“So, a gun is the newest and greatest thing in warfare since the crossbow. So I’m not the best at this, but basically, people want more kill power in a shorter amount of time. So, let’s take a peasant farmer as an example. To take a peasant farmer from a farmer to an infantryman in padded armor, you need to train them with a pike or something for months and months. After that, you could turn that farmer into someone who could competently stab a man. When the crossbow became widely used, it took that same peasant farmer a month, maybe two, to achieve the same competency and killing potential. They certainly weren’t a knight or a mage, but the cheapest and fastest way to turn someone who has never fought before into a soldier was a crossbow. Now we have the gun. I think a year or two before I was born, some alchemist or another made this stuff called Black Powder. Another guy invented the gun. It takes this black powder, puts it in a bottle made of metal, put an iron ball in after it and then lights the powder on fire. The iron ball would shoot out faster than an arrow. This too made it very easy to turn a peasant farmer into a soldier capable of killing. Whenever there is a military conscription, the fastest way to turn the conscripts into soldiers capable of killing is to train them to use a gun. Of course, the price of guns is much greater than that of a crossbow, but it achieves a greater kill power. Guns are doing well for themselves and as far as I know, there aren’t many things that can counter a gun.”
Ren was sitting at a table in a nearby cafe talking to a man. She listens to the man’s explanation with a blank expression on her face. However, in her pack, she carries a book. The book is sentient and had spent some hundreds or maybe thousands of years in an underground vault. It is now only hearing about these new fangled guns.
“Interesting.” Ren nods along.
“I’m more surprised you haven’t heard of them yet.” the man says. “It’s the newest and greatest thing out and about. Everyone who’s never fought in a war wants to try and train with a gun to… well… kill something or someone. Soon too.”
Ren nods along.
“Uhh… right.” he says. “Anyway, would you be willing to look into this for us?”
“Can you make it a quest?” Ren asked flatly.
“A-... a quest?” he raises a brow at those words.
“Yes.” Ren nods as she spoke. “I am looking to become an adventurer. As an adventurer, I gain benefits when completing quests. By going on quests, I have means to gain levels that don’t involve killing people and monsters for meager experience.”
“Ah… okay.” the says with a confused look. “How do I do that?”
“You use the system.” Ren says.
“Right… the system…” he starts sweating a bit. “How do I…”
“You do know how to use the system, right?” Ren asked.
“I uhh… um…” he stammers. “I don’t know how to.”
The system is the worldly phenomenon that grants all peoples power. In theory, everyone in the world can use the system. In practice a small minority of people could not use the system. However, Apherward has been stuck in a vault for a while. It could be that guns aren’t the only change that has occurred in the interim between when he was first sealed and now.
“Aren’t most people proficient in the use of the system?” Ren asked.
“Uh. No…” the man said. “Most people don’t know how to use it. Where did you hear that most people knew how to use it?”
Within Ren’s head. Apherward just screams.
“Fuck!”
To issue a quest, you use the system. If the majority of people aren’t proficient in the use of the system then most people aren’t able to use the system to award adventurers when they complete quests. It baffles the tome that people just didn’t learn how to use the system that gives them the potential to be incredibly powerful and flexible.
“That’s unfortunate.” Ren stares at the man blankly.
“So- can you do it?” the men asked. “We just want you to take a look at it. Nothing too out of the ordinary.”
“Sure.” Ren says.
After a few minutes of walking, Ren finds the old well. Ren kinda just stands there staring. The area is sort of an artisan district. There are some woodworkers, builders, brewers and other people who work in a particular craft. They eye Ren curiously. Apherward, is using it’s own senses to peer into the well. It doesn’t have any kind of magical vision, but it can still see independent of Ren’s eyes. Peering down the well, Apherward sees some strange lights at the bottom. It looks like a pink light swirling around the bottom of the well in a circular motion. It’s light is seen on the walls of the well. Deeper still seems to be a yellow light. It is still and unmoving.
With this strange sight, Apherward stinks for a moment. Ren doesn’t look down the well at all. She’s just standing there with some drab looking armor, a sword at her hips and a small bag on her back. There are a number of artisans and crafters eyeing her curiously. Suddenly Ren puts a hand on the rim of the well, mantles over it and just drops right into the well. The people watching gasp in sheer shock of the girl suddenly just hopping in. As it turns out, Apherward just decided to jump right in. As Ren falls a decent distance, a thought occurred to Apherward.
“Oh! This is a long fall.” Apherward speaks into Ren’s mind. “Alright. I got a fix for this.”
Ren learned Magic Soft Fall Level 1. Level capacity has been met. Level up to increase level capacity.
Before Ren can break an ankle because of Apherward’s oversight, she casts a spell.
“Magic Soft Fall!”
As she descends, the fall slows. She approaches the lights and they seem to be some strange magic lights. Apherward puppeteers Ren to reach out and touch the spinning pink light. The light was gripped, but not really. It was like trying to grab a dandelion seed in the air. Rather, it floated in Ren’s hand as she reached out and cupped her hand. Ren tried again with the unmoving yellow light as she descended further down. The yellow light is also taken into Ren’s hand. In a matter of seconds, she reaches the bottom and lands.
Apherward observes the bottom of this well. It’s like an underground clearing or room. Strangely, there are some signs of human activity. There aren’t any support beams or anything keeping the ceiling up, but there are some strange tools and such. There are empty candle candlesticks with melted wax coating them. There’s also a weird magic circle. The circle is inert and otherwise no longer magical. It’s just a carving on the floor now. Further back than that, seems to be a door. It is a wooden door in this underground clearing.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Ren stands there unmoving. Apherward looks at the magic circle more closely. The sigils and glyphs carved into the floor are for the purpose of summoning or communion with an otherworldly entity. These kind of things aren’t too specific. It can only surmise that a magic ritual of some kind happened here. Looking over the candle sticks, they’re certainly used candlesticks that no one put away when they were done and let all the wax melt. It was nothing noteworthy. Just trash that whoever clearly did magic stuff here never cleaned up. Even the lights that Ren has cupped in her hands are refuse. Upon closer inspection, Apherward sees that these lights are just waste and leftover magic energy from whatever ritual took place on this magic circle. This is clearly a messy ritual site that has been left as a mess. The only thing left of interest was the door. There’s nothing left to be done, but investigate it further.
Several men and women sit in an underground clearing. There were a number of horrid looking curved daggers and wicked looking cups or chalices with horned faces on their side. A number of them seem to be packaging and sorting these strange looking blades and cups. One man, however, seems to be waving his hands while sitting at a strange worktable. A faint red light is emitted from his hands as he works. He is in robes and is the single mage among the people in this room. As they work, a young girl with red hair, in shabby armor and a sword at her hip enters through one of the entrances. Almost everyone looks over, but otherwise doesn’t bother her. The one man who realized that a stranger to them just suddenly walked in on their sinister activities. The lone man raises an eyebrow and points at the girl.
“Hey, who’s that?” he asked.
Most of the others look to him and then at the girl he was pointing to. They give a confused look.
“I don’t know.” one of the others reply.
“Never seen ‘em before.” another cohort says.
“Seems to me that someone should be focusing on hitting quota.” another says.
The man who originally posed the question shakes his head and furrows his brow.
“Does anyone think that this might be an intruder?” he says.
At those words, the others stop what they’re doing and look at the girl. There is a moment of realization before they all grab a weapon. Whether it be one of the curved knives or the chair they were seated on just moments before, they all rush her with weapons. As everyone dashes towards the potential intruder, the girl raises a hand and speaks.
“Haste!”
The first to reach the intruder was a woman with a chair. She swings at her, but the intruder easily avoids the swing. This intruder was impossibly fast. She follows up with another swing. The intruder easily dodges them all by backstepping and sidestepping. On one of these swings, the intruder dodges and the wooden chair meets one of her cohort’s knife as he tries to thrust it into the intruder’s back. The chair collides with the man’s hand and he drops the knife and yelps in pain. The sole mage among the cohorts sees what happened. The intruder casted the Haste spell. Spellcasters were a rarity in Blue Pine town. This is no normal intruder. He check’s the intruder’s stats.
Ren
Level 5 Mage
Strength: 8
Magic: 17
Agility: 6
Vitality: 5
Magic Capacity: Low
Titles: None
Skills:
Swordsmanship Level 1
Housekeeping Level 1
Spells:
Ice Bolt Level 1
Fireball Level 1
Haste Level 1
Raise Zombie Level 1
Stone Wall Level 1
Water Arrow Level 1
Blind Level 1
Locate Location Level 1
Project Mind Level 1
Magic Soft Fall Level 1
Status: Hastened
The mage goes wide eyed. This girl was in the mage class at level 5. She also had an obscene amount of spells. Her list of spells was longer than most spellcasters four times her level. He takes stock of the situation. There are 5 of them here, him included. There was one of her. Most of the people here are around level 7, save for him. He was a level 10 mage. The only concern was her unnaturally long list of spells. In theory, her best bet would be to use a massive area of effect spell. Her Fireball spell could do it, but since it took the shape of a ball and she was surrounded, she would be caught in the blast. Fireball wasn't a viable option if she planned on also surviving this fight.
“She’s a dangerous one.” he says to his cohorts. “She’s not high leveled, but she knows way too many spells. I see her spell list. We can overwhelm her.”
They hear the mage’s words and they all eye the intruder cautiously.
“How do we stop her?” a cohort asks.
“Make her cast a ton of spells. She’ll fill her magic capacity and be helpless. She can’t cast enough spells to take us all down.” the mage shouts.
Despite speaking about battle tactics in front of her, the intruder doesn’t even bat an eye. The man who was the victim of a chair beating friendly fire incident, now has a cracked hand. He cannot grip the dagger he once held with his dominant right hand. All he can do is try to fight with his left. As he reaches down to grab the dagger with his left hand, the intruder points at him and speaks.
“Water Arrow!”
Water appears in her hand and lances out towards the man. An arrow made entirely of water shoots into his head. It is easily lethal.
“Damn! I’ll show you!” the mage says. “Gust Blade!”
At those words, magic coalesces in his hand and a blade of wind shoots out towards the intruder. The intruder moves to dodge it. As she does, another cohort moves to catch her with his dagger. In response, the intruder casts a new spell.
“Stone Wall!”
A wall of stone shoots up. It divides the clearing in half. The Gust Blade spell impacts with the Stone Wall spell and harmlessly leaves a single scratch in a wall. The man with the dagger gets in close and swings for the intruder. His dagger finds purchase in her right arm and draws blood. The intruder then points towards him and sends out another spell.
“Ice Bolt!”
At this range, the magically conjured lance of ice runs through the man’s chest. The mage shouts a spell.
“Ground Crumble!”
The walls of stone fall away to reveal that the intruder has claimed a second victim. The mage checks the intruder’s status again.
Ren
Level 5 Mage
Strength: 8
Magic: 17
Agility: 6
Vitality: 5
Magic Capacity: Medium
Titles: None
Skills:
Swordsmanship Level 1
Housekeeping Level 1
Spells:
Ice Bolt Level 1
Fireball Level 1
Haste Level 1
Raise Zombie Level 1
Stone Wall Level 1
Water Arrow Level 1
Blind Level 1
Locate Location Level 1
Project Mind Level 1
Magic Soft Fall Level 1
Status: Hastened, Injured
Right Arm Cut Severity 2
Half the team was dead and she is at about the halfway point of the intruder’s magic capacity. In theory, if this keeps up one survivor will be left to kill her when her capacity is filled. As sound of an idea as the initial plan is, he’s not going to risk everything in a 1-on-1 and be left as the only survivor. His own magic capacity is fine. He needs to start casting spells more aggressively.
“We have to put all our cards on the table! Go! Now!” the mage says to his two surviving cohorts. “Gust Blade! Gust Blade! Gust Blade!”
The mage sends a volley of magic slicing blades of air at the intruder. As they rush through the air, the other two swing with a chair and another dagger. The intruder holds her hands close together.
“Chain Lightning!”
The mage goes wide eyed. The intruder didn’t have that spell when he checked her status. He checked twice and didn’t see a spell like that. Despite that, magic lightning does indeed shoot out and strikes at all three of them. A surge of electric energy runs through all three of them as the intruder leaps to avoid the barrage of spells. Racked with pain, the mage’s vision begins to blur. He feels himself falling. But he was sure that the intruder didn’t have the Chain Lightning spell. As he falls to his knees, he glances at the intruder one last time in a bid to check her status again.
Ren
Level 5 Mage
Strength: 8
Magic: 17
Agility: 6
Vitality: 5
Magic Capacity: High
Titles: None
Skills:
Swordsmanship Level 1
Housekeeping Level 1
Spells:
Ice Bolt Level 1
Fireball Level 1
Haste Level 1
Raise Zombie Level 1
Stone Wall Level 1
Water Arrow Level 1
Blind Level 1
Locate Location Level 1
Project Mind Level 1
Magic Soft Fall Level 1
Chain Lightning Level 1
Status: Hastened, Injured
Right Arm Cut Severity 2
He was sure he didn’t miss it earlier. He would wager his life on it. In fact, he did wager his life on it. But it seems that he lost that wager. He can only fall.
