Turns out, Arthur seemed like a decent leader. I still thought his name was pompous. But he seemed to treat his people well, and they seemed to respect him.
“Good,” he said. “Next order of business. We need to make a plan to defeat Clarity. Rowan, tell us what you were telling me earlier.”
She stepped forward. “Like Warren, we found a shortcut to the boss. Clarity offered us a choice. Either a portal to an armory or a portal to her. I say ‘her’ because, unlike Warren’s experience, Clarity appeared as a woman. Specifically, as Janica.”
I looked at Janica, who stuck her nose up in the air. Just a little bit.
“First,” Rowan said. “We know that Clarity uses illusion magic. She also likes to test people, psychologically.”
I groaned, thinking of the test that Clarity put Janica and I through.
People looked at me.
“Sorry. Flashback. I can confirm that he— or she— wants to get in our heads,” I said.
Rowan nodded. “Here’s something new. Cassandra noticed something. When Clarity trapped us in those purple cylinders, it drew power from one of the tanks on the outside of the room.”
“There were four tanks,” Cassandra cut in. “Large glass containers. One that was purple, one blue, one green, one red. Shadow, ice, nature, fire… probably.”
“We thought that the purple tank was shadow magic because in our logs, we took shadow damage while in that purple prison,” Rowan added.
Cassandra nodded. “We also thought that we might be able to drain the tanks. Maybe it’s a clue to defeating Clarity.”
“Thanks girls,” Arthur said. “Warren, this is where you come in. We strategized that if we had at least one person with shadow, ice, nature, and fire magic, that might come in handy for draining the tanks. Do you think you could make that happen?”
I nodded. “All except shadow. I don’t have a clue yet on any shadow spells. At least not in such a short amount of time.”
Arthur nodded. “We’re going to need a place to train,” he said. “Anybody have ideas?”
“There’s a set of target dummies up in the dungeon,” another apprentice said. Her name was Reeba. “Would that work?”
“If it has to,” Arthur said. “I’d like more privacy than that though.”
“There’s a set of Target Dummies in the basement,” Mags said from the doorway. I hadn’t seen her come in. “And plenty of space down there to train. But the Power Cores are dead. If you had some new cores, we could set you up down there. It’s a little dark though.”
“Does the guild have funding?” I asked.
Arthur raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“I think I could fix the Target Dummies,” I said. “But I’ll need Wire and Magic Dust. A Power Core would be better.”
“Sure,” Arthur said. “If there was a time to spend our reserves, it would be now.”
“Good,” I said. “You should go see Dread and buy as many enchanting materials as you can. Rowan knows where to find her.”
“Fine,” Arthur said. “Rowan. Take Christian with you to see Dread and get Warren what he needs. Target Dummies are first priority. Janica, can you start training our physical fighters in different tactics?”
She nodded.
“Okay,” Arthur said. “So we think we need to bring all magic types into the battle. We know we need to level everyone back up to level ten, if we can. Warren is going to make us Target Dummies and Janica is going to train our physical fighters. What else?”
Kab cleared his throat.
Eyes collected on him.
“Did anyone else notice Clarity’s buff?” he asked.
“You mean the Witch Hazel thing?” Cassandra asked.
“Yeah,” Kab said. “It might not seem like much, but healing 2% of maximum health every second is insane. Every fifty seconds he’ll completely regenerate all of his health.”
Groans of understanding chained through the room.
“We’re gonna have to have a plan for that,” Arthur said. “I doubt we’ll have the damage numbers to push through that regeneration buff.”
I glanced at Janica and noticed a coy look. Like the way Bugs Bunny looks when he’s up to something and can’t hide it. She may as well have been whistling, suspiciously.
“Janica…” I let the words trail off.
She startled, then pretended to fall asleep.
I crossed my arms over my chest. I looked at Rowan, telling her with my eyes that Janica was up to something.
She elbowed Cassandra. They both turned to stare at Janica.
The room started to get quiet as people noticed that we were looking at Janica, waiting for her to join the conversation.
Janica opened an eye, spying on the room from her fake sleep, then noticed that people were looking at her.
“Janica,” Cassandra said. “Why are you being weird?”
“What do you know?” I said.
“Nothing,” she said. “I’m trying to get some rest.”
“Janica Fortitucious Wingfeather,” I said in my best Dad voice. She rolled over away from me.
“Janica,” Rowan said. “Janica.”
“Fine!” she said, flitting up into the air, her wings buzzing behind her. “Fine. I might know a way to counteract the healing buff.”
Nobody said a word, instead waiting for her to finish the thought.
“In the mountains nearby,” she continued, “there is an item we can collect from the monsters there. But I don’t like it.” She shivered. Then spat. I’d never seen her do that before. Except once. “And neither will you. The foulest monsters. Disgusting. Vile. Depraved.”
Rowan looked at me, confused. She’d probably never seen Janica nervous before.
I mouthed the word “cats.”
Rowan closed her eyes and shook her head, a little smile on her lips.
“So we’ll send a group to collect this item,” Arthur said.
Janica shook her head. “In case you forgot, most of us are level one. And these monsters will not be easy to kill.”
Arthur nodded. “So we prepare our kits, level up in the dungeon, then send a group to collect this mysterious item, then fight Clarity. All in eighteen hours before they shut the dungeon down.” He looked around. Determined faces met his. “Let’s get to work.”
We split up, each of us with our own preparation. Rowan ran to see Dread and returned moments later with Wire and a stack of Uncommon gear items. Dread had given them a small discount, but not much. I rolled my eyes.
I Disenchanted ten pieces of gear, receiving Magic Dust for each of the items.
Stolen story; please report.
People crowded around me, watching me work. “What are you doing?” someone asked.
“First, I’m making a few lights,” I said. I relocated to the main room of the inn and threw two large spools of Wire in the fireplace, enough to make five or six glyphs. When the spools glowed red hot, I pulled them out onto the stone and sprinkled them with dust until they transmuted and changed in color. I checked my prompts.
You created Enchanted Spool of Wire x 2.
Your Expertise in Enchanting increased from 35 to 39.
Congratulations, you discovered the pattern for Networked Power Supply.
Networked Power Supply
If you attach this glyph to a functioning circuit and another to a functioning power supply, energy will flow between them. Max range: 50 yards. Doubles the speed at which power is consumed.
My eyes widened at the discovery. The possibilities seemed incredible. If such a thing existed in the real world, it would eliminate the need to plug anything in ever again. Granted, the extra power usage would make electricity twice as expensive, but the convenience factor might make it all worth it. I pushed the line of thought from my head. I had work to get done.
I heard an “ooh,” from behind me. It was okay having an audience that was impressed with my work. I pulled open Bill’s book and found a page where the glyph for Light was drawn. I molded half a spool of wire into the glyph, which looked like a six pointed star in the center of a circle. I connected the wiring, completing the circuit, and the glyph lit up, bright as a string of Christmas lights. I inspected the glyph.
Glyph of Light
Item Class: Glyph
Item Charge: 59/60.
Next, I followed Mags to the basement, a group of melee fighters in tow.
Mags showed me the Target Dummies. I turned the first one upside down and found a glyph embedded in the wooden frame, connected to a wire which ran up the back of the Target Dummy. Using my wire cutters, I removed the glyph. I shaped an Enchanted Wire into the exact shape as that from the device.
Glyph of Target Dummy
Item Class: Glyph
Item Charge: 59/60
I placed the glyph where the worn-out one had been and reconnected the wiring. The contraption came to life as if lit from within.
I stood up and dusted myself off.
“Cool,” Thomas said. “Let me test it out.” He charged at the target dummy, bashing it with his shield. White numbers floated up above the target dummy and a debuff appeared on its portrait.
Stunned for 2 seconds.
I felt like a real enchanter. And like an engineer. I savored the moment, thinking back to the robots I had made with my dad. The moments when, after tinkering with the mechanics and the code for hours or days, the thing would do what you meant it to do. “Okay,” I said. “Have fun. I’m going to work with the casters.” I started to walk up the stairs, when they called me back to the basement.
“Warren, hold on. Something’s wrong!”
I turned around. Odd enough, the light had dimmed to a fraction of what it was. “Did somebody do something?” I asked the group.
“Nope,” somebody said. “Light just went out.”
I checked the glyph.
Glyph of Light
Item Class: Glyph
Item Charge: 5/60
“How in the world?” I asked. I walked over and checked the target dummy.
Glyph of Target Dummy
Item Class: Glyph
Item Charge: 59/60
I had made each of them within moments of each other. Yet the charges were completely different. The Glyph of Light was nearly empty. In less than ten minutes.
“Janica,” I said. “Do you have any idea why one glyph would run out super fast and the other wouldn’t?”
“Nope,” she said. “I bash things mostly. And cut things. I don’t enchant things.”
“Cool,” I said. “Great.”
I had so much to do, but this couldn’t wait. I needed to do an experiment. I went upstairs to the fireplace and made two glyphs. One for light, and one that produced heat. I also made a Networked Power Supply, but that was for later. Just in case.
I activated both glyphs and waited. Sure enough, in less than ten minutes, both the Glyph of Light and the Glyph of Heat had drained to empty. The charge from the Target Dummy Glyph held strong. Still above fifty-five charges.
The broken mana channels seemed to be affecting some glyphs, but not others. Unless there was some other reason that I wasn’t seeing.
I joined Arthur and the casters in the meeting room. They had been waiting for me. I looked around the room. Eight of us remained.
“Let’s start with introductions,” Arthur said. “Keep it simple. Say your name and what you need from Warren. I’ll start. I’m Arthur, obviously. I want to become a Paladin. I found an item yesterday that allows me to unlock the Job, but I’m a healing spell away from completing the transformation.” He looked to his left.
A tall, skinny girl with short, curly red hair answered next. “Raspberry. Pyromancer.”
The next person was a short, middle-aged woman. “Blitzcraig. I was hoping to be an ice mage. You know. Slow things down, crowd control. Freeze people then shatter them. Stuff like that.”
I had met a lot of males who played with female avatars, so the name-gender disparity didn’t really surprise me.
A tall, skinny guy was next. He had a long, pointy nose. His nameplate said
I nodded.
“Kab. We talked already.”
I nodded at him.
“Name’s Olivia, obviously,” a large woman said, pointing to her nametag. “Healing. Ideally healing through damage.” She reminded me of Tina Turner.
“Reeba. My goal is anything with earth and stone. A geomancer type.” Reeba had short, white hair that curled around her ears.
The last two were named Thunder and Lightning. Both level nine Apprentices.
“Let me guess,” I said.
One made a stormy gesture with his hands, representing clouds. The other popped in front with a zappy sound.
I laughed. I didn’t even care how cheesy it was. It felt nice to be privy of some nerdy inside joke that wasn’t directed at me.
“That’s the whole caster team,” Arthur said. “We’ve been together for years now, though some people have come and gone. This group is solid. Several have come back to us with the excitement of IO.”
I nodded. That was a lot of people to meet all at once. The volume of new people made me uncomfortable. I took a deep breath. One thing at a time. “Okay,” I said. “Who wants to learn some new spells?”