Lance woke again in the early morning darkness. He decided not to get out of bed just yet, and enjoy the peace and comfort of the beautiful woman sleeping beside him. Feeling the warmth of her body next to him, and listening to her gentle breathing, he settled into a meditative state. Before looting the baesteinn, spare uniforms and laundry was eventually going to become an issue. Now with cleanliness not being an issue, only durability and wear and tear were a concern. He decided to attempt to duplicate his spare clothing.
Deciding to press forward with his experimenting, he ‘reached out’ mentally to his rucksack in the cab of the truck below him, and attempted to duplicate it. He felt his magic move some, and then it seemed like it hit a barrier. Mentally pushing against that barrier, the pressure was building into a literal headache. Then, he could feel as it finally pushed through and the pressure in his head abated. As the magic wrapped around his rucksack, he knew through its feedback that it was more than the 25 pound weight limit on his skill. Instead of giving up, he tried pushing more magical energy down the ethereal pipeline. “DING”
Class Skill ‘DUPLICATE’ has increased by 1 Level
“It worked”, he thought. He suspected that pushing his skills was the way to get them to level up beyond garnering energy from defeated foes. It also appeared that if he knew what he wanted to copy and where it was, he had at least some range on the skill. With that, ‘Duplicate’ was now level 5, and it had increased his weight limit significantly to 100 pounds.
Now with the duplicated rucksack, Lydia would have a ruck, sleeping bag, weapon’s cleaning kit, entrenching tool, MREs (meals ready to eat), and cold and wet weather gear (although they might be a bit large on her). Her five foot ten inch height meant that they wore the same size trousers, but his extra breadth in shoulders meant that any jackets would be a little baggy on her. He would now have a complete second set of spare uniforms and underclothes.
Waiting for the cooldown on his skill to expire, he continued with his experiments. Back in an active meditative state, he attempted to mentally grasp that feeling of magical energy he felt when pushing to duplicate the ruck sack. Just before he had gotten the level notification, as his magic surrounded it, he had a vague sense of the shape, size, weight, and contents of his ruck. He was now actively trying to duplicate that feeling.
Focusing on the memory of feeling his magic flow out to and around his rucksack, Lance felt for that same energy in himself. His meditative state greatly assisted in his feeling of self and soul (for lack of a better term), and it wasn’t long until he had a tenuous grip on his magic. Slowly, he mentally prodded it outward. At first, he could feel it wash out from his entire body in every direction. Pulling back on it a little, he focused it more forward and coming from his head. In just a moment, he felt it brush against the roof of the camper. “DING”
Skill ‘MAGIC MANIPULATION’ has been obtained at Level 1.
Skill ‘MAGIC ENERGY SENSING AND RANGING (MESAR)’ has been obtained at Level 1.
Willpower Attribute increased by 1.
Perception Attribute increased by 1.
“So,” Lance thought. “It functions like sonar or radar. I wonder what kind of range I can get.” Focusing back on his MESAR, Lance was able to push through the roof of the camper. The sense he got back from it was muted and fuzzy. Drawing the energy back toward himself, he then let it expand in every direction, the way it first wanted to move. He could literally sense everything inside the camper. Pushing outward again, he could just barely push out through the camper in all directions. He could vaguely sense the items in the storage compartments, and the attachments to the outside of the camper. “DING”
Skill Magic Manipulation has increased by 1 Level
Skill MESAR has increased by 1 Level
Looking at his status, Lance could see that all of his resources except Magic were full, while it was down to 186 points. Withdrawing his MESAR sense back, his Magic pool shot back up 232 points. So it appeared that his duplication of the rucksack earlier and his experimenting with his magical energy had cost him something more than 230 points. He was going to have to start keeping notes to see if he could determine what kind of drain his actions made on his resources. They were all semi-finite in that even though they regenerated, he only had so much to work with until they did regenerate.
Lance was now comfortably supplied with clothing, and their earlier duplications of Lydia’s assault pack and items had her set with underclothing. Not bringing her ruck when she entered the trans-dimensional gateway, however, left her with only the uniform she’d been wearing, and some physical training clothes. Time had passed while he had been experimenting, and he now reached out with his magic sense and found Lydia’s uniform folded neatly on top of her boots. Envisioning the ensemble as a single bundle of items, Lance tried to ‘Duplicate’ it. He once again felt some pushback, but not nearly like earlier. Persevering, he felt the drain of magic and the skill complete, and could “see” the second set beside the first with his MESAR. “DING”
Class Skill ‘DUPLICATE’ has increased by 1 Level
Multiple uncontained items weighing less than the skill
weight limit may now be duplicated.
Withdrawing his magic energy back into himself again, Lance checked his status and saw that duplication had cost him 30 magic points. So, by his rough estimation, he was spending about 3 points per pound duplicated. With a current maximum magic pool of 616, he could ‘Duplicate’ his current weight limit twice without running completely dry. His current Magic regeneration was only 64 points per hour. Based on what he could remember of his previous status, he was pretty sure his Magic regeneration was his Willpower stat multiplied by his level, per hour. Magic was going to be the limiting factor on how often he could ‘Duplicate’. He was going to have to work on increasing his Willpower stat.
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Waiting on his skill cooldown once again, Lance decided to see if he could get a better understanding of his resources and their regeneration besides best guesses. Focusing his ‘Analyze’ on the Health portion of his status, he got.
Health = Constitution * Vitality + 10 times current level
Continuing on in this vein, he was able to see that his health regen was based on his max hp divided by 60 per minute. His Stamina pool was Endurance multiplied by Strength + 20 times current level. SP regen was Endurance multiplied by 10 then divided by 60 per minute. Magic was Intelligence multiplied by Wisdom multiplied by current level (excluding 0). Finally, proving his supposition correct, MP regen was Willpower multiplied by current level per hour.
Finished with that little bit of introspection, Lance focused on expanding and withdrawing his Magic Energy. He figured it was like everything else, and training would eventually make it second nature. At first, he just pushed it out in every direction until he hit the edges of the camper, then he’d pull it back in. After doing that several times, he then focused on pushing it out in one direction. First in a fairly wide cone, pushing through the shell of the camper as far as he could. He wasn’t sure what kind of distance he was achieving yet, because he wasn’t sensing anything beyond the camper due to the fuzziness of the return. Then he adjusted it to a narrowed cone, and finally a tight beam. He was able to push the beam out to what he was sure was the stone wall probably 15 feet beyond the camper. “DING”
Skill Magic Manipulation has increased by 2 Levels
Skill MESAR has increased by 2 Levels
Willpower Attribute increased by 2
Perception Attribute increased by 2
With those gains, Lance now had a Magic regeneration of 72 points per hour. Focusing back on the two bundles of clothing and boots with his MESAR, Lance copied both piles. He had gained 64 points of magic (thanks to his active meditation doubling his resource regeneration) waiting for the cooldown to expire, and had just now burned another 60.
Checking the time, Lance saw that it was still early in the morning, or late in the night depending on your sleep habits. He decided to lay there doing his little training montage for another 30 minutes or so. Taking inspiration from the way RADAR worked, Lance manipulated his magic energy into a narrow wedge that focused out from his head and swept out 45 degrees up and down. This beam would be twelve feet from top to bottom about six feet from him, and was only about three inches wide. He then struggled for several minutes trying to get the beam to sweep around him in a 360 degree arc. Finally, he succeeded. Now, while keeping the beam sweeping around him at about 30 revolutions per minute (RPM), he tried to interpret what he was “seeing”.
After probably 30 minutes or so of running his MESAR sweep, he could finally process the information it was feeding back to him. With time, he hoped to be able to keep his MESAR active with little direct effort and increase the rate of sweep to at least 60 RPM. It took another 10 minutes or so for his brain to handle the full 360 degree three-dimensional sense he had of his surroundings. “DING”
Skill Magic Manipulation has increased by 1 Level
Skill MESAR has increased by 1 Level
Intelligence Attribute has increased by 2
Wisdom Attribute has increased by 2
Satisfied with his gains so far, (his Magic Attribute was now 832 and as long as he could keep active meditation running, his regeneration was 148 per hour), Lance eased himself out of bed trying not to disturb Lydia. He was unsuccessful, and she grabbed his hand for a moment as she looked at him. He said, “Just going to knock out a few chores before everyone starts getting around”, and gave her a light kiss on the forehead. He slipped on a pair of shoes and a sweatshirt, and headed outside.
Walking around to the cab of the pickup, he opened the back door and grabbed the duplicated rucksack sitting in there. He pulled the three sets of uniforms and all the underclothes out, and shoved them in the other rucksack. Then he grabbed a box of MRE’s and stuffed them in the partially empty new ruck, and ‘Duplicated’ it. Pulling the boxes of MRE’s out of both rucks, he broke them open and dumped the contents of both back into the rucksack his skill had just generated. He then hoisted it on his shoulder and carried it back and stacked it on top of all the plunder from the bandit camp.
As he turned to head back up to the cab of the truck, Lydia exited the camper wearing a pair of yoga pants and sports bra. It wasn’t the first time Lance had seen her dressed in workout clothes, but with their realizing a change in their relationship last night, he was caught standing there gawping. She smiled brightly at him, winked, and stated, “Well come on then, don’t we have things to accomplish before we get rolling for the day? I need you to walk me through gaining some of those skills.”
Shaken from his speechlessness, Lance smiled and nodded. Walking back to the cab of the truck, he grabbed the rucksack he had generated for her and passed it over, explaining that it had a copy of all of his equipment except for his spare uniforms/clothing. She thanked him, and carried it back and stashed it inside the door of the camper. Returning back to Lance, she found him stretching lightly. Joining in, they spent the next five minutes or so warming up. Lance then led her through several series of martial arts movements across the different styles he knew, while at the same time coaching her through meditative breathing. About 40 minutes later, she announced that she had received ‘Martial Arts’ and ‘Active Meditation’ both at level 1. They took about five minutes to work through some cooldown stretches and finished up.
Walking back to the back of the camper, Lance reached out with his Magic and duplicated the rucksack in the wagon, and they climbed up in the camper. Lance grabbed some bacon and eggs, and fried them up for them, for breakfast. Once they’d finished with breakfast, they stripped out of their workout clothes and activated the baesteinn with a moderate amount of Magic Energy. They, their clothes, and the breakfast dishes were all rendered clean and pristine in a moment. They got dressed in their uniforms, belted on their holsters, grabbed their assault packs and long guns, and Lance grabbed a box of cigars and a bottle of bourbon.
Exiting the camper, they found the camp already finishing with breaking their fast, and packing up and hitching up. They walked back to Ragnar’s and Sigrid’s carriage to find them ready to leave. Shaking hands with Ragnar and hugs with Sigrid, Lance presented the bourbon and cigars to ragnar. He then pulled a bag of rainbow candy out of his pocket and gave it to Steffan with a wink. Off to the side, he saw Lydia hand a small bundle of cloth to Sigrid, and whisper in her ear.
Ragnar turned to one of his attendants and spoke to him. The attendant stepped off to the carriage and returned in a few moments and handed an object to Ragnar. He in turn, focused on the object for a moment, and Lance could feel some Magic being pushed from Ragnar into it. Ragnar then handed a silver medallion, with the Dalbrekkr seal impressed on it, to Lance. He said, “We will be in the capital for at least several days. Please, when you arrive, show this to one of the guards and they will direct you to our estate in the city. We would be delighted to host you while we are there.”
Lance nodded and pocketed the coin. They bid their farewells and watched the carriage pull out of the circle of wagons and exited out of the gateway. The carriage turned onto the road toward the capital, and due to some kind of magic or enhancement, they were out of sight in moments.
Walking over to stand by Bj?rn, they waited until he had finished directing the young apprentices. He turned to them and said that they would be ready to take to the road shortly, and that barring any new excitement, they would reach the town of árstr?nd by late afternoon. They would spend the night there, and set up their wagons for trading in the central plaza the next day.
They loaded up into the pickup as the caravaneers all loaded up on their wagons, and set out the gate onto the road toward árstr?nd. As they drove, Lance recounted his experiments with his Magic, and his MESAR skill. With Lydia already having Magic Manipulation, it wasn’t long until she had also acquired the MESAR skill. As the trip progressed, she added Mathematics, Writing, and Organization to her General Skills. Lance managed to increase his Active Meditation, Magic Manipulation, and MESAR skills another level each. He could now push his MESAR past the metal and glass of the pickup cab without too much trouble, and had slightly increased the speed that it swept around him. From the cab of the truck, he could now sense a few feet into the woodline off the edges of the road.
