Legend of the Spellthief

With Marcus’s increase in level alongside his new Wisdom attribute his Heal spell was now tending wounds of 20 to 23. Since he was gaining four points in it every level, including the free point, he was fast approaching Logan’s Intelligence for the highest attribute in the party. However, with Logan’s faster levelling progress he was sure that wouldn’t happen any time soon.

Tenn climbed a nearby hut and used Logan’s monocular to scout the remainder of the small village. He had spotted several enemies on their approach to the village the other day, which Logan was able to identify as level 8, so it was a sure bet that the recently defeated were the ones they had scouted previously. To his best ability, the Rogue was certain they had dealt with the final silversteines in their last encounter.

Recovery would take some time, but with Marcus using half of his remaining MP to bring the party into better states, Kreya called them all together. Tenn handed the monocular back to Logan as he got to the team.

“That was a good fight everyone, I am extremely satisfied with all of your performances. We’ve dealt with sixteen of the spirit beasts now, a fair shake above the estimated number. With elder O’en’s kills, that should be all of them. We will do a thorough check of the remaining parts of the village in search of survivors, but stay vigilant of any further threats.”

As she spoke, Kreya made sure to see eye-to-eye with each party member to show each of their importance. Pointing out some huts they had yet to search, she began instructing how they would patrol the remainder. With close to twenty beasts defeated, it was almost certain they were safe. The bait had finally run out but was also destroyed, so Kreya had nothing to pick up.

With the conversation coming to a close Tenn perked up as he realised something. “Hey, Logan. It looks like your summon ranked up, he’s a smidge bigger”, he spoke with a happy tone.

“You sure? It’s hard to see with those rolling flames”, Iimi added.

Moving to stand side-by-side with the elemental, Tenn made a motion towards himself. “See, he used to be just under my ribs, now at the mid-point of them. I’d say he stands at around 4'5" or so now”, he calculated aloud.

“Well it’s good to see you’re getting some benefit from this outing, Logan”, Kreya added almost apologetically.

After the short after-plan chat, the party moved to scour Moella. Logan using Echo Radar constantly, Tenn using his scouting abilities, with Celsius floating about to possibly draw out any straggler silversteine.

The thorough dive into the village returned no new villagers or threats, it seemed the bait had done the job perfectly, possibly too perfect if the difficulty of the fight was anything to go by. Plenty of corpses were found, alongside the destruction of the village leading to any valuables being similarly destroyed.

“And that’s the last building. We should be done with that, good job everyone. The winds have died down, as well as the blast sounds, so the silversteines must all be dead or moved on”, Kreya began to give an overview.

“Any other monsters would be far gone too, the ruckus they made would have scared most anything”, Tenn added.

“I’ll be glad to have this done early, way early”, Iimi spoke as she stretched.

“We’ll return to the carriage and head back to Gauntlet then. I’ll sort out the quest details with the G-Hall, you lot can meet me there a few hours after we get back”, Kreya continued.

The party all gave affirmative nods and replies. Leaving back the way they came, the group moved through the fields, forest, to the dirt road they had ridden on to get to this point. Thankfully, the driver had returned and was parked at the side of the road. The tallest man of the village was one to indeed be trusted. Hitching into the back, the party made the long trek back.

“Hey, Tenn, here’s those rings back”, Logan spoke as he handed the Lightning rings back to the Rogue who had lent them.

“Ah, thanks. Did they prove useful in the end? I didn’t count too many Lightning spells, but then I was in the thick of it all”, Tenn replied as he held out his hand to take the rings.

“They were good security, we were in some tough situations out there.”

“I didn’t actually use them, though I probably could have if I knew how many enemies there actually were”, Logan thought to himself.

“Too true, they’ve helped me out on some other missions where I lacked any casters”, Tenn continued.

“Not travelled with many?”

“You’d be the third Slotter if I recall. I’ve travelled with four Devouts to this point. The rings were great against some crowbolds a few weeks back.”

“One year of work and only seven spellcasters in total? Did his missions not require them, or did his party never even ask?” Logan worried.

“If I ever need a caster, I’ll make sure to call on you two”, Iimi chimed in. Leaning in a bit closer she gave a wink, “Don’t worry, you’ll get paid with me.”

The smaller gang in the back shared smiles alongside tales of other quests to pass the time on the return trip. Whereas Kreya spoke with the villager on the driver’s portion of the carriage.

Returning to Gauntlet had the world filled with the sounds of chatter and footsteps, a welcoming sound in comparison to the jet bursts of the silversteines. With more time than they knew what to do with, Marcus was able to use Healer’s Caress to bring the party to max health. There were some questions as to how he had so many charges of it, but they were easily replied to by saying he had spent a lot of money on tomes.

Hitching the carriage within a local stable and combined storage establishment, the party all got out of the vehicle. Exchanging some quick farewells they all agreed to meet at the G-Hall later in the day. Retiring to a local park, the duo was finally alone.

Letting out a long sigh Logan began the conversation, “Finally got that over and done with. Maybe now we can set out to do what we aimed to when we got here!” he spoke in frustration.

“It would certainly be a better state of affairs to not be under someone’s thumb like that again. We’ll need to sort something that’ll help us avoid such duels in the future”, Marcus replied with a hint of sharing Logan’s annoyance.

“The hunter requests may help in that regard, Iimi mentioned something along those lines. I’ll read over the hunter handbook back at the inn while we wait I think.”

“I need to go buy some bolts, but I’ll meet you there?”

“We will most likely just take the rest of the day off, so that’s a good idea. We got plenty of reading to do anyways.”

“Reading in the day or night? When would you prefer to undertake the hunts?”

“That will depend on the handbook, nighttime may be best if we are hunting classed people in the hopes their skills and spells are on cooldowns or used up for the day”, Logan replied, thinking back to how he duelled with fewer spells.

“I’ll ask later then. Need anything from the markets at all?”

“Could you look to see if there are any spell rings for sale around? I’d like to know my options, and they could help immensely.”

“Not sure how many we could afford right now, but sure.”

“Alright then, I’ll see you back at the inn.”

“See you there, Logan!”

Parting ways, Marcus jogged off in the direction of the markets while Logan returned to the Meek Moat Inn where Yetveka was still as vibrant behind the counter at the far end. The patronage was a bit lacking today, though the same saeber sat at the fireplace as before.

“Welcome back, Logan, no Marcus today?”

“He’s got some business in the city. Is our room still available?”

“Well, I haven’t been informed of any more hunts from you…”

“Yeah, we got forced into a quest from a duel. I aim to start hunting again tomorrow if everything goes through fine”, Logan replied as he averted his gaze to behind the innkeeper.

“Alright, if it’s tomorrow I am sure we can swing that”, Yetveka spoke as she slid over the key for room three.

After picking up the key and arranging for some food and drink to be sent to their room, Logan returned to a soft bed to take a comforting rest within. Though he wasn’t especially tired, it was more for resting his muscles while he read the hunter’s guide. It didn’t take long to read at 50 pages, and he was finished just as he heard Marcus approach from downstairs.

Summarising the contents of the handbook, it was rather straightforward for both Logan, and eventually Marcus, to understand. For the first few “apprehension” hunts, hunters were required to inform a guard beforehand to have them escort both the hunter and prey to a jailhouse if the criminal was to be apprehended within city limits. Since a guard was at hand to pay for his duel Logan had no fear about finding one for his hunts.

Hunts came in two forms, “apprehension” and untyped. Apprehension required that the target be brought in alive, whereas untyped allowed the hunter to either apprehend or kill the target. Rewards would vary but it wasn’t guaranteed that killing the target would reward less than apprehending them. Many requests of the untyped variety would be to bring in people to be executed either way, so it would make things much easier for Logan to kill and absorb the hunts instead of dragging them back to the guard or jailhouses.

After five hunts, the hunter could then purchase armbands that would dictate certain allowances to the individual and possible partners. A range of armbands could be acquired, with more available when the hunter’s successful hunts reached higher values. Some more important armbands allowed Logan to hunt without needing a guard, allow him to have a summon active at almost all times, allow the use of identification magics, and even allowed teleportation within or into the city.

Another reconfirmed topic was that of “retrieval” objectives that came with hunts. Since the hunters were sent after criminals, many would have stolen items of importance or value that would need to be returned. Several examples were given from money to weapons, though each quest would note what is required. Outside of the listed retrieval items, the hunters were allowed to keep most of what else they could find.

The guidebook did make mention that hunts would be against all species as well as both classed and classless beings. Hunts could be for singular individuals, pairs of criminals, or even a band of bandits, each tier granting higher rewards. To start, Logan would try to focus on the individual and classless hunts until he got some more experience under his belt as well as access to armbands to smooth out the process.

With the completed handbook, Marcus made his return at which point Logan gave a shortlist to his ally. Returning the favour, Marcus informed the Spellthief that the local merchants had said that spell rings were in short supply after almost all their stock had been bought up to deal with the goblin armies in the south. Lightning and Flame rings, in particular, were all gone, with Gaia rings being few in number. They all seemed to be the same price at 4 gold, and with the demand, it was going to be hard to haggle them down any further.

Aside from the rings that cast the first-level elemental spells, Marcus also found a ring that would grant a single cast of Dimensional Jaunt per day. At a guess, the other second-level spell rings would be the same price as that one, which would cost a steep 10 gold. Logan could have afforded one or two of those rings when they arrived at Gauntlet, but it was probably more worthwhile to have upgraded all their gear and bought tomes rather than a single ring.

Logan quickly completed the rules and laws booklet he was gifted by Jirango while he handed down the hunter’s guide to Marcus to memorize some of the finer details. There wasn’t much else to read of the booklet but Logan had to fully read it to gain his Reading experience. The rules were imprinted into his head, alongside plans to get around them with the hunter armbands.

As the times for reading would be mismatched, Logan decided he would test out some damage numbers and browse his list of skills in the meantime. First was punching himself to see how his hand-to-hand damage had progressed to his point, 3 damage meant his fists could deal 5 without the Dam Red of his armour. He could possibly knock out any classless being with one hit if they were also level 0.

What was surprising was the feeling of getting punched, he knew what it felt like back on Earth and even a bit from being in Avanar. Now, due to his status, the punch felt like someone had just forcefully pushed him, it didn’t even really hurt, it was just pressure. Would a weak dagger attack end up the same way the more he progressed? He didn’t plan on stabbing himself, as that would do more than other people, but it was a curiosity to be certain.

After a Healer’s Caress, Logan looked into finding skills that could allow him to use his spells without killing his targets. With the help of System, he found it quickly. “Safecasting” stated that it allowed him to lower the damage of magic so that it knocked a target unconscious. Without unlocking it, he wouldn’t know the details or finer points, but the overview was enough for him to bookmark it for later.

Another skill had also branched off of his Micks skill, though there was no alert as to why this had happened. “Advanced Micks” would allow his Micks to deal damage or have higher effects over their limitations. Logan was unsure as to what this was referring to, Force didn’t seem to falter in its progression. Though if his calculations were correct he possibly dealt 1 less damage than he should have done versus the silversteines when he hit level 9.

He would have to test Force later, to see if it was performing to the best of its ability, but regardless Logan bookmarked the skill in case he did need it for later. Having Micks keep up with him would prove vital when his number of spells per day were rising slowly. Thinking on his spells, Logan could afford a single spell ring with the money he had saved till now and was contemplating a Gaia ring so that he had access to at least one protective wall a day.

Time passed quickly as the pair read, talked, and experimented with their new powers for the trials ahead. They had a bit of time left until they needed to meet at the G-Hall so they took a quick walk over to a local money changer. Due to the time period of the world, there were no official banks as Logan was used to, but the money changer was a close enough business for exchanging his coins for different numerations.

The money changer was established by the monarchy and so was rather well-made. Tall white-brick walls with glass windows peered into the clean interior. People, mostly adventurers, were coming and going at a reasonable pace with sacks of coins in hand. The smell of metal in the air was thick, Logan swore he could almost taste copper on his tongue as he opened his mouth.

Logan exchanged 600 copper for 60 silver coins and 100 silver into 1 gold coin, to help with his purchases later on as well as the weight in his inventory. It also felt rather weird counting out every coin when using the lower denominations of coins when trading with merchants, similar to when he was a kid spending pocket money on sweets. Marcus also exchanged some of his coins, the pair using the inventory sneakily as always but making sure the amount taken out wasn’t too suspicious.

With some housekeeping cleared up, the duo made their way back to the G-Hall. Several uses of Clean overtime made it seem like they hadn’t even left the safety of the walls, nor spent a night within a dingy hut surrounded by blood. The only real sign was that of wear and tear across Logan’s armour that worried him of losing it in the future.

Entering into the adventurers’ hall showed it to be full of people going about their business as usual. The numbers were declining somewhat, but not at a worrying rate. Logan assumed they were either out on missions or decided to aid in the goblin war. A swift movement across the hall caught their attention, turning their heads they saw Iimi motioning them into one of the rooms on the floor above.

Moving over to her she swung the door open wider and moved inside, Logan and Marcus following after. Shutting the door behind them they saw they had a private room for the party to talk about their mission, which was a common occurrence for debriefs that took more than a few minutes or for those wanting some privacy.

“Alright, that’s everyone”, Tenn mentioned from across the small room as he sat comfortably on a chair.

“Good, we can start then. I have sorted out the returning villagers of Moella, it was a good thing we were able to recover the elder. With some help from a small portion of guards and builders they shall be clearing the rubble and starting on rebuilding”, Kreya began.

“How soon? It’s a bit early to start right away isn’t it?” Iimi asked.

“From what resources they had, the guard informed me that the spirit beasts are not likely to return after an attack. Even less so after their numbers were cut down. The guards won’t have to worry about a repeat attack, and the silversteines made sure no other creatures were nearby.”

“So just moving on as if nothing happened?” Tenn inquired.

“They’ll have some bereavement time, but after that, it’s back to work. The farms will be crucial with the goblin wars in the south taking up a lot of supplies.”

“So they’ll clean up the mess but not sort out the problem?” Logan added.

“The guards they are sending are low rank, in the region of 5. Without a caster, they would not have done much against the silversteines. Aside from that, they will be setting up four watchtowers to give a better alert to oncoming forces or to signal for aid.”

“A two-hour ride would lead to any signal being easy to see, especially with the height of Gauntlet’s walls”, Marcus calculated.

“That is the idea of it. We got a bonus for the number of survivors we rescued, though as agreed that’ll go to debts owed for some of the equipment needed for the mission. Here are your shares. You can get your signets updated at the counter”, Kreya continued, handing out a pouch to both Iimi and Tenn.

“I think it will be time to upgrade some of my gear”, Iimi mentioned as she felt the weight of the pouch.

“I got some scouting missions lined up, so I doubt we’ll see much of each other for a while”, Tenn announced.

“If we’re all available again, I hope we can quest together once more”, Kreya ended.

The party began to take their leave but Kreya held up her hand to Logan and Marcus. “Can you two wait, there is something I wish to discuss with you.”

Tenn and Iimi gave a farewell nod and a clasp of shoulders to Logan and Marcus as they left through the door and shut it behind them. Logan could only imagine what Kreya had to talk about.

“Right, well. I know we didn’t get off to the best of starts. But I would like to apologise for my order of a duel and forcing you two into this quest. I had only recently heard about the quest for Moella and my emotions were running high. I knew I needed to have someone able to use lightning-based magic to bring them down, which is why I got Tenn, but even that wasn’t going to be enough”, Kreya began.

“For his spell rings, I take it. Yeah, those weren’t going to cut it with the numbers we were facing.”

“You’re right. I needed a mage but once I was informed most had been hired for the goblin threat I was at the end of a short rope. I also needed to prepare transportation, the bait, other allies, and even called in a few favours to make sure the quest wouldn’t go awry. I could not afford for it to be too rushed, but every hour spent not going there was another hour my in-laws could have perished.”

“I suppose I wasn’t open to hearing your reasons at the time, your hasty attitude and rudeness didn’t exactly lead me into wanting to hear them.”

“That large scar across his nose is also a step over what was necessary”, Marcus added.

“I know, again, emotions were running high. I can’t apologise enough for that, nor am I sitting atop a hoard to pay for regeneration. But I can offer up two things to try and pay you back”, Kreya continued.

Pulling out a folded set of parchment papers Kreya placed them into Logan’s open hand.

Kreya continued her speech, “I notice you tried to use a scanning ability on me, which was most likely why you asked for a trinket. This is the recipe for the cache arm, it hides specific parts of your equipment and capabilities from others trying to scan you. I overheard your conversation with Iimi that you can craft so I pulled some more favours to get you this.”

Logan’s eyes went wide with excitement. “This could hide my power from the Magi’s Tower!” he cheered in his mind.

Unfurling the parchment he saw it was 3 pages of items and steps towards making the cache arm, giving him a new goal to aim towards to aid in his subterfuge.

“Aside from that recipe, feel free to call on me for a quest at a later time. I will work for free as you did, unless it’s a much harder task.”

“Well…” Logan began, thinking on his next words carefully. “I accept your apology, Kreya. I can understand why you did what you did. I don’t condone it, but you seem sincere in your message. Thank you for the recipe, it’ll come in handy for sure.”

The trio shook hands as grievances were settled, Logan mentally taking a note out of his head which he had attached to the personality of Kreya.

“Wish I could talk longer, but I have to pay some people off. See you around the hall?”

“That we shall do”, Logan replied.

“Above speed to you”, Marcus added.

Kreya exited the room, to which Logan and Marcus looked at one another before letting out a synchronous heavy sigh. Letting the drama die was going to be easier than carrying a grudge around for too long. With their affairs settled, the pair left the private room to go and get their signets updated.

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