Book 2, Chapter 2: A Story to Tell

[Alen]

Within the desert region of the Talaria continent, the hot glare of the sun tore through the air to gleam down at the sands below. A boat, its massive white sails catching the powerful wind, seemed to slice through the desert as it moved forward at speeds as fast as, if not faster, than a horse in full gallop. On it, three people sat and talked idly. One was piloting the Galeboat, maneuvering it around a large rock and entering a canyon as his two companions idly chewed on preserved jerky.

“Hey Lynn,” One of them, a young man with black hair covered in white streaks, nudged a white haired elf’s arm with his elbow. “Make some ice with your magic so we can drink actual decent water.”

The elf held a piece of jerky in her mouth as she created a large piece of ice in one of her hands and held it out to her companion. The young man took it and bashed it against the side of the boat, breaking it into smaller pieces and tossing some into his mouth. The rest of the ice then slipped into his waterskin, which the elf immediately took. She took a drink and held it up to the elevated pilot’s seat behind them.

“You want some too, Roland?”

The orange-haired warrior covered in iron armor wiped the sweat from his forehead with his forearm and took the leather skin, drinking a large gulp and pouring some over his face before handing it back to the emerald-eyed young man.

“Yo, why the fuck are you still wearing that armor man? We can’t have you dying of heatstroke, Roland. I don’t know how to pilot this thing, and we both know Lynn’s utter crap at it,” Alen said, offering the warrior some jerky.

“I nearly crashed the boat one time,” The elf complained. “I didn’t even crash it, too. So we can all pretend it never happened and let me back on the wheel, right?”

Roland gently turned the steering wheel, the boat sliding around a rock to make a turn towards the canyon’s right fork. “I’d rather not,” He said. “I’m picking up that armor I ordered in the town we’ll be arriving at in a few hours. Lynn, directions?”

She spread open a map in front of her, tilting her head as she traced the route with her eyes. “Um… Follow the canyon’s right side, and after we leave the canyon, head northwest until we see Saint’s Rock. From there, it’s just straight west.”

The warrior nodded and said nothing more. Alen looked up the canyon and squinted at the glare of the sun as he admired the blue sky. He was in a good mood after they set off, the desert landscape giving him a sense of wonder as the hot winds blew against his face in their trip. He was surprised he wasn’t getting sunburnt actually. Alen guessed it was probably because of the small increases he’d get to his stats like Vitality, Constitution, and Resilience every threshold that prevented his face from being cooked to a sore red mess.

Alen looked back down just in time to see the sand in front of their boat unexpectedly rise up. Suddenly, his world spun as he heard Roland curse from behind them. The boat spun, the reinforced wood at the side screeching against the canyon wall as they settled to a grinding halt as Roland pulled a lever that furled the sails. His vision was rattled, and he could vaguely see Lynn take off her seatbelt and jump up from her seat, gripping her Waterwood Bow and taking it with her as she grasped the side of the canyon wall, climbing into a natural rock platform that protruded out from the wall slightly above them.

Alen felt a hand grasp his arm and pull him out of his seat, throwing him to the side as a loud bang echoed out from behind him. He rolled and looked up to see Roland’s shield shine a bright gray as a giant sand-colored beetle rammed against it.

Roland’s arm let out a slight cracking sound as he stood his ground, defending the Galeboat from the beetle’s attack. He groaned as his face turned red from the pain. Gritting his teeth, Roland slashed at the beetle with the enchanted sword on his back, the metal shrieking against its tough exoskeleton and leaving cracks in its glowing wake.

An arrow descended from above, unexpectedly sinking into the beetle’s shell like water to engrave a glowing blue rune on its side.

Alen scrambled up and threw a large tooth to the ground, summoning a large skeleton gorilla that he climbed onto. The ape sprinted as black mana covered its bones, its skeletal fists beginning to release black smoke as terrifyingly cold black ice crept into its hands. It let loose a punch, nearly throwing Alen off its back as Lynn chanted something from above him.

Simultaneously, the punch landed on the beetle’s face with a massive bang as the shining rune on its side glowed a bright blue and suddenly exploded, sending freezing cold outwards as the beetle was blown away. The gorilla was hit by the explosion, but it was far away enough that its thick, reinforced bones absorbed most of the impact as it took a step back. Alen grunted and pointed his palm at the beetle, increasing the mana output of Rotfire Bolt to take a whole fifteen percent of his mana to compensate for his lack of a staff.

Black flames exploded out from his hand, replacing the cold in the air with the sinister, devouring feeling of decay. It raced towards the beetle that slammed against the canyon wall, letting out a boom as the flames battered its thick chitin.

Alen got down from the gorilla, summoning two skeleton wolves as he sent it in, Necrotic Blessing buffing it by disgusting amounts as it leaped and slammed its two fists into the mess of flames and smoke beside the canyon wall. A miserable screech rang out along with snapping sounds as the beetle’s head was cracked open by the impact and decay of the modified Deathchill Touch that covered the gorilla’s arm, combined with the cracks Roland’s sword had previously left behind.

Silence covered the canyon for a moment, but Roland’s voice suddenly rang out urgently. “Alen, Lynn, get on the boat now!”

He jumped on the pilot’s seat, wincing as he drank a sort of health potion and felt his bones snapping back into place. Lynn jumped down and landed on her seat, and Alen didn’t dare delay further as he ran and scrambled into his. Immediately, a boom rang out, causing Alen to snap his head towards the corpse of the giant beetle. Innumerable amounts of smaller scarabs poured out of the beetle’s wounds, covering his gorilla that desperately fought back and punched at the horde of insects.

Roland cursed, pulling the lever to fully spread open the sails, and pulling another to open up wing-like sails from the side of the boat.

With a groan, their vehicle began to gain speed as it passed the corpse of the beetle. Alen watched as his gorilla was slowly chewed and broken apart. He lost his connection and paled, casting Necrotic Blessing on his two bone wolves and sending it at the horde as their boat sped away. Lynn stood up on her seat to look behind them as well, watching as the two wolves did little to stop the insects’ advance. What looked like a small sea of bugs poured out of the ghoulbear-sized beetle, some even taking flight to follow their vehicle.

Lynn paled and started shooting arrows at the horde with a terrified expression. Explosions of ice rocked the sands behind them as the scarabs were slowed down. Alen looked at it and felt a chill run down his spine, as if bugs were already crawling all over his body.

He grabbed his staff from the seat and pointed it at the sky, sweeping it in an arc as he released another massive Rotfire Bolt. Instead of a bolt however, the spell coalesced into a crescent moon shape that crashed into the cloud of flying scarabs with a loud boom, causing tiny crumpling sounds to ring out along with high-pitched screeches. Alen covered his ears, gritting his teeth at the sound that was akin to nails on a blackboard.

Roland looked at them and shouted, pointing at the elf. “Lynn, take the wheel!”

“Are you retarded!?” Alen couldn’t help but blurt out. Lynn was a horrible driver, the kind on the road to try and overtake a car and suddenly slow down just afterwards as if begging for an accident. The elf vaulted over the raised platform and took the wheel as Roland took out a metal disc from under his gauntlet, tracing his finger over its surface as it began to glow brightly.

Alen sent another spell at the scarabs in the sky to slow them down, nearly being thrown off the Galeboat as Lynn was surprised by a rock and suddenly swerved to avoid it. The scarabs on the ground, however, were beginning to catch up because Eilynn was no longer able to send her arrows towards them. Alen was about to grit his teeth and spend a large amount of mana to obstruct both beetles when Roland abruptly stood up and spun, a shining blur leaving his hands and hitting a part of the canyon wall.

With a series of rumbling booms, the disc he enchanted with a disgustingly high amount of shockwave runes caused a large part of the cliffside to crumble, triggering an avalanche of rocks and dust to rain down on the scarabs below.

The dust covered the canyon, obstructing vision as Roland yanked the wheel from Lynn’s control and abruptly turned, sending them into a path on the left side of the canyon instead of the right. The flying scarabs were thrown off and kept going to the right as they sped away, disappearing from sight through the blurry clouds of dust.

Alen fell to his seat in a slump, a relieved sigh leaving his mouth as Lynn similarly slumped down on the seat beside him with a sigh of her own.

Roland wiped the cold sweat on his brow and retracted the extra sails on the side of the boat, slowing down their speed to a reasonable amount. The three felt the hot wind beat against their faces as they traveled. The route they took was different from planned, so they would have to spend a lot more time traveling to the next town. Roland estimated their arrival time to be a little past midnight, which caused his expression to darken. Then, a voice rang out.

“Well,” Alen said. “That was… fun.”

The orange-haired warrior behind him steered the boat, shaking his head and smiling lightly. “Enough to cause a fracture on my ulna.”

“I passed my sixth threshold at least,” Alen drank some of the still slightly cool water on his waterskin. He handed it to Lynn who looked at him gratefully before he gazed back at Roland. “How strong was that beetle anyways?”

“Those ones are usually as strong as someone from the sixth or seventh threshold. I’m surprised we managed to kill it so easily actually. Our spells were especially effective against it.”

“I mean, we did get a lot stronger. We should be at our seventh thresholds at least by now. How about those little bugs? They gave me a fuck-ton of XP as well.”

Roland stared grimly behind them. “Those can go from as strong as the first threshold, to the third each. It’s a good thing we retreated in time or we would’ve been torn apart.”

Lynn shuddered and handed the waterskin back to Alen. “Are those common in the Sandsea?”

“Very. A lot more kinds of monsters too. Some weaker, most… stronger.”

Alen leaned against the seat and looked up at the darkening sky above. “What time do you think we’ll get to that town you were talking about?”

Roland sighed. “Best case scenario, we get there by midnight.”

Lynn hugged her bag to her chest and closed her eyes. “How do you know so much about the Sandsea, Roland? I’m pretty sure you don’t spend as much time as Alen in the library.”

“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t go there at all,” Alen said. “How do you know so much about this place? Draenys’s library didn’t have detailed books about this desert. Most I got was the occasional mention.”

Roland hesitated, before speaking slowly. “My father took me through here when I was younger. Rather, it’s the reason I ended up in the country where I met you two. Truth be told, I’m supposed to be past my twelfth threshold by now, but I paid to have the mana in my body drained so I could start over.”

“Why?” Lynn asked.

“I came from a family full of warriors, and I’ve been heading the path of a normal swordsman since childhood, but I fell in love with Enchanting magic when I turned eighteen. I decided to start over from the first threshold just so my attributes were perfect for the path of a spellsword,” He said, not a trace of regret in his voice as he talked about his past.

Alen was silent for a long time, before he nodded. It explained why Roland was still at their level even after being twenty-four years old, and his experience with using a sword and shield that was nothing like Alen’s haphazard spell tossing and Lynn’s somewhat amateurish use of her bow and magic in combat. She was getting better apparently, but Roland told him that she was terribly inexperienced in fighting actual enemies when they’d first met; like she was still relaxedly hunting game in the snowy woods of her homeland.

Well, at least it looked like Roland didn’t regret a single bit of his decisions, even with the edge in his voice after he mentioned his father taking him through the desert. Alen admired him a little for that.

Glancing at the darkening sky and Lynn who was intending to doze off, Alen opened up his status screen.

Status:

Name: Alen

Race: Human

Type: Necrotic

Health: 100%

Stamina: 78%

Mana: 53%

Strength: 14

Dexterity: 14

Agility: 13

Constitution: 15

Vitality: 15

Resistance: 13

Intelligence: 22 (+)

Wisdom: 29 (+++)

Control: 28 (++)

Skills:

Mana Programming, Dominate Undead, Blightbolt, Necrotic Blessing, Numb Senses, Summon Skeletal Minion, Rotfire Bolt, Deathchill Touch

Alen nodded at the increases, before deciding to set Control as his lowest priority, setting Intelligence as the second highest, while keeping Wisdom at the top. Right now, he didn’t really need to have a horde of undead out at all times, so he figured increasing the power of his spells and his overall mana pool would be better for his current situation.

Then, he gazed at his spells. Necrotic Blessing was awesome. Even stronger than he thought. It seemed that putting in Deathchill Touch also increased the quality of his little steroid, giving his undead not only a status effect on their attacks, but increasing their strength and speed by a good margin as well. Alen probably had the system to thank for that. Even though each minute of active time cost a bit more than two percent of his mana now, it was worth the cost with how much it improved his undead.

Now, he needed to improve them further. Minion-based spells were what he needed. Right now, instead of a full-fledged necromancer, he was more like a warlock that had some skill with summoning the dead. He needed to change that.

Alen thought of creating Corpse Explosion, a staple of the necromancer class, but he realized it wouldn’t be very useful when cast on skeletons. To make full use of that spell, he needed zombies, which he didn’t have, nor intended to raise any time soon as the concept for the spell was only just beginning to form in his head. That, along with his strong dislike for the smelly motherfuckers, caused him to rule that spell out.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t make a variant though.

He grinned and remembered the spell he’d drawn on the dirt a few weeks ago. He’d slowly improved that bone-shaping skill, and it was just a few steps away from being a completed program. An idea popped into his head, and Alen knew at that moment that finishing this spell would be the key to improving his capabilities as a pseudo self-proclaimed master of the dead.

He got to work, programming little nuances in the program and increasing the quality with little regard for mana cost. He’d refine it later, because as long as the mana cost was at a maximum of fifty percent, he could compress it to a more manageable level with his current understanding of his created spell system.

First, he assigned multiple variables to different kinds of body parts, taking advantage of the knowledge he’d gained from examining the purple strands for so long. Next, Alen took the growth properties of the rib, and cut it out, putting it into a separate variable. He slowly changed the little variables within the rib’s growth pattern, increasing density, removing the curve, making it sharper, and creating a path for his mana to channel Necrotic Blessing through it. He grabbed a bone shard from his pack, shards he’d been collecting for experiments, and pointed it at the desert to the side.

His experimental program flowed into the bone, accompanied by a large surge of his mana that shaved off an entire twenty-two percent from his mana pool. The bone began to tremble violently, before exploding into growth, shooting outwards at a speed his eyes couldn’t follow. A pillar of dust rose into the air seven meters away as the lance of bone matter dug deep into the golden sands.

The boat lurched, and Alen was nearly thrown into Lynn from the recoil, and Roland’s sudden yank at the wheel. He let go of the bone and the boat left it behind, still impaled into the ground. The warrior behind him glared at Alen. “I know your experiments are especially flashy, but will throwing a warning my way hurt? By the gods, I thought we were getting attacked by an undead Sandleech.”

Alen grimaced. “Sorry,” He said. “I set the growth variable to a value that was too high. There’ll be more, but it shouldn’t be as rape-y as this one.”

Roland grunted indignantly and steered the Galeboat with one hand, the other holding down a map by his side as he traced the route with his finger. Alen saw this and let out a breath, that had surprised him too. Right now, after studying the strand for so long, he was finally able to copy and paste parts of it into a program, creating bone-shaping effects. Unfortunately, he still couldn’t figure out how to do the same with the orange and cyan strands, which represented muscle memory and mental capacity. It honestly left him baffled. Every time he examined them, it was like his body was going through the motions, as if he was living in the memory that strand had captured.

How the fuck was he supposed to convert that into a program? A variable? It was like trying to write a descriptive essay about the color red. He couldn’t describe it in any other way, because red, in itself, was what it was. He couldn’t divide it into pieces, into bricks and concrete, no. It was a whole, like a castle carved into a mountain. His only options were to observe and attempt to carve one himself, which he had no idea how to do, or to simply destroy.

Alen guessed it was the nature of his whole system. It wasn’t like constructing a building from multiple parts and procedures like Mana Programming. It was like molding clay into a pot. Smooth, continuous, no room for mistakes, and with the requirement of extensive control and manipulation; something he’d tried, and failed miserably at during his first week in Talaria.

With a sigh, he went back to programming. What he needed to figure out now, was a way to meld this bone-shaping spell into his control over his skeletons.

Maybe he could try sending the program over as a command through the string of mana that linked him to his skeletons? Alen grinned and got to work, summoning a bone chicken onto his lap as he once again began to experiment.

He just had to be extra careful not to impale himself while experimenting.

That wouldn’t go very well in his opinion.

Roland steered the boat behind a large spire of red rock, one of the many that protruded out of the desert sands. He pulled a lever and retracted the sails, shivering as the extremely cold air of the desert night descended. It was even colder than the air when it was snowing in the areas near Draenys. He pulled on his fur cloak and took a drink. He pulled a thick quilt from his bag and gently draped it over Alen and Eilynn’s bodies in the front seats, securing it under the seatbelts. The two had both fallen asleep, but he was pretty glad for it, as their necromancer’s experiments weren’t good for the heart, especially in a desert full of monsters that could threaten their lives.

He sat on a rock and continued to drink from his flask as he rested, taking gulps from the alcohol he’d bought two towns ago. The stars were especially dazzling in the desert, with the lack of clouds and trees exposing all patterns and constellations to the world below.

Roland glanced at the two on the boat and shook his head. He was five years older than the elf, and six years older than Alen. After spending so much time with them, he was reminded of his siblings back home. With another swig, he lapsed into thought. Saryn was talented in their family’s arts. Did she master the fifth set of movements yet? Deil wasn’t the best at comprehending the forms the fastest, but he comprehended them the best. Would Roland’s first form lose to his?

With a sigh, he took another gulp. He missed his siblings, all twelve of them, both older and younger, but he didn’t have a choice. Back then, it was either them, or his path as a spellsword out to see the world.

He’d chosen the latter.

He gazed towards the west. They were headed there. Through the Sandsea, once again, seven years later. Would he run into them while they journeyed around the west? He doubted his siblings would recognize him anymore, with the beard he’d grown and the changes to his demeanor. Perhaps that was for the best. It would give him a chance to talk to them without interruption, without seeing the confused, slightly pitying looks on their faces as they looked at the lamb that had strayed from the herd.

Roland took a piece of rock and carved a rune into it. It was the first rune he’d learned; the Memory Rune. He something flow from his chest, to his arms, then into the rune. With another pulse of his mana, he activated it.

In front of him, a hazy cloud began to form, displaying a young man with short cut orange hair sparring with three people at the same time with a stern look on his face. Two people watched from the side, a man he recognized as his father, and another as his eldest brother. More of his family members were in the area, sparring, resting, and playing.

With a quick maneuver—one much, much faster than the current Roland, the young man in the image countered a strike and planted his wooden sword into the shoulder of a boy four years younger than himself. Then, his body twisted to avoid a diagonal slash, the blade in his hands lashing out like a snake to jab at the attacking girl’s leg. She fell, and with a loud thunk, the pommel of the wooden sword hit the back of her head, knocking her down.

Finally, the final attacker, a boy older than both of the other two, swung his sword and was parried, but unexpectedly used the force of the parry to do a cartwheel and send a windmill kick onto the orange-haired young man’s sword. With a snort, the young man twisted his blade and swept it to the side, pushing the kick away perfectly and causing the young man to fall out of balance. An instant later, the loud sound of wood against flesh rang out as the wooden sword was smashed into his chest.

Roland looked down at him and spoke coldly, his words seeming to point at the future him who was watching the memory from a rune carved into a stone. “Kicks are a useless move in combat. There is only the blade, and its wielder. Anything besides a shield is unnecessary and will only get you killed. Get rid of it or forget about winning against me in a spar.”

With that, the boy stared as his orange-haired older brother turned and walked away, his grip on the hilt of his blade firm and steady. Even after the cold words, the boy only felt admiration towards that figure’s back.

That was his older brother; someone leagues above him in both skill and power.

That was his older brother; Roland.

A sigh rang out as the cloud dissipated, the images fading along with it as a downcast orange-haired man looked at the rock in front of him as the rune slowly faded away. It was funny, really. He’d learned this rune to review his spars, to spot the flaws in his technique and refine them into the impenetrable defense that he had visualized. Who would have known that learning that simple little rune would end in this?

Roland smiled bitterly, not at the path he had taken, but the one he had tread in the past. Maybe, if he’d tried harder, he would’ve convinced his family, change hundreds of years’ worth of teachings to introduce a new way to fight; a way to wield blade and spell together, like the magic swordsmen of the continent to the north of theirs.

His family’s rigid, powerful techniques, and the elasticity and flexibility of magic. It would’ve been an unbeatable combination.

No, it would be an unbeatable combination. That’s why he was here.

Roland grinned devilishly. He wasn’t done yet. He still had a lot to prove to that clan full of combat maniacs. But for that, he’d need to get stronger. Much stronger than he currently was. Much, much stronger than what he was before. He started out as a breeze, but when the winds picked up, he would become the storm to knock down the doors of his clan.

With a resolute smile on his face, Roland stood up and walked towards the Galeboat, a renewed confidence in his steps as the white sails unfurled and brought them forward.

Under the stars, a single boat sliced through a glistening sea of sand. On it, two people slept, and one drank from a flask as he piloted the boat ever onwards. What the future held for them, no one knew, but one thing was for sure.

It would be a story worth telling.