I turned and looked at Tanya, who just pointed toward another tree. It had three much smaller holes in it, but again, no remnants of whatever had caused them remained.

“What,” I started to say, but then a blue screen appeared.

Spells

Earth Dart Burst

Rank: Bronze

Elemental Sphere: Earth

Casting Time: 2 seconds

Somatic: Pointing at target

Verbal: Darts

Range: 10 meters + 5 per level

Damage: 2-5 (+1 stage)(X3 per rank)

Cool Down: none

Duration: Permanent

Spell Resistance: Resist

MP: 10

Once cast, an earth dart bolt almost always hits. New darts are gained at every rank. At later stages, multiple targets are possible.

Level 1, (2/25)

“Wow,” I said. “I’ve got to learn that spell. I’ve also got to practice my martial arts. Right now I don’t have any. It’s embarrassing, a monk with no martial arts, well, except for Jade Lotus Touch.

“Jade Lotus Touch?” asked Janet.

“Yeah, I told you about that, remember? It’s my Qi healing ability,” I said.

“Who names these things?” Janet said. “Frankly, I’m a little disappointed in the System. It sounds like something out of a bad Chinese web novel, ‘Peasant, turn your gaze away from this young master or I shall unleash the fury of Jade Lotus Touch upon you.’ So stereotypical.” I remained silent.

Tanya said, “I saw that you succeeded too. Show us!”

I viewed the spell and then shared it with both of them.

Spells

Earth Bolt

Rank: Bronze

Elemental Sphere: Earth

Casting Time: 4 seconds

Somatic: Pointing at target

Verbal: Earth Bolt

Range: 10 meters + 5 per level

Damage: 5-20 (+2 per stage)

Cool Down: none

Duration: Permanent

Spell Resistance: Resist

MP: 10

Once cast, an earth bolt almost always hits. A new dart is gained at every rank.

At later ranks, multiple targets are possible.

Level 1, (2/25)

We looked over both spells and talked about them, both seemed to do about the same damage, but in different ways. The average damage of her spell would be equal to 10.5. The average damage of mine would be 12.5. In any case, I wanted them both and I wanted the Fire Bolt spell as well. I wasn’t really sure how armor worked in this new world of ours. Did it remove damage? Did it prevent damage below a certain threshold, I didn’t know. For instance, if we were fighting a troll that had armored skin and its skin eliminated three points of damage per attack, then only the critical portion of her spell’s damage would happen. Is this possible? I don’t know. And my little guy would probably not tell me either.

After a few minutes talking I realized that we’d forgotten Janet. “Hey,” I said “How’d it go? Did you get a spell?”

“Yes, thank you for asking,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I did.”

And the spell appeared in front of us.

Spells

Light Bolt

Rank: Bronze

Elemental Sphere: Light

Casting Time: 1 second

Somatic: Pointing at target

Verbal: Light Bolt

Range: 10 meters + 5 per level

Damage: 3 -18 (+1 per stage)

Cool Down: none

Duration: Permanent

Spell Resistance: Resist

MP: 10

Once cast, a light bolt almost always hits. A new bolt is gained at every rank.

At later ranks, multiple targets are possible. In addition, for 1-4 seconds, the target glows with soft light allowing the target to be attacked more easily.

Level 1, (2/25)

“You go, girl!” Tanya yelled. “That is awesome!”

“You nailed it, that spell is exactly like I described,” I said.

“Yeah, and fast too. When I looked up you were already done. How did you get it so fast? I mean it took Monsoon and I the better part of an hour to meditate and discover our spells. You must have finished way before that.”

“Basically, I cheated,” she said. “My class is a cleric. In all the games I’ve played they always made a big deal about clerics pray and get their spells, mages must meditate, then study, then memorize, wah, wah, wah. Big deal. Same difference, basically both of them just want to kill things with magic. So anyway, I just asked the System for it. I meditated and then thought about what Monsoon had described and I asked the System to grant me the spell. And it did. QED!”

“Holy Crap, Girl! You rocked it!” Tanya said.

“I know right! I can’t wait to ask for more spells!”

‘That’s it? She just asked? That is so not fair!’ I thought but didn’t say anything. ‘I might be taking Cleric as a third class when the time comes! Plus I’m going to try that for my next spell, maybe I’ll try that for the Firebolt spell.’

“Well,” I said, “I’m not sure about what we learned here. I mean we got our spells, so yea! But at the same time, I’m not sure we proved our hypothesis.”

“Which was what?” asked Janet.

“Well, we were trying to prove that different words and gestures could modify an existing spell, weren’t we? And we thought that if we both wound up with the same spell with different gestures and words and that created different effects we’d have shown that. But instead, we wound up with different spells.”

“I’d say we did that, you and I both tried to create an earth-based bolt spell and we used different words and gestures and made different spells. That kind of proves it to me,” said Tanya.

“But at the same time, I thought we were trying to see if a different word or gesture would create a more or less powerful version of a spell. We didn’t do that. We created different spells,” I said.

“Well,” Tanya said. “We went about it the wrong way then. We should have started with a spell that we had in common and then, each of us, try to modify it in some way and see if the spell worked and got stronger or weaker or just changed in some way. I could see changing the gestures I use in Force Bolt or modifying the words I said when using it. It’d be a simple test,” and then closed her eyes like she was going to begin creating and casting a spell.

“Hang on!” I said. “It might be a simple thing to do, but in all the books I read, there usually was a thing called backlash or spell shock or something when you didn’t cast a spell correctly. I’m not sure that we’re not opening ourselves to that if it exists!”

“Wow!” said Janet. “What happened then?”

“Well, stuff like skin burns or hair falling out or coughing up blood, things like that,” I said.

“Yeah, let’s not do that,” said Janet.

“If it helps any, in the books I read, the backlash was more likely to occur when you failed at higher levels of spells. We’re working on Rank One spells. We’re probably safe! Or if the spell got interrupted in mid-cast. That was another way you could get spell shocked or mana burned.”

“What kind of books were you reading,” asked Janet.

“Fantasy,” I said. “Kind of perfect for this new world of ours, don’t you think.” Just then a howl rang out from the distance as if to underscore what I was saying. It wasn’t a dog barking, it sounded like a big wolf, hungry and marking his territory.

Off in the distance, I could see the hills that separated Sapulpa from Tulsa. Well, the outskirts of Sapulpa from Tulsa since that is where we currently are. They seemed to have grown larger. A radio station my mom told me about used to have this running joke about the Tulsa mountains, about skiing the Tulsa mountains It also seemed as if there were more hills, and they were bigger. I remember reading about the Blue Mountains in Australia. They were called that because the eucalyptus trees gave off a blue haze that made them appear blue from a distance. I’m not sure what caused it, but the new Tulsa hills looked red, or at least reddish. I don’t know of a tree that gives off a red haze either, so it must be some new-Earth thing. New moons, new hills, well since they looked like they were over 1000 feet tall, maybe new mountains, new us. I used to be able to see downtown Tulsa from the parking lot, well, not all of it, just some of the skyscrapers, like the Williams Brothers building. 52 stories tall. Not bad for a mid-size town in the prairie. Anyway, it had vanished behind the new landscape. I wondered about the Arkansas River. It used to go just outside of downtown Tulsa. It used to be mainly tamed, Keystone Lake Dam kept it from flooding. Most days its belly showed, filled with muddy-red dirt and sand and silt, egrets and herons wading, sometimes even lost seagulls flying past, with just a stream running in the big bed. Now I wondered if the lake was still there, if the dam was still there, heck, even if the river was still there. Although, the path that the river took ran between Sapulpa and Sand Springs where my mother lives and where we’re planning on going. It might not be a bad thing if the river disappeared. In any case, I hope the roads and bridges were still there. I didn’t want to have to Huck Finn across a new Mississippi-sized river.

“Monsoon? Monsoon?” I heard Janet saying.

I shook off the mood and looked at her. “Where the heck did you go? We were talking to you and nobody was home,” Janet said.

“Sorry,” I said. “I started thinking that I should be able to see the Williams Tower from here and then I started thinking that the Tulsa hills really are Tulsa mountains now and I was wondering if the river was still there, and, if so, how we were going to get across it. Sorry. And look at that red haze, what causes that? And am I going to be allergic to it!”

Janet looked at me for a second and then sang, “Don’t worry, be happy, In every life we have some trouble, But when you worry you make it double Don't worry, be happy” and then Tanya came in strong with “Ain't got no place to lay your head Somebody came and took your bed Don't worry, be happy The landlord say your rent is late He may have to litigate Don't worry, be happy” and by the fourth word all three of us were standing, dancing and singing the song in what used to be a parking lot in what used to be the city of Sapulpa in what used to be the state of Oklahoma, and for a second the world felt right again.

The moment lasted and finally ended as all moments do, and I opened my mouth, and Janet looked at me with one eyebrow raised, and I laughed and said, “No, I’m done. Got my big boy pants on again. So, it’s about 5:20. It’s starting to get dark, what do you all want to do? I guess it is closer to winter than summer.