Chapter 9 Exploring Magic

As June came out of her trance, the room had settled into an uneasy quiet around her. Gone was the coiled shadow snake, as well as the glowing fire of the Runes. The parchment remained, singed and smoking. June pictured her core, and it came to the fore easier than before.

That baseball-sized ember was replaced with a much larger sphere of bright fire. Golden flames burned on the twisting surface of the orb, slowly simmering with untold power. June filled with a renewed sense of accomplishment at her seemingly successful completion of the complicated ritual.

The skeleton eagerly stared into the Class Gem in her hand, willing her status window to show.

Name

June Vallentra

Race

Undead (Skeleton)

Magical Offense Defense Crafting Arcane Prowess Tier 2

Death Magic Tier 2 Level: Total: 2 (Summoner Tier 1) Class Points: 14 Attribute Points: 5 Magic Affinities Combat Affinities

Death Magic (Racial)

Strength

Endurance

Agility

12

8

8

Willpower

Intelligence

14

14

Passive Perks

Active Perks

Mana Sense

N/A

As June stared, she decided to put some time into exploring a bit. "I also still need to pick a magic school, totally forgot about that." June started to explore the workshop, putting the question of what magic she wanted to learn in the back of her mind. Many of the raw materials and random tools were of little use. June managed to find a few of those blue potions that Bullin had previously given her. She snagged one to hide it away for later.

Beneath that stack of potions was a smaller book as well. She pulled the tome out, then thumbed through it. The writing was all numbers, written in ink that looked relatively fresh. The book itself mentioned deliveries and container numbers. It was clearly some kind of ledger. Casually dismissing it, she placed the book back in the crate.

She exited the workshop, heading down the hall toward her room. June took notice of the skeleton sentinels standing motionless along the passage. She inspected one, spotting the red eyes burning in its skull. She fired her Mana Sense ability to try to get some details but didn’t see any notifications or mana. Resolved to bring up the topic to Bullin later, she entered her room and hid the potion in her desk.

Pausing, curiosity compelled her to inspect her body again. Images of the brand on her shoulder flashed before her eyes. As June stared at the skeletal parts of her form, the loss of her body crashed in. Everything had changed, and June felt powerless to do anything about it.

Here she was, still stuck here listening to an oaf ramble on and “train” her for some unknown purpose. The frustration bubbled within her, frothing just beneath the edge of spilling over. But despite the grip of disillusionment wanting to make her run away and hide, her mental and physical self remained rooted to the spot.

The prison of her circumstances slammed shut, and she felt a push to keep going. This was so unlike her old life. Long ago, she would have retreated into silence and isolation. Was this the compulsion Bullin had mentioned? Every part of her felt strange, wrong. Even the leather garments she'd been given to help return her to a sense of normalcy.

A moment of energy snapped her out of the sense of confusion. Her feet started moving on their own again. This time, it was her mind’s turn to follow along without her input. That sense of being unable to control her own actions and even thoughts remained chained to the walls of her mind. But in this moment, she felt truly helpless.

Before leaving, June gandered at the books Bullin had given her. Amid the magic tomes, one, in particular, caught her eye. Chronicles of Duneria, a History of Empires and Kings, was emblazoned on a plain leather-bound tome. She picked the historical tome up and carried it back with her to the forge chamber.

After setting the book onto a crate for later, June sat in a meditative position on the shop floor. Surrounded by the singed remains of the ritual she had just completed, June passively absorbed more and more Death Mana into her expanded core. As more energy crept into the hungry sphere, June felt physically full. It was as if she had just eaten a huge meal, her mind and body were sluggish.

After several minutes of absorbing mana, no more energy would pass into June’s core. Pausing, June distracted herself with a new topic.

June cracked open the historical tome, flipping through it, trying to find details about the world. Its pages were loaded with all manner of details about fallen kingdoms and long-finished wars. With no context, she couldn't make sense of most of it. Near the midpoint of the text, she did find something incredibly useful.

No doubting it now, this was the map of Duneria Online, down to the major cities and kingdoms. Players had broken down a lot of overarching storylines in the months since launch. Quests sent them all over the continent, interacting with various unique cultures. This had allowed June to indirectly become very familiar with each region through the guides written on gaming websites and Reddit.

The Viller Republic was a trade-focused kingdom with a large core of magic users at the center of both its economy and military might. Their capital in the Emerald City is a massive medieval collection of hundreds of thousands of people, and hosted the most players. They often warred with the nearby Kuul'zan Dynasty, dominated by a Dark Elf nobility, and with a long history of animosity towards humans. Vuhl Boladar was the archetypal mountain home of the Dwarves, rich in resources and fanciful technology. The tribal towns to the north were a starting zone for certain classes, like Pugilists, and their culture was defined by a druidic peace with nature. Though you really don't want to make them angry. The independent eastern part of the continent was basically an endgame area, with lots of mysterious beasts stalking the misty forests.

The center of the map drew her attention last, because drawn amid a vast swamp, was something that had clearly been added post-binding. Marked as the Tombs of Varan'ta, June guessed that this was Sharth'ax's base.

The sound of heavy footfalls shook June from her contemplation about these newly confirmed realities.

“Still at it, are we?”

Much more time must have passed than June realized, as Bullin’s heavy form wandered through the main entrance of the workshop. A low whistle escaped his lips as he surveyed the mess of burned parchment.

“So you did it, huh?” he said, remaining in the doorway. His eyes glowed blue for an instant, June noticed. As she spotted the bound tomes beneath his arm, he spoke, “You haven’t chosen a magic discipline yet, have you?” inquired Bullin.

June shook her head.

Bullin stared at her for a second, eyes searching for something. “OK, guess it’s time to finish the basics of your training. First, we need to talk about chaining. I’m willing to bet you ran into the wall.”

An inquisitive look passed from June to the dwarf.

“I was going to ask about that,” she said plainly.

“You need to chain your mana and compress it into your core. Picture your core, like you’re about to draw in more mana.”

When Bullin instructed her to envision the newly expanded orb in its usual void, she saw much more activity. Every time the flames of her core pulsed or undulated, it pushed the shadow back for an instant, before trying to advance on the flames in retaliation. Looking closer, June saw chunks of shade being consumed by her core, as if it was feasting on the void. She tried to peer deeper into her own core, per Bullin’s guidance.

“It’s all about the weave,” he explained. “Break your mana into chunks as you absorb it rather than just sucking it up.”

June thought back to what she had tried when alone, and it made sense. She broke the long strands of mana into bits with a mental command, and set about the task. She tried to stretch it into a sheet, and it still resisted. Rethinking her approach; June imagined a curling mass, drawing on the form the Death Mana had taken.

Finally, the mana bent to her will. As the chunk of mana formed into the desired shape, her core greedily absorbed it. As each mana chunk phased into the sphere, she felt complete. It was as if a chunk of her she didn’t know was missing had returned. Smiling to herself, she had finished the task, finally.

Coming out of her meditation, June saw Bullin standing over her, looking a little proud. Smiling, he handed her two new books. When she opened the thinner one, she noticed that the first pages were completely blank. The cover was similarly as blank as the pages. One thing that jumped out at her was the glossy nature of the parchment.

“That’s an enchanted tome, a spell book,” said the dwarf, softly smiling.

“So you’re saying I can record spells in here for later use?”

“Yes, once you pick a school to start with, that’s where this comes in,” said the dwarf, as he held up the larger of the two books. This larger article was studded with multiple gems, set into its red leather cover. No title was written on it.

She posited another question, “Can I get spells from other schools?” and a simple nod was her response. Rushing forward to grab the larger tome, she set about perusing the magics of this world.

Bullin shrugged as the skeleton buried its nose into the task, he went about working at the forge. Bullin worked on heating and hammering metal as June dove into her work.

The revelation of potentially limitless spells brought up the prospect of gaining more levels for June. If this world worked like the MMO, she could allocate spells once she spent class points on a particular magic tier. In-game, the number of spells she could cast per encounter was limited by mana pools, but she did not know how that systemic limit worked here.

After asking, Bullin explained that her reserve of Mana could be refilled, but not easily. At lower levels, she would have to enter a meditative state to refill, but there were ways around the issue. He promised to explain further once she was more experienced. The dwarf also revealed that something ultimately limited spell uses per day, past a certain Tier.

Once could freely cast every spell in the lower tiers, as long as you had the mana. But once you got into more advanced magics, you could only use them so many times before “something” blocked further casts.

June realized she desperately needed to gain more levels, and fast. She realized she probably wouldn’t be able to grind for XP here. If this was a game world, stabbing stuff was a viable option for most problems, but the insistence on rituals and mana she’d been forced to endure suggested there were other steps in the leveling process. It seemed Sharth'ax worked out a way to make stabbing people a great path to power. She resolved to try and follow along that same path.

June focused on picking a direction for her class. June thought through what limited knowledge she had. Sure, she had seen how different class bonuses and other elements worked within the MMO, but the difference between a player and this “living” version of the same reality made her unsure. Bullin’s character sheet hinted to her that crafting-specific classes were a thing, and she also assumed the combat-focused ones got bonuses for their own areas of strength, but she couldn’t be sure.

As she thumbed through the larger of the two tomes, she noted spells she recognized. Some of the complex runework for these spells was entirely alien to her, though.

One of the core elements that made her insecure is how different this world was for players versus non-player characters. Thinking about it for a second, June posed a carefully worded question to Bullin as he worked. “Hey, are there other people like me in this world?” she asked.

He glared at her with a bemused look on his face for several seconds, “You mean other undead?”

“No, living people, with Class Gems. People who are also immortal.”

June couldn’t get a read on his expression as Bullin hammered away in silence for a while. “Yes, and no,” he ultimately said. “If you had shown up a few months ago, the answer would have been no, but something weird is going on. There’s these strange folks, we call ‘em ‘Shard Carriers’.” The dwarf paused, seemingly considering his words. “They showed up in droves a couple of months ago,” he finished.

Bullin further explained that the Shard Carriers all had Class Gems, and couldn’t be permanently killed. Before then, only a few people in the world had them.

"And that's another thing, they leave corpses behind, but the blasted things just up and disappear. At least they leave their junk behind."

June realized that the despawn mechanic games often used to keep lag down was present in this world. And it seemed that the corpse loot mechanic was also at least somewhat in effect. When you died in Duneria Online, a portion of what you were carrying was left behind. Players would often corpse camp to loot bodies during PvP. But to discourage new players from getting ganked, the game had a criminal system. If you spent too much time killing players, NPC guards would often attack you on sight.

June wondered about the circumstances she had spawned into, what with a big mass of undead around her. "So is that how Sharth'ax has so many corpses to make undead with?" she asked.

"Exactly, he worked out some clever magic to use their corpses, as long as us minions grab 'em quickly enough. But it seems that the more we summon, the more often they go feral."

June thought through what she could remember of the launch of Duneria Online. The timeline fit, as the game had only launched a couple of months ago. The launch saw a ton of players rushing in to try out the crafting and progression systems. Players were limited to a couple characters, so that would explain why the world wasn’t buried under a deluge of new adventurers killing everything in sight. If they spread out across the world, they wouldn’t be concentrated in one place, being incredibly disruptive.

“Aren't these Carriers an enormous problem?” she asked.

“For those who can die, hell yeah it is. Trying to compete with that is tough. I mean, I only know of a couple folks who had Class Gems before all those weirdoes showed up, and one of them’s the big man. But for people like me who just make the gear, new customers are always good.”

The players had been disruptive, but she couldn’t get a sense of scale. Bullin seemed content to treat them like a minor nuisance. June flipped back through the history book she had brought with her. She found no mention of Shard Carriers or Class Gems. Setting the book aside for now, she continued speaking.

“So these p—” June interrupted her slip then continued, “Shard Carriers, what else is weird about them?”

“They can’t cultivate mana for shit,” chuckled the dwarf, as he kept hammering.

“Wait, what do you mean?”

“I’ll show you, look at my mana,” he said, placing his tool down and turning away from the forge.

When she triggered Mana Sense, she could see the flow of an entire rainbow of colors swirling around him. The mana flowing into his form took on a tight sphere-like shape.

“Shard Carriers don’t have any idea how to form their aura, they seemingly don’t cultivate at all. Normally, when you cultivate, your mana flow becomes tightly organized and controlled.” Bullin signaled for her to drop Mana Sense, and then continued, “With a Shard Carrier, their flow of mana is all messed up, no organization at all.”

“So, how does that organization happen?” asked June.

“I’m kinda hazy on the details, but it has something to do with spell casting and skills,” admitted the dwarf in a grumble. “Pick your school of magic, and you’ll start down that path.”

Thinking for a second, June asked a question she realized was vital. “How do I allocate Class Points?”

“Bring up your character window, then focus on an ability, the option should confirm with a thought. It sounds weird, but you’ll get what I mean.”

Sitting upright, June flipped through her spell book and the larger compendium in tandem. The first thing that jumped out at her was that the allegedly blank tome was, in fact, not.

“Didn’t he say this was blank?” she thought.

Each section of the book was broken into chapters. She recognized a page ahead of each distinct section by the runes etched into the pages. The first few sections began with Runes for elements like Fire and Water. A later section was denoted with runes that June interpreted to mean End, or Death.

June’s eyes were drawn to fire. Burning stuff was pretty cool, she had to admit. An image of her burning that overgrown beard to cinders came unbidden to her mind.

Bullin wasn’t hammering anymore, instead focusing entirely on the sitting skeleton, watching. “Push mana to your fingertips, then trace out a shape that feels right.”

Following his directions, June did just that. The warmth in her fingertips was immediate. June traced the simple image of a flame with the tip of her index finger while pointing it at the wall. At that moment, a tiny ember formed on her finger before rocketing into the stonework, leaving a scorch mark behind where it impacted.

“Now, check your spell book,” said Bullin.

On one of the first pages of the book was a runic configuration for the spell she had used. Various fire runes and other runes made up the complicated diagram. The name listed at the top of the page said “Firebolt”. June flipped back through the spell book, she stopped at the end. There, she saw multiple runic configurations for spells. Using the experience of casting Firebolt, June tried to intuit how to cast these new spells. After a few minutes of perusing the runes, she pushed the mana to her hands. June traced the weave for this spell; the shape of a diamond surrounding an X.

When she finished casting, a nefarious-looking ethereal skull floated around the room lazily, before impacting near the scorch mark. A name magically etched its way onto the page above its own Runes, “Lesser Curse”.

Having a few more points to spend, she remembered her glimpse of Bullin’s sheet; putting her points into One-handed Weapons, owing to the short sword tied to her hip. She also put points into Physical Resistance, assuming it would help her survive combat.

Then came the matter of Attributes, following Bullin's sheet as an example, she figured that her Summoner class would probably benefit from allocating more power to spells, as well as a focus on evasion.

"Can you explain how these attributes work," she asked, hoping to confirm her intuition.

"Sure, Strength is all about raw physical power, while Intelligence is all about magical might. The other stats often affect certain class features. For you, I'd say go with Agility and Intelligence for a few levels. That will help your spells hit harder, and let you stay out of the way of someone trying to smash you to bits."

Confirming her choices, she checked her sheet, surveying the changes she had made.

Name

June Vallentra

Race

Undead (Skeleton)

Magical Offense Defense Crafting Arcane Prowess Tier 2

Death Magic Tier 2

Fire Magic Tier 1 One-Handed Weapons Tier 1

Physical Resistance Tier 1

Level: Total: 2 (Summoner Tier 1) Class Points: 0 Attribute Points: 0 Magic Affinities Combat Affinities

Death Magic (Racial)

Strength

Endurance

Agility

12

8

11

Willpower

Intelligence

14

16

Passive Perks

Active Perks

Mana Sense

N/A

June nearly lept off of the floor, feeling ready to challenge the new tasks that were sure to come.

“I guess tomorrow you get to experience the next phase. For now, just head to bed.”

The ominous look in Bullin’s eyes put June on edge.