Chapter 6. Dragon!

I opened my eyes to blue skies and wispy clouds. I took a slow inhale, smelling a mixture of pine and florals. I closed my eyes and smiled, letting the sunshine warm my face. The sun rarely threaded through the skyscrapers and smog of downtown Detroit all the way to the street level. How was this possible?

An insect— at least, I thought it was an insect— buzzed around above me. I sat up and held one finger out for it to land on. It settled there instantly. Its delicate webbed wings relaxed slowly. Tiny scales covered its body. The coloration of its wings changed from blue to green as I rotated it. I could actually feel the insect; its tiny legs tickling my finger. It looked up at me. A serpentlike head the size of a fingernail cocked to the side as if it were as startled to see me as I was to see it. I realized it wasn’t an insect at all, but an actual dragon. A tiny, bluegreen dragon.

I noticed Janica hiding behind my kneecap, staring at the dragon. She crouched like a predator. She pounced. Her tiny hands grasped the dragon and she shoved it into her mouth. Its body went in first, wriggling and thrashing in protest. After the first initial bite her tongue reached out and swept in the legs. The wings were the last to go down. A huge grin grew over her face and she rubbed her belly.

“Delicious!”

I almost gagged. “You eat dragons?”

“Oh yes,” she said, then moaned. “How do you think I maintain this perfectly formed body? Pure protein.” She turned her body slightly and flexed her triceps.

I wore a skirt and shirt, both made of a thick, scratchy cloth. Possibly hemp. And leather boots. A small coin purse hung from a cord that wrapped around my waist. Examining it, I saw that I had 150 Silver. Thankfully, the coin purse didn’t actually contain 150 coins, which could have weighed several pounds. It must have been digital. I also wore a leather fanny pack. Looking inside, I saw thirty empty inventory slots.

“Why am I wearing a skirt?”

“It’s a kilt. Because this is the starting equipment for the Mystic Job.”

Then it hit me, and I remembered that I had lost the Worker Job. I rubbed my palms into my eyes.

“There it is,” Janica said. “And this is why you should always listen to my advice.”

I nodded. “Tell me how bad it is.”

“It’s not great. Could be worse. But your plans to gather raw materials… that just got a lot more difficult.” She shrugged. Then she began mumbling to herself while flying around me. I overheard her say something about a cave and an elemental and not having enough time. Her head seemed to pop up like she had an idea.

“Janica…”

“Yes?” She came out of her daze.

“What were you mumbling about?”

“Oh nothing, nothing. Actually, something. I got an idea. But we need to get moving.”

“What did you mean when you told me I had a Job with skills that I couldn’t even use?”

“Open your Character Sheet by thinking ‘Character Sheet’.”

“Okay.”

Character Sheet

Name: Warren

Jobs: Mystic

Attributes: Integrator, Perceptive

Core Stats:

Constitution: 10

Dexterity: 10

Intelligence: 10

Wisdom: 10

Strength: 10

Perception: 10

Core Resources

Health: 25/25

Stamina: 25/25

Mana: 0/25

Current Loadout:

Job: Mystic

Passive 1: None

Passive 2: None

Skill 1: Talk to Spirits - You enter a trance where you can communicate with local Spirits. Cost to Cast: free. Cooldown: 24 hours. Cost to Buy: 300 Job Points.

Skill 2: Rejuvenate - Cast a spell on a friendly target that restores 20 health over 8 seconds. Does not stack with other Rejuvenate spells. Cost to Cast: 10 Mana. Cost to Buy: 100 Job Points.

Skill 3: Lightning Strike - Call Lightning from the sky that deals 35 damage and stuns all targets within a 3 yard area for 2.5 seconds. Cost: 20 Mana. Cost to Buy: 100 Job Points.

On Level Up: 1 Constitution, 1 Dexterity, 2 Intelligence, 3 Wisdom, 0 Strength, 2 Perception

Much of the Character Sheet looked familiar to me from playing other role playing games. After looking at the Current Loadout, I could tell what Janica meant when she said my skills were useless. Each of them cost mana and my Mana was at 0/25.

“How do I get Mana?”

“Normally,” she began to lecture, “your mana would regenerate at a rate of 1/10 of your Wisdom every second. However, mana hasn’t regenerated in our world in years. I won’t get into that right now. But every skill that uses mana is pretty much useless. So, like I said, you can’t do much with this Job.”

My face got hot. I had made a big mistake and couldn’t do anything about it. I had read in the game manual that mana didn’t work because of some event that happened in the world, but I didn’t know why. I had so many questions. I didn’t really know where to start.

Janica seemed to sense this and stop me. “Why are you air-drumming?” she asked.

“What? Oh. Sometimes I do that.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Come on, we can talk on the way.” She motioned for me to follow.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked. We walked through a meadow of tall grasses and wildflowers. To our left, a creek bubbled and ran down hill into a forested region. I stepped over fallen pines and between aspen trees as we followed a path adjacent to the stream. Mosquitos and flies nipped at my exposed arms and neck. The buzz of insects competed with the noise of the creek.

“Not far,” Janica replied after some time. “We’re heading toward the nearest town, but making a stop along the way. Let’s talk for a second about your Character Sheet. Tell me what you understood about it.”

I remember the basics from the game manual. “Constitution gives health and stamina. Dexterity has something to do with using my hands. Intelligence affects my magical abilities. Wisdom affects my efficiency at using different resources like mana and stamina. Strength is… strength, and Perception helps me find hidden things and cut through the bullshit.”

“Good enough for now, though each of those can have a more nuanced effect on how you interact with Skills, Quests, and Equipment. In addition, each stat will affect either your physical appearance or the way you think.” She paused and showed me her biceps. “See. This is what high Strength will get you.” She pulled the mace off of her back. It looked like an enormous, double-sided hammer. It had a long hilt, about as tall as Janica, with intricate curves and details. She spun it like a majorette spins a baton, whipping the weapon around her back. It came back, then she uppercutted a rock, sending it flying into a tree. They collided with a crack that split the air.

“And that’s what Perception and Dexterity will do for you,” she said. “Perception gives you haste. Dexterity gives you accuracy and critical strike chance. As situations arise, I’ll tell you more. But let me add one thing. When you level up, you’ll get stats based on your current Job. Each Job has different stat growth. Eventually, you’ll have multiple Jobs - each with their own stat-growth chart, and you’ll be able to switch between, so it's important to change Jobs to the one you want to level up with.”

“That’s wild. So if I leveled up ten times while in the Mystic Job, I’d gain more Wisdom than anything else?”

She nodded.

That was reason for excitement, the silver-lining to the Mystic class. And not a small win. “The Mystic Job gets a total of nine stat points per level: three in Wisdom, one in Intelligence, one in Dexterity, one Constitution, and two in Perception. But the Apprentice Job only gave a total of five stat points, if I recall.”

“That’s right,” she said. “You have a tier three Job, so you get more stat points per level from the very beginning than all the people who started as Workers, Apprentices, and Squires. But since you don’t have any usable skills, you might not be able to level up as quickly, if at all.” She tried again to make it seem like I had made a big mistake, but this potentially could propel me past other players if I could figure out a way around my problem.

A few miles ahead of us, smoke rose from the chimneys of a few dozen stone buildings. The creek ran into a slow moving river, probably thirty yards wide. The town straddled the river, and I could see at least one bridge spanning the river. A wooden palisade protected the town, but I couldn’t see an entrance from where we were.

I had seen environments like this in dozens of fantasy games. Bucolic, medieval towns, wide rivers, forested zones. But being in this world continued to awe me. Detroit was congested, smoggy, modern. It was gross. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw a river with my own eyes. Or smelled pine. Or saw my fairy companion eat a tiny dragon in one bite.

“What about Core Resources?” she asked, pulling me out of my head.

“What?”

“Stop looking around with your mouth open and focus,” she said. “You only get me for one day, and if we’re going to set you up here, I’m going to need you to stop acting like a tourist.”

I nodded. “Health is how much damage I can take before I die. Stamina is for things like sprinting and diving out of the way of dangerous things. Mana is a reserve that allows me to cast certain types of spells.” I paused and looked over, hoping she’d add some explanation about why mana wasn’t regenerating. She did not.

Janica veered to her right, away from the town. “That’s pretty much correct. Did you notice that you could purchase Skills?”

“Yeah, what’s up with that?”

“Your current Loadout has five slots. Two for Passives and three for Skills. At level 20, you’ll be able to unlock another Passive or another Skill slot. Until then, five is all you get. That make sense?”

“I think so,” I said. “My Loadout is just my set of Skills and Passives that I can use in combat.”

“Right,” Janica said. “You earn Job Points, which your interface calls JP, by using any Skill. So if your job is a Mystic and you use a Skill in your Loadout, you get Job Points. Then you can use those Job Points to buy Skills which you can then use in other Jobs. For example, if you were able to buy Lightning, you could change Jobs and continue to keep Lightning in your Loadout.”

I stopped and stared at her. Loopholes were one of my favorite things. And I thought I just spotted one.

She stopped and looked back at me. “Why did you stop? Why are you smiling at me like that? I don’t like that smile.”

“Are there any Skills that don’t require mana?”

She looked at me like I had said something stupid. “Of course. Hundreds. Every martial arts skill uses stamina instead of mana. Plus Apprentice Skills, Worker Skills, and a bajillion others.”

“So in theory…” I trailed off. “Hypothetically...”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Just spit it out.”

“If I could get one of those Skills, I could earn Mystic Job Points even though I can’t use mana.”

“Obviously,” she said, but she looked confused. “But what good will that do you? Even if you got a bunch of Job Points for the Mystic class, all you can do with it is buy Skills that cost mana. And you can’t use mana.” She turned and flew away from me, her wings flapping furiously behind her.

I’d played some games that had mechanics like this. In order to get a really good Loadout, you had to find jobs with passives and skills that worked together. Some jobs might be completely useless, but have a really amazing passive and you had to slog through levels just to earn that passive before moving on. However, if I could find a Skill that I could use over and over again at a cheap cost, I would be able to acquire loads of Job Points. And buy the best Skills. And level up quickly. I needed to get some new Skills that didn’t use mana.

The sun hadn’t reached the top of the sky yet, though I didn’t know anything about this world and its celestial events. There could be three moons for all I knew. As a Mystic, I’d probably need to learn about things like this.

“Janica, how are we going to get me out of this mess?”

“Up ahead.” She zipped toward a shack with a little roof that slanted down from one side. The entire building was made from wood other than a little stone chimney. It was quaint and seemed to be well maintained, though small. Janica stopped and motioned for me to knock on the door.

I approached the door nervously and knocked.

I heard a quick, muffled conversation followed by footsteps. The door opened. The smell of some kind of oatmeal hit me. Smells. In a game.

Though it smelled good, I realized that I wasn’t hungry. Maybe the game developers didn’t want me to constantly think about food. A welcome relief.

An older woman stood at the door, club in hand. A name tag hovered over her head. In green, formal lettering, it read .

I looked above my own head, searching for a name tag, and saw one. .

Janica elbowed me. “Stop being weird,” she said under her breath.

I focused on the NPC. She had weathered skin and a flat face that didn’t seem to allow her to smile. A man sat at a small table behind her, facing away from me. His head was sparse with graying hair and he wore buckskin clothing with little ornamentation.

“Who are you?” she practically barked.

“Hi, I’m Warren.” I wish Janica had told me something about what I was doing here.

Ellen wore a thick leather apron over a simple dress that had all the lines of something homemade. It fit her well. Animal skins covered a wooden floor and wooden chairs.

“Is there anything I could do to help you?” I asked, unable to think of another thing to say. So awkward.

“You’re not very smooth, are you?” Janica hissed.

The old woman didn’t seem to hear Janica or acknowledge that she was even there.

“What do you mean? Why are you here?” The woman didn’t seem to be warming up to me.

“I… I’m passing through, and I need work.”

She grunted. “I don’t have anything to pay you.” She started to close the door.

“Wait. It looks like you and your husband are skilled hunters and leatherworkers. If I could be of some help, maybe you could teach me something about your trade?”

She looked back at her husband, who didn’t say a thing or even look my way. She stepped out of the door and closed it behind her, then spoke to me softly. “My husband is having some trouble hunting these days and, though I can catch rabbits just as good as him, I’d appreciate the assistance. Do you think you could catch me a rabbit? In return, I’d get the old man to teach you how to skin it. You could keep the skin as well. We don't need any more of them. Just the meat.”

A quest dialogue popped up.

You were offered a quest:

Quest: Rabbit Season

Objectives: Catch a rabbit, dead or alive, and return it to the woman

Rewards: 30 Experience Points, the Skinning Profession, and a Rabbit skin

Do you accept? Yes/No