Zeroth Moment: My Cheat Skill Is Stupid, So I'll Just Ignore It

The next morning, Topher was out in front of the inn at dawn; he'd packed all his belongings (his spear, his blanket, and his backpack) and said his goodbyes to the townsfolk. He was shocked to discover he'd miss most of them; he'd made friends in places he'd least expected, somehow managed to avoid pissing anyone off with his attitude, and in general enjoyed a quiet and pleasant stay in this town. In another life, he probably could have stayed and put down roots, like Varissian; but deep in his guts he knew he didn't belong here. Somewhere, far away from here, an ugly and distant end was waiting for him, and the further away he got from idyllic places like this before it found him, the better.

After an hour, he realized stupidly that Tok could arrive at any time or even be a day or more late; he went back into the inn, apologized to Gropp, and borrowed a chair. Setting it up on the grass surrounding the town square, he realized this was going to be incredibly boring. I should learn some kind of Summon Chair spell. Or carry around some kind of magic folding chair. Or just get a magic animated chair and Adventure in that. The thought of himself, morbidly obese, tooling around a dungeon in a fairy-dust-powered mobility scooter gave him a cackling fit of the giggles for a good twenty minutes, but he soon got quite distracted indeed; when Tok's wagon pulled up, about an hour after noon, the dwarf found Topher scribbling absent-mindedly in his Ledger, doing complex sums and trying to puzzle out the common mechanic for why the square root of negative one kept popping up unexpectedly in so many of his calculations. The dwarf smiled. "Is this not a good time? I can come back in, oh, another two months."

"Tok!" Topher jumped up, grinning foolishly. "Sorry. I, uh, didn't want to miss you, so I've been out here since dawn. It got a little boring." Clapping his hands, he dismissed his Ledger and returned Gropp's chair, then hoisted his backpack onto his back and gripped his spear. "I'm ready when you are."

The dwarf cocked his head. "You sure? No unfinished business?"

Topher shook his head. "Not that matters. I've said all my goodbyes, squared away all my outstanding obligations; the only thing I didn't get to finish was clearing out that goblin encampment, but I got most of 'em before I ran out of MP. It's not really important."

To his surprise, Tok maneuvered the wagon to a parked position in front of the inn, then hopped down and set his horse to grazing; he strolled over to Topher, an unusual intensity in his movements and his axe in his hand. "Want to finish the job?"

Topher's mouth fell open for a moment; then he blinked and nodded vigorously. "Sure." He tossed his backpack and blanket into the back of the wagon, then turned back to Tok; he wanted to make sure there wasn't any misunderstanding here. "Are you, uh, offering to help? I don't want to assume."

The dwarf nodded, twirling his axe; Topher noticed for the first time that the blade was carved in a strange, fluid shape, almost like a flower or a butterfly's wing. "I'm not really into the continued existence of goblins. Plus, it'll give us a chance to work together; feel out how well we cooperate in a battle." He sheathed his axe and gestured, indicating that Topher should lead the way.

Topher, feeling quite chuffed indeed, obliged; he began leading the dwarf to the goblin encampment. "I'm not sure how much help I can actually be, other than some damaging spells," he said over his shoulder apologetically. "Like I said, my Class apparently doesn't get Cure Wounds spells."

"What about the other Priest spells?" Tok's voice floated around Topher; he couldn't see much of the dwarf in the tall grass, but his strong, low voice came through very clearly. "Most of those are pretty support-oriented."

Topher sighed. "The only three I can cast are Shield of Faith, Remove Fatigue, and Summon Light -- I never bothered trying to learn Bless Water, and I could never get Gentle Repose to work. I don't think Clerks can cast that one, either."

"Shame," grunted Tok, struggling around a fat gorse bush. "Gentle Repose is good for a bunch of things; preserving food is probably the most common one. But you can throw a Shield of Faith on me; can't imagine that wouldn't help."

"Huh?" Topher frowned. "I can only cast it on myself, can't I?"

"Ever tried?" came the dwarf's wry reply.

Guess he's got me there, Topher realized glumly. "I guess not. Let me give it a shot." He halted, turned towards the dwarf, and cast Mage Shield designating Tok as the target; however, the shield appeared around him instead, as normal. He huffed out a breath. "Weird. You said Priests can normally cast this on other people?"

"Shield of Faith, yes," said the dwarf stolidly. "Not Mage Shield. You can tell, because Mage Shield is a sphere; Shield of Faith actually looks like a shield, although it's a bit glowier than most shields I've used."

Huh? But they're the same spell, aren't they? It's just Zom Voq, regardless. Topher's brow furrowed, and he bit his lip. Wait a minute. The visualization matters; hell, the name matters. What if I cast it using the Priest magic perspectives on Zom and Voq? Raising his spear, he tried again; but this time, he cast Zom as "Interested Courageous Hatred" rather than "Summer's Day of the Full Moon", and Voq in the same manner. To his satisfaction, a translucent gray ash-covered shield appeared in front of Tok; it disappeared after a moment, but he found that it hadn't drained his MP. It was interesting to him that he didn't need to visualize the difference between Shield of Faith and Mage Shield as long as he had the right runic trajectories; probably Conjure Shield at work, he supposed.

The dwarf nodded. "That's more like it. Guess having both Mage and Priest magic might be a little more complicated than it sounds."

Topher grimaced. "You don't know the half of it. But this is good; I can protect you from a hit or two, at least."

They approached the encampment as stealthily as they could, which wasn't very; Topher stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the tall grass, even hunched over, and Tok's solid presence seemed to reach a few feet from his body. Luckily, the goblins weren't any more observant than last time, and there were still only three; Topher pointed them out. "I think the one with the skull hat is in charge; pretty sure the other two are his bodyguards, or whatever. How do you want to handle this?"

Tok grunted, drawing his axe and taking a few experimental swings; Topher noticed abruptly that heat was beginning to radiate from the dwarf. "I'm using my Last Stand skill; boosts all my stats for a few minutes, but kind of a long cooldown. I'll take down the alpha; you shield me up and blast the other two if you feel like you can manage it." He nodded at Topher. "Ready?"

Topher nodded back, and instantly, the dwarf was off; emitting a curiously high-pitched battle cry, he tore across the intervening scrub with astonishing speed, and Topher had to curse and scurry to keep up. He managed to get a shield off just as the dwarf crashed into the three goblins; the scene devolved into an ugly mosh-pit of flailing limbs and weapons almost instantly.

Topher watched for a split second, awed; Tok's heavy swings were bashing and carving up all three of the goblins with tremendous force, and their own swings were bouncing off of him as though they were feeble children; not sure how much of that is my Shield, how much is Tok's Skill, and how much is just Tok being a badass. Probably not the time to ask, though. He checked his MP and was surprised to see that it was still mostly full; apparently casting Conjure Shield on an ally was much less expensive, or something. Guess I'd better pitch in.

He didn't want to use Flame Jet here -- he might accidentally hit his friend. Similarly, Entangle was out unless he could get one or both of the bodyguards separated from the melee; he was pretty sure the abundance of blows in the fight would tear up the strands before they could do any good, and it would just be wasted MP. That only left Magic Dart, and Topher didn't waste time; he fired off an empowered one at each of the two smaller goblins, careful to avoid hitting Tok (though it seemed not to matter; he'd never seen Magic Dart miss anyway, and suspected it homed in on its target somehow). The first one he shot dropped one of the goblins, who'd already taken a bad slash from Tok's axe, but the second dart just seemed to piss off the other goblin, who immediately charged at Topher with lightning speed.

Good enough, thought Topher, and dropped a burning Entanglement on the little monster as soon as it was about fifteen feet from the fight; while it roasted and screamed, he refreshed the Shield on Tok for good measure. Still got plenty of MP; better safe than sorry. He saw quickly that the remainder of the fight was a foregone conclusion; Tok had the goblin leader on the ground and was hacking down with gusto at its prone figure. He looked away, checking on the other goblin; it was still struggling feebly against its bonds, and he felt a little guilty and blasted it with an empowered Flame Jet (partly to be certain it wouldn't survive, and party because he still needed more testing data). It turned out to be massive overkill -- the spray of burning ash flakes nearly stripped the goblin's skin off its bones, and Topher's stomach turned a little at the scent of the roasting meat. Whoops. Hope that one didn't have any flammable loot, now that I think about it.

By the time he'd finished up, Tok had hacked the goblin leader's head off and was throwing it into the river; he turned, covered in blood and gore, and gave Topher a thumbs-up gesture. "Not bad, stretch. Your spells pack a punch, huh?"

Topher shrugged, feeling himself blush a little; he wasn't used to positive feedback. "I can't cast too many of them; my MP pool is pretty small. But they get the job done, I guess."

The two of them finished the job, looting the corpses and burning down the ramshackle little goblin huts; both of the bodyguard goblins had Magic Stones about the size of a pea, while the leader had a pounch with nearly thirty gold in it. Topher whistled. "That's a haul, Tok. We can probably sell those Magic Stones for another thirty or more back in town."

Tok nodded. "Frontier Merchants get the Haggling Skill; I can probably get us a few extra. You take 'em; I gotta go get cleaned up." Topher obediently collected the spoils while the dwarf went to the river to wash off the goblin blood and guts; probably a huge pain in the ass to get that out of his beard, Topher guessed sympathetically. I should go see if he needs an extra pair of hands.

He stalked up behind the dwarf; Tok had his leather breastplate off and was scrubbing it industriously in the river, wearing only a blousy white undershirt of some kind. "Need any help?" Topher asked; the dwarf jumped, swore, tripped, and plunged headlong into the river. Topher blinked, laughed, and rushed forward to help.

"Don't look!" howled the dwarf, hands crossed over his shoulders; his breastplate started to float away downstream, and Topher dove in after it, not bothering to decipher whatever the fuck Tok was on about. He scrambled after the breastplate, caught it, and waded his way back to shore shaking his head; guess dwarves have some weird body taboos, or something.

"You okay? Sorry if I startled you." He held the breastplate out to Tok like a peace offering. "I just figured four hands were better than two." The dwarf stared, open-mouthed, at Topher for a few seconds; Topher grew increasingly confused, a problem made worse by his inability to see Tok's eyes behind the dark goggles he always wore. "Shit. Did I do or say something stupid?"

Finally, Tok's mouth snapped closed, and he shook his head disbelievingly; he took the breastplate from Topher's hands a little roughly, and turned away to resume scrubbing it. "Humans. Always sneaking up on people." Abruptly, Topher noticed that the dwarf's ears were bright red, for some reason.

"Again, sorry." He took off his Priest's Robe, wrung it out, and put it back on; even wet, it was still more comfortable with it on than otherwise. "Maybe you can put a bell around my neck, or something."

The dwarf froze again, then laughed a little harshly. "I'm going to assume that you don't know that that's a dwarven marriage custom; I'm not looking for our partnership to be that committed."

Topher blinked, open-mouthed, then spluttered. "Okay, now I know you're messing with me. Is that seriously how your people propose?"

The dwarf nodded, his face unreadable. "For if your spouse gets buried in a cave-in. Very pragmatic." Despite the dwarf's beard, however, Topher could tell that his mouth was struggling to suppress a smile.

After everything was sorted, the haul from the Goblin Boss Fight (as Topher came to call it) came to about seventy gold; Topher insisted that Tok take forty of it, since his Haggling Skill had almost certainly been responsible for at least that much of a difference. He was, however, able to get an additional fifty gold from turning in the completed posting for the "Kill Five Goblins" job, and didn't argue when Tok pointed out that the additional fifty gold reward from that should be entirely his; "I'm not even a Guild member," Tok demurred. "You could probably get fined for sharing it with me."

Finally, a little before sunset, they were ready to depart; Topher was surprised the dwarf didn't want to spend the night in Frostford and start fresh the next morning, but he shook his head firmly. "We're already behind from the time we spent taking out those goblins; I can see just fine in the dark, and I can pull an all-nighter anytime. You just nap in the cart, beanpole; we already know you're good at that."

Topher laughed. "You want me to cast Remove Fatigue on you? I don't want you to be tired."

Tok snorted. "Dwarves are immune to fatigue. Whoever taught you about other races gave you a pretty lackluster education."

"Hey, buddy, everything I ever learned about dwarves I learned from you," Topher protested, raising his hands. "So if there's any deadly offense I might accidentally give you out of ignorance, maybe warn me?"

Tok shook his head, grinning. "Where's the fun in that?"

Frostford began to dwindle behind them; just as the sun was setting, Topher saw a woman dash from the inn in a nightgown, hair touseled, and wave vigorously to him; he winced and was glad he was out of earshot, but waved back anyway. So long, Frostford. Stay cool.

He sat down next to Tok and peered out into the oncoming night; next to him, he half-saw, half-sensed the dwarf pulling off his goggles. "Man, you really kicked those goblins' asses. You got something against them?"

Tok nodded. "Killed my fiancée." He didn't elaborate.

Topher sucked in a breath, held it, and let it out; I wonder what the hell the dwarf word for fiancée is that the Summoning Spell decided to translate it into a French loanword. This interdimensional culture stuff sure keeps a guy on his toes. "I'm sorry. That's really rough."

"Happens." Topher couldn't see Tok's shrug, but knew it was there; it touched a corresponding echo of loss in him, and he wasn't sure why. That's stupid. I never lost anybody close to me. Except Mom, but I don't even remember her.

There were a few moments of silence; after a while, Tok cleared his throat and spoke up again. "You didn't do so bad yourself. Did you Level up?"

"Oh shit, that's right, I haven't checked." Topher fired up his Status and took a look.

Name:

Christopher Bailey

Level:

8

Class:

Clerk

HP:

22/22

MP:

21/32

SP:

8/8

Strength:

Rank F

Dexterity:

Rank F

Constitution:

Rank D [+1: Rank D]

Intelligence:

Rank D

Wisdom:

Rank D [+1: Rank D]

Charisma:

Rank F

Skills:

Literacy (Rank D)

Mathematics (Rank C)

Cooking (Rank F)

Customer Service (Rank D)

Data Entry and Filing (Rank B)

Packaging and Shipping (Rank D)

Home Appliance Repair (Rank F)

Pen Spinning (Rank A)

[Cold Resistance (Rank F)]

[Heat Resistance (Rank F)]

Special Skills:

Disrupt Illusion

Conjure Shield (Rank D)

Conjure Light (Rank F)

Improved Status

Summon Ledger

Remove Fatigue (Rank D)

Minor Sorcery (Rank D)

Unique Skill:

Attract Object

"Hey, cool. Level 8 now; and my Conjure Shield Skill went up to Rank D." Topher couldn't help but feel a little smidgeon of pride; those milestones might be pathetic, but they were his.

"Not bad -- for a human, I guess." Tok smirked at him a little, then sobered as his eyes went back to the road; Topher noticed for the first time that they were blue. "Most folks never hit Level 8; you're part of a rare group."

Topher sighed and crawled into the back of the wagon, tucking his pack under his knees and resting his head on his rolled-up blanket. "Level 8 good enough for Wanbourne?"

"Not nearly, beanpole," the dwarf chuckled. "Not nearly."