The first thought I had when I entered the cave was that crawling with broken ribs is really, really painful. The second thought was that the smell of charred dire-rat is utterly nauseating. I wasn’t sure how Hanna had done it, but she’d apparently burned the hell outta the first dire rat she’d come across. The whole cavern reeked of it.

Puzzled I continued forward. The passages were tight but it was obvious this was a dungeon designed to be plundered. Rooms were connected by narrow channels that one had to squeeze or crawl through but they always opened back up into stone caverns with space to negotiate where the mobs likely were.

None of the mobs seemed to be here, however. Every room was empty aside from the overwhelming scent of burnt rats. I grew more curious as I crawled, squeezed, and struggled forward. How was she managing all this? Did she bring a bunch of pitch or something? Wasn’t she just a seamstress? If I judged her by the cut and stitches of my clothes. She wasn’t even a particularly talented one. She certainly looked intimidating when her temper was up, but I had the sneaking suspicion I’d made a few false assumptions.

I continued forward for a couple of hours stopping occasionally to grab a sip of water.

How big is this place?

I must have passed through twenty rooms or so already but I heard something in the distance so I hurried onward. I found my answer after crawling out from a particularly tight tunnel. The cave opened up into a large cavern. The ceiling was at least 12 feet high and the walls were wide apart leaving plenty of space for the pitched battle taking place.

Hanna stood confidently against two rats dressed in a plain working dress but with a rich green hooded cloak over-top that concealed most of her form. Her voice rang out strident in the space and echoed off the stone walls “Wa Et Saa!”

The air seemed to thrum for a moment and a bolt of red fire flew from a slender wand griped in her right hand. The bolt struck a circling dire-rat and smashed it to the floor. The force of the bolt sent the rat rolling away shrieking and burning. She stalked forward, seemingly unaffected by the carnage around her like some valkyrie descended to a human battlefield. A dainty boot kicked the burning and broken rat out of her path, while another spell formed on her lips.

“Tirg Na Ver!” The floor cracked and thick green vines burst from the stone binding the second rat. It added it’s cries to that of the first, these less pained and more angry. The shadows at the edge of the room boiled and four more dire-rats raced across the stone.

Hanna’s lip curled in a sneer and she pointed her wand into the middle of the approaching pack. The air seemed to warp as she bent reality to her will. “Wa Et Aar Ka Olm!” A blinding flash of blue-white light and a peal of thunder had me ducking for cover. One of the approaching rats simply blew apart as it was struck with a bolt of lightning. The explosion filled the cavern with chunks of smoldering rat and the smell of ozone. The volume of the thunder in the enclosed space had me covering my ears.

However, for all her power she was just merely mortal. Her next step faltered and I could see her gasping for breath as sweat ran down her face. That last spell had apparently taken it’s toll but she never flinched as the three rats continued their charge.

“Holy hell” I whispered before shaking myself out my my stupor. I raised my hammer and dashed across the room trying to reach her before the rats did. I wasn't very fast and beat them by only a step. I flung myself forward in a tackle, trying to block them with my momentum.

I plowed into the mass of dire-rats and the four of us went sprawling across the floor in a tangle of limbs, claws, and gnashing teeth. I rolled away, trying to clear a line of fire. Magic users needed space and it was the job of us bruisers to buy it for them. That and I wasn’t exactly certain of my reception. I didn’t want to give her an easy excuse if she felt like flinging another of those lightning bolts my direction.

A bolt of fire hit the mass of squirming rats, but this one was much more feeble than the first. I recovered my balance, and struck out with my hammer, taking advantage of the rats divided attention. Bones broke and a short brutal scuffled ensued. I traded blows with them, with Hanna taking the occasional pot-shot. Soon all three rats were dead, and I walked over to the still entangled rat ending the fight with a crushing blow.

I wiped the blood off my hammer then raised an eyebrow as I turned to the girl. “Fancy meeting you here.” I said giving her my best ironic smile.

She scowled but I could tell there wasn’t much fight left in her. She looked bad. Her skin normally had a sun-kissed healthy look, but it was now pale and sallow. Her eyes were sunken and I saw her wipe a small trickle of blood away from her nose.

“What do you want coward?” She snapped.

The effort threw off her shaky balance. I stepped forward and grabbed her shoulders to steady her. She tried to shake off my grip but she wasn’t able. “Get yer hands off me!”

“If you really want to have this argument now, you should at least sit down first. Passing out while telling me you don’t need my help will undermine your point.” Her scowl deepened but she did let me help her down. I stepped back and sat a few paces away facing her. I’d gotten a couple bad scratches in the fight, but for me that was practically unharmed. I rooted around in my pack and pulled out a loaf of bread. I broke it in half and handed it to her along with a water skin.

She accepted the food and we sat in silence while we ate. She was the first to speak.. “Why are you here?” She said around a mouthful of bread.

“Your uncle sent me or at least I think he tried to. He was a bit of a mess when I left, sobbing into his beer.” Her expression finally thawed a bit and I could see worry in her eyes.

“So you're a wizard? Here I thought you were a simple village girl." I continued. “Nice work there, although I think you may have overplayed your hand a bit with that lighting.”

This time she smiled a bit, half-satisfaction and half-self mockery. “Wizardess, and I was trying to make an impression. My mother was pretty powerful and she made me a spell book with some basic stuff in it when I was small. She died before she could teach me much, but I’ve been able to puzzle out some myself.”

“Well, I was impressed if that counts for anything,” I said, then stuffed more bread in my mouth.

“That was something I came up with. Not sure how much you really know about magic, but there are a bunch of different types. Wizards combine rune words into spells. The more runes you know, the more powerful and complex spells you can create. The more runes you use in a single spell, the more power but more costly. I only know about twelve, and honestly I hadn’t messed with my magic in years but something needed done.” That statement seemed to remind her of how mad she was at me and another glower came my direction.

I met her eyes and apologized. “Look I was angry, and scared, and I said something unforgivable. I don’t expect you to forgive me but I stick with what I said about this place. I’m really not strong enough to clear it.” It wasn’t much of an apology but I did feel bad for what I had said. “So what’s the play? We gonna head back?.

“I don’t care what you do, I’m staying.” She said.

“Of course you are, but why didn’t you offer to help before?” I asked baffled. The whole thing would have sat a lot better had she offered her help in the first place.

She looked at me oddly, as if not understanding the question. “Because it’s one of the rules.”

I was just about ready to ask ’What rules?’. But I figured it out.. She was an NPC…. Kind of. Of course she wasn’t supposed to help. She was just supposed to give the quest and send me off like an errand boy to take care of her dirty laundry. That’s how the thing always worked. She however had overcome her programming in some way.

I sat digesting the information for moment but the consequences of that knowledge were so huge I had no idea where to even begin. Shaking my head I tried to wrangle my stampeding thoughts back the to conversation.

“Fine then, I'll help but we need to coordinate. I’ll pull and draw aggro, you provide the ranged deeps.” I finally said.

“You’ll do what? I've got no idea what any of that means.” She looked at me puzzled and I grimaced. “Ya know, you've a very odd way of speaking. Yer accent is strange and you say things sometimes that don't make sense. Where exactly are you from?”

That was a rather interesting statement as well. She apparently knew on some level that I was a player and thus wasn't supposed to help me on a quest. However, players apparently had no designated status in her worldview. Which was odd, most games gave players special status with the NPC's and labeled us a foreigners or adventurers. This game apparently made no such distinction.

“Not from here, although honestly I’m not sure where from, I have very few memories beyond a couple of days before I made it to Valor’s Crossing.” It was mostly the truth and good enough to be going on with.

“What I meant was that I will charge in and engage the rats while trying to hold their attention. You stay in the back and throw fireballs or whatever other magic you can dig up.” It would be better if I knew exactly what spells she could cast, but this was good enough to start with. “How long do you need to rest. You look bad.”

She raised a blonde eyebrow. “You’ve a way with words Noob Slayer, anyone ever tell ya that.” I just grinned. Then her expression became more serious. “At least a couple of hours, A full nights sleep would be better. I really shouldn’t have tried a five rune spell.”

“Then sleep, I’ll keep watch. I have a feeling we are going to be down here for a while.” I stood up and walked over to where the dire-rats had all disappeared. Unfortunately only one had dropped anything, it was another set of teeth although these were just common quality. Looking utterly exhausted Hanna pulled her cloak up over her head and was asleep almost instantly. I shook my head, filled with even more questions.

We had a problem. Well, we had a lot of problems really but we had a couple of things we needed to deal with right away. This dungeon was much bigger than I had anticipated. This was apparently the first room with any real resistance and this was slated as a level 15 dungeon. Which likely meant it was made to be tackled by a full party of level 15’s. I had no idea what Hanna’s level was, if she even had levels, but I was a whopping 7. I was close to 8 and my first few levels had provided large attribute gains but I guessed that still put us far below the power curve.

The second problem was we couldn’t make a fire. Even if I could get wood down here the smoke wouldn’t vent, and I didn’t really want to suffocate to death. That left me with no way to make camp, which meant no way to regenerate HP quickly, and no way to recover from wounds. I'd been leaning on my camping skills for healing, and hadn't leveled first-aide at all. What I needed was a substitute fire or someway to designate this area as a camp location without one.

I gave my menus a mental nudge, and opened a detailed skill description.

CampingThe ability of player to make a secure and comfortable camp The skill provides bonus HP, Stamina, mana regeneration, wounds healing, skill resets, and other bonuses. The bonuses provided are dependent upon the security of the site, skill level of the user, and the effort made to create comfortable sleeping place, including things like blankets, a camp-fire, seating, bedding, etc….

I glanced around the room looking for options. The stone floor and walls were made of grey stone, interrupted by the occasional rock or stalactite, but other than that the place was barren. I had a my pack, a few torches, a couple of rocks, my ratty clothing, and very little else to work with.

Hmmmmmm….

I spent the next few minutes collecting small rocks around the room. Once I had a decent pile, I hurried over to the side of the room a lugged over a decent size boulder to sit on. It was a strain and I was glad I was in my MMO body instead of my actual one. I’d have never been able to lift it otherwise. I placed it down near the small pile of rocks then lit another torch then used the rocks to prop it up. I stepped back to examine my work.

It had to be the saddest campsite I’d ever seen, but hopefully it would suffice. “Open Log, Search, Camping”

User has used Camping Skill

User has Created Camp

Camp Quality 2

I looked though the log a bit more and saw that 67 was as I high as I’d ever gotten my camp quality which meant that this had just barely qualified as even being a camp. . I guessed it was likely a scale to 1000 but it might be as high as 10000. Too much of this game was a mystery.

Regardless I had actually managed to make a camp, albeit a very poor one. Hopefully Hanna would be alright after some shut-eye. I was down about ⅓ of my HP from the fight which, while fairly minor for me, would still require a couple of hours. So now I had time to waste and very little to do. I decided to play with more magic.

I grabbed a rock off the ground and used it to scratch another circle. Then paused unsure how to proceed. What was I even trying to accomplish? Was I going to try and make a blessing of some kind? Should I try to discover a new magic system or play with witchcraft more? What would happen if I screwed it up. I might injure myself or Hanna.

“Nothing ventured nothing gained.” I muttered to myself then picked my brain for ideas. What did I know about magic circles? I’d read a lot of fantasy, and even knew some people from school claimed to be wicca, although I guessed they were mostly just trying to be trendy rather than true believers. However, that only gave me some general knowledge, assuming the creators of this place we're staying consistent. Wizardry seemed to be significantly different from anything I’d heard of before.

The circle was supposed to a represent of a barrier. It acted as a container for the magic. Where it could be worked on and focused before being released. The pentagram, or five pointed star, represented the five elements; Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and Spirit or Life. If the pentagram was inverted, the fifth point represented Death, or Darkness. Which was the one used in satanic cults, dark rituals, and what not. Other than that, I knew basically nothing other than symbolism was very important.

Best to start with something simple. I only had a single rank of witchcraft and a whopping 10 mana, so it’s not like I was going to be able to do anything impressive. I didn’t really need all five elements, so thought I’d try starting with just three. I hoped that would simplify the process. I drew a triangle inside the circle. Making sure the top point was away from me, so it would be white magic, at least that was my assumption.

Now what....?

The skill description said witchcraft was supposed to be good at barriers so I thought I’d s try some basic protection for the camp. Earth and Air seemed decent choices for that. Then another Idea struck me. I grabbed a small stone off the pile holding up the torch and placed it next to one of the points. That would work for Earth. Next I tore a piece of my white shirt and dabbed it into one of my wounds that was still slightly bleeding. I placed that above the point at the top of the circle. Blood was about as good a symbol for life as I could think of.

What about Air though?

I looked around the cave and could come up with nothing before my eyes landed on the torch.

“Fire it is then.” I said aloud. I reached into my pack and took out another torch. I didn’t want to waste the pitch, so I used another rock and broke off a small piece of the handle. Next question; How to choose the area to protect? In books they always just sort of imagined that part or worked it into the spell somehow.

I wasn’t real clear on what that would entail though. I decided on something more tangible. I took the rock away from the circle. Then used it to scratch a bigger circle surrounding our little camp. I connected the big circle to the little circle with another scratch. I was probably supposed to put some arcane symbols or something along the connecting line, but I didn’t know any, so It was just a line.

I put the rock back near the my circle. Then I lit the small piece of wood with the torch and used it as my last focus. I then closed my eyes and willed my mana into the circle as I done before. I felt the magic drain out of me, and my head swam as I opened my eyes. The circle before me glowed, however instead of the light blue color it had had before this one pulsed white, red, and brown. The colors raced along the lines I’d scratched, overlapping and combining, before separating again. It was some pretty damn awesome special effects I had to admit.

Now for the tricky part. How to actually form a spell? This was even more guesswork than the other had been. I closed my eyes again and tried to mentally reach out to the circle. At first I couldn’t feel anything but as I concentrated harder I could feel a faint sort of..... something in front of me.

It was a very odd experience. It was if I’d gained a sixth sense, as if I’d just grown a third arm or now had some organ that could sense magnetic waves or something. The world seemed to shift slightly as I reached out toward that something. A bolt of splitting pain crashed through my head but I gritted my teeth against it. Then I could see the magic in my mind's eye. The circle before me swirled with it’s contained elemental power. I got the feeling something rather fundamental had just changed within me.

Too late now.

I still had no idea what I was doing, but I had a new found confidence. I opened my eyes still connected to that odd new sense of the world. The picture in my mind and my vision overlapped each other, super imposing my magical vision on top of my regular vision. It was very odd, but cool.

Then I pictured what I wanted, visualized those energies racing down the line I had drawn and forming a dome over our little camp, one that would protect us if something tried to enter. I flexed my new sense, and the colors in the circle swirled faster, My head started to pound and a felt a small trickle of blood leave my nose. I reached forward with a trembling hand and broke the circle. There was a faint pop, and the room filled with a kaleidoscope of colors as the magic raced down the line I had drawn and into the larger circle. The colors outlined the dome I had imagined and swirled together into complex patterns before fading from site.

Blip

Du-Do

You Have Created A New Spell. Would you like to Name It?

I lost my balance and fell onto my hands and knees panting. That had been work. Now I knew why Hanna had looked like such a wreck after slinging all that magic around. I’d likely just created one of the weakest possible spells in the game, and I’d nearly blacked out. That didn’t stop me from being pleased with myself though. I’d done actual magic. With no guidebook, no trainer, no help from the forums or a wiki. I’d discovered something awesome completely on my own. I smiled as I brought up details on my new spell.

You have created a custom witchcraft spell. This ritual forms a protective barrier around a small area reinforced with Earth and Fire magic. Any non-group member who attempts to enter the designated area will have to break the dome, and doing so will trigger an attack with moderate fire damage. The strength of the dome and the amount of fire damage received will scale with the amount of mana used and the area protected.

“Name: Minor Protection Dome” I said feeling slightly drunk. I was both giddy and woozy.

Name Confirmed

I wanted to sleep so badly, but I promised I’d keep watch. I needed to add Hanna to my party as well. “Add Party, Hanna.” I said. Hoping that would be close enough.

Ding

It seemed to work. I popped open a couple more menus to distract myself. My witchcraft had leveled to Novice III and I’d unlocked the Barrier sub-skill, both of which were awesome. I’d skipped over Novice II entirely. Witchcraft was kinda of fun.

Maybe I should become a witch. I still wanted to be a bruiser though. Besides how was I supposed to fight as a witch. The rituals were cool and all but not exactly something you could whip up in a fight. I’m not sure how long I’d spent making the dome, but I thought It had been at least an hour. My sense of time had gotten a bit odd while I’d been trying to shape the spell. I opened another menu and smiled broadly.

User has used Camping Skill

Camp Quality Increased to 53

That was almost as good as my best ever camp, and I had nothing but a rock and a torch. The extra security of the protection spell must have done it. If I could keep up numbers like this, maybe this dungeon would be possible. At least we’d be able to rest and recover. Everything else would be up to skill and blind luck. I got comfortable then closed my eyes and slipped into meditation. I blanked out my mind, trying to recover my mana and hoping I wouldn’t fall asleep.

*******************************************

“Well, what is it this time?” The Ceo of Nexus Corp asked from behind his massive desk. His blue eyes were as chilly as ever as they raked the man across from him. The scientist standing before him looked worn, but triumphant.

“We’ve acquired several hundred new testers sir. The newest capsules were just brought online bringing us to 14125 active testers. Aside from that we’ve had new activity. Subject 13617 has unlocked a secret magic skill. That makes him the seventh tester to ever do so.” The scientist reported happily.

“Indeed?” The Ceo’s face thawed for a moment and he looked pleased. “Seven seems a rather low number . We’ll have to get those numbers up. A fantasy world needs magic after all.”

“We’re already on it. I’ve talked to the designers and gotten approval from III. We’ll be rolling out a patch late tomorrow that will add sorcerer to the list of basic classes. That should provide some more diversity and get more players introduced the the magic system.” The scientist replied.

“Anything else to report?” The Ceo asked as he looked at his watch.

“Just two things. III reports that he is 92% complete with the NPC behavioral fabrication algorithms. He gave us the go ahead to start scaling up for launch. That puts our projected launch date in 25 days.” The doctor said smiling.

“What? He was at 70% a few days ago. What the hell happened?” The CEO asked angry. “Our launch projections were still months away. How the hell are we going to be ready in 25 days? What if his progress accelerates again?”

The doctor looked at him wide-eyed.“Should we delay the launch sir?”

The CEO sighed. “No, Our investors have spent the better part a of billion dollars on this project. If they find out we delayed on seeing some actual income they’d have me for breakfast. Start the marketing campaign and begin taking pre-orders. What else did you have?”

"Secondly, Subject 13617 experienced an episode last night that coincided with the creation of his first spell. “ The scientist winced as the CEO turned a glare on him.

“Nelson…. You told me you’d taken care of that problem after the first person to unlock a secret magic skill died. “ The CEO’s voice turned dangerous.”Bodies are bad for business.”

“Yessir, sorry sir. We did. I mean I thought we did. After subject 831 died, we lowed the mental synchronization necessary for magic use by 40%. That bought our projected estimates well within safe levels, but with so few magic users we’ve had little actual data. Subject 13617 is expected to make a full recovery, his temperature spiked to 104 for a about 10 minutes and he bled from the ears for a while…...” His voice started to waver as he saw the CEO’s expression darkening with every word. “But The doctors arrived quickly, and they say he’ll make a full recovery in a few days.” Nelson cringed at the look in his boss's eyes while he finished his report.

“If we’re going to launch in less than 30 days we can’t have kids out there blowing blood vessels, a single person landing in the hospital will waste years of research and hundreds of millions of dollars. Lower the values more!” The CEO raged.

“Errrr yes sir, right away sir.” Nelson nodded frantically as he turned to leave.

“And Nelson,” The CEO’s words stopped the scientist before he could flee. “Excellent job, You’ve accomplished a great deal while under mountains of pressure. One screw-up does not undermine all you’ve accomplished. Get this last thing straightened out. The end is finally in sight.” The man man looked and his watch again and stood up from the desk.

“Oh, and give subject 13617 a bit of reward. If we’re making magic easier to come-by those that braved the dangers deserve a bit of special treatment. ”

Nelson’s shoulders slumped in relief and a smile touched his lips as he quickly left the room.