The First Archmage

“All I’m saying,” Warren says as we exit the Dungeon. “Is that I could have killed that kobold.”

“Sure you could,” I nod. “Just like you could have given me Gift of Speed when I ran out of Mana so I could abuse the enhanced speed to wipe out even more kobolds.”

“Your AGI is higher normally than mine is buffed,” he says. “I didn’t think you needed it.”

“Well, then you’re paying for lunch.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“Fine,” he groans, the two of us ignoring the stares we’re receiving from hunters and Adventurers as we walk past them and into the Guild Hall to trade in our loot. “I’m almost to Level 2 on Martial Artist, now.”

“Really?” I ask. “That’s great! Have you gotten any Experience for your Species yet?”

“No,” he sulks. “And I could feel the shift when you Leveled yours up.”

“How did you know it was that and not Wizard?”

“Please,” he rolls his eyes. “I know you gained a Level in that, too. Your Spirit didn’t increase when your Mana and Health did one time, but did when they did the other time. Clearly, the latter case was you Leveling Wizard, with your plus-one to all Stats.”

“It does affect Loot Chance,” I tell him. “Though I can’t figure out why it doesn’t affect Overflow Value.”

“I’m not sure,” he shrugs. “The spirits won’t tell me anything about Overflow Value and how it exists. You said you can’t sense that extra resource, right?”

“Yeah,” I nod. “It just isn’t there for me to sense, yet I know I can draw on it, because I use it first.”

“It’s probably one of life’s many mysteries,” he shrugs. “Sort of like what Health is really for, since getting hurt doesn’t affect it.”

Yeah… I can’t figure that out, either, and when I asked around, I found that no one really knows what Health is for.

So why the hell can we see it, if it doesn’t really serve a purpose?

The System doesn’t tell me, so I just shrug it off, then follow Warren to the restaurant we’re going to for lunch and dinner as regulars now. I can’t shake the feeling that we’re being followed, but I can’t see anyone when I look.

We return to the inn to rest a bit and pay for ten more days in the room, which starts tomorrow, since we still have tonight paid for.

“Warren,” I say once we’re in the room. “I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being followed on our way here.”

“Nor could I,” he shakes his head. “But I couldn’t sense anyone following us, and my checks didn’t yield a stalker. We shouldn’t have come straight here.”

Yeah… probably not. I wonder if we can get a refund, but before I can suggest that, there’s a knock on the door.

We look at each other, then at the door. There’s a small Mana Pool on the other side, so either they’re a new magician, or they’re an Adventurer with a non-magic Class.

I walk to the door, summoning a Magic Bolt, and open it, making sure the bolt is in full-view before I am, and I stop with the door only half-open, staring.

“Are you alright?” Warren asks. “Gavin – are you alright?”

“Yeah,” I manage. “I’m fine. Hello, Michael.”

“Gavin,” he dips his head to me. “May I come in?”

“It was you, wasn’t it?” I ask, and his ears dip down a little bit.

“Yeah,” he says. “I wanted to make sure it was you. Your attitude’s a little different, even if your body isn’t. I ran into Kade, and he told me that you said you were stuck in a Rift for more than a year.”

“Come on in,” I say. “That’s sort of what happened. I was told it’d be three days before you got here.”

“It’s been three days,” he says.

“I was told yesterday.”

“My message probably didn’t get delivered the same day, then,” he shrugs, then pauses as he looks at Warren, and he frowns, the fur on his tail standing on end. He pushes me behind him, a growl forming in his throat. “Have you been vulnerable around it at all?”

“He’s not an it-” I start to say.

“Have you?” Michael interrupts me. “Answer me! Now!”

“Yes.”

“We’ll need to get you inspected,” he growls. “I can see through your glamour, fae. If you attempt to have my ally attack me, know that I will end your life in an instant.”

“I didn’t place an influence on him,” Warren stands up. “And he can see through the glamour as well. At least, partly – he can see the mark on my cheek, even if he does see the green hair.”

“Glamour?” I ask. “What glamour?”

The light around Warren ripples, and his hair changes to an oaken brown tinged with greens and touched with blond highlights, his eyes turning to a shade of green that reminds me of the leaves of the forest I ended up in on this continent. The rest of him remains unchanged, though.

“Gavin,” Michael says. “This fae bears a direct relation to the fairy king himself, and cannot be trusted. Any of the royal fae bloodline can influence others, even without their knowing.”

“I swear on the blood and power within me,” Warren says. “That the only magic I have used on Gavin has been to assist or aid him, not to harm, influence, or control him. I owe Gavin a lot more than I can explain in mere words, and would never desire to harm or control him.”

Warren glows red for a few moments.

“Did you… just get a Blood Quest?” I ask.

“No,” Warren shakes his head. “The fact that I survived the glow means that I was being honest. I didn’t swear to the future, like you did, but of the past.”

“You swore a Blood Oath?” Michael asks me, and I can hear the fear and anger in his voice. “Please tell me-”

“I don’t need you, too,” I say. “Warren and Collin have both ripped into me about it.”

“Collin?” He asks.

“The leader of the Hunter’s Guild.”

“Huh,” he says. “So he really does talk to you. I wasn’t sure if that was true or not.”

“It’s true,” I take a step back and look him up and down.

He’s wearing light leather armor over a black tunic and pants, a shortsword with a silver hilt strapped to his left hip, and some soft leather boots. He’s a few inches taller, probably because more than a year’s passed, and his jawline’s stronger now than it was before, his shoulders a little bit broader. I appraise him.

Michael, Beastborn (wolf) Level 3, Squire Level 8

“Level 8 Squire?” I ask. “Thought inhumans had a penalty to Experience?”

“We do,” he nods. “I’ve been doing a lot of killing this last year, and have gained a lot of Experience. Kade told me you’re still wanting to restore Jozan to power – is this true?”

“It is.”

“Very well,” he says. “I will aid you. Kade and Tyler have given up, but I haven’t. My father understands that I wish to see it return, and has granted me his blessing to work toward that. We can do it without Tyler, even if it’ll be tougher.”

“We can get Tyler back on our side,” I say. “We just need to show him it’s not hopeless. As for doing it… we have five years.”

“Why five years?”

“Blood Oath.”

“Idiot.”

“Indeed.”

Michael snorts, shaking his head, then looks at me, his azure gaze focusing on me for a few moments, then looking at me expectantly after a message pops up.

His tail is wagging in what appears to be excitement, and I refrain from commenting that he’s acting just like a dog.

Michael has requested to join your Party!

Accept: Y/N?

“Yes.”

Michael is now in your Party!

“Thanks,” he says, then switches to Jozan. “I’ve been mapping out connections between Dungeons, creating a rough map of the world. I’m not sure how the continents line up with each other, but I do know where more than a hundred Dungeons’ second form leads. Each continent believes that the world they know is the only world, and it doesn’t seem anyone knows about the second forms. It makes me wonder how His Majesty learned of it.”

Makes me wonder that, too.

“Each continent is so different, too,” he says. “We’ve got ours, which was filled with nations, there’s this one, that has a few on the southern portion of it and the forest covering more than half of it, including all of the northern part, then there’s one that’s got two empires basically at war all the time. I got a ton of Experience there. Nothing like trying to find a Dungeon and suddenly getting chased by four thousand imperial soldiers.”

That sounds like an adventure.

“We have a lot to catch up on, don’t we?” I ask.

“Yes,” he nods. “Including how, exactly, you gained an ally in a relative of the fairy king, and why he doesn’t wish you harm, and would risk death by Blood Oath – or worse – to prove that to someone he’s never met before.”

“I can sense how dangerous you are,” Warren states. “And you’re superior to me. You’d probably silence me before I could finish casting a Gift.”

“Probably,” Michael says. “May I sit?”

“We’re a team,” I tell him. “You don’t need permission to sit in my room.”

“Thanks,” he sits down on the chair, his tail still swishing side to side. “Sorry, I’m just happy you’re back, and the damn thing won’t stop moving on its own.”

“Sorry for staring,” I grin at him. “So how did you meet the fairy king?”

“Found a Dungeon that connects to one near his palace,” he groans. “I was interrogated for hours on how I ended up so deep in their territory.”

“You told them?”

“Never,” he shakes his head. “Oberon tried using his lineage’s influential magic on me, but I have Mind Resistance Level 4, and it didn’t work too well. Fighting him on it brought me up to Level 6 before he gave up, though I was almost to the point where I couldn’t resist him anymore. I don’t trust him, nor anyone of his bloodline.”

“I trust Warren,” I switch to Velusian. “Even if I didn’t know he’d risk a Blood Oath’s punishment to prove he trusts me and looks up to me. He was a slave in the Coliseum here, used to draw crowds. No one had ever bested him.”

“Until Gavin,” Warren nods, his glamour returned at some point while Michael and I spoke. “He was able to interrupt the spirits, and I had to restart the chant. He barely won against me, though, and it’s been agreed that had he not done something risky and dangerous, he would’ve lost the fight. And probably his life, too. Then he challenged them for my freedom. If it weren’t for him, I’d still be a slave there, forced to fight for entertainment. With Gavin, I’m free, and able to train far more than I could on my own or in the arena. I gain so much more Experience.”

“He gained access before our fight,” I explain to Warren. “We train in a Dungeon every morning, then rest most of the day after, usually looking for information on where the rest of you were, but then we got word, so we came back today. Kade and Tyler have given up hope.”

“I haven’t,” Michael shakes his head. “King Wesley was a good man, and the spirit of Jozan lives on, I can see it in you. You are my Party Leader, and until you do something that makes me lose loyalty to you, I will follow you in your goals. Five years? Ha! You’re a Wizard – I doubt it’ll take you that long to do it! After all, the sense of power I feel in you, if it’s really only been less than two months since you gained access, tells me just how powerful you can be in a year.”

“Status share,” I focus on Michael. “These are my stats right now, all of that in the last few weeks, training here.”

He reads it, then nods, smiling.

“Of course you’d reach Level 10 with Wizard already,” he says. “Status share.”

Name: Michael

Age: 14 years

Titles: None

Species: Beastborn (Wolf) Level 3

Classes: Squire 8

INT: 11, AGI: 10, CHA: 4, STR: 18, CON: 17, PER: 11, LIF: 11, HLT 9

LFA: 8

Health: 34/34

Mana: 11/11

He’s unlocked Life Affinity and increased it? Does Beastborn increase it when he gains Levels?

“How do you have Life Affinity?” I ask.

“How do you know that’s what it stands for?” He asks. “No one ever seems to know it.”

I explain what, exactly, happened to him, assuring him that Warren already knows when he looks over at him. When I finish, he nods.

“I understand,” he says. “One of the continents is filled with dark knights, who are people who can sacrifice their Health for extra damage. LFA is boosted through use of Health. I learned a technique to heal myself using Health, a Skill called Life Restore. It’s currently Level 2, and gaining those two Levels boosted my LFA by two. I was planning on going back to that continent and learning some of their dark knight Skills when I heard that you were back.”

“If you want to go,” I say. “I can remove you from the party so you can do the switches on your own. We’re training here.”

“I can return later,” he stands and stretches. “I was wanting to take you there as well, though it would probably be a good idea to train up, first.”

“Why did you want me to go there?” I ask.

“Grimoire,” he says in Jozan.

“Warren knows about it,” I tell him, and he raises an eyebrow. “I made a lot of stupid decisions, okay! I’m just glad Warren’s trustworthy. Only him and two others in town know about the Grimoire.”

“Two others?” Michael’s azure gaze turns dangerous. “Collin and who else?”

“Professor Temp,” I answer. “We’ll be seeing her after dinner. She’s Natalie’s sister.”

“The Royal Witch?” He asks, and I nod. “Temperance Voltas?”

“You know her?”

“Of her,” he relaxes a little bit. “She’s trustworthy, but why did you tell her about it?”

“Warren did, not me.”

“I will take the blame for it,” Warren says. “That kind of was my fault.”

“Using a glamour to hide your blushing isn’t fair, you know,” Michael says, then snorts, shaking his head before looking back at me. “What are you going to meet her for?”

“She taught me a couple of things when we met yesterday,” I answer. “And will be supervising me learning the three spells she showed me the runes for. You said there’s a Grimoire on that continent?”

“I believe so,” he nods. “But I haven’t confirmed its existence. It’s in a place their dark knights don’t bother going, so it’s best if you get stronger, first.”

He seems almost scared of where the Grimoire might be. As far as I know, wolves don’t have natural predators, so I wonder what could make him scared of that place, as well as these ‘dark knights’, whatever they are.

But I’ll leave it alone for now. He’ll tell me when he thinks I’m ready for that place.

“So how many spells from the Grimoire have you learned?” He asks.

“None,” I answer. “The spells later will be the first I’ve learned since we got separated.”

“Ah,” he says. “Okay,” his face turns red, and his tail droops down behind the chair. “So I, ah, don’t get good loot drops, and aren’t really in towns very often. I don’t have any money, and if you’ve already run the Dungeon today, I don’t think I can ask you to take a trip in with me and we hope for the best. Would you, ah, be willing to let me sleep in here?”

“Sure,” I say. “You’re a member of my team. Warren can make you a bedrolls.”

“Hey!” Warren protests. “I can only sustain one a night!”

“Kidding, Warren,” I chuckle at his reaction and Michael’s horrified expression. “Go buy a couple of bedrolls and blankets and pillows. We’ll be needing them once we’re traveling, anyway.”

“Won’t having this many people in a room upset the innkeeper?” Michael asks me. “The room only has one bed.”

“It’s been a few weeks for us,” I say. “And he hasn’t complained. We can go talk to him, though.”