Testing the waters

John set off into the darkness of the town ahead of him, both equally amazed by what he was seeing and that he actually got a level up.

He sneaked away, surprised that Gaia hadn’t given him a skill for sneaking as of yet. I guess there isn’t a skill for everything, John thought and applied the sticker to the inside of his T-shirt after some careful consideration along the way.

Staying in the shadows, and trying his best to not make too much noise, John spotted yet another golem, this one standing in the middle of the street, doing literally nothing else to even attempt to protect itself. These things certainly aren’t the brightest, are they?

Channeling a mana javelin in preparation of his attack, he slowly snuck closer and closer to the golem, blissfully ignorant to what was approaching it.

John released the mana javelin, striking perfectly at the joint of the golem’s leg, nearly severing it with a few cables holding it in place, and made it and the golem clatter to the ground. He rushed out of the shadows to rip the leg off the creature. After opening the maintenance hatch by breaking the lock with the leg, he began to bash the delicate gears inside.

As he did so, the golem’s thrashing about gradually came to a halt, and it slowly sank into the ground, leaving behind only the leg and what seemed to be some sort of lens on the ground, which John then cast Observe on.

“Well, I’m sure that’ll come in handy someday, but for now, it’s useless,” John muttered, before putting it and the leg into his inventory.

+18 XP

He began to walk towards the shadows once more but was interrupted by a bolt suddenly sprouting from the center of his chest.

-23 HP

Confused, and in pain, the only thing John could think of doing was finding cover from whatever had just shot him. In response, he took off running towards the entrance of a nearby shop, taking another bolt, but to the leg this time.

-19 HP

As he reached the entrance of the shop, John dove for it, hearing a projectile, likely another bolt, whistle past his head and clatter over the pavement.

Opening the door, John hid inside the protective corner created by the inside of the building and prepared a cast of Observe for a few seconds. Once the spell was ready, he poked his head outside to aim it at what appeared to be a golem carrying a crossbow, looking right at him.

“Shit! I guess the alarm did more than just alert the other golems, it also called more in!” John said, ducking behind the wooden door once more as the golem released another bolt at the small bit of his face it could detect.

John realized that, with that health score, he could kill it with only two mana javelins at full power, which had been upgraded to 19 Mana, now that he had looked, likely from the Endurance boost he had gotten from the level up.

Why don’t I just try and cast two at the same time? John thought, never having questioned that he was only casting one spell at a time.

Here goes nothing! John thought before focusing on casting two at a time.

And slowly, he could feel a second javelin forming in his left hand. However, it wasn’t perfect; the whole process was slower and took much more mana, almost like some was being wasted…

Skill Unlocked: Dualcast

“Well, that certainly explains why some of the mana was dissipating,” John said before being reminded of his situation by the sound of splintering wood as a bolt clipped the door he was hiding behind.

Now holding a mana javelin in each hand, John poked his head out once more to get a bearing on where the golem was after he had taken a moment to recover and make the two mana javelins.

What John saw was exactly as it had been a few minutes before, albeit with a lot more bolts embedded into the building John had been hiding in. The golem was apparently not smart enough to find any sort of cover but just barely smart enough to use its crossbow.

John threw the javelins at the golem, hitting only its stone plating however with a spark of light and the sound of scraping stone. But that alone was enough to kill it, as it quickly slumped over and sank into the ground, leaving only its crossbow and a few bolts, which John walked over to before picking everything up and inspecting the weapon.

+28 XP

This seems way too valuable to use; maybe if I could fix it up somehow, I could sell it to someone, if that's possible, John thought, before storing it and the bolts in his inventory.

John took a few minutes to recover after that fight within the shop he had hidden in, both to regenerate mana as well as health and to painfully pull out the bolts that were still sticking in him, only for the holes to close a moment later.

After he had finished pulling the bolt out of his abdomen with a pained moan, he stood up from where he was sitting and went outside into the street.

He noticed a golem walking around the corner of a building a bit away before it began to charge at him with a huge saw it had gotten from its back. John waited a few seconds for the thing to get within range of his mana javelin , and a thought struck him. This really seems like around the time a boss would spawn, he thought to himself as he let the mana javelins go towards the golem, killing it nearly instantly.

+19 XP

For fuck’s sake, Gaia, did you just do that to spite me or was that a coincidence? John thought as he hid in the doorframe once more. Summoning yet more mana javelins in preparation, he looked around to spot this “Caster Golem”.

As it turned out, that really wasn’t difficult, with it running out from the street corner and nearly instantly spotting him.

It was shaped like the other golems, but this one was leagues ahead of them from what John could see: it was sleeker, smoother, seemingly much more streamlined than the others, and had a much more humanoid faceplate, which was currently fixed in an imitation of fury, with barely any rusting for something “ancient”, as the popup had said.

John fired off the Observe he had prepared during his time getting into cover, which he was able to do because it didn’t require hand motions that would interfere with the mana javelins he was holding.

John threw a mana javelin at it experimentally, only for the golem to spin around at the last second to grab the spell with its glowing arm before the javelin dissipated. It appeared to be absorbed by the golem, due to its glow slightly intensifying. The golem slowly turned its gaze towards John and began to sprint right at him.

John then suddenly realized something.
I’m completely fucked.