“Sorry about that,” I said, glancing down as I noticed my tail was still swishing behind me in excitement. I grinned, unable to be mad at even my tail betraying me in the moment.
Amy simply shrugged before she jumped up and onto my shoulder, quickly moving from there to the top of my head, her weight vanishing as she did. “That’s fine,” she replied, a hint of distraction in her voice that caused me to raise an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have expected you to have completely conquered your innate racial instincts so soon, especially given that was something you’d not yet experienced.”
“That felt amazing.”
“Still,” Amy began, ignoring my comment as if I hadn’t even spoken. “We’ll need to find some kind of armor that you can wear without your body freaking out on you like it did in that fight. That, or you’ll need to get over your ridiculous dislike of metallic armor.” I frowned at her words, but remained silent as she continued speaking. “You were lucky; that attack to your back only managed to deal you 8 damage. At higher levels, that kind of carelessness will get you killed in a single hit – or grievously injured – and I won’t always be around and able to revive you.”
My frown grew at her words, and I opened my Combat Log to review the fight against the Goblin Boss. I skimmed over the text details summarizing my encounter with the boss, my eyes widening as I noticed the last few entries.
You have defeated Level 10 Goblin Warrior.
You have cleared Rosevale's Forest Dungeon for the first time by yourself! You receive 1,000 Bonus Experience!
You have cleared Rosevale's Forest Dungeon for the first time! You receive 1,000 Bonus Experience!
Congratulations, you have leveled up! You are now Martial Artist (Modified) Level 19. Your Stats have been updated.
“Huh,” I muttered, scrolling back through my logs as I did. “When did I hit level 18?” I asked, closing my Combat Log as I did. There was too much there, and while I could filter out the stuff thanks to Amy’s help, I also knew that it would just be faster to ask Amy directly.
“After you killed the first sub-boss.” Amy answered.
I considered that as I thought back to that part of the fight. “Oh? Is that what that distracting sensation I felt was after that kill?” My body tingled at the memory, and I fought to suppress a shiver of pleasure as the phantom memory washed over me. “I suppose that also explains why that kill at the end was such a pleasure ride, too.”
Despite her weightlessness, I felt Amy nodding her head. “It’s my fault; I should have warned you what to expect since we’d been talking about it right before the fight. I forget how overwhelming that feeling can be the first few times you experience it.”
I chuckled at that before shrugging. “That’s fine. Now I know for next time,” I said, heading to pick up my discarded sword and shield and storing them both in my Personal Space. With that done, I turned my attention to the various corpses in the room, the smile on my face turning to a frown as I considered them. “Anything worth looting off these guys?” I asked. “You said you’d been doing a lot of it for me already, but I assume I should start learning about that myself?”
“Mmm,” Amy said in agreement, and I noticed she sounded distracted again. I gave her a couple of seconds to consider my question before asking it again. It wasn’t until the third time that I got a response. “Hm? Oh, sorry. The Boss’ armor is worth looting, especially at your level.” Amy replied, to which I nodded. “Their weapons are also going to be worth something, even the ones that are broken and unusable.”
I nodded my head and made mental notes for myself. “Alright, is that it?” I asked after another couple seconds of silence from my companion.
“The boss’ right ear has an earring on it you’ll want.”
“Won’t I look stupid with just a single earring on?” I asked as I began picking up the weapons that had scattered to the floor during the fight. None of the sub-bosses had any armor, so it was rather quick work to loot them of their weapons and the two staffs.
“If you’re worried about that, we should be able to get you another one with the money from all your loot.” Amy said without hesitation. “Just don’t expect it to be magical like that one.”
I’d started working on removing the boss’ armor by the time Amy had mentioned the earring was magical. “Wait, that thing is magic?” I asked, stopping what I was doing and going to retrieve it. It was a tad tricky to get off the boss’ ear, but when I did I brought it up to my face to examine it more closely. It was an ugly piece of silver in the shape of a rectangle with a small blue gemstone embedded in the center edge. I flipped the earring over and saw that the gem wasn’t visible on the other side.
“What does it do?” I asked as I turned it back over to examine the gemstone more closely. I rubbed my thumb over it to see if I could feel any energy from it like Amy had said I’d be able to do with the Ring of Storage. Unfortunately, just like with the ring that was now on my finger, I couldn’t feel anything coming from the earring. I needed to find a way to get my Affinity score up if I couldn’t get this collar off.
“Here, this might help.” Amy said, pulling me out of my thoughts as she highlighted my Magic menu. With a shrug, I opened it and was surprised to see that there were actually two spells listed there.
Inspect
Spell – Incantation
Inspects target Character, providing limited Stats and other details.
Cost: 100 Mana
Cooldown: 0 cycles
Examine
Spell – Incantation
Examines target item, providing details on it.
Cost: ??? Mana
Cooldown 0 cycles
“I thought you said beginners didn’t have access to any way to check the levels of others?” I asked Amy, trying to contain the annoyance that I was feeling at having been lied to.
“They don’t,” was her simple matter-of-fact reply. “Check the cost, and then tell me how much Mana you have. I’ll wait.”
I took a deep breath before counting to 10. Once I was sure that I wasn’t going to try and strangle my obnoxious feline know-it-all, I consulted my Mana reserves. I instantly felt myself deflate in a mix of disappointment and frustration.
“Well?” She asked, her voice dripping with an unspoken ‘I told you so’ despite not having said it, likely due to how she dragged the word out as she spoke.
“Cats are stupid,” I grumbled in reply before changing the topic. “What’s the deal with Examine? It doesn’t have any Mana cost listed that I can see.”
If Amy was upset by my first comment, she didn’t show it. Instead, just continuing on as if I hadn’t said it and addressed my question. “Examine is a different kind of magic,” she began, to which I nodded. “Its cost is determined by the rarity of the item you are trying to examine. In the case of the earring you found, it would normally cost 300 Mana to examine it. If you tried to use the incantation on the item, it would tell you how much it cost. If you had enough, it would then ask you if you wanted to cast the magic.”
“I’m never going to be able to cast any spells while this collar is on, am I?” I asked in frustrated disappointment.
“It’ll be difficult,” Amy admitted, “but if you’d like, I can show you how to cheat some of the requirements later.”
“I like the sound of that,” I nodded, storing the earring and returning my attention to the goblin boss’ armor. I had managed to get the remains of the gauntlets off when I noticed Amy had jumped off my head and was sitting atop the goblin corpse. I stared at her for a second, noting that she appeared to be distracted once more. “You look like something’s on your mind,” I commented. “In fact, you’ve appeared distracted ever since the boss was defeated.”
She flinched slightly before sighing. “Can you stay here for a little?” She asked, causing me to raise an eyebrow. “I need to take care of some things and I don’t want you getting into any trouble while I’m gone.”
“You want me to stay here? In the dungeon that almost killed me? While you’re off running… Errands?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yes, that’s correct,” she confirmed.
I shook my head. “I don’t imagine I have much choice in the matter?” I asked with a sigh. “Fine, whatever. Go ahead and run your errands. I won’t leave this room.” I turned my attention back to the task of stripping the goblin boss of her armor. “While you’re gone, perhaps you can see about fixing your search thing or whatever it’s called so we can actually find Thorne’s sister or that Win Ro guy. Oh, and that chest, too.”
Amy brushed herself against my hand before quickly saying “Thank you,” and vanishing, leaving me alone with just my thoughts and the six goblin corpses.
—
I was nearly asleep when I felt the touch of a paw against my knee jolting me awake. My claws were out and I was on my feet in seconds, glaring around to see what had woken me.
“Down here, oh paranoid one,” I heard Amy call up to me.
“You’re lucky I thought it was something taller than you,” I grumbled as I dismissed my claws, sitting back down and glaring at the cat. “Where did you go, anyway? I thought when you said a little while it was going to be literally just a little bit.”
“Things…” She paused, dragging the word out as I watched her considering her next words. “Did not go as smoothly as I had hoped they would,” she finally finished.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Oh? Anything I need to be concerned about?”
She shook her head and moved to sit on my lap, curling up as she opened up my menus for me. “No, but I can’t talk about it any more than I have, so let’s do something more productive, like show you how to cheat Mana costs.”
I rolled my eyes at the deflection, but had come to know Amy well enough by now that when she changed topics like this, it was pointless trying to get answers from her about whatever it was she was avoiding talking about. “Alright fine,” I conceded. “How do we cheat Mana costs?”
“You make someone else pay them,” Amy responded, as she did, I watched my Magic menu populate with two new additions.
Invocation of Amy – Inspect
Invocation
An Invocation of the power of Amy; grants the caster the ability to perform the Inspect Incantation at a reduced rate, but only if the caster is alone.
Cost: 60 Mana
Cooldown: 0 cycles
Invocation of Amy – Examine
Invocation
An Invocation of the power of Amy; grants the caster the ability to perform the Examine Incantation at a reduced rate, but only if the caster is alone.
Cost: 0 Mana
Cooldown 10,000 cycles
“What is an Invocation?” I asked, glancing up from my new spells to look at Amy on my lap.
Amy remained where she was, eyes still closed as she responded, “An Invocation invokes the power of a deity or other powerful being. In this case, you’re invoking my power on your behalf to aid you with either the Inspect or Examine Incantations.”
“And an Incantation is…?” I asked, realizing that in my annoyance from earlier I’d not thought to ask the difference between Incantations and… Well, whatever else there was.
Amy opened an eye, appearing to be annoyed at my question, though she didn’t say anything about it. Instead she just stretched before closing her eye again. “Like all things, Magic comes in many types, though at a high level there are four primary types. Incantations are a type of spell, which is one of the four primary types of Magic.” I opened my mouth to ask a follow-up question, only for Amy to interrupt me. “The other three are enchantments, blessings, and invocations.”
“So invocations aren’t spells?”
“No, they aren’t, but I admit that the difference is largely semantical. Still, I would refrain from referring to them as spells if I were you, and I would especially make sure you don’t make that mistake in front of any high level old human mage. They tend to get their panties in a wad when you mislabel their profession, regardless of gender.”
I couldn’t help but snicker at that image as I nodded. “Right, but what you’re saying is that it’s a great way to piss off a bad guy, should I run into one?”
“Oh yes, absolutely,” Amy responded with a chuckle.
“How are the differences in cost determined for these new uh…” I paused, unsure of what to call them since they weren’t spells.
“It’ll take some getting used to it, but the term used here on ;Algion is Magical Art, or just Magics.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said with a nod. “What determines the costs for these new Magical Arts I just got?”
“Generally it's a combination of The System and the patron that grants them to you.”
“That sounds like an awful lot of words to just say that you did,” I said with a huff. “It was kind of obvious, given that the cost of Inspect was 60, while the cost of Examine was free.”
“Hey now,” Amy replied, opening both eyes this time as she flicked her tail in annoyance. “I’ll have you know that if you have me scan a legendary item that’s 1,850 Mana!”
“Is that a lot for you?” I asked, eyebrow raised.
“...No,” Amy said with a huff. “But that’s not the point. The point is that I don't want you to just drain my Mana dry and send me into a Mana crash. Unlike you, I don't recover Mana while I sleep, mainly because I don't sleep. I can't just be throwing Mana around willy-nilly.”
I frowned at that, my eyebrow lowering as I nodded my head in understanding. “How much Mana do you have left?”
“I have a little over three-fourths left.”
I considered that for a moment and then sighed. “Alright, fine, I wouldn’t trust me either I guess. Can I use the spell–” I rolled my eyes as Amy glared at me for my incorrect terminology. “–fine, invocation. Can I use the invocation now?”
“Yes you can. Since it’s an invocation, all you need to do is activate it from your menu. For other magical arts, you’ll need to learn how to use them, but I’ve made this as brain dead as possible for you.”
“Thanks,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm as I highlighted the invocation and selected it. Nothing happened.
“You need to have the item you want to examine out of your Personal Space…”
“I knew that,” I said, summoning the earring and then selecting the invocation again.
Invocation of Amy – Examine:
Lesser Earring of Durability (Rare)
Defense: +5
Resistance: +5
Protection: +5
Constitution: +5
Endurance: +5
As I cast the invocation I felt a wave of power flow into me and then out of me. For the briefest of seconds I thought I saw my Mana increase by 300 before it returned to 60. “That was an odd experience,” I said, trying not to shudder.
“Yeah, from what I can tell Thorne wasn’t huge on magic, either. Likely why he just dumped all his points into his physical stats and went on with it. Oh, that reminds me.” Amy opened my Character menu and navigated to my race section before highlighting a portion of it for me.
Racial Details: Elaran Thorne
Race: Morvian Tribe
Experience: 22,777; Level: 33; Bonus Points Per Level: 1
Bonus Points Earned: 33; Bonus Points Spent: 31; Unspent Bonus Points: 2
“Oh cool, I got some extra points to spend!” I said, extremely excited for some reason.
“Yeah,” Amy said before stretching and getting off my lap. “Unfortunately, due to your slave collar, it doesn’t really matter where you put those points right now because they’ll just be negated, but you should still put some thought into where you put them as you won’t have that collar on forever.”
“Aw man, way to take the fun out of the dopamine hit,” I sighed, glancing over the rest of my Stats.”
Racial Base Stats:
Constitution Base: 10; Constitution Mod: 5; Constitution Total: 15
Dexterity per Level: 2; Dexterity Mod: 1; Dexterity Bonus Points: 0; Dexterity Level Up: 66; Dexterity Total: 67
Endurance per Level: 2; Endurance Mod: 4; Endurance Bonus Points: 0; Endurance Level Up: 66; Endurance Total: 70
Strength per Level: 2; Strength Mod: 3; Strength Bonus Points: 6; Strength Level Up: 66; Strength Total: 82
Affinity per Level: 0.5; Affinity Mod: 1; Affinity Bonus Points: 0; Affinity Level Up: 16; Affinity Total: 17
Willpower per Level: 0.5; Willpower Mod: 1; Willpower Bonus Points: 5; Willpower Level Up: 16; Willpower Total: 22
Aura per Level: 1; Aura Mod: 2; Aura Bonus Points: 10; Aura Level Up: 33; Aura Total: 45
Technique per Level: 1; Technique Mod: 2; Technique Bonus Points: 0; Technique Level Up: 33; Technique Total: 35
Luck Base: 2; Luck Mod: 3; Luck Total: 5
Perception per Level: 2; Perception Mod: 2; Perception Bonus Points: 10; Perception Level Up: 66; Perception Total: 78
I hummed to myself as I considered my options. “Do I need to pick where to spend my points now, or can I sleep on it?”
“You don’t have a time limit, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Oh, good.” I said with a smile, closing my menus. “I think I’ll hold on to them then and see what happens. Worst case I’ll just spend them all when I get the collar off.”
“I suppose that isn’t the worst idea I’ve heard you say.”
“Alright then, shall we get going?” I asked, standing and stretching before starting to head back the way we came. Amy jumped up onto my shoulder and gently used her paw to turn my head toward an opening in the opposite wall causing me to pause. “I swear that wasn’t there before,” I muttered.
“It wasn’t, because you hadn’t finished looting the bodies.”
“Huh? Yes I did,” I said with a huff.
“No, you didn’t.” Amy repeated, her tone matter-of-fact. “You missed something important. Check your Personal Space.”
Personal Space: Elaran Thorne
Iron Dagger (x1)
Iron Rapier (x1)
Bronze Rapier (x1)
Bronze Plate Armor Set (x1)
Waterskin (1/2 Full)
Bronze Arrow [x57] (x1)
Oak Longbow (x2)
Oak Shortbow (x1)
Bronze Dagger (x3)
Goblin Ears [x2] (x15)
Spider Silk (x5)
Spider Carapace (x5)
Spider Venom [x15] (x1)
Bronze Platebody (x1)
Bronze Chainskirt (x1)
Bronze Boots (x1)
Bronze Salave (x1)
Oak holy stick (x2)
Iron Longsword (x3)
Iron Sword (x2)
Iron Salvage (x2)
Goblin Ears (Sub-boss) [x2] (x5)
Goblin Ears (Boss) [x2] (x1)
“Ew, gross. Why do I have goblin ears?”
Amy sighed. “Really, that’s what you took away from this?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, reviewing the list and then frowning. “What is a–” I tried to speak, but the words caught in my throat, which caused me to frown even more.
“You won’t be able to say the word,” Amy said. “There’s no word in ;Algion common that translates to what you see. The only reason you can even process it as a recognizable word at all is because The System is translating everything into English for you.”
“That’s… Wait, what?” I paused right in front of the opening Amy had been taking me to, realizing that it just opened to a black void. “Where are we going, and what do you mean everything is being translated to me in English?”
“Come on now, Naomi. You didn’t think that we were all speaking English now, did you? How many languages are there back on Earth? Why would ;Algion have any of them, let alone the one that you knew?”
I huffed, not even bothering to respond to that as I just stared into the darkness before me. “And this takes us…?”
“Back to Rosevale,” Amy said, nudging my shoulder. “Come on, let’s go.”
I placed my hand on the collar around my neck and frowned. “But we didn’t find anything to hide this.” I said, concerned. “Wasn’t that the whole reason I came in here in the first place? To get something to use to hide the collar?”
“I have a few ideas for that,” Amy said dismissively. “Besides, the primary reason for you coming in here was to get you combat experience, which we did. Unfortunately, your Personal Space is almost out of space, so we’ll need to sell some stuff before we try any more dungeons.”
“I have a limit?” I asked, stepping into the darkness and feeling a weird sensation overtake me. Before Amy could respond, I was blinking my eyes rapidly and covering them with my hands as the bright light of the outdoors blinded me.
“Yes, it’s based on your gemstone. Emerald rings have a maximum size of 64, and you’re currently sitting at 58 total slots used.”
“That math doesn’t make sense to me,” I said with a sigh. “But what else is new?”
Discord Server, too!