of the chickens?

I use the ID skill and the world turns a slightly different shade. The familiar squawking of leather armoured chickens reaches my ears and I turn around to see Mia staring at them. She takes a second to process what she’s seeing, and then bursts out laughing. “They’re chickens with armour on dude, what is this?!” She wheezes.

I fire a spell at one and kill it before turning back to her. “Not a fan?” I ask, unable to keep myself from grinning. Her laughter is infectious and I can’t help being elated at the sound.

“I know, I know. I’m not very strong yet, this is all I can do.” I say, firing off another spell and killing another one. Mia raises one eyebrow at me. “I bet you’re stronger than you think.” She lifts up her arms and strong gusts of wind pick up the horde of chickens. I watch in awe as she seems to lift them up higher and higher, until they start dropping one by one.

She pulls her arms forcefully back down and the remaining chickens slam to the ground with a thud. Had they been real creatures, it would have looked a lot worse. These ones just dissolve into small clouds of whitish dust. “What’d you just do?” I ask for confirmation.

“Info for info dude, you tell me what your powers are and I’ll tell you mine.” I nod, considering it for a second. I trust her enough by this point to reveal the basics. “I see things like a video game. I have a health bar, a mana bar, and everything about my powers seems to be similar to a video game. I can’t cast many spells yet because I just got these powers. I’m learning though.” She nods. “Sounds cool. I’m an air mage. I’m still learning of course but I’m getting better at controlling the wind, the air flow and using it to my advantage.”

“That’s pretty cool.” I reply. “If your powers are like a video game, you get better at a spell by using it right?” She asks. “Well, technically speaking it’s not very different to real life..…I mean different to otherwise, I guess this is my real life now. Video game mechanics put hard numbers on practice. It’s the case with almost everything that the more you do it, the better you get at it. Video games just make the boundaries between certain skill levels much more clear with numbers.” Mia nods, apparently not minding my semi-rambling answer.

“Right, so do you think you can create a barrier with more powerful monsters in it?” She asks. “I probably could but is that a good idea at my low strength?” I ask. “I’ll be here if anything goes wrong. Let’s do it, take some risks! How are you gonna get stronger if you take the safe route all the time?”

“That’s actually a really fair point.” I concede. If I fight stronger enemies, I’ll level up quicker. Of course, the question is whether or not I can hope to make it out alive, but I trust Mia enough that I don’t think she’d just let me die. After all, if she wanted me dead, she’s had ample opportunity to kill me already, and it’s not like I could stop her anyway.

“Actually wait, before you do that, I might as well show you a few things.” Mia says. She beckons me to follow her and I walk after her, wondering what this is about. “Remember how I was saying that people can break into barriers?” She asks as we walk, and I nod. “It’s possible to break both into and out of barriers. You can do both by either using your magic to overpower the magic of whoever is currently in control, or brute forcing it.” I nod again, reasoning that my escape ID skill is for breaking out of barriers using magic. Mia stops suddenly in her walk.

“By brute forcing, here’s what I mean.” She says, throwing a punch at what looks like air. Her fist impacts with something and cracks spread from the impact point. I touch the impact point, and I feel a solid surface in the middle of the air. “That’s the wall of the barrier. If you can break it, you can get into or out of the barrier. It’s usually pretty difficult to do though, especially if whoever is trying to stop you from getting in or out is a Fateweaver.” Mia elaborates. I nod, taking it all in.

“The other way to break out of a barrier is to defeat whoever is in charge or control of the barrier. If nobody is in control, the barrier becomes non hostile and you can leave. You can’t use that to break into a barrier though, since you can’t defeat somebody from outside of the barrier they’re in.” Wordlessly, I listen to the info dump.

“The other thing I should explain is barrier melding. Creating a barrier in the same ‘space’ as another barrier will generally lead to the two barriers melding. Technically that’s another way to break into a barrier, but when Fateweavers are involved, it becomes a lot more complicated. All we need to worry about is not creating a barrier within any existing barrier.” I nod, silently thinking for a few seconds before speaking. “Thank you. Should we train now?” I ask. “You’re welcome. As much fun as explaining things to you is, we should train.” Mia agrees, a dry grin on her face.

I exit the barrier and the world shatters, the sky once again taking on its natural colour. I try to create a new barrier, this time envisioning something stronger.

Create ID Error: Skill level too low for stronger enemies

Well that’s a bummer. I look around at Mia. “It says my skill level is too low to create anything stronger. Do you mind waiting for a second while I get the skill higher?” “Don’t take too long.” She says, her carefree smile contradicting her words. I return the expression and spam the create and escape ID skills. It only takes 4 uses of each skill to get the popup.

Create ID lvl 3: Costs 3MP. Can create Instant Dungeons with stronger and more varied enemies

Escape ID lvl 3: Costs 3MP. Can escape from higher level Instant Dungeons

I nod to myself. I really need higher mana regen, so I’ll probably invest my next statpoints into Wisdom. Considering that it would take over an hour for my mana to regenerate completely at this stage, I’d rather not wait that long. I have Mia backing me up, so I’ll be fine. I look over at her. “It should work now.” She nods and readies herself.

I use the skill once more and this time something feels different. The air feels more…dangerous somehow. I find myself nervous but thrilled at the same time. I look around and poise myself to move. I hear a rustling in the bushes on my left and turn to look to the sound. Something screeches and charges towards me.

It looks like a rat, but much bigger. Unlike the chickens, it’s not wearing any armour. However, I suspect it doesn’t need to. It’s about as big as a medium sized dog and looks like it’s packing some serious muscle for it’s size. I ready myself for a kick. Luckily I’ve already changed to my combat gear, so I’m wearing my steel-capped leather boots and my battle jacket. Better than nothing right?

I fire off a spell, which seems to slow it down a little. I take advantage of the hesitation, run up and kick it as hard as I can in the face. It stumbles backwards and I follow up with a second kick that knocks it to the ground. I notice Mia out of the corner of my eye fighting another one. I stomp on it’s head once, twice and a third time until it disappears into mist.

50xp

Fuck yes! These things are a lot stronger than the chickens, but I can deal with them, at least one on one. Another screech signifies the approach of one more. I turn to the noise and ready my boot and my spells.

Big rat, lvl 6

These oversized rats aren’t very smart or very threatening on their own. If something coordinates their attacks, things get more interesting…

The combat isn’t actually very interesting. I suppose that’s something to do with the relatively low danger these things pose. Ironically the chickens were more dangerous. That’s only because the rats aren't coming more than one at a time though. I’m under no illusions that if two or more rats decided to attack me at once, then I probably wouldn’t last very long.

I get into a rhythm fighting the rats, and Mia seems to be doing the same. The relatively low threat level allows for some conversation, although I have to be much more careful than she does in not getting distracted. One slip up for Mia means a small cut or light bruise. As I find out when I’m too busy laughing at one of her jokes, one slip up for me means a third of my HP bar gone. That sobers me up slightly and I take them more seriously after that. Still, they don’t appear to do much other than charge straight at us, one by one.

LEVEL UP!

Once again, FUCK YES. My mana and health bars refill entirely. I ask Mia to cover me for a second while I spend the points I’ve just gained. My mana regen jumps slightly as I hammer the points into the Wisdom stat. My mind feels clearer, sharper than it did before.

That makes sense, individual points make more of a difference at the lower end because it’s a much higher increase percentage wise than it would be on the higher end, at least when it comes to what the stats change about my body and mind. 0.6 MP/min isn’t the greatest, but you have to start somewhere. I nail one of the two rats that Mia is fighting with two more Mana Arrows, killing it. Not that she was having trouble in the first place.

50xp

Mana Arrow lvl 3: costs 3MP, deals increased damage

Thank you very much, I’ll take it. Mana Arrow is proving to be a very useful skill. Why hasn’t the XP I got from killing the rat decreased yet? Maybe because I’m not up to its level? Either way, whatever is managing my powers is letting me keep getting the same hefty amount of experience for each kill, which I’m happy with and decide not to question further.

Mia and I quickly get back into our rhythm of killing rats. It’s debatable whether or not this is actually killing, they aren’t real after all. I think anyway? I keep a careful eye on my mana bar, making sure not to use too many spells to keep some mana left in case of emergency.

“You seem to be having fun! I thought you wanted a challenge, this doesn’t look like a challenge for you.” I call over to her, as I unleash another spell. “The rhythm is nice though and it’s good training for a long fight!” She calls back, shoving a rat backwards and beating it down with kicks. “Understandable then.” I concede. A roar takes our attention off the conversation at hand.

You have killed enough rats to awaken the attention of the Queen

Boss monster spawned: Rat Queen

“Um. Fuck.” I say cohesively. Mia looks at me questioningly. “It’s a boss! Things are about to get a lot more difficult!” I exclaim, readying myself for a challenge. Another roar sounds and the Queen charges into the clearing. It’s a lot bigger than the other rats, about as big as a small grizzly bear.

Rat Queen, lvl 15 (elite)

The Rat Queen is much bigger and much tougher than her subjects. She can coordinate their attacks and turn a rabble into a dangerous horde.