Chapter 28) Segways. Or, Why? Why? Why?

Bernard gestured at me then the weeping goddess with a helpless look on his face.

I hissed back at him. “What do you want me to do? I don’t even have arms, you do something.”

My boss let out a whimper and slowly brought her knees up to her chest and rested her crossed arms on top as she buried her face out of sight before lifting one arm towards me, "Just get him set up for now… Go."

In a whisper, I explained to Bernard that he could take anything from the room he wanted, but that it might be easier to unlock three of the four skills available before he loaded himself down.

"I got four skills that are called starter skills, and then there are a bunch of skills you could unlock just by trying stuff that are basic skills that give you ten Life points if you unlock them on the other side of the exit portals, but not if you do them in this here tutorial dungeon. So I can tell you about some of the easy ones, but don’t do them until you get to the other side of the gate. A hundred life points is a level so can get a quick reward just for singing, dancing, and some other easy stuff."

Alice sniffled and wiggled her head in a nod. "It's the same with new weapons, armors... and spells. And another ten every time you raise your rank in them. Once you get ten levels you can start unlocking the intermediate versions which are worth a hundred."

Her voice nearly cracked as she spoke and she paused once to wipe tears away. Still trying to be helpful despite breaking down after what seemed to be a whole lot of stress.

While she had a sort of timeless look to her, full grown but not showing her age at all, right now she seemed awfully young.

After she petered out, I gave her a moment to say anything else, but she just sat there staring blankly at the winter clothing shelf.

“Neat. A lot of that was news to me Bernard, but let’s talk about spells.”

He nodded and looked a little excited. "Call me Bernie, and what kind of spells are we talking about.”

I began drifting out of the room and into the hallway with him following along behind me. “Well we got three spells and I’m afraid that's all I could get. We got a spell that blasts things with magic called [ Mage Bolt ]…

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I saw Alice’s head rise up from the side of the table as she gave me a confused look. As I led Bernie down the hall she got up and began to follow.

"Then we got a spell that protects you with magic called [ Mage Guard ] that will stop two good solids hits from someone trying to claw at you or bite at you. I'm not sure what else it might do since that's all I've had a chance to use it for."

Bernard stopped me with a wave before he turned around to look at Alice. “Do you know miss?”

My boss looked a little shocked but still answered. "When you first get it it stops impacts of force, no matter if it's a club, a sword, or a bite. As you level up the spell you can add a new source of damage for it to block every ten ranks, but blocking some things can be bad."

She suddenly switched into teacher mode, speaking with a relaxed and informative tone, shaking off whatever had made her crash like that.

"For instance, if you block fire, you can't feel the warmth of sunlight, if you block Bale magic, you can't be healed either. Most Mages just made the spell tougher at tenth and learned new spells to protect them from other things."

Heh… Before I could ask her anything else, Bernard kept her going, getting a little excited himself.

"What about the Bolt spell?" He turned to look at me. "And the third one? What else do I get to work with."

“[ Mage Fall]”

Alice nodded. "Sounds like a good selection for a Mage to start with. Tenth Rank [ Mage Bolt ] can add another damage type or an effect like making it hit harder, explode, or fan out. But again, there are other spells available as you level up that can do anything better than what you can learn to do with Bolt."

She held her hand out flat and wiggled it back and forth. “[ Mage Fall ] can be advanced to a group effect, which is considered the best option, or into a slow version of [ Mage Flight ]. The intermediate ranked spells are always better than leveling up the basic ones into intermediates, but leveling up is free and there’s no limit on how many spells you can learn.”

Alice looked over at me. “Same thing with skills, but getting them to tenth just unlocks intermediate versions, they don't add anything, but you can get awards that affect the use of skills."

I bobbed up and down to try to show how much I appreciated how helpful she was being, but since Bernie had gotten her talking, I had to bring something up.

Even if it did upset her again.

“So I can take possession of the monsters I can summon, and use them to give people a real fight they can learn from…”

She leaned her head back and held up a hand to stop me again before she took a deep breath and dropped her hand. "That's news to me as well, but go on…”

“Then I took a step back and fell into a gate to the undead filled city, and the guy I was training with got concerned and followed me in…”

I paused since my Boss was looking more and more shocked, but she waved at me to continue.

“And the one guy who went through the gate before that was still trapped in the city, getting killed every day and then popping out of the gate again the next day. When I got recalled to help Bernie here they were trying to reach the barricade surrounding the city in order to escape it and I would like to go help them, or better yet, get you to go help them.”

Alice slowly nodded. “Yeah, and maybe I can get some answers over there.” She pointed at me. “Finish training Mr. Slovoski. With everything. Spells and all.”

My boss began to walk down the hallway, turning once to look over her shoulder at me. “Then, we are going to have a long talk ‘Tex’”

With another one of those instant steps she appeared at the end of the hallway, and seemed to pause to read the signs I had used to show where each exit portal went and to warn people about what lay in wait for them on the other sides, and then she stepped out of view.

A moment later, before either of us had a chance to say anything, we both heard her frustrated scream.

“I’m a damned Goddess! What do you mean I can’t access this Portal!”