The Outlands

Marie watched in wonder as Ellie placed her hand against a seemingly innocuous portion of wall, and a door drew itself into existence in front of them. “I’ll teach you all how to do this once we get back. You just have to put a bit of Mana into it, and it’ll appear, nothing to it. Even if you can’t figure it out tonight, Jacob can teach you, so…yeah, not a big deal.”

“Jacob knows how?” Lucia asked faintly. “But that’s…”

“Magic?” Marie finished. “If he truly has been going back and forth from this other world, then it should not come as much of a surprise that he can use some magic.” She paused, then looked up at Ellie. “What are the requirements for using magic, by the way?”

“You get a Skill that allows you to do so.” Ellie said. “Or a Class that grants a Skill that allows you to do so. Raid two or three dungeons and you’ll almost certainly have at least one Skill to facilitate magic.”

Marie frowned. “So, you get Skills from dungeon raiding, then?”

“Yes. It’s pseudo-random, dependent on your Luck stat, but even if you have abysmal Luck, chances are you’ll get something magic related.” Ellie explained. “Fair warning, most Skills don’t work well on Mael, if they even work at all. Tess is something of an exception, since hers work differently, but don’t expect to be throwing fireballs around once you get back.”

“Is that a normal thing people can do?” Marie asked guardedly. “How is there any semblance of law and order?”

“There’s always a bigger fish.” Ellie said, opening the door. “I’m sure that, hundreds of years ago, people would say much the same about guns. It’s not perfect, and yes, there are occasionally significant incidents, but by and large people know that if they begin rampaging or abusing their abilities, they’re pretty quickly going to be brought to heel by someone much stronger than they are. And if there isn’t someone much stronger than them who will step in, then the Appointed themselves will do the job, and believe me, you do not want to be on the receiving end of their wrath.”

Ellie stepped through the door, followed closely by Maven. Tess stayed behind, keeping a watchful eye on the group. There was a brief moment of inaction as none of the group from Mael moved to step through the door, but the spell was broken when Tess spoke up. “Go ahead and go through.” She said. “It’s perfectly safe, you’d putting yourself in more danger by taking a bath.”

“Right, sorry.” Pastor Faust said, shaking her head and stepping through the door. “I was just…a little stunned, there.”

Marie followed her lead and stepped through herself. She…wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but the transition was significantly easier than whatever that might have been. One second, she was outside, the next she was in an air conditioned room, like she had just, well, walked through a door into a building.

The others were through only a moment later, and Tess tapped the doorframe, causing the door to disappear. “I’m going to go scout things out real quick and see how we should proceed. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

And then, suddenly, Marie found herself unable to recognize Tess. It didn’t seem like her appearance had changed, though she couldn’t really even properly picture the appearance of the woman in front of her, and the logical part of her brain knew it was Tess, but something within her just refused to accept that she knew the woman that was standing where Tess had been.

The woman gave the group a nod, then slipped out of the room. “Who…was that?” Robert asked, frowning deeply. “We’re not going to run into any trouble because she saw us, right?”

Marie gave him a flat look. “That was Tess. We’re fine.”

Robert shook his head. “Tess left to go…scout or whatever she said, that was someone else.”

Marie groaned. “Look, I know she did some magic, but please, think logically; Tess vanished, that woman appeared, and then she left after nodding at us. It had to be Tess.”

Robert frowned even deeper. “I…suppose that makes sense.” He admitted. “But it feels wrong. Are you sure?”

“I think she’s right.” Pastor Faust said. “This must be some sort of…recognition scrambling magic, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Ellie said. “Grandpa gave the three of us some tool that help hide our identities, so we don’t blow our cover while we’re here. Don’t worry about it too much.”

“But you have to admit it was a little startling, right?” Lucia asked. “Suddenly having a stranger appear like that.”

“Our devices are linked.” Maven said. “The three of us can still recognize each other fine.”

“Isn’t that going to cause a bit of a problem if we leave this room?” Marie asked. “The four of us will essentially be walking with strangers, and it’s going to be…weird.”

“We’ll figure something out.” Ellie said confidently. “Again, don’t worry about it too much.”

“I’m not sure that’s something you can just…figure out.” Marie said. “Not if that magic is strong enough that these guys didn’t even realize that it was Tess when she turned on the device right in front of them.”

“Speaking of, how did you recognize her?” Pastor Faust asked. “I didn’t even realize, and I like to think I’m fairly close to her.”

Marie shrugged. “Lots of monsters have mind affecting abilities. Hunters train in techniques to help mitigate the impact of those abilities, and I’m pretty sure that’s most of the reason. The big thing is learning how to block out everything your instincts, emotions, and common sense are telling you and rely on pure logic; it’s a lot harder than it sounds, but it’ll insulate you from the worst of those types of abilities.”

“That’s it?” Maven asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes?” Marie said. “Do you know a better technique?”

Maven shook her head. “No, it’s not that.” She said. “It’s…” she paused, frowning, “I am not quite sure how to explain this. But, that sort of technique is unusual in the wider world. Unless you work in espionage or are very high level, most people focus on external sources of protection. Armor that increases your resistance, consumables that cure you of the effect, or other similar things are much more popular. The general perception is that manual techniques are much too much trouble for the benefit they give, so I was surprised that it seemed so simple.”

Marie frowned. “That seems ill-advised.” She said. “Equipment is notoriously fallible in the presence of monsters, but your training is always going to be accessible. Of course, if you have equipment that helps, that’s good, but it should be a supplementary thing, not your main line of defense.”

“Ah.” Ellie said. “I believe you’re misunderstanding. I’m not totally sure how monsters are on Mael, but things are different here. Due to the existence of stats, oftentimes that sort of training is simply less effective than getting your level up. Obviously, that breaks down when you get to higher levels and you can’t increase your level, but before that it’s usually more efficient to focus on training yourself in other ways.

“See, the issue is that, from what I’ve been given to understand, monsters you get on Mael are generally pretty weak, the strongest being the equivalent of a level ten to fifteen boss. That means that the effects they can use are pretty weak, and a reasonable difference can be made just by your own strength of will. More powerful effects tend not to give you that luxury unless your stats are pretty high.

“And equipment is pretty different from what you’re used to as well, it mainly –” Ellie was cut off by the door opening, and a stranger stepping in.

Once again, Marie’s entire being was screaming at her that she had no idea who this woman was, but logic told her that it was probably Tess, seeing as how Ellie and Maven didn’t seem to be reacting. And a moment later, whatever block was on her mind was removed, and she found herself able to recognize Tess again.

“Okay, so, here’s how it is.” Tess said. “The guild has the night shift crew working right now, and we don’t know any of them. Graham is still here in the City, but he’s at home and we’re not going to call him in just for this. Instead, we’re just going to…commandeer one of the scanning rooms without telling anyone, and if they come and ask, we’re just going to say we’re on business for Gramps. If they push more…then we’ll probably just call him. But it shouldn’t be an issue in the first place, the guild is dead right now.”

“Who’s going to do the scanning?” Maven asked. “I do not believe any of us have tried before.”

“I’ll take care of it.” Ellie volunteered. “It shouldn’t be too hard as long as I have instructions, right?”

“I suppose.” Tess said. “Either way, we’re going to need to get to that room, which means we’ll have to activate our recognition scramblers, and I understand you guys were having some issues when I activated mine earlier.”

“How did you know?” Pastor Faust asked. “You…weren’t here.”

“I have my ways.” Tess said, giving her a wink. “Unfortunately, we can’t really turn down the intensity of those scramblers, so you guys are going to have to rely on logic to remember that you’re not with strangers. It should only be for two or three minutes while we walk, though, so I trust you’ll be able to handle it.”

“Could we try it out just in this room?” Robert asked. “I’m not so sure we can.”

Tess shrugged. “Sure. That okay with you two?” She asked, looking over at her party members.

“I have no objections.” Maven said.

“On the count of three, then.” Ellie confirmed. “One…two…three.”

And, just like that, Marie was in a room with three perfect strangers. Even though she had been prepared for it, it was still a battle to get past the large parts of her that were telling her that she didn’t know these girls.

“How’s this?” One of them asked. “Can you stomach this for three minutes? If it helps, just pretend we’re waiters taking you to a seat or something.”

“It is…strange, but manageable.” Pastor Faust said. “Especially since we were told to be cautious with our situation, but we’ll live.”

“Right.” Another said. “Let’s hurry it up, then.”

As they walked, Marie tried her best to take these girls’ appearances and overlay them over how she remembered Tess, Ellie, and Maven looking, but it just…didn’t work. The moment she tried to picture one of them, or make a comparison, the mental image slid out of her head, or she would lose focus and begin thinking about something else, or something else would happen and she found herself unable to make a proper comparison.

If she just passed these girls on the street, she probably wouldn’t have given them a second glance, even if she was specifically looking for one of them. All she could remember were broad details – what sex they appeared to be, their species, that they were adults…and that was about it.

Actually, she could probably say the one with visible demon parts was Maven, but…why did one of them have fox ears and a tail? When did one of them grow those? As far as she knew –

Her thoughts were cut off as they stopped in front of a door, and were quickly ushered inside. The moment they were inside, and the door was shut, Marie once again found herself able to distinguish between the girls.

“Tess?!” Pastor Faust asked, taken aback. “When did you…”

“In the middle of the walk over.” Tess said, twirling her tail around a finger. “I wanted to see if you guys would notice, and it kind of looked like Marie did, but the rest of you were none the wiser.”

“What…are you?” Marie asked. “You’re obviously not human, so…what?”

“Good question.” Tess said. “I’m not really anything. Or to be precise, the answer is ‘generic person’, which…doesn’t really mean anything. I used to be human, and then I picked up a Class, and wasn’t anymore. A word of advice: don’t accept a class that says it will have permanent changes unless you look up the Class and are ready for those permanent changes. Um, if anyone else has even had the Class and knows what the changes are, that is.”

“What sort of changes should we be wary of?” Lucia asked. “You seem normal enough at first glance. Uh…aside from the whole sex change thing.”

“Some relatively common examples are Classes that only work for certain species or groups of species, commonly ones that have traits most people lack.” Maven explained. “Arachne, centaurs, merfolk, and some beastkin are most often associated with these sorts of Classes, and if you get one, you will be given the option to have your species transformed.

“These Classes are usually more powerful than normal, and they come with the added benefit of adjusting you to your new body instantly, so many choose to take them if they get the choice, but there is a small, if significant, fraction of people who don’t. I assume you four will fall under that later category, if only because these changes would make it rather difficult to live your old life on Mael.”

“But we’re putting the cart before the horse here.” Ellie said. “First off, we need to find out what your stats are. That will greatly inform you of what you’re capable of and what your roles in combat would be.” She walked over to a table where some sort of crystal ball was sitting. “Who wants to go first?”

“Do we need to know this?” Lucia asked. “If we’re not going to fight much, it’s not important, right?”

“If you want to live longer, you do.” Ellie said. “Even outside of the whole aging thing, knowing how to defend yourself is always going to be important. Opening up Mael to the rest of the world is going to eventually increase the frequency with which monsters appear, and while that is easily offset by just gaining a few levels, you’re not going to gain levels if you don’t do some fighting.”

Maven nodded. “Everyone gains levels as a matter of course. The average adult is at least level ten and has gone through one or two dungeons and picked up some Skills and Classes from them. You will likely need to be an even higher level than that, as you live in one of the less populated areas of your country’s territory, and armies likely will not patrol those areas as often. Your community will have to solve their own problems, and a higher level will act as insurance if you do run into trouble.”

 “I’ll go first.” Marie volunteered. “It seems like this is something that is going to be directly tied to my job anyway, so I might as well take a look.”

Ellie nodded. “Just come place your hands on the ball and I’ll take care of the rest.” She instructed. Marie obeyed, and after a brief moment Ellie gave a satisfied nod. “No wonder you’re the best in the business back on Mael.” She said appreciatively. “Pretty high growth across the board, especially in Magic Defense and Luck. Yeah, you’re going to grow in power pretty explosively once you start training here. Just be aware that you won’t be able to leverage all of your stats or abilities back on Mael, but you won’t have any problems with the small fry that spawn there.”

“Where should I start training?” Marie asked. “If everything back on Mael is small fry, then I shudder to think of what lurks out in the wilds here.”

“There’s a dungeon called Slime Tower that is the beginner dungeon.” Tess said. “The monsters within are as close to harmless as you can get, with your expertise you’ll be able to clear it without breaking a sweat. There are a couple of other beginner dungeons here too, but I’d hold off on those until after you’ve cleared Slime Tower, since those can actually hurt.”

“You should perhaps consider partying with Jacob.” Maven said. “He might be higher level than you, but you should narrow that gap quickly, and having a partner is always beneficial. You will likely need to teach him how to fight once you get to higher levels, however; your skill will surely outshine his once you even the level gap.”

“I’ll consider it.” Marie said. “I admit I have been having thoughts of taking an apprentice, and he would do as well as any. I’ll talk with him more once we return and see how I feel about him.”

At some point in the conversation, Tess had vanished, and was now returning with a sheet of paper. “Your growths.” She said. “Ten is the highest growth, one the lowest, and your stat randomly increases by one of the five values shown below the stat. Anything above seven or so is considered good, and nine or higher is great. HP, Mana, and Stamina are like the other stats, but multiplied by ten.”

Marie grabbed the sheet and scanned through it.  She only had one or two potential growths that were under seven, and she even had a few tens. Like Ellie had said, Magic Defense and Luck were especially noteworthy for having two and three tens respectively, which was good to hear.

She was vaguely aware of Ellie beginning to read off the stats of someone else, but that really wasn’t important to her at the moment. “Could you explain what these stats actually affect?” She asked Tess. “I would like to know the basics before I start making any plans.”

“Sure.” Tess said. “So, first is HP…”