Location: A small island in the Archipelago Kingdom of Waponikash

Gerald had been an Adventurer Water Mage Rank D for many years before coming to the Kingdom of Waponikash. His group had come here at the request of the King, when Naga’s had started to infest several islands, turning the normal quiet kingdom into a warzone. As it turned out, an underwater dungeon had been found about a 100 miles off the west coast of the kingdom, bringing forth corrupting mana monsters and spawning a breeding pair of Nagas. Gerald’s group of adventurers had been ten strong and guided by a Hero Mage Ellen. She had been a natural water mage couple with air minor element. Due to her high intelligence she had study as a Party Leader and understood group and monster tactics, but it was her small little ways of helping each member, understanding their strengths and weaknesses that made her and her group a great Adventurer team.

They had hired a boat captain to sail as close to the Naga settlements as possible. Then Ellen and Gerald would cast Underwater Breathing on their team mates and jump into the sea fighting the Naga in the water and then on land. Weeks passed of heavy fighting and swimming from island to island. It wasn’t till they reached the last Naga settlement and found a summoning circle that they knew a dungeon had spread to the surface. Using their magics they traced the source of the summoning circle to an underwater Grotto dungeon. Broken ruins and columns had littered the tunnels almost as if a large city had been buried underground by one of the area’s local volcanos. Level after level they fought, some levels were relatively dry and allowed the team to rest. While other levels were submerged and they had to swim through the entire thing. The final level they had come across a large Sea Serpent the size of a ship. Venom dripped from its teeth and it glided through the water. The level had been set up as small islands with shallows between them as walkways.

Ellen and Gerald worked to freeze the sea water close to the shores expanding their width so that the Sea Serpent couldn’t reach them with every strike. Giant crabs that served as the Sea Serpents food would spawn from the summoning circle and charge through the landscape. It was when Ellen was battling the Sea Serpent that a Giant Crab had jumped out of the water and cut Gerald’s Leg off with a claw strike. Ellen was able land the final blow just before Gerald had lost consciousness, but it had been too long to safe his leg. He woke up in a beach hut being taken care of by a beautiful island girl. Ellen had come the next day and told him that the team was willing to donate the whole dungeon haul to get a spell of regeneration for his leg. Smiling He shook his head and told Ellen that he was retiring here to be the village mage. Too many horrible memories of teeth and near death escapes had finally brought Gerald to settle down in this small peaceful place.

Ten years had passed and here Gerald was tending to a small child with a fever in his shop. Sea snake venom was a slow killing agent, thankfully Gerald had learned and studied support spell casting since his retirement from Adventuring. Gerald relaxed his mind and his thoughts melted away from him. Feeling the undercurrents of the surrounding mana, Gerald allowed strings of his mana to begin to form a cleansing net. Spell casting was like fishing to Gerald, you threw out your net and if you were a good fisherman with insight to the currents you would always get something. So Gerald saw his silver lines of mana slowly overlay on the boy’s Mana Aura. The dark green venom began to circulate through the net and dispel itself out into a bowl of water that Gerald had setup for the spell; while the local surrounding Mana gave life and water energy back to the child. Carefully, he opened his eyes and saw the bowl of water began to turn a light green. Smiling at the boy’s mother, he almost missed the whisper of mana that came from the south. It was like a faint sent of rotten eggs, or a whisper from someone who likes to mutter as well. Looking towards the south, Gerald felt like there was an itch that he should follow.

Instead Gerald turned back to his patient and waited as the spell drained the venom. The whisper faded and just like that as the mother was thanking him and paying his fee, the whisper was gone. Placing the few copper coins into his bag, Gerald wondered if he should do something about the whisper. It wasn’t quite enough to send someone out there to scout, but it was something, like the birth of weak Wild Mana Monster. Deciding to be proactive Gerald would tell the chief of the village about mana whisper and hoped the message would be deemed important enough to send south.

Location: Alistair’s Magma Pools

Alistair had been sitting on the summoning circle for almost 14 mins when his mana pool went from 50 to 51. “Well that certainly sucks! Let’s see that means I will recover all my mana in… carry the 1… 9 hours! Wait, is that right?” Hitting his head, Alistair picked up pebbles off the ground to help his math. “Ok, put four pebbles to represent one hour, and put out nine piles.” Alistair started counting the pebbles as he went and finally came up with the correct answer. “36 mana in 9 hours? That means it’s going to take me more than a day to recover all my mana if I go to zero? Ah come on! This is crazy! Why is it that long? Surely, there has to be something I can do? I mean I need monsters to defend the dungeon and it’s going to take that long to build up mana?!” Alistair was shouting into the sky, hoping against hope that some God or Goddess would take mercy on his soul. Alistair starting kicking the piles of black volcanic glass pebbles out into the magma pools in anger. To him it was just so unjust that the universe was going to kick him again and again. Smashing his little fist in the only wall by the ledge caused an Event Prompt to pop up.

Event!Toughen up Buttercup!The Universe has heard your wails for justice and fair play! Based on your actions you have been cursed with zero mana regeneration for the next two days. Perhaps you will start planning your life instead of blaming everyone else for your mistakes…. Or not. Whatever you learn from this lesson is up to you, now you have been given the same tools that every dungeon demon has! Pull yourself up by the bootstraps and do something about it!

“WHAAAAATTTTT!” Alistair looked at the event prompt for a few minutes. It couldn’t be true! This had to be some type of joke that the universe was having on him. Closing his eyes, he tried to sense the surround mana field and currents, only to find that his aura seemed to be crammed around some kind of shell. As he felt around the edge of the shell, he realized that it would allow mana to flow out of him and form spells, but the natural currents that slowly soaked into his being were being held behind this barrier. Sitting down Alistair felt like he was some dirt on a person’s brand new shoe.

“Pull yourself up by your bootstraps! Hello, I have hooves!” Alistair started muttering as he sat down letting his hooves dangle over the edge of his small rock ledge. “I mean I have two skills both at level 0 and two spells. I have already casted the Summoning Circle…”

Alistair closed his eyes for a moment to think about the trouble his blind stupidity had just cause himself. Alistair called up his Soul Page and once again looked at the descriptions for skills and spells.

Skill Name:Mana Monster SummoningSkill Description:When a Dungeon Demon has created their first summoning circle they have the ability to Summon Mana Monsters using the stored mana of the summoning circle. If the demon has not previous fought and killed the mana monster inside of the summoning circle then they must defeat the monster before control is granted.Spell Name:Summoning Circle CreationSpell Description:Using the casters mana, the energy burns into the ground creating a Dungeon Summoning Circle. The Circle construct is used to store mana and focus the control over the surrounding area for the demon. Should the circle be destroyed all mana will back lash through the demon and expel them from the area.Spell Name:Summon Spell CompanionSpell Description:Spell will create a mana construct that will help the demon in numerous ways as spell mastery grows. At current spell mastery level, the demon may choose the construct to help with rune research, spell construction, mana monster control, or general help. Only one spell construct is able to operate per demon at a time. If construct is destroyed or dismissed all knowledge within the construct will be lost.

So that was what the universe meant by tools! Alistair shook his head in frustration over how stupid he had been. His Summoning Circle was storing mana and gathering it from the environment around them. He could have used the Summoning Circle to help cast his spells as he was a part of it. From the sound of his second spell, it might even teach him valuable knowledge he needed. Alistair dismissed his Soul Page and walked over to the Summoning Circle. He paused giving his next action some thought. He wanted the security of having a few monsters on his floor in case he had alerted anyone to his presence. So even though he wasn’t sure what all of the choices did, he wanted to make sure the first one was Mana Monster Control. After all it made sense, you wouldn’t label something Mana Monster Control and only have it work on making you breakfast.

Alistair stood in the middle of the summoning circle and closed his eyes. Taking a deep cleansing breath he started performing the first steps of spell that came to his mind. Alistair began by chanting a single sound as his hand began making large sweeping motions. Within Alistair’s mind, he could feel the surrounding mana being pushed aside to clear a space for his spell. Seconds turned to minutes turned to hours as Alistair cleared a mental and spiritual area for his construct. Instinct told Alistair the perfect moment, it was like a stillness had settled on him with the expectation of something perfect was about to happen. Then all of sudden his hands and hooves started making fast movements and gestures, the soft quiet sound he was making came out as harsh arcane words. The black void of his mind, showed a small point of light burst forth and began to pulse in tune with his heart beat. A mental eternity happen in his mind as the first light merely pulsed, then he pushed his will into telling it that he needed to understand Mana Monsters, and with that push one light turned into two. It didn’t seem like a lot, two lights pulsing with a simple crack of lighting between them. But then two became four, and four became eight, and so on expanding in a pattern that was amazing to view. Lights pulsed in waves, sending colors down branches while other branches began to swirl mana about themselves. Alistair felt the spell complete itself as his hand came down and slapped the smooth black glass floor of the summoning circle. Opening his eyes, he saw a ball of flame hovering in front of him. “Greetings, Lord Alistair. How may I be of help?” The ball of flame spoke with a crackling to his voice. The sound reminded Alistair of the cracking of wood in a fireplace from his previous life.

Standing up from his crouching position, Alistair took a moment to look at the end result of the spell. He had never seen anything really like it. The memories of combat from his past life would have sworn the spell was simply a torch or light spell that a mage used. Instead, it was a living creature that could talk. “Yes, perhaps you can tell me what kind of help you can provide?” Alistair said.

“Of course! Well the spell you used creates a spell construct that is able to gather information from the universe through the surround mana environment. Please forgive me for not being clearer, but the spell construction aspect would be able to better explain the process of the spell to you. Since my focus is on Mana Monster Control, with the use of mana I can gather Mana Monster matrixes and prepare them for summoning. As you take control of them, I can form the summoning spell and imprint it on your soul. Once imprinted, I can help you assign loot to them, evolve them, set automatic summoning, guide their actions, or even have them seek out other mana monsters that are currently in your domain. As I gain experience and history I can even improve on my advice or figure out something new!” The ball of flame blobbed up and down during his long speech.

Alistair was a bit disappointed actually, It seemed very specific information and he was hoping for a little more help than just about Mana Monsters. “And what can you tell me about your General Help aspect?”

“Hmmmm….” The fireball lowered itself by and inch and almost seemed to be resting to ponder the question. When it was ready to talk again it floated up, “Well, the General Help aspect has some of the knowledge of all of the other aspects; and additional information like dungeon tactics. I guess you could call him a scholar and me a farmer. He would know that I plow fields, plant crops and then harvest them. However, he wouldn’t know how to hook up the plow or which crop to plant and few hundred other tiny things that would eventually turn a field of crops into a barren field. Now keeping up with the example, I harvest my crop or find several Mana Monster Matrixes, you battle one and take control. Well at that point I can generate a new Spell to Summon the Monster, so I have some knowledge of Spell Construction. Problem is that my spell won’t be mana efficient or provide efficient loot creation, or other things I have no idea about.”

Alistair thought about this new information. It seemed that he would have to call on the General Help aspect at some time but with the curse weighing him down he needed to push forward. “Alright, do you think you can find me a Mana Monster to summon?”

The fireball started zipping around Alistair for a moment, giving him the impression that it was examining him somehow. Finally, it flew up to hover in front of him. “Ok, I have an understanding of you. I will search the Mana Aether for available Mana Monsters. Should I take 5 mana from you or the Summoning Circle to search?”

Alistair sighed again, “The Circle.”

The Fireball hopped up as it hovered over the north circle. “Alright, Lord Alistair. This might take a bit, but I will be back! Bye!” And with the farewell, the fireball popped out of existence like it used all of its fuel.