'Thank you, Dewey, you big beautiful bastard for creating a system of locating books easily' I thought as I rifled through the card catalog to find anything on runes, pictographs, or ancient languages and whatnot.

This library only had a small selection of books meeting my requirements which didn't surprise me. It was a small town after all, of mostly farmers and blue-collar workers before the System arrived. I picked up one such book. Celtic runes and their meanings. Looked promising, another was called Norse Mythology and the last was called Understanding Ancient Egypt which had some pictures of hieroglyphs and their meanings. I decided to sit in one of the comfortable reading chairs to the back of the library and started reading the first book.

I was about ten pages in when I heard a crunch come from the entrance.

"Fuck," I hissed quietly, turning off and packing away my flashlight and the books. I left my backpack next to the chair and moved behind one of the bookshelves recasting my buffs silently that had expired while I was reading. 'It would have to do for now,' I thought, looking at the reduced timers.

"There's no use hiding, we know you're in here. We just want to have a little chat," the mystery woman said in a flowery voice.

I didn't buy it one bit. If they wanted to talk they could have announced themselves at the door or waited for me to exit. No, I had a feeling these were more gang members, maybe even more members from the Black Dragons I think they called themselves.

"Now, now, don't be shy," the voice called out and I could hear her snapping her fingers followed by two sets of feet moving to opposite sides of the room.

They were going to surround me to try and flush me out. I knew they would find me sooner or later so I decided to act of my own accord and stepped out from behind the bookshelf. My only other option being to sprint for the emergency exit that was towards one of the men. This caused the two that were going to opposite sides to stop and aim at me.

Standing there with two other men behind her and slightly to the side was a stunning, if rather short woman wearing a leather biker jacket. She couldn't be more than 5' 3" with raven black hair and oh so kissable lips. The eyes though, they told a wholly different story, their gleaming malice evident even from here. It was obvious to see she had taken the time to sculpt her body when the system came online, making me wonder why anyone would waste the precious hour on something so trivial.

"Y-yeah, what do you want I just wanted to be l-left alone to read," I said in a stuttering pattern to hopefully fool them into thinking I was afraid. Well, I mean I was afraid, just not that afraid, although, my hands shaking, unfortunately, that wasn't by design.

'Not now nerves,' I yelled internally.

"Ah there you are, well you see this is Black Dragon territory, normally we would just let you go for a fee," she winked at me and I shuddered, "but... some of my men are missing, you wouldn't happen to know anything about that would you outsider?" she asked sweetly.

I saw her glance at my staff then over to the rifle next to my bag and knew I was hosed. I used the fleeting time before all hell broke loose to check her information.

Sharla Cotton | Chaos Mage | Level 17

I gulped at this. At first, I thought she might have been transported over like the Royal Guard but she had the mannerisms and speech of a local. My next thought was, 'How many people has this woman killed to get to her level?'

Even if it was just her I wasn't sure I could take her down. Then I saw her hands moving to form what I assumed was a spell and I dove past the bookshelf I originally hid behind to the next one over just in time for it to explode sending me tumbling past a third bookshelf. I hit the ground hard trying to scramble to my feet as I cast Rejuvenate. This was no time to be stingy with the healing.

Getting up on shaky legs I tried to sprint to the emergency exit only to see it blocked by one of her flunkies. He aimed his rifle at me and pulled the trigger, but he had aimed for my chest and the bullet slammed into my armor doing only 15 damage. I barely felt the bullet as my battle lust seemed to be washing over me in a torrent of euphoria.

I jammed my staff into his chest as a return present with Flurry active and he fell back against the door wheezing from the multiple impacts. I didn't have time to follow up as a silver dart of energy slammed into my side sending me sprawling and knocking the wind out of me. I coughed out a bit of blood.

A quick glance at my health showed it to be below half and I popped one of the healing injectors. Good lord, even with my rock skin and shield that spell hit hard. I cast Earth Fist at the man who was down trying to break his spine but I missed and only managed to punch him in the kidney. It would have to do for now as another bolt tore through the shelf I was behind, narrowly missing me.

"I see we have a magic-user here, how quaint. Would you like to test your abilities versus mine?" she said, laughing as she prepared another spell.

I could tell I had the strength and speed on the others and if this woman had placed most of her attributes in Intelligence and Wisdom she may be a glass cannon. If I could just get close enough I might be able to disable her and survive this encounter. I recast Rejuvenate as it came off cooldown. Expecting another spell to come flying my way, when it didn't come right away I worried. I risked a glance and noticed she was casting a long spell and I didn't like that, as that at least in videogames usually equated to a more powerful spell. I cast Aura Strike again and rushed at the doorman striking him across the face but not stopping as I could feel all the hairs on my body stand up as the air built with static discharge.

"Oh fuck," I said, taking a second to glance at the woman and the ball of lightning she held.

She just looked at me and smiled, releasing the electricity right at me. I managed to get most of my body behind the teller's desk but the bolt still clipped my leg, locking up my entire body and draining ninety percent of my health. I couldn't move a muscle as the electrical discharge wove through my body. Glad now that I picked up the ability to cast silently and I used all of my concentration to fight through the pain to cast Healing Touch on myself. Decided that living was preferable than worrying about someone possibly knowing I was a healer. The pain faded but my muscles were still locked in rigor. Then she walked around the desk.

"Well, color me surprised, you survived my attack. Very few people do, you know, you should count yourself lucky. Or Unlucky I guess. Either way, I will enjoy your death."

She began to prepare another bolt and I realized something, I had been on the ground for over a minute all my spells were off cooldown. I cast Rejuvenate again and then Healing Touch as soon as I could move and she snarled as the glow of my second spell went off. It was too late though I jabbed a mana injector into my thigh and immediately cast Area of Denial. She was just within the edge of my dome and as it sprang into being it knocked her back and her spell fizzled.

"Wh... What is this nonsense?" She screamed, holding her bloody nose.

I didn't reply instead I ran at her bumping her with the shield as I cast Flurry and Aura Strike. My staff met a barrier that glowed blue with the first five strikes, with the sixth I made it through to hit her in the sternum. I followed this up with an Earth Fist that seemed to fizzle out halfway to her with a loud pop. Bullets whizzed off my barrier but I kept my focus on her, rushing forward to disrupt her spell every time she tried to cast and smacking out with my staff. My aim was to at least cripple her arms if not kill her outright before my spell wore off. She tried to dodge backward but tripped on a piece of the broken shelf.

When she flung her arm out to catch herself on the desk I smashed my staff down on her forearm with a resounding crack. She screamed and clutched at her broken appendage, but she wasn't out of the fight. She flipped her good arm up and a curtain of light appeared between us. I flinched back reflexively and she made a break for the door and her other men who were firing at me. I only had a few seconds left on my shield so I rushed towards my pack and bolted for the now vacant emergency exit door. I slammed the door shut behind me and who do I find leaned up against the side of the building. It was none other than my unwanted shadow.

"A little help would have been appreciated," I said angrily as I ran past the Spell Sword.

"I have my orders not to interfere with the natives, plus you're alive, that's more than the Commander gave you odds for when he found out where you were heading. Even the guards steer clear of that crazy woman. Anyone who can make it to level 17 in one day is not someone you wish to tangle with if you want to live a long healthy life," Viktor said, falling in step behind me, "I would ask you how you survived but everyone deserves their little secrets."

We made our way quickly out of the Black Dragon's territory and back towards the barracks, Viktor trailing me the whole way and I silently prayed that Miss Chaos Mage's arm would never heal properly.

There had been more books at the library that I wanted to check out but I thought it best if I rest up and leave tomorrow instead of tempting fate twice. I was done with this town and hoped to never see the Black Dragons ever again. It was time to return to my home and see if I could locate any of my friends and maybe my extended family that resided in that area. Not that I was all that close to any of them but it would be nice to see a friendly face at least.

When we returned to the barracks I talked with the Commander and accepted his quest, letting him know I was leaving early in the morning. He provided me with three days of rations for my trip along with one healing potion. It was pretty much the same as the injector kind except you had to drink it so not as convenient.

I also found out who was coming with me, a soldier by the name of Fiona Clark. He didn't bother giving me the woman's level or class but who cared I could see that myself tomorrow. Right now I was a bit grumpy. None of the Black Dragons had died during our battle which meant no experience for me and it left them free to terrorize more people. I sighed mentally and headed towards my room.