Zach walked around the small hamlet to find that Andy had returned to his fields. Andy seemed bent over with a large burlap sack as he reached into it and spread dry dirt about the wheat. As Zach neared Andy he realized that the sack didn’t contain dirt, but compose from the strong stench. “Ah, welcome lad. Come out to lend me a hand with spreading these shit for the crops?”
It was then that Zach realized the mistake he had made coming to Andy in the field. “Ummmm, sure, do you have another sack?” Andy pointed off in a direction and Zach went to retrieve the fertilizer at the edge of the field. Slinging the sack over his shoulder, he came out close to the location of Andy and started flinging the small dark warm dirt. “So I have been thinking about the job, and I would like to take the position.”
Andy nodded, “You need to grab a little less and shake it prior to flinging it to break up the clumps.” Taking a step, Andy repeated the process that he just described to Zach. “Well, I will tell Milly at supper that she has a new worker.” Looking up he realized that Andy was done speaking and continued to work. It took a few minutes when Andy began to sing in a loud clear baritone. The song was about weather and fields, how farmers struggled since the beginning of time to clear land, plant and reap. By the third stanza Zach was able to start singing the refrain and quickly three hours of work past.
Zach’s hands were stained black with bits of fertilizer still on them, but as the sky started to darken both Andy and him had completed the entire field. Grabbing the now empty burlap sack from Zach, Andy spoke. “Ya, did good today lad. When I was your age I set out in the world to become a great hero, turning my back on field work and simple life. I was 16 and in love with the miller’s daughter. My grimoire had just appeared the day before and as an adult I packed up all my money and went to the miller to show him what I was worth. He picked up my sack of copper pennies and told me that if I wanted I could marry his horse for the bride price I brought him. Ashamed and angry at the man, I spent my Divine Points on a sword skill and a scaling blade. I took off in the night for the nearest dungeon town to make my way in the world.”
“Its strange the things you do because your angry. I was on the road for three weeks until I made it to the Harock’s Lair, and the thing I remember most about the town wasn’t walls or grand buildings, it was mana beast pets that people were walking around with. See if you could beat the fifth level boss of Harock’s Lair, it would give you a small fairy dragon as a pet. So Adventurers that already had the pet would sale extra’s in the open market. Still I remember seeing this tiny dragon with rainbow colored wings zipping around in the open market.”
“Anyway, there I am in my first dungeon town. Clothes dirty from the road, half starved from lack of food, I walk up to the dungeon entrance and find out that theirs a fee to enter.” Andy laughed. “See most dungeon towns charge to enter their dungeons because the loot you can get out of it can make you quiet powerful. I didn’t have the coin, so I tried to find a job and without skills or spells I was forced to the street. Two years I lived in the gutter learning how to use my sword and living off scraps, I fought other boys and girls for food and shelter every night. Soon I found work as a pit fighter in the slums, at least there I didn’t have to fight other people, I just had to fight escaped monsters and mana beasts brought up from Lair. Slowly, I gained experience and mana, until finally a few Adventurers asked me to come along.”
Andy turned a serious look to Zach and spoke in a deadly calm manner. “Their plan was to use me and Mylaela Olodithas or Milly as bait for the eight level boss. See the boss was a two headed hydra that you had to strike through the heart to kill it, and you could do that easily if the two heads were munching on the corpses of your party members. But do you know what the first lesson of dungeon diving is?” Zach shook his head in complete bewilderment.
“Never lose your head, because when you panic facing a mana beast, your as good as dead. Me and Milly realized that they were going to kill us when we passed the fifth level. Their plan was simple, keep us in the back with the healer and mage until they needed us. It was easily explained that we would experience and mana for the party kills while being safe with their magical support, but no one does anything for free in a dungeon. We choose to strike at the seventh level boss, I pulled my weapon and sliced the healer’s throat as he was trying to cast a healing spell on their warrior. Milly summoned fire in the face of their mage as he tried to scream a warning to the others, but with the mage and healer dead we fled out of the boss’s room upward. We escaped Harock’s Lair that day, the other divers didn’t.”
Andy drew quiet as he washed his hands in the rain barrel that was next to his cabin. Zach stood their quiet as he realized that he just heard Andy confess to killing another group of adventurers in self-defense. Dunking his head in the water, Andy came back up wet and smiling. “That’s why I work the fields. I remember what I had to do to survive down in that dungeon and the town. For every hero that comes out of a dungeon there are a hundred more that have died.”
Zach wondered what Andy was getting at, was this a tale of what Milly and him were capable of? Or was this a tale to persuade him to stay in the village? He began to scrub his hand in the rain barrel and wondered if he couldn’t introduce indoor plumbing or at least public baths. Though this might clean off his hands it didn’t seem up to his modern standards as sanitary living conditions.
Then again he just spent a month out in the wilderness without a real bath except for a few cold streams. Zach felt a rough hand slap him on the back. “Come on Zach, we need to head in.”
Zach and Andy went into the cabin to find Milly and a young half elf maiden. Milly seemed to raise a paper thin blonde eyebrow as she saw Zach. Pausing in her movements, she lifted up another clay plate and gave it to the younger maiden. As the girl walked over to Zach, her blondish brown hair seemed perfectly in place as a look of fine anger stained her angular face.
For a moment Zach felt like he was back in high school, seeing the head cheerleader walk down the hall to ask him for help on her math homework. However, instead of some cheerleader uniform the girl was dressed in emerald green blouse and leather pants. Her pants seemed to be fitted to her frame, as she walked to the table and allowed the clay dish to clatter at and additional place sitting. “Alexa!” Milly hissed, “You break that dish and I will make you summon an earth elemental to replace it.” It wasn’t till Zach saw the anger on Milly’s face that he realized Alexa was her daughter.
Milly took a deep breath and regained her composure. Her hands flowed down the blue robes that remained Zach of some kind of Kimono with a much simpler chain belt. “Andy, I see we have a guest for dinner. Zach, this is our daughter Alexa. Alexa, Zach received his majority recently and has decided to become an Artificer. Perhaps you could talk to him about your training while I speak with your father.”
Zach saw Andy walk over to Milly as Alexa brought a wooden bowl of what looked like sweet potatoes to the table. Zach peeled his eyes away from the hushed conversation that Andy and Milly were having to Alexa who seemed to sit down in a graceful flop or perhaps huff, whatever it was Zach knew that he wasn’t welcomed in the cabin at the moment. Picking up a pitcher, Alexa looked at Zach for a moment and poured herself a cup of water. “So you’re the intruder we had today, you don’t look like much of an Artificer. You don’t look like much of anything.” Alexa said as she picked up her cup and took a sip from it.
Zach smiled slightly, he might have been a socially awkward computer programmer, but what his additional 30 years of life on earth had taught him was never raise to the bait. Coughing briefly, he reached for the pitcher of water and poured himself a cup of water as well. Taking a sip of the tepid water, he made a show that Alexa’s comment didn’t bother him. “So your mother said you are in training, what’s that like?”
Alexa smirked and with a slight nod spoke again, “When we get up there are some chores in the fields, but afterwards Father has us go through our weapon forms. James works with knives and batons, I work with short blades and shields. Since James has reached his majority, he goes on with Mother to cultivate and attune himself. He is currently working on becoming a healer, I review cultivation techniques as well as fighter skills. Closer to the end of the day we all go to the glade and sit to mediate on our lessons.”
Zach nodded as his eyes began to wonder away from Alexa’s eyes. In fact, if it wasn’t for the bump that jostled his elbow on the table, Zach probably would have been caught staring at Alexa. Andy had sat down placing a large steaming pot in the middle of the table, as Zach saw Milly place the city core once again in a cup. Milly gave Zach a tight lipped smile and spoke, “As part of daily duties we invest all the ambient mana that we have gained back into the city core every day. Since Alexa hasn’t reached her majority she can’t participate, but we were hoping that you would join us Zach?”
Zach swallowed and nodded. Milly and Andy brought up their hands to grip and form an almost prayer circle. Unsure, Zach gently placed his hand in theirs and Milly started. “Ok Zach, have you ever focused on your mana pool?” Zach told Milly that he had, so she went continued. “Then close your eyes and go there please.”
******
Zach first felt the rocky outcropping under his feet as he opened his senses to his mana pool. The outcropping had grown from a small patch of dirt and rock to one that could have supported a nice garden. Looking around he realized that the shadows seemed to move on their own. Softly Andy’s voice called out to him as if he was from a great distance. Turning around Zach saw two great lands hovering in the void. Zach saw Andy waving from what looked like a large desert land, where the ground was scorched from heat and sun. Rusted and broken weapons littered the landscape as Andy began walk towards him. Slowly, the great scorched land that could have been fifty miles across came closer and closer to Zach, until it finally touched his patch of land. It took a moment for Andy to finally get close to the boundary of their two lands, but as he did so Zach saw the man dressed in heavy leather armor wrapped with metal chains and knifes. Zach felt like it was almost a scene out of the movie with Mad Max. Except as Andy got closer he realized that the chains on his armor moved on their own accord.
“Well met Zach, not a bad little mana pool you have. Once you a Milly spend some time cultivating it will get better.” Andy pointed off to the second land. As Zach looked out over the void he saw a land that held an elder forest deep and lush with life. Just from the distance Zach knew it looked to be a hundred or more miles across, and even had a blue sun blazing above it. “It would be easier for us to move closer, would it be alright if I tie you to my pool for a moment and move us.”
Zach nodded and then saw great heavy chains break from the ground and wrap themselves about Zach’s small patch of land. “Andy! What are you doing?” The tremors from chains shook Zach side to side. “Ah don’t worry their lad, this is all part of ritual magic. We must connect our mana pools in the void and then Milly can focus all our ambient mana into the city core.” By this time Zach could feel both his and Andy’s mana pools moving towards the vast forest which was Milly’s land.
“Andy, I don’t get it. Why must we be connected? And why does your land look like a dessert of death? And ambient mana, I thought I had to cultivate it?” Zach fell to his knees as the land began to accelerate faster. The heavy chains around his small patch of land rattled like the sound of a train.
Zach could see Andy look over at him as beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. “Lad, you got shit for timing. Ambient Mana is the amount you have at all times. You Cultivate Mana to increase your mana pool or attune yourself to elements.” Stopping for a few moments, Zach could feel the rocky ground under him slow down as Andy seemed to be making a hand gesture. “In order for a group to cast magic or pool their mana together, their pools need to be connected. Since your not really attuned to any element yet, I have to link your pool to mine with your permission, and that’s all I know. If you want more information on ritual magic you will need to talk to Milly.”
Finally, both Zach’s and Andy’s lands moved at a crawl, and as Zach stood up he saw that Milly’s mana pool dwarfed both of theirs. “As far as, why mine looks like a desert battle is due to several reasons. Basically, I am attuned to Fire, Earth, and Death as my elements. I attuned myself to them because they offered the best class powers for me, changing my mana pool into a harsh broken desert. I originally choose Swordsmen as my first class, but fighting in the pits allowed me to Multiclass until I became a Weapons Master that specialized in Chains. In order, for you to gain Class Powers tests will appear in your mana pool to unlock them. These broken weapons and armor are all that remain of my tests.”
As Andy finished his last words the lands gently bumped into one another and the mighty chains crossed the distance where they were met by thick green vines. The vines as large as a person began to sprout smaller stalks that interwove with the old rusty chains, making a strong connection between all three lands. For a moment, Zach looked up and saw a huge blue glowing ball that now hovered over all three lands. Inside of it runes began to glow and dance and as he stood there a small movement at the corner of his eye made Zach break his concentration and look towards it. Standing at the edge of her land was Milly, dress in a regal dress with silver jewelry. To Zach, she looked like a true elven queen from fantasy novels waiting to take him to some tree citadel.
Milly smiled gently at Zach and said, “Alright Zach focus on the glowing blue ball, it’s the City Core. Merely move your hands out like you are trying to touch it. That opens the mana tap, as soon as you start feeling tired lower your arms.” Surprised at the simplicity of what she was telling him, Zach followed the instructions. Zach raised both of his arms trying to stretch himself towards the City Core and for a moment Zach felt and saw nothing happen. The little paranoid voice inside of him suggested that Milly was laughing at him. However, when he looked down he started to see black inky darkness coil around his feet and move up his body to his arms.
Keeping his stance, Zach began to silently freak out as the darkness coiled around his arms and hands until it leapt from his palm floating up into the City Core. Surprise he looked towards Andy, but the man was caught up in his own channeling as Red, Grey, and Brown glowing energy went up about him.
Soon it wasn’t long until Zach began to feel the drain of mana from his pool, and slowly he lowered his arms. Once they were down, all the energies about him fell away to the ground, and Zach simply stared at Milly with her multicolored bits of energy float onward to the City Core. Green, White, Brown, Red and Blue energies floated upward in a stream that was as wide as Zach was thick. Runic circles turned pulling the energies forwards and then dividing them amongst various rune inscribed pathways. Zach stared looking at the mana floating into different areas being refined or filling some kind of arcane reseviour. Finally Milly settled down her arms and the stream was cut off. The blue engine began twisted and moved until a small flecks of light floated downward. In front of the three, a giant 3D map of a beautiful city came to life, a giant keep was in the center of the city, while large avenues and scenic parks dotted the city.
Smiling at the city, Milly spoke, “Every night Andy and Myself get to see the hypothetical perfect city that our core can grow. The keep is actually a large magical school and government building, we choose during the founding of the city to have it govern by a council.” Milly then pointed to a large plaza of marble statues and a large intricate runic circle. “There is where our teleportation circle will be, see how the large circle allows for carts and wagons to be perfectly aligned with the Marketplace Avenue? What about the small rings around it to allow for individuals travel?”
Smiling she began to look at other points of interest, then with a sigh she waved her hand and the city shrunk back down to nothing more than the sod huts and a few log cabins. With a simple gesture Milly zoomed in the map to a small plot of land next to their cabin. A small wooden shack appeared with large rock outcropping behind it.
“I am afraid it isn’t much, but in a few days we can raise enough mana to summon the hut and then you can began to work on it with your golem once you summon it. Speaking of which the rock slab is there so you can carve in your first summoning circle.” Milly smiled, but Zach felt like he had been just killed in the crotch. True, he had been sleeping on hard dirt with just a bit of canvas over his head to protect him from the rain, but was a dirty little hut better? Somehow he had thought he would have gotten a log cabin or even a small cottage.
Swallowing his pride, Zach thought back to all those wet cold nights and realized that a small wood hut was more than the sod huts that the majority of the hamlet was made of. Nodding, Zach spoke, “Thank you, Milly, that is very kind of you. You will have to tell me who I can talk to about getting a bed made.”
Milly smiled, “Excellent! Farmer Geraldson has the skill of Carpentry and should be able to craft you something. Now I know time passes more slowly here, but we really need to get back to dinner.”