7 – A Wild Boar Appears!

“Every time you level up, you have the option to evolve one of your current spells or learn a new spell,” Myrl explained as he led the way through the forest. “I keep meaning to upgrade my old spells, but each time I get offered a new one, I can’t help but pick it. The pursuit of novelty is my curse. Now I have over seventy spells, and they’re all level one. So if you ever need to locate a feline or produce a bouquet of flowers, I’m your guy.”

Now that Myrl was no longer the new guy, he was passing one of his tasks on to me. A task that involved trudging up the hill, following some old pipes.

“Erl, on the other hand, chose [Fireball], the starting spell that every wizard is offered, and just grinded the hell out of it. As far as I know, he never learned another spell, just kept upgrading [Fireball]. I mean, you saw it at the lake. It must be over level 80 by now.”

“What about Bagavash?” I asked, curious about the man who had become my unofficial mentor.

“Bagavash? He took the traditional route. Has about ten spells, all around level 8 or 9, with a strong focus on lightning magic. The man has a perfect lightning affinity after all.”

“Linli said he had a perfect affinity, too. Do all of you?” I ducked under a mass of lime green lichen that was hanging from a low branch.

“No, no. Just those two. Well, the Senior Archmage might have a perfect affinity. Not too sure about that one. He isn’t very open about his own magical abilities. I actually only have medium affinities in illusion magic and enchantments, so I figured, why not go wide and learn as many spells as I can? There’ll be time enough to level them when I’m an immortal.”

“Immortal?” I coughed.

“Yes. You didn’t think we became wizards just to cast fancy spells, did you? The more mana you acquire in your orb, the more it helps reinforce the body, until you get to a point where the mana is doing most of the work and you’re just along for the ride. Most people say level 100 is when you become a true immortal. The White Tower is full of them.”

This was news to me. It suddenly occurred to me that these guys might be much older than they look.

“I had a question about leveling up,” I said as we neared the crest of the hill.

“Shoot.”

“My stats say I need 300 mana to reach the next level. Is that 300 more than my current amount or 300 total?”

“Good question. Yes, that wording is famously vague. It’s 300 total mana.”

“And how do I get more?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” Myrl said.

“By pondering my orb.”

“Bingo,” Myrl said, as he pushed aside a curtain of lichen and led me into a clearing with a natural pool overgrown with lily pads. “That and defeating monsters, but you’re not there yet.”

He walked over to the edge of the water. The pipes we were following had disappeared underground at some point during our walk.

“Now, my old job, your new job, is to clear out the pond that feeds our baths and toilets and whatnot. The plants love it, so every couple of months I come up here to clear the grates and rip out anything that’s started to grow. See the intake for the pipes down there?”

I leaned over the surface of the water and looked where he was pointing.

“It’s almost completely covered with roots and dirt.” He walked over behind a bush and pulled out an old rusty hoe. “Here, this should help you,” he said, handing it to me.

“The water will run dirty for a couple hours, but then we’ll be set for the next few months. Just be sure to get all the lily pads out. Their roots love to clog up the drain.”

He reached into a satchel tied to his belt and pulled out some sticky green buds. “You want some?” he asked conspiratorially. “Makes the job a lot less boring. Trust me.”

I considered it, but declined the offer. While getting high on fantasy world weed on a nice spring day was tempting, I didn’t want to screw up my first task assigned to me by the wizards who had so kindly taken me under their wing.

Myrl shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He loaded up his pipe with a mix of the green buds and fine shreds of tobacco, then puffed it to life with an ember he held in a separate pouch. The blue smoke drifted up in lazy spirals as Myrl turned to leave.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I’ve got a patch of Amanitas further up the mountain,” he said. “I want to harvest a few before they dry out for the summer.”

“Amanitas?” I questioned.

“Mushrooms,” he said with a wink, and trudged off into the forest, leaving me alone on the edge of the pond with an old hoe in my hand.

Immortal wizards getting high and growing mushrooms, I thought to myself. Now that’s a life I can get behind.

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I surveyed the work in front of me. The lily pads were indeed numerous, and the faint outline of the intake grate was indeed sorely clogged with roots and debris.

I had imagined the indoor plumbing of the castle was being fed by a cistern on the roof, but in fact it was this spring-fed pool up in the mountains. It made me appreciate the ingenuity of the wizards even more.

I set to work loosening the roots from the bottom of the pond with the hoe, and yanking the lily pads out by the stem. There were also copious amounts of algae that came out in big, slimy masses. It was not clean work, but it was satisfying, and after about an hour, I had all the plants out.

Now I just had to make sure the grate was clear of debris.

I lay down flat on my belly with my head and shoulders overlooking the pond. I reached down with my hand and just began pulling clumps of old leaves and silt off the intake valve and plopping them on the shore. This part took longer than I expected, as more debris would get sucked onto the wire grate every time I took a handful off.

Eventually, I got the entire area surrounding the intake valve clear, but when I clambered up off my belly, I was greeted by a startling sight.

Across the pond from me was a boar, larger than any boar I had seen back in my old world. Its back held a row of spines like a porcupine, and its razor-sharp tusks gleamed in the sunlight.

I must have startled it just as much as it startled me because it snarled at me, a strangely terrifying sound.

I stood up and backed away slowly, but my apparent increase in height seemed to anger the boar even more, as if I was challenging its authority over this tranquil mountain pool.