and then twice that amount applied into my free experience bank. However, I couldn’t raise a class above my maximum level class, capping [Lord] and [Mage] at level fifteen, just like Warrior.
I can still fight like I did as a [Spellblade] as a [Lord]. I can, in fact, cast any magic and use any weapon skill that I have learned with that class. However, I suffer reduced stats. My mana is halved compared to what it should be, and I don’t gain spell damage from Dexterity and Intelligence anymore. I don’t regenerate mana like I did as a [Spellblade] with [Battle Trance], so casting magic from afar is almost pointless. It is worthwhile to imbue my weapons while engaging in combat, and I can be dangerous in melee combat. But I only seem to gain one attack power per point of Strength, and one per point of Dexterity.
The handicap that [Lord] suffers from that frustrates me the most is how difficult it is to level. It gains only thirty percent experience compared to what most classes earn in combat! It’s faster to earn free experience as another class and apply it to [Lord] than it is to level [Lord] directly! I had battled with that reality for a long time, reaching level nine despite the handicap, before accepting it and selecting other classes to try.
Mage had been okay. Warrior had been fun. Archer had been … it had been a while since I’d held a bow, and it will take me some time to get used to it again. I was leveling [Warrior] first because I needed it to unlock [Duelist], but I had to reach level thirty for that. After Duelist, I could unlock [Spellblade] once more at level sixty
I slumped in defeat into my old bed, back in the copy of my childhood home in Zhesa Castle. I decided to do something I hadn’t done for a while. I prayed. Sort of.
“Thedum, are you listening?” I asked.
“To you? Always, until you ask me to stop,” Thedum answered.
“Why is this happening to me?” I asked. “Everything I try to do to make things better makes things worse. I thought that inflicting the curse upon Nial Kingslayer would give me some closure, but now things are worse than ever. Without my combat power, I am less certain than ever about putting my brother on the throne.”
“I understand why you feel that,” Thedum responded, “but in this case, it is quite the opposite. Your duel with the Kingslayer was masterful, and the Administrators have rewarded you with a suitable trophy. One which, if used properly, might ensure your victory in all of the battles to come.”
I paused at his prediction. “Okay, you’re going to have to explain that one.”
“They gave you [Placeholder] and [Lord]. Allowing you to choose a different class anytime you wish is an advantage that the Travelers had over you, and [Placeholder] allows you to overcome that obstacle with or without changing your identity. And [Lord] will be especially potent in the battles which you will face shortly.”
“How does watering down [Spellblade] and making it impossible to level help me?” I challenged, shouting at the ceiling.
“They didn’t give you a watered down [Spellblade],” Thedum answered patiently. “They made you half a [Spellblade] and half a [King]. As for leveling it, well, did you not just go from level nine to level fifteen in an instant?”
That made me stop for a moment and open my menu again. I selected my [Lord] skillbook. It was the more complicated than the other classes because it included all of my [Spellblade] skills, but at the bottom were “Free Actions,” which I could use without expending mana. Or Energy, since [Lord] also required Energy for its active melee attacks instead of relying on cooldowns as [Spellblade] had.
Free Actions
Noble Insight
Able to discern the motivations of others. Performs reputation checks on Players. On NPC’s, shows alliance and various details. On enemies, shows weaknesses and strengths.
Decree
Grants party and raid members Effectivity bonus from spoken commands. Effectivity depends upon Charisma, skill level and completion of the task.
Noblesse Oblige
Increase stats of all allies pledged to the noble while in range. Range determined by charisma, visibility, and Morale
Loyalty
While serving sworn overlord faithfully, gain’s access to Mandate of Heaven ability.
Mandate of Heaven
Increase Healing, Spell Power, and Attack Power of all allies in range by 50% of charisma.
I scrutinized the Free Actions list closely, trying to decide whether or not they were worth sacrificing my personal DPS in order to boost my allies. I remained undecided as I fell asleep.