5 I Must Be A Great Teacher

Carson was sitting on the ground, his head cradled in one hand, looking completely spent. Val was standing in front of him with her staff raised defensively.

Erramir stood. “What’s going on with the insane overkill? And what’s wrong with Carson?”

Val met his gaze with a slightly wild look of concern. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he waved off her concern. “A little shaken up, but I managed to keep my whole body under the shield.”

“Thank God.” Val exhaled, heavy with relief. “I was starting to worry I was going to lose both of you and be stuck down here alone.”

Erramir gingerly stepped on the mounded stones, collapsing some into the body-shaped cavity, but it supported him. He made his way across the plateau of projectiles toward his friends.

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “Lose both of us?”

Val did a final scan of the room and then rested the butt of her staff on the ground. “I don’t know why, but Carson couldn’t stop the weave. He was freaking out, started babbling on about the binding. He went pale and fell to his knees a moment later, then you screamed at him to stop.”

She looked down at the mage. “It worked.” Then back at Erramir. “You screamed, and the rain of stones just cut off. Not a second too soon, either. I think he was about to die.” Val’s tone was confused. “His health bar wasn’t draining, but the color in it was fading. It was almost gray. I was about to whack him on the head, but he looked so weak I was worried that might kill him.”

Erramir stepped off the stone platform in another cascade of stones. “Seriously? That’s ahh… kind of screwy,” He took in the party health bars that he’d failed to monitor during the fight. Sure enough, Carson’s bar was still full but washed-out. Thankfully it seemed to brighten even as he looked at it.

Erramir closed the gap and took a knee in front of his friend; he did look pale. “Hey bud, you alright?”

“Yeahhh. I’ll be fine,” Carson replied, his voice trembling.

“What happened? What’s a binding?” Erramir asked.

Carson just shook his head feebly. “Need a minute”–he took a shuddering breath–“to recover.”

Erramir sat on the ground next to him and propped his shield against the passage wall. “No rush, man. We’ll wait.”

He leaned back on his hands and looked up at Val. “That was a pretty amazing trick with your staff. It probably saved our asses.”

She smiled at the compliment. “Thanks. Yeah, it was kind of a perfect setup in that narrow tunnel.” Her gaze got distant for a moment, then the look vanished. “We managed to kill two hundred and ninety-three of the ones in the second group, and my log says that there’s only seven left in that swarm. If we can, it’s definitely worth trying to find and kill them too. That experience bonus for killing the whole swarm is huge.”

Erramir looked at her, “Experience bonus? What experience bonus.”

“Huh?” she replied. “You didn’t see it? You must have gotten it. Check your combat log.”

“My combat log? I haven’t seen a combat log.” That would be useful. Do I have a combat log? he mused. A box of text appeared on the left of his field of view, focusing it floated to the center.

“Woah! I have a combat log!” Erramir exclaimed, smiling and instinctually leaning forward to engage the window.

Val shook her head, bemused. “You’re unbelievable. This is your world, Err. How do you not know about the combat log?”

He shrugged, his attention glued to his log. “No manual, remember? Not even for me. It’s the only way to do a real beta test.”

He scrolled through the entries. The bottom was filled by -1 and -2 damage notifications from the hailstone strikes on his shield. Near the top of those notifications was the one that Val was talking about. He read it and smiled.

Well done, Erramir Darkfyre. Your party has eradicated a nest of Vampiric Scallas. Scallas killed 270 of 270.

Experience bonus: 1350

Achievement earned – Exterminator One.

“1350. That’s more than three times what I got for the elemental.” He looked up at Val, and she winced again. “What’s going on with you? Is there something on my face?”

She waved her hand in a circle around her own face. “Uhh… yeah. You’re kind of covered with scales.”

Erramir had forgotten that his Drakkenwood Skin was still active. He’d only ever seen how it looked on his own arms. “Ahhh, that’s right. Does it look that bad?”

“Well, it doesn’t look that good,” she said. “You kind of look like a mob. So, yeah. It’s kind of freaky.”

“Like a mob, huh.” He inspected the dark scales on his hand. “Well, that’s a damn sight better than being dead, which is what I would have been without it. Those Vampiric Scallas were getting right through my armor, and I had a whole bunch of them piling up on my back. The bleeding damage would have killed me in a few more seconds if my gut hadn’t reminded me of my racial armor.”

Erramir touched his face. The sensation was slightly muted, but it still felt like his hand touching his face. The oddness was that there wasn’t any give. It felt like a shell. “It saved my life when I was out there jumping around. They just fell off when I activated it.”

Val’s face was pale when he looked back up at her, and he couldn’t help but laugh. “What? You don’t like thinking about a colony of blood-sucking bats feeding on you?”

She looked sick. “Oh God, you’re going to make me puke. Can we please not talk about it?” She pitched forward slightly from the waist, and he saw her throat contract.

He scrambled for a change of topic. “Right! Yeah, so uh, how about the XP gain? That was pretty killer.” Erramir edged away from Val. He did not want to get puked on.

“Did you get the 1350 bonus, too?” he asked in a rush. “You gotta think that’s pretty good. Some serious power leveling numbers there. You must have gotten it too, right?” His enthusiasm was forced, and he edged a bit further away as Val wasn’t recovering yet. “Oh man, of course, you did! You pointed it out to me!” He slapped his forehead, then barreled on.

“Man, we’ve got to find more of these scalla nests. I’ll bet there’s at least a couple levels worth in these caves. What do you think? That seems like a good plan, right?” He winced and waited, ready to ramble on about something else if Val didn’t respond.

Thankfully, she went with it, “Might be, and yeah, I did.” She stood up straight and blew out a couple breaths. “And I think it’s deserved too. We only got five XP per kill, which was split across the party. The real payday is killing the last one in the swarm.” She turned away from the cavern and crossed her arms. Erramir blew out a cautious breath of his own, hoping that the puke danger had passed.

Val continued, “This is basically a death trap down here for any group that’s not prepared. If we didn’t have you to pull that crazy jumping around stunt…” she flipped a hand toward the cavern, then seemed to pale slightly.

Erramir jumped in, not wanting to backtrack. “Yeah, totally, that was really key, my jumping and yelling and stuff.” He waved his hands over his head, “Buahhhahh.”

Val smiled weakly at him. “That was an impressive display of tank work. Inventive too. Without that and Carson’s over-powered rain of death, we’d have been screwed.”

“And your staff! That was awesome! You killed more than any of us.”

“Hah.” The small weak laugh came from Carson. “You sound hilarious, Err.” If not fully recovered, his voice was at least steady, and he was looking close to a healthy pallor.

“Hey. Looks who’s back,” Erramir said. “Feeling better, bud? You were touch and go for a bit there.”

Carson shook his head. “You have no idea. I was half a breath from total essence burnout. Fuck.” He exhaled a deep breath. “That was frightening… and painful. It came up so fast too. One moment I’m rolling, and the next… I was fucked.”

Carson dropped his head back against the tunnel wall. “It was like someone yelled fire, and the essence just ran out of the room. And, I’m left standing there with my tap fully open and no water left in the well.” He looked at Erramir. “Thank all the Kuoran gods for your interrupt skill. How did you know?”

“Ahhh… know what, Car? That you were about to… burn out? I had no idea. And what interrupt skill? I don’t have an interrupt skill.”

Carson’s face blanched–not as pale as it had been, but still, it went two shades whiter. “Sweet Mary, Joseph, and Bradley Cooper… you seriously had no idea?”

Erramir leaned on one arm, turning to look at him. “No. I still don’t really know what you’re talking about, although it sounds like my yelling at you helped you not die.”

“Damn right. I was a goner. Then, you snipped my shit off like a Jewish mohel on the eighth day. Fuck, that was close.” He looked down and cradled his head in one hand.

Val and Erramir shared a look of confusion. ‘Molhel’ Val mimed silently, and Erramir shook his head.

Carson looked at Erramir. “Did you get a new skill during that fight? You were doing a ton of yelling at those bats. Was it doing anything? Maybe you got a skill notification.”

“I don’t know. At the end, they seemed to get really agitated when I yelled at them. But I didn’t see anything in my combat log about a new skill. Could be I didn’t scroll back far enough, though. Oh, wait. I can just check unread notifications.” With the thought, one appeared.

New Skill learned (Atypical): Irritating Yell – After yelling long and hard with fervent intent to distract and irritate your enemies, you’ve finally found the trick.

Skill level: Primitive

Use: Yell with the intent to irritate.

Cooldown: 20 seconds

Effect 1: Gain the undivided ire of any being that Irritating Yell is directed at.

Effect duration is measured in seconds and calculated as the sum of your Charisma and Willpower divided by the sum of the target’s Charisma and Willpower multiplied by 10. For example: If your attributes total 50 and your target’s total 25, then: (50/25 = 2) and (2 x 10 = 20 seconds)

Effect 2: Targets with an active Willpower equal to or lesser than 1.15x your active Willpower will have any in-process spell weave interrupted and any ongoing channeled weave terminated. Affected beings will be unable to use interrupted essence types for 5 seconds.

Notes: Targets with a combined Charisma and Willpower score at least 2x your total will be unaffected by Irritating Yell. This skill cannot be used while intoxicated.

“Yep, there it is–got it right at the end of the fight. It’s called Irritating Yell.” He grinned. “Great name.” Then explained the skill effects to Carson and Val, concluding with, “So yeah, by dumb luck and my fear of being tenderized, your ass was saved.”

Carson sighed. “People say that thing, better lucky than good… this is the kind of crap that inspires dumb-ass sayings like that.” He paused for a moment, then shrugged. “All the same, I learned some important stuff in that near disaster. Here’s the first thing; channeled spells,”–his tone rose with his brow–“don’t have an off switch. If you don’t set a sealing bind into the weave before you cast it, forget about it, it’s gonna run until the source goes dry.”

Carson leaned back against the tunnel wall. “Second thing, remember when I’ve described my spell weaving as being similar to a conversation or an agreement?” The other two nodded. “Yeah, so, it turns out, I was dead on the money. In fact, it’s so much like a conversation that if the elemental power I’m talking to–the one making the spell go–doesn’t like the conversation anymore, it can just up and leave. And like that annoying kid who won’t share his toys, when it goes, it takes all the good stuff too.”

He held up a hand, anticipating their questions. “Let me finish.” Then extended three fingers. “Third point, which is directly related to point two; Essence does not like to be abused or wasted.”

He rotated his hand and thumbed toward the colossal pile of stone golf balls. “See my insane overkill exhibit A. Somehow, the essence knew those scallas just didn’t need any more killing. At first, it poked me–like a little reminder. A couple moments later, it whacked me with a mental sledgehammer.

“And I knew it, too! Those buggers were dead six times over. I wanted to cut the channel off. Hell, Err, I was worried I’d kill you. But I couldn’t do a damn thing because the weave had no off switch.”

Carson breathed deep, exhaling slowly, then continued. “Then the essential energy”–he snapped his fingers–“just fucking bailed. Leaving little ol’ me to fuel that massive earth and air weave with nothing but what I’ve got in my tank–and it ain’t a big tank.”

The mage sighed. “Finally, and probably most importantly. Don’t let your mage play with magic if he doesn’t have a magical fire extinguisher. Aka–a buddy with an interrupt–ready at hand.” Carson flourished with one hand like a stage magician. “I will now entertain your questions.”

Erramir looked at Val with a raised brow, and she shook her head. “I think you covered it, bud.” He raised fingers, marking the points. “In summary, build your channeled spells with an off switch, aka a bind. Essence is a conversationalist. Essence gets pissed if you talk too much. And don’t let Carson do stupid things–if you can help it, which we basically can’t. But I’ll yell at you if you’re in trouble.”

He smiled at the mostly recovered mage. “That about sum it up?”

Carson smiled too. “Ha! Fucking right it does. I must be a great teacher.”

Val pulled Carson to his feet, and Erramir clambered up after him. “Okay, so as much as they disgust me,” Val said. “I say we go clean up the last seven Scallas from the second swarm. Just those seven should give us the 1500-XP extermination bonus.”

“Oh, hell yeah,” Carson agreed. “I think that’s my next level.” Erramir nodded in agreement, so they formed up and crept down the second passage in search of seven elusive scallas.

Scalla-sized openings pocked the walls of a cavern the passage opened into. There was no reaction when they entered, so Val poked Virg into some holes, and Erramir used Irritating Yell on others, but the missing creatures weren’t there. This caused some worry that they would have to forfeit the big XP bonus.

However, when Erramir directed Irritating Yell at the ceiling, the seven missing culprits burst noisily from hiding. Carson managed to get one with his mace, which splattered messily midair. Erramir caught two with his shield and follow-up boot stomps, while Val got the other four with her staff. It was over in a couple minutes.

Something occurred to Erramir as they walked back to the first cavern. “Hey, Car, the way you’ve described essence acting, assisting you in creating new spells and then warning you that you were abusing its power. Would you say it’s intelligent communication, or more like programing just following instructions?”

Carson considered with a hum. “Good question. I’d say it was both.”

Erramir nodded. “Okay. How so?”

“When I was experimenting in the corner, trying to puzzle out how the essence wanted to be used, that was communication. I could feel it nudging me, leading me toward the right pattern. Each time I didn’t listen well or didn’t understand, I’d screw up, cross something wrong and feed essence back into a part of the weave where it didn’t belong, and it collapsed.”

He held up a finger. “So, like a good little mage, I’d start again, follow the same pattern, building the weave step-by-step up to where I screwed up. In one spot, it collapsed four times in a row. I couldn’t see any other way to proceed. But... I started again. After all, that’s what a good mage does.” He cleared his throat.

Erramir shot a bemused smirk at Carson, remaining silent.

“Anyhow,” Carson sing-songed. “That next try, right as I was starting, the essence pushed me to change one of my first threads. I mean, it literally pushed itself... or maybe it pushed my mind. I don’t know–I’m not clear on all that.” He waved his hand, shooing the issue away. “Doesn’t matter. It basically made me start that strand by crossing under the weave core instead of over the top. That changed the whole thing, and the weave came together perfectly. Then I just held it and yelled at you.”

“So, it responded to your frustration?” Erramir asked.

“Yeahhh, more or less.” Carson lifted a palm and teetered his head back and forth, then stopped and pointed one finger. “But, not just that. It helped at a bunch on points before that. My frustration kind of got its full attention or something.” He glanced at Erramir and dropped his hand with a shrug.

“During that part, it definitely had a sense of intelligence.” The mage continued. “But that changed after I cast the weave. As soon as I did, the connection got numb, or maybe cold. It didn’t go away; it just became non-responsive. Like the spell was on autopilot. The elemental power could yell at me through the link, but I couldn’t reply.” He held up his hands. “Does that answer your question?”

Erramir wasn’t sure; he’d have to noodle on it a bit more. “It adds some more information to the puzzle, though I’m not actually digging for anything specific. Still, the way you talk, it’s clear essence isn’t passive, like gravity. It's responsive and has awareness–at least to some degree. Its attention is drawn by spell weaving, and more so by trying to create new spells.”

“Yeah.” Carson bobbed his head. “Sounds about right. Buttt… there’s more too.” He scrunched as eye shut, pursing his mouth. “It’s like, interested in my soul essence or something.” He shrugged, dismissing the thought. “ I donno.”

“Your soul essence? That’s what you build your weaves around, right?”

“Yeah, soul essence is the rigid bit that I weave around.”

“Okay.” Erramir rubbed his chin. “And Val uses her soul essence controlling Virg too, right?”

“Nooo, not really. She does what I do, just unconsciously. Elemental air essence does all the work moving Virg. Val’s soul essence just tells it what to do.

“Right. You said that before.” He called over his shoulder. “Val, do you ever get a sense of the essences talking to you?”

“Nope. I can just sense Virg. No invisible magic instructor for me.”

“Hunh.” Erramir drummed fingers on his sword pommel, then smiled. “Well, soul essence plays a major role then. At least with you guys, it does. I can’t do anything with it yet, but this is a good start. I’m sure we’ll learn as we go, and I’ll pick something up.”

“Here’s to that,” Carson said and tipped an imaginary beer at him. “Although, you did activate those runes, bro. That’s got to be a soul essence deal.”

“That’s right,” Erramir replied cheerily. “I can’t wait to learn more about runecraft. Smithing too!”

“Yes, Err, we know,” Val replied dryly. “I’m sure we’ll lose you for days to the first forge we find. Car and I will go crazy with boredom. And, I’ll have to threaten and coerce you with violence and dungeon bribes just to go do anything.”

“Heheh,” Erramir chuckled as they stepped into the cavern of the scalla fight. “That’s definitely gonna happen.”

The cave had five exits. The entrance up to the skeleton room, the one they’d just cleared, two others with the same tunnel-like appearance, and a final shorter opening that sloped down. They decided to work from the left since they’d just cleared the leftmost tunnel. Anything they explored, Carson would mark with a pile of stones.

The next passage was led straight into an empty cavern with a single exit. That tunnel shrank in both height and width the farther down they went. Eventually, they were crouching, and then Erramir had to crawl. When that happened, and with no end in sight, they decided to double back.

Arriving back in the first cavern. Erramir made for the last of the large openings, but Val stopped him. “Let’s do the small one that slopes down. We can double back to that one next time.”

He turned and looked at Carson. “I agree with Val.” Carson nodded toward her. “I know we’re supposed to be systematic in a dungeon, but we’d really only be shifting the system over one passage–because there are only two options left, you know.”

Looking at the tunnel that sloped downward, a single thought rang in Erramir’s mind. In dungeons, all the good stuff is down. He nodded and headed toward the smaller passage, skirting the plateau of stones. “Okay, downward it is.”