The First Archmage

“Is the Dungeon open?” I ask the guard lounging by the gate.

“You’ll need a bigger team than just two,” he says, not really looking at us. “Especially as children.”

“I’ve cleared an entire first Stage solo,” I say. “We’re only planning on grinding the first room to get some Experience and loot.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “Even if you two were Adventurers – which I doubt – even the first room is dangerous to do for two children. You’re simply not powerful enough, nor have trained enough, to be capable of doing any Dungeon. I highly doubt you’ve managed to clear a first Stage solo before.”

“I’ve also killed an Adventurer,” I summon a Magic Bolt. “And I will gladly kill another who prevents me from entering a Dungeon when there’s no requirement from the Dungeon itself that says I need to be higher than a Level 6 Human, Level 5 Wizard, and Level 3 Scout. So tell me now, jackass – is the Dungeon open?”

The guard stares at my Magic Bolt, the sheer power of such a simple spell clear to him.

“Threatening a member of the Hunters’ Guild,” he begins.

“Is the most effective way to get shit done,” I finish for him. “Answer my fucking question, or I’ll kill you the same I did the Adventurer who tried to steal my spatial ring.”

The guard’s eyes flick down my to hand, then widen.

“It’s open.”

I let the Magic Bolt dissipate.

“That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” I ask him. “We’ll wait a couple of minutes before we enter, so that I may restore the two points of Mana I lost. Should take me less than five.”

The guard just nods, and after my Mana is restored, Warren and I enter the Dungeon.

The first room is, indeed, a decent-sized chamber with ten of the dog-faced kobolds hanging about within it. It’s made of stone that’s been roughly mined-out, and there are a few crystals in the walls of the cavern providing light.

Not enough the cavern’s brightly illuminated, but it’s enough to see clear enough for a fight.

“Magic Bolt,” I summon the first one, killing a kobold instantly.

The only thing that drains on me as Warren and I fight is having to say the name of the Skill every time I cast it.

After ten minutes of me casting Magic Bolt and Warren fighting with his fists, the two of us have worn-down enough that we have to make a tactical retreat. The passage to the next room opened up after we killed ten of the kobolds, and we probably could have run into there to grab the first-time Experience bonus.

Oddly, I gained a point of Experience every two kills. I killed over sixty of the kobolds before there were too many for me to handle and I ran out of Mana. That was for Wizard. Scout was every four kills. I also gained 3 Human Experience.

Not enough to get me a Level for any of them, but that’s still decent. Warren only got 1 Martial Artist Experience, and he probably killed as many as I did.

I’m not entirely sure, but I don’t think the Experience difference is that huge. In other words: in addition to unfairly being a Wizard and all the buffs that come with it, I have some sort of Experience bonus.

+0 INT!

Is it because of being a Wizard?

-0 INT!

Is it my Bloodline?

+0 INT!

Damn. I really need to unlock that thing.

+0 INT!

Rolling my eyes, I step out of the Dungeon, Warren having already done so. The guard looks at us, eyes widened in surprise.

Get Acting, dude. Helps you hide your surprise, and then I look at Warren, remembering something.

“You know,” I say. “I was getting a bit mentally exhausted from all the magic, but I do know hand-to-hand combat, and can use a sword, and even have one in my inventory. A couple of knives, too, and I prefer those over a sword. We probably could have lasted a few more minutes in there.”

Warren looks at me, then starts laughing.

“What?” I ask.

“You!” He keeps laughing. “You’re the strangest human I’ve ever met! It’s a mere afterthought that you could’ve actually gone for longer, and it was a genuine afterthought, too, not a faked one!”

I stare at him, wondering why that’s so funny, but can’t figure it out.

“We’ve got a few pieces of loot,” I say. “So let’s go sell it and find a place to stay tonight, then we can come back in the morning.”

“It’s only a few pieces,” he sighs. “We’ll be lucky if we can afford food, too.”

“What did you get?”

“Two kobold ears and a kobold tail.”

“Really?” I ask. “I got four pelts, nine ears, and six tails.”

“Seriously?” The guard interrupts us, and we look at him. “Loot is not that common!”

“It is for me.”

“You can sell it off in the Guild,” he tells me. “They pay fair price for it. Five silver for a pelt, two for an ear, and three for a tail. Best you’ll find anywhere that isn’t desperate, which you won’t find in this town, with the Dungeon here.”

“That’s what I found,” I shrug, then Warren and I walk into the Guild and locate the trade counter.

This late into the evening, there are only a few people around, so we don’t have to wait long before we’re at the counter, selling our loot. He earns seven silver, and I earn fifty-six silver.

A quick conversation later, we find a place to eat and a place to stay, both relatively cheap, and make our way to the former, then after a quick meal that costs us both six silver, make our way to the inn. A single room is fifteen silver a night, and that’s for one bed. Two beds increases it to twenty-five silver per night.

“We’ll take one room,” Warren says before I can request a room with two beds. “Single bed.”

The innkeeper accepts that, giving me a pitiful look, then I pay, and we head up to our room for the night. I look at Warren when we get in there.

“Why did the innkeeper look at me pitifully?” I ask.

“Because you’re with a fairy,” he says. “And he’s watched me fight a number of times. So on top of you rooming with a fairy, you’re rooming with an undefeatable one. He probably hasn’t heard that you bested me yet. I’m still trying to figure out how you hit the spirit I’d asked for the blessing.”

“You ask for the blessings?” I ask, and he nods. “But it works every time.”

“It works every time if they decide to grant it to you,” he shakes his head. “Summon ones you’re friendly with, and you’re more likely to receive the blessing. Don’t, and you’re more likely to get nothing or a curse instead.”

“Have you ever been hit with a curse?” I ask.

“Fairies have a bonus to interacting with spirits,” he shakes his head. “Simply because of what we are. Any other species’ll have a much more difficult time befriending the spirits. I mean, I know a couple of my playmates, back when I was still with the fairies got hit by curses, but I, personally, never did. I’ve always had an easy time gaining friendship with spirits.”

I wonder if he cheats somehow.

“Why is the fact that I’m with a fairy a bad thing?” I ask. “Is it because people don’t like fairies?”

“It’s because fairies don’t like people,” he says. “And generally, if we’re traveling with them, the power is reversed. That, and it’s a relationship. If we’re with a human, it’s by our choice, not theirs.”

“Is that why you asked for one tiny little bed?”

“I haven’t slept on something soft in eight years,” he says. “I’ll be out in a moment, sleeping on the ground.”

Magic swirls around him, and his loincloth burns away as a deep green tunic forms over his chest.

“I hate that fucking thing,” he mutters, a bedroll forming in his hands.

He spreads it out on the floor, a pillow forming under him, and then stares at me.

“What?”

“What happened to sleeping on a hard surface?”

“Fucking people,” he mutters, lying down and turning on his side, to face away from me.

I kick off my boots and lie on the bed, wondering why, exactly, he never changed out of the loincloth at the Coliseum. He was the only prisoner I saw in just a loincloth. In fact, he was the only one with so little covering him, apart from one guy I’m pretty sure just liked being naked.

He didn’t last very long against the Adventurer he was pitted against. In fact, he was dead pretty fast. His fights against the monsters were funny, though.

Warren tosses and turns a lot, and at some point, his bedroll and pillow vanish and he tucks his arm under his head, using it as a pillow instead.

Moments later, he’s asleep.

Yeah, you really needed that bedspread and pillow, didn’t you?

I watch him for a bit, his chest rising and falling slowly, his green hair, though not down to his shoulders, long enough to cover part of his face. He’s got one foot pulled up to his other knee, his knee up in the air. He looks so relaxed right now, but I’m sure that if I made a little bit more movement, he’d wake in a heartbeat. We’re all trained to wake instantly in case of danger, and I’d imagine someone who was raised as a prisoner in the Coliseum would do the same.

Warren is definitely considered beautiful by human standards, far more than anyone else, despite what’s probably a lower CHA than mine. I have to wonder how that works. Fairies are probably naturally beautiful, but if their CHA isn’t as high, why would they be more so? Does it work based on natural beauty? Or is there something else that affects it?

Then there’s the mark on his cheek. What’s that about? I’ve heard tales of fairies, and seen pictures of them, but I’ve never seen any art with a mark like that on his cheek.

Making a note to ask him in the morning, I begin to focus on expanding my Mana, working on that until my head starts to hurt from the effort. Even then, I keep working until the pain is unbearable, and only then do I decide to get some rest, though keep myself awake until the pain subside, then work on my LFA until my head hurts. I gain 3 MNA and 2 LFA from my efforts, though I have to wonder what the normal way to expand pools is, since apparently, focusing on the energies within me and condensing it isn’t the normal method.

That done, I turn on my side and watch Warren sleep…

Or, well, not sleep. He’s staring at me.

“What?” I ask.

“What were you just doing?” He asks.

“Raising my Mana and Health,” I answer.

“Seriously?” He doesn’t sound like he believes me.

“Seriously,” I nod. “Though apparently, it isn’t through the normal methods. I focus on the resource pools within me and work on concentrating those energies, making a small portion of it denser, and slowly drawing more in. I have to pull the energies from elsewhere, and the dense area gets bigger as I do that, but since I’m pulling the resource away from other places, more can flow in, but I have to hold it long enough for that to happen. I learned how to do it… elsewhere, though this is the first time I’ve actually thought to do it since. Boy, I’m an idiot. I really could’ve been doing it as I traveled. It gives me a killer headache, though. I probably shouldn’t have done both Life and Mana. Mana’s more important.”

“What’s the normal way to do it?” He asks.

“I’m not sure,” I answer. “I never actually learned that. I… got pulled back here before I could find out.”

“Pulled back here?” He asks suspiciously, so I tell him everything from when I became an Adventurer, and he listens in silence, and at the end, he thinks about something. “Does the Grimoire give the normal method?”

“I didn’t see it.”

“Didn’t you say you skipped over those parts?” He asks, and I nod. “Well, then maybe you missed it. But please don’t start doing it again, or go through the Grimoire. You messing with your energies was bothering the spirits, and that woke me up.”

“Sorry,” I say, and he turns back onto his back, asleep again in moments.

I can’t sense the spirits around, maybe they’re concealing themselves, looking around, I focus on sensing the spirits. Maybe I could only sense them before because they were interacting with us.

The sense works, detecting a couple floating in the room, though I can’t make them out at all, only tell that they’re there.

Spirit Sense is now Level 2!

“Sorry for disturbing you,” I say. “I hope you can forgive me.”

Affinity Unlocked!

Spirit Affinity is now unlocked!

Did… the spirit just unlock SPA for me?

+0…

The hell is up with that modifier?

“Thanks,” I whisper, feeling myself drift off into sleep.