Chapter 2 - Class Selection

  Robert spent the rest of the morning with the grim task of burying his young wife. They had both just turned thirty when the Reaping struck. Still too young to leave this world, he thought. He remembered celebrating her last birthday with the children. They had set up long tables and benches along the blossoming green carrot fields, and the children had gone personally to invite every farmer in the hamlet. What a festive memory that was, he thought. The music, the company.

  Robert shook off the memories of simpler, happier times and grabbed his wheelbarrow and spade from the small wood shed he had built beside the cottage three seasons past. He gently lifted Merelda into the barrow and pushed her past the ruined carrot fields, now overrun with pests. The green life of the once vibrant fields had been replaced by a dead, ashy brown. Robert shook his head at the devastation caused by the roaches as he led his wife toward greener pastures, beyond the pestilence that had drained the life from the farmland of Shearford, and on toward a small clearing he knew well at the edge of the forest that lined the northern horizon.

  The journey to the forest took Robert longer than he had expected. Even with the help of the wheelbarrow, he struggled to navigate the uneven dirt path, and it was nearly noon before he reached the moss and wet soil that marked the forest’s edge. With a few more agonizing pushes of his weakened legs, Robert finally reached the clearing where he and his family had once picnicked on sunny summer days. It was a simple inlet where oak and ash trees arched inward above a small camp they had made, complete with a fire pit and a rough wooden table.

  Ford’s Camp, they called it, Robert remembered.

  Robert gently placed Merelda beside the small, unlit campfire and searched her body for any sign of where she had come from, but there was nothing to find. There were no maps, no weapons, no coins. How she had made it back to him, wounded and without a mount, he wasn’t sure.

  What were you doing, Merelda? he thought as grief crept into his tired mind. What were you up to?

  Robert shook the thoughts from his mind, grabbed his spade, and with the last of his feeble strength began to dig into the wet, moss-covered ground.

  His arms burned with pain from the digging as he lowered her small frame into the freshly dug grave. He kissed her forehead one final time, then draped the cleanest white linen he owned gently over her. Standing at the edge of the grave, he bowed his head in silence and offered her his last unspoken words. With the final reserve of his strength, he pushed the raw earth back over her body.

  “Rest now, my Merelda,” he whispered, collapsing to his knees in the dirt beside her. He no longer had the strength to carve a stone marker, as he had for the empty graves of their children. Yet he vowed that if he survived the path before him, he would return one day to do so.

  As Robert knelt there, a broken man, shirtless and dressed only in his linen undergarments, he looked south toward his distant cottage, trying to summon the will to lift himself for the journey back. But when he tried to stand, he found he lacked the strength in his skinny legs to rise. I can’t do it, he thought. Lowering himself onto the dirt beside the grave, he collapsed onto his back and closed his eyes for just a moment, he thought. Yet sleep soon claimed him beneath the cold light of the stars.

  [The Hour Unspent: 1 day remains]

  The next morning, the message burned bright green against the darkness of his closed eyes. He opened them to face what he knew might be his final day. Turning his head, he saw the fresh grave beside him, confirmation that yesterday had not been some cruel dream. Slowly, he pushed himself upright, his skull swimming with the dizziness of hunger and neglect.

  [Choose Class]

  Curse you, he thought. Fine, you win. Reaching out with his mind, he summoned the sight, and it responded, unfurling green script before him like some old book pulled from a shelf.

  [Random Class Allocation]

  [Tutorial Guide: You will be granted three randomized class options for your class selection. Each class contains two starting skills and a set of predetermined bonus stats that will be applied to your base attributes. Choose wisely. Once the decision is made, it cannot be undone.]

  [Current Stats]

  Name: Robert Ford

  Strength: 2

  Constitution: 1

  Dexterity: 1

  Intelligence: 2

  Wisdom: 1

  Charisma: 1

  My God, he thought, a tinge of self-pity creeping into his chest. How far I’ve fallen from the brute of a man I once was.

  [Class Option 1: Bard]

  [Starting Skills]

  Lute Mastery (Level 1): Native proficiency in playing the common lute. Increasing this skill enhances the potency of songs performed with a lute.

  Song of Minstrels (Level 1): Charms an enemy combatant for a short duration. Charmed enemies can be commanded to act during this time. Increasing this skill strengthens the charm’s hold and expands the number of affected targets.

  Requires an instrument to cast.

  [Bonus Stats]

  Intelligence: +1

  Charisma: +2

  [Class Option 2: Cleric]

  [Starting Skills]

  Basic Heal (Level 1): Restores a small portion of the user’s base health to self or target. Increasing this skill enhances the potency of the heal.

  Requires a staff to cast.

  Holy Bolt (Level 1): Fires a divine bolt that deals holy damage scaled from the caster’s wisdom. Increasing this skill enhances the damage scaling amount.

  Requires a staff to cast.

  [Bonus Stats]

  Intelligence: +1

  Wisdom: +2

  Possibly a useful class, considering I’m near death already, he pondered.

  [Class Option 3: Barbarian]

  [Starting Skills]

  Greatsword Mastery (Level 1): Native proficiency in wielding greatswords in combat. Increasing this skill enhances overall effectiveness and control with greatswords.

  Health Regeneration (Level 1): A passive skill that gradually restores health over time. Increasing this skill improves the amount of health recovered over time.

  [Bonus Stats]

  Strength: +4

  Intelligence: -1

  Robert hesitated as he reviewed the third class choice. He had never been much of a learned man, he thought, but he had always taken pride in his ability to read, to reason, to think with some measure of logic. Would this choice strip that away? Would he become nothing more than a raging brute, hurling his bitterness at the world?

  It was a difficult decision, he considered, to choose a path that relied on others or to embrace the barbarian this dying world might demand of him. A healer though... could he have saved Merelda? With a weary sigh, he closed his eyes, pushing the thought away. The words did not fade from his sight, but it did not matter. He had made his choice. May it not come back to haunt him.

  [Class Selection Made]

  Cleric

  [Skills Gained]

  Basic Heal (Level 1)

  Holy Bolt (Level 1)

  [Bonus Stats Acquired]

  Intelligence: +1

  Wisdom: +2

  [New Attribute Acquired]

  Mana

  Not all the words revealed by the sight were familiar to him, yet he somehow understood their meaning, if only a little. As the last of the green script from the class selection faded, a sudden surge of energy coursed through his body, and a new blue bar appeared beneath the red line of his lifeforce along the top-left corner of his vision.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Mana, he thought. Fuel to cast the spells of the great clergy, no doubt. He had heard of it from others who had taken the road of the quests long before Robert had, but it was not until now, as he felt its energy course through him, that he truly understood it.

  Robert paused, reaching deep within himself, willing a spell to manifest as he had seen others do. But nothing happened until the sight returned with a new message.

  [Mandatory Tutorial Quest Received]

  Name: Craft Casting Staff

  Rarity: Common Quest

  Objective: Craft a staff to serve as the casting vessel for healing magic.

  Reward: 100 XP

  Robert accepted the quest with his mind’s eye, the goal settling within him as if he had always known its purpose. Rising unsteadily from the dirt, he lumbered to a small stump beside the wooden table they had set up next to the campfire. There, wedged in the stump among the rotted pile of firewood he had cut last season, lay his axe. He pulled at the handle with a weak tug, but the axe didn’t budge.

  I guess the class selection did nothing to restore my frail and weakened body, Robert thought grimly.

  Grasping the handle with both hands, he gave one final heave, and the axe broke free. Robert stumbled backward as a small rock and his own momentum nearly sent him crashing to the ground. Steadying himself, he stood upright and looked down at the old axe, running his thumb along the blade he found the edge still true.

  Turning north toward the thick canopy of the forest, axe in hand, he spotted an old oak that caught his eye. Its ancient branches sprawled outward like the legs of a giant spider clawing up from the earth. This will do, Robert thought as he moved toward the massive tree.

  Robert hauled himself onto a low branch and studied the wood, trying to find a branch that could be shaped into a staff. He wasn’t a master carpenter, but he could woodcraft well enough given the tools and time. His gaze settled on a long, straight limb about two meters in length, with stubbles of green leaves sprouting sporadically along it. This will do fine, Robert thought again as he swung the axe in a weak arc. The blade clanged against the thick bark, barely chipping it, and the effort drained more of his strength than he expected as he began to pant in exhaustion.

  Frustration rising, he kept at the sturdy tree, forcing himself through what felt like an impossible task of cutting a simple branch. Again and again, he raised the axe overhead and brought it down, each stroke slower than the last, each breath more ragged, until at last the branch began to yield.

  With a final chop, the old branch fell to the ground. It would need to be stripped of its bark and scattered leaves, but for now he hoped it would be enough to complete his quest. He leapt down beside the trunk of the tree, picked up his new staff, and inspected it in his hands.

  At once he felt a strange connection to the oak. As he lifted the staff before him, the energy within his body seemed to flow outward, binding him to the wood. As the strange feeling washed over Robert, another vision flared before his eyes.

  [Quest Completed: Craft Casting Staff]

  Rewards: 100 XP

  A surge of warmth coursed through him, and his body glowed with white light. He had seen this glow in others before, but only now did he understand the euphoria of leveling. The moment of growth and power was fleeting however, quickly replaced by another vision.

  [Level Up Acquired: Cleric (Level 2)]

  [XP to Next Level: 200]

  [Mandatory Tutorial Quest Received]

  Name: Cast Basic Heal

  Rarity: Common Quest

  Objective: Using a bound staff, cast Basic Heal on yourself or a fellow party member.

  Reward: 100 XP

  Accepting the quest, Robert studied his staff. It was strange, he felt as if it were part of him now. A pathetic old stick, yet something within urged him to protect it as though it were one of his own limbs. Raising it high, he waited for something to happen, but nothing did.

  What am I doing wrong? How do I even cast a spell? he thought.

  [Tutorial Guide: To cast a spell, equip the spell in one of your two casting slots shown on your HUD overlay.]

  Two glowing translucent spheres materialized at the bottom right of his vision.

  What madness is this? he thought. How exactly do I do that? Robert closed his eyes, focusing, trying to picture in his mind what a healing spell would look like, or at least what he thought one would look like. After several moments, a soft, glowing shape filled one of the spheres.

  [Tutorial Guide: Basic Heal equipped in Casting Slot 1. Equip Holy Bolt in Casting Slot 2.]

  He obeyed, and a fluorescent starburst shimmered to life in the second sphere.

  [Tutorial Guide: Holy Bolt equipped in Casting Slot 2.

  You are now ready to cast spells. Each spell will consume a portion of mana based on its native mana cost and any skill modifiers applied to that base value.

  Changing spells in your casting slots incurs a five-minute cooldown on all slots. No other spells can be equipped during this cooldown period.

  Proceed with your attempt to cast Basic Heal.]

  Robert focused on the glowing sphere in his vision, and the staff in his hand began to shine with a pale white light. Yes, he thought, feeling the pull of energy draining from within him, transferring into the oak staff. The translucent blue bar beneath his lifeforce ticked downward as the spell took shape. Closing his eyes, he pictured himself whole again and willed the magic to mend his decrepit body.

  The cast succeeded. He felt the aches in his bones ease and the pain in his wounded face begin to fade. His frame grew lighter, strength returning to his once-injured legs until he no longer needed his hunched gait to remain upright. As the glow faded from the staff, he opened his eyes and, for a fleeting moment, lived without pain, something he had not known for a very long time.

  [Quest Completed: Cast Basic Heal]

  Rewards: 100 XP

  [Final Mandatory Tutorial Quest Received]

  Name: Kill 3 Giant Roaches

  Rarity: Common Quest

  Objective: Find and kill 3 Giant Roaches.

  Reward: 100 XP, The Hour Unspent +1 day

  Already the end of my training? he thought with unease. At least these were creatures he knew. He had slain them before, though only in desperate, futile attempts to defend his ruined farmland. They were ferocious in swarms, but he was confident he could catch a few stragglers at the field’s edge. With his newfound powers, he told himself, the task would be swift.

  Robert made the long walk from the forest back to his cottage. A black raven stood perched along its thatched roof, watching him. Good morning, friend, Robert said, tipping his staff toward the black bird. Passing the cottage, he stopped at the edge of the main field of his farm. Once it had been a sea of green, carrot crowns swaying in the morning breeze. Now it was nothing but barren brown dirt, infested with massive pests. None of his neighbors had been spared the roach invasion, and every farm along the forest’s edge had suffered the same fate.

  Like clockwork, the clicking and rustling began as roaches skittered through the soil around him. Robert watched as two of the armored insects emerged from beneath the dirt, followed by two more, making four in total. They clawed their way out of the dry ground, drawn by the scent of his rancid breath.

  Robert gripped his staff with both hands and planted his feet wide, ready for combat. He focused on the Holy Bolt within his sight, and the tip of his staff began to glow.

  “Yes!” he cried, excitement swelling in his chest. “Curse you, you foul beasts! I banish you from these lands!” he shouted.

  He thrust the staff forward, and a white glowing bolt streaked like a shooting star toward the advancing pests. It struck true, burning one roach’s wing to ash, but the creature only staggered briefly and shrieked before charging again. The other three spread their wings and rose into the air.

  Oh no, Robert thought as he tried to summon another bolt, when another vision flashed before him.

  [Tutorial Guide: You have insufficient mana to cast this spell. Mana regenerates at a fixed rate unless affected by other skills or potions. Wait for your mana to regenerate before attempting to cast again.]

  His blue lifeforce bar was nearly empty, he realized. “Oh no!” he screamed as the roaches closed in.

  He swung his staff like a club as two flyers darted at his face. Another circled behind and sank its pincers into his back, biting rapidly through flesh. Robert screamed as the roach he had crippled reached his feet and clamped onto his big toe, agony lancing through him as he toppled backward. The impact of the fall crushed one of the creatures gnawing at his back against the hard dirt, knocking the wind from his lungs. Gasping for breath, he threw his arms across his face while the remaining flyers swarmed over him, continuing their attack.

  With a desperate kick, he dislodged the roach clamped to his toe. At the same moment, two flyers landed on his chest, their pincers tearing quickly into his flesh. “Curse you, you bastards!” he shouted, rolling frantically across the dirt as if on fire. One crunched beneath his weight during the roll, and the other he seized by its carapace and hurled it into the field.

  Stumbling onto his knees, he gripped his dropped staff, and pushed himself upright. Robert looked down towards the ground as the single winged roach lumbered toward him, its pincers clicking in that awful rhythm.

  “Curse… you!” Robert bellowed, and began clubbing the creature again and again until it finally stilled. Only then did the sight return, interrupting his fury.

  [Status Update: Giant Roach (Level 1) x3 - Slain]

  XP Gained: 30

  [Quest Completed - Kill 3 Giant Roaches]

  Rewards: 100 XP, The Hour Unspent +1 Day

  Robert stood breathless, his body trembling. Though he had only just healed, moments later his near-naked body was bloodied and dirtier than it had ever been. Yet he did not wallow in misery. For the first time in a long while, Robert felt alive.

  Then his skin began to glow.

  [Level Up Acquired: Cleric (Level 3)]

  [XP to Next Level: 370]