It was quick, a flash of blue light amidst the shattered darkness of the dreary cave. Shimmering slivers of silver shone amongst the rocky walls against the spark of azure, an arcing fork of lightning shot across the cavern hall. He felt a wave of white-hot energy jumping from his gut to his chest, a feeling as if his heart had dropped. His body trembled all over as the adrenaline surged through his entirety. His high Agility allowed him a better chance than most young adventurers, though it was still a close call.

Raising his hand, his other pushing Marcus out of the line of fire, Logan commanded like he had done previously against that Sorcerer. “Spell Absorb!” his mind raced as he countered the second hostile spell since his arrival. Just barely catching the magic in his palm, the lightning coursed through his skin, into his bones, spiralling across his arm. A dangerous heat, a static burst of life, his arm throbbed as he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Spell Absorption successful. Lightning charge stored”, a window popped up, Logan analyzing the foe in front of him as he recovered from the blast of energy. Its body was small, probably only 2' in height, four spiked wings coming from an overly large oval body. Dark grey fur covered a batty body, an eye the size of a fist sat in the middle with a vertical red slit iris. Closing fangs revealed that the creature's eye was also its mouth, a twisted design of a monster. Flapping near the ceiling, Logan got a better scan of it with his sprite hovering closer. “Identify.”

“Bastarn - Demon / Bat. Level 4: 16/16 HP, 1/2 MP. Formed after a demon's blood was combined with that of a bat, this creation is a bastard offspring commonly made when vampires try to breed. A mostly circular bat around 2 to 3 feet in radius, its wingspan often ends at around 1 foot for each of its 4 wings that sprout from its back in a cross style. Its use of magic makes it a fierce foe for low-rank adventurers. Knows Lightning and Necromantic.”

“Lightning Shot!” Logan called out, releasing the captured spell of the bastarn. Surprised, the creature was caught off guard, the lightning striking it back with even fiercer power as Logan had higher statistics than the beast. Dancing sparks of blue lighting charged across the cavern, shocking the demonic bat for 14 damage. Turning his head to his ally, not wanting him to fall too far behind, Logan instructed the devout onwards.

“Finish it off, your staff should be able to reach it”, Logan commanded. Nodding his head, Marcus ran forwards and did a small leap, hitting the tail end of a fleeing bat, rotating it as if it were a baseball, the solid slam caused the bat to tumble to the floor.

Landing on the rocky floor, the corpse hopped slightly due to its fatty body. A short little roll ensued until it became still on the floor, experience popping over it to signal the end of its life.

With more and more evidence, Logan concluded that enemies gave 100 XP per level, with possibly a 5% reduction if you were above its level. Since he was in a 2-man party, Logan was gaining 10% less experience, meaning the bastarn would give him 400 XP if he were solo. Looking to Marcus he saw the devout gained 40 XP for his involvement.

The battle ended, the two took a small breather, Logan moving to harvest the eye of the bastarn. Though Marcus had more questions piling up.

“Was that dispelling magic? I thought that was a level 3 spell at a minimum?” the wondering devout asked.

“Another skill, as long as no one knows about it, you can benefit alongside me”, Logan reinforced. Marcus continually reaffirmed that he was putting all his eggs into the Spellthief's basket. “Maybe I am being too forceful with my demands, he seems to understand”, Logan worried.

Since the bastarn only had a single eye to take, the time for Harvesting was around 10-20 seconds. Quickly he added a shoddy eye to his loot bag. “Didn't get a tier with that Spell Absorption, though we will be hunting a few of these, so bound to happen at a 50% chance”, Logan planned.

Dusting off, the party continued on. Logan knew with a 10% reduction he'd need 9 kills to gain another level, and with a healer to bring him back up from any failed Spell Absorptions, he was confident he could do it today. Thinking of a way for them both to gain experience, Logan realised why spellcasters were not valued even more so. The way XP was distributed, you have to give some sort of engagement into the battles, without spells a caster can't give much input if they lacked micks or a ranged weapon.

“Hey, Marcus, do you know how to use bows or crossbows at all?” Logan inquired as the two walked slowly through the cave.

“I've used a crossbow on some quests, normally if the party has a spare. A good one is expensive, and the bolts drain my share of the reward, so it's generally not a good investment.”

“We'll get you one when we return to Tinte. Don't want you sitting like a goose.”

“That's an odd saying. Geese are rather active and hostile. But if my 10% share of today gets me a crossbow then I will do so”, Marcus replied, confused at Logan's Earth phrase.

“Well, there's one saying to say goodbye to”, Logan relented.

“No shit-splits here, 50-50”, Logan cursed, a twinge of hatred in his words due to this world's rules.

“But, Logan, I am only contributing so much. You're doing the brunt of the work”, Marcus tried to reason. Logan was about to reply, if not for an interruption by a hiding pair of bastarns.

Two flashes of light erupted from the ceiling, sparking lines of blue cascaded into one as they both hit solidly into the leader Spellthief. Taking hits for 10 and 11, he was brought down to 11/42.

“Fuck!” Logan exclaimed, the lighting coursing through his body and boiling his blood.

“Orb of all I call to thee, Pondress heal your children. Heal Shot”, Marcus chanted on cue, healing Logan for 12 points.

Darting his eyes to the ceiling, Logan's sprite flew high to reveal the demonic opponents. Sheathing his dagger, Logan prepared both his hands to catch further spells. “You got 2 MP, c'mon”, he demanded in his head.

Both electrifying their bodies, the bastarns charged up for another volley, Logan commanding Marcus to get behind him. Two lines of light intertwined again as they wrapped around, leaping into two singular strikes, Logan holding out his hands. “Spell Absorb! Spell Absorb!” he thought, the energy punching into his palms with ferocity.

“Spell Absorption successful. Spell Absorption successful. 2 Lightning charges stored, Lightning has progressed to tier 2”, the windows overlapped each other with the two successfully absorptions. “Ding ding bastard bats”, he thought, an evil glee forming inside.

“Lightning Shot! Lightning Shot!”, Logan chanted twice, throwing his arms out to each bastarn. Exploding into arcane might, his arms electrified as energy raced across his limbs to dart out from his fingertips, striking both the bastarns. The left took 13 damage, the right took 16, the right foe falling to the floor as black smoke emanated from its freshly cooked form.

Seeing the left bastarn start to flee, Logan threw out his hand once more shouting “Force!” to stop its retreat. Confident that the heal from Marcus was enough to grant his ally a share of the XP in this combat, the final bastarn hit the ceiling from his mick, rebounding to the floor to join its late ally, the mick now dealing 6 damage.

Checking his ally's reward, Logan saw that Marcus gained 80 XP from the fight. “Good, healing is enough”, Logan confirmed.

“Damn, sorry, Logan, I didn't see them before it was too late. You alright?” Marcus worried, seeing his ally quite dehydrated.

“Yeah, thanks for the Heal save there. Use Healer's Caress in the next fight, alright?” Logan thanked, noticing Marcus was about to use his skill.

“Oh sure, wanting to line up the cooldown with something?”

“Kinda, just use the one unless I get hit bad.”

Moving to harvest the new kills, Logan gathered a shoddy and a common eye. As he finished, a new window popped up noting he had reached Harvesting tier 2. “Hopefully I start getting less shoddy components, I need higher ones for crafting chances”, Logan hoped.

As the two adventurers continued on, Logan had a thought pop into his head. He could resummon his Light Ally as he liked, so he could use it as bait. Having it scout up ahead, it did just that, as a bastarn jumped into life as the bright light blinded it. As if shooting jumping fish, Logan thrust his hand out “Force!” he shouted as he pelted the loner bastarn with a mick.

Pushed to the side, the bastarn faltered against the magical shot of energy. An angry expression brewed over its single eye as it flew closer to Logan, its body was coated in black energies. Blinking a single time, the energy flew out from the bat body, a torrent of deathly howls followed a sludge as it attacked Logan. “Spell Absorb!” he thought, anticipating this to be a spell.

“Spell Absorption successful. Necromantic charge stored”, the window informed Logan, who was slightly disappointed he hadn't learned the spell. At his instructions beforehand, Marcus ran to Logan to heal him again.

“Healer's Caress”, Marcus enspelled, gripping the shoulder of Logan as he hid behind his ally. Logan felt the power heal his previous wounds as he awaited the next spell of the bastarn.

Seeing its previous spell fail, the bastarn lit up like a stormy sky, bolts of lightning travelling across its form. With another blink, the energy surged at the Spellthief, whose arm was raised in preparation. “Spell Absorb!” he commanded in his head, though instead of gaining another charge, his arm was overcharged with electrifying power, causing him to burn all over and have his teeth chatter.

“Spell Absorption failed”, a window tried to tell Logan, though he pretty much knew that already.

Taking 11 points of damage, Logan thought to return the favour, “Necromantic Shot!” he shouted. A dark abyss of power flowed from his heart, digging and clawing along his arm as tendrils of shadow formed and burst from his skin. Wrapping around his hand, a claw of demonic might evolved and outstretched to attack the bastarn. Digging its claws deep, Logan dealt 7 damage to the bastarn, healing himself for as much.

Dipping by the pull of the spell, the bastarn saw its time to leave, flying off in the direction it came from, but an insistent Spellthief had other plans. “Force!” he called out, the bat making a solid crash landing to the rocky floor.

Looking over his status, Logan was now at 21/42 HP, a dangerous half when the spells he was getting hit with could deal up to 12 each. He was being a bit too confident on 23 earlier, forgetting his Spell Absorption had a chance at failure which sat at 80% success for 1st level spells. Asking his ally for a more reassuring HP value, Logan requested a Heal.

“Orb of all I call to thee, Pondress heal your children. Heal Shot”, Marcus enspelled as he surged holy light into his ally, healing Logan for 10 points.

As he harvested the bastarn, Logan was asked by Marcus what happened with his skill. Logan quickly explained that it wasn't a guaranteed thing, at least not yet. Marcus was quick to accept this and promised to keep an eye out if any more healing was required. Taking a shoddy eye, the duo prepared to move on.

“We'll go on till you run out of spellforce, Marcus. I don't want to risk this place without plenty of healing at hand.”

“Got it. We've done a lot more than most other rank 2 and 1 adventurers today anyways. Those eyes are worth quite a bit, but you said you were going to craft with them?”

“Yeah, if I could get someone to sell them on our behalf I would, but for now they will be used in crafting. No one will believe we could do this just on our own, at least not without something helping us.”

“That can work, other adventurers would probably assume we gained trinkets through quests or bought them with savings. It isn't rare to see low-rank adventurers with a trinket or two”, Marcus disclosed.

“Yeah, and Identification doesn't show them either, it might be something that people overlook for the most part”, Logan theorized.

Coming up to a fork in the caverns, the silver glistening still against the Light Ally, a break in the ceiling revealed a natural beam of light from atop the mountain. It wasn't too large, so the light didn't give a good area of sight, but it did reveal that the fork held within it 3 bastarn who were sleeping on the ceiling, upside down.

Accepting this to be the final fight for the day, Logan wanted to go a bit more all-out, as well as help his chances. Giving the signal to Marcus to wait for a second, Logan began his surprise attack, his dagger sheathed.

“Lightning Shot!”, he shouted, the eyes of the bastarn darting open as a bright flash of blue light zapped it from its roost. Taking a solid 13 damage, the bastarn fell to a flying position above the floor, just like his allies, though a following-up Spellthief unleashed his mick straight after “Force!” he called out. Bashing against a weakened foe, the bastarn hit the centre wall of the forked path, before slumping to the floor.

Two beacons of arcane destruction lit up as the remaining bastarns charged their spells, Logan getting a healing hand from Marcus as they got into their partner formation. Duo arced lines of lightning danced towards Logan, who riposted with his raised arms like before. “Spell Absorb! Spell Absorb!” he commanded.

“Spell Absorption successful. Spell Absorption successful. 2 Lightning charges stored”, luck was on Logan's side this time, in retaliation, he released the stored charges back at his aggressors.

“Lightning Shot! Lightning Shot!” he enspelled, one after another, the groggy bats unable to dodge the fast bolts of magic. One was hit for 14, the other 16, which made it fall to the floor dead. The final bastarn, angered by its allies' deaths, began to cast its final spell. Dark energies started to course all around it, Logan quickly moved forward with an arm out in readiness.

Startled, the bastarn shot its spell at the charging foe, “Spell Absorb!” Logan commanded, the dark waving lines of energy being sucked up into his arm. With a leap, Logan grabbed at the bastarn that was low to the floor.

“Spell Absorption successful. Necromantic charge stored, you have learned the spell.”

“Necromantic Grasp!” he yelled, the demonic lines of black making a larger visage of his arm and hand, digging deep, the claw sucked the life force from the bastarn. Dealing 10 damage, Logan was healed to full, bringing the basketball corpse with him to the floor.

Dropping the corpse with the others, Logan used Clean to make the area a bit more hospitable. Marcus jogged over to inspect his ally for wounds.

“You look in tip-top shape, Logan. That Necromantic set you right.”

“Yeah, that was my plan. Thankfully it all worked out. Though seeing this fork has made me anxious about plans forward. We could get flanked, or take a path leading to more dangerous foes. I think we should take what we got and leave.”

“If you think that is best, If the groups are getting larger it would be difficult to handle.”

Logan began his usual Harvesting, though Marcus did want a chat as he did so.

“About what you said earlier, the split of income? Seeing the work you put in, it doesn't feel right me taking half. We got cut off earlier, so I will say now, I won't take any more than 30%”, Marcus insisted.

“Fine, if that's how you want it. It's going to be hard splitting the money anyway since we can't sell all of this off at once. I'll give you the worse trinkets, how's that sound?”

“That's fine, you need the capabilities more than I do.”

“That works better anyways, if I have more power than he does, he'll want to stick around longer”, Logan devilishly planned.

Seeing how close he was to level 5 saddened Logan, but he wanted to be careful in a cave that started with level 4 enemies. It was only easy due to him being a counter to spellcasters, anything different deeper in would be a big issue. He was on 9,201/10,000 XP whereas Marcus was sitting at 2,610/3,000. Hunting with a devout meant he would get less XP per kill, but almost constant access to healing allowed him to hunt longer. Getting some more levels and Wisdom on Marcus meant his Healer's Caress would do more too, since levelling the devout should give him the bonuses to the Wisdom attribute. More of both also meant more MP for spells.

Taking up a shoddy, common, and high-quality eye, Logan was surprised at his luck, or maybe it was more due to his increased skill tier. Packing up all of the loot, the two adventurers headed back to the entrance, the Light Ally happy it hadn't died today.

Due to the path up to the fork being mostly straight, Logan and Marcus didn't face any hardships on the return trip. Escaping back into the sunlight, they saw the day was heading into the afternoon. With another hour trip back to Tinte, the two conversed and drank from waterskins.

Marcus divulged that he became an adventurer around 1 year ago, being advised into it by the church so that he could further progress his class. He hadn't been on many quests though, with only 1 MP in the beginning his use in combat was minute. The pay difference for casters seemed to be the same no matter which one you were, always three times less than other members.

Marcus was on the lowest end for MP, a rare higher variant was 2 MP if the adventurer had some form of special ability or was gifted by a being from above or below. Any other rank 1 adventurers with 2 MP or more were heroes, and they often had their own section of parties and quests. Marcus was born with pretty low stats, his Wisdom being a 9 before his second rank.

Through the conversations, Logan was able to gather that a person's attribute distribution had no connection to their class, Marcus having a high Strength for a class more aimed at healing or aiding allies. You had to win three lotteries at once, high attributes and a class that was valued in the world, and then those both had to correlate to one another. Logan was reminded of that Rogue with high Wisdom back at his assessment.

“So, since I am a PC, I had free rein to choose my stats? 10s across the board with 6 points to spend. If I could also pick my class I could set up amazingly well. A Fighter with 12 Strength, Agility, and Constitution, I would be looked at like a prized pony”, Logan pieced together the information he had gathered so far.

Talking with one another, Logan came to realise how good of a man Marcus was, his views were tilted slightly due to his poor treatment as a caster but he generally came out ahead. Any worry of betrayal became a background thought, as the two made plans to continue questing with one another and later travelling to the capital in each other's company.

It was past 2pm by the time the duo made it back to Tinte, the village alive with activity with adventurer parties going both in and out, almost as if their “shifts” changed with meals. Heading straight to the adventurers' hall, Logan saw it had a medium load with around 14 adventurers sitting at tables or settling debts at the counter.

Waiting for their turn, they eventually got seen by Rubené, Logan making sure to queue up at her portion of the counter. Her face became flush with joy at the sight of the classless-ally.

“Welcome back, Logan. New team member?” she asked, looking over to Marcus who shared her happiness at being around the Spellthief.

“Yeah, his team ditched him during the wolf hunt and I had to pick him up. Since then we've been hunting together, so can you mark him down as my partner for the wolf hunt?”

“Oh, I am sorry to hear that. I'll make a note about his previous team's actions. How many wolves did you get?” Rubené replied, a worried shock replacing her cheerful smile.

“We got 5 wolves, here are their fangs as proof”, Logan submitted, showing 10 fangs in total. Rubené looked over the fangs, checking the remains of gum at the roots as well as using a magnifying glass.

“Yeah, those were recently harvested, cleaned nicely too. I will note that down, here's your 4 silver”, Rubené replied, starting to count out coins.

“Can you make it 2 silver and 20 copper please?” Logan asked. Ru looked over to the devout and realised she was paying 2 members.

“Oh, of course”, Rubené confirmed, taking out the money. Logan counted out 12 copper and handed it to Marcus, keeping 2 silver and 8 copper for himself. Leaning over to Rubené, Logan whispered a bit.

“He wouldn't take 50-50”, he sneakily admitted. Rubené was visibly blushing and seemed quite happy at Logan's fairness in the money split.

Taking their signets, both Logan and Marcus were updated to show that they had a hand in the wolf hunt of the day. Gathering up his fangs again, Logan noticed that each one had a small red line painted on them, realising it was to tag them as already counted so people couldn't use the same ones over and over. “I could Clean those, but I better not”, Logan thought.

Adding the reward to his funds, Logan was sitting on 3 silver and 27 copper. Not an insurmountable sum, but enough to last him long enough at the inn. Though now he had to think about ranged options for Marcus as well as buying up other materials he needed to craft his trinkets.

Before setting down for the rest of the day, Logan still had two more villager quests that needed completing. At this point, Logan just wanted to help the classless who seemed to have been discriminated against due to how they were born. With the final quests to finish from the board, Logan would be able to sit down to some crafting, and some reading.

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