Trees whipped by, snapping at Zahn’s face as he enjoyed the full-tilt sprint through the wilds. Being locked inside a stone wall for months hadn’t completely killed his love of living among civilization, but he was more than happy to endure a few days in the dirt for a change. The trees were thicker than he was used to from home, but their thick roots made excellent footholds among the underbrush and fallen nature debris everywhere. More than once his thudding feet barely missed a living thing, most of their health bars showing red to indicate how little they appreciated being disturbed, with more than a few fleeing with yellow names flickering briefly in his vision. He got a good look at a Squallant Treerat as the large yellow squirrel screamed a chittering warning at him before launching itself upwards some thirty feet to escape his blundering path
By the time he slowed to a walk to catch his breath, his path was lost long ago and he only knew he was generally heading south. He took deep breaths and appreciated the loamy smells, clinging pollen, even the sour smell of something rotting was pleasantly different than the sand and sweat he’d been surrounded by like he’d been imprisoned in a locker room.
And the blood. But he’d gotten sick of that smell years ago by now.
Looking around in the brush, Zahn found the source of the rotting smell. Something the size of two hands was mostly bones and fur under a wide fern, the remains picked apart with a patch of striped fur hinting at a raccoon. “Or anything, really,” Zahn mused out loud. “It’s not like I can tell if this is a critter, beast, or monster just from some bones. I guess the only thing I can tell is it was a mammal.” Standing straight and brushing his hands together, the Player stretched and panned around the woods. One direction looked much the same as another, if he hadn’t stopped after a particularly thick oak he wouldn’t know where his path had led from. Spotting a flicker of red dancing through the leaves overhead, the Custom decided sticking around was just as pointless as heading back north and turned to leave.
Taking two steps, something pulled him back. He couldn’t shake the nagging feeling there was something he was supposed to be doing about the remains. The little animal corpse had nothing to do with him, eaten by scavengers after something killed it days ago, he had been a prisoner then. He turned back to the little body, kneeling next to it. The dead thing meant nothing to him, had no effect on his life, wasn’t even something he could have claimed to have eaten. Regardless of how he tried to justify his want to walk away, he couldn’t just leave the thing.
“This had better not be as stupid as it feels.”
Sighing at his own compulsions, Zahn reached for his earth spells. Between Shift, Shape, and Sand Spear it was clear he needed to expand his repertoire, but mulling over how to use Shift gave him an idea.
With both hands pressed to the ground on either side of the corpse, he closed his eyes and pushed mana into the ground. With Mana Sight active he could faintly see the blue energy with his eyes closed, and while his arms were vibrant with light and color the shine faded rapidly as the cloud-like energy pushed into the ground. He could feel it leaving slower than usual, showing between his experiments earlier around mending and shaping rocks that dirt resisted the push less than solid stone yet significantly more than releasing magic into the air. After the pool of magic encompassed the dirt under the remains at the approximate dimensions of an expanded umbrella, Zahn triggered the spell.
“Shift,” he softly intoned as he rotated his hand in a circle and willed the earth to turn in place.
The small plants and fallen leaves churned, the soil flowing like a whirlpool as it ground over itself and spiraled around. Surrounding the small corpse and enveloping it, Zahn gave a silent salute to the fallen as the little body sank underground and disappeared from sight. With his eyes showing the magic moving around he could track that the little parcel was eventually tucked under the mass of ground he’d pushed around but he could clearly see he hadn’t used up even half of the magic energy. He knew from the Tome and his experiments that if unused the mana would disperse over time and fade, but anything buried only a few feet down would still be dug up and disturbed again.
Standing up straight and holding a dirty palm down towards the burial, Zahn triggered his other main earth spell. “Shape!” Pushing down on a single point, he mentally expanded the point from a sharp tip to a wide, soft cushion that would smash down evenly on the dirt. The pressure formed obedient to the image he held in his mind, and the mass of churned dark earth pushed itself down to make a smooth bowl nearly three feet across.
Nodding to himself that the little beast had been successfully buried, Zahn stepped away with a satisfied breath just to see a line of text pop up and vanish.
Act of Faith recognized. Godly Favour gained.
Glaring at the vanished line of text on the left side of his heads-up display, the Player waited a breath to see if anything else would intrude before disregarding the commentary and moving forward once again. The only godly things I’ve seen here are angry demonstrators in front of that big Church building, I’ll be damned before they try and turn me into a Führerprinzipiir. With a shake to stir himself out of murderous plotting, Zahn re-assessed his surroundings and noted the great big oak he’d used as a landmark. With a glance at his HUD to verify the south direction pip, the Custom resumed his run.
Time flew by as the woodlands passed, smaller creatures scurrying away and larger red-named threats bellowing challenge as he neared their territories. His legs burned, but the magic pumping through his limbs seemed to answer the pain with a burn of pleasure in return. It felt like he’d already completed a daily workout, and yet the energy to keep running pulsed through his legs with each exhale. If he’d been paying closer attention to his body with Mana Sight, he would have seen the deep blue magic he’d been steadily filling his cells with being used up and replaced with vibrant red streaks that reached up his channels back to his chest.
By the time his stomach was demanding lunch, the Player had stained his muscles with fire-type mana all through his limbs, heart, and chest. The dark navy blue magic that he had diligently been packing into his body had been steadily replaced with indigo coloring looking like veins reaching out from his core to each major muscle group, shining to mana detection and making his frayed form look like one big bruise if he could see himself.
Pausing for yet another short break, Zahn felt his heart pounding as his lungs screamed for rest, the Player did his best to keep moving if only walking as much as he wanted to lay down. He had yet to fully hear the impulse that continued to push him further south, only the feeling of need driving him forward rang in his ears. Strolling and swinging his arms to keep his blood hot, Zahn felt his stomach complain yet again as he pushed thoughts of Ethan’s ever-present stew aside and began to hunt in earnest. Passing a number of yellow named creatures had given him the impression he must be out of some hunter territory now, else there would have been something angry to see him in the last hour.
His eyes scanned the foliage, tracking up and down the bushy areas until he found another health bar. The creature it belonged to was still a mystery, but he knew if it wasn’t coming after him it was likely not considering him a meal.
With a lazy wave of his hand, Zahn mentally commanded a Fire Bolt to fly.
Nothing happened.
Considering his left hand, he wiggled his fingers while thinking back to the prompt talking about Fire Mastery. The mana seemed to move under his skin, but nothing left his body. Focusing on the idea of producing flame, he watched a ribbon of purple snake up his arm bones and escape through his palm, igniting a cup of flames. The magic danced against his skin, tickling and bouncing constantly as the sphere-bottomed shapes continued seeking air, fresh fuel, and generating heat.
With another glance up to his intended target, the Player wished the flames forward and finally magic obeyed his will.
Mildly.
The freely scattering fire he held lurched horizontally forward just to peter out inches away. The stream quickly emptied itself and ended as a curl of smoke hovering annoyingly in front of his face.
Zahn’s temper pulsed, annoyance and heat rising together. He flicked his fingers, thrashed his wrist, then swung his arm in arcs, mentally demanding the fire magic to cast. Each failure fed into his anger, until by the time he spun to try and throw flame like a discus and felt like an utter fool his wrath barked. With a snarling shout he coughed out a Fire Spit, three times the size of his normal casting, launching faster than he’d intended and straight as a bullet into the tree behind his target.
His intended victim woke up, the dog-sized prickly animal offended at his intrusion. It resembled a cat, if the feline had been blended with a porcupine for its defenses and a mole for the nose. The wiggling tiny tendrils moved around the whisker region like a squid’s exploring grasp as it inhaled and whistled at him, the little grunts sounding like someone broke their tea kettle.
Glaring down at the little not-cat, Zahn noted its name as a ‘Whiskone’ before the color of its label shifted from yellow to red and the affronted creature attacked.
The tail that had been hidden behind its bulk lashed out as the little body spun in place, the spines coating it launching forward faster than his own attack had formed and aimed unfortunately accurately. Before the Player could shift to the side, his half-baked movement had only ensured the wave of needles punched into his right leg in four spots and almost sent him to the ground in pain.
-38 Health. Wild whiskone used unknown attack (4).
“Fucker!” Zahn spat viciously, jumping on one leg as he tried to keep an eye on his attacker, the little creature curling into a wad after seeing he still existed and awkwardly rolled itself a few feet away. Seeing his potential lunch escape while he couldn’t walk, the Custom’s composure finally snapped. “Fuck! You!” With his articulate announcement Zahn found his right hand engulfed in flame, the brightly waving shapes seeming eager to answer his call. Thrusting his fist forward, he tried to balance through the pain and mentally envisioned the spell as he aimed just below the creature’s still-full health bar. Inhaling deeply, he tried to focus. Simply wanting magic hadn’t done anything, but his mind’s eye clearly saw the shape of his Fire Spit he’d been casting since he learned fire magic, and the cloud of light wrapped around itself to form his desired shape immediately.
Above his clenched fist three missiles formed, the soft and wispy mass spinning around and winding upon itself to form thin rods. The tiny spears spun and gathered more of the cottony fire mana into themselves, twining around to form into thin cones the size of his fingers.
By the time Zahn exhaled, the offending animal had rolled its way another eight feet or so, and his improvised magic spell was ready. Flexing his hand downwards, the trio of spikes leapt forward as if horses held by snapped reins leaping around the foliage to strike their target. The whiskone had begun to travel behind a fallen log for cover when the trio curled up and over the obstacle to strike deep into the beast’s body. Each impact sounded with a sizzling crack, and Zahn could feel the magic in the spell release as the crude structure dissipated and knew without even nearing the creature that each spell had erupted into fire after embedding itself into the critter’s ribs.
159 damage dealt! Zahn used Yhu (3)!
He watched his prey’s bright red health bar under its red name shrink, going from half again the length of its name to just half the distance, his spell doing a solid two-thirds of the whiskone’s total health pool in one shot. With a soft whistle at his own prowess, Zahn flicked his other hand to the side and uttered “Yhu,” trying to recapture the breathy curse he’d accidentally named the spell with. The small spell faithfully reformed over the back of his left hand, curling into the darts before launching themselves at the mostly dead lunch he’d targeted viciously before the creature died and gave up its experience.
Zahn has slain a Wild whiskone (lvl 7) with Yhu!
You have gained 8 xp (e).
Feeling slightly ashamed that such a low-leveled creature had wounded him so effectively, Zahn fell back on his rear to begin extracting the quartet of quills. His pants showed more holes than the newest collection, causing him to pause after ripping out the second barb and take a solid look at himself. He’d been wearing the same outfit for months, not bothering to worry about keeping it too clean. Each day it was stained with blood and dirt, if not his own then his opponents’ fresh coat. He sat barefoot, his soles hardened and tough from the constant running over sand and stone, with only his magical belt even resembling cleanliness and order. The sleeveless shirt and loose pants bound by string were a dingy brown, stained thoroughly enough that he couldn’t pick out one faded stab wound from another. The shirt had enough slits and tears in it to be generously called ‘covering’ him and the pants were little better from his knees down. Extracting the final quill with a grunt, Zahn glared at the dead creature and mentally cursed it again for punching yet more holes in his attire.
Finding the corpse among the ferns and shrubs, Zahn rolled the critter over to find a soft underbelly, thankfully lacking spines. With a grimace he set into the part of food he’d mostly left to Ethan’s experience the last few months - gutting.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
His skinning attempts were abysmal, netting him a few dozen bloody quills he didn’t need and some shredded animal hide. He carved away the desired meat before burying the offal and bone remains with earth magic as he had before. Once again a line of text mentioned godly favor, which was once again pointedly ignored.
Using some nearby sticks he fashioned a set of skewers, proud of himself, before Shaping a shallow dirt pit and planting them around the edge facing in and turning to fire magic for cooking. With the ignition of fire from his mouth, Zahn was able to channel a steady stream of flame out of his palms to fall onto the meat. Watching fire drip down like water made his brain feel like something fuzzy was crawling across its surface, but with his repeated seemingly endless deaths the Custom wasn’t certain he hadn’t already hit a critical level of brain damage.
“Heh, and who would I even ask? Strangers?” With another chuckle the Player realized he was getting distracted and charring some of the thinner bits of lunch, and with an instinctive weave he pulled the streamers of flame away from the heavily cooked sections like ribbons settling in the wind.
After a few more minutes of experimenting with directing the dangling fire to wrap around his desired targets and avoid the completed segments, Zahn was almost sad to be done and dismissed the magic.
Cooking has reached level 8!
Blowing on his food to cool it, Zahn bit and sha-sha-ha’d his too-hot skewer, immediately regretting his lack of spices - even salt would have been an improvement. With a mental note to gather and hoard spices the next time he was in a city, he cast an eye around the woods to see if anything was recognizably an ingredient.
After finishing the first skewer, he’d identified something that looked like mint but without a purpose he left the plants alone. Pulling up his sparse map, he noted how his position was vaguely indicated by a dot but without any efforts made to detail the area around the Collisae he could see its sandy circle and the city Twin Towns he’d left what felt like forever ago - a matter of months past.
He dismissed the map after some pondering and munching, reflecting he’d need to update his map with the Cartography skill as often as possible, telling himself he should consider tall places for mapping out something useful rather than merely green wilds.
Discarding the final skewer, Zahn looked south as a shadow flashed by overhead and he shook out his legs to get the blood flowing once more. With a deep breath, he set off at a slow jog to let his food settle and vowed to keep an eye out for something better to eat with cooked animal before dinner.
* * * * *
Keeping one eye on his HUD’ clock and the other on the sunlight, Zahn almost tripped over his next great find. His toe caught on something with tall grassy strands poking out the top, the rush of reaching leaves catching his shin as well as he stumbled to a stop. With a curse and a kick, he turned back to find he’d tripped over a cluster of wild onions.
His griping turning into a grin, the Custom eyeballed about half the patch and used a quick Shift spell to churn the dirt around the plants and easily gather the crops from their bed. A double armful of veggies into his bag later, he verified it was just under an hour till eight and he needed to settle in for what promised to be an interesting night. If that old shaman is right, I’ll have to wrestle with a demon for my own body. Daily. Right. Sighing, he reached for the endless energy sensation from that morning just to find a tired body answering his mental query.
Turning in place and stretching, Zahn scouted around his find for prey animals and no sooner than he’d spotted another shady oak did he find another whiskone halfway up its trunk. The little animal was smaller than his lunch, with a different dappled tabby coloring to its nasty quills and an oblivious twitch in its tail. Examining the little trap longer, he spotted its yellow name and a level four indicated over its health bar, showing him this beast was in fact dinner.
Charging his latest spell over both fists, he launched six bolts into the critter and killed it instantly. He gained no experience for hunting something so much weaker, and its body fragmented on impact shedding both right limbs as it fell from the trunk. “Talk about overkill,” Zahn muttered as he observed the results, trying to mentally weigh the difference in levels and amount of casts between his victims.
With a shake of his head at his excessive force, the Custom set about cleaning and preparing the meat of the second of these beasts he’d seen that day. Deciding to cook this one properly instead of just with magic, he spent a few minutes gathering fuel for a fire pit before Shaping a new work area and setting up his campfire for the night.
When he lit the small pile of logs, he felt a perverse satisfaction at skipping steps. Instead of his long-taught pattern of gathering tinder to light and kindling to ramp up the heat, he held a hand over the log pile and willed a stream of flame to drip down into the wood. The orange fire mana pooled among the tree limbs, billowing softly compared to how he had seen ‘normal’ blue mana behave, yet he still noted the rotted wood segments seemed to repel the magic. Fresh, whole logs soaked it in like oil into a rag but the damp and less-arboral pieces acted more like soap repelling than ink staining.
With a dozen arm-sized logs glowing by orange light to his mana vision, Zahn coughed up an ignition and spat fire into the pile. The magic acted like kerosene, actual light shimmering across the formation as the campfire happily ignited and danced around his meat skewers.
A handful of minutes before eight at night, the sun was nearly set and his dinner of not-cat and onion skewers was settling well enough in his gut.
Summoning his Grimoire with a flick of his wrist, the Custom caught the thick journal as it tumbled out of the air. Sitting on a log and leaning towards his comforting flames, Zahn opened his spellbook and spent a moment smiling at the information on the inside cover. In addition to listing his Schools and additional character details, it now bore a large flame symbol next to the Fire magic school, which had gained a bright glittering red ink.
Zahn recalled something listed in the alerts that morning, while he’d been gasping for breath just after the fight. Your progress is saved. He turned pages in his magical book until he found the pages that opened to the inked drawing of another book inside, his pilfered Tome. Its image remained open on the page he’d last read through, some twenty-odd chapters deep into the first book of three.
Laying the heavy book in his lap and holding the left page flat, he walked his fingers on the ink to flip back chapters at a time until he found the glossary again. This time, the display showed far more chapters than he’d made progress in, with a ruby red bookmark indicating where he’d stopped in Chapter Twenty-Three. The rest of Young showed to be another fifty-odd chapters before he could get into Middling, which was only just dented by his impossible achievement earlier that day.
Even after getting fucking Mastery, it’s only worth that much into the next book? What the hell was this guy even writing if something like this is just part of his book two? Zahn’s idle musings continued as he traced down the page, his nail dragging until it caught on the red bookmark and the ink suddenly shifted shape once more. The red bookmark now highlighted the exact page he’d had open before, underlining the very words he’d been reading last. Zahn leaned back, a tad perturbed as he stared at the new feature the Tome displayed. Just how does this thing know what words I last read? The Player’s thoughts swirled as the clock drew closer, his gaze drifting to the fire as he remembered his brief hours of reading this book when he wasn’t meditating with the imp.
As if summoned by his stray thoughts, the fire swirled in its pit and rose. Closing the book in his lap, the Custom tossed it into the air to dismiss it and leaned forward into the rising image. The imp’s face appeared, looking wider than normal before shifting and warping into a larger, more detailed figure. If the imp had looked small, this figure seemed to be at least Zahn’s own height with tall looping horns curled back behind its head. The pig-like muzzle had drawn downwards, rounding into a more wolf-like snout with wide snagged boar tusks jutting out from the edges of its maw. Snorting smoke, the higher-ranked avatar of Eight grumbled its displeasure at its newest charge.
“Zahn,” its voice sounded like intermittent winds in a wild storm, stirring crackling flames. “Youhu don’hn’t seehem too ghet it, leetle human.” The menace in its tone was only slightly undercut by the stuttering connection, as if there was a great blizzard filling an antennae dish somewhere. “Wehee have haa cowontraahct!”
Zahn reached into the flames, feeling the warmth on his skin. The natural instinct to not touch flame was a whisper in the back of his mind, noted and ignored. His muscles tensed, instincts screaming for him to move, to get up and flee, to get away from the strange monster and keep himself safe from such dire flames. Despite knowing how hot fire needed to be for wood to burn, the blistering air felt comfortable, and his skin felt caressed by the releasing of gasses as the flames licked his arm.
With his right hand embedded in the campfire, the kneeling Player felt the Mark on his palm connect to the Chaos Lord. Eyeing his clock, he saw it was just past eight at night when the demonic thing called on him.
“Much better.” The monster’s growl sounded as if right in Zahn’s ear. “At least you seem to already know the protocol. Has another of myself been to see you already? That shouldn’t be, your contract is fresh as of this date. Regardless. Open your mind, surrender your Will to me, mortal. We have a deal!”
The thing’s hot breath stuck to Zahn’s cheeks, he could almost taste the rotted smell oozing from the Chaos being’s energy. Despite its continued insistence, he felt nothing compelling him to obey. Mentally tabbing open his Quests, he found the ongoing contract with Eight with a certain requirement unfulfilled. Dismissing the blinking text with a smirk, the Custom turned his focus back to the baleful Chaos creature.
“You promised to kill the Ringmaster for me. I had to kill him. Doing so, in fact, got me Fire Mastery, which you hadn’t told me a fucking thing about.” Eight’s avatar glowered, its eyes shifting in rage between different forms as it snarled at the Player. Staring back into what looked like squid pupils, Zahn spat a Fire Spit through the image. It felt good to hurl magic as easy as clearing his throat. “I’m holding your contract not fulfilled, demon of the clock.”
“YOU WOULD DARE?!” The voice shook leaves, echoing through the forest and over down the hill. “I am the only reason you could even damage that warded coward! You copied my magic to pierce its shields, you copied my spell and dare to suggest that I was not the reason for your success?” From raging at the skies, as it spoke the avatar’s tone shifted towards an angry negotiation. As it spoke, its mouth shifted forms once more, from a tusk- and fang-filled maw towards a smaller, more precise and flattened opening lined with needle teeth. “If anything,” the newly-formed mouth enunciated, “as you could only make the kill compounding on my attacks and debuffs, your own gaining of Mastery should be proof that my part of the deal was upheld.”
Zahn’s HUD flickered with a new light, showing a yellow question mark over the quest’s empty checkbox in a new window. Closing the popup with his mental digit, the Player returned to the attack. “Not a fucking chance. You left no instructions, no information, you’d shafted me off into some vision of distant shores while you played the solo gladiator in my prize fight. You sold me a promise of a won match and instead I wake up to an imminent loss and fucking magic explosion if I hadn’t had the presence of mind to continue the attacks! Attacks you, remember, did not teach me.” He paused to breathe, finding his face directly in the campfire had limited how much he could ramble at a time. His display once again flickered with the contract in a new window, this time circling the unfulfilled condition once more. No fucking way am I letting you get that one checked off, asshole. Turning his face to grab some relatively cold air, Zahn turned back to the image in the fire. “If. Anything. I could give you partial credit for making a situation that I was savvy enough to exploit. You did not deliberately assist me, nor did you act in my favor. While you controlled my body, you acted in your own best interests up to and including not telling me what was going on or how to best use the mess you’d left for me.”
Eight’s avatar was furious. It visibly shook, horns rattling against each other and multiplying while thinning until the thing had long dreadlocks made of pencil-thing antelope spirals. “You-! Worthl-! Fucki-!” It couldn’t even seem to form words, vibrating against the Player’s outstretched hand as if it were an impassable barrier. Zahn flexed his fingers, feeling resistance like pressing a hand against a leather wall. Finally its snarling beak formed a snapping coherence. “You can’t do this! We have a deal! Give me your fucking body!”
As the image threw itself against the Mark, growing limbs of flame that wrapped and curled around his wrist, Zahn felt his own connection to the fire much closer and more comforting than the squirming grasp of the Chaos Lord’s avatar. “How about, you just fuck off. I’ll call you when I need you.” Pushing his mana into the mass of flames, Zahn felt the dancing joy of its warmth hug and give assurance to his magic. Turning it over on itself, he felt more than saw the connection with Eight being wrapped in a tangle and distorting, fizzling worse than the initial call. With another few turns and wraps, the Player folded the flames with both hands like a massive dough ball until the image was gone and the Chaos thing’s voice with it. I wonder how long I can get away with shit like that, the Custom wondered to himself as he set the now tangled ball of fires back onto its logs and watched as the shape slowly unraveled.
The angry ball of fire mana spun in place within the flames, with each strip peeling away natural fires sprang up higher as if being fed. Watching the mess writhe around and dissolve, Zahn smirked at the memory of the shape-changing imp. “So if that’s round one, am I going to have to dodge torches and fires every night?” A thought struck, causing him to consider the sky. “Fuck, morning and evening? I need to get a handle on this shit, either way. I am not giving my body to some demon.”
As if in reply, the little mass of magic flames folded over on itself to reveal a knot of red and black at the core, resembling a flower opening its petals. “So be it,” came a not-sound, before the mis-colored magic flared and grew to fill the campfire. “Heat debt.” As the psychic sound intoned, the campfire shuddered and the logs shook.
With his mana sight always active, Zahn got a good look at how the spell cast from the other end of his contract with hell worked. The directed ribbons of fire magic wound around the campfire to seek out each burning chunk of log. The streamers connected directly to the coals, the pieces of wood being changed by the chemical reaction of fire. Each ribbon pulsed and swelled, from the flame source into the middle of the warped spell shape, at first Zahn thought they were moving fire around but the flames didn’t dance in different directions instead shrinking as the campfire’s heat dwindled.
He puzzled at the changing fire’s differences, trying to parse out exactly how it was changing until the obvious struck him - the demon had said heat so it must be leeching away temperature.
Just before the Player congratulated himself on understanding the spell, he felt something twist inside his skull and two messages appeared at once. First, he read a line of text that popped up in his display, “Your understanding of this spell has increased.” He would have rolled his eyes at the message if the HUD wasn’t bound to his field of vision.
The second was a whispered taunt from the fire spell as light vanished. The mental not-voice sounded smug, like a last word before slamming a door, “Enjoy your cold-ass campsite, dick.” The dark and cold crept in, leaving Zahn blinking rapidly at the bright spots in his vision after the fire left.
“Rude!”
