Name: Viola
Occupation: Runaway
Species: Human
Level: 1/100
Alignment: Unerringly-positive
Faction: The Runaways’ Club
Viola walked through the gate to the town in the woods. After wandering around aimlessly for nearly two weeks, she had somehow ended up here. At this point, she was glad to have found civilisation again. It might have been hasty, but she had run away from home with only enough supplies for a week, after her parents had forced her into a marriage with a horrid old farmer.
As she collapsed onto the ground of the forest town, a man with big eyes and lips, as well as scaly rubbery skin, came over to her and handed her a loaf of bread. He wore a white priest’s robe and seemed to genuinely worry about her.
“Come to worship?” he asked, his voice heavily-accented as though a fist-sized ball of phlegm was stuck in his throat.
“I’m just looking to find a job,” Viola answered, though in truth it was far from what she truly wanted.
The Priest shrugged and left. She stared at him leaving for a moment, then took a bite out of the bread. It was both soft and chewy in equal measure and was the best damn thing she’d ever ingested. It was nothing like the stale hardtack they made at home in her village. But maybe the taste was also exaggerated by her days of starving, having eaten nothing but forest mushrooms and leaves.
I could really go for some meat though… she thought to herself as she began walking down the main avenue of the big town.
In the distance, an enormous tree spread its drooping branches over a magnificent castle built from gleaming stone. It looked like an oak, but with the branches of a weeping willow. It was so massive a landmark that she’d been able to follow it through the forest to this place. It wasn’t her first time exploring the Silken Forest and she could have been certain that no people lived within it just a year prior.
As she walked past uniform houses, she eventually found what looked like a marketplace. People, all with rubbery skin, big eyes and lips, and some with scales, ran back-and-forth or carted items to-and-from other parts of the city.
The scent of roasting meat instantly drew her over to a grill atop a firepit, where a man, who looked identical to the priest, minus the scales, was flipping what looked like enormous frog legs over flaming coals. It smelled absolutely divine, so she asked to receive one of the enormous legs.
The grill-man held out a hand and she wondered what he was asking her, but then remembered she had brought some coins that she had stolen from her parents. She gave him one of the tin ones that was enough to buy bread in her village, but the man took it and looked at it weirdly, before extending his hand again.
Someone else, a little chubby black boy who stood on the back of a large mustard-yellow toad, put a copper coin into the palm of the grill-man and she was handed her enormous grilled frog leg and got to keep her tin coin.
“We use Toakens in this town,” he explained. He looked incredibly tired and had a naturally-jaded expression and way of speaking that made her wonder if he wasn’t way older than his appearance showed.
“I’ve never heard of that currency before,” she replied. “But thank you. I was starving.”
The boy nodded and then handed her a linen sack that clinked with coins. “I’ll trade you this for whatever kind of coins you have.”
It seemed a fair deal to her, so she gave him the six tin coins and eight iron chips and single silver coin with a hole in it.
“You want a ride?” he asked, patting the back of his large toad that he was standing atop of. Even standing on its back, Viola was still taller than him.
She had been warned about men asking her to get into their carriages or on the back of their horses, but she was unsure if it extended to small chubby boys asking her about getting on the back of their unnaturally-large toads.
“Okay,” she answered and climbed onto its back.
As they hopped down through the city, she pulled chunks of meat off the frog leg and swallowed them with voracious fury.
“This is delicious! The bread from here was great too! Is all food in this city this tasty.”
“If you don’t question where it comes from… then yes. Our vegetables are quite flavourful too. We have a few types of fruit as well, like melon and gooseberries.”
“Where can I get those?”
“There’s a general store nearby.”
“Is that where we’re going?”
“No, I’m taking you to a well.”
“A well? Why?”
“Aren’t you thirsty?”
Viola had a quick thought and realised that, yes, she was parched.
“How did you know?”
The Boy tapped the side of his head knowingly. “I have a sense for these things. After all, I have watched hundreds perish from lack of food and drink.”
“That’s grim.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“You bet. But, fortunately, things are mostly better now.”
As she finished the last bit of meat on the frog leg, the Boy asked if he could have the bones for his mount. She wondered if a toad, even one so big, would fancy bones, but it turned out that the mustard-yellow ‘Goldie’ was quite a fan of the marrow within and she crunched the bones to powder in her big rubbery-soft mouth.
“My name’s Imuxikwiht by the way,” the Boy told her as he helped her off the back of the toad. “But you can just call me Imu.”
“I’m Viola.”
“Well, Viola. What’s your dream job?”
She thought about it for a bit, twiddling her silver hair. “I think I want to be a wizard.”
“A wizard, ey?”
Imu handed her a coin. This one was made of pure gold. Never before had she held something so valuable in her hands. With this one coin she could have bought every house and farming plot in her village and still had enough leftover to pay for a hundred servants to do everything she asked.
“Throw that in the well over there and wish to become a wizard,” he told her. She almost wanted to tell him that it would be a waste of something so extremely valuable, but, there was an aura of certainty and trust about him that she couldn’t deny.
She cupped the golden coin between her hands and held it up to her forehead, imbuing it with every fragment of her desire, then she flipped it from her thumb so that it spun end-over-end towards the well. It landed short, hitting the stone rim, before hopping into the water with a heavy splash.
Viola quickly ran over and peered down into the dark water, seeing her green eyes reflected back up at her and the twinkling flawless golden coin spinning as it plummeted deeper-and-deeper.
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Mandatory Wishing Well Quest: Ensure ‘Viola’ becomes a Wizard!
“Is this why you wanted me to build the Wizard’s Academy?” I asked Imu. I’d hovered next to him as he accompanied the strange-looking young girl through my settlement.
Check out her status-screen now, he told me through his thoughts.
Sure enough, when I inspected her with Appraisal again, her status had changed.
Name: Viola
Occupation: Aspiring Wizard
Species: Wish-Blessed Human
Level: 1/100
Alignment: Unerringly-positive-and-wish-blessed
Faction: The Wishing Well Blessed Individuals Anonymous
“I didn’t realise my wells had this power,” I remarked.
All wells can do this, though, when a wishing coin is tossed into a well that is in the territory of a Core, you basically have no choice but to fulfil it. Granted, there’s a popular trend of twisting a person’s wish, but if you do that, I will ensure you regret it.
He seemed rather serious about making sure this random silver-haired girl became a wizard. I hadn’t even though of subverting her genuine wish though, as that seemed something only a monster would do.
“Who would even want to mess with someone else’s wish? Isn’t that super evil?”
A lot of the Cores that serve Lady Light have a habit of perverting the wishes so they somehow benefit the Church of Light. Some of my Deathheim colleagues like to twist them so they end up promoting undeath and such, like, if you ask to be with your loved one forever, they would make it so your loved one becomes an undying Lich, that sort of thing.
“And you call me a monster…”
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It seemed hard to believe, but, the following day, Viola was enrolled into the one and only Wizard’s Academy in the city. It lay next to the castle, so she was guided to its entrance by a pair of mounted guards, who wore dangerous-looking armour and carried long-bladed spears.
The Academy itself was a tall eight-storey tower that seemed too small to actually fit more than six people per floor, but when she passed through its front door, it was shown to be larger on the inside than outside.
Within, a handsome-looking man wearing the skin of a toad was waiting for her:
“Welcome Acolyte.”
Over the next week, Viola underwent a series of trials to test whether she had any innate magic in her body that could be moulded and empowered. She failed the first three trials with the elements: water, fire, and earth. However, when she got to the Wind Trial, which consisted of standing atop a pillar in the middle of a pond that had somehow been built on the sixth floor, she discovered to her own surprise that she had an affinity for the wind element. And not just a fledgeling affinity, but a genuinely-powerful affinity.
Thinking back on her childhood, she suddenly realised that all the times when powerful storms had hit her village and the forest nearby had coincided with her mood being bad. Additionally, when she had run through the sloping hills of the southern forest region, it had been as though she was held aloft by the gentle hands of a supporting breeze.
After discovering her affinity, she was moulded and trained by the Toadcaller to properly harness her innate power and make it stronger.
At the end, she realised that she had the ability to summon mighty tornados or devastating lightning storms.
The chubby Boy found her when she graduated as a fully-fledged Wizard and told her that she was the first that their city ‘Toad Town’ had known. But then he asked her again:
“What do you want to do now?”
Viola thought about it for a bit, then realised that she didn’t truly want to be a wizard, but rather that she wanted to open her own restaurant and make delicious food.
She told him as much and though he looked surprised at first, he smiled and told her that she should find a spot in the city and a restaurant would be built for her.
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Congratulations! For following the desire of a powerful Wind Wizard to open a restaurant, you have unlocked the ability to construct the unique building Wind Wizard’s All-You-Can-Eat Buffet!
>Structures>Vendor
—Wind Wizard’s All-You-Can-Eat Buffet (Farming Plot, Bakery, & Wizard's Academy)—
Allows a young devastatingly-powerful Wind Wizard to follow her dreams of becoming a Chef
Greatly boosts happiness in everyone who dines here!
Required Materials: Quarried Stone, Timber, & Wrought Iron
“Isn’t this kind of a waste of so powerful a wizard?” I asked, looking at the young girl’s new stats:
Name: Viola
Occupation: S-Tier Wind Wizard & Up-and-coming Chef
Species: Wish-Blessed Human
Level: 99/100
Alignment: Unerringly-positive-and-ready-to-be-chef
Faction: The Follow-Your-Dreams Club
We both watched the young wizard use her magical talents to cut up and grill food over a massive roaring fire that was fed by her magic.
“Look at it this way…” Imu started, “If anyone attacks our town, we have one of the most powerful Wizards in the world to defend us. And, I mean, look at all the minions who are looking forward to trying out her food!”
He was right. In the seating area of her new restaurant, which lay not far from the wishing well that she had used, four dozen minions from all walks of life were eagerly waiting to try out her food.
“And who knows, maybe you can finally get a hold of a happy minion and actually begin selling toys in your Toy Store.”
“Alright, I’m convinced! Wizard Grill for the wind!”
“Please don’t begin to do puns. I’ll actually die.”