Rob the Mage (Non-Canon, Patreon-Exclusive Bonus Chapter) (Patreon)

Author's Note:

How would Rob have fared in his first week in Elatra if he was given a way to cheat his way to spellcasting? Here's one possibility.

(This is just for fun - don't try and glean canon hints from it.)

--

So, Rob thought. All things considered, today has sucked.

Getting pulled into an endless, suffocating void by a chain was bad. Developing Nyctophobia was unfortunate. Being separated from everything and everyone he loved was depressing. Being stranded alone in a forest was concerning. Seeing video game-esque numbers pop up in his mind was provoking a tad bit more existential dread than he cared for.

But grass being purple? Now that was going too far. This world had a lot of explaining to do.

At least I have this handy-dandy book to pass the time. Rob flipped through the most recent chapter of ‘Spellcasting For Dummies’, a title that he would have been offended by if the tome wasn’t so useful. Its preface had explained that it was something called an Enchanted Item that would allow him to skip years of rigorous study if he read it. After all the shit he’d been subjected to in the past half a day, Rob was more than okay with fast-tracking himself to becoming a mage. As far he was concerned, it was a consolation prize that didn’t even begin to make up for being kidnapped away from his friends, family, and air conditioning.

Hours passed as he put his Speed Reading Skill to good use. Each word he read was absorbed into his mind like a sponge soaking up droplets of water, and before he knew it, he was Sensing mana particles in the air and making lightning dance on his fingertips. Childlike wonder – which was excellent at staving off any impending panic attacks – filled him as he chucked an honest-to-god fireball across the clearing that he’d re-purposed as his base camp. It collided with a patch of purple foliage and set it ablaze in an instant. Rob watched the flame dance in the sunlight, mesmerized. He’d made that. The fire hadn’t come from a lighter, or from flint scraping on stone; it had been conjured by the latent energies within his body. He was living out every nerd’s wet dream.

Then the fire started to spread.

Some frantic stamping later, Rob determined that he should be more careful about how and where he trained his magical aptitude. When it came right down to it, he was essentially practicing marksmanship outside the safety of a shooting gallery. If he wasn’t careful, someone might get shot – or in his case, barbecued.

Should probably skip to the section with Healing magic, he thought. I can Sense Mana, shoot lightning, and throw fireballs. That’s a good mage starter kit. Now I need something that will keep me alive in case of – OH MY GOD, WHAT IS THAT?!

Leaves rustled as a wolf emerged from behind the trees and wandered into the clearing. At least, it was probably a wolf? It had four legs, fur, a tail, and a canine facial structure – which was all well and good until one noticed the bone spurs protruding from underneath its skin, black pus oozing from open sores, an enlarged jaw with rows of sharklike teeth, and glowing red eyes what the fuck.

He looked at the Wolf. The Wolf looked at him. It opened its maw, grew another set of teeth, and let out a guttural howl.

Rob screamed like a little girl and zapped it with lightning.

The great and mighty beast keeled over like a frat boy ten drinks too deep. Rob’s eyebrows shot to the top of his forehead as he realized the confrontation had ended before it began. He wasn’t complaining, but for all intents and purposes, he was a novice spellcaster, and that lightning spell hadn’t been the kind that would shake the heavens. It was only after his adrenaline had subsided, and he got a closer look at the wolf, that he was able to notice how emaciated it was. A stiff breeze probably would have killed it.

That was fine by him. There would be plenty of time to learn how to cast spells worth a damn as long as he could avoid being digested by the local wildlife.

He flinched as the wolf suddenly coughed up a globule of bubbling black blood. Its red eyes dimmed, and with a final, shuddering breath, the creature expired.

Level Increased! 1 → 2

5 Stat Points Gained!

First Time Level-Up Bonus! 5 Stat Points Gained!

Rob stood still, joy and shock flowing through him in equal measure. A toothy grin spread across his face.

“Oh, I can work with this.”

--

The Rabid Squirrel pounced at Rob, leaping across the length of the clearing, and sank its jagged little teeth into his arm.

“AAAAAAAWHATTHEFUCK!”

He blew the mutated rodent off his arm with a burst of lightning. A smoking furry body was sent flying back the way it came, deposited neatly onto the forest floor. Rob sulked as he observed its small form dissolve into black sludge. He knew it was irrational to feel betrayed – the poor thing was Infected, same as the other animals he’d come across – but it was so cute.

Before the mutation, anyway. Not so much afterwards.

Level Increased! 2 → 3

5 Stat Points Gained!

The endorphin rush of leveling up helped smooth matters over.

–

I can’t believe I ever thought these fuckers were cute.

A pack of rabid squirrels with bone spurs and glowing red eyes chased him through the woods. Rob didn’t know that squirrels even had packs, but apparently, all bets were off when fantasy rabies were involved. He zapped as he ran, aiming targeted lightning bolts at whatever squirrel was ahead of the rest, but they just kept coming like a swarm of tiny mutated lemmings. The pack’s numbers had actually grown since giving pursuit, their grating squirrely warbles alerting friends to come over and harass the innocent human who was walking around and minding his own business. Sure, he’d probably zapped one or two or five squirrels when traveling through the woods, but what was a little electrocution between friends?

One squirrel got in close and nipped at his heel. Nothing more than a scratch, but it still hurt, and blowing its brains out with lightning barely soothed the pain. It was in that very moment that Rob declared a personal, everlasting vendetta against all of squirrelkind.

Level Increased! 3 → 4

5 Stat Points Gained!

Actually, squirrels were great. They funneled EXP straight into his soul, and for that, he thanked them. And would continue thanking them after he’d wiped them off the face of the planet.

–

Level Increased! 4 → 5

5 Stat Points Gained!

“That. Feels. Amazing.” Rob didn’t care that he’d progressed to the ‘talking to himself’ step of prolonged solitude. Everything was totally fine. As long as he could keep leveling up, and keep taking hits of that beautiful endorphin rush, he would be able to ignore the crushing loneliness that was settling in as day after day passed without any indication that he would find a way home.

A loneliness that was worsening as his hopes waned.

But who cares, because it was time for happy thoughts! Like fireballs. Fireballs were fun. Ambushing the second wolf with a rain of burning death had turned what he expected to be a life-and-death encounter into a cakewalk. Granted, his spells weren’t much stronger than before, but it turns out that fur can catch fire if you try hard enough. The one bite that Wolfie Sr. had scored on his arm hurt like a bitch, but healing magic had patched him up, sealing the wound without leaving so much as a scar. It was as big a victory as he could have hoped for.

With that said, he would have to lay low for a while. The spray-and-pray strategy had worked, but if he was being entirely honest, the difference between his victory and death had come down to that last fireball that managed to set Wolfie ablaze. He was out of MP now, and without the ability to use magic, he didn’t like his chances against basically anything that lived in the forest. Hell, a particularly nasty squirrel bite to an artery might be enough to do him in. He would be in less of a bind if he had a real weapon of some sort, like a sword or a lance, but the only items his captors had left him were the Enchanted book, a waterskin, and the clothes on his back. With that in mind, his MP was the most important resource he had, nearly on the level of food and water.

Rob mulled over his stats for a few minutes before making his decision. 1 point in Dexterity, 1 in Vitality, and 3 in Magic. He didn’t have much of a choice – the Enchanted Book had set him on this path. What else was he going to do, fistfight the wolves to death? Spells would be his weapon, as deadly as any sword, and thrice as flashier.

Plus, you know. Magic. He was going to get so much mileage out of Harry Potter references alone.

–

Rob drummed his fingers against the side of his leg, whistling in an effort to appear nonchalant. With more than a little embarrassment, he reached for the Enchanted Book and opened it up, flipping to one of the later sections that he hadn’t gotten to yet. When Rob had first started learning magic, he’d focused on the essentials – fire and lightning. Two types of offensive spells in case there were monsters in the forest that resisted one or the other. Next had been healing magic, because he liked his blood on the inside of his body. Currently, he was partway through learning a novice shielding spell, as sometimes the best healing was not getting damaged in the first place.

Water magic hadn’t even been in the running. What was the point? Without advanced mastery of general spellcasting, he couldn’t make it as powerful as the other kinds of elemental magic. Fire and lightning were easy to hurt things with; water required more finesse than a novice like himself could bring to the table. The ability to produce free water would have been crucial if he was in an arid environment, but he’d found a drinkable river on his first day, and it rained in the forest on a semi-regular basis.

During planning, his reasoning had seemed very logical. It still did. With the time and resources allotted to him, putting water magic on the backburner had been the right call. He’d have gotten to it eventually, once the rest of the knowledge contained in the Book had been exhausted, but he was currently in an arms race against the denizens of the forest – who seemed to be getting stronger as he expanded his search radius – and he couldn’t afford to waste precious hours playing around with a conjurable Super Soaker.

Unfortunately, it left him woefully ill-equipped to stop the rampaging forest fire that was rapidly spreading before his very eyes.

A forest fire that was kinda sorta his fault.

“Well,” he said, as trees and grass went up in flames. “This is unfortunate.”

In his defense, being ambushed by horrific mutated animals was something he hadn’t gotten used to. People still recoiled at jump scares that they knew were coming – how was he supposed to stay calm when a giant cross between a bat and a bird suddenly descended from the treetops and landed on his head? Really, if anything, people should be praising his restraint. Nearly emptying his MP pool in a barrage of fireballs had been an entirely measured response.

His aim, admittedly, left something to be desired.

A tree that must have been fifty feet tall and hundreds of years old cracked, crumbled, and collapsed as the wildfire raced up its trunk. The two trees next to it caught fire as well. And then the four trees next to those two. And then…

Guess I’m not going to that part of the forest, Rob thought, as he turned tail and ran away.

–

“Riardin!”

The Ranger snapped to attention at the call of his name. He’d heard that tone of voice on many an occasion. Without preamble, he raced towards the voice’s origin, crossing the length of the street in the blink of an eye. Townspeople cried out in shock; he ignored them. The only thing on his mind was resolving whatever crisis had occurred before it grew out of hand. Having reached his destination, he stopped short in front of Orn’tol, holding up a hand to forestall the young boy’s verbal deluge that was threatening to burst forth.

“What happened?” Riardin asked, in a confident, stern, yet unworried tone. A full minute would be saved if he could disarm the boy’s panic by providing an image of stability. Tone, posture, and bearing were tools that he would use like any other.

Orn’tol froze, hands shivering, before he took a deep breath and sighed. “Ixatan is aflame,” he said, quietly. “So much of it is burning that I couldn’t spy the end of it.”

Riardin bit back a curse. This was the last thing they needed right now. Infected animals had already been hounding their Rangers for weeks on end; an unplanned forest fire would only serve to drive more creatures straight towards The Village. It was a burgeoning disaster during a period when they’d been praying for divine providence to come to their aid.

Others had been praying, at least. Riardin hadn’t bothered. Prayer after prayer had been sent to Lothren during The Scouring, and every single plea had fallen on deaf ears. As always, steel and spells were the only forces of power that he could put his faith in.

“Good work,” Riardin told Orn’tol, nodding once. “I’ll convene with the Elders. We’ll handle it from here.”

Just how they were going to handle it was a question he had yet to find an answer to.

–

As Rob ran from the pack of three Infected animals, weaving in-between burning trees and flaming shrubberies, he tried to look on the bright side. Sure, getting chased by mutated beasties into the part of the forest that was on fucking fire was bad. Losing the Enchanted Book in the scuffle? Also bad. As was being nearly out of MP when he’d been ambushed.

But hey! It probably wasn’t the worst day he’d had so far. The time he’d almost died of diseases and had to stick his hand down his throat to cast healing magic on his insides still took the cake.

Discordant howls reverberated behind him. The day is still young, though, he thought. Plenty of time for it to get worse.

One of the frenzied animals, which was some weird mutated alligator thing, ran straight into a wall of fire and didn’t come out the other end. The second squawked in distress as a burning tree broke under its own weight and crushed the creature into a gooey black paste. Rob wasn’t so lucky where the third creature was concerned; it navigated through the sea of flame with nimble grace, drawing closer and closer as Rob’s Stamina flagged. Once it had gotten close enough, the thing pounced, baring claws and fangs as its eyes glowed red with ravenous hunger.

Rob grappled the tiger as its leap sent them both crashing into a – thankfully unburnt – tree. With moments to spare, and acting on pure instinct, he extended his hands and injected every last bit of MP he had into two bolts of lightning that popped the creature’s eyes like overfilled balloons. It screeched and flailed in pain, claws rending Rob’s flesh in several places, before it skittered off into the forest and disappeared into the fire.

Blood trickled out of Rob’s mouth and down his chin. He pressed his hand against the most grievous wound on his torso, sucking in air through his teeth as pain shot up his side. His HP was falling fast, and without MP or a random medkit falling out of the sky, it wouldn’t be long before he bled out.

They wouldn’t even be able to bury me, Rob thought, through the growing haze in his mind. His body would be roasted and charred to a crisp once the flames reached his position. There’d be nothing left of Rob except ash in the wind. His friends and family left waiting for a return that would never come.

“No,” he said aloud. “I’m not dying here. You hear me? Too much shit I still want to do. Can’t croak before I see everyone again and shove a lightning bolt up the ass of whatever fuckwit put me into this mess. That son of a bitch needs to pay, and Jason owes me twenty bucks. Understand? I’m not dying here.”

The crackling of burning wood answered him.

“I’M NOT DYING HERE!”

Level Increased! 6→ 7

5 Stat Points Gained!

Level Increased! 7 → 8

5 Stat Points Gained!

Rob’s eyes widened in confusion before a flash of understanding struck him. The tiger whose eyes he’d baked must have, in its frenzied state, blundered into a patch of fire and spent too long inside. Maybe it had burned alive. Maybe it had suffocated from smoke inhalation. Either way, it was put in that situation because of the injuries Rob inflicted on it.

And the system had decided that that counted as his kill.

He dumped all of his newly-gained stat points into Magic and used the influx of MP to cast healing magic. It wasn’t sufficient to fully repair the damage that the mutated animal had caused, but it was enough to stabilize him. His relief at avoiding imminent death was quickly replaced by the worry of getting out of the area without burning to a crisp. The paths he’d taken to get there were closing fast, and in his state, walking was proving to be a challenge.. Unless a miracle happened right then and there, he might not make it out alive.

Then, as if divine providence had answered his prayers, water started to pour from the sky. Not from rain, but from magic. He Sensed the Mana of the spellcasters at work, unable to see them through the smoke and mage-made sprinkler system, but already preparing the thanks he would lavish on them as soon as he could. Their efforts doused the nearby flames, leaving a roaring wildfire behind Rob that he no longer gave a shit about. He was safe. And more than that, he’d found people.

The water stilled and the smoke cleared.

Rob froze as a group of twenty approached him. They wore rough traveling leathers, came equipped with swords and bows, and were staring at him with shock and disbelief. Oh, and they had pointy ears.

He stared back. Oh. Elves. That’s – wow.

Awe turned to panic as the Elves drew their swords and aimed their bows. “Wait!” He screamed, holding up his hands in what he hoped was the universal symbol for ‘I’m unarmed’. “Friendly! Don’t shoot! Everything can be explained!”

The Elves started arguing amongst themselves in a dialect Rob didn’t recognize. By their body language, most of them seemed to want to put an arrow in his skull and be done with it, but a few holdouts were keeping them at bay. Most importantly, the Elves’ apparent leader – a singularly imposing man who was Level 48 oh Christ – was in the camp that was exercising restraint. Finally, the debate petered out, and the Elves’ leader stepped forward. He fixed Rob with a cold, harsh glare that sent shivers down his spine.

“Explain,” the head honcho commanded, in accented English. “As you claimed you would.”

Rob peered left, then peered right. Blackened wood and burnt grass surrounded him. Behind him, the wildfire continued, unabated. He turned to face the leader of the Elves, cleared his throat, and said the only thing any reasonable man could.

“Wasn’t me.”

--

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