A servant entered carrying a tray with what looked to be a teapot and four cups. He poured the liquid and served everyone. The Sage took his cup and nodded to the man. “Thank you, Merl,” he said. He took a sip, and then he set the cup aside. “Instead of using your spell, focus on the kindling or even one of the logs and access your mana. Just add a few points at first. You can increase the amount slowly until you have used enough to start the fire.” Vultressant looked around as if searching for something, and Oeisterdamus held up a hand. “You practice on your own time and not in a building. If you target the wrong thing, you could burn down the place.” He pointed at the fallen bookshelf and the papers strewn about the floor.
Vultressant’s eyes went wide. “Will do. Thanks for the advice. How do I learn other types of magic?”
“That is a far more difficult thing.” Oeisterdamus added a whistle for emphasis. “Certain types of magic have subclasses that you can gain access to as you level. I am adept at water magic, and ice magic is a subclass that I learned after ranking up my skill in water, but ice magic is also an offshoot of air magic, which is why you can cast frost spray. Some of the hybrid classes gain a magic type when they reach a higher rank, and the casters can increase the rank of their magic fields as they level, but usually it’s an infrequent thing.”
“Our friend, Vanya, has already gained a magic type,” Taloc offered.
The Sage looked at him. “What magic skills did she originally have, and what did she gain?”
“She had body and divine, and she learned life magic not long ago,” Taloc said. “She’s a Spiritualist, so all of them make sense for her.”
Oeisterdamus frowned. “Is her skill and level similar to the three of you?”
“Yes,” Taloc said.
Oeisterdamus scratched his chin and asked another question. “What were you doing when she gained the skill?”
This is what Maroftis was here for. “It was from the fountain,” he said. “What do you know about magic fountains?”
The others all looked at him, but he refused to back down. The Sage stood up, took a sip from his cup and said, “Where did you find a font?”
“Forest,” Maroftis said. “We found it a few days ago.”
Oeisterdamus eyed him suspiciously. “It’s almost a week to the forest on good mounts.”
“We took a short cut,” Maroftis said, smiling. The caster looked uneasy. That happened frequently when Maroftis smiled. He was probably showing too many teeth.
Smoothing out his robe, Oeisterdamus began to pace. “The fonts grant many different types of benefits, but finding them can be challenging. Most of them move to different locations in one of two ways. The most common type of font travels once a day and can be used by each person only once between moves. Other fonts remain in one place until someone drinks from them, and then they leave for another location a short time after that. The most powerful of the fonts are in static locations, and you can only gain their benefit once in your lifetime even if you can keep drinking.”
“Where are the static ones?” Maroftis asked, hopeful.
“End of a labyrinth, top of a tower, maybe the end room of a dungeon, secret room or a secret area in a dungeon, that sort of thing.” He put down his cup. “You need a powerful group to get to those, while the other ones just require luck or some searching.”
“Can you help us find one?” Maroftis asked eagerly.
Oeisterdamus walked over to a bookshelf, pulled out a book, and opened it on his desk. “There is a cave system to the south of here that contains either a static font or one that leaves after use, but you won’t make it very far without fighting some major baddies.” He looked up. “You’re probably better off trying to find one of the jumpers. I have some skill at divination, but that will certainly cost you.”
“What’s the damage?” Vultressant asked. Maroftis was prepared for it to be some outrageous sum, and it looked like Vult had the same thought.
Oeisterdamus cocked his head and frowned at the Gnome. “Tell you what. I’ll do it for nothing if you can answer something for me.” They all excitedly agreed and waited for the question. The Sage walked back to the table, filled his cup again, and took another sip. He asked the question in a slightly screechy tone. “What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”
The three friends instantly looked from Oeisterdamus to each other. He did not just fucking ask that, Maroftis thought. “What do we do?” he voiced in a loud whisper.
In answer, Taloc turned back to the man and replied, “Do you mean an African or European swallow?”
The Sage laughed out loud and asked, “Where the fuck are you guys from?” None of them answered immediately, so he continued. “I’ll make this easy for you. I am from the States, specifically California. Where are you from?” He looked at them and sat down with a smile on his face.
Taloc shrugged. “Illinois, all three of us. How long have you been here?”
“Three years, give or take,” he said, shaking his head. “Fucking booth at Comicon. How’d they get you?”
“Beta test of a new game at a gaming convention,” Vultressant said.
Oeisterdamus nodded, a knowing smile on his face. “A cute girl was running a table,” he said, “and I got suckered into trying out a new VR experience. What I didn’t know was that VR stood for ‘very real’ instead of ‘virtual reality’.
“You think that this place is real, then?” Taloc asked.
“Short answer, yes,” he replied. “Long answer... well, that’s a deep rabbit hole that I don’t want to deal with today.”
“Have you died yet?” Vultressant asked hesitantly.
Oeisterdamus shrugged. “Just once. A group of giants made me their bitch. It’s probably best that I didn’t live through it.”
“How’d you know?” Taloc asked.
Oeisterdamus looked to him in confusion. “What?”
“That we were players.”
“Oh, you don’t act like the locals; ‘what’s the damage?’ is not an idiom that they’d be using. Also, if I was wrong, the question means nothing and wouldn’t be suspicious to a native who didn’t know the reference. They would just chalk it up to the crazy magic man and his eccentricities.” He waggled his fingers again while laughing maniacally.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Oeisterdamus, have you met anyone else here from our world?” Vultressant asked excitedly.
“Oeister is fine,” he said, holding up a hand. “No one ever calls me by my whole name. Well, sometimes I like messing with the bureaucrats, so they get the full treatment. I’ve only met one other person from Earth, and he’s in Cairnth. That’s a city southeast of here.”
“Why are you here and not with him?” Maroftis asked. He was curious about traveling south; Cairnth was one of the options that they had been pursuing since leaving the Anuran.
Oeister laughed. “Cairnth is in a kingdom, and the bureaucracy there is terrible. Did I mention that I hate bureaucrats?” He gestured to the room and looked around. “Also, this place is fantastic. I can live without a king randomly coming to take my stuff, there are plenty of materials that I can find or buy in this area, and it’s safe.”
That made sense; if they had a sweet place like this, then they would probably want to stay as well. Maroftis still wanted to know about the fountain locations so he could get another boon. He switched back to that topic. “We answered your question, so how about that info on the fountain?”
Oeister went over to his desk and pulled out a small wooden box, which he brought to the table. When he opened the box, Maroftis could see the inner lining. It appeared to be a silky cloth, and he could see that a lavender gem or crystal rested inside of it. Oeister used both hands to carefully remove it from the box, despite it being small enough to be easily handled with just one hand. The stone was several inches long and had the circumference of a dagger hilt.
Oeister said a few words, and the jewel began to glow a light purple. Maroftis could tell that it was starting to radiate heat before going dark a moment later. Oeister gently returned the gem to the box and closed it before saying, “The only one in this area is south of here. I believe that it’s either one of the static fonts or needs to be used to activate the jump.”
“Why do you say that?” Taloc asked.
“I have scried a font in that general area several times, so if the readings are correct and it is indeed the same one, then it must not be a daily jumper.” He pulled out a map that depicted the surrounding hills and the river that ran south of Ildul. He pointed at a bend in the river where it ran west for a short time before flowing south again. “I’m not sure how close to this it is because of something inhibiting my scry spell, but I would suggest looking there. But be careful, because if there is something that’s powerful enough to block or hamper this sort of magic, it’s likely to be something dangerous.”
Vultressant stood over the map and appeared to be accessing his HUD. He was probably inputting the map into his system. “Are you able to show me how to use your scrying stone, or maybe teach me some magic, or tell me how to increase my abilities quickly?” he asked when Oeister had finished. “I want to level enough to be respectable.”
“I don’t know that you’ll ever be respectable,” Taloc said with a grin.
Vultressant smiled back. “Yeah, I’ll still be a dirtbag, but maybe I can be a powerful dirtbag.”
Taloc looked at the map for a minute, then turned to the Sage. “You said that you died once.” He paused long enough for Oeister to nod. “What happens?”
Oeister cocked his head. “Are you sure that you want spoilers?” Taloc continued to focus his attention on the man, so he held up his hands. “Okay, okay. Well, you’re going to want to set your bind point somewhere safe, preferably near a bed. I was pretty exhausted after it happened. I received an offer to reroll my character, but there was no information on whether or not I would keep my skills and abilities, or even my level, so I didn’t want to risk it.”
“What about your gear?” Maroftis asked. He had been carrying what the party had determined to be their most valuable items because his regeneration ability made him hard to kill. They had hoped that if there was a loss of items upon death, the loss might be minimal.
“I lost about half of my inventory and some of what I was carrying. I have no idea what the criteria was for the items that I lost versus what I was able to keep. My bound items didn’t drop, so that might be something. The information that I have in my game system describes that benefit for bound items, but I tend to view anything that I read in there with a good amount of skepticism unless it’s directly triggered by a skill.”
“Why’s that?” Vultressant asked. “I know that it updates the information as we learn it, but it seems reliable.”
Oeister held up a finger and said, “Wait a moment.” He went over to his desk, and he retrieved a glass jar with a few greenish-brown leaves inside. “These are vargush leaves. Now, one at a time, I want you to display what information you have on these leaves, and the other two need to turn around when it is not your turn.”
It seemed odd, but they obliged. Vultressant went first, and Maroftis read about vargush leaves in his HUD while he waited. The vargush leaves can be used to brew a bitter tea. That wasn’t very helpful, but it hardly seemed mysterious. When all three of them had displayed their message, they faced the Sage and waited.
“All three of you had a different description of the leaves,” Oeister began. “Taloc had a message about the leaves being used by herbalists; Vultressant was told that chewing on the leaves would increase endurance; and Maroftis was told that it made a bitter tea.” He waited as the three of them verified that those were essentially their respective messages. “My original info was something like a tea brewed with this leaf can reduce cold damage for a time. Now, the tea was bitter, and maybe it can actually reduce cold damage, alone or when mixed with something else, but it also causes blindness.”
Maroftis checked his HUD again, and it mentioned both the cold damage and the blindness. “Yep, I got the update,” he said.
“Me too,” said Taloc.
Vultressant frowned and looked at all three of them. “Mine didn’t change,” he said softly.
Oeister smiled and nodded slowly. “That, my friend, is because you don’t believe me.”
Taloc laughed. “That’s the Scully in him.”
Oeister looked at Taloc with a confused expression. “Wait, isn’t Scully the woman?”
Taloc nodded. “Yeah, but she was the skeptic. Mulder had the ‘I want to believe’ poster in his office.”
The Sage grinned and nodded. “Ah, that checks out. Well, the point of this little experiment is that you can’t trust what the game tells you unless you experience it for yourself first. Now, an herbalist, an alchemist, or even someone with knowledge of the plant from their race should get the correct information. They could possibly just know it, like we know how to cast a spell or how to use a fighting stance. I believe that we learn the information based upon our skills, levels, abilities, race, or any combination of them.”
“Vanya can make potions, and she’s an Elf,” Taloc said. “I can tell her the name of the plant and see what she knows about it.”
Oeister pulled out a leaf and handed it to the Ranger. “Take this to her. Just the name of the plant may not be enough for her skills to trigger. At any rate, if you can bind an item to you, then you probably will get it back if you die—if you believe what my information and one death have told me. If you do plan on adventuring, be sure to bank any important gear that isn’t bound.”
“There’s a bank?” Maroftis was excited by the prospect and annoyed at himself for not looking for one when they got into town. All games seemed to have a bank of some sort, and they were handy for dropping off all of the loot you found while playing the game.
“Yes, there’s a bank,” Oeister replied. “I keep most of my things here, but I have some of the pricey and bulky items at the bank.”
Maroftis wanted to get the party equipped better, so some coin would come in handy. “Does the bank give out loans?”
Oeister shook his head. “They just seem to be in the storage business.”
“How about you?” Maroftis asked.
He cocked his head. “How about you bring me some magical items or components, and I’ll buy them off of you?”
Maroftis nodded. It had seemed like a long shot, but he had to ask. If they could build a good relationship with Oeister, then they might be able to get him to front them some coin in the future.
“We’ll be in town for at least a few more days while Taloc has a sword made,” Vultressant said. “I want to be there when they cast the enchantment spells, but are you able to show me any magic before then?”
Oeister considered the request. After a minute of what appeared to be some sort of inner debate, he finally nodded. “Come back in a couple of hours, and I’ll let you watch an experiment that I plan to do later today. Right now, I’m going to rest for a bit before I start.”
He didn’t look tired, and all he had done was use that crystal thing, Maroftis thought. Maybe he had overexerted his magic muscles before they arrived or while they waited to see him. Maroftis shrugged. Maybe he just had errands to run first, or perhaps the setup time for his experiment was lengthy. Whatever the reason, the servant guided the three of them out of the mansion, and they headed back to the Silver Penny.