A Tyrant, Sort Of

She set down on the outskirts of the quarry. Her brief overview had indicated that the smallest of the orecrunchers—the ‘lessers’, as seemed to be the recurring naming trend for monsters—hovered closest to the natural entrance to the enormous quarry, the long slope down. Likewise, the strongest, the ‘greater orecrunchers’, resided near the back, chewing on the stone and ore deepest embedded into the earth.

The strongest had claimed the best food, with the weak ones left to scavenge the outskirts. An understandable hierarchy.

Would they swarm her, when she attacked?

She hoped not. Did monsters work on the inefficient logic found in RPGs? She had witnessed plenty of not-entirely-logical mechanics in this world, but how far did that extend? Would these monsters ignore their brethren, as mobs in a game might? Allow Sable to pick them off one by one?

Something she would discover only through testing.

Either way, a quick first kill would be the goal. Quick kills would always be the goal, when possible. Why drag things out?

Well … to save mana. As she’d learned earlier, blasting one’s entire mana pool was a great way to kill quickly—in the same way as a swordsman swinging with reckless abandon—but doing so took a toll. With how many enemies she had, Sable might have to drag things out, to stay efficient. There was an annoyingly large number of orecrunchers down there. Even with a mana pool in the four digits, she couldn’t afford to blast massive amounts of mana in an attempt to wipe each out in a single hit.

Plus, that’d be poor practice. Assuming drawn-out fights were the standard between equal-standing enemies—because instant, large blasts of mana weren’t efficient, and not enough to kill someone of equivalent power, besides—then she wanted to practice using spells of a power-level equal to how she’d use them in a life-or-death fight.

Which this might be. Though, she doubted it. Maybe near the end. There was a particular orecruncher at the far end of the quarry, larger than all the previous. The [Orecruncher Hivemother]. The leader of the infestation. An opponent Sable would put off until she’d trained more. Maybe as far off as tomorrow.

But she couldn’t afford to take too long. Her efficiency affected how Skatikk would perceive her—take too long, and her strength would come into question.

But tomorrow would be fine enough a delay, if the task proved arduous, unfeasible in one. She’d burned most of the day spellcasting with Roman, and only had an hour or two of daylight left.

So, for now, easier targets.

She approached the quarry’s entrance. It was a wide, winding, sloped pathway down, and the nearest of the beasts lounged idly, scattered in singles, doubles, and triples, but rarely groups larger than that. The quarry was enormous, so even with the sparse population, there were a lot of the monsters to clear out. With hope, they wouldn’t swarm her, and it would simply be a war of attrition. Though it would grow increasingly difficult as she fought her way deeper into the quarry.

If they did swarm, she could always flee. Sable was fortunate in that regard. Not many monsters could pose a serious threat to her and were able to meaningfully pursue her if she ran.

Er, flew. Hard to ditch those pesky human verbs.

She sized up the nearest group of two.

[Lesser Orecruncher - Lvl. 7]

[Lesser Orecruncher - Lv. 6]

A smaller level gap than the first orecruncher she’d picked out, but still technically more than twice her own. However, she wasn’t concerned. A quick reference to her stat sheet assured her why.

***

Sable

Juvenile White Dragon

Level 3 - Frostfire Sorceress

[ Hoard ] - SCANT

[ Notoriety ] - OBSCURE

Stats (base):

Might - 113 (226)

Grace - 113 (226)

Resilience - 138 (276)

Intellect - 163 (327)

Wisdom - 163 (327)

***

She didn’t know what a monster’s average stat page looked like, but she doubted they had the numbers she did. Not to mention:

[ HP: 26,963 / 26,963 ]

[ MP: 1,202 / 1,827 ]

She might not know what average stats looked like, but she had asked Roman what a normal mana pool was. The typical level three mage would have mana in the tens range. Sable had close to a hundred times larger. Seeing how mana translated into firepower in a roundabout way, though scaling slower with each additional point funneled into a spell, it meant Sable had incredible endurance and the ability to hit much harder, simply by leveraging her enormous mana pool.

So. She was positive she could turn the stone bear-beetle-things into burnt husks with a relatively minor effort using her fire breath, and possibly even tear the things limb from limb the manual way, but this adventure was as much for practicing magic as it was for earning a reputation with Skatikk. And leveling up. An always-present clarifier—growing in power would guide almost everything she did in the coming months. It would be the only way to survive the attention her growing notoriety brought.

The orecrunchers didn’t notice her approaching. That amused her, because for all the benefits that came with Sable’s body, stealth wasn’t one. She tromped across the ground, even trying her hardest to prowl.

Fifty or so feet away, she slowed. Not because she would be noticed, though she would, however unaware these creatures, but because as a mage, starting from a safe range seemed preferable. She might be durable thanks to her species and starting stats, but she intended to play into her role’s strength. It might not matter yet, but thirty levels from now, hunting equally powerful monsters as her? Maybe it would. A lot. The way her stats were growing with each level indicated might, grace, and resilience would lag behind, and she would grow comparatively squishier and squishier.

While far from an expert, or even past the beginner’s stages, after most of a day’s practice, Sable understood the process of spellcasting. First, she tapped into that vibrating resource residing deep beneath her scales, burning in her breast. Siphoning strands of mana out, she etched a quick circle in the air using her mind, hovering a few feet in front of her, then followed up with a keyrune of frostfire.

Obviously, any mage’s starting spell should be something to disable their enemy. It made logical sense. In Sable’s case, a rooting spell.

On the border of the floating spell circle, Sable scrawled—sloppily, if less horrible than her first attempts—five decorators. Forward, burst, reinforce, chain, reinforce. It was the most complex spell Sable had practiced manifesting.

The more decorators—or complexity of the spell in general—the more expensive it would be when mistakes in its design, both architecturally and in practice, cropped up. Fortunately, inefficiency wasn’t a major issue when her mana pool sat in the thousands. But still not ideal. Waste was waste. But not crippling like it would be for an inexperienced, low-level human mage.

Chain was an interesting rune. It combined keywords together, mashing them into something either more powerful or otherwise entirely new. In this case, she smashed together reinforce and reinforce. The ultimate goal of a snare was, of course, to not be broken through. By combining two reinforce decorators, more of the spell’s mana distribution would go into manifesting hardened material. That said, tradeoffs were tradeoffs. More durability meant less range, speed, and damage.

With the spell formed—and sparing a grimace for the shaky, amateurish lines—she ignited the working, declaring it completed. The diagram impacted into existence, ringing in that strange not-really-a-noise way she’d heard several times before.

It drew the two monsters’ attentions. She’d expected that. Fortunately, the spell was nearly finished. There was a gap between activation and manifestation. Some spells didn’t channel, like her previous ‘expel’ of frostfire breath. Or, didn’t channel like others. This one needed to be fed in its entirety before canceling, then it would manifest.

How quickly one could feed mana into a spell depended on their intellect stat, which effectively served as ‘casting speed’ or ‘channel strength’, depending on the application. Though Sable’s stats were cut in half from her hoard debuff, her magic stats were still plenty high enough to glut the rooting spell well before the monsters could close an appreciable amount of the distance between them.

Satisfied with how much mana she’d poured in—twenty-eight points, a normal low-level novice’s entire mana pool—she severed the mana channel to it, and it finally manifested.

A thin ribbon of white-blue ice flew out, aimed in the direction she’d focused. It impacted the ground between the two beetle-like creatures then exploded. A prison of ice shattered upward, radius growing in three bursts, thickest and tallest at the center and diminishing near the outer rings. She’d aimed well. The ice crawled up nearly to the beast’s necks, trapping them in the center ring and locking them in place.

As a cage built from frostfire, the material scalded the monster’s rock-like carapaces, sending streams of smoke spinning into the air as they thrashed and howled. Though, it didn’t hurt them as extensively as a damage-focused spell would. Sable doubted the cage would do much toward finishing them off.

The specific behavior—the three-ring expansion—wasn’t defined by her. With only five decorators, much of the spell’s behavior hadn’t been chosen. While loosely designed spells were consistent, not changing much between casts, they were more expensive and less focused than something meticulously designed.

But easier. Loosely defined spells were all Sable could manage with her current skill level. While more expensive, there was less surface area to make mistakes on, and so, funny enough, they were less expensive, because Sable made loads of mistakes. Would for a while, probably. Eventually, she’d want to design spells with dozens of decorators, as some of Roman’s demonstrated abilities had.

For now, these initial designs would do.

The duo of struggling monsters thrashed in the reinforced ice, sending up splinters of smoking white crystal as the prison tried to contain them. Sable readied her next spell. With an arsenal three spells strong, and an AoE pointless here—she’d save that for three enemies or more—she didn’t need to deliberate. Only one reasonable choice.

Forming her next spell was much easier. Sable cleared her mind and focused on the fight. While she doubted she was in danger, there was a calming intensity to this. In proving her dominance over another being, however mismatched the fight. And spellcasting itself. That, too, brought a clarity. Beyond the difficulty of gathering energy and wrangling the searing lines in position, bringing a spell to life was … satisfying. In a way hard to explain. Even as a fumbling acolyte.

She completed her second spell. She siphoned ten mana into the ability, a good balance between power and cost. Being less than half again as strong as it would be at five points, it was inefficient from a trade-off standpoint. But Sable had plenty of mana. Maybe even she’d start pouring more in.

Activated, the jagged chunk of frostfire ice seared through the air, trailing white smoke. It slammed into one of the orecruncher’s faces, and thick stone carapace cracked, head snapping back.

Killed in a single strike?

No, she wasn’t that lucky. But it had left the creature in terrible condition. Its thrashing lost some of its vigor, though it didn’t go limp.

Unfortunately, the second hadn’t been injured in any such way. Maybe because of its partner’s injury, the other one found a surge of strength, tearing out of Sable’s rooting spell. The prison of ice had been weakening by the second, too, so it wasn’t just a burst of motivation.

Sable hastily assembled a second ice spike, the injured orecruncher relegated to lower priority. No longer locked in place, the charging enemy dodged. With the spear streaking like a bullet, the creature couldn’t avoid Sable’s attack entirely, but rather than crunching into its skull and taking it out of commission, as her first attack had for its brother, her [Frostfire Spear] glanced off its shoulder, cracking stone armor where it impacted. But was far from a lethal blow.

Clumsy as her spellcasting was, she didn’t get to fumble a fourth spell. The orecruncher arrived, throwing itself into her.

Sable grunted as its weight met hers, but the difference in physical might, even with Sable having chosen a spellcasting class, was night and day. Maybe some of the stronger orecrunchers would pose a threat, but this lesser, lower-level one bounced harmlessly off her, shovel-like arms scraping against impenetrable dragon scales with—while not no effect—minor discomfort at worst.

A quick scuffle ensued, and she tore the thing apart, limb by limb.

Thus dispatched, she glanced at the other. It limped slowly toward her, having struggled free of the weakening rooting spell, but with its face-plate shattered, gooey insides leaking from its skull. The direct hit of her [Frostfire Spear] had left it two-thirds dead, if not more, but these creatures were, apparently, durable.

Sable felt briefly revulsed at the display of gore, but her more draconic set of instincts merely felt a mixture of disdain and appreciation. The second, because she respected a stubborn fighter. At the same time, the act of defiance annoyed her. It was already dead. It could at least have the good sense to flee before it succumbed to its wounds.

A quick, final ice spear finished it off. Both mercy, and a display of irritation.

With that done, there were only … ten dozen more to go. All of them stronger than these two. Plus a boss monster. She surveyed the quarry, the teeming monsters either busily crunching away at stone or lounging about, but all who had ignored their allies’ deaths. That was fortunate. The fight hadn’t been especially quiet. The monsters in this world did work on somewhat RPG-like behaviors, then, not swarming Sable the moment she revealed herself.

Weird. To what extent did those behaviors extend? And were there any such incongruent behaviors for sapient life, or was it restrained to monsters only?

Now wasn’t the time for that sort of musing, though. She had spellcasting practice and monster extermination to take care of.

She got to work.