On the eve of Renata’s eighth birthday…
*Knock knock* Renata’s door was being knocked as she was rubbing her eyes, today was special, her dad had said to her that she would be going to the city of Barrok today. They would arrive on her birthday as the trip took more than a full day's travel. Renata could simply use her flight spell to reach the destination in only a fraction of the time, but that would create issues. Renata got up out of her bed and spoke. “You can come in Joan”, The door opened and revealed the figure of a young beauty, Joan’s red hair had become more vibrant as she aged, it was a deep crimson shade which was a perfect fit for her now freckled face. Joan was going through a growth spurt and she was a full head above Renata in height.
Renata on the other hand had aged into a delicate flower, her hair was as white as pure snow. Her frame remained slender but she was still formed enough not to appear sickly. Even though it appeared as if a strong breeze would steal her away it would be very wrong to assume so. Over the course of the past few years Renata had raised her skills to impossible levels and she was currently making good progress on unlocking much of her core spell set. Not to say Joan had not progressed in power either, under the strict watchful eye of her little sister she had also raised her spellcasting to a formidable level. Joan had also showed talent in swordplay and with the aid of her father, Ferald, she was not a little girl to be taken lightly.
“Ren, are you ready yet? We’re going now, get dressed. I’m really looking forward to the city. I hope it’s got lots of sweets… are you even listening to me?” Renata was in another world, her mind was yet to fully take in the stark change between sleeping in her bed and being in front of Joan. Joan crossed her arms and started tapping her foot and gave Renata a glare that sparked life and fear into Renata’s motion. She quickly pulled her clothes out of her enchanted storage ring, an upgraded version of her previous that she had personally made after getting a more powerful set of enchanting tools, courtesy of her spell leveling. Oddly enough when she had questioned her father about things like the system shop she was surprised to find out that he, nor anyone else she asked in passing, had ever heard of it. Even when a passing army troop went through the village and she got the chance to ask a battle mage about it, even he was clueless.
Renata put on a concealing outfit like she always wore. She chose to wear a leather jerkin style set with a silk top underneath. She also wore thin black fingerless gloves and leather boots. This was her current most powerful combat set, the whole set was enchanted by rare quality enchantments, the quality after uncommon. The whole set was enchanted for durability and secondarily had another useful enchantment that allowed it to fit the wearer perfectly, very useful for a growing young girl. Renata only wore the set in public seldomly, no one would think it was and an enchanted item and they would just assume that she got it modified from time to time. Renata had been granted a lot of freedom with her herb growing work and she had collected a fairly large amount of coin for her troubles.
The two left the home and jumped onto the back of the horse drawn wagon that was taking Jeral, Joan and Renata to the city. Jeral gave the reins a tug and the horse began trotting down the dirt road into the distance.
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As the trip was long it afforded Renata a lot of time to check up on her current magic progress and allowed her to check up on her current status page.
TITLE : N/A NAME Renata LEVEL 1 RACE Human SUBRACE Demon HEALTH 170/170 MANA 2340/2340 ----------------------------------------------------- INTELLIGENCE 224 STRENGTH 9 WISDOM 218 AGILITY 8 DEXTERITY 35 CONSTITUTION 8 CHARISMA 9 ENDURANCE 18 ----------------------------------------------------- MAGICAL AFFINITY FIRE 0% WATER 0% EARTH 0% AIR 5% LIGHT 5% DARK 0% ORDER 0% CHAOS 15% ----------------------------------------------------- STATUS EFFECTS
Curse of the Split Soul : Born with a soul torn, allowing for multiple primary magical affinities. The mother of a child born with a torn soul will always die during the birth of the child.
Greater Blessing of Kaw'Keth : The God of chaos has blessed this one with a great boon, the soul of this one has been fused with Kaw'Keth's energy.
Renata’s stats had grown rapidly in recent years, pushing her into the territory that would normally be reserved for those who were veterans at magic casting. In fact, having intelligence and wisdom over two hundred was a benchmark that no normal magic student would ever pass. The normal seemed to around the one hundred and fifty range at the time of graduation. Her physical stats on the other hand left much to be desired and they only ever increased when she grew or in the case of endurance, when she set herself on fire while practising. Asking the children around her age in the village Renata had quickly found out that the average for the physical stats was roughly around eight to ten, at adulthood the average seemed to be fifteen. Renata had a head start on dexterity because of her spells which required aiming to practise and also because of the fine movements herbalism required.
One spell in particular required a lot of fine control, *Shrapnel Bolt*. The spell was an extremely powerful weapon, the principle was a clump of highly dense and sharp edged earth magic that was shot through a vacuum using air magic that when it reached it’s target would separate into its finer parts and tear whatever it hit to utter shreds. Renata had chosen this ability because at low levels it was unparalleled in destroying fleshy targets. It was utterly useless for hunting though, as anything it hit would be ruined. Unless of course you wanted to eat rabbit soup.
Renata had prepared three offensive spells, one defencive and two for utility. All for the cause of being ready for the future. After unlocking her tenth spell a year ago she received access to a very useful new tool, something that helped collate her spells, the spell book window. While it didn’t add any real benefit as of yet it was still very good, if she focused on a spell within it she would be reminded of it’s spell formula, very useful if you had a lot of spells that you wanted to stay versed in. Sadly Renata already had an in depth knowledge of each spell in her possession and this feature would only become beneficial if she was learning a new spell.
The road to Barrok was very bumpy, if it could be called a road at all. The road was made of the compacted dirt that was a product of it’s use. Renata opened her spell window next to check up on the progress of her magic. Thankfully the window was easy to read as it was fixed to her vision and not a level point, so it moved with her.
Spell Name Spell Tier Spell Level Mana Mastery N/A 82 (Expert) Air Manipulation Master (IV) 43 (Journeyman) Earth Manipulation Master (IV) 12 (Journeyman) Spell Tap Divine (VII) 31 (Apprentice) Enrich Seed Apprentice (I) 100 (Apprentice) Shield Vortex Sage (V) 87 (Apprentice) Flight Master (IV) 29 (Apprentice) Eagle Eye Journeyman (II) 37 (Apprentice) Concussive Wave Expert (III) 53 (Apprentice) Compressed Wind Slash Expert (III) 64 (Apprentice) Shrapnel Bolt Master (IV) 20 (Journeyman)
Her *Mana Mastery* skill seemed to skirt on the borders of what she considered a spell, a skill and a manipulation. After trial and error Renata had worked out that skills in this world were actually rather non existent. Anything that wasn’t a spell held the suffix of mastery, such as sword mastery, which some of the village guards had. Manipulations of various magical things were merely a subset of spells. This had raised the question as to what exactly mana mastery was. Skills, or masteries, had definite tiers like spells do and as a result so do manipulation spells. *Mana Mastery* was the oddball in this whole equation, everything else had a very easily readable maximum level which corresponded to it’s tier. *Mana Mastery* on the other hand, while seemingly being both a skill and spell acted like neither. It appeared to have no tier, this surprised Renata as she knew that in Zagon that *Mana Mastery* had a limit, a very high limit, but a limit nonetheless.
Putting aside her musings Renata focused on the road, she was facing away from the direction she and Joan were travelling in, giving her a nice view as she went along the dirt road which was parallel to the river. Every so often she would spot an animal taking a drink at the banks or a fisherman sitting on the grass patiently. It was a sunny day now but if she used her *Eagle Eye* spell she could see that in the distance dark clouds were approaching, tonight was going to be cold.
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In front of their cart Jeral saw what seemed to be a group of camping travellers. The day was almost gone and Jeral had thought of stopping soon anyway so he pulled up his cart close to them, gaining their attention. “Who goes there?” bellowed one of the bulkier men in the other group. Renata had turned around and seen that their group was fairly large. There seemed to be in the range of ten to fifteen people there. In reality it was a small caravan. “Jeral of Gehna, may we camp with your group for the night?” The burly man gave Jeral a good look over and turned to talk to a scrawnier man in hushed tones. The scrawny man without much delay dismissed his company and strode towards Jeral at a leisurely pace. “Of course! The more the merrier, I’ve heard tell of a few marauders in these parts, an extra blade would be better to have than not.”
Joan was the first to jump off the cart, she appeared to be in a rough state from the travel, her face was pale from motion sickness. She sprinted off into the nearby treeline on the side of the road. They had entered the forest only recently and as it was a small one it held little danger. The foliage gave some reprieve from the rain that seemed to be gaining force. Renata decided to stay put while Jeral yelled at Joan to not go far from the road.
Renata and Jeral took out the pegs, supports and canvass so they could put up their tents. Thanks to Jeral being a veteran scout he was able to do it in only a few minutes with the help of Renata. Once finished Renata promptly scurried inside of her and Joan’s tent for shelter. Jeral went off towards the other group to talk, telling his daughter to stay put.
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An hour had passed and Renata was still alone, Joan had not returned. Renata was becoming more worried with every second that passed. When she poked her head out and looked to see her she found only the other group and her father, who appeared to be well on the way to drinking all of his coin away, this had been an issue ever since Renata was born. The loss of his wife and the stress of his child wreaked havoc on his mind, Renata didn’t judge him for it as she had seen stronger men break down for lesser issues.
As Jeral was likely of no help in his inebriation, Renata left the confines of her camp and ventured into the forest in the same direction as Joan, activating her shield spell, *Shield Vortex*, and her *Eagle Eye* spell. Both of them had a large mana consumption rate but as she simultaneously casted *Spell Tap* it become a null issue. The principle of *Shield Vortex* was to create an invisible shield that would use powerful air magic to create a vortex of wind powerful enough to deflect anything from projectiles to melee strikes. If a sword was swung into the vortex it would be ripped from the wielder's hand and thrown into the sky, likewise the same would happen to any projectile.
The most glaring weakness of this spell was the hole in the top of the shield, the eye of the vortex, less than a few centimeters wide it was only abusable be someone who knew how the spell functioned. Thankfully the spell always provided a layer of air around the caster so they could breathe. Sadly, any and all sound was blocked from the caster, at least at the low levels of the spell that Renata was still at.
With the help of her enhanced vision due to *Eagle Eye* it was no issue for Renata to follow Joan’s tracks as she walked along, her pace increasing as she went deeper into the unknown. When Renata spotted what appeared to be wolf footprints in the ground she broke into a full sprint following the trail. After a minute of running she spied the corpses of two wolves bled out on the ground. The track kept going and Renata spared no time for admiring what appeared to be the handiwork of Joan’s magic and swordplay.
A short distance from the two fallen wolves Renata spotted the rest of the pack, three other wolves were circling a large tree, they were trying to jump up to the top but were unable due to their frames. Renata spotted Joan, she was on the top of the tree that the wolves were surrounding. With her *Eagle Eye* Renata spotted that Joan was wounded, she had a gash across her left arm. Joan’s short sword was at the foot of the tree, either she dropped it or she had thrown it to the side so she could climb quicker.
Renata cancelled her *Spell Tap* momentarily while she fired off three quick shrapnel bolts. At her current level of *Mana Mastery* she was only able to cast three spells at any time and as she had plenty of mana she chose to remain as combat ready as she could. There was a half second delay between each cast as she took aim, this was not enough time for the wolves to even notice her presence. The spell killed each wolf in one shot as they all seemed to fall over in unnatural fashions.
Joan didn’t notice any of this happen. After a few seconds the absence of growls and barks sparked her curiosity enough that she stole a glance downward. When Joan spotted Renata looking up at her she jumped back in surprise, of course this meant that she propelled herself off the tree branch in a backwards fashion. Renata spared no effort to attempt to catch her, she was fuming that her best friend was stupid enough to go so deep into the forest alone that she got trapped by a pack of wolves.
Renata crossed her arms and began tapping her foot. “So, what do you have to say for yourself?” Joan groaned after her fall. When she looked over to Renata she was filled with energy. While still injured and with a slight limp Joan dashed over to Renata and tackled her to the ground. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I thought the wolves were going to get me! Thank you Ren!” After Renata managed to pry herself out of Joan’s vice like grip, she stood up and dusted herself off she reached into her storage ring and retrieved a healing potion which she handed over to Joan, urging her to drink.
When joan was half way through drinking the concoction Renata pushed the bottom of the bottle upward, forcing Joan to gag, when she finished drinking it Renata flicked Joan’s forehead and have her a menacing glare. “Sorry… can we go back to camp now?” Renata nodded and turned away, Joan followed her as they walked back to camp. Renata was wondering if she had managed to level up her current class, air mage, but after a cursory glance at her class status window it became obvious that she didn’t.
Available Classes (By Rank) Combat Class : Air Mage (Level 1) Rank 1. Earth Mage, Air Mage Non-Combat Class : N/A Subclass 1 : Locked Subclass 2 : Locked Subclass 3 : Locked
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When the two got close to the camp they saw smoke, it was wafting in their direction. When the camp came into sight they both saw a stomach curdling sight. The ground was stained by blood, bodies were torn and destroyed. The smell of blood had been masked by the smoke, but now that they were close the smell of blood had become overwhelming. Renata could almost taste the rusty musk in the area, she quickly told Joan to get down as she prepared herself once more for battle. With her *Shield Vortex* up Renata strode a few paces toward the fire until she saw a group of men, men who were not there when she left the camp. These men were dressed in ragged clothes, their blades coated in a thick layer of blood. They were bandits, true scum. Whatever fight they had was now over, they were in the process of picking through the boxes and pockets of the dead. In total there seemed to be roughly ten bandits still standing, several appeared to be dead along with the others. Renata's heart skipped a beat when she thought of her father, Jeral. He was here when she left, her mind was shattered and her world began to break apart.
Renata had been leaning on her father, for food, for shelter and for love. The thought that he was gone was hard to think of. Regardless of her emotions, Renata pulled herself out of her stupor, she had issues that she had to deal with. The bandits felt secure after their fight, they did not expect a little girl to be prowling in the shadows, they did not understand what was happening as they each began to fall one by one. All they heard was a high pitched whistling sound followed by a vomit inducing squelching noise as one of their compatriots fell to the ground. In only a few seconds they were all dead, only a couple managed to draw their swords in time but none even managed to locate their assailant. Renata was in no mood to take prisoners as she mercilessly took each bandit out, one by one.
After the last one fell she walked to the center of the road and began scanning the surrounding area with her *Eagle Eye*. In the bushes between the trees she spotted another trembling bandit, he appeared to drawing a bow and aiming it in her direction. Before he even knew what hit him he was dead, his heart torn to shreds by Renata's *Shrapnel bolt*. When Renata was satisfied that all of the bandits had been dispatched she cancelled her shield and walked back over to Joan. Joan was shaking, she was unable to comprehend what had happened, much less what was happening. When Renata knelt down she embraced Joan in a hug, her arms refusing to let go, she never wanted to let go, ever.
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After an indiscernible amount of time had passed the two separated, Renata's arms were almost locked into position because of how long she stayed static. Joan was still petrified. Even though Joan's body refused to move it was easy to see her eyes darting from place to place. With Renata out of her line of sight she was given a view of the burning carnage in front of her. the wood from the carts and the cloth from the tents was smoldering, some of the bodies had even been caught in the blaze. Renata stood above Joan while stealing a gaze at her, she had no idea what going through her friend's mind at this moment, she had no idea how she was comprehending it all. Renata decided that she would have to intervene, for Joan's sake.
"They're dead, all of them. Bandits, they're dead too." Joan shook slightly at Renata's voice, Joan looked up to see her friend illuminated by the flames. "I'm going to find my dad." Renata walked into the nightmare and began searching, before long she found him there, his eyes vacant, his body pale and bloodied. Renata searched around for some cloth that had survived the fire and she wrapped him in a spare tent tarp. The cart they came in on had been spared from the fires too, Renata took all of the boxes off of the cart and hefted up the body of her father, it was terribly difficult for her frame but after a few minutes of struggling she managed it. The horse was long gone, she would have to pull the cart herself. Renata lifted up one of the shafts used for attaching it to the horse and she tried to pull. Renata pulled with all her might, her face contorting, her skin turning red. With a final wheezing grunt she gave up and dropped the shaft, but it did not fall. Renata looked to her left and saw Joan holding it up with the other shaft. The two looked into each other's eyes before Joan nodded. Renata once more pulled but this time the cart began moving, the wheels had motion.
The two pulled the cart night and day for what seemed like a dreamy eternity. all of the muscles in both of their bodies had long since given in, their bones ached and their vision was fleeting at best. They kept going, even when the rain tried it's very best to stop them by trapping the wheels in muddy ground. They kept going regardless of how much their bodies urged them to stop. When Renata sighted the image of the village she gave in, collapsing. Joan did the same when Renata gave in, making the cart weigh just that slight bit more for her body to not be able to continue on. Renata’s face was stoic, the rain masked her tears.