Once they were oriented and felt comfortable with the world around them, Madra cast the See Magic spell. The casting took a few minutes, as their skill level with the spell was zero and they were depending on the power of the Spire Seed to cast it. Once it was cast, however, the world around them came alive in a new way. For several moments they were too caught up in the magic flowing around them to notice the blue and green indicators flashing in the corner of their vision.
They saw wisps of magical energy flowing through the air currents, and energy flowing from the ground up into their feet as if they were a rooted tree. On top of all that, or perhaps more accurately below all that, they could see the ley lines, massive channels of power running through the earth.
After a few minutes, Madra opened the blue notifications. “Synergistic Effect: See Magic has Synergistic Interaction with Fae Sight. Empowered effect and reduced energy cost.
“Fae Sight?” They switched to their status menu, shifting quickly to the Racial Abilities section. A line item was flashing green, indicating recent changes. “Fae Sight: 1 (0%). Shifting to the Racial Abilities section of the Player’s Guide they quickly found the entry. “Fae Site: Faery folk have a natural connection to nature, and a natural connection to magic. This allows them to see things in ways that other folk do not. This provides a perception bonus in most situations and allows the user to see things of a magical nature. Associated Attributes: Fae, Gnosis.”
Madra closed the menus and basked in the sight of the world around them. The implications of the description bounded around in their head. “Do I even need See Magic or Detect Magic? Maybe they are prerequisite knowledge for other skills.” They briefly looked over their skills again. They noticed that, in addition to the Spell Skills menu, there was also a Magic Skills menu. They clicked into it and were surprised.
Gate Magic: 0 (5%)
Arcane: 0 (6%)
Knowledge: 0 (1%)
Life: 0 (5%)*
“Arcane and Knowledge make sense,” Madra thought to theirself. “That would relate to See Magic. Maybe something else?”
Scratching their head, Madra wondered about the others. “Is Life there because I’m a shape shifter? It would make sense. I mean, it gives me a better understanding of life, but Gate Magic?” Madra’s eyes went wide as realization set in. “I literally absorbed the key to a pocket dimension.”
Below the rest of the list “Elemental Magic” was listed, but the text was a light grey that traditionally indicated that access hasn’t been granted yet. “That must be because I have the staff, but haven’t actually used it yet. It seems that experience trickles into broad overarching skills as well as the specific spells I use. I wonder how those skills will work for me later.”
Madra decided they would continue to use See Magic and Detect Magic until they reached at least rank one in the skills. While they may not need them, the spells might represent foundational knowledge for the Arcane sphere.
Madra pulled theirself out of the menu system, taking in their surroundings once more. They looked towards the distant mountains and started to walk, following a ley line as they went. “I am pretty certain that following the ley line will lead me to something.”
It must have been morning when they started out, as they walked for hours before the sun started its way towards the horizon. It looked as if the sun rose in the east and set in the west, as it did on Earth. That would make finding directions easier during t he day. A green indicator flashed in the corner of their vision. When they activated it, rather than bringing up the status menu, it simply brought up a message. “Direction Sense +1. New rank, 1. Your insight has provided you an advantage at finding your way around.”
“Cool,” they thought as they dismissed the notification and kept walking. After a while they made camp for the night. Madra stretched the canvas tarp between two small trees, using rocks to weigh down the corners and folding the excess under to lay their bed roll on in case of rain. “I need to get another tarp,” they said to theirself.
They slept soundly that night, embracing the sounds of the night and continued on the next day. It was noon when they saw the watering hole in the distance. As they approached they took note of the variety of creatures that were gathered near the water and surrounding trees. It was clear that predators and prey animals both came to this place for water and the shade provided by the trees. There was no sight of strife. They observed the area using See Magic and saw that the lake was resting on a node, a place where ley lines crossed. “I wonder if the node is effecting them, or if nature just has a truce here.”
A large buck watched as Madra approached the water, kneeling down to take a drink. Looking up at the sky, Madra saw that evening would come soon. They set up camp in the shade of the trees, and slept for their second night in this new world.
That night their sleep was undisturbed. When they broke camp the next morning they collected fallen branches that could be used to frame a tent in the field. Once everything was stored, and they refilled their canteens, they were on their way.
The sun shown brightly, and a soft wind blew across Madra’s face. Eddies of magic flowed and spun around them and through them as they walked the path following the ley line. As noon approached there was a disturbance in the flows and Madra heard a deep growling sound. They turned to see two creatures standing side by side, that looked to Madra like a pair of wolves with gold plated crocodile skin. Almost reflexively Madra’s skin hardened and they brought up an arm to block as the larger of the two creatures lunged at them.
Madra grunted with pain as they slammed their left forearm into the creatures teeth. A red notification flashed in their periphery, but they ignored it. It was easy to guess what it was about. They pushed back hard against the creature and lept backwards dropping into a defensive stance. This time, when the creature lunged, Madra brought their fist forward quickly, making contact with the creature’s jaw and following through on the stroke with their elbow, striking the creature a second time. The crunch of cracking bone was audible. Madra was not surprised really, as realistic as the game was, that their real world training mapped relatively smoothly to this environment. A green and a yellow notification popped up in their periphery along with the red one. The creature fell back and began circling. The second creature followed suit, taking up a position opposite the first. Madra cursed. “This is going to make things harder. I should have expected this. They look enough like wolves that it makes sense for them to act like them.”
Madra called the Apprentice Staff into their right hand, then brought it down in an arc to aim at the creature before them. They willed the staff to fire a bolt of electricity at the creature and released the power into the air.
A jagged line of bright electricity arced from the tip of the staff to the creature before them. It let out a painful yelp as the energy engulfed its body. A blue flashing indicator was added to the others. The creature seemed to be rooted in place.
Madra cried out as sharp teeth sank into their leg. They spun to face the other beast, bringing the base of the staff down on its head in a ferocious arc. The creature grunted but refused to let go. Uncertain how long the other creature was going to stay paralyzed, Madra focused on their hands for a moment, causing their fingernails to become claws, and slashed the creature across the face as they pushed them away. The creature yelped as the slash left a gash in their skin. Much to Madra’s surprise, the skin felt metallic. They hadn’t been expecting that.
While Madra was distracted with the second creature, the first one began moving again and struck from behind, latching onto their shoulder. Madra roared in anger, strengthening their legs and leaping away from the two. They landed, turning towards the beasts and lashed out with the electric bolt spell. They struck one first and then the other.
Focusing on the two, Madra saw that they were taking considerable damage from the magical attack. They pushed their advantage, alternating between claw and electrical attacks. Madra didn’t even notice when their staff fell to the wayside as electrical bolts began flying from clawed hands rather than the magical staff.
Once the beasts were dead Madra examined them closely. The system informed them that they were golden draken wolves. “Golden Draken Wolves: These creatures are wolflike intelligent reptiles that are more dragon than beast. As such, they do not react to Fae creatures the same way that common beasts would.”
“React to Fae creatures?” Madra thought, bringing up their status screen and the Player’s Guide. Under the entry for Fae was the following line: “Many animals react positively to the Fae, seeing them in a kind light. Social interactions with beasts and other natural creatures are influenced by the Fae attribute.”
“Maybe that was why the creatures at the watering hole weren’t afraid of me. I’ll need to remember that.”
Madra gathered their staff, raising it to the air and calling on the healing magic within it to heal their wounds. Then they looked to the accumulated notifications.
The stack of red notifications was unsurprising. It was a series of damage notifications. The yellow and blue notifications dealt with physical and magical attacks on their part. The green notifications were more interesting.
“You have gained 1 rank in Unarmed Combat. New rank 1.”
“You have gained 1 rank in Electric Bolt. New rank 1.”
“You have learned the ability ‘Harden Skin.’ As a defensive action, you may harden your skin like armor.
“You have defeated Golden Draken Wolf. Experience gained.”
“You have defeated Golden Draken Wolf. Experience gained.”
“You have survived the battle. Don’t forget to check for loot.”
Madra dismissed the notification. “That was interesting. These abilities will make combat easier,” they thought. “The ability to not spook or incite regular animals will make surviving the wilderness easier.” Madra put the staff away and recalled a skinning knife from the survival gear in their pack.
They didn’t expect traditional loot from beasts in a game this realistic, but they were certain the hide would be valuable. Possibly the claws and teeth as well. They began skinning the beasts, taking it slow because they realized they didn’t have the appropriate skills yet and were going off real world knowledge at this point. They skinned and dressed the animals while idly thinking as they continued the process. “I wonder what they will taste like.”
As they finished splitting the meat into storable cuts Madra took a moment to look over everything with See Magic and Detect Magic. As they suspected, the skin had a magical aura. The skulls, however, radiated magic. They gave off a strong magical aura with a bright core.
Madra took one of the skulls and prized it open. The skull was hard, so they ended up breaking off the jaw and going through the pallet. It was messy, but they eventually found an amber colored gemstone in the center of the brain. To Madra it looked like a chunk of pure raw energy.
They stored the stone in their money pouch. “I’ll examine that more closely later.” They then repeated the process to retrieve the stone from the other draken wolf skull as well, then stored the meat, skin, and teeth in their inventory. “This will be a good experiment. I don’t have time to cure all this out here. If the magical inventory preserves everything, though, I can cook part of the meat when I make camp.”
Madra looked themself over and recast See Magic to establish the path of the ley line once more and continued forward.