Of Potential Paths to Power

John stretched his arms out above his head, feeling his shoulders pop softly as he stared up at the dome of ice that protected the group.

Beyond its gently swirling shell, he thought he could finally begin to see the outlines of the ruined buildings around them again - the first signs that the dust cloud from the hospital’s collapse was beginning to thin. His eyes flicked across the pale blue surface of his alchemical construct, inspecting it for any damage that he hadn’t noticed before. Thus far, it had held up exceptionally well, requiring only the barest amount of his mana for repairs.

’I suppose it’s under a lot less pressure than it was when it was holding off a big flaming tornado,’ he thought, admiring the shimmering blue for a moment more before a flash of pale orange reflecting across it caught his eye.

Looking back down, he barely managed to bring a hand up in time to “catch” one of his windows before it flew into his face.

“Are you listening, John?” Moira called, tersely, her sharp voice drawing The Gamer from his reverie.

The Warden sat just across the dome from him, her holy shield lying at her feet, its soft glow illuminating the interior. Glancing at the window he’d “caught,” John registered that it was the codex page explaining what his stats did.

At first he’d been worried that his communication skills - or lack thereof - would have affected his ability to explain the build conundrum he was faced with to his companions, the Warden especially, since she had no real background with video games to add context. Fortunately for him, his powers were blessed with an incredible capacity to share what they could do with others. He’d nearly blanketed the interior of the [Swirling Mirrorjade Barrier] with more than a dozen popped-out windows, each displaying some piece that made up the whole of his divinely granted ability.

“Yeah, sorry.” He scratched the back of his neck, shyly. “Just checking to make sure the spell’s holding up. I’ve never tried to maintain one of my alchemical constructs for this long.”

Moira sighed with exasperation, eliciting a sing-song giggle from the icy dome’s third occupant.

Ela sat off to John’s right, the spellbook he’d just looted lying open on her criss-crossed legs. Since she was already familiar with the fundamentals of his powers, she’d asked to check out his newest piece of loot. It was an easy guess that she’d have been interested in a book drop to begin with, but the relatively good condition of it also uniquely gave them both some hope that it could have new information on the survivors written within.

The only thing he’d done before handing it over was to extract the singular skill gem that had been seated inside of the armored cover - one containing a spell they were all unfortunately familiar with at this point.

It was perhaps the roughest-looking skill gem he’d seen so far, with two distinct halves held together by an off-gold metallic band. What he assumed was the top part, or maybe an upper corner, was a pale blue section of crystal - a jagged piece that tapered off to a somewhat dulled point. Beneath it, past the conjoining metal, was a much darker green stone, nearly rounded to a shape that reminded him of his [Lesser Air Burst] skill gem. From where the two halves came together, he thought he could see hairline cracks beginning to form.

From one angle, it looked like a spike being blasted by air, from another, it looked like an off-color ice cream cone.

Of all the gemstones he’d collected, this was the first John really thought he could break if he tried, though he wasn’t sure if that was due to slapdash construction or the damage it had already sustained. Regardless of its condition, there was a weight to it that was hard to ignore as he rolled it around in his fingers - not a physical one, but a heft of the mana contained within it.

The Gamer sighed, rolling the stone over in his palm once more.

“You know, I really am sorry,” he said, quietly. “I don’t mean to space out so much. I just can’t help my mind wandering off sometimes… a lot of the time.”

Moira exhaled again, tersely, but then her expression softened, ever so slightly, before she spoke, “There are far worse flaws for a person to have than absent-mindedness, but you do need to be careful of when it happens. This dome is strong, but it does not mean we are completely safe.”

John looked between his companions, stopping to meet Ela’s gaze.

“He has yet to fail us when it matters,” the blonde said, smiling, “though I will continue to tease him about it.”

“I suppose I deserve that,” he replied, matching her grin with his own. “Anyway… Moira, you were saying before?”

The Warden straightened, nodding. “Right. I was saying that I have finished reading what you have shared about these ‘stats’ that measure your capabilities. Your innate ability really is a lot of math.”

The Gamer chuckled softly. “Yeah, it is. It operates like a video game - like a computer program, basically.”

“It is certainly very unique,” Moira said, furrowing her brows in thought.

“My problem currently is that I see two major deficiencies in those numbers of mine,” he continued, opening a copy of his character sheet for himself to look at. “Er, I guess maybe it’s more accurate to say I have one big problem, and I see two solutions.

“I keep running low or out of mana in these fights, especially now that I have the ability to protect my health with it. Against that last boss, it took me to zero almost immediately, and once I’m out, I can’t do anything, really. I have a limited ability to increase my numbers with each level, so I think I can either spend all my upgrade capacity on trying to get more mana and regeneration or…” John looked between the knights he sat across from, “I could try to improve my physical stats and to fight alongside you two.”

“Are the changes from these stat points that immediate?” the Warden asked, raising an eyebrow inquisitively. “Can you expect to be stronger for the rest of this expedition?”

“Well, yeah. As far as I can tell, my stats apply instantly. I can be stronger before we leave this bubble.”

“I do have a question about that, John,” Ela interjected, her voice soothing in contrast to Moira’s. “Your scrying magic does not assign stat points to us, correct?”

“Uh, not that I’ve ever seen.” He shrugged. “Not that I’ve used [Observe] on any of you in a couple days at this point.”

She nodded. “You are welcome to try, to make sure. I just want to point out that we do not know what stat numbers you would need to reach to get close to us in strength or speed.”

“That- yeah, that’s a pretty big problem with my thinking,” John admitted, deflating somewhat. “I guess I can only really compare to what I was before…”

’I’m not even the same level as Moira was when I first used [Observe] on her,’ his train of thought continued, internally, ’and I won’t be fully committed to physical capabilities. Maybe trying to help them in close quarters at all is more of a liability at this point.’

While considering that, he did take the time to use his scrying magic on his girlfriend, hoping for more detailed information. Unfortunately, he was met with little more than he’d seen before.

“Nothing much,” he said, sharing the window with her and passing it over. She flushed a faint pink as she read the relationship gauge, but John was too distracted to notice. “I guess it makes sense, in a way - it’s not like the whole world operates on my system now, just me.”

He sighed, heavily. “It just feels bad being so reliant on you both if something gets in close to me.”

“You are not the first mage to run out of mana in battle, and you will not be the last,” Moira stated, matter-of-factly. “Everyone contributes what they can when we fight.”

“John,” Ela interjected, her voice a soothing contrast to the Warden’s. “Do you think I could have raised a dome like this? It is a good thing for us all to have different specialties. You have played enough team games to know that, I am certain.”

“Yeah… it just seems wrong to ask someone to ‘tank’ for me in real life, ya know?”

The blonde smiled, reassuringly. “I knew what I signed up for many years ago when I joined the Order as a squire and not a scribe. If you are so concerned about us, though, you could continue to develop your healing magic. It would not hurt for us to have a backup, should something happen to me.”

“Actually,” Moira said, perking up, “that gives me another thought. If our safety is your primary concern, perhaps you could consider Fateweaving?”

John frowned, trying to dig up what he knew of that name from his memory. “Fateweaving… where have I heard that before? I think Ela mentioned a guild of barrier mages like that before, right? I don’t know much about them, though.”

“The Fateweavers were one of the major neutral guilds of the Abyss,” the Warden elaborated. “History aside, their namesake ability is one of barrier control which allows them to eject those within their barriers at the moment they would die - to cheat ****, in a way. It would be the ultimate measure of safety, in a situation like this.”

“That sounds… incredible!” John said, somewhat in disbelief. “That also sounds incredibly complicated. Are you sure that’s something I could even do?”

Ela interjected this time, offering reassurance, “You clearly have a natural talent for barrier magic. Look around us, at this world. I have never heard of anyone else who could do something like this.”

“I’m not sure I’d consider it a ‘natural talent,’” he said, grinning wryly. “This is a spell I was basically given.”

“Regardless of the source, the power is yours to wield now,” Moira said. “Was it not your decision to use the spell to bring us here?”

The Gamer shrugged. “Kinda, I guess. I’m the one who cast it, sure, but I didn’t exactly choose to bring us to a zombie-filled post-apocalypse. This world was just what happened when I first cast [Create Dungeon].”

“Perhaps that is a starting point for things you could learn to control, then,” the Bookworm Knight said, shifting around the spellbook she held in her lap.

“Yeah, that would be nice,” John said, his mind drifting back to the impromptu flying practice he’d undergone the previous evening. “I’d like to be able to open just a blank training space so I can work on my spells without risk of being seen.”

He closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath. “So… what’s the catch for that? I doubt ****-cheating barrier magic is something simple to get my hands on, right?”

“Indeed,” Ela said. “The ‘catch’ is that the Fateweavers no longer exist as a guild. Their survivors’ number is incredibly small, at this point, as well, and their secrets are closely guarded. Does the Order have one amongst their number?”

“We would need to speak to my father about that,” Moira said, much less excitedly. “I know that the other branches have been in contact with several, recently, due to the ongoing war, but I know not if any one would take on a student.”

“So that’s up in the air, as well…” The Gamer muttered. As he thought over her suggestion again, his mind wandered back to the ambush, to the feelings of despair and helplessness he’d felt. “Even if I can’t learn that specific thing, I could learn to try and break out of trap barriers, right? Like the one we were caught in before?”

“Yes. That much is magic I know we can teach you here, in Springfield,” the Warden answered.

John nodded. “That’s… a compelling argument, then. It’s a direction to head in, if nothing else.”

’Until now, I really haven’t had much of a longer term goal for my abilities, besides generally getting stronger,’ he thought, looking more closely at the stat points he had left to spend. ’Barrier magic… Fateweaving… Those are tangible things to look for. Even if the Golden Rose can’t get me a teacher, I wonder if I could upgrade into that effect on my own by refining my [Create Dungeon] gem enough?

’Any chance you wanna give me a hint?’ John thought, wishfully.

He knew better than to really expect an answer, though, and so had already begun to move as he finished the question. If he was going to be looking at barrier magic as a path forward, that would definitely commit him to improving his mana situation, at least in the short term, though The Gamer wasn’t aware of any reason he would be locked into that choice if something else came up to steer him off that path later.

’I think this just makes sense from a survival standpoint anyway. All my skills are mage skills, and I’ve got no training with any weapons. I’d likely get a skill eventually if I kept trying, but I don’t have time to experiment if we’re going to be fighting creatures this dangerous.’

“So, Ela, by the way,” John said, looking up at the blonde, “anything interesting actually written inside the spellbook? Or is it all decoration?”

The Bookworm Knight perked up immediately, leaning forward to hold the book out. “Well, it looks as though pages from several different books were used to make it. There are pieces of an old encyclopedia, some astrology, even old mythology - all with information relating to the moon.”

’Hmm…. I wonder if that helped channel the magic that got put into it?’ John thought silently, not wanting to interrupt.

“There are some pages in here that look like they were blank before someone started taking notes on them,” Ela said, reaching up to point at a nearby window that contained the item’s description. “If I had to guess, I would say those are the paper made from the tree branches that this is talking about. Mostly, they are filled with information about ice magic.”

“So… this was owned by someone like me,” The Gamer muttered, somberly. “A novice at this magic, trying to figure things out and survive.”

The blonde frowned, sympathetically. “Yes, I believe so, but we do not know that he died, for certain. That creature may not have been him.”

“I’d like to believe that. Someone in here has got to still be alive, right?” John sighed.

“I- If I understand my achievement correctly, then the family of survivors must have been five people: a mother whose staff I have, a father whose sword I have, an oldest daughter whose locket I have, a son whose spellbook I have, and a youngest daughter whose sword and shield I have,” he rattled off, grimacing as he did so. “It sounds so gruesome when I say it like that…”

“The father was the Lighthouse Keeper, the first boss I fought, so he’s…” John choked up. “As is the youngest daughter…”

He wrung his hands together in frustration. They’d been so close to saving her - he was sure of it - yet she’d slipped through their fingers. A knot twisted in his stomach. If John had been stronger, or faster, or more skilled, he was sure he could have done it.

Moira watched the pained emotions flash across The Gamer’s face and opened her mouth, as if to say something, but her breath caught in her throat. Silently, she pursed her lips again, unable to find the words. As she did so, Ela slid over, wrapping an arm around him.

“If any of them are still alive, we will find them. I promise.”

He reached up to grab her hand. “Yeah, we will.”

“Now,” John continued, trying to push aside the guilt within him, “I need to finish applying my points. The cloud is clearing up, and I need to be ready.”

A/N: Not much else to offer besides an apology. Real life is tough.

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