For a few weeks, each morning the couple waited for Alex at the end of Gear street and began their journey to the rocky outpost. Over time the man, whom eventually introduced himself as Devin, had a reliable sword, although it looked a little funny compared to those sold in the shops. The shops held swords that were cut and dry the exact same. A black leather handle with metal trimmings for the handguard as well as an iron blade. Alex had noticed the man tended to stab repeatedly from a distance as opposed to swinging the sword. Alex tried to make his sword appeal to his style and the appearance resembled something closer to a rapier. It had a long skinny blade that was sharpest at the point. While the hilt held a larger handguard at the top to ensure his hand wouldn't slip while thrusting forward.
Mary, his girlfriend, still spent most of the time behind Devin. She wasn’t strong enough to wield a bow, thus Alex made her a simple slingshot. While she wasn’t especially good with it, she was able to distract the golems while Devin went to stab them.
For the first few days we fought in a group, however because we were going for money, splitting the loot of one golem between three people was eventually going to leave us all homeless. The couple would fight in a pair, Mary distracting while Devin was stabbing. And I would fight as I normally would since I never had trouble with the golems to begin with. For the most part the golems dropped their usual items: some ores, bits and straps of leather, and if you were lucky, some small gems. By at least separating into a group of two and myself on my own, we could take down two golems at a time and both groups could afford rent and necessities.
“How's the sword?” I asked.
Devin pulled the sword from the pile of rubble left from a rock golem, “It works great! I’m not sure if I need to be doing anything to prevent it from chipping. I imagine constantly thrusting it into a body of rocks can’t be good for the blade.”
“I’ve never really had an issue with mine, there seems to be different laws of physics in this world. Monsters made from magic have different effects on weapons used against them than you would assume.” It was true. I’d been using the same swords against golems for a while now. Normally they would’ve atleast shown some marks of being chipped. But after years of having different swords hit monsters made of rocks, I’ve never had them chip. They do get dull after a while, but sharpening isn’t too difficult, there's even an automatic system if you have a sharpening stone.
“It’d be even easier for you if you could imbue it with magic, but I kinda suck at that.” I’d been in this world for 10 years and I still could only cast the basics. I could use magic during the process of creating the item, but doing that while not having the system take over and finish the weapon was extremely difficult. Not to mention having the system intervene at all in the process tended to reduce the strength of the weapons in exchange for completing whatever process I was on. Finding magical swords wasn’t rare, if I got good with magic I might be able to give my equipment magical properties while crafting.
“Are you saying you could teach us some basic magic?” The girlfriend chimed in. Magic was something that existed in spell form too. Something straight out of Lord of The Rings or Harry Potter even.
“I understand how it works, but I can’t use it well myself… I might be able to teach you, but not through examples.” Alex replied.
“Why can’t you use it if you understand it well?”
“Magic uses a lot of brain power. Most people ‘chant’ spells when casting. While this is helpful, it isn’t exactly necessary. The chant only helps focus your mind on creating an image. If, even for a moment, that image breaks in your head, the magic will cease. If you focus too much on one aspect of the spell, the magic will cease. For example there exists a spell for restraining targets, which opens a dark portal. From the portal, charcoaled hands reach out and grab at the target while pulling them into the portal. The strength that they pull on the target is never enough to actually pull someone in, but it does stop all movement.
You need to equally think about the three phrases. Think about the dark abyss in which hands reach out of. Think about the hands growing from it. And lastly, think about the hands grasping and pulling your target. All 3 parts need to have equal attention when being cast in order to paint the spell.”
“The image needs to flow into your head like water into a glass. You need a consistent flow for the image to form correctly. My head works more like a pinball machine. I bounce around between words until I find an aspect that catches my attention. Once I have it, like a ramp in pinball, I can’t move onto the next aspect until I’m satisfied I’ve perfected that whole aspect of the image. By the time I’ve said the last word of the incantation, my brain has only just finished forming what the ‘dark abyss’ looks like and it moves to imagining a restricted target, ignoring the hands. Probably a mixture of ADHD and OCD. Of course, which words my brain decides to focus on are usually random.”
“... are people going to use magic to grope me now?” Mary half chuckled but also looked more confused than when she had initially asked the question.
“Apparently that one requires a lot of mana, so I doubt people who put in the work to be able to cast it are going to use it for perverted things. Haha” Alex answered completely oblivious to how Mary used the question to half heartedly mask her confusion.
“If the chant isn’t necessary, and the image is what's important, does that mean you can do anything if you can imagine it?” Devin chimed in.
“You’d have to ask a mage, or better yet, try it for yourself. I can’t really use magic unless I’m in an environment favorable for me focusing, like my blacksmith shop. I doubt I’d ever be able to answer that from experience… If you wanted to try it for yourself, you need to learn what it feels like to use mana first.” Alex rubbed his hand on his chin as if in thought. But before he could give another confusing explanation, Mary forced a more practical question.
“Who would we ask if we wanted to learn?”
“Uhh there might be a mage guild or something. I don’t know anyone who can teach people magic. I only use it for blacksmithing.”
Mary’s POV:
I had only asked the question to avoid the explanation. In the almost month that we’d known each other, Alex had only been able to name one person in the city by name. he clearly knew absolutely no one. Most of our questions regarding people, whether magic casting was rare, whether they could find someone to do “x” for them, all of it was met with some variation of “I don’t know.”
A week earlier. Alex’s POV:
I sat in my apartment looking over blueprints for a new pair of boots when Lily, the girl whom I had first met in this city, loudly entered the room with arms full of groceries. Lily had a key so it wasn’t too unusual for her to let herself in. And, oddly enough, it happened to always be perfectly timed. Whether I desperately needed some form of social interaction, or if I had forgotten to eat for a long period of time. Lily wore a black hat that reminded me of something a stereotypical french person would wear. It covered her dark blue hair which flowed down to her hips. She usually wore long sleeve shirts or a sweatshirt too large for her stature. I never knew if this was on purpose, or, more likely, this world simply didn’t care enough to make multiple sizes of clothes. She coupled this with a long skirt that would go just above her knees. She looked both childish and mature at the same time. Almost like a young mother. This could’ve also been because she was constantly scolding me about any flaws I currently had.
“You do know it's 5pm on a weekend. You could be at a bar, or hanging out with friends. Why are you alone looking at blueprints?” Lily had become adept at sighing while talking to me. I swear at times she sighed enough to push her bangs across her narrow face.
“I have lots to do. I think I can finish these boots once I finish that book I was rea--”
“The book I just returned to the Library?” I could feel my face turn to stone. “Honestly I’m surprised it took you more than a week to read a book. Normally you finish them pretty early.”
I sat back, more relaxed on my couch. “I met some people who asked me to make some weapons for them. I spent time thinking about the weapons and building them. Normally I probably would’ve been reading during this time.”
Lily over exaggerated a shocked leap backwards and clasped her hands to her mouth. “...Y...you do you realize to make weapons for people you have to actually t-t-talk to them?!” She sarcastically held this for a second while her blue eyes laughed at me, eventually returning to preparing her cooking ingredients.
“What do you think I am? I am capable of social interaction, I’m just more interested in my hobbies than putting myself in situations that require me to be social. If I needed to be social to make a weapon, I would undoubtedly do it.”
“It's just a coincidence that none of your current hobbies require you to be social? Anyways, if you’ve met people who you can actually be social with, you should try to maintain a relationship with them. I can’t be the only human you know by name. “
I had thought about that in the week leading up to where I now stood at the Rocky Outpost. It probably wasn’t what Lily meant by maintaining a relationship, but if I had 2 more people, I may be able to get better materials in new locations. If they wanted to continue acting as a group, they would need to go somewhere with a heftier payout. It was a complete and utter coincidence that the next best place to get money happened to have higher quality and more potent blacksmithing materials.
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