Option 1

1) mana bolt, you can cast it twice before running out of MP but it will probably deal less damage than mana lance.

Deciding that mana bolt is defenitly your best option. It may do less damage but its faster and thus easier to hit and gives you more flexibility in case you miss. Besides you had no idea what the damage actually is.

Most RPG’s give a knife low attack bit in a real life scenario you don’t care if your arm getting stabbed is 10 damage or 20 damage because its going to incapacitate you regardless.

Now the question was: how do you cast spells?

In a slightly paniced manner you start internally screaming: mana bolt! Mana bolt! Mana bolt! Over and over and over.

And to your amazement you saw little purple balls coming out of your body and rising into the sky above you where they converged to make a tiny little purple beam. You also felt like the temperature got a lot lower, like somebody lowered a thermostat but only on your skin.

The cultist: upon seeïng this increased her pace mumbling something you couldn’t understand.

As she was now within knife wielding distance you stopped your chanting to leap out of the way from her knife swing. Dodging it just barely.

When you jumped away you heard your attacker yelp in pain, when you turned around you saw why. The arm holding her knife previously was now impaled by your mana bolt. When you inspected the wound you saw that her HP had dropped: [21/25]

The girl however didn’t back off, instead she switched her knife to her other hand (shit! she was ambidexterous) and came at you at full speed.

And it was then, when the knife wielding cultist came charging at you in a tiny room with a satanic circle made of goat-ish blood on the floor, and you charging up a second spell. that time seemed to slow down and for the first time allowed you to calmly observe your opponents face.

Unlike what one would expect from a cultist (some manipulative ugly bastard old man) you saw the face of a terrified soft looking girl. She had red hair, a small nose and blue eyes. Looking past her dirty face you would rate her at least a 7, but more in the range of an 8.

And in this moment of clarity with you essentially pointing a gun at her you realised why the gods expected you to **** and pillage through the land. If the rejects of society, the cultists looked this good then what would the upper class look like? Any truly depraved individual getting a request from a god and a body to go along with it would find it rather challenging to resist the urges. Especially when a monster core is messing with your brain, no incentive besides your own morals to hold you back, and gods promising to fullfill yor every wish if you succumb to your most depraved of desires.

Luckily for the girl you didn’t like the gods all that much, and you valued your humanity and morality rather highly. Unluckily for her: you still needed her incapacitated. And since she had a knife, you saw no other option other then to blast her arm to smithereens.

Hopefully she would block this shot as well, you wouldn’t want to become a murderer just yet.

And so with a hint of regret but seeing no other option: you released the spell by stopping your chant. The spell quickly flew forward with you not even able to follow it at the speed it was going. It hit her right in the healthy arm, and cruelly nailed her own arm to her shoulder.

With a scream she pulled the dart out with her free hand and her arm flopped down uselessly next to her.

Preparing yourself for another possible attack you stood there with her in a standoff.

You jumped when she fell over backwards, she was ****.