[F01] Goofing off

[Luke Pendragon 0]

Luke stood across from a soldier, looking them up and down. This was it, a spar with an NPC that he’d promised to take part in. It was a sort of trial quest that required players to fight in order to prove that they knew the basics of the controls. Almost everyone had to partake in some kind of fight once in a while.

It was Luke’s first time sparring in such a manner. Sure he’d sparred plenty of times, but not with a bunch of NPCs watching him, and an NPC who was no doubt going to take notes. He had a blunted sword in hand and wore some padded armor that he was lent for the sake of the fight. He’d have preferred his normal armor, but if he had metal then a wooden sword wasn’t going to be able to do much to him.

The purpose of it all wasn’t to cause injuries, but to prove that they could fight at a suitable level. Luke felt that he had proved himself time and time again in the field and that this was all unnecessary. He supposed that was only natural as a player. He didn’t truly appreciate how important this spar was to the others. And yet he was obliged to participate, because if he didn’t he would never prove himself worthy of being treated as an important person by the masses in this game.

“Alright, let’s get this over with,” he said, brandishing his wooden weapon.

His opponent was dressed similar to himself. They were similar in size and build, except his opponent was clearly not magical in the slightest. Luke felt bad for the man, seeing as though he probably knew that he was going to lose.

He wasn’t barred from using any sword arts, which was quite the pickle. Did he just end the fight in two seconds? Or should he try drawing it out a little to have a good fight? He didn’t know what the etiquette was, seeing as though he’d only ever seen these kinds of fights happen among the distinctly not strong.

His opponent shuffled forwards with their own sword held taught. They gave an exploratory stab at him, which Luke avoided by stepping aside and whacking their sword with his own.

Luke tried to hold back taunts. This was supposed to be serious, so he kept his face neutral. He batted away yet another swing, then another while circling around. He then jolted forwards quicker than one might expect for someone in armor. He rammed his shoulder into the soldier who staggered backwards and was pushed back by one of the bystanders.

His opponent stumbled towards him and bared his teeth. He felt like he was being made a fool, so he came at him with a more desperate series of slashes.

Luke used this as an opportunity to practice blocking with his armor. He used his armor against the first slash, then quickly strained to perform another defense that blocked a second strike. He realized he was holding his breath to do so, and took a gasp of air while stepping around his opponent. He whacked him with the flat side of his blade on the back. It could have been fatal in a real fight, but the spar continued.

The soldier turned around – he was also panting. Fights were usually over within a minute, or minutes at the max. This was why soldiers on battlefields tended to cycle from the front lines to the back lines. Even well trained soldiers couldn’t go all out over and over again. He knew that he only had so many more tries before he started to look pathetic.

Luke let the fight carry on as usual as he got his bearings back. People in the crowd were probably confused as to why he was not just ending things, but he wanted to try one more time to use his armor. He did strike back, slapping his opponent several times hard enough to make him feel the pain. Then, when he intentionally created an opening in his defenses, he felt the mitigation kick in around his whole body. He thrust his hand out to the side to balance himself as he grunted with effort. It was brief, but he did manage to mitigate the damage. 

The sword came down on his arm, causing him to hiss with pain and roll out of the way despite the mitgation. “Time to end this,” he thought to himself as he rose up into a fighting stance. He narrowed his eyes then jolted forwards once more. He hit his opponent’s weapon so hard that his sword flew up into the air, and in a fluid motion, put his sword’s tip up to the man’s throat.

His opponent froze, and there were gasps of surprise from the onlookers. The NPC clapped his hands. “Good work, you two. Luke, you pass.”

The person he had fought against sulked away, but Luke did hear some people congratulate him for lasting so long. Luke’s victory didn’t exactly get any cheers. Everyone here knew that he was effective and this was more or less a formality. 

There was a short celebration, and a period of rest, then Luke was ordered to join the NPC for a meeting.

“Congratulations, Luke,” the older man said, “you did well, and you showed the troops that you can hold yourself in a fight. I’ve assembled some other NPCs in a room nearby. Go and meet them. I have some tasks for the lot of you to do starting tomorrow. Prove you can be good to them, so that you may continue to succeed. And remember, respect is earned, not given.”

Luke nodded and said, “yes, sir. I’ll do my best.” He headed to the room across the hall then walked in to see a group of soldiers standing around. He didn’t recognize a single one of them, then again he hadn’t paid much attention earlier. 

Luke went out of the building to rest on a small hill, away from the hubbub of the main area. He looked out in the distance where some kind of wagon was travelling down a road. It looked like it had gotten stuck in some mud so it came to a stand still. Though now the front half of the wagon was also entrenched in a ditch. It was a problem he was sure those people would deal with later. Two people vacated the wagon and began their journey towards the town, just a few miles away. They moved like they were familiar with the area as they were easily able to locate the right path to go towards the town.

Contrary to how it may have felt for the ragtag group, they had a plan, or at least something vaguely resembling one. The day prior to their arrival, these two had gotten some kind of quest that required them to go rescue an NPC inside the town. Luke didn’t know anything about this plan, but he did think that they looked out of place. They wore the right clothes, but their gait was off from what he’d expect from players.

Halfway to the town, one of them pulled out something from a bag and started to adjust her disguise. A helmet, some armor that covered her torso, and baggy pants that helped hide her womanly shape. That would make this seem like just another day, which is exactly what it needed to be if they were going to get in and rescue the NPC.

Luke decided that he ought to go meet up with them before they made it to the town for his own peace of mind. He brought his sword, and wondered whether he should have sent someone else to investigate, but he didn’t have anything better to do and was trying to kill time.
 

[Luke Pendragon 0]

<below is a dream, and does not take place in the game>  

Luke was out and flying throughout the great savannah outside of Yael. He was searching for what the locals had called “The Run” which was more or less the only way to get to Yael. Nobody had ever given him an iota of details about it other than it was dangerous. So, Luke was looking for some place that seemed dangerous. He was looking for some kind of clue, anything as he had to find Yael soon or risk running out of food. If only he could find someone else trying to complete the run too.

The flighted mage eventually came across a hunter. The hunter was a woman dressed in green and carrying a short bow. Luke could see the appeal of hunting. Getting practice shooting stuff and not having to haul away any meat. He could only imagine how much of a hassle cleaning out a carcass was let alone having to put up with all that stench for a trip back to the city. He wouldn’t hate someone for hunting, but Luke could never see himself becoming one. He had love for the creatures and wouldn’t want them to die needlessly.

Luke continued to watch from above, not trying particularly hard to keep hidden. He swooped in closer and called out to the lady on the ground. He landed a couple dozen yards away and waved his arms, hoping he wasn’t about to get shot at. Upon closer inspection, he saw that the hunter had brought only a dagger and her shortbow.

“Hi,” he shouted, “I’m new around here, what are you up to?” If anything he was hoping to learn a thing or two about this vast area.

The hunter put a finger to her lips and made a harsh shushing sound, “you’ll scare away the animals!”

Luke made his way over so that he could talk quietly, “sorry about that. You mind if I join you? I’m running low on food during my search for Yael.”

“I think that’s alright,” she said, “I’m searching for it too. We must be close by, but I would caution you from dropping in on people like this. Some Yael mercenaries see people like us as easy kills, and some won’t hesitate. I can’t fly so it’s harder for me to avoid them. I take it you’re a mage judging by your glowing body.”

Luke got the hint that this lady was also a mage and noticed that she had the rune of naming between her eyebrows. “Oh, you practice rune magic too?” Luke pulled his shirt to the side so he could show off his own rune of naming, “what a coincidence!”

“Lucis or Umbral,” the hunter asked with a smile. She hadn’t expected to make a friend today.

“I’m Lucis. You?” Luke had the same thoughts. In this dream he was not an umbral mage. The only other rune mage he had met in a long time was far from here. Finding another one out of the blue like this was really quite the surprise.

“Umbral. I thought I would have preferred Lucis for a while, but Umbral has some pretty cool runes,” the hunter said with a laugh.

“Maybe we can learn a little something from each other,” Luke said suggestively, “what do you say?”

“What do you want to know? I think it’s pretty straight forward. I can curse and you can heal. That’s all I need to know.” The hunter touched Luke on his shoulder and wrote in a rune that made Luke’s arm feel weak. It wasn’t powerful but then again it wasn’t like the hunter was trying to debilitate him.

Luke frowned and inspected his arm. It felt weak, so the only solution in his mind was to counter it with a strength rune. But that would violate the whole one rune per limb limit. He brought a hand over to the rune and tried to absorb the ether into himself. He hadn’t expected it to work for someone else’s rune and it didn’t. “Take this thing off would you?”

“How do you do that?” the hunter asked when she heard Luke’s request.

“Oh that?” he asked, “you can tell your spark to suck up the energy in a rune. Or at least I can… I’m not sure about umbral mages.” Luke imbued the hunter’s arm with extra strength and the hunter focused for a long moment before sucking the energy out of the rune.

“That’s cool!” she shouted. Apparently she didn’t care about hunting anymore. “What else can you do?”

Luke thought hard but he didn’t really know that much about Lucis specific runes. There were so many that he just hadn’t learned yet. “Uh, I can grant extra resistance that stacks with our natural resistance. It makes going all out a lot more manageable. I’m not a very powerful mage so I’m missing a lot of runes.”

“That’s understandable. I’ve only just gotten the hang of umbral traps.” The hunter felt compelled to explain further when she saw Luke’s puzzled looks. She drew a circle on the ground with a rune on it. She motioned for Luke to step on it and when he did his leg seized up. “It’s just a trap. When you step on it you get cursed, so I don’t have to actually write it on you.” Luke was impressed with how useful this trap ability was. It was a shame that his dialect didn’t have the same capabilities.

The two kept walking and the hunter described that there was no need for food today since she had plenty back at her camp. Of course, she wouldn’t mind having a meal but then that’d mean she would have to cook and there was a million ways that could go wrong. She had heard stories of people that had cooked their kills and ended up getting deathly sick because they lacked the basic cooking abilities that one would assume they would have. Luke was going to pass on that until he got read up on cooking or built up a good enough resistance to toxins.

The hunter was intending to test out her umbral traps and hopefully learn a thing or two. Umbral traps were the only way she’d ever gotten any game on her own and she didn’t see that changing in the near future. Her aim was simply too poor to reliably hit anything, same as Luke. She was lucky to hit with one of her twenty or so arrows and when she did it was never something like the head. It was usually just the side or maybe a leg if she was lucky. From there the umbral rune would weaken them and make it easier for her out of shape body to catch up.

With the combined usage of their sensory runes, it was easy for the two of them to hunt down a group of deer. It hadn’t been easy sneaking up on them as they kept moving away when they got too close. They couldn’t keep up with the animals on foot and they certainly weren’t strong enough to take one down on his own. What he could do though was stay hidden by staying low to the ground and moving noisily through the brush. The hunter was stealthy enough, but Luke was definitely not. He was like a lightbulb walking throughout the brush. It was all in good fun though. Luke wasn’t going to hurt these deer and so long as the hunter wasn’t going to kill any it was all okay.

Luke became worried when one deer twitched its head and stared right at Luke. He panicked and froze, wishing he had taken a safer path through some brush. The deer looked for the longest time then went back to its business. Luke was breathing heavy and noticed that the hunter was aiming an arrow. The hunter laced an umbral trap into her arrow and fired it into the gathering of deer. The best part about this strategy was that there was little chance of her missing “something”.

Also since she wasn’t trying to kill anything, all she really had to do was hit something for her rune to activate. She had aimed the arrow to go high into the sky so that it would fall like a raindrop. She fired a couple more arrows like this and watched as they started to turn their heads with worry. She’d forgotten to be quiet with her shooting but she was too excited to take many precautions. She hit a deer and made sure it wasn’t hurt then Luke quickly healed it up with a regeneration rune so it could catch up to its family.

The two gossiped for a couple more hours about how they learned runes, what roadblocks they’d hit, and what they ultimately wanted to do with their magic. They were remarkably similar with regards to how they’d managed with the core runes. Luke wished he could have formed a long lasting relationship with this hunter but he had a goal to accomplish. The two parted ways with a bittersweet goodbye and Luke took back off into the sky to continue his search for Yael.

Was it cheating for a Yari to receive runic empowerment before challenging someone to a duel? This was the question Luke posed to himself as he drew in chained runes of endurance and strength onto the Yari lying face down on the ground. Like his last dream, he wasn’t an umbral mage – he was a lucis Hone mage. He topped him off with a resistance rune on his back to lessen the burden on his muscles. It felt like he was somehow picking a side in a fight that he had no part in, but a part of him thought the same could be said of the blacksmith who had sold weapons to the duelists.

It was all a bunch of mental gymnastics to make an excuse for giving out these runes to make a quick nel. He hadn’t done it so much for the money as he had to satiate the relentless desire to use magic. Just this morning he had adamantly refused to cast magic and less than a few hours later, here he was casting magic. It was becoming harder to ignore his urges as he gradually progressed towards revelation. The good news was that he still felt very much the same. Nothing his hone spark wanted to do contradicted with his core beliefs. If only he could say the same thing about graft.

The Yari got to his feet when Luke wrapped up the runes and he tested out his strength by swinging his dual wielded blades in an arc in front of himself. The runes gave his arms a surge of power which allowed him to easily slash too hard. He must have been a master blades user with how easily he adjusted his form in order to compensate for the immense boost in power he had received. He tossed Luke a small amount of coin, much less than what had been agreed upon and then took his leave.

“This is it?” Luke asked with a hint of annoyance, “we agreed to five times this amount. What gives?” “That’s all I have. You’ll get more if I win my duel. If I don’t, well you can put a claim on my estate for the difference.” Luke followed behind the Yari and realized that he was going to be dueling someone to the death. “Wait, why would you do such a thing? There are so many kinds of duels, why would you want to kill someone?”

The Yari didn’t respond and largely ignored Luke’s questions from then on. He persistently followed him to make sure he got his full payment. The total amount hadn’t been very much but if word got out that he was easily scammable it would probably spell the end for his wide profit margin. He also wanted to see this duel to the death play out, though he wouldn’t be admitting that to anyone.

He had committed the ultimate sin against someone who wanted to force him into marriage so he wanted to see what kind of other situations he shouldn’t put himself in. He now knew the best way to avoid getting proposed to was to carry at least some form of bladed weapon with him, which was why he had a giant sword on his back. If there were any more quirks about surviving in Yael then he wanted to figure them out before it was too late.

“Leave me if you don’t want to get caught up in this,” the Yari told him when they beelined to the entrance of a home. Luke scurried off to the side and tried to stay out of the way, with little success. “Shiman, I’m here to challenge you to a duel! Remove yourself from your ill gotten home and face me!” His voice was so loud and deep that it caught everyone’s attention.

As if on cue, the door burst open and out came Shiman, dressed in full battle armor and an assortment of weapons on his person. Luke was left thinking that he knew the challenge had been coming. Who would stay that well equipped while within their own home? Luke liked to be nice and breezy when he was inside his own home and couldn’t fathom being restricted by armor all day.

“Freman, old friend,” Shiman said in an equally deep voice as he stepped out of his home, “What manner of duel are you seeking and what are your terms?” An older man stepped up from the crowd and listened intently. This must have been the darstrion, Luke assumed. It was incredible how quickly all the pieces came together and how readily available people were to oversee a duel.

“I seek a duel of the spear. First one to disable wins all of the other’s possessions.” Freman was making some wildly outlandish claims.

“So it’s come to this? You’ve lost everything and probably don’t even own the weapons you carry. You hope to gamble this all on a duel you know you cannot win? I cannot accept the terms of this duel, therefore we shall duel to the death. Darstrion, do these terms please you?” The old man who had stepped up nodded. For an old geezer he probably had more muscles than Luke.

The two Yari squared up. On one side was Shiman who was heavily armored with a foot height advantage on his opponent. On the other side was Freman who wore heavily worn leather armor and looked like he had nothing to lose. At this point Luke assumed this was a lost fight but he wanted to see what his runes could do. He could make some fairly powerful runes for himself, but he was always conservative when placing them on others out of concern for their safety. It would be interesting to see just how strong he had made this man.

The fight started off with a clash of blades. The masterwork longsword of Shiman vs the poor quality gladius of Freman. Freman’s power was so unexpected that it wrenched the blade from Shiman’s hand and sent it soaring into the air. Jaws dropped all around and even Freman looked surprised. Shiman was relatively calm and opted to draw another blade. “I see you’ve prepared quite thoroughly for this duel. You’ve found a mage to help your cause? Or have you become a mage yourself?” The runes had been placed on the rear of Freman’s body so they hadn’t been immediately obvious to Shiman. Now that he knew about Freman’s buff, he could adjust his fighting strategy accordingly.

Freman didn’t respond. Shiman grunted and drew another blade. This one was a longsword to him but could have passed for a greatsword for Luke. He brought it down onto Freman, who held up his gladius in defense only for it to break in half. The massive longsword kept going and dug several inches deep into Freman’s shoulder. It was too bad that Hone provided absolutely no defensive enhancements, aside from the rune of rebound which Luke still didn’t know about.

Freman shouted out in pain and grabbed the blade with his opposite hand and pulled it out easily. He quickly followed up by pulling out a dagger and jamming it into Shiman’s thick armor which dented from the blow. Shiman shook his head in disappointment before bashing Freman on the head with his pommel. A horrifying crack broke Freman’s skull and made him fall to the floor. Not willing to accept the embrace of death, Freman grabbed onto Shiman’s leg and squeezed it with all his might. He wanted to do as much damage as he could before being finished off.

Luke had to look away for the last part of the fight. There were screams from both of the duelists. Shiman’s leg was crushed by the full power of Freman’s hold, even through the plate armor. Then Freman screamed from the repeated head bashings that eventually left him dead. As soon as the duel was over, Shiman’s wives rushed from the door and went to go assist him out of his armor and wrenched the leg from the compressed metal greave.

Luke felt at least partially responsible for what had just happened. Had he not beefed Freman up, he probably would have died without having to cause someone else pain. It also pained him to realize that if what Shiman had said was true, then he wasn’t going to get full payment. It sounded like Freman didn’t have anything of value to his name and this was some sort of twisted assisted suicide attempt.

“Shiman, right? Do you mind if I help with your leg?” Luke asked while the wives assessed his wound. He had crossed the distance from his vantage point quickly. This was the first time he ever realized that his flight speed when approaching someone in need was noticeably faster. “I take it you’re the mage that helped Freman out. How do I know you’re not here to finish the job?”

He grabbed a dagger and pointed it right at Luke’s throat. He was so angry that he would have sliced it open before Luke could even react, had he not been a Yari bound to the duel rules. “He offered to pay me for runes and I accepted. He didn’t pay nearly as much as he promised and I wouldn’t have agreed if I knew he had a death wish. I can heal your leg… it doesn’t look that bad.”

Shiman’s leg was heavily bruised and the wives identified two fracture points on his shin. Fractured bones Luke could deal with, the bruises would have to heal on their own. “Before I agree, what are you planning on doing?” Shiman asked. Luke’s answer and sincerity calmed him down enough to stow away his blade at least.

“First I will place a rune on your leg that will accelerate your healing. Then, I will cut your leg open and attach the broken bone pieces together.” Shiman turned to one of his wives and asked, “How long would natural recovery take?” “Probably a cycle at least” was her response so Shiman patted Luke on the back forcefully and said, “get to work then!”

Luke put his hand under Shiman’s calf and applied a rune of regeneration with a couple of gestures. That was the easy part. Now he had to peel back the skin on Shiman’s leg. He didn’t have the finesse or the tools to do surgery the proper way so he would remove skin down the center of Shiman’s leg with his graft magic. He traced finger from the tip of the shin down to the ankles which would let him expose the shin in its entirety. He now thought that putting the rune or regeneration after he did his graft magic would have been better.

The wound was visibly closing due to the healing effects and Luke didn’t want to have to reopen the wound again. The fracture points on the shin were clearly visible so he picked out the crushed pieces of bone. He then touched the bone with his ringer and let his spark investigate. He ignored Shiman’s wailing and regrew the bone so that the shin was one solid piece again. To finish things off, he used his graft magic to help close up the skin. If he ignored the bloody mess and massive scar, Luke could call this a successful operation.

“Is it over?” Shiman asked with a much more gentler tone than before. Luke nodded and helped him to his feet. “I’ll be damned, it actually worked. It’s very numb but I can stand. Thank you mage, for fixing your wrong. You have saved yourself from retribution. If only Freman was still around to see this.” Luke thought it was odd that nobody had the courtesy to do something about the body. It was not a pretty sight with how brutally its head had been smashed up. Oh well, it wasn’t alive and that meant that not even his magic wanted to bother with it. Luke got out of there and would think twice about helping people with duels in the future.