“You’re… a lettucemancer?” asked Dakkon with a broad, uncontainable grin.
“It’s not my class or anything,” answered Letis. “But I do lettuce magic, yes.”
“So, the God used your name to twist your request? That’s really interesting!” exclaimed Dakkon.
“No. It’s not interesting!” matched Letis. “It’s 11 months of grinding down the drain. Every last point is gone and I have nothing to show for it.”
“You’ve got a one-of-a-kind ability that’ll prevent your party from starving in a pinch, and I’m guessing you’ve gained some reputation in religious circles that could open otherwise locked doors. You’ve probably leveled up a good bit in the church’s service, too.”
“Let’s just say I’m done with the church,” complained Letis.
“Look, I wasn’t planning to mention this,” said Dakkon, “But I’m unable to change my class and am stuck as a thermomancer. I can cool and heat things,” he demonstrated with a Letis sized hotspot, “and that’s it. I’m nearly a master of it, too. Nothing particularly interesting about it.”
“What do you mean you can’t change your class?” asked Letis.
“Well…” Dakkon waffled.
“Oh, come on, man, out with it. You know my shame,” demanded Letis.
“I don’t really know that much about you and I’ve got no idea what’s too much information to give away,” Dakkon said.
“Perhaps I can help you figure that out. Look, my lips are sealed, “said Letis through lips which were unconvincingly not-sealed.
Dakkon thought for a moment, then resolved, “Fine. I’ll ask your advice, Letis.”
Dakkon relayed his tale about acquiring his classes, leaving out the details about where the trest were located, although he was fairly certain the temple ruins were completely caved in on top of being difficult to find.
“Good gods, man,” said Letis, surprised.
“I wouldn’t believe you, but you’re so new to the game that I doubt you could have made it all up. Where do I start?” Letis paused for a moment to consider. “First, you were right. Don’t tell anyone about your class. That would probably be a bad move. I’ve heard that there are unique classes in the world with extraordinary powers and insane abilities. I’ve heard only recently there is a fire wielder in this area who has magic well beyond that of any normal Evoker. I’d guess that he obtained those abilities through a special class like your own. They’re rare—so rare that there isn’t anything concrete on the matter. But there certainly are incredibly powered individuals running about.”
Dakkon listened intently. So, his class was one of many unique classes, and he had been right to hesitate before speaking about it. He silently praised his own judgement, despite having shared his secret in the end.
Letis continued, “That god relic you found and destroyed was probably a lot more valuable than you’ll ever know. I’ve never heard of anything like it. There are objects that do strange things, but reviving an NPC…” Letis ran his fingers through his hair in an excited, nervous gesture. “What do you imagine the richest individuals on this continent would give to have their tragically lost spouse or heir returned to them? Forget about the crap I went through, you messed up. Bad. No two ways about it.”
Dakkon began to feel the recently smothered pain of loss rekindle again. “I know,” he said. “Believe me, I’ve given it an unhealthy amount of thought.”
“If I were your party member on that quest when you dropped that relic, I’d crucify you,” said Letis, “That’s the score of a lifetime.”
“Enough already, green thumb. I get it,” stressed Dakkon.
Letis, who had apparently lost sight of his own sorrows in the midst of Dakkon’s remembered himself and sighed.
“Is there anything else you can tell me about unique classes?” asked Dakkon, exacerbated.
“They don’t really talk about themselves very much,” said Letis. “The only reason I know about the fire wielder is that he doesn’t go out of his way to stay hidden. I’ve heard that the power is about as far away from subtle as power can get. You’d probably get better accounts from searching the internet, though. All I know is that he’s far more powerful than he has any good reason to be.”
Dakkon would search the Internet for clues, but a more immediate desire came from the rumbling of his belly. He turned to his impromptu travel companion and asked if he wanted to stop for lettuce wraps.
“Have all you want, but we’ve got to keep moving on these roads. There’s a real bandit problem in the area,” Letis warned.
“I take it you are planning to walk the road past night fall?” assumed Dakkon. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to practice my thermomancy on you…” Dakkon paused to gauge Letis’s reaction. “I could really use the practice on something alive, moving, and consenting—It’ll be warm on this cool night and I can avoid extreme temperatures.”
“Fine, do whatever,” Letis said.
“Grand,” Dakkon tossed Letis a dried meat ration and tore off a bit of lettuce for Nightshade, but the beast wanted no part of it and instead nuzzled him in a way that Dakkon could only interpret as, ‘A horse of my caliber eats apples, not lettuce.’
After a half apple of tribute and another of apology to the proud beast, Dakkon climbed atop his horse and began to warm Letis with thermomancy. He found the task surprisingly easy, so he decided to try something new—layering; and with a rounded shape rather than a box. He placed a bubble of frosty air around Letis which was met by protest that was immediately stifled by Dakkon’s raised hand. He then drew a smaller, concentric bubble of heat around the cart-pulling man. Dakkon stuck his foot in the bubble and was displeased to find that the inner Hotspot was not particularly warm. After a bit of adjustment, Dakkon realized that the temperature of the internal bubble needed to be nearly twice as strong as the exterior bubble to have the intended effect. He also found that the heat from the interior bubble weakened the effect of the exterior one. Dakkon practiced this Layering well into the night, trying variations of strength, size, and number of hotspots. Any downtime in training was filled with tidbits of conversation with Letis.
Dakkon’s progressed his thermomancy steadily. It wouldn’t be long before he reached the apex—for his purposes—of level 30.
|Secondary Class: Thermomancer – 80% Power (from multiclassing)
|Class Leveclass="underline" 27
|EXP Until Next Leveclass="underline" [
|Skills:
|+Thermoregulate – 28— 50% [
|+Heat (Touch) – 24— 87% [
|+Chill (Touch) – 24— 32% [
|+Hotspot (Area) – 19— 80% [
|+Condense – 1— [