What a beautiful scene it was… the wind gently blowing through the forest stirring up the dark green leaves on the majestic, ancient trees while the sun clearly shined from the clear blue sky above. It was a prime day for an excursion, to explore the beauty of this world… well, it would have been if Richard wasn’t sitting up in a tree and staring at the dog sized, mutant lizards screeching up at him. Each of the damn lizards alternated between running around on all fours and standing up on their hind legs to peevishly hiss and screech at him, while spreading their red and gold colored frills around their heads like it was supposed to scare him or something… To be honest, if Richard had been on the ground, he might have been scared… but luckily, he had a safe, tall tree to lounge in.

How had all this happened? Well, it all began when Richard had been sent on a quest… yes, he couldn’t believe it at the time… a real, frickin’ quest offered by Master Mulfow. Though the old man hadn’t called it a quest, instead referring to it as an errand, Richard had suddenly felt like he was in front of his TV screen listening to an NPC generating a random dungeon quest/random delivery quest. For a few seconds, he had even considered whacking the old man on the head to see if he would keep talking like nothing had happened. Thankfully, Richard had snapped out of his imbecilic delusions before he got too carried away.

The errand… umm… quest was simple: go to the Ortesse fishing village, which sat on the banks of the nearby Mistfall River and deliver a message to one of Master Mulfow’s associates. It had sounded so simple and so much like a waste of time that Richard had almost refused it. However, once again, his brain had stopped his mouth from flapping just in time. He had realized it was a great opportunity to see more of the nearby country side and to possibly test out his abilities.

Of course, unlike the annoying quests in games, Master Mulfow had actually taken into account the fact that Richard was dirt poor, never mind equipment-less. So, Richard had gotten a very dusty, slightly bloodied, and slightly torn up set of brigandine armor…. RIP whoever owned it before hand…., a dented, steel sword, and a couple silver coins to fund his errand. The dull brownish, leather armor was almost like a slightly heavy coat and had thin, steel plates riveted… mostly when they weren't missing… in between its two layers of leather. It had decreased his ability to move around freely just a bit, but Master Mulfow had been adamant about Richard wearing the armor in case of ‘unforeseen disasters.’ The sword was relatively heavy, weighing about one and a half pounds, but not as heavy as the crates of drinks that Richard had wrestled with back at his job. As for the coins… Yaay! Money!...

The equipment completely blinded him, of course, to the danger he might face. He had listened half heartedly to Master’s Mulfow’s warnings about what to expect on the road to Ortesse and had instead been too preoccupied trying to figure out how to use his new equipment in conjunction with his ‘skills.’ Moreover, the two days he had spent living with the old man and learning about Serenthal hadn’t revealed anything like there were hordes of goblins and monsters camping outside the city. The creatures did exist, but Richard had expected at most to meet a stray wolf or some thug with an attitude.

Honestly speaking, that’s how the first three days outside the city had progressed. Other than a few village thugs, whom he had stayed away from, he hadn’t run across any other trouble. He had even cursed the fact that nothing interesting was happening to him… Of course, as luck… or maybe the gods of luck would have it, he had walked right past a snoozing pack of Grasards. Back in the city, Richard had read up on the three feet tall, mutated lizards, since there were bounties on them, but he had expected at most to face one or two of them. Instead… with his amazingly good luck…he had found a pack of 20 of the damn things. One minute, he had been jauntily whistling past a few large bushes, and the next minute he had seen more than a dozen ugly heads popping out with sleepy eyes and irritated faces. Mind you… his whistling hadn’t been that bad…

For a second, he had been shocked, but the ear splitting screeching of the sleep deprived lizards had quickly snapped him out of his open mouthed surprise. He had sprinted down the dirt road for all he was worth, while casting ‘quagmire’ and ‘biogas’ ahead of him to create a few traps the creatures. Unfortunately, even after a couple days worth of practice, the skills still hadn’t leveled up and had still required 60 seconds and 120 seconds respectively before they could be used again. So, he had run as fast as he could… for about a minute until his body felt like it was about to collapse. Breathing hard, he had scrambled up a tree in desperation… and that’s where he was now.

Richard looked down at the pack of green colored vermin with mixed emotions. At first, he had been scared they were going to scale the tree and turn him into lizard shit. However, after a few unsuccessfully attempts at climbing or trying to jump up the tree, the lizards had given up and had instead decided to camp his refuge like a bunch of damn PK’ers, waiting for him to drop down.

Unfortunately… for the stupid, oversized lizards, Richard was far from being screwed.

Numero Uno: He had a safe spot to harass the vermin from.

Numero Dos: He had about a dozen days worth of food and water stashed in his inventory thanks to the miracle of small sacks. Sticking 12 individual loafs of bread into his inventory might have filled up 12 slots, but stashing a couple dozen loafs in a small sack had allowed him to save nearly eight slots.

Numero Tres: He had his sword. Though he didn’t know much about using it, except that he could slash with it and stick the sharp end into most things, it was a pretty useful in keeping the lizards from fumbling up the tree.

Numero Quatro: He was able to use his ‘quagmire’ and ‘biogas’ ‘subskills’/spells pretty frequently until he started feeling the extreme exhaustion that told him that he was running out of mana.

Numero Cinco and probably his greatest advantage: His new ‘subskill’/spell: ‘Stone Projectile.’ This was a gift from Master Mulfow, who had allowed Richard to learn the spell/subskill from a ‘Spell Artifact’ that had been gathering dust in his attic. As the phrase indicated, it was the most basic of Elemental Earth Subskills/Spells and allowed the user to shoot a stone projectile at enemies. The best part of the spell was its Cooldown Time: 35 seconds… Yep… It was the backbone of an Elemental Earth user’s offensive arsenal. According to Master Mulfow’s great encyclopedia like head, each level gained by the spell alternated in changing some aspect of the spell or the projectile itself: a decrease in the Cooldown Time, a decrease in mana consumption, how fast the damn projectile can fly, how far it can fly, and even how dense the projectile was. Of course, like all the screwy nature of magic in the World Labyrinth, the spell changed differently for different people.

Soo…. Richard remained in the tree, casting ‘quagmire,’ ‘biogas,’ and ‘stone projective’ at the dumb lizards, who ignored their dying comrades, while they ran around the tree like a bunch of nincompoops screaming bloody murder. Of course, Richard wasn’t able to keep casting the spells/subskills nonstop. Usually, he could cast a two dozen or so ‘stone projectiles’ in a row before he felt drained. That or he could cast ‘Biogas’ thrice and ‘Quagmire’ four times in alternating succession before he was equally drained.

Mixing up the spells/subspells was a bit more confusing, and Richard eventually ended up using a mix of one ‘biogas,’ one ‘quagmire,’ and eight ‘stone projectiles’ to kill a few of the lizards at a time. Just using ‘stone projectile’ was impossible, since the lizards were smart enough to keep moving, making aiming with his right hand a lot more difficult. For some reason, the ‘stone projectile’ spell also refused to work without an arm being used. Also, it took about two or three well aimed projectiles to actually create enough blunt force damage on the lizards to kill them. So, he took his time trapping the damn things and knocking them out before slaughtering them while avoiding becoming exhausted.

A lot of that ‘feeling exhaustion’ was also subjective, but it was obvious he was almost out of mana, when none of his spells wouldn’t activate. When he got to that point, a few, flashing box like icons usually appeared at the top left of his vision, no doubt telling him the spells couldn’t be used. Master Mulfow had denied the World Labyrinth denizens had such an advantage and usually realized their spells didn’t work… when nothing happened. That didn’t mean that there were no risks. There were things called mana crippling or mana intoxication, but from what Richard had learned, those issues didn’t usually pop up for the type of low level spells/subskills that Richard was using. Also, his 'average' magic level was so frickin' high that he was technically using four or five times the amount of spells a beginner magic user or newly arrived outworlder adventurer might have used... without actually exhausting himself. That didn't mean he was invincible since one mutant lizard could probably tear him apart if he let it get to him, but... it was still a frickin' power rush!!!

Also… yes, he was referring to subskills as spells now, since Master Mulfow referred to them as such.

In the end, he spent a couple hours in the tree, killing, waiting, rinse and repeating, and recuperating from mana loss, before he finally set foot on the ground. Around him, it looked like a scene from some horror movie. There were lizards sticking out of the ground in all kinds of positions and places. Others had tongues sticking out of theirs mouths, while their faces… well for those whose faces had not been turned into unrecognizable pulp... were frozen in a rictus of pain and desperation.

Giggling, Richard said, “Silly lizards… Trix are for kids.......... stupid dumb ass lizards... must have brains the size of walnuts…” Richard opened up his inventory and pulled out a serrated knife with a blade about the length of his hand. Looking at the knife and then the 20 dead, cheap imitations of the Fallout 3 Gecko, he sighed. “Well… I wonder what Grasard meat tastes like?.... Better not be chicken…”