Demonic Magician

Some days blurred into one another, especially ones that involved nothing more than travel and light skirmishes. Others stood out like streetlamps, painting the surroundings with their distinctive hue. While I often loved to stand in the limelight, some of the lanterns along the path were too bright and hurt my eyes. Others, just a color that would be more warranted being displayed at a horror show. Still, anything was better than the darkness. Anything.

The first part of the morning was a brisk and picturesque scene of joy. Perhaps it was the coffee, but the illumination of the bright morning sun made everything feel vibrant and put the dark images of the previous day far back in my mind. The rich browns of Wolf’s fur paired with his affable spirit, Ren's elegant poise and canny wit, the radiant gold of Ren’s hair, and the piercing blue of Ren's eyes. The trees and shit were nice, too. I did not do well with lack of sleep.

I lent a hand down to help the elf up a ledge, which she took without complaint.

“If I had known coffee made you less insufferable, I’d have gotten it out sooner.” She rolled her eyes but gave me a nod of thanks.

In truth, I felt off-kilter still. Between the lack of sleep and the odd caffeine, a mania had set in - good natured, but slightly weird. It wasn't necessarily stronger than what I was used to in my own world, but there was something odd about it. A magic, if I dared use the term unironically. I looked down at the bear, who was waiting to see if I’d lend him a hand of help next.

“All the good intention in the world, and I would sooner end down there than you up here, my friend.” I grinned and stepped back to allow him to clamber up himself. He looked a little more morose than before, but accepted the reality of the situation. Unfortunately, I couldn’t work miracles yet.

But in the future? Certainly. I was sure of it even if I currently wasn’t too sure of myself. There were limitations of the Inventory that I needed to try to override. Objects being too large to store being one of them. Items only being withdrawn into my hand or dropped to the floor was another. I could briefly adjust their exact position and place to some degree, but it was still within the reach of my wingspan.

Some things I’d just have to wait for the System to allow me with further skills. I was already a stenographer in a world of two-finger typists. Whenever Ren used her Inventory I could see the motions made with her eyes or slight posture changes - it required a certain amount of concentrated effort to work around, and she wasn’t exactly slow of mind. Whereas I was close to just thinking things into existence. Almost a magic unto itself.

“Do you think it is some degree of force, or the intent that prevents me from snatching arrows from the air?” I asked the surrounding forest, my internal monologue too loud to contain.

“I doubt the System can read intent.” Ren narrowed her eyes at me. “More likely that it has a way of calculating potential damage that would meet an ‘attack’ threshold.”

Now it was my turn to furrow my brow at her. It wasn't like her to delve into the gritty side of things, especially if it came to my trick-adjacent musings.

“What? I can’t have been thinking of these things too?” She looked behind to wait for Wolf to catch up.

She had a point, however. Things must have some manner of measurement when it came to the physics and damage that could be dealt. Intent just wouldn't track unless the System was constantly subjected to my inner monologue. Even if we could trick the System into thinking she was just passing me an arrow at high speed in a friendly way, it was unlikely I could convince our enemies to play the same game.

“So then...” I tapped at my lips in thought. “It would depend on when the calculation is made - when the attack is released, or when it strikes.”

“You’d need to either reduce their damage, or increase your defenses?” She bit her lip and wrinkled up her face.

“Thinking about me in a suit of armor? Yeah, me too.” Despite wearing my cosmetic suit over my actual armor, the thought of clunking around in full plate seemed too restrictive. Too slapstick.

“It would ruin your aesthetic, trickster.” She gestured with her head and began walking.

It certainly would. Sleep had seemingly given a boost to the elf’s mood, too. She seemed less prickly than usual, and more radiant. Perhaps that was my own perception. There were a handful of reasons why that may be, but I chose not to over-analyze it. I’d live for the day while it was good. No doubt it wouldn't last.

“Any luck with your menus, Wolf?” I turned and walked backwards a little as he came up between us.

“No.” His amber eyes looked between us. “I tried, but I’m not sure what I am doing, so it’s just a lot of windows and words in my eyes that make me mad and confused.”

“Hmm, I wish I could see your STAR information and help you.” I swiveled as he matched our pace so that I could see where I was going. “Do you think there’s a skill for that, Ren, like Identify?”

She shrugged. “It wouldn’t surprise me. Whether either of us would get it is another thing, though.”

True enough. There would probably be Classes that got them early on, but we seemed to be built for combat. Or doing magic tricks. I rubbed my chin in thought. Maybe I was thinking about it the wrong way—did I need to see it?

“Hang on, Wolf. Let’s try something.” The bear stopped in place as I circled around to his left side, just behind his head. I kneeled down beside him as the elf leaned against a tree in impassive interest. “The boxes appear on this side, right?”

He nodded.

I clucked my tongue and squished up a bit closer to him. In my hand, a sausage appeared. “Don’t eat this yet. What screen do you have up now, the text at the top?”

“Says ‘Map’.” His eyes darted between the held meat and the intangible screen.

“Okay.” I closed my left eye and brought up my Map. “This might not work, but I want you to follow the sausage with your eyes, and then focus on the end when I stop.”

He gave another nod, the prospect of food enrapturing him.

I lifted the sausage up and moved it in the air, up and then to the left. Mimicking the motions along my own menu. After I paused, Wolf narrowed his eyes and licked his lips.

“Did the menu change?”

“Map is gone. Now says Inventory.”

A grin widened across my face, and I looked up at Ren. She seemed amused, for all that she didn’t show it. “Alright, there should be a grid. You’ll need to tell me what is in the first box and we’ll go from there.”

Gradually, we went through the items that he had managed to loot despite his awkward grasp on the System, and with some trial and error, he equipped what we could. Mentally, it was exhausting - but it was time well spent. Eventually we'd need to work out how to trade the Tokens and other things we had been keeping safe for him.

“Great job, bud.” I flipped the sausage into the air for him to snatch and consume. Dusted my slacks off and noticed that Ren’s clothes were clean and prepared. Did she do that while we were sleeping? More the fool me for not doing the same. Although my sensibilities were worn and soft today, I wasn’t quite at the point where I could walk around in my underwear for five minutes without dying of embarrassment, so it’d have to wait.

“You ever work with kids?” Ren asked, an eyebrow raised.

“Huh? Oh, not really. Couple of kid shows, birthday parties and the like when I was starting out.”

She pushed away from the tree and started walking off again. “How old did you say you were, again?”

I rubbed my chin. “Don’t think I did, but twenty-eight.”

“Twenty-five.”

Wolf licked at his chops. “Eighteen, I think.”

Both answers seemed reasonable, although I half-expected the elf to be three-hundred or something else outrageous and fantastical. “That’s rather old for a bear, isn’t it? No offense.”

“Perhaps. It wasn’t something I used to consider.”

That stood to reason. There were a lot of things any of us hadn’t considered before we landed in this world. Personally, murder was one of those things. Although... it had come easy to me, so who really knew who the demon lurking within me truly was? Perhaps I shouldn’t personify them lest they get any smart ideas. Especially when lack of sleep thinned the veil.

Gradually, the colors around me dimmed, and I grew tired of walking through the woods. No surprise, as it was now twenty minutes later, and the coffee had worn off.

“Is it odd we haven’t come across many Players?” I wrinkled up my face as I looked through the woods, fully aware I asked this question almost every day.

“The disparity between free agents and Crimson Shadow is worrying.” Ren stood up beside me as if she could assist in my directionless glare. "I can't imagine it's meant to be this... sparse."

I nodded, but had little to add that wouldn’t sound melodramatic. It felt as though the world was against us, with any allies few and far between. Well, just Hannah at this point, although the barkeep had been amiable. Didn’t seem too bothered about the assassination attempt, but he had a solid customer service voice. If the island hadn't been sending new Players across, then that might be part of the equation. If it only took a couple of weeks to level out of this area, then perhaps that was painting a more plausible picture.

“I took a chance in aiming to do only for the toughest Quests to level quicker.” She looked up at me. “There’s probably a lot of exposition we missed out on.”

It wasn’t her fault, and I offered a warm smile as a consolation prize. “It’s fine. If I wanted an easy life, I wouldn’t be here with you two.”

“Dickbag.” She exhaled through her nose. “You sure about this Dungeon?”

“I’m sure it’ll be dangerous, but it’s guaranteed experience, right? Walking around hoping to run into random Quests and avoid the Shadows will just get us tired and killed. You have reservations?”

Ren paused for a second, then shook her head. “It’s the smart choice.”

Something was going unsaid there, but I didn’t push her further. My brain felt like a handful of broken stone rather than something solid I could wield around. I needed my wits to pull together if we were going to get through whatever the Dungeon could offer. It would be my greatest show yet.

I wondered how many times I could tell myself that before even I grew tired of the cliche. At least once more, I hoped.

Another hour later and my feet were aching from my poor choice in footwear. I had been enduring it for a while, but my ability to smile and carry on was a few cards short of a full deck after my terrible sleep. I leaned against a tree to try to stretch them out.

“Ren, I don’t suppose you have any good boots I could wear?”

She stopped and raised an eyebrow, waiting to hear the reason first—in case I had a trick or something in mind, maybe.

“You know how I love to suffer, so this is a true cry for help.” I doubted the System would care about trying to heal up some blisters, and I didn’t want any more agony in the Dungeon than it was already offering.

“I have some basic boots with no stats. Can’t you switch to your Equipped gear?”

Slowly, I shook my head with a wince. “My equipped footwear… is a pair of sandals.”

“Sandals,” she repeated, a blank expression on her face as she passed over the black boots.

There was no question that she knew what those were, but was clearly trying to imagine me clopping about the woods with my bare feet barely gripping to them. Even worse than my dress shoes - but the Stats were important.

“I’ll just stick these in my Cosmetic, and store the dress shoes for a more appropriate time.”

Wolf came to the side and sat down as he watched me swap footwear around. “Like a funeral?”

“They were murder on my heels,” I said as I grinned at him. "So... eventually." I lifted one of the offending shoes into the air and made the motion of pushing it into my mouth, instead placing them in my Inventory.

Ignoring the rolling eyes of the elf, I hopped back onto my freshly booted feet. A new lease on life granting me a few minutes of contentedness before I found something else to rain on my parade.

Actual rain, now approaching, would be most likely culprit. As if my thoughts could twist the ear of narrative intent, gloomy clouds filtered over the sky as we progressed. Once the gray blanket had obscured the previously bright sky, a light rainfall started to patter amongst the leaves.

“Hate rain,” Wolf grumbled, eyeing up the surroundings in hopes of finding more cover.

“I like it.” Ren held her hand over her brow to look up toward the canopy, the drab weather almost sapping away some of her own drabness.

I found the middle-ground between the two opinions. “It’s nice to watch, but I don’t want to get ill being out in it too long.”

“You’re in luck then, trickster.” Ren pointed out ahead of us, slightly to the right. “We are here.”

Between the gaps in the treeline, a mound of wrapped vines and aged bark sat shadowed under the gloom of the day.

The Dungeon.