A village! At long last, some proper traces of civilization. There was a hope that it would have some sort of map for me to look at. That would enable me to really start getting a feel for the world; I'm the type of person that loves when there are maps in the beginning of a book.

Walking forward, the scene of the houses struck down my hopes. Well, calling them houses may be a little generous. Perhaps a high quality shack? They were made of wood, but clearly there were gaps between many of the boards. Some of the larger holes had been patched up with adobe. This was not your RPG village with an inn and one of every shop.

Still, it would be premature to call this poverty-stricken. Ramshackle it may be, the villagers looked lively in these conditions. The vibrancy seemed to greatly contrast with the state of the village, it was unexpected.

As I proceeded through, a distinctly fishy scent hung in the air. Without the sound of the ocean, it could only mean I’d found a small river-fishing village.

Confirming my suspicions, on the other side of the settlement, a large stream flowed. About four meters across with a half meter bank, it looked like it had a sizable speed. The area around it had been cleared, save for a few willows and it seemed this was where most of the citizens were spending their time.

Adults sat on the edges of the bank watching over some nets, and some also held crude fishing poles. One or two youths were holding spears, although honestly the stream seemed a little too small for that kind of method to be useful.

Those even younger seemed to be playing, shouldn’t they be working? In this environment, I would expect that everyone would need to be laboring to make the situation better. Yet even the adults fishing didn’t seem to be taking it seriously.

To be honest, there had been a hope that the Starter Town would have a tavern with a mysterious old man, or a fortune teller, or have been beset by weak monsters. Barring that, if the citizens at least looked a little down I would want to find a way to help them.

But they looked totally satisfied!

What am I supposed to be a hero of?

So instead of a fulfilling quest, I ended up going to the edge of the brook as well. Maybe I could find something to eat. Might as well just resupply.

To fish, I sit on stone with a fairly level top in the middle of the river. Leaping around in a robe was difficult, so I picked up the edges like some curtsying damsel. Robes really aren’t 100% dignified.

I didn’t particularly want to show off my magic, but it had been almost a week. It reached the point where I was willing to take a little risk to live life as I pleased. So preparing to snipe a passing fish, I began waiting.

The villagers were a little ways away; I didn’t want to encroach on their loach. They didn’t seem to interested in my business, and let me be. Patiently waiting, I spotted a bream and shot at it. The shot was too fast for it to dodge, but didn’t manage to hit it straight on. The morsel fled, and I needed to wait again.

The second time, the dart passed through the middle of the fish. Before the current swept it away I used to recover it, holding it a small distance from me. Breams are fairly flat, so hitting it from the top messed up the body quite a bit.

This would make the already troublesome job of filleting it even worse. These were too small to bother cooking one at a time, so setting it down, I waited for another catch.

“■! ■ ■ ■ ■■?”

“Cripes!” At the sudden cry from the riverbank I swivel towards the sound; since I partially pinned my robes to the ground with my weight, I almost tipped over into the water.

There was a group of five kids, they hadn’t been particularly stealthy, but they were much louder than I thought. Who just shouts at a stranger like that? These were definitely unreserved little ragamuffins.

“Quiet down you rascals! You’re scaring the fish!” I shout back at them just as loud, ignoring the language barrier.

“■■ ■ ■ ■■■?” A girl asked her friends.

“■ ■ ■ ■.” The boy in front, presumably the leader, ran towards the adults.

Aah, I’ll deal with it as it comes. Peasants won't be very dangerous even at Level 1. Shrugging, I resumed fishing.

…

…

Those kids were still watching me.

My looks weren't very intimidating at the moment. When making my avatar, I went for a youthful and charming appearance. As such it seemed they were less intimidated and more begging for a show.

Whatever.

“.” Putting on airs, I turned back to the stream as they watched the dancing lights.

is actually a low-level offensive support spell, it affects a target for a few seconds and keeps them from acting. As opposed to malediction type spells, it is cast as an invisible projectile. If it misses, the result is how I used it then; a longer lasting cloud of lights whose attraction solely depended on the viewer.

The kids were more fascinated than anticipated; some were trying to grab the lights that wandered closer to the bank. At least magic wasn't something they feared. If that were the case things would have gone much worse.

Again, internal musings distracted me. The boy had returned with a man about a decade older than me and they were both looking, well, dazzled.

“■ ■■, ■ ■ ■ ■?”

“I don't speak the language.” The man listened carefully and spoke slower.

“◆ ◆◆?” Concentrating, these words were different. Did this fisherman manage to become bilingual? Even looking back on it, I still find that feat quite impressive.

Alas, I still did not know what he said.

“I only speak American.” I amused myself with a little joke.

It wasn't strictly true either. I knew enough phrases for living in several languages, and how to say ‘lost’ in all of them. Point being, I was fairly confident in my ability to learn at least the minimum needed to get by.

The man looked confused before saying something to the boy, who I assumed was his son. They both had the same light brown hair and medium build. The boy ran off to the houses to get something.

In the meantime, I half-heartedly watched for fish as I entertained the children. Necromancers didn’t exactly have a large repertoire of non-murdery spells, so it was an exercise in creativity. I could only Concentrate on one spell at a time; that is only manipulate one at a time, even if other spells persisted.

For example, both and could be manipulated after casting, but I could only do so one instance at a time. Their speed wasn’t quick either, so a more interesting light show wasn’t possible. Instead, using the two I floated a ball of light around and cast when it got close to one of the children, mimicking a will-o-wisp.

The children were soon running about. Even if moved slowly, when it got close to the ground it could be dismissed with counterspelling. Recast behind one of the kids, would pinch at their sides, or nape of their neck. It was kind of like a game of tag.

I'll explain counterspelling now, so it doesn't disrupt a more critical moment. Counterspelling is casting a spell to get rid of another. This differs from the more specific, and effective, in several ways.

is a metamagic type spell, that is magic that affects magic. Counterspelling is usually mimicking the same spell, and using that to cancel out a spell. It requires you to have the same spell,except for at higher levels, and is usually more mana efficient.

The other big difference between the two is counterspells can only be used the moment the spell is cast. Since takes more time, it’s more suited for rebuffing an enemy or breaking magical traps than combat.

Readers who find spell theory interesting have noticed something that the skimmers haven't. in this case is clearly being counterspelled after it has been cast. This is because there is an exception in the case of your own spells. Not all magic can be dismissed by the caster, in these cases additional mana is used to do so.

There is some debate as to why it works this way, and it isn't necessarily consistent with the new world. If you're interested in why I think reverse mana flow is the best reasoning for this, check out the Lore section on the Underworld forums.

Ahh, my tangent went on a little longer than expected. Nothing of note happened before the boy returned.

Over his shoulder rested a truly massive eel. Even draped in half, it went down to around his knees. Comparable to a small thigh in girth and probably eight feet long, the child had some difficulty moving with it, but kept his balance admirably.

In his hands, he carried what looked to be a scrap plank of wood, an old knife and some wound up cloth. He handed these to the man.

When the man had his requested materials and my attention, he held out the cloth and pointed to the eel. I stood up and hopped out of the brook, scratching my chin. I’ve never been good at charades, but that’s because people usually end up acting out movies or shows I don’t watch.

The first step in guessing was to know what I knew.

I knew they’ve seen me fishing, and now they’ve brought out a large eel. It’s probable that it was a reward of some sort.

They’d seen me casting magic and it wasn’t something that brought fear. Without knowledge of mages in this world, I couldn’t say anything definitive. Wizards are usually intelligent and revered, so that was a good premise to keep in mind.

It seemed they wanted to speak with me. This didn’t say much by itself, but normally I would expect a shrug and people would move along.

Time to connect some dots.

They knew I can use magic and they wanted to speak with me. Whatever they wanted to speak with me about is something they were willing to offer a reward for. This task of theirs needed a mage, or someone with an attribute that mages commonly had to solve. The problem was also not a very minor one if they were offering such a large catch.

What to do with the cloth, it looked clean but wasn’t wide enough to do much...bandages! That was the likely answer that came to me, they expected me to do some sort of healing.

With the scrap plank, Man was roughly carving some pictographs. Thinking of unwashed peasants who have never learned to read can give the impression of a fool, but from then on I was sure to remind myself that intelligence is not dependent on education.

The drawing was only done in straight lines, but since the board was big enough, the images were detailed enough to make out something of a narrative. A stick figure with hair started off, which I took to be the symbol for female. The woman was then depicted with a basket next to what was presumably a bush. Then there was a figure with horns. Lastly, an arrow pointed to a picture of some lines and the woman.

A kidnapped damsel? Then what were the bandages for? What exactly was my role on this...story board?

I pointed at myself and then the board. Man tapped the lines in the last ‘frame’. After squinting a little, it kind of looked like a magic wand with sparks shooting out. So my job was in the final step.

I snapped my fingers, experiencing the eureka moment. It seems that I missed out on whatever the horn thing was and now they wanted me to patch up the wounded. Of course the person might be diseased or cursed, so I wasn’t too sure of my abilities.

Pointing to my eyes and then tapping the female figure on the end, I hoped the phrase ‘I’ll take a look.’ existed. Man nodded happily, and some of the children looked ecstatic as well and began chattering. Hey, hey, I’m not certain I can do anything. My thoughts wouldn’t reach the children, so I decided to at least follow the man to see the patient before refusing.

But this was a great chance to be a hero, even if it was just for this little hamlet. I resolved to do my best on my first quest.