He willed the MENU panels away and spent the better part of an hour attempting to use his new Skills. The problem he ran into was that he had never cast a spell with his own body. In games, he had been able to cast any spell he had access to by simply selecting the Skill - standing in his own skin atop the thirteenth floor building, he didn't even know where to start. At first he just tried pointing the staff and shouting, “Death Bolt!”
When that ingenious attempt failed to yield any kind of tangible result, Garath was forced to search his mind for inspiration. He started with what he knew for sure, namely the fact that each spell had a corresponding Mana cost and that he now knew the invisible aura surrounding him was, at the very least, in some way related to his Mana pool. He inferred that he would somehow need to funnel Mana into the spell, presumably for the duration of the listed cast time.
With the image of what he assumed a Death Bolt leaving his hands would look like firmly in his mind, G forced his Mana together - condensing it into a royal blue orb at his center. He felt the Mana move down his arms and into his hands as a dark miasma of Death energy coalesced into a black orb between his outstretched left hand and the staff pointed into the night sky in his right. As the 1.5 second cast time elapsed the now basketball sized orb of Death energy began to vibrate weakly. Garath knew he would need to release the spell somehow. In the brief second before he realised that the spell itself seemed to be trying to break out of his containment, the orb's vibration increased in intensity to the point that it bucked wildly between outstretched arms. To release the Death Bolt, he found that all he had to do was to simply stop trying to contain the magic.
Garath relaxed his hold of the spell and the Death Bolt shot forward. Seemingly unaffected by wind or rain, it just sailed along a predetermined and un-altering course until it faded, then dissolved completely when it reached thirty meters. He cast another, and another - firing black balls of energy into the dark stormy night again and again until his head swam and dizziness overtook him.
The cold pool of water his ass landed in shocked his senses and he realized his Mana bar read 0/90. He watched it with bleary eyes as the bar increased to 3/90. A second later it reached 6/90, and continued to climb at a rate of three Mana per second until it reached 12/90 and Garath felt his mind start to refocus. He imagined the near uselessness induced by the mana depletion occurring during an actual battle and cringed.
‘Noted.’
Sitting in a puddle while his Mana slowly regenerated, the Necrologist willed his MENU panels open again. He looked over the options and paused on the World icon. He focused on it and a flat holographic map of Earth opened on the right side panel, it panned over North America and zoomed to hover over the city of Everett. To the right of the digital map were two additional icons.
Global
Community
Garath focused on Community for more information. A pop-up-window-like panel appeared between his mind’s eye and the World map, displaying what Garath recognized immediately as a basic forum page. Upon the page was a single entry.
Is there anybody... out there?
He willed more to appear and the thread opened a new window above the Community panel.
Is there anybody... out there?
POST BY: Athios - 00/00/00 @21:33 (PST)
Anyone else find this sub-panel yet? I'm hoping there are some other gamers out there that want to group for the morning's events. I'll be up at the high school on Colby Ave at 03:00am. HMU - Athios
Grouping with like-minded people that had experience navigating through new systems sounded like an excellent survival strategy to Garath and he quickly typed in his reply on the mental keyboard that conveniently appeared on the sub-panel when he willed the system to send a reply.
COMMENT BY: Garath - 00/00/00 @21:47 (PST)
Athios, see you there. Bringing some friends too. The high school should be a good place to set up a perimeter and make a stand. - G
A few sconds later, Athios' reply appeared on the thread below his message.
COMMENT BY: Athios 00/00/00 @21:47 (PST)
Exactly what I had in mind. Maybe my thread should have been more appropriately named. Something like, "hey we're going to make a safe zone, come be protected or something."
COMMENT BY: Garath 00/00/00 @21:48 (PST)
You know it's the only thread that shows up under community, right? If anyone finds this sub-panel in time, they'll see it. I'm going to see if I can make it to the school a little earlier and break in. I'll bring my little group over to the basketball courts by that old red building. Big open space surrounded by fences should be easiest to defend right?
FOR EVERYONE THAT READS THIS: Meet up at Everett high school by the outdoor basketball courts sometime between now and 03:00 tomorrow morning. - G
A prompt appeared in his mind's eye a few moments later.
You have received a friend request from: Athios. Will you accept? Yes or No.
