TT:E C15

Maeve was interrupted from reading her spells’ descriptions by Scarlet waking up. She twitched a little as her eyes popped open and she sat up quickly, glancing around her. “Anything happen while I was out?”

“Nothing.” Ed reported, “We’ve been discussing what Maeve and Amelia have found in their statuses so far, but no monsters. Yet.”

“Good. What’d you pick up Amelia?”

“Magical Healer.” She held out her hands to Scarlet, “Got any aches and pains you need dealt with?”

“Ah, no. I feel great actually. Like I just got a full nights sleep.”

“Great.” Amelia sat back down. “What kind of class did you pick?”

“I went with Martial Artist.” Scarlet raised both fists and mimed punching. “I wasn’t anybody noteworthy, but I’m not a bad kickboxer and it seemed like a good idea to go with something I already know about.”

“Makes sense. What kind of skills did you pick up?”

“And what kind of class is it?” Maeve added.

Scarlet looked over at her, confused. “Martial artist?”

“Sorry,” Maeve chuckled, “I mean, does it use power, stamina, mana, or force?”

“Oh.” Scarlet glanced at a screen. “I have a stamina pool, so I guess stamina.”

“That means it primarily based on dexterity and agility. I’m guessing your default stats on level up got to those two more than anything else?”

“Yeah, they do.”

“Nice. Alright, go ahead and tell us your skills and then we’ll let Ed get his class selection in.”

“I’m more than willing to wait until Alex is up.” Ed told them, “It’ll let Scarlet get a chance to go over her stuff before she has to stand guard.”

Scarlet stood and pushed her way in front of Ed, who backed off easily. “No, you go ahead and get yours done. The faster all of us have classes the faster we can all work at making ourselves safer, together. Plus, I never played the kinds of games those two talked about, so I only get bits and pieces of this,” She added with a shrug, “I’m fine with waiting to read all my stuff and have one of you guys explain it to me.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Go ahead and conk out.”

“Before that, tell us what your skills are called,” Maeve requested, “Even if it’s not the full description, knowing what kinds of skills exist is good information for Ed choosing his class.”

“Sure. There were some weird sounding ones I didn’t go with because I didn’t understand them, and I don’t really remember the names. The ones I did get are Empowered Strikes, Reinforcement, Bodily Knowledge, Enhanced Toughness, and Quick Step.” She looked at all three of them and shrugged again. “Those were the ones I could actually make a guess at, the rest were weird.”

Ed shrugged back at her. “Those all sound pretty simple to me, and going simple when you don’t understand stuff is a good idea.” He sat down and closed his eyes. “Knowing there are simple options I can fall back on makes this a little less nerve wracking.” He opened his eyes for a second to give them a hesitant smile. “This is all a bit much.”

“Don’t worry.” Scarlet reassured him. “It’s pretty easy and doesn’t hurt.”

His smile was still strained but he nodded. “Thanks.” He glanced at a screen and then he was asleep.

“I wonder what he’s worried about?” Amelia muttered.

“He’s probably just overwhelmed by everything that’s happening.” Maeve replied quietly, “I know I’m getting close to my limits.”

Her best friend leaned over and gave her a quick hug. “We’ll get through this.”

“I know we will. I’ll make sure of it.” Maeve vowed.

They sat together quietly while Scarlet kept watch and Maeve took the time to look over her spells.

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Lesser Strengthen (Body Magic) - Neophyte 1 (0%)

Strengthen is a spell that fills the target’s body with magic, increasing the amount of force their muscles can put out. This spell has a limited effect on full body effects like running and jumping and focuses more on the ability to strike with greater force.

Increases a friendly target’s effective Strength by a portion (1%) of their Strength stat.

Costs 15 Mana. Lasts one (1) hour or until canceled.

Lesser Hasten (Body Magic) - Neophyte 1 (0%)

The Hasten spell adds magical power to the recipient’s movement abilities, making them faster and more agile. This spell has a limited effect on one’s speed when swinging a weapon or making other similar movements, focusing more on the full body overall.

Increases a friendly target’s effective Agility by a portion (1%) of their Agility stat.

Costs 15 Mana. Lasts one (1) hour or until canceled.

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Lesser Shadowbind (Shadow Magic) - Neophyte 1 (0%)

Reaching up from below through their own shadow, the shadowy hands created by the Shadowbind spell seek to grab the target and drag them to the ground.

Create shadow limbs from a nearby shadow that bind a target within close range, holding them still. The limbs may reach out of any flat surface and grab at the target for five (5) seconds. Targets with enough Strength may be able to pull free before the spell ends, and targets with great enough Agility or Dexterity may be able to slip out of the limb’s grasp.

Costs 25 Mana.

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Lesser Dancing Shades (Shadow Magic) - Neophyte 1 (0%)

Shadows that twist and dance are ever ready to pull one’s attention away. Protect yourself or your allies from harm by drawing the eye away, letting the Dancing Shades steal attention and take blows.

Create a temporary aura of shadow magic around a friendly target that confuses the eye, making them harder to hit with aimed attacks. The aura lasts twenty-five (25) seconds before fading. Enemies with high enough Wisdom may be able to see through or ignore the aura.

Costs 30 Mana.

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The first two spells were exactly the kind of thing Maeve was expecting from body magic and she was immediately glad to have them both. Alex and Ed were almost guaranteed to take classes that used strength and Scarlet had already taken one that used agility, which meant both of her body magic spells were going to be useful in combat. Lesser Hasten would also be useful when they were traveling longer distances since they had to do everything on foot. The shadow magic was also cool, but less immediately useful. Lesser Shadowbind had a more expensive mana cost, meaning she’d have to balance her buffs against restraining any enemies, and Lesser Dancing Shades was almost twice as expensive as either of her buffs. It was also disappointing that she’d ended up with three buffs and only one debuff, when she’d been hoping for two of each. Both spells would be useful, for sure, but it would take experimentation and work to really figure out when they were best used. At least both of the body magic spells lasted at least an hour, which meant she could cast them early, hopefully regain some mana, and then have mana to cast her other two spells in the fight itself.

With that thought in her head, she focused on her mana pool to see her regeneration rate.

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MP Regen: 140MP/Hour

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Doing a quick check Maeve saw that she regained ten times her wisdom stat in one hour, meaning she regained a little over two mana a minute. That was… not fast. She scolded herself after that thought. She and the others were level one, literally the bottom of the totem pole. She wasn’t suddenly going to turn into an unstoppable juggernaut with a handful of dead monsters to her name.

She set that aside when Alex woke up and looked around. “We all good?”

“Nothings happened so far.” Told him as she scooted over to lean against him. “What’d you pick?”

“Armored Warrior. It’s an uncommon variant of the warrior class with more focus on wearing heavy armor, according to the System.” He tapped the breastplate he hadn’t taken off. “Leans a bit more toward defense than offense from what I could tell, but it doesn’t completely give it up.” He pulled up a screen and started reading from it. “Strength and Constitution based, and those are my big bumps when I level, and it uses a resource the System called power, which I have a decent amount of.”

“What skills did you take?” Maeve asked him.

“Lighten Armor, Damage Resistance, Heavy Blows, Interpose, and Take the Hit.”

“That’s a tank build.” Amelia said slowly, giving her boyfriend a look. “That puts you in the front taking all the damage.”

“I’ve got you here to keep me standing, right? Besides, we could use a tank.” He leaned close to give her a kiss before turning back to Maeve. “I didn’t get offered anything that read like a taunt skill, but the System told me it was possible to learn some skills through effort, so…”

“It told me something similar, although you can’t learn magic by yourself if you’re a sorcerer type, apparently. That about rounds out our party then.” She nodded at Scarlet, “She went with a Martial Artist class which is probably more damage than anything, I’ve got support, Amelia has heals, and Ed is probably going to end up closer to your pick than anything if my guesses are right. I wish we could have someone pick up some kind of ranged attack, but we don’t have the gear for it to be physical and the two of us that got magic classes didn’t go for damage.”

“Anything that can hit us from farther away and anything that can fly are our big threats right now.” Alex agreed. “But I agree with everyone’s choices so far. Neither of us,” he pointed at the still sleeping Alex, “Can shoot a bow worth a damn so we never got any. And while having a magic attack would be great, there’s nothing saying we won’t unlock some later. Hell, we might run into other survivors we can team up with who picked regular caster classes. There’s no point in moaning over what we don’t have.”

“You’re right.” Maeve shook her head, trying to banish the dark thoughts that were creeping up. “I’ve got four spells, two from each of the magic types I picked. One strength buff, one agility buff, a shadow based root with a short duration and a kind of aura that makes it a little harder to hit you for a short time, a little longer than the root.”

“I took two types of magic as well,” Amelia chimed in. “Rejuvenation magic gave me a touch spell that heals more and a short range spell that heals a little less. My other pick was nature magic, which came with a disease resistance spell and one that clears a few different kind of status effects.” She look around at everyone. “That feels a little weird to say, but it helps with burns, frostbite, poisons or venoms, and bleeding.”

“You got a disease resistance spell?” Maeve asked.

“Yeah, it’s called Lesser Resist Illness. Says it helps the body deal with infections, both viral and bacterial, parasites, and infected wounds. It also helps a little bit with other kinds of diseases or conditions, but it’s really firm that at this level of spell it can’t help too much.”

“I don’t care how much it helps, helping at all is amazing.” Maeve shot her friend a massively relieved smile. “Just getting that spell takes so much pressure off our backs.”

Amelia perked up with a grin. “Well that’s why I took a healing class, so go me.”

“Go you indeed.” Maeve glanced down at Ed, who was still out. “Let’s go over everyone’s everything so we can start putting together an idea of how we can all fight together. Scarlet, if you don’t mind, we’ll have Alex go over his first then he can switch watches with you. If we do it that way we can try and explain anything you don’t get when it’s your turn without being too distracting.”

“Works for me.”

“Great. Once we get that done and get Ed’s details too we can start planning on what we’re going to do next.”