Levels and Appraisals

On our way to the armory, I noticed my guild card was glowing.

“Looks like you leveled up!” Sofia said. “Lemme see!” I took out my guild card, handing it to Sofia.

“How does this work, exactly?” I asked.

“Using your guild card, you can allocate skill points you obtain from leveling up in order to learn new spells and skills,” she said, looking at my card. “WHAT THE HELL!”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Why do you get two skill points from a level up and I only get one!?” She said, furiously reading my card. I peeked over her shoulder, reading my class’s description:

Adventurer: A generalist class that doesn’t specialize in any particular field of skills, but pulls from them all. They gain more skill points than specialists.

“Looks like it’s a feature of my class,” I said, swiping my card back. She pouted. Giving a read through the skills I had available to learn, two in particular caught my eye.

Mana Edge: Coat one’s blade in pure mana, allowing one to damage non-corporeal enemies, as well as dealing extra, magic damage.

Steal: May steal a random item from a target in range. The upper limit of range and item weight increases with the number of skill points invested.

I decided to place one of my skill points into each of the two skills. Deciding to test out one of my skills, I pointed my hand at Sofia.

“Steal!” I said, the spell casting. I looked at my hand to find her mage’s hat in my hand.

“Hey!” Sofia complained. I handed it back to her. Seems I really can’t control what it takes, but can be a rather useful utility skill.

“Sorry, just wanted to try it out. Let’s get my sword appraised,” I said, heading inside the armory.

“Welcome!” said the armorer. “Oh? You two again? Kinda surprised to see the Fire girl with a recurring party member. And with intact eyebrows! Now that’s some character development!”

“Don’t be a dick, Gant,” Sofia said. The armorer chuckled.

“Anyways, what can I do for you today?” He said.

“I need a magic weapon appraised,” I said, placing my sword on the counter. Gant picked up a magnifying glass from the shelf behind him, holding up the blade and looking at it through the lens. A faint orange light glowed around the lens, as the likely magic item aided his appraisal.

“Well, it’s definitely enchanted all right. But it isn’t exactly a powerful one. Looks like all it does is negate some weaker magic spells targeted at the wielder,” he sighed, disappointed about the weak properties of the blade.

“That could come in handy,” I said. “How weak are we talking?”

“You’d probably burn to **** if I cast flare at you,” Sofia said.

“Ouch. That sucks,” I said. “Oh well. Can I sell back the sword I got the other day?”

“Sure,” he said. I put the shortsword back onto the counter, and he handed me back four silver.

“What the!? I paid eight for this the other day!” I complained.

“Read the sign,” he thumbed a sign on the edge of the counter. ‘Half price for sold items’. Like a damn rpg. Bullshit adventurer’s economy.

“Better than nothing,” I said, taking the silver.