Prelude 2: Earplugs are Wonderful

IndentMagnus had appeared a moment before, but now he was stooping over with his hands clasped to his ears in pain. Several townsfolk looked at him in pity but no one attempted to help the slightly overweight newcomer. The clothing that he spawned in didn’t most clearly set him apart from the others, the lack of earplugs did.

IndentLooking around the square he saw his tormentors. Bards, dozens and dozens of bards. And not just any bards, but horribly terrible beginner bards that barely knew how to play their instruments. It would not have been so bad if just a few were missings notes or making a scratched string. But nearly all of them were making some kind of mistake every third note, and with so many so close by the cacophony deafened in it’s intensity.

IndentLooking around the square for his escape two things came to his immediate attention, the gate and the large building just to the south of the square. At three stories tall and with the symbol of a note posted just above the entrance, the building labeled -Bard Academy- perfectly complimented the town gate -Welcome to Bardstown-. His hands still clasped over his ears, he fled west deeper into the town.

IndentStepping past a lutenist just as one of his strings snapped and by a red headed flutist whose flute looked to have cracks on the end causing a squealing with every note, Magnus reached an area of safety with lower decibel. He kept his hands over his ears because as he went farther away from the academy the playing got worse. No longer content at just one missed note every three, the torturer’s now were unable to even keep the instruments from destroying themselves. After the third bard spontaneously caused his pipe to explode, Magnus began to believe he had made a horrible horrible mistake.

IndentLuckily, the size of the town meant he didn’t run long before he spotted the Mage’s guild. With the symbol of the glowing staff, the building did not even feel the need to give itself a title. Pushing through the two sets of double doors, Magnus found blessed quiet. As the second set of doors shut with a click, Magnus heaved a heartfelt sigh of relief.

IndentLooking around the smallish room, the walls he could see were made of a dark stone there seemed to be have some kind of quartz embedded into the walls. Dominating the center of the room sat a massive wooden desk with an elderly lady sitting behind it just looking at him as though she expected him to disappoint her. Deciding to hurry before he being yelled at by the white haired woman, Magnus swiftly walked up to her and babbled quickly, “I want to join the Mage’s guild.”

IndentWith a blink that managed to convey surprise, the lady looked him up and down. “Huh, you must be a freeman.” And then she went silent, simply giving him an odd look.

IndentEven though he was beginning to be impatient, Magnus’ curiosity prodded him into asking, ”How did you know that?” He looked down at himself and saw… himself. A little overweight but nothing outstanding. The beginner cloths he had on were not that different from what he saw both the townsfolk and playing bards wearing on his flight to the Mage’s Guild. As such, he found himself a bit concerned on how the woman in her blue robe could immediately peg him as a player. He had a momentary thought that some kind of magic existed that all NPC’s had to identify the players.

IndentStraightening up her back, “Easy enough, most people bring their children into one of the three guilds to get a status plate by the time they’re fifteen or sixteen and just leaving puberty. Not after they are clearly an adult. It is, afterall, very difficult to get them apprenticeships without one. I suppose you could just be incredibly lazy or negligent but you already answered me.”

IndentA slightly slack-jawed look on his face, Magnus tried to quickly move on, “Okay, can I join the guild please?” Hopefully politeness would work where directness hadn’t.

Indent“Yes, yes, just show me your basic magic and I’ll get you registered and a status plate in the wink of an eye.” And with that, she went back to staring at him with an expectant look.

Indent“Uhm, I haven’t learned any magic yet. I thought I needed a status plate to learn it?”

IndentAs the woman sputtered in incredulity, a snicker built into a full throated laugh behind him. Turning, Magnus saw that in the corner of the room sat a middle aged man in a green robe. With thin black hair and a full bushy black beard, the man actually had his head thrown back in laughter. A wave of his hand summoned Magnus over to the table against the wall. Sitting on the closest chair to the man as he wiped his eyes of tears, Magnus decided to wait since the woman behind the desk still sputtered.

IndentLooking past Magnus he called, “Oh cut it out Madeline, it’s not that surprising. He clearly just got here.” Turning back to Magnus he gave him an assessing look, with a nod, he decided to teach him. “Basic magic, just like basic might and basic precision are learnable without a status plate. Madeline is just put out because this is rather common knowledge. Oh yes, I’m Gerald by the way, a Mage of Wind.” He then raised an expectant eyebrow at Magnus.

IndentWithout a pause Magnus answered, “I’m Magnus, and yes, I just arrived about fifteen minutes ago. Will you teach me basic magic so that I can get the status plate?” a slightly hopeful grin on his face.

Indent“Sure,” Gerald assured, at which followed a “Gak!” from Madeline that Magnus did not respond to having decided to ignore her for now. “But you will have to do something for me first.”

Indent“Name it,” dared Magnus, who immediately regretted it as Gerald gave him a mischievous grin.

IndentHanding him a single piece of parchment, “I need you go go to the library and look for the book ‘The Founding of Bardstown’ and bring back the reason the town was started and by who. The fun part is that the library is on the north side of the town square and has a rather irritable librarian. Have fun.” Still with his mischievous grin he shooed the now pale faced Magnus toward the door.

IndentAs he steeled himself to leave, a cough from Madeline waved him over to the desk. Without saying anything, she handed him a pair of earplugs before going back to her work. Suddenly willing to give Madeline the benefit of the doubt, Magnus pushed open the guild doors with his elbows as his hands were busy putting the earplugs in.

IndentNo longer in the constant pain of his first trip, Magnus found himself able to gawk at the town. Cobble stone roads and red slate roofs made the place picturesque. Most of the buildings seemed to be made with dark stone embedded with quartz. This created a large degree of uniformity that made Magnus grateful for the signs depicting various businesses along his slowing route to the town square.

IndentStopping one building away from the town square, next to a building marked with a quill, Magnus could now feel the bards playing just before him. Just knowing how bad they were, even though he could no longer hear them as clearly, made him a bit weak in the knees. Delaying the inevitable, he looked for the library on the north end of the square hoping to find the fastest path there.

IndentWith six roman columns bracketing the three sets of doors, the black and grey building squatted on the entirety of the northern part of the square. It was also clearly labeled with ‘LIBRARY’ on the wall above the doors. A bit miffed that he had missed the building when he first arrived, he had a sudden thought. What if the library closes soon. As the sun crept farther into the afternoon sky, he made his move.

IndentDashing past the lutenist that now played with three broken strings, he ran for the library doors. Now in the midst of the bards, the earplugs could no longer keep all of their playing out. Passing a bard still trying to play a burst drum, he approached the library door at a speed faster than he had ever gone before. Just before he reached the doors he slowed down, the doors opened outward. Then had to duck to the side as a body crashed through the door at head height. Slipping in through the door that had been opened he heard a bellow, “And stay out!”

IndentSlipping his earplugs out at the silence of the library, Magnus looked back through the door to see what had happened. Clearing the second set of doors by a good ten feet, the body of the man who had flown through the door was now tangled with the flutist with the crack flute. The man seemed to be stunned, the flutist appeared to still be trying to play even though she had been bowled over and currently layed on her back.

Indent“Pay up, I told you she would be the one who would get hit,” came from Magnus’ left. As he backed away from the well dented doors, he glanced at the speaker and saw two elderly balding men sitting across from each other at a checkers table. Putting his back to the door he looked around the lobby. The checker players were in an alcove to his right and to his left a small room with ‘Washroom’ printed over their arch could be seen.

IndentFor a second Magnus was mystified, during his research Mattimeo had come across the information that there was precisely zero reasons for bathrooms in Grand Planes. A step into the room and he saw exactly what had been advertised, three sinks with water running out of spickets for people be certain of clean hands. Just in case, he quickly ran his hands under the ice cold water and dried them on the provided cloth towel.

IndentBack in the lobby, he continued his inspection with the desk and the librarian. Sitting behind a mammoth sized desk whose top loomed five feet off the ground, the woman who sat behind it extruded a terrifying aura. Her brown hair rolled up into a bun, small spectacles perched on her nose, and a grey sweatervest almost unnoticeable next to her most prominent trait, her arms. From a distance of ten yards, her arms looks like they were bigger around than Magnus. Rippling with muscle, the bare arms bulged out from the sweatervest making it look like a muscle shirt.

IndentThe librarian staring at the new arrival intently, Magnus slowly began his way up to her desk as though approaching a dangerous animal. Seeing a small sign posted under her desk he gladly took the diversion offered.

Library rules

No Eating

No Drinking

No Loud Noises

No Writing on Library Books

No Fire of Fire Magic

IndentJust below, a paper that had been tacked into the iron plate had handwriting on it, ‘ABSOLUTELY NO SINGING, HUMMING OR MUSIC PLAYING!’ Now directly in front of the librarian he asked as meekly as he could, “I’m supposed to find the book ‘The Founding of Bardstown’ and copy down some information.” With that, he brandished his now somewhat wrinkled paper and pencil, hoping to get by without harm.

IndentA brawny bicept flexed, a fist with scarred knuckles rose, and a thumb pointed toward the small opening that the desk cover. “Check the catalogue. Use one of the free tables. Don’t break the rules.” Squinting her eyes and towering forward, “Especially mine.”

IndentRapidly nodding his head, Magnus fled the librarian’s glare as quickly as he possible could. On a three foot shelf attached to the end of the desk sat an enormous book. Currently opened about a third of the way into the book he started immediately trying to find what he needed. Quickly determining that it books were listed in alphabetical order, he flipped to the F section. Running his left index finger down the page until he found the title, he moved his right index over to the required book: History section, Shelf F-2.3.

IndentA bit stumped he decided to just go with it and walked into the library proper. An immediate change from the gloomy lobby. Brilliantly gleaming light streamed down into the proper. Instead of a stone ceiling, some kind of near-transparent glass with a slight blue tint to it covered the entirety of the rest of the library ceiling. In front of him were a few rows of low shelves, they sat only three feet off the ground and had scrolls in them.

IndentWalking through the low shelves Magnus reached the tables that the librarian had mentioned. Six tables about ten feet long and four across were set in two rows of three with a three foot gap between them. Four of the spots were already taken, the books piled in front of them indicating long time study. Hoping that none of them had the book he looked for, he took a fleeting look at them and noticed that they seemed to mostly deal with songwriting.

IndentLooking at the large bookshelves that ran from about five feet away from the back of the tables to nearly a hundred and fifty feet at the end of the room. Doing a quick and dirty calculation from what he saw on one shelf, he estimated that the fifty foot by hundred and fifty foot room section contained nearly 5000 books. Noticing that there could be no traveling from one row of shelves to the next except at the ends, he knew he couldn’t afford the time it would take going down the wrong row.

IndentCounting sixteen row of books with two along the walls, he walked down the ends checking the placemarks posted on them. A few of them he thought might be interesting: Magic, Tales, Fiction, Fighting, Basic Knowledge, but he didn’t have time for them today. Judging by the way the light poured down from the ceiling he had at most three more hours before he would be sitting in the dark. Worried that if he didn’t complete Gerald’s task today he might get another more difficult one to do tomorrow, he broke out into sweat. Gerald’s evil grin just made him believe he would do it.

IndentFinding the history section, Magnus moved down it swiftly, easily determining the cataloging system. Employing little yellow papers with capital letters and a number next to them on the top shelves you could find the listed bookcase. On reaching the F-2 bookcase halfway down the row, he made a guess and started looking on the third shelf from the bottom. Only three of the forty books on shelf had titles on the spines. As such, he had to pull each of the books off in order to look for a title page. Doing this he quickly noticed the problem, nearly half the books were improperly shelved.

IndentFive minutes of frantic searching later the book remained unfound. Just to be thorough, he began checking the contents of the shelf both above and below the third shelf. Pulling another book that might be useful from the upper shelf, he became disappointed when he couldn’t find his book on any of the three shelves. Walking back down the row he paused when he reached the Bs. Stopping to take a quick look at the first few books at the beginning of the B-1, he found a book called ‘Conditions of BardsTown’ that might be useful. Magnus thought himself incredibly lucky when he found ‘The Founding of Bardstown’ just a few books away from it.

IndentFinding a seat at an empty table Magnus began on the required book, and quickly found out why the people already there had chosen the seats that they did. The ceiling let in light pretty well but had carvings and had not been made to an exacting standard. This isn’t very noticeable until you start to try to read something and see several different variations in light intensity on a single page. The people that had gotten there first took the seat that had the fewest differences in light throughout the day easing eyestrain.

IndentWith his inner clock telling him he had taken twenty minutes just getting the books, he had only a bit more than two and a half hours left. The task seemed easy enough now that he had the book, who founded Bardstown and why. But Gerald had been acting sneeky, somewhat like a few of his teacher in highschool who had said they wanted one thing but would never give full points unless the student could expand into a related area. So he planned on doing precisely that, exactly what he needed and then some extra. Magnus’ hoped that this would increase his intimacy with Gerald that might lead to a quest down the road.

IndentLimited in time, he began by flipping through the book and skimming over the pages to see what he could take in at a glance. The book seemed rather thick compared to the ones in his father’s library, but had a much smaller number of pages due to the thickness of the parchment. The most difficult part in reading it was the handwriting. While most people’s handwriting had begun to be phased out with the advent of computers, VR had made the written word more popular. It still could not be as precise as the typed letters but had a much more personal touch to it. But when he compared even his own below average ability to the crabbed writing in the book, he felt like an accomplished scholar in his own right.

IndentSkimming through ‘Founding’ with a more in depth read on the sections he needed took forty-five minutes. Magnus decided to move onto ‘Conditions of Bardstown’ as being more relevant than the book on which building went up first. Getting to the section that described why it was that so many of the bards in town were disasters as musicians, he felt a little pity for them and even more for what would happen to him in the future. Giving the book as much time as he thought he could he looked to the ceiling. The little moving circles had distracted him a bit but he estimated that he still had an hour left to finish writing a one page paper.

IndentTaking the quill pen in hand and biting his lip for a moment, he considered his task. With just one page, he had to be both concise and get in both the required info and the extra credit he wanted for the work. Assembling the information in his mind and the books opened to the related pages, Magnus began to write.

Bardstown’s founding began two hundred years ago when the queen wanted her nation of Doria to be known as the most musically inclined of the west. Therefore, the bard academy was set up on the outskirts of the capital city of Varta, but soon the queen began to hear many complaints. The funding the crown had given to the project brought in many applicants, many of who had no experience and were terrible in the craft.

To appease her subjects, the queen chartered a town far to the west where a natural abundance of null-sound crystals were found near the surface recently. Here a smaller academy was to be set up for those without previous musical knowledge. Once a month, a caravan would travel from the capital to Bardstown to deliver bad musicians and return to the capital with those who have graduated to poor musicians. This led to the greater acceptance of Dorian musicians.

The only real losers were the permanent residents of Bardstown. The badly playing musicians would practice with desperation all the time, they too wanted to get away from the bad music and back to the capital. Once the bards were just starting to getting to be tolerable, the good ones would leave and a new batch of bad bards would arrive.

This led to many of the residents creating an unofficial town just outside Bardstown and only migrating back one week a month for official business. This town holds many people who have support jobs but don’t need to be in the town everyday. The common practice of the owners and workers of everyday businesses has become to work in the unofficial town and travel the short distance in every morning.

‘Reference: The Founding of Bardstown, & Conditions of Bardstown.’

IndentMagnus would have prefered to write more, just to be on the safe side, but the unfamiliar quill had taken more time to use than expected. He started to use it just like a normal pen from high school VR class and got a large dark splotch on the top of the paper. After that he used great care in his writing, and sent up a prayer of thank that he hadn’t spilled when he had been looking for the books.

IndentNow taking his time to carefully ink down each word, he realized that he would shortly have a problem. Two paragraphs in, the quill started to run out of ink and Gerald had not given him an inkwell to go with the quill. By the time he finished the barely legible references at the bottom, he felt as though he had to beg the quill into giving up the last of it’s ink.

IndentPicking the paper up cautiously, he blew softly on the still drying ink. Due to the low quality of both the ink and the parchment, his written letters had begun to spread out giving them a bloated look. Luckily they were still legible. After lifting the paper over his head to look, he became gladdened that he hadn’t thought to try and write anything on the back. Bleeding through in many spots, he thought that if he knew how to read mirrored writing his report legibility improved from the backside.

IndentAfter using a dirty cloth that rested at the end of the table to clean his mess, Magnus stretched his arms over his head to relieve himself of his cramps. Having finished just before the sun went down, he felt quite pleased with himself. As the sunlight reflecting down on him turned a deep dark red, the librarian boomed out, “Library closes at sundown! Make sure your gone by then!”

IndentSeeing the four others gathering their things but just leaving the books they had used where they were, Magnus followed suit and left the three books on the table. Walking past the mammoth sized desk he noticed that everyone seemed to be congregating in the foyer behind the final set of doors. He grimaced, thinking that this was because everyone wanted to delay walking out into the cacophony that continued in the town square.

IndentAs Magnus fumbled with his paper and quill to get out his earplugs, one of the old checkers players turned to look at him. “Hey! new guy. You don’t need to worry about them there plugs. You’ll be fine in a minute.” Having delivered his sage advice, he turned back to the outer doors and with the last fading of the light pushed them open. Into silence.

IndentExiting the building and looking at all the people packing up, or sweeping up, their instruments Magnus must have had a confused look on his face. Seeing this, one of the scholars spoke up, “A few years back the town council decided that anyone who kept playing after dark without special permission would be refused service. Since the bard trainees do want to eat without hunting down their own meals, and like sleeping inside, it’s pretty well followed. Right at the end of the day they especially don’t want to get caught when a lot of the governmental places close down.”

IndentEnlightened by the information, Magnus begins to sprint out of the square. He had just realized that he had no idea if the mage guild closed now as well. Racing past the auburn haired flutist he exited the square to the east. Jetting past the person lighting the few streetlamps, he reached the guild in under a minute. He pushed against the door with his shoulder, but it was locked tight.

IndentHeaving a sigh, Magnus took a step back and saw Gerald grinning at him from the bench directly to his right. Telling him with a smirk, “I wasn’t sure if you would make it but decided to give you a couple minutes.” After waving at the seat next to him, Magnus went and sat down with relief. His hand held out, he placed the paper directly into Gerald’s hand.

IndentRaising his right index finger and saying, “Glow,” a small orb of light appeared on the tip of Gerald’s finger. The report in his left, he took a minute to read while Magnus calmed his beating heart. A satisfied look on his face when he finished, he turned to Magnus and concluded, “Better than I expected. Come on back to my place and I’ll treat you to some supper and show you how to use basic magic.”

IndentAt that his stomach rumbled, but with a spring in his step Magnus followed Gerald as he began to amble further east. Almost to the edge of the city he turned to the north at a small two story cottage, again made of a dark stone with null-sound crystals embedded into it. Key now in hand, he went through the door into the dark home. “Just a moment and I’ll have the lamps lit.” As he proceeded to walk around doing just that, the room revealed itself.

IndentLeft of the door a set of rickety stair led up to the next floor, cupboards could be seen resting within the framework. Right of the door expanded a small living room made smaller by the papers and books that were strune about. Two comfortable looking recliners sat next to the window, an end table between them. An unlit fireplace extruded from the middle of the east wall, a desk to its right, and a tall bookcase between the desk and the south wall. Between the three book covered stands and the back wall covered in shelves crowding the room, it surprised Magnus how well Gerald could get to the hanging lamps.

Indent“Just grab a seat and I’ll get you a bowl for my stew,” he commanded before moving through the door into the kitchen. Rather than sitting, Magnus began looking at a few of the papers that were sitting on the stands. The rather clear handwriting seemed to be talking about the lung capacity of various monsters and ways to disrupt breathing patterns. A notation at the bottom of the page was scrawled more harshly than the rest, ‘Don’t attempt to steal the breath from a golem!’ at which he could only blink.

IndentSetting the paper down as Gerald reentered with a large steaming bowl of soup in each hand. Opening his mouth to ask about the paper, he changed his mind as his stomach rumbled after smelling the food. Sitting down in the chair closest to the door, he dug in with relish as Gerald did the same from the other seat. Mattimeo was no connoisseur of food, but he could tell a well made dish from a bad one. As Magnus, he thought that the beef stew was good and homey, if not up to the exotic tastes that other VR immersions had been known to provide.

IndentStomachs now satisfied and bowls stacked on the end table, Gerald turned his attention more closely to Magnus. “Do you know what you want to do?”

IndentA bit surprised by the question, Magnus decided to answer truthfully. “I want to be a person who gives out quest. I don’t want to be the person that saves kingdoms, I want to direct the people that can save it to where they need to be. I think magic is the most likely route for me to be able to do this.” Intentions stated, he settled deeper into the chair to watch Gerald.

IndentThoughtful look on his face, he relaxed in quiet for a few minutes before saying with certainty, “Can’t think of anyone who would be able to teach you want, but I’ll keep it in mind.” Focusing on the deflating Magnus he continued in his serious tone, “Any more immediate plans, like where you plan on sleeping or earning money to eat with?”

IndentLightly shaking his head, Magnus replied, “Didn’t have any real plans. I thought that after learning some magic I could hunt down some low level animals and sell their hides for money.” Seeing Gerald shaking his head he waited for what he would say.

Indent“Maybe in a normal town that would have worked, but in Bardstown there isn’t any money to be made it that. The majority of the residents are those beginner bards and the little money they have tends to go to meals. The free meals at the academy aren’t very good, but they’re better than you’ll be able to make any time soon. Food provided to them is contracted out to nearby huntsmen or they might have left the area entirely.” Looking a bit more closely at Magnus, he ask a pointed question, “Do you even know what you have with you?”

IndentRealizing he had never checked, he looked through the small pack he had attached to his back. A slightly disgruntled look on his face he replied, “Ten copper coins, ten pieces of hard tack, a canteen, and one loaned quill pen.” His research had let him know that trying to call out for an inventory would be useless.

IndentAfter a moments thought, Gerald asked, “Are you opposed to doing some scribe work? What you did for me was good enough that I could recommend you to Vanessa, the owner of the scribe shop that does a good bit of work. That would give you the chance to learn a few skills before you venture out looking for adventure.”

IndentMagnus didn’t rush and gave it a few minutes thought. He had planned on spending some time in the library anyway and Gerald spoke with certainty about the town. He had just finished with his high school life and now he was being offered a job doing essentially the same kind of thing. But without a clear next step, it both gave him something to do and might advance him closer to his goal.

IndentComing to a decision after weighing the options, he answered with a simple, “Okay, I’ll try that for now.”

IndentNodding at his choice, Gerald sprang up, “Thats great. Lets head to the backyard and I’ll show you how to do some basic magic. You can keep practicing after I go to bed. If you get tired you can sleep on one of the chairs, it’ll slid back far enough that you can sleep in it.” Walking away he muttered under his breath, “I’ve certainly done that often enough.”

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Magnus’ Journal: Stat entry part one

Spoiler :

Stat types

Acquired stat (gain through exercise)(A/N if you have read stellar transformation think external expert)

Obtained stat (gained through class and quest and deed)

Distributed stats (From leveling and freely allocatable points from tasks and quests)

A generated stat (G) must be earned before it will show up on the stats screen. If not yet earned items with that stat bonus will be useless. Some classes generate a stat upon earning the class. All stats after primary stats are considered generated.

Base stats (Distribution never available)

Primary stats (Distribution available after attaining status plate)

Secondary Stats (Unable to be distributed to before Trial of Fire)

Tertiary Stats (Unable to be distributed to before Trial of Void)

Quaternary Stats (Unable to be distributed to before Trial of Power)