Isaiah thought there should be more to keep blacktongue but he couldn’t see anything and didn’t want to get in trouble for asking for help. It could be seen as sharing quest information. He didn’t want to miss out on things but it wasn’t worth risking getting in trouble in his mind.

Isaiah wandered along town a little bit to see what kind of shops were available. Most importantly, there was an alchemist. This one was much more of a hassle to get to than Shadow or Azha because he’d have to cross the sea by boat and the boats only went at a certain speed. However, having more options was always good. Making component shopping trips seemed like it would become an inevitable part of being a mage.

Isaiah checked what the alchemist (whose name was Seath, the alchemist) had for sale:

Amber rod 72 gold 68 stored

Bat Guano 10 gold 43 stored

Copper 5 gold 64 stored

Crane’s Feather 29 gold 33 stored

Diamond 960 gold 50 stored

Drop of Blood 10 gold 28 stored

Firefly 10 gold 76 stored

Magnets 10 gold 65 stored

Nitric acid 72 gold 1 stored

Water 1 gold 20 stored

Zinc 48 gold 14 stored

Being mindful of his currently meager funds Isaiah only bought 10 Bat Guano and 10 firefly. He spent 10 gold on another components bag and put them into it. He tried to put the leather bag into the belt pouch he was wearing but of course it didn’t fit. Why couldn’t it be that easy? It was never that easy. Well whatever, he could cast a few lightning bolts now and he had some of the components to a fireball. He really wished that there were components for an identify spell. Yeah, pearls were expensive but not having the +2 next to the silver chain in his inventory was bugging him. That +2 would be a security blanket to let him know it wasn’t cursed. Increasingly light money pouch please hang on!

Isaiah continued along. He had been to the church and the general store. There was a bar that he walked into. He checked the menu and saw it sold several food and drink items. One of the side effects of dying is that you come back from the dead with your hunger satiated and your thirst quenched. Because of this he didn’t need to buy any consumables of that sort for a while.

There was another store that sold some kind of contracts? It seemed like a scam. There is no way that this game would have some way to get a passive income. That would be too easy.

Isaiah decided to go wander around in the forest again. He checked out the tower on the other side of the city. It seemed like a small place. There was a room with a fire elemental in it and an exit going up. Isaiah went in and the fire elemental attacked him right away. The fire elemental sounded like a strong opponent so Isaiah didn’t want to risk taking damage. He used the cheap trick where he started the magic missile spell and then left for the room adjacent to the one he was in. This was working well but it was dying slow. Isaiah tried to do this with a lightning bolt but it didn’t work. It just gave the error message “That target is not in the area.” Well, trusty magic missile is trusty.

Fire elemental drops dead before you.

Isaia quickly offered the corpse and collected the coins that it had dropped..

Peering up, Isaiah saw that the next room was a magic’s hall with a single occupant.

Jarrow, an old drow with a thinning white mane.

Oooo. There it was. . . A drow, a dark elf. A drow exemplifies the mortal enemy of his elven race. Also, most importantly he had a scroll showing in his inventory. This did not take part in the conclusion that Isaiah’s player made about the fate of the drow NPC…maybe. Mister Jarrow, Isaiah needs to kill you to right this world. Isaiah went up and prepared to be attacked upon entering the same room as the drow. Surprisingly the drow just stood there. That does it… Jarrow is wide open, “Lightning bolt!”

You begin casting a spell.

A bolt of lightning shoots out of your hand and zaps Jarrow.

(Remaining firefly 9)

Jarrow misses you.

Jarrow begins casting a spell.

A dart of acid explodes into your left leg.

HP: 57/60

(whoops, didn’t expect that.. What was that spell?)

Isaiah flees down.

Pain floods through your left leg as the acid continues to burn.

HP: 55/60

(what?! He ran away. Why isn’t the damage stopping?!)

Pain floods through your left leg as the acid continues to burn.

HP: 52/60

(okay, let's try to heal command)

You attempt to heal Isaiah. You attempt falters.

Pain floods through your left leg as the acid continues to burn.

HP: 50/60

(Okay spell, how long are you going to last? Hopefully not until I’m dead!)

Isaiah high tailed it out of there and made his way quickly back to town.

Pain floods through your left leg as the acid continues to burn.

HP: 46/60

Pain floods through your left leg as the acid continues to burn.

HP: 43/60

(Acid spell please stop!)

Pain floods through your left leg as the acid continues to burn.

HP: 40/60

Drastic times call for drastic measures. Isaiah went to the healers and paid for a cure serious wounds.

Healer applies a salve to your wounds and takes 100 gold.

HP: 55/60

Pain floods through your left leg as the acid continues to burn.

HP: 50/60

Pain floods through your left leg as the acid continues to burn.

HP: 48/60

(Please make it stop. How do I make it stop?)

This continued along for a while. After the spell finally ended its duration it had done around 200 damage. And Isaiah’s funds were down to a very meager amount. He didn’t check the pile of coins that the fire elemental dropped but it was likely several hundred gold if not for that he feared the worst might have happened. He already had one death where he just watched his hit point slowly tick away and didn’t want another one.

Isaiah collected himself and used heal to slowly get back to full HP. He looked at his spellbook trying to figure out which spell it was that Jarrow used on him. He had the casting emote so he assumed it was a spell and not a special attack. Special attacks were like what the goblin witch did where she hurled a bolt of evil at him. The spell he had that seemed the likely suspect was an acid arrow. Isaiah had just never cast it because if the components needed. The material components of the spell are a dart, powdered rhubarb leaf, and an adder's stomach. Ugh, it needed three components. It was a level two spell. He mentally added it to his mental checklist for component shopping later. He didn’t remember those components being expensive but maybe they were. Hopefully not having a lower level spell like that would be mean. Lightning bolt only required firefly and fireball needed bat poop and sulfur. Calling it bat guano doesn’t mean it isn’t poop.

Isaiah’s track record for being a hero of justice wasn’t so good: Evil characters brought to justice 0, times defeated by evils 2, drow magi ran from 1. While he didn’t think he could get back at Harmony or Nightfall he did have a secret weapon to defeat that drow wizards and that was cheese tactics. Jarrow shouldn’t be able to hit him with a spell if he wasn’t in the room by the time he finished casting it. At least unless the spell was a magic missile.

The elf Isaiah bravely went back to the tower of the drow. The fire elemental had already respawned so he killed it slowly with the casting magic missile and leaving the room over and over again. By the time it died he was around 600 gold coins richer. This time he actually checked the pile of coins from the drop to determine the value. He then continued the same tactic on Jarrow.

You begin casting a spell

You leave down.

A barrage of missiles flies out from your hand and zap Jarrow.

You begin memorizing magic missile.

You have memorized magic missile.

You leave up.

Jarrow attacks you!

You begin casting a spell.

You leave down.

A barrage of missiles flies out from your hand and zap Jarrow.

This continued for a while until:

Jarrow Drops dead before you.

Not wasting a beat, Isaiah offered Jarrow’s body and collected the scroll. It was a scroll of Ice storm. Isaiah had done it. He’d defeated the racial enemy of the elves a drow and his reward was his first level 4 spell: Ice storm.

Isaiah’s spellbook contains these spells:

Armor conjuration level 1

Burning Hands alteration level 1

Chill Touch Necromancy level 1

Color Spray Illusion level 1

Detect Magic Divination level 1

Identify Divination level 1

Light Alteration level 1

Magic Missile Invocation level 1

Monster summoning i conjuratio level 1

Sleep enchantment level 1

Acid arrow conjuration level 2

Darkness invocation level 2

Detect Invisibility divination level 2

Hideous laughter enchantment level 2

Invisiblity illusion level 2

Monster summoning ii conuration level 2

Ray of enfeeblement necromancy level 2

Rope Trick alteration level 2

Web conjuration level 2

Blink alteration level 3

Dispel Magic abjuration level 3

Fireball invocation level 3

Hold Person enchantment level 3

Lightning bolt invocation level 3

Monster summoning iii conjuration level 3

Vampiric touch necromancy level 3

Water Breathing alteration level 3

Ice storm invocation level 4

The components needed to cast an ice storm were a pinch of dust and a drop of water. Apparently water was for sale by alchemists. Paying for water… Who would do that?

Isaiah left back down the stairs and out to the entrance to the tower to take stock of things. He stood there for a little bit thinking about what to do next. He didn’t want to be in the room where the drow or fire elemental respawned just to be safe. It took about 15 minutes for the room to reset but it didn’t seem to be based upon when the monster was killed. Maybe the logic was more like check every 15 minutes and if there was not a thing in the room that was supposed to be there then add it back again. That was just his guess. . . it could be randomized like so many other things in this world. Isaiah spent some time brainstorming about a background for his character. He really liked how Lea used her background like a journal. The most common format for characters in the players directory was a few pages of what they were doing before they came to this land. Why stop there though? There were a few that talked about some of the stuff their characters did in the game. Those ones were the best ones in Isaiah’s players mind.

What would be a good place to start for Isaiah’s background? He started out as a priest / mage and then became a fighter / mage. How would he explain that transition? Maybe Isaiah wasn’t a very good priest and lost the class? He follows Lathander whose aspect is redemption so he could be someone looking for redemption. Perhaps redemption in the spiritual sense he really didn’t want to go back to being a double casting class. It was too much typing. Maybe when he logged off he’d throw something together. He could always change it later if he wasn’t happy with it.

Cheezu enters.

Cheezu leaves north.

Isaiah blinks in disbelief.

(Apparently this is a popular spot.)

Isaiah peered north. It looks like Cheezu fella didn’t stop to fight the fire elemental. He went straight to jarrow.

Isaiah checked the wholist to see what Cheezu’s title was: Cheezu, the low minor blaster. Cheezu was a male half-elf. Also, that title seemed really low. Was Cheezu really high enough level for this area?

Cheezu enters.

Cheezu blasts 1 magic missile out at Jarrow.

Cheezu sits down and starts studying his book.

Cheezu wavers.

Cheezu stands up.

Cheezu nods.

Cheezu leaves north.

Isaiah hmms. (What is this guy doing?)

Thinking about it a little bit, what was going on became obvious: Cheezu was doing exactly what Isaiah just did. He was killing Jarrow one spell at a time only at a much lower level.

Isaiah yells: Good luck Cheezu

Isaiah went back to town. He wanted to kill Jarrow again for another scroll but that Cheezu guy was going to be at it for a very long time if he was as low of level as Isaiah thought he was. Recalling that one of the components needed to cast an ice storm was water, Isaiah swung by the alchemist shop and cleaned them out of water. What poor fool pays money for water? Isaiah pays money for water.