Our party forms up, heading over to the tear. It's only about our size, nothing the like the enormous invasion portal. It stands alone in the middle of the cleared area, the grass underfoot an ugly gray. “What do we do with it?” I ask.

“A few different things,” Lara answers, stepping right up to it with a long look up and down at the thing. “They're basically clear rewards. They're partially formed portals the Oblivion come through. So, pools of pure energy, more or less. You can break it for bonus experience, siphon the energy off to upgrade magic crystals and items, or you can go through into a sort of instant dungeon with better rewards.”

“What do you suggest?”

“We should just break it for the EXP and keep going,” she decides without any hesitation. “It's too dangerous going for the dungeon when your gear is like that and we have Nirvallans with us. Besides, it's not what we're here for. Some of the dungeons can be time consuming, and we still have a long journey ahead of us.” Everyone nods, and Lara draws her sword.

“You can break them with a normal weapon attack or magic.” She's about to swing, when something about the eerie green portal-looking tear makes me call out to her to stop.

“Wait!” I'm getting a feeling... I step closer and put a hand on her shoulder. The tear is taller than me, eerie green along its jagged edges, falling into endless darkness at its center.

I know this feeling, it's like back in Pollton. There's something I'm supposed to do here. I close my eyes and listen to that tiny voice in the back of my head. The trickle of information being fed to me.

“I think I get it.” I open my eyes and look into the tear once more. Holding up my hand, I call out. “Cleansing Ray!” the spell fires into the tear and there's a flash. The darkness starts to clear, then suddenly reverses. I barely see the beam coming.

“Guh!” I grunt, flinching as the explosion of crystal blows away behind me. There are cries of pain, and I spin around. A few of my party members have their arms thrown up protectively in front of them. I just barely catch the glowing crystal stabbing into them all over before it finishes disintegrating into nothing. They're left with no visible wounds, but a whole lot of holes punched straight through clothes and armor, and surprisingly large chunks taken out of their health. “I-I'm sorry,” I stammer at the sight. Wait, those crystals are actually dangerous?!

“Just be more careful, Mei,” Lara sighs as she patches everyone up, Azra joining in to patch the bits of clothing that are within her abilities.

“You're a life saver,” I tell Azra when she comes up and repairs my clothes too. She wiggles her ears happily, then trots back to her brother. “Alright, I'm not sure if I could pull this off myself, who else still has cleansing magic?” I ask.

As it turns out, everyone else deleted that spell we got from their spell list when we left Pollton. When I ask why in shock, they all have conflicted looks.

“The thing was 50 EP,” Emma scratches her cheek awkwardly. “I don't have the space for something like that...”

Lara comes in after. “It was hacked together from whatever spell components that mage had on hand, so it was inefficient, expensive, and cost a lot of MP. It was a deteriorated spell, and I don't have some of the Skills for it, which makes it even less effective.”

“Ok, that's a lot of reasons...” I admit. “But with all the corrupted stuff we're running into... Oh well,” I sigh in defeat. “So if I remember right, Hask and Lara are the only ones with their own cleansing magic?”

“Yeah, but mine is touch,” Lara says. I'm assuming she means she can't actually touch the tear to cast, since it's not a physical thing. “I'll have to increase my mastery the next time I level, but it could be a while.”

“Right...”

After a little more discussion, we come up with a plan. Since Hask has much better cleansing magic than I do, he'll take a shot at it, and we'll wait with our own spells prepared in case things go bad.

Following the plan, Hask casts a cleansing ray of his own design into the portal. But the response is even faster than it was for me, a bolt of darkness striking out at him. He blocks it with his staff, but all it does it coil around him.

We all feel the dangerous aura that sweeps out.

“Cleansing Touch!”

“Cleansing Ray!”

We both hit Hask immediately and watch the corruption effect fade away.

“Ok so, still no good,” Hask himself concludes once he shakes himself.

“I just want to try one more thing,” I tell everyone. “If it doesn't work, then let's just move on.”

“Got it, so what's the plan?” Hask fires back.

I smirk awkwardly. “You all look away, and I hit it with everything I have.” When they realize what I mean, I'm met with a mixture of blushes and laughter.

Everyone spreads out, so they aren't standing behind me, turning to look away from me and the portal. Only Lara remains by my side, a short distance away to stay out of the line of fire behind me. With another move, she renews all my buffs, and even adds new ones.

I slide my stream camera over my shoulder, aimed ahead so it can't see much of me, and then lock it in place so it won't move from the position. Don't exactly want three thousand people to catch an eyeful that they shouldn't.

Then, I pull up my menu and clear out all of my special abilities, leaving just the cleansing spell, so it will get as much of a cost reduction as possible. Let's hope over a hundred fifty free EP makes a big difference...

With that all set, I take a deep breath and shake my arms and legs out a little to loosen up. Here goes nothing. I pull off my equipment and clothes, and dump them on the ground in front of me so they'll be out of the way, and hold my hands out.

“Cleansing Ray! Cleansing Ray! Cleansing Ray!” I keep shouting the spell as I fire, one after another. The darkness leaps out in return, hitting me. But I don't flinch this time. I shrug off the attacks and keep up with my own, just letting the glowing pink crystal blast away behind with each hit I take.

Lara was right, this spell is stupidly inefficient and way too expensive to cast. I only get six shots before my entire mana pool is gone, and I double over, panting heavily from the hit I take to my stamina for bottoming out like that. It also feels like healing magic takes stamina to cast, not just mana like normal attack spells. I didn't realize that before.

Either way, after exchanging fire with the portal, I'm drained, and it's still fine. I'm clearly not strong enough to do this yet. After a few more big breaths to compose myself, I grab my clothes and pull them back on.

“You can look again,” I tell everyone, unlocking my camera at the same time. I reequip my gear as they gather around. “I'm not strong enough yet, I'll have to try again another time.” I try not to feel discouraged. I don't have the proper spells and skills for dealing with this yet, so I shouldn't be surprised.

It still sucks though...

Everyone agrees with my plan, and Lara approaches the portal one more time. With a good swing of her sword, the surface is torn apart. It destabilizes and begins breaking up, soon vanishing entirely.

You have helped disrupt a small tear!

I swipe away the message while Emma says, “Nice, I leveled up.” Looking over to the Nirvallans, they're nodding to show they have too. Even though I'm lower than them, I leveled up recently, so it wasn't enough for me.

While they take a minute to mess with their new stats and everything, I remake all of my specials. Then I go to the mages, because I'm still confused about one thing.

“Hey, so I had an issue with my magic earlier, could you help me?” I ask them.

“Sure, what is it?” Flare perks up excitedly. Winter just shrugs, but he's clearly listening as well.

“I got the Contagion Skill. It says it's supposed to recast a spell when the enemy dies. But when I used it earlier, it killed the monster and didn't recast the spell.”

“Mm, then it probably counts as an effect debuff, right?” Flare reasons, but I don't see how that explains things. When I gesture for him to explain better, he goes on. “Here, pull up the spell description, I'll show you what I mean.”

I do so, hitting a button to make the window visible to anyone, even my stream viewers.

Dark Contagion – 38EP

Mana Cost: High

Deal low dark damage; damage is increased based on the number of unique curses on the target.

Apply Dark Curse

Apply Contagion

“So, see how it has three different effects listed here?” Flare points out. “Spell effects always apply in order. So if the damage from the first effect kills the monster, it never gets to the third effect. Basically, you need to use the spell without it killing the target on the first hit.”

“But...” I facepalm. “I'm an assassin, one-shotting is the point.”

“Yeah...” he grimaces momentarily. “Don't worry too much, there are ways around it. Stuff like this is built around damage over time usually, so you know it will never kill instantly. Even if the first spell kills, there will be enough time to apply the debuff before it does.” Right, that could work, but it would slow down the spreading effect depending how long it takes the damage over time to actually finish off each target.

“Or, she could just use her Spellcraft,” Winter suddenly points out with a disinterested look.

“I was trying to go with beginner friendly options,” Flare sighs. “But yes, you could use Spellcraft too. Just be prepared for a lot of trial and error.”

I glance back and forth between them. “Sorry but... what's Spellcraft?”

“Mm?” they both make confused sounds.

Then they stand up straighter. “Wait, you don't know about Spellcraft?!” Flare gasps.

“No?” I'm totally caught off guard on this one.

“It's one of the essential mage Skills. It basically makes all your magic better. Reduces EP costs, and lets you modify your spells more than just slapping components onto them.”

“Oh, that does sound useful,” I admit. “But, did you say, 'one of?' There are other essentials?” Now I'm getting a bit worried. Maybe I should have at least read a beginner Skill guide or something... But that goes against the entire feel of the game the devs are clearly going for here...

Off to the side, Winter groans, and I know both of the men see where this is going.

“Magic Power, Mana Core, and Mana Flow are the bare basics,” Flare starts, “so you have enough mana and attack to actually fight effectively. And your actual magic so you have spells to cast, obviously. And the base magic Skill for any magic types you want to use. Then Spell Capacity if you want to make more than a few spells at a time. Pretty much everything else is optional for specialization, but those are the ones most people consider essential.”

“So, besides my Dark Curse magic... Spellcraft, Magic Power, Mana Core, and Mana Flow,” I repeat. “And Dark Magic for me? What does that one actually do?”

“It's kind of like a prerequisite. Without it, any spells you use in that class of magic will be weaker than normal and cost more, just like when you try to use a weapon you don't have the Skill for. It also unlocks unshaped magic, which is important for Spellcraft and some other stuff too.”

I nod a little. “Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.”

“Good, glad to help,” he grins widely. Beside him, Winter seems less pleased by all this, but I just shrug it off for now.

So, more Skills I need to pick up when I have the chance. Unless I develop them naturally. That would save me some SP for other things.

It's not long until everyone's ready and we get underway again. It takes some time to make it out of the corrupted woods and back into a normal forest floor again. We head east most of the time, and the way the land slopes up toward the north on our left tells me we're moving around the base of a mountain.

I start to feel something from Navigation as we travel, and note how Hask begins leading us straight toward it. When we push through the ground cover to find a particularly sheer cliff ahead, my gaze follows the feeling up the rock face until I see it.

“What's that?”

“Magic crystal deposit,” Hask answers. “I think there's a good amount of ore in this area too.” Up above us, buried in the cliff face is a neon green crystal formation, about the size of a person.

“I'm assuming it's valuable? How do we get to it?” I pose a couple more questions.

Mary raises her hand. “Mary has Mining,” Hask explains for her... for some reason. “We've come across plenty of ores, gems, and stuff to make it worthwhile to pick up in our travels. Have to fund this operation somehow,” he laughs. “As for getting there... Mary?” Hask prompts her, and she nods.

She's always so quiet...

As it turns out, she's not only nimble in her armor, but surprisingly good at picking her way up the rock face using the spots where there are lips wide enough for her to hold onto, or cracks in the surface she can use for leverage. Before long, she's perched up near the crystal, and pulls a small pickaxe, about the size of her forearm, from her inventory. She begins chipping away at the formation.

Everyone spreads out to do their own things for a bit. I follow Nolen when he also pulls out a pickaxe of his own, much larger than the one Mary's using. He starts to search around, and I eye the cliff base closely. It's surprisingly simple. Even though I don't know what I'm looking for, I know when I've found it. Like my eyes are drawn right to it.

“Over here,” I point out an odd section of rock to him. It's a different color than the other rock around it, a little more brown and speckled than plain gray like the rest. The spot is only a little bigger than my head, and I can tell that it's iron when I touch it.

“Ooh, thanks, Mei,” Nolen nods a few times as he approaches. I back off to give him room. I keep looking back and forth between him and Mary. She works with careful strikes to cut off sections of the magic crystal deposit, while Nolen takes big swings with his pickaxe into the rock face, crumbling sections of the rock away. It's immediately clear that the rock and iron is way harder, because he really needs to go at it to make a dent, unlike Mary.

Once Nolen has cleared away the surrounding rock to reveal much more ore than the bit that was visible on the outside, he lays into brownish iron, taking big chunks off of the deposit, before picking them up to disappear into his inventory.

I wonder what else can be gathered? What other sorts of resources are there? To get an idea, I pull up the Skill menu and scan over the Industry section. Looks like the main categories for crafting are metal, wood, stone, cloth, cooking, alchemy, enchanting, and tinkering. I'm pretty sure someone said I could gather plants at some point too, probably stuff useful for cooking.

After all, Hask is right. I need some way to make enough money for usable gear, which is going to be even more expensive than what I have. Some gold and items dropped from the monsters at the tear, but it's not much after getting split twelve ways. Traveling takes money.

With those things in mind, I search the ground, and I'm surprised by how much I find once I'm really looking. A lot of the little loose stones around the bottom of the cliff here have a special look to them with Keen Eyes. When I pick them up, I can feel that they contain bits of ore, or gems, or that the rock itself is something useful and valuable.

There are the plants too, little leafy things, fuzzy mossy stuff, mushrooms, and more. I can pick up on a vague sense of what they're for thanks to Keen Touch, but I probably need to put more points into mastering these Skills if I want to really know what it is I'm gathering. For now, I'll be happy as long as I can sell them in town.

I take a few minutes to pick up anything I can, before Mary and Nolen are done mining, and we set off again. We turn south this time and begin to descend sharply as we move away from the mountains. Mebin is still a little further east, but we're definitely getting closer.

As it grows dark, we're forced to stop for the night, when we can't see well enough to go further. “Alright everyone,” Hask calls us together with a couple claps. “Remember, we're traveling with Nirvallans this time. And... Mei,” he adds on, since we still have no idea what the hell I am. “That means we need to run breaks and sleep in shifts.” Everyone nods, and we get to it.

It's eventually decided that we'll have three shifts. I don't really count since Mei will be here all the time, but it's decided that I'll log out together with Lara. So the shifts will be Flare, Nolen, and Taryn. Hask, Mary, and Emma. Winter, Mark, and Lara. That will give everyone a basic party formation to get by. Group one doesn't have a healer since we're short on them, but they can rely on Azra if it comes to that.

With everything decided, we leave the first group on watch as we log off for dinner.